Chapter 71: Lion Camp

Liu Chengzong bought the horse and set out again for Tiger's Waist.

He brought three men with him: Cai Zhongpan, Gao Xian, and Guo Zhashi.

In just a few days, the tax-evading peasants at Tiger's Waist had swelled to over three hundred.

Li Wanqing turned no one away among those who came to join him.

This was practically a microcosm of northern Shaanxi in summer and autumn — come harvest time, runaways always surged.

The vast majority of the runaways knew the name Tiger General, so taking over went very smoothly.

He planned to spend two days getting a clear picture of the people at Tiger's Waist.

Guo Zhashi brought brush, ink, paper, and inkstone; Liu Chengzong and Cai Zhongpan set up a small table and began by recording everyone's native place, age, background, and trade.

By dusk of the first day they had tallied three hundred sixty-three people.

The next day, after waking, they did a headcount — eight were missing, leaving three hundred fifty-five.

Of those, one hundred thirty-seven had no proper name.

Among those who did have names, seventy-five had sold themselves at some point, and their names had been given by their masters.

There was only one family of carpenters; the rest were all bankrupt peasants and bankrupt small peddlers.

The prevalence of illness among the crowd was far more complicated than Liu Chengzong had imagined.

And he took this force — one that belonged entirely to him — extremely seriously.

To that end, he specifically sorted those suffering from various ailments into three categories.

The first: consumption, bacterial dysentery from eating spoiled food, severe colds, and all manner of untreatable wound infections.

The second: conditions that impaired mobility but were not contagious, where the person might die or might survive — such as disabilities, miscarriages brought on by wandering and hardship, and deep abscesses in the elderly.

The last: those who would definitely live as long as they rested, like people who had eaten a little guanyin earth but not too much, or cases of severe malnutrition — these basically counted as not sick at all.

The first category required isolation; the second required rest. Only the third category and the completely healthy could be put into training.

Which meant only one hundred thirty-four people were capable of learning and training.

Li Wanqing was extremely displeased with this number.

I'm a mountain king in command of over three hundred men — how did my force suddenly turn into one hundred thirty-four?

"Brother Tiger General, this… plenty of people in the first and second categories can still move. Surely we can muster over two hundred, no?"

"The first category are isolation cases — they're contagious. If you don't let them rest, many more will end up sick. The second category are rest cases — some of them could have lived, but if you make them move, they die."

In truth, Liu Chengzong knew that Li Wanqing's point was not without merit.

In this era, disease ran rampant, and people themselves possessed antibodies against these widespread common illnesses.

Even if you left them among the crowd, it wouldn't cause all that much devastation.

Only uncommon, virulent infectious diseases like plague would trigger large-scale infection.

It was just that Liu Chengzong felt it wasn't necessary.

Even if it only infected one more person, even if it only caused one person who otherwise wouldn't have died to die — it still wasn't necessary.

Now, after this selection, the quality of the remaining people was very high — they were strong and robust, and had received basic training from village baojia.

They represented the natural selection of present-day northern Shaanxi.

The strong might not necessarily eat their fill or dress warmly by strength alone, but the weak most certainly could not survive intact.

A great crowd of people surnamed Liu appeared at Tiger's Waist.

Zhang Tianlin's method of organizing squads against the Ming army had given Liu Chengzong much inspiration.

Though Tiger's Waist didn't have that many large draft animals, once the broad framework of the unit was set, the animals could be supplemented later.

Taking advantage of mealtime the next day, Liu Chengzong and his few companions gathered together to discuss a unit-organization method suited to their current situation.

"Each squad of ten shall have four combat soldiers: the squad leader, the courage leader, the order leader, and the fire leader. Each combat soldier commands two support soldiers, making a full squad of twelve."

Li Wanqing laughed. "Sounds like every combat soldier is an officer."

"Correct. If the squad leader dies, the courage leader succeeds him; if the courage leader dies, the order leader succeeds; if the order leader dies, the fire leader succeeds."

Cai Zhongpan's perspective was rather unique. He asked, "Then do the support soldiers have no chance to rise?"

Liu Chengzong said, "It's not that they have no chance. In my vision, the support soldiers should ideally be youths and able-bodied women. In the early stages, they'll mainly do the work of draft animals…"

The words were harsh, but Liu Chengzong had no choice. He spread his hands. "We have no draft animals."

"They'll follow beside the combat soldiers and learn for two or three years. The youths will become young men, the able-bodied women will become female soldiers — then we can talk about them taking squad-officer posts."

Liu Chengzong understood the greater tides. He knew the war would drag on for many years, and he knew the disparity in strength between the peasant army and the government troops was vast.

It was practically: once discovered, death.

Precisely because of this, his assessment of everyone's prospects bordered on ruthless.

They were all riding ahead of the king, and riding ahead of the king meant people would die.

Unless he could keep lying low the whole time, even he himself might not live to see five years from now.

Once all four squad leaders had died off one full cycle, and half of the earliest support soldiers were dead, the survivors — the youths grown into young men, the able-bodied women become female soldiers — would become the new combat soldiers.

Only then might they grow to the point where they could fight the government troops on equal footing.

Li Wanqing asked again, "So what do these squad leader, courage leader, order leader, and fire leader actually do? The fire leader cooks — that much I know."

"The squad leader must be able to command respect, distinguish banners and drums, and understand formations. The courage leader must unite the soldiers and fight with ferocity. The order leader conveys commands, oversees training, and in battle supervises the entire squad. The fire leader must cook well."

The few of them burst out laughing at this. Liu Chengzong said in all seriousness, "Don't laugh — this is very important. Right now grain is scarce in northern Shaanxi; the cooking absolutely must be good, to do justice to that grain."

To Gao Xian, these things were nothing new. He frowned and asked, "Chengzong, the order leader and fire soldier are part of the company-level structure — why put them at the squad level? The squad will be very weak in a fight."

The Ming army's order officers were established during the military reforms of the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong reign. Their duties were to train soldiers in peacetime, observe the soldiers' hardships, guide morale within the unit, and in wartime serve as military police commanders, holding the power of life and death over the entire company, including the company commander.

Beyond them, in the Ming there were also martial societies, initiated by border defense supreme commanders and grand coordinators, with retired military officers and military examination graduates serving as instructors, and officers of the battalion and guard levels along with military cadets as students.

On one hand, this ensured high-quality officers; on the other, it gave Ming small-unit operations an extremely high degree of initiative.

But unpaid wages were a problem with no solution.

Gao Xian believed that having only four combat soldiers, with diverse duties, would reduce the squad's fighting strength.

Liu Chengzong didn't take it seriously. He said, "Even if we were all combat soldiers, we still couldn't beat the government troops, so first we need to make sure we can outrun them. A flag officer can keep the squad from falling apart when we run.

Put the cook soldier at the squad level, and we can use a lighter pot. The eight auxiliaries each carry a little grain, reducing the burden on the baggage train."

"And above the squad, five squads make a company?"

"Vanguard, rear, center, left, right — five squads. Add twelve scout riders and six or seven household retainers to each company, and a company is eighty men.

Five companies make a post, add a post-level baggage unit and twenty post commander's retainers, and a post is five hundred.

Above that is the battalion — I haven't figured that out yet."

Liu Chengzong smiled as he spoke and jotted notes, gradually expanding the unit structure.

His concept was that a squad leader could lead his men scurrying all over without them scattering, a company commander could lead independent operations without fear, and a post commander could fight independently, attacking rich households' manors to seize grain, hence the need for a baggage unit.

As for the battalion-level organization, it was still only a rough idea for now.

In his vision, this level of organization should be able to develop independently in peacetime and face off against a government battalion commander in wartime. Simply reinforcing troop strength could not achieve that goal.

It would require strengthening the battalion's instructor unit, drum-and-music unit, cannon unit or even cannon post, and also a sapper post.

It was far too early to think about these things now.

It far exceeded the current capabilities of Liu Chengzong's group. Even if they forced themselves to recruit that many people, they couldn't manage them, and the whole thing would collapse on its own as soon as they started marching.

"Right now we only have two companies. Later we can recruit more healthy refugees with no ties or attachments, and try to build up to a post. Any more and we couldn't supply the grain.

When the world gets more chaotic later, we can consider forming a battalion."

Liu Chengzong grinned and said, "The Lion Battalion."