Chapter 69: The Weakness of the Yongwei Camp

Being singled out by the Crown Prince, Zhao Jinglin felt this was a rare honor, so he sprang up with a thud, preparing to walk to the side and kneel in a grand salute to Zhu Cilang before announcing his name.

Zhu Cilang immediately called him to a stop, saying, "In future military deliberations, there is no need to perform the kneeling grand salute before me—just follow the usual military etiquette."

Ming dynasty etiquette was not filled with the servility of the Qing dynasty, where one had to kneel and kowtow before superiors; in the Ming, only when facing the emperor did one need to kneel for the grand ceremony, while ordinarily a bow or clasped-hands salute sufficed.

Hearing this, Zhao Jinglin had no choice but to stand obediently in his original position, and after slightly calming his emotions, he said, "Reporting to Your Highness, this humble officer is Zhao Jinglin. In this humble officer's view, the firearm remains the most effective weapon, but firearm soldiers are poor at close combat—carrying a gun on their backs while wielding a blade for hand-to-hand fighting greatly hampers their effectiveness. This humble officer believes this aspect needs improvement."

Zhu Cilang nodded—he had thought about this problem too. In this battle, the Yongwei Camp had exposed many weaknesses, such as close-combat capability.

Although the firearm soldiers had undergone more than a month of rigorous training, and the soldiers' basic military qualities were not poor, with good coordination as well, many problems still existed in actual combat.

When facing opponents fewer in number than themselves, this did not show, but when encountering enemies several times their own number, and troops with strong fighting power like the Eight Banners army, once they charged into close range and stuck like a plaster, the firearm soldiers' weakness in close combat would be exposed.

Zhu Cilang said, "Zhao Jinglin, your proposal is very good. Companion Wu, you are responsible for recording this."

Wu Zhong, sitting at a small separate desk beside Zhu Cilang, immediately picked up his brush and wrote down Zhao Jinglin's just-made proposal, playing the role of secretary.

At this moment, Zhu Cilang thought of the bayonet of later generations, planning to have bayonets fitted onto the Yongwei Camp's firearms, and to add bayonet drill training to the firearm soldiers' daily regimen.

Seeing his opinion affirmed by the Crown Prince, Zhao Jinglin was also very pleased, and seeing this, the others also felt eager to try.

Among them, a Battalion Commander stood up, saluted, and then said, "This humble officer feels that the spearmen's four-meter-long spears can effectively defend against cavalry, but they are not conducive to close combat."

Zhu Cilang nodded to him as well, saying, "Your suggestion is also very good—do you have a solution?"

This Battalion Commander was somewhat ill at ease, and stammered, "Not yet."

Zhu Cilang waved his hand and said, "No matter—being able to voice the problems you've discovered is already quite good. If you have solutions, I will promote you, and this applies to everyone else as well!"

Seeing the Crown Prince speak thus, the other officers also became eager one after another. A Mobile Corps Commander immediately spoke up: "Shield soldiers holding a shield in the left hand and a two-meter spear in the right hand are also rather inconvenient in close combat. This general believes the spear could be swapped for a large saber, making them saber-shield soldiers—able to advance in attack and retreat in defense."

However, someone immediately objected, believing that the shield soldiers' spears were advantageous for resisting cavalry, and while saber-shield soldiers had advantages in close combat, they would lose their threat to cavalry.

And so everyone spoke in turn, each drawing on their own battlefield experience to propose many methods for improving the Yongwei Camp's combat effectiveness, and the atmosphere became very lively.

Seeing this, Zhu Cilang was very pleased—all plans and expectations were imperfect, and one still had to rely on real combat for conclusions. At the same time, Zhu Cilang was also deliberately cultivating them, so that as commanders they could think through problems independently.

Whenever an officer raised an opinion, he would not stint on praise, thereby boosting their enthusiasm. Some officers' suggestions were uniquely incisive, and would be recorded by Zhu Cilang as a military merit.

Don't think that just because these officers were men of antiquity, the methods they came up with were inferior to his own—some were even things he himself had not thought of. This was the power of pooling collective wisdom.

After the summary meeting, Zhu Cilang looked over the tally of spoils reported by Lu Jiude, and found that this battle's harvest was truly terrifying—just the various suits of armor stripped from the Qing soldiers alone exceeded ten thousand pieces.

Quite a few soldiers in the Qing army, especially the Eight Banners Manchu soldiers, basically each wore three layers of heavy armor; the Eight Banners Mongol soldiers wore at least two layers; only the Han army wore the thinnest armor, normally a single layer.

Besides armor, there were also large quantities of weapons, gongs, drums, banners, and the like—just the silver searched from the Qing soldiers' bodies alone amounted to one hundred fifty thousand taels, along with one thousand three hundred war horses, and over six hundred dead horses as well.

The Eight Banners cavalry each had two horses, or even three, but in this great defeat and flight they completely could not care for the other war horses, which benefited the Yongwei Camp.

These spoils were merely those from the battlefield; compared to the various supplies stockpiled in Liangxiang city, they could only be considered insignificant. The grain, fodder, cloth, and other goods the Qing army had stockpiled in the city could be described as piled up like mountains.

Zhu Cilang upheld the fine tradition of taking away everything that could be taken. He sent people to transport these war horses, armor, weapons, and other military supplies in full to Xincheng for use by the new recruits—the new camp's soldiers were desperately short of such things.

As for the supplies stockpiled in the city, in the end only part of the grain and cloth was left behind, to be distributed to the rescued commoners for rebuilding their homes.

The commoners of Liangxiang city all spontaneously rebuilt their homes. As for the commoners who had been abducted from other places, some had already gradually returned to their hometowns, while others had lost all their relatives and had no home to return to.

For this latter group, Zhu Cilang decided to let them go to Xincheng—Liangxiang was less than a hundred li from Xincheng, and with some hard walking they could arrive in a single day.

After pacifying the commoners, Zhu Cilang then instructed his personal guards to report the victory to the palace.

At this time, Zhu Cilang also received intelligence from the Longxiang Night Scouts regarding the Qing army's movements.

Ajige's main force had already reached Zhuozhou, sixty li away. When Ajige received Yangguli's message, he was just then attacking Zhuozhou city; by the time he took Zhuozhou city, Yangguli at Liangxiang had already been defeated.

After his defeat, Yangguli gathered together one thousand three hundred infantry and four hundred cavalry in an extremely short time. Although he still had nearly two thousand men, Yangguli did not dare turn back to attack Liangxiang again.

He did not even know why he had insisted on fighting the Ming army to the death back then—watching the Eight Banners warriors die one by one, what madness had seized him to insist on annihilating this Ming force?

Yangguli very much wanted to slap himself a few times across the face, but everything was already too late. Having lost so many Eight Banners warriors and supplies, grain, and wealth, returning to see Ajige like this would surely mean he could not escape death.

So Yangguli vented all this fury upon the several county towns south of Daxing city. Roaming around the southern part of Daxing, he continuously slaughtered dozens of villages and towns, killing several thousand commoners, and only then somewhat vented his rage.

Yangguli led two thousand Qing soldiers in wantonly looting several county towns south of Daxing, passing through like a plague of locusts, seizing no small amount of grain and wealth, and also capturing nearly ten thousand commoners. Only then was he somewhat reassured, and he led his remnant troops to rendezvous with Ajige's force.

When Ajige saw the rather bedraggled Yangguli, he was so furious that he took his horsewhip and viciously thrashed him. Stripes of blood were raised on Yangguli's body, but he did not dare resist, only gritting his teeth and bearing it. He recorded all this humiliation against the account of that Ming army at Liangxiang.

When Zhu Cilang learned of this situation, he was also helpless—Ajige's force had already taken Zhuozhou, and the distance between them was too great.

The Yongwei Camp had suffered heavy losses and was in no condition to march south again. Moreover, according to intelligence obtained by the Longxiang Night Scouts, Ajige still had at least thirty thousand troops.

Yangguli's wholesale burning, killing, and looting south of Daxing city had produced many new refugees. After hearing that the imperial army had defeated the Qing army at Liangxiang, quite a few people fled toward Liangxiang one after another.

Zhu Cilang opened the city gates wide, turning away no refugees, accepting them all, and settling them in Liangxiang city. Those in excess were likewise planned to be brought to Xincheng.

At the same time, Zhu Cilang ordered that able-bodied young men be selected from Liangxiang city to form a city defense force to protect Liangxiang.

The Yongwei Camp could not remain stationed at Liangxiang forever—Liangxiang city needed the ability to defend itself.

Monday, asking for votes!