Chapter 65: Winter of the Sixteenth Year of Jiwei (16)

  Li Chengzhong wanted to establish a military law, from the rules and regulations to standardize the behavior of the vanguard soldiers and combat rewards and punishments. However, this era already had a widely accepted military law, namely the "Seventeen Prohibitions and Fifty-four Beheadings", which was currently being implemented by the Lu Long Army. Arbitrarily changing the military law was a serious crime, so Li Chengzhong could not touch this red line. After some thought, he decided to establish a set of general orders for the vanguard soldiers, deliberately avoiding the concept of "military law" and implementing new military laws in the army through a surreptitious approach.

  The reason for not following the Seventeen Prohibitions and Fifty-four Beheadings is that Li Chengzhong believed that this military law was completely unrealistic. This military law includes seventeen prohibitions such as disobeying orders, slow response, laziness, framing, underestimating the enemy, deceiving, licentiousness, slander, treachery, theft, espionage, desertion, cruelty, disorder, deception, corruption, and mistake, and prescribes "beheading" for fifty-four behaviors including failure to advance upon hearing the drum, failure to respond to roll call, spreading rumors at night, speaking ill of superiors, loud laughter, tattered flags, and seditious speech.

  Li Chengzhong carefully studied this military law with the assistance of Feng Dao and felt that it was really difficult to continue implementing.

  First, the provisions in military law are unclear and confusing, some are very general, while others are very detailed. Some are too broad, while others are lost in trivial matters, with many omissions and errors, making it impossible to effectively constrain soldiers' behavior comprehensively.

  Secondly, many of the provisions stipulated by military law are vaguely described and not conducive to specific operations. In other words, the flexibility of implementation is too great, and the final result is that it is difficult to determine whether a soldier's behavior has violated military law. The same behavior can be understood as either violating the rules or normal conduct, entirely at the discretion of the commander.

  The most critical thing is that this military law has only one way of punishment, which is "beheading"! If this military law is strictly enforced, I estimate that it won't take long for all the soldiers in the front camp to be "beheaded" clean.

  So, although Lu Longjiu has always claimed to follow this military law as a standard, the actual implementation of the military is almost non-existent. Each department is actually doing its own thing, and the punishment of soldiers is entirely determined by the superior officer according to need.

  Since the Tianbao era, due to the large-scale annexation of land, countless peasants lost their own fields, and the Fubing system also lost its foundation for continued existence. The Tang army transformed from the Fubing system to a recruitment system. This recruitment system was not organized and implemented by the central court, but rather by local governors and military commanders who recruited soldiers on their own initiative. As a result, the number of troops under one's command determined the strength of the governor or commander. Towards their own subordinates, the governors and commanders adopted generous policies, providing them with extremely favorable treatment not only in terms of material benefits and official titles but also when they violated military law, often turning a blind eye. This led to the near-abolition of the seventeen forbidden and fifty-four beheaded punishments.

  Recently, when the Lu Long army marched south to conquer Wei Bo, after breaking through Bei State and massacring the city, this behavior directly violated military law. In the 17th prohibition of the 54 executions, it is clearly stated: "Wherever they go, they oppress and humiliate the people, forcing women into prostitution, this is called a treacherous army, and those who commit this crime will be beheaded!" If this order were to be carried out, then the thousands of soldiers who entered Bei State would all have been beheaded, which is absolutely impossible. Therefore, at that time, Liu Ren Gong only issued a severe reprimand, and in the end, the rewards were still given as usual. If he had really followed military law, his position as Jiedushi would have been overthrown by his subordinates long ago.

  Li Chengzhong wants a military law that is practical, easy to enforce and clearly defined. The military law should explicitly state the specific behaviors that violate orders and provide corresponding punishment methods to avoid subjective judgments as much as possible. This military law should also be humane, with punishments varying in severity according to the degree of violation, avoiding excessive punishment that could lead to mutiny. Finally, this military law should be comprehensive, covering all aspects of a soldier's life during peacetime and wartime, providing a clear basis for judgment.

  After careful consideration and combining the understanding of law in later generations, Li Chengzhong and Feng Dao had several all-night conversations, and finally decided to formulate a set of military regulations. The military regulations will include various contents such as training rules, military internal affairs regulations, temporary military legal regulations, etc., in order to be as complete as possible.

  This "Soldier's Pass Order" is a systematic order, including the "General Provisions", "Soldier Training Order", "Soldier Internal Affairs Order", and "Temporary Military Discipline Order". It summarizes and categorizes various situations encountered by soldiers in their daily life, training, and combat from all aspects, and clearly stipulates whether they should be followed. At the same time, corresponding punishment measures are formulated one by one.

  "General Provisions" is a principle constraint on the behavior of soldiers, ranking first in execution order in the "Soldier's Code", i.e. all orders must be followed or based on non-conflict with the "General Provisions". In case of conflict, the "General Provisions" shall prevail.

  "The Soldier's Combat and Training Regulations" summarizes the various situations that occur during a soldier's combat and training, and lists them one by one. "The Soldier's Internal Affairs Regulations" focuses on the daily life of soldiers, explaining military appearance, lifestyle, relationships between superiors and subordinates, and relationships with civilians. These two regulations mainly emphasize what soldiers should do and how to do it, while the "Interim Military Discipline Regulations" stipulate what not to do, and what kind of targeted punishment will be received if a soldier does something that should not be done. In fact, Li Chengzhong's so-called "Military Discipline Regulations" is actually military law regulations, just avoiding the word "military law".

  To facilitate soldiers' understanding, Li Chengzhong divided the contents of the "Interim Military Discipline Ordinance" into three categories: minor violations, moderate violations, and serious violations. He also summarized three types of punishment methods accordingly.

  Minor violations include failure to complete training requirements, disorderly living, or non-compliance with military regulations, etc. The punishment is relatively light, usually involving public criticism, warnings, simple physical punishment, etc., which are further divided into three, six, and nine levels depending on the situation.

  Moderate violations include dereliction of duty, tardiness to meetings, destruction of equipment, unscrupulous behavior, extravagance, disrespect towards superiors, etc. The punishment is more severe, usually including confinement, military stick, deduction of pay, demotion, etc.

  Serious violations include failure to fight bravely, disobedience to orders, **rape**, killing comrades, stealing credit, theft and embezzlement, etc. The punishment is quite severe, including removal from office, expulsion from the army, beheading, and even implicating family members.

  This set of "Interim Military Discipline Articles" is very detailed and meticulous, fearing that the details will be missed. At that time, Feng Dao suggested that it was not necessary to formulate such a detailed one, and military law officials should be allowed to have some operational flexibility, but his suggestion was directly rejected by Li Chengzhong. According to Li Chengzhong's words, military law should be clear and specific, reduce operational flexibility, and minimize the space for military law officials to execute arbitrarily due to personal preferences.

  Feng Dao asked, "With so many soldiers and so many trivial matters, can military law list everything? There will always be omissions. What to do then?" Li Chengzhong replied, "For clauses not specified in the military law, no punishment shall be meted out! It is better to let some offenders go unpunished than to wrong the innocent." Li Chengzhong further explained that this military law was named "Provisional Military Discipline Order" with the two words "provisional" to leave room for future supplementation. The provisions of the order can be added, but human life cannot be recovered, so when making laws, one must be extremely cautious.

  Feng Dao also raised objections to the punishment methods in the regulations, believing that they were too light and did not include intimidating laws such as branding, castration, and amputation, which would hinder the formation of strict military discipline. Li Chengzhong believed that the formation of strict military discipline was not about the severity of punishment, but rather about making soldiers clearly understand what consequences they would face for their actions, and as long as these consequences far outweighed any benefits gained, such regulations would be effective. At the same time, letting soldiers frequently experience the majesty of martial law everywhere was much more powerful than directly executing law-breaking soldiers, and also easier to implement.

  The two men argued for half a day, neither able to convince the other. In the end, Li Chengzhong could only reluctantly tell Feng Dao that if he were to execute or maim soldiers who violated discipline at will, then he would have no troops left to use. This was also the common practice of this era. After hearing this, Feng Dao fell silent for a long time and no longer insisted.

  Apart from the "Soldier's Pass Order", Li Chengzhong also plans to formulate the "Officer's Pass Order" to standardize the behavior of officers. However, he currently has only a few soldiers and not many officers, and even the company commander is not considered an officer in the strict sense, so the formulation of this order is not urgent.

  In Li Cheng's plan, officers at the level of Wuzhang and Huozhang should be considered as non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in later generations. These people are the true elite core of an army. From a tactical perspective, whether an army can fight and win depends to a large extent on the quality of its NCOs. He had an immature idea that he wanted to cultivate all soldiers in the current vanguard as NCOs for future generations. These old soldiers did not have to hold military positions and could still be under the command of Huozhang, Wuzhang, etc., but they would be granted certain ranks, such as Youxiao Wei (陪戎副尉) or Xiaowei (校尉), given better treatment compared to new recruits, and receive better training in peacetime. In the future, when expanding the army, a powerful army could be quickly formed.

  On the third day of the twelfth month in the second year of Guanghua, the "Internal Affairs Ordinance for Soldiers in the Front Camp of Pingzhou Military" began to be promoted in the White Wolf Mountain military camp. Due to the lack of paper and silk in the military camp, this ordinance was only copied into six volumes. One volume was given to Commander-in-Chief Li Chengzhong, one volume each to the three battalion commanders Jiang Miao, Zhang Xingchong, and Zhou Kandao, one shared by Wang Dalang and Zhao Da, and one stored at Feng Dao's place.

  The order was learned through oral transmission, with all squad leaders, platoon officers and company commanders required to memorize it by rote. Under Feng Dao's sentence-by-sentence interpretation and guidance, dozens of company-level cadres began the painful process of memorization. Five days later, all soldiers began repeating this process under the leadership of their company commanders. Ten days later, the order was put into trial implementation. During the ten-day trial period, each company, platoon and squad reported problems that arose during the trial and provided feedback. Li Chengzhong then convened a meeting with battalion-level cadres to discuss these feedback opinions and suggestions, and made improvements to the order based on actual conditions.

  The "Regulations for Internal Affairs of Soldiers in the Front Camp of Pingzhou Military" was officially implemented on January 1st of Guangxu Year 3.

  In February of the third year of Guangxu (1877), the "Regulations for Training Soldiers in the Front Camp of Pingzhou Army" was officially implemented.

  Guanghua 3rd year, March 1st, "Provisional Military Discipline Regulations for the Front Camp of Pingzhou Army" was officially implemented.

  On the same day, the three major orders were merged, and the "Pingzhou Military Front Camp Soldier Pass Order" was completed and officially implemented in the front camp.