The Price of Misjudgment

"General! Wh-what do we do?"

"Shut your mouth and stand still! Rattle the men's nerve again and I'll take your head off!"

South of Minqing, in a mountain ravine, a stockade stood ringed with palisades and proper watchtowers. Years ago Guo San had raised that stout fort with conscripted commoners, and he trusted the ferocity of the bandit-born retainers who followed him. The trust had made him arrogant beyond all measure.

He called himself a commander of the righteous, but he was a mountain bandit to the bone. It was already long ago that he had seized Minqing County, under Fuzhou, and styled himself marshal. Ragtag government troops, or those Hui bastards said to be hand in glove with the Mongol officials—let them order him this way and that, and Guo San let it slide off his ear. When the man who had newly taken the city of Fuzhou, some Duke of Yue or other, sent a clerk from Fuzhou whom Guo San actually knew to urge his surrender, Guo San only snorted.

He beat the pale, pleading clerk half to death and drove him off. In Minqing he was as good as a great king. Who dared give him orders?

So when a great host came up the Min River by boat, Guo San was not afraid. There was this stout mountain fort in the ravine, and grain and stores laid in to last more than a year. Hold out here with his teeth in it, he reckoned, and those bastards would wear themselves out and go home. Obvious.

"What in the world are those cannon? Damn it all..."

Thunder rolled again at his ear as he stared past the palisade, eyes gone white with fear. Far off, smoke and flame burst. A skin-crawling whistle ripped past, and then the crunch of timber. Men screamed to be saved. The watchtower was already in rags; a pillar snapped, and the whole thing lurched and fell. Heavy crossbows that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had once put the fear of heaven into government troops and rebels alike spilled to the ground and broke.

Another whistle, another crash. The gatehouse over the main gate of a fort he had thought decently built was half collapsed, and the thick wooden doors were riddled with holes. The men who had held that gatehouse with crossbows were already dead, or half-crippled, or had fled down in terror and now stood shaking at the foot of the wall. A shot punched through the gate again and, of all places, struck the bar dead center. The bar snapped and dropped. The holed gate sagged.

"Th-the gate! The gate's open!"

"Spiked barricades! Bring the spiked barricades! We have to block the gate from behind—"

Even as Guo San shouted, a subordinate watching the enemy from the palisade cried out in desperation.

"General! They're coming! They're coming!"

Drums beat, hard and steady. Lü Wenye, commander of the First Regiment of the First Division of the Garrison Army, hauled his helmet strap tight. A rugged, square-jawed face, eyes wide. A little tense, he drew the sword at his waist and roared.

"First Regiment! Forward!"

A great shout went up, and the Garrison Army advanced as one up the ravine, ranks dressed. The front wore armor and helmets, bamboo shields and long spears in hand, much like the Tiger Hunting Army. Light troops backed their comrades from behind, and archers loosed bamboo bows again and again over the shield wall. Some carried heavy crossbows, picking out the heavily armored enemy that a bamboo bow would struggle to hurt.

"First Battalion! Drive straight in! Through the gate—inside! Hold your formation!"

This was no mopping-up of petty bandits, no auxiliary duty holding a city wall. It was the first and only chance to fight a siege in their lord An Hyeon's own campaign, under his direct order. Lü Wenye and the other Garrison Army officers meant not to waste it. They shoved hard against the enemy choking the gate.

"Aaaagh!"

"S-save me!"

The righteous volunteers were men who had grown calloused at brawling in Fujian, and the officers and soldiers of the Garrison Army had once been little different from them. In raw experience of battle they might even have been the lesser. And were Fujian men not famed for a fierceness and a toughness beyond anything out of Zhedong?

"Don't get excited! Hold the formation!"

"Steady! Move steady!"

But the foundation was different from the start. They had passed through proper recruit training, and they had been issued armor and arms as soldiers of the Duke of Yue. They were not a loose knot of whoever came from such-and-such a village, such-and-such a mountain fort, such-and-such a general's tail. A leader of five commanded his five, a leader of ten his ten, a banner head his banner, and above them platoon leaders, company commanders, battalion commanders, and regimental commanders in clean order. They moved by the flags of company, battalion, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠regiment. They advanced on the drum and fell back when the gong sounded. Officers who had, however imperfectly, been properly taught held the command, and the soldiers had been forged into an army. That was a strength no band of righteous volunteers, boasting of brute force in some country corner, could bear.

Fang Guozhen, commander of the Garrison Army's First Division, watched the officers and men he had drilled so fiercely take the mountain fort in a single rush. He was pleased, and his feelings were not simple.

"Well done. Those 9-pounder field guns—formidable things."

"The pride of our navy, sir! And every bit of it taught by our lord himself..."

Before the march, An Hyeon had attached an artillery detachment to him. Fang Guozhen nodded at the naval officer who commanded it, watching the man shrug with open pride. Hauling four of those monsters, each some two thousand catties, all the way into a mountain ravine had been misery. But their dreadful power, seen at arm's length, was the real thing. However great an army, taking a mountain fort with palisade, ditch, and a stout gatehouse ought to cost no small amount of blood and time. How long had this fight even lasted? The watchtowers that had guarded the enemy fort were smashed to splinters, and the gate hung in tatters, flung wide.

A cheer shook the ravine. The First Regiment was already inside.

"The enemy commander is down! We've taken the enemy commander's head!"

Fang Guozhen felt it to the bone all over again. A single man's valor has its limits. Brave champions can never defeat an army. And the army his lord had raised was invincible.

Through the fort's gate came the righteous volunteers, weapons thrown down, bound and dragged out white with fear. The Garrison Army, even in the moment after victory, kept a grim discipline, watching the prisoners and the ground around them. Fang Guozhen thought of the organization his lord An Hyeon had built, of the army's system made by training, of the vast wealth that made it possible—of a lord who had raised all of it from the frame up. He felt, to the marrow, how fearsome that man was.

"Division Commander! The rebel chieftain—we cut down Guo San and brought his head."

"How many casualties?"

"Five dead. Sixty-two wounded."

Fang Guozhen nodded and gave Lü Wenye his orders.

"Recover the bodies, and see that the wounded are treated at once."

"Yes, sir!"

Under the old Zhedong Right Route Army, such a thing would have been hard to imagine. Men wounded on the field were treated by physicians who marched with the army, and medicine was not stinted. The badly hurt were sent to the rear to convalesce.

"All companies! Prepare the meal! Move the prisoners to one place and watch them..."

No sooner had the fighting ended and the prisoners been brought down than cauldrons were hung and food set going. Whatever else happened, no one missed a meal. Dried fish and side dishes came with every sitting, a luxury, and when there was leisure even a little wine to go with it. In the days of the Zhedong Right Route Army, or among the righteous armies, the grain broke off and men went hungry at the drop of a hat. They had no choice but to levy provisions—stockade grain, they called it—from local households and the mansions of the great clans, or the righteous commanders had to empty their own purses. Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a hungry soldier.

Under An Hyeon, his men never went hungry at all. Their pay was enough, modest as it was, to keep their families fed. Officers' stipends were paid on the same scale as the Tiger Hunting Army and the Akuto, precisely so that no one would skim what belonged to the soldiers or go privately plundering the commoners.

"I used to wonder how the lord's army kept such strict discipline..."

Fang Guozhen shook his head and, taking up a brush he was still unused to, carefully wrote out his report.

"Minqing has been pacified?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

I read down the report from Fang Guozhen, commander of the Garrison Army's First Division, that Liu Ji had handed me.

"Word came yesterday that the Tiger Hunting Army's First Division has taken Yongfu County, so in practical terms all that remains of Fuzhou Circuit is..."

"Only Fuqing Prefecture."

"Yes."

I studied Fuzhou Circuit on the map of Fujian drawn across the great board sent from Mingzhou. After Funing, the first territory pacified, Gutian, Luoyuan, and Lianjiang, north of the Min River, already had magistrates in place, and the righteous armies had been reformed into the Patrol Army and militia. Once Fuzhou itself fell, we had seized the heart of it in a breath—Min County, and nearby Houguan, Huai'an, and Changle.

But there are always fools who cannot read the room. Minqing to the west, and Yongfu, had dug in their heels and insisted on living as they pleased, the old way, so I moved the army to make an example of them. Let myself be slighted once, and everyone would start taking me lightly.

"The Garrison Army seems sharper than I expected. I have to admit I never quite trusted them beside the Tiger Hunting Army or the Akuto..."

Liu Ji tilted his head, as if the result had caught him off guard. I gave him a thin smile.

"Is Commander Fang not the man who once made all under heaven tremble? Their arms are ample, and the training was done properly. A pack of righteous volunteers was never going to be their match."

I had originally meant to send the Tiger Hunting Army into both Minqing and Yongfu. But Fang Guozhen, arriving at Fuzhou at the head of the Garrison Army's First Division, had begged that his men be given a chance as well.

I had raised them to support the Tiger Hunting Army and the Akuto, true enough. But an organization that is never offered a chance to rise grows complacent, and what grows complacent rots. I could not forever hand opportunity only to the Goryeo and Japanese officer corps and leave the local-born feeling they were being set apart. I accepted Fang Guozhen's request gladly. His First Division of the Garrison Army set out for Minqing, and Dolswe's First Division of the Tiger Hunting Army for Yongfu. Before long the victory reports arrived, one after another.

"The envoy we sent to Fuqing..."

"Staff Officer Hwang went in person, so in all likelihood..."

Then, as they say, call the tiger and he comes. Word arrived that Hwang Gwan was here. He had brought an unexpected guest with him. I looked, a little ill at ease, at the old man Hwang Gwan was supporting, illness written plain on his face.

"Mm. And who is this gentleman?"

"This humble Lin Quansheng pays ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his respects to Your Grace, the Duke of Yue."

I met Liu Ji's eyes. Lin Quansheng had stood quite high on the list my teacher Song Han-gi and Liu Ji had drawn up together while we prepared the pacification of Fujian. Rare for Fujian, he had passed the examinations, returned to his home province, and begun his career as vice-prefect of Fuqing. He had spent long years in the lower offices—registrar at Quanzhou, judicial official on the Zhangzhou Circuit. At times he put down pirates. He aided commoners crushed under heavy taxes. He established community granaries against famine. A man of legendary rise: neither Mongol nor Semu, but a southerner, who had climbed as high as route commander of Zhangzhou. Among Fujian's great clans and scholars he was revered, for the excellence of his poetry and prose, as a notable the province itself had produced. The commoners loved him as a rare official, benevolent and fair. The report had said he was a man we absolutely had to secure if we wanted the people's hearts while pacifying Fujian, so I remembered him in detail. Lately I had only heard that his health had failed and that he was living in seclusion...

"When this officer reached Fuqing, Scholar Gakhyeon came out to receive me. He persuaded the great clans and the officials there that following Your Grace's command was the proper course, and thanks to that the matter went smoothly."

"Well. Did he."

This was not merely the news that Fuzhou Circuit was fully in hand. It meant the most renowned and respected man in Fujian had come forward in person to stand with me. I courteously offered Lin Quansheng a seat.

"You treat with such courtesy a useless old man who has done nothing but grow old. I am ashamed."

"Please, don't say that..."

The trouble was that the old man was plainly pale and worn to the bone. He looked as if he belonged in bed, recuperating, and honestly it made me uneasy. The last thing I need is to end up burying some famous old scholar.

"You seem unwell, sir, and it worries me. What brought you so far to seek me out?"

The old man, who looked as though even sitting in a chair was hard on him, gave a bitter smile.

"I lived my whole life as an official, and I was so utterly incompetent that I feared only wasting the state's stipend. I begged leave to resign and waited for the day I would die. Then, not long ago, I heard that Your Grace the Duke of Yue had risen at a stroke, taken Fuzhou, and swept away the rebels who held it."

"Is that so?"

"So, hoping to be of some small use, I persuaded the great clans and the people of Fuqing, where I still have ties."

"I am only grateful that you have taken such pains."

Haggard as his face was, Lin Quansheng looked at me with eyes still bright.

"I did not drag this wretched body here to see Your Grace merely over the matter of Fuqing."

"Then..."

"This Fujian is my home, and the place where I lived my whole life as an official. It has been in turmoil for well over ten years. The young men of Fujian have grown up amid rebellion and swarming bandits from the moment they began to understand the world. They hardly know what an age of peace even is."

The old man shook his head, face tight with grief and indignation.

"It is all because officials of the court, men like me, were incompetent. The court's strength and authority have fallen to the dust. Bandits run riot in every direction. The great clans keep private soldiers, fight one another, and grind the commoners, and they think nothing of it."

"I have heard as much myself."

"Until now I thought there was simply no remedy. But Your Grace has come with an army and pacified Fuzhou, and so I have been able to hope that this chaos might end."

Lin Quansheng bowed his head to me and, in a voice strained with earnestness, forced the words out.

"And so this incompetent, wretched old scholar wishes to offer a few words, in the hope of being some small help as Your Grace pacifies Fujian."

I straightened and answered him with care.

"I hardly dare ask it, and yet it is what I have wanted all along. For the sake of Fujian's suffering people, please share your wisdom with me."