Chapter 41: The New Camp

After the Guang Shiheng case, less than a month had passed before the new city was basically completed, and all the plans were being implemented step by step.

During this month or so, quite a few things had also happened in the Great Ming.

On the thirteenth day of the fifth month, Yansui Regional Commander Yu Chongxiao attacked Li Zicheng at Anding, was defeated and died. Afterwards, Li Zicheng invaded Yulin but was defeated by He Renlong.

On the thirtieth day of the fifth month, the court remitted all unpaid taxes from five years prior within the capital region.

On the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month, Regional Commander Xie Jinzhong was pacifying the roving bandits at Xichuan when he was killed by them taking advantage of the opportunity.

Zhu Cilang had no time to concern himself with so much; his current task was to completely wrap up the matter of the refugees.

Zhu Cilang first appointed Ren Guangyu as County Magistrate of the new city. He was a juren who had fallen on hard times and was doing very poorly — otherwise he wouldn't have ended up as a refugee.

A juren possessed the qualification to serve as a low-ranking official, but it was merely a qualification; in reality, the likelihood of actually serving was very small. In the eyes of those in high positions, it was almost worthless, yet to the common folk of the streets, it was something lofty and exalted.

Because of his juren status, and because Ren Guangyu was ordinarily approachable, didn't put on airs, and often helped other refugees, he quickly gained some reputation among them. Zhu Cilang sent people to investigate and test him, and felt that Ren Guangyu had good character and quite a bit of potential as an official, so he appointed him County Magistrate of the new city.

Once everything in the new city had settled down, Zhu Cilang had notices posted in the new city, announcing the recruitment of some soldiers from among the able-bodied young men to guard the new city, and those who performed well could even join the Yongwei Camp.

The Yongwei Camp's barracks outside the city were not far from the new city. Many people had witnessed the Yongwei Camp's daily training during the construction of the city, and this army opened their eyes. Coupled with the fact that their treatment was the best among the Capital Camps, many young men wanted to join.

Especially after learning that the Yongwei Camp was the personal army of the Crown Prince who had given them a way to live, even more people responded to the call and were willing to enlist.

Zhu Cilang naturally welcomed those who came to enlist, but he didn't accept everyone who came. The regulations only accepted men aged fifteen and above and under thirty-five, and there were also certain requirements and limits on height, strength, and physical fitness.

This eliminated many more people. The new camp ultimately enrolled over fifteen thousand men. As for the more than six thousand who were within the age range but failed to meet other requirements, Zhu Cilang didn't give up on them either — he temporarily organized them all into a militia responsible for maintaining public order in the new city.

Regarding the matter of recruiting soldiers, Zhu Cilang naturally first communicated with the Chongzhen Emperor. A prince privately recruiting soldiers was a great crime — it touched the Emperor's red line.

Because Zhu Cilang was still young, the Chongzhen Emperor didn't have such deep suspicions, and on account of the land tax matter, Chongzhen approved it on the spot. However, he also expressed that he was in a difficult position — after all, having soldiers meant needing military pay, and Chongzhen was currently a pauper.

Zhu Cilang immediately stated that not a single copper coin of the money would come from him — same approach as pacifying the people — it would be entirely handled by his son, not spending a single fen of the state's money.

Although the Chongzhen Emperor didn't know what methods this money-attracting child of the Crown Prince used to obtain the silver, as long as no money was spent, he naturally had no objections. He wished all the soldiers under heaven didn't need military pay.

Only the Chongzhen Emperor didn't know — he still thought Zhu Cilang was just recruiting a few thousand soldiers to guard the city, never imagining that this boy would recruit over ten thousand men.

Zhu Cilang reorganized the structure of the Yongwei Camp and the new camp, appointing Huang Degong to continue commanding the Yongwei Camp, with Lu Jiude serving as its supervisor. Sun Yingyuan took command of the new camp, with Liu Yuanbin as its supervisor.

Everyone understood the purpose of the court assigning supervisors to each army. Although Zhu Cilang felt it was unnecessary, he wouldn't be so stubborn as to request the abolition of the supervisor system — that would simply be asking for trouble.

Zhu Cilang also wouldn't let these two supervisors sit around with nothing to do. He redefined the supervisors' duties: henceforth they would be responsible for guiding the soldiers' ideology, as well as procuring military supplies and distributing military pay.

To prevent officers from embezzling military pay, Zhu Cilang made military pay uniformly distributed by the supervisors. With fixed personnel and fixed pay, the phenomenon of embezzlement was basically eliminated.

Zhu Cilang divided the fifteen thousand new soldiers of the new camp into four branches: musketeers, spearmen, cavalry, and artillery. He also sent out fifteen hundred veterans from the Yongwei Camp, each to lead ten new soldiers.

Originally Zhu Cilang had sent people to the Ministry of War to request some armor and weapons, but the Ministry of War said their supplies were strained and could only allocate three thousand sets of armor and weapons from the armor factory.

Zhu Cilang could understand this. The Great Ming's national strength was declining day by day; the hereditary military households and officers and soldiers of the various guard stations across the land didn't even have decent armor. The Ministry of War squeezing out three thousand sets was already out of consideration for his face as Crown Prince.

After the new troops were fully organized, Zhu Cilang immediately ordered the entire army to begin training.

According to Zhu Cilang's requirements, just like the Yongwei Camp's training, it started with drill formation practice, along with push-ups, five-kilometer weighted cross-country runs, and so on. Only after their physiques were more or less built up did they practice military combat techniques and conduct tactical training.

Zhu Cilang believed that group combat capability was more important than individual soldier combat capability. The Qi family army's Mandarin Duck Formation had several men per squad, coordinating offense and defense in combined operations. In large-scale battles, operating by squad units, whether attacking or defending, they were as solid as an iron barrel.

These new soldiers had gone from refugees to soldiers, and were training in such strange and unusual things. Most importantly, they were exhausted every day. Quite a few people felt they couldn't take it, so they started getting clever, slacking off, and stalling for time.

The Yongwei Camp veterans were naturally familiar with this situation — they had all been through it themselves. They could see through it at a glance, and without a word, they went up and laid into them with a flurry of clubs.

"Still trying to play tricks with me? I played the exact same games back in the day! Get up and keep training!"

"The likes of you lot — even if you went to the battlefield, you'd just be throwing your lives away!"

The Yongwei Camp veterans cursed while raising their clubs and striking. Under this violent coercion, the situation improved considerably.

Seeing the reluctant looks on their faces, Sun Yingyuan directly announced that anyone who failed to complete the day's training quota would have one qian of military pay deducted and receive ten strokes of the military cane, executed the very same day.

After this order was announced, the new soldiers were immediately brought into line. Their monthly military pay was only two taels of silver — if one qian was deducted every day, would there even be any pay left after a month?

Zhu Cilang suddenly thought that most of these new soldiers had originally been simple farmers, and perhaps ideological work could be done with them. So he arranged for some older veterans with higher ideological awareness to chat with the new soldiers during rest periods after training, attempting to do some ideological work.

At first they talked about grand principles. Although quite a few people could take them to heart, after a while they grew tired of it, and some slick new soldiers were just in a state of watching the show.

As the saying goes, "When the demon rises a foot, the Dao rises ten feet." Some veterans who had spent years in the ranks had all been through it themselves. When the new soldiers complained of exhaustion and hardship, they would tell them: "One Tartar's head is worth fifty taels of silver. Do you want to earn it?"

"Fifty taels?! Of course I want to earn it!" Many new soldiers' hearts surged with excitement. A Tartar's head was really damn valuable — if they could chop one off, they'd be rich!

"If you want to earn it, then stop being lazy and sneaky. Train your skills well, and go earn silver on the battlefield!" These veterans seized the opportunity to incite: "The reason we strictly push you in training is for your own good. If you want to survive on the battlefield, you have to rely on hard training in peacetime. If you want to become an official and get rich, you have to train your skills well and kill more Tartars!"

After the veterans did this "special" ideological work, the new soldiers' morale gradually stabilized, and their initiative in training greatly increased.

Although training was a bit hard, the soldiers' meals were by no means skimpy. Not to mention the veterans — the new soldiers also got two big bowls of white rice and one vegetable dish per meal, plus three liang of meat at noon.

These new soldiers had all been refugees before. On the road to the capital, they had basically chewed on tree bark, and usually couldn't even get a clean bowl of porridge. Now they had meat to eat every day — this was simply the life of an official! Many people, thinking of this, also began to take things seriously.

The new soldiers' training enthusiasm had risen, but Zhu Cilang was frowning deeply, worrying about another matter.

Without equipment, the subsequent tactical training would be greatly affected. Musketeers needed muskets, cavalry needed warhorses, and artillery needed cannons.

After thinking it over for several days, Zhu Cilang had all the inferior-quality muskets from the Yongwei Camp transported over, to let the new soldiers familiarize themselves with and practice the loading procedures.

Fortunately, musket marksmanship training didn't require too long — one could get the hang of it within a month. So Zhu Cilang wasn't anxious; he would just wait for the Armory Bureau to slowly produce more.

Currently, the firearms produced by the Armory Bureau were prioritized for equipping the Yongwei Camp. Only the ones the Yongwei Camp eliminated and the firearms the Armory Bureau produced later would equip the new camp.

After the infantry training problem was solved, the cavalry and artillery presented difficulties — without warhorses, how could they train?

In response, Zhu Cilang could only find a way to ask Cao Huachun to get some warhorses out of the Directorate of the Imperial Horses — regardless of quality or condition, as long as they could be ridden.

Zhu Cilang didn't expect these new soldiers to be able to gallop across the battlefield on tall horses in a short time. Many of them had never even ridden a horse before. In the early stage, it was enough if they could run on horseback without falling off.

As for artillery training, Zhu Cilang could only have them first study artillery theory, then go observe at the Yongwei Camp's artillery barracks, and finally pull out a few small and medium-sized breech-loading cannons for them to practice with.

Besides training the new soldiers, Zhu Cilang didn't relax at all with the Yongwei Camp veterans either. Of course, the veterans' training focus was no longer on drill formation — their daily training was mainly focused on actual combat.

Every day they conducted field exercises, practicing battle formations, charges, cavalry obstacles, night fighting, ambushes, and other real-combat drills.

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