Chapter 89: Measures

It must be said that Zhou Shixiang, that latter-day soldier, was still quite humble.

He knew his own shortcomings, so in order to successfully bring these ten thousand old, weak, women, and children to Xiangshan, to that future special zone where they could gain a foothold and settle, Zhou Shixiang set aside the dignity of a camp commander and humbly learned from Song Xianggong and a squad leader the mobile warfare experience of Li Zicheng's peasant army of that year.

This squad leader was an old brother from Daqiao Mountain, and he shared a name with He Jin, the great general of the late Eastern Han who wanted to kill the Ten Attendants. The two also shared a common profession: they were both butchers.

Of course, in the Eastern Han, the butcher's trade was a lofty and superior one, one that only the powerful could practice, but nowadays the butcher was a base trade.

Apart from being a bit more lucrative, it was generally looked down upon by the gentry and carried no social standing whatsoever.

He Jin, like Song Xianggong, was from Henan, though one was from Nanyang and the other from Luoyang. In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, when Song Xianggong joined the Roving Army with his xiucai degree, He Jin had already been in the Roving Army for over a year.

He had been forced to join the Roving Army in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, when Li Zicheng led his great army to besiege Luoyang. The reason it was said he was forced to join had to do with his butcher's identity.

After all, as a butcher, no matter how poor his family, he always had a bit of grease in his belly, and since he was not starving, he was naturally unwilling to follow the "roving bandits" in killing officials and rebelling.

But when Li Zicheng's vast army pressed dark and dense upon Luoyang Prefecture, swept along by the great host, he had no choice but to enter the camp.

He Jin did not follow Li Zicheng to Beijing. Instead, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, he went with the Roving Army's great general Bai Wang to the Hu-Xiang region.

After the Qing army entered the pass, Li Zicheng fled Beijing in defeat and died in Hubei, while Bai Wang, who had been operating in Hu-Xiang, was killed by the turncoat general Wang Tizhong.

After Bai Wang's death, his Dashun troops either surrendered to the Qing along with Wang Tizhong and the others, or collapsed and disintegrated on their own, or went west to join another branch of the Dashun army under Li Guo.

He Jin did not surrender to the Qing, nor did he go looking for Li Guo's force. Instead, he changed his name to He De and fled to Fujian.

In the second year of Longwu, he was muddle-headedly conscripted by Zheng Zhilong's army, then became a captive of Li Chengdong's army and followed it into Guangdong. Later, when Li Chengdong turned back to the Ming, he transformed once more into a Ming soldier.

Then Li Chengdong was defeated, and after several twists and turns, this former Dashun picket commander, Butcher He, became a bandit on Daqiao Mountain, and now he was a squad leader in the Taiping Camp.

In ability, He Jin was not lacking; in courage, he yielded to no one. By rights, with his record as a former Dashun picket commander, he should at least have been made a platoon commander, yet he was not among the ten platoon commanders Zhou Shixiang appointed.

The reason was that He Jin was already old.

Born in the thirty-second year of Wanli, He Jin was fifty-three this year. That age would not be considered old in later times, but in this era he truly counted as an old man, a full ten years older than Song Xianggong.

When the platoon commanders were first being chosen, there were those who nominated He Jin, but He Jin himself refused the post. In his view, he was old, and whether he held office or not, whether he held a high post or a low one, was not important.

What mattered was whether, in his remaining years, he could still live to sweep his parents' graves and burn paper offerings for them.

"Brother Zhou, tell me, is there still hope for our Ming? Will I ever be able to return to my hometown in this life?"

He Jin said this every time he saw Zhou Shixiang. Though he was more than two dozen years older than Zhou Shixiang, he still addressed this young man, who looked like a son to him, as "brother."

Others had recently begun calling Zhou Shixiang "Battalion Commander," but he still kept the address "Brother Zhou" unchanged.

Song Xianggong had also spoken of He Jin to Zhou Shixiang several times. Each time he spoke of He Jin's wish, a faint sadness would appear on Song's face, and his eyes would grow very desolate. Measuring others by himself, Zhou Shixiang knew that Song Xianggong, like He Jin, also wanted to go home.

Who does not want to go home?

Zhou Shixiang thought of his own home, that empty grave outside Xinhui, and he too could not stop his nose from stinging and tears from falling.

After Song Xianggong joined the Roving Army, he had always worked as a clerk in the secretariat, responsible for money, grain, revenue, expenditure, and official correspondence, so he did not know much about the Roving Army's specific combat procedures.

He Jin, however, had been a picket commander directly leading troops at the bottom. Though he had only a dozen or so men under him, he knew how the Roving Army had fought in those days and how it had maneuvered.

According to him, when the Roving Army fought, it was usually divided into several camps, with the old camp in the center and cavalry guarding the flanks.

Wherever they went, they first settled the old camp, then used it as a base to deploy combat camps extending dozens or even a hundred li. The moment there was an alarm, the cavalry would immediately ride out to cover them, while the old camp moved to a safe place.

When there was no fighting, the soldiers of each camp could take turns returning to the old camp to spend a few peaceful days with their wives, children, and elders.

In wartime, even if their wives, children, and elders were right behind them, these men could not turn back to say a single word to them.

Song Xianggong, drawing on his memory, gave a general account of how the Roving Army's old camp was settled. It was roughly similar to the Taiping Camp's camp elders and camp managers.

The Roving Army's old camp also had layer upon layer of management and control from top to bottom, and both encampment and marching had a strict organizational system, down to a single cart or a single head of livestock, each with a designated person in charge.

But both Song Xianggong and He Jin mentioned one thing: once the battle turned unfavorable, the Roving Army would generally abandon the old camp and break out with only the veteran elite troops.

This reminded Zhou Shixiang of something he had read in later times in a history book: after Li Zicheng fled into the Shangluo Mountains, the great general Liu Zongmin and others were willing to kill their own wives and children in order to help Li Zicheng rise again.

Putting the two together, Zhou Shixiang felt his guilt and unease lessen over the decision he had once instructed Song Xianggong to make — to abandon the rear camp if there was no other choice.

Combining the Roving Army's methods with later organizational management techniques, Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong drew up preliminary regulations and measures for the rear camp's movement, as well as response measures for emergencies.

Summer was about to arrive, and with ten thousand people moving a thousand li, sickness was unavoidable.

To avoid unnecessary casualties and strengthen the Taiping Camp's medical capacity, Song Xianggong pulled out all the physicians from Luoding and transferred them into what Zhou Shixiang named the Nursing Department.

He also ordered the camp elders of each camp to transfer over everyone who understood medicine, even midwives who only knew how to deliver babies were stuffed into the Nursing Department as well.

After the Nursing Department was established, Zhou Shixiang personally gave the first batch of fifty trainees two days of instruction. What he taught was not medicine, but first-aid techniques, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how to quickly stop bleeding.

In addition, he focused on teaching the knowledge necessary for hygiene and epidemic prevention.

Song Xianggong did not know where Zhou Shixiang had learned such knowledge. Though it sounded different from the medical practices of the physicians of the day, it did have a certain logic to it.

For example, the method of boiling white cloth in hot water, drying it in the sun, and then using it to bind wounds was very useful.

Zhou Shixiang's own learning was limited.

After teaching these people roughly what medical knowledge he had learned in the army, he could only hope that these physicians and midwives, who were not even up to the level of later barefoot doctors, could grasp the essence of these techniques on their own.

The public treasury's money, grain, and supplies had already begun to be loaded onto carts. At the same time, the camp elders of each camp were ordered to reveal to the camp residents the news that the Qing army was about to launch a major attack on Luoding.

Just as the camp residents were panicking, officers came to reassure them, saying that the Qing army was indeed coming with many troops this time, but they need not fear, for the Battalion Commander already had a foolproof plan to deal with them, and they only needed to obey orders.

Meanwhile, the training of the new recruits in the front camp's various squads was proceeding like a raging fire. The long marches of five or ten li had now become marches of twenty or even thirty li.

Faced with the soldiers' complaints and grumbling, the platoon commanders leading them would always tell them that this was a forced-march drill, and that if they wanted to win battles, the first requirement was to run faster than the Tartars.

Running fast means winning battles?

This explanation did not make things clearer to the soldiers; instead, it left them even more confused. The patient platoon commanders would say a few more words; the impatient ones would shout and start swinging their whips.