Chapter 1187 - The Market

Watching everyone gleefully handle the sharp weapons in their hands, Lü Zeyang smirked inwardly. Wait until you try to use these in the field. Easy to fire, impossible to feed—these percussion caps were once sold by British smugglers to the Taiping Army for a tael of silver each.

But this is the late Ming. The warlords here aren't as flush as the Taiping Army, but selling twenty for a tael should still be achievable. He turned the thought over with quiet satisfaction.

After a round of insincere back-slapping and brotherly embraces, Lü Zeyang finally departed the city. Sun Yuanhua, knowing him to be Master Lu's man and recognizing the great service he had rendered at Laizhou, specifically invited him over for praise and encouragement, declaring that as long as he retained any influence, he would certainly petition the court on their behalf. The two then discussed specific protocols for future contact. Lü Zeyang also shared what intelligence he had gathered, mentioning in particular that the rebels' next movements would likely shift toward Qixia and Pingdu. Sun Yuanhua nodded, saying he had reached similar conclusions and had already memorialized the court requesting diversionary troops for interception.

Lü Zeyang felt a twinge of disappointment. He had arrived believing he possessed crucial intelligence leads, prepared to do Sun Yuanhua a favor—but the man's own intelligence gathering and analytical capabilities proved remarkably acute.

Though his personal safety remained uncertain, Sun Yuanhua placed great importance on firearms. He expressed hope that Lü Zeyang would convey to Master Lu his desire for more Australian birdguns. Besides Zhang Tao, the various armies converging on Shandong would all have such needs. This was business well worth doing.

Lü Zeyang agreed to everything. Early the next morning, Zhang Tao's troops assumed defense of the South Gate district. Lü Zeyang led his own forces out in an impressive withdrawal. By the time they departed, the column had swelled by five or six hundred souls—prisoners willing to follow, local commoners seeking escape. Fan Twelve, the tithing head of the South Gate district, unhesitatingly loaded his entire family onto a small cart and joined the procession.

Lü Zeyang's troops passed through rebel positions without incident. The rebel generals outside the South Gate already knew his reputation: this fellow's subordinates were murderously tough to tangle with. Besides, with Laizhou proving impossible to take, they might well have to become "government troops" again any day now—maintaining cordial relations with Regiment Commander Lü was never a mistake. So as his column passed, they saw them off with smiles.

Lü Zeyang led his people leisurely toward Zhaoyuan. His banner flew the large "Qimu" flag, which no one dared provoke across the three eastern prefectures.

Zhaoyuan lay close to Longkou Bay. Out of caution, the Northbound Detachment currently occupied only a portion of Zhaoyuan's coastal area, having constructed several fortified villages that formed a mutually supporting posture with Qimu Island.

These so-called fortified villages were merely large villages or market towns encircled by trenches and protected by simple bastions or even crude gun towers, defended by locally organized militia companies. In terms of raw combat power and defensive capability, they could handle only bandits or stragglers. The rebels, however, were wary of the "Qimu Island" banner and simply dared not mass troops against them—previous attempts at hostile action had brought swift and severe retaliation. After annihilating one group that had made a move, no one else dared launch attacks against villages flying the "Qimu" flag.

Zhaoyuan County sat in the western hills of the Jiaodong Peninsula, where broken terrain prevailed—hills and river valleys intermingled in a complex maze. The northeast stood high and steep, composed mainly of granite and granitic gneiss; serrated ridges, majestic and precipitous, extended diagonally across the county from northeast to southwest. The remaining hills rose below four hundred meters, gentle undulations forming a wave-eroded plain of shallow valleys and broad lowlands. This had never been prosperous country. Aside from rich mineral resources, agricultural products consisted mainly of fruits and coarse grains—the main production area of Longkou vermicelli was here, and vermicelli had always been a coarse-grain product. Even into the twenty-first century, a county of over a thousand square kilometers had a population of only 560,000.

In this timeline, the population was sparser still; it was impoverished and barren land. Consequently, rebel footprints rarely touched this place, and the destruction here was comparatively minor. When Zhu Mingxia and Lu Wenyuan decided to occupy Zhaoyuan, they had considered this factor—Qimu Island was too small as a base, suitable only for transshipping refugees. Expanding territory beyond the island risked making their profile too conspicuous. Qimu Island sat only a few dozen li from Huangxian, and very close by sea to the heavily fortified coastal town of Dengzhou. Maintaining a powerful base there would draw unwanted attention. Better to stay securely nestled in the hilly regions of Zhaoyuan—and Zhaoyuan had gold. Though that development was a story for later.

The place Lü Zeyang was heading to was the Xinzhuang area of Zhaoyuan, which backed onto Bohai Bay and echoed Qimu Island across the water. The Northbound Detachment's main fortified village in Zhaoyuan had been built at Xinzhuang. With this central fort as the core, seven or eight branch fortified villages radiated outward, controlling several dozen square kilometers of land.

The administrators and militia commanders of these fortified villages were all soldiers of the Northbound Detachment. Zhu Mingxia felt the regular armed forces deployed to Zhaoyuan had been diluted too thinly. Although Zhaoyuan boasted over a thousand militia on the books, in a sudden emergency these militia would be of limited use, requiring troop transfers from Longkou for reinforcement. So he transferred Lü Zeyang's unit to Zhaoyuan—conveniently placing an Elder there to oversee matters.

This place now served as the Northbound Detachment's reservoir. Any refugees who couldn't be evacuated in time during the summer break would be sent to the Zhaoyuan area to be "stockpiled." Since most shipping had stopped, currently only a few Special Reconnaissance transport boats shuttled between Shandong and Jeju Island, transporting refugees on a small scale. These boats were all sufficiently armed to protect themselves.

"Wonder if Zhaoyuan vermicelli tastes good," Elder Lü mused from horseback, pondering this question as they rode.

Huang Ande took Zhu Si and Cao Qing outside Huangxian city. He and his band of brothers inside the city had hidden for a while after Dengzhou fell before slipping out during the chaos. After spending half a month on Qimu Island, they were incorporated into the reconnaissance team.

Huang Ande had earned a military service medal—which meant he was one step closer to the rank of lieutenant.

In the beginning, reconnaissance work had been a job with one's head perpetually tucked under one's arm. Foot reconnaissance was extremely dangerous—the rebels were almost entirely mobile cavalry, and once discovered, death was certain. Rebels would simply kill any suspicious men they spotted. Mounted reconnaissance proved less risky; their weapons were superior and horses well-fed. Still, in such a cat-and-mouse game, scout casualties mounted steadily. One of Huang Ande's brothers had died in a reconnaissance operation—killed before ever seeing the beautiful scenery of Lingao that Huang Ande had boasted about.

As the situation evolved and a tacit "non-aggression" understanding developed between the rebels and Lu Wenyuan, scout operations gradually became less hazardous.

Today, however, they weren't on a reconnaissance mission. They had come to do business. All wore armbands as safe-passage markers. Huangxian was now effectively the rebels' main base of operations. Small groups of rebel activity roamed the roads everywhere, and without the agreed-upon armband, one risked being killed or captured en route.

"Doing business" meant obtaining population through trade with the rebels. Rebels often plundered entire villages and stockades—men, women, old, and young. Besides conscripting some able-bodied men as cannon fodder, women and children were commonly reduced to commodities, bought and sold among rebel soldiers and officers. Similar human markets existed not only in Huangxian but beneath the walls of Dengzhou and Laizhou as well.

A "market" of considerable scale had already formed a few li outside Huangxian city.

This had originally been a large stockade, a rather bustling and prosperous place. Since being breached by rebels, only broken walls and ruins remained. Because the stockade possessed a moat, the rebels used it as a human pen. Looted commoners were sent directly here for confinement, to await sale.

Several thousand commoners were stuffed into these ruins without a single roof tile over their heads. A well in the stockade made drinking water manageable. But food depended entirely on the guards' mood and the abundance of their own supplies. On good days, they might throw in some black, hard buns made of unknown ingredients; on bad days, not a morsel of food would appear for days on end.

The fortunate might be purchased after ten days or half a month—destined for someone's pleasure or assigned to cannon-fodder squads. The unfortunate could only suffer slowly in this living hell.

Thousands crowded together, exposed to sun and rain, with irregular food and water—epidemics soon ran rampant. Especially after the third lunar month passed, hundreds of corpses were dragged out daily. But the rebels cared nothing for this, because fresh refugees arrived continuously from everywhere—supply was never a concern. Some soldiers and officers would tire of women they had purchased, send them back here to sell, and buy fresh "goods."

Beyond population, there was the massive wealth plundered during looting. Though countless riches had been seized, soldiers constantly on the move couldn't carry heavy goods and wanted to exchange them for gold, silver, jewelry, and other portable valuables. Vast quantities of wealth were sold here at prices low enough to make one's hair stand on end.

It was precisely after discovering such "markets" in Huangxian, Laizhou, and elsewhere that Lu Wenyuan conceived the idea of doing business with the rebels.

And Kong Youde had also recognized Lu Wenyuan's intense interest in population. The rebels suffered from grain difficulties and urgently needed replenishment. This Master Lu seemed to possess grain in abundance—and since robbing him had proved impossible, trading with him seemed a suitable alternative. Thus he sent someone to propose: population for grain. The two sides hit it off immediately and reached a verbal agreement on the spot.

According to this arrangement, Lu Wenyuan dispatched several "household retainers" to Huangxian weekly to "inspect goods." Adult men and women were priced at 5,000 grams of grain, young children at 2,500 grams, the elderly at 1,000 grams. This "grain" could be any unhusked grain, dried potato slices, or "paper-wrapped grain bricks." If Master Lu chose to pay with "potatoes," the price doubled—after all, potatoes were fresh goods with significant water content.

The terms were harsh, but for Kong Youde this was the paramount matter of solving the eating problem. An army without grain was unstable; without grain, nothing could be done. If captured refugees could be exchanged for grain, it was equivalent to opening a new food source.

(End of Chapter)