Chapter 157: Slave

Xinhui is extremely close to Guangzhou, a straight-line distance of only a few dozen li. On horseback, a rider pushing hard could cover it in a single day.

Last year, when Li Dingguo's great army besieged Xinhui, the Manchu and Han Eight Banners troops that came from Beijing, led by the General Who Pacifies the South, Jumala, rested for three days after reaching Guangzhou and then advanced on Xinhui; their cavalry covered the distance in a single day's hard ride.

Among the Han Bordered Blue Banner troops under Ban Zhifu's command this time are 400 cavalrymen, every one of them battle-hardened, and half of them are booi bondservants of the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi.

These booi are all former troops of Shang Kexi's old Dongjiang command, and some even followed Mao Wenlong and fought against the Later Jin. Although thirty years have passed and many of them are now white-haired, they still ride warhorses into battle — fierce men, every one.

Some have grandfather, son, and grandson all serving in the army together.

Xinhui was in peril, and relief troops are like firefighting — in the past, Ban Zhifu would have led his cavalry straight to Xinhui without a second word. But now he was in no hurry, and not worried either.

Before leaving the city, the Prince of Pingnan had laid out the intelligence on Xinhui clearly: it was nothing more than a motley Southern Ming force, and they had brought no siege equipment.

Xinhui was a strong city — even Li Dingguo's tens of thousands of troops could not take it, so what could this Taiping Army do to it?

The art of war says: to besiege a city, you need ten times the enemy's strength; if you lack ten times their strength, you must fight quickly; and if a quick fight cannot be decided, you must withdraw quickly.

Ban Zhifu never placed much faith in what the military manuals said. He fought wars on the strength of decades of experience.

In his view, the Taiping Army absolutely could not take Xinhui. This expedition, nominally a relief mission, was in reality a forward strike to annihilate this reckless, audacious Southern Ming rabble.

How to annihilate them, however, required some thought.

The Taiping Army had just ambushed Wu Jinzhong at Guifeng Mountain and swept up more than ten thousand commoners to follow the army, so their morale was certainly high, and the rebel commander leading them was surely full of himself.

Therefore the relief force need not rush to Xinhui; better to go slowly. Ideally, they should wait until the Taiping Army had smashed its head bloody against the walls of Xinhui, then suddenly appear, with cavalry as the vanguard, and crush them like dry weeds and rotten wood.

That was the proper way to use troops, and only thus could the greatest victory be won at the smallest cost.

When he received his orders, Ban Zhifu had already explained his plan to the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, and Shang Kexi had approved it. That was why the relief force did not march at speed after leaving the city.

Otherwise, those 400 Bordered Blue Banner cavalrymen would long since have galloped for Xinhui.

When the sun rose overhead, Ban Zhifu waved his hand to signal his men to halt, then summoned a personal guard and sent him to notify the Green Standard Regional Commander Lin Shanzhi to have his men rest in place and prepare a meal, and to set out again after half a shichen.

This place was called Sanzhou, only a little over thirty li from Xinhui.

Upon receiving the order, Lin Shanzhi immediately ordered the Green Standard troops to halt. After giving his subordinates a few instructions, he spurred his horse to go see the Young Prince.

On this side, the Green Standard soldiers did not first set up their own camp, nor did they hurry to prepare their own food. Instead, they first attended to the Bordered Blue Banner troops, helping them dismount and rest.

Several officers of the Guangzhou Green Standard followed behind a few banner officers like dogs, constantly relaying the banner officers' demands.

While the banner troops were waited on by the Green Standard soldiers, the Green Standard side was waited on by the conscripted laborers. The 2,000 laborers had been levied by Guangzhou Prefecture, and virtually none of them were true Guangzhou natives.

Most were villagers from the outskirts of Guangzhou, and some had been relocated from Huizhou and elsewhere. The original people of Guangzhou had long since been slaughtered to the last by the Qing army.

To replenish Guangzhou's population, the Qing army had subsequently moved people from all over Guangdong to Guangzhou, yet even now Guangzhou's population had not recovered to its pre-massacre numbers.

As of last month, the latest household register of Guangzhou Prefecture showed that Guangzhou's total population was only a little over 160,000, of whom 90,000 were adult males.

Besides these 160,000 newly relocated residents, there were in the city several thousand booi whom the two princes of Pingnan and Jingnan had brought from Liaodong.

In times of chaos, the fate of conscripted laborers is inevitably bitter. Apart from the few lucky enough to be turned into fighting soldiers, the rest were mostly cannon fodder, and very few ever survived to return home.

To die quickly and cleanly was considered a good end; the fear was being eaten alive as food. In the battle to defend Xinhui, besides eating more than 70,000 of the city's inhabitants, the Qing army also ate more than 4,000 conscripted laborers.

Piles of bones filled the streets and alleys, and the mouths of the dry wells were too dreadful for anyone to peer into.

Under the Qing soldiers' whips, the laborers trembled as they performed all manner of tasks; the slightest slowness earned them a beating that left them half-dead.

These two thousand-odd Guangzhou Green Standard troops, though called the Guangzhou Green Standard, were not actually Guangzhou men either, but Ming army deserters whom Shang Kexi had absorbed one after another on his march south.

To these Guangzhou Green Standard soldiers, Guangzhou was in fact foreign territory. Local troops and out-of-town troops naturally treat the common people differently.

Local troops, being among their own countrymen, however brutal, would not beat people to death. But out-of-town troops were different: in their eyes, these Guangzhou people had nothing whatsoever to do with them, and so they showed no mercy when they struck.

When the laborers were conscripted by the prefect's yamen, most already knew their fate, yet all believed they would return alive.

The reason was simple: in these past few years of fighting between Ming and Qing, the Qing army had won far too many victories, so much so that ordinary folk all knew the Great Qing was certain to take the throne.

Since the Qing army was sure to win, serving as laborers for the Qing troops was obviously a hundred times better than serving the Ming troops. At the very worst, surely half of these two thousand would survive?

Common folk ask for nothing more than a full belly. If they cannot eat their fill, then they hope simply to stay alive — better a wretched life than a good death, after all.

With this thought in mind, remarkably, not one of the laborers bore any grudge against the Qing army. Even those who were beaten felt no hatred, instead blaming themselves for being too slow and deserving the soldiers' blows.

As for the tiny bit of food they were given, they were all the more satisfied. With a good chance of staying alive, and just enough to keep body and soul together, what more could they ask?

When Lin Shanzhi came to see Shang Zhixin, Ban Zhifu was there too. The Young Prince was in a somewhat better mood than earlier, and was saying something to Ban Zhifu. Seeing Lin Shanzhi approach, he raised his still-youthful face and gave a slight nod.

"This slave Lin Shanzhi greets Your Highness!"

With two crisp snaps, Lin Shanzhi flicked his sleeves, then very practicedly dropped to one knee and gave Shang Zhixin a military salute, after which he kowtowed three times, his head striking the ground heavily. Shang Zhixin watched, inwardly pleased.

Beside him, Ban Zhifu was thoroughly annoyed. You, Lin Shanzhi, are not even a bannerman — what right have you to call yourself "this slave" before the Young Prince?

And you even imitate us bannermen in your salutes! Have you no shame!

"Regional Commander Lin is too courteous. Rise." Shang Zhixin's lips curved slightly as he waved a hand at Lin Shanzhi.

"I thank Your Highness!"

At these words, Lin Shanzhi slowly stood, then took a step back. His bearing and expression showed the utmost deference to Shang Zhixin.

Author's note: Updates will be fewer for now, as matters have not yet been settled.