Chapter 1292 - Sending Off
Each batch of ships, once emptied, sailed to the quarantine anchorage. All sailors went ashore to undergo "purification" as well. Then the next batch of ships approached for unloading. Any vessels not yet scheduled waited at anchor until summoned.
The Dafa speedboat emitted plumes of black smoke as it shuttled among the ships, its loudspeakers continuously broadcasting the "Letter to All Military Personnel of Dengzhou, Laizhou, and Dongjiang."
Under the dark muzzles of the cannons, it mattered not how fearsome a tiger-wolf army they had been when they terrorized the soldiers and civilians of Shandong. Now they could only submit to capture, their fate entirely in the hands of others. Though they still held swords and spears, though quite a few cannons and muskets remained aboard their ships, it all counted for nothing before the gun muzzles trained upon them.
The soldiers trapped on the ships, confronting their complete powerlessness, paradoxically relaxed. Some even fell sound asleep on the decks.
Li Jiucheng and the others refused to accept that everything they had built would simply be taken from them. As soldiers in a chaotic age, the army was their capital. Such men considered whoever offered provisions their master; so long as pay was forthcoming, they cared little who received the fruits of their labor.
The problem was that Manor Lord Lu—whether he called himself "Great Song" or something else—showed absolutely no interest in recruiting them. If he had, an envoy should have arrived to negotiate by now.
Instead, his current approach made clear that he intended to disarm and absorb their forces entirely.
Disarmament and absorption mattered little to common soldiers. Provisions were provisions; selling their lives to anyone was the same. But for commanders who had led troops with pride and independence, this was nothing less than complete catastrophe. The other party regarded them as worthless. From this, their likely fate was obvious: "idle retirement" at best—or immediate execution at worst.
They could not simply sit and wait for death. To maintain control over the ships, Li Jiucheng had distributed his trusted officers across the various vessels. He retained only one Central Army Guerrilla General at his side. Fortunately, the men aboard his own ship were all personal guards and household retainers, fully armored. A single command, and every one of them would go through fire and water for him.
He immediately summoned his Central Army and several trusted officers to confer. When their ship's turn came to dock, they would not obey the command to approach the pier—once on the pier, surrounded by iron nets and towers on all sides, they would be fish in a trap. Instead, they would charge directly onto the sandy beach near the pier.
Through his telescope, Li Jiucheng had already observed that the enemy forces on shore were few—at most four thousand men. None wore armor; some did not even carry firearms, only long spears. Sturdy ships and sharp cannons notwithstanding, in close quarters combat, they might not be the match for his battle-hardened desperadoes. If the beaching succeeded, the rebel troops on other ships going ashore would certainly riot in response. Compared to the uncertain future of being disarmed and slaughtered at will, his followers would far prefer to take their chances in open battle.
Whatever this place truly was, whoever these islanders were, however many might die in the riot—he still had twenty thousand men. Even if half were lost, so long as he retained command of the remainder, everything would be negotiable.
"Fight to the death, everyone! Let the fish die and the net break!" Li Jiucheng exhorted his subordinates. "There is plenty of silver aboard. After this battle, brothers can take whatever they want! Don't let it fall into strangers' hands for nothing!"
"We are willing to die for the General!" The crowd roared their affirmation. He then summoned the sailors aboard, distributed heavy rewards of silver, and demanded they prepare to beach the ship on his command.
"Once we reach the beachhead—fifty taels per man! Otherwise, don't blame our brothers if our swords have no eyes!" Li Jiucheng snarled.
The sailors dared not refuse.
At last their group of ships was summoned to dock. All vessels had lowered their sails and were propelled by large oars, gliding slowly toward the pier. Just as they approached close enough to moor, the oars on one ship suddenly accelerated. Additional oars plunged into the water. The vessel surged forward, its rudder swinging hard to one side, charging directly toward the sandy beach beyond the barbed wire perimeter.
The warships of the Second Fleet, maintaining constant surveillance, had received standing orders: any ship exhibiting abnormal behavior was to be warned once, then fired upon. A Special Service Boat positioned nearest to Li Jiucheng's flagship immediately fired a warning cannon. When the ship did not alter course, two Special Service Boats on the perimeter line opened fire simultaneously. The range was less than three hundred meters. One shell struck the beach, throwing up a column of water and sand. The other punched clean through the flagship's hull, killing twenty-five men before breaking through the opposite side and splashing into the sea.
Driven by momentum and tide, Li Jiucheng's flagship ground onto the beach. Li Jiucheng, fully armored and brandishing a great saber, bellowed and leapt down from the ship. The surviving retainers and guards followed with howls, vaulting over both railings. Though the flagship was on the smaller side, and the drop from bulwark to beach after grounding was not high, many men were injured or mired in quicksand upon landing.
In this moment of chaos, the shore guns opened fire. Hailstorms of grapeshot sprayed toward the grounded ship, followed by the hammering fire of machine guns. The Special Service Boats on the perimeter joined in. Grenades and incendiary bombs rained down upon the beach.
Li Jiucheng's flagship became an instant hell of lead and flame. Bullets fell like summer rain; black smoke billowed skyward. Within minutes, the ship was shattered. The beach was strewn with burning debris and scattered human remains.
Feng Zongze raised a handkerchief to his nose. The sea wind carried the smell of roasting meat closer, and he felt a surge of nausea when he considered the source.
"Send the Jeju Island Advance Column to search. Leave no one alive. Cut off every head and hang them on wooden poles."
The Jeju Island Advance Column was composed entirely of Shandong refugees rescued during the Dengzhou mutiny. Every one of them bore bitter hatred for the rebels. They would show no mercy during the search.
The swift and brutal suppression extinguished any remaining thought of resistance among the rebel commanders. In the end, the entire rebel army was completely disarmed.
More than two hundred rebel officers at the rank of squad leader or above were screened out after disarmament. Except for a handful of generals from the Lu Army and Southern Army who had originally served in the Dengzhou Garrison, the rest were escorted to the Jeju drill ground. More than ten thousand rebel prisoners already stood in hollow square formations, coerced into compliance by machine guns, Minié rifles, and the long spears of the White Horse Detachment.
Kong Youde was separated from the other commanders. He was escorted alone into the martial arts hall of the drill ground. Watching Korean servants carrying trays of wine and white rice toward the generals assembled on the grounds, he understood that his life would end here.
Among the gathered generals, some sat ashen-faced and paralyzed on the ground. Others closed their eyes in silence, merely waiting to stretch out their necks for execution. Some wept and begged. Others raged and struggled with all their remaining strength.
Memories flashed before Kong Youde's eyes: following his father to riot in Tieling and resist the Manchus; joining the army at Guangning; rising step by step to the rank of Guerrilla General; following Commander Mao to Dongjiang after the Guangning Garrison was withdrawn; the internal strife that tore Dongjiang apart after Commander Mao was beheaded; defecting to Dengzhou under Sun Yuanhua's command; reinforcing Dalinghe; rising with Li Jiucheng at Wuqiao... Every scene of his life seemed to pass before him in swift succession. A thousand flavors of sorrow welled up, and for a moment he could barely breathe.
As a soldier, he had long made peace with the possibility of death at any moment. Yet now, standing at the end, he felt a trace of bitter unwillingness. What manner of man was this Master Lu? Why had he laid trap upon trap to bring doom upon the old Dongjiang soldiers?
At that moment, several guards who looked Japanese escorted a young man into the hall. He was short-haired and dressed in close-fitting modern clothes. Attendants following him carried wine and food.
The newcomer poured a cup of wine and presented it with both hands. His manner was entirely polite. Kong Youde had long since put life and death from his mind. He accepted the wine and drained it in a single draught.
"Who might you be?"
"I am Feng Zongze, Prefect of Jeju Prefecture of the Great Song." Feng Zongze inclined his head. "I have come specially to see the General off."
Kong Youde had no idea where this "Great Song" had emerged from, but clearly these people were of the same faction as Master Lu.
He raised his voice. "What enmity do I and the old soldiers of Dongjiang have with your esteemed organization?"
Feng Zongze spoke gravely. "We bear no enmity toward the General. I come today to offer a farewell cup of wine. I respect the General for raising arms against the Barbarians in your youth, and for following Commander Mao through bitter struggle in the ice and snow of the Liao Sea, guarding a foothold in Liaodong for the Great Ming."
Kong Youde did not know what the other party intended by dredging up old matters—yet these were indeed the "glorious days" of which he remained proud.
"If that is so, why put me and the Dongjiang soldiers to death?"
"It is not that we wish to put the General to death. We greatly respect the General's prestige and the sincere heart of loyalty you once showed the Great Ming. It is simply that the hundreds of thousands of skeletons beneath Dengzhou's walls cannot agree." He raised his hand and pointed to the soldiers of the Security Army Jeju Advance Column lined up in the distance. "Every one of these men is a refugee transported by Master Lu from Dengzhou. They too wish to ask you: they bore no enmity toward you or the Dongjiang soldiers. Why did you slaughter their families and fellow villagers?"
Since taking up arms, Kong Youde had forged an iron heart through years of war. He believed in the saying that "a general's success is built upon ten thousand withered bones" and had never spared thought for the villages he ordered massacred in the pursuit of grain, provisions, and conscripts. To these old Ming soldiers who had become semi-warlords, such actions were simply matters of course. The soldiers themselves cared nothing; even the civil officials sent to supervise the armies, with their mouths full of "benevolence and righteousness," "the sovereign is light, the people are important," and "the people are the foundation," often turned blind eyes. This was a world in chaos. Without silver and grain, they still depended on warriors who licked blood from their blades and fought for their lives with sword and spear. What did killing a few commoners and seizing some provisions matter?
"Could it be that you are a band of benevolent and righteous gentlemen?" Kong Youde sneered.
"Since returning to the Divine Land, my Senate has taken as its purpose the love and protection of the people. Our swords never stain themselves with the blood of the innocent! Heaven, Earth, Sun, and Moon bear witness!" Feng Zongze proclaimed with righteous conviction. He drew out a document and began reading the verdict issued by the Tribunal.
Kong Youde could not understand much of the document, written in a peculiar mixture of classical and vernacular styles studded with unfamiliar "New Words," but he understood the final words well enough: "death penalty." He rose slowly and spoke with composure. "The winner becomes king and the loser becomes bandit. Since I have fallen into your hands, I am at your disposal. What more is there to say?"
Feng Zongze wasted no more words. "See General Kong on his way."
Kong Youde did not wait for anyone to urge him. He strode toward the door, then paused suddenly. "Who are you? What exactly do you want?"
"The Senate," Feng Zongze replied, "exists to recreate the Divine Land."