The Battle of Shengjing (1)
In a matter of mere days, urgent dispatches raced north in an unbroken chain, one hard on the heels of the next.
Defeat. Defeat. Defeat.
Retreat. Surrender. Annihilation.
"Good God."
Faced with that unnervingly consistent carnival of catastrophe, Song Qing — supreme commander of Shengjing and its Defense Commissioner — felt as though he might simply faint dead away.
Ever since the Opium Wars, people had said openly that the empire had forgotten what a country was supposed to be. But these damned traitors — had they forgotten what a border was supposed to be as well?
How could the line have been breached so easily? How could they have thrown the gates wide open and ushered the enemy through?
The two words scrawled at the foot of the report — Jiuliancheng Fallen — sent a wave of dizziness through him. Song Qing pressed a hand to his brow and staggered.
"Damn it."
The fifty-odd forts and watchtowers along the Yalu River frontier had always been thinly held, but after Song Qing took up his post as Liaodong's ranking authority he had poured resources into their repair and supply without stint. The instant Jiuliancheng fell, every last one of them went into action.
Yes. They went into action.
Had fewer of them surrendered after a single day's fighting — or simply abandoned their posts without firing a shot and let the enemy walk in unopposed — they might have held out a few days longer.
That Jiuliancheng, the fortress nearest the Korean border city of Uiju, had been struck first was something Song Qing could well understand. That its garrison and its commander had fought to the last, then taken their own lives or perished with the walls, their fates now unknown — that, too, he understood.
But the fifty forts and defensive works strung along a sixteen-kilometer frontier — was it too much to ask that they at least pretend to put up a fight?
"This is why you should never put your faith in those Han bastards. No more spine than a soft-shelled turtle."
After reading the last of a Green Standard Army commander's imbecilic dispatches — the man had sat there staring blankly, both eyes wide open, at the Korean pontoon bridges going up right under his nose until the attack finally came — Song Qing swept the hideous stack of papers from his desk and dropped into his chair.
The entire frontier was already gone.
And whatever they thought of him in the Forbidden City, the moment this dispatch reached either Empress Dowager Cixi or Li Hongzhang, the Minister of Beiyang, he was finished.
At the edge of his vision hung a single letter. It was the Liaodong Defense Commissioner's regular situation report to Beijing.
A dark, furtive thought rose unbidden in his chest. Startled by it, Song Qing jerked his head aside, then sank back into his chair and set the letter carefully on the desk.
He was a creature of self-preservation, true enough — a man who had once clasped hands with the Qingliu Party purely because he feared Li Hongzhang's power and success, and had hoped to follow even a fraction of that minister's path. But like Li Hongzhang himself, Song Qing was a patriot of the Qing imperial house.
"The refugees will carry word of the defeat anyway. There's no hiding it. All right. Let's think about what comes next."
Having shaken off the temptation, Song Qing resolved that whether he resigned his post or was dragged in chains to Beijing, he would discharge the duty he had been given.
"The Koreans will already have trampled Dandong underfoot. Wulongbei is only a day's march — by now they'll have occupied it and turned it into a staging ground."
His prediction was accurate. The Korean army had crossed the Yalu River in a single coordinated surge and was now straining every sinew to seize every village, town, fort, and stronghold south of Jinshi Mountain, locking down the field.
All of it won in a mere four days of war.
"Looking at it like this, it's even more absurd. They should have been slugging it out on the Yalu for a month at the very least. Tch!"
He pulled a map from beneath the desk and turned it to a comfortable angle. His brows arched faintly.
Jinshi Mountain, which ran north to south and split Liaodong roughly in half, would be no great obstacle to the Koreans. The Goryeo Gate — Chaekmun — which had served as a thriving point of commerce with them for centuries, sat just behind that mountain. They would have learned the crossings long ago; they would not even need guides. Besides, Jinshi Mountain was pierced by roads and mountain tracks. It was hardly impassable country.
"There are two places they'll go after first."
Shengjing, where he sat — and Dalian, dangling at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula.
Whichever they chose, the importance and the potential were much the same.
"A hard choice."
Shengjing was the heart of Liaodong, seat of every administrative yamen and home to the largest garrison in the region. Dalian was the peninsula's greatest port, crowded with harbor works and wharves.
If Dalian fell into Korean hands without a fight...
"Beijing itself would enter the striking range of the Far East Squadron and the French expeditionary force. This is a nastier problem than I thought. Hold Shengjing, and Beijing slides into the tiger's jaws. Give up Shengjing, and it's like feeding opium to a dying man just to dull the pain for a little while."
Nor could he detach Shengjing's garrison and reinforcements to Dalian. The instant Shengjing fell, the Great Qing would be admitting defeat across the whole of Liaodong.
First, Song Qing took stock of the cards in his hand.
Shengjing's garrison of three thousand, plus five thousand conscripts scraped together from across Liaodong. And two thousand mounted bandits hired with Zhang Zhidong's money.
Still, roughly ten thousand. Surely he could do something with that?
"Dalian has three battalions stationed there. If they dig trenches along the approaches and throw up temporary works at the forts north and south of the harbor—"
He measured distances on the map, estimating the front Dalian's defenders would have to hold, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"We'll need to send at least three thousand."
That would bring Dalian's garrison to five thousand. If the commander there had any sense, he would already have raised mercenaries and militia of his own — seven thousand men, easily.
"They won't hold until reinforcements arrive anyway. Even if we have to give the place up, we should content ourselves with making the Koreans bleed for it and buying ourselves time to prepare."
The muttered words made his decision plain: he would hold Shengjing.
Dalian was unquestionably vital — a key to dominating the West Sea and the whole Liaodong Peninsula, a dagger that could one day be pointed at Beijing itself. But in his judgment, it still did not outweigh Shengjing. If Shengjing fell, the Great Qing would be confessing its defeat throughout Liaodong. Worse, nothing would then stand between the Korean army and the next battlefields — Shenyang, Ningyuan, Shanhaiguan. He knew that perfectly well.
"According to the reports, Jiuliancheng's walls and forts were useless. In that case..."
The candle in Song Qing's office burned through the night, and did not go out.
"All of you, pick up your kits and move to your regiments under the instructors and officers you've been assigned to!"
"This is Liaodong from here on! Keep your heads on straight!"
"Hey, you! Yeah, you, you bastard! Where the hell did you pawn your rifle, showing up with nothing but a pack?"
The replacement regiments and the advance parties of the Hyangbogun, mustered out of Pyeongan Province, Hamgyong Province, and Gyeonggi Province, had at last reached the Anping Rivermouth.
And this, beyond any doubt, would prove a great turning point in the history of the Korean people — not merely in this moment, but for generations to come. Driven onto the peninsula, they were taking today the first step of a grand journey to reclaim the lost ancestral lands of their forefathers.
"You lot assigned to the Northern Expedition Division, this way!"
Seo Jae-pil, commander of the 1st Regiment, stood on the riverbank and watched the replacements and Hyangbogun flounder about in search of their assigned regiments and divisions. After a time he spoke.
"Won't the bridging support units be short-handed? Half these formations are still green. I mean the engineers — there can't be enough of them."
"The 3rd and 6th Divisions already laid temporary pontoons during the diversionary operations, sir. The plan is to reinforce those and build out from there."
"Mm. Even so, the moment ration consumption starts climbing we'll have to keep adding bridges to match it, and that will eat no small amount of matériel and time. Pass the word — expand them now, while we still have the slack."
"Yes, sir. Division Commander."
Seo Jae-pil watched his adjutant salute and hurry off toward the bridging works, then turned away.
The troops already massed at the Anping Rivermouth numbered twenty thousand by themselves. Add the twelve thousand regulars who had finished the fighting at Jiuliancheng and were now scattered through dozens of forts and lesser strongholds along the frontier, and the Republic had already thrown well over thirty thousand men into Liaodong.
The Hyangbogun, the Vanguard, and the regiments that haven't been redeployed yet are still back on the peninsula, though.
If every division slated for the Northern Expedition were to concentrate at Anju at once, the Republic's thin supply lines and poorer roads would make the gathering itself a disaster.
"As expected. His Excellency the Tongnyeong sees further than the rest of us."
Fortunately, the head of the Republic he served was a man of uncommon insight and care, young though he was. Bringing in French engineers and American capital to open the Westbound Telegraph Line a full year ahead of schedule had been a fine stroke. Matching it by sending the Hyangbogun — still little better than militia — to build roads across the whole of Pyeongan Province instead of feeding them straight into the advance had been a finer one still.
As for the Hyangbogun themselves, men who had known nothing but the plow until someone invoked patriotism and dragged them north, more than a few were quietly grateful to be digging in the rear rather than trading shots in the hostile country of Liaodong.
And so the Northern Expedition's supply and communications were, for the moment, earning the Republic a measure of respect as a civilized power in military affairs — this from the same Western empires that had, until recently, ranked it among the uncivilized nations.
And who, exactly, was offering that assessment? Well.
"In this war, the fighting will of the Korean people is truly excellent, Seo."
"Ah, Colonel Armand."
Seo Jae-pil turned with genuine pleasure at the slightly awkward Korean behind him. There stood Colonel Armand of the French Far East Squadron — an artillery officer attached to the Republic's expedition — smiling, his hands clasped behind his back.
"What brings you out here?"
"The pontoon bridges are not yet enough for the artillery to cross, it seems. So I have been waiting."
"Ah. Of course."
Seo Jae-pil nodded slowly. The colonel was right. The temporary pontoons were far too frail and poorly built to bear the weight of the heavy French guns and their ammunition wagons.
"Until the boat-bridge is laid, we can only watch this Yalu that looks like a dry river, I suppose."
"Haha. So it would seem."
Colonel Armand's joke drew a laugh out of Seo Jae-pil for the first time in days. The staff officers and aides nearby gave their commander a curious look, but he paid them no mind. One of the reasons allied eyes had begun to turn kindly upon the Republic was the regular reports this same Colonel Armand sent back to his own headquarters.
What was more, Armand was a gentleman who addressed Seo Jae-pil — barely into his thirties — with unfailing courtesy, simply because the Korean outranked him. This, even though Armand himself was a man in his fifties, born to a line of artillery officers.
The way he meets a frustrating situation with that kind of calm, too. I don't know how His Excellency won him over, but he's a decent officer. A good man, even.
Of course, Seo Jae-pil still looked at the world with a certain innocence. He had no idea that the Tongnyeong he so deeply respected had personally dangled every advantageous term of naturalization and every Manchurian business concession he could think of in front of Armand and the French artillery officers beneath him, waving them about like candy, all to bind those men to Korean soil forever.
There was no particular need for him to know.
Colonel Armand, for his part, seemed to have other business today. He drew up beside Seo Jae-pil, watched the soldiers filing down to the crossing, and spoke.
"I have heard that the city of Shengjing, in Liaodong, is a stronghold the Qing imperial house treasures above almost anything. Is that so?"
"Yes, Colonel. If we follow the operational plan, the 3rd Division will go in tomorrow morning."
"With a division that is nothing but infantry? That is a serious matter."
He said it with his chin in his hand, as though he truly were concerned, and then fell silent, turning something over. After a moment he spoke again.
"Then perhaps there is a way we can be of help?"
"Help?"
"What if we went to Shengjing instead of Dalian?"
"Ah, that's—"
For a moment Seo Jae-pil's mind went entirely white. Under the original plan, Colonel Armand and the French artillery were to move as one body toward Dalian — the port that would become the Far East Squadron's lifeline — and support Seo Gwang-beom's offensive there.
And yet.
"If you went to Shengjing, His Excellency the Tongnyeong would be very glad. The blood our soldiers would have to shed would fall off sharply."
Seo Jae-pil laid out his own desire as carefully as he could. Armand shrugged and nodded at once, without the least hesitation.
"Then that is what we shall do."
"What? Can you decide that so easily? If French headquarters takes issue with you acting on your own—"
"Dalian will have the supporting fire of the Far East Squadron in any case. And what I have felt, watching the Korean army at close hand, is this. You are still tactically immature in certain respects. But the martial spirit of your individual soldiers and officers is far superior to that of the Qing. If I look at both armies objectively, as a third party — both of them still lingering in the premodern age — I will put my money on the Korean army."
Armand's blunt confession struck Seo Jae-pil silent for a moment. He could not tell whether he had just been insulted or praised.
Even so, he was not about to argue with the judgment that the Republic, as things stood, was a good deal better than the Qing.
"Well. The people of our Republic know what they're fighting for."
"That is the most important thing. You have a spirit of struggle. We French citizens must reclaim that as well."
Seo Jae-pil turned his head at the odd remark Armand had tacked on at the end.
"Pardon?"
"It is nothing. The last part was only me talking to myself."
The colonel shrugged at him and pulled a playful face. But in one corner of that easy expression, a shadow had settled and would not lift.