Chapter 437: The Market

Watching everyone cheerfully playing with the sharp weapons in their hands, Lü Zeyang chuckled to himself: Once you start using them, you’ll know the power of these things. They’re effective, but you can’t make the ammunition. These percussion caps, back in the day, British smugglers sold them to the Taiping army for one tael of silver each.

This is the late Ming, and the warlords aren’t as rich as the Taiping army. Selling them for one tael of silver for ten or twenty is still possible, Lü Zeyang thought.

After a round of insincere shoulder-patting, fist-cupping, and a flurry of “brother” and “big brother,” Lü Zeyang finally came out of the city. Sun Yuanhua knew he was one of Manor Lord Lu’s men and had rendered great service to Laizhou. He specially invited him over, praised and encouraged him, and said that as long as he had the strength, he would definitely request rewards for them. Then the two discussed specific contact and liaison matters for the future. Lü Zeyang also roughly shared the information he had, especially mentioning that the rebels’ future movements would likely turn towards Qixia and Pingdu. Sun Yuanhua said he had anticipated this as well and had already submitted a memorial to the court requesting troops to be dispatched for interception.

Lü Zeyang was a little disappointed. He had thought he possessed a major piece of intelligence and was prepared to do Sun Yuanhua a favor, but he hadn’t expected the other man’s intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities to be so competent.

Although Sun Yuanhua’s own safety was still uncertain, he still placed great importance on firearms. He expressed his hope that Lü Zeyang would convey to Manor Lord Lu that it would be best if more Australian muskets could be transported over. Besides Zhang Tao, the armies coming to Shandong from various places would also have a demand. This was a business that could definitely be done.

Lü Zeyang promised to do so. The next morning, Zhang Tao’s men took over the defense of the southern gate suburb. Lü Zeyang led his own men away in a grand procession. When they left, his contingent had swelled by five or six hundred people, all of them captives and local civilians willing to follow him. The southern gate suburb’s neighborhood head, Fan Shier, also unhesitatingly packed his family onto a small cart and followed along.

Lü Zeyang’s men passed through the rebel positions without incident. The rebel commanders outside the southern gate suburb were already familiar with him. They knew his men were not to be trifled with, and since Laizhou couldn’t be taken, it was possible that with a turn of events, they might have to become “government troops” again. Building a good relationship with this Regiment Commander Lü was never a mistake. So when they saw them passing through, they all sent them off with smiles.

Lü Zeyang led his troops slowly towards Zhaoyuan. His contingent flew the large “Qimu” banner, and no one in the Eastern Three Prefectures dared to provoke them.

Zhaoyuan is very close to Longkou Bay. Out of caution, the Northern Expeditionary Detachment currently only occupied a part of the coastal area of Zhaoyuan, where they had built several forts, forming a posture of mutual support with Qimu Island.

These so-called forts were large villages surrounded by a moat and guarded by a few simple redoubts or even blockhouses. They were defended by locally organized militia companies. In terms of combat effectiveness and protective measures, they could only deal with bandits or stragglers. However, the rebels were wary of the “Qimu Island” banner and did not dare to gather a large force to attack—once such a thing happened, the retaliation was swift and severe. After annihilating a group of rebels who had dared to make a move, no one dared to launch hostile actions against these forts flying the “Qimu” banner.

Zhaoyuan County is located in the western part of the Jiaodong Hills, with complex and fragmented terrain, characterized by an interlocking distribution of hills and river valleys. The northeast is high and steep, mainly composed of granite and granite gneiss, with serrated ridges that are majestic and imposing. The mountain range extends from northeast to southwest, cutting diagonally across the county. The hills are below 400 meters in altitude, with gentle undulations, presenting a landscape of shallow hills and wide valleys, a wave-like denudation plain. This place had never been prosperous. Apart from rich mineral resources, its agricultural products were mainly fruits and coarse grains—it was the main production area for Longkou vermicelli, and vermicelli has always been a product of coarse grains. Even in the 21st century, the county, with an area of over a thousand square kilometers, had a population of only five hundred and sixty thousand.

In this time-space, the population was even sparser, making it a barren and desolate land. Therefore, the rebels rarely set foot here. The damage here was relatively less. Zhu Mingxia and Lu Wenyuan’s decision to occupy Zhaoyuan was also based on this consideration—Qimu Island was too small as a base and could only be used for transshipping refugees. Expanding their territory outside the island would easily make them a larger target. Qimu Island was only a few dozen li from Huangxian and very close by sea to the heavily fortified coastal town of Dengzhou. Maintaining a strong base here would easily attract attention. It was better to stay in the hilly region of Zhaoyuan for peace of mind. Besides, Zhaoyuan also had gold—of course, its development was a matter for the future.

The place Lü Zeyang was heading to was the Xinzhuang area of Zhaoyuan. This place backed onto the Bohai Bay and was in a position to support Qimu Island in Longkou. The main fort of the Northern Expeditionary Detachment in Zhaoyuan was built in Xinzhuang. With this main fort as the core, seven or eight smaller forts radiated out, controlling several dozen square kilometers of land.

The administrators of these forts and the militia commanders were soldiers from the Northern Expeditionary Detachment. Zhu Mingxia felt that the regular forces sent to Zhaoyuan were spread too thin. Although Zhaoyuan had over a thousand militiamen on its books, in an emergency, these militiamen would not be of much use, and reinforcements would have to be mobilized from Longkou. Therefore, he transferred Lü Zeyang’s unit to Zhaoyuan—incidentally, it would also be good to have an elder stationed there.

This place was now the reservoir for the Northern Expeditionary Detachment. Any refugees who could not be transported back during the summer hiatus would be sent to the Zhaoyuan area to be “stockpiled.” As most ships had stopped sailing, only a few transport special service boats were currently plying between Shandong and Jeju Island, transporting refugees on a small scale. These boats were sufficiently armed to protect themselves.

“I wonder if the vermicelli in Zhaoyuan is any good,” Elder Lü thought to himself as he rode his horse.

Huang Ande, along with Zhu Si and Cao Qing, was outside Huangxian city. Huang Ande and his group of brothers from the city had hidden for a while after the fall of Dengzhou and then slipped out during the chaos. After spending half a month on Qimu Island, they were assigned to a reconnaissance team.

Huang Ande had not only received a military merit medal, which meant he was one step closer to the rank of lieutenant.

In the early days, being in the reconnaissance team was a life-or-death affair. Reconnaissance on foot was extremely dangerous—the rebels were almost all mounted raiders, and being discovered meant certain death. The rebels would kill any suspicious-looking man on sight. Reconnaissance on horseback was less risky. Their weapons were good, and their horses were well-fed and strong, but in this cat-and-mouse game, the casualties among the scouts were not small. One of Huang Ande’s brothers had been killed in a reconnaissance mission—he died before he could see the beautiful scenery of Lingao that Huang Ande had boasted about.

As the situation developed, after a tacit “non-aggression” understanding was established between the rebels and Lu Wenyuan, the scouts’ operations slowly became less dangerous.

However, today they were not on a reconnaissance mission, but were here to do business. They all wore armbands as a sign of safe passage. Huangxian was now more or less the rebels’ main base, and the roads were teeming with small groups of rebels. Without this agreed-upon armband, they could be killed or captured on the road.

The so-called business was to acquire population through trade with the rebels. The rebels often plundered entire villages and stockades, taking men, women, old, and young. Apart from some able-bodied men used as cannon fodder, women and children often became commodities, bought and sold among the rebel soldiers and officers. Such human markets existed not only in Huangxian but also outside the cities of Dengzhou and Laizhou.

A “market” of considerable scale had formed a few li outside Huangxian city.

This place was originally a large stockade, a rather lively and prosperous place. Since the stockade was breached by the rebels, only ruins remained. Because the stockade had a moat outside, the rebels used it as a human pen. The captured people were sent here directly to be imprisoned and sold off.

Several thousand people were crammed into this roofless ruin. There were wells in the stockade, so drinking water was barely manageable, but food depended entirely on the mood of the guards and the abundance of their own supplies. On good days, they might throw in some dark, hard buns made of who-knows-what. On bad days, they wouldn’t get anything to eat for days.

The lucky ones might be bought after ten days or half a month for pleasure or assigned to the able-bodied men’s units as cannon fodder. The unlucky ones could only slowly suffer in this living hell.

Several thousand people crowded together, exposed to the sun and rain, with irregular food and drink. Diseases quickly became rampant. Especially after the third lunar month, hundreds of bodies were dragged out every day. But the rebels didn’t care, because new refugees were constantly being sent from all over—they never had to worry about a lack of supply. Some soldiers, having tired of the women they bought, would send them back here to be sold again, while buying fresh “goods.”

Besides people, there were also large quantities of goods plundered from their raids. But soldiers were constantly on the move and couldn’t carry bulky valuables, so they all wanted to exchange them for portable valuables like gold and silver jewelry. A large amount of goods was sold here at prices so low they were outrageous.

It was Lu Wenyuan who discovered such “markets” in places like Huangxian and Laizhou and came up with the idea of doing business with the rebels.

Kong Youde, in turn, discovered Lu Wenyuan’s strong interest in population. The rebels were suffering from a food shortage and urgently needed to replenish their supplies. This Manor Lord Lu seemed to have abundant grain—since they couldn’t rob him, doing business with him was a suitable choice. Therefore, he specially sent someone to propose: population for grain. The two sides hit it off immediately and reached a verbal agreement on the spot.

According to this agreement, Lu Wenyuan would send a few “retainers” to Huangxian every week to “inspect the goods.” The price for an adult man or woman was 5000 grams of grain, a child was 2500 grams, and an old person was 1000 grams. This “grain” could be any unhusked cereal or dried tubers, or it could be “paper-wrapped grain bricks.” If Manor Lord Lu chose to pay with tubers like “potatoes,” the price would be doubled—after all, potatoes were fresh, and there was the issue of water content.

The terms were harsh, but for Kong Youde, this was a top priority for solving the food problem. An army without food is unstable; without food, nothing can be done. If captured refugees could be exchanged for grain, it was like opening up a new source of food.