Chapter 157: Section 14: Withdrawing the Army

Over one hundred and thirty soldiers had fallen and died, several dozen were gravely wounded and waiting for death, and this time practically every one of the remaining soldiers truly bore wounds of some kind.

Across this small patch of battlefield were also scattered two hundred and seventy corpses of Later Jin soldiers, a hundred of whom had been too badly wounded to crawl back to their own battle line and were subsequently killed by the Ming army that seized the field; the numbers of dead on both sides from direct confrontation were roughly equal.

Huang Shi pointed at the twenty corpses of Heavy Armor Soldiers and said to He Baodao, "Half of our army's casualties were caused by these beasts. Fierce, truly fierce. And this is just the Heavy Armor elite of two niru of the Jianzhou slaves, three niru at most."

He Baodao merely smiled at these words. "Every single Heavy Armor Soldier of the Jianzhou slaves is a veteran of a hundred battles, men who have fought for ten or twenty years — how could they not be fierce? Your lordship's troops have only been training for a few months, and yet the Jianzhou slaves all died right here. This lowly general said long ago: once this army is complete, there will be no more generals in the world like Guan Yu or Zhang Fei."

Huang Shi suddenly remembered he had not yet given the order to stand down from alert. He hurriedly issued the command, and the Ming soldiers began pulling arrows from their armor; many soldiers in the front ranks had several shafts stuck in them. Although Lüshun and Jinzhou had yielded large quantities of captured supplies, Changsheng Island had never expanded the army recklessly. On this expedition, some of the stronger pikemen had even put on two layers of armor.

He Baodao watched the infantry unit with its strict discipline and said, "Perhaps the Jianzhou slaves only thought my Fire-Rescue Battalion was just a little stronger than other Ming armies. This battle should sober them up."

"Mobile Corps Commander He speaks well, but when we return we must tell Mobile Corps Commander Yang that our army's helmets all need face guards," Huang Shi said, still shaken. "Those Heavy Armor Soldier beasts shoot far too accurately."

Wu Mu also arrived close behind. The moment he dismounted he rushed straight toward Huang Shi, seized him by the arm, and cried out repeatedly, "General Huang, are you all right? When the scout cavalry came galloping back just now, they truly frightened this servant to death."

Huang Shi shot a puzzled look at He Baodao. The latter smiled and said, "Just now the scouts raced back saying the fighting was extremely fierce and that my lord's main force was in danger of being wiped out." He Baodao added with a smile, "But I had confidence — the troops of my Fire-Rescue Battalion could never be wiped out."

After the scouts reported that fierce battle had broken out here, the Ming army immediately withdrew from the siege assault, but the artillery moved relatively slowly, so He Baodao commanded the cavalry to screen the artillery and support troops as they retreated to a safe distance, and only then went to catch up with the infantry. Thus the two arrived almost simultaneously.

Once Huang Shi understood, he too smiled calmly and said to Wu Mu, "Mobile Corps Commander He put it well. My Fire-Rescue Battalion will never be wiped out — it can only be exhausted."

"My lord, the Jianzhou slaves at the grain depot set it on fire, and then the whole lot of them fled." A scout came galloping up to report.

"Mm, just as they should." Huang Shi's smile grew even easier. Five hundred combat soldiers and over six hundred support troops of the Later Jin had been utterly unable to devour a single infantry unit of four hundred Ming soldiers, and had moreover lost all their elite troops and suffered catastrophic combat soldier losses — naturally their courage had shattered and their hearts split with terror.

Soon the female soldiers of the Rescue Battalion arrived and began tending the wounded. Wu Mu was at that moment staring at the left side of Huang Shi's body and suddenly asked, "What happened to General Huang's left arm?"

"What happened to my left arm?" Huang Shi looked sideways in bewilderment. Hm, there seemed to be blood flowing from the cuff of his military tunic. When he tried to exert force, his left arm would no longer lift, and a sharp pain from his upper arm made him cry out "Ah!"

"Rescue soldier!" He Baodao shouted at the top of his lungs. The name "rescue soldier" was also coined by Huang Shi.

It took enormous effort to remove the arm guard. Huang Shi had long forgotten taking such a heavy blow to his left upper arm. The arm guard had been hacked so deeply inward that it was horrifyingly clamped tight into the flesh; the scales were all bent backward and stabbed into the lining. Had his armor not been so fine, the arm would likely be gone.

"My lord, it seems your bone is injured."

The female soldier's voice was very pleasant to hear, and it stirred a surge of heroic pride in Huang Shi's chest. He smiled as he looked at his left upper arm, swollen beyond recognition — no deformation meant it was only a bone crack. "Bind it up for me." Huang Shi smiled as if it did not hurt at all, and he did not forget to add, "Thank you."

When the rescue soldier used a branding iron and salt to disinfect the wound, Huang Shi broke out in bean-sized beads of sweat from the pain, but since a woman was present, he steeled himself and forced a cheerful expression, using every muscle in his face to desperately squeeze out a look of indifference. This rescue soldier, probably because of his rank, worked with particular thoroughness, which truly made Huang Shi wish he were dead.

"General Huang, bathed in blood and slaying the foe — truly a fierce general." Fortunately, Wu Mu was at his side chattering away, which helped distract him somewhat.

Yet Huang Shi did not think much of this flattery. He felt that a general forced to draw his own blade was already no good general, and Huang Shi recalled that this was already the second time he had been driven to such a state; he only hoped there would not be a third. "Eunuch Wu, for this battle's memorial to the throne, I must trouble you to write it."

"No problem, leave it to this servant." Whenever Wu Mu was pleased with himself, his voice became especially shrill.

"What is the next step?" He Baodao interjected again.

"The next step... hiss..." Just as Huang Shi was about to speak, he felt another burst of sharp pain from his left arm — that vicious woman had begun stitching. He grimaced and sucked in cold air through clenched teeth, forcibly suppressing the shout back into his belly, then forced a smile and said, "Our army's losses... hiss... are not small, the wounded... hiss... are also many, we must still immediately — head — back!" Gritting his back teeth, he finally managed to finish the last sentence in one breath.

After that, Huang Shi pretended to be deep in thought, enduring in silence until the rescue soldier began binding the splint before he unhurriedly opened his mouth to continue: "The day after tomorrow it will no longer be safe, so setting sail before dusk tomorrow absolutely cannot be delayed. But before we leave, we must make a trip to Gaizhou. Since we intend to humiliate the Jianzhou slaves, we must do it to perfection."

The Ming army advanced to the walls of Gaizhou. The Later Jin garrison that had fled back shut all four gates tight and stood atop the gate towers as if facing a great enemy. Even the lightly wounded combat soldiers donned armor and mounted the walls; Jurchen women and children were issued weapons, and the Han commoners inside the city were mobilized for earthworks and construction.

Huang Shi rode at the very front and took his stand on the main road from Gaizhou's south gate leading to Fuzhou. Under the dumbfounded gaze of the Later Jin troops on the walls, he undid his belt and grandly, copiously pissed a great long piss. When he was done, he sighed with lingering satisfaction, calmly and unhurriedly fastened his belt, slowly walked away, and at the same time waved his hand to signal He Baodao to continue.

Fifty rescue soldiers had already been ordered to turn their faces away; with their backs to the place of public urination, they did not forget to cover their faces. These grown girls and young wives all blushed and giggled. Amid thunderous cheers, Huang Shi returned with his head held high. Then officers led their units up in batches, until at last the long stretch of official road from Gaizhou to Fuzhou was turned into a muddy swamp.

The Later Jin troops, faces black, watched the Ming army gradually recede into the distance. The unrestrained jeers and curses were finally scattered by the autumn wind. Listening to the Ming army's cheerful drumbeats, they ground their teeth and glared at the proudly fluttering serpent banner of the Fire-Rescue Battalion.

Lianyun Island was the designated withdrawal point. Because it was very close to the mainland, the Fire-Rescue Battalion was quickly transferred in its entirety to the island, and from this secure location they returned to Changsheng Island in batches.

The staff officers began analyzing the gains and losses of this battle. They soon proposed a number of wildly imaginative targeted tactics, which would be tested on the drill ground and, if found reasonable and feasible, would be promoted throughout the entire army.

Another important issue was the artillery problem. This time the artillery's accuracy had been very poor, but training qualified gunners required many things. Deng Ken and Huang Shi discussed this issue for a very long time. From Huang Shi's personal impression, what Deng Ken described seemed to be simple trigonometric functions, which truly gave Huang Shi a headache, because he could not imagine how long it would take illiterate soldiers to master such a thing.

When he mentioned this vexation to the officers during a military conference, Li Yunrui asked about it with keen interest for a long while, then reported: "My lord, this humble officer has heard of such things. There is a certain kind of person who also seems to be proficient in these techniques."

The double-rod distance-measuring height method and a whole series of surveying techniques had long since matured in China. With slight adaptation, they became the Western military surveying and artillery surveying methods of this era. In Li Yunrui's words, the skill of those old master craftsmen was in no way inferior to that of Deng Ken, that Semu officer, and might even be superior.

Why say "with slight adaptation"? Because at this time, these techniques in China still belonged to the civilian domain — they were used for reading feng shui and selecting tomb sites — while others who were proficient in these techniques were in the tomb-robbing trade.

The officers of the Fire-Rescue Battalion discussed some legal issues. The principal offenders in tomb robbing were sentenced either to death by slow slicing or beheading — no hope there. But accomplices and tomb-robbing apprentices did not incur the death penalty; they should be sentenced to penal exile and conscripted into the frontier garrisons. While Huang Shi and his group discussed this, Wu Mu listened from the side and roared with laughter, also indicating that he could help pull strings on their behalf.

It was finally decided that the Fire-Rescue Battalion should accept tomb-robbing convicts, criminal feng shui masters, and tomb construction workers. Huang Shi thereupon sent an official dispatch to Dongjiangzhen, requesting that such specially skilled individuals be allocated to Changsheng Island. In addition, he would send dispatches to the Tongzhengsi and the Ministry of Justice requesting the transfer of such criminals. Wu Mu would also send a secret memorial to the Son of Heaven explaining the matter. Although such criminals were not numerous, there should still be quite a few across the whole country. Besides, artillery officers were not needed in great numbers, so the problem of artillery talent seemed to have been resolved.

This time Huang Shi had taken three hundred heads, roamed freely beneath the walls of Gaizhou for three days, and burned countless Later Jin granaries, once again shocking the court and the realm. Wu Mu gave an even more vivid account of the entire army urinating beneath the walls of Gaizhou. When the Tianqi Emperor read this part, he too roared with laughter, and Wei Zhongxian bustled about beside the Emperor, exclaiming, "Satisfying! Satisfying!"

Wu Mu was now a favorite of Eunuch Wei. Every message he sent could earn Wei Zhongxian a heap of praise. He told Huang Shi smugly, "Word has come from the palace: His Majesty says he very much wishes to meet General Huang, who has 'fought four battles and won four victories,' though of course he must wait until military affairs are less busy."

Huang Shi did not answer. Smiling, he read an official document aloud to Wu Mu. After hearing it, Wu Mu's expression also changed drastically. "The Grand Coordinator of Liaodong, His Excellency Sun of the Cabinet, Lord Sun, is coming to inspect Dongjiangzhen?"