Chapter 90

Volume Three: Shunxiang Fort Garrison Commander, Chapter Ninety: The Women's Camp

Wang Dou was also startled. Since when did Xu Yue'e have such skills? No one had taught her. How had she trained herself to this level?

Madam Tao walked down and shouted at those women: "What are you all doing? Not working, running here to idle about. Garrison Commander Lord Wang has already arrived, and you still don't come over to receive him?"

The women were greatly alarmed. They turned their heads and saw Wang Dou and his few companions indeed standing on the high slope. They hurriedly came over to pay their respects, several dozen of them kneeling all over the ground.

Wang Dou smiled slightly and said: "Rise."

Xu Yue'e was also kneeling among the crowd, still holding a long spear in her hand. Behind her, there were likewise several women holding spears and staves, seemingly following her lead.

Wang Dou looked toward Xu Yue'e and saw that she was already dressed like a typical village woman, in a coarse cloth dress with several patches on it, her hair disheveled, her face much coarser and darker, only faintly revealing the delicate beauty of former days.

Wang Dou had not had much contact with Xu Yue'e before. He remembered she had been a very proud young woman in the estate, and her life had been comfortable. After suffering great calamity, she now lived this kind of life. Did she feel a sense of loss inside? The former village fool Wang Da now held high rank — what thoughts did she have about that?

No matter what, they were fellow villagers from the same estate. Xu Yue'e now possessed such skills; letting her continue raising pigs and growing vegetables would be a waste.

Wang Dou said to Zhong Diaoyang: "Cousin, this Xu Yue'e has decent skills. Keeping her at the livestock farm is a pity. I think we should transfer her to Shunxiang Fort."

Zhong Diaoyang nodded and said to Xu Yue'e and the others: "The lord has shown grace by transferring you to Shunxiang Fort. Miss Xu, you and the others return to the fort, pack your things, and then follow the lord."

The surrounding women were all envious. Shunxiang Fort — that was a big place. Only Xu Yue'e remained silent, merely bowing deeply to the ground. A final count showed that the women who had practiced spear and staff with Xu Yue'e numbered about a dozen or so, all of them women who had been abducted by the Later Jin army or violated by bandits in the past. These women were all transferred together.

Within Shunxiang Fort, there were many scattered women and children. It was time to organize them. This Xu Yue'e might perhaps serve as some sort of small squad leader.

The next day, Wang Dou and his party returned to Shunxiang Fort. Along the way, those women from the Jingbian Fort livestock farm were all excited, chattering incessantly. Only Xu Yue'e remained silent the entire time. On the road, Han Chao, Han Zhong, and the others looked at Xu Yue'e again and again. They naturally understood Xu Yue'e's past, but as for how this woman had trained her spear technique, they were curious and puzzled.

On the way back to Shunxiang Fort, Wang Dou also made a trip to Dongjiazhuang. After Gao Shiyin and Yang Tong had been transferred to Dongjiazhuang, one managed troops within the estate, the other opened up farmland. In the twelfth month of last year, the two had tallied the fort's able-bodied population, prepared to reclaim wasteland, and organized and trained the able-bodied. They had also taken from Wang Dou fifteen plow oxen and thirty dan of grain.

Dongjiazhuang originally had over a hundred military households, more than five hundred people, plus the fifty-odd government troops led by the former unit commander Zhang Gui. But after Zhang Gui was promoted to the prefectural city garrison farmland officer, he and his retainer squad leader Zhang Tanggong took away a dozen or so retainers. The troops within the fort numbered fewer than forty men. After further dismissing some of the old and weak, only a dozen or so remained.

In the second month of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Gao Shiyin and the other man used that company of battle troops brought from Jingbian Fort as officers. They also organized and trained over a hundred soldiers, two companies of able-bodied men, half pikemen and half arquebusiers, training them vigorously according to the previous training methods of Jingbian Fort.

However, these soldiers were in the same situation as Wang Dou's troops at Shunxiang Fort. The pikemen could each have a pike, but the arquebusiers had hardly any qualified matchlock or arquebus firearms and urgently needed Wang Dou's support. Wang Dou had no solution for now either; among the several newly established companies of troops he had built, the arquebusiers still could not each have a firearm.

He could only console Gao Shiyin and the other man, saying that once the Shunxiang Fort craftsmen forged new firearms, they would immediately be equipped for them.

……

After staying another day at Dongjiazhuang, Wang Dou and his party finally returned to Shunxiang Fort.

Just as they approached the training ground outside the south gate, they heard waves of shouting, drill commands, and curses — this was the Shunxiang army training.

After those disaster victims outside the fort had been organized into military households, Wang Dou immediately selected able-bodied men from among them and formed two more companies of troops, the Front Company and Rear Company, led by Wen Fangliang and Sun Sanjie respectively. In one company of Wang Dou's army, there were twenty-five officers between squad leader and company commander, all selected from the veteran soldiers of Han Chao and Han Zhong's original two companies. Many soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the recent bandit suppression had been newly appointed as officers. After a portion of the veteran soldiers from Han Chao and Han Zhong's two companies had been selected away, new able-bodied recruits were also brought in to train.

On the seventeenth day of the fourth month, the four companies of new troops finished their formation and began formal training.

Like the original two companies of veteran soldiers, these raw recruits first underwent a month of systematic, rigorous training, learning how to stand in formation, how to march in step to the beat of drums, and so on. Only afterward would they be taught the techniques of killing the enemy.

These new recruits had the same problems the original veterans had during training. Han Chao and Han Zhong's original Left Company and Right Company troops were better off; most were veterans, with only a few dozen newly supplemented recruits per company. Driven by the many veterans, these new recruits adapted quickly.

As for Wen Fangliang and Sun Sanjie's Front and Rear Company troops, they were in a miserable state. Apart from some officers, they were almost entirely raw recruits. Wang Dou estimated that by the seventh month of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Shunxiang Fort would face military action. Time was short, so his training demands on the new recruits were even stricter.

The new troops could not form ranks evenly, could not tell left from right, looked left and right, and so on. The officers grabbed their military rods and beat them, beating them until they wailed for their parents, their suffering unbearable. In just a few short days, many raw recruits were already thinking of deserting.

But Wang Dou and the others had long anticipated this. During training breaks, the officers all came forward to provide psychological counseling to each soldier. With nonchalant tones, they told the raw recruits: "You lot really have it comfortable. This weather, neither cold nor hot, drill is just comfortable. Think back to when we trained — that was misery. In the dead of winter, when the wind blew, a man would freeze stiff. Faces and hands were covered with cracks. The superiors showed no mercy, grabbing their rods and beating us. Thinking back to those years, ah…"

At this point, the officers' eyes all brimmed with tears, still haunted by the memory of their own training. Seeing their superiors like this, the raw recruits collectively let out a breath, feeling much more at ease inside. So these fellows who beat people had also been beaten back then, haha, serves them right!

Everyone had been beaten alike, so the raw recruits felt much more balanced inside. They felt the training was not so bitter after all, and besides, they could eat their fill every day and even had meat to eat. Come to think of it, it was much more comfortable than farming back in their old homes.

After recounting the embarrassing tales of their own beatings, the officers then adopted a contemptuous attitude and said: "I know some of you, after suffering just a little hardship, can't take it. But go ahead and desert, as long as you don't drag your families down with you… Back in the day, there were a few fools in our Shunxiang army who couldn't take the hardship and deserted. Their desertion didn't matter, but it dragged their families down. In the dead of winter, their whole families were driven out of the fort, and who knows where they're suffering now. In these times, where else can everyone get land and everyone eat their fill like in Shunxiang Fort?"

The officers unanimously cited the examples of Jiao Jiugao, Chen Chenzhong, and Han Wenhuan, their expressions full of contempt.

As with the original two companies of troops, before these new recruits' training began, Wang Dou had likewise made it clear beforehand: anyone who dared become a deserter would, after being captured, be severely punished with the military rod, and their families would immediately be expelled from Shunxiang Fort. Their families' future land allocation would also be immediately canceled.

This news was not only widely disseminated among the new recruits but also widely publicized among the newly arrived military households. This made everyone secretly apprehensive. The examples of Jiao Jiugao and the others were already known in every street and alley of Shunxiang Fort. No one wanted to lose that much face, much less lose their entire family's chance of survival in these chaotic times.

At present, those newly organized military households all had food to eat and stable lives. Now the fort was also organizing them to reclaim wasteland and open mines. They could soon live good lives like the original military households of Shunxiang Fort. If they were driven away… no one dared imagine the consequences.

Family members all exhorted and urged repeatedly: their men must train well, must not desert and bring shame, dragging their families down. And looking at how the original veteran soldiers had persevered under such harsh conditions, why couldn't they? For a time, the new recruits all held their breath and simply trained with desperate effort.

During training breaks, Wang Dou likewise had the officers explain to the new recruits the meaning of rigorous training. Although those officers were all rough fellows and might not speak eloquently, they at least made the new recruits understand the purpose of drill: in these chaotic times, with Tartars and bandits running rampant, only by mastering martial skills could they protect their homes and protect their families, wives, and children.

Though the training was bitter, eating their fill every day and having meat to eat satisfied the new recruits greatly. Yet they also had a doubt: how come there was no grain or pay issued in the Shunxiang army? Being a soldier meant there should be pay issued.

To the new recruits' doubts, the officers sneered: "You lot now eat and drink your fill every day, your families still have land allocated, and you still want grain and pay? Do you think the Garrison Commander's money and grain fall from the sky? To feed you, and your parents, wives, and children, do you know how much the lord toils? How many brothers in the veteran army, in order to feed you, go everywhere suppressing bandits? They die or are wounded — do they have it easy?"

"If you're men, then in the future kill the enemy and seize spoils yourselves! The lord is benevolent and righteous; rewards for spoils are extremely generous. Taking such money and grain into your own hands — isn't that glory for yourselves too?"

Then some officers boasted smugly, recounting how much they themselves had received in the recent bandit-suppression campaigns, especially that newly appointed squad leader of the Left Company First Platoon First Squad, Wu Zhengchun. The grain and spoils he had received already matched a year's pay in a guard battalion or a camp army.

"If you're men, then like Squad Leader Wu, use your own blades and spears to fight for it!"

The officers concluded in summary.

……

Wang Dou and his party entered the training ground. Inside the ground, all four companies of troops were training, the sound of footsteps thundering, their shouts shaking the heavens.

In Han Chao and Han Zhong's original two companies of troops, although some new recruits had been supplemented, the original platoon officers within each unit could train them. As for Wen Fangliang and Sun Sanjie's two companies of new recruits, every officer had to shout and call out without cease. Those newly appointed platoon commanders and squad leaders also had to constantly demonstrate for the new recruits.

On the training ground, the Provost Chi Dacheng stood solemnly to one side with several discipline officers, his eyes fixed on the soldiers in the field. But Lin Daofu was not present. At present, there was wasteland to reclaim and walls to repair within the fort, affairs were many, and Lin Daofu was already busy nonstop every day and could not attend to the matter of camp drills.

Han Zhong, seeing his own troops, immediately perked up. He shouted loudly: "You little bastards, train well for me! If you don't train well, my rod won't show any mercy."

The women from the Jingbian Fort livestock farm behind Wang Dou, seeing this fiery scene of troop training, all exclaimed and chattered in surprise. Though they practiced spear and staff in private, how could the atmosphere compare to such intensity and formality? Xu Yue'e before them only watched carefully, still silent.

Seeing Wang Dou, the Provost Chi Dacheng, Wen Fangliang, and Sun Sanjie all came forward to greet him.

They glanced at the Jingbian Fort women behind Wang Dou and his party, looks of surprise appearing in their eyes.

Wang Dou asked: "How goes the training?"

Wen Fangliang said with a grin: "These new recruits are truly as stupid as oxen, but I, your subordinate, am confident that within a few months I can train them into an army."

Wang Dou nodded: "The training is arduous. You must constantly monitor the new recruits' morale. Whatever psychological reactions they have, whatever signs emerge, the officers must handle them carefully."

Wen Fangliang said: "My lord, please rest assured. Nothing will go wrong."

……

Leaving the training ground, Wang Dou then went to the western side of Shunxiang Fort. Here, large numbers of men and women from the new military households were carrying baskets and bamboo crates back and forth along the fort wall, transporting earth and mixing mud, filling and building high platforms, ramming the city walls. Around the perimeter of the fort wall, the ground was already full of pitted earth pits, all caused by digging for earth.

Teams of able-bodied men were also bringing stone materials from Mount Fushan, piling them beside the fort wall, waiting to be dressed. The scene was bustling with activity.

At the construction site, Wang Dou also saw the old craftsman Wu Shihuan shouting without cease, directing a group of craftsmen, men and women, busily at work.

Though his hair was white, he was full of vigor, his energy matching that of a sturdy young lad.

Seeing Wang Dou, Wu Shihuan hurried over to greet him. Wang Dou asked, "How are things?"

Wu Shihuan replied, "My lord, rest assured. Compared to when we built Jingbian Fort, we now have far more hands. As long as the materials keep coming, this humble one dares guarantee that the new fort wall of Shunxiang Fort will be completed before the seventh month."

In the plan, the new fort of Shunxiang Fort connects from the west wall of the old fort, conveniently saving the construction of one wall. The new wall is about a thousand meters long and about ten meters high, without brick facing. On the west side of the new wall, a west gate will be set, and finally a defensive moat will be dug. Thus, the old and new forts of Shunxiang Fort together form a rectangle.

The new military households number over three thousand people, all housed within the new fort. By the old fort's planning standards, such a population would certainly feel crowded. However, the new fort, like Jingbian Fort, houses all the military households in barracks. Rows upon rows of barracks, with no individual houses built, actually make it feel more spacious.

Like Jingbian Fort, the streets and alleys in the new fort of Shunxiang Fort will also be paved with mountain stone, with drainage ditches on both sides, likewise paved with stone. At the intersections of several streets, public buildings such as temples and opera stages will also be constructed.

The future new fort of Shunxiang Fort will also be like Jingbian Fort, with orderly houses and clean streets inside the fort. Public bathhouses and public latrines will also be built, giving the military households a good living environment.

To build the fort walls of Shunxiang Fort and Jingbian Fort, all available manpower within the forts was mobilized. Regardless of gender, no one was allowed to slack off.

However, high-intensity labor requires a large consumption of grain. Wang Dou provided the laboring military households with meat once every five days and vegetarian meals on the other days, ensuring they could eat their fill every day. This cost him a large amount of silver. Wang Dou tried not to use the grain stored in the fort, instead spending silver to buy it. During this time, an unending stream of carts and horses transported grain from various parts of the prefectural city to Shunxiang Fort. The grain shop owners were all beaming with joy; meeting a major customer like Wang Dou made their business much easier.

Watching the fervent labor scene before him, Wang Dou was not worried about delays in the construction schedule, only about the quality of the fort wall, given the tight time.

Wu Shihuan said, "My lord, rest assured. Once the fort wall is built, it will certainly be as solid as Jingbian Fort's. If any problem arises, my lord need only cut off this humble one's head."

Wang Dou nodded and said no more.

……

After those three thousand new military households were settled west of Shunxiang Fort, barracks and fort walls were built there. For these military households, all were organized according to military fort rules, grouped into several hundred-household units, with each hundred-household unit assigned several blocks of barracks.

Within each hundred-household unit, some of their village elders were appointed to maintain management order. These elders could appoint some people within their hundred-household unit as Platoon Leaders and Squad Leaders. Of course, these hundred-household units, Platoon Leaders, and Squad Leaders were not official Great Ming posts, but merely the titles for the management personnel of the new military households in Shunxiang New Fort.

The above hundred-household units were formed from the complete households among the new residents. According to the earlier statistics by Clerk Feng Dachang, among those disaster victims, there were over four hundred and seventy complete households, totaling over two thousand people. Wang Dou selected one Company Commander to send to Jingbian Fort. Now, within Shunxiang New Fort, there are over three hundred complete households, and the remainder are men, women, or orphans who do not form complete households, numbering over seven hundred.

Wang Dou organized the over three hundred and seventy complete households into four hundred-household units, and grouped the remaining over three hundred men who did not form complete households into one barracks.

The remaining over three hundred women and over one hundred orphans were all organized by Wang Dou into one barracks, located on the east side of Shunxiang New Fort, near the west wall of the old Shunxiang Fort. Among those men and women who did not form complete households, some might become husband and wife in the future, depending on their fate.

For the barracks of those women and orphans, many management heads were also appointed. At the same time, several officers' wives in the fort, as well as Lady Zhong and Xie Xiuniang, would visit and console them from time to time. These people were also organized daily to work.

The sturdier ones went out of the fort to work alongside the men, while the weaker ones did laundry, cooked meals, and delivered water and food for everyone. Some of the children even ran about on the newly built fort wall every day, helping to ram the earth for the wall.

After bringing Xu Yue'e and the others into the fort, Wang Dou arranged for them to stay in the women's barracks.

After the fort wall is built, some of these women could also be gathered for training or to produce military supplies and other items. Xu Yue'e could then also lead some female soldiers. For now, she still works alongside everyone else.

……

After settling Xu Yue'e and the others, Wang Dou went to Li Maosen's craftsman workshop. What concerned him most now was the forging of weapons, especially the production of firelocks. After Wang Dou established several more new army posts, Shunxiang Fort set up two new army posts, Jingbian Fort one new army post, and there were also the two squads of soldiers at Dongjiazhuang. If every firelock soldier were to have a firelock in hand, at least three hundred and fifty more firelocks would be needed.

That is the bare minimum. For the coming battles, some firelock reserves would also be needed. From now until late in the seventh month, at least four hundred firelocks are required, and ideally five hundred firelocks.

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