Late Ming Dynasty: Special Forces in 1645

The day after the Xingfu Army occupied Dexing County, Chen Shaoping led the regiment he had brought from Yushan City straight to Wuyuan.

Things went surprisingly smoothly. The Xingfu Army arrived at the gates of Wuyuan City. With Chen Qiliang's help, the magistrate of Wuyuan County handed over the county government seal to show his surrender.

Chen Shaoping led his troops into Wuyuan County, and Wuyuan fell into the hands of the Restoration Army.

Two days later, the new policy work team arrived in Dexing County, led by Yang Xuedong.

Yang Xuedong was the first to be responsible for implementing the new policy, and his professional competence was even superior to Zhang Xiyan's.

Li Tao and Jiang Shao showed utmost respect upon Yang Xuedong's arrival, and both expressed their full cooperation in implementing the new policy.

Liangzicheng also dispatched a company to be at Yang Xuedong's disposal to implement the new policies. With the cooperation of the county government and the Restoration Army, the new policies were quickly implemented in Dexing County.

The new policy benefited countless people, but also affected countless others. Originally, Li Chengming did not want to kill too many people in the new policy, but in practice, if you don't kill people, you can't deter the villains, and the new policy will be difficult to implement and will not gain the full support of the common people.

Therefore, Li Chengming later tacitly agreed that in the process of implementing the new policy, a number of people still had to be killed. The people's grievances could not be ignored, the landlords and gentry who had committed too many evils could not be turned a blind eye, and the hooligans, thugs and bullies could not be left unpunished. So the public trial should still be held, and the heinous criminals should still be killed!

Sometimes, in order to appease the public, it is unavoidable to prosecute minor crimes as major crimes or to sentence major crimes to death. However, Li Chengming requires that there must be witnesses and physical evidence, that there must be solid evidence, and that all parties involved must sign, affix their fingerprints, and have their records archived before a verdict can be reached, in order to prevent wrongful convictions.

The common people at the bottom of society saw the new policy work team as if a benevolent heaven had descended, but the landlords and wealthy households were devastated by the arrival of the new policy work team.

Surprisingly, Li Tao and Jiang Shao were very enthusiastic about implementing the new policy, especially Jiang Shao, who was a large landowner in Dexing County, owning thousands of acres of farmland and forests, as well as two copper mines.

However, when the new policy work team surveyed Jiang Shao's land, all the mountain forests and fields that had been seized by trickery and bought at low prices were returned to their original owners. They also found no evidence that Jiang had ever oppressed farmers or ordinary people. Upon careful investigation, they discovered that the people who had been oppressed by the Jiang family had been silenced by the Jiang family by paying a large sum of money. Therefore, during the visits, no one from the new policy work team reported the Jiang family.

Yang Xuedong reported the Jiang family's affairs to Liang Zicheng. Liang Zicheng thought of the fact that Jiang Shao had donated his family's largest copper mine to the Xingfu Army a few days ago, so he said to Yang Xuedong: "Let's follow the rules. The land that should be returned should be returned, and the land that has already been returned doesn't need to be taken care of. If the people don't complain, the officials won't investigate. If there is no murder case, let's turn a blind eye for now."

According to the regulations of the Restoration Army, families like the Jiang family, who returned their land and voluntarily compensated the oppressed before the implementation of the new policy, could be let off the hook and not publicly tried.

It is evident that Jiang Shao had previously learned quite a bit about the new policies of the Restoration Army.

When Jiang Shao learned that the Jiang family had passed the test, he breathed a sigh of relief and worked even harder to implement the new policies.

With the cooperation of Li Tao and Jiang Shao, the survey of all the mountains, forests and fields in the county was completed in half a month. Property rights, land rent and taxes have been determined, and the collection of autumn harvest taxes is underway.

Given the active cooperation of Li Tao and Jiang Shao, the Xinzhou Prefecture officially appointed Li Tao as the county magistrate and Jiang Shao as the county assistant magistrate.

Unlike in the past, the Restoration Army stipulated that the county magistrate was the top leader, responsible for overseeing the overall situation and determining the direction of governance. The county assistant magistrate was the second-in-command, responsible for the specific implementation of government orders, and had both a superior-subordinate relationship and a cooperative relationship with the county magistrate.

The system of the Restoration Army weakened the role of the county magistrate to some extent and strengthened the role of the county assistant magistrate.

The county magistrate had the power to make decisions, while the county magistrate had the power to veto. The two could cooperate, supervise, and check each other. If there were any conflicts, they could ask the higher-level government to coordinate and make a decision, thus avoiding the situation where one party had absolute power in areas with underdeveloped transportation and communication.

Ignoring what Li Tao and Jiang Shaohui thought, after taking Dexing City, Liangzicheng focused his energy on the mining and refining of copper mines.

Acquiring copper resources was also the initial reason why Li Chengming decided to take over Dexing County, so building the copper smelter as soon as possible was the most important thing.

Liang Zicheng transferred a large number of people from the steel plant in Fengtouling Town, and also brought in a thousand prisoners to serve as miners. With Jiang Shao's cooperation, the copper smelter was quickly built.

A month after Liang Zicheng arrived in Dexing County, he adopted Huang Longkun's improved "fire smelting" method, which enabled the copper smelter to produce copper billets with a copper content as high as 99.5%.

After occupying Dexing and Wuyuan counties, they not only acquired copper mines and other mineral resources, but also confiscated the property of several wealthy households during the implementation of the new policies, providing the restoration army with a considerable amount of money and supplies.

Looking at the money and grain that had been sent back, Li Chengming finally felt relieved, no longer worried that the Xingfu Army wouldn't survive the winter.

......

Huang Daozhou had already contacted Li Chengming twice before, and then contacted Li Chengming twice more later.

The third time Huang Daozhou came to Li Chengming, he still criticized the Xingfu Army for implementing new policies, but he was much calmer than last time. Seeing that Huang Daozhou's attitude had changed and he was no longer criticizing the new policies as he had last time, Li Chengming patiently explained to him.

Huang Daozhou viewed the new policies from the superior perspective of the ruling class. This "ruling class" could not be a specific person or thing, but rather an abstract concept in Confucianism, namely the so-called "Heaven's will and the people's will".

Li Chengming, on the other hand, explained the new policies from the perspective of ordinary people. In Li Chengming's view, all ideas and policies should serve specific people and the largest class, rather than serving abstract and non-existent things, let alone serving a very small number of people.

Although Li Chengming and Huang Daozhou disagreed, they were able to sit down and communicate calmly, which can be considered a change.

When Huang Daozhou came to see Li Chengming for the fourth time, the matter of the new policy was not discussed again. Huang Daozhou brought up the matter of surrendering to the emperor again, but Li Chengming refused.

As if he knew Li Chengming would refuse, Huang Daozhou remained calm after Li Chengming rejected the offer of amnesty.

After a long silence, Huang Daozhou finally asked, "What is the general's view of the Eastern Barbarians?"

Li Chengming glanced at Huang Daozhou and said, "The Eastern barbarians are beasts!"

Huang Daozhou suddenly stood up and bowed deeply to Li Chengnuan, saying with grief and indignation, "The land of China has fallen. The Eastern barbarians have destroyed our traditions and slaughtered our people. I, Huang, wish I could devour their flesh alive. General, you are a man of great principle. Although I am unwilling to serve our dynasty, I beg you to lend me an elite force. I, Huang, am willing to personally lead the troops on a northern expedition and resist the Eastern barbarians' southward advance to the death!"

"Borrow troops?" Li Chengming's eyes narrowed. He was about to refuse, but after thinking it over, he did not refuse rashly.

Based on Huang Daozhou's historical performance, Li Chengming believed that every word Huang Daozhou said was true.

In the timeline where no commandos arrived, Huang Daozhou did indeed depart from Fuzhou, pass through Xinzhou, recruit patriots and raise funds along the way, before heading north to resist the Qing Dynasty, ultimately suffering defeat and death.

Huang Daozhou genuinely wanted to resist the Qing army's southward advance with his life, but he was also truly lacking in military capabilities.