Chapter 317: The Western General Shi Ruien

While the Japanese pirate sundries shop waited anxiously for an audience, Zhu Cilang was in the Hall of Great Merit conversing with three Westerners. These three Westerners were Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Afonso Lopes, and Shi Ruien. This Shi Ruien was the German mercenary captain Reinnstein, who, like many Westerners who came to China in this era, had adopted a Sinicized name. Because the "stein" in his surname Reinnstein meant "rock" in German, Schall had named him Shi Ruien — "Shi" meaning stone.

This German was forty-five years old this year, twenty of those years spent on the battlefields of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, and another four in the English Civil War. He had never held any high command; he was merely a veteran soldier who had drifted through the battlefields, and the highest post he had ever held was mercenary regiment commander — in fact, one could regard him as a military contractor, obtaining a contract and a down payment from some monarch or other, then recruiting soldiers on his own, purchasing equipment, forming an infantry regiment, and going off to war to earn his pay.

And after his contract in England ended, Reinnstein, who had served the King of England, received another contract from the distant East — not a contract from Schall, but one from the Dutch East India Company.

It turned out that the Dutch East India Company's Governor-General Antonio van Diemen had learned that the strongman of Java, Sultan Agung of the Mataram Sultanate, was gravely ill, and saw an opportunity, so he sent men back to Europe to recruit mercenaries, intending to launch a war after Sultan Agung's death.

And this Reinnstein was one of several mercenary regiment commanders hired by the East India Company. However, after traveling thousands of miles with several dozen subordinates to Batavia, Reinnstein and his men all fell ill one after another because they could not adapt to the climate.

This situation was very common in Batavia. The East India Company was unwilling to lose these mercenaries whom they had gone to such trouble to transport to the East, so they sent them to Macau, where the climate was more comfortable, to recuperate, hoping to let them gradually adapt to the heat and humidity of the south.

It was while Reinnstein and his men were recovering in Macau that they encountered Schall, who had come south from Yangzhou.

Schall had come as an envoy of the Ming court to seek help from the Governor of Macau, Shi Baoluo — Zhu Cilang hoped that Shi Baoluo would follow the precedent of the second year of Chongzhen and send a mercenary regiment of more than four hundred men, as well as provide a batch of weapons.

Shi Baoluo naturally agreed readily — that operation in the second year of Chongzhen had not only improved relations between Macau and the Ming court, but had also won Macau many arms orders.

Moreover, the Ming court had not simply taken Macau's troops and weapons for nothing, but had paid fifty-seven thousand taels of silver!

And this time, the Ming court's terms seemed even more favorable! It was not that they were offering more money, but that they required the Portuguese governor's office to send an envoy to reside permanently in Nanjing — this was an opportunity for the Kingdom of Portugal to establish direct contact with the Ming court!

So after receiving Zhu Cilang's decree, Shi Baoluo immediately gathered twelve hundred turtle-dove-foot matchlocks and twelve 3-pounder field guns and handed them over to Schall.

He also sought out Reinnstein, who was recuperating in Macau, and offered the same price as the Dutch to hire Reinnstein, who could not adapt to Java's hot climate, along with more than forty other German mercenaries.

He had them travel north first, together with Schall and the envoy of the Macau governor's office, Afonso Lopes, escorting the equipment provided by the Macau governor's office.

For Reinnstein, who had drifted through half a lifetime of European wars and was still only a mercenary regiment commander, this journey to Nanjing would not only change the course of his life, but would also greatly broaden his horizons!

At Dantu Town, he saw socket bayonets for the first time, and also saw an infantry regiment equipped entirely with firearms. And on the way from Dantu Town into Nanjing, he also obtained, through Schall, a fixed paper cartridge — likewise a dazzling innovation!

According to Schall, this innovation also came from the Ming Empire's Prince Regent and Crown Prince.

And today, something even more unexpected happened to Shi Ruien. After learning that Shi Ruien could speak French, the young Crown Prince of the Ming Empire conversed with him in somewhat rusty French — His Highness the Crown Prince had been able to speak two foreign languages in his previous life!

"Your Royal Highness," Shi Ruien said in fluent French, "the Spanish tercio has in fact been constantly evolving. The early Spanish tercio was somewhat like a moving bastion, with a square of pikemen in the center and a small square of musketeers at each of the four corners of the pike square. In this way the whole formation could, like a castle, face enemies surging in from all directions. When the four small musket squares faced enemies coming from a single direction, two of the small musket squares could combine into a larger line and open fire under the cover of the pikes.

And when enemy cavalry or infantry drew near, the musketeers would shrink back into the pike square — the pike square was not extremely dense, and there were always gaps that could accommodate a small number of musketeers. And in order to maximize the power of the small number of musketeers, heavy muskets were often paired with the Spanish tercio.

But this tactic has been discarded in the last ten or twenty years, because more and more cases have shown that firepower is the decisive factor. Once the musketeers fail in battle, the pikemen simply cannot advance against the enemy's fire. The tactic more popular now is the formation improved by the Dutchman Maurice. It is called a square, but in fact it is not necessarily square; in most cases it is simply a line six to eight ranks deep, with pikes in the center and muskets on the flanks. This formation is easy to assemble, but rather complicated to employ.

So I believe that your practice of fitting muskets with bayonets will eventually become popular throughout the world and will eliminate the pike. Of course, the musket itself also needs improvement — it needs flintlocks that are more reliable and have greater range."

"Is that so?" Zhu Cilang thought it over. It seemed it really was so — historically, by the eighteenth century Westerners no longer made much use of pikes. This Westerner Shi had a good eye. "But that is a matter for the future. For the present, is an all-firearm regiment not too radical?"

"Hard to say. It depends on the actual conditions of the battlefield," Shi Ruien had also been pondering this question these past two days. "But I believe whether an all-firearm regiment is viable depends on the quality of the cavalry and artillery. In a purely infantry-versus-infantry engagement, an all-firearm regiment should have the greater chance of victory.

In fact, on the European battlefields today, infantry fighting in Dutch or Swedish formations sometimes also take musketeers six ranks deep and combine two ranks into one to form three ranks deep, then fire volleys."

The European battlefields of the present were in fact in a transitional stage from tercio tactics to line infantry tactics. The more popular tactics were the Maurice formation and the Gustavus formation — that is, building on the Spanish tercio by increasing the proportion of musketeers while reducing depth, cutting it from ten or more ranks down to about six.

However, both of these formations and the Spanish tercio were rather complicated to organize. Merely grouping pikes and muskets together in the same company was a troublesome matter. Sometimes muskets had to be divided into heavy and light, and additional sword-and-buckler men or halberdiers had to be added.

By comparison, line infantry tactics using pure musket companies were actually simpler.

"But I do not have powerful field artillery," Zhu Cilang shook his head, seeming somewhat worried. "Nor do I have powerful cavalry. I think I still need Maurice- or Gustavus-style formations, do I not?"

"You are quite right," Shi Ruien said with a smile. "But your cavalry is passable; it is only the horses that are somewhat poor. Perhaps you should purchase some of their Marwari horses from India. I would also suggest that your cavalry and infantry be equipped with lighter plate armor — the kind of plate armor worn by Governor Zheng's (referring to Zheng Zhilong) Japanese mercenaries would suffice.

In addition, the matchlocks used by your army are already outdated. I suggest gradually replacing them with the latest flintlocks. Flintlocks plus bayonets will sooner or later completely eliminate the pike.

But every new tactic requires a process of gradual refinement, and being too radical is a gamble. So I suggest you train and equip some Dutch-style regiments. This is not difficult. As long as you fully trust me, my men can organize a model regiment for you within six months. Several more groups of officers will arrive later, and then you will quickly have four model regiments using Dutch tactics.

As for artillery, that is more troublesome. Field guns can be purchased from Macau. In fact, Governor Shi Baoluo has already prepared twelve bronze 3-pounder field guns cast in Macau for you. But qualified field gun crews are very difficult to train. If you urgently need artillery companies capable of field operations, I suggest first recruiting Westerners to operate those guns. If you can have five or six artillery companies, your chances of victory in the field will be greatly increased."

(End of Chapter)