Chapter 117: Enforcing the Law

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Enforce military law, clarify army discipline?

When the crowd below heard the Battalion Commander's words, their eyes immediately turned to the left side of the high platform.

Just as Zhou Shixiang was speaking, his personal guards had already escorted six pale-faced young men to the foot of the platform. They all wore the black uniforms of the Taiping Camp, but every one of them was bound with ropes.

Judging by their near-collapsed state, they were clearly in the grip of extreme terror.

Some soldiers below recognized those men, but after recognizing them they instinctively shuddered and no longer dared to keep looking at them, because they knew that if their superiors took the matter seriously, they themselves might not be standing here watching, but instead be trussed up like those six fellow townsmen.

"Bring them up!" Zhou Shixiang did not turn around, but directly waved his hand and gave the order.

"As ordered!"

The personal guards who had long been ready answered with a thunderous roar, then dragged the six tightly bound young men up onto the high platform. As they were dragged, the six wretches trembled with fright, yet did not dare struggle, letting the guards haul them up.

Two of them were so terrified they were like puddles of mud, dead weight, and the guards had to exert great effort to drag the pair up like dead pigs.

"Kneel!"

After dragging them onto the platform, the guards arranged the six deserters in a row and forced their necks downward.

Three of the six knelt directly, but the other three collapsed straight onto the ground, their arms and legs as limp as if they no longer belonged to them, their whole beings like walking corpses whose souls had scattered.

"Get up!"

The guards went to work again, and at last hauled the three deserters collapsed on the ground up into a kneeling position on the platform.

"When you joined my Taiping Camp, I, the Battalion Commander, guaranteed you full bellies, and all I asked in return was that you fight fiercely and kill the enemy on the battlefield.

Yet you cowards, instead of fighting bravely, ran wild through the ranks, shouting that we were defeated, and nearly let the Tartars counterattack. Do you know how many brothers your wretched actions killed?"

Zhou Shixiang walked up before the six men, looked at them one by one, and said grimly, "You killed your brothers through your own cowardice — the six of you do not deserve to live! From the day I established this Taiping Camp, I set its regulations.

Today I will use those regulations to deal with you, so that all may know what end awaits those who fear death and cling to life!"

"Spare us, Battalion Commander, spare us! We will never dare again, never dare run again!"

After Zhou Shixiang finished speaking, the six deserters wailed and begged for their lives, but Zhou Shixiang ignored them. Instead, he turned and asked the crowd below: "For desertion in the face of battle — what punishment do our Taiping Camp regulations prescribe?"

"The great blade attends them — behead them before the assembly!" Ge Zheng shouted loudly.

"The great blade attends them — behead them before the assembly!" dozens of officers and veterans shouted together.

"Then behead them!" Zhou Shixiang nodded, swept his hand downward, and barked: "Execute them!"

"As ordered!"

Six personal guards stepped forward at the command, each drawing his saber. These six guards were all veterans who had joined the Taiping Camp from the Luoding days, men of complete courage and nerve, men who had seen killing and done killing themselves.

The six raised their blades, and the guard on the far right, without so much as a glance at the deserter kneeling below, let out a great shout and brought his blade down with full force.

"Splat!"

One stroke fell, blood sprayed, and the man's head dropped to the ground and rolled, his body twitched a few times, and then the whole man fell silent.

The remaining deserters beside him saw it all too clearly. Watching their comrade's head go tumbling right before their eyes, their very hearts and livers were nearly frightened out of them.

"Spare us, my lord, spare us! We will never flee again, never run again!"

"I still have a father and mother, I have a father and mother! Spare this lowly life, my lord, and I will repay you as an ox or a horse!"

"......"

"Execute!"

Zhou Shixiang watched the execution with an expressionless face. Military law is merciless, camp regulations are merciless.

For robbery and murder he could spare a man's life and let him atone through meritorious service — like Chen Mo, whom he had allowed to plunder in Xinxing — but desertion in the face of battle was absolutely intolerable.

For no other reason than the sake of his own life, Zhou Shixiang could not permit a single coward in his camp, still less allow soldiers to disobey orders out of fear, because he had only one life, while the road against the Qing was very, very long.

He could die on the battlefield, could die a glorious death in battle, but he would absolutely never accept being trapped in a desperate situation because of his subordinates' cowardice and incompetence.

The new recruits had all performed poorly in the assault on the city the day before, but Zhou Shixiang could not behead all of them. He could only select these six — the worst performers, the six who had brought losses upon the Taiping Camp — to enforce military law.

Beheading men before the assembly to enforce military law served one purpose alone: to make every new recruit in the camp understand that the Taiping Camp's military regulations must never be touched!

Six heads rolled to the ground, six headless corpses toppled over, and the platform was awash in blood.

The veterans below who had killed Qing soldiers did not find it particularly horrifying, and the officers cared even less, but the new recruits who had joined after Xinxing felt their spines go numb, and the more than four hundred Gaoyao recruits were so terrified they dared not look.

Some of them were filled with regret: had they known the Taiping Camp's military law was so merciless, so ready to take heads at the slightest offense, they would never have been lured by the promise of full bellies.

Better to have stayed quietly at home — however bad things got, at least they would not have to live in constant fear for their own heads.

After the guards carried the six corpses down, the bloodstains on the platform could not be concealed. Zhou Shixiang did not mind, and simply stood there in the pool of blood, gazing grimly at the more than two thousand people below. The atmosphere was one of utter killing solemnity.

"From this day forward, anyone who dares disobey orders and refuse to advance will be executed before the assembly under military law!

Brothers, remember this: only the brave are invincible. If you want to stay alive, if you want to eat well and dress well, you must stake your lives on it.

Otherwise, death is all that awaits you!"

After speaking, Zhou Shixiang paused, then added: "Brothers, the Taiping Camp was small before, and I, the Battalion Commander, organized the ranks on a temporary basis. Now that our numbers have grown and we can truly be called a strong army, the ranks must be reorganized.

The old brothers who have followed me all along are due for promotion as well."

At these words, the officers who had long known Zhou Shixiang planned to expand the camp all broke into smiles, and the veterans in the ranks straightened their backs, watching the platform with great anticipation.

The camp's forces were now several times larger than in the Luoding days, and any man with sense knew that once the Battalion Commander expanded the ranks, veterans would surely have a chance at becoming officers — though whether they would land a Platoon Leader or Squad Leader post, no one could say.

Li Fuguo, meanwhile, was brooding silently, guessing to himself. He had brought his men over to the Taiping Camp and killed so many banner soldiers.

Now that the Taiping Camp was expanding, that Battalion Commander Zhou would surely want to win him over — perhaps he might even become a Company Commander.

As he was thinking this, Zhou Shixiang on the platform spoke: "I, the Battalion Commander, now decree that the entire camp shall be divided into five battalions: four combat battalions and one personal guard battalion, each battalion with one hundred men.

The five Company Commanders are..." At this point, Zhou Shixiang's gaze fell upon Tie Yi, Ge Zheng, Jiang He, and the others.

Rushed this out — today is the last day of the May Day holiday, and I took my son to the Dafeng Ocean World. Tomorrow during the day, I will release three chapters. (A pie falling from the sky — a great event!

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