Chapter 406: We Peasants Have Strength

"Reporting to the Governor: thirty li ahead is the Grand Canal!"

The relay riders dispatched by Ma Degong galloped up before Gao Hongtu's horse. The Shandong militia army's twenty brigades, together with the forces under Li Chengdong and Ma Degong, totaled over 46,000 men. Advancing west from Jinan, they crept along at tortoise pace beside a modest river called the Tu River, which flowed from the Grand Canal toward Bohai Bay.

The distance from Licheng, the seat of Jinan Prefecture, to Liaocheng, the seat of the Eastern Depot Prefecture, was really not far at all. Even taking the Tu River route, which added a slight detour, it was only a bit over two hundred li. At fifty li a day, four days would finish the march.

But the 46,000-strong militia army led by Governor Gao Hongtu was an "engineering corps." As it advanced, it built bastion forts and docks along the Tu River — every bastion was carefully sited, standing by the water, with the Tu River diverted into its moat, while docks were built on the riverbank close to the bastion walls. As long as the Tu River could carry boats, these water-side forts could easily be resupplied.

In addition, Gao Hongtu had asked Shen Tingyang, the Minister of the Northern Seas, to open a "warship yard" at Yantou Township in Licheng County, to build vessels capable of sailing and fighting on the Daqing and Tu Rivers, so as to form a "militia navy."

For the moment, however, the militia navy was not yet built, and the shipyard at Yantou Township had only just opened. Even the 50,000 militia troops Gao Hongtu led were newly raised. Their equipment, training, and organization were all far from adequate.

Fortunately, Gao Hongtu had a few thousand men of his own governor's escort, who were comparatively capable from top to bottom, so they could be split up to serve as the militia army's backbone. With these few thousand as a framework, with the landlords and gentry of the two or three dozen counties and departments of Jinan, Yanzhou, and Qingzhou Prefectures all doing Governor Gao the honor of cooperating, and with refugees who had fled from the Northern Metropolitan Region and the border counties near the Qing to conscript, the Shandong militia army had been propped up after all.

By the summer of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen of the Great Ming, the militia alone that could be fielded numbered twenty-two brigades — a full forty thousand men!

Of course, the equipment and training of these twenty-two militia brigades were none too good.

First, the armor rate was under fifteen percent: an army of 44,000 men had fewer than 6,500 suits of armor of all kinds, most of them cloth-faced iron armor, and the iron plates on the cloth were too few, making their protective value highly questionable.

Second, firearms were insufficient and of poor quality. Matchlock muskets, turtledove-foot guns, Hongyi cannon, and three-pounder battalion guns were all absent.

Gao Hongtu was poor. Shi Kefa had Kong Yinzhi as his financier; Zuo Maodi's own family were great landlords; Zhu Yihai and Li Shiyuan had the silver left in the Prince of Heng's mansion to spend; Su Guansheng and Shen Tingyang went without saying — they had money. Gao Hongtu had no money, so of course he could not buy good equipment, and he had no technology to make his own. Thus he could only make do by producing a few great general cannon, assault cannon, crouching-tiger cannon, and three-eyed guns.

But this poor Governor Gao had his own poor man's solution: build carts — shield carts and gun carts!

Of these, over 2,200 shield carts were built — Dodo could "return the other fellow's trick," and Gao Hongtu had likewise read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms thoroughly, so he too had men build shield carts. These shield carts could not only be fitted with large wooden shields for defense, but could also carry grain and supplies. They were issued to every banner company and moved with the army.

The gun carts were assault-gun carts; over four hundred were built, and each brigade was equipped with twenty.

With these 2,600-odd shield and gun carts, wherever Gao Hongtu's great army went it could quickly form a wagon fort — if the twenty brigades massed together, 2,600 shield and gun carts were enough to enclose a defensive perimeter of more than two thousand paces.

With the "wagon fort," his trump card for fighting stolid, grinding battles, Gao Hongtu's twenty militia brigades were no longer so easy to deal with.

In fact, although these Shandong militia looked poorly equipped and their pay was meager (the most ordinary militiaman got one tael of silver a month), their fighting power was actually not weak. They were inferior to the household retainers of Ming generals, but ordinary weak Ming troops could not compare with them!

This was true!

It was not to look down on most Ming armies of this era, but they were basically "three-no armies" — no organization, no discipline, no spirit. They were far better at preying on the common people than at marching and fighting!

But Gao Hongtu's Shandong militia army was passable in all three respects — organization, discipline, and spirit. The foundation of the militia organization was such personal ties as common clan, common native place, and common schooling.

After obtaining the power to "convert the circuits and return to the soil," Gao Hongtu could use common clan, common native place, and common schooling to build a feudal militia system centered on himself, tightly bound from top to bottom, and all obliged to heed Governor Gao Hongtu's word!

With organization, discipline was not hard to maintain. Although the militiamen's pay was very low, their families were all under the control of Gao Hongtu's disciples and clansmen, so they dared not slip away!

As for the militia army's officers, apart from Gao Hongtu's disciples, they all came from the Shandong governor's escort — they counted as Gao Hongtu's personal troops. The Governor, who held two or three dozen counties and departments, could still find the means to keep these men well fed. So the militia army's officers and backbone were comparatively well-behaved and obedient to Gao Hongtu.

If one compared control over troops, the Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting, and Lu Xiangsheng of those years were all inferior to the present Gao Hongtu — Gao Hongtu was a militia boss with a base area!

Finally, the Shandong militia army was now defending their homeland, defending their ancestral graves, defending Confucius — they knew what they were fighting for!

So in the matter of troop spirit, they too were stronger than most Ming armies.

Even the so-called battle-hardened crack troops, over 6,000 strong, led by the two veteran generals Li Chengdong and Ma Degong, seemed lethargic and hard to control during these days of moving together with the Shandong militia.

These "crack troops" merely screened the front and rear of the militia column, and did nothing but march, yet even so they constantly complained and pestered Gao Hongtu for this and that. From time to time they also looted a market town or village, little different from the Tartars, sending Governor Gao into fits of rage — but he could do nothing about it.

The Shandong militia, by contrast, were far better: simple peasants, exceptionally hardy and willing to endure hardship. They did whatever Gao Hongtu told them to do and asked for little — three full meals a day and one tael of silver a month, and they were quite satisfied. Whether these old peasants could fight was unknown, but they could certainly work; for building forts and the like, they were the right men.

If Gao Hongtu had not been unsure how his "peasant laborers" would perform on the killing field, he would not have been willing to bring those two scourges, Li Chengdong and Ma Degong, on campaign at all.

Gao Hongtu gently reined in his horse and came to a stop, then asked the relay rider sent by Ma Degong, "Where have Commander Ma's troops reached?"

The relay rider merely saluted from horseback and reported: "Reporting to the Governor: Commander Ma's vanguard has reached the east bank of the canal!"

Gao Hongtu stroked his beard. "Where are the Tartar caitiffs' forces? Are they still besieging Liaocheng?"

The relay rider reported: "No Tartar camp is to be seen on the east bank of the canal. They should have lifted the siege and left. Commander Ma has already sent men to Liaocheng to make contact."

"What? They lifted the siege and left?" Gao Hongtu was taken aback, then turned his head to look at Li Dakai.

Li Dakai was also somewhat surprised. "Governor... then the siege of Liaocheng is lifted?"

"It should be..." Gao Hongtu shook his head. "It can't be that easy, can it?"

"Governor," Li Dakai said, "we are only thirty li from Liaocheng. Why not push on and sleep in Liaocheng tonight!"

Gao Hongtu stroked his beard and said thoughtfully, "Better to advance by steady stages. We shall camp here by the Tu River, form the wagon fort, and begin building fortifications tomorrow."

"Aye!" Li Dakai saluted from horseback, then rode off to direct the troops in deploying the wagon-fort defense.

Because Gao Hongtu's force had halted every twenty li along the way to camp and build a fort, each time leaving one brigade as garrison, after marching nearly two hundred li they had already built nine forts and left nine militia brigades to hold them. The troops still with Gao Hongtu now numbered only eleven militia brigades plus the two armies of Li Chengdong and Ma Degong — roughly 28,000 men in all, with over a thousand shield and gun carts.

These carts were no longer enough to form a perimeter of more than two thousand paces, so they could only anchor their backs against the Tu River and form an enormous "crescent-moon formation."

(End of Chapter)