Chapter 383: The True Target

The fleet's deployment pattern this time was exactly the same as when they annihilated Li Kuiqi in Fujian. The Fast Fleet, composed of six professional gunboats, served as the vanguard; the Support Fleet, made up of ten New Lock Ships plus Ming Soldiers, formed the main force; and trailing behind with the largest numbers was the Miscellaneous Boat Fleet drawn from various Water Forts.

The departure ceremony was equally grand.

Considering that Guangzhou would be the Empire's new capital in the future, the very place where they would formally raise the banner of rebellion, the work of winning the people's hearts had to begin now.

So the Transmigrators abandoned their previous low-profile approach. Ever since arriving in Guangzhou, the Special District Government had seized every opportunity to expand its influence, subtly and gradually instilling concepts of the General's Mansion's power, prosperity, and trustworthiness into the populace.

Specifically, at the departure ceremony that day.

From early morning, the area around White Goose Pond was packed solid. Entertainment was scarce in the medieval era; in an age when beheadings, weddings, and funerals all counted as public entertainment, a grand military expedition was solidly on the level of a top-tier variety show — not to mention that news of "a good show today" had been deliberately spread beforehand.

So that morning, not only the dock area but also the many Painting Boats and pleasure crafts on White Goose Pond all crowded over, packing the area outside the security cordon solid. Meanwhile, the three leaders, dressed in bright red Official Robes, were already sitting on the temporarily erected ceremonial platform, chatting and laughing merrily.

These three leaders gracing the scene were, respectively, Guangzhou Prefect Hong, Guangdong Regional Commander He, and Vice Cao Jiangjun.

Below the ceremonial platform was a row of long wooden tables.

At this moment, the tabletops were piled with countless gleaming "Cao Big Heads." These machine-struck Silver Dollars had all been stood on edge and creatively pieced together into a winding, sinuous "Silver Dragon."

The coiled, glittering Silver Dragon drew every gaze, eliciting exclamations and clamor from countless Onlookers.

Usually, when ancients held pep rallies, their methods were quite crude: So-and-so would kick over a silver chest and begin loudly rousing the cannon fodder, whereupon the army's morale would explode and they would start fighting with incredible valor.

The Transmigrators, having experienced all manner of motivational brainwashing and billion-dollar bonus spectacles of later generations, naturally wouldn't be that low-class. For propaganda, one only needed to artistically enhance the bonus-awarding scene a little to achieve a far better effect, enough to make this day's scene an enduring topic of conversation for the entire city.

Over two thousand "War Participants" whom He Zhen had assembled from the West River and North River were now lined up, grinning, under the supervision of soldiers holding Type 38 Rifles, stepping forward one by one to receive their Silver Dollars — ten coins per man.

After receiving a stack of gleaming Silver Cakes from the accountant's hands, the morale of these soldiers underwent a qualitative leap. Smiling, they blew on the Silver Dollars one by one to hear them ring, then ran below the platform to kowtow to the assembled lords. The chaotic scene only subsided once these Great Lords had boarded the ships.

In the Ming Dynasty, aside from a few elite units that formed the tactical core, the vast majority of armed forces followed a "Household Retainers + War Soldiers" organizational model.

Among these, the personal retainers serving as a commander's private Retainers, though few in number, consumed the bulk of the army's resources. Generals relied on these fully armored and mounted elites to suppress the ranks and maintain unit cohesion.

From another perspective: the number of Household Retainers a general could afford directly represented how many troops he could command. In chaotic times, as long as the core Household Retainers remained, it Didn't Matter if the army scattered — with routed soldiers and Refugees everywhere, one could simply grab a batch and form a new army.

Under this model, the lives of ordinary War Soldiers were naturally miserable. These men were perpetually short on supplies; their pay and provisions were siphoned off by the General-in-Chief to cover Vacancies and support the Household Retainers. As a result, their Morale was generally low, they lived in hardship, and fared little better than Beggars.

However, gains come with losses. If you failed to properly maintain the troops in peacetime, then when you needed them to march into battle, these ruffians would turn into Great Lords. All sorts of fees — family support pay, mobilization pay, back pay, rewards, equipment repair costs — would spring up overnight. If you didn't pay, the Great Lords simply wouldn't move.

Thus, the Ming's fall was both natural disaster and man-made calamity. Once the standing army system degenerated into this wretched state, even if they received enough mobilization pay to reach the Battlefield, these men's combat effectiveness was utterly unreliable. The battles in the late period where troops routed at first contact are prime examples.

Since the ten taels of silver these soldiers received today were Cao Big Heads, it was certainly Cao Jiangjun who footed the bill.

There was no helping it; he had to pay. Whether it was the Provincial Governor or He Zhen's Regional Commander's Office, they were all brimming with fervor when discussing the Bandit Suppression Campaign, but the moment mobilization pay and back pay were mentioned, the bigwigs instantly changed their tune and began crying poverty, practically ready to show their patched underwear to prove their innocence.

So it fell to Cao the Big Fool to produce the Cao Big Heads and resolve this war's startup funding: five taels per soldier for previous back pay, another five taels per man as comprehensive mobilization pay, plus a sum for ship repair and provisions for the various Water Forts, and a reserve for compensation. All told, for this one departure ceremony, the Transmigrators spent no less than forty thousand taels in Cao Big Heads.

Yet this played right into the Transmigrators' hands. A saying from later generations is quite apt: You're eyeing their interest; they're eyeing your principal.

The logic here is simple: soldiers are no fools. These Silver Cakes, which clearly carried a premium on the market, were known by everyone to have been issued by Cao Jiangjun. In this way, the reputation of Cao as a man of immense wealth and power, willing to open his purse for his brothers, would spread throughout the military system of Guangdong.

In an era where whoever provides milk is your mother, what did it mean to earn a good name among the rank-and-file soldiery akin to "Timely Rain Brother Cao"... only the rebels themselves knew.

The money distributed and the men aboard the ships, the next event was the second highlight of the day's ceremony: live-fire target practice.

Target practice was an old trick, used before in Fujian. Since the effect was excellent, it was transplanted to White Goose Pond today.

Soon, led by the guide ship, six beautiful warships with White Sails unfurled formed a battle line, circling White Goose Pond regardless of Wind Direction. Next, under the dense gaze of the crowds on the shore, an old Fujian ship that had long been positioned in the lake's center began to suffer a relentless barrage of rapid cannon fire.

The Fujian ship quickly sank amidst the rapid cannonade, White Smoke, and flames. At that moment, the Onlookers on both shores, along with the young masters, courtesans, and madams in the nearby Painting Boats, simultaneously reached a climax, the crowd erupting in thunderous cheers... No one had ever witnessed such orderly and shocking Sound and Light Effects, let alone seen a Fujian ship sunk live before their eyes.

The Water Army soldiers standing on the Miscellaneous Boats also raised their weapons and cheered at that moment: they understood the trade well enough to know what ships that ignored Wind Direction signified.

After this showing off, the force was to officially Depart. This period was inevitably filled with leader speeches, confidential briefings, cannon salutes for sailing, and a whole Series of interactions between officials and troops that played out like a stage drama, giving the onlooking crowd their fill of spectacle. It was certain that Guangzhou City would not lack for conversation topics for some time to come.

After the main force fired cannons and set sail at noon, the vanguard Fast Fleet quickly surged past the middle section of the Pearl River, heading straight for the Pearl River Estuary. When the officers and soldiers at Tiger Gate Water Fort saw this scene, they promptly opened the water fort's gates and, according to the prior agreement, released twenty warships of varying sizes to join the main force that followed.

Thus, the Allied Forces, totaling nearly three thousand men and reaching one hundred and fifty ships, were formally assembled and began heading toward the Pearl River Estuary.

By dusk, the fleet had reached the waters between Lantau Island and Macau.

The first to be scared witless by this Tactical Maneuver were the Portuguese entrenched in Macau. Seeing the menacing large force led by the Fast Fleet, the several Square-rigged Ships in Macau Bay immediately raised sails and weighed anchor, while the newly completed Saint Paul's Fort from the previous year was now packed with Gunners of various skin tones, ready at any moment to defend their home.

Fortunately, after passing through the middle waters, the fleet then slanted away to the east. The Portuguese finally breathed a sigh of relief: they were finally going to teach the Pirate Liu Xiang to the east a lesson.

The Liu Xiang Group was equally panicked at this moment. The chief leaders were flustered and alarmed, crowding into the main tent demanding the Shopkeeper make a decision, a scene of Chaos as if doomsday had arrived.

Yet the Chaos was forcefully suppressed by Shopkeeper Liu: "The Official Army is targeting Zhu Cai Lao this time. They've come here to deceive the nearby eyes and ears. Everyone calm down, keep our brothers in line. After dark, the Official Army will change course."

Indeed, the true target of the Transmigrators' massive military strike this time was the other Pirate force entrenched west of the Pearl River Estuary: Zhu Cai Lao's Big Gang.

Historically, it was also in this year that the Pirate groups roaming Fujian and Guangdong, such as Zhu Cai Lao and Yang Liu and Yang Qi, would all be wiped out and absorbed by Zheng Zhilong one by one.

Though these two Pirate groups were not well-known, they were still among the major Pirate factions of the time. Among them, Yang Liu and Yang Qi had even been early members of Zheng Zhilong's Eighteen Zhi.

As for Shopkeeper Liu... seeing the Old Man's posture of sitting calmly on the fishing platform, it was clear that this gentleman had already reached some unspeakable agreement with a certain Power Base and was now just waiting for the agreement to be executed.

So the grand fleet would not be attacking Hong Kong Island this time. The reason the ships were heading east toward Hong Kong Island was to create a false impression for the nearby eyes and ears, to lull the opponent.

However, this maneuver was basically superfluous, because the grand fleet, traveling through the night, would easily overtake any Patrol Ship heading west to warn Zhu Cai Lao — if such a ship even existed.

After dark, the six Gunboats and ten Motor-Sail Transport Ships broke formation and assumed the role of navigators within the grand fleet.

At this point, under the command of light beacons and signalmen stationed on the Official Boats, the grand fleet had already turned around in the waters off Hong Kong, then proceeded from east to west, re-crossing the Pearl River Estuary along an outer sea route that Ming ships would not travel, heading straight along the continental coastline toward Luozhou, 150 Kilometers away.

Luozhou, known in later generations as Hailing Island, is the fourth-largest island in Guangdong, located off the southwestern coast of Yangjiang. It possesses several natural harbors, making it an excellent Pirate haven.