Chapter 651 - Aftermath
In the end, terms were agreed without ceremony. Shortly after three o'clock, Chengmai quietly surrendered. Commander Zhou had already been lowered over the wall with a dozen of his guards, and the Fubogun arranged a boat to take him away. The remaining five hundred soldiers, seeing their officer gone and their silver bonuses paid, had no desire to resist. They agreed to abide by whatever the county decided.
The five hundred soldiers filed out of the city and surrendered their weapons. A prisoner management officer then announced the four basic policies: obey orders; receive medical treatment if wounded; surrender all weapons; personal belongings would be protected.
To the soldiers' amazement, the silver, rations, and personal effects on each man were examined and promptly returned. Only items like knives were confiscated.
With the soldiers cleared out, the Fubogun entered Chengmai. Per the agreement, Song Zonghui handled all formalities—Magistrate Liu refused to appear in person. Wei Aiwen didn't mind; according to the Civil Affairs Guidance Manual, local gentry were far more useful than county officials. Familiar with local conditions and possessing real influence, they were valuable targets for co-option.
With the Chengmai Office still unstaffed, Wei temporarily assumed civil affairs duties. He posted soldiers at the city gates and key points, ordered all militiamen to assemble and surrender their weapons, and only then proceeded to inventory the imperial army's abandoned equipment. Among the haul were multiple scaling ladders and about a hundred odd leather spheres packed with black powder—no one knew what they were until prisoners revealed they were "River Submersion Dragons"—water mines.
"The Great Ming's ordnance is truly creative!" Wei remarked, ordering a few well-preserved samples from each category set aside for delivery to the new Ordnance Bureau.
After finishing the inventory, Song Zonghui dismissed the village militia as agreed. Wei chose not to confiscate their weapons; they posed no threat to the Fubogun, but disarming villages would leave them vulnerable to bandits. The Civil Affairs Guidance Manual recommended retaining local landlord militias until county cadres could be deployed.
Soldiers and laborers worked until nightfall to clear the city of imperial remnants and round up a number of soldiers who had donned civilian clothes to hide. These men received no courtesy—stripped naked, roped together, and marched out. Song Zonghui shuddered, wondering if the Australians used public nudity as punishment; a chill ran through him.
Once everything was settled, the Fubogun withdrew from the city as promised. The entire population breathed a sigh of relief. Though the bald bandits had not paraded on horseback or publicly executed discipline-breakers in the streets, every soldier who entered had been impeccably behaved—no looting, no assaults. They had even swept the streets after hauling away the abandoned equipment. Popular sentiment toward these "bald bandits" shifted remarkably.
That evening, a small private banquet was held at the Song residence. Song, the local notables, and one of the magistrate's secretaries raised cups with Wei Aiwen in a convivial atmosphere.
Song Zonghui presented, on behalf of all the gentry and commoners, a gift list: five hundred shi of white rice, five hundred taels of silver, three hundred bolts of cotton cloth, thirty bolts of fine silk, twenty jars each of rice wine and spirits, thirty pigs, and fifty goats—"a token of appreciation for your army."
As he recited this, several gentry members sighed deeply, lamenting how the imperial troops had stripped them bare, demanding endless payments—portraying themselves and Chengmai as utterly impoverished, on the verge of suicide.
Wei Aiwen thanked them politely. The offerings were decent but hardly enough to satisfy the Planning Committee, let alone the Executive Committee's voracious appetite. The Battle of Chengmai, though victorious, had consumed vast quantities of materiel. Having swallowed Chengmai whole, they intended to extract every ounce of manpower and resources for the broader cause. He didn't haggle over numbers—once their authority was established, grain revenues alone would dwarf these sums.
He proposed establishing a "Restoration Bureau." The room fell silent. Post-disaster bureaus of this sort were common enough—run by local worthies, handling corpse burial, refugee relief, resettlement, pacification, and economic revival. Though nominally minor, such bureaus wielded broad de facto power and operated more efficiently than official yamen.
The gentry sensed sinister intent but dared not object.
According to Wei's proposal, Magistrate Liu would serve as Director-General; three or four respected local figures would become Managing Directors and Commissioners. The Australians would hold one seat.
"Since we're not locals, we'll just be the Annual Rotating Executive," Wei said magnanimously.
Everyone looked pained. They understood perfectly: the "Annual Executive" would be the real power. And once established, the Bureau would become a "second yamen," creeping into every local affair until it usurped the county's authority entirely.
Wei waved his hand: "It's decided."
Helpless, the gentry and magistrate complied. Such semi-official bodies were common enough and technically not unlawful. Magistrate Liu was named Director-General; Song Zonghui became Managing Director; four or five wealthy, civic-minded gentlemen rounded out the board. The "Executive" seat, of course, was reserved for the Australians. Within twenty-four hours, the term "bald bandits" had been replaced by "Australians," and men like Song Zonghui were already fawning: "Chief this, Chief that."
With everything in order, Wei cabled the Executive Committee to dispatch a Chengmai Work Team as soon as possible to consolidate county administration.
News of He Ming's crushing victory at Chengmai reached Lingao that same afternoon. The Executive Committee and the Yuan Laoyuan had been waiting anxiously—there was never any doubt about the outcome, but tension had still run high.
Shortly after ten on the morning of July 11, drums sounded simultaneously at all of Lingao's gates. Then cannons boomed three times from the county seat, Bairren City, Bopu, Nanbao, Gaoshan Ridge, Ma'ao, and every ship in the harbor—a thunderous salute.
Li Yunxing was the first to learn of the victory, having received He Ming's voice report by radio. But an official telegram was required before any public announcement. By ten o'clock, the formal dispatch arrived:
To the Yuan Laoyuan and Executive Committee: Our field army has completely routed He Rubin's forces as of 0900 on July 11. The enemy is largely destroyed. —Field Army Command, He, Dongmen, Wei
"Quick—send it out as a general bulletin!" Li Yunxing burst out of his office and personally handed the telegram to Shao Zong.
Shao Zong glanced at it and hurried to the radio room. Minutes later, the dispatch had been transmitted to every department and outpost with a wireless set.
Ding Ding had stationed a staff member at the communications office. The moment Shao Zong finished transcribing the message, the man copied it and sprinted for the newspaper office.
After dispatching the telegram, Shao Zong went to the duty room: "Quick—mass-SMS everyone!"
Within minutes, every transmigrator received the news of the great victory at Chengmai. Even as the messages went out, cheers and celebratory gunshots echoed outside.
"Damn it, that's a waste of ammo!"
By noon, as the first ink-smelling extra editions rolled off the presses—and messengers from the front reached Lingao—a special session of the Yuan Laoyuan convened. A courier reported the entire battle in detail. The assembly rejoiced at the total destruction of the enemy, though some grumbled that He Rubin and other high-ranking officials had escaped. A few wanted to drag the captured bigwig Lü Yizhong back to Lingao for a public hanging to prove that "all who invade will be punished."
"Hanging is too light! He should be drawn and quartered!"
"The law, people! Respect the law!" Ma Jia rushed to object. "We should organize a public trial for war crimes, let the masses witness the solemnity of justice—no bloody extra-legal punishments!"
"I say we borrow a page from the English treatment of Scottish rebels—disemboweled alive! I'll do the dissection myself," said Hippo, as unconventional as ever.
"Too gory!" protested—of all people—Dugu Qiuhun, lately stripped of all duties. His uncharacteristic squeamishness startled the room. "I propose air pumps inserted in the rear—inflate them until their intestines burst!"
Hippo disagreed: "Over-engineered. The English method is simpler..."
Someone chimed in: "Didn't they also cut off genitals and hang them from bridges or something..."
Others favored tradition: several library scholars demanded a jingguan—a mound of enemy skulls—outside Lingao to glorify the realm's martial might.
"Disgusting!" Du Wen vehemently objected. "Hang a few heads if you must, but such inhumane feudal relics must never be revived!"
The chamber buzzed with debate on how to torment the living and the dead. Eventually, the conversation shifted to post-victory logistics—the imminent subjugation of all Hainan was at hand, but the transmigrators held diverse views on priorities and policies. Before the victory celebration even ended, the Yuan Laoyuan was already embroiled in argument.
Ma Qianzhu had no patience for such empty disputes. Before the session concluded, he returned to the Central Government Office and sent Hou Wenyong to summon Wu De and other Executive Committee members, plus the Permanent Secretaries of departments whose heads had not yet been elected.
"After the summons, notify all department heads—expanded meeting. No absences!"
Half an hour later, the executives, secretaries, and department heads gathered. They wore none of the giddy expressions typical of ordinary transmigrators debating medals, triumphal arches, or massacre techniques. Those in the executive and secretariat understood the administration's problems all too well. The situation looked rosy, but internal issues demanded urgent resolution.
"We've won a great battle," Wen Desi said, chairing the meeting. "Xiao Cheng keeps saying war is unaffordable. Well, the war is over now. Tomorrow we transition from wartime to peacetime. How do we proceed? Let's hear your thoughts."
First on the agenda: the prisoners. Over ten thousand remained to be classified. Per Dongmen Chuiyu's initial report, roughly seventy or eighty confirmed officers had been identified; many more were likely hiding in common soldiers' uniforms, not yet weeded out.
The general policy had long been set: officers would be ransomed by their families; those not ransomed would remain for labor reform.
As for soldiers, most transmigrators agreed that soldiers of this era were steeped in bad habits—lazy, prone to looting and rape, devoid of principles beyond a paycheck. They could not be absorbed into the military.
"Even Qi Jiguang knew to pick honest farm boys for new recruits, avoiding urban toughs. These mercenary scoundrels are useless."
But some invoked the PLA's successful "liberation soldier" program, arguing that rank-and-file soldiers of the old regime could still be reformed into proper troops.
Moreover, expanding Hainan-wide operations would require garrisons in many locations; the current six battalions were insufficient. Drawing three or four thousand reformed prisoners could ease the manpower shortage.
This proposal won little support; folding untested, hurriedly reformed men into the army seemed too risky.
Wu De said: "True, they have no national or ethnic consciousness. They fight for whoever feeds them—be it the Ming, Li Zicheng, or the Jurchens. Given our army's excellent treatment, they'd happily join. That's exactly what makes them dangerous. Frankly, even Nationalist soldiers were better—at least some knew that collaborating with the enemy was shameful. But during the Ming-Qing transition, did defectors think twice? Hardly."
"Some defected back later, didn't they?"
"A tiny fraction compared to the masses who stayed loyal to their conquerors." Wu De continued: "We're not talking about reforming dozens or even hundreds, but thousands. Reforming so many minds so quickly is beyond our present capacity."
Si Kaide proposed: "Let the Colonial Trade Department ship them to Southeast Asia. Give them some supplies and weapons, deposit them there to establish outposts, and require an annual tribute of resources in exchange for supplies. Let them turn Southeast Asia into a crucible."
"That won't work either. These soldiers are only kept in line by brutal discipline within the army. Once you drop them in Southeast Asia, you've removed the bridle from a wild horse." Wu De countered. "They'll turn lawless—looting, burning, raping—and if they can't beat the locals, they'll be wiped out..."
"So what if locals kill them? We still get our outposts."
"If they're killed, what outposts? And without supervision, why would they farm and gather resources? They'll just raid. At best, we'll end up with another gang of Chinese pirates. Is that colonization?" Wu De sighed. "Without oversight, these surly scoundrels will probably fight among themselves. If we send officers along, they'll likely quarrel with the soldiers first. Colonization requires unity above all—such unruly men are of little use."
Note: A jingguan is a mound made by piling enemy corpses and covering them with earth. The practice appears to date back to the Spring and Autumn period and once spread to the Korean peninsula.