Chapter Seventy-One: The Lion Camp

Liu Chengzong bought horses and set out once more for Tiger’s Hollow.

He was accompanied by Cai Zhongpan, Gao Xian, and Guo Zhasi.

In just a few days, the number of tax-evading peasants at Tiger’s Hollow had swelled to over three hundred.

Li Wanjing welcomed all who came to join him without exception, a scene that almost epitomized the summer and autumn in northern Shaanxi—when the harvest season arrived, the number of fugitives soared.

The vast majority of these refugees knew of the man called Tiger General, making the takeover smooth and effortless.

Liu planned to spend two days getting a sense of the people at Tiger’s Hollow.

Guo Zhasi brought ink, brush, and paper; Liu Chengzong and Cai Zhongpan set up a small table and began by recording everyone’s hometown, age, background, and occupation.

By dusk on the first day, they had counted three hundred and sixty-three people.

The next morning, after a headcount, eight were missing—leaving three hundred and fifty-five.

Among them, one hundred and thirty-seven had no proper names.

Of those with names, seventy-five had once sold themselves and were given names by their masters.

Only one family among them were carpenters; the rest were ruined peasants and bankrupt petty traders.

The prevalence of illness among the group was more complex than Liu Chengzong had expected.

Yet he was deeply committed to this force, which was now entirely his own.

He classified the sick into three categories.

The first included those with tuberculosis, bacterial dysentery from contaminated food, severe influenza, and various untreatable infections.

The second were those with non-infectious ailments that impaired mobility, who might survive or might die—such as the disabled, those who’d miscarried from hardship, or elderly with abscesses.

The third group were those who would recover with rest—those who’d eaten only a little kaolin clay, or suffered from severe malnutrition; for them, illness was negligible.

The first group was to be isolated, the second to rest, and only the third—and the completely healthy—could undergo training.

In other words, only one hundred and thirty-four were fit for training.

Li Wanjing was deeply dissatisfied with this number.

“How can a mountain leader who should command over three hundred men suddenly have only one hundred and thirty-four?” he protested.

“Tiger General, surely with the first and second groups, many of them can still move—we should have at least two hundred or more, right?”

“The first group’s illnesses are contagious. If you don’t let them rest, the disease will spread. The second group’s ailments aren’t infectious, but force them to work and some who might have survived will die,” Liu replied.

Deep down, Liu knew Li Wanjing wasn’t entirely wrong.

In these times, disease was rampant, but people had built up resistance to many common illnesses.

Even if the sick mingled with the crowd, it wouldn’t cause much harm. Only rare and virulent plagues like the Black Death could cause mass infection.

But Liu saw no reason to take chances. Even if only one person were to catch an illness, or one who might have lived instead died, it was unnecessary.

After selection, those who remained were of high quality—strong, robust, and trained in basic village defense.

They were the survivors in the natural selection of northern Shaanxi.

Strength alone did not guarantee a full belly or warm clothes, but the weak could not survive.

A large number in Tiger’s Hollow now bore the surname Liu.

Zhang Tianlin’s methods for organizing Ming troops offered Liu Chengzong much inspiration.

Though Tiger’s Hollow lacked enough draft animals, the overall structure of the units could be set; livestock could be added later.

On the second day, during a meal, Liu and his companions gathered to discuss how to organize their current force.

“For every squad of four soldiers, assign a Squad Leader, a Brave Leader, an Order Keeper, and a Fire Leader. Each soldier commands two auxiliaries, making twelve per squad.”

Li Wanjing laughed. “Sounds like every soldier’s an officer.”

“That’s right. If the Squad Leader dies, the Brave Leader takes over; if the Brave Leader dies, the Order Keeper; if the Order Keeper dies, the Fire Leader.”

Cai Zhongpan, with a unique perspective, asked, “Does that mean auxiliaries will never get promoted?”

Liu answered, “Not necessarily. My idea is for auxiliaries to be mostly youths and strong women. Early on, their work is like that of beasts of burden…” The words were harsh, but Liu could only spread his hands. “We have no animals.”

“They’ll work alongside the soldiers for two or three years; boys will become young men, strong women will grow into female soldiers. Then, we’ll talk about promoting them.”

Liu understood the bigger picture. He knew the war would last many years, and that the peasant army was vastly outmatched by the government troops.

Discovery meant almost certain death.

Therefore, his outlook for everyone was ruthless.

They were vanguards for the king, and to be a vanguard meant to die.

Unless they could hide and survive, even he might not live another five years.

After the four squad leaders had all died once over, and half the auxiliaries had perished, those who remained—the boys grown to men, the women into soldiers—would become the new warriors.

Only then would they be strong enough to face the government troops.

Li Wanjing asked again, “So what do the Squad Leader, Brave Leader, Order Keeper, and Fire Leader actually do? I know the Fire Leader cooks.”

“The Squad Leader must command respect, understand signals, and know formations. The Brave Leader must unite the men and fight fiercely. The Order Keeper conveys orders, oversees training, and enforces discipline in battle—even over the Squad Leader. The Fire Leader must cook well.”

At this, the group burst out laughing, but Liu replied seriously, “Don’t laugh—it’s important. Grain is scarce in Shaanxi; the food must be good, to honor the grain.”

To Gao Xian, none of this was new. He frowned. “Chengzong, Order Keepers and Fire Leaders are roles at the company level. Why assign them to squads? Won’t it weaken the fighting strength?”

The Ming army’s Order Keeper was instituted in the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong era, responsible for training, assessing the soldiers’ hardship, shaping morale, and, in war, acting as provost with power over life and death—including over the commander.

Additionally, there were self-organized military societies led by retired officers or military scholars, with unit commanders and students as members, ensuring a high standard of leadership and initiative for small-scale operations.

But unpaid wages remained unsolved.

Gao Xian thought that dividing only four soldiers into so many roles would undermine their combat effectiveness.

Liu, however, was unconcerned. “Even if we were all warriors, we couldn’t defeat the government troops. Our priority is to outrun them. The Order Keeper ensures the unit doesn’t scatter while retreating. Putting the Fire Leader in the squad means we can use lighter pots; the eight auxiliaries each carry a little grain, reducing the burden of supplies.”

“And above the squad, five squads make a team?”

“Front, rear, center, left, right—five squads per team, plus twelve scouts and six or seven retainers, making eighty in total.”

“Five teams make a picket, add a supply unit and twenty picket officers’ retainers—five hundred in all.”

“Above that is the battalion, but I haven’t worked out the details yet.”

Liu spoke as he jotted down notes, gradually fleshing out the organization.

His vision was that the Squad Leaders could lead troops swiftly without breaking ranks; Team Leaders could act independently without fear; Picket Leaders could fight on their own, raiding wealthy villages for supplies—hence the need for a supply unit.

As for the battalion structure, it was still just an outline.

He imagined that at that level, the unit would have to be self-sustaining in peacetime and able to face a Ming battalion in war; simply adding soldiers wouldn’t be enough.

They’d need to strengthen their battalion with demonstration teams, drum and fife bands, artillery units, and even engineering sections.

But that was a concern for the future.

Anything beyond what Liu’s group could currently manage was far too ambitious; even if they recruited enough people, they couldn’t control them—the group would collapse under its own weight.

“For now, we have only two teams. Later, we can recruit more healthy, unattached refugees and aim for a full picket. Any more, and we couldn’t feed them.”

“If the world descends further into chaos, then we can think about forming a battalion.”

Liu grinned. “The Lion Battalion.”