Chapter 388: Target: Qufu City!

"My prince, my prince, bad news — the Southern Court has really spent heavily this time. They've built a city on Juehua Island! A huge city, right across the waist of Juehua Island, with a perimeter of a full two thousand paces. It can garrison tens of thousands of troops at the very least."

In the dead of night, in the Hall of Literary Splendor within the Forbidden City in Beijing, Fan Wencheng, Grand Secretary of the Inner Secretariat, who had ridden for two days straight and was looking rather dusty and disheveled, was reporting to Dorgon in a hoarse voice.

"Two thousand paces? How is that possible?" Dorgon was taken aback. "Fan Wencheng, are you repeating hearsay? How could it be two thousand paces? What exactly are they trying to do? Why build a city that large?"

In ancient times, one pace meant the distance covered when both legs each took a step — roughly one and a half meters. Two thousand paces, then, was three thousand meters. A fortress with a perimeter of three thousand meters was no small thing; the area inside the walls exceeded half a square kilometer. This was no city, but a military fortress — no residential districts or commercial areas inside, purely for garrisoning troops and stockpiling grain. Half a square kilometer was five hundred thousand square meters!

How many troops could a fortress with a built-up area of five hundred thousand square meters hold? How much grain could it store? It had to be in the tens of thousands, surely? Dorgon mulled it over: tens of thousands of troops stationed on Juehua Island could only mean an offensive against Liaodong! Was that little Southern Crown Prince plotting to enter Shanhai Pass from the northeast?

"There's no mistake!" Fan Wencheng said. "This slave sent trusted men disguised as merchants onto the island, and they found that the entire waist of Juehua Island has been enclosed by walls — the wall runs all the way from the island's southern shore to its northern shore!"

"It's really that big?" Dorgon's brows knit deeply. "How many laborers would that take?"

"Oh, the wall isn't built very high, and they didn't use brick or stone, nor rammed earth. They piled it up with sacks filled with earth."

This was the most common method of constructing field fortifications used by later armies — tested in two world wars and still the most effective method in use right up to the twenty-first century. Its protection against artillery and bullets was naturally excellent — it could withstand even the cannons of later eras, let alone the Hongyi cannons of this age.

Besides defensive capability that stood the test of time, building fortifications from sandbags had two more advantages. First, it was easy to construct — the labor involved in stacking sandbags was far less than ramming earth, to say nothing of laying brick and stone. That was why Yu Daren and Zhang Huangyan needed only a thousand-odd officers and men plus two or three thousand civilian laborers to pile up a rough shape in a fairly short time.

Second, it was easy to repair. The trapezoidal wall formed by sandbags was structurally very stable, and it was almost impossible for Hongyi cannons to bring down a large section of it. Even if some collapse or damage did occur, one simply filled the gap with more sandbags — no trouble at all.

"How many sacks would it take to fill with earth?" Dorgon had never heard of anyone building a city wall this way. "And would it even hold?"

"I don't know," Fan Wencheng shook his head. "Surely it can't compare to brick, stone, or rammed earth?"

Imagining it, it indeed seemed inferior — sandbags were loose and sagging; how could they compare with hard brick, stone, and rammed earth?

Fan Wencheng's brows were tightly locked. "My prince, the city the Southern army is building on Juehua Island is not for defense, but for quartering troops to attack! If they had built a small fort of brick and stone, this slave would not be worried. But now they have piled earth-filled sacks into a city with a perimeter of three thousand paces. I fear, I fear... I fear they mean to launch a major assault on Liaodong!"

Dorgon nodded slightly and said in a low voice, "Well said. A low city of three thousand paces made of stacked sacks — large but hard to defend, it could be breached without even using Hongyi cannons. What use could it have other than quartering troops and stockpiling grain?"

As he spoke, his brows furrowed deeply, as though he were weighing the matter over and over.

"My prince," Fan Wencheng looked at Dorgon, "this slave believes that Liaodong and Liaoxi are both the dragon-rising lands of our Great Qing. If anything goes wrong there, the people's hearts..."

"What about the people's hearts?" Dorgon turned and glared at Fan Wencheng. "Liaodong and Liaoxi have thousands of li of coastline. The Southerners have countless great sea-going ships — where can they not go? Are we supposed to set up defenses everywhere? Can we even defend it all?"

Rebuked by Dorgon, Fan Wencheng was left speechless.

Dorgon rose to his feet and began pacing slowly about the Hall of Literary Splendor. After some dozen or so steps, he suddenly halted and said to Fan Wencheng, "Fan Wencheng, We shall give you another edict: relocate all the common people within thirty li of the Liaoxi coast. Burn every village to the ground, and drive cattle and sheep into the fields to graze down the young crops!"

"My prince, you mean to..." Fan Wencheng stared at Dorgon in astonishment.

Dorgon said coldly, "The coasts of Liaoxi and Liaodong are our soft underbelly. Dividing our forces to guard them is impossible. Our Manchu heavenly troops must be concentrated in one place to deal the Southern bandits a crushing blow. If we divide our forces to hold the coast, they will instead be destroyed piecemeal. So scorched earth along the Liaoxi and Liaodong coasts is the only way. Fortunately, we don't have many people in Liaodong and Liaoxi — never mind thirty li, even scorching the earth for a hundred li would do no harm!

With this thirty-to-a-hundred-li wilderness, we need only station a few thousand elite Eight Banners troops each in Liaodong and Liaoxi, and all will be secure."

Dorgon's countermeasure, though ugly, was indeed effective! Scorched earth along the coast would create a buffer zone. Small landing parties, once ashore, could not cross those hundred li — the wilderness had no inhabitants, but it could be seeded with scout cavalry. If Zhu Cilang's new army formed ranks and fought, it might perhaps hold its own against the elite Eight Banners, but in a contest of scouts and night patrols, it would be utterly outmatched!

Moreover, Liaodong and Liaoxi were the Eight Banners' home ground. Small landing parties, once ashore, would be screened off on all sides by Eight Banners scout cavalry — they would be completely blind. How would they dare advance a hundred li? At most they could loiter along the shore.

A large Ming landing force, on the other hand, would move slowly once ashore. To complete the landing and break through the buffer zone would take at least several days. By then, the elite troops Dorgon had stationed in Liaodong and Liaoxi would already be arrayed and waiting!

Relying on a few thousand true Manchus might not be enough to repel tens of thousands or even more Ming troops, but it could buy time while the main army hurried over from Beijing. They could also strike at the Ming army's supply lines and force them back to the shore.

"My prince is brilliant!" Fan Wencheng flattered Dorgon — and he meant it from the bottom of his heart. The situation in Liaodong and Liaoxi gave him a headache just thinking about it, yet Dorgon had lightly resolved it.

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded from outside the Hall of Literary Splendor. Before the man had even entered, he was already calling out: "Fourteenth Brother, what's happened? Summoning me in the middle of the night..."

The newcomer was Dodo, whom Dorgon had called back to Beijing for face-to-face instructions. Having been at the front for so long, the pack of wives and concubines at home had long been clamoring for him, so these past two days he had been quite worn out, busy until midnight before sleeping. But no sooner had he closed his eyes than someone arrived from the palace.

Seeing Dodo arrive, Fan Wencheng hastily knelt in salute. "This slave Fan Wencheng greets his master."

"Oh, Xiandou, what brings you here?" Dodo waved for Fan Wencheng to rise, then seated himself boldly on an embroidered stool that an attendant had brought over.

Dorgon said, "The Southern troops have seized Juehua Island from the sea and built a great city of two thousand paces. It seems they mean to station a heavy force there, and next they will likely launch a major invasion!"

"What? A major invasion of Liaoxi? Fourteenth Brother, do you want me to go to Shengjing as Regional Commander?"

"No," Dorgon shook his head. "We must not let the Southern Court lead us by the nose. If they strike Liaoxi and Liaodong and we go chasing after them, we'll have fallen into their trap. We must take the initiative and strike out!"

"Right!" Dodo nodded. "Where do we strike?"

"Qufu!"

"Qufu?" Dodo blurted out. "Are we really going to dig up the Sage Confucius's grave?"

Dorgon glared at his younger brother. "What nonsense are you talking? That was Zhu Cilang's slander against us! Why are you repeating it too?"

"If we're not digging up graves, what are we going to Qufu for?"

"To besiege it!" Dorgon said with a smile. "Surround Qufu, then draw the Southern troops from all over Shandong to its relief — just as we did when we fought at Jinzhou. The Southern Court has stationed heavy forces in Shandong, many of them holding strategic strongpoints. We can't go taking them city by city!"

(End of Chapter)