Chapter 1092 - The Situation in Laizhou
Master Lü wished to eat, and naturally Fan Twelve was eager to oblige. As proprietor and chef of a modest eatery, preparing such fare was second nature—common folk could rarely afford decent fish or meat, making these delicious yet affordable ingredients staples of establishments like his.
That said, sea intestines remained rather lowly fare. In prosperous years, even commoners rarely consumed them; the creatures were typically used as pig feed or fishing bait. Yet Fan Twelve knew that despite their humble status, they enhanced flavor superbly. He routinely dried sea intestines into powder for seasoning, passing it off as rich stock.
He agreed enthusiastically and hurried to the Wang Family Cemetery kitchen. A substantial portion of the cemetery complex consisted of living quarters—when the master and mistress came for twelfth-month tomb sweeping or spring outings, they would inevitably lodge here for several days. Consequently, the living quarters' facilities rivaled those of an ordinary wealthy household. The kitchen was particularly well-appointed: not only fully equipped with stoves but stocked with every variety of pot, pan, and ladle. The equipment exceeded even the tools in Fan Twelve's own eatery.
The kitchen had been scrubbed to a degree that made Fan Twelve feel he "couldn't set foot wrong"—it was almost too clean. These militiamen from Lü Family Village displayed a breathtaking obsession with cleanliness from the moment they arrived at the guanxiang. Everyone had set down their packs, and except for those on sentry duty or assigned to tasks, the idle hands had swept the streets and courtyards, clearing away rubbish. They cleaned not only their own station but also the lanes and alleys of the entire guanxiang. Garbage heaps and accumulated dust vanished from the streets; even potholes were filled and leveled with soil and broken bricks. The whole district suddenly seemed reborn.
Fan Twelve had lived in Laizhou his entire life and witnessed many things. Aside from occasions when the Prefect organized the paijia to clean and repair streets in anticipation of imperial envoys or visiting superiors, no one ever swept the roads. Street hygiene fell to the "street-watching" refuse soldiers, whose duties extended only to occasional water sprinkling and corpse removal.
Garbage on the ground was the norm. Public urination and defecation were hardly uncommon. Take the exterior wall of his own eatery, for instance—people regularly relieved themselves there, leaving a persistent unbearable stench.
Fan Twelve rubbed his feet outside the kitchen door before stepping carefully inside. He saw someone busy at work and assumed it was one of the cooks brought by the militia. Looking closer, he discovered it was Commander LĂĽ himself.
Commander LĂĽ wore an apron with sleeves rolled high, laboring industriously. Fan Twelve was so stunned he could not find words. This Master LĂĽ was cooking with his own hands?!
From his experience, anyone who could command an entire village and lead over a hundred fierce fighting men ranked as a figure of considerable local importance.
He had never expected to find such a person toiling in the kitchen. It defied comprehension—especially given the commander's appearance, with that fine skin and refined complexion, which suggested anything but a rough upbringing.
Seeing Fan Twelve enter, LĂĽ Zeyang called out, "Come, help me clean these sea intestines!"
One of Senator Lü's secondary objectives in visiting Haimiao Port had been to procure food. He had achieved his aim, obtaining the two delicacies he had long craved—sea intestines and Spanish mackerel meat. Though the sea was frozen, the timing happened to coincide with peak sea intestine harvest season. Senator Lü had yearned for this taste for ages, but Lingao neither produced the ingredient nor harbored anyone who knew how to cook it. He had made do with jelly worms, but the flavor was simply not the same. Now that he had been dispatched back to the Jiaodong Peninsula, he intended to gorge himself properly. Engine work could wait until he was full.
Lü Zeyang instructed Fan Twelve on the cooking—modern culinary techniques differed somewhat from Ming Dynasty methods, particularly regarding heat control and seasoning. He directed Fan Twelve in wielding the knife, chopping fish, and mixing the filling.
Fan Twelve intended to curry favor with "Commander LĂĽ," so beyond the sea intestines, he stir-fried several additional dishes. He had expected the Commander to request wine, but instead the man asked for nothing, shoveling an entire basin of stir-fried sea intestines with leeks directly into his stomach. Still unsatisfied, he ordered Fan Twelve to boil over fifty mackerel meatball dumplings as a snack.
"Bring them to the main hall shortly," he instructed, then retired with his maps, calipers, and notebook to his bedroom to contemplate grand strategy.
"Right away! Just watch!" Fan Twelve tapped the edge of the pot with satisfaction, recapturing the feeling of being an eatery proprietor once more.
Lü Zeyang had selected a room adjacent to the main hall as his personal quarters—this was the residential section of the Wang Family Cemetery, and the housing facilities were quite elegant, equipped with an underground heating system. Once his orderly lit the fire, the entire room grew warm as spring. Unfortunately, his life secretary had studied accounting and could not double as a multi-skilled female attendant. This thought led him to consider selecting one or two strapping young women from his fellow villagers in the other timeline to serve as guards when he returned to Lingao.
A sentry stood watch outside the door—Senators were extremely cautious with their lives. Senator Lü belched, patting his belly as he paced the room. His mood had improved considerably after eating and drinking his fill; he even began to feel optimistic about the future. Since it was heaven's will, waiting a month was simply waiting. The urgent priority was to commit his ideas to paper and transmit them back to Lingao as swiftly as possible, securing support from key figures in the finance and economics system at the Executive Committee expansion meeting to facilitate his proposal's passage.
With this in mind, Lü Zeyang stuffed two more dumplings into his mouth and called out indistinctly to the orderly outside, "Brew some tea—this is too salty!"
Curled up on the heated platform, he worked until midnight. At last, his "Report on Shipping Conditions in Laizhou Bay"—over thirty thousand words—was complete. With this document in hand, he would have abundant material for presentations, and his performance at the expansion meeting would appear exceptionally competent. As the saying went: whether the work is good depends mainly on the report. Senator Lü massaged his sore thighs with an expression of deep satisfaction. A burden had finally been lifted. From here, it would depend on Cheng Dong and Yi Fan's maneuvering abilities within the Senate. As for himself, he still had to help Old Man Sun defend Laizhou City.
With Qian Duo's heavily armed company guarding his flank, Lü Zeyang harbored no concerns about Laizhou City's safety. Historically, with only a thousand-odd scattered reinforcements trickling in at intervals, Zhu Wannian and the two governors had held the city using a makeshift force of four or five thousand old and weak troops. Now that he had resolved to use Laizhou City as a temporary winter settlement for refugees, he would inevitably need to invest some effort in the defense—at minimum, preserving the core of Laizhou City: the four guan and four yu.
According to the map, Laizhou's prefectural city was a north-south rectangle. The area enclosed by the walls corresponded roughly to the zone bounded by Wenhua East Street, Wenchang South Road, Wenquan East Street, and Laizhou South Road in later times. Outside each of the four city gates—east, west, north, and south—thriving guanxiang districts had developed. These had now been subjected to Sun Yuanhua's "strengthening the walls and clearing the fields"; most residents had been gathered inside the city, leaving many vacant buildings suitable for refugee camps. The prerequisite was that they remain under the protective umbrella of artillery range—though currently, only two mountain howitzers were available.
Thirty-six Great General Cannons stood mounted on Laizhou's walls. Though they could not compare to Red Barbarian Cannons, they had played a significant role in historical defensive battles. With these guns in position, rebel soldiers would not dare approach too closely.
Zhu Mingxia had also promised that reinforcements would be dispatched by sea at LĂĽ Zeyang's call if necessary. Maneuvering one or two companies from the sea to land at Hutuya or Haimiao Port could easily catch the rebels off guard. If conditions proved favorable, the opportunity to fight an annihilation battle and capture prisoners was not out of reach.
Compared to Sun Yuanhua's anxiety, the Senators harbored considerable contempt for the rebels' combat effectiveness. From the moment they raised the banner of rebellion, whatever organizational discipline this force had originally retained had long since evaporated. Of course, serving under the Great Ming's banners, they had always been nothing more than hardened old soldier-ruffians fighting only for their next meal. Strip away the superficial veneer of fine equipment and the large numbers of horses, and what remained was merely a band of ordinary bandits—raping and looting for personal gain. Though some harbored deep hatred for the Shandong commoners and the Ming government, far more were simply out for gold, silver, and women.
Such an army could bully common people or triumph in easy battles against corrupt government troops, but when confronted with a tough nut like Laizhou City—strictly defended and resolute—no one would volunteer to throw their life away. Originally, Laizhou had withstood tens of thousands of rebels and massive quantities of firearms with only a few thousand old and weak remnants, holding out for half a year. This feat owed nothing more than the "defend the homeland" spirit of the people and gentry within the walls, united in bitter hatred of the enemy.
As long as the rebels were bloodied and their initial momentum and spirit blunted, subsequent assaults would lack fury or ruthlessness. To maintain morale and secure their subordinates' loyalty, the rebel generals would have no better recourse than to unleash their men upon the Laizhou countryside. This, in turn, would multiply the Senate's opportunities to collect refugees.
Of course, specific combat arrangements still required discussion with Qian Duo and his officers. Sun Yuanhua would also need to be notified so both sides could coordinate their actions—this amounted to openly flexing military muscle before the eyes of Great Ming bureaucrats. If some "loyal and patriotic" official dispatched a memorial to the capital, trouble would inevitably follow. Such "narrative unification" work still required Governor Sun's assistance.
Accordingly, Lü Zeyang resolved to minimize contact with local bureaucrats other than Sun Yuanhua. Even with Sun Yuanhua, meetings should be infrequent to avoid drawing attention. Wang Daochun posed a particular concern; this man held an extremely poor opinion of Sun Yuanhua, believing the governor to be the principal culprit behind the Dengzhou Mutiny. Historically, in a memorial submitted on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month in the fifth year of Chongzhen, Wang Daochun had written: Kong Youde created chaos in Shandong, capturing seven counties in less than six days, and Dengzhou fell on the tenth day—this was entirely caused by the rebellious minister Sun Yuanhua collaborating from the inside and Governor Yu Dacheng's bribery and indulgence. This accusation had arisen because, when Dengzhou first fell, rebel soldiers stole the seal of the Governor of Dengzhou and Laizhou and issued proclamations everywhere demanding grain and pay be sent to Dengzhou, leading everyone to suspect that Sun Yuanhua had himself rebelled.
Now, owing to the Senate's intervention, Sun Yuanhua had escaped in time and demonstrated an active posture of encirclement and suppression. Wang Daochun had not submitted this memorial—a development of critical importance for Sun Yuanhua's survival.
(End of Chapter)