Chapter 663: Qingjiangpu Escort

"... Big Brother, just after you left, Leizi arrived at Qingjiangpu. He couldn't leave things unattended in Nanjing, so after telling me the news, he hurried back. The news was urgent, so your younger brother rushed over to report..."

When Zhao Jin heard this, he rubbed his temples and sighed, saying, "Among all the brothers, Xiaoyong and Leizi, you two work the hardest. I need to talk to Leizi about this — he can't go running around doing everything himself. That wine shop is full of our own Zhao Camp household troops and student troops. Find a few reliable, trustworthy ones to carry messages. He can't stay in that wine shop forever; there are more important things for him to do."

"Your younger brother and Leizi don't find it hard at all. Working for Big Brother is working for our own family..." Liu Yong stammered a little.

Halfway through, Zhao Jin patted him on the shoulder. Between their own brothers, there was no need for excessive courtesy. But these things couldn't be helped. As Zhao Camp's scope grew larger and larger, the distance between Zhao Jin and his companions also grew further and further. When they gathered together, there was often little discussion to be had — it was just Zhao Jin speaking while the others filled in gaps and offered suggestions.

"... Li Dajin's side found an opening. They spent about a thousand taels of silver to pull a fanzi over to our side. Leizi's side also probed and investigated — he's definitely not a dead agent or a hidden spy. He's completely devoted to us..."

"... Just as Big Brother said, once you crack open a gap in the Nanjing Embroidered Uniform Guard, it immediately turns into a sieve. The one we pulled over can pull more people in. The intelligence will definitely keep increasing..."

"... Ma Chonghao went north of the river to meet with military officers. We still can't find out exactly what was said or who he met, but it's no small matter. We're guessing it's that man from Wolf Mountain. Some speculate he may have already met our Xuzhou Vice General Zhou..."

"... Here's a strange thing — Ma Chonghao has no dealings with civil officials and only associates with military officers. These days, he's constantly inviting the household troop commanders of the Nanjing nobility out for drinks and entertainment..."

"... One piece of news is confirmed. Leizi even went to check it personally. The Yangzhou salt merchants are also colluding with this Ma Chonghao. The Feng family sent him a lavish gift, and Leizi spotted Feng family members there too. However, the Feng family didn't try to hide this. Their steward in Qingjiangpu even made a point of telling our people about it, saying the Embroidered Uniform Guard also wants a cut of the salt revenue, and this was to negotiate the regular rate going forward. But your younger brother and Leizi both feel it's not that simple..."

No wonder Lei Cai had hurried back to report so soon after leaving. Compared to his last visit to see Zhao Jin, the intelligence this time was far more abundant and far clearer. There had been a breakthrough — only, this breakthrough still left people baffled.

Zhao Jin pondered there for a long time before speaking slowly: "Assign men to keep watch on Zhou Baolu's side as well. Wolf Mountain is too remote and too far — we need to plant eyes there too. No need to dig for anything; just report whatever you see. In Nanjing, don't act rashly, and don't be too proactive in prying for information. We've finally got an inside line — don't let it be wasted. Once this gap is open, things will get easier and easier from here. Your safety is the top priority. It's still the same old saying: if it doesn't work, come back. Here, no one can do anything to us."

Liu Yong quickly agreed. After saying this, Zhao Jin fell into thought again, rubbing his chin with his hand. After a while, he said, "As for the Feng family — they have shops in the salt market, and they still have dealings with us over at the Pizhou Wild Grass Shoal. If there's any sign of trouble on those fronts, we'll know very early. Let's just keep watching for now. If there is trouble, we'll make a big show of it. It's too easy to panic and trip ourselves up."

"With those fanzi, you have to be willing to spend money. We've got plenty of silver. If we don't spend it at a critical time like this, when will we spend it?" As Liu Yong took his leave, Zhao Jin added this reminder. Liu Yong didn't even stay the night at He Village. He had to rush to Xuzhou that very night to arrange surveillance on Vice General Zhou Baolu, and then hurry back to Qingjiangpu.

Zhao Camp was well-fed, trained daily, and well-equipped. By any measure, they were an elite force. But battles were growing fewer and fewer. For all matters inside and outside Xuzhou, deploying three companies at a time was already using a butcher's cleaver to kill a chicken. The other companies got no real experience at all. This was also a source of worry and frustration for Zhao Jin. Training endlessly in camp would make men grow completely slack. Grueling drills would numb them, erode their courage and fighting spirit, and their combat effectiveness would suffer greatly.

This time, Zhao Jin directly issued orders: have the regiment commanders and company commanders of every regiment and company personally recount the Liaodong campaign. Let the household troops know of the Great Ming's crushing defeat. Let them know how formidable the Jianzhou Jurchen Jin army was. An enemy like this — we might face them in the future. If you want to survive, if you want victory, then you must train relentlessly and be ready to fight at any moment.

When people learn there is a powerful enemy out there, they are always spurred into action. They had fought local braves, fought refugees, fought bandits and mounted raiders, fought powerful private armies, fought government troops — Zhao Camp had won victory after victory all the way. It was inevitable that the household troops would grow smug and arrogant. We're already this strong — why train so hard? Knowing there was an enemy this powerful — the Great Ming's government troops, frontier troops usually regarded as elite, over a hundred thousand of them completely annihilated, while the enemy reportedly suffered no more than a thousand casualties — with an enemy that strong out there, they absolutely could not let up.

Yet, when you thought about it carefully, the Liaodong catastrophe was a thousand li away. And Zhao Camp was a local militia — fighting foreign tribes had nothing to do with them. Why should the strength of the Jianzhou Jurchen Jin army mean Zhao Camp had to train so bitterly? If you looked closely, there were all sorts of things that defied common sense. But from top to bottom in Zhao Camp, from Chen Sheng down to the ordinary household troops, every single person took it as a matter of course.

"Big Brother, this 'matter of course' — that is the hearts of men, ready to be used!" Wang Zhaojing saw it more deeply and sighed with emotion.

Aside from this news, there was another matter that raised everyone's morale considerably: Zhao Camp was selecting household troops with outstanding daily performance from the Guard Company and the First Regiment to go train the militia in Qingjiangpu. The official designation over in Qingjiangpu was the Merchant Association Guard Corps. Outwardly, they were scattered guards and household protectors dispersed among nearly a hundred merchant houses, but in reality, they would be deployed as a concentrated force. There would be fifteen hundred men in total, organized into fifteen companies. This required fifteen company commanders, thirty deputy company commanders, one hundred and fifty squad commanders, and three hundred deputy squad commanders. In one stroke, four hundred men would be promoted.

In Zhao Camp's structure of one guard unit and three regiments, there were company commanders and squad commanders, but no such thing as deputy company commanders or deputy squad commanders. These new positions were created to cultivate backbone officers, to let more people see room for advancement, and at the same time to give more outstanding household troops the chance to gain experience leading men. Anyone with clear eyes could see that a deputy company commander was at minimum a future company commander, and a deputy squad commander's prospects were much the same. Everyone said Zhao Camp wasn't expanding, but hadn't they just added over fifteen hundred more men? Even though they were publicly called escorts, everyone knew what this really was.

With so many men promoted here, many positions opened up back at He Village. There would be a round of promotions there as well, and the vacancies would then be filled by men drawn from the Xuzhou militia.

The flow of personnel and the prospect of promotion — this also kept the household troops and those Xuzhou militiamen motivated and striving upward. As long as they trained relentlessly, their superiors would see it and would not let their hard work go unrewarded. The Xuzhou militia also felt they now had something to strive for; joining the household troop corps no longer seemed an endless, distant prospect.

After this round of transfers, the estate heads and stewards from the various manors under Zhao Camp's jurisdiction also hurried to He Village. They were not guests — Zhao Camp bound them all by military orders. Along with them came the tallied numbers for the Xuzhou militia in each location: Xuzhou proper had 5,700 men; the Suzhou manor, 800; Guide Prefecture, 1,100; the Kong Family Manor, 1,200; Qingjiangpu currently had 400; Yutou Town, 500; and the various stockades at Wild Grass Shoal totaled 2,000.

Although Zhao Jin and his companions had long had a rough estimate of this scale, when the precise tally came in, it still made them click their tongues. This was a force of over ten thousand men. The reason it wasn't so conspicuous was that it was too dispersed. The reason even Zhao Jin and the others had no precise concept of it was that this force was supported by the local manors and gentry — only food and lodging needed to be provided, and they were not yet fully detached from production.

"Seeing this, I no longer feel we're in a hurry." This was Ruhui's comment.

Wang Zhaojing's words were even more pointed: "Your younger brother always thought we had to endure and keep a low profile. But if someone with intent fixes their eyes on this, then there's no keeping a low profile at all."

To this, Chen Sheng scoffed: "By whose law, exactly? Who can say these men are ours? Is there a single estate under heaven that doesn't have able-bodied men as guards and household protectors? It's perfectly ordinary!"

By all rights, the refugee stockades at Wild Grass Shoal had the largest numbers, but the militia there was kept under very tight control — each stockade averaged fewer than two hundred men, and weapons were strictly regulated. Everyone knew exactly what that meant. But Chen Sheng had something to say about this as well.

"You can't leave Zhang Hubin out there any longer. If you value him, put him right under your nose or over in Qingjiangpu. Leave him out there, and sooner or later there'll be trouble. Out there alone, he decides everything. One man able to rally nearly ten thousand able-bodied young men — even if Zhang Hubin himself can rest easy, outsiders won't. With nearly a hundred thousand people out there, the Haizhou salt fields to the east, and the critical points of Luoma Lake and Yutou Town to the west — we have to send one of our own brothers. Send Bingfeng, or send me."

Balance and checks — even in a small group or a small situation, they were essential, let alone with Zhao Camp now at this scale. Chen Sheng's warning was indeed something Zhao Jin had overlooked. Zhao Jin pondered for a moment, then said, "Send Bingfeng's Third Regiment over. Transfer Zhang Hubin back to form an independent battalion. His original companies are to be broken up and exchanged with companies from your regiment. Then give Zhang Hubin one additional company in his establishment."

Hearing Zhao Jin's arrangement, Chen Sheng nodded. With no one else around, the two of them spoke more casually, and the usually taciturn Chen Sheng had a bit more to say: "It wouldn't be a bad thing if I went. At home, Erhong can look after things. I'm not that delicate. Among all the brothers, I'm the only one who just stays put in Xuzhou all day."

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