Chapter 50: Going to War

The next day, just after the yin hour, every squad except Zhao Sihai's was led out of the city by its squad leader. Apart from the squad leaders and the five-man chiefs, the soldiers had no idea where they were going.

Zhou Shixiang wanted every soldier in the Taiping Camp to know exactly what he was doing and why, but reality would not allow it, because in essence these men were not yet soldiers.

If he told these recruits they were going to fight the Qing army at Deqing, their morale would likely plummet to freezing point in an instant, and once they reached the ground perhaps half of them would run.

Fear of the Qing army could never be dispelled by a few words; the only way to rid soldiers of their fear of the enemy was to make them more terrifying than the enemy. There was no other way.

So to prevent the soldiers from deserting in droves out of fear, Zhou Shixiang had no choice but to keep them in the dark.

In his plan, these recruits were not the key to victory in battle either; the purpose of bringing them along, apart from putting on a show of strength, was to let them see what a real battlefield looked like.

As for how many of them survived, that would depend on whether the plan succeeded.

War kills people; there has never been a war in this world without death. Zhou Shixiang, who had been a soldier in his previous life, would not indulge in womanly compassion.

Having watched his parents, wife, and children die horribly, he could no longer hold to the morals and values of his former life.

Ruthlessness was the true mark of a soldier in this age, and the capital with which one could succeed.

Why were the Manchus able to enter the Central Plain and seize the Han people's realm? Because they were more ruthless than the Han — ruthless to the point of being little better than beasts!

Zhou Shixiang of course did not mean to turn himself into a beast; he only needed to make the enemy feel fear.

Just as Zhou Shixiang had worried beforehand, not long after the column left the city, the old, weak, women, and children of the rear camp, having heard the news, came crowding into the city gate passage.

Some climbed straight up onto the wall and gazed after the retreating figures of their loved ones, their faces full of worry; some of the younger women were so anxious they wept aloud.

And the recruits in the column also grew panicked once they were outside the city; had it not been for the officers' curses and the whips that fell at any moment, not one of them would have been willing to keep marching.

The weeping of the old and weak at the east gate soon disturbed those Luoding residents who had not joined the Taiping Camp.

They came running from their homes to watch the excitement; some guessed at the purpose of the Ming army's departure, while others gloated and pointed at the old, weak, women, and children of the rear camp, probably thinking the Taiping Camp had run off with the men of their households.

Even as they gloated, they congratulated themselves on not having been fooled by the Taiping Camp's small favors — otherwise the fate of being conscripted as laborers would have fallen on their own heads.

At first the old, weak, women, and children of the rear camp were only worried about their men; though they wept, they had not lost order.

But when they heard the gloating words of the residents who had not joined, they at once fell into chaos, crying and shouting for their men to come back, and the scene nearly spun out of control several times.

Song Xianggong, who had gone over the likely reaction of the old, weak, women, and children with Zhou Shixiang beforehand, responded the fastest once the incident broke out.

In the name of the prefect, he soothed the women and children, while ordering Zhao Sihai to take troops and drive the people back to camp.

At the same time he released from the jail those prisoners who had not joined the army, gave them instructions, and sent them out with clubs, swords, and spears to intimidate the residents all through the streets, and from time to time to shout a few words outside the gates of the great households.

Only in this way was the situation brought under control.

Faced with the swords and spears in the hands of the "fierce men" the Ming army had let loose, the city residents all shivered with cold dread and obediently hid back in their homes, bolting the doors, terrified that the chaos of robbery and murder from the night of the great fire would be repeated.

The old, weak, women, and children of the rear camp also realized that things were not as they had imagined, for the prefect was still in the city, and there was also a squad of able-bodied men who had not left.

It seemed Lord Song had spoken true: their men had gone with the army to Gaozhou to transport grain, not been dragged off as conscripted laborers.

To settle the hearts of the rear camp completely, Song Xianggong spent the entire day there, from time to time calling over the camp elders for a game of chess or a few pots of tea. With blades outside and conciliation within, both measures working together, the city quieted down once more.

On the surface the city was calm, but beneath it undercurrents still surged.

Song Xianggong had too few men at his disposal, and the clerks and runners assigned by the prefectural yamen were all the old staff — precisely the sort of people with schemes in their hearts — so he could not rely on them to watch every corner of the city.

As a result, several of the great households still secretly passed word out, and Lu Changyuan even sent men quietly to summon a few yamen clerks to his house for secret talks. What they discussed, no outsider knew.

"My lord, that elephant of yours — surely it cannot move on the diagonal?"

"Oh, oh, wrong, wrong. Heh heh."

Song Xianggong, his mind elsewhere, forced a smile before the crowd, but his heart was deeply uneasy: who could say whether this battle could be won?

Shao Jiugong got his wish and was appointed by Zhou Shixiang as vanguard officer of the front battalion, leading more than forty Jiangxi soldiers whose back wounds were not serious to serve as the head of the whole camp's formation.

These Jiangxi soldiers all had characters carved into their backs, and like Song Xianggong they knew there was no turning back. If they could not defeat the Qing army, their fate would be even worse than the Ming army's, so they put real effort in.

What puzzled them, though, was how the Taiping Camp had so few men — front and rear together no more than three hundred or so, and all of them newly recruited able-bodied men from Luoding. Could so few really fight Zhang Mazi's Green Standard troops?

Shao Jiugong also vaguely sensed something was wrong, but he was riding a tiger and could not dismount; at this point he could only steel himself and press on.

To settle his men's hearts, he again brought out the stratagem he had once used on Zhang Dade, speaking with animated gestures and flourishes, and only then did the soldiers calm down.

One after another they said that if that Zhang Mazi really was a stupid pig, then this battle would be easy — when the time came, they would all slaughter the pig and eat meat!

Song Erniu, marching at the very front of the camp, was the tallest and most powerfully built man in the entire camp. All six members of his family had joined the Taiping Camp.

Now he bore a great banner that Song Xianggong had had made overnight, embroidered with the three characters "Taiping Camp," and he strode along with a vigorous, proud air.

The weapons issued to each squad were basically all captured from the Jiangxi Qing troops — swords, spears, lances, hook blades, shields, everything. In the whole camp, including Boss Hu and Zhou Shixiang, no one had armor.

There were not many cotton-armor jackets either — only six, stripped from Kong Guoliang's personal guards. Boss Hu and Zhou Shixiang each wore one; the other four went to Ge Wu, Ge Liu, Peng Dazhu, and Baldy.

The seven captured nags were given to Shao Jiugong, to make it easier for them to lure the enemy. Zhou Shixiang's own big Mongol blue-gray horse had originally been meant for Boss Hu to ride, but Boss Hu absolutely refused, saying a gentleman does not take what another man loves.

Helpless, Zhou Shixiang could only lead it by the reins — after all, if Boss Hu, the main commander, had no horse, how could he, the front-battalion commander, have the face to ride one?

Luoding was more than a hundred li from Deqing. The front battalion could march no more than forty li a day, so it was not until the third day that they reached the Xihe ford, seven li from Deqing.

Along the way they struck a Qing army relay post, capturing seven Green Standard soldiers and more than twenty laborers inside, all of whom they bound and brought along behind them.

The recruits did not know what their officers were taking them to do, but they could still tell the direction, and after they had struck the Qing relay post they gradually realized what they were about.

At this point Zhou Shixiang no longer kept it from them, telling them they were about to fight the Green Standard at Deqing. If they lost this battle, not only would their own lives be forfeit, but the wives, children, and elders they had left in Luoding would all die as well.

While the recruits were still in a panic, Boss Hu had Ge Wu and Ge Liu march the seven Green Standard prisoners to kneel at the ford, and then, before the recruits' eyes, had them all beheaded.

"Anyone who dares run — this is what happens!"

Ge Wu, fierce as a demon, flung a severed head down in front of the soldiers, and the recruits all cried out in shock.

Shao Jiugong saw his chance to shine. He slapped the rump of the nag beneath him, led his men charging up before the recruits, and said savagely: "There's nothing to fear from the Deqing Green Standard.

Their Garrison Commander was my defeated underling back in the day. Now that I've turned loyal to the Ming, what the hell are you afraid of!"

"Our Lord Shao is that Zhang Mazi's nemesis! Don't be afraid, brothers — once we've chopped off Zhang Mazi's head, the lord will treat us all to wine and meat!"

"Great chunks of meat, great bowls of wine!"

The Jiangxi soldiers, who had become Ming troops against their will, were not about to let these Luoding recruits turn coward. One after another they bellowed to hearten and spur on the new men.

Under this mix of threats and enticements, the recruits' courage finally swelled. Looking at the Qing corpses on the ground, then at the Jiangxi soldiers who only days ago had been Qing troops, and thinking of their families in Luoding, their urge to run faded.

A few of the bolder ones even began drawing their blades and wiping them clean.

Boss Hu ordered the whole camp across the river, then climbed with Zhou Shixiang to a high slope north of the ford and looked all around. In the end they chose this Xihe ford as the ambush site.

With the ambush site settled, the next step was to fix each squad's ambush position. The Xihe was not wide; both banks were hilly and thickly vegetated, so there were many places to hide men. The key was whether Shao Jiugong could draw Zhang Dade over, and how many men he would bring.

Too many would never do. The best outcome would be for Zhang Dade to come chasing after them with only a small number of personal guards. As long as they could kill Zhang Dade and his guards, the remaining Green Standard troops would not be worth worrying about.

Boss Hu was still uneasy about Shao Jiugong and his Jiangxi soldiers, and told Zhou Shixiang he would take a squad and go with them. Zhou Shixiang, however, urged Boss Hu to stay and direct the overall situation, saying he himself would take men and go with Shao Jiugong to lure the enemy.

Boss Hu would not hear of letting Zhou Shixiang take the risk, but Zhou Shixiang insisted on going, saying he had the big blue-gray horse, and even if things went wrong, he could ride it to safety.

This place, by contrast, could not do without Hu Quan as its main commander; with him present, the recruits would be far more at ease. Otherwise, once they saw the commander gone, these recruits might well collapse on their own.

Boss Hu could not talk Zhou Shixiang out of it, so he urged him again and again to be careful, and with a thousand admonitions watched him and Shao Jiugong set off with their men toward Deqing city.