Chapter Eighty: More Details of the Bandits

“Although the bandits’ cannons are not heavy, their power cannot be underestimated.” Gou Chengxuan then recounted the scene of the cannon fire demonstration during the military parade. When he spoke of the violent explosions in the target area during the shelling, he even flinched his neck.

“The bandits just buried sulfur and saltpeter under the hill and fired a cannonball to ignite it,” He Rubin said with a smile to those around him. “This kind of trick is not new, it’s just to scare the ignorant natives.”

The staff and generals once again offered praises such as “the garrison commander has a high opinion,” “sees things as clearly as a fire,” and “has foresight.”

…

“You say you have fought with the bandits yourself. What formation do the bandits use when they fight? What methods do they use to break fortresses and attack cities? How do they fight? Tell me everything!”

Gou Chengxuan secretly complained. The so-called fighting with the bandits was nonsense. When the Gou family village was slaughtered, he had already fled with his father. How could he have seen how the Australians attacked the fortress? It was only later that he learned from people that they had used explosives to blow up the gate to finally break the fortress.

As for the Australians’ field battles, when Huang Shoutong led the county’s village braves to attack Bairen Fortress, the Gou family village had sent out more than a dozen village braves. So although he had not been on the scene himself, he still knew a lot from the returning village braves, and he could probably still fool them.

He then recounted the process of the Transmigration Group’s attack on the Gou family village and Huang Shoutong’s attack on Bairen Fortress with the village braves and militia. Of course, there were many parts that he had fabricated. But Gou Chengxuan was a scholar after all, and his writing and eloquence were better than those of ordinary rural tyrants and common people, so he spoke quite coherently, and the staff and generals present listened very carefully.

He Rubin asked a few more military questions. Gou Chengxuan actually knew very little about the Transmigration Group’s military aspects. After all, he was just a commoner, and in order to avoid suspicion, he did not dare to go to the training grounds and the port to watch the fun often. He basically relied on listening to gossip on the streets, but even so, he was already someone who knew a lot about the “bandits’” military.

Gou Chengxuan actually knew more about the Transmigration Group’s intelligence in civil affairs, infrastructure, and social relations, but He Rubin was not very interested in this. The bandits’ road construction, river dredging, and dam building had no meaning to him.

He Rubin’s questions, some he knew a little about, so he tried to talk more. Some he was not clear about, but he also made up some things on the spot, and also picked some things that the Ming people would find novel and embellished them. For example, the bandits kept a group of women to take care of the sick, and there were also women in the bandits’ army, who were organized into a separate team to run errands and deliver messages.

“The bandits call themselves descendants of the Great Song. I think even if it’s true, after being overseas for a long time, they have also been infected with the customs of the overseas barbarians,” a staff member said.

“The bandits are really a group of greedy and lustful people!” Chang Qingyun couldn’t help but comment. “Women are even used in the army! The army is a place of extreme yang. For women to be mixed in it is against the way of heaven. How can there be no reason for defeat!”

“That’s not right! There have been women in the army in ancient times, which is not surprising,” Lu Yizhong said. Although He Rubin was very polite to him in his staff and gave him generous gifts, he was obviously “honorably retired” and did not talk much with him when discussing real business. This made Adviser Lu, who was known for being “knowledgeable about military affairs,” very unhappy, especially Chang Qingyun, who, relying on being the general’s confidant, was usually the most prominent. This time, he decided to severely dampen his spirit. He then commented, “As far back as Princess Pingyang of the Tang Dynasty, and as recently as our dynasty’s Lady Qin. Last year, when Lady Qin led troops to relieve the king, she was summoned to the platform by the emperor once and was given four imperial poems, which is still a beautiful story in the country. What’s so strange about the bandits having a few women in the army?”

This hat was not only big but also heavy. It had both ancient and contemporary examples. At that time, Qin Liangyu’s reputation was very great, and she had also received a title from the emperor. Chang Qingyun had no room for self-defense. His face turned red, and he was speechless.

Because there was an example from the current dynasty, and Lu Yizhong had also brought out the emperor’s name, no one dared to say anything about women in the camp being against the way of heaven.

“Your Excellency, you may not know, but among the bandits, there are many female officials and female generals,” Gou Chengxuan, seeing that the masters were very interested in this matter, knew that his words had hit the mark. He quickly recounted the famous female Elders in the Transmigration Group one by one. Although there were dozens of female Elders in the Transmigration Group, for a native like Gou Chengxuan who was not in the system, the ones they were most familiar with were the few who often appeared in public, such as Li Mei, Du Wen, and Dong Weiwei.

“…Most of the bandit women are tall, over five feet. They call themselves descendants of the Chinese, but they are very different from Chinese women—”

Gou Chengxuan secretly glanced at the expressions of the staff and generals. Seeing that they did not show any impatience or anger, he continued to say that the bandit women were not only tall, but also larger in build than Chinese women. Their skin was also very fair, and they all had natural feet and could run freely. They could also read and write, and even practiced with firearms…

He spoke with great enthusiasm, adding a lot of hearsay and fabricated content. The crowd also listened with fascination. Chang Qingyun thought to himself, he wondered what these bandit women with slender waists, broad shoulders, full breasts, and plump buttocks, as well as fair skin and large eyes, looked like. Thinking of this, his heart couldn’t help but feel a little restless. He planned that once the work was done, he had to find a few real bandit women and interrogate them carefully.

It was not until He Rubin coughed that Gou Chengxuan’s speech about the “bandit women” finally came to an end.

“You have been in Lingao for a long time. How do the gentry in Lingao get along with the bandits? Is the popular sentiment usable?”

Gou Jicheng’s spirits were greatly lifted: as long as he insisted that a certain household was colluding with the bandits, when the court’s army arrived, that household would at least lose their property, and at worst, their entire family would be exterminated. This was a great opportunity for personal revenge and to fill his own pockets.

Because of this, he had to act with caution. Because he had accompanied his father to file a complaint, he had stayed in various places in Guangdong for more than a year, and his horizons had been greatly broadened. He knew that the power of the local gentry was extremely great. Many small local officials looked unimpressive and did not have much family property, but they were connected to the central officials of the province and the northern and southern capitals through thousands of threads of relationships. Classmates, fellow countrymen, family friends, teachers and friends… they formed a network that even high court officials had to be wary of. If he made a false accusation, it would only bring him imprisonment or even death.

Gou Chengxuan had secretly noted down the few households that had the deepest collusion with the bandits. He had originally planned to use the opportunity of the government army’s arrival in Lingao to extort a large sum of money from them. There were also a few households that could not be said to have any collusion with the bandits, but had just followed the trend and supplied grain, provisions, and able-bodied men. But because they had either offended the Gou family in the past or were wealthy, they were all included in Gou Chengxuan’s list of “colluding with the bandits.”

First, he wanted to deal with Huang Shoutong. This old fellow had always been hostile to the Gou family in the past and had spoken ill of his family in front of the county magistrate several times. Gou Chengxuan also knew that Huang Shoutong had had a secret discussion with the previous county magistrate, preparing to arrest the entire Gou family and charge them with the crime of harboring bandits. Fortunately, the previous county magistrate was afraid that arresting the Gou family would attract the pirates’ revenge, so he let it go.

This time, if he could brand this old scoundrel Huang Shoutong as a “defector,” the Huang family village would be doomed! Gou Chengxuan secretly hoped so.

But Huang Shoutong was not an ordinary person. He himself had cooperated with the government army many times to fight the Li people and resist the pirates. He was a famous figure in the local area, and the Hainan government army had benefited a lot from him. His second son had a title, and he was the one who took the lead in attacking Bairen Fortress. His third son was even killed by the bandits. This was known to everyone in Lingao, so it was very difficult to frame him.

Recently, because of the matter of the land survey, Huang Shoutong’s second son, Huang Bingkun, had also established a relationship with Liu Dalin. The words of one Liu Dalin were much more weighty than his own. Thinking of this, he decided not to name names for the time being, and to leave some room for maneuver.

Gou Chengxuan said cautiously: “Although Lingao is a southern border land, the might of the court is still there. There are gentry who secretly collude, but I have never seen anyone who has openly defected to the bandits. If we investigate carefully, we may not find anything that is done secretly…”

Gou Chengxuan raised his head slightly and glanced at He Rubin. Seeing that he was smiling but not showing any expression, he knew that the general-in-chief did not want to determine who was “following the bandits” so quickly. He understood the official’s thoughts. “As soon as the court’s heavenly troops arrive, the gentry will naturally serve the court with all their heart.”

“So, the popular sentiment in Lingao is usable?”

Gou Chengxuan knew that although most of the common people in Lingao were afraid that they would be implicated after the government army arrived in Lingao, they had no good feelings for the government at all. Many people, because they had just lived a relatively stable life, even had a great deal of resentment towards the government’s suppression campaign. Even among the local gentry and large households, there were not a few who had such thoughts—compared to the bandits occupying Lingao, they were more afraid of the government army coming to arbitrarily seize grain, kill people, and extort property. As for the Australians’ own subjects, they were even more hostile to the government, and had a spirit of common hatred. The government did not even have the hearts of the people in Lingao, so how could it be said to be “usable”?

But he did not dare to say such words. He could only say very euphemistically:

“The people of Lingao long for the king’s army as they long for sweet rain after a long drought. It’s just that the bandits are overwhelmingly powerful in Lingao. They usually use harsh punishments, and there are many patrols and secret agents. If one is not careful with one’s words, one will be arrested and sent to do hard labor. Moreover, the bandits’ firearms are sharp, and breaking a fortress is as easy as turning over one’s hand. Even the gentry and large households have to be hypocritical with them and dare not to be slow in providing grain and men.”

“Magistrate Wu is still in the county town, and the Ming government is still there. Why are the people so afraid of the bandits?”

Gou Chengxuan heard that this was an opportunity to put in a bad word for Wu Mingjin, so he quickly said: “Although Master Wu is defending the county town and has not lost it, he is defending an isolated city, and his orders do not go beyond the city gates. The bandits are almost in an uninhabited land in Lingao County.”

He Rubin just said “hmm.” Whether Wu Mingjin had failed in his duty or not had nothing to do with him. What he was most concerned about was the situation of the local grain and village braves in Lingao.

Gou Chengxuan said that there was not much grain stored in the county. Last year, there was a wind disaster, and the Wenlan River flooded, submerging a lot of farmland. The autumn grain production was greatly reduced.

“Since the production was greatly reduced, where did the bandits get their grain?”

“The bandits brought people from the mainland to be their tenant farmers. The bandits have their own secret methods of farming, and their grain harvest is much more than that of the common people,” Gou Chengxuan knew that fighting a war was an opportunity for everyone from top to bottom to make a fortune. In order to boost morale, he immediately spoke with great exaggeration, saying that the bandits had a large amount of grain and rice stored in their fortress, as well as a lot of sugar transported from Leizhou. As for all kinds of Australian goods, they were piled up like mountains… This speech made everyone present show a greedy look. The wealth of the Australians already had a small reputation in Guangdong, especially this time when the three businesses of the Zi brand were seized. It was said that countless goods and property were seized, and everyone who handled it made a small fortune. Since Lingao was their main base, the goods and property must be countless.

As for the village braves, Gou Chengxuan said that although there were many local village braves, because they were weak and could not match the bandits’ firearms, they only defended within their fortresses.

He Rubin and his staff and generals then asked about the bandits’ deployment in Lingao. Gou Chengxuan said that the bandits had five camps in Lingao, not just one Bopu camp. This news attracted his great attention, because so far, whenever the reports mentioned the bandits’ camp, they only mentioned Bopu, and never mentioned that there were several others.

He Rubin immediately had someone bring a map and asked him to mark the locations one by one.

“I don’t know how to read a map…”

“It doesn’t matter, you just tell me the place names,” He Rubin instructed a secretary who was in charge of maps to draw the locations on the map according to what he said.

“The bandits have a total of five large camps, called Bairen, Bopu, Maniao, Gaoshan, and Nanbao. There are also many arrow towers and fortresses,” Gou Chengxuan, seeing the general’s great attention, couldn’t help but feel excited and show off.

The secretary circled the locations on the map one by one according to the place names he said and then presented it to the desk.

He Rubin took a quick look and was secretly shocked. If what Gou Chengxuan said was true, then the bandits’ penetration in Lingao was far beyond their original estimate. They were not like the Westerners who only occupied the ports along the coast of the river mouth—it should be known that this Nanbao was already on the border of the Li area, and was already the hinterland of Lingao County.

“The bandits use Bairen as their core and vital point, and most of the real bandits live there,” Gou Chengxuan said. “It is said that the pseudo-governors Wen Desi and Ma Qianzhu also live there. All the bandits’ orders are issued from the Bairen Fortress. This fortress is extremely heavily guarded, with high walls and deep moats, and is also surrounded by barbed wire. Even the fake bandits they trust cannot enter. Outside the fortress, they have set up a market to attract merchants to do business…”

He Rubin’s face suddenly darkened, and he scolded: “Bold!”

Gou Chengxuan was originally speaking with great enthusiasm. Suddenly, He Rubin’s angry reprimand scared him so much that he immediately knelt on the ground and did not dare to speak.

He Rubin, because Lu Yizhong was present, and Gou Chengxuan’s words had overturned the original statement that the bandits’ main base was in Bopu, and this was the tone set by the governor. Now this Lingao native was openly saying that there was a Bairen Fortress less than a dozen li away from the county town, and that was the bandits’ old camp.

What this person said was most likely true, but it was not acceptable to deny the leader’s judgment—this was true in ancient and modern times.

“The bandits’ old camp, this general has long heard of it, it is in Bopu. Where did your so-called Bairen strong fortress come from?! Are you deceiving this general?”

“I dare not, I dare not,” Gou Chengxuan kowtowed repeatedly. His mind was racing. He was speaking so well, why did General He suddenly deny the existence of Bairen Fortress? The scale and defense of this Bairen City was second to none among all the Australian camps in Lingao. Even if he didn’t say it, the spies sent by the government army could see it.

His mind was extremely flexible, and he made a decision in an instant: no matter what the reason for He Rubin’s anger was, he had to follow his words. He quickly said:

“Yes, yes, I am ignorant. This was originally something I heard from hearsay, and I couldn’t distinguish it for a moment and spoke nonsense. But there is indeed a Bairen Fortress, with hundreds of bandits stationed there.”

He Rubin glanced sideways at Lu Yizhong and saw that he was just stroking his beard and nodding. He knew that Gou Chengxuan’s words were still appropriate. Only then did he soften his tone: “You continue to speak!”

“Yes, yes,” Gou Chengxuan kowtowed and then told the location and defense of several camps. He had not personally spied on the two camps of Nanbao and Gaoshanling—he had heard that Nanbao was mining and quarrying, and he was afraid that if he went rashly, he would be captured as a laborer. As for Gaoshanling, although it was on the old site of the Gou family village, he had heard that the defense there was very strict, and unrelated natives were completely forbidden to go there. So he did not dare to go and spy.

But from He Rubin’s attitude just now, he had guessed that the government army did not want the bandits to have many camps. So he described Nanbao, Gaoshanling, and other places as small fortresses of no great scale, with a few hundred fake bandits stationed in each. But he did not dare to say the same about Maniao, because when he left Lingao, he had passed by Maniao and had personally seen that a fortress city and forts had been built there, and a large number of troops had also been assembled. If he made the government army take it lightly and suffer a defeat in Maniao, his own head would not be safe.

Fortunately, since he had quickly recognized that Bopu was the bandits’ old camp, He Rubin had not shown any signs of anger again. Only then did he dare to finish his words.

Lu Yizhong suddenly asked: “You said the bandits’ leader is called…”

“To answer your question, my lord, one is called Ma Qianzhu, and the other is called Wen Desi.”

“Have you seen these two?”

“I have only seen them from a distance,” Gou Chengxuan was telling the truth. He did not dare to get too close to the Transmigrationists, let alone the big leaders among them.

“In their country, what position do these two hold? Do they have a title? Why did they not avoid the danger of thousands of miles of waves and lead the bandits to harass our great Ming?” Compared to He Rubin, Lu Yizhong was more concerned about the origin of the bandits. “It is said that they call themselves descendants of the Chinese. Is this true?”

Gou Chengxuan said: “To answer your question, my lord, the bandits do indeed call themselves descendants of the Chinese. They can read Chinese characters, but they all write in a simplified form. According to them, they are descendants of the Song people. After the defeat at Yaishan, their ancestors led their troops and ships south, and after many hardships, they came across a large island called Australia. Seeing that the water and soil were fertile, they established a country in Australia, called ‘Ao-Song’.”

This rumor had long since spread to Guangdong, but it was not so detailed. Lu Yizhong became very interested.

“Since they use Song as their country’s name, is the country’s ruler a descendant of the Song emperor?”

“I don’t know,” Gou Chengxuan had also heard these things from hearsay.

A staff member next to him said: “If they are descendants of the Song imperial family, how can they have shaved heads and short clothes? Isn’t that changing from Chinese to barbarian?”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Lu Yizhong shook his head. “After living in a foreign barbarian land for a long time, it is inevitable.”

“In my opinion, this group of bandits is just using the name of the Song imperial family.”

…