Chapter 159: Why Has the Prince of Dai Come?

By the fifth month of the lunar calendar, midsummer was already approaching. Although the weather at the coastal Dagukou was cool, it rained frequently. In the evening, a summer downpour came pouring down like a basin overturned, drenching everything around into an indistinct blur, as if the entire land of Youyan were shrouded in a violent storm.

And this scene of wind and rain shrouding the land also mirrored the complex situation in the Northern Metropolitan Region. The Ming had not yet fallen, the Shun still survived, and the Qing still coyly refused to cast off their fig leaf. No one knew who would become master of the land of Yan after a storm of blood and wind!

More than ten li west of Dagukou city, a pontoon bridge spanning the north and south banks of the Wei River had been erected at some unknown time. The bridge was assembled from many grain-transport boats, nailed together with sturdy planks, and the western ends of the boats were smeared with a great deal of mud as fireproofing.

At both the north and south ends of the pontoon bridge, a bridgehead fort had been built. Both were wooden forts, but extremely sturdy, and each fort was guarded by one banner of troops from the Hard-Working New Army. The officer commanding the northern fort was a former junior officer of the original Tianjin garrison army who had joined the New Army after the long-street bloody battle at Tianjin.

This junior officer, named Yu Daren, came from a hereditary military household of the Tianjin Guard. His ancestors were from Hunan, and in the early Ming they had fought their way north with the northern expedition army all the way to the land of Yan, earning a hereditary Chiliarch's post. But by Yu Daren's generation the family had completely declined, and he had not inherited any office. Instead, he abandoned the military for the civil path, hoping to earn an examination degree. Yet after ten years of examinations, he had not even passed the xiucai! In the end he had no choice but to join the army, selling his strength and labor with the sturdy frame passed down from his ancestors. But that too had not gone well; now nearly forty, he had only just managed to become a banner commander, with the rank of Marshal's Office Squad Leader, commanding some eighty-odd brothers.

But he still treasured this post greatly, because the officers of the Hard-Working New Army truly received a monthly pay of four taels of silver, and not a single fen was shorted!

The Crown Prince ran things strictly. When pay was issued, officials from the Military Administration Guard and officers from the division command headquarters went down to the battalions together, and then called out names publicly to distribute the pay.

Besides full pay, the food was also good — rice and flour in abundance, and meat or fish every few days. An ordinary soldier's rations could match those of the household retainers of the former Regional Commander Cao.

Moreover, over in Jiangnan there were paddy fields waiting for the officers and men of the New Army to claim! Yu Daren was only a Squad Leader, yet he too had eighty mu of granted land, and paddy fields in Jiangnan at that. Once he got to Jiangnan, damn it, he would have land and a house, and then he would find himself a wife — she had to be under eighteen, and a virgin at that!

This life, damn it, had real prospects! Life had prospects, but military discipline was truly severe!

"Military law is like a mountain" was no mere saying in the Hard-Working New Army. Within the New Army, not only did officers at every level enforce discipline, but there was also an independent military justice and battle-supervision system! The top layer of this system was the Military Justice Division directly subordinate to the Grand Marshal's Office of the Army Pacification Commissioner; the middle layer was the military justice offices established in each division of the New Army; and the base layer was the military judges assigned at the brigade and battalion levels. The military justice offices and military judges were not subordinates of the division commanders, brigade commanders, or battalion commanders, but were under the jurisdiction of the Military Justice Division, specifically responsible for enforcing discipline and supervising combat and training.

These lords in charge of military justice were either from the Embroidered Uniform Guard or from the Palace Guard, every one of them fierce as tigers and vicious as wolves, just waiting to torment people to climb the ranks! They not only managed military law and discipline, but also training, combat readiness, and duty. It was said the Crown Prince had even given them quotas — they had to turn in men every day!

Whoever fell into their hands faced beheading at worst, and at the least a beating, confinement in a dark cell, or demotion! None of it was pleasant, and they definitely meant business!

This kind of military discipline and law — probably even in the time of the Founding Emperor there was nothing like it?

On one side was strict military discipline and law; on the other, generous pay and an enticing painted picture. So grassroots officers like Yu Daren had all sharpened their spirits over the past twenty-odd days, not daring to slacken in the slightest. The training and garrison duties assigned by superiors were carried out without the slightest discount. Training was two drills a day, one hour per drill, and every day a full two hours had to be completed! One hour was spent drilling formations, and one hour drilling weapons.

The banner of eighty men commanded by Yu Daren was organized on the model of the early Ming infantry hundred-man company. Of the eighty men, forty were spearmen, twenty archers, and twenty sword-and-shield men; they were not equipped with firearms. The spearmen armed with thirteen-chi (one zhang three chi, equivalent to over four meters) long spears were the absolute main force, so massed charges or defensive formations of long spearmen had become the primary tactic. The combat of the archers and sword-and-shield men all revolved around the spearmen.

For Yu Daren and his subordinates, this tactic that had existed since the early Ming was not unfamiliar. Most of them were former Tianjin garrison soldiers, nearly all sons of military households — if they could not draw a stiff bow, could they not at least heft a great spear?

The Grand Marshal's Office was now equipping the troops with large numbers of long spears, partly because they were easy to train with — a foot bow required arm strength of several dozen jin to use properly, and sword-and-shield work was not easy to master. Only the long spear was simplest: just thrust and strike. As long as a spear formation could be formed, its killing power was still considerable.

But the men of Yu Daren's banner were nearly all old hands; they knew sword, spear, bow, and shield but were not proficient in any, and their formations were not neat. To sum up their weaknesses: lack of training and lack of discipline!

So after twenty days — a total of forty hours — of strict training, this banner of combat troops could actually make their spear formation look quite presentable.

And besides training, there was also the task of guarding the pontoon bridge to complete, likewise without the slightest slackness! In the last battle of Tianjin, because a pontoon bridge had been burned, the officers of the bridge-guarding unit had all been demoted to the lowest rank of Marshal's Office guards!

So Yu Daren now slept with one eye open, fearing that the roving bandits from Tianjin would come killing their way over again.

Incidentally, the function of this pontoon bridge was actually to block the Wei River, preventing the bandits' boat fleet from launching a surprise attack on Dagukou and the Haisha Island docks.

In the heavy rain, Yu Daren once again began his routine inspection. Over his cloth-faced iron armor he wore a straw rain cape; he did not wear a helmet, but instead a rainproof bamboo hat. He carried a long spear whose tip was wrapped in oilcloth, and over his boots he wore a pair of slip-resistant straw sandals. Alone, he walked on foot from the wooden fort on the south bank across the pontoon bridge, checking all the sentry posts on the bridge, then climbed up into the wooden fort on the north bank to wait for the hidden sentries posted on the northern outskirts to return.

The north bank of the Wei River was now a no-man's-land ungoverned by Ming, Shun, or Qing — bandits ran rampant, and many powerful local families had built stockades to protect themselves; it was utter chaos. But what truly worried Zhu Cilang was the Tartars to the north suddenly sweeping south!

From Yongping to Dagukou was only a little over three hundred li; a cavalry force could cover it in two days. His Highness the Crown Prince did not dare let down his guard. Even today, on the auspicious day when he was taking a concubine, he still sent large numbers of hidden sentries to the north bank.

These hidden sentries were directly subordinate to the Hard-Working New Army's Guard Commander headquarters. All were soldiers of local Tianjin origin, thoroughly familiar with the terrain north of the Wei River. When deployed, they would disguise themselves — some as traveling merchants, some as refugees — and each deployment lasted one day before rotation.

About four hours earlier, a squad of hidden sentries disguised as salt peddlers had crossed the pontoon bridge northward. Now it was about time for the hidden sentries they were relieving to return.

Yu Daren had just climbed onto the wooden fort when the sound of horse hooves trampling through mud suddenly rang out from that direction. Could it be the hidden sentries returning?

He immediately shouted to the soldier on watch atop the wooden fort: "Stand to!"

The soldier answered: "Aye, sir."

Then he took out a bronze gong and struck it with a wooden stick, producing a harsh "clang-clang-clang." Inside the wooden fort there was a squad of resting soldiers; hearing the gong's warning, they did not dare delay, and hurriedly donned their cotton armor or cloth-faced iron armor, took up their respective weapons, and moved to their battle stations. The fort's gate had been kept shut the whole time, and now the bar was set in place as well — the very picture of facing a great enemy.

Before long, a group of "peddlers" in straw capes, leaning on wooden staffs, carrying bamboo baskets on their backs, and leading donkeys, came running at full speed toward the wooden fort.

"Banner Commander, they're our own men!" the squad leader who had just climbed onto the wooden fort said to Yu Daren.

"No!" Yu Daren was highly alert. "There aren't that many of them... something's wrong!"

His words had barely left his mouth when a shout in Tianjin dialect came from that direction: "Erwuyan!"

This was a curse, and also the password for hidden sentries crossing the bridge.

Yu Daren immediately answered: "Wanxinyanzi!"

That too was a password. With the passwords matched, someone over there immediately shouted: "Open the gate, quick! A large force is coming from the north! Looks like the Prince of Dai's men!"

This is the second update of the day. Begging for monthly tickets.

(End of Chapter)