Chapter 863: What? The Great Qing Is Gone! — Part 5

"By order of the Imperial Uncle, for every head taken, a reward of 50 mu of land! For two heads taken, an additional reward of one household of booi slaves!"

On the Qing side, the troops had by this time finished forming up, and the company commanders of each niru were announcing the reward standards.

Dodo's army had a rather casual approach to rewards, unlike Emperor Zhu's side, which already had strict rules and regulations. Strict systems require strong financial backing to guarantee them; otherwise they cannot be realized!

So before every battle, the reward standards had to be announced.

And Dodo had little money on hand, so of course he could not pay out cash rewards, nor could he give his men too many official titles and ranks. Official ranks without salaries or actual posts were empty titles — what use were they? But Dodo had plenty of land! Beyond the Pass, there were few people and much land; land was available in whatever quantity one wanted.

So land had always been Dodo's reward standard for his subordinates.

However, the land of the Great Qing was "imperially owned," and only usage rights were granted. The usage rights to the land could only be inherited and could not be transferred by any means other than inheritance, and the heir had to be male. Because those qualified to receive land grants were all bannermen capable of bearing military service!

The land granted to bannermen required only a very small land rent, but the bannerman who received the grant, or his son, had to bear the corresponding military service. Military service under Dodo was not merely a matter of providing a person; one also had to furnish one's own kit, armor and weapons, horses, and a certain amount of rations.

That was a huge expense! Although Dodo would give his men some subsidies depending on the scale of the war, its duration, and his own financial condition, it was certain that nine times out of ten the subsidies fell short. The shortfall had to be made up by working the land.

And working the land required labor!

So land alone did not motivate his men — there was no labor! How much effort did it take to reclaim 50 mu of land? Without anyone to work it, it was just a patch of wasteland.

Therefore Dodo's second reward standard for his men was booi slaves — or rather, serfs, or tenant farmers.

Under Dodo, booi slaves and tenant farmers were actually one and the same, because Dodo, in order to expand his pool of soldiers, had opened up recruitment of bannermen. Anyone willing to go beyond the Pass and serve as a soldier for the Imperial Uncle became a bannerman. So the quality of the "bannerman masters" had become rather diluted.

And those unwilling to serve as soldiers, and unwilling to bear the tax silver and artisan corvée of the Bordered Green Banner, had no choice but to rent and farm land. These people, in the organizational register, were booi slaves.

Whose land one rented made one that household's booi. The obligation of a booi slave was to pay rent; in theory, his wife and daughters did not have to serve the master. Moreover, the amount of rent was not decided by the "master," but was set by Dodo's little court, and could not be too high, or no one would be willing to go beyond the Pass as a slave. Nor could it be too low, or the master would lose out.

Furthermore, booi slaves were not necessarily "privately owned"; there were also "public" booi, who rented public land and paid rent to Dodo's government offices.

On the whole, life for booi beyond the Pass was tolerable, only they had no freedom. Once the "master-slave relationship" was established, there were only two ways it could be legally dissolved: one was death; the other was promotion through military merit.

Booi could also join the army as soldiers and earn merit. After earning merit, they too could receive land and booi. And once a booi received booi of his own, he would be replaced — that is, the booi he had acquired would take his place farming for his master, while he himself became a bannerman master.

So some able-bodied young and middle-aged peasants who had been booi for a few years, had saved up a little property, and wanted to advance further were willing to join the army and take a gamble.

Thus Dodo's army also contained many booi combat soldiers.

In addition, many booi slaves served in the army as baggage troops or auxiliaries. The former were generally "public booi," who were exempted from rent when on campaign. The latter were mostly the "private booi" of old Manchu armored cavalrymen; the armored cavalrymen had grand airs, and without booi to attend them it would be too exhausting.

And baggage troops and auxiliaries, if they earned military merit, could likewise be granted land and booi. Even without any great merit, as long as Dodo's army did well in its gains within the Pass, they could also receive a share of goods and valuables.

To put it bluntly, the Great Qing Imperial Uncle Dodo was also a "businessman warlord" who treated the army and war as a trade. How else could he play it?

"Company Commander, sir, we haven't even fought our way into the southern barbarians' territory yet — where are we supposed to go to catch booi slaves?"

"Company Commander, sir, where does the Imperial Uncle plan to find so many booi slaves?"

Among the Qing troops preparing to march out, some were already doubting the Imperial Uncle's "ability to pay." The Imperial Uncle had plenty of land, but where was he going to catch the booi?

Judging from the present situation, it seemed they could not fight their way into Ming territory.

Dodo had long anticipated such doubts, so the niru company commanders below now had something to say.

"Rest assured! The Imperial Uncle has said that Northern Zhili is full of booi slaves!"

"As long as we defeat Shi Kefa and fish the Emperor out of Tianjin, won't Northern Zhili be ours to do with as we please?"

Northern Zhili was about to be utterly ruined. There were still thirty or forty thousand Mongol warriors wreaking havoc somewhere! These men had originally been lured in by Shunzhi to serve as cannon fodder, but Shunzhi, on a hot-headed impulse, strolled out of Beijing and got himself trapped in Tianjin, at the same time drawing all the Ming troops to himself. So these Mongols had been let loose like sheep, with no one in charge! They were now fighting the common people of Northern Zhili!

However, the common people of Northern Zhili now lived clustered by clan in fortress-like stockaded villages, so it was not easy for the Mongols to plunder their fill. But if Dodo's regular army moved in, that would be another matter.

"Long live the Imperial Uncle! Long live the Imperial Uncle! Long live, long live!"

Now that they knew Dodo would not welch on his debts, the fully prepared Qing troops were at last roused, and began shouting "Long live!" like a mountain roar.

Dodo himself, at this moment, escorted by 2,000 fully armed bayara soldiers, wearing a suit of white plate armor and riding a brown Andalusian steed with a shoulder height of over three chi, rode out through the gate of his main camp and appeared before tens of thousands of neatly arrayed "white Qing troops."

After the great battle at Jieshi Mountain, Dodo's authority had risen once again, while the independence of the nine banners beyond the Pass had further declined. And in order to further weaken the presence of the nine banners, the Qing troops under Dodo had begun to unify their colors, using white as the primary tone for their uniforms, banners, and armor.

Seeing the seething morale of the three armies, Dodo breathed a sigh of relief and gave the order to the generals clustered around him: "Begin deploying the formation!"

Because the main body of the Ming army was approaching, Dodo's troops did not need to march far to the battlefield.

The battlefield was laid out right outside the gate of Dodo's main camp!

The formation Dodo deployed was very simple. Of the "ten yamen" of infantry under his command, "nine yamen," about 21,600 men, based on niru horizontal formations, were drawn up into a great horizontal formation of two lines, front and rear.

The two great horizontal lines were composed of 40 and 32 niru horizontal formations joined together respectively. Each niru horizontal formation, when fully deployed, had a frontage of about a hundred paces, and gaps of a certain width were left between the niru formations. Thus the front line's 40 niru horizontal formations, when fully deployed, formed a frontage of about 5,500 paces.

On the flanks of the two great horizontal formations, many baggage wagons were placed to prevent the Ming firelock cavalry from outflanking them.

In front of the two great horizontal formations were 8 field ujen cooha niru, with a total of 96 three-pounder cannons arrayed in a single line — their firepower was still extremely fierce!

Dodo's cavalry, including all the elite cavalry and the vanguard battalion cavalry, as well as Dodo's own bayara soldiers, were all placed in the open area behind the great formation and in front of the main camp.

The "baggage booi troops" all remained behind to guard the main camp and watch the house for Dodo. The "auxiliary booi troops" followed beside their own masters.

In addition, 8 niru belonging to one infantry yamen lay in ambush in Desheng Marsh, to prevent the Ming army from making a flanking move through Desheng Marsh.

So the actual number of Qing troops taking the field reached as many as sixty-six thousand!

Yet the Ming troops that first appeared before them numbered fewer than twenty thousand. What was going on?