Chapter 281: Section 38: Chasing Stars

When Huang Shi resolved to go to Liaoyang, Zhao Manxiong and Jin Qiude both vehemently opposed it. They said that if Huang Shi went to Liaoyang, there could only be two outcomes: either he would be killed or detained by the Later Jin side, or he would be released and return safely. Without knowing Huang Shi’s hidden cards, Zhao Manxiong and Jin Qiude also gamed out the latter scenario. They both believed that if Huang Shi did return safely, he would be placed in an extremely disadvantageous position in any future political storm.

After that earth-shaking news reached Changsheng Island, and long before Huang Shi’s return, the two men held another emergency discussion. The moment Huang Shi disembarked, these two fellows rushed over without delay to ask him whether the news was true. Upon receiving Huang Shi’s affirmative reply, they strenuously urged him to seize this opportunity to make an inspection tour of the various units of the Dongjiangzhen Left Auxiliary.

Huang Shi adopted this suggestion. After catching his breath briefly, he set out to sea again and rushed without pause to Fuzhou, Jinzhou, and Lushun, using the occasion to boost the morale of the Dongjiang Army in Liaonan. By now, nearly all the ordinary military households of Liaonan had been relocated by Huang Shi to the three Changsheng Islands, so the places he planned to inspect were merely some garrisoned forts. He would not need to go to too many places, nor would there be much trouble.

During those days when the Mongols and the Ming court were verifying the news by every possible means, Huang Shi was instead very busy and fulfilled. On the beloved land of Liaonan, everywhere Huang Shi went he received a fervent welcome from the officers and soldiers. As confirmed reports of Nurhaci’s death kept arriving, this atmosphere grew ever more heated.

In the past, apart from the three elite battalions — Fire Rescue, Rock, and Vanguard — the officers and soldiers of the other Liaonan units were still rather reserved in front of Huang Shi. The feeling they displayed toward him was far more awe than affection. But this time the situation was completely reversed. Although the Vanguard Battalion under Jia Minghe in Fuzhou was also in an uproar, on the whole nothing out of line occurred.

Yet when Huang Shi inspected Jinzhou, the officers and soldiers of Li Chengfeng’s unit showed far more enthusiasm than those in Fuzhou. Large numbers of soldiers broke free of their officers’ restraints and threw themselves before Huang Shi’s horse, taking it as an honor just to be able to touch Huang Shi’s armor. When Huang Shi reviewed the troops at Lushun, even the officers under Zhang Pan joined in this display, and Zhang Pan himself had tears streaming down his face as he offered a toast to Huang Shi.

And before Huang Shi set out for the Greater and Lesser Zhangshan Islands, the news of Nurhaci’s death had reached those places again and again. The local officers and soldiers had long been nursing these feelings. So the moment Huang Shi set foot on the island, Shang Keyi and Shang Kexi led the Dongjiang troops as they surged forward. The officers and soldiers were nearly all driven to madness, and they almost tore Huang Shi to pieces on the spot.

On the return journey, Huang Shi’s party received yet another wildly fervent welcome. Class distinctions seemed to vanish in an instant. Whether the humblest military householder or the local commanders appointed by Huang Shi, they all shouted and cheered for Huang Shi with abandon. The entire army in the Liaonan region fell into a state of frenzy.

On the first day of the ninth month of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, Huang Shi had originally planned to return quietly to Changsheng Island. But not long after he disembarked, he was discovered by the military householders on the island. Groups of admirers rapidly gathered and soon blocked the road back to Huang Shi’s old camp on Changsheng Island so tightly that not a drop of water could get through. All around Huang Shi was a dense, dark mass of frenzied people, packed so closely that he could almost have walked back to the main camp by stepping on their heads.

After squeezing a path through the jubilant crowd and returning to the old camp, Huang Shi and his entourage were all drenched in sweat and utterly exhausted. They sat in the command tent, panting heavily, their faces covered with helpless smiles.

Huang Shi drained a full, large pot of tea in one breath. “Very good, very good.” He wiped the drops of water from the corner of his mouth. This inspection tour of Liaonan had been extremely successful. Inspired by Huang Shi, the morale of the Dongjiangzhen Left Auxiliary now soared like a rainbow. Officers and soldiers alike were brimming with confidence in victory over the Later Jin. Throughout this journey, Huang Shi had heard voices volunteering for battle the entire way. Even the most pessimistic believed they would completely annihilate the Later Jin enemy within four years and return to their native land in Liaodong.

But although Huang Shi was also very excited, he would not count on spirit alone to defeat the great enemy of the Later Jin. Courage and wisdom could be summoned forth at any time, but equipment and supplies could not. Out of distrust of the blind command of civil officials, and due to the inherent conflicts between Mao Wenlong and the Shandong civil official clique, the Dongjiangzhen had recently once again refused the Army Supervisor demands of the Ministry of War and the Shandong civil officials. The Ministry of War’s response to this was to further reduce the Dongjiangzhen’s grain and pay budget.

Apart from the mutual hostility, Huang Shi also understood that the Great Ming court was unlikely to tolerate the emergence of a new military province, which was why the court had always controlled the Dongjiangzhen’s material reserves, never allowing the Dongjiang Army to have more than two months’ grain reserves or large stocks of armor. Furthermore, due to Mao Wenlong’s many years of meritorious service, the Emperor himself supported Mao Wenlong’s demand for autonomy. But Huang Shi felt that they had now nearly reached the limit. If the Dongjiangzhen were given five hundred thousand taels of silver in military pay a year, even Tianqi himself would feel somewhat uneasy in his heart.

Although the Dongjiang Left Auxiliary had been managed quite well over the years, Changsheng Island’s annual military budget was no more than a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand taels of silver. The remaining income was all used for daily consumption or to expand reproduction.

“Rebuilding Gaizhou Fort will require one hundred fifty thousand to two hundred thousand taels of silver. After repairing the city walls, we will need to maintain a battalion of troops at Gaizhou to defend it, and we will also need to establish early-warning sentry posts around Gaizhou’s perimeter. The annual maintenance cost for this will also be about one hundred thousand taels of silver. Next, if we want to attack the central Liaoning plain, we will need to occupy Yaozhou and Haizhou. Grain for these places will all need to be forwarded from the rear. The troops to defend the forts and the supply lines will require at least three battalions, with an estimated annual maintenance cost of over three hundred thousand taels…”

“That much?” Huang Shi frowned as he examined the report. Reviewing the troops was a very satisfying affair, but doing the military budget each time was agonizing. “Why does it sound even higher than the maintenance costs in Liaoxi?”

“It is higher than the maintenance costs in Liaoxi,” Jin Qiude replied unhurriedly, with the air of one who had a well-thought-out plan. The report Huang Shi was reading was the result of joint research by the various departments of Changsheng Island and had been war-gamed several times. “We are conducting transport in the face of the enemy. All the supply columns must be protected by combat units, and we must build beacon towers, observation platforms, and sentry posts. These also need to be armed and supplied. Of course the maintenance costs are higher than for the field battalions in Liaoxi.”

Huang Shi examined it for a while and found that there was indeed no wasteful expenditure. He could not help but grumble, “Our army’s cavalry is simply too few, which drives the maintenance costs up so high.”

“My lord is perceptive. If we were to form horse battalions, I fear the maintenance costs would be even higher than this figure.”

“I know, I know.” Huang Shi impatiently cut off Jin Qiude’s loyal counsel. Without looking up, he sighed again. “I was just making a casual remark; you just listen casually. No need to take it seriously.”

“If Marshal Mao had this sum of money, he could probably launch several more offensives and even earn some silver back.”

This time when Huang Shi grumbled, Jin Qiude merely listened quietly and did not pick up the thread. The Dongjiang Left Auxiliary could no longer learn that set of Mao Wenlong’s methods. In this era, the early warning that scouts could provide was at most half a day to a day. Despite Mao Wenlong’s advanced age, his heart was clearly in excellent condition. He spent all his days leading large numbers of Dongjiang refugees in constant flight, playing a game of nerves with the Later Jin army.

But what Mao Wenlong dared to do, Huang Shi did not dare. The equipment of the several field battalions under his command was all built up with silver. As these battalions’ combat strength grew stronger and their average quality rose higher, Huang Shi’s strategy and tactics grew ever more conservative. He always hoped to advance steadily and surely, encroaching on Later Jin territory step by step.

Although Huang Shi greatly admired the unconstrained long-range raids of some famous generals in history, he had long admitted that he was neither a strategic genius, nor did he possess Mao Wenlong’s psychological quality of “the barefoot man fears not the shodden; if I lose everything, I’ll just start over.” Since Huang Shi was not skilled at, nor did he intend to adopt, the mobile warfare model of the Dongjiang main force and Right Auxiliary, he would have to find a way to earn more silver.

…

On the second day of the ninth month of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, in the capital. The storytellers and opera performers of this era, much like the film and television workers of later generations, always strove to develop programs that the common people loved to see and hear. Moreover, the speed of information feedback in this era was also very fast. The storytellers only had to check the day’s earnings in their tray to understand the trends of the people’s interests.

Since the start of this year, the most popular tale in Beijing had been “Lord Huang Crossing the Sea to Relieve Juehua.” The storytellers in the capital, whether they were on the streets or in the wine shops, found that audiences repeatedly requested this tale. Its popularity was catching up to The Complete Story of Yue Fei and faintly surpassed The Romance of the Sui and Tang. The storytellers loved to tell it, and the people of the capital loved to hear it.

Although the opera industry’s response was slower than that of storytelling, many troupes had already begun developing this piece. Some troupes had already prepared the opera script to near completion.

As the leading city under heaven, the capital saw artists from all corners of the land arrive every day to try their luck, while those who left at the same time would carry what they had seen and heard in the capital to other places. For example, this tale of “Lord Huang Crossing the Sea to Relieve Juehua” had already appeared in Shandong several months earlier, later spread to Nanzhili and Henan, and now it was said that adapted versions had even appeared in Huguang and Fujian.

Based on general experience, a newly developed storytelling piece of just a few months would still have a huge period of growth ahead. The storytellers would pass it down from generation to generation, performing the tale better and better. As for the tale “Lord Huang Crossing the Sea to Relieve Juehua” in particular, not only did the storytellers of the capital think highly of it, but artists of other trades also greatly enjoyed its content, because the innate emotion contained within it was already very full, leaving much room for elaboration.

But by the ninth month, after the news from Liaoyang arrived, the tale “Lord Huang Crossing the Sea to Relieve Juehua” went from darling to outcast in an instant. No sooner had many a storyteller cleared his throat and tapped his alarm block than a chorus of boos would rise from the crowd: “We don’t want to hear that anymore! We want to hear about Lord Huang galloping into Liaoyang! We want to hear about Lord Huang slaying Nurhaci!”

Under this immense pressure, the storytellers rushed one and all to develop new tales. Even before the Great Ming court issued its formal edict of confirmation, all sorts of bizarre storytelling versions had already been concocted. These professionals also quickly reached a consensus: the new tale would be called “The Fierce Grand Marshal Leaps into Liaoyang on Horseback”!

But although the title was unified, the story content varied greatly. After all, the time had been far too short, and the various storytellers had not yet had a chance to exchange views. Those who previously specialized in The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants crafted their versions around the conventions of scaling walls and flying over eaves; those who liked to tell Investiture of the Gods naturally filled theirs with magic treasures flying everywhere; storytellers who came from a background of The Romance of the Sui and Tang depicted the two men each wielding greatswords or square hammers weighing hundreds of catties and battling it out.

Here, another storyteller set up his stage to tell “The Fierce Grand Marshal Leaps into Liaoyang on Horseback.” Only, the one now speaking had spent the first half of his career specializing in Journey to the West.

“…Only a strange cry of ‘wu-ya-ya’ was heard, and then from outside the gate burst in a slave. The two small braids left on the back of that slave’s head were as white as snow. His ox-eyes, like a pair of bronze bells, darted wildly about. From his two large, flapping ears dangled a row of five iron rings. His square nostrils gaped open toward the sky, and from each nostril protruded a foot-long, grizzled nose hair, also woven into two long, thin braids that ran down along his cheeks to below his chin…”

The storyteller above spoke with spittle flying, and the crowd below listened with rapt interest. When he described the nose hairs woven into two small braids, the storyteller even gestured with his hands, eliciting a wave of clucking admiration from below.

“…Between that slave’s two nostrils was threaded a large, gleaming brass ring, weighing several catties. His upper lip jutted forward, and four tusks protruded from his gaping, bloody maw. Around his neck hung a full string of skulls — exactly seven times seven, forty-nine of them!”

The storyteller’s brows shot up, and he gnashed his teeth as he thrust out four fingers and swept them in a circle at the people below. Then his expression relaxed. Drawing his hand back, he first lifted his teacup and took a leisurely sip before continuing: “Grand Marshal Huang fixed his gaze and saw that the comer was none other than the slave chieftain Nurhaci. That old slave was the reincarnation of a thousand-year wild boar spirit. He was naked from the waist up, with a beast skin wrapped around his waist. His entire body was covered in painted runes, and crawling all over him was a mass of white, wriggling gu insects…”

At this point, the storyteller paused again for a long breath, unhurriedly stroking his beard a few times. He waited until the crowd below had been listening with rapt attention for a while, and at the very moment their focus began to slacken slightly, the storyteller, with the speed of thunder, snatched up the alarm block and brought it crashing down.

The thunderous crack made many in the audience below jump with fright. The storyteller glared and bellowed, “Gentle readers, look carefully! This slave chieftain was most sinister and evil. If he so much as glared at a man, that man would lose two of his three ethereal souls and six of his seven corporeal spirits!”

Before the exclamations from below could subside, the storyteller thrust his finger toward the heavens and shouted in a deep voice: “It was a pity that this time the old slave had miscalculated. Grand Marshal Huang was the Martial Star incarnate, and his body of protective qi was the very bane of that evil heresy. Grand Marshal Huang was heard chanting under his breath. He bit his index finger and drew forth a drop of blood, then opened his divine eye and shouted ‘Break!’ at the old slave, destroying the greater part of the old slave’s lifetime of evil arts.”

The storyteller then slammed the alarm block heavily once more, and his tone suddenly grew urgent: “When had that old slave ever suffered such a great loss? He was so enraged he nearly ground his mouthful of steel teeth to dust. The old slave lowered his head, and once on all fours, he first let out a strange cry, then began flinging the four braids on the back of his head and from his nostrils so they whirled and whistled, like a spinning wheel of fire…”

The storyteller swayed his head as he lavishly described Nurhaci’s four braids, then fiercely swept his hand horizontally through the air: “The old slave let out grunting roars like a wild boar, gathering all the evil arts in his body to his chest. Using both hands and feet, he lunged at Grand Marshal Huang. Amid his strange cries, the old slave opened his bloody maw wide and stretched his head out to bite Grand Marshal Huang’s calf…”

“Grand Marshal Huang saw it clearly. He dodged aside to evade the old slave’s lunge, then turned and with a ‘qiang-lang-lang’ drew his precious sword! Gentle readers, do not look down upon this sword. Grand Marshal Huang’s precious sword was a divine weapon of antiquity, and there is a verse to prove it —” The storyteller was speaking with great eloquence and delight when he felt someone gently pat him on the shoulder from behind.

“Master…” It turned out there was an urgent family matter. His apprentice had come up and whispered in his ear for a while, and as the storyteller listened, an anxious look appeared on his face.

“Disciple, your master will go home first to take a look. You take over for me for a while.” The storyteller left as soon as he spoke, gathering up his costume and props in the blink of an eye. But just as he stepped down from the storytelling platform, he remembered an important matter and hurriedly turned and ran back.

His apprentice was already seated upright behind the storytelling desk, the alarm block grasped in his hand. The old gentleman walked quickly to his apprentice’s side and whispered his instructions: “Disciple, your master will certainly return within two double-hours. During this time, you absolutely must not let the old slave be killed off in the story.”

“Your disciple understands. Master, set your mind at ease.”

…

When the Great Ming expelled the Mongol Yuan by force and restored the Central Plains, at the founding of the dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to grant scholars a form of honor and also to temper the spirit of responsibility in the literati, permitted degree-holders who had attained the rank of Licentiate and above to wear a sword while traveling for study. At that time, once a scholar passed the examination to become a Licentiate, he would hang a sword at his waist, encouraging himself to be accomplished in both civil and martial arts.

But by the Tianqi reign, the realm had been at peace for a long time. The Central Plains had not experienced war for over two hundred years. Although the Licentiates of the Great Ming at this time still enjoyed the privilege of wearing a sword while traveling for study, they had long since abandoned this habit. The scholars of the Great Ming now not only replaced the treasured sword with a folding fan, but many also liked to adorn themselves with rouge and powder before going out, and their headscarves and long gowns were often perfumed with incense.

Until this time, when the news of Huang Shi galloping into Liaoyang arrived…

The news spread like wildfire across the divine land of China. From the capital to Yangzhou, wherever the news passed, the scholars held poetry gatherings for Huang Shi. They swept away entirely the restrained and delicate atmosphere of the past; throughout the gardens, only the sound of clashing metal and warhorses could be heard. At a single glance, everyone bore a longsword at their side.

Amid unrestrained drinking and wild singing, the scholars praised in unison this legend that astounded the present and dazzled the ancients: “Lord Guan certainly won’t do anymore. I reckon only Prince Yue can still compare with our Great Ming’s Grand Marshal Huang.”

“Hmm, Prince Yue was indeed awe-inspiring, but… but, the venerable Prince Yue couldn’t go all by himself to Huanglong Prefecture, cut off the Jin ruler’s head, and then come back, could he?”