The training grounds outside Port Arthur had been transformed from a place of pomp and parade into a landscape of mud, sweat, and fear. The Second Army was being put through hell. Under the relentless, unforgiving gaze of Meng Tian, who acted as the Emperor's personal enforcer, the very concept of soldiering was being violently redefined. The old ways were not just discouraged; they were being systematically beaten out of the men.
Training was no longer about marching in neat, impressive lines or practicing the elegant, flowing forms of spear and sword combat. It was about digging. For hours every day, they dug trenches until their hands were raw and their backs screamed in protest. It was about live-fire exercises where real bullets from the Imperial Guard's rifles whizzed over their heads, teaching them the visceral, pants-wetting reality of keeping their heads down. It was about twenty-mile forced marches in full gear, ending not with rest, but with immediate orders to dig defensive positions.
The mood among the soldiers was a mixture of resentment, exhaustion, and stark terror.
"My back is breaking!" a young man from Hunan complained as he shoveled yet another load of rocky soil from a trench. "I joined the army to be a soldier, not a ditch-digger for the Emperor!"
"Be quiet, you fool!" a grizzled veteran next to him hissed, not taking his eyes off the distant figure of Meng Tian observing them from horseback. "Do you want to end up like the Gongzi cowards? They're still cleaning the parade ground where their friends were shot. Keep digging."
"Did you see the disgraced officers?" another soldier whispered during a brief water break. "Colonel Feng and the others? I saw them this morning. They were digging the new latrine pits. The General himself told them their shoveling was too slow."
"The Emperor watches everything," a fourth man added, his voice barely audible. "They say he doesn't sleep. He just walks the grounds at night. Watching."
It was true. QSH had become a ghostly presence, appearing unannounced at all hours to observe the training. He rarely spoke, but his silent, judging presence was more unnerving than any shouted order. One afternoon, he came upon a company practicing rifle marksmanship. Following the traditional Qing doctrine, their commander had them standing in three neat, shoulder-to-shoulder lines, firing in volleys at targets two hundred yards away. Their accuracy was abysmal, with most shots kicking up dirt far from the man-shaped targets.
"Fire in unison! A wall of lead!" the company commander, a Captain Wong, was shouting, striding behind his men. "Keep the line straight! Present a strong, intimidating front to the enemy!"
"Commander."
The voice was quiet, almost conversational, but it cut through the din like a razor. Captain Wong spun around to see the Emperor standing just a few feet away, flanked by two of his imposing guards. The captain's face went pale, and he dropped into a hasty, panicked bow.
"Your Majesty! An unexpected honor! We are just drilling the men in volley fire!"
"I can see that," QSH said, his voice dangerously quiet. He walked past the captain and stood before the nervous line of soldiers. "Commander. Tell me, why are your men standing?"
Captain Wong, utterly flummoxed by the question, stammered, "To… to present a strong formation, Your Majesty! To show our strength! To intimidate the enemy with our discipline!"
"The only thing they are presenting," QSH replied, his voice dripping with cold contempt, "is a large, convenient, and tightly packed target for enemy artillery. I see the lesson of Pyongyang has already been forgotten." He turned to the soldiers. "At ease."
He then signaled to Meng Tian, who was observing from a distance. "General Meng! A demonstration, if you please."
Meng Tian's Imperial Guards, moving with practiced efficiency, rolled a captured Japanese Krupp artillery piece onto the field a thousand yards away. The soldiers of Captain Wong's company stared in confusion and growing dread.
"You believe standing in a line shows strength," QSH announced, his voice carrying to every man. "I will show you what it truly shows the enemy." He turned his head slightly toward the distant cannon. "General Meng! Fire one round. Aim fifty yards to their left."
A moment later, a puff of smoke erupted from the cannon, followed by the terrifying, high-pitched scream of an incoming shell. It shrieked over their heads and exploded with a deafening CRUMP, sending a fountain of earth, rock, and black smoke into the air. The soldiers cried out in terror, many of them instinctively dropping to the ground, their neat line dissolving into a panicked scramble.
"That," QSH said into the ringing silence, "is what your 'strong front' looks like to a single enemy cannon. Imagine a dozen." He let the fear sink in. "Now! On your bellies! All of you! Spread out! Ten paces between each man! Use the ground for cover! A rock, a dip in the earth, anything!"
The soldiers, including Captain Wong, scrambled to obey, pressing themselves into the dirt as if trying to merge with it.
"This is how you will fight from now on!" QSH roared, his voice suddenly filled with thunder. "You will crawl forward like snakes! The lowest man is the hardest to hit! The accurate shot of a single rifleman is more valuable than the simultaneous volley of a hundred cowards! You will learn to fire and move! Drill them," he said, turning to the terrified Captain Wong. "Drill them until they can do this in their sleep. And issue this new standing order to every officer in this army: any soldier who stands upright during a firefight without a direct order will be shot on the spot. By his own officer. We will have discipline, or we will have graves."
The lesson was brutal, practical, and unforgettable. Elsewhere on the training grounds, the disgraced officers of the Gongzi Army were learning their own lesson. Stripped of their ranks and clad in the rough garb of common soldiers, they were being drilled personally by Meng Tian. Their task was simple and torturous: to repeatedly charge a heavily fortified position defended by Imperial Guards armed with practice rifles and sandbags they could throw to simulate grenade blasts.
"Again!" Meng Tian roared as the officers were once again declared "mown down" by the simulated fire, fifty yards from the objective. "You charge in a straight line! You bunch up! You are slow! You are weak! You think courage is enough to win a battle? Courage without tactics is just suicide! You are not officers! You are not even soldiers! You are a mob of fools running to your graves! Get up! Again!"
Colonel Feng, his body aching, his lungs burning, stumbled and fell to his knees in the mud. "I cannot…" he gasped, tears of exhaustion and humiliation streaming down his face. "I cannot go on…"
Meng Tian rode his horse over and loomed above him, a giant of muscle and iron. "The Japanese will not care if you cannot go on," he growled, his voice a low threat. "The Emperor gave you a chance to earn back your honor. He could have shot you with the others. Do not waste the gift he has given you." He leaned down from his saddle. "On your feet, soldier. Again."
Weeping openly, Feng used his rifle to push himself up, his legs trembling. He looked at the faces of his fellow disgraced officers. They were broken, exhausted, and stripped of all their former pride. But in their eyes, a new, hard light was beginning to dawn—the grim understanding of what it took to survive in the Emperor's new army. There was no past, no rank, no honor but that which was earned through blood, sweat, and absolute, unquestioning obedience.