46. Training Troops in a Life-or-Death Situation, Part One

“You look as though something is weighing on your mind,” Yang Fan said to Tushan Yue.

Yang Fan and Tushan Yue rode side by side as they made their way back to Zunhua.

“I’m beginning to regret having you appointed a Hundred-Household Officer here,” Tushan Yue said quietly.

“Er... Wasn’t that your idea, Lord Tushan?” Yang Fan asked, taken aback.

“Hmph. You really think highly of yourself. Who do you think you are? Did we need you to clean up after us?”

“Is there some hidden reason behind all this?” Yang Fan asked with a smile.

“I’ve been handling a certain matter lately, and I was the one who asked Father to send you here. All I needed was for you to have the status of a military officer. I simply didn’t expect that the moment you got a little authority, you’d start throwing your weight around. You really took yourself for the commander of this wretched hundred-household garrison.”

“I just couldn’t stand by and watch them be slaughtered.”

Yang Fan came from a later age. Faced with such danger, his first instinct had been to evacuate everyone and protect their safety.

“You think those mounted bandits were really nothing more than bandits?” Tushan Yue asked with a cold laugh.

“Then who were they?” Yang Fan asked, puzzled.

“Don’t you have a veteran from Liaodong under your command? You might ask him. What sort of men possess horsemanship good enough to charge with twin spears, without even using their hands to control their horses?”

“You mean they were Manchu invaders—and an entire organized company?” Yang Fan was stunned.

What was happening in the Ji Garrison? It had already been bad enough that Manchu scouts had infiltrated the region. Now an entire regular military unit had slipped in disguised as mounted bandits, occupied the mountains, and set itself up as a local power.

They had clearly planned this for a long time.

And whatever they were plotting was no small matter.

A profound sense of danger rose in Yang Fan’s heart.

He had to grow stronger as quickly as possible and build an armed force under his own command.

At the very least, when disaster came, he needed enough troops to defend himself and protect his own safety.

“Beginning last winter,” Tushan Yue said, “the mountain strongholds around Yongping, Luanzhou, Jixian, and Zunhua vanished without warning. For an entire winter, not a single merchant caravan was robbed. That immediately drew the attention of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot.”

Yang Fan understood that this was deeply abnormal. Winter withered all living things; birds vanished from a thousand mountains, and human tracks disappeared from countless roads. The droughts had grown worse with every passing year, and each winter was colder than the last. During winter, the mountain bandits themselves were starving and freezing. If they failed to seize supplies, it was hardly unheard-of for an entire stockade to starve to death.

If not one of them had come out to rob anyone for an entire winter, there could be only one explanation.

They were all dead.

The dead had no need to eat, and therefore no need to come out and rob people.

Yang Fan turned toward the young woman and asked, “In other words, there are more groups of false bandits like these—not just this one?”

“Who knows how many? The authorities can’t possibly inspect every mountain stronghold. Onion-Head Ridge is merely one of the larger groups.”

“I think the Manchus may be preparing to make a move. They could be planning to attack by taking a roundabout route through the Three Guards of Duoyan, and these men were sent ahead as internal agents. We should report this at once and send in border troops to wipe them out.”

“Ha! Easy for you to say.” The young woman gave a cold laugh. “Don’t forget, we belong to the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. We can arrest people, and we can torture them, but we have no authority to mobilize troops. Do you really think those military commanders will listen to us? They’re all pretending to be deaf and dumb, refusing to admit that Manchus have infiltrated their territory.”

“That’s true. If this many Manchus have infiltrated the region, those commanders might lose more than their offices. They could lose their heads as well.” Yang Fan nodded. “Even so, we should report the situation to the gentlemen at court.”

“The court? Do you know what state the court is in right now? The new emperor has only just taken the throne, and everyone is unsettled. Director Wei is like a clay idol trying to cross a river—he can barely save himself. The Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs is facing a purge, and the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard has already gone over to the Donglin faction. The Zhejiang faction, the Chu faction, Donglin, Jiangxi, the hereditary nobility, and the eunuch faction are all sharpening their knives, preparing for a grand struggle. What do you think will happen when you report that your Hundred-Household Garrison at Random Stone Beach lost several oxen and had a crippled man killed?”

Yang Fan was speechless. Yet something about her words struck him as wrong. For the moment, however, he could not put his finger on what it was.

“Although I am your superior, I consider us friends as well. I respect your choices, but I must warn you: you are playing with fire. At a time like this, the slightest misstep will drag you into the whirlpool of factional strife, from which there may be no escape. Perhaps you are talented. So was Xiong Tingbi. And what happened to him? His promotion and demotion, his life and honor, were all controlled by the factional struggles at court. Once you cause trouble and draw the attention of the gentlemen there, your fate will no longer be yours to control.”

Yang Fan fell silent. When one was unwilling to admit the truth yet unwilling to lie, silence was the only choice.

“You lack a sense of security. You want troops of your own so you can defend yourself. You want to use these bandits to train soldiers.” The young woman continued speaking without even looking at Yang Fan.

“But you don’t dare take these men into battle, because you know that the moment they meet the enemy, they’ll probably run faster than rabbits.”

Yang Fan remained silent.

“So you came up with a vicious scheme. You want to gather all these men in one place. Once the bandits have nothing left to plunder, they will inevitably surround them. When that happens, not one of your men will be able to escape. They will have no choice but to resist. After the battle, you won’t have to concern yourself with those who die. The survivors will all have been tempered by war. Then you can gather them back under your command and recruit these veterans, turning this hundred-household garrison into a force that has seen blood and fought on a real battlefield.”

“But you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. That hard bone may be beyond your ability to gnaw through. You may well end up destroying the entire garrison.”

“You’re right about everything, but I’m not as sinister as you think. I simply believe that troubled times are coming, and we must train an army. These people are so weak. Some will starve to death, some will be killed by bandits, some will freeze to death, and some will die of plague. In the end, many of them are destined to die. Perhaps forty or fifty years from now, of the two hundred million people of Great Ming, only twenty million will remain.”

In the first year of the Chongzhen reign, historical estimates placed the population at no fewer than 190 million. The Cambridge History of China gave a figure of at least 150 million. In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi reign, the Ministry of Revenue recorded the population of the entire country as nineteen million. Thinking of those numbers, Yang Fan sighed inwardly.

“I only want to train them and make them stronger, so that they can survive. Since the Han and Tang dynasties, the Han people have grown weaker and weaker. Why? Because every time the world collapses, those with conscience and integrity are weeded out, while those who remain are the submissive, the servile, and the people willing to scrape by.”

“When the Song dynasty fell, the people who survived were those who dared not resist. Many with backbone were killed. Some threw themselves into the sea. Some took their own lives in loyalty to their country. The rest lingered on, hiding wherever they could, becoming slaves and servants, being driven like cattle, submitting themselves to others simply to preserve their lives. If we do not find another way to live, if we continue like this, then this people is finished.”

“Let me tell you a story. Far away in the west, there was a people called the Hebrews. For generations, they had been slaves to the Egyptians. The ruler of Egypt was called the Pharaoh, and they performed the hardest and most exhausting labor for him.”

“And then they rebelled?” The young woman curled her lip. It was an old, tired story.

“Later, a man named Moses led them out of Egypt to seek the homeland of their ancestors, Canaan—the legendary land flowing with milk and honey. But when they reached the gates of Canaan, Moses did not lead them straight in to conquer it. Instead, he led the people, young and old alike, into the wilderness, where they wandered for fifty years and endured every kind of hardship.”

“Ha! That Moses must have been mad. He reached a land of plenty, yet instead of going there, he led everyone into the desert to eat sand. Would the people beneath him have been foolish enough to follow such an idiot? Why didn’t they rebel against him, kill him, and go happily to Canaan to enjoy themselves?”

“But Moses succeeded in doing exactly that,” Yang Fan said.

“What did he offer those fools? How did he trick them into following him to their deaths?”

“Nothing. He gave them only one thing: faith.”

“Hmph. A charlatan pretending to speak for the gods. There are plenty of people like that everywhere.” The young woman spoke with contempt.

“I never understood why Moses did it,” Yang Fan said. “Now I do.”