Chapter 2151 - The Patrol

On May 9, 1635, as the sky was just beginning to lighten in the early morning mist, the Wuzhou National Army Battalion's Composite Company departed from Wuzhou aboard six Daihatsu landing craft to begin its first patrol along the river.

According to wireless reports, the supply convoy from Zhaoqing had departed that morning and was expected to reach Xintan by evening.

The Composite Company's mission was to reach Xintan before nightfall, rendezvous with the supply convoy, hand off escort duties with the Zhaoqing National Army Battalion, and then escort the convoy safely to Wuzhou.

The mission commander was Zhu Si—he had told Qian Duo that since this was the Composite Company's first deployment, it would be prudent for him to command personally. Qian Duo agreed.

The mission wasn't complicated, which was why Qian Duo felt comfortable letting Zhu Si lead it. In truth, Qian Duo trusted Li Dong more than Zhu Si. Though Zhu Si had served longer than Li Dong and had been in the rigorously trained Garrison Battalion, the Garrison Battalion had very little field combat experience, having spent years on end performing only urban garrison duties.

In Qian Duo's assessment, Zhu Si's formation drill was impeccable; he could recite regulations and the infantry handbook by heart; his shooting and bayonet work, while not exceptional, were at least "good" or better. All in all, he was an excellent soldier.

But he had one major weakness: he lacked actual command experience in combat. Nor did he have the credentials of having served as an officer before being directly promoted to battalion commander in charge of three companies—whether he could handle operational command remained to be seen.

Li Dong, though he had also never served as an officer, had spent two solid years in a field unit and had been a corporal. He had led teams on security operations numerous times, often in charge of similar-sized units, and had relatively more experience in this kind of low-intensity warfare. So Qian Duo had originally intended to give Li Dong command of the Composite Company.

Since Zhu Si had now volunteered, it was acceptable as a learning opportunity. After all, one engagement's worth of experience was more valuable than countless exercises on the training ground.

And so Battalion Commander Zhu Si went directly to the front-line command post. Li Dong remained in charge as Composite Company commander. Qian Duo hoped they would complement each other.

The six Daihatsu boats proceeded in column formation along the center of the channel. Zhu Si and the naval officer commanding the flotilla had agreed: odd-numbered boats would form the left column under Zhu Si's command; even-numbered boats the right column under Li Dong's command. This way, if they needed to deploy forces or open fire on both banks simultaneously, command and control would be simpler.

Because they were executing a slow, near-shore patrol, all six boats had been temporarily modified. The best two—the flagship No. 1 and No. 2 boats—had been refitted at the Hong Kong shipyard. They had been fitted with supplementary iron-plate armor on both sides and a fixed gun mount at the stern for a 12-pounder mountain howitzer—the two-wheeled gun carriage was also carried aboard, allowing the piece to be landed for use if necessary.

The other boats hadn't had time to return to Hong Kong for refit and had received only temporary modifications at Sanshui. Guangdong lacked large iron plates and had no riveters, so they had simply erected bamboo-bundle screens along the sides—similar to the bamboo shields used by the Japanese—coated on the outside with mud to make them fireproof. They had no cannon or打字机 (machine gun) configurations, and relied entirely on the infantry's own firepower.

Because the Composite Company was only one-third veteran troops drawn temporarily from the Core Company, this meant each boat had only five Nanyang rifles. With such limited long-range firepower, Qian Duo and Zhu Si had culled Ming army deserters from the various companies who knew how to use firearms, and equipped each boat with captured weapons from Wuzhou. These were mainly banjiu muskets and some breech-loading Folangji swivel guns—one or two dozen per boat. Zhu Si's thinking was that while these weapons had poor accuracy and very slow rates of fire, they did pack considerable punch. In close-quarters combat, they could effectively damage the enemy.

These firearms were set up in the screen's firing ports, bristling like a porcupine.

Steam engines rumbled, belching black smoke and white mist. National Army soldiers clutching long spears crowded the decks; those not on duty sat on their packs—the deck was covered with packs and wooden barrels and crates of provisions. Soldiers on watch stood on the crates, heads poking above the screens, gazing idly at their surroundings. Behind each Daihatsu trailed a small boat piled high with firewood.

Guangdong was not short of coal, but most of its coal mines had not yet been opened in the seventeenth century. Along the entire Guangzhou–Wuzhou route, there was nowhere to "locally procure" coal. Apart from major nodes like Sanshui and Zhaoqing, where the Joint Logistics Command stockpiled some powerplant coal using coal barges, steamships on the West River often had no choice but to burn firewood.

Firewood, of course, was plentiful and easy to gather in lush Guangdong. The drawback was its low calorific value—hardwood had less than half the heating value of standard coal, and in practice even lower. This forced all steamships on the West River to carry supplementary fuel.

To avoid the dangerous and time-consuming business of stopping to collect fuel ashore, most vessels towed an unpowered fuel barge while underway. Qian Duo thought this entailed considerable risk, but since Wuzhou had no coal to draw on, they could only make do.

It was May in Guangdong, and early summer had arrived. The sun beat down mercilessly; the soldiers could only huddle beneath canvas awnings. The scorching heat, the vibration of the running steam engines, the acrid smoke... before long, many men felt dizzy and nauseated.

"If you're sick, report and go to the gunwale to vomit!" "No moving about at will!" "Keep your eyes on the surroundings!" Li Dong and the sergeants wove among the men on each boat, bellowing over the noise of the steam engines to emphasize discipline. They paused now and then to check someone's equipment and offer token encouragement. Though there were plenty of deserters here, not many had actually seen battle; many were nervous.

Before departure, every man in the Composite Company had been issued an additional standard machete along with other odds and ends. This was not because the commanders held them in high regard, but because the developing situation had prompted Beiwei to order that "the National Army's equipment be strengthened as much as possible."

As the Southern China Army's offensive proceeded, Ming rule in Guangdong was collapsing. The restive Yao people, who had been secretly organizing, seized the moment to rise in rebellion, attacking the remaining Ming garrisons everywhere. With the Southern China Army short on manpower—able only to send small detachments to take over county seats—they had been unable to establish effective control in the mountain regions. The Yao uprising had spread like wildfire, faster and larger than its historical counterpart. With tens of thousands of Yao having stormed and taken Lianshan County seat, they were now striking out in all directions. The demoralized, leaderless Ming forces scattered across the region offered no resistance. Nearly the entire northwestern mountain region of Guangdong had been engulfed. Many military outposts had fallen; some county seats had been overrun by Yao militants even before the Beiwei Army could take them over. After some counties were taken over by National Army companies, they were subsequently driven out or besieged by Yao forces, their communications cut. The storm was linking up, threatening Shaoguan, Zhaoqing, and Wuzhou.

All manner of strongmen were also stirring, absorbing the defeated and scattered Ming troops, throwing their weight around in areas the Council of Elders had not yet fully controlled. What worried Beiwei most was this: based on prisoner interrogations and observations of the various armed forces' actions, the Yao, Ming remnants, and bandits showed no signs of uniting—they were still fighting one another—yet their operations already displayed a certain coordination. Particularly whenever the Beiwei Army launched a suppression operation, all sides mounted diversionary actions. The situation seemed to have grown dangerously complex overnight.

Li Dong did not know the full picture—he had only been told at the briefings that "the situation is tense." The specifics were largely unknown to him. One thing was obvious: these new recruits wouldn't become any more effective on the battlefield just because they'd been issued an extra machete. Perhaps they had learned to obey orders and had developed a little unit cohesion, but the officers and sergeants agreed: these raw troops had to be watched at all times, kept in tight formations. The slightest relaxation of control and they would slip off somewhere. To say nothing of the fact that their tactical skills and weapons handling were poorly trained—in a real fight, their standard spears alone wouldn't accomplish much.

At least the commanders knew their actual combat strength, and so the assigned mission was not too difficult—and they had the Daihatsu boats as a tool: if things went badly, at worst they could board the boats and run.

The flotilla chugged downriver and quickly passed Xilongzhou. A Beiwei Army observation post was stationed there, and the River Squadron had a duty gunboat on station. But beyond this point, apart from county seats and important transport-hub villages, the Beiwei Army had virtually no military presence along either bank.

At the moment, not a single boat could be seen on the West River; the shores were equally desolate. Many small hamlets were deserted; some had already become ruins. Larger villages and towns had sentries posted, but though it was spring, hardly anyone was working the fields. Now and then black smoke drifted in the sky—whether from fighting or signal fires, one couldn't tell.

Their six boats sailed alone on this broad river. It gave Li Dong a genuine chill.

"This is just too desolate..." Li Pudun stood atop a crate, murmuring to himself. A native of Zhaoqing who had been a garrison soldier, he knew this stretch of the West River well.

"There's an old saying: 'Better to be a dog in peaceful times than a man in times of chaos.' You joined the army—what did you expect?" Yang Erdong, positioned at the firing port below him, overheard and replied. He had been assigned to tend a banjiu musket—already loaded, with a lit slow match hanging from an iron hook to one side.

"I never wanted to go to war, but if I don't soldier, I don't eat." Li Pudun sounded dejected—he hadn't originally been a camp soldier and hadn't needed to go through the deserters' sorting and assignment process. He had enlisted voluntarily.

(Chapter End)