Chapter 273: Dengzhou

Just as Yoto was leading the Qing army south to attack Jinzhou, Dengzhou Prefecture in Shandong, a thousand li from the capital, was also a scene of bustling activity. Five thousand troops of the Ming army under Liu Guoneng and Zhang Wenyao had arrived here one after another on orders, and with more than ten large ships sent by the Zheng family moored at the newly repaired docks, the once sparsely populated Dengzhou was gradually becoming extraordinarily noisy.

Although the military camp built by Yuan Keli, the former Governor of Denglai, had been abandoned for many years, most of the stone-founded buildings remained in good condition. However, because no one had lived there for a long time and it lacked human presence, many roofs had collapsed and fallen into disrepair.

Wang Yingxian, the Prefect of Dengzhou, upon receiving the document from the Grand Secretariat and learning that a large army would soon arrive for garrison duty, promptly submitted a memorial to the Ministry of Revenue explaining the situation and requesting funds and grain for repairing the buildings and docks. With Zhu Youjian personally looking into the matter, the Ministry of Revenue allocated fifty thousand taels of silver and five thousand dan of grain to be sent to Dengzhou Prefecture for the needed purposes. Of course, accompanying the money and grain to Dengzhou were also Censors from the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Censorate. Now, whenever the court allocated more than ten thousand taels of silver to local governments, there had to be joint supervision by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and Censors. This measure, first proposed by Zhu Youjian, had now become established court practice, and the Grand Secretaries and senior ministers all wholeheartedly approved of this directive, because they believed the Emperor had deliberately done this to strengthen the court's authority.

Wang Yingxian and the other Dengzhou Prefecture officials, who had hoped to skim some benefits from this, were dumbfounded. In a fit of pique, they thought about slacking off and just going through the motions, but under the cold-faced urgings of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Censors, they had no choice but to hold their noses and summon laborers to begin construction.

The first to arrive at Dengzhou were the more than two thousand men led by Liu Guoneng, Assistant Regional Commander of Yunyang.

After the campaign to wipe out Zhang Xianzhong, Liu Guoneng's forces had been stationed at Zhushan. He himself held the post of Mobile Corps Commander, while the court had stationed Embroidered Uniform Guard officers in his army as discipline officers in charge of military law and discipline, and had also transferred Battalion Commander Wang Fang along with two hundred soldiers from Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong Army to be placed within his ranks.

Liu Guoneng had no objection to this. Now that he had become a senior military officer of the court, from then on he would simply serve with complete loyalty.

The Ministry of War subsequently issued orders to Liu Guoneng's forces, directing him to clear out and round up the remaining roving bandits and mountain brigands in Yunyang and the surrounding prefectures and counties while cultivating military farmland and training troops.

According to the Ministry of War's directives, of Liu Guoneng's more than four thousand men, after the old, weak, sick, and wounded were weeded out and given settlement money, all were settled locally to cultivate military farmland, leaving fewer than two thousand. Subsequently, following the Ministry of War's instructions, Liu Guoneng selected another thousand men from among the surrendered bandits to fill out his ranks. The remaining surrendered bandits were placed under close surveillance to farm nearby land, and only after five years would they be converted to commoner status based on their conduct.

As a surrendered general, Liu Guoneng naturally wanted to perform well, and suppressing bandits became the best means to do so.

Such military merits would bring him promotion and rewards while also completely washing away his former identity.

In the campaigns to wipe out Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Old Huihui, and others, although most of the roving bandits had died or surrendered, quite a few had still escaped amid the chaos, including even such great bandit chiefs as Old Huihui, Ma Shouying.

These roving bandits, whose natures were hard to change, rarely had a change of heart and turned over a new leaf after narrowly escaping with their lives. Upon learning that the main body of government troops had left, the remnants of the bandits hiding in the mountains gradually gathered together and occupied the peaks as kings, transforming from roving bandits into mountain brigands. Although these brigands no longer dared to be as arrogant as before, they still frequently plundered nearby villages and farm households, seriously affecting the normal lives of the local people.

After scouting out the camps of several large bands of mountain brigands numbering in the hundreds, Liu Guoneng, along with Wang Fang and commanders such as He Sanguan and Wang Erwa, split into several groups and led varying numbers of government troops out from Zhushan, either launching night raids or setting ambushes, wiping out all these bands of mountain brigands without leaving a single survivor.

With the successive annihilation of several larger bands of mountain brigands, the bandit troubles in the prefectures of Yunyang, Nanyang, and Ruyang were basically eliminated. Liu Guoneng then sent out several hundred-man squads to attack some smaller bands of several dozen brigands. In less than a year, the bandit troubles in the heartland of Henan were finally swept clean.

After successfully completing the bandit suppression mission, Liu Guoneng was promoted to the post of Subarea Defense Assistant Regional Commander of Yunyang, Wang Fang was promoted to Mobile Corps Commander, He Sanguan and Wang Erwa were all promoted to Battalion Commander, and the soldiers who participated in the bandit suppression also received promotions and rewards, while the wounded and fallen received compensation and settlement. This left the entire army beaming with joy.

Although the post of Subarea Defense Assistant Regional Commander was already a respectable rank, Liu Guoneng was not satisfied. But now that the roving bandits within the Ming realm had basically been wiped out, it was very difficult to earn further merits and promotions, unless one went beyond the passes to fight the Jianzhou barbarians. At that point, as long as one didn't die, one's rank would certainly rise. But he had heard that the Jianzhou barbarians were extraordinarily fierce. Not to mention a motley force like his own, even Governor Lu's regular troops might not necessarily be able to defeat them. Unless the elite government troops were all wiped out, it would never be his turn.

Just as Liu Guoneng was sighing to himself, a troop deployment document from the Ministry of War suddenly arrived at Zhushan from the capital. Upon learning that his forces would seek an opportunity to land in Liaodong and strike directly at the Jianzhou barbarians' lair, Liu Guoneng, with mixed feelings of joy and worry, replenished his provisions and led his troops to break camp and head eastward.

After arriving at Dengzhou in mid-June and moving into the newly repaired barracks, Liu Guoneng and Wang Fang learned the full strategy of the campaign to recover Liaodong from the Ministry of War officials remaining in Dengzhou.

Dengzhou had once possessed a very powerful naval force, but ever since the roving bandits had risen up everywhere, the court's silver and supplies had all been used on the government troops suppressing the bandits. Due to lack of funding, the Denglai naval force had gradually declined. The fleet, which had once numbered over a hundred vessels of various sizes, now had only a dozen or so left, and these were old and dilapidated, looking as if they would sink the moment they were launched. Due to the lack of military pay and provisions, most of the naval officers and soldiers had either fled or secretly reclaimed wasteland to become farmers. Some with broader vision and better information had sailed south on their broken ships and volunteered as sailors on the merchant vessels of wealthy Jiangnan merchants.

Although the naval force had been abandoned, the docks remained. Though they were in a state of disrepair, as long as there was silver, they would soon be restored to their former condition.

After Liu Guoneng's forces had drilled in the camp for several days, the docks were also repaired. More than twenty large ships of the Zheng family fleet, which had been anchored in the outer sea, sailed one after another into the harbor and moored at the docks, where over a thousand laborers hired by Dengzhou Prefecture were waiting.

Officials from the Ministry of War and Dengzhou Prefecture stepped forward and exchanged documents with the people sent by the Zheng family. After confirming everything was in order, the Dengzhou Prefecture officials began directing the laborers to prepare for unloading the ships' cargo.

Actually, it wasn't much of a cargo—the ships carried grain. All twenty-odd ships were loaded with rice that the Zheng family had purchased from Siam, Champa, and other places. The twenty-odd four-hundred-liao large Fujian ships had brought a total of over sixty thousand dan of rice.

These ships, after unloading their grain, would remain at Dengzhou to help the government troops preparing to cross the sea for battle become familiar with sea conditions and seamanship.

Besides supplying food for the forces of Liu Guoneng and Zhang Wenyao, the remaining grain would be sealed and stored in warehouses for urgent use in disaster relief by the government.

After Liu Guoneng's nearly three thousand men had spent over a month aboard ships acclimating to sea conditions, Zhang Wenyao, far away in Xi'an, led three thousand men on a grueling march of nearly three thousand li that took over two months, arriving at Dengzhou Prefecture in mid-July.

Although both Zhang Wenyao and Liu Guoneng had risen up in rebellion in Shaanxi, Liu Guoneng had early on left Shaanxi with Luo Rucai and others to roam about. The two had only heard of each other's names without ever meeting face to face. Now brought together by the same mission, the two sighed with emotion when they met.

Because they were stationed in the same large camp and shared their special status as former rebels, Zhang Wenyao and Liu Guoneng quickly became familiar with each other. But in their conversations, both strove to avoid mentioning past events and old acquaintances such as Gao Yingxiang. Such taboo topics were best not brought up in private.

"Old Liu, I keep feeling that this assignment the court has given us has the intent of killing two birds with one stone—using someone else's knife. Crossing the sea to take on the Jianzhou barbarians' lair won't be easy, I reckon. I've heard the Jianzhou barbarians are no pushovers. If their defenses are tight, our few thousand men won't even be enough to fill their teeth!"

The scorching sun blazed down, making the earth gleam brightly. July on the Shandong Peninsula was the hottest time of year. While inland areas already had a chill in the mornings and evenings, the peninsula, which had enjoyed cool weather for most of the summer, was now beginning to heat up.

A thick willow tree in the camp blocked the direct glare of the sun, and gusts of breeze brought a hint of coolness.

Zhang Wenyao, bare-chested, sat on a long bench in the shade of the tree, one foot on the ground and the other propped on the bench. He gulped down the cool boiled water in the coarse ceramic bowl in his hand in one go, wiped the moisture from the corner of his mouth, set the bowl down on the bench, and spoke to Liu Guoneng, who was sitting a few steps away on a folding chair staring blankly into space.