Chapter 77: A Talent for Grand Generalship

"Damn it all, right before the New Year they dump a bunch of military households on me." Chen Xin, a man of Grand General talent, looked at the beggar-like military households before him and muttered under his breath to Liu Minyou. These were the twenty households Yang Yun had allocated to him — old and young, men and women alike, the only thing missing was able-bodied males. A textbook 613860 unit.

Liu Minyou was also scratching his head at the sight. Among these people, only some of the women could do a bit of work. Knowing Chen Xin's character, he certainly wouldn't be paying them monthly rations. But since the people had already been assigned, arranging for them had instead become a major burden. Chen Xin hadn't considered this when he asked for people; he had assumed every household would have at least one adult male. The current result was probably that every five-guarantee household in Weihaiwei had been gathered and sent here.

Liu Minyou thought for a long time but had no ideas. He was kind-hearted, but after coming to the Ming Dynasty he had seen so many suffering people that he was unwilling to swallow this silent loss. He leaned close to Chen Xin's ear and said, "Director Chen, is there a three-day return policy?"

Chen Xin replied irritably, "These people were only pried out of Yang Yun because Song Wenxian pressured him. Anyway, you're in charge of civil affairs — see if you can make do."

Liu Minyou looked at the cooking smoke rising from distant Mazidun and suddenly said, "With your shrewdness, Director Chen, don't let immediate interests cloud your vision. These people are the poorest of the poor. If they can live good lives, what will the poor people of Weihaiwei and the surrounding areas think?"

"You mean?"

"Brand value."

Chen Xin took a slow breath and sighed, "Right now, that's the only way to look at it. But there's no solution for their housing — they'll have to stay in the shacks for now. We can't find any craftsmen during the New Year, so we'll build after the new year. Also, we initially forgot to account for the naval barracks. The naval barracks will be built by the harbor — we'll build them together then."

Liu Minyou said with a pang of sympathy, "Looking at them, what if they freeze to death in those shacks?"

"It's fine. They've suffered through so many years already; a little more time won't matter. Just make sure they eat their fill every day. But you need to put them to work."

Liu Minyou stared at the vast stretch of abandoned farmland before him. There were some irrigation ditches among it, but they had already been washed out by rain or clogged with mud. "Then have them repair the waterworks."

"I don't care how, just don't let them sit idle."

Liu Minyou rolled his eyes. With a mountain of civil affairs tasks, how could anyone be idle? He had arranged for the logistics team to assist the house-builders as laborers, reducing some labor costs. The women were organized to do his old trade — buying cloth and cotton to make new New Year's clothes for everyone, and also preparing to make a batch of spring and summer uniforms for the army, to satisfy what Chen Xin called a sense of honor.

Now that this group had arrived, it was the perfect time to repair the waterworks. Even with poor labor capacity, they could at least make a start. This abandoned land was quite far from Qincun River, and the route passed through a patch of cultivated land at Mazidun — a matter that still needed to be discussed with Gong Pingkang. He looked again at the group of beggars before him, all staring back at him with numb expressions. Remembering how they had been tossed around like commodities, he found them truly pitiful.

Liu Minyou cleared his throat and called over two soldiers from the logistics team, then led this group off toward the shack area. He very much wanted to let them live in brick houses too, but given the current constraints, Chen Xin certainly wouldn't shortchange the trackers to give preferential treatment to these useless people.

From distant Mazidun came the crackle of firecrackers. Liu Minyou said to Chen Xin, "Our first Spring Festival in the Great Ming. Any thoughts?"

"Thoughts? Hmm, no Spring Festival travel rush to deal with."

With that, Chen Xin headed up the hillside.

Liu Minyou called after him, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to have someone set off firecrackers too!"

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"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

A haze of gunpowder smoke lingered at the edge of the woods. Ten arquebusiers had just finished firing a volley toward the tree line.

Zhu Guobin shouted, "Remove the matchcord. Squad leaders, check the embers."...

The ten arquebusiers simultaneously removed their matchcords and held them between the fingers of their left hands.

"Clear the touchhole!"

The arquebusiers again used a cleaning cloth in unison to wipe the touchhole clean, to prevent any residual sparks from igniting the new priming powder.

"Stand the gun upright."

"Take the powder flask."

"Remove the flask cap."

"Pour the propellant charge."

"Open the shot pouch."

"Load the ball."

"Draw the ramrod."

"Ram it firm."

"Return the ramrod."

"Level the gun."

"Take the priming flask."

"Open the flask cap."

"Pour the priming powder."

"Close the touchhole cover."

"Close the flask cap."

"Check the matchcord."

Zhu Guobin issued command after command, and the arquebusiers executed them in neat unison according to the orders. The moment anyone made a wrong move, Hai Gouzi and the squad leader beside them would go up and beat them with a stick. Everyone tensely tried to recall the motions.

After the incident with Zhong Laosi that day, everyone knew the instructors were not to be trifled with. Zhong Laosi had not only been beaten with the military rod so badly he was bedridden for three days, but also had a full tael of silver deducted — and even now he still came every day to wash their chamber pots. Hai Gouzi, on the other hand, had only been fined a bit of silver. So now their only option was to find ways not to make mistakes. Although the training intensity was very high, they had no worries about food and clothing every day, and at least one meal with meat daily. They were all people long accustomed to hardship and suffering, and none of them yet felt this was worse than before.

Watching their orderly movements, Chen Xin's mood finally improved somewhat. He had broken down the movements and set specific requirements for each one — precisely to standardize the training and turn these soldiers into automatons. The daily drill training and beatings had already instilled in them a decent degree of discipline. Now they were being required to memorize the military code clauses and the drill manuals for their respective weapons.

He set different training objectives according to different troop types. By continuously refining the drill manuals, he could eventually produce soldiers like an assembly line. In Europe during this same period, the Maurice military reforms had already been completed, and the long-range striking power of standing armies had shifted primarily to firearms. One major contribution of the Maurice reforms was the first establishment of standardized training drill manuals — both things that Chen Xin was now doing.

Based on his own understanding, he had reset the training objectives. The assessment standard for arquebusiers was not how accurately they shot, but the degree of standardization in their movements and their rate of fire. Pursuing accuracy with the matchlock smoothbore guns of this era was no different from climbing a tree to catch fish. Although Qi Jiguang's training standard was hitting a man-shaped target at one hundred paces, Chen Xin had abandoned that goal after multiple tests. He did not know whether anyone could actually meet the standard Qi Jiguang had set; he only trusted the results of his own tests. Perhaps Qi Jiguang's arquebuses really were made better.

Chen Xin's goal was to have the arquebusiers fire as many projectiles as possible to create greater density. Ming Dynasty arquebuses, if the propellant charge was up to standard and the barrel was up to standard, could inflict lethal damage on unarmored targets at one hundred paces. But in most cases, the propellant charges were substandard, and the shot rarely fit the bore properly. During operation, there were problems such as over-ramming the powder, too much or too little powder, clogged touchholes, and poor maintenance — so they often fell short of bow and arrow range. Moreover, due to corruption at every level of officialdom, less and less material was used, and the barrel walls were extremely thin, causing the guns to burst the moment they were used, which made soldiers afraid to use them. In Dengzhou, he had asked Master Zhong for three hundred catties of gunpowder — he had no idea whether it was cannon powder or musket powder (Note 1). After several tests, one gun had burst, and he had only managed to set the charge standard after great difficulty. If the gunpowder formula used next time was different, it would need to be changed again. So producing their own gunpowder was also necessary.

Fortunately, Tang Zuoxiang had produced three new firelocks, just enough to fully equip ten combat soldiers. One squad, plus the squad leader and the cook, made twelve men. Add Zhu Guobin the archer, and that was the entirety of Chen Xin's long-range striking force. But it was still weak. Qi Jiguang's long-range striking methods had been far more diverse, with firearm equipment levels approaching fifty percent. In terms of the composition of long-range striking methods: arquebuses at one hundred paces, fire arrows at eighty paces, bows at fifty paces — the closer the enemy got, the more attacks they suffered, allowing maximum weakening of the enemy before hand-to-hand combat. Chen Xin's current setup, by contrast, seemed monotonous and lacking in firepower....

At that moment, the arquebusiers finished their second round of firing. At the command, the entire unit stood at attention with guns planted. Satisfied, Chen Xin called Zhu Guobin over.

"Training Officer Zhu."

"My lord." Zhu Guobin ran over, came to a halt in the standardized stance Chen Xin had set, placed his right hand flat against his chest, and gave a military salute. Chen Xin had already abolished the kneeling salute in the army. He believed that with a system of monthly pay distribution, coupled with the strict constraints of military law, there was no need for such kneeling to enhance his own authority.

"The arquebusier training is good. Inspection passed. Carry on."

"Yes, my lord."

Chen Xin returned the salute, then turned and went to the other side of the hill to inspect the assault squad's drill. At present, the firearms squad and the assault squad were still not proficient and had not conducted joint training; they were training separately.

When he arrived with Hai Gouzi, the four assault squads were drilling offensive and defensive transitions in the Mandarin Duck formation under Dai Zhenggang's leadership. Chen Xin's position was slightly elevated, giving him a clear view of the formation changes. He had carefully read the New Treatise on Military Efficiency and the Record of Military Training, and had personally drawn out the formations, but this was the first time he was watching them live on the field.

As he watched, he suddenly recalled a tactic from later times. He observed a moment longer — though not entirely the same, the underlying concept was identical. Gazing back across the decades at that extraordinary man, he could not help but sigh in admiration: "Qi Shaobao was truly a man of great generalship."

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Note 1: In the late Ming texts *Xifa Shenji* and *Binglu*, both categorize gunpowder formulas by use — the content is extensive and will be discussed in detail later.