Chapter 576: The Official Residence Meeting, Part 2

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After exchanging a couple of performative lines with Mu Longcheng, Han Xiaobo noticed that everyone at the meeting was silently watching him. Considering his duties as Army Commander, he knew he couldn't avoid speaking plainly. He could only shake his head inwardly with resignation: people born in peacetime, after all — a few short years of living as masters hadn't been enough to wash away their shut-in natures.

The next moment, Han Xiaobo stood up. "Fine, fine, I'll say a few words. Well... to be honest, as far as the Battle of Dalinghe alone is concerned, there's no question that we just sit back and watch."

"On this matter, I know what some brothers are worried about. But the Old Man Chairman once said: revolution is not a dinner party."

Han Xiaobo tapped his fingers on the table. "What did we people come to the Ming Dynasty for — a Golden Week vacation? Wrong. To contend for the realm, to make revolution, to overturn heaven and change the earth!"

"Since it's revolution, it's kill or be killed, it's death and clan extermination, it's the destruction of nations and races — not playing house. So, watching the Ming's last field army be annihilated — there's nothing to be embarrassed about. We can absolutely say it out loud: good riddance!"

"Everyone please note: the Ming main force about to be destroyed beyond the passes is the Liaoxi Generals Clique, represented by Zu Dashou. As the largest native military strongman faction of the late Ming, beneficiaries of the Liao Pay, a vested interest group feeding on national taxes — in the foreseeable future, they are without a doubt our most stubborn enemy."

"Therefore, regarding the Dalinghe Campaign itself, the best response from our side is to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. There is no other choice."

Once Han Xiaobo laid it out in a few sentences, the atmosphere immediately livened up.

Yes, before this, there had indeed been a certain voice among the attendees suggesting that the troops could consider marching north again, to destroy the Jianzhou slaves while also altering the outcome of the Dalinghe Campaign and saving the Ming's effective strength.

Of course, this voice wasn't strong — just some shut-ins with no skin in the game, fantasizing about a perfect happy ending.

In light of this, the Army and Navy personnel had taken the floor early today, with Q&A and solemn declarations, afraid that some mess might erupt. After all, even a weak-sauce version was still parliamentary politics. Add to that the fact that transmigrators were few in number and a rare commodity, each one carrying weight — it would be bad if these military-illiterates stirred up some brainless agenda item.

After Han Xiaobo finished speaking, the majority of the neutrals, including the high-level people with genuine holistic thinking and the soy-sauce party, all understood: the military didn't want to go north and start a major war at this point in time. There, the tune had been called.

Since the lead singer didn't want a big production, the rest of the audience wasn't inclined to push it. Next, most of those present nodded in agreement: the battle happening beyond the passes did not affect the current social order within the Ming interior, so the majority of the transmigrators at the meeting didn't care.

Yet in all matters, there are always people who take things seriously.

Liang Yuhang, former General Manager of Tayouan Telecom Company, current Old Chief of Guangdong Telecom.

This man was, as mentioned earlier, a member of the military-enthusiast fan group. Upon finding that the grand northern strategy his fan group had previously put forward had been mercilessly mocked and rejected by the military, Comrade Liang Yuhang was immediately displeased. He spoke up with a face full of scorn: "Easy for you to say. Just ignore the outside of the passes and be done with it? Hmph, your esteemed department seems to have forgotten that the outside of the passes is connected to the inside, and the connection runs quite far! Commander Han, I ask you, if we don't pull troops up there, next comes Kong Youde's rebellion. Who's going to clean up that mess then?"

As soon as Liang Yuhang asked this, the people present immediately perked up with interest, all looking at Han Xiaobo, waiting for his explanation.

As Liang Yuhang said, the outside of the passes was connected to the inside. And the Battle of Dalinghe in the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign triggered a butterfly effect — the subsequent Wu Bridge Mutiny: Kong Youde's rebellion.

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In the Battle of Dalinghe, the Later Jin main army began besieging Dalinghe Fort on the first of September, not long after. Following this, during the three months Zu Dashou was trapped, the Ming Court organized six waves of relief forces, totaling over a hundred thousand men, to rescue Zu Dashou's forces.

However, alas, every wave of relief troops was intercepted and routed by the Later Jin army... I don't want casualty figures, I just want Tashan.

During these three agonizing months, the Ming Court actually did its utmost: mobilizing reinforcements from all directions and frantically sending them to the front line.

Then, the butterfly effect occurred: Kong Youde's forces rebelled.

Kong Youde, a late-Ming officer of the Dongjiang Garrison. Originally a miner from Tieling, after the Later Jin occupied Liaoshen during the Tianqi era, he defected to Mao Wenlong at Dongjiang Garrison.

Kong Youde was "valiant and fierce in battle, first to scale the walls in an assault, foremost among all officers," and rose through the ranks to Assistant Regional Commander. Mao Wenlong appreciated him, took him as an adopted grandson, and bestowed upon him the name Yongshi. Kong Youde, in turn, was deeply grateful for Mao Wenlong's recognition and patronage.

After this, Yuan Chonghuan executed Mao Wenlong without imperial edict, causing his old subordinates to slaughter each other. The Dongjiang Garrison scattered overnight, losing all cohesion. Kong Youde, originally a direct descendant of the Dongjiang Garrison, believed Mao Wenlong had been "wantonly butchered without cause," which left him privately and utterly disheartened with the court.

Later on, Kong Youde's forces left the fractured Dongjiang Garrison and defected to Sun Yuanhua, then serving as Ningyuan Administrator. Soon, as Sun Yuanhua rose to the position of Denglai Governor, Kong Youde's forces also relocated to Dengzhou, with Kong Youde himself appointed by Sun Yuanhua as Dengzhou Left Battalion Commander.

Next came the turning point.

To "save the soldier Zu Dashou," the court strictly ordered reinforcements from all regions. Sun Yuanhua, stationed at the anti-Jin front line in Dengzhou, naturally dared not delay and ordered Kong Youde's forces to cross the sea to the Liaodong Frontline.

At this point, the real drama arrived: a few days after setting sail, Kong Youde's forces "encountered a hurricane" at the Liao River Estuary and were forced to turn back.

To put it bluntly, Kong Youde's forces simply didn't want to go to Liaodong to die. Why? Because they didn't know what they would be fighting for.

This was not a case of fearing the enemy and refusing to advance.

Before this, most veterans of the Dongjiang Garrison like Kong Youde were actually Han victims of the Later Jin regime's expansion: their family members had been killed, and they bore a deep blood feud against the Jianzhou slaves.

So Kong Youde and the others gathered under Mao Wenlong's banner, isolated overseas, relying on beggar-like supplies, persistently waging Mobile Corps Commander warfare against the Later Jin, tying down the Later Jin's flank. In the end, they fought their way to the Zhenjiang Great Victory and carved out the Dongjiang Garrison.

To say that men like Kong Youde were cowards afraid of death, given that they fought the Later Jin cavalry year after year in such harsh conditions, simply didn't hold water.

However, by now, the mindset of Kong Youde's forces had long since changed. Imperial edict or not, Mao Wenlong had been killed by the court for nothing; because after the incident, Chongzhen and the entire court didn't make a single peep. Instead, they began forcefully dismembering the Dongjiang Garrison, not only halting pay and provisions but also parachuting in a Regional Commander.

This last move was especially vicious, stripping Kong Youde and the other Dongjiang loyalists of even the theoretical right to inherit the Dongjiang Garrison.

Thus, the remnants of the Dongjiang Garrison slaughtered each other and sought their own paths.

Now, the court wanted to send these homeless dogs beyond the passes to rescue their former rivals, the Guanning Army...

Old grudges unresolved, new grievances piled on. The court had yet to give any accounting for the ultimate betrayal of killing Mao Wenlong and scattering the Dongjiang Garrison, and now it was urging Kong Youde to go die in Liaodong.

One must ask: with their future cut off and living under someone else's roof, how could Kong Youde's forces be willing to go fight and die in Liaodong at this point? Fight and die for whom?

So, Kong Youde very tactfully expressed his desire to avoid battle: encountered a hurricane at the Liao River Estuary, I had no choice but to bring the troops back, can't go beyond the passes to save Zu Dashou.

Yet even as matters developed to this stage, Denglai Governor Sun Yuanhua was still living in the clouds, utterly failing to grasp the problem. He immediately issued another order, commanding Kong Youde's forces to select 800 elite cavalry and travel by land, rushing day and night to Liaodong to save the soldier Zu.

This time, Kong Youde's forces set out in silence.

Then, after an "epic march" that took "a full two months," Kong Youde's 800 cavalry finally completed their journey from Dengzhou to Wu Bridge.

Where is Wu Bridge?

Wu Bridge is at the border of Shandong and Hebei provinces. In other words, Kong Youde's 800 cavalry took a full two months to travel from Dengzhou in Shandong to the northern border of Shandong.

What happened next could be said to be a matter of course.

Kong Youde's forces, utterly devoid of fighting spirit, dragged their feet the whole way. At Wu Bridge, it happened that a soldier stole a chicken from the home of the gentry Wang Xiangchun.

Then the soldier was paraded through camp with arrows piercing his ears, then the soldier refused to submit and killed someone, then the gentry applied pressure, the soldier was beheaded as a public example, then mass indignation boiled over... by this point, whether Kong Youde wanted to rebel or not, he no longer had a choice.

Kong Youde's forces, filled with resentment toward the Ming Court and this world, now had no path back: forward was death in Liaodong, going back was beheading by the court.

And so Kong Youde's forces rebelled.

On the surface, it seemed a bloody case triggered by a single chicken, a coincidence. Yet three feet of ice is not frozen in a single day. If not this chicken today, it would have been a dog tomorrow — just a single spark, easily found anywhere.

Therefore, from the very moment Kong Youde set out, he was bound to rebel.

Kong Youde's rebellion lasted a full two years, from the end of 1631 all the way to April 1633.

During this period, Kong Youde's forces rallied large numbers of Dongjiang Garrison veterans — one call, a hundred responses. They successively occupied multiple cities in Denglai and other areas, captured numerous court officials including Sun Yuanhua, massacred a large number of Denglai's original inhabitants, and burned eastern Shandong into a barren wasteland.

The rebellion lasted until April 1633, when Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming's forces were besieged by the court's main army and finally broke out of Dengzhou. Then, the desperate rebel army along with over 10,000 family members, plus their fleet, Red Barbarian cannons, and craftsmen, all rendezvoused at the Yalu River Estuary with the Later Jin troops led by Jirgalang, Ajige, and Dodo.

Afterward, Kong Youde's forces were required to shave their heads, and the Denglai Rebellion thus came to an end.

After Kong Youde's forces surrendered to the Jin, regardless of everything else, merely the cutting-edge artillery application techniques they brought to the Later Jin greatly accelerated the Ming Dynasty's demise: from then on, the Later Jin army possessed the capability to use cannons in field battles.

And for the majority of transmigrators attending today's meeting, the imminent rebellion of Kong Youde's Forces was indeed a problem that had to be solved: in two years, Shandong would be thrown into utter chaos with countless deaths, and the social order would suffer catastrophic damage.

The rebellion of Kong Youde's Forces was something the Crossing Faction — which was frantically propping up the Great Ming and demanding that "stability overrides everything" — absolutely could not allow to happen.

So at this moment, the attendees straightened up one after another, fixed their eyes on Han Xiaobo, who was unwilling to send a large army north, and waited for him to produce a solution.