Chapter 133: The Fish and the Water

Every armed patrol would result in some casualties. This war of attrition meant little to the bandits—the leaders didn’t care if a few of their men died. But the continuous loss of trained soldiers was a serious blow to the army’s morale. “We learned this lesson from our operations in Iraq. Even when the enemy is using old bolt-action rifles with worn-out rifling and fertilizer bombs, they can still pose a significant threat to small patrols,” Xue Ziliang said. “But back then, we had complete air superiority. The air force provided essential intelligence and fire support. What about Lingao? Lingao has no laser-guided bombs, no Apaches, and certainly no 24-hour drones on duty. And in Iraq, every patrol had armored vehicles for support.”

“We’ll give each patrol an armored ox-cart!”

The crowd burst into laughter.

“An armored ox-cart would be useless. Its mobility is too poor, and the protection of the ox itself is also an issue…” Xue Ziliang discussed the problem with a straight face, only realizing it was a joke when he saw everyone laughing.

“Sorry, let’s get back to the topic.”

The Transmigration group had a complete set of experiences from its bandit suppression activities in Lingao. The bandit suppression work in Danzhou, so far, had also followed the Lingao model.

However, Xue Ziliang pointed out that the Lingao model could not simply be copied to Danzhou.

This was not because Danzhou was particularly special, but because the Transmigration group’s foundation in Danzhou was zero.

“When we started suppressing bandits in Lingao, we had control of the county government and directly controlled a large amount of land and population. Moreover, the local gentry and common people had already come to fully trust our ability and integrity. In other words, our… um… let’s call it ‘mass base’ was already very deep.”

In terms of transportation and communication, Lingao had already developed a considerable network. The army’s ability to mobilize and communicate was far beyond what was possible in the blank slate of Danzhou.

But this model was too time-consuming. If they followed this model to gradually take control of Danzhou, it would take at least two years to completely digest the territory. The Senate was unwilling to wait that long.

“Exactly. If time weren’t so tight, why would we have sent out so many work teams at once?” Liu Yixiao complained. He clearly believed that the Zhaopu Village incident was largely due to the higher-ups’ demand that he stabilize the situation in Danzhou within six months and completely control it within a year.

“Bandit suppression is a form of counter-guerrilla warfare,” Xue Ziliang said. “The key is to control the populace!”

The source of a guerrilla force’s strength is the people. Xue Ziliang believed that the CCP’s “fish and water relationship” analogy was most fitting for guerrillas and the populace.

Without the support of the people, a guerrilla force cannot find shelter, replenish its ranks, or even guarantee its food supply. Therefore, the essence of counter-guerrilla warfare is the struggle for the people.

“But how can you say the relationship between bandits and the common people is like fish and water?” someone objected. “The bandits wreak havoc on the people; the people hate them to the bone!”

“A fish-and-water relationship isn’t necessarily based on gratitude; it can also be based on terror,” Xue Ziliang said. “As long as the bandits can create an atmosphere of fear, they can force the populace to obey and support them. There are plenty of examples of this in guerrilla warfare.”

“Our primary task is not to rush to proclaim ourselves as a righteous army or angels bringing them blessings. NO, none of that is necessary. The first task is to drain the water, so the bandit fish have nowhere to swim.”

Yu Zhiqian said, “Sending out work teams is exactly that—’draining the water.’ Win over the masses, and the bandits will naturally have no water.”

Xue Ziliang shrugged. “True, sending work teams is the most effective method, the best way to eliminate guerrillas at their roots. However, the cost will be high.”

To ensure the safety of the work teams, their size had to be increased, and they needed more equipment. Their isolated state made them extremely vulnerable to various attacks. Once attacked, the rescue patrols sent to help would become prime targets for bandit ambushes.

Xue Ziliang believed these potential threats had to be considered.

“Do you have a better way?”

“Not necessarily better,” Xue Ziliang said, “but definitely faster-acting. There are many ways to drain the water.”

He then laid out his plan. The room fell silent.

“This is the thinking of the Japanese devils and the KMT…”

“It’s very useful. The US military used it in the Philippines back in the day. It proved to be quite successful.”

“The Japanese devils and the KMT failed to eliminate the CCP with these methods in the end.”

Xue Ziliang shrugged again, showing his disdain.

“Are you seriously comparing yourselves to the Japanese devils?”

Xue Ziliang’s new plan was: first, consolidate villages and settlements, creating strategic hamlets.

Danzhou had many small villages, ranging from single-household settlements to those with only twenty or thirty families. These small villages were difficult to defend, lacked self-defense capabilities, and were located in remote areas. They were the most convenient resting places, contact points, and supply depots for bandits. So, the first step was to abolish all such villages throughout the prefecture and merge them into strategic hamlets.

“The placement of strategic hamlets should not be limited to the sides of the Danzhou-Lingao road,” Xue Ziliang elaborated. “They can be established in any other valuable location. Building strategic hamlets is not just about controlling the population; more importantly, it’s about using them to expand our territory and squeeze the bandits’ operational space, rather than shrinking our territory to defend it!”

A large strategic hamlet would control 200-300 households. A work team would be dispatched to conduct a thorough investigation, establish a government structure, and organize a militia. At the same time, a regular army force ranging from a platoon to a company would be stationed there to support and monitor the militia, turning the strategic hamlet into a fortress.

“Each strategic hamlet will become a reliable base for us. Our bandit suppression forces can rely on these villages. We can store food, weapons, and ammunition there, and if necessary, conscript local manpower. Using radio dispatch, we can deploy troops to any location at any time.”

In other places, the implementation of a strategic hamlet policy would trigger sharp social conflicts: farmers would be forced to leave their land, while the strategic hamlets themselves would lack sufficient means of production to provide for them. The farmers would lose their livelihoods, become impoverished, and eventually resist or flee.

The Japanese “collective hamlet” system in Manchuria, while ultimately successful in wiping out the anti-Japanese resistance, caused massive deaths and flight among the peasants, almost permanently losing the hearts and minds of the people. Similarly, the US strategic hamlet program in South Vietnam became infamous and was largely ineffective.

However, the Transmigrators had a huge advantage on the sparsely populated island of Hainan in this era. In Danzhou, with a population of less than fifty or sixty thousand, there was plenty of abandoned land. Moreover, the Transmigrators possessed a high level of agricultural development and powerful productive forces. It would not be difficult to provide a subsistence-level life for the farmers in the consolidated villages.

“But you can’t force everyone into strategic hamlets,” Liu Yixiao expressed his doubt. “Especially the larger villages, which have considerable defensive capabilities of their own. If we force them to merge at this stage, first, it’s not economically viable, and second, it will push them to the side of the bandits.”

Xue Ziliang nodded. “This brings us to the second method: zoning.”

Using color-coded zones was a method the Transmigration group had already adopted. But Xue Ziliang’s zoning was simpler.

“We’ll keep the color-coding. But on top of that, we’ll divide the whole of Danzhou into three types of zones. Secure zones…”

“We should start calling you Xue Gangcun—” (Note: A pun on the name of Japanese general Yasuji Okamura, 冈村宁次 or Gāngcūn Níngcì)

“You have to admit, he did a pretty good job in counter-guerrilla warfare,” Xue Ziliang said, unoffended. To him, Yasuji Okamura held no special significance, just a slightly cleverer Japanese general.

He divided the whole of Danzhou into secure zones, semi-secure zones, and non-secure zones.

In the secure zones, strengthen the militia, police, and political security forces, and fully implement the ID card system. Use a pass system to restrict the movement of farmers and merchants, especially into the semi-secure and non-secure zones.

For the semi-secure zones, first, help the larger villages establish self-defense organizations to give them self-protection capabilities. For villages with more complex backgrounds, implement the consolidation policy. Continuously purge and relocate suspicious individuals from each settlement, with a focus on part-time bandits and their families. Hold public trials for the part-time bandits. Those with serious crimes will be executed; those without will be assigned to road construction. All bandit families will be relocated to the secure zones, dispersed, and placed under mass surveillance.

For the non-secure zones, conduct repeated “punitive expeditions.”

“The punitive expeditions have two purposes. First, to prevent the enemy from resting and regrouping. Second, to deprive the enemy of resources. Specifically, establish strategic hamlets within the non-secure zones, forcing small villages to merge. For large villages capable of self-defense, send in work teams to help them. For wavering villages, conduct punitive expeditions to make them a necessary example of terror. Finally, implement resource control, strictly restricting the circulation of daily necessities. If necessary, use a rationing system.”

“How is that possible? Rationing food is a massive undertaking.”

“They can still easily get things like cloth. We can’t go to every household and force them to hand over all their grain and cloth.”

“I wasn’t talking about grain and cloth,” Xue Ziliang said, raising his hand. “Salt. Without salt, the bandits won’t last long.”

Silence fell in the meeting room. These were not methods they hadn’t thought of, but they had never been systematically linked together like this. Secondly, due to historical biases, many Transmigrators considered the methods Xue Ziliang mentioned to be “ineffective” and “brutal,” always associating them with terms like “Japanese devils” and “KMT reactionaries.” Emotionally, they couldn’t accept using these methods right away.