Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 493 Migration South
On the seventh day of the eleventh month, the wind and snow were as sharp as knives.

Beneath the dilapidated city gate of Haizhouwei, a long procession filed out, slowly moving south.

At the head of the procession were the Ming soldiers from Liaonan Town, dressed in mandarin duck battle jackets, carrying spears and trudging on the frozen ground, their boots making a "crunching" sound, as if providing accompaniment to this arduous migration.

Interspersed among them were more than 8,000 Han slaves in tattered clothes. Apart from a thousand or so who were lucky enough to have a Qing army cotton armor or fur coat to keep them warm, most of them did not even have a decent pair of shoes. They simply wrapped themselves in a rag or straw mat and took steps toward freedom.

At the rear of the column stood the well-disciplined Xinhua Army, their dark blue and navy uniforms standing out against the snow.

The entire procession stretched for miles, forming a long, winding line across the vast white plain, like a string of beads strung together by fate, fragile yet resilient.

Xinhua Army Commander-in-Chief Zhong Minghui reined in his horse, which snorted, and the white breath it exhaled instantly dissipated into the wind and snow.

He turned to look at this special group, his brows furrowing involuntarily, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

His gaze fell on a woman holding a baby. The woman was wrapped in a bloodstained fur coat, and her hair was disheveled and stuck to her frostbitten, red cheeks.

However, the baby in her arms was unusually quiet, its face bluish-purple, clearly having been dead for some time.

But the mother stubbornly held on, warming the cold little body with her own body heat, as if that would preserve the last bit of warmth.

Watching this scene, Zhong Minghui unconsciously clenched his whip.

The cold wind whipped up snowflakes that stung his face. He tightened his collar and continued to scan the ranks.

Those Han slaves, no, they should be called Han people who were captured, were mostly dressed in thin clothes. Some of them were only wrapped in a tattered burlap sack, which could not keep out the biting cold wind at all, and their bodies trembled incessantly.

An elderly man with gray hair—perhaps only in his thirties—looked exceptionally old due to years of labor and hardship. His back was hunched like an arched bridge, and he needed the support of a young man beside him to walk steadily.

His braids were worn into tangled hemp ropes, covered in mud and scabs. His tattered clothes could not cover his bony ribs at all, and when the cold wind blew, they clung to his body like a broken drum.

His cheeks were sunken, his cheekbones were high and protruding, his skin was dry and cracked like a piece of withered tree bark, and there was a dark substance on his lips, it was hard to tell whether it was mud or scabbed blood.

His thin, bony hands were covered in chilblains, some of which had ulcerated and oozed pus, sticking to his tattered cuffs. Any movement caused him to wince in pain.

But he still held tightly to the boy's arm, afraid that if he let go, he would fall behind the group and be left behind forever on this land of despair.

There were also many disabled people in the group, some with broken arms and others with injured legs. Most of them used simple crutches to move forward step by step.

A man missing his left arm was using his only remaining right hand to lean on a polished wooden stick. His left arm was bare below the elbow, and the wound was wrapped with a tattered cloth, which was already soaked in blood and frozen solid.

He walked very slowly, pausing each time he lifted his right leg, as if he needed to use all his strength to support his body, his facial muscles contorted in pain.

Some people advised him to take a break, but he shook his head, his eyes filled with endless hope, "I want to go home, even if I have to crawl, I will crawl home."

“Another one has fallen…” A Xinhua Army staff officer sighed, his voice full of helplessness.

Zhong Minghui looked in the direction of the sound and saw a skinny man in the group trying to bend down to grab a handful of snow to eat. He suddenly swayed and fell to the ground, unable to get up again.

A young man nearby tried to help him up, but he fell down with him, splashing up a cloud of fine snow.

Several Xinhua militiamen ran over and found that the man who had fallen was already dead. They had no choice but to drag him to the side of the road, casually leave him on the snow, and continue on their way.

"If we get to Gaizhou, I don't know how many more people will die along the way." Zhong Minghui sighed softly, his voice filled with a deep sense of helplessness.

Although Gaizhou is not far away, the wind and snow made it feel like a long march for these weak and exhausted people.

"There should be no fewer than five hundred people." Zhou Chengping's expression was also somber.

After capturing Liaoyang, the Xinhua Army rescued a total of more than 8,500 Han slaves. Including those rescued in Haizhou, the total number exceeded 9,700.

However, after years of torture and abuse at the hands of the Qing invaders, these people were generally physically broken down, with almost everyone suffering from multiple diseases or physical disabilities. Most of these Han slaves were captured by the Qing invaders in the last five years, while those who had been captured much earlier had long since been tortured to death.

Under the rule of the Qing dynasty, they lived a life worse than pigs and dogs. Every day they had to get up before dawn to work, farming, building roads, mining, raising livestock, and doing all kinds of hard and tiring work. If they were not careful, they would be severely beaten.

They ate chaff mixed with sand and drank muddy river water. In winter, they had no cotton-padded clothes and could only huddle in haystacks or hug livestock for warmth. People often froze to death at night and were dragged out and thrown away the next day like dead dogs.

Many people lost their lives early in the year they were captured because they could not endure the various tortures.

Only after the Xinhua Army and the officers and soldiers of Liaonan Town liberated Liaoyang and Haizhou did they finally see hope, and the flame of survival was rekindled in their eyes.

The hundred-mile stretch from Liaoyang to Haizhou became the road to the underworld for many Han slaves.

Due to long-term malnutrition and the freezing cold, more than 700 people collapsed on the road during the four-day journey.

Some people suddenly collapse while walking and never get up again; others fall asleep at night and never wake up the next day, their bodies frozen stiff.

The soldiers of the Xinhua Army could only hastily bury their bodies by the roadside, piling up a small mound of snow as a place for them to rest in peace. There were no tombstones, no names, only the howling cold wind bidding them farewell.

Even so, the remaining Han slaves did not give up.

They had only one thought in their minds: to go home, back to their hometown, which might have been dilapidated, but held all their memories.

"What do you think our chances of success would have been if we had attacked Shenyang back then?" Zhong Minghui turned his head away from the poor people he had rescued, his gaze fixed on the vast snowstorm in the distance, his tone tinged with inquiry.

"Commissioner, didn't we already discuss this back then?" Zhou Chengping said in a low voice. He knew Zhong Minghui's feelings at this moment. "Even if we manage to capture Shenyang, we will pay a huge price in casualties. After all, there are tens of thousands of Manchu women and children in Shenyang, as well as a large number of Manchu bondservants. When faced with a life-or-death situation, once they are mobilized, they will have a certain fighting capacity."

“I’m thinking there might be more food, cloth, and even furs and clothing in Shenyang.” Zhong Minghui’s face was full of sympathy. “If we could salvage these supplies, most of the rescued Han people would be able to eat a little more and be dressed a little warmer. Perhaps so many people wouldn’t have died on the road.”

"Commissioner, the number of Han slaves in Shenyang will be even greater..." Zhou Chengping reminded him.

The more Han slaves were rescued, the more food and clothing they lacked. If they were to be moved all the way to Haizhou, even more people would die.

Unless, of course, tens of thousands of troops are directly occupied in Shenyang, and those Han slaves are provided with relief and appeasement on the spot.

But this is clearly beyond the current capabilities of Xinhua.

"..." Zhong Minghui remained silent for a long time, feeling as if a huge rock was stuck in his chest. Then he cursed under his breath, his voice filled with suppressed anger, "Damn Tartars, sooner or later they'll all taste this bitterness!"

"Commissioner..." Zhou Chengping said, "I reckon that even if the Tartars defeat the Ming army along the Songjin line, their days ahead won't be easy. According to the account books we found in the Liaoyang government offices, the Tartars have requisitioned almost all the grain from Liaoyang, Haizhou and other places, filling the Songjin battlefield with it, leaving very little behind."

“When we opened the official granary in Liaoyang, there were less than a hundred tons of grain inside, and it was all old rice that had been stored for several years. In Haizhou, there were hardly any grains left, not even enough to be found by rats. As for Shenyang, it is probably in a similar situation, with almost no grain left.”

“If the Tartars don’t find a way to get some food from the Ming army or other places, then a famine will inevitably break out throughout the Tartar territory this winter. Therefore, as long as the Ming army along the Songjin line does not suffer a large-scale rout, even if they suffer a few defeats and lose 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers, it will be a strategic victory for the Ming Dynasty.”

"We've already gone this far. If Hong Chengchou still loses, then it can only be said that the downfall of the Ming Dynasty was destined by Heaven!" Zhong Minghui exhaled a long breath and said bitterly.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Chengping's face showed a complicated expression. He gazed at the Ming army's banners fluttering in the wind and snow in the distance and asked softly, "Commissioner, is the fall of the Ming Dynasty truly inevitable?"

“You’ve been in Liaodong for over a year now. You should know the current situation of the Ming Dynasty through various channels. Do you think there’s any hope for it?” Zhong Minghui shook his head and said, “Even if we can save the Liaodong war and prevent the more than 100,000 elite Ming troops from being defeated by the Qing, we still cannot reverse the overall situation of the Ming Dynasty.”

"At this time, the Ming Dynasty was already terminally ill and beyond saving. The court was rife with factional strife and infighting, and corrupt officials ran rampant; the provinces suffered from years of famine, the people were destitute, and peasant uprisings broke out one after another. Its final fate was either a sudden death or a slow, drawn-out death by endless disasters, and no one could save it."

The wind and snow continued, and the procession moved slowly forward, leaving a trail of deep and shallow footprints that were quickly covered by new snow, as if no one had ever walked there.

But those who survived, with the flame of hope in their hearts, continued to persevere through the wind and snow.
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(End of this chapter)