1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 171 The Long Journey

"Give, why not give?"

Peng Gang, who was sitting upright in the main hall of the Xiangzhou government office, put down the yellow book in his hand and said.

"One must persevere in everything and never give up halfway."

Although Xiangzhou was impoverished to the point of being utterly destitute and lacked little resources, it had no shortage of people.

The poorer a place is, the more likely it is to become a breeding ground for rebellion, and the more likely it is to provide a continuous source of soldiers for rebellious forces.

With just a little effort to win over the hearts of the people of Xiangzhou, it wouldn't be a problem to pull a force of several thousand men away from Xiangzhou.

Further north of Xiangzhou are the military stronghold of Liuzhou and the relatively wealthy Guilin.

It is easy to procure grain in Guilin and Liuzhou but difficult to recruit people. The grain consumed in Xiangzhou can be replenished in Guilin and Liuzhou.

"If we follow the same method we used in Wuxuan to distribute porridge, the grain in the Xiangzhou granary, plus the grain stored by the two large households of Luo and Xie, will only be enough to distribute porridge for about twenty days," Huang Bingxian reminded him.

“There are many starving people in Xiangzhou. Once the news of the porridge distribution in the city spreads, starving people from other places will definitely flock here. The grain stored in the Xiangzhou granary and the two large households is actually only enough for us to distribute porridge for half a month at most.”

“The situation in Xiangzhou is different from that in Wuxuan, so we can’t distribute porridge using the old methods,” Peng Gang said after a moment of contemplation.

“Register the starving people who are receiving porridge. After registration, give each person one bowl of porridge per day for three days. After three days, those who are willing to join our camp will be given two bowls of porridge per day. Those who are unwilling to join will be given one bowl of porridge per day as before. Go and set up porridge sheds.”

The situation in Xiangzhou is different from that in Wuxuan. Grain reserves are limited, so it is certainly not possible to distribute porridge without limit as in Wuxuan.

"Understood, sir." Having received Peng Gang's instructions, Huang Bingxian responded and left the yamen.

After Huang Bingxian left the government office, Peng Gang asked Lu Qin, who was in charge of restoring order and maintaining security in the prefecture, "Has order been restored in the prefecture? Are there still any incidents of grain looting in the city or suburbs?"

“Order has been restored in the city. We have more people and can keep the city in check. Besides, General, you are going to set up soup kitchens in the city. Once this news gets out, it will be much more effective than two or three battalions,” Lu Qin replied.

"Very good. Maintain order and notify the commanders of all battalions and companies that they are not allowed to harass the civilians, or they will be punished according to military law." Peng Gang nodded in satisfaction.

Although Xiangzhou City is a prefecture city, its urban scale is roughly the same as that of Wuxuan County.

The experience of the Sixth Battalion in managing and controlling Wuxuan County can be directly replicated in Xiangzhou City.

Lu Qin felt that managing Xiangzhou City was not too difficult.

"Understood." Lu Qin and Xie Bin both indicated that they understood.

After instructing Lu Qin, Peng Gang turned to look at Qiu Zhongliang and Qiu Zhongmin, who were waiting in the main hall of the government office: "You two are in charge of purchasing grain. Zhongliang, you are in charge of purchasing grain from various grain shops in Xiangzhou City and wealthy households in the suburbs of Xiangzhou City."

Zhongmin, you'll have to work hard. Take four battalions and a provisional battalion to the market towns in the prefecture to purchase grain.

Besides grain, all the ships available in Xiangzhou were purchased, at market prices.

For the past ten months, they have been using methods such as plundering wealthy households and seizing spoils from the battlefield.

Peng Gang accumulated 245,468 taels of silver (including the equivalent of copper coins) and 2,215 taels of gold.

In terms of wealth, he was undoubtedly the richest man in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Although the main force captured the more prosperous Pingnan City, the resources of Pingnan City were divided among the five military commanders.

Peng Gang only needed to give half of the money and grain he had to use to attack Wuxuan; the other half was entirely his own.

Needless to say, the spoils of war were exclusively enjoyed by the Left Army, except when they had to share a small portion of the spoils with friendly forces during cooperative operations.

When Peng Gang first occupied Wuxuan, his financial resources were limited, and he didn't have many options left.

Times have changed. Now that we have money, our strategies for acquiring food should be adjusted accordingly.

Buying grain with gold and silver, even if it's just a symbolic payment, demonstrates the Zuo Jun righteous army's commitment to not disturbing the people.

The Left Army was separated from the Heaven and Earth Society and other Taiping Army forces.

Occupying the moral high ground also helped to dismantle the Qing court's and the Qing army's negative propaganda against him, and to win over neutral people and even small and medium-sized landowners.

To avoid a vicious cycle of "conquering one state and forcing out ten enemies."

If Zuo Jun keeps his word and buys grain with money, over time, his reputation will spread.

It's not impossible that civilian grain hoarders and grain merchants would actively bring grain to the camp to sell in order to make money from the Left Army. This could actually create a situation where "merchants bring grain with the army," reducing the logistical transportation pressure on the Left Army.

Of course, for corrupt officials and unscrupulous merchants with a long history of misdeeds and numerous evil deeds, regardless of their size, they should be publicly tried and their homes should be confiscated.

With the situation in Xiangzhou City under control, Peng Gang wrote to Luo Dagang, asking him and others to organize troops to assemble in Xiangzhou.

At the same time, scouts were dispatched northward to gather intelligence on the enemy in Liuzhou and to find an opportunity to attack Liuzhou.

In November 1850, the mountain winds on Pingzai Mountain were colder than usual.

On the opposite side of the mountain, in the river valley, most of the tents had been rolled up, and the sheds had been burned down.

Supplies from the base area were continuously transported to the wharves near Bitanxun and Wuxuan County.

Then, the ships that had been waiting at the dock and floodgate for a long time transported them to Xiangzhou City.

"What a fine hydraulic forging hammer! You just took it apart like that?"

Faced with the hydraulic forging hammer that had taken three months to manufacture and debug, Qin Yisen, the foreman of the carpentry workshop and deputy director of the arsenal, was reluctant to disassemble it.

The weapons produced by the Honglian Village arsenal are mostly forged using this water-powered forging hammer.

This water-powered forging hammer is the culmination of the hard work of all the craftsmen in the arsenal.

What Qin Yisen is reluctant to part with is not only this hydraulic forging hammer, but also Pingzai Mountain, where his ancestors have lived for generations.

"If we don't dismantle them, are we just waiting for them to be used by the government and the army to make weapons to fight us?" Tang Zheng urged. "Hurry up! Deputy Commander Luo has already sent someone to urge our arsenal to get things done. The higher-ups are taking care of our arsenal and have allocated thirty longboats to it. Other battalions don't get this kind of treatment. If we keep hogging these ships without doing anything, other battalions will be eyeing them!"

Tang Zheng, the foreman of the blacksmith and the director of the arsenal, is from Guangdong, not Pingzaishan. He has no deep attachment to his hometown of Pingzaishan.

"Tear it down, tear it down, tear it down!" Qin Yisen said through gritted teeth. "I believe that with our Commander Peng's abilities, it won't be long before he can find a stable place for our arsenal and continue to run it!"

After speaking, Qin Yisen led the craftsmen of the arsenal to disassemble the hydraulic forging hammer into parts.

After dismantling the drilling machines, iron materials, and other items that accompanied the arsenal, they were loaded onto trucks and joined the surging crowd, heading towards Bitanxun.

The mountain path was already bustling with quiet voices and footsteps, as more than 30,000 soldiers and their families from the Left Army were slowly migrating out of Pingzai Mountain, heading towards their uncertain fate ahead.

The women's camp, the children's camp, the elderly camp, and a small number of soldiers and male reserve youths formed a torrent. Everyone carried heavy bundles, baskets, pots and pans, cloth, bedding, as well as the small amounts of rice they had saved and ancestral tablets, all weighing heavily on their shoulders. They walked with firm steps toward the dock.

The livestock trudged along among the crowd, with stacks of wooden crates and new guns and gunpowder wrapped in tarpaulins on their backs.

In the group, Qin Yisen and Tang Zheng could see chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry hanging on the carrying poles flapping about, and the crying of babies tied to their mothers' backs.

The mountain path was steep, narrow, and slippery. It had rained the night before, and many people were walking barefoot, their feet sinking deep into the mud and their calves turning red from being swept by the wet grass.

There were two main groups of soldiers from the Left Army that moved away. One group started from the camp in the valley opposite the river and went to Bitan Xun. From Bitan Xun, they either took a boat or walked along the river to Wuxuan. After resting briefly in Wuxuan, they continued to Xiangzhou.

The artisans at the arsenal, including Qin Yisen and Tang Zheng, followed this path.

Another route starts from the camp near Dachong, goes directly to Dongxiang and Sanlixu to Wuxuan County, and then takes a boat or walks along the shore to Xiangzhou City from the dock near Wuxuan County.

The three thousand prisoners of war from the Dachong POW camp who were transferred with the main force took this route.

Unlike ordinary battalions, the prisoner-of-war camp had a provisional battalion, a Guizhou battalion, and 800 reserve guards from the men's battalion.

The prisoners of war in the POW camp were all selected young and strong men. Such good young and strong laborers certainly couldn't leave empty-handed.

The prisoners of war in the camp carried around fifty kilograms of food on their backs as they walked from Dachong to the riverside dock near Wuxuan County.

With the assistance of the First Provisional Battalion, the Qian Battalion, and the 800 Reserves, Liu Zhenghao, the director of the Prisoner of War Management Office, and Chen Nanshan, the deputy director, led the prisoner of war camp slowly out of Dongxiang.

Once you leave Dongxiang, the road ahead widens, and as far as the eye can see, there are endless fields, woodlands, and ruins of burned-down villages.

If you walk a little further, you can see the blue waters of the Qianjiang River rippling faintly in the morning light.

The troops of the Left Battalion had already organized and assembled their ships there, waiting.

Longboats, high-hulled boats, and flat-bottomed boats lined the riverbank, their masts standing tall and their sails billowing like clouds.

Although there were many people at the dock, it was not chaotic and was relatively orderly.

During the six months at the Pingzai Mountain base, apart from the artisan camp of the arsenal which could not be moved, the garrison locations of the various battalions were not fixed and would be moved from time to time.

Those seemingly unnecessary relocations that caused complaints from various units were actually to accumulate experience for today's transfer operation.

The soldiers of the Left Army on the dock maintained a relatively orderly scene, holding rosters and shouting: "Wounded, women and children first! The old and weak follow! Line up properly, don't cut in line. The men in the battalion shouldn't wait in line hoping to take a boat. Follow your respective battalions along the riverbank. It's only seventy or eighty li from here to Xiangzhou. It won't exhaust you men."

One after another, the boats, fully loaded, slowly sailed upstream towards Xiangzhou.

Upon arriving at the dock, under the guidance of the soldiers of the Guizhou Battalion, they unloaded the grain bags from their shoulders into the designated positions. Chang Sheng, the former deputy general of the Green Standard Army, couldn't help but feel moved as he looked at the orderly and well-organized fleet and the troops on the shore.

"Without the use of sticks and whips, the evacuation of the elderly, weak, women and children of the Left Army was more orderly and disciplined than many Green Standard Army troops. General Zhang's defeat at the hands of Peng Gang was not unjust."

Li Rui, the former general of Guzhou Town, muttered, "They're going to Xiangzhou. The Left Army is really fast. They took Xiangzhou so quickly. Changsheng, do you think they'll attack Liuzhou and Guilin next?"

“We will definitely fight. If we don’t fight Liuzhou and Guilin, where will we get the food to feed so many people?” Chang Sheng said.

As long as the prisoners in the POW camp didn't slack off and worked hard, each person could receive 1.4 to 1.5 jin of rice per day. The Left Army's regular soldiers could definitely receive more than 2 jin of rice per day.

The rations required by the various battalions of the Left Army certainly could not be provided by a small city like Xiangzhou.

Ironically, the vast majority of Green Standard Army prisoners of war received better food in the Left Army POW camps than they did in the Green Standard Army, and were able to eat about 60-70% full every day.

The POW camp officers were fair in their dealings, and many POWs had already developed the idea of ​​joining the Left Army and following them.

“Both Guilin and Liuzhou are heavily fortified with strong cities and deep moats. Do you think they can take Guilin and Liuzhou?” Li Rui murmured.

"We'd better hope they can take it," Chang Sheng said with a smile.

"Why?" Li Rui asked, puzzled.

"Have you made the Miao people so stupid?" Chang Sheng laughed. "If they can't take Liuzhou and Guilin, we'll go hungry too."

As the two were chatting in Southwestern Mandarin, Chen Nanshan suddenly appeared beside them and ordered, "What are you two muttering about? Come with me to pull the boat!"

After being reprimanded by Chen Nanshan, Li Rui and Chang Sheng immediately shut up and followed Chen Nanshan to pull the boat.

Before they surrendered, one was a general and the other a deputy general, both influential figures in their respective garrisons.

I never imagined that I would be ordered around by a former DPP commander to pull a boat.

Li Rui shook his head and chuckled, feeling that fate was playing tricks on him.

Logically speaking, a general like him being ordered to pull a boat is such a humiliating act that he should rather die than comply.

For some reason, at this moment, Li Rui suddenly remembered the slogans that the young teachers in the prisoner-of-war camp often said, such as "labor is the most glorious" and "those who do not work will not eat." He suddenly felt that pulling the boat was not so bad.

In the past, people would get extra meals for doing heavy work, and pulling boats was definitely considered heavy work.

On the longboat, Qin Yisen wrapped the bundle containing the ancestral tablets tightly, glanced up at the prisoners of war on the riverbank who were shouting and pulling the boat, and watched Pingzai Mountain, where his ancestors had lived for generations, gradually disappear into the distance, his vision becoming blurred.

I wonder if I will ever have the chance to return to Pingzai Mountain after this departure.

(End of this chapter)