Chapter 199: Guan Dadi

The food-shop proprietor stared coldly at the several Liaodong soldiers. The other patrons in the shop stirred up a clamor, most speaking in the local Dengzhou accent, and for the most part they shouted things like "get lost."

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa in a low voice, "How do you know they are Liaodong soldiers?"

"My lord, most of the Liaodong soldiers only followed Lord Sun to Dengzhou last year. They were originally Dongjiang troops, and their uniforms are different from those of the naval battalions, the regular troops, and the mobile corps."

Chen Xin nodded. Zhou Shifa went on, "Originally there were not many formed Liaodong units in Dengzhou. There were some Liaodong men recruited in the Water City, but at present most of these Dongjiang soldiers are in the personal battalion, while the regular battalion and mobile battalion are mostly Shandong troops and southern troops."

Recently, quite a few soldiers from the personal battalion had also deserted to Wendeng Camp. The Intelligence Bureau had first learned about Dengzhou's military strength from the mouths of these deserters, and it had a fairly thorough grasp of the troop composition of each battalion.

The several Liaodong soldiers stood at the doorway in extreme embarrassment. One of them, his face flushed red, said, "I've got silver. Why the hell won't you let us eat?"

A patron shouted, "Bah! Your silver is all our Dengzhou silver. You Liaodong folk can't beat the Tatars, so you come and snatch the rice bowls of us Dengzhou commoners, and you still have the nerve to say you've got silver."

That Liaodong soldier argued, "We're not refugees. Lord Kong brought us here. We have our own military pay…"

Several patrons, not the least bit afraid of these soldiers, went on cursing, "Kong Youde doesn't amount to shit. A few days ago, when Young Master Chen's family was chasing down runaway bondservants, it was right in your personal battalion, and Kong Youde still had to hand them over obediently."

Zhou Shifa said quietly to Chen Xin, "My lord, the Tang family and the Chen family are both major local clans, one in the east of the city and one in the west. They have many members and great influence, and quite a few of their kinsmen hold office. No one locally dares to provoke them."

Chen Xin was also unwilling to provoke these great clans at the moment. Wendeng had similar great clans of its own, branching out locally with many members and great influence. Ordinary commoners could only back down before them, and even the county magistrate mostly had to coax them with kind words. However, in Wendeng not many of them held office, so they were not too overbearing. Moreover, Wendeng Camp had even more people and greater influence, so the two sides simply ignored each other. Thus, it was only to be expected that Kong Youde, newly arrived, would back down in the face of these local prominent clans.

The proprietor waved his hand at the several Liaodong soldiers and said, "Gentlemen, this is a shop of the Tang family. The proprietor has said that Liaodong soldiers are not to be allowed in to eat. Besides, the honored patrons inside are also unwilling to share the room with you. Please go back."

The proprietor was still kind-hearted and spoke much more politely than those patrons. The several Dongjiang soldiers finally had a way to save face. They glared hatefully at those patrons, turned around unwillingly, and left amid the jeering of the patrons at the several tables in the shop.

Song Wenxian shook his head and said, "The Liaodong people are truly unwelcome in Dengzhou. When they first came in the early years, the imperial court's resettlement efforts were feeble. These Liaodong people had no means of livelihood and had to resort to stealing and robbing everywhere. They were regarded by the local Dengzhou people as the lowest scum. Other, more honest Liaodong people made a living by selling their labor nearby. Their wages were low and they had no backing, so they were very convenient to use. Many shop proprietors dismissed the locals and turned to hiring Liaodong people, which led to a great deal of conflict with the locals. Later, there were even people like Yang Guodong who openly robbed the Liaodong refugees as they fled. Those who didn't hand over silver were sold into slavery to the gentry all over Shandong."

Chen Xin gave a cold chuckle. All this was due to the imperial court's feeble response, letting these Liaodong people climb out of a sea of bitterness only to fall into a pit of fire. Coupled with Mao Wenlong being killed without authorization by Yuan Chonghuan, the Liaodong people and soldiers now both hated the Later Jin and had not a shred of loyalty to the imperial court. The reason Kong Youde and others could rally a hundred followers with a single call in Dengzhou was that the soil for unrest was right here.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa, "Have you grasped the military strength of Dengzhou?"

Zhou Shifa said to Chen Xin, "The authorized troop strength of Dengzhou's regular troops, mobile corps, and personal troops totals just over twenty thousand. Dongjiang is around twenty thousand. Add our Wendeng Camp's thirty-five hundred, and the total exceeds forty thousand. By rights, there should be around twenty thousand near Dengzhou City. According to our verification among deserters, the actual troops number less than eight thousand. More than half the payroll is being embezzled."…

At that moment, the waiter came over to serve the dishes. Chen Xin and the others all stopped talking. Once the shop assistant had left, the few of them ate and drank a little. Chen Xin was not the least bit surprised by Dengzhou's troop strength. Embezzling half the payroll was not even considered much; at worst, some embezzled eighty percent. Although Sun Yuanhua was somewhat more enterprising than the average official, he could not, after all, act in a way that set him apart in officialdom. If he did, he would not remain an official for long.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa, "What is the actual number of troops in the personal battalion?"

"The personal battalion, including auxiliary troops, numbers fewer than three thousand. The elite within it are the Dongjiang soldiers. Nearly half the pay of Kong Youde and the others' troops must be given as tribute to their superior officers, so by the time it reaches them it is already short by a chunk. Then they embezzle a portion themselves. In addition, Kong Youde personally maintains over three hundred retainers, all of whom can draw full pay. The remaining ordinary personal troops can only get a few mace of silver a month, just enough to eat."

The patrons around them talked and laughed loudly, still discussing the Liaodong soldiers from earlier, their words full of contempt. Ever since Wendeng Camp had become famous in a single battle the previous year, over twenty thousand Liaodong people had gone to Wendeng to seek refuge, but there were still many Liaodong people near Dengzhou, and the tensions among the common people had not been resolved by much.

Chen Xin did not take the ordinary Liaodong soldiers of the personal battalion to heart. What concerned him were the red-barbarian cannons. Without qualified red-barbarian gunners and cannon-making knowledge, if the Later Jin were left to figure things out on their own, their siege capability would not make substantial progress. Xu Guangqi had actively introduced cannons and the Franks, but he had repeatedly stressed that the red-barbarian cannons must not fall into the hands of the Jianzhou bandits, especially the methods of sighting and manufacture. He had once said, "Firearms are our strength; do not share them with the enemy. If the methods of the Western great cannon are obtained by the enemy, from then on, there will be no other technique to resist the rebels, to defeat the rebels… If it cannot be done entirely according to my methods, it is better to set them aside unused; there will be a time to use them later… Should things go wrong by one ten-thousandth, to the point of being beyond remedy, then my humble heart of serving the country will instead become the crime of harming the country." As fate would have it, what he feared came to pass. The Dengzhou army, which he regarded as the hope for a strong military, actually mutinied, and in the end took the red-barbarian cannons, the gunners, and the cannon-making craftsmen and all defected to the Later Jin, allowing the Jianzhou bandits to overnight possess the most powerful artillery of the era. This was also one of the most pernicious consequences caused by Kong Youde in history.

Chen Xin asked Zhou Shifa, "Where are those Franks after they arrived?"

"They are precisely training the personal battalion, including Kong Youde's unit. Lord Sun also often personally drills the artillery troops. The personal battalion has established specialized posts such as Firearms Squad Commander, Firearms Garrison Commander, and Firearms Company Commander. It is equipped with a large number of two-wheeled carts and gun carriages, has over twenty red-barbarian cannons, and countless other firearms. Apart from the officers' and generals' retainers, who are cavalry, most of the others use firearms."

Chen Xin stared at the tabletop and said to Zhou Shifa, "The Intelligence Bureau has another important task. All gunners who know how to make cannons and use sighting methods must be monitored. Around the barracks where the gunners are located, set up at least two observation points."

Zhou Shifa hurriedly noted it down again. Chen Xin held his teacup and began to ponder in his mind. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, the largest campaign would be Dalinghe, followed by the Dengzhou Mutiny. He did not know the timing of either event, nor how long they would last. The only certainty was that the Battle of Dalinghe came first, and the Dengzhou Mutiny after. As for those gunners, he would rather kill them than give them a chance to flee to the Later Jin.

Chen Xin only hoped it could be a little later, allowing him to finish his money-making affairs first. At present, Dalinghe had not yet begun to be built, nor had he heard of anyone putting forward this proposal. Chen Xin himself had once looked at the location of Dalinghe City on a map. This place had been built during Sun Chengzong's previous term as Grand Coordinator, and after Gao Di abandoned it, it was torn down by the Later Jin troops. Now that Sun Chengzong had come out of retirement again, it was estimated that he hoped to use Dalinghe to shield Jinzhou, in order to put pressure on the Later Jin and prevent them from bypassing the passes and entering the interior again. In Chen Xin's view, if the Ming army possessed a certain degree of field combat strength, this strategy would not be a problem. But given the current situation where the Ming army fled at the mere sight of the enemy, it was not appropriate.

He turned his head to look at the book-bridge over the river, his fingers tapping incessantly on the table as he calculated the military strength he needed, including the farmer-soldiers.

On the parade ground of Wendeng Camp's Number Three Fort, the farmer-soldiers were dispersing. Guan Dadi was once again kept behind by Zhong Laosi and subjected to a torrent of blistering abuse, interspersed with beatings from a military club. …

"Your mother! Are all you Guan family folk this stupid? There are only a few types of bugle calls in total, and they're so different from each other, yet you still get them wrong. Out of over two hundred men, you're the only one who still can't. If you really go into battle and move wrong because you misheard, the military judge can shoot you dead with one shot. If not for the sake of Guan Dadi's face, I'd cleave you in two with one stroke of my blade."

Spittle flew from Zhong Laosi's mouth, spraying all over Guan Dadi's face. After a round of beating, he immediately had the bugler come over and sound the calls, making this most stupid Guan Dadi continue to familiarize himself. The bugler, looking thoroughly displeased, took a brass bugle and sounded different calls. Each time he sounded one, Zhong Laosi would explain it once. After another quarter-hour of this torment, Guan Dadi finally made some progress, and only then did Zhong Laosi let him go.

Guan Dadi saluted and left, rubbing his shoulders and arms incessantly along the way. Although he was always terrified every time he came to the parade ground, afraid of losing face by doing something wrong, the five mace of silver each month forced him to persevere. After Guan Dadi died in battle, their family had received Guan Dadi's pension of thirty taels, plus the military pay Guan Dadi had saved and the rewards for killing the enemy, totaling over sixty taels of silver. But after all, they had lost their greatest economic pillar. Guan Dadi was the eldest of the four siblings. He used this money to build a brick-and-tile house, letting the whole family move in, which used up nearly thirty taels of silver. Not much was left. Immediately after, he still had to save up betrothal gifts for his younger brother and prepare a dowry for his younger sister. He didn't even have time to consider his own marriage. So this five mace of silver each month was very important to him. Especially now that the land had been distributed, they, as fort households, were not allowed to go out freely to work, and there were not many ways to earn money.

He walked to the intersection of the fort, where a corpse and a human head were hanging. The person's crimes were also posted on the tree trunk. Guan Dadi could not read, but he had heard the fort chief say that this person was a spy for the Jianzhou bandits and had been beheaded and displayed to the public. The fort chief had also specially held a meeting to explain that everyone must always be on the lookout for people acting suspiciously.

Guan Dadi raised his eyes and glanced at it. Before the beheading, the person's hair had also been shaved into the small queue of the Tatars. It was said that this way, he would be unable to recognize his ancestors. Guan Dadi spat lightly in the direction of the corpse.

After he entered the fort, the environment inside lightened his mood a little. The fort was laid out in the standard cross-street structure. Several alleys branched off on either side of the main street, also straight and level. Basically, each tithing occupied one alley. Inside, there were both tile-roofed houses and thatched huts. The streets were very clean, paved with bluestone slabs. Open drains had been built along the roadsides to prevent waterlogging. There was none of the feces and garbage that littered the ground everywhere else. This was thanks to the strict punishments meted out by the instructors and the fort chief, because the civil affairs department and the military department assessed them on cleanliness just the same. Guan Dadi walked down the street, took out his waist token and silver, and went to the general store to buy grain.

A long queue had formed in front of the grain shop. Most were farmer-soldiers who had come to buy grain only after finishing training. Everyone queued up very conscientiously. This was not because they had high quality, but because they had been taught by the sticks of the instructors and the fort chief. Now, queuing had become a habit in their lives.

When his turn came, the female shop assistant was already exhausted and looked thoroughly impatient. Guan Dadi said cautiously, "I'll collect three days' worth…"

The woman looked at his waist token, sized him up, and cut him off impatiently, "Collect this month's all at once. What's this, collecting every two or three days? If all five hundred-plus households were like you, how much extra work would that add? We have a ton of things to do here. Collect all the remaining grain for the second month at once. For the third and fourth months, also collect it all at once. In the fifth month, when you harvest your own grain, you can't collect rations anymore."

Guan Dadi was an honest man. He agreed with an apologetic smile. The female shop assistant canceled out all of his family's rations for the second month in the register. She and another shop assistant weighed a large sack of grain and placed it on the counter. Although these two were women, they did physical labor in the shop every day and looked very strong.

Guan Dadi hoisted the grain onto his shoulder and walked back to his home. His home was a brick-and-tile house with a courtyard. There were only about a dozen such households in his tithing, most of whom had family members in the army or the workshops. But whenever he remembered that it had been bought with his younger brother's life, his heart grew heavy again. …

After he pushed open the door and entered, his younger sister happened to be feeding the chickens in the courtyard. She hurried over to take the grain. The family's yellow dog came up affectionately and rubbed against his feet. Guan Dadi happily petted the dog. His mother came out of the kitchen and immediately came up, holding Guan Dadi's face to inspect it.

His mother looked for a moment and said, "Hmm, today's not bad. You didn't get slapped."

His little sister giggled at the side. Guan Dadi pushed away his mother's hand and went into the main room himself. Using a firewood knife, he carved a notch on the door threshold. There were already several knife marks carved there. He used this method to keep accounts, to see how much military pay he had received.

His mother came over and said with a simple laugh, "So, uh, someone came today to propose to your sister. I didn't take a fancy to them. It's a newly arrived, down-and-out household. That young lad is quite strapping, but his family is a bit poor. They're still living in a shack. They're probably just counting on our little sister's dowry."

Guan Dadi sat down glumly on the door threshold and did not respond. His mother continued, "I was thinking, when the Yang family next door took a daughter-in-law, the dowry they gave was said to be over ten taels. That daughter-in-law's father works in the workshop, and that daughter-in-law doesn't suffer any hardship at home. Auntie Yang never says a harsh word. Let's not skimp on our little sister's dowry either. And your younger brother, it's just a matter of a year or two. I won't let him go to the fields. I'll let him go to the literacy class, and later he can enter the workshop, or the general store as an accountant. Your brother is smarter than you and your second brother. He's already entered the accounting class and can do sums, not like you scratching marks. We still need to save more silver. Don't be so stupid. Didn't your second brother originally fight his way from a fort household into the combat battalion? The monthly pay there is much higher."

After his mother finished her rambling, she wiped her mouth with her apron and went back to the kitchen. Guan Dadi stood up, closed the door, and collapsed onto the bed. The places where he had been beaten still ached dully. He looked at the ceiling and murmured, "Silver, younger brother, younger sister. When will Mom ever think of finding me a wife?"