Chapter 318: The Refugee Reception Team

“I have already sent out reconnaissance cavalry to search in the direction of Huang County,” Zhu Mingxia said. “After the rebels captured Huang County yesterday, they are carrying out organized looting, burning, and killing in the county seat. Most of the villages near the city walls have been breached. It is estimated that the first wave of refugees has already formed. If we go out to receive them now, we will at most encounter scattered small groups of rebel cavalry, not the main force.”

Lu Wenyan was still not very reassured. “But a large group of refugees moves very slowly, probably not even two or three kilometers an hour. And the column will be very long…”

“It doesn’t matter. I just need to maintain order in the army. The reception team will still act as a whole. If we encounter a large enemy force, I will immediately consolidate the formation to resist. Huang County is not far from here, and you can come to reinforce us at any time.”

Zhu Mingxia and Lu Wenyan agreed on a method of communication, and then he jogged to the training ground. The reception team had already assembled according to his orders.

The reception team was more like an armed caravan than an army. Zhu Mingxia had done a lot of work to carry out large-scale armed reception of refugees in Shandong. In particular, he had come up with several different plans on how to cover the slow-moving and numerous refugees, and had tried different unit organizations and equipment. In the end, he had formed a system.

This system was roughly based on the concept of the wagon train used by Eastern European armies in the 16th and 17th centuries. Starting from the Hussite Wars, Eastern European armies had widely used wagon forts. Initially, they only used the transport wagons as mobile fortified positions. They were only used as protective cover during defense and encampment. Later, it gradually developed into a wagon formation that could fight and move at the same time. The Cossacks, Poles, and Russians became more and more proficient in this tactic in their fight against the Tatars. When attacked, the wagon train would use the firearms and pikes on the wagons on the flanks of the army to counter the highly mobile Tatar light cavalry, covering the movement of the infantry, non-combatants, and baggage.

This system was not universally applicable and could only be used effectively in the flat terrain of Central and Eastern Europe. Although the area around Huang County was hilly, there was a lot of flat land along the coast, and there were not many rivers. The use of a wagon fort could indeed play a certain role.

However, Zhu Mingxia did not have many wagons—even if he did, he could not find enough oxen to pull them. So his wagon fort was composed of Zidian handcarts, which was somewhat similar to the wagon fort that Sun Yuanhua had created. However, Sun Yuanhua’s wagon fort relied on an immature firearms system. Both his light artillery and muskets had the problems of slow loading, short range, and low accuracy. Of course, the same problems also existed in Europe, but the tragic habit of the Ming army in using firearms—firing as soon as the enemy charged, and then turning and fleeing—meant that the astonishing number of firearms that the Ming possessed could never be used effectively.

Zhu Mingxia did not have this problem. Not only did he have enough excellent firearms—much better than the Brown Bess muskets that had beaten the Eight Banners to a pulp in 1840—but his army was also strictly trained.

Finally, he also had a secret weapon: several “typewriters” removed from naval warships, which were temporarily mounted on Jifeng-style two-wheeled handcarts. Once these things opened fire, they could suppress even a charge of several hundred Manchu bayara.

The reception team consisted of three main parts: the escort team, responsible for armed protection, composed of soldiers from the Northern Expeditionary Detachment; the civil affairs team, all of whom could speak the local dialect—most of whom were recently received refugees. The work of the civil affairs personnel was to comfort the refugees and maintain order in the refugee column. Finally, there was the transport team. They carried some vehicles and livestock to transport the old, young, women, and children among the refugees to speed up the march of the entire column. Zhu Mingxia’s instructions to them were not to carry anything, but mainly to carry people, especially children and women.

The transport team and the civil affairs team were mainly composed of the Qimu Island militia. Everyone was equipped with a standard machete, and some also had standard pikes, which could be used for close combat when necessary. Although Lu Wenyan felt that the pikes were a bit cumbersome, Zhu Mingxia believed that the pikes were very useful—firstly, a pike formation could effectively deal with cavalry; secondly, the pikes could be used as crutches, which was very useful when walking in the snow, and could also be used to assemble stretchers when necessary.

In addition to the soldiers, each reception team member had to carry three days’ worth of rations and water to supplement the refugees at any time. Of course, the bulk of the portable rations was transported by the vehicles and livestock of the transport team. To make it easier for the refugees to eat on the march, the rations carried by the reception team were the biscuits from the relief rations. These biscuits were similar to rice crackers, made by baking a mixture of rice flour, sweet potato flour, salt, and sugar. The texture was crisp and loose. They were both easy to digest and did not require a lot of water to eat—it was difficult to provide them with safe drinking water in a timely manner during a large-scale refugee march.

The reception team had a radio—carried by a Lingao-made military four-wheeled light horse-drawn carriage, which maintained contact with the base at all times. Due to its value, a cavalry squad was specially assigned to protect it.

Zhu Mingxia inspected the reception team assembled on the training ground. Everyone was neatly dressed, with all the necessary cold-weather clothing. Although most of the refugees could not get enough clothing and were barely surviving the winter by relying on fires, all those selected for the militia were issued cotton-padded clothes, pants, hats, and gloves.

He randomly checked the equipment of some people and looked to see if their leggings were tied securely. The soldiers of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment had warm military boots to wear, but the militia could only make do with straw sandals.

But this was not bad—how many refugees had walked hundreds of li to Qimu Island barefoot in the cold wind?

The condition of the clothing was what he paid most attention to, especially for the Northern Expeditionary Detachment. Although Northerners were recruited from the entire army to supplement the Northern Expeditionary Detachment, the majority of them were still Southerners. After the winter began, there were many non-combat casualties due to frostbite.

“Has the unit had breakfast?” Zhu Mingxia asked Huang Xiong, who was following closely behind him inspecting the troops. He was a company commander in the Northern Expeditionary Detachment. Because he was also from the Dengzhou army, his company was selected as the backbone of the escort team, and he was appointed as the captain.

“Report, sir, we have already eaten,” Huang Xiong said, saluting with his hand raised in his gray greatcoat.

“How is the morale of the soldiers?”

“Report, sir: very high!”

“Can you set out immediately?”

“Report, sir: anytime, anywhere!”

“Very good,” Zhu Mingxia said. The soldiers had already been lightly equipped. Except for their weapons, ammunition, and the cold-weather clothing they were wearing, they only carried one day’s worth of rations and water. The military flag was left in the camp. According to instructions, they also did not carry any identification documents or any documents. Zhu Mingxia had already given the order that all fallen soldiers and their weapons and equipment must be recovered and not abandoned or buried on the spot.

He checked again and found no major problems. Just as he was checking, the reconnaissance cavalry returning from outside brought new information: a group of about two or three thousand refugees was heading towards Qimu Island. There were no large rebel forces active nearby.

“The main rebel force is currently active around Huang County. Some are transporting the captured supplies and grain to Dengzhou,” the scout reported. “They have captured a large number of women and young men and are forcing them to transport supplies to Dengzhou.”

“Are there any small rebel units active nearby?”

“Report: no. The small rebel units are mostly active in the several towns around Huang County. No one is heading towards the sea.”

“You have completed your mission very well. Go and rest first,” Zhu Mingxia ordered.

“The unit will prepare to set out!” Zhu Mingxia looked at his watch. “We will set out in fifteen minutes!”

At 8:00 a.m., the armed reception team of more than four hundred people set out from the willow fence. The unit advanced in a column. The cavalry company sent out three times the number of reconnaissance cavalry forward. In addition to being responsible for warning of the enemy, they also had the task of discovering refugee groups in a timely manner. If it was a small group of refugees, the cavalry would directly bring them to the main force.

The straight-line distance from Qimu Island to Huang County was only about twenty kilometers. For people with sufficient food and good health, it would take seven or eight hours to walk the entire distance. But considering the condition of the refugees, it would take at least two days. Zhu Mingxia decided to risk advancing to a place about ten kilometers from Huang County. At the same time, to facilitate reception, he planned to find a village at the midpoint of the entire journey as a temporary camp, leaving some personnel and food as a reception point and a place for the refugees to spend the night. At the current temperature, many refugees would die if they spent a night in the open. He wanted to minimize the death rate of the refugees as much as possible.

At the same time, this camp could also accommodate scattered refugees on the road, so they would not have to be taken on a long march.

The unit marched on the ice- and snow-covered ground. Although the weather was clear, the severe frost still brought great difficulties to the march. Especially the fully loaded handcarts had to be pulled by several militia with ropes in front. Zhu Mingxia ordered the reception team to follow at the end of the column. He felt that the Northern Expeditionary Detachment would not be a problem, but it was hard to say whether the newly established Advance Column would have a large number of stragglers.

The land of Huang County outside Qimu Island was desolate. After walking for more than ten li, there was no sound of chickens or dogs. The villages they passed were dilapidated, with no living people. From time to t-ime, they could see corpses lying on the road and in the fields, most of whom had died of cold and hunger.

Zhu Mingxia did not ride a horse but walked in the middle of the column on foot. He carried an SKS-D with a 30-round magazine. Compared to many elders who disliked semi-automatic weapons, he had a certain affection for this weapon.

The cold wind blowing on his face was stinging, but Zhu Mingxia did not feel cold at all. He stopped from time to time to check the map and compass to make sure that the marching route had not deviated from the route he had chosen.