43. The Guard Post at the Chaotic Stone Beach I

"Where is my century-command post?"
"Out of the city, head west for thirty li."
"What kind of place is that?"
"Routian, the Rocky Beach."
"Why is it called the Rocky Beach?"
"Because the place is full of rocks."
"Are you annoyed yet? Keep dawdling and I'll whip you."
Alright, this young miss was not someone to be provoked.
Yang Fan shut his mouth.
What kind of ridiculous name was that? Rocky Beach! Figures, it was literally just rocks. What kind of wretched place had Lord Tushan gotten him into?
The young miss glanced at Yang Fan's expression, shot him a sideways look, and wore a look that clearly said: *In your dreams.*
What was he thinking? Could a good place ever fall to someone like him? Did he really think active-duty military posts were so easily acquired?
Both of them were riding fine horses, and they soon entered the jurisdiction of the Rocky Beach Century-Command Post.
This tract of land bordered the Luan River. Despite the drought in recent years, the Luan River still carried a substantial volume of water.
Beneath the river embankments lay vast expanses of mudflats. Since it was winter, it was the dry season, and the flats sat at a certain distance from the main river channel, yet the channel remained very wide.
The river surged with churning waves, and many cargo vessels sailed upon it. There were also many trackers dragging boats along the banks. Coming up from the Beitang Estuary in Tianjin, if the wind was unfavorable, one had to rely entirely on human labor to haul boats upstream for these two or three hundred li.
Logically speaking, land by the water ought to be considered fertile fields, yet why were there scarcely any good crops to be seen here? The ground was covered only with withered, yellow wild grass.
"Stop looking. The terrain here is high, and the water cannot reach it. Don't look at how vast and flat this area is, stretching a hundred li around—there are simply too many rocks in the soil, and the land is saline-alkaline. You're lucky if grass can even grow here."
Yang Fan looked mournfully at the field of wild weeds, feeling that he had barely crawled out of one pit only to tumble straight into another.
He had no idea how many mouths waiting for food would be depending on him here.
Well, having grass meant they could at least raise sheep, Yang Fan comforted himself.
Before long, the command post arrived: a dilapidated earthen enclosure, even more ruined than the earthen walls of Xinghe. Only one leaf of the stockade gate remained, while the whereabouts of the other was unknown. A grizzled old veteran in his fifties stood at the entrance.
He wore tattered clothes consisting of patch upon patch. Yang Fan looked closely for a long time before he realized that this pitch-black, greasy garment was supposed to be a red Mandarin-duck battle coat.
Seeing two mounted men carrying sabers approach, the old soldier trembled as he raised his spear and shouted, "Who goes there?"
At least his vigilance was passable.
"The newly appointed Century Commander has arrived for the handover. Go back and report immediately!" Tushan Yue shouted sharply, then drew out an appointment document and thrust it forward.
The old soldier hurriedly stepped forward to bow. "This humble servant pays respects to Lord Century Commander." Then he turned and dashed back like a wisp of smoke.
"The new Century Commander has arrived! The new Century Commander has arrived!"
This old immortal ran all the way while shouting.
The people inside the stockade all came pouring out. Many children also ran out to watch the commotion.
Following Tushan Yue, Yang Fan rode into the stockade and dismounted beneath the official hall at its center.
A few military officers were crowding around a fat man, greeting them at the door of the hall.
The fat man wiped away sweat as he waited.
Tushan Yue led Yang Fan down from his horse, walked up to the group, and cupped her fists.
"This humble one, Hu Dahai, Century Commander of Rocky Beach, pays respects to the superior officer." The fat man bowed deferentially to the young miss.
The young miss nodded arrogantly. She held another identity as well: the representative dispatched by the Brocade Guard to the Zunhua Guard. To put it bluntly, her job was to openly monitor these military officers. The personnel of the garrison posts had always been extremely cautious around her, terrified of offending this pampered young mistress.
"I've brought the new man to you. Your transfer has also been settled. From now on, you'll go to the land of fish and rice in Huaian and enjoy yourself," the young miss said.
"Many thanks, Lord Tushan, many thanks, Lady Tushan!" The fat man immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed. One could tell that this fellow had secured a fine retirement spot for himself. It was only uncertain how much silver he had spent on Tushan and his daughter to achieve it.
"Alright, alright. Spare the empty formalities. Finish the handover of duties and scram as quickly as you can," the young miss waved impatiently.
The fat man scrambled to his feet and beckoned, calling several military officers over.
"Lord Yang, let me introduce them to you," the fat man said, his face beaming with smiles as he warmly pulled Yang Fan's hand.
He could see that this dark-skinned young man was not bad-looking at all. Had he not noticed the entirely different look in Lady Tushan's eyes when she looked at him? This person must be treated with utmost hospitality. He was about to leave for the comfortable south; he could not afford any complications now.
"These few are the officers of our Rocky Beach Century-Command Post."
After exchanging formal greetings with more than a dozen officers, Commander Hu began to brief them on the situation of the post.
Regarding personnel establishment:
There were two battalion commanders, ten platoon commanders, one clerk, one finance and grain officer, one armorer, and one physician. There were also two personal guards, one groom, and forty-three enlisted soldiers.
The full establishment of a Ming dynasty century-command post was one hundred and twenty men, including exactly one hundred enlisted soldiers.
Structurally:
A century-command post was divided into two battalions.
Each battalion commanded five platoons, with ten soldiers per platoon, plus six officers, totaling fifty-six men.
In other words, each century-command post had an actual combat strength of 112 officers and men.
The remaining eight men consisted of: one century commander, two personal guards, one physician, one groom, one armorer, one finance and grain officer, and one dispatch clerk.
Regarding equipment:
The post currently possessed thirty waist sabers, seven iron-clad shields, thirty wooden shields, sixty divine guns, fifteen cavalry bows, twenty large infantry bows, two hundred bowstrings, and ten thousand arrows.
Yang Fan knew what all the other items were, but he felt somewhat puzzled by this "divine gun."
Commander Hu immediately fetched a divine gun and demonstrated it on the spot, and Yang Fan understood as soon as he saw it.
This was essentially a weapon combining cold and hot characteristics.
An iron tube was fitted to the top of a long wooden pole. A hole was drilled into the bottom side of this iron tube to load the fuse, allowing it to be loaded with gunpowder and project a pellet.
It was simply a crude matchlock gun.
Additionally, it was fitted with a spearhead at the tip, and the tail of the spearhead could be inserted into the gun barrel.
Combined, it formed a spear; with the spearhead removed, it became a firearm.
Swung around, it could also be used as a heavy bludgeoning weapon like an iron mace or steel whip to smash through heavily armored enemies.
During battle, the soldiers would first line up, clamp the head of the wooden pole under their armpits, and load the gunpowder and pellet. When the enemy charged to within twenty paces (roughly thirty meters), they would first fire the gun.
Then they would rapidly attach the spearhead and use it as a spear.
In the early Ming dynasty, the Founding Emperor ordered that for every hundred men, there should be ten guns, twenty sabers and shields, thirty bows and arrows, and forty spears, with firearms accounting for 10%.
During the Chenghua reign, infantry squads used ten divine gunners, five swordsmen and shield-bearers each, ten poisoned-arrow and strong-crossbow archers, and eight designated divine gunners, accounting to 32.7%.
By the Wanli era, firearms had reached 50%.
As for armor, all officers possessed it, while enlisted soldiers were only issued Mandarin-duck battle coats.
Thousand-commanders and above belonged to senior officers and were equipped with mountain-pattern armor. Century-commanders had fish-scale armor. Battalion commanders had lamellar armor, and platoon commanders wore chainmail lined with oxhide inside.
Enlisted soldiers had no armor, being issued Mandarin-duck battle coats instead. Inside the cloth battle robes was a layer of oxhide lining, equivalent to leather armor, and innermost was a layer of iron wire woven into a mesh, though its defensive effectiveness was mediocre.
Throughout the entire century-command post, only the century commander, dispatch clerk, and the four battalion commanders had officially allocated horses. Others could purchase horses themselves.
The physician was a doctor responsible for treating the illnesses of the subordinates and civilians within the command post, and accompanied them on campaigns during wartime.
The dispatch clerk acted as a messenger responsible for transmitting military orders and official documents, while also explaining orders and documents to officers and soldiers, and reading or writing letters on their behalf. He was even responsible for handling marriages, funerals, and commercial contracts among the military households within the post. The overwhelming majority of people in this era were illiterate; a clerk was truly indispensable.
The single groom was responsible for feeding horses within the post, as well as managing and maintaining horse tack and the weapons and armor used by the post's cavalry.
The finance and grain officer managed the finances within the post. Since the command post practiced military-agricultural colonization, every household had to surrender grain yields, which meant agricultural rent—all of which required an accountant.
In this day and age, the accountant was certainly the commander's confidant, relying entirely on him to cook the books. Usually, such a person would also be taken away upon transfer.
The armorer was responsible for the weaponry and equipment of the entire command post. In addition to the military warehouses, he also managed the civilian warehouses. Seeds, farm tools, and draft oxen all fell under his purview. Because a century-command post was actually a small town, each battalion acted like a township, and each platoon was a village.
These villages contained more than ten households of peasants whose registered household status was that of military households. This meant every family had to provide one able-bodied man for military service, while the rest of the family members remained farmers. In peacetime, their farming was no different from that of ordinary peasants. To put it bluntly, military households were reservists.
Because garrison posts were hereditary, more than two hundred years had passed since Zhu Yuanzhang founded the dynasty, yet the administrative establishment and geographical locations had remained fixed. With population growth, a platoon was long past having only ten households; fundamentally, it had grown into a village of varying size.
So just how many people were there in this century-command post? Yang Fan felt a little dizzy.