Chapter 98: Gearing Up for War

“According to Yu E’shui’s account, a good Mongolian horse costs one thousand guan, a lesser one, eight hundred guan, and a mule, five hundred guan,” Wu De said with a smile. “You tell me. Just with these horses, how much is your pasture worth?”

“So valuable!” Whether it was Wu Nanhai, Yang Baogui, or Nick, they were all shocked by this price.

“So—” Wu De said, “the matter of the pasture will have to wait until after the bandit suppression campaign is over. We are also preparing to take over Dongchun Village. After everything is settled, it won’t be too late for you to build the pasture. At least it will be safer.”

“Where is this place?” Nick and the others, who had basically been shuttling between Bopu and Lingao since D-Day, were completely ignorant of these places.

“A small village at the foot of Biye Mountain,” Wu De said, knowing they probably didn’t know where Biye Mountain was either. “Biye Mountain is the main peak of Gaoshanling and is on the way to Damei Village. After we take it, it can serve as a stronghold to protect the transportation route.”

“When will the bandit suppression campaign begin?”

“That’s a secret,” Wu De smiled. “Actually, we can’t hide it from you, Nanhai. You’ll know when we start preparing military rations. The grunts are still training. It will be at least another month or two.”

Huang Xiong, holding a thin rattan cane, was shouting at his subordinates, “Left turn! Right turn! About face! You bunch of idiots!…” With that, he kicked a recruit who had turned the wrong way in the butt. The unlucky fellow immediately rolled in the mud, then quickly got up, a look of grievance on his face, because no one could understand what he was saying. Huang Xiong’s Mandarin had a very “Ming Dynasty flavor,” which was like a foreign language to the locals of Lingao.

There was no time to teach Mandarin anymore. Xi Yazhou had simply adopted the “learn by doing” method, letting the new recruits learn to accept commands in Mandarin during training. Perhaps they would learn it more deeply this way.

After the military review of the Political Consultative Conference, the soldiers of the training battalion had their promotion ceremony. Based on their performance and abilities in the army, most of them were promoted to the rank of corporal, a few became sergeants. A small number of outstanding soldiers were selected for officer training. The original native squad leaders were all promoted to officers this time. Huang Xiong was one of those promoted to second lieutenant.

Those who were wounded and disabled in previous battles received severance pay and were discharged. They were assigned to different departments to work according to their remaining labor capacity. Those with limited mobility became gatekeepers at various departments and factories.

A very small number of soldiers from the training battalion were neither immediately promoted to non-commissioned officers nor sent to officer training. They participated in a short-term training class organized by the Political Security General Administration in Bairen City, where they received training and indoctrination for political security tasks.

Those selected for the training were politically loyal to the transmigrator group. After the training, they were still integrated into the army with the rank of sergeant. Each battalion had ten such sergeants, known as the “Ten-Man Group,” who were responsible for consolidating the troops, preventing desertion, defection, and infiltration by enemy agents. This system had already been secretly implemented during the training battalion era. The identities of these people were confidential; even Xi Yazhou did not know who the members of the “Ten-Man Group” were.

First, it was the non-commissioned officers, and later it was planned to gradually expand to the ordinary soldiers. According to the plan of the Political Security General Administration, in the future, a “Ten-Man Group” system would be established in every company, with one “political soldier” in each squad, forming a checks and balances system with the officers, non-commissioned officers, and the soldiers’ committee, to tightly control the army.

A large number of new recruits then began to build their own barracks under the command of the non-commissioned officers. They were assigned to these newly promoted NCOs according to their units and began training. Based on the problems revealed in the first phase of the training battalion, the Military Committee revised the entire training outline and combat manual, further emphasizing drill, marksmanship, and field engineering training. In particular, the drill training would be led by Lin Shenhe, who would conduct specialized training on 19th-century infantry drill formations.

In addition to the original infantry training battalion, the army planned to form another standard six-company infantry battalion.

A special forces training detachment was established, consisting of one company each of communications, engineering, and logistics, with an attached carrier pigeon team. Compared to the temperamental horses, pigeons bred much faster.

The artillery training detachment was expanded with an army field artillery company. At the suggestion of the artillery work leadership group, the army field artillery unified its equipment, equipping only three basic types of cannons: the 12-pounder M1857 cannon, the M1841 12-pounder mountain howitzer, and the M1841 24-pounder howitzer. All miscellaneous cannons under the field artillery were melted down.

The General Staff carefully stationed the troops for training in the various controlled areas of the transmigrator group. The largest scale in any one place did not exceed a battalion. In Ma Qianzhu’s view, in a place like Lingao, operating with an infantry battalion as the basic unit was sufficient. Lin Shenhe held the same view. In his training and combat plan, he clearly proposed that the infantry would operate with the battalion as the basic unit, while the cavalry, artillery, engineers, and logistics would operate with the company as the basic unit. The regiment would only be used as a combined arms unit.

The navy’s marine force was also expanded by one company. The Naval Department had originally intended to expand it into a marine battalion, but the navy’s sailors and fortress artillerymen had taken up most of the new recruits allocated to the navy. In addition, the Military Committee had made it clear that the navy did not need to expand its land-based combat capabilities for the time being and should focus on its naval forces.

After being promoted to second lieutenant, Huang Xiong became a platoon leader. Although Huang Xiong was not familiar with the 20th-century military system, he easily understood that he had returned from the ranks of “soldiers” to the ranks of “officers.” This lowest-ranking “second lieutenant” was probably equivalent to a captain or lieutenant in the Ming army.

However, the officers of the Australians were obviously not as comfortable as those of the Ming. This was not in terms of money, but in terms of lording it over others. In the past, becoming a captain was almost like being a local emperor. The soldiers under him were basically his servants. But here, with the Australians, as a non-commissioned officer or officer, one had the right to manage the soldiers under one’s command strictly according to military regulations and discipline. But abusing soldiers without reason or extorting money from them was absolutely not allowed. Every company had a soldiers’ committee, which would often come down to the company to lecture on the rights of soldiers. Once a soldier “complained” or, in the new terminology, “filed a complaint,” the soldiers’ committee would send people to investigate secretly and report the results to the “chiefs.” The outcome was predictable. Huang Xiong knew of a non-commissioned officer who, after being promoted, had asked his new recruits to buy him meat and wine to celebrate. After being discovered by the soldiers’ committee and reported, he was immediately docked three months’ pay and demoted to private first class.

Tian Liang was also promoted. His performance was average, so he was only promoted to corporal and became the leader of a new recruit squad, drilling nine new brothers every day. His Mandarin was not standard, and he would still speak his hometown dialect when he got anxious. But being able to wear a cloth patch with three yellow stripes on his bare shoulder already made Tian Liang very happy. He was no longer an ordinary grunt; he was now a “non-commissioned officer,” big or small. His military pay had also increased. He had always wanted to find Guo Fu and show her his current appearance. But the Bairen General Hospital where she worked was not a place one could enter casually, and the army’s training tasks were particularly busy. Besides training, they had to participate in labor for two days a week. The troops, by company, were assigned to work on various construction sites. Work, training, and the nightly cultural and political studies exhausted everyone, leaving basically no time to think about other things.

Although it was just training and work every day, rumors of an impending war had already spread among the officers. The perceptive transmigrators already knew the next target from the change in the propaganda climate—bandit suppression.

A month ago, the content of the army’s training had changed. The troops were made to conduct combat in small squad groups in the mountains to train their mountain combat capabilities, and the curriculum for long-range precision shooting was strengthened. In addition to the change in training content, a more obvious sign was that in the weekly fixed political study sessions, victims of bandits from all over the county began to appear. These people, old and young, would cry and complain on the stage, telling the soldiers about the terrible things they had suffered at the hands of the bandits. Since most of the new recruits were from Lingao, they had also had personal experience with the harm caused by bandits. Under the clever guidance of the “political soldiers,” many new recruits also jumped on stage to condemn the scourge of banditry, and the atmosphere was quickly stirred up.

Thus, it was unknown who started it, but crooked “letters of challenge” and “letters of determination” began to appear in droves on the blackboards of every company.

“Immediately publish a series of reports on the local bandit problem in the Lingao Times,” Dingding received a call from the propaganda department in the editorial office.

“Alright,” Dingding quickly picked up a pencil. “What’s the focus of the report?”

“There are four points to note: first, clearly state that the local bandit problem is a historical factor and has nothing to do with the current county magistrate; second, hint that the long-term nature of the bandit problem is related to certain local gentry and yamen runners; third, focus on the impact of the bandit problem on the local people’s livelihood; fourth, do not explicitly or implicitly state what attitude the transmigrator group will take towards the bandits.”

“Understood,” Dingding thought for a moment and jotted down a few ideas in his notebook.

“But I don’t have any materials. I need to find interviewees…”

“You can come to the Intelligence Committee tomorrow to get the materials. From now on, go and get them once every Monday,” the person on the phone instructed. “As for interviews, we will arrange them and notify you by phone when the time comes.”

“Got it,” Dingding wrote quickly, his pen flying across the paper.

“The proofs before publication must be submitted to the propaganda department for review. You must also attend at that time.”

“I’ll be there.”

“In addition to the archival copies of the newspaper, the distribution of this batch of newspapers must be well arranged to ensure that most of them are distributed to the local people.” The phone hung up.

“Are they preparing to suppress the bandits?” Dingding said to himself. He didn’t dare to delay. He quickly found someone to get Zhou Dongtian to discuss the layout. As for the writing, he naturally had to ask Du Wen to do it—she had a unique ability to combine and fabricate historical materials and data.

He Ming, in a neat Year One gray army uniform, strode into the General Staff’s operations conference room with an 80-centimeter stride. Everyone in the conference room stood up and saluted with a “shua” sound.

He Ming returned the salute. Although he was only in his early fifties, his hair was already a little gray, cut very short. He looked very energetic.

He had no pleasantries. “Comrades, the first bandit suppression work conference is now in session.” With that, he pulled open the map curtain behind him with a “shua” sound, revealing a large-scale map of Lingao, covered with a wipeable transparent sheet, already marked with many red and blue symbols.

“Now, I invite the Intelligence Committee to report on the bandit situation in Lingao.”

Luo Duo stood up and opened a thick folder in his hand.

“Comrades, the booklet in front of you is a comprehensive investigation report on the bandit situation in Lingao from our social work department.”

A rustling sound of flipping through booklets immediately followed.

“…According to the comprehensive information from our various departments, the bandit situation in Lingao is as follows—”

The bandit problem in Lingao was very serious. In ancient society, the government’s control over the local areas was very weak. In slightly remote places, there were often bandit activities. Even during the so-called prosperous era of Kangxi and Qianlong, there were large bandit strongholds in the Miaofengshan area, which was only a hundred li from the capital. Lingao was located on the frontier and had long been sparsely populated. Both the government and the local gentry had limited power to maintain social order. This made bandit activities extremely rampant.

Luo Duo said, “According to our investigation, there are thirty-eight bandit gangs with more than fifty active members in the county; seven with more than one hundred, not including many stay-at-home bandits who farm during the day and rob at night.”

This number caused a stir in the crowd. It should be known that the actual population of Lingao, according to the estimation of the civil affairs department, was about seventy to eighty thousand people. A county with a population of less than one hundred thousand had so many bandits!

Due to the geographical environment, the bandit activities here were also characterized by collusion with pirates. Every time pirates landed, there were bandits colluding with them. The bandits’ lairs often became pirate dens. And when the bandits were pursued by the government or local militias, they would use the pirates’ boats to escape to the sea, making it very difficult to suppress them. It wasn’t that the successive county magistrates hadn’t tried, but their efforts were very limited. The widespread establishment of local militias and the training of local braves could only provide limited self-protection for the local areas.

If the transmigrators wanted to implement social investigation in Lingao and carry out reforms in civil affairs and agriculture, it was impossible without a stable social order. It was unimaginable that every transmigrator work team sent to the countryside would have to be escorted by a large number of armed forces. The various infrastructure projects to be built subsequently could not have watchtowers built along the entire line with soldiers standing guard.