Chapter 184: Inspection

Four days later, Liu Minyou stood stunned before the encampment at Wendeng Camp — endless rows of shacks stretching as far as the eye could see, a clamor of voices rising everywhere.

Song Wenxian, who in any case paid no mind to civil affairs, thought more people was always better. Stroking his beard, he said smugly to Chen Xin, "My lord, your farm soldiers have just fallen into place."

Chen Xin's party passed through the shack district. Chen Xin went to the military camp, while Liu Minyou entered the old Wendeng Camp watchtower fort. After Zhou Hongmo left, the garrison commander's residence here had been vacated. Chen Xin only occupied the rear residence; the front public buildings were all given over to the civil administration system.

Liu Minyou hurried inside and rushed to Xu Yuanhua's door, only to hear him inside speaking loudly: "There are too many refugees right now, no time to deal with your shop front. Miss Wang, you'd best come back in a few days."

Liu Minyou peeked in from the doorway. Inside was a woman he had never seen before; from the back she looked rather graceful. From what they were discussing, she must have been sent by Li Ranzhu to Wendeng to prepare for expanding the general store. Liu Minyou assumed the woman would leave and was about to enter when the graceful Miss Wang suddenly slammed her hand on the table with a sharp crack. She said shrilly, "Surnamed Xu, you listen to this old lady good and proper. If you don't clear out the shop front in the old camp today, don't even think about doing anything else. You see I'm just a young woman and think you can brush me off. Others may fear you, Xu Yuanhua, but this old lady does not. Don't think I don't know you have two shops inside this old camp, both run by your relatives three times and four times removed, yet when it comes to the public shop front, you tell me there's none left. As if such a good deal exists."

This Miss Wang's voice was very loud. People in the surrounding rooms poked their heads out to look this way, but the moment they saw Liu Minyou at the door, they hastily pulled back. Inside, Xu Yuanhua quickly said to her, "Don't talk nonsense. Even if I have relatives running shops, those are private shops. The official shops in the old camp are mostly in the hands of those superior officers' relatives. Lord Chen has instructed they cannot be touched..."

"Bullshit." The woman loudly cut him off again. "That Zhou Tang — what was his original name, wasn't it Xu? Who doesn't know he's your relative? He had to fake being Zhou Hongmo's relative to seize an official shop. That warehouse should be for public use. Why should we have to spend silver to rent private shops? Others may not dare speak up, but this old lady will. If you've arranged the shops properly, this old lady won't bother with him. But if the shop front isn't settled, we'll go talk before Mr. Liu."

Xu Yuanhua, caught where it hurt, quickly lowered his voice. "Miss Wang, keep your voice down. No one said we wouldn't arrange it for you. Can't you see the countless refugees inside and outside the camp? Which of them isn't more urgent than your shop front?"

"Why are they more urgent than my shop front? I've been here over ten days, and you just keep putting it off day after day. No matter how many refugees there are, there should still be first come, first served. Elder Sister Li sent me to manage the Wendeng Camp shop front. If after half a month I still haven't even secured a shop, how do I report back? This old lady won't let anyone treat me like a fool. If you don't settle this today, tomorrow I'll go back to Weihai and tell everyone I meet that our shop was seized by you."

Xu Yuanhua gave a dry cough. He had not expected this woman to be so difficult, and because she was a woman, he hadn't even closed the door. Now many people outside had heard, and sooner or later it would reach Liu Minyou's ears. He reckoned that shop was ultimately lost. Hardening his heart, he decided to give up the shop and have that relative of his first set up a simple stall in the shack district — that could still make money.

"In that case, I'll go talk to that Zhou Tang first. But I'll state clearly in advance, that Zhou Tang is no relative of mine. Whether he moves or not is entirely up to him."

Miss Wang, seeing Xu Yuanhua relent, did not press her advantage unreasonably. She merely gave a slight curtsy and said, "Then this young woman thanks Lord Xu first. Within this Wendeng Camp watchtower fort, who would dare not give Lord Xu face? I don't believe that Zhou Tang has a head of diamond. It will surely work out."

Xu Yuanhua gave a snort, inwardly sighing at his bad luck. He had no idea how this woman had found out about Zhou Tang's affair. Shaking his head, he walked to the doorway and looked up to see Liu Minyou standing at the door with an unpleasant expression.

Xu Yuanhua stared blankly at Liu Minyou, his mouth mumbling, "Mr. Liu... sir, when did you return?"

Liu Minyou stared at him without speaking. Behind him, that Miss Wang studied the two of them curiously for a moment, then spoke to Liu Minyou: "Are you Mr. Liu?"

Only then did Liu Minyou take a careful look at her. She seemed to be a girl of eighteen or nineteen, average in looks — in any case, no "old lady." "Indeed. Miss, are you sent from the general store? From your accent, you sound like someone from Northern Zhili."

"Yes. This young woman's surname is Wang. My lord may just call me Wang Erya. I originally followed my parents doing business in Yongping. When the Jianzhou bandits invaded, this young woman was inside Shanhai Pass and could not leave the city. Only after the Tatars withdrew did I learn that everyone in my family was dead. This young woman only regrets not being a man, unable to kill the Jianzhou bandits. But when I heard Wendeng Camp could kill them, I sold the family property and took a ship here. It happened that Elder Sister Li was recruiting sales clerks, so I went."

Liu Minyou looked at her somewhat strangely. This woman spoke of her entire family dying without any trace of sorrow. He could not help asking, "Miss, your family all died? Do you not miss them?"

"Father and mother, eldest brother's whole family, a younger brother, and the entire family of my betrothed husband — the house was full of bloodstains. I waited in Yongping over a month and never saw any of them return. They must all be dead. Most likely they were buried by our Wendeng Camp in those big pits. I don't dwell on it anymore. What use is dwelling? My father taught me from childhood: do more, say less, and don't waste thought on useless things. Now I have only one plan — help Lord Chen earn more silver, so Lord Chen has silver to fight the Jianzhou bandits."

Liu Minyou nodded and asked Wang Erya, "How did you know that man was Mr. Xu's relative?"

Wang Erya shot a glance at Xu Yuanhua. "Mr. Liu, please don't take offense. This young woman went around to the official shops making inquiries. I only tricked them by saying I wanted to buy large quantities of commercial goods. Each one told me whose relative they were, telling me to buy with confidence from them. This Zhou Tang claimed to be Lord Xu's relative. Though perhaps that Zhou Tang was just falsely using Lord Xu's name — who knows."

Liu Minyou looked at Xu Yuanhua, whose forehead was beaded with sweat, and sighed. "Go. Handle this matter properly. When you return, report to me on the refugees and the wasteland."

Inside the walls of Wendeng Camp, a column of two hundred musketeers was marching in formation. Two drummers beat the pace, and an officer shouted commands loudly. The soldiers beside him repeated his orders at full volume so all soldiers could hear — serving as human amplifiers. After a series of formation changes, this unit faced a stone-wall target and deployed into a three-rank linear formation.

"Fire!"

The front rank's muskets fired a volley, then withdrew through the gaps to the rear rank to reload.

On the reviewing platform, Chen Xin noted that roughly thirty percent of the muskets still failed to fire. Beside him, Wang Zuoxiang explained, "My lord, this batch of flintlocks was made according to the original pattern. The new guns have already been much improved. Many parts have been reduced. Now the Weapons Research Office is in charge of them. They say with granulated powder the ignition rate is over seventy percent."

Chen Xin nodded and asked, "Has the firearms workshop been moved yet?"

"Replying to my lord, not yet. These days we've been rushing to produce weapons for the new recruits, as well as making these new guns and new cannons. At present only the research office has moved. The water power from the Baolong River here is far more abundant than at Weihai — it truly is more suitable than Weihai."

Chen Xin did not pursue the question. For now it was not a particularly urgent matter. Stern-faced, he watched the flintlock musketeer formation below, a look of dissatisfaction slowly appearing on his face. He lowered his head and picked up a few pages of documents to read. Behind him, the assembled officers of Wendeng Camp were all somewhat uneasy, especially Shi Pingli and Zhu Daichun, who were responsible for the flintlock musketeer trials. After Wendeng Camp had fully returned to Wendeng, all the combat troops had left Weihai; the defense there had been handed over entirely to the navy and the farm soldiers.

At last, at a command from that officer, the flintlock musketeers all marched in place and halted.

"This is the flintlock troop plan you wrote up?" Chen Xin fixed his gaze on Zhu Daichun and the others. Chen Xin was extremely stern before his officers. Especially after the imperial relief expedition, his authority had grown even greater. Zhu Daichun, somewhat lacking confidence, mumbled a few words. He himself thought this trial unit was passable; he did not know what Chen Xin was dissatisfied with.

Chen Xin leaned back in his chair and looked at their expressions, not particularly pleased inside. The flintlock was what he cared about most. He had not even looked at the bronze cannons, checking this mere two-hundred-man flintlock trial unit first — and even then, half of them were using dummy guns.

"So you just swapped the firearms unit's matchlocks for flintlocks and called it done? The tactics are still the old ones. The organization, spacing, and formation changes are still the old ones — that whole set of coordinating with shock troops."

Shi Pingli, Liu Pojun, and the others all kept their heads down and said nothing. They truly did not know where to begin.

"When I had you set up this trial unit, I made it clear it was to be an infantry system built around the flintlock as its core — not the old mixed battalion. Although the document covers every aspect, there's no breakthrough in tactics. Even the soldier spacing is still the old three chi. Why would a flintlock need three chi of space? Men could stand shoulder to shoulder. That would multiply firepower several times over. Having a new weapon doesn't mean you just swap out a gun. Take it back and rewrite it. Next time before you submit something like this, first ask yourselves: can it be better? If you can't write it, then have the non-commissioned officers and officers who participated in training offer their opinions together."

Chen Xin handed their document back to Zhu Daichun. His original intent had been to give these officers some training, but clearly it had not achieved the desired effect. Though he spoke sternly, Chen Xin also knew this was a new weapon — it was not so easy to develop a complete system of tactics, organization, and training. His own understanding of the flintlock came only from movies; real application was naturally far more complex than in films and needed gradual refinement. France had invented this type of snaphaunce flintlock, but it still took them over fifty years to form the first fully flintlock-equipped unit.

Although this time he was dissatisfied with the trial unit, he did not consider it urgent. It was foreseeable that bayonets and barrels could not be standardized in the short term. The current mixed formation of cold and hot weapons would simply have to be maintained. The bayonet was a small thing, but without it, flintlock musketeers could never be an independent combat force. So Chen Xin still had time to slowly explore and improve. However, he hoped to exploit the flintlock's advantages to greatly enhance the effect of firepower output.

Chen Xin had Pu Zhuang bring out books such as the Military Records and the Complete Military Essentials and hand them to Liu Pojun, telling him to keep them safe for now and later select some literate officers to compile them into teaching materials.

Chen Xin turned to look at Zhu Guobin and the others behind him and said flatly, "The imperial court has newly appointed an army supervisor, here to inspect the frontier on behalf of the Son of Heaven. He may soon come to our area to inspect military affairs. When he comes, we must receive him properly and display the strong military bearing of our Wendeng Camp. But he must not see the flintlocks or the farm soldiers. I'm giving you all advance notice here; further notice will come before his arrival."

The group of officers acknowledged. On the imperial relief expedition they had seen many high officials and had even glimpsed the Emperor from afar. Their experience was now vastly different from before, and they no longer treated ordinary officials with the same fearful reverence.

Song Wenxian said quietly to Chen Xin, "My lord, shall I make a trip to Dengzhou first?"

Chen Xin thought for a moment and said, "That would be good. If that Lü Zhi intends to come, you accompany him here and look after him well on the road. Tomorrow you'll go with me to Weihai. I'll give you the silver notes, and then you'll take a ship to Dengzhou."