Chapter 244: Infantry Camp

On the banks of the Huang River, in the valley of Ju'er Bay.

Liu Chengzong led his staff and attendants to stand atop the westernmost watchtower of Xining Garrison. Turning to Wang Wenxiu beside him, he said, "Begin."

Signal flags unfurled, and war drums thundered within the infantry camp.

Well-equipped battle troops, leading lightly armored auxiliary soldiers, burst from their dugout shelters at a jog, assembling into columns under their officers and running out of the camp bearing their weapons.

In a very short time, they formed his customary hollow square formation outside the camp.

Chen Shifo stood in the back row, craning his neck to peer at the military formation, observing Liu Chengzong's army.

In any case, when it came to military formations, a lama school dropout like him couldn't discern any real intricacies—he just found it very ferocious-looking.

Shifo sighed inwardly. Big Brother's eye for hitching himself to a powerful patron was truly superb, though his business sense was lacking—insisting on building warehouses in the city and doing hard labor.

He had long since inquired about it: the Lion Army's military discipline was very strict, forbidding the harassment of civilians, but as long as it was consensual, relations between men and women were not prohibited, and the soldiers even rotated on leave.

So he told his big brother: with over ten thousand bachelors, they should stake everything and borrow money to open a row of brothels west of the city—guaranteed to rake in a fortune.

But his big brother wouldn't listen, saying what if the troops were suddenly pulled away? Pulled away for what? They were drilling right now—just look: as soon as the war drums sounded, countless fierce, fiendish figures emerged from the sprawling dugout shelters. How terrifying!

But Liu Chengzong could discern the real intricacies. Overall, the soldiers were not yet proficient at forming battle lines, a bit slower than before.

He turned his head and asked, "Is there a problem with the camp's construction, or are there too many new recruits in the ranks? Has combat effectiveness declined?"

Wang Wenxiu knew exactly what he was asking and explained at his side, "The ranks have plenty of veterans, which makes it very convenient to lead the auxiliaries in formation. But whether it's this period of drilling or marching, it's all a bit more tiring than it was in northern Shaanxi."

"I asked the locals, and they said everyone coming from the east is like this. After a while, they'll get used to it. So I've had them assemble a bit slower for now, focusing mainly on drilling the new camp formations—memorizing the regulations without error is more important than speed."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly. With Wang Wenxiu's explanation, he understood immediately: altitude sickness.

Altitude sickness mainly comes from rapidly gaining elevation when the body isn't accustomed to it. Their marching speed on the way here had been very fast, but still far slower than covering a thousand li a day, so there hadn't been widespread symptoms.

It was just that Xining was a bit higher than northern Shaanxi, with slightly less oxygen, so the soldiers tired more easily during strenuous exercise.

These days, he could indeed feel that this reorganization had been very effective—at least it had made the three army camp commanders think about military issues from a clearer perspective. They were beginning to look like proper generals.

Wang Wenxiu introduced, "Now, each camp has six company commanders: one for each of the four sides—front, rear, left, and right—and two inside the formation, front and rear, with all four sides linked end to end."

Liu Chengzong gave the military formation a brief glance, then raised his telescope for a closer look. Wang Wenxiu's infantry formation was somewhat thinner than the formations they had used in the past.

It somewhat resembled Xu Lun's "New Formation for Routing the Barbarians" from the Jiajing era, a hundred paces square.

It used one hundred squads, each squad arrayed in a two-file column, with the squad leaders standing within the ranks, small flags strapped to their backs, forming a large horizontal line six men deep. The width of each of the four sides was roughly one hundred men.

The four Company Commanders each led their troops to stand at one corner of the formation, reinforcing the four corners of the military array.

Liu Chengzong saw that the soldiers in each horizontal line carried identical weapons and asked, "You've redistributed the weapons for the twelve men in each squad leader's unit?"

"Correct. Our troops prioritize the battle soldiers. Twelve men form two columns, divided into four sections: left-front, right-front, left-rear, and right-rear. Three men per section."

Wang Wenxiu explained, "Left-front is the Brave Leader, right-front is the Order Officer, left-rear is the Squad Leader, right-rear is the Fire Team Leader. The first row of auxiliaries carries spears; the second row carries swords, shields, and javelins; the third row, the Brave Leader and Order Officer, carry war bows; the fourth row of auxiliaries carries fire lances; the fifth row carries three-eyed guns; the sixth row, the Fire Team Leader and Squad Leader, carry arquebuses."

After saying this, Wang Wenxiu added, "It's just like the Captain's banners—this is only the idea. The number of banners is insufficient; they're still being made. The firearms aren't this standardized either. Rows four, five, and six are all a mixed formation of fire lances, three-eyed guns, and arquebuses. There are many three-eyed guns, but not enough arquebuses."

Liu Chengzong nodded. "Half firearms is very good. I'll think of a way regarding the arquebuses. Once the Armory Bureau is established, we can assign one heavy musket to every one to three squads."

Wang Wenxiu asked, "Heavy musket?"

"Yes." Liu Chengzong nodded. "A large arquebus operated by two men. I see you have bombards in your ranks—are those for the company commanders?"

"The idea was for each company of sixty men to have one bombard or crouching tiger cannon, but the numbers are currently insufficient. We can only assign one per hundred-man commander, roughly one for every one hundred twenty men."

Liu Chengzong nodded. This was a situation he was powerless to change.

For a long time, the only weapon the Lion Camp could manufacture independently was arrow shafts.

Their largest source of equipment was battlefield loot. Manufacturing any other weapons depended entirely on luck. So for them, what they wanted to equip was one thing; what they actually got was another.

Fortunately, that predicament was now behind them.

As the camp drill began to shift formations, Liu Chengzong mentally tallied all the resources around him that he could utilize.

He had seen the native cavalry of Chieftain Chen, all carrying arquebuses.

By spending money while also extorting them, the dozen or so chieftains should be able to produce around a hundred arquebuses a month. Or they could just have them forge the barrels, then collect them and supervise the quality, handling the stocks and barrel-boring themselves.

And there was the Armory Bureau of Xining Garrison—he couldn't let them stay idle either. He would have to discuss this matter with his big brother as well.

As for the Lion Army's own Armory Bureau, they needed to make the more difficult heavy muskets. If they could have three hundred heavy muskets after this winter, fighting battles would become much more comfortable.

Calculating from his position, individual firearms were still difficult to produce, but they placed relatively little pressure on raw materials.

Casting cannons was easier, but it consumed far too many raw materials.

Although clay molds took time, that was really just preparation time. Once continuous production began, that bit of time was negligible.

The most spectacular moment of the drill's transformation arrived. Under the officers' commands, the troops on all four sides fired in sequence by rank: first loosing arrows in volleys, then the small cannons fired, followed by fire lances, three-eyed guns, and arquebuses, discharging in turn.

Immediately after, the military formation split apart, dividing into horizontal lines. The front Company Commander's unit held its position, while the left and right units each swung outward from the rear to the two flanks, shifting from columns into horizontal lines to reinforce the left and right of the front Company Commander. The rear unit filled in on the left.

Together with the two Company Commander units of the central army, they formed a large, two-layered horizontal line: four in front and two in the rear.

Wang Wenxiu said, "The front-left is Left Battalion Commander Luo Rucai, the front-right is Right Battalion Commander Yang Chengzu, and behind them is Center Battalion Commander Li Laochai. They can form three successive waves. If we had cavalry at this moment, they could screen behind them or support the two wings."

Hearing Wang Wenxiu announce the names of the three infantry battalion commanders, Liu Chengzong couldn't help but smile.

The Infantry Camp's Vice General was quite particular when selecting troops, demanding that one-third of his soldiers be former frontier army men. But for officers at the Battalion Commander and Company Commander level, he was not so particular.

Wang Wenxiu had only one requirement: they must have fought in tough battles and possess unyielding will. Nothing else mattered.

So they assigned him these three men.

All had fought in tough battles, and sometimes those battles had been utter disasters. Their wills were all exceptionally unyielding. The only thing was, none of these three had ever led good troops in their lives.

They were all commanders of peasant army origin.

In truth, Liu Chengzong's appointment of Luo Rucai and Yang Chengzu as Battalion Commanders was largely a reward for merit.

These two had rendered great service in inciting the Pingliang mutiny, securing vast amounts of wealth, goods, and provisions for the army. His original intention had been to grant them the authority of semi-independent leaders in the future, letting them continue to lead their own troops.

After all, deep down, Liu the Lion still didn't think very highly of these two masters of disastrous battles.

He had a deep impression of their talents for leading troops and fighting battles—one had his unit self-destruct over a single winter, while the other, Yang Chengzu, was picked out of a pile of corpses, and Luo Rucai took a blade to the backside and ran off without a trace.

But Wang Wenxiu didn't see it that way, and he had convinced Liu Chengzong.

Having followed Liu Chengzong through the entire campaign, essentially as an infantry company commander, his greatest impression was that every time they won a battle, he had been indispensable, yet the crucial moment that broke the enemy line had never been his doing.

He only needed to hold the line — between the artillery and the cavalry, one of them would be able to break the enemy formation.

So Wang Wenxiu's theory was this: victory in battle depends on the cavalry and artillery; but whether the battle can be won at all depends on the infantry.

In Wang Wenxiu's view, the peasant army commanders who had fought many disastrous battles held an advantage.

Take just these three — Luo Rucai, Yang Chengzu, Li Laochai — every one of them had been routed so badly they threw away their armor, with not one in ten surviving.

As long as they still had strength left to fight, the soldiers' morale might not hold, but for the commanders' own spirits — did losing half or more of their men even count as a problem?

The disastrous battles they fought, if placed in a regular army, would be called "barely escaping with one's life" — an officer's career would basically be finished.

But they were different. Fighting disastrous battles came from insufficient military knowledge, and insufficient knowledge can be learned. But the experience of brutal combat has to be watered with blood and human lives.

Liu Chengzong looked toward the formation. After this short period of drill, the three chiliarchs of the infantry battalion looked passable enough. He turned to Wang Wenxiu and said, "These three aren't bad either."

Wang Wenxiu nodded. "They're delighted to be assigned to the training battalion as officers."

As they spoke, the infantry battalion, now in a grand horizontal formation, drilled in the river valley: advancing while firing, quick-march advance, horizontal envelopment, horizontal column to vertical column, retreating envelopment, and various other battalion drill subjects.

After that, from the grand horizontal formation they shifted into three hollow squares by chiliarch command, then each chiliarch command drilled in horizontal formation, successively shrinking to the centurion command and finally to the five-squad combined assault at the platoon-commander level.

There was even a file attack by twelve-man squads, using the section as the unit.

When all subjects had been drilled, the army once again returned to the grand square formation. This time they brought in the supply donkey carts and formed the light-cart battalion.

On each of the four sides, thirty carts were arrayed, two linked together. Twenty paces beyond the formation, three layers of caltrops were scattered. The gaps left between every four carts were filled by infantry, and the firearms troops fired from atop the carts.

Then the soldiers at the formation's base retrieved the caltrops, and the troops charged out through the gaps to drill pursuit and close combat.

With that, the entire battalion drill concluded.

Among the many subjects, some the soldiers were proficient in, some they were rusty at, and some formation changes were still not fluid. Moreover, many of the required weapons and equipment were in severe shortage, and the supply carts likewise needed redesign and modification to suit warfare.

But these were all minor problems that could be remedied.

Under ideal conditions, a full-strength infantry battalion had 3,600 men and required 1,200 to 1,600 matchlock arquebuses, 100 to 300 heavy muskets, and 60 portable small cannons.

Liu Chengzong calculated in his head: the cost of this equipment would be roughly 2,600 taels, and manufacturing it all would take half a year.

The cost of sabers and pikes could be ignored, but armor could not be dismissed. At four taels per cloth-faced suit, 2,500 suits would cost 10,000 taels.

It was not that Liu Chengzong begrudged the money — it was simply that he had no way to turn silver into armor.

The limited manufacturing capacity of the Lion Army's craftsmen meant that producing enough firearms for one battalion in half a year would already be outstanding. They had absolutely no spare capacity to hammer out armor plates.

Craftsmen, materials — craftsmen and materials were the big problem.

"Train them well," Liu Chengzong said, pressing the matter down in his heart. He told Wang Wenxiu, "Standardize the infantry training. Refine it down to the detail: when a new recruit enters camp, how many subjects he must drill, how many days per subject, or the total days required for all subjects."

Wang Wenxiu clasped his fists and accepted the order. "Yes!"

"Beyond that… it's still hard to train for now. Our men can basically all ride horses. When the next batch of recruits comes, we'll also need to teach them to ride — enough to march on horseback will do."

Liu Chengzong said, "One battalion every half year — how about it?"

Wang Wenxiu looked somewhat troubled.

Training troops wasn't hard. What was hard was not knowing what kind of men Liu Chengzong would throw into his hands in the future.

Deserters from the border garrisons, fugitives from the guard battalions, failed examination candidates, rural farmers, famine refugees, hardened old bandits.

The cost required to train these people was not the same.

Those with a foundation could be reorganized into an army within a month.

And for those without a foundation… Wang Wenxiu felt that the lives of the vast majority of people in this world were not worth six months of training.

These Shaanbei rebels of theirs carried the same sense of prices in their heads as Liu Chengzong: one dan of grain was five taels of silver, and six months of training equaled thirty taels of silver.

Wang Wenxiu said, "General, I can have them understanding commands and reading signal flags and onto the battlefield in one month."

Liu Chengzong knew Wang Wenxiu was right.

No matter how long you drill troops, if they haven't been on the battlefield, they're still recruits. In practice, drill them for a month or two, mix them into veteran units, march, maneuver, fight — survive the first three months, and they're veterans.

"I know what you're talking about is a question of whether it's worth the cost."

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "But there are too few Han people here. This isn't a question of whether it's worth the cost."

"When the Han people are all dead, others will think your son is a Tatar, and my son is a barbarian. In others' eyes, they might be anything — but they will never be a Han man."

"Then we truly will be stuck guarding this land forever."

This was, in fact, what Liu Chengzong worried about most.

He shook his head and patted Wang Wenxiu on the shoulder. "Then it's settled — one battalion every half year… Damn it, I need to write a letter to Wang Ziyong."

Wang Ziyong was a double-edged sword. Liu Chengzong had never known quite how to wield him, but right now he needed Wang Ziyong's mobilization ability.

He also wondered how the Farming King Gao Yingxiang was doing over at Lion Bay. If things were passable, then next year or the year after, he'd have Wang Ziyong bring some people over from Shaanxi and Shanxi.

Gao Yingxiang would provide some travel rations for the people, and once the Prince of Han issued his stipend rice, provide a bit more — that should be just about enough for them to make it here.

Migration was a difficult matter. If Shaanbei famine refugees had the rations to make it to Xining, then they wouldn't be famine refugees.

Liu Chengzong's battalion drill had just dispersed when he heard Dai Daozi announcing from a distance: "Grand Marshal, Gongbu Duoji has come from Sun Moon Mountain, bringing a Mongol noble — says he's the younger Lhazang's elder brother."

The younger Lhazang sending someone over was a little slower than he had imagined, but sending his own elder brother — Liu Chengzong furrowed his brow and thought: I didn't ask him for a hostage prince!

Soon, Baima Taiji, accompanied by several Mongol cavalrymen, reached the camp's perimeter and was brought up onto the watchtower platform.

Liu Shizi was absolutely delighted. "Go on, tell me — what tribute does Lhazang intend to offer me?"