1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 31 Outsourcing
Compared to Chen Xingwang, Xie Bin is more like a soldier, and more like a battalion commander.

While his wife was cooking in the kitchen, Xie Bin asked Hou Jiyong in detail about his patrol that day.

Immediately afterward, Xie Bin called over three younger soldiers and asked them if they had finished their spring plowing work.

After receiving an affirmative answer, Xie Bin distributed meat to them again and told them not to forget the weighted training exercise on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and to go back and prepare well.

After finishing these tasks, Xie Bin's wife, Wang, had already cooked a dish of smoked pork stir-fried with bamboo shoots.

The fresh bamboo shoots stir-fried with pork fat smelled exceptionally good. After walking for half a day on the mountain road, Peng Gang's stomach rumbled as soon as he smelled the aroma.

Hou Jiyong moved an unpainted eight-immortal table from the main room to the courtyard, and Xie Bin's two sons also obediently brought over a few bamboo chairs for them to sit down.

“These days, it’s rare to see a Green Standard Army officer as dedicated as Battalion Commander Xie,” Peng Gang said as he picked up a piece of bamboo shoot and popped it into his mouth after taking his seat.

“This deep mountain forest beneath my feet is not like the garrison or the camp.” Xie Bin sighed helplessly and said, “If I don’t do my job properly, my whole family and my brothers’ lives will be lost here. This is a job where I risk my life, and I dare not be careless.”

What Xie Bin said was true.

No matter how incompetent the Green Standard Army was, they still had at least a hundred or so muskets and a few mountain guns in their camps as a show of force and a source of support.

Ordinary bandits and brigands dared not covet the Green Standard Army's main outposts and camps.

It's hard to say about the Green Standard Army's garrison at Xuntang, where the number of troops stationed there is small.

To say nothing of the distant past, last September, the Baisha flood in Longshan, Guixian County, was wiped out by Zhang Jiaxiang of the Heaven and Earth Society, who lost eighteen muskets, a mountain-splitting cannon, and all kinds of knives, spears, and shields.

It took Li Dianyuan, the deputy commander of Xunzhou, a great deal of money to suppress the matter.

Unfortunately, at the end of the year, Zhang Jiaxiang's Heaven and Earth Society forces plundered Tongling with weapons and cannons, even looting the home of a local scholar named He.

That would have been bad enough, but afterwards Zhang Jiaxiang went on to make a very high-profile claim that he would attack Qishixu and the county town.

When this reached the ears of the magistrate of Gui County, he was extremely uneasy and immediately reported the various derelictions of duty by the local Green Standard Army to Zheng Zuchen, the governor of Guangxi.

Min Zhengfeng, the governor of Guangxi, usually did not concern himself with military affairs and was not strict in disciplining his troops. However, he was fond of appreciating literature and was quite literate. He often boasted of being a scholar-general and paid great attention to maintaining good relations with civil officials.

Before Governor Zheng Zuchen could speak, Min Zhengfeng summoned Li Dianyuan to the Tibiao Camp and paraded him through the camp with arrows planted in his hands. After the parade, still furious, he punished Li Dianyuan with eighty lashes, leaving him half-dead.

Even now, Li Dianyuan still feels a burning hatred whenever he thinks of Zhang Jiaxiang's name.

If the Baisha Xun area is so dangerous, one can only imagine how dangerous the small Shangdongtang is.

There were only eleven people in Shangdongtang, with six muskets but no cannons.

Let alone Zhang Jiaxiang, a notorious bandit leader of the Heaven and Earth Society who dominated Guangdong and Guangxi, if Peng Gang could train and discipline those lads from Honglianping, he would also dare to set his sights on Dongtang.

If Xie Bin, this minor deputy garrison commander, didn't have some real skills, he probably wouldn't be able to keep the local bandits within dozens of miles of the area in check.

"It's my good fortune that my mountain land is near Commander Xie's pond." Peng Gang filled Xie Bin's glass with wine, addressing him as Commander Xie repeatedly. "I hope Commander Xie can take care of my mountain land."

People tend to like hearing about what they lack most. Xie Bin really liked being called "General Manager."

Strictly speaking, Xie Bin's external affairs commissioner cannot be considered a general manager.

Although a battalion commander was the lowest-ranking military officer in the Green Standard Army, he was still a proper seventh-rank official with a formal government establishment.

The position of "outer commissioner" was an "extra appointment" created by the Green Camp to make up for the shortage of troops. It was not formally established and was not ranked among the officers. Instead, it was a "duty" that was between officers and soldiers. Its actual function was more similar to that of non-commissioned officers in the modern army.

There is an insurmountable gap between the outsourced personnel and the platoon leader; if you cross that line, you're an official; if you don't, you're still just a soldier.

"You've been sending me money and meat all this time, just for your mountain territory, haven't you?" Xie Bin said, taking a sip of wine and smacking his lips. "Commander Xie has sharp eyes," Peng Gang admitted frankly.

“It’s true that Honglianping is within my defense zone, but as you know, my small Shangdongtang only has eleven people, including myself. How can eleven people possibly protect the entire mountainous area of ​​over thirty miles?” Xie Bin said after a moment of deep thought.

"I will speak to the local mountain people I know, for the sake of this meal and five taels of silver, and tell them not to disturb your territory. But I can't help the vagrants and bandits who trespass into my territory."

As he spoke, Xie Bin grabbed his chopsticks and knocked the piece of meat that Hou Jiyong had just picked up out of his hand: "You damn well better leave some for me! You're just taking meat! After you finish eating their food and drink, take this opportunity to tell the villagers in the nearby mountains not to disturb Peng Tantou's mountain area."

Hou Jiyong nodded in agreement, but his chopsticks still involuntarily picked at the fatty smoked meat on the plate.

"That's true, but in the surrounding thirty miles of mountains, only my Honglianping can bring money to Commander Xie."

"Well, another one who won't act until he sees the benefit." Peng Gang put down his chopsticks and said meaningfully.

"Silver?" Upon hearing the word "silver," Xie Bin became interested and squinted his eyes, saying, "Tell me about it."

He was indeed very interested in Peng Gang's mountain area, but since he hadn't figured out Peng Gang's background, he couldn't easily reach out to Honglianping.

If you offend the wrong people for the sake of a small profit from the mountain area, it would be a loss that doesn't outweigh the gain.

Since Chen Liansheng and his son died for their country, Xie Bin has been living a quiet and unassuming life without their protection.

Since Peng Gang brought up the matter of the mountain area, Xie Bin was naturally very interested in hearing what Peng Gang had to say.

“When my mountain quarry is opened for charcoal production, those dark charcoal logs will be pure silver,” Peng Gang said with a smile.

"Didn't you rent this mountain area from Master Qiu? Can you make the decisions about the charcoal made from the wood from Honglianping?" Xie Bin couldn't help but swallow hard as he spoke.

Xie Bin only knew that Peng Gang had come to Honglianping to clear the mountains; he was unaware of the details.

“It’s true that I rented Honglianping from Qiu Gusan,” Peng Gang nodded and said, “but the terms of the lease I signed with Qiu Gusan are different from those of a normal lease.”

For the first three years, I didn't have to pay rent to Qiu Gusan; I only needed to give him 200 catties of charcoal during festivals. I had the final say on the charcoal produced in Honglianping.

"And what about three years from now?" Xie Bin asked eagerly.

There were almost no ways to make money in Shangdongtang, a godforsaken place. Peng Gang was willing to share the profits from the firewood and charcoal of Honglianping Mountain with him, which Xie Bin was more than happy to accept.

With the 60-70% of the grain and salary provided by the Guangxi Provincial Governor, plus the coarse grains they grew themselves, Xie Bin and his men could barely make ends meet.

Xie Bin desperately needed a long-term, stable way to make money to support his wife, children, and his men.

"Who can say for sure what will happen three years from now?" Peng Gang's thoughts drifted.

Three years later, he was also eager to know if he could assemble a decent team in Honglianping. He was riding the waves of history in the latter half of the 19th century.

The 19th century was a turbulent century, and also the century in human history with the most rapid technological progress.

In just one century, humanity has created more material wealth than it had in the previous thousands of years.

The gears of the two industrial revolutions completely reshaped the economic landscape left over from the agricultural era, and human civilization underwent a complete transformation at the end of the century.

The 19th century was also the birthing period of the modern world. The modern national consciousness, and even the territorial boundaries, of the major countries in the modern world were formed and defined in the 19th century.

This is the last window of opportunity for expansion. If we miss this precious window, not only will it become exponentially more difficult to expand our living space, but we will also find it difficult to recover the lost land.

"Then let's talk about what happened in the last three years." Xie Bin waved his rough hand in front of Peng Gang, pulling Peng Gang's thoughts back to reality.

(End of this chapter)