Following the declaration of independence of the mineral-rich region of Kaichu in 867.M39, the Planetary Defence Force of Khuc Nghe had repeatedly failed to bring the rebellious province cluster to heel. Since the embarrassment could not be solved swiftly by local forces, the Planetary Governor of Khuc Nghe, Quoc-Despot Nguyen Bao Suu, had no choice but to call for Imperial aid and reveal the Kaichuan revolt as the primary explanation for his lacklustre meeting of the Imperial Tithe quotas. In response, the Adeptus Terra called on a lesser mustering of twohundredforty million Imperial Guardsmen to crush the fledgling separatist realm. After years of slowly amassing forces, mainly shipped in from offworld, and building up logistics and infrastructure to supply this Loyalist host, the Astra Militarum on Khuc Nghe was finally ready to bring the sledgehammer of the Imperium down upon the breakaway traitors.
Retardation of human cultures across the Milky Way galaxy had unravelled far enough under the High Lords of Terra that the Quoc-Despot dared not offer up truthful information about the performance of enemy forces in his previous failed Three Scourings. Instead, the terrified Planetary Governor Nguyen Bao Suu painted a false picture of his foe, dismissing them as a horde of bandits incapable of meeting the Emperor's soldiery in a standup fight. The cunning and ruthless guerilla warfare in the jungles of the Kaichu region could only be understood by reading between the lines with the precision of a scalpel in the Quoc-Despot's carefully manicured reports. Meanwhile, scouting reports from junior officers close to the Kaichuan borders went largely unheeded during the planning stage of the Fourth Scouring of Kaichu. Thus faulty intelligence left the massive Imperial army underprepared for the campaign at hand.
And so a disaster of gigantic proportions unfolded. The Imperial forces of the Astra Militarum and the Planetary Defence Force performed what they termed a self-defensive counterattack on the separatist region of Kaichu. Instead of a smashing victory, the Imperials had their heads handed to them by the separatists in a frenetic series of engagements that saw blood run in small rivers through jungle valleys, while yet more spilled life-fluid flooded terraced rice paddies. The body count was staggering, and as Imperial command and control fell to pieces, separatist coordination mounted in a flurry of blows that left hillocks of corpses behind, and ripped apart Imperial logistics in ambushes, harrassing skirmishes and hit-and-run attacks.
As ever more starving Imperial Guardsmen turned to desperate looting, desertion and cannibalism, unit cohesion largely broke down. Imperial high command eventually realized that they could not remain in enemy territory and claw their armies together while constantly embattled and undersupplied. And so the retreat was sounded, in order to salvage as much as possible of Imperial manpower and materiel, and regroup for regeneration of forces in friendly lands. This step was absolutely necessary, yet even so the Imperial withdrawal played into the Kaichuan separatists' hands.
Column after column of soldiers, porter slaves, draft animals and vehicles found that their rearguards and screening forces were inadequate for the task of protecting the main body of retreating force from the traitors' shattering assaults. Entire divisions vanished in the jungle, never to be seen again, and plundered arms from the Departmento Munitorum's arsenals were swiftly turned upon Loyalist soldiers. Millions of Guardsmen and PDF troopers broke ranks and ran for the hills in a desperate attempt to save themselves, for surely the foe could not catch so many fleeing soldiers all at once? In some districts the retreat turned into a rout, yet worse yet was to come as small mobile groups of separatists on foot or riding mounts and dirtbikes hunted Imperial soldiers across the lush landscapes. Set traps were sprung, and civilians of all ages turned into militias laying ambushes for small groups of Imperial stragglers. And the screams of the damned could be heard everywhere across the verdant landscape.
Amid all this chaos, one infamous event took place when a veteran Guardsman sneered and remarked that the melting away of Imperial forces mirrored the worsening of His cosmic domains as a whole, only for the nearby Commissar to brandish his chainsword and angrily halt the march of his entire column in order to flay, abacinate, hang, draw and quarter the vile heretic corporal. This took place with an entire brigade of Haephosian Tritons watching the spectacle in order to take heed of the offender's grim fate, lest it befall them. This punishment, while not too extraordinary by draconian Imperial standards, was ill timed to the hilt. The halting of the column was meant to restore morale by setting an example, yet instead it allowed Kaichuan forces to focus on destroying nearby Imperial units in retreat, only to then turn in full strength on the lonely, stranded brigade and massacre every last Loyalist found there. All of the Tritons died, except for the captured Imperial Commissar and the half-dead Haephosian heretic, both of whom were put to use in Kaichuan vox-propaganda after some tortuous encouragement.
The prime example of human endurance and perseverance during the collapsing Fourth Scouring of Kaichu may be found threehundred kilometres to the southeast of the flayed corporal and captured Commissar. Here, we found the Hanxian 9677th Light Infantry regiment, hailing from a recently ritually purged society where all doubters and deviants from the Emperor's true path had been cleansed in fire and violence and famine. As per Hanxian practice, the light infantrymen had a reputation as good infiltrators and excellent fighters in mountains and forests, yet in the Kaichuan jungles they were overmatched by the highly experienced separatist guerillas, who utilized their knowledge of local terrain to the fullest. And thus the Imperial bushwackers attempted and failed to bushwack the traitors.
The Hanxian military was characterized by a pure adherence to the dogma of the Cult Imperialis, just as all of Hanxian society was permeated by an anxious wish to publicly profess and demonstrate your loyalty to the Throneworld of Holy Terra. In regiments teeming with hidden informants, the offworlder Imperial Commissars of the Officio Prefectus found company with local political officers in the shape of Zhengwei Watchers. These kept vigil over men and women armed mostly with the Valdessa Pattern Lasrifle Type-39R, with a collapsible bayonet. It was adorned with a faux wood handguard made out of bakelite, and this cheap weapon was the pride of the Hanxian Light Infantry, who praised trusty ironsights marksmanship over withering firepower. The use of optic sights had long since disappeared as standard kit due to cutbacks.
The Hanxians had a phrase of their own to describe the prized virtue of persistence: Chi ku, meaning to eat bitterness. Said as a compliment to hardy folks able to bite away pain in silence, these dirt soldiers were leathery dog faces mired in suffering and endurance. In the neverending misery that characterize soured human cultures in the Age of Imperium, man may at least aspire to duty and sacrifice. Imperial soldiers tend to be lean, solid dogs. Most of them are short due to malnutrition, and a great many are constantly infested by parasites. The Hanxians were certainly no exception to this rule. As light infantry, they sported a high degree of aggression and initiative, a combination that always draw suspicion from Imperial authorities, who prefer regimented corpse discipline. The Hanxian Light Infantry trained constantly for stealth and persistence, both of which qualities would be put to the test by the Kaichuan separatists.
The Hanxian 9677th Light Infantry regiment was tasked with covering the withdrawal of the 18th Imperial Guard Army on Khuc Nghe. They were supposed to give the retreating Army breathing room to bring the main troop body and baggage train safely back south. This screening force got strung out, and then chopped up into sections akin to a log cut into handy firewood pieces. Thereupon the Hanxian 9677th Light Infanty regiment was thoroughly defeated in detail by the separatist forces, all the time bleeding groups of Guardsmen booking it for the sticks.
In the field cook Tanlung Xiaoyuan's case he ended up in a body of thirty Guardsmen who had gotten isolated from their comrades. They were taking mortar fire that kept them pinned down and sleepless through the night. This group of Hanxians had good cause to believe that in the morning they would be overrun by an enemy attack. Thus, shortly before the rosy-fingered break of dawn, the Hanxian soldiers were given orders to fold out bayonets and launch a desperate breakout attack.
By this anticipated move, the Imperials unwittingly played straight into the hands of the traitors, in a scene repeated all across the warzone. The breakout attack did not even get underway before the Hanxian Loyalists were jumped by the Kaichuan separatists, who had bushwacked them expertly.
In the tumult of battle, Tanlung Xiaoyuan became involved in melee combat. The Hanxian military prided itself at proficiency in hand-to-hand combat, like so many other Astra Militarum regiments, and Tanlung the cook proved good enough to survive. He evaded one bayonet thrust from a man who charged at him, and managed to throw a butcher's cleaver into the thigh of another Kaichuan combatant. Tanlung then tried to angle off and make his escape, only to turn and run into an autogun butt that knocked him out cold.
By the grace of His Divine Majesty, Guardsman Tanlung was left for dead among the corpses of his fallen comrades. When he eventually came to, the hardy Loyalist was able to slip away under cover without being observed by enemy looters and mutilators. In the ensuing hours, he linked up with several other stragglers, including his platoon lieutenant Murong Jian and company Zhengwei Watcher Qifu De. This gaggle of Loyalist survivors attempted to escape and evade. Their hope was not to creep alone through the bushes all the way back to friendly ground, but to join up as soon as possible with the main body of the Imperial column heading back south in supposedly good order. Such desire for finding strength in numbers became their undoing.
The separatist forces pursued all surviving Imperial stragglers with ferocious energy, hounding them and beating the bushes with blades and sticks and rifle butts for hiding Loyalists. The sneaking survivors in Tanlung's group became witnesses to how there was barely any difference between civilian men, women and juves out in the villages on the one hand, and separatist militia fighters on the other. Hiding in the woods, the Hanxians saw how villagers, including children, brought down and tormented lone Imperial Guardsmen to their deaths.
At one point, the Imperial survivors needed to make a decision. They could either break cover and make a dash over open land to try to get to the muddy road, where they were hoping to still find the rearguard of the 18th Imperial Guard Army, as argued by the Zhengwei Watcher Qifu De. Or they could try to escape and evade on their own and navigate their way south into Imperial-held territory, keeping to concealment and just depending on their own wits to survive, which the lieutenant Murong Jian meant was the best path for them to tread, and also in spirit with the independently improvizing light infantry traditions of Hanxi. The political officer overruled the junior officer, and thus the first path was chosen. After all, if the Enthroned One willed it, then they would live.
The Emperor protects!
This mad dash across open terrain to try and rejoin with the main body of retreating Imperial troops proved a high risk plan that fell flat. The troop element got cornered, and several Hanxians fell dead before the rest found cover. In keeping with Hanxian Light Infantry doctrine of volunteering for danger, Tanlung told the lieutenant and Zhengwei Watcher that he would make a break for it to create a diversion. He would draw the foe's fire and try to link up with his brothers in arm again later. The officers had no chance to even object, since Tanlung bolted as soon as he had spoken, disappearing through bushes with enemy lasbolts and slug shots whipping after him.
Tanlung Xiaoyuan broke cover and ran as hard as he could through rice paddies, bounding through a smattering of incoming projectiles and jumping over rickety fences to the astonishment of labouring villagers. One lead shot hit home in Tanlung's right buttock, drilling in with eye-watering pain. The field cook stopped for nothing. The Hanxian ran hard and zig-zagged frantically until he made it to cover, while his comrades crept away discreetly.
Tanlung crawled and hid and made his way through the jungle undergrowth in a direction that he guessed might let him rejoin the other stragglers. In the dark of the night, his guesswork proved correct, as he stumbled upon the slaughtered corpses of his comrades in a small glade. Realizing that he would have to make it back to Imperial lines on his own, Tanlung rummaged through the gear of the fallen Imperial Guardsmen. The enemy had obviously plundered the corpses of all lucre, weapons, ammunition and rations, yet trinkets did remain about their mutilated bodies. Tanlung the cook festooned himself with amulets and votive charms for luck and divine protection, and then covered their bright colours and shining metal parts in soot and watery mud to make them blend somewhat into the jungle foliage. Lastly, Tanlung cut off the head of the political officer Qifu De and bound it to his waistbelt.
With a pounding heart, Tanlung cleared up his own blood trail and crept into a small cave in a hillside, where he could rest during daylight and tend to his wound. The first thing that met Tanlung in the cave was a frag-grenade about to go off, making his heart skip a beat, but fortunately it turned out to just be a dud. Since Tanlung was harried by searchers looking for him and other scattered Imperial soldiers, he stayed hidden in the small cave for two days.
And searchers did enter the cave, looking for Imperials like Tanlung. The Hanxian cook had camouflaged himself as best as he could according to standard light infantry training. He fully expected to be discovered by the separatists. Since Tanlung was certain that he was going to be found by the foe's search team in the cave, he thus sat ready to sell his life dearly with weapon in hand, but fortunately the enemy scouts were not thorough in their search-work and therefore missed him. Tanlung was surprised to have gone undiscovered, and he mouthed a silent prayer of thanks to the Master of Mankind and the judge of our souls.
Ave Imperator.
When he felt certain that the enemy search party must have long since left the area, Tanlung started ripping his clothes to bandages as he tried as best as possible to patch up his buttock wound, which is indeed a hard place to bandage. Like most Imperial Guardsmen, Tanlung lacked any medical supplies in his Munitorum-issued kit such as disinfectants or anaesthetics, yet the crafty Xiaoyuan knew of an old folk cure.
Tanlung unpacked a can of salt, which was part of his issued supplies as the field cook of the mess squad, namely a Hanxian unit charged both with growing, procuring and cooking food for the company, including keeping and feeding swine. Packing wounds with salt was an old school technique for first aid, meant to cure the tissue akin to salt curing ham. Pressing salt into wounds produced acute pain and dehydrated many infectious microbes, yet was also of dubious use since certain bacteria could become stronger due to their resistance to salinity. Tanlung instead mixed salt with precious drinking water and used it to cleanse the buttock wound, grimacing quietly in the cave as he did so.
After treating his wound with salt water, Tanlung bandaged it as best as he could, only to later discover that the wound had become infested by maggots. Ironically, said maggots may have saved the Hanxian Guardsman from septic shock and worse infections, and so the Emperor and His venerated Saints held their hands over the dogged Imperial soldier during his travails.
After two days of hiding in the cave, the thirsty Loyalist emerged after dusk and started wandering and crawling through the jungle and across clearings close to farming settlements. Hanxian Light Infantry regiments were well trained for long, tough overland marching, and crawling were a staple of theirs. Arduous movement over rough terrain and under concealment was a specialty of the soldiers of Hanxi. One of the first things recruits were put through after basic military indoctrination was to be loaded with rucksacks and heavy gear, and then marched around for weeks in order to get accustomed to rucking in the wilds. This training occured well ahead of any weaponry practice. A light infantryman who was unable to conduct long marches was a useless soldier in the eyes of the Hanxian officer corps.
The ideal Hanxian Guardsman could make his own way, as an army of one if necessary. He received training for cover and concealment, and became inured to rucking and forced marches, becoming used to suffering and grinding on despite the pain. Accordingly, Tanlung Xiaoyuan made his way mostly by night over the course of a week, moving under cover of darkness, and he crawled for a large part of his strenuous journey. Tanlung gritted his teeth as skin was bit, pinched and flayed off his legs and arms by all the irritants and dangers of the tropical woods. He remembered enough of the planetary briefing prior to worldfall on Khuc Nghe to follow the southern pole star, which was of critical importance for his survival.
And so cheap Munitorum clothes rotted away to scant rags in the jungle. The last time Tanlung had eaten a meal was together with the late Imperial stragglers, before he had run off as a diversion. When he could, he would eat edible plants, grubs and immature fruits, but his body's nasty reactions to much of the local Kaichuan flora, fauna and microbial culture soon turned the Hanxian man cautious with his roughneck food experimentation.
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