[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-stealing-ming":3,"chapter-stealing-ming-stealing-ming-chapter-268":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Stealing Ming",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1220885,1614,"Chapter 268: Section 25: Aftermath","stealing-ming-chapter-268",268,"\u003Cp>At that moment, the Later Jin troops atop the walls of Haizhou were still carrying out interdiction fire, and from time to time Dongjiang Army officers and soldiers hauling earth and stone fell under their firepower; the conspicuous white plumes on the heads of the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team soldiers drew their attention even more. Right before Ouyang Xin’s eyes, a Firefighting Battalion column transporting equipment was struck once by a crouching-tiger cannon — an engineer officer pitched forward and fell face-first without a sound, his body left on the bank of the moat, his head plunging straight into the water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Another Firefighting Battalion officer behind him bent down, picked up the command flag from his hand, and took over the traffic direction duties; by now the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team had already begun taking charge of directing road traffic and further reinforcing the surface of the moat that had been basically filled level. Two other soldiers dragged the fallen officer out of the water; the officer was laid flat on the ground, the soldiers first drained the water from his helmet and straightened it, untied and retied the helmet cord around his neck, and only then carried him away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This engineer team really is quite useful.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After hearing the frontline officers’ reports, Dongjiang Regional Commander Mao Wenlong voiced the same sentiment — the speed of digging at the wall today was a full three times faster than usual. Just then, several successive explosions rang out ahead: the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team was conducting black-powder blasting trials. As the breach steadily widened, the engineer team stuffed whole kegs of gunpowder into the hole, hoping to speed up the disintegration of the wall core.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>General Pan had been observing the Firefighting Battalion engineer team’s movements for a good long while; once he thought he had figured it out, he headed straight for the wall, squeezed in among a group of Firefighting Battalion engineers, and said, “Let this general give it a try!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The broad-shouldered, thick-waisted Mobile Corps Commander Pan took hold of the crank, roared repeatedly as he spun it at flying speed, the drill bit ceaselessly flinging spurts of earth from the wall, which made General Pan happier and happier the more he cranked. He stared at the drill bit boring swiftly into the wall core and could not help bursting into loud laughter: “Ha ha, this engineer team really is extremely useful indeed.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To make their work easier, the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team all wore only helmets and no armor; as for those Dongjiang Army digging crews, starting with General Pan himself, every last one of them was stripped to the waist. The arrows from the city wall therefore posed a constant threat to them. Ouyang Xin, who was responsible for recording data, was just discussing matters with two subordinates when, without the slightest warning, he suddenly dashed forward two steps.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it. I thought someone had kicked me and was about to turn around and hit them.” Ouyang Xin only steadied himself after charging forward several paces; an arrow was now starkly protruding from his buttock. After a comrade helped him snap off the arrow shaft, he was already grimacing in pain. Firefighting Battalion regulations stipulated that an arrow wound to a non-vital area counted only as a light wound — three arrows equaled one blade wound as a heavy wound. Ouyang Xin felt the spot where the arrow had struck and cursed again: “Savages. Couldn’t they have shot a bit higher, say the waist, the back, or something? That way I’d count as heavily wounded and could go down and rest.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone laughed at Ouyang Xin’s words; Ouyang Xin also grinned, sucking cold air through his teeth, then clapped his hands, his expression turning serious again: “All right, let us continue our work.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once the city wall had been torn open into a breach large enough, Mao Wenlong’s banner waved once more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Kill, kill! Lads, strike up our drums!” Kong Youde swung his horse lance in a great circle through the air; he spurred his warhorse, bellowing as he rode at the very front toward Haizhou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On Kong Youde’s two flanks, the other Dongjiang generals also urged their horses forward one after another: “Strike up the drums, lads! Don’t fall behind the others.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thousands of Dongjiang cavalry and infantry advanced in unison to the drumbeats; the flanking fire from the two walls of Haizhou city grew fiercer and fiercer, and for the first time the roar of an eighteen-pounder cannon was heard. After that thunder-like cannon blast, a great spray of blood blossomed within the dense Dongjiang Army column.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet that flash of blood was but a fleeting bloom. Most of the Dongjiang soldiers wore only a single helmet, many of them tattered, and some of the sword-and-shield men had never even possessed a helmet. But their strides were unwavering, their gazes never wavered, and the expressions on their faces were so calm and serene, as if they wore the armor of the war god himself upon their bodies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus that blood-red hue, vanishing in the blink of an eye, was no more than a pebble cast into a rushing torrent — it stirred a splash of spray, then swiftly returned to formlessness. The flood surged onward still; the human tide formed by tens of thousands of Ming officers and soldiers, like a joyous stream, rolled in through the breach…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before the sun sank in the west, the Ming army’s banners had already been planted all across the sky above Haizhou city, and the fires set within the city by the Later Jin troops had largely been extinguished by the Dongjiang Army.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the gaze of the multitude, a lone rider suddenly came racing at full tilt toward the breach in Haizhou’s wall, holding a flag-lance level, a human head impaled on its point. Man and horse were like a swift bolt of lightning, reaching the foot of the wall in an instant. The rider pulled at his horse’s head, and his mount leaped from the earthen slope beside the breach up onto the wall; where its hooves landed, the wall was as steep as a cliff, and by the time the horse charged to the edge of the wall-top its momentum was spent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Right before the eyes of tens of thousands of Dongjiang Army officers and soldiers, the horse’s body checked, its four hooves began to slip, and it was about to topple backward — but in that flash, the rider, still holding the flag-lance level, applied force with both legs simultaneously; the spurs on his boots stabbed into his mount’s flanks. Stung by the pain, the horse strained upward in a leap and instantly burst from the sheer wall-face onto the top of the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After steadying his horse, the rider, holding the flag-lance level, slowly turned it horizontally, tracing a great circle; wherever his lance-point passed, for a moment all fell utterly silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The rider was none other than Kong Youde. He clenched one fist, with the other hand gripped tight the flagpole bearing the head of Haizhou’s defending general, raised both arms high toward the sky, straightened both knees simultaneously, and rose from the saddle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Having raised both arms high in a V, Kong Youde stood on the stirrups and leisurely turned another circle; his movements were so composed, as if he possessed all the time between heaven and earth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The banner fluttered and streamed atop the walls of Haizhou, and the wind carried the rider’s shout, brimming with pride: “Our Dongjiang Army —”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mighty!~”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mighty!~”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tens of thousands of Ming officers and soldiers inside and outside Haizhou, above and below, all raised their arms and roared — Huang Shi among them, Mao Wenlong among them too…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>— Heaven above bears witness, and the ancestors and forebears of Huaxia bear witness. Whether facing Hong Taiji or facing Yuan Chonghuan, whether facing war or facing intrigue, so long as I, Huang Shi, have one breath left, I will never allow these several hundred thousand sons of Liaodong to fall into the hands of the Jianzhou slaves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the eighth day of the fifth month of the sixth year of Tianqi, the Dongjiang Army took Haizhou in a single day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>……\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the Dongjiang Garrison Left Auxiliary had always considered its own clean-up work fairly decent — especially at Juehua, where the Dongjiang Left Auxiliary’s thoroughness in taking everything left the Guan-Ning allied troops marveling, and at the time Huang Shi’s subordinates even stripped the clothes off the dead. The good ones they could keep for their own use, the not-so-good ones could be washed clean and used as sackcloth, and the really poor ones could still be sold to the Japanese.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Assistant Regional Commander Yao and the others had naturally had the good fortune to observe the Dongjiang Garrison Left Auxiliary clearing a battlefield, and afterward they had remarked: “If every army were like the men under Military Governor Huang, then after a battle there would never again be beggars roaming the battlefield.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But today, having witnessed the methods of the Dongjiang main force, the Left Auxiliary’s officers and men realized they were still far behind. There was a grain storehouse that had originally been cleared by the Left Auxiliary, but a man from the Dongjiang main force took one casual look and shook his head vigorously; that main-force officer then pulled a group of main-force men in from the street and, without another word, set about redoing the Left Auxiliary’s work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These men, who had been grabbed quite literally at random, cooperated with extreme rapport. Right in front of the Left Auxiliary, they dismantled every piece of furniture into splinters, extracting every iron nail and iron plate within; then they pried up the stone slabs from the storehouse floor one by one and swept up the grain particles underneath. Finally, the main-force men even scraped off the plaster brushed onto the storehouse walls. The officer explained to the baffled Left Auxiliary officers and men: there might be some old wall-papering paste underneath, and since they had come across such a fine thing, they absolutely could not let it pass.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The work ethic of the Dongjiang main force gave the Left Auxiliary officers and men an enormous shock; as they watched, the Left Auxiliary officers and men eventually developed a collective sense of guilt. When Huang Shi heard of this, he ordered the Left Auxiliary to withdraw from battlefield clean-up work — in any case, Mao Wenlong had said that no matter how much loot was cleared, Huang Shi’s share would not be shorted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi had originally estimated that he could obtain a fair amount of loot from Haizhou, but after the Dongjiang main force’s thorough going-over, he discovered that the city actually contained this much military materiel — a full thirty percent more than the upper limit of his estimate! After some discussion between the Dongjiang Army main force and the Left Auxiliary, in the end all the cannons that were inconvenient to transport went entirely to the Left Auxiliary, while the other materiel was split according to an eighty-twenty division, with the main force taking the larger share and the Left Auxiliary the smaller.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi had given Ouyang Xin permission beforehand, so the Dongjiang main force obtained several tools from the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team. Mobile Corps Commander Wu sent a few men to deliver the tools to the rear for Mao Wenlong to inspect. In front of Marshal Mao, the men demonstrated the use of the spiral drill bit and the engineer shovel one by one, then passed each item in turn into Mao Wenlong’s hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This engineer team is truly excellent. And these working tools as well.” Mao Wenlong stroked the brand-new, gleaming implements and repeated the exclamation he had made earlier. He made a point of personally inspecting the breach in Haizhou’s city wall. At today’s speed, they could probably dig through the walls of most cities in Liaodong within a year. Shortening the time likewise meant reducing casualties.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mao Wenlong toyed with the implements in his hands; the more he looked at them, the more he liked them, and for a time he simply could not put them down. That Mobile Corps Commander Pan had been listening beside the two commanders-in-chief the whole time, and now he chimed in to second Mao Wenlong: “The Grand Marshal speaks well. This humble general believes that if our forces were to form large numbers of engineer teams and equip them all with these tools, we would be practically invincible.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These words drew a wave of laughter from the others. Geng Zhongming clapped Mobile Corps Commander Pan on the shoulder and called him “Fool” a couple of times. As everyone laughed, General Pan also laughed along with a simple, honest grin, utterly failing to detect the mockery in the others’ laughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ever since they finished digging at the wall, this General Pan had been pestering Ouyang Xin, asking how these things were made, and also asking whether he could request a few craftsmen from the Left Auxiliary on behalf of the Dongjiang main force. Ouyang Xin repeatedly explained that these engineers were not his personal property, that everything on Changsheng Island was for Huang Shi to decide, and that the craftsmen, even more so, did not belong to the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But this General Pan always felt that Ouyang Xin was just fobbing him off. In the end, Ouyang Xin, his head swollen from the questioning, pushed everything onto Huang Shi and slipped away on the pretext of treating his wound. Huang Shi was also pestered by him to no end, so he secretly inquired of Geng Zhongming and the others just what kind of sacred figure this was, and only then learned that this General Pan was a Shandong man, originally a servant in a wealthy household.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Brother Pan was a bit simple-minded and had originally known nothing whatsoever about the scale or living conditions of the Dongjiang Army. Three years ago, when he saw the grain sacks on the transport ships at Dengzhou, he single-mindedly believed that joining the Dongjiang Army would mean he could eat his fill, and so he rashly enlisted. But Brother Pan could endure hardship and toil; he did the dirtiest and most exhausting work for several years without a single word of complaint, and so, although he had no military talent to speak of, he had still risen through accumulated merit to Mobile Corps Commander and was also a hereditary Battalion Commander of the Dongjiang Garrison.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ordinarily, a minor officer like General Pan really ought not to dare even breathe loudly in front of Huang Shi, yet General Pan did not even seem to feel a particularly strong sense of awe toward Mao Wenlong, so toward Huang Shi he had even less: “Vice Marshal, could you sell this humble general a few craftsman households? The price is up to you, Vice Marshal.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi had already heard these words several times today. No matter what, being regarded — especially by a minor officer — as a money-grubber was somewhat unpleasant, and besides, Huang Shi genuinely looked down on whatever financial resources a minor Mobile Corps Commander of the Dongjiang main force might possess. This time, as soon as General Pan’s words left his mouth in front of everyone, a number of Dongjiang main-force officers inwardly groaned, and the quick-witted among them, like Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, surged forward to change the subject.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After exchanging a few perfunctory words with them — “Vice Marshal this, Vice Marshal that” — Huang Shi made up his mind. He called Ouyang Xin over and gave him a few instructions, then said with a smile to Mobile Corps Commander Pan: “General Pan, it is not that I am unwilling to part with them, only that these implements are truly troublesome to manufacture. On Changsheng Island I have built quite a number of things called windmills and waterwheels precisely for the purpose of making these tools; it really is not a matter of just a few craftsman households…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing a trace of unconvinced skepticism rise on the other man’s face, Huang Shi gave a self-deprecating smile. So long as his own conscience was clear, that was enough — why bother explaining so earnestly? It only made people find it even less believable. “How about this, General Pan: I will have my lads hand over their tools to you, and I will just go back and forge another set.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The full set of engineer equipment for the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer team had cost Huang Shi nearly thirty thousand taels of silver, almost matching the total cost of all the Firefighting Battalion’s cannons and firearms. But Huang Shi still had quite a bit of money on hand. If this batch of equipment could save the main force a few thousand casualties and bring the pacification of Liao a few years earlier, then Huang Shi had no reason to begrudge it. Besides, forging new engineer equipment in the future would involve far fewer detours and the cost would not be so staggering; the experience gained over these past few days could also be applied to new production and manufacturing. Wasn’t that just what “the old doesn’t go, the new doesn’t come” meant?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The overjoyed General Pan was about to hurry off to take receipt of the equipment when someone hastily tugged at him: “Fool Pan, the victory banquet is about to start.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Won’t be too late to drink when I get back.” General Pan shook off the other’s grasp and went off in high spirits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Throughout this commotion, Mao Wenlong had watched coldly from the sidelines. After the crowd had finished their jeering laughter, he said to Huang Shi: “Huang Shi, this man is rough and careless by nature. Don’t take him to heart.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi also smiled: “The Grand Marshal is right.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It is best that you can think this way. In any case, sooner or later he will be your subordinate, so giving them to him doesn’t count as a loss.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment Mao Wenlong’s words left his mouth, the boiling hubbub of voices in the tent instantly fell silent. On the faces of Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and the others who had been chatting with Huang Shi, expressions subtly changed, and behind him came the sound of someone sucking in a sharp breath.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Huang Shi stood at the center of everyone’s attention; for a moment the silence all around was such that one truly could have heard a needle drop. Listening to the forcibly suppressed breathing and coughing of those nearby, Huang Shi, his expression unchanged, said in a loud voice: “The Grand Marshal’s words are too weighty. Everyone here is a son of Liaodong, a comrade of the Dongjiang Army — what talk is there of loss or no loss?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Upon hearing this, Mao Wenlong smiled faintly again: “Huang Shi’s words are excellent. So long as there are men like you, even if I am no longer here, the sons of Dongjiang will not come to harm.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Grand Marshal, what are you saying?” Kong Youde was the first to cry out, and the officers filling the tent all joined in the clamor, instantly covering over the awkward atmosphere of a moment before.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What followed was the victory banquet. At the banquet, the Dongjiang generals naturally came forward one after another to toast the two commanders-in-chief. Having heard Mao Wenlong’s earlier words, they now regarded Huang Shi with an added layer of subtle expression — compared to the day before, there seemed to be more awe, and more expectation as well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the banquet, Mao Wenlong asked Huang Shi to accompany him on an inspection of the army camp. The guards of both men kept far away; the Left and Right Commanders-in-Chief walked one behind the other, and for a long while neither spoke first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mao Wenlong pondered for a long time before finally finding a casual opening: “Now that Haizhou has fallen, what plans do you have next, Huang Shi?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From Haizhou toward Liaoyang, there remained only Anshan ahead. On the fifth, Mao Wenlong had already dispatched a force to attack Anshan, but the results had been very poor. Anshan not only had a large number of cannons but also a considerable garrison; the Dongjiang Army troops had suffered heavy casualties. For such a small fort, Mao Wenlong believed that mobilizing tens of thousands of men to attack it would not be worth the cost, and small forts had their own advantages — the Dongjiang Army’s human-wave tactics were not easy to bring into play there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Marshal Mao, your insight is clear. The main objective of this expedition is to pin down the Jianzhou slaves, force them to pull their forces back from Liaobei, and coordinate with the Liaodong Provincial Governor in constructing the city of Jinzhou. If that is the sole objective, this humble general believes we have already more or less achieved it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although Huang Shi did not have clairvoyance, he could guess without thinking the shock this raid into central Liao had brought Nurhaci — this was already the second time in half a year. But given the Dongjiang Army's current condition, Huang Shi had no confidence whatsoever in a decisive battle against the Later Jin main force.\u003C\u002Fp>",3567,"2026-06-04T07:54:54.057Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","7e4817febe304e35edb3ec0365766d9bcb725d6dacdd505aac5c35b43eb1be38","stealing-ming-chapter-269","stealing-ming-chapter-267",323,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fstealing-ming-cover.jpg"]