Chapter 254: 252: The Sigh of the Wind and the Cry of the Crane (For White Silver Patron

Zhang Tieniu kept his word: all mid- and low-ranking officers and common soldiers who had not yet fled were given grain and sent home.

The precondition was that their weapons and armor were confiscated.

This was already merciful enough — Zhang Tieniu had even wanted to kill every one of those officers, regardless of rank.

And he would absolutely not have killed a single one wrongly!

These government troops had been suppressing bandits in Guangdong and Guangxi for three years, and the court never issued them rations or pay — so where did their army provisions come from?

Every last one of them had blood on his hands; they were all butchers who slaughtered common people.

Some officers had probably even killed innocent civilians and passed them off as rebels. They would wipe out a whole village, seize the money and grain for their own pockets, cut off the heads to claim rewards, and then say that village had been massacred by the rebels.

The troops who escaped on the day the city fell raced to Shixing County to report, and the Shixing garrison in turn sent word to Nanxiong.

"Take only light baggage — the whole army is to withdraw!"

Lu Qian, the Guangdong Regional Commander, turned pale with shock and immediately pulled out of Nanxiong prefectural city, taking the Shixing County forces with him. They had to leave early, or they would be trapped there with no way forward or back, because Zhang Tieniu's line of advance amounted to stabbing them right up the rear.

In fact, Lu Qian's main army had already been cut off by Zhang Tieniu.

During the withdrawal, Lu Qian could not take the normal route; he could only leave by a small mountain track called the Qinghua Path, cutting through the hills.

Crossing ridge after ridge, they finally reached Wengyuan County, but Lu Qian still dared not stop. He continued withdrawing to Yingde County to set up defenses and block the main road Zhang Tieniu would need to push further south. (In the Ming dynasty, the county seat of Wengyuan was very close to Yingde County.)

All of northern Guangdong had been taken; only Yingde city remained.

South of Yingde lay Guangzhou!

Although Qingyuan in between blocked the water route, a direct overland government road connected Yingde and Guangzhou.

They only had to take Yingde, and they could charge straight for Guangzhou city.

This was not because Zhang Tieniu was so formidable, but because of Shen Youlong's strategic blunder: he had not sent troops to guard against the Huguang side. As a result, once Shaozhou fell, the main force in the Nanxiong-Shixing sector risked being trapped and annihilated, which so terrified Regional Commander Lu Qian that he withdrew his army overnight along a mountain track.

Shen Youlong himself actually had no skill in warfare; he relied entirely on his private secretaries for advice and left specific military matters to the military officers.

When word of northern Guangdong's fall reached him, Shen Youlong's position grew even more awkward.

He wanted to shorten his defensive lines, voluntarily abandon cities, and pull back toward Guangzhou to join forces with Lu Qian, but he was blocked at Longchuan by Fei Ruhe and could not return.

There was only that one road, and Fei Ruhe had split his forces to seal it tight.

With no other choice, Shen Youlong had to stake everything. He personally led over six thousand veteran soldiers, along with an equal number of civilian laborers and a large fleet of boats — a full thirteen thousand men and more — voluntarily abandoned Longchuan city, and marched to attack Fei Ruhe outside Heyuan city.

The Heyuan garrison also numbered three thousand, making over sixteen thousand men in total, squeezing Fei Ruhe's six thousand (including laborers) from both sides.

One hundred thirty li, the entire march following the riverbank.

At dusk they made camp.

After night fell, shadowy figures stirred outside the camp perimeter — large numbers of grain-transport laborers were slipping away under cover of darkness. They had been forcibly conscripted and had no desire to fight at all; with such a perfect chance, how could they not flee?

Shen Youlong was roused by his own personal guards. Once he understood the situation, he dared not stop them.

Too much commotion in the middle of the night could easily trigger a camp panic, and then the soldiers would run too.

Those soldiers likewise had no wish to fight!

Shen Youlong's strong point was knowing how to delegate authority. Since he himself could not command in battle, he placed great trust in his subordinate generals. But this also led to a complete breakdown of military discipline. During three years of suppressing rebels in Guangdong and Guangxi, he had often deliberately let the rebels be.

For those generals, avoiding pitched battles with the rebels meant, first, they could fatten the threat to justify their own positions; second, they could preserve their own strength; and third, they could seize the chance to get rich.

The generals did indeed grow rich through plunder, but the common soldiers saw little of it.

Their pay was not even issued in full, and the food was terrible. This was the norm for late Ming armies; any unit that let its soldiers eat their fill was an anomaly among anomalies.

Shen Youlong leading a large army to hold a city was one thing, but once they left the city walls, with the Great Unity Army nearby, the soldiers and laborers began scheming to slip away.

They marched on the second day. Because so many laborers had scattered, soldiers had to be diverted to transport grain, slowing the march even further.

At dusk they made camp.

This time Shen Youlong had learned his lesson. He placed the laborers in the center and the soldiers on the perimeter, so as to prevent the laborers from fleeing in the night.

The laborers indeed had no chance to flee, but the soldiers began to run instead. Several of the outermost units lost as much as sixty percent of their strength overnight — over eight hundred men fled in a single night.

When morning came and they counted heads, Shen Youlong and his officers all wore grim expressions.

The Vice Regional Commander was called Shi Wangzheng — a very fine name. He drew Shen Youlong aside and said quietly, "Supreme Commander, we cannot continue marching like this. If we reach Heyuan and engage the rebel troops, I fear our army will scatter at the first breath of battle before the fighting even starts."

"What is to be done?" Shen Youlong sighed.

Shi Wangzheng suggested, "Issue pay to the soldiers and laborers at once, and make up last month's arrears as well. The Supreme Commander must distribute the pay in person!"

"Good!" Shen Youlong followed good counsel readily.

Because he himself could not direct military affairs, and in order to keep the military officers obedient to him, Shen Youlong had never interfered in specific army matters.

This produced two results. The officers were extremely fond of Shen Youlong, considering this Governor-General a truly fine official, and they were ordinarily willing to risk their lives for him. But military discipline was utterly rotten, and skimming soldiers' pay had become routine. The rank-and-file soldiers got no pay and relied entirely on secretly pocketing a little silver during village raids to make up for their losses.

Such government troops, after three years of suppressing rebels, were all veterans — yet they feared not only Zhao Han but other rebels as well.

In a word, they were unwilling to fight to the death!

Shen Youlong summoned all the military officers and announced, "We halt the march today. Assemble your soldiers — I intend to issue their pay in person!"

At a critical moment like this, the officers understood the Governor-General well enough. As long as they did not have to pay out of their own pockets, they had no objection to the Governor-General personally handing out the wages.

The soldiers lined up one by one to receive their pay, and at last a trace of cheer appeared on their faces.

The effect was immediate: that night there were only a little over three hundred deserters.

On the third day, they continued the march.

They had not gone far when the mountain-search party scouting ahead came rushing back in alarm to report: "Supreme Commander, there are rebel troops lying in ambush in the mountains ahead — we saw a great many rebel banners!"

"Exactly how many rebel troops are there?" Shen Youlong asked.

The scout replied, "I don't know. This humble one dared not get too close."

Fearing an ambush, Shen Youlong immediately halted the advance and dispatched three hundred more soldiers to investigate the true situation of the bandits in the mountains.

After wasting an hour on this, the soldiers returned and reported that the mountain ambush was a fake — just a random scattering of planted banners.

Shen Youlong grew even more cautious, and the pace of the march slowed further.

After barely a few li, they spotted rebel banners in the mountains again. They had to stop and investigate carefully once more. This back-and-forth repeated itself, and in a whole day they covered only a dozen or so li.

Moreover, morale had plummeted. Whether officers or soldiers, everyone felt that rebels might appear ahead at any moment.

That day, once camp was pitched, Shen Youlong instructed his officers: "Stay sharply on guard tonight. The entire army sleeps in uniform, weapons never leaving your hands. Post extra sentries — we must guard against a night raid by the bandits."

The officers went at once to carry out the order and relayed it down the ranks, which only made the whole army more panicked.

That night, a great many men slept poorly.

In the second half of the night, a sentry suddenly shouted, "What are you doing?"

At the shout, a dozen or so deserters quickened their pace and bolted for the mountains beyond the camp.

"Halt!"

The sentry was extremely dutiful, because for standing guard tonight he had been issued three hundred cash as a bonus.

At a critical moment like this, you had to be generous — otherwise who would be willing to serve as a sentry?

"Is it a rebel night raid?" an officer rushed over to ask.

Another sentry, who had been dozing off, heard this and immediately yelled in panic, "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

A sentry began beating the alarm gong.

The entire army's officers and men jolted awake at once, snatching up their weapons. Some were so terrified they simply fled. The whole camp, for no clear reason, boiled over into utter chaos.

When they finally managed to calm down and began the headcount at daybreak, everywhere you looked were bloodshot eyes and yawns.

That night, over two hundred soldiers had run off, over seven hundred laborers had run off, and several boats carrying supplies had also fled.

One of those boats held a large sum of money — it belonged to Vice Regional Commander Shi Wangzheng.

While Fei Ruhe had been besieging Longchuan for two months, this Vice Regional Commander had needed something to do, so he extorted the wealthy merchants inside the city and squeezed out a great deal of silver. Then he diverted army grain-transport boats to ship his own valuables — this sort of public resources put to private use was very common.

Especially during the period of the Southern Ming rump court, when large numbers of civil officials moved their entire households south — how else were they supposed to transport all that wealth?

The Eight Immortals cross the sea, each showing their own prowess.

The most formidable of those civil officials directly commandeered warships and laborer battalions to move their family treasures. And right behind them were the pursuing Qing troops — the scene was indescribably bizarre.

At this very moment, Shi Wangzheng was raging. He had scraped together several thousand taels of silver in Longchuan and had his trusted man sleep on the boat the entire way to escort it.

That damned trusted man was none other than his own nephew — who had sailed the boat away under cover of darkness last night!

Shi Wangzheng was not the only furious man. Clearly other officers were also putting public resources to private use, likewise using the grain-transport boats to carry their own valuables.

To cut their losses, the officers demanded the cargo be unloaded. They had laborers carry the valuables on foot along the bank and reloaded the supplies and grain back onto the boats. Even if men deserted, the laborers could not make off with much — not like a boat, where if it fled, everything was gone.

Shen Youlong was incandescent with rage. He summoned the officers and laid into them with a blistering tirade: "What hour do you think this is, and you are still this greedy? Bring out your silver — every man donates one hundred taels. I am going to issue another round of marching pay to the troops!"

That was the only punishment he could mete out — the lightest tap of the board. Battle was imminent, and Shen Youlong dared not offend his military officers.

Late-Ming military officers were indeed of low status, yet at the same time arrogant and insubordinate.

A military officer of the sixth rank would dare to wear the informal robes of a first-rank official, swaggering right past civil officials, who could only pretend not to see.

"Kill!"

As they marched on, war cries suddenly burst from the mountains ahead.

"Halt the march!"

"Form ranks, form ranks! Do not panic!"

Moments later, a few mountain-scouting troops came fleeing back, driven by five hundred Great Unity ambushers. Of the twenty-plus men sent ahead to reconnoiter, the Great Unity Army's ambush had killed eighteen.

Shen Youlong was nearly driven mad. This entire stretch of over a hundred li had to be traveled along the riverbank, and both banks of the East River were lined with mountains — any section of the road could conceal an ambush.

Fei Ruhe only needed to dispatch five hundred men to sow constant terror along the route.

If the government troops sent more men into the hills, the five hundred Great Unity soldiers would immediately withdraw. The moment the government troops let down their guard, a feigned ambush could turn into a real one.

These government officers and soldiers were being driven to the brink of nervous collapse.

(End of chapter)

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