Chapter 992: The Fire Dies Down

"A joke. Back in the day, Master Jin led the household troops on campaigns east and west. How many bows and firelocks did he have in hand? He still relied on pikes to meet the charge, forming ranks and rushing forward. How could they possibly hold us back? Besides, we've got dozens of bows in our hands — how many can those roving bandits have? And we're clad in iron from head to toe!" To Yan Heilian's misgivings, Li He immediately retorted.

In the end, however, the two sides reached a compromise during their discussion. The pike company led by Li He, with the household troops and militia arrayed front and back, formed a horizontal block forty men wide and thirty deep. Then the units of Yan Heilian, Qi Erkui, and the others were divided into four squads according to company, roaming around the perimeter of this large horizontal block, ready to support and screen at any moment. Another two hundred men were left to hold the city gate, ensuring they would not lose their line of retreat.

Regarding the "rash advance" of the Zhao Battalion troops, the entire Teng County leadership was opposed. They thought that by simply holding the city until the main army arrived, all would naturally be worry-free — why go out and risk this danger? If by any chance something went wrong, what would they do then? But their words went completely unheeded.

Just as Li He and the others decided to sally forth, the elite reinforcements of the Smelling Incense Sect, having set out from Zou County, also arrived. Over seven thousand men reached the city walls. They were not a vast, surging host, but compared to the earlier rabble, these seven thousand appeared stern and disciplined, bearing some semblance of proper soldiers. Seeing this, the Teng County leadership grew even more worried and continued to go and dissuade them.

"It is precisely because the situation is now critical that we must go out and drive them away. Otherwise, if they truly press us into storming the city, we are after all few in number — that would be the real disaster!" Li He's temper had flared; no matter what, he was determined to fight.

The officials and gentry of Teng County were helpless. They could only collude in private: if by chance the battle turned against them, they must not let these reckless Xuzhou troops back in. Should the bandit army seize the opportunity to surge in, that would be calamity upon them. Therefore, the moment things went badly, they would immediately muster the able-bodied commoners to seize and close the city gates.

After the Zhao Battalion's Third Great Company and its accompanying militia deployed their formation beneath the city walls, the Smelling Incense Sect elites sent from Zou County also marched out in formation. Storming a city inevitably meant horrific casualties; being able to destroy the enemy's effective strength through field battle was the most efficient way.

Once the battle began, Li He paid no mind to tactics. He simply donned armor, gripped his pike, and bellowed orders, advancing straight toward the main formation of the Smelling Incense Sect's refugee rabble. The twelve-hundred-man horizontal block marched with uniform steps, utterly unbroken, while the several hundred skirmishers protected the flanks, ready to support at any moment.

Watching the Zhao Battalion's household troops and militia walk forward just like that, their formation holding steady the entire time, the previously confident Smelling Incense Sect rebel elites began to stir with unease. They too had undergone similar training, yet after marching a few dozen paces they always had to halt and reorder their ranks. They simply could not maintain a steady advance in formation like this. Seeing the enemy's pikes over ten feet long, seeing the cold gleam of their iron armor flashing in the sunlight, the Smelling Incense Sect rebels, from top to bottom, suddenly realized their only remaining advantage was numbers.

As the Zhao Battalion's formation drew near, the Smelling Incense Sect's main force also advanced to meet them. But after only a few steps, they began to scatter and fall into disarray, forced to halt, regroup, and then continue forward. Seeing this, the Zhao Battalion's formation marched even more steadily. Thus they closed in on each other. When the distance narrowed to fifty-odd paces, men within the Smelling Incense Sect ranks began shooting arrows — a scattered handful from a dozen or so bows — and some hurled stones and short spears, though none of these could reach that far.

"Charge with me!" Li He roared. Leveling his pike, he began jogging forward. The entire formation accelerated, and just like that, running in step, they slammed into the main body of the Smelling Incense Sect's rebel army. It was as if a wall bristling with spikes pushed and crushed forward. The front several ranks of the Smelling Incense Sect rebels, who had looked somewhat presentable, were directly impaled and toppled. The battle was decided at that very moment.

Indeed, the Smelling Incense Sect rebels numbered in the thousands, even tens of thousands, while the household troops and militia Li He led were fewer than two thousand. But the Zhao Battalion household troops' formation was orderly and dense: across a width of ten feet, five men stood abreast. The Smelling Incense Sect rebels' formation, by contrast, was loose — across ten feet, three men at most. Counting face-to-face, the enemies directly opposing the Zhao Battalion's formation were actually fewer than their own. As long as the Zhao Battalion's force kept moving and pushing forward, the enemies facing them would always be fewer than themselves, always allowing them to press the attack. After a stretch of this crushing assault, the entire Smelling Incense Sect host could no longer hold. Some began to flee in rout, and these fleeing men disrupted their own ranks, effectively becoming an aid to the Zhao Battalion's force. The more they drove forward, the more this swelled, and the Zhao Battalion's formation thus propelled a human wave. Even those Smelling Incense Sect rebels with the will to resist were swept up by this chaotic tide, utterly unable to keep their footing. If they did not wish to be trampled to death, they could only flee with the rest.

From the walls of Teng County, they watched the battle below in stunned disbelief. At last they understood just how formidable the Zhao Battalion was. Fewer than two thousand men took the field, yet routed an enemy several times their number into utter chaos, even rolling them backward. The earlier rebel troops held in reserve behind were also swept up, all of them shattered and thrown into pandemonium by this force of less than two thousand from the Zhao Battalion.

Though Li He was single-minded in seeking battle, he still knew to control his limits and dared not push too deep. He kept the formation's advance and retreat in check at all times. After a little over two hours, he called a halt and prepared to pull back. Yet at this moment, only the front few ranks of those thousand-odd household troops had blood on their pikes. The skirmishers roaming the perimeter had suffered some casualties, but the rest were no different than when they had set out. It was clear that throughout this great battle, the Zhao Battalion's formation had never once broken.

"So this is the caliber of rebels. If you let them rampage for a year or two, they might hammer out a proper army. But as they are now, what are they? Nothing but relying on numbers to intimidate and spending lives to wear you down!" Li He, coming from a background in the official army, understood popular uprisings all too well. After the battle, the last trace of unease in him vanished entirely, replaced by nothing but bravado and confidence.

With this battle over, the Smelling Incense Sect left behind several thousand dead and wounded. Perhaps a thousand or so had died on the pikes, but far more perished from shoving, trampling, and killing each other. This battle also greatly boosted the confidence of Li He and his men. Even the Teng County leadership began organizing able-bodied commoners to follow and pick up easy gains. Li He himself was eager, rubbing his hands together in preparation for a second round. But the Smelling Incense Sect rebels outside the city gave him no such chance. The very next day, they began to withdraw. No more roving bandits besieged the outskirts of Teng County. What they had thought would be a bitter, desperate fight had, unexpectedly, seen its crisis resolved just like that.

Faced with such an outcome, the Teng County leadership scarcely dared believe it. They kept the city gates shut, fearful of falling for some refugee trick. Then Li He sent out scouts and mounted patrols, and the word came back that the Smelling Incense Sect's main force had scattered and retreated all the way back to Zou County. When this news was relayed back, the whole of Teng County finally erupted in jubilation, confirming the siege was lifted.

People are utterly pragmatic. Once the imminent crisis was gone and the Xuzhou troops' rescue was no longer needed, attitudes shifted perceptibly at once. The magistrate and gentry of Teng County found the Zhao Battalion's household troops and militia an eyesore no matter how they looked at them. A mere local strongman from Xuzhou actually possessed such glaring, conspicuous strength — what exactly was he plotting? Could it be he intended to rebel? The realm under the Great Ming was still bright and clear; if you wanted to seek your own death, that was your affair, but they would not follow. Their only worry was that this Li He would simply seize the city and refuse to leave.

Yet the Zhao Battalion troops proved quite tactful. On the third day after the Smelling Incense Sect rebels lifted their siege, they too left the city and encamped at a nearby country estate. After the Teng County leadership went through the motions of hypocritical consolation and urging them to stay, they all parted with mutual satisfaction to discuss dividing up the spoils of merit. Several thousand rebel heads outside the city — these could be exchanged for no small amount of official credit.

On the very day the Zhao Battalion household troops and militia withdrew from the city, an official army Brigade Commander, escorted by several dozen cavalrymen, arrived at Teng County. Having just experienced the Xuzhou private troops, the Teng County leadership was exceptionally warm toward the official army. To them, this was the proper path, the representative of the imperial court.

That army Brigade Commander, however, did not reciprocate this warmth. He merely stated that the main army was closing in to encircle Zou County's seat and required every surrounding area to provide grain and manpower to assist the army in storming the city. This was a military matter of the utmost urgency, and no one was permitted to delay it, or else they would face court-martial. The amounts this Brigade Commander listed were enormous, causing the Teng County leadership acute distress. It went without saying that the Brigade Commander himself, and his superior officers, would all use this grain and pay squeeze to line their own pockets handsomely.

As for the several dozen cavalrymen accompanying that Brigade Commander, that very day they broke into the inner residence of a prominent household within the city. Had that household not mustered all its male members to fight desperately, who knows what calamity might have unfolded. Even so, several commoner women in the city hanged themselves. When the roving bandits besieged the city, those salt smugglers and salt traders had not caused such outrages. Now that the siege was lifted and the official army had arrived, disaster began to strike. Comparing the two, the hearts of the Teng County officials, gentry, and even the magistrate himself turned ice-cold. More than one person began to recall the virtues of the Xuzhou troops, and more than one lamented: if only they were the official army.

At this time, the previously low-profile Yunshan Trading House branch put out an offer: for every live refugee captured, one could exchange them for a set amount of grain. They also spread the word that those who went to a certain place to surrender voluntarily would not be killed and would be given meals and settled. With these two measures in place, the fugitive refugees scattered across the villages and countryside of Teng County were either captured or surrendered of their own accord, and began to be gathered up. Their disposition was the same as elsewhere: all were sent off toward Xuzhou.

Around the tenth day of the sixth month of the second year of the Tianqi reign, the Smelling Incense Sect rebellion in Shandong, which had shaken the realm, was suddenly rushing toward its end. A reported thirty thousand government troops had completely encircled Zou County, the sole remaining stronghold of the Smelling Incense Sect. It was said that the chief culprit, the Flourishing Great Achievement, Zhongxing Fulie Emperor, Xu Hongru, was also within the city. Once he was captured, this great rebellion would be considered thoroughly pacified.

At the same time, before the encirclement, the Smelling Incense Sect, in a desperate death throe, had sent men to infiltrate Ziyang, the prefectural seat of Yanzhou, and exterminate the entire Lu Prince household — news that also spread across the realm. In over two hundred years of the Ming dynasty, aside from those princes who rebelled after the Jingnan Campaign, this was the first imperial prince to perish in a popular uprising. The Son of Heaven was enraged, the realm was shaken, and the official careers of everyone connected to this in the Shandong bureaucracy were beyond saving. All were now performing meritorious service to atone for their crimes, hoping to see if they could at least keep their lives.

Meanwhile, the Donglin purists at court stirred up a tide of remonstrance, attacking the Shandong catastrophe as the direct result of the eunuch faction holding power, making life unbearable for the people. If one wished to avoid repeating past mistakes, they argued, only upright ministers must be appointed to govern — these so-called upright men naturally being members of the Donglin purist faction themselves.

Today's third update, the 500 votes bonus chapter.

Thanks to old friend "Cold Night" for the tip, and thank you all for supporting Great Ming Wufu. Could it be that everyone is saving up for the double monthly votes at the end of the month?