Chapter 140: Section 24: Begging

Another major matter in coming to Dongjiang was discussing military pay. After nearly three years of wrangling, and relying on two years of severed heads and captive presentations, the imperial court finally set Dongjiang Town's pay at one tael four qian of silver and one dan of rice per soldier — equal to that of Liaozhen. Since Mao Wenlong had already registered all the Liaodong refugees who had fled to Dongjiang as military households, he also listed the farmers who tilled the land and the fishermen who fished all on the rolls.

Following this directive, Huang Shi also counted all seven thousand able-bodied males of Changsheng as soldiers — of whom over a thousand were combat troops and nearly six thousand were support troops. Zhang Pan's Lüshun likewise counted over twenty thousand troops, and in the end the whole of Dongjiang Town counted a grand total of one hundred seventy thousand troops!

This would have made the annual pay exceed two million, but the Ministry of War's verification officers would not agree…

The Ministry of War intended to count only able-bodied adult males as soldiers and exclude the old and weak. Yet even by that method, Dongjiang had as many as eighty thousand males between eighteen and forty. So the Ministry of Revenue proposed a different method of identification: recognizing only soldiers who possessed weapons as soldiers, and counting none of the rest. This verification standard was relatively favorable to Lüshun and Changsheng — Lüshun had already absorbed a large quantity of weapons and equipment, and Huang Shi had also captured a great deal in those two battles.

In the end, Huang Shi's Changsheng Island was verified at two thousand soldiers, Lüshun at over four thousand, and the entire Dongjiang Town at only thirty-two thousand men. The final pay was set at four hundred eighty thousand taels. However, because the imperial court's finances were strained and it could only pay half, Dongjiang Town would henceforth receive two hundred forty thousand taels of silver in military pay each year. In addition, the Ministry of Revenue would allocate two hundred thousand taels in back pay to Dongjiang Town, which was considered to wipe the slate clean for the arrears from the first year of Tianqi through the fourth year.

With Changsheng Island's own output, plus this annual military pay of fifteen thousand taels, Huang Shi estimated he could support one thousand soldiers as full-time personnel. Only full-time soldiers could be fully trained and bring their combat power into play. And if he further factored in his maritime trade and smuggling, Huang Shi was confident he could build a professional force of around two thousand men.

After everyone had divided up the cake, Huang Shi began to pack up and prepare to leave. That evening, of course, Mao Wenlong hosted a dinner. During the banquet, some Dongjiang military officers also performed to add to the entertainment, and Huang Shi could not help thinking that if he had brought He Baodao along, he could have shown off once again.

Looking at the room full of young officers, Huang Shi could not resist inwardly exclaiming: "The Dongjiang Army is truly a young army."

A young military officer went over and muttered with Zhang Pan for quite a while, then came and sat down beside Huang Shi. This young officer was Chen Jisheng, Mao Wenlong's personal guard commander and chief strategist.

In Huang Shi's former life, Chen Jisheng became the leader of the Liaodong military men after Mao Wenlong's death. After taking charge of the Dongjiang Army on Pi Island, he believed that the previous policy of tightly defending the islands, which caused the Later Jin army to withdraw without a fight, was not a good way to kill the enemy and serve the nation. So Chen Jisheng deliberately left gaps for the Later Jin army to use for landing, then counterattacked while the Later Jin army was not yet firmly established. After inflicting casualties, he would immediately pull back to lure the enemy into sending reinforcements. This was repeated over five days, and over a thousand heads were taken.

Hong Taiji deeply hated him for this and secretly ordered Liu Xingzuo to find a way to obtain Chen Jisheng's head. After receiving Hong Taiji's order, Liu Xingzuo went ashore on Pi Island, launched a sudden surprise attack, and killed Chen Jisheng, who had come to welcome him. But when Liu Xingzuo subsequently raised his troops to surrender to the Manchu Qing, he too was killed by the former subordinates of Mao Wenlong and Chen Jisheng. Yet the chaos in Dongjiang Town grew worse by the day from then on.

It was precisely this history that made Huang Shi extremely distrustful of Later Jin's Han commanders, but these were things he could not bring out and lay plainly before the Dongjiang Army officers.

Likewise, another confirmed Later Jin spy, Wang Zideng, also claimed credit in a letter to Hong Taiji, asserting that it was he who had framed Mao Wenlong before Yuan Chonghuan, leading to Mao Wenlong's death on Shuang Island. This matched another piece of Later Jin spy correspondence, which likewise boasted before Hong Taiji: it was they, the spies, who had secretly reported Mao Wenlong's rebellion to Yuan Chonghuan, thus causing the Shuang Island Incident and the Dongjiang internal strife.

This history, which only a time-traveler could see, made Huang Shi feel he could draw the following judgment: the two great figures he could absolutely trust in Liaodong were Yuan and Mao. Because Hong Taiji of Later Jin did not believe Mao Wenlong would rebel; and Hong Taiji also believed that Yuan Chonghuan had killed Mao Wenlong for the sake of a stratagem of sowing discord.

Of course, this also showed that Hong Taiji truly was very fond of using spies. In this regard, Huang Shi had to be cautious and on guard, and must not repeat the mistakes that led to Mao Wenlong's downfall.

"General Huang, please." After sitting down, Chen Jisheng offered a toast.

Toward Mao Wenlong's chief confidant, Huang Shi naturally dared not be discourteous. He hurriedly raised his cup as well and said, "General Chen, please."

Chen Jisheng spoke in a roundabout way about the issue of military pay. Because both Lüshun and Changsheng Island were closer to Dengzhou than Dongjiang was, and because both Huang Shi and Zhang Pan held heavy forces in their hands, in theory the silver pay from Dengzhou would naturally be sent directly to their garrisons. But Mao Wenlong wanted to use this silver to do business. His fine calculation was to use the Army Supervisor's authorization slips to buy low-priced cloth and tea in Dengzhou, then ship them to Joseon to sell in exchange for ginseng and grain. By exploiting the price differential, Dongjiang Town could obtain several times the amount of supplies.

Although diverting military pay to do business did not sound good, the forced buying and selling from the tributary state of Joseon sounded even worse. Historically, all tribute from Joseon to the Great Ming was given reciprocal gifts in return — it was less tribute and more a form of trade. But Mao Wenlong had already persuaded the Ministry of Rites to set the tribute route at Dongjiang Island. He only intended to give half the reciprocal gifts and also planned to offset them with goods purchased at low prices. Yet Chen Jisheng indeed had an unimpeded eloquence; as he spoke at length, it all sounded reasonable, and Huang Shi listened, nodding repeatedly.

In fact, after arriving at Dongjiang, Huang Shi had already discovered that Mao Wenlong and the others did not dare to forcibly demand his tactical techniques. As for the officers and soldiers Huang Shi had trained, they were regarded as Huang Shi's private property, and no one even thought of taking some away to be directly subordinate to Dongjiang. The military pay that in theory should be allocated to Huang Shi was, according to feudal tradition, also his personal property — just like his officers and soldiers — in the same way that Huang Shi himself belonged to Mao Wenlong.

So Chen Jisheng came over to act as a lobbyist, hoping that Huang Shi and Zhang Pan could donate some of their military pay to assist the trade of the Dongjiang headquarters. After all, on average, both Huang Shi and Zhang Pan counted as wealthy men; they had received a very large share of the military pay, far more than the other Dongjiang officers who were barely scraping by.

"Could General Huang see his way to sharing a bit?" Chen Jisheng said this just like a beggar, then gazed at Huang Shi with eager eyes, hoping he would relent and hand over some money.

I wonder how much Zhang Pan, as a direct subordinate, gave? Huang Shi calculated in his mind.