Chapter 70: Seeing Off

After a batch of ships finished unloading, the empty ships sailed to the quarantine anchorage, and all the sailors went ashore to also undergo “purification.” The second batch of ships then came over to unload. The ships that had not yet been called to unload all dropped anchor and waited to be summoned.

The large landing craft, belching black smoke, shuttled between the ships, continuously broadcasting the “Letter to All Soldiers of Dengzhou and Dongjiang” through high-powered loudspeakers.

Under the black muzzles of the cannons, no matter how much they were a tiger-wolf army that made the soldiers and civilians of Shandong tremble with fear, they could only surrender now and be at the mercy of others. Although they still had swords and guns in their hands, and there were many cannons and muskets on the ships, they were all insignificant under the muzzles of the opponent in front of them.

The soldiers trapped on the ships, because of their complete helplessness, actually relaxed their nerves. Some people even fell asleep on the deck.

Li Jiucheng and the others, however, were not willing to have everything taken away from them just like that. As soldiers in a chaotic world, the army was their capital. In a chaotic world, soldiers would serve whoever fed them. As long as they were willing to pay, they didn’t care who they sold their lives for.

The problem was, whether Lord Lu was “Great Song” or something else, he had no intention of recruiting them. If the other party really wanted to recruit them, they should have sent an envoy to negotiate with him by now.

But the other party’s current actions were clearly to disarm and annex his troops.

Disarmament and annexation, of course, did not matter to the soldiers—as long as they were paid, it was the same to sell their lives to anyone. But for these generals who were proud of their troops, it was simply a disaster. The other party treated them as if they were nothing, which showed that their fate would be “leisure” at best, and a direct break at worst.

They absolutely could not sit and wait for death! In order to control the ships, Li Jiucheng’s trusted generals were distributed on various ships. He himself only had a middle-ranking guerrilla general by his side. Fortunately, the ship was full of his personal guards and servants, all in full armor, and they were all brave warriors who were willing to go through fire and water for him at his command.

He immediately called the middle-ranking general and a few trusted generals to discuss. They planned that when their ship was about to dock, they would not follow the command to dock at the pier—once on the pier, they would be surrounded by iron nets and watchtowers, and they would be like fish in a net—but would directly rush to the beach near the pier.

Li Jiucheng had already seen clearly with his binoculars that there were not many enemy troops on the shore, at most four thousand. And they were all unarmored, and some didn’t even have firearms, just spears. Although they had strong ships and powerful cannons, they might not be a match for his battle-hardened desperadoes in a hurry. Once the beaching was successful, the rebels on the ships that were landing would inevitably riot—compared to the uncertain future of being disarmed and at the mercy of others, his subordinates would be more willing to fight desperately.

No matter where this place was, or who was on the island, no matter how many people died in the riot, he had at least 20,000 people. Even if he lost half, as long as he could control the remaining army, it would be easy to do anything.

“Let’s fight to the death and have a life-and-death struggle!” Li Jiucheng encouraged his subordinates. “There is plenty of silver on the ship. After this battle, brothers can take whatever they want! Don’t let outsiders benefit for nothing!”

“We are willing to die for the general!” the crowd roared in response. Then he ordered the sailors on the ship to be brought and given a generous reward. He ordered them to prepare to beach the ship according to his orders.

“As long as you get to the beach, each person will get fifty taels! Otherwise, don’t blame us brothers for being ruthless with our swords!” Li Jiucheng said fiercely.

Of course, the sailors did not dare to say “no.”

Finally, it was their turn to dock. All the ships had lowered their sails and were being propelled by large oars, slowly approaching the pier. Just as the ships were very close to the pier, the frequency of the oars on one of the ships suddenly accelerated. A few more oars were lowered from the ship, and the ship’s speed suddenly increased. The rudder suddenly turned to one side, and it rushed directly towards the beach outside the barbed wire!

The warships of the Second Fleet were always monitoring nearby. They had already received orders that if any ship was found to be moving abnormally, they could open fire after one warning. A special service boat closest to Li Jiucheng’s ship immediately fired a warning shot. Seeing that the other party did not move, the two special service boats on the cordon opened fire at the same time. The distance at this time was less than 300 meters. One shell landed on the beach, raising a column of water full of sand. The other one, however, pierced the side of the ship, penetrated the hull on one side, killed twenty-five people, and then broke through the hull on the other side and fell into the sea.

Li Jiucheng’s ship, pushed by inertia and the tide, rushed straight onto the beach. Li Jiucheng, wearing a helmet and armor and holding a large sword, immediately let out a loud roar and jumped down from the ship. The surviving personal guards behind him also howled and jumped down from both sides of the ship. Although their ships were small and the bulwarks were not high from the beach after running aground, many people were injured or fell into the quicksand when they jumped onto the beach wearing armor.

In this chaotic moment, the artillery on the shore had already opened fire. A rain of canister shot sprayed towards the grounded ship, followed by a covering fire from the typewriters. The special service boats on the cordon opened fire one after another, and shrapnel and incendiary bombs fell on the beach.

Li Jiucheng’s ship was suddenly plunged into a hell of fire and rain. Bullets rained down, and black smoke billowed. In just a few minutes, the ship was torn to pieces, and the beach was littered with burning wood chips and mutilated bodies.

Feng Zongze took out a handkerchief and covered his nose—the sea breeze blew a smell of roasted meat over, and the thought of what kind of meat it was made him feel nauseous.

“Send the Jeju Island advance column over to search. Leave no one behind. Cut off all the heads and hang them on wooden poles!”

The Jeju Island advance column was all composed of Shandong refugees rescued during the Dengzhou-Laizhou rebellion. They all hated the rebels to the bone, and they would definitely not be merciful when searching.

The swift and decisive suppression completely extinguished the last thought of rebellion among the rebel generals. In the end, all the rebels were disarmed.

More than two hundred main generals above the rank of company commander were identified after being disarmed. Except for a few generals from the Lu army and the southern army who were originally from the Dengzhou garrison, the rest were escorted to the Jeju training ground. More than 10,000 rebel prisoners of war had already been arranged in a square formation under the threat of typewriters, Minié rifles, and the spears of the White Horse Team.

Kong Youde and the other rebel generals were different. They were escorted to the martial arts hall of the training ground alone. Watching the Koreans in large hats bringing trays of wine and white rice to the generals gathered at the training ground, he knew that his life had come to an end here.

Among the generals at the training ground, some were pale and collapsed on the ground, some closed their eyes and said nothing, just waiting to be executed; some begged bitterly; and some were furious and struggled desperately.

Since he followed his father in the uprising in Tieling, resisting the Eastern captives, to joining the army in Guangning, and step by step becoming a guerrilla, and then following Marshal Mao to Dongjiang after the withdrawal of Guangning; the infighting in Dongjiang after Marshal Mao was beheaded; defecting to Dengzhou, under the command of Sun Yuanhua; reinforcing Dalinghe, and following Li Jiucheng in the uprising at Wuqiao… scenes of his life seemed to flash before his eyes, and a thousand flavors and ten thousand sorrows welled up in his heart, and he couldn’t help but feel short of breath for a moment.

As a soldier, he was always prepared to die. But at this moment, he felt a trace of unwillingness. Who on earth was this Lord Lu? Why did he set up layers of traps to put him and the old Dongjiang troops to death?

At this time, a few Japanese-looking guards surrounded a young man with short hair and short clothes and walked in. Behind them, someone was carrying wine and food.

The man filled the wine and handed it over with both hands. His attitude was very polite. Kong Youde had long since put life and death out of his mind. He took the wine and drank it in one gulp. He asked:

“Who are you, sir?”

“I am Feng Zongze, the governor of Jeju Prefecture of the Great Song,” Feng Zongze said. “I have come specially to see you off, General.”

Kong Youde didn’t know where this Great Song came from, but there was no doubt that this person was in the same group as Lord Lu.

He asked in a loud voice, “What enmity do Kong and the old Dongjiang people have with your esteemed group?”

Feng Zongze said in a serious tone, “We have no enmity with the general. Today I have come to offer the general a farewell drink, in respect of the general’s uprising against the captives in his youth, and his bitter support for the Ming Dynasty in the ice and snow of the Liaodong Sea, defending a foot of land in Liaodong for the Great Ming.”

Kong Youde didn’t know what the other party’s intention was in bringing up old matters, but this was indeed his proud “glorious history.”

“If so, why do you want to put Kong and the soldiers of Dongjiang to death?”

Feng Zongze said, “It is not we who want to put the general to death. We greatly respect the general’s might and his previous loyalty to the Great Ming. It is really that the tens of thousands of skeletons under Dengzhou City cannot agree.” He raised his finger and pointed to the soldiers of the Jeju Advance Column of the Security Army in formation in the distance. “These people are all refugees who were transported from Dengzhou by Lord Lu. They also want to ask you: they have no enmity with you and the soldiers of Dongjiang, so why did you slaughter their families and fellow villagers?!”

Since the uprising, Kong Youde had long since developed a heart of stone in the war. He believed in “one general’s success is built on ten thousand bones” and had never thought about the fate of the villages he had ordered to be massacred for grain and supplies. In the eyes of these semi-warlord old Ming soldiers, this was all a matter of course. Not to mention that the soldiers didn’t care, even those civil officials who were full of “benevolence and righteousness,” “the people are more important than the ruler,” and “the people are the foundation” who came to supervise the army and command, often turned a blind eye to this—this was a chaotic world. Without money and grain, they still had to rely on the warriors to risk their lives on the battlefield. What was the big deal about killing a few commoners and robbing some money and grain?

“Are you a group of benevolent and moral gentlemen?” Kong Youde asked back with a cold smile.

“Since our Senate returned to the Divine Land, we have taken loving and protecting the people as our purpose. Our swords have never been stained with the blood of the innocent! Heaven and earth can bear witness!” Feng Zongze said with a righteous and stern face. With that, he took out a document and began to read the verdict from the arbitration tribunal.

The article, which was half-literary and half-vernacular, and interspersed with many “new words,” was not very clear to Kong Youde, but he could understand the final “death penalty.” He slowly stood up and said calmly, “The winner is the king and the loser is the bandit. Since I have fallen into your hands, you can do whatever you want with me. Why say more!”

Feng Zongze didn’t say much either. He ordered, “Send General Kong on his way!”

Without waiting to be urged, Kong Youde strode towards the door. He suddenly asked, “Who are you? What on earth do you want to do?”

“The Senate,” Feng Zongze said, “to rebuild the Divine Land.”