Chapter 651: First Field Brigade

When Gao Yingdeng was summoned to Huayan Temple, his heart was full of unease.

Though he didn't know what it was about, he figured his guess was pretty close — he was about to get scolded again.

Liu Chengzong treated his subordinates with exceptional leniency and rarely scolded anyone; Wei Qian'er alone basically equaled the combined scoldings of all the other adjutant generals, because his mouth stank.

But the number of times Gao Yingdeng got scolded equaled Wei Qian'er plus everyone else's scoldings combined — maybe even a little more.

There were two main reasons for this.

Subjectively, the Marshal's Office's generals fell into two categories for Liu Chengzong: one was collaborators and supporters, the other was subordinates.

The former included his elder brother Liu Chengzu, Cao Yao, and those who came seeking his name like Wang Wenxiu and Yang Yao, as well as those who joined the collaboration with their own troops like Liu Jiusi, Luo Rucai, Li Wanqing, and Xie Erhu.

The latter were like Ren Quan'er, Gao Yingdeng, Huang Shengxiao, Basang, the Han and Zhong brothers, and Wailiangzi — men Liu Chengzong had promoted from obscurity, whose entire life's fortunes had been decided by a single word from him.

And objectively, among these proper subordinates of the Marshal's Office, there were very few like Gao Yingdeng — both ferocious and reckless.

He really would chase someone all the way into the deserter squad; if the enemy called for a duel, he really would dare to spur his horse out and fight.

The result was that the moment he made a mistake, Liu the Lion would scold him right after; once he corrected it, Liu the Lion would chase after him from behind with praise.

A virtuous cycle.

By now, after all these years, Gao Yingdeng had long grown accustomed to standing like a common soldier. No matter what happened, before seeing the Grand Marshal, he would first reflect on whatever mistakes he might have already committed.

It wasn't until he circled the small hillside and entered Huayan Temple, still uneasy, that he thought it might be because the siege army's discipline had slackened lately. He made up his mind: enter the hall, admit fault first, and offer no explanations.

With the siege dragging on day after day, the discipline of the Marshal's Office's siege forces outside Xi'an Prefecture had indeed been growing lax.

By day, soldiers went down to the river to catch fish; tea houses and wine shops in the outer wards had opened up; soldiers setting up stalls to do business was a common sight; they'd even caught a few defenders of Xi'an who'd climbed over the walls to go to the big market.

Nothing to be done — human patience is limited. Soldiers aren't machines, and morale can't be locked in place.

When spirits are high, morale is high; when spirits are low, morale is low — all perfectly normal.

For any army besieging a city for over a month, the soldiers' mental state will trend toward war-weariness.

Under the pressure of military law, junior officers must curb the soldiers' war-weariness: they have to exhaust one group until they have no energy to think about anything else, while finding ways for another group to make the best of hardship, maintaining combat readiness.

And for high-ranking generals like Gao Yingdeng, they didn't control the men — all they could control was the degree.

They could neither let the soldiers grow so tense that they deserted, had camp panics, mutinied, or rebelled, nor could they let them slacken to the point of having no organization at all and being unable to withstand a single blow.

Precisely for this reason, stalling one's troops beneath a strong fortress has always been a great taboo of military strategists.

However, Liu the Lion was not the sort of general who never took the field himself, and he did not believe that the laxness brought by besieging a city was a sign of deteriorating discipline.

In fact, he thought that having nearly twenty thousand men eating, drinking, and relieving themselves on the plain beneath a strong fortress — a population larger than a prefectural city in Gansu —

and yet no one had gone into residential areas to murder and plunder or commit crimes, and the soldiers were even quite good at entertaining themselves, setting up stalls to do business or playing games for amusement, even feeding chickens and raising sheep, tilling land and farming military colonies to maintain morale —

this in itself was a sign of very good discipline and very fine command.

Every single general involved in the siege had rendered meritorious service; even Gao Yingdeng wouldn't be getting scolded.

Upon seeing Liu Chengzong, Gao Yingdeng was about to prostrate himself and admit his faults on the spot, but to his surprise, Liu the Lion simply raised a hand and handed him a sheet of paper, getting straight to the point: "The Central Army is forming a field brigade. Take a look."

Gao Yingdeng's mind seemed to crash; he stood there frozen.

It wasn't until Liu Chengzong, puzzled at what was wrong with this fool, called out to him again that he snapped out of it, hastily took the organization chart, swept his eyes over it, and exclaimed in astonishment: "Four battalions?"

"Correct. With your grand battalion as the core, we'll additionally establish a three-thousand-man Deputy Brigade Commander's standard battalion, a two-thousand-man skirmish battalion, and a two-thousand-man reinforcement battalion."

Liu Chengzong looked at Gao Yingdeng and said, "You will be the Brigade Commander of the First Brigade."

By now, Gao Yingdeng understood — the Grand Marshal had called him over to promote him.

In truth, he had been guessing recently that his post might change.

After all, the destruction of Wei Qian'er's grand battalion, one of the Three Great Battalions, was a major event in the Marshal's Office.

Wei Qian'er had fought desperately at Tong Pass, sacrificing his grand battalion to block the plague, becoming the Marshal's Office's first Han earl and first hereditary commander — but that grand battalion was finished.

Zhang Tianlin had also earned merit in eliminating the plague at Tong Pass, and combined with his old merits from fighting through every hard battle in Gansu and Shaanxi, he'd become the Brigade Commander of Tong Pass.

With two of the Central Army's Three Great Battalions gone, Gao Yingdeng became the sole surviving direct-line unit, and that was certainly not enough for the Marshal's Office.

So back then, Gao Yingdeng's guess had been that Liu Chengzong would break up his battalion.

He never expected that not only would his battalion not be broken up, it would instead be directly expanded on this foundation — adding three battalions in one go.

Overwhelming joy struck Gao Yingdeng senseless. Flustered, he prostrated himself before Liu Chengzong and saluted, saying with fervor: "The Grand Marshal's great favor — your humble subordinate is willing to go through fire and water without flinching!"

"Please, no going through fire and water. The moment I hear that phrase, I want to become Yang Jiamo."

Liu Chengzong waved his hand with a smile, gesturing for Gao Yingdeng to sit first, then said: "The field brigade's mission is to garrison two prefectures while also being capable of independently crushing and routing three to four battalions of enemy forces on the battlefield."

"On that basis, for the grand battalion, I plan to allocate to you two hundred and forty jingal muskets, seven hundred and twenty heavy arquebuses, seventy-two light and heavy cannons, one thousand four hundred and forty rockets, and five thousand mules and horses."

The level of equipment Liu Chengzong described completely stunned Gao Yingdeng.

Mainly the rockets — a colossal number of rockets.

Gao Yingdeng had long been eyeing the rockets in Zhang Tianlin's hands with envy.

And of course, the cannons, which had multiplied several times over compared to the original grand battalion.

This earth-shaking change in heavy weaponry would clearly give the grand battalion unparalleled battlefield breakthrough capability.

But after just a brief comparison with his original grand battalion's armaments, Gao Yingdeng's face immediately crumpled and he said: "Grand Marshal, then why have my battalion's jingal muskets, heavy arquebuses, and even mules and horses all decreased?"

The jingal muskets were down by nearly a hundred, the heavy arquebuses had been halved, and as for mules and horses — needless to say, in the old Three Great Battalions, every man had a warhorse and a donkey or mule; now it was down to just one horse or mule per man.

A change in the number of mounts could directly affect every aspect of strategy and tactics.

Hearing this, Liu Chengzong did not explain immediately. He simply rose and paced within the hall, silent for a moment before turning and saying: "The reduction in jingal muskets and heavy arquebuses is because light cannons have been added down to the squad level, replacing the jingal musket's capability on the battlefield. As for the warhorses..."

Liu the Lion shook his head. "The field brigade is currently stationed in Guanzhong. Our army's past organization had too many warhorses. In Guanzhong, military provisions must take priority. With tens of thousands of horses milling about here, even the grass on the graves would be gnawed bare."

"Warhorses, heavy arquebuses — these are the minimum organization the Marshal's Office provides to guarantee combat effectiveness. When operations begin later and you're transferred elsewhere, you'll be supplemented with warhorses."

Liu Chengzong greatly valued the mobility advantage that warhorses provided. In fact, he paid even more attention to warhorse numbers than Gao Yingdeng did.

Because warhorses were practically the prerequisite for how he fought wars: rapid maneuvering, rapid troop deployment, rapid encirclement — achieving local numerical superiority on the battlefield to then realize the larger strategic goal of defeating a larger force with a smaller one.

It was just that the current circumstances forced him to cut the warhorse allocation at the brigade level.

Because Guanzhong was to be the Marshal's Office's central hub going forward, and there would be at least two Central Army field brigades and one locally stationed Guanzhong Brigade here.

If forty thousand troops were supplied at the same ratio as the Marshal's headquarters used to run a single great camp — over ten thousand mules and horses — the cost of feeding men and beasts alone would collapse the Guanzhong economy.

The Marshal's headquarters had always kept horse costs very low; in fact, they raised horses in Qinghai, where raising a single horse was even cheaper than feeding a single soldier.

Horses do eat a lot, especially the tall, powerful Hequ and Tianshan horses in the Marshal's hands — those are the gluttons of the horse world, needing over ten jin of fodder a day, plus three to five jin of bean meal, just to stay healthy.

But what Qinghai has in greatest abundance is fine pastureland. Their warhorses could be turned loose to graze at will, and even the cost of transporting fodder was extremely low; the only real expense was that one or two dan of bean meal per month.

A single soldier under Liu Chengzong ate far more than that.

Guanzhong, however, has no pastureland.

It is not that Guanzhong is incapable — the land is flat, the soil fertile, the water and grass lush; it is the finest horse-raising country.

The problem is that, compared to raising horses, Guanzhong is even better suited to supporting people.

Even if there were pastureland here, Liu the Lion would have it leveled and planted with crops; anything else would be a criminal waste of heaven's bounty.

This meant the Marshal's headquarters could only station infantry in Guanzhong, maintain a small cavalry force, and supplement it by temporarily requisitioning warhorses before and during campaigns.

"But Marshal, if the Field Brigade's central army has so few warhorses, are we supposed to use infantry for the relay riders?"

Gao Yingdeng had barely begun when Liu Chengzong waved a hand. "Impossible. The relay riders are the absolute priority of our army — they must never be replaced by relay infantry. Your central grand camp will have six hundred relay cavalry under its command, plus the entire Guerrilla Battalion as mounted troops, to be paired with the relay cavalry when necessary."

"Guerrilla Battalion?"

Gao Yingdeng knew the guerrilla general. In the border garrisons, a guerrilla general had a yamen office for daily administration, but the guerrilla troops had no fixed station; their duty was to serve as a mobile corps, moving back and forth on defense.

But from Liu Chengzong's tone, he seemed to intend to use the Guerrilla Battalion as a special cavalry force, something like the relay cavalry.

"Correct. A guerrilla general's duty is not only mobile defense, but also to act as roving troops carrying out aggressive attacks — cutting off the enemy's retreat, disrupting their supply lines, raiding their flanks, smashing through their weak points. So this battalion will be entirely cavalry."

"The Guerrilla Battalion will consist of two cavalry chiliarch divisions. The first division, two cavalry companies, both equipped like the relay cavalry — long spears, goose-quill sabers, three-eyed guns, light bows and long arrows, no artillery, plus twenty rocket carts and seven hundred twenty rockets."

"The second division will be made up of one Monan Mongol cavalry company and one Oirat Mongol cavalry company. The former handles mounted archery skirmishing; the latter handles couched-lance shock charges."

Now that made sense.

A look of complete understanding dawned on Gao Yingdeng's face. The Marshal's army had always been an offensive force; the defense-oriented guerrilla duties of the Ming army did not suit them at all.

This kind of offense-oriented Guerrilla Battalion, on the other hand, could be used exactly like flanking "crutch cavalry" to break the enemy line during an assault — that fit his thinking far better.

Liu Chengzong then continued, "As for the Reinforcement Battalion, it will be formed from two infantry divisions, using the government army's three-horse seven-foot organization. One of them will be a musket company made up of Western Tibetan infantry."

In truth, as Gao Yingdeng listened to all this, he had already cooled from his initial excitement at getting more cannons and rockets.

In his view, all you needed were two grand camps — fewer troops, more warhorses and equipment — and you could deploy a formidable battle formation and unleash even greater combat power.

But this current design seemed to be thinking more in terms of garrison forces.

He asked, "Marshal, if this is for offense, the old three-grand-camp organization was excellent; if it is for garrison defense, mixing Mongol and Tibetan troops into the army, commanding and training garrison troops — all of that seems like a lot of trouble."

"I intend to disband the Mongol and Tibetan brigades. They're a waste of the organizational structure."

Liu Chengzong spread his hands. "The Mongol and Tibetan troops each have their strengths, but a large formation like the Mongol Brigade is hard to employ effectively on the battlefield. Better to break them up and integrate them into the various brigades, calling them up by chiliarch division and company commander for operations — that also gives them some chances to earn merit."

"Then Brigade Commander Xie and Brigade Commander Ba — both brigades are being dissolved?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "You don't need to worry about those matters. Focus on selecting officers and deploying troops. Get the framework of the First Brigade set up and complete the reorganization."

Liu Chengzong's plan was to transfer the nearly twenty thousand troops of the Mongol and Tibetan brigades into the nine newly organized brigades to be formed in the future, thereby strengthening combat power and giving the Mongol and Tibetan soldiers better opportunities to see action.

As for the two brigade commanders, Xie Erhu and Basang, Liu the Lion had no intention of discarding them. The Marshal's headquarters was large enough; there were places suited to them.

Qinghai was to be divided into two circuits. Xining Prefecture and Kangning Prefecture would form the Xikang Circuit, while the area west of Qinghai Lake would be the herding camps of the various Mongol tribes.

External military pressure on these two circuits was relatively light. The former needed to deal with the Huoluochi three brothers up in the snowy mountains; the latter had to watch out for the Oirats moving south.

At least for now, both Ü-Tsang and the Oirats were something like allied tributaries, and at the same time they still hadn't sorted out their own internal problems. If the Marshal's headquarters didn't go make trouble for them, they'd be thanking heaven and earth.

Therefore, compared to external threats, what was more likely to occur after the main army transferred east was banditry and small-scale internal unrest.

There was a certain need for garrison troops, yet no need to send elite soldiers and strong generals — and it happened to fit the establishment of two regional commanders.

These two posts did not require great military talent; all they demanded was unwavering loyalty to Liu the Lion.

Liu Chengzong planned to have Basang garrison the Xikang Circuit and Xie Erhu hold the Haixi Circuit. Once the army had selected its troops and officers, they would transfer over some second-line units to guard the saltpeter and sulfur production sites, the pastures, and the salt lakes, dealing with horse bandits and mountain brigands — training as they fought — so that if they were ever needed to march into the interior for battle, they would have the strength to fight.

"Select officers and deploy troops?"

Gao Yingdeng's eyes went wide. He asked, "Marshal, the officers — I get to choose them?"

"Superiors investigate, subordinates recommend. You can start by recommending a few people. Whether they can be used, we'll discuss later." Liu Chengzong paused, then added, "Below chiliarch, that is the Military Office's business, so you needn't mention those."

"For the deputy regional commander, the guerrilla general, the assistant regional commander, and the camp commandant of your central grand camp — who do you think is suitable?"

Gao Yingdeng considered this carefully for a moment, then raised his head. "Marshal, for assistant regional commander leading the musket company, your subordinate thinks Tang Tong would do well. As for guerrilla general, Left Guangxian, the chiliarch of the Tiger Guard Battalion, could serve. For the central army officer as camp commandant, use Crooked Beam from my own battalion."

"Crooked Beam?"

Liu Chengzong had no particular objection to the first two, but when he heard Crooked Beam, he laughed outright. "That kid started out as one of my relay riders. By now I've even forgotten his real name. Do you know what he's called? When you have time, ask him. At the assistant regional commander level, using a bandit nickname is no longer appropriate."

After the laughter passed, he asked, "And the deputy regional commander?"

Gao Yingdeng shook his head, clasped his hands, and smiled. "For deputy regional commander, I must ask the Marshal to look into one himself. Your subordinate can hardly request Zhang Tianlin to serve as my deputy regional commander."

"The men you've chosen are all fairly reliable. In that case, let me assign you an unreliable one — the former Deputy Regional Commander of Gansu, Li Hongsi. How about that?"

The moment Gao Yingdeng heard that name, he grinned. "Another old acquaintance."

With the officer selections settled, Liu Chengzong felt considerably more at ease. He clapped Gao Yingdeng on the shoulder. "Now that the four-battalion organization is set, the next step is forming the battalions into a brigade. Have Ren Quan'er and Zhang Tianlin come observe. The Second Brigade and the Guanzhong Brigade will also be organized according to your brigade's structure."