Chapter 507: Xiuyan

In Liaodong in the third month, the ice and snow melted. After the Little Ice Age winter passed, spring arrived once more. But for the Later Jin, who had been at peace all winter, it brought mixed joy and worry — the joy was that spring plowing could begin, with hopes for a spring wheat harvest in the ninth month; the worry was that Dengzhou Garrison had come again. Ming forces around Liaodong left their garrisons one after another, advancing toward central Liao. Apart from Gaizhou, reports of Dongjiang troops landing in other parts of Liaodong also kept reaching Shenyang.

Huang Taiji sat alone in the vast Grand Council Hall. Below him stood only Aobai. Aobai was the nephew of Fiongdon, one of the five founding ministers of the Later Jin — the foremost Baturu of the Manchus, known to later generations because of Lord Wei. At this time he was merely a Niru Janggin, but his bravery in battle, especially his outstanding performance in the Xuan–Da campaign, had already earned him Huang Taiji's deep regard, and he often attended upon Huang Taiji.

Huang Taiji gently rubbed his nose with his left hand while reading the memorial in his hand. When he finished, he slowly laid the memorial on his lap and raised his head to gaze at the empty Grand Council Hall before him. This hall had been built after he assumed the throne. He normally did not come here; he usually only came when convening the deliberative council. But today, after receiving word that the Ming army had come again, he suddenly felt like coming here to sit.

Above in this great hall, the Eight-Prince Council had become the four senior beile sitting together, and then Amin had been cut away, Manggūltai had died, Daišan had been forced to step back, until at last it became a place for him alone. Below, the ministers had likewise become thirty-two ministers. The Grand Council Hall had witnessed all his achievements since he assumed the Khanate — though of course it had not yet reached the ideal state in his heart. In his original plan, he was to formally proclaim himself emperor here, not merely a Great Khan, but clearly that hope was nowhere in sight now.

Coming here today, that sense of vast emptiness and solitude — which he had never felt before in the Grand Council Hall — quieted his heart. Sitting here, he finished reading all the memorials.

The directions from which the Ming army appeared were still much the same as last autumn. But Huang Taiji understood that, constrained by shortages of supplies and manpower, if the Later Jin could not successfully thwart this offensive, then Dongjiang Garrison and Dengzhou Garrison would gain a firm foothold in places like Xiuyan, Fenghuang City, and Kuandian. These places were all located in mountainous, strategically narrow terrain. In the past, Dongjiang Garrison had struggled to hold them; now with Dengzhou Garrison joining in, they had ample supplies and could quickly form solid defensive lines. The Later Jin would find it difficult to drive them out. If they were allowed to gather troops and supplies there, then next time, come autumn, the Ming army's launching areas would be two to three hundred li closer than this time, giving them the capacity for longer sustained operations.

Dengzhou Garrison's strength in southern Liao had been growing all along, while the Later Jin's had been weakening. Last year's sudden grain shortage had weakened the Later Jin to the point where they could no longer sustain a long-term siege of a place like Fuzhou. Huang Taiji could foresee that if they did not achieve a rapid victory in spring, then the autumn offensive would be a disaster for the Later Jin. In fact, he had seen how dire this year's situation would be as early as the end of last year, and so had insisted on training a Han army. But from his last inspection, although the ranks had taken shape, they still lacked the kind of spirit that Dengzhou Garrison possessed.

He glanced at the stack of memorials in his hand, sighed softly, and suddenly asked Aobai below him, "Aobai, what else does that Chen Xin of Dengzhou fear?"

Aobai had a broad face, large ears, and a tall, sturdy build, yet his eyes were quite lively. Compared to those ordinary White Armor Soldiers, he also seemed more courteous. He answered respectfully, "What he fears most should be the Great Khan."

"He fears me most?" Huang Taiji gave a bitter laugh. "If he feared me most, he wouldn't have abandoned comfortable Dengzhou and racked his brains to come to this godforsaken place in southern Liao, never content unless he fights me a few times a year. Don't imitate the manner of those Han officials. I want to hear the honest truth from your heart."

Aobai hesitated a moment, then said, "It should be his master — that is, the Ming Emperor."

Huang Taiji closed his eyes and reclined for a while, then suddenly laughed. "I too can only think of that man, though I know it may not be the case at all."

Aobai looked at Huang Taiji somewhat bewildered, not understanding what he meant. Huang Taiji had already stood up. His plump body was round and rolling, long since no longer the sturdy, agile figure that had once roamed the battlefields in his youth.

"Has the vanguard on the eastern route set out?"

"Both routes have set out. The White Armor Soldiers most familiar with that terrain have also set out."

Huang Taiji said quietly, "Let us go as well."

Aobai immediately went to open the main doors. Huang Taiji paused at the doorway and said to Aobai, "For this campaign, take fifty Bayara of the Plain Yellow Banner and go to Sahaliyan's Han army to supervise the battle. Execute anyone who retreats, without a single omission. Even if the entire Han army unit retreats, you are to execute them all."

Aobai answered crisply, "Je!"

Huang Taiji turned back to gaze at the roof of the Grand Council Hall, his lips moving slightly a few times, then turned his head and strode away…

Beacon fires burned everywhere across Liaodong. The Later Jin's spring plowing was once again disrupted. Armored soldiers from each banner, carrying what little marching rations their households could spare, set out — utterly lacking the eager, restless spirit of past campaigns. More terrifying than Dengzhou Garrison's offensive was that their prices remained stubbornly high. Liaodong had suffered a severe drought last year and the autumn harvest had failed, yet banner taxes grew heavier and heavier. Many households had their bondservants conscripted away to join the Han army.

After several rounds of attrition by Dengzhou Garrison and the baptism of grain prices skyrocketing before last year's autumn harvest, Han bondservants at the very bottom of society died in great numbers. In the ninth month of last year, the oxcarts carrying corpses out of Shenyang each day numbered in the hundreds, even causing a small-scale epidemic. The Later Jin's control over the grassroots was extremely tight — population movement between Niru required escorts at the rank of Boshoku or above. Huang Taiji had even issued a special decree stipulating that when nobles fell ill, one must not visit immediately but must wait several days, all spelled out very clearly, which prevented the epidemic from spreading in Shenyang. If Shenyang was already like this, conditions in the Liaodong countryside were even more severe. The death toll had long since become impossible to count. Sharing and eating the flesh of bondservants was a commonplace occurrence, as if they had returned to the great famine of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign.

After such a famine, ordinary bannermen who owned multiple bondservants were now few; the vast majority had only one. The non-professional military system made the burden on armored soldiers heavier and heavier. Many had to both till the land and perform corvée labor, and when going to war they had to provide their own marching rations, weapons, horses, and tents. Fighting the Dengzhou troops yielded almost nothing to gain; every battle only intensified the bannermen's burdens. Many ordinary bannermen, after harvesting the autumn grain, had to borrow from high and low banner officials just to buy overpriced grain to survive. In terms of the hardship of their lives, they were really no different from the common people inside the passes at the end of the Ming dynasty. The only difference was that they still possessed combat skills.

The greatest threat still came from the direction most convenient for projecting force: Gaizhou. Dengzhou's scout cavalry first appeared near Yulinpu. The two sides' scout cavalry moved back and forth between the two areas. The Jianzhou bandits' scouts discovered Dengzhou infantry all along the line from Fuzhou to Gaizhou. Because of the cover provided by the military forts and relay stations along the route, as well as interception and killing by Dengzhou's scout cavalry, the Jianzhou bandits' reconnaissance could not be very detailed. In the memorials reported to Huang Taiji and Yoto, the number of Dengzhou troops near Fuzhou ranged from ten thousand to thirty thousand. At the same time, Dengzhou naval vessels also appeared in the waters northwest of Gaizhou. The Later Jin dispatched roving cavalry and bondservants to guard the coastline. The Dengzhou navy used small boats to transfer infantry ashore for several night raids, making the entire area around Gaizhou jittery and panicked.

In the direction of Fenghuang City, the number of Dongjiang troops exceeded Shang Kexi's estimate. Many elderly people and women also came ashore with Shen Zhixiang's men. The total number exceeded five thousand, with about two thousand capable of combat. Around thirty percent had various types of armor, and the other soldiers all had regular weapons like swords and spears. Although this motley but numerous Dongjiang force was poorly trained, they still retained the blood-courage of Liao refugees seeking revenge. The Later Jin's small number of scouts at Fenghuang City could hardly withstand their military edge and slowly retreated toward Tongyuanbao.

Dongjiang Garrison Regional Commander Huang Long went toward the Kuandian area, preparing to raid and harass the Later Jin's old territory of Hetu Ala. This force numbered about one thousand combatants, with around two thousand followers, providing logistics along the way and digging up ginseng everywhere.

Meanwhile, Tang Wei was at this moment marching along the central route of the spring offensive. The fort city of Xiuyan lay ahead. What did not match Xiuyan's important strategic position in southern Liao was that although Xiuyan's city walls were large, they were extremely dilapidated (Note 1). Xiuyan belonged to Gaizhou Guard. Its original city walls had been damaged several times and could no longer serve as a suitable garrison location. In the original history, Jirgalang built a new Xiuyan city in the seventh year of the Tiancong reign, with a circumference of two li and three hundred four paces, primarily for military use, to control the route by which the coastal Dongjiang Garrison advanced north.

With the sudden rise of Dengzhou Garrison, the Later Jin's strength was tied down in southern Liao. After the loss of Jinzhou, Dengzhou Garrison continuously provided aid to the Dongjiang troops on Guanglu and Shicheng islands. The strategic situation at Xiuyan changed drastically. Xiuyan sat isolated among the mountains; Gaizhou and Fenghuang City could hardly come to its rescue quickly, and the distance from Lianshan Pass to Xiuyan was over three hundred li. Naturally, Jirgalang never got to carry out the construction. After the Battle of Lushun, it was abandoned by the Later Jin army, leaving only a severely damaged Xiuyan fort. Last winter, a small number of Later Jin White Armor Soldiers were left as a forward post. These Later Jin hunters held out through the winter. A few days ago, after Shang Kexi's forward outpost and Dengzhou special forces approached, the Later Jin troops completely withdrew.

From Huanggudao Fort to Xiuyan, many sections of the road were extremely muddy. Of the three pairs of cotton shoes Tang Wei had brought, two pairs were so filthy they no longer looked like shoes. He dared not wear the third pair as well, so now he was wearing this one pair covered in mud stains. This stretch of muddy road had delayed Zhong Laosi's plan by a day.

The winding marching column advanced like a long snake. A relay rider galloped along the column, passing orders to each company commander in turn. The company commanders passed the orders down level by level. Finally, Yuan Guzi said to the soldiers under his squad, "Set up camp along the west wall of the fort city."

Tang Wei twisted his collar, pulling it open a little at the neck. The muscles of his neck felt a moment of relief. He wore the standard-issue uniform, with a suit of chainmail underneath. The chainmail's skirt hung all the way down to his thighs, exposed outside his uniform — a rather comical sight.

Dengzhou Garrison itself was in a transition between cold and hot weapons, with all types of troops present. Chainmail was most suitable for light troops using cold weapons and had a wide range of uses. But for the new type of musketeers, their powder, bayonet, and flint pouches were all hung from their waist belts, while spare powder and flints were kept in the clothing pockets at the waist. Chainmail would hinder soldiers from accessing their spare powder, so it could only be worn under the uniform. Although wearing armor affected infantry mobility, when facing a cold-weapon opponent like the Later Jin, armor could still greatly reduce casualties from arrows, so no matter how ugly it looked, they still had to wear it.

Fortunately, during marches, the Ming helmet could be hung on the back of the pack; otherwise, the neck would be even more fatigued. After rolling his neck, Tang Wei glanced ahead. Yuan Guzi's Ming helmet was still worn on his head, the red triangular pennant bobbing atop it very conspicuous — he did not have the privilege of carrying his helmet on his back. Tang Wei could not help thinking to himself that being an officer wasn't such a good thing after all.

When they reached outside the west wall to set up camp, the column finally halted. After the usual formalities like forming ranks, Liu Liu gave the order to "rest and recover." Tang Wei hurriedly set down his pack, took out a coconut ladle from the outermost pocket, and gulped water noisily into his mouth.

Liu Liu, his voice hoarse, shouted loudly, "Everyone's been marching for days, always saying the roads in Liaodong are hard to travel. I think they're damn easy…"

Tang Wei pursed his lips. This Liu Liu was originally a Dongjiang soldier from Lushun. He had been to Xiuyan many times, so of course he found it easy. Liu Liu continued, "Reaching Xiuyan doesn't mean we're done. We arrived a day late. Tomorrow's rest is canceled. By Commander Zhong's order, our company marches toward Haizhou tomorrow, until we encounter the Jianzhou bandits' scout cavalry."

Note 1: No clear records of Xiuyan's Ming-dynasty city walls have been found. According to "Xiuyan Gazetteer, Volume Two," the new Xiuyan city was built by Jirgalang in the seventh year of the Tiancong reign, with a circumference of slightly over two li. North of the city stood a dilapidated earthen city with a circumference of about eight li, far larger in scale than the new city. By the Qianlong reign, only the north wall remained. It can only be speculated that this was the site of the Ming-dynasty Xiuyan city.