Chapter 612 - War Guidance Principles

The assembly hall gradually quieted. Xiao Zishan first read aloud the full text of the telegram from Guangzhou. Then he called for the assembly to discuss the matter.

Convening the assembly was, of course, not to discuss whether to fight or how to win. With the transmigrator collective's strength, defeating ten or twenty thousand punitive troops presented no problem. The main purpose of this meeting was to decide the scale of the war and what to do after achieving victory.

The transmigrators' determination was unanimous: if they were going to fight, they would cripple and terrify the Ming army so thoroughly that it would never again dare covet the Lingao regime—achieving peace through force.

But on the question of how far to push before stopping, the meeting once again saw major disputes.

Eventually, three mainstream positions emerged.

The first was to maintain the current status quo of neither fighting, withdrawing, nor submitting—completely rout and destroy the invading Ming forces and call it done, continuing to entrench at Lingao.

Supporters argued that the advantage of this approach lay in not completely tearing things apart with the Ming. It would still ensure that sea trade channels with Ming remained open and would also help guarantee the safety of the Guangzhou and Leizhou stations. As long as the Guangdong authorities hadn't lost any prefectures or counties, they could still claim victory after their humiliating defeat. In other words, it would leave the Guangdong government its dignity.

The second position advocated riding the momentum of a great victory to pursue the Ming forces to Qiongshan, destroy the Ming navy at Baisha Naval Base, completely annihilate the main Ming forces on Hainan, then attack the prefectures and counties throughout Hainan, rapidly occupying the entire island. This would bring all of Hainan Island's human and material resources fully under the transmigrator collective's control, creating a situation of carving out Hainan as their territory.

The third was an upgraded version of the second. It advocated not only occupying all of Hainan but also launching a punitive expedition against Guangzhou. Some proposed deploying the Holy Ship and using the heavy guns on deck to bombard Guangzhou city, spreading panic throughout the region. Others proposed sending in the Special Reconnaissance Team to conduct a decapitation operation against officials in Guangzhou who had advocated military action against Lingao—quite a few people suggested simply wiping out Wang Zunde's entire family.

Each of the three plans had a group of supporters, and they engaged in fierce verbal combat in the assembly, neither side yielding.

Overall, the second and third plans were really just variations of degree. The third received active support from Si Kaide, who put forward a complete strategic proposal:

First, seize all of Hainan. Since they had already torn things apart with the Ming government, they must take advantage of this opportunity to seize all of Hainan. Otherwise, the transmigrator state couldn't develop.

Second, strive to completely destroy the Ming army on land, not merely repel them at sea. This way, the Ming would be unable to attack for three or four years. Moreover, there would be large numbers of prisoners to serve as laborers and bargaining chips.

Third, conduct a moderate counterattack on the mainland. Try to seize the Guangzhou periphery, even temporarily besiege Guangzhou city, to thoroughly awe the Ming. But they shouldn't occupy Guangzhou—the transmigrator state wasn't yet ready to contend for the mainland.

Fourth, pay attention to propaganda and protect private property. Their policy was to oppose the Guangdong authorities' unprovoked suppression campaign, oppose corrupt officials using suppression as an excuse to plunder public wealth and kill innocents for credit. But they shouldn't oppose the court openly—oppose internally, not externally—leaving room for peace talks. Protecting private property could win people's hearts.

Fifth, use war to force peace. Lingao wasn't afraid of Ming attacks, but for several years they didn't want trade with Ming severed. So after the war, the main approach toward Ming should be peace talks. If talks truly couldn't work, then fight again.

Beyond these five points, Si Kaide explicitly demanded creating panic in Guangzhou: he proposed following the British model of burning Copenhagen, launching Congreve rockets on a massive scale, or occupying Baiyun Mountain and setting up artillery there to bombard Guangzhou's government offices.

Ma Qianzhu requested the floor.

He walked to the podium: "Fellow transmigrators. Whether to occupy all of Hainan after defeating the Ming army, whether to bombard Guangzhou—these must first serve our political needs. As they say, war is the continuation of politics." He coughed. "Before we discuss how far to expand the war's scope, I propose we first sort out our collective's political and economic demands for the coming years."

These so-called political demands were directly related to the transmigrator collective's economic demands.

"For now, we remain heavily dependent on resources, population, and sales markets within Ming-controlled territory," Ma Qianzhu said. "If we employ overly aggressive military measures, not only will we fail to make the Ming submit through fear, we'll instead cause the Ming to impose comprehensive political and economic blockades, inevitably accompanied by constant military attacks. Even if such military attacks are completely ineffective, the Ming government will continue such offensives to maintain imperial face."

"The Governor is promoting his turtle-strategy tech tree theory again," someone whispered from their seat.

"He's not wrong. Fighting is great fun, but afterward you have to clean up the mess."

Si Kaide immediately stood up to object: "When we set up cannons on Baiyun Mountain, let's see if Wang Zunde can still get it up! If that's not enough, we'll launch ten thousand Congreve rockets from the Pearl River! Burn Guangzhou down!"

Lin Shenhe frowned from below: ten thousand rockets. These people really talked big. The First Weapons Design Group had developed rockets long ago; they had even used them for fireworks. By now, though the Congreve rocket hadn't been used in combat, it was already on his list of weapons to retire. The First Group had already test-fired several Hale rockets of different calibers. This type of rocket was far more advanced than the Congreve and didn't require the long stabilizing rod.

"The Ming isn't the Qing. There's no Qishan-type official who 'sees the big picture and considers the overall situation,'" Ji Tuisi snorted. "If we go around doing this, just wait for the court to levy a 'Qiong Levy' and fight us year after year."

"Are we afraid of the Ming army? Besides, wouldn't the Ming court levying a Qiong Levy be seeking death, accelerating the collapse process?" Si Kaide countered.

"True, but the Ming's economic and population total is a hundred times ours. If they get serious and send someone like a Grand Secretary to command, fighting all day every day would be very bad for industrial upgrading." Ma Qianzhu continued to insist on his view.

"What's wrong with fighting? The army has to be forged through battle." Wei Aiwen's heart had been blooming with joy since hearing about the war. He had drawn up a military expansion plan. He speculated that since the Ming navy was weak, they'd definitely rely mainly on land forces—the perfect opportunity for the army to shine. Besides, with the Ming bringing tens of thousands of troops and the army including auxiliary units totaling fewer than four thousand, the Young Officers Club had discussed it and concluded this was the perfect opportunity to push a resolution for large-scale military expansion through Parliament.

With an external enemy at the gates, and a land enemy at that—if not the army, who should expand? Wei Aiwen and Zhang Bolin were counting on exactly this.

"Fighting costs money and consumes resources—it's pure consumption. Our style of warfare differs from this time-space's armies; it's a typical high-consumption war. If we can't occupy territory and population, such fighting is a losing proposition." Ma Qianzhu wasn't enthusiastic about the fighting proposals.

"I propose we simply take this opportunity to occupy Guangzhou, then control the entire Pearl River Delta. With that territory, we'd have population and resources."

"Use four thousand land soldiers to occupy the entire Pearl River Delta? Defending Hainan has the navy's support to offset the enemy's numerical advantage. On the mainland, that troop level wouldn't be enough."

"Which is why we need to expand the army's size." Wei Aiwen had been waiting for exactly that statement.

"I firmly oppose investing too many resources in military projects at this critical moment of industrial upgrading." Wu De immediately objected. "Occupying the Pearl River Delta would inevitably drag us into long-term, large-scale military conflict, excessively consuming our limited strength."

Qian Shuiting also objected: "The army's scale is already sufficient for current tasks. Even for this operation, appropriate temporary reinforcements supplemented by militia would suffice. There's no need to blindly expand the standing army. Besides, given our situation, we don't need too much land army..."

"What did you say?!" Wei Aiwen jumped up—in his view, this statement was publicly humiliating the army. "You're slandering the army!"

"I don't consider it slander," Qian Shuiting said, not backing down. "The military's scale must match the current economic scale. I oppose all blind expansion of military operations."

"That's short-sighted behavior..."

Xiao Zishan pounded his gavel hard: "Watch your language! No personal attacks, please!"

The motion to occupy the Pearl River Delta was quickly rejected. Most transmigrators felt this exceeded the collective's current capabilities. With shortages of military and administrative personnel, prematurely occupying densely populated areas would necessitate heavily relying on old ruling personnel and institutions. Moreover, Guangdong was an important source of fiscal revenue for the Ming government; they absolutely wouldn't stand by.

Once mired in continuous military operations, industrial upgrading would be seriously impeded, affecting subsequent development. This was unacceptable, especially to the industrial division. Though the industrial people dearly wanted to see the weapons they manufactured perform on the battlefield, they wanted even more to see a modern industrial system established in their hands.

As for the agricultural division led by Wu Nanhai, they strenuously opposed expanding the war's scope—the agricultural division worried about their "pots and jars" even more than the industrial division. Industrial equipment at least had defensive measures. Agricultural land, irrigation systems, and other farmland infrastructure simply couldn't be defended. They also worried that the agricultural workers they had painstakingly trained would be conscripted for war.

Therefore, the agricultural division's position at the meeting was the most conservative. They wanted only to repel the Ming attack. Of course, Wu Nanhai also wanted to completely destroy the enemy forces, in order to convert prisoners into agricultural workers.

But most people felt the time had come to occupy all of Hainan. Remaining restricted to just Lingao would severely limit future development space. It would also leave major hidden dangers. The court could always use local government institutions and resources to launch suppression campaigns. Moreover, the legitimacy of orthodoxy remained with the Ming. Lingao's commoners might feel they were "following bandits." If the situation became slightly unstable, popular sentiment might collapse. Political Security General Administration investigations showed that many who had "gotten rich first" harbored anxiety about the future.

Seeing the assembly mood clearly opposed to the plan of holding only Lingao, Ma Qianzhu decided to abandon Plan A of defending only Lingao and switch to Plan B.

"First, do we need to maintain a surface peace with the Ming?" Ma Qianzhu said. "From a strategic standpoint, this is absolutely necessary!

"If we want to maintain trade relations with the mainland, continue importing population and resources from the mainland, maintaining a surface state of peace with the Ming government is crucial," Ma Qianzhu said. "So I oppose any approach that expands the war to the mainland. Once war spreads to the mainland, the Ming will certainly cut off trade and population movement with us."

Of course, given the Ming's administrative execution capability and limited maritime operational capacity, such a blockade would certainly be incomplete. And the transmigrator collective needn't worry about finding sufficient agents to serve them. The Mountain and Sea Routes commercial-intelligence system under construction could also supplement. But such "smuggling" activities would far exceed normal trade in both scale and cost limitations.

"The measures we adopt must have strategic purpose—we must leave the Guangdong authorities a fig leaf, enabling Wang Zunde, Li Fengjie, and others to continue muddling through."

To achieve this goal, the transmigrator collective couldn't use overly aggressive measures—no large-scale decapitation operations, no bombardment of Guangzhou, and preferably no open occupation of Hainan's prefectural and county seats. In short, leave the Guangdong local government face and excuses for cover-up.

"Second, should we occupy all of Hainan?" Ma Qianzhu spoke eloquently. "I believe this is essential."

Someone below was muttering: "This doesn't match the Governor's stance from a few days ago."

Relying solely on importing migrants from the mainland made population growth too slow. Occupying all of Hainan would bring at least two hundred thousand Han Chinese and an unknown number of Li and Miao peoples—the latter numbering at least fifty or sixty thousand—under the transmigrator collective's control. This was much faster than waiting for several hundred to several thousand mainland immigrants per month. Moreover, Guangdong's refugee numbers were unstable and couldn't provide a steady long-term supply. Before developing other population sources, locally developing the population was a good time-saving approach.

Occupying all of Hainan would allow promoting the "Lingao Experience" on a larger scale, reforming the civil administration system. This was also an experiment, but the scale had expanded from tiny Lingao County to all of Hainan Island—a test for the indigenous workers the transmigrator collective had spent years cultivating. The collective also needed this to summarize lessons from training indigenous personnel and local administration, preparing for governing even larger territories in the future.

"Simultaneously occupying all of Hainan while maintaining surface peace with the Ming authorities—that's extremely difficult," someone questioned. "Losing even one county is a major matter that must be reported to the court, let alone losing a prefecture! Surely Wang Zunde and Li Fengjie can't pretend to be deaf and blind to that extent."

"So I suggest maintaining the Lingao model throughout Hainan—sweep away the clerk class everywhere and have our indigenous administrative personnel take over, hollow out local officials, establish our actual rule over Hainan. The taxes and grain the court needs would be paid according to quota."

Qiongzhou Prefecture was remote. Ming rule there was extremely weak. Apart from Danzhou, Lingao, Qiongshan, and Wenchang, which were somewhat developed, places like Changhua and Yazhou had very weak local government presence—basically, government orders didn't extend beyond the city gates. Several counties had long lacked any county magistrates, with minor officials deputizing. Hollowing out county administration and taking over government would be quite easy—many places didn't really have county governance to speak of.

Jiang Shan had remained silent throughout the meeting. He felt this plan was somewhat wishful thinking. Lingao as a single county was one thing, but doing this for all of Qiongzhou Prefecture would be very difficult. Qiongzhou Prefecture had quite a few yamens: Qiongzhou Prefecture, Qiongshan County, Hainan Circuit, a Provincial Administration Commission branch office, the Coastal Defense General...

With this many officials, it wasn't as simple as Lingao. If even one hothead emerged who wouldn't just go with the flow and be hollowed out—someone insisting on diligent governance and making something of himself—the project of hollowing out local governments couldn't be done as perfectly as in Lingao.

Moreover, Qiongshan County still had a garrison. If they continued maintaining the pretense of Ming authority, would the Qiongya Coastal Defense General's two thousand-plus soldiers and ships still be allowed to remain? This was the court's regular army, not the long-decayed garrison troops. Even if destroyed in combat, they would certainly be rebuilt. Could they really allow such a force at their bedside?

Jiang Shan thought: the most difficult part was this—once the counterattacking land and sea forces reached the walls of Qiongzhou city and destroyed Baisha Naval Base, the Qiongzhou Prefecture and Qiongshan County officials would either surrender or commit suicide for the dynasty. Either way, news that Qiongzhou Prefecture's capital had fallen would certainly spread. Wang Zunde and others absolutely wouldn't dare pretend the prefectural capital hadn't fallen.

But he didn't plan to raise these questions openly—when it came to actual implementation, there would be dedicated meetings to discuss these matters. Whether maintaining "surface peace" or completely tearing things apart, he supported occupying all of Hainan.

Despite questions about whether this "maintaining surface peace" could actually be achieved, most transmigrators were quite enthusiastic about occupying all of Hainan—Lingao really was too small. Many people harbored a vague hope that once the regime expanded to all of Hainan, everyone could hold their own position—at minimum, they could go to other counties as some kind of administrative official.

Finally, the Transmigrator Parliament passed three guiding principles for this war:

One: Completely destroy the invading Ming forces and all other enemies, while simultaneously eliminating the fighting capability of Ming forces on Hainan.

Two: Under favorable conditions, occupy all of Hainan.

Three: The war would be limited to Hainan Island and surrounding waters, not to be expanded to the mainland or other waters—unless approved by Parliament.

This operation was designated "Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign."

Si Kaide continued advocating his post-war peace talks proposal with the Guangdong local government.

The specific plan was to quickly release several high-ranking prisoners to Guangzhou after the war, try to establish contact with prominent figures in the Guangdong government, and request peace talks. Then send dedicated personnel for negotiations.

The negotiation site could be in Macau, with the Portuguese guaranteeing both sides' safety. If the Portuguese couldn't be trusted, other remote locations could be chosen.

(End of Chapter)