Chapter 504: Model Garrison Commander

The fifth month of the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign.

On the evening of the eighth day, Marshal's Mansion Mobile Corps Commander Feng Rang led his fully-manned wagon battalion in a menacing advance to the west side of Shandan Garrison, encamping at He Family Village five li beyond the west gate and sending soldiers to deliver a letter into the city.

Shandan Garrison Commander Zhu Houji ascended the wall to observe, calmly accepted the letter and opened it atop the ramparts; the paper was a meticulously chosen official blue stock, the handwriting distinctive — its strokes revealed an excellent foundation in the formal Guange style, yet the writing itself was hurried and sloppy.

The salutation on the letter was also written with great courtesy: "To my elder brother Zhu Houji, with respect."

Zhu Houji unfolded the letter with puzzlement, thinking the Marshal's Mansion must have captured some acquaintance of his to send him a letter at such a time, but to his surprise, the contents that unfolded were brimming with murderous intent.

"Tomorrow we attack the city. Consider for yourself: hold it if you can, surrender if you cannot. — Your younger brother, Liu Chengzong."

Expressionless, Zhu Houji folded the letter, tucked it into his robes, and stood in the shadow on the north side of Shandan Garrison's gate tower, gazing out at the camp of Feng Rang's troops where cooking smoke was rising not far away, until the shadows shifted and the sky gradually darkened.

He mused that this Liu Chengzong, whom he had never met but whose name was as thunderous as a drum, truly had manners — and besides having manners, truly gave a man not a shred of face.

Who ever heard of a surrender demand like this? At least say a few pleasant words — just telling a man to think it over himself without saying anything at all?

Zhu Houji descended from the gate tower, spent a quarter of an hour weighing the balance of strength between the two sides, took three seconds to express his regrets to the Chongzhen Emperor in the Forbidden City, drew provisions to give the entire garrison a full meal, and then spent the whole night doing everything he could possibly do.

The afternoon of the ninth day.

Liu Chengzong was convening a commanders' council at the Grand Coordinator's yamen in Ganzhou, the main focus of the council being the Marshal's Mansion's future battalion-level organization.

Changing the organization in the middle of a war was extremely risky, but by this point Liu Chengzong's forces stationed in Ganzhou had swelled to eight battalions, and apart from his own Tiger Guard Battalion and Feng Rang's battalion, the remaining six battalions were all overstrength — normal command, march, and supply were all difficult, let alone fighting a battle.

Overstrength troop numbers might give a commander the hands-on-hips delusion of "commanding this many troops, I'm truly awesome," but from Liu Chengzong's perspective, he knew very well that the troop increase brought by occupying Ganzhou had not enhanced the army's combat capability.

Quite the opposite — since entering the pass, as troop strength grew, command and maneuver in battle had become more and more laborious, and by the time they occupied Ganzhou, his massive corps, approaching thirty thousand men, had reached the breaking point.

Army organization was a highly precise technical matter; the personnel and equipment choices for each unit all served specific tactical purposes. The battalion commanders contenting themselves with the false prosperity brought by incorporating surrendered troops resulted in bloated organization, difficult command, a hodgepodge of equipment, and diminished combat power.

Yet taking the three severely overstrength battalions of Zhang Tianlin, Gao Yingdeng, and Wei Qian'er as examples, Liu Chengzong was genuinely reluctant to simply slash the troops they commanded down to standard size.

Because the surrendered soldiers they led were all defeated and recruited by themselves. He could cut them if he wanted — no problem — but once cut, it would dampen the commanders' initiative, and the consequences would still fall on him to bear.

So expanding the organization on the battlefield was a foregone conclusion. For Liu the Lion, the only thing to consider was how, under the constraint of limited equipment, to keep his subordinate commanders motivated without compromising the army's combat effectiveness.

Fortunately, Liu Chengzong already had a plan in mind for this. During this period, he had first communicated privately with each battalion commander. Of course, the reason given for expansion was not to satisfy the commanders' vanity, but that battlefield merits could not yet change their official ranks before the war ended, so they were advancing a portion of the war rewards in advance.

Specifically, on the basis of the Marshal's Mansion's standard 3,600-man battalion organization, a Camp-Directing Brigade Commander directly under the Mobile Corps Commander would be added, making the standard battalion a large battalion of 4,800 to 5,000 men.

The newly added Camp-Directing Brigade Commander would lead two Company Commanders, respectively the Central Army Company Commander and the Divine Weapons Company Commander.

The Central Army Company Commander would command five Platoon Captains, leading respectively staff guards, attached field musicians, siege equipment, army medics, and scout riders.

The Divine Weapons Company Commander would command five Platoon Captains, managing respectively three thousand-jin cannons, ten Lion cannons, equipment repair, ammunition, and donkeys and mules.

This organizational change elevated heavy firepower to the direct command of the Mobile Corps Commander. The firepower of the original three brigade headquarters was severely weakened, mainly because after the army expanded, Liu Chengzong did not have that many Lion cannons and could not reinforce every brigade headquarters with them.

But correspondingly, they had captured large numbers of General Cannons and Frankish cannons, so these were pushed down to the brigade and company commanders as supplementary firepower.

From all the captured cannons, Liu Chengzong selected two types from two different reign periods as the standard cannons for brigade and company commanders: each brigade commander was assigned one Hongwu Great General, and each company commander was assigned one Nantang Great General.

The Hongwu Great General was the large iron General Cannon cast during the Hongwu reign. Gansu's various cities all had plenty of these. In design, they had neither front sights nor trunnions, their form being relatively backward, but their advantage lay in uniform specifications, fine workmanship, and excellent quality control.

Overall length five chi one, inner bore six cun, spherical powder chamber, straight barrel, low caliber ratio, range much shorter than the red-barbarian-style thousand-jin cannon — though of course, even with a double charge to achieve maximum range, that caliber ratio meant it could not hit accurately.

But it could basically satisfy the need, on the foundation of the Mobile Corps Commander having battalion-level cannons, for a brigade headquarters to have a defensive or assault firearm when encountering the enemy in field battle.

As for the Nantang Great General, it was the Frankish-style Invincible Great General improved during the Qi Jiguang era. This was far more advanced in design, with front sights, trunnions, and a gun carriage, capable of continuous rapid fire of solid iron shot to break formations, or firing grapeshot to create a suppressive barrage.

At the same time, its quality was better than the Hongwu Great General, and some of its sub-chambers were forged, making them light and easy to use.

Beyond this, at the Platoon Captain level, many small cannons like Springing Pearl and Barbarian-Slayer were also distributed, but Liu Chengzong had no intention of having the army keep these small cannons as standard equipment, so not every Platoon Captain had a cannon. Even when small cannons were issued, they were only given ten or twenty rounds of ammunition, with no follow-up ammunition supply.

Once the ammunition was spent, they could just toss the cannon and the ammo crate aside and be done with it.

Liu the Lion's thinking was this: whatever tactical task a Springing Pearl or Barbarian-Slayer class small cannon could do, a heavy musket could do; and whatever tactical task a heavy musket could not do, bringing out a Springing Pearl or Barbarian-Slayer would not help either.

Take attacking earth-and-wood fortifications, for example. Never mind that the Barbarian-Slayer cannon fired a one-jin shot and the heavy musket fired only a two-and-a-half-ounce lead ball — the heavy musket had a high caliber ratio. A wooden plank or earthen wall that a heavy musket could not penetrate, the hundred-jin forged-iron Barbarian-Slayer cannon commonly used in the west could not penetrate either.

Therefore, increasing the allocation of small cannons to the Platoon Captain squads brought a tiny tactical advantage that could not offset the disadvantages of slowing march speed and increasing supply difficulty.

But if no supply ammunition was provided, the mere weight slowing the march was something Liu the Lion could still accept.

Then the problem became much simpler.

If an engagement went badly, using up the ammunition or not, they could toss these cannons without a pang, increasing their withdrawal speed, and there was no need to supply cannonballs.

If an engagement went smoothly and they won, then there was even less need to supply ammunition — the Ming army had it!

Didn't that just solve the problem?

The first units to be reorganized were the three severely overstrength battalions of Zhang Tianlin, Gao Yingdeng, and Wei Qian'er, all restructured into large battalions. Their basic mode of combat remained unchanged, but their capacity for independent operations was enhanced.

However, while the organization was set for large battalions, three battalions required technical personnel for three brigade headquarters. Even after they weeded out eight thousand overstrength soldiers, they still could not muster enough men; the follow-up troop strength would need Cao Yao to slowly search for and supplement in Gansu.

At the same time, as the greatest contributor to the eastern expedition in Gansu, Liu Chengzong also fulfilled a small wish of Zhang Tianlin's — mobilizing Ganzhou's craftsmen to manufacture a batch of rocket launchers for his Left Brigade Headquarters.

To be honest, Liu Chengzong did not particularly value the rocket launchers made by the Marshal's Mansion Armory Bureau. Rocket launchers were certainly important, but what they had made in He-Huang were defective products under specific conditions; during development, they had only considered the difficulty of crossing the Qilian Mountains, and thus imposed many restrictions on weight.

On the contrary, the most important aspects of rocket launchers — accuracy, range, and power — had all been sacrificed for portability. A ten-jin rocket shell contained seven jin of fuel, one jin of explosive charge, and fifty-three iron pellets.

The cost was very high, the cost-effectiveness extremely poor, range five hundred paces, spread five hundred paces — meaning the safe range was only one hundred to two hundred and fifty paces.

This weapon was incompatible with Liu Chengzong's style of warfare.

Liu Chengzong's way of fighting was the classic "scholar leading ruffians." His subordinate commanders had all risen from fighting poor-man's wars, and the combat habits they had developed were all about concentrating elite troops, breaking through at a single point with force, and repeatedly charging or pulling at the enemy lines until the enemy collapsed.

The only difference in combat style was that Gao Yingdeng concentrated elite troops to charge and break the enemy, while Zhang Tianlin repeatedly maneuvered to pull the enemy apart.

He himself was another extreme. He first demanded of himself that he not be defeated, because he could not afford to lose. He had to have formations within formations, battalions within battalions, advancing steadily and securely, pushing forward as a whole, completely crushing the enemy with overwhelming force.

In Liu the Lion's mind, if the Marshal's Army wanted to equip rocket shells on a large scale, they needed to properly develop a standard rocket shell — twenty jin in weight, fitted with a balance pole if needed, pushing the range to a thousand paces and the safe distance to five or six hundred paces — before talking about mass production and large-scale deployment.

But this kind of defective rocket shell, with its wide coverage area, wide kill zone, and enormous consumption — for Zhang Tianlin, who was adept at maneuver, running wild all over the place, and excelled in chaotic cavalry fighting... it was es-pe-cial-ly satisfying!

Zhang Tianlin said, Commander, we're not short on gunpowder. This thing is way more satisfying to use than cannons. Even though a single launch fires two or three hundred shells, and the weight alone looks enormous, the rocket shells carried by three Platoon Captain squads can solve a problem.

This was Zhang Tianlin's battlefield experience proven in practice: the cavalry charges, the enemy forms ranks. No matter what kind of wagon battalion or infantry battalion you have, no matter how advanced your equipment or how formidable your guns and cannons, you just drop three thousand jin of gunpowder on them. If anyone is still standing, drop another three thousand jin. The cavalry charges once, and the battle is over.

The cost-effectiveness is extremely high!

In a standoff between two armies, that amount of ammunition would take ten thousand-jin cannons a full four double-hours to fire. If you're really bombarding a wagon battalion, and both sides' cannons have roughly the same range, what kind of losses would you take exchanging fire for four double-hours?

With rocket shells, whoosh, and it's done. Even if the King of Heaven himself showed up, he couldn't catch this batch of Liu Guonengs falling from the sky.

The logic was sound, no doubt about it. Whether these rocket shells were good or not was not for him to say — the man most qualified to judge was Bai Guang'en.

Liu Shizi thought to himself, he should find a chance to ask Bai Guang'en what he thought of the rocket arrows.

Their military council had been in session all afternoon, arranging a series of tasks like quickly reorganizing the army into grand battalions and manufacturing rockets. Just as they were discussing the next steps of strategic deployment—pushing the reorganized army east to fight and see how effective it was—they heard a guard from the yamen come in to report: "Grand Marshal, the brigade commander under Vice General Feng from Shandan Garrison has arrived."

Liu Chengzong's heart lurched the moment he heard this. By his reckoning of time, Feng Rang had reached Shandan Garrison on the evening of the eighth. There was no way a battle could be fought at night, so the attack would have launched at dawn.

Shandan Garrison and Ganzhou City were one hundred and twenty li apart. Even if a messenger swapped horses once along the way, to reach Ganzhou before dark on the ninth, they would have had to set out in the morning at the latest. But the two armies had only just clashed that morning—there was hardly likely to be any result worth reporting.

If the messenger had set out in the afternoon and arrived at this hour, it meant two horses had been ridden to death on the road. In that case, without a doubt, something had gone wrong!

Liu Chengzong immediately stopped discussing matters with his generals and quickly said to the guard, "Show him in at once."

After a few calls within the Grand Coordinator's yamen, he soon saw Brigade Commander Lian Daqi, wearing an iron-reinforced headband, striding into the hall with his helmet cradled in his arms.

Lian Daqi was a veteran of the Marshal's Army, nicknamed Erlang Shen. During the Battle of Yellow Dragon Mountain against He Huchen, Lian Daqi, then a left-wing squad captain, had led his men to hold the ridge on the left flank. The Ningxia troops drew their bows, and an arrow struck him square in the forehead. The arrowhead lodged in his frontal bone without piercing through. After the battle, they pulled the arrow out, and he was immediately up and bouncing around. The soldiers in the army all found it miraculous.

His case popularized a piece of common knowledge throughout the Marshal's Mansion: the human frontal bone is extremely hard. For many soldiers in the Marshal's Army, it even led directly to the conclusion that the frontal bone is the hardest bone. Otherwise, how else do you think Erlang Shen got his name?

However, despite being up and bouncing around, Lian Daqi was left with a chronic condition: fierce combat or emotional agitation would trigger splitting headaches.

Every year, Liu Chengzong sent Lian Daqi an iron-reinforced protective forehead band, fearing he might injure his forehead again.

This affliction had practically closed off Lian Daqi's path to becoming a general. A general could endure broken limbs, old wounds, and disability—he could even direct a battle while being carried in a sedan chair—but his spirit had to be strong. He had to withstand the immense pressure of going days and nights without sleep and processing all manner of intelligence reports.

It was precisely for this reason that Huang Shengxiao, a squad leader who had once fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Captain Lian Daqi, was already a vice general, while Lian Daqi had only risen to brigade commander.

Fortunately, the Marshal's Mansion had another path for promotion. Liu Chengzong had spoken with Lian Daqi about it: since his physical condition made him unsuited for grueling campaigns, he should focus more on recording and studying military theory. In the future, he would receive a general's rank, be promoted to brigade commander in the Tiger Guard Battalion, and then be assigned to the Military Yamen as a drill officer or to the academy as an instructor for officers.

Lian Daqi was well aware of his own physical limitations and was very satisfied with this arrangement.

Knowing his medical condition, and seeing that it was him arriving without any particular look of tension or pain, Liu Chengzong understood that the situation at Shandan Garrison was not serious. He smiled and said, "Daqi, you set out this morning?"

Lian Daqi smiled and saluted him with clasped fists in greeting. Seeing the many officers in the hall, he quickly turned solemn and saluted the generals before smiling at Liu Chengzong and saying, "The Grand Marshal's calculations are truly divine. The journey here was not rushed."

"General Feng sent you over. Tell me, what happened at Shandan Garrison?"

"Reporting to the Grand Marshal, it was all thanks to that personal letter of surrender you wrote. The Shandan commander Zhu Houji opened the gates and surrendered this morning. General Feng sent me back specifically to help Zhu Houji request an official post from the Grand Marshal. General Feng suggests that the Grand Marshal consider his circumstances and grant him an official position."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly. "Then tell me first, what are his circumstances? Is he of the imperial clan?"

"Not of the imperial clan, but he is very sensible." Lian Daqi smiled and presented a long letter. "After receiving the Grand Marshal's letter, Zhu Houji invited the garrison's officers and soldiers to a meal last night. Once the meal was over, he launched his operation. That very night, he took control of Wang Jianhou—son of the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent and Minister of War Wang Yunzhong, a retired Shandan metropolitan graduate, and Administration Vice Commissioner of Jibei."

"After that, he worked through the night to inventory weapons, warhorses, provisions, and supplies, and to calm the military households within the city. When the gates opened in the morning, the entire Shandan Garrison army carried no weapons or armor. Blades and spears were stored in the armory, cattle and horses returned to their pens. Provisions, supplies, personnel, and garrison farmlands were all documented in ledgers. He personally stood at the city gate, awaiting the Marshal's Mansion to take over."

After saying this, Lian Daqi looked to Liu Chengzong, clasped his fists, and said, "General Feng believes this commander is a model example, and requests the Grand Marshal's decision."

Good morning!