Chapter 835: A Very Familiar Scene

Shi Kefa's Dezhou campaign strategy, to put it simply, came down to four words — besiege the point and strike the relief force!

The "point" was, of course, the city of Dezhou. The present walls of Dezhou had been built in the early Ming, during the Hongwu reign. They measured ten li and one hundred eighty paces in circumference, were of rammed earth faced with brick, and were extremely sturdy. The area within the walls was neither large nor small, covering more than 3,700 mu. It was not too troublesome to garrison, yet it could hold a good many troops, their dependents, money, grain, and all manner of supplies.

Moreover, after the "Five-Year Pact between Ming and Qing," Dezhou's walls had been rebuilt and reinforced. Outside the four city gates (Dezhou had five gates, one of which was a water gate), diamond-shaped bastions had been constructed; at the five corners of the wall (Dezhou was boot-shaped), diamond-shaped gun platforms had been built; and the outer face of the wall had been remodeled to give it sloped surfaces capable of withstanding bombardment.

Outside Dezhou, along the Grand Canal, the Yujin River, and the long trench northeast of the city, there was also a series of supporting forts, sited on commanding ground, forming Dezhou's outer line of defense.

Because Dezhou was the gateway to Northern Zhili, the project to rebuild the city was funded by the Qing court in Beijing, which also dispatched officials to take charge of it.

The official sent to supervise the work was named Zhang Ruolin — the very Zhang Ruolin who, during the Song-Jin campaign, had been ordered to the front to urge battle and had done nothing but press Hong Chengchou to advance recklessly. After the fall of Beijing, he had first surrendered to the Shun, then, following Luo Yangxing, Guang Shiheng, and others, switched allegiance to the Qing. He was now a bondservant of the Bordered Blue Banner — a grand "thrice-serving minister."

After entering Qing service, Zhang Ruolin's official career had gone rather well. Starting as Vice Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture, he had climbed step by step, and was now a Bureau Director in the Bureau of Operations of the Qing Ministry of War.

To repay the Shunzhi Emperor for this weighty employment, Zhang Ruolin had come to Dezhou nearly every month for the past two years, staying ten days or more each time — not for pleasure, but to inspect the Dezhou fortification works in earnest.

Under his diligent supervision, the Dezhou fortification project not only progressed quickly but was also of good quality, and even the costs had been driven down to the minimum.

Furthermore, Zhang Ruolin had felt that the city-defense plan drawn up by the Spanish military advisors was not secure enough, so he had added a long trench on the northeast side of the Dezhou fortress. When war broke out in Shandong late last month, he had even risked entering Dezhou, precisely to personally oversee the construction of this northeast trench.

Under his diligent supervision, the trench had at last been completed in full just before the Ming army arrived.

With the protection of this trench, the Grand Canal, and the Yujin River, Dezhou's defenses could absolutely be considered flawless.

But before Zhang Ruolin had time to hold a victory banquet and properly celebrate with the officials under him, Shi Kefa's great army arrived! It easily wiped out the Qing strongpoints outside the Grand Canal, the Yujin River, and the northeast trench of Dezhou. Then, without pause, it began constructing siege works along the Grand Canal, the Yujin River, and the northeast trench.

The Qing troops inside Dezhou, and Zhang Ruolin with them, could no longer get out. They could only stare helplessly as an encircling wall of earth and timber, along with dozens of round blockhouses for mounting cannon and posting musketeers, rose with astonishing speed beyond the Grand Canal, the Yujin River, and the northeast trench.

Was this meant to besiege Dezhou for the long term, to lure the court's heavenly troops into coming?

Standing atop the walls of Dezhou, watching through a telescope the Ming soldiers and Ming civilian laborers working furiously in the distance, Zhang Ruolin suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu. This scene — it really was familiar!

"Bureau Director, do you suppose Shi Kefa means to use Dezhou as bait?" Fan Chengmo had appeared behind Zhang Ruolin at some unknown moment. He too found the scene before him very familiar!

He had also taken part in the Song-Jin campaign!

That year he had just turned seventeen and had become one of Hong Taiji's guards. He had followed Hong Taiji on a mad dash from Shengjing, from Shenyang, all the way to the Song-Jin front, and had witnessed the collapse of more than a hundred thousand Ming troops.

And had not the Song-Jin campaign begun with the encirclement of Jinzhou?

"It won't happen, it won't happen," Zhang Ruolin said, shaking his head. "Shi Kefa is a man of empty reputation, an official of idle talk. How can he compare with the late emperor and Emperor Chengzong? And how brilliant is the Imperial Uncle? He is by no means someone Hong Chengchou can match."

Fan Chengmo frowned. "If Hong Chengchou had not been rash and underestimated the enemy, would he have had a way to lift the siege of Jinzhou?"

"That..." Zhang Ruolin fell into deep thought.

This was a question he had indeed pondered for a very long time.

Back then, he had been ordered by Chen Xinjia to press Hong Chengchou into giving battle quickly. On the one hand, it was because money and grain were running short and could not be sustained; on the other, because Jinzhou was in dire straits — in the third month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Zu Dashou had sent an urgent appeal to the court, saying: "The grain in Jinzhou will last barely a month, and the beans for the horses will not last a month."

If Hong Chengchou did not relieve Jinzhou, then Jinzhou would inevitably fall once its grain was exhausted.

But to relieve it...

At this thought, Zhang Ruolin sighed. "Fortunately, our stored grain is sufficient. We need not fear a long Ming siege."

Shi Kefa, of course, knew that the Qing troops in Dezhou did not fear a long siege. But besides besieging Dezhou, he held an even greater trump card in his hand: the Governor of Shandong, Zuo Maodi, and the Shandong Military Colony Commissioner, Zhang Huangyan.

Gao Hongtu, being old and ill, had retired and returned home to recuperate. The original Military Colony Commissioner, Zuo Maodi, had been promoted to Governor, becoming the highest-ranking official in all of Shandong, while Zhang Huangyan had taken over Zuo Maodi's former post and become Shandong Military Colony Commissioner.

By Zhu Cilang's order, once hostilities began, the Governor of Shandong and the Military Colony Commissioner were placed under Shi Kefa's command. In peacetime, Shi Kefa's authority as Governor-General was not great, but once war came, he was truly the master of an entire frontier region!

As soon as Shi Kefa had completed, through the Pingyuan military conference, the disposition to "besiege Dezhou, keep watch on Liaocheng and Anping, and await the eastern barbarians' main force coming south," he summoned Zuo Maodi and Zhang Huangyan to Pingyuan and began arranging operations to recover lost territory.

Because the Qing forces had voluntarily contracted (some had not contracted in time and were now mostly dead), only Dezhou, Anping, and Liaocheng in Shandong remained under Qing control. Of the rest, a small portion had been occupied by Ming troops, while the greater part lay in a power vacuum.

"Zhongji, Xuanzhu," — inside the headquarters of Shi Kefa's central army in Pingyuan County, the Ming Governor-General of Shandong and Liaodong, Shi Kefa, was speaking with Zuo Maodi and Zhang Huangyan in his study — "the Qing forces in Shandong have contracted sharply and left a vast territory empty. If we can move in and fill it, then from here on we can sustain the war through the war. The Qing will surely not be able to bear it."

Zhang Huangyan had served in Shandong and Liaodong for several years and knew well that the three prefectures of Jibei, West Yanzhou, and the Eastern Depot, which the Qing occupied, contained a great deal of fine farmland. Many loyal ministers and brave generals of Shandong origin were eyeing it covetously!

Loyal ministers and brave generals were members of the landlord class too!

How could they not love land? If they did not love land, why would they be on this northern expedition at all?

Now that the Qing had contracted, the level farmland of the three prefectures of Jibei, West Yanzhou, and the Eastern Depot lay spread out before everyone.

So Zhang Huangyan did not answer Shi Kefa's question directly, but instead turned his gaze to Zuo Maodi. The Zuo family were loyalists, and at the same time the largest landlords in Shandong!

"Xianzhi," Zuo Maodi said, "the land in the three prefectures of Jibei, West Yanzhou, and the Eastern Depot must not be disposed of hastily! The court should first make clear that not a fraction of it will be taken for the public treasury. Then it should be placed in the custody of the Military Colony Commissioner's office and the Governor's yamen, to be distributed only after the northern frontier is fully settled."

Zhang Huangyan chimed in: "Governor Zuo is thorough. But what about the farming households on the land in Jibei, West Yanzhou, and the Eastern Depot? They have tasted the benefits of land distribution by headcount!"

That was a big problem!

The foundation of land distribution by headcount was the "public-field system," which was also the foundation of the land policy now practiced by the Qing state!

The foundation of the land system practiced by the Great Ming in the southeast — in the two Hus, the four Jiangs, Fujian, and Guangdong — was the "private-field system." The court also held large amounts of land, but that could not alter the foundation of private fields as the basis, and the Ming court had always pursued a policy of protecting private fields with clearly established property rights.

Zuo Maodi was also somewhat troubled. Stroking his beard, he thought for a moment, then said to Shi Kefa: "The land will certainly have to be redistributed. But for now it is best not to raise the matter. First send out the county magistrates, then post proclamations to reassure the people — something like a three-year tax exemption."

(End of Chapter)