Chapter 164: Baitu Village Expedition

The Baitu Village operation finally got underway once Xi Yazhou took command. The burly officer had spent half a month groaning through his recuperation before Wu Nanhai expelled him from the infirmary—allegedly for attempting to steal a chicken. Xi Yazhou maintained his innocence regarding the missing ducks, but Wu Nanhai's verdict remained unchanged: "Stay far away." With his departure, the rumored "Army Club" quietly died as well.

Baitu Village was a small port nestled between Lingao and Danzhou. Mountains embraced it on three sides, sheltering an excellent natural harbor with easy ship access—the primary location for Lingao's shipbuilding operations. Reconnaissance reports indicated that the overland approaches were treacherous, consisting only of rugged mountain paths. The villagers had fortified these routes with barricades, abatis, and stockades at every entrance. These defenses had been erected against bandits, but they would prove equally effective against officials and tax collectors. Still, a frontal assault wouldn't pose much difficulty for the New Army. Even armed with nothing but swords and spears, Xi Yazhou reckoned his forces could handle Baitu—it would simply mean accepting more casualties.

"However, this should remain strictly a police action," Xi Yazhou mused, studying the Military Committee's reconnaissance maps. "These shipwrights are valuable resources. We can't afford to kill too many of them."

"What's your plan?" Bei Wei asked.

"An armed procession. We force a bloodless surrender."

"For cost-effectiveness, our Recon Team would be ideal," Bei Wei suggested. "The surrounding mountains aren't particularly steep—easy infiltration. We grab the leaders directly, and it's done."

"True enough," Ma Qianzhu interjected, "but Baitu is a soft target—perfect for giving the newbies their first taste of action."

"Building their courage?"

"Exactly. These men were peasants clutching hoes just a month ago, and all the officers are modern people. Unit coordination might be poor. Let them smell some gunpowder first."

Xi Yazhou nodded. "Fine. We'll make it a varied approach—consider the whole thing a training exercise."

Baitu Village itself maintained no formal military presence. There was no organized militia to speak of, though all the villagers went armed and had reportedly repelled several pirate raids over the years. According to intelligence reports, the population exceeded five hundred souls, with roughly half being able-bodied men. Most were escaped shipwrights who had fled from Guangdong and Fujian provinces. The settlement had originally been a tiny fishing village of seven or eight households, but as shipwright refugees trickled in over the years, the population had gradually swelled.

Huang Xiong had received a promotion. The former bazong had spent the days following his interview in a state of nervous dread, clearly fearing that the Australians distrusted him. Would they eliminate him over their suspicions? He passed each day in anxious uncertainty. The thought of fleeing crossed his mind more than once, but he remembered the fate of captured deserters—public humiliation followed by execution. Given his identity, recapture by Ming authorities would mean certain death.

After days of mounting anxiety, word finally came: he had been appointed Squad Leader of the 8th Squad in the 3rd Company. The 3rd Company's commander was "Old Tiger You," a man who loved nothing more than wielding a broadsword. Upon hearing that Huang Xiong had served as a Ming officer, Tiger immediately demanded a saber match. Huang Xiong hesitated—should he deliberately lose to avoid making enemies? In the end, he decided that demonstrating real ability would serve him better. The Australians, he had observed, valued merit over background.

Victory proved harder than expected. Tiger lacked proper technique, relying entirely on heavy, chopping blows. But the man possessed tremendous strength and excellent combat instincts. It took Huang Xiong several minutes before he finally managed to disarm him.

"You lose, Captain!"

"With real blades, you'd have lost faster!" Tiger snarled. "I have a Green Dragon Crescent Blade!"

"That's an opera prop. You'd lose even faster swinging that thing around!"

Tiger glared at him for a long moment, then bellowed with sudden admiration: "Good man! Real skill!"

Somehow, Huang Xiong found himself becoming Tiger's sworn "brother"—which meant being dragged into daily sparring sessions after drill. He had expected Tiger might make him a personal guard, as any Ming commander of similar rank would have done, but the Australians apparently didn't operate that way. Tiger, as a Company Commander, managed over a hundred men—equivalent to a dusi rank in the Ming army—yet he kept only a single "guard" for himself.

"This operation's objective is the subjugation of Baitu Village," Xi Yazhou announced during his briefing for all platoon-level officers and above. "We want to minimize casualties and maintain restraint throughout. We have many newbies in the ranks, so discipline must be strictly enforced. How's progress on the Three Main Rules and Eight Points song?"

"We've been teaching it for three days," reported Wei Aiwen, the temporary battalion political instructor. "Most of the men have learned it."

"Learning to sing it isn't enough—they need to understand what the lyrics mean," Xi Yazhou emphasized. The catchy tune explained military discipline and proper civilian relations in simple, memorable terms. It was an invaluable educational tool.

"Next, logistics—"

Ever since the nitroglycerin failure, Ye Yuming had returned to raising rabbits. Lately, however, his ears had been filled with that word: logistics. According to private discussions circulating through the Army, this expedition marked the first major deployment since the New Army's founding. For the Agriculture Department, that meant facing an enormous challenge: field rations.

"Provisions before troops," as the saying went. The Army leadership had agreed on deploying the New Army in substantial strength for a demonstration armed procession, but regardless of tactical plans, soldiers needed to eat.

Despite their primitive circumstances, field ration research and development orders had already landed on the Agriculture Committee's desk. Their primary headache was trial-producing portable rations that could survive Hainan's intense heat and suffocating humidity while still providing adequate nutrition.

Logically speaking, for a low-intensity three-day operation with newly developed field kitchens available, hot meals would be ideal. Field rations universally tasted awful and were meant only as emergency reserves. But this operation also served as an equipment test. The Military Committee required three days' worth of field rations in multiple varieties, allowing troops to consume them under actual field conditions and provide feedback.

The Agriculture Department had already trial-produced various portable foods drawn from traditions across China and around the world: parched rice, steamed cakes, rice balls, parched flour, flatbread, nang, rice cakes, hyōrōgan. Wu Nanhai had even developed something he called "Jinhua crispy biscuits"—a bizarre creation. Yes, they were long-lasting, but they proved nearly inedible. Worse still, crispy biscuits required massive amounts of lard, and all fats were currently classified as "strategic materials."

Dry flatbread, parched flour, nang, and dried mantou were all mature portable foods, easy to process. Flatbread in particular had proved its worth during the Gou Manor battle. It was extremely shelf-stable—the traditional journey food of Shandong peasants. Unfortunately, Lingao's grain situation was rice-dominant. Sweet potatoes were the main ingredient for flatbread, but they were nutritionally deficient for military use. Flatbread and other wheat products were eliminated from consideration.

That left rice products. Ye Yuming proposed parched rice, along with parched rice cakes sweetened with malt sugar. But parched rice stored worse than parched flour, and no malt sugar was available anyway. Someone suggested hyōrōgan, which they had previously manufactured. The taste was horrifying: cooked rice that had been sun-dried into hard pellets—reportedly the field rations of samurai warriors. The post-trial consensus was that only the Japanese could stomach it.

Rice noodles, rice cakes, rice flour, rice threads, rice balls, rice wrappers—every conceivable rice product was excavated from collective memory. Through collaboration between the cafeteria and Agriculture Department, extensive research, and no small amount of imagination, they soon produced a table full of prototypes.

This military ration experiment was grandly christened the "Long March Plan." Later, Wu Nanhai decided that name should be reserved for something more significant, and so in the official archives, it became the decidedly anticlimactic "Grassland Plan."

Facing a table of bizarre test rations that looked better suited for pranks than sustenance, everyone reached a remarkable consensus: distribute everything to the expedition, feed the troops when they were at their hungriest, observe their reactions, and let practice verify the truth. But who would volunteer to be the field observer? Imagining the fury of officers discovering they'd been guinea pigs, the immediate mutual deflection began.

While everyone exchanged nervous glances, desperately trying to avoid this potentially life-threatening assignment, salvation appeared in an unlikely form. Staff Officer Dongmen Chuiyu, who had recently been frequenting headquarters, happened to pass by the Farm at this critical moment.

Dongmen Chuiyu had originally come seeking private tomatoes from the Farm—and perhaps also to steal glances at Wu Nanhai's servant girls. But once spotted, the Farm staff deployed brief but devastating "eye-paralysis" tactics. Before he knew what was happening, everyone was enthusiastically requesting his assistance in observing field ration development.

Inspired by what was described as "a fearless revolutionary spirit and internationalism," Comrade Dongmen Chuiyu resolutely agreed to represent the Agriculture Department in conducting the field ration survey. He received two tomatoes as compensation. The Farm staff watched his departing figure with something approaching reverence. As the old saying goes: "The wind is rising, and the Yi River grows cold..."

After intense preparation, the Baitu expedition departed from Bopu. The force included the entire 1st Company; one platoon each from the 2nd and 3rd Companies—totaling over 160 men; thirty cadets from the Military-Political School; ten operators from the Military Committee's Direct Recon Team; and over forty personnel from the Artillery Section. The Medical Group also deployed its female Technical School student team, led by "River Horse" Hema. Finally, a hundred-man supply train brought up the rear.

The Navy contributed the newly refurbished two-masted yacht Fubo for sea support, along with six purchased or converted local boats laden with supplies. If ships hadn't been so scarce, Xi Yazhou would have transported the entire force by sea.

Five infantry platoons advanced in a column four men abreast. Over their octagonal caps, the soldiers wore rattan helmets styled after colonial pith helmets. Shiny steel plates stamped with unit numbers adorned the fronts, providing an extra measure of protection. White sun flaps trailed behind—essential gear under Lingao's brutal sunshine. Canvas gaiters were pulled tight around their calves. Cowhide belts carried doubled ammunition pouches—four pouches in total, holding 120 rounds and 130 percussion caps. Canteens, bayonets, entrenching tools, and miscellaneous pouches hung from double-shoulder rattan backboxes stuffed with gear, blankets strapped across the top. Though supply ships accompanied them, every soldier carried ten emergency rice cakes. Squad leaders each had one bottle of liquor. Emergency rations were to be consumed only upon explicit order.

(End of Chapter)