Chapter 76: Section Four

"But the Boy's Technique isn't necessarily useful — trust me, training is not as good as eating more meat and wearing a suit of iron armor." For some reason, Huang Shi always felt a particular enthusiasm for that name. In truth, family tragedies like this were all too common among the Liaodong refugees who had flocked to Mao Wenlong.

"It will be useful, General Huang." Hong Antong was very stubborn.

You have technology, I have divine technique. Huang Shi absolutely did not believe such talk. If people could resist broadswords and long spears by abstaining from desire, then there would never have been airplanes and cannons.

It might have been mere boasting, mere self-aggrandizement; that bodyguard might simply have been a wandering charlatan. But Hong Antong clearly believed it without a doubt — or perhaps he simply refused to doubt it, subconsciously treating this act as a form of atonement.

"You just said you took two heads and were promoted to soldier?"

"Yes, my lord. Your subordinate is now a battle soldier of Dongjiang."

"Very well. This general happens to need more personal guards. A loyal and righteous man like you is exactly what this general most admires. Are you willing to serve under me?"

"Yes, General Huang. To serve under General Huang is exactly what your subordinate wishes. Your subordinate will certainly use his life to protect General Huang."

After Huang Shi shot him a sideways glare, Hong Antong suddenly realized his mistake and corrected himself: "Thank you, my lord, for the promotion. Your subordinate will surely give his life in your service!"

Huang Shi patted the youth on the shoulder, silently vowing to the boy, and to himself: "Sect Leader Hong, Sect Leader Hong — whether you are him or not, follow me. You need not live coiled in venomous hatred after the Great Ming falls. I will give you a brighter future and a normal marriage."

The reason he was sensitive to that name was that Huang Shi, that nationalist, was not only narrow-minded but also incapable of recognizing that ethnic fusion was the tide of history. He lacked the lofty virtue of some son-of-a-bitch mongrel who would trade a smile to wipe away enmity with an executioner. Forgiveness is only forgiveness when the strong bestow it upon the weak; the reverse is little more than surrender.

Just as the same cry of "stop," when shouted from the mouths of the victor and the vanquished, carries entirely different meanings. Huang Shi believed that after the Xinhai Revolution, the Han could magnanimously unite with the minority peoples, but to demand the same of the ancients was unquestionably to excuse traitors. Right now, Hong Taiji was still perfectly fine, far from being beaten and crawling on the ground, and the blood debts he owed had not been repaid in the slightest.

After the rise of the Later Jin, many common people of Liaodong were brutally slaughtered. A considerable number of them subsequently flocked to the Guangning Army — Kong Youde, for example, joined the army to avenge his father and elder brother. After the Guangning Army was destroyed, large numbers of Liaodong people, including Kong Youde, who bore deep blood feuds against the Later Jin, fled south to join the Guangning Vice Regional Commander Mao Wenlong. The Dongjiang Army thus grew and expanded.

In the history Huang Shi remembered, over the next few short years, the population under Nurhaci's control plummeted from several million down to seven hundred thousand. By the end of the fifth year of the Tianqi reign, Nurhaci had become utterly deranged. His ethnic policies began to destroy the Later Jin's Han army. Han traitors like Li Yongfang and Sun Degong were either killed or imprisoned by the Later Jin, and the Han population under his rule bled away to nothing.

Meanwhile, Dongjiangzhen grew from nothing and gradually recovered the entire Liaodong Peninsula. By the fifth year of Tianqi, Dongjiangzhen had entered its golden age. The Later Jin's Han army began defecting to the Ming forces in entire formations. At its peak, the garrison controlled a population of five hundred thousand and over fifty thousand battle soldiers. Even the most pessimistic estimates held that Mao Wenlong controlled at least three hundred thousand Liaodong refugees.

During this period, corresponding to Nurhaci's mass slaughter, the Liaodong Ming army swore to fight to the death and their will to battle soared to unprecedented heights. Their military edge at one point pressed directly to the walls of Shenyangcheng. Haizhou, Guangning, Zhenjiang, and nearly half of Liaodong, still firmly in Later Jin hands, were abandoned by the Later Jin. The war had already unfolded along the line from Fengcheng to Anshan, and the Later Jin regime teetered on the brink of collapse.

Unfortunately, the brilliant and visionary Hong Taiji succeeded to the throne. The Later Jin revised the old madman Nurhaci's policies of ethnic discrimination, and Hong Taiji displayed an astonishing ability to win people over. The population drain from Liaodong into Dongjiang's control zone was halted, and within a few short years, he had calmed the hearts of the Han people in the northeast.

After Mao Wenlong's death, Hong Taiji was able, against all odds, to swallow the Dongjiang Army, whose hatred ran deeper than the sea, thereby enormously expanding the Later Jin's population and military strength. Another example: the decisive battle at Jinzhou. Aside from the Ming army's own problems, they actually encountered a once-in-a-century tsunami, which struck neither earlier nor later but precisely when the Ming army arrived, sweeping away tens of thousands of officers and soldiers.

This period of history was like rolling dice. Time and again, Hong Taiji always rolled a perfect triplet, while the Ming rolled either a two or a one. For all of this, aside from "the will of the gods," "seeing ghosts in broad daylight," or the aura of a king, Huang Shi did not know how else to explain it. If a deity truly existed, then Huang Shi believed the true god of this era must be a compatriot of the Manchu people.

After arriving at Pi Island, Huang Shi once again found himself the center of everyone's attention. His old subordinates like Zhao Manxiong were fine, but his newly recruited personal guard Hong Antong, and He Baodao, who had just recovered from his wounds, would boast to everyone they met, desperately wishing every person knew that their current commander was Huang Shi, the hero of Guangning.

When it came to Sun Degong, who had caused the collapse of the Guangning Army, everyone in Dongjiang, from top to bottom, showed fury on their faces. They had heard the story of Huang Shi killing the traitor with his own hands many times, but officers and soldiers alike still raised their thumbs and exclaimed: "Satisfying!"

His act of placing righteousness above family loyalty cloaked him in an even more saintly aura. Since the Dongjiang officers and soldiers admired his spirit in regarding glory and wealth as dirt, they naturally all vied to see this legendary hero. By comparison, Kong Youde was practically reduced to a mere sidekick.

Before the adoring crowd, Huang Shi maintained a humble expression at all times. The overwhelming flattery was easily deflected by him, and he always declared with considerable class that loyalty was the foremost duty of a Great Ming soldier.

Kong Youde was also infected by this fervent mood and half-jokingly called Huang Shi: "Our great hero."

"Elder Brother, you exaggerate." By the time Huang Shi spoke, there were few admirers left around them; they were almost at Mao Wenlong's official residence. "Your younger brother is no hero. In battle, I am no match for you, Elder Brother."

"What does heroism have to do with fighting? Lofty aspirations and integrity — that is what makes a hero." Kong Youde was somewhat dismissive.

"That is the view of the literati. We soldiers have different standards."

Just as Kong Youde was about to argue further, the two men heard several commoners nearby cry out again: "Look, that is General Huang, who killed Sun Degong with his own hands."

Kong Youde turned his head and grinned at Huang Shi: "It seems in the eyes of the common people, you are a hero too."

Huang Shi was smiling and about to reply when he faintly heard a young woman's questioning voice drift over: "Is that the Huang Shi who would even kill his own betrothed?"

That question instantly wiped the smile from Huang Shi's face. The Battle of Guangning was also a heavy burden; fame was truly a double-edged sword.

"Brother, what's wrong with you?" Perhaps Kong Youde had not heard those words, or even if he had, he would not have thought them a big deal. Kong Youde clearly did not know what weighed on Huang Shi's mind; he only saw that Huang Shi had, in the blink of an eye, become a completely different person.

"Nothing, Elder Brother."

A certain novel once said: When you leave this world, those words of praise can never fly as high as your soul. What accompanies your soul are the grief-stricken curses of the innocent, which reach the ears of the Most High.

Huang Shi gave a self-mocking chuckle: Fortunately, I know there is no savior in this world; everything must be won by one's own efforts. Before my old capital runs out, I must become a battle-hardened general worthy of the name, must gain Mao Wenlong's trust, must obtain my first base and my first pot of gold.