Chapter 378: Getting More and More Ferocious

In the eighteenth year of Chongzhen of the Great Ming, the fifth month, Anqing City.

This prefectural seat at the confluence of the Wan River and the Yangtze was now the most prosperous port city in the western part of the Jianghuai Great Plain. It was not only a passage linking the Jianghuai Plain with the rich lands of Jiangnan, but through the Wan River with its many tributaries it also reached the edge of the Dabie Mountains. Rice, tung oil, bamboo wares, and tea produced in Anqing itself and nearby Luzhou Prefecture; timber and all manner of mountain goods from the Dabie range; goods from upriver Huguang and Sichuan and downriver Jiangnan; and the various products of the Wannan mountain region across the river — all converged here. Even goods from Japan, the Southern Seas, and the Western Ocean had been carried ten thousand li to be sold in this place.

The whole city was clamorous and noisy, its commerce flourishing, its common folk reasonably content, and it was moreover a gathering place of talent and learning. Though it could not compare with Hankou Town in Huguang or the great commercial cities of Jiangnan, in the eyes of Chen Yongxi, who had come from Taiyuan Prefecture in Shanxi, Anqing's prosperity and abundance were beyond anything the Shanxi towns thronged with Shanxi merchants could match.

Yet what most astonished Chen Yongxi, who had traveled so far, was not Anqing's prosperity and wealth, but the strange, grim, killing atmosphere that hung over the entire city.

When the merchant vessel of the Hankou rice merchant Yao Daqiao moored at the Yicheng Ferry customs wharf south of Anqing City and waited in line to pay duties, Chen Yongxi, who had been aboard ship for several days and was feeling somewhat dizzy and dazed, took one of the Yao family's shop hands ashore to stretch his legs. The moment they left the Anqing customs wharf, he saw Ming troops drawn up in neat four-abreast columns jogging in from somewhere outside Anqing City, then entering through the city's south gate.

These soldiers were all fully armed, war hats on their heads and red cloth-faced iron armor on their bodies. Some carried pikes a full eighteen or nineteen chi long, some bore saber-and-shield and javelins, and still others had long infantry bows slung across their backs.

This was not what most startled Chen Yongxi. What most startled him was that the weather today was somewhat hot and stifling, and it was now high noon, with the great sun overhead blazing at its fiercest.

"Is this the Crown Prince's Hard-Working New Army?" Chen Yongxi asked with a frown.

"That's right," said the Yao family shop hand accompanying him, who had evidently been to Anqing Prefecture several times and was fairly familiar with the situation. "They're the Anqing Guard of the New Army."

"The Anqing Guard?" Chen Yongxi was taken aback. "A rotation unit?"

"A rotation unit," the shop hand said, "but not like the old Anqing Guard. It's been thoroughly reorganized — I heard the Earl of Xiangcheng personally oversaw the reorganization. All the ones who could eat but couldn't fight were dismissed, and mountain folk who can endure hardship and don't fear death were recruited anew from the Dabie Mountains. Each man was granted fifty mu of paddy land, so they've been drilling day and night ever since."

The amount of land granted to the various guard units of the Hard-Working New Army was not a one-size-fits-all matter; it depended on the quality of the land where the guard was stationed, and how far it was from the front.

Anqing's land was fertile, with much paddy field, and it was comparatively far from the front, so the land grants were somewhat smaller.

"Mountain folk can indeed endure hardship," Chen Yongxi said with a nod. "Barren mountains and harsh waters produce crack troops. Still, to train soldiers to this standard in so short a time — this Earl of Xiangcheng does have ability."

The shop hand laughed. "Do you think the Crown Prince's fifty mu of paddy land is so easy to take? There's a last-place elimination system. Every year there's a quota for dismissals. Even if every man trains well, they still have to find the worst one and dismiss him. Once a man goes, his granted office land is taken back! Tell me, would the men below not work hard?"

Chen Yongxi was stunned. "What? That kind of elimination?"

"Last-place elimination, Instructor Chen. Once you become an official under the Crown Prince, you'll understand. Officials get last-place elimination too — this is Grand Secretary Wei's method for cleaning up the bureaucracy."

Huh? Even after becoming an official, they're handled like this... Not even Zhang Juzheng did this! Chen Yongxi thought to himself: This Wei Zaode is too ruthless, isn't he? Isn't he afraid of rousing the collective wrath of officialdom? Not afraid the censors will impeach him every day?

At that thought, Chen Yongxi no longer had any inclination to stroll about Anqing. He turned to go back to the Yao family's merchant ship, but just outside the Anqing customs wharf he was stopped by a small squad of customs guards, equally fully armed.

"Martial law is in effect now! Passage will resume in one double-hour!" The one loudly announcing the martial law was an imperial clansman already burned black by the sun. He had survived the devil's training at the Xiaoling Guard and had become a thoroughly ferocious "tax policeman" of the Great Ming.

"Why the martial law?" Chen Yongxi stepped forward and cupped his hands. "I am an Instructor of the Prince of Dai's household, come from Datong."

"Spare me the chatter. Come back in one double-hour!" The clansman waved a hand, cutting Chen Yongxi off.

How can this be? Chen Yongxi thought: An Instructor is an official too. How dare a common soldier— He was about to lose his temper when the Yao family shop hand tugged at him and said in a low voice, "Instructor, he's an imperial clansman, of the blood of heaven!"

An imperial clansman? Sunburned black as charcoal, and wearing that much clothing in such heat... Chen Yongxi thought: Crown Prince, treating your own kinsmen like this — the Great Ancestor, the Exalted Emperor, would be angry if he knew!

Chen Yongxi had no wish to provoke a charcoal-black imperial clansman, so he and the shop hand withdrew to one side, found a tea stall and sat down, and ordered a pot of tea and some pastries.

When the tea and food were brought over, the Yao family shop hand asked the tea stall owner, "Has the Anqing customs wharf been under martial law often lately?"

"Not all that often. There was one three or four days ago too. Don't know what they were shipping into Anqing — saw a great many large crates, and they had the Anqing Guard men come carry them."

What had been shipped in three or four days before was a batch of firelocks and gunpowder, all for equipping the Anqing Guard!

Although the Anqing Guard was not on the front line, it was a strategic point commanding the Yangtze. The southern wall of Anqing was built along the Yangtze's bank, with the wharves and the river just outside the city. And the river here was very narrow — only two li wide. If cannon were mounted on Anqing's south wall, the river could be completely sealed off — Anqing's south wall was very long, and several dozen cannon could be mounted on it. If those guns were used properly, Anqing would be an impregnable fortress on the Yangtze.

So not long after pacifying Nanjing, Zhu Cilang had sent the Earl of Xiangcheng, Li Guozhen, to Anqing as Garrison Regional Commander of Anqing Prefecture. He had also ordered him to vigorously reorganize the Anqing Guard, form the Anqing Guard New Army, and had allocated a sum of silver for him to strengthen Anqing's walls — Anqing's city wall was rectangular, and the side facing the Yangtze needed no concern. But the other three sides had to be reinforced and rebuilt, giving the outward face of the wall a certain slope, and at the same time constructing angular bastions for firearms.

Because Anqing's south wall needed no rebuilding, Chen Yongxi had not noticed the wall reconstruction project. But he did happen upon a batch of cannon arriving from Nanjing!

What laborers and Anqing Guard soldiers were hauling out from the wharf today were six brand-new cast-bronze Hongyi cannon, products of the Nanjing Cannon Foundry under the Grand Marshal's Office — the Nanjing Cannon Foundry was a government-run military factory formed from the "volunteer craftsmen" who had followed from the Tianjin Guard, plus a number of artisans recruited in the southeast. It had also, through Alfonso Lopez, hired several foreign technicians from the Bocarro cannon foundry in Macau to serve as engineers overseeing gun production. And the foundry produced only three kinds of products.

First, the standard 12-pounder Hongyi bronze cannon — not a self-improved design, but a standardized copy, cast from bronze, which was easier to work. The field carriage it used had also been designed by the foreign technicians from Bocarro. The six 12-pounder Hongyi bronze cannon Chen Yongxi saw were the first batch of cannon produced by the Nanjing foundry.

Second, cannonballs — solid shot, canister, and chain shot, all standardized copies.

Third, gunpowder, likewise refined and processed according to the Bocarro foundry's standards.

In addition, Alfonso Lopez had purchased several dozen 3-pounder battalion guns for Zhu Cilang — most of these were products of the Bocarro foundry, though some had been bought from Goa, likewise expensive bronze guns. They were to serve as field guns, issued to the artillery regiment of the Hard-Working Model Army.

And these 3-pounder battalion guns would, in the near future, also become mass-produced weapons of the Nanjing foundry — according to Zhu Cilang's plan, for a long time to come the Nanjing foundry would produce only two standardized types of cannon: the 12-pounder Hongyi cannon and the 3-pounder battalion gun, all of them bronze guns, which were comparatively easy to produce.

(End of Chapter)