Chapter 1056 - Beneath the Walls of Dengzhou

The bitter wind cut like a blade. Beneath the walls of Dengzhou, all was deathly still.

It was the second day of the first month of the fifth year of Renshen—the Chongzhen reign.

It was the second day of the New Year, a time when every household should have been celebrating. In peaceful years, even the poorest families—as long as they were not completely destitute—would paste couplets on their doors, hang door-gods, and set off a few firecrackers.

But at this moment, the land outside Dengzhou's walls had become a scorched wasteland. Villages lay in ruins—broken walls and charred timbers from which wisps of dark smoke still rose.

Across the fields, amid the rubble of shattered bricks and tiles, rigid corpses lay strewn everywhere. Blood had congealed and frozen, turning black in the bitter cold.

Dusk crept across the sky as snowflakes began to drift down. Military jackets, armor, tattered rags, and silken robes alike were gradually buried beneath the white shroud.

Those who had been prowling among the corpses searching for spoils could no longer endure the cold and departed one by one. The land lay vast and desolate beneath the ashen sky.

In this bleak and murderous snowscape, within a copse of the kind of wild burial grounds common to these parts, four or five figures lay concealed.

They were dressed warmly, wrapped in white camouflage cloaks, hidden within snow-covered field fortifications constructed with considerable skill. Even if someone walked right up to them, they might fail to notice. These were members of the Special Reconnaissance Team under Chen Sigen's command.

The burial ground was a thicket of scrub woods with complex terrain that offered excellent concealment. Exiting from one side led to a dry riverbed whose banks were lined with brush, making escape easy.

From here, the rebel army's main camp at Mishen Mountain, less than a kilometer away, was clearly visible. Every movement of the rebels could be observed. Likewise, the south gate of Dengzhou, north of Mishen Mountain, lay in plain view.

Since the twenty-second day of the eleventh month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, when the rebels had swept all the way to the walls of Dengzhou, the city's four gates had remained shut for over a month.

During this time, both the garrison inside Dengzhou and the rebels outside had maintained relative calm. The rebels had not attacked Qingzhou or Laizhou, but had marched directly to Dengzhou.

Throughout this period, neither Denglai Governor Sun Yuanhua nor Shandong Governor Yu Dacheng had intercepted or blocked the rebels. And the rebels, apart from pillaging villages and towns along the way, had not touched any of the prefectural or county seats, bypassing them all.

The two sides had thus reached a strange tacit understanding, maintaining a standoff beneath Dengzhou's walls.

For the Shandong Forward Committee, quietly gathering refugees on Qimu Island off Longkou, this was hardly surprising. The situation surrounding the Dengzhou mutiny was extraordinarily complex. Only after consulting multiple historical sources and research materials had the Grand Library produced a detailed report. In essence, the two sides were not mortal enemies but were each pursuing their own agendas within this upheaval. Sun Yuanhua had been consistently trying to pacify the rebels in order to maintain his power and influence in the Denglai region. Meanwhile, Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde had been attempting to walk a tightrope between "accepting pacification" and "independence," aiming to extract maximum concessions from the Ming court for themselves and the Liaodong faction.

With one party desperately seeking to pacify and the other hoping to exploit pacification negotiations for gain, hostilities between the two sides had never escalated.

Although the people outside the city walls had suffered terribly, and sporadic skirmishes between mounted patrols occasionally flared, the two sides had never truly engaged in full-scale battle from beginning to end, and the rebels had not launched a direct assault on Dengzhou.

Though the Dengzhou battlefield had temporarily fallen quiet, undercurrents swirled beneath the surface. Through Deer Wenyuan and church contacts, the Foreign Intelligence Bureau had placed "relationships" and intelligence agents inside Dengzhou and within the Governor's office. Though their positions were humble and they had no access to secrets, what they saw and heard was sufficient to confirm that since Kong Youde raised the banner of rebellion in Hebei, the two sides had maintained secret communication. Kong Youde's "plea for pacification" and Sun Yuanhua's advocacy for pacification were open secrets both inside and outside the city.

Sun Yuanhua's murky relationship with the old Liaodong faction had drawn accusations from some of his political enemies: he had allegedly obtained the post of Denglai Governor because Kong Youde had bribed senior officials in the capital with gold, silver, and jewels. Sun Yuanhua had therefore shown particular favor to Kong Youde after assuming office. Furthermore, Chen Youshi, a former Pi Island man, had also bribed Sun Yuanhua, enabling Kong Youde and other Pi Island veterans to thrive in the Denglai region.

As for Shandong Governor Yu Dacheng, who had halted his troops after the mutiny and also advocated pacification—rumor had it this was the result of Kong Youde, through Sun Yuanhua, presenting him with a cartload of gold and silver treasures.

Whether these allegations were true or merely political mudslinging, Sun Yuanhua's ambiguous attitude toward the rebels and his single-minded pursuit of pacification were facts. The Dengzhou Forward Committee concluded that, setting aside political and economic entanglements, Sun Yuanhua had consistently sought to bring the Liaodong veterans of Pi Island origin under his control and retrain them into a significant military force against the Later Jin—which was why he kept trying to pacify Kong Youde and the other rebels.

But his efforts were doomed to fail. This appeasement would ultimately lead to his own destruction.

Whether it was the Liaodong veterans or the Ming bureaucracy he operated within, both were fruits rotted beyond saving. The efforts of one man and a few officials would accomplish little.

Just recently, to the east of the city, intense fighting had erupted between the rebels and Governor Sun Yuanhua's standard-bearer Zhang Tao and Denglai Regional Commander Zhang Keda, who had camped outside the walls to guard the gates. Zhang Keda's Southern troops had won a victory, but Zhang Tao's men—all Liaodong soldiers from Pi Island—had suddenly abandoned the field despite favorable conditions, ignoring Zhang Tao's commands. Zhang Keda's Southern troops were counterattacked by the rebels and nearly annihilated. Most of Zhang Tao's men then surrendered to the rebels.

The camps that Zhang Keda and Zhang Tao had established outside the walls to defend the city were completely abandoned, and all weapons and supplies within fell into rebel hands. The rebels' momentum surged. Originally, Li Jiucheng and Kong Youde's forces had numbered little more than a thousand men. Now, with the addition of several thousand of Zhang Tao's deserters, their military strength had grown dramatically.

Worse still, Zhang Tao's men were all Liaodong soldiers sharing common origins with the rebels. All harbored deep hatred for the civilians, officials, and soldiers of the Denglai region, and their internal cohesion was extremely strong. They were burning to storm Dengzhou for "revenge."

Though Dengzhou appeared to be a formidable fortress—its storehouses piled high with grain and silver, armed with hundreds of cannon, garrisoned by six or seven thousand soldiers old and new, many trained by the Portuguese—a large number of its officers and men were Liaodong soldiers. The city also housed many discontented Liaodong refugees. Internal support had long since crumbled; the city was as fragile as paper.

In the thicket, the sergeant leading the observation team raised his binoculars and once again surveyed the desolate land around them. The snow was falling heavier now, but his military thermal clothing from another timeline kept the cold completely at bay. He carefully adjusted the focus knob of his Russian binoculars as he observed. Appearing for all the world like a "special forces operator" from another timeline, the sergeant had in fact been an ordinary Shandong peasant just two years ago.

"All normal. No unusual activity," the sergeant reported, checking his wristwatch. The Special Reconnaissance Team was one of the few units in which naturalized sergeants and officers were uniformly issued watches. "Transmit to headquarters!"

A radio operator opened the 2W transmitter and began another scheduled broadcast. Chen Sigen's orders to the observation team were to report on the Dengzhou battlefield situation every hour. The reconnaissance soldiers knew that when headquarters suddenly ordered an increase in report frequency, it was usually a harbinger of major events to come.

At the same time, inside Dengzhou's walls, Huang Ande lay in a room in Sun Yuan's house, resting with his eyes closed. Two 1630-pattern revolvers, fully loaded, were hidden beneath his waist; under his pillow lay a hand grenade.

Such precautions were far from unnecessary. Sun Yuan was not home. Because Zhang Keda and Zhang Tao had been defeated outside the city that day, the atmosphere inside had grown suddenly tense. Sun Yuan, as one of Sun Yuanhua's household retainers, had been summoned to the Governor's office to "stand ready for battle." At the same time, the Liaodong refugees within the city had begun to stir.

Since the rebels had arrived at Dengzhou's walls in the eleventh month, the hundred thousand or more Eastern River veterans and their families who had migrated from Pi Island, Port Arthur, and elsewhere had become a constant source of anxiety for the officials inside the city.

The conflict between the Liaodong refugees and the local Dengzhou military and civilians had become extremely sharp ever since large numbers of Eastern River soldiers and civilians had been ferried inland. Beginning in the first year of Chongzhen, great numbers of Liaodong refugees had crossed the sea to Dengzhou, where local officials were responsible for their settlement—totaling no fewer than several hundred thousand.

From the moment these hundreds of thousands set foot on Dengzhou's soil, they had been exploited and abused by local bureaucrats. Many who had returned across the sea could no longer endure the torment and extortion, and fled back to the Eastern River region. When Denglai Regional Commander Yang Guodong visited Pi Island on official business in the first year of Chongzhen, the embittered refugees had gathered in a mob and nearly killed him.

Moreover, during the early Chongzhen years, many of the Liaodong refugees who had crossed to Dengzhou had received military commissions from Mao Wenlong, so that "yellow parasols and gold-belted officials could be seen everywhere in the streets." After Mao Wenlong's execution in the second year of Chongzhen, Shandong Governor Wang Congyi had memorialized a request to strengthen defenses, recommending: "Should any vessels approach from the western sea, fire cannons at once to destroy them, as a precaution before the storm." This revealed just how bad Mao Wenlong's and the Eastern River refugees' reputation had become among the Shandong populace, and how tense relations had grown.

Historical documents described the friction thus: "The Liaodong soldiers are naturally fierce and aggressive; the Dengzhou people cannot bear them." Or: "Since the fall of Liaoyang, over a hundred thousand Liaodong refugees have fled to Dengzhou, and the locals have treated them with contempt, sometimes killing them; the Liaodong people are filled with resentment." Or: "The Liaodong refugees migrated inland; the locals treated them as enemies, and warnings went unheeded." Furthermore, Supervising Inspector Xie Sanbin once noted that "the Liaodong people in the region are quite ill at ease," and when the rebels returned to Dengzhou, it was said: "The Dengzhou people have always mistreated the Liaodong people, and even with the army at the walls, the killing of Liaodong people continued." Thus, in Ai Rong's letter to Military Commissioner Liu Yulie, he summarized the causes of the mutiny: "First, Kong and Li are by nature vicious and accustomed to rebellion; second, accumulated resentment from years of humiliation by the Dengzhou locals; third, unwillingness to serve at the distant garrison of Ningyuan."

To suppress the Liaodong population inside the city, from the moment the rebels arrived at the walls, the Governor's office, Regional Commander's office, and Military Supervisor's office had all dispatched patrols carrying authority tokens throughout Dengzhou and the naval harbor, strictly prohibiting "seditious gatherings" and "spreading rumors." Every few days, some unfortunate soul was beheaded as a public example.

(End of Chapter)