Chapter 92: Security

The Taiping Camp set out from Luoding on the 29th, and just the day before, Zhou Shixiang and Tang Sanshui had completed their transaction.

The supplies Tang Sanshui delivered were discounted to sixty percent of the figure Zhou Shixiang had given, and the gunpowder was cut to only half; by actual weight, it probably came to less than five hundred catties.

By rights, with Tang Sanshui discounting so heavily while he himself desperately needed Luoding, Zhou Shixiang could have held out for a better price.

After all, although Gaozhou looked unfavorably on the Taiping Camp and would not accept any of Zhou Shixiang's terms, it had not yet torn off all pretense and sent troops to suppress them, and the Qing side likewise had no plan to attack Luoding, so the Taiping Camp could have remained in Luoding a while longer.

Yet after hearing a piece of news Tang Sanshui brought, Zhou Shixiang concluded the deal without the slightest hesitation, then returned to the city and summoned all officers of company commander rank and above for a council of war.

Once the council ended, the whole camp began marching out of the city and shifting position.

The news Tang Sanshui brought had, in a sense, nothing to do with Luoding, because the matter had occurred in Xin'an County, a thousand li away — the very place that, on the map of Guangdong Zhou Shixiang had drawn, was where the later Shenzhen Special Zone would stand.

According to Tang Sanshui, just four days earlier, the Green Standard troops from the various prefectures and counties of Guangzhou, mustered by the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, Li Shuaitai, had successfully encircled and wiped out the Ming force of Li Wanrong in Xin'an County.

After that battle, not a single Ming soldier remained in any county under Guangzhou Prefecture, and Guangzhou Prefecture had fallen entirely into the hands of the Great Qing.

Whether the matter truly was so, or whether Tang Sanshui was deliberately trying to frighten him, he told Zhou Shixiang that once the Green Standard troops dispatched to Xin'an were recalled, Guangzhou might well send soldiers to attack Luoding.

What purpose Tang Sanshui had in telling Zhou Shixiang this news was not important; what mattered was that upon learning of it, Zhou Shixiang immediately and readily agreed to the deal.

This made Tang Sanshui feel rather regretful afterward: had he known that impoverished xiucai was so easily frightened, he should have knocked off another twenty percent. Letting him earn an extra twenty percent for nothing — what a loss.

Later, when Tang Sanshui, full of joy and leading the several hundred newly recruited Green Standard soldiers as he swaggered toward Luoding to carry out his "great recovery plan," laid eyes on that city with its gates wide open, he felt deeply that he had been toyed with — and regretted it all the more.

He had lost badly on this deal, because what he saw was an empty city.

Faced with the quiet questioning of his battalion commander, Tang Sanshui, his face gone green, could only helplessly stage the prearranged "siege battle" once through.

And so, common folk on the barren hills outside the city witnessed this scene — several hundred Qing soldiers clambering up the city wall and laboriously prying loose the bricks, then running down to the base of the wall and digging at it with all their might, then setting fires in the city and putting them out again, back and forth, truly a lively spectacle.

After the lively show was over, Tang Sanshui solemnly dispatched a victory report to Zhaoqing.

"Keep up! Everyone behind, keep up! If we don't make it to Lezhu Stockade before dark, the Tartars will be on our heels!"

"Not much farther now! Everyone, summon your strength and put your backs into it! The people up ahead have already prepared hot food and hot dishes for us. Once we get there, we can all fill our bellies!"

"The road is rough, so everyone watch your step and don't fall into the ditch! Old folks and children in the middle, and men, don't fight over the path!"

"Don't crowd, don't crowd! A cart up ahead is stuck in a hole. Everyone stop a moment and lend a hand!"

"Anyone who keeps shoving about will be dragged out and tied up!"

"......."

Almost every li, there were several men in yellow uniforms, red silk tied around their arms, felt hats on their heads, and sharpened bamboo poles in their hands, standing on high ground and directing the column forward.

From time to time they shouted encouragement to the ranks, and from time to time they passed back news sent from up ahead.

When they saw the crowd jammed to a standstill or the column thrown into disorder by people fighting over the road, they always rushed over at once, bamboo spears in hand.

It was the presence of these men that allowed the rear camp, stretched out over a full twenty-odd li, to creep slowly forward. The pace was agonizingly slow, but it was still movement.

The camp folk called these men the Security Corps. On the march from Luoding, had it not been for these Security Corps members, most people would have found it very hard to hold out this far.

For it was precisely because of these Security Corps members that they always knew what was happening up ahead and what was happening behind.

They also did not have to worry about being shoved off the mountain path into a ditch by the people behind them, because these Security Corps members would never permit such a thing.

Of course, most important of all, these Security Corps members told them clearly where they could rest and where they could get a meal. Rest and food, for camp folk who had no idea where they were ultimately headed, were absolutely the greatest of matters.

So long as they knew when they could rest and when they could eat, then no matter how hard the road, the camp folk would always grit their teeth and hold on — hope was right before their eyes.

And as for the fierceness of the Security Corps members, the camp folk could understand it. After all, they too knew the column must not fall into disorder, and that to avoid being overtaken by the Qing army, they had to march farther.

If the column's progress was delayed because of some senseless troublemakers, the price paid in the end would be everyone's heads.

Those serving as Security Corps members were all men between forty-five and fifty.

Because of their age, they had not been taken into the front camp as combat soldiers, but leaving them to sit in the rear camp like the sixty- and seventy-year-olds would have been a waste of manpower.

So, to make the fullest possible use of the manpower at hand and let every man play his part in the Taiping Camp, Zhou Shixiang suggested to Song Xianggong that these men be organized into a Security Corps.

The Security Corps' duty was the same as in later ages: maintaining public order. Specifically, on the march, that meant keeping the column in good order.

The front camp's combat soldiers plus the engineer battalion numbered only a little over 1,300 men in all.

This shortage of manpower made it difficult for Zhou Shixiang to draw men from them to help with the rear camp's movement and to suppress any disturbances that might break out, so forming a Security Corps from the rear camp's existing manpower was imperative.

The suggestion won Song Xianggong's enthusiastic approval, because he too needed a force of semi-combat character in his hands, one that could cope with the many difficulties and sudden emergencies along the march.

Song Xianggong did have a ready armed force at hand — the 150 soldiers under probationary company commander Zhao Sihai — but that force bore responsibility for the security of the public treasury and could not easily be diverted elsewhere.

And those 200 treasury troops were old men in their fifties plus a dozen or so youths. In name they were called treasury troops, which sounded like an army, but in fact they were little more than porters and laborers.

They could hardly be used as a semi-military armed Security Corps, and besides, the public treasury could not do without these treasury troops. The carts, large and small, loaded with money, grain, and goods, still depended on them to be pushed all the way to Xiangshan County.

Without them, who would push the carts?

Before setting out, Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong had not originally considered the problem of keeping order in the column during the move. But only a few li after the column left the city, both men thought of it at the same moment.

Thus, no sooner had Zhou Shixiang put forward his idea than Song Xianggong sent the order down to the elders of each camp, and very quickly, a Security Corps of only 120 men was hastily formed.

Song Xianggong asked Zhou Shixiang to issue weapons to the Security Corps members, but Zhou Shixiang's front camp did not even have enough weapons for itself — where would he find swords and spears to issue to the Security Corps?

There was no choice but to have men cut bamboo on the hills and sharpen it into bamboo spears for the Security Corps to use.

Fortunately, the purpose of the Security Corps was only to maintain order in the column; they were not needed to go into battle and kill the enemy like the front camp. So what weapons they used did not matter much.

What mattered was that they could produce a cowing effect on the camp folk.

Privately, Zhou Shixiang thought this 120-man Security Corps was nothing but a paper tiger. Yet now this paper tiger had helped him enormously.

Song Xianggong deliberately had the rear camp halt for an extra two hours, and in those two hours, Zhou Shixiang and he put the Security Corps through intensive training. Two hours later, the 120 Security Corps members, in groups of five, formed 24 squads and began their mission.

Once the Security Corps was put to use, results came quickly. Under the direction of these yellow-uniformed, red-silk-wearing Security Corps members, the previously chaotic column at once became orderly.

Seeing that the Security Corps truly was effective, Zhou Shixiang could not help but be stirred.

He considered that in the future the front camp would be fighting the Qing army at any time and any place, and once battle broke out, the front camp's thin ranks would find it hard to spare men to look after the rear camp.

Therefore, the rear camp had to have its own armed strength and its own organizational capacity to renew itself. Otherwise, relying on the front camp for everything would surely not do.

In plain modern terms, Zhou Shixiang wanted the rear camp to have the ability to stand on its own. To put it bluntly, he did not want the rear camp dragging down the front camp.

The Security Corps must be expanded in the future. There must be security battalions, security companies, and security squads. Once they had territory to settle in, there would be prefectural security battalions, county security companies, and town (village) security squads.

With strength, they could also step up the Security Corps' training and equipment, enabling them to hold off attacks by small Qing detachments on their own, and to provide support when the front camp's main force went into battle.

When the time was ripe, Security Corps members could even serve as a source of replacements for the front camp's ranks.

After firmly committing this plan to memory, Zhou Shixiang entrusted the rear camp to Song Xianggong, then led the front camp toward the first nail on the road south — Xinxing Town.

Xinxing Town belonged to Zhaoqing Prefecture and lay at the southern end of the Yunwu Mountains. It was the gateway to Zhaoqing Prefecture, so although it was only a town, it was garrisoned by an acting company commander with a detachment of 300 Green Standard soldiers.

Once the Green Standard troops at Xinxing were pulled out, the Taiping Camp could advance north along the Xinxing River into Zhaoqing Prefecture, or march southeast toward Xinhui County, Zhou Shixiang's native place.

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