Chapter 269: Section 26: Heroes

Historically, Nurhaci hurried back from Liaobei and also ordered the Four Senior Beile, all Banner-lord Beile, and Gushan Ejen to assemble at Liaoyang, concentrating all his field forces in preparation for a decisive battle with the main Dongjiang army — this time will certainly be no less. Although Jinzhou City and the Greater and Lesser Linghe in Liaoxi had been damaged, the foundations of all the forts remained. As long as the seventy thousand field troops of the Liaoxi Guanning Army were willing to put in the effort, they should have more or less finished repairing the city walls by now.

As for Lin Danhan in Liaobei, it was said he was currently circling Nurhaci out on the grasslands, counting on his youth to outlast the seventy-year-old Nurhaci in a contest of stamina. If Nurhaci withdrew his troops now, the Khorchin Mongols would be left to fight alone and would naturally have no choice but to retreat as well, and Lin Danhan could be considered to have escaped disaster.

"Mm, yes." Mao Wenlong nodded. The scale of this Dongjiang army assembly was even larger than in Huang Shi's original history, but neither Mao Wenlong nor Huang Shi dared entertain the thought of a decisive battle, because the Later Jin army's combat soldiers were no fewer than the Dongjiang army's, and the Jurchen slaves also had the advantage of fighting on home ground.

If they simply sat tight at Liaoyang for half a month, the opposing Dongjiang army would run out of food entirely. Even if they exhausted all the supplies of the Left Auxiliary, they could not possibly hold out beyond a month. Since Huang Shi understood this simple logic, there was no reason Mao Wenlong would not. Without Liaoxi's support, pitting the shattered Liaonan against the central Liaoning plains was nothing short of self-destruction.

"Huang Shi, you have rendered great service to the nation. I hear His Majesty also holds you in high regard."

"It is all thanks to the Regional Commander's nurturing." Although these words of Huang Shi contained flattery, much of it came from his heart. After all, it was Mao Wenlong who had stepped forward back then to keep him in Dongjiang, and who had provided him with military households and provisions to go to Changsheng Island. It could be said that without the Dongjiangzhen created by Mao Wenlong, there could never have been space for Huang Shi to survive, let alone to build a career and achieve merit.

"Back when Dongjiangzhen was about to establish the Left Auxiliary, Grand Secretary Sun proposed you for the post. I hesitated for a long time, finding it hard to choose between you and Zhang Pan."

This past episode was by no means a pleasant one for Huang Shi, and it was a knot that had faintly existed between him and Mao Wenlong. As for the subsequent Lüshun tragedy, Huang Shi felt he bore guilt. He had always reproached himself in his heart — if I had not harbored thoughts of competing for the Vice Regional Commander post, would Zhang Pan and the soldiers and civilians of Lüshun not have died?

Although Huang Shi secretly blamed himself, out of instinct he also shifted part of the responsibility onto Mao Wenlong. Huang Shi had once excused himself thus — had Mao Wenlong not hesitated and been indecisive, there would never have been such a great rift between himself and Zhang Pan, to the point that the two concealed military intelligence from each other, each fearing the other would steal his merit.

Mao Wenlong did not know what was in Huang Shi's heart. He continued speaking on his own: "At that time your military merits were above Zhang Pan's, yet the situation in Liaonan was something he had single-handedly created. Ah, that was back in Zhenjiang. Even today I still remember the scene when he departed."

Mao Wenlong stopped in his tracks, staring blankly, and stretched his arm forward as if trying to grasp a phantom: "Zhang Pan stood before me just that far away, brimming with heroic spirit, his face full of confidence and steadiness as he said to me: 'My lord, with your subordinate here, the affairs of Liaonan need cause no worry.' Ah. At that time I had only a few hundred men in total, and he took fifty soldiers and sailed nearly two thousand li out to sea, landing at Lüshun, defeating the Jurchen slaves in successive battles, and opening up a whole realm in Liaonan. He also rescued over a hundred thousand Liaodong commoners, one batch after another."

Mao Wenlong himself was like a dandelion seed. After he gained a firm foothold in Liaodong, he again, like a dandelion scattering seeds, dispatched dozens, even hundreds of squads of officers and soldiers to strike out in all directions across the vast Liaodong land. The vast majority of them died in obscurity, but not a few squads successfully took root, establishing one Mobile Corps Commander zone and base area after another behind enemy lines.

Thinking of the hardships of Dongjiang's founding and those heroes who gave their lives for the nation, Huang Shi's chest surged with fervent passion: "To have been unable to meet the heroes of our Dongjiang is truly the lifelong regret of this lowly general."

"Indeed, you had no chance to see them." Mao Wenlong also sighed. His body seemed to sway slightly; though there was no great change, it suddenly made Huang Shi feel an awe-inspiring and inviolable majesty rising from Marshal Mao: "But I have seen them all. Most of them were just as young and just as brave as you were back then, Huang Shi. Like you, they casually picked an island on the map, or picked a fortress, and then set sail with a few dozen men..."

"Zhang Pan chose Zhangshan Island, Chen Jisheng chose Kuandian, and there were many, many others. Before all these men left, they would come to see me one last time. Usually it was simply a clasped fist and a shout of 'Take care, my lord, until we meet again.' Then they would turn and leave without looking back. Nine out of ten of them never returned, and there was never a meeting again..."

Mao Wenlong's voice grew lower and lower, yet Huang Shi felt an ever greater power permeating it: "Mm, by the time you left, Dongjiangzhen's strength had already grown considerably, and I could give you over a thousand men. You had ability and luck. Although those children who gave their all for the nation were far inferior to you in this respect, they were, like you, fine sons of Liaodong, and like you they had ambition and a sincere heart devoted to serving the country."

Although he knew Mao Wenlong could not see him, Huang Shi still nodded silently behind his back.

"So the last time Grand Secretary Sun asked me to choose, I truly found it hard to choose, because I knew that both you and Zhang Pan were good men, true men. I could not bear to part with either of you, and so..." A note of grief suddenly emerged in Mao Wenlong's voice, and his voice seemed to age ten years in an instant: "So I thought I would delay, delay a few more days before deciding. I never imagined it would create a rift between you, costing Zhang Pan's life and nearly costing you yours as well."

"Regional Commander, you need not blame yourself. This is our..."

Mao Wenlong raised his hand to stop Huang Shi from continuing. Huang Shi watched him turn around. Though both stood in the darkness of night, Huang Shi could still see Mao Wenlong's eyes gleaming in the night, and his face seemed to bear a smile: "So this time I will not make the same mistake. After last time, I have thought it through clearly. You and Chen Jisheng are both good men. I know that no matter which of you I choose, it will not be wrong."

"Regional Commander, do not speak such ill-omened words."

"Haha, a general can hardly avoid dying on horseback. I have been in Liaodong for decades and have fought the Jurchen slaves for ten years. Your Regional Commander has not failed to consider this day." As Mao Wenlong spoke, he touched the top of his own head. Under the moonlight, Mao Wenlong's hair was a stark white: "I have sent off batch after batch of young lads. Though most of them are gone now, the blood of those warriors seems still to flow through my body. When I think of them, my back no longer aches, and the old wounds on my body no longer hurt..."

Mao Wenlong gazed in the direction of Beijing and suddenly let out an aged sigh: "The war in Liaodong is urgent and frequent. It has been nearly five years since I last saw my son. Ah, he is an upright and good child, very loyal to the nation, but he probably cannot yet be a general."

After the sigh, Mao Wenlong turned back to look at Huang Shi, his tone once again low and forceful: "I have decided. If one day I am no longer here, you shall be the next Dongjiang Regional Commander I recommend, Marshal Huang!"

In the fifth month of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, after the Dongjiang army invaded the central Liaoning plains, it swept all before it, but its attack on Anshan failed, costing one Mobile Corps Commander and nearly a thousand troops. By this time Nurhaci had already hurried back from Liaobei, and the Dongjiang army thereupon withdrew its forces and returned to Korea. Lin Danhan thus escaped total disaster, and the current Genghis Khan once again swaggered back to Liaobei with his followers, pitching his great golden tent near the borders of the Khorchin Mongols.

And Jinzhou City in Liaoxi was also able to complete its repairs. The Liaodong Provincial Governor and the seventy thousand Guanning armored cavalry, as if granted a great reprieve, submitted a memorial praising in the highest terms: "Who could have known that Mao Wenlong would directly raid Liaoyang and then turn his troops to respond? Had Marshal Mao not struck at the enemy's hollow, Jinzhou and Ningyuan would again have come under attack! Though Marshal Mao suffered casualties and losses, his years of pinning down the enemy have never been more fiercely demonstrated than this!"

By this time Huang Shi had already returned to Changsheng Island. Before departing, the Dongjiang army destroyed the city walls of Haizhou, then retreated in great strides back to the starting point of the offensive. Of the several hundred real Tatars in the battle of Haizhou, a full three hundred turned out to be former gunners of the Guanning Army's artillery and cart camp. Huang Shi spared the ten youngest and had them come back to demonstrate the various captured cannons.

Among the large batch of cannons that Changsheng Island hauled back from Haizhou in this battle were four eighteen-pounder bronze cannons. These weapons, copied by the Great Ming's Ministry of Works, had quite decent power, and their range greatly exceeded the field guns produced by Changsheng Island itself.

Therefore Huang Shi had originally wanted to incorporate these four cannons into the combat order. But to his surprise, although Jin Qiude, Deng Ken, and others also appreciated the power of the eighteen-pounder bronze cannons, they unanimously opposed equipping the troops with this type of weapon. Their main reason was that Changsheng Island could not produce this weapon, and if it were damaged or lost, there would be no way to replenish it. Thus the Changsheng Island staff, the training corps, and the artillery reached a consensus: it was not worth training gun crews for a disposable weapon.

In addition, there was the issue of artillery mobility. Deng Ken and Bao Jiusun both favored the nine-pounder cast-iron cannon. Changsheng Island had just completed production of an experimental model of this weapon, and the training corps had already begun testing it. According to the usual weapons production process, Changsheng Island could begin producing and equipping the nine-pounder cannon within a few months. In the end, Huang Shi decided to set the eighteen-pounder cannon aside for the time being.

Recently, Changsheng Island had conducted a large volume of arms trade with the Japanese domain of Zhangzhou. This was because the domestic situation in Japan had suddenly changed, giving Zhangzhou a great sense of crisis. The previous year, the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan had carried out currency reform. It knew that any merchant capable of importing or counterfeiting coins would be no small player, so before beginning the currency exchange, the shogunate issued stern warnings to all major trading houses.

Under the military threat of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japanese merchants no longer dared to import or counterfeit Great Ming coins. Unfortunately, because of the huge mole that was the Zhangzhou domain, the Japanese shogunate's currency reform since last year met with ignominious failure. A vast quantity of Ming coins poured in continuously, making it impossible for the shogunate to relieve the pressure of the exchange.

The business of counterfeiting currency was truly enormously profitable. In just half a year, Changsheng Island and the Zhangzhou domain had gained a net profit of one million taels of silver from this trade. "Share the meat when there is meat, share the soup when there is soup" was a core part of Huang Shi's leadership art. Although the Zhangzhou domain were Japanese, Huang Shi did not discriminate against them because of it.

"There are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests." This supreme maxim once again demonstrated its correctness. The fifty-fifty split of the net profit naturally moved the Zhangzhou domain deeply as well. The enormous profits also made the initially half-hearted Mori clan become utterly devoted. Now they had evolved into loyal allies of Changsheng Island, mobilizing the full potential of the Zhangzhou domain to help Huang Shi sell counterfeit coins.

Another core of Huang Shi's leadership art was: "Whoever walks closest to me reaps the greatest benefits." Guided by this principle, Huang Shi signed a secret treaty with the Zhangzhou domain. The treaty stipulated that any personnel changes within the Zhangzhou domain involving matters related to Changsheng Island should seek the prior consent of the Changsheng Island side.

Under this secret clause, Huang Shi could ensure that Moriyori Nobuyoshi, that great Japanese traitor, would remain entrenched in the upper echelons of the Zhangzhou domain. A year ago, Moriyori Nobuyoshi had been a mere ashigaru leader; now he was a renowned Elder of the Zhangzhou domain, controlling seventy percent of the Mori clan's fiscal revenue and holding full authority over trade with Changsheng Island.

As the counterfeit coin business grew increasingly prosperous, the Tokugawa Shogunate, while persisting in the exchange work, began searching domestically for suspicious elements, hoping to eradicate the source of counterfeit coin production. Although Zhangzhou had done its utmost to conceal its counterfeit-selling activities, the shogunate gradually began to take notice of Zhangzhou.

This Moriyori Nobuyoshi was precisely the kind of clever man Huang Shi liked. He deeply understood the source of his power. In recent days, Moriyori Nobuyoshi had done a great deal of work for Changsheng Island, and he was now also a staunch hawk, because the trade with Changsheng Island was everything to him. And the wealth that had flowed into Zhangzhou over the past year had also created an interest group. This group believed that "relying on oneself is better than relying on others," and rather than covering up their crimes and hoping the shogunate would turn a blind eye, it would be better to simply use "the Great Ming" as a shield, making the Tokugawa Shogunate hesitate to act for fear of the consequences.

Five months ago, Moriyori Nobuyoshi, as the representative of Zhangzhou's hawks toward Japan and doves toward the Great Ming, visited two senior representatives of Changsheng Island stationed in Japan: Liu Qingyang, a man of pure northern roots from Beizhili, and Kuroshima Kazuo, who had already taken Great Ming nationality. Moriyori Nobuyoshi hoped to purchase arms from Changsheng Island and requested help in training the Zhangzhou domain's army.

In Moriyori Nobuyoshi's plan, the Zhangzhou domain would invest seventy to eighty percent of the counterfeit coin trade revenue into military construction. Besides purchasing arms, the Zhangzhou domain would also pay for officer and soldier training costs. They even planned to hire Changsheng Island's combat engineers at high prices to come to Japan, design fortresses capable of withstanding a shogunate assault, and deploy cannons.

Kuroshima Kazuo and Yang Liuqing both highly praised Moriyori Nobuyoshi's broad perspective and outlook on life, and quickly reported his plan to Changsheng Island. Upon hearing the news, Huang Shi was also deeply moved to have such an international friend as Moriyori Nobuyoshi. For such a young Japanese talent, Huang Shi did not stint on high praise: "Lord Moriyori is the greatest statesman, military strategist, and diplomat in Japan's three-thousand-year history. Such a figure is rare even in our Cathay. He is a living national hero of the Japanese Yamato people! To be able to work alongside the far-sighted and noble Lord Moriyori, I, Huang Shi, am deeply honored."

Now there were already over a thousand Japanese soldiers on Changsheng Island. They were originally wandering samurai who could not get enough to eat. After being recruited by Moriyori Nobuyoshi with the promise of two full meals a day, they were handed over to Kuroshima Kazuo for transport to Changsheng Island. Although the training fees Huang Shi proposed were very expensive, Moriyori Nobuyoshi paid without the slightest hesitation. Huang Shi reciprocated his kindness by giving special instructions to provide these Japanese officers and soldiers with the best food and lodging conditions.

These Japanese soldiers drilled during the day and studied cultural knowledge at night. Speaking Japanese was absolutely forbidden in the training camp specially set up for them. On Changsheng Island, these Japanese friends not only ate rice even better than what the Emperor of Japan ate, but also, with the enthusiastic help of the Changsheng Island training corps, learned Hanyu Pinyin and simple Chinese characters. The training slogan of Changsheng Island was: "Eat the food of emperors, speak the language of the Heavenly Dynasty!"

The current representative of the Zhangzhou domain stationed on Changsheng Island was a trusted aide of Elder Moriyori Nobuyoshi. Huang Shi suggested to this plenipotentiary representative that, to enhance the defensive power of the Zhangzhou domain's fortresses, they might as well buy some of the small cannons captured from Haizhou from Huang Shi at the price of two thousand taels of silver each. That trusted aide of Moriyori Nobuyoshi agreed immediately without batting an eye. He decided on the spot to take five bronze cannons first, and also planned to use next year's trade revenue as collateral to reserve all the remaining cannons.

After concluding this deal, Huang Shi spared no expense to make several full-body wax statues of Moriyori Nobuyoshi, and also plastered portraits of Elder Moriyori all over the Japanese soldiers' dormitories, so that whether they were eating or drilling, they could see Moriyori Nobuyoshi's solemn bearing and profound gaze: "From the Onin War to the present, Japan is undergoing a great transformation unseen in three thousand years. For the Emperor, for the Zhangzhou domain, every ambitious Japanese should learn from the vision and breadth of mind of the Elder!"

Later there were many more batches of Japanese officers who studied on Changsheng Island. After returning home, most of them became fanatical admirers of Moriyori Nobuyoshi. Many of them, upon entering old age, would recall with deep emotion to their children and grandchildren: "Though the Han people are proud and arrogant, they all held Lord Moriyori in heartfelt reverence. Whenever they discussed him, they would always respectfully call him 'the Elder' or 'Elder Moriyori'!"

To fulfill Moriyori Nobuyoshi's orders for firearms, Changsheng Island's Bureau of Military Industry also had to work overtime to produce. Huang Shi repeatedly emphasized to the Bureau of Military Industry that he was extremely concerned about the quality of the arms sold to Japan, because this concerned the long-term friendship between the two nations and was closely tied to Changsheng Island's reputation.

On the whole, the cultivation of pro-China forces in Japan was progressing fairly smoothly. It was just that yesterday Huang Shi encountered a new problem: Wu Mu asked him whether a living shrine could be erected for Wei Zhongxian on Changsheng Island.