Chapter 1237: Welcome the Invaders, Welcome the Tax Collectors

Amid the orderly, resounding slogans, still carrying a touch of Shaanxi opera cadence, Sima Yong, a second-generation fubing soldier from Liuba County in Hanzhong Prefecture, and a dozen or so of his comrades strained at the oars, driving a sampan forward through the morning sea mist toward the beach of the Paradip subdivision of the Cuttack district in Orissa Province, under the rule of the Indian Timurid Empire.

The landing site Song Yaowen had chosen for the Shun expeditionary force was the delta of the Mahanadi River in Orissa Province — a piece of land so rich it practically oozed wealth!

As a rule, river-mouth deltas formed by silt carried down by a great river are extremely fertile, and this one was no exception. Ever since its conquest by Emperor Akbar more than a hundred years earlier, it had been the second wealthiest region in eastern India, surpassed only by Bengal. Scattered across the Mahanadi delta were more than two hundred jagir and zamindar holdings, each one a little purse for Emperor Aurangzeb!

And the purpose for which Sima Yong and his comrades had sailed across thousands of miles of ocean was to snatch the money inside those little purses. Though robbing was the ancestral trade of Sima Yong and his kind, this was, after all, their first time doing it — and robbing abroad at that — so they were understandably a bit nervous.

After all, India looked quite large on the map, and the foreigner Ahmad Jalali, who had been assigned to Sima Yong's fubing unit as guide and political instructor, had said that this Indian empire was at the height of its power, with strong soldiers and sturdy horses, and would not be easy to fight.

So it was best to land in secret and catch them completely off guard!

Li Jicheng and Song Yaowen had evidently planned it that way, which was why they dared not launch the landing in broad daylight, and even less dared follow the advice of their military advisor David Jones by sailing the warships straight into the Mahanadi in daylight — Jones's suggestion actually made sense, because fifty-five oar-and-sail warships and five thousand elite troops were enough to take the entire Cuttack district.

The forces the Indian Timurid Empire had stationed in all of Orissa Province were nowhere near sufficient to defeat them, and troops transferred from Bengal or from Jaipur and Golconda could not arrive overnight.

Given the reaction speed of the Indian Timurid Empire, no army would reach them within a month!

But Li Jicheng and Song Yaowen, guilty as thieves, still ordered the fleet to drift on the sea near the mouth of the Mahanadi for most of the day, waiting until midnight to creep close to the beach, and then, in the predawn hours, lowered fifty-five sampans and sent eight hundred dare-to-die troops armed with flintlocks and bayonets, along with a dozen or so foreign political instructors recruited from Chittagong, onto the shore.

With a muffled "thump," the sampan carrying Sima Yong was the first to strike the beach. While the sampan was still rocking, this young second-generation fubing soldier let out a great shout and, holding high his bayonet-fixed, loaded flintlock, leaped down from the prow — and with a splash, landed in waist-deep seawater!

The water depth completely exceeded Sima Yong's expectations. During training at Chittagong, they had always beached their sampans in broad daylight with good visibility, and the water at the tideline had come up only to their knees at most. Now, for some reason, it was past his waist.

Besides the unexpected depth, the wind and waves on the sea today were also rather strong.

Before Sima Yong could raise his flintlock high, a wave crashed over him, drenching him from head to toe... The "Dutch-made" flintlock he clutched in his hand, shipped all the way from Foshan, was soaked as well — who knew whether it would still fire?

More soldiers splashed into the waist-deep seawater one after another. Some, like Sima Yong, had not expected the water to be so deep and had not raised their flintlocks in time, so the waves that followed drenched them like drowned chickens, and their flintlocks became drowned guns as well. Others were luckier and raised their flintlocks high in time, then let out a shout: "Welcome the Roving King, pay no grain tax, divide the land, abolish the caste system..."

Shouting their slogans, these drowned-rat soldiers of the Shun began forging ahead through the morning sea mist, wading toward the beach.

Sima Yong shouted the slogans too, but he did not advance immediately. Instead, he sought out the foreigner named Ahmad Jalali.

The fellow was of Persian descent, around thirty years old, whose family had been trading in Bengal, Orissa, Arakan, and Burma for generations, and he had a real gift for languages. From childhood he could speak Persian, Urdu, and Odia, and later, because of the Shun's entry into Burma and the opening of the port of Syriam, he had also learned Chinese.

When Li Jicheng recruited translators and guides for the invasion of India, he had been the very first to sign up — this was a golden opportunity to make a fortune!

He had seen the Shun's military strength in Burma, Arakan, and Chittagong. An army like that invading India might not necessarily defeat Aurangzeb, but seizing a fat piece of territory in eastern India and making a killing was entirely feasible.

Moreover, these Shun people simply did not understand India at all — one look at the slogans they had come up with showed how amateurish they were!

"Pay no grain tax, divide the land, abolish the caste system"... If you don't let people pay grain tax, what are you even doing in India?

Dividing the land was even stranger. There was no private landownership here in India; what India had was a tax-farming system. The land of the Timurid Empire was carved up into tens of thousands of jagirs and zamindars — the jagirs had originally been tied to military service, somewhat like the fubing system or the knightly system, but by Aurangzeb's time they had all degenerated into tax-farming arrangements, just like the zamindars. What land was there to divide? Surely they couldn't do away with the tax-farmers? The Shun were an alien regime, strangers in India — without tax-farmers, how were they supposed to squeeze the place?

And then there was "abolish the caste system"... What was that supposed to accomplish? Pure nonsense! Only someone who understood absolutely nothing about India would think of such a thing!

So the Shun were complete amateurs who did not understand India at all, and as an old India hand, Ahmad Jalali felt it was his duty to help the Shun army invade India the right way!

India was a fine place, easy to invade — but you still couldn't just barge in recklessly!

"Old Jia, stick with me!"

Sima Yong was a platoon leader in the Shun's Long March fubing force. He had to keep an eye on this foreigner — couldn't let him run off, and preferably couldn't let the Indians kill him either.

"Yes, yes, let us go together and conquer India for the Shun Son of Heaven!" Jalali was a Persian who knew how to talk. Had Li Jicheng heard those words, they would have delighted him to the bottom of his heart.

Sima Yong, however, was not as optimistic as Jalali. He was wading through the water now, moving through a bank of sea mist, his heart in his throat, dreading that the beach might be lined with a great crowd of fully armed Indians!

Because the first wave of Shun troops landing numbered only a paltry eight hundred, and because the sky was so dark and the wind and waves at sea were rather strong, the sampans had scattered widely as they struck the beach. The eight hundred men had broken up into dozens of small squads, each forced to fight on its own. Many of them had flintlocks soaked by seawater and could only fight with bayonets. Worse still, none of the Shun officers and men in the landing wore armor — they had only cloth uniforms on their bodies. Never mind Indian firearms; even if they ran into Indian archers, the losses would be severe!

Before setting out, Sima Yong had been briefed that near the landing site there were numerous jagir holdings belonging to Rajput knights, and that a force of Rajput cavalry was stationed at Cuttack, the capital of Orissa Province.

In addition, at Paradip, less than fifteen li from the landing site, a fort had been built, garrisoned by a small number of local Orissa infantry.

If the Indians had spotted the landing fleet out at sea during the previous day, then the trouble would be enormous!

Bang! Bang!

Just as Sima Yong's heart was in his throat, two gunshots suddenly rang out ahead!

Could the Indians be opening fire?

Sima Yong's heart leaped into his mouth, but he did not dare slow his steps in the slightest — instead he quickened his pace forward.

If someone on the beach was firing at him, then the only thing he could do now was level his bayonet-fixed rifle and charge! His father, Sima Yu, had taught him: a fubing soldier advances and never retreats — even in death, he must die on the path of the attack!

Just as Sima Yong was so tense his body had gone stiff, he suddenly heard the foreigner behind him speaking in an extremely relaxed tone.

"Sima, don't be afraid. This is India!"