The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 13 The Blue Banner Arrives

At noon the next day, three carriages piled with gold and silver were pushed to the parade ground.

The night raiders were summoned to collect their reward money. Just like yesterday, Liu Zhaosun climbed onto the high platform and shouted:
"Everyone risked their lives to follow me in this night raid on the bandits. The general is so pleased that he hasn't even had time to report it to Yang Jinglue. He's already rewarded everyone with his own money! Anyone whose name is called, please step forward and claim your reward! Everyone gets a share!"

In the center of the camp, Captain Liu Zhaosun personally handed ingots of silver to the soldiers in the expectant eyes of the soldiers.

The soldiers who received the silver were all grateful to General Liu and thanked him repeatedly.

Liu Zhaosun announced loudly that according to the general's wishes, all those who participated in the night attack, regardless of whether they were fire soldiers or combat soldiers, would be rewarded with ten taels of silver each, and the injured soldiers would receive an additional ten taels of compensation. The soldiers who died in battle would be buried on the spot and would be compensated after the army returned.

"What? Even the fire soldiers have to be rewarded with silver, this is too..."

The soldiers were talking about it. As a relatively low-ranking branch of the army, the fire soldiers were responsible for making fires, cooking, and carrying supplies. After the combat soldiers killed the enemy, the fire soldiers would chop off the head with a beheading knife.

The status of fire soldiers is quite low, only slightly stronger than auxiliary soldiers.

Unexpectedly, there were rewards for the fire soldiers this time.

The soldiers looked at Liu Zhaosun with gratitude in their eyes.

In addition to the generous silver compensation, Liu Zhaosun also told the generals that General Kang had submitted the report of the night attack to the court. It would not be long before anyone whose name was on the victory report would be rewarded by the court, and the generals would be promoted.

There was another round of cheers all around. The news spread quickly in the camp. Everyone knew that the court attached great importance to the annihilation of the Jiannu. The emperor offered shockingly high rewards. For example, if someone captured Nurhaci, he would be rewarded with the rank of commander, which could be inherited by the family. If someone killed eight beiles in battle, he would be rewarded with a thousand gold coins and promoted to commander.

Now that everyone has just made military achievements and killed so many soldiers of the Bordered Blue Banner, the rewards from the court will surely be generous.

Thinking of this, everyone looked at General Liu Qian and Lord Kang beside him, thinking about how to establish good relationships with these people.

The military camp is not a shopping mall, and generals are not businessmen. A certain degree of material rewards can motivate soldiers, but if there are too many, it will erode the courage of soldiers to charge into battle and kill the enemy, and affect the combat effectiveness of the army. In short, too much is as bad as too little.

So after paying out the pension rewards, the next step is to provide compensation to the dead.

The fifteen soldiers who died on their way back from the night raid were transported to Shajianzi Hill, where Liu Zhaosun personally selected a location in the valley with excellent feng shui for burial.

The soldiers worked together and soon built fifteen new graves, covering them with thick pebbles.

Qiao Yiqi had his personal guards fetch a few wooden boards, which he carved into the shape of a tombstone with a dagger. He then wrote on the boards, "Tomb of the Eastern Route Army's Fallen Soldiers in the 47th Year of the Wanli Reign," in large characters. His brushstrokes flowed with vigor and force.

Before Liu Zhaosun traveled through time, he remembered that Qiao Yiqi, besides being a military officer, was also a calligrapher. Looking back now, his calligraphy was indeed worthy of its reputation, with some of the charm of Wang Xizhi and Huaisu.

"What a beautiful handwriting! I'll definitely have Qiao Yiqi copy the war manifesto against the bandits in the future!"

Liu Zhaosun looked at the words written on the wooden board and was already thinking in his mind.

Qiao Yiqi asked his servants to insert a wooden board in front of the grave and improvised an epitaph for the dead soldiers. It was very short, with no more than a hundred words in total.

Master Qiao read it aloud in public, using ups and downs in rhythm and plain language, briefly summarizing the reasons, process, and final results of the Ming army's night attack.

The group of warriors didn't understand what the epitaph meant, but seeing Qiao Yiqi writing furiously on the wooden board with beads of sweat on his forehead, they were all moved.

In the late Ming Dynasty, the idea that civil officials were superior to military officials was already deeply ingrained. Even when meeting military officials of the same rank, civil officials would not take the initiative to greet them. But the fact that this court military supervisor, a fourth-rank civil official, had taken the initiative to write an epitaph for a group of military men was something they found difficult to accept.

After so many years, there are finally civilian officials who treat these soldiers as human beings.

After the tomb was built, Liu Zhaosun swore a solemn oath in front of the soldiers, vowing that after the slaves were destroyed and the Tartars were driven out of Liaodong, he would come back to carve a tombstone for the dead soldiers, and offer incense to them so that they would receive offerings forever.

The soldiers were deeply moved. If their superior could be so kind to the dead, how much more so to the living?

Along the way, General Liu took good care of the soldiers.

During the night attack, it was all thanks to his quick decision-making that everyone was able to escape the pursuit of thousands of Tatars, escape and save their lives.

Seeing Liu Qianzong so humble and considerate of his subordinates, everyone was moved to tears. The more than one hundred Korean archers led by Jin Yinghe were moved to tears. For the first time, these Korean soldiers felt the generosity of the Celestial Empire.

When Jiang Hongli was in power, he made things difficult for the Korean soldiers, exploited them to the extreme, and did everything he could to get them. He did not treat the Korean soldiers as human beings at all and never sent them military supplies.

Not to mention rewards, they didn't even give them cotton clothes, and watched the soldiers freeze and starve to death. And this Liu Qianzong, on the other hand, gave out rewards and buried the dead. It is true that the generals of the Celestial Empire were extraordinary.

Many soldiers present, whether they were Zhejiang soldiers, servants, or Korean soldiers, were all rough and uncouth. They knew nothing about the national justice and the Chinese culture, and they would not understand what was said. However, these soldiers were willing to fight for whoever gave them money, gave them benefits, and treated them as human beings.

"I am willing to follow General Liu to kill the Jiannu! Kill the Jiannu!"

Liu Zhaosun nodded slightly and looked back at his two civil servant friends. Kang Yingqian reminded him that the tens of thousands of taels of silver left by Jiang Hongli were not much left.

"Even if I spend all my money, it will come back. Don't worry. Once we destroy the Bordered Blue Banner and capture Hetuala, there will be plenty of silver!"

Of course, destroying the Bordered Blue Banner was unrealistic, and capturing Hetuala was even more wishful thinking. What Liu Zhaosun needed to consider now was how to escape unscathed.

After suffering a night attack, Fei Yangwu dispatched two teams of white-armored soldiers to the south, compressing the Ming army's night troops into a few miles around the Shajianzi camp. The Ming army's range of activities was greatly restricted, and the scouts had to pay a heavy price for every step forward.

Liu Jing's servants were badly injured after the night attack, and it was impossible for them to send a large number of troops to block the scouts of the Bordered Blue Banner like they did yesterday.

As a result, the Shajianzi camp was exposed to the surveillance of the Bordered Blue Banner scouts. The Jiannu scouts cruised around the Ming army camp all day long and reported the intelligence they had gathered to Amin.

Second Prince was shocked to hear that the Ming army had set up layers of defenses and had even cut down all the trees on the surrounding mountains. He had not expected that the Ming army could so calmly build a defense line in such a short time.

In the night attack yesterday, the Bordered Blue Banner lost more than 500 combat soldiers, 30 white-armored soldiers, and the casualties of the Bannermen were about a thousand. At this time, all the generals in the banner were furious and wished to cut Liu Jing into pieces.

Amin ignored Fei Yangwu's dissuasion and immediately began to prepare for the attack on the Ming army. When Liu Zhaosun distributed pensions to the soldiers, the second prince had already led 5,000 soldiers to attack the south with great momentum.

Without the night scouts, Liu Zhaosun knew nothing about the actions of the Bordered Blue Banner, but he had already anticipated that Amin would soon go south to seek revenge.

This night attack not only gave the Bordered Blue Banner a warning, but also allowed Liu Zhaosun to gather a group of elite loyalists, whether they were Deng Qilong's Zhejiang soldiers or Jin Yinghe's Korean soldiers, as well as his own servants, all of whom would play a crucial role in the subsequent battle.

The longer they waited, the less likely they were to come. From dawn to dusk, there was still no sign of the bandit. The night watchman they had sent out came back to report that Amin was still on the way. Liu Zhaosun became a little nervous. Could it be that the Second Prince wanted to retaliate against him and also wanted to lead the Blue Banner to launch a night attack?

After nightfall, Liu Jing summoned all the generals and tirelessly repeated the defense plan of the Shajianzi camp, asking them to go back and be careful to guard against Amin's night attack. Kang Yingqian asked about Yang Jinglue's reinforcements, and General Liu sighed and stopped talking.

From the general's expression, everyone knew that there was no need to think about reinforcements. They didn't know whether the Tangma sent out arrived in Shenyang safely. If they arrived safely, why didn't Yang Jinglue have any news? It must be because time was too tight. It would take at least two days to get back to Shenyang after leaving Kuandian yesterday.

The generals were still discussing, Liu Jing signaled for silence. He looked around and said coldly:
"I'm afraid Yang Jinglie won't send troops. I suspect Li Rubai has already retreated to southern Liaoning. I don't know what these two said. They won't rescue our Eastern Route Army anyway."

"What about the Yehe tribe?"

Hope flickered in Qiao Yiqi's eyes. The Yehe tribe and the Jianzhou Jurchen tribe were sworn enemies, and the two sides fought to the death. This time, during the expedition against Nurhaci, the Yehe tribe joined the Ming side as the backup for Liu Jing's Eastern Army, and arrived slightly later than the Ming army's Korean soldiers.

But now it seems there is no hope.

"The Yehe tribe has long been a frightened bird. It would be better to rely on the Mongols than on them."

Liu Jing chuckled. He had been in the north for many years and knew some Jurchen history. He was particularly familiar with the Mongols.

The two civil servants looked pale when they heard this. They had hoped to gain some military merit in the Eastern Route Army, but they had never expected to lose their lives here.

Liu Zhaosun knew that these two civil servants had to be won over, so he comforted them:
"Where are the reinforcements? Isn't General Jin the reinforcement?"

Jin Yinghe smiled awkwardly, and everyone else followed suit, but Liu Jing and Kang Yingqian had bitter smiles on their faces.

"Thirteen, how do you think we should fight this battle?"

Liu Jing stood up, looked around at everyone, and his eyes fell on his adopted son Liu Zhaosun.

(End of this chapter)