Seventy-seven

Now, Li Miao was employing the very method of Qi Jiguang—even poorer than Qi had been in his time. At least Qi Jiguang had the Ming court behind him; Li Miao only had a broken county town. Yet the era itself was a contest of poverty, and there were plenty even more destitute than Li Miao.

“Fall back!” Qin Huai frowned. He knew that blindly charging forward was futile; they could not break through the gun line ahead without incurring heavy losses. The first wave of the Imperial Guard’s assault failed. Not a single child soldier was harmed, but the Imperial Guard left behind several corpses.

Chen Dao felt no joy in this, understanding that if the Imperial Guard were so easily defeated, they would have been erased long ago.

“Circle around!” Qin Huai studied the formation of the child soldiers and quickly found a flaw. If you hold the gun line head-on, I won’t confront you directly—I’ll strike from the flank.

“Shield bearers, guard the flanks! Axemen, advance!” Chen Dao’s orders rang out.

“Turn!” Qin Huai issued another command. Whether shield bearers or gun line, their formation as a whole lacked flexibility—precisely the effect Qin Huai wanted.

Several squads of the Imperial Guard circled the child soldiers’ gun line and shield bearers, exhausting both sides. Yet Chen Dao was helpless; the child soldiers, as Li Miao described, were like bees, and the Imperial Guard were bears. A single bear charging into a swarm could wreak havoc, even destroy the hive.

Chen Dao dared not relax his guard against the Imperial Guard squads. But if things continued, the child soldiers would be slowly worn down.

“Scatter, form the Mandarin Duck formation!” Chen Dao shouted.

The Mandarin Duck formation was set up with twenty men per squad: eight spearmen in front, shield bearers on the flanks, axemen in the center. Small formations spread out across the field.

This made Qin Huai’s harassment ineffective. If you use squads, I use squads too. The main force lacked agility, but small squads could keep pace.

Qin Huai nodded—Chen Dao’s approach was rigorous. If the child soldiers and Imperial Guard were equal in quality, Qin Huai would gain nothing. But the child soldiers were newly formed, and Chen Dao made one grave error: he overestimated his own men.

“Transmit my order: ten men per squad, pick your targets, break them apart!” Qin Huai commanded his Imperial Guard.

“Yes!” Soon, the hundred men of the Imperial Guard split into squads of ten, each charging at a small Mandarin Duck formation.

“Your Majesty, you’ve lost!” Zhang Xun rose and saluted Li Miao.

Zhang Xun was correct—the child soldiers had lost. If the whole army were gathered, minor flaws could be masked by numbers. But once split, their weaknesses were exposed—chief among them, a lack of mutual trust, or rather, trust had not yet been established.

An Imperial Guard squad rushed a child soldier squad. The spearmen stood at the front, their actions limited to thrust or withdraw. Defensive maneuvers or melee were left entirely to their teammates—they had to trust their comrades to protect them and slay enemies who came close.

But saying so was one thing, doing it another. An Imperial Guard took a stab from a bamboo spear, grimacing as he lunged at a spearman. Instead of calmly thrusting his spear again, the child soldier—just a boy—instinctively raised his spear horizontally to block the fierce attacker. The spear was long, and this clumsy block threw the formation into chaos; nearby spearmen couldn’t adjust in time, and their spears were knocked from their hands by their own teammate, stinging their palms and causing them to drop their weapons.

In an instant, the Mandarin Duck formation collapsed, ruined by a single mistake. The Imperial Guards seized the opportunity, pouncing like tigers from the mountain. The first to suffer were the spearmen—now unarmed, their screams echoed across the field.

Cold bodies fell to the ground; the formation was shattered. Scattered bees cannot stand against the bear. They lay in pools of blood.

The sight of blood, the fresh corpses—children who had been laughing moments ago—now made the survivors understand: this was the battlefield, where death was real, not a game. Some child soldiers grew solemn, moving with discipline and caution, beginning to trust their teammates, learning the value of unity.

Others were paralyzed with fear, not knowing what to do, and in their confusion, were cut down by the Imperial Guard.

“No!” Chen Dao’s heart ached. His incompetence as commander had brought this about.

“That’s enough!” Li Miao spoke to Zhang Xun. The hundred Imperial Guards were now overwhelming eight hundred child soldiers; if this continued, the child soldiers would be annihilated. Li Miao sought to refine and improve, not have the Imperial Guard wipe them out completely.

There were already dozens of corpses on the ground—enough for the child soldiers to learn and grow.

“Sound the gong, withdraw!” Zhang Xun ordered.

Soon, the sound of gong rang out on the battlefield. The Imperial Guard retreated, regrouping around Qin Huai, forming a disciplined array—the mark of true elite troops, their advance and withdrawal in perfect rhythm.

The child soldiers gripped their weapons tightly, terrorized by the Imperial Guard, fearing another attack.

“No, no!” Chen Dao listened to the gong, knelt in the blood-soaked earth. Dozens of bodies lay there—all children, who only moments before had been laughing. Now they were cold corpses.

Zhang Xun’s Imperial Guard won, but he felt no joy. The elite Guard had lost dozens, mostly in the initial clash. The child soldiers suffered even more—over forty dead. A four-to-one casualty ratio left Zhang Xun deeply dissatisfied; these were children, after all, mere boys. A hundred Imperial Guards should have won overwhelmingly, with at most minor injuries, not this carnage.

“Rise, Shuzhi!” Li Miao descended from the dais toward the child soldiers. Chen Dao still knelt, consumed by guilt for his faulty command, which allowed the Imperial Guard to strike and cost those dozens of child soldiers their lives. Qin Huai came over to comfort him.

Seeing Li Miao approach, Qin Huai saluted respectfully. “Your Majesty! Shuzhi—”

Qin Huai expected Li Miao to comfort Chen Dao, but instead Li Miao suddenly slapped him hard across the face.

The slap landed with a loud crack, leaving five red fingerprints on Chen Dao’s cheek.

“Your Majesty!?” Qin Huai was bewildered—surely this was the time to comfort Chen Dao. He was just a child, never before on the battlefield.

“If crying could solve anything, your comrades wouldn’t be dead. If crying could win this battle, you would have won!” Li Miao looked at Chen Dao coldly.

“Your Majesty, I am incompetent, shaming you!” Chen Dao knelt before Li Miao.

“Heh, Chen Dao, you’re thinking too much. Could you win? Would you win? I never expected it! You were destined to lose!” Li Miao declared.

“Eh?” Chen Dao looked at Li Miao in confusion, hoping for an explanation. But Li Miao turned away. “Strength comes from shame; only the useless cry on the ground! They are Imperial Guards, not some rabble trained for a few days like you. Many have lost to them—not just your child soldiers!”

“Captain Qin, withdraw the troops!” someone called to Qin Huai. The Imperial Guard had lost dozens too, and Qin Huai needed to attend to them.

“Shuzhi, take care of yourself. The battlefield is harsher than here!” Qin Huai left these words and departed. Had Li Miao not called a halt, the child soldiers would have been wiped out—a true taste of war.

***

“Captain, what should we do?” The squad leaders of the child soldiers gathered around Chen Dao, their faces full of concern, fear, and worry.

Chen Dao raised his head, looking at these young faces, their eyes filled with care. He wiped his tears, recalling Li Miao’s words: only the useless cry on the ground—strength comes from shame. As their commander, he had to carry the weight, even if the sky fell.

“Pass the order: carry our brothers’ bodies back to the camp and bury them well. From today, we child soldiers must only win, never lose!” Chen Dao said firmly. Victory means survival; defeat means death.

“Never lose, never lose!” The boys gradually emerged from their sadness. They had simply lacked training; from now on, every one of them would be strict with themselves, eager to make up for lost time. The camp was filled with a spirit of determination.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard no longer looked down on the child soldiers. They gained a new respect for Li Miao, and were stirred by the child soldiers’ example—so they, too, began to train harder.

But the casual Li Miao, who had left the scene so easily, now faced a grave problem: “Rations—he was running short again!”

“Your Majesty, the grain in the storehouse will last only five more days before we run out!” Huang Yi reported.

“What? Only five days left?” Li Miao was startled. “Didn’t I just bring back grain recently? Is a thousand bushels not enough?”

“Your Majesty, though you brought back grain, our consumption has increased!” Huang Yi replied flatly. Li Miao had added over a thousand mouths, not counting the refugees Chen Dao brought, who took much food with them. Li Miao was generous, letting everyone eat their fill; even ample stores couldn’t withstand such consumption.

Li Miao frowned. He allowed everyone to eat well because repairing Jiangting City required hard labor; if people were hungry, how could they work? The child soldiers were still growing; he couldn’t let them go hungry. This extravagance depleted the stores. Originally, the rations could last until the end of the month, when Li Miao could buy more grain. But now, it wouldn’t last.

“Summon Chancellor Yang, Uncle Li Yin, General Zhang Xun, and others for a council!” Grain was a matter that needed serious discussion.

Yang Hong and Li Yin filed in. The so-called “great hall” was really just a tiny county office with a sign for “Hall of Virtue” for show.

Still, Yang Hong and Li Yin gave Li Miao face, observing proper ceremony with three bows and nine prostrations.

Li Miao had Huang Yi explain the situation, and the group fell silent. Grain was indeed a problem that could ruin a man. One could do without luxury, without money, but never without food.

The men exchanged glances; there were few solutions. Grain came from two sources: harvest—impossible in winter, only after spring planting would there be food—or purchase. But in these times, where could one buy grain? The surroundings were full of enemies; even if they had grain, they wouldn’t sell.

“Your Majesty, what about the late emperor’s reserves?” Yang Hong asked. Previously, Li Miao had filled Jiangting’s granary with his father Li Shu’s legacy. Now Li Yin wondered if Li Miao could pull out more.

Li Miao shook his head with a bitter smile. If he could, he wouldn’t need to convene the council—a single grain could defeat a hero.

Back in the day, the Li family’s stores numbered in the tens of thousands of bushels; anything less than a hundred thousand was embarrassing. Now, a few hundred or a few thousand bushels made Li Miao’s eyes gleam with longing.

He glanced at his counterfeit Henan “Lokia” phone, its battery indicator still red at fifteen percent. Last time, a single use dropped it from thirty percent to one. If it died, he’d be done for. He couldn’t buy even if he wanted; last time, he spent five thousand gold for a thousand bushels, but now he had no money—not a coin left. Buy? He’d get kicked in the backside!