Chapter 673: Xi

The first day of the twelfth lunar month.

The Prince of Qin's mansion plaque was taken down and replaced with a new plaque reading Office of the Grand Marshal's Military Command.

The plaque on the Hall of Inheriting Fortune was also replaced with one reading Main Hall of the Military Command Office.

Zhao Jifang, a court gentleman of the Marshal's headquarters, sat in a side hall of the main office, head buried over his desk, brush flying furiously.

He was the younger full brother of Xianyang Magistrate Zhao Jichang, and earlier had been a stipend student still studying at the county school.

Liu the Lion had once told him that he himself was of meager talent and scant virtue, and at a time when men were needed, he wanted to recruit him to his side as a court gentleman and advisor.

But to Zhao Jifang's ears, those words were nothing less than a threat that left no room to refuse.

You've deployed your great army across Guanzhong, war-horses fill the fields, you've surrounded my brother's Xianyang County, and here you are styling yourself a solitary and orphaned sovereign — you can do whatever you want, so what could I possibly say?

I'm just a student.

So I'll be a court gentleman, then.

However, after Liu Chengzong completely took control of Shaanxi, this court gentleman's duties underwent a massive change.

Not only did he receive two young attendants from the Children's Camp, he also got a Grand Secretary of the Inner Cabinet trial card, responsible for reviewing and annotating memorials for the Military Command Office.

Of course, it was only a trial card.

What he actually handled, in truth, was taking the memorials Liu Chengzong had already annotated and expanding them in the official Secretariat Style, turning them into public dispatches suitable for issuance to the localities.

For example, the memorial Zhao Jifang was currently annotating had been sent by his elder brother Zhao Jichang.

Xianyang's Zhao Jichang was the first person promoted after Liu Chengzong entered Xi'an, appointed on the spot as Prefect of Xi'an.

Several other county magistrates who had transported tax grain and not raised troops in resistance were also promoted, based on their wartime conduct and consideration of their official reputations.

For instance, Fan Zhimao of Heyang had been zealous in transporting grain, but did not submit his instrument of surrender until the prefectural seat fell; however, he had done well in his Heyang post, and was promoted to Vice-Prefect of Xi'an.

And Zhang Jinyan of Sanyuan had also done well, but since he had not transported grain during the war and merely reported the actual tax quotas to the Marshal's Army, he was only promoted to Recorder of the Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission.

His rank went up one grade, but in practice the Marshal's headquarters' Shaanxi Provincial Administration Commission had no chief official, so he, the Recorder in charge of document transfers, was basically a Grade-6B mail clerk.

Of course, Zuo Maodi of Hancheng was not moved; he remained Magistrate of Hancheng.

The memorial sent by Prefect Zhao Jichang reported the suicide of Zhu Yitong, Magistrate of Pucheng in Hua Prefecture.

When Xi'an fell and the news of Chen Qiyu's surrender reached the various localities, every county surrendered at the mere rumor.

To let the local chief officials save face and make it easier to carry on with work later, Liu Chengzong thoughtfully ordered cavalrymen, in pairs, to go to each county and once more urge surrender, so as to show that they had not surrendered on their own initiative.

But there were those who would rather die than surrender.

This Zhu Yitong, for instance, was a defeatist of the rather-die-than-surrender sort.

According to the county gentry, he had long ago seen that Shaanxi could not be held, and declared: "My family has worn the official robes for seven generations — how could I attach myself to bandits?"

As early as when the Shaanxi Army Corps was annihilated, Zhu Yitong had tried to hang himself, but because he was fat, he snapped the tree branch; he was then dissuaded by the Assistant Magistrate Yao Qichong, who arrived right after and told him to wait and see — so he did not die then.

By the time the prefectural seat fell and the surrender-urging cavalrymen Liu Chengzong had dispatched galloped to the foot of Pucheng's walls, Zhu Yitong did not even know of it before the city gates opened on their own; the cavalrymen were welcomed into the city and rode straight to the county yamen.

The yamen runners clamored, wanting to seize Zhu Yitong's magistrate's seal; he said, "So long as I live one more day, none of you shall think of taking this seal."

Someone urged him, saying the Supreme Commander had surrendered, the Presented Scholars in all the surrounding counties had surrendered, and you are merely a Provincial Graduate — surrendering at this point is already more than respectable.

Zhu Yitong said, "Does laying down one's life in loyalty to the nation require a qualification?"

He turned and went back to the county yamen's rear residence, mobilized his family and servants to widen the well mouth for him, donned his official hat, wore his official robes, clasped his official seal, faced north and performed three obeisances, then threw himself into the well and died.

Assistant Magistrate Yao Qichong was deeply shaken and intended to follow his example, but was pinned down by the yamen runners.

Liu Chengzong's annotation on this memorial was very terse: he drew lines under the magistrate's and assistant magistrate's names, and in vermilion ink wrote two characters: "Grant office."

Zhao Jifang racked his brains but found it very hard to grasp Liu Chengzong's meaning, and could only squeeze out two letters of appointment.

One promoted Pucheng Assistant Magistrate Yao Qichong to Magistrate of Xianyang; the other appointed Longxi Provincial Graduate Zhou Huang as Magistrate of Pucheng.

The former appointment was made because Zhao Jifang considered that promoting Yao Qichong to Pucheng Magistrate would be best, but with Zhu Yitong's precedent, making him magistrate there would likely invite contempt.

So he shifted him to Xianyang, which his brother had just been transferred away from.

As for the Longxi Provincial Graduate Zhou Huang, the Marshal's headquarters had a roster of Presented Scholars, Provincial Graduates, and Licentiates living idle at home in each county; he simply picked one at random.

In any case, these letters of appointment had no force yet; once written, they still had to be sent next door for the eunuch of the Military Command Office to review.

Only when the eunuch also found no problem and passed them back to Liu Chengzong, who annotated them and sent them to the responsible office, did they gain force.

The Marshal's headquarters had only one eunuch: Zhang Yuanheng, who had overseen the Xining Tea and Horse Trade.

This fellow was a Licentiate by background, skilled in both civil and military arts — basically a castrated version of Liu Chengzong.

Liu the Lion had once promised to make him a county magistrate, and if he did well, a subprefectural magistrate within six years.

In return for that recognition, Zhang Yuanheng had also done quite a few things for Liu Chengzong: inciting the banner troops of Songpan Garrison, and helping his maternal uncle Cai Zhongpan set up governance statutes in Luhuo County.

So when Liu Chengzong entered Xi'an, he gave him the yamen of the Tea Inspection Circuit, appointing him Tea and Horse Censor, in charge of tea laws and horse administration.

However, that yamen had been burned by mutinous troops before the city fell, and repairs would not be finished until next year at the earliest, so it was just the right time to let Zhang Yuanheng experience the feeling of being a Directorate of Ceremonial brush-holding eunuch.

After all, he had handled his own job-transfer paperwork; he ought to get a chance to experience it.

Just as Zhao Jifang was racking his brains, Liu Chengyun happened to stroll in, the civet-management squad tucked in his pocket, leisurely bringing in household-office dispatches; he leaned over to steal a couple of glances.

These two brothers were of one mind; shaking his head with a sigh, he looked at Zhao Jifang and opened his mouth to ask: "Didn't my brother say to grant office? So why isn't Zhu Yitong getting one?"

"Well, Third General, Zhu Yitong is dead — what office could be granted?"

"What does being dead matter? Just because he dove into a well, he gets out of working?"

Chengyun's eyes went wide with astonishment, and then he said to Zhao Jifang: "Bury him in a first-rate coffin with full honors, inter him at the City God Temple, appoint him City God of Pucheng, and have him keep working for my brother."

When Old Master Liu was at Prince Su's mansion in Lanzhou, he had transferred several idle surrendered officers to drill the guard troops.

Among them was the head of the rotation troops reporting for duty from Lintao to Lanzhou, Commander Gu Huai.

Gu Huai's son was called Gu Tianshou; he had originally planned to sit the military examinations, was about the same age as Chengyun, and the two got along quite well, so Chengyun had picked up this phrase "go to work" from him.

In Chengyun's mind, "go to work" meant something a person did not want to do but had to do.

The worried-looking Zhao Jifang suddenly saw the light; he immediately offered his thanks, lifted his brush, and produced a letter of appointment.

Chengyun waved his hand, the matter settled, and went off to pet the cat, his merit and fame deeply concealed.

He came firstly to deliver household-registry documents from the government office, and secondly to find Liu Chengzong. But seeing that Liu Chengzong wasn't there, there was no point hanging around, so he went to the study hall in the bamboo grove east of the city to read.

Ever since winter arrived, apart from mealtimes at the palace in the evenings, it had become quite difficult to catch Liu Chengzong.

As for the administrative affairs at the Marshal's headquarters, with Zhao Jifang and Zhang Yuanheng — those two increasingly busy artificial intelligences — Liu the Lion only needed to spend a single two-hour period each day to finish everything.

Half a period approving memorials, and another half period revising the official documents Zhao Jifang and Zhang Yuanheng sent up.

But beyond official documents, Liu the Lion still had plenty of other matters to worry about.

For more than ten days straight, Liu Chengzong would head to the parade ground outside the city to inspect drills as soon as day broke, and only return to the palace city at dusk.

By all reason, winter ought to be the season to stand the troops down.

Soldiers who should go home should go home, and those who should get leave should get leave.

But the Marshal's headquarters had its own national circumstances here — not many men in the army had families to begin with, and there were also quite a few unlucky fellows who had once had families but whose families were now gone.

Those with both elders to support and children to raise, on the other hand, were a rare and protected species in the Marshal's army.

Such exotic creatures — Liu the Lion naturally gave them leave. Not just leave, but he also issued explicit orders to the relevant offices to formulate a set of relocation procedures.

For any garrison brigade that had completed reorganization, soldiers with families were to be reported up through the officer ranks layer by layer, and finally the brigade's own Regional Commander would step forward to negotiate with the local Prefect, Department Magistrate, or County Magistrate to arrange land near the encampment.

Every province under the Marshal's headquarters' rule had been plowed over by troops more than once; what they lacked least was unclaimed wasteland.

Those with farmland would be given priority for farmland; those without would be allotted grazing land, grassland, mountain forest, or ponds — each divided by size according to its value. Taking farmland as the example, depending on their rank of merit, they were granted between fifty and two hundred mu.

This plot of land was simply a resettlement site.

Once the land was allocated, their own brigade would arrange manpower to build a single-courtyard house with four rooms, and then move their family over, sparing them the back-and-forth travel during leave.

This order instantly sent the three brigades garrisoned in Guanzhong into a frenzy of excitement.

But for the soldiers who had not yet started families, Liu Chengzong also had a way to lift their spirits — drill.

Drill, of course, would not make soldiers happy, though it wouldn't exactly make them unhappy either.

After all, as soldiers, this was the job they did.

That said, that referred to the daily drill set at the squad or company standard — those were all decided by the squad leaders and centurions.

In any army, past or present, at the most basic level you could only control the training outline.

Even a chiliarch had no way to personally seize hold of every common soldier's training day after day.

These matters were all decided by the squad leaders and centurions.

They were the primary officers at the grassroots, closest to the soldiers, and arranging daily training came most naturally to them.

This, however, also meant that a unit's daily drill — though each company and squad used the same training outline and conducted the same training subjects — in its specific arrangement still depended on the personality and thinking of the commanding officer.

And beyond daily training, there was the assembly drill.

That is, the so-called once-every-five-days drill, once-every-ten-days drill, or even once-a-fortnight drill or monthly drill.

Whether an army held assembly drill once every five days or once every ten days actually had no direct correlation with how elite that army was.

Because the "assembly drill" here did not mean training troops — it meant martial demonstration.

It required a battalion, or even multiple battalions, to muster at one location and carry out company-level formation drills and brigade-battalion-level encampment-formation drills, along with individual skill assessments for each man.

If this battalion was not dispersed in its garrison, then it could drill once every five days.

If its garrison posts were scattered across several passes and defenses within a single county, then once every ten days was best.

Otherwise, one day to assemble in place, one day for the assembly drill, and another day to return to camp — that left only two days out of five for daily training.

It would actually harm the army's quality.

This was called "dashing back and forth, merely breeding exhaustion."

At the same time, assembly drill was not just assembly drill — it was also a fine opportunity for officers of all ranks to impart military skills to the troops.

Following the tradition of the Nine Garrisons, after the drill dispersed, there was also an officers' instruction day.

That meant mixing battle-seasoned frontier officers and their household retainers into the various battalions, passing on their experience of charging and slaying beyond the frontier, firing while riding at full tilt, and whirling blades and wheeling horses to units that had not yet seen combat.

On this day, reward silver was to be given — three fen of reward silver per man.

The officers' instruction day was generally the day after the drill dispersed; for cavalry, it was the day after that.

Because cavalry needed a rest day after the assembly drill — they would go out to graze the horses at the fifth watch, while the soldiers gathered horse fodder in preparation for use on the officers' instruction day.

These past days, Liu Chengzong had transferred three old men from Lanzhou — Sheng Lue, Fang Maogong, and Li Changling.

These three retired old fellows had come along when Li Hongsi surrendered at Liangzhou.

All had been assistant regional commanders in Gansu, retired for only a few years, and had originally been drawing second-rank salaries after a rank promotion. When Liu Chengzong seized Gansu, he also cut off their retirement pay.

Later, at Li Hongsi's pleading, they had been put back to work making use of their remaining energy, serving as chiliarch training officers at the Marshal's headquarters.

No helping it — they had to eat.

Fortunately, though the three old fellows were now nearing sixty, their health was still decent, so they were appointed as militia-training officers at the Marshal's headquarters, tasked with drawing upon their seasoned experience to supervise the creation of the assembly-drill regulations.

Where there were assessments, there were rewards and punishments; where there were rewards, people could be made happy.

Beyond this, Liu Chengzong also used his visits to the camps to inspect drills as an opportunity to meet, from morning till night, with subordinate commanders who had hurried over from various regions.

This was something he had specifically requested in letters to the grand garrison commanders in each region when he summoned everyone into Guanzhong — he told them, when they came, to hand defense duties to their deputies and bring along many surrendered officers and newly promoted subordinate commanders, so they could meet him and learn the door.

Especially Gansu.

This time, Cao Yao had returned from Gansu bringing over ten subordinate commanders, all of whom Liu Chengzong did not know.

Among them were young officers promoted during the campaigns in Gansu proper, such as Commandants Gao Dengke and Ge Yong, Zhao Yongbin of Zhenyi, and Wang Wance and Deng Wanzhong, who had come from the ranks of defense commanders.

There were also the brothers Zhao Guangrui and Zhao Guangyuan, defeated in Ningxia by the Lamb offensive; Hua Jinzhou, the chiliarch of Jinglu Garrison; Li Shoukui, the commandant of Lutang; and others.

Summoning them here was, firstly, so Liu Chengzong could meet them face to face, lest they not even know for whom they were fighting.

Secondly, and most importantly, it was to separate them from their own troops, so as to prevent them from massing soldiers in revolt while Cao Yao was away from Gansu.

After all, with Cao Yao coming here, the defense of Gansu had been handed to Huang Shengxiao, Hei Chengyin, and Hu Zhishen — three men.

Huang Shengxiao was Liu Chengzong's artillery battalion assistant regional commander, but Hei Chengyin was a vanguard fierce general and Hu Zhishen a disgraced officer. The three of them defending Gansu posed no great problem, but dealing with internal rebellion was a bit short of ideal.

What's more, Liu the Lion had risen up through rebellion — he knew better than anyone that pacifying a revolt, no matter how you calculated it, was a pure loss.

For him, rebellion meant loss; suppressing rebellion meant a second loss.

Liu Chengzong's starting point was to deny people the chance to rebel in the first place.

This meeting, however, truly held a pleasant surprise.

These surrendered officers under Gansu Governor Cao Yao were all mid-level commanders who had come up through the Ming border army system; their fundamentals in deploying troops and maneuvering cavalry were extremely solid.

Given time, it was not impossible that one or two Regional Commanders would emerge from among them.

Yet this twelfth month, Liu Chengzong did not receive only good news.

There was one piece of bad news: his Henan Regional Commander Zhang Yichuan had suffered a crushing defeat in Henan Prefecture at the hands of the Ming court's Henan Regional Commander Zhang Renxue.

Of course, this in itself was not bad news — it could not even be called unexpected.

Liu Chengzong had long since arranged for Wei Qian'er's Tong Pass Garrison troops to move out and prepare to receive Zhang Yichuan.

The real bad news was that the Marshal's Headquarters' five Henan battalions had been shattered, losing their structure and contact; only one Assistant Regional Commander, Song Jiang, had withdrawn back to Tong Pass.

The remaining four battalions, dragged along by Zhang Yichuan, had charged in collapse toward the Central Capital, Fengyang Prefecture.

Liu Chengzong had an ominous premonition.

The founding emperor's tomb, he feared, could not be saved.