Chapter 13: The Rise of National Destiny
“Behead the three men, display their heads at the city gates, open the granaries of all government offices, and reward the army!” Zhu Youjian commanded.
“Your servant obeys!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Three heads rolled to the ground. Wu Mengming personally carried out the executions. As the commander-in-chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, though he still fell short of the guard’s legendary standards of strength and agility, he had mastered his family’s martial arts to perfection.
He was certainly not lacking in strength—otherwise, he could never have attained his position.
“Your minister greets Your Majesty and wishes you good health!” Xu Da, clad in bloodstained armor, strode briskly up to the city wall and bowed deeply.
“With old General Fu at my side, I am well. Wang Chengen, grant a seat to the Duke of Wei!” Zhu Youjian smiled.
Behind him, Fu Youde stood silent and still, showing none of the pride one might expect from quelling the city’s flames and subduing rebellious troops; to him, it was all simply his duty.
“Thank you, Your Majesty!” Xu Da took his seat and continued, “In this battle, our army annihilated a million rebels, captured over sixty thousand, and the rest scattered and fled!”
The elite Hongwu troops had so thoroughly surpassed Li Zicheng’s peasant army that the difference made up for any disparity in numbers. As a result, casualties were almost nonexistent—just over five hundred wounded, fourteen seriously injured, and not a single fatality!
A hundred thousand men defeating two hundred thousand, with so little loss—this was nothing less than a resounding victory!
“Have you taken the bandit leader?” Zhu Youjian inquired.
“Lan Yu is in pursuit with his troops. There should be news soon. I ask Your Majesty for patience,” Xu Da replied after a moment’s thought, fully confident in Lan Yu’s abilities.
“Report! Outside the city, a man claiming to be Hao Yaoqi, Grand Marshal of the bandit army, has arrived with four thousand men to surrender!”
“Hao Yaoqi?” Zhu Youjian was momentarily taken aback, then felt a flicker of joy. Here was the beginning of a new cohort of generals!
Within the Shun army, Hao Yaoqi had originally been just a standard-bearer, thus his nickname “Waving Flag.” He was not part of Li Zicheng’s inner circle and could not be compared to trusted followers like Liu Zongmin or Tian Jianxiu.
After Li Zicheng’s defeat at the hands of the Manchus, Hao Yaoqi led his troops to join the Southern Ming regime, was granted the name Yongzhong, and called upon other Shun officers to resist the Qing and restore the Ming. He became one of the chief leaders of the “Thirteen Families of Kui East,” a major anti-Qing organization at the end of the Ming.
He fought the Manchus to the bitter end, choosing death in the wilderness over surrender.
Such a man would be well-suited to guard Liaodong.
Wang Chengen understood and said, “Order the four thousand bandits to be dispersed and integrated into various camps, and summon Hao Yaoqi to the city to meet the Emperor!”
...
Northern Zhili.
Fangshan territory.
Li Zicheng, defeated and with only five thousand of his old guard left, retreated in disarray to this place.
His armor was askew, his crimson cloak caked with mud, his white felt hat lost somewhere along the way; his hair hung wild, and he looked utterly wretched.
He stood atop a low mound, gazing distantly toward the capital, his expression vacant, muttering, “Where did those hundred thousand troops come from? Where did they all emerge from?”
Liu Fangliang, his bodyguard general, covered in dust, stepped forward and urged, “My lord, things have come to this. We should retreat to Shaanxi and regroup.”
“No! Don’t mention it again! We’ve come this far—there’s no turning back! Didn’t the scouts report that the main force was still intact? They were just scattered, that’s all! If we find a spot and call the troops back, we can start over!”
Li Zicheng steadied himself and refused decisively, then asked, “Is there any word from the capital? What on earth happened there, that tens of thousands of elite troops suddenly appeared?”
Liu Fangliang sighed inwardly, hesitating as he replied, “The city is no longer sealed, but out of hundreds of our spies, only three or five have reported back. They sent secret messages claiming... claiming that these tens of thousands of troops are ‘heavenly soldiers’ dispatched by the Emperor Taizu of Ming!”
“They also say the old emperor has gone mad in the city, slaughtering everyone from hereditary nobles to civil and military officials. If a household hoarded more than ten thousand taels of silver or submitted a letter of surrender, all were beheaded and their estates confiscated!”
Li Zicheng was elated by this and laughed, “That’s it, that’s it! The emperor has gone mad! Heaven wants him destroyed, so first he must lose his mind!”
“I understand now. This army must be Wu Sangui’s men from Liaodong—they can’t possibly stay long. Those scouts are fools to believe such madness! Likely, they’ve been bought by the emperor to scare us!”
Liu Fangliang, still uneasy, replied half-heartedly, “My lord’s insight is unmatched!”
“Bad news! The Ming army is upon us!” a Shun scout cried in alarm.
“What?!”
Li Zicheng panicked, scrambling onto his horse and shouting, “Quick! Back to Shaanxi!”
A great host of Ming cavalry swept down, kicking up clouds of dust and sand!
“Follow me—kill!” Lan Yu spurred his horse forward, shouting, “These old-camp bandits are nothing but rapists and thieves—kill them and I’ll see you all rewarded myself!”
“Long live the Ming! Glory to the Ming army!”
The soldiers, wild with excitement, hacked at the enemy with their blades. Though the old-camp bandits were formidable, their morale was shattered and they could no longer fight as a coherent force.
In no time, corpses littered the field. The cavalry’s mobility was overwhelming; almost none escaped—they were all cut down.
A number of bandits sacrificed themselves to cover the retreat, allowing Li Zicheng and a hundred guards to flee up a hill, beyond the reach of the cavalry.
“Encircle the hill! The bandit chief must be captured alive!” Lan Yu ordered.
At this moment, Li Zicheng, having abandoned his armor, fled in terror with the pursuers at his heels, daring not to stop for an instant.
Suddenly, he halted at the hilltop, surrounded on all sides by Ming soldiers, their wolfish eyes fixed hungrily on his head, making his skin crawl.
Li Zicheng wept bitterly, crying, “Haste brings failure, and greed for small gain ruins great plans. I ignored my advisors—now I truly regret it!”
“Pedants ruined me, my generals ruined me!” he exclaimed.
With that, he tore off his blood-red cloak, knotted it tightly, and hanged himself from a crooked tree at the summit.
(The region certainly has no shortage of crooked trees.)
The hundred or so bodyguards, seeing their lord dead, turned ashen, ceased all resistance, and surrendered.
“Take the bandit chief’s body—return to the capital and report!”
...
The capital.
Hao Yaoqi entered the city and paid homage. Zhu Youjian personally bestowed upon him the name "Yongzhong," ordered him to take command of the camp troops in Liaodong, and promoted him to regional commander. Grateful beyond words, Hao Yaoqi prostrated himself in thanks.
[The national fortunes of the Chongzhen reign have risen; a new timeline, ‘The Nineteenth Year of Yongle,’ has opened.]
[The national fortunes of the Jianwen reign have risen; current reward: ‘Complete Blueprints of the Steam Engine’.]
“What is this!?” Zhu Youjian was stunned.
What on earth—complete blueprints of the steam engine?
Steam locomotives, steamships...
Was this the beginning of the First Industrial Revolution?
He summoned Wu Mengming and asked urgently, “Is my Minister of Works still in office?”
“Eh?” Wu Mengming was momentarily confused, mostly because the emperor had been changing officials so frequently, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard had long ceased operations, so he didn’t immediately recall.
“Fan Jingwen, Minister Fan,” Wang Chengen whispered a reminder.
Wu Mengming finally understood and quickly replied, “Your Majesty, Minister Fan lives simply. Just a few days ago, when funds were raised for the army, he donated his entire savings of eight hundred taels of silver. When your servant searched his home, Minister Fan was still there, unable to eat or sleep, sighing in worry.”
“Summon Minister Fan at once. He shall return to the palace with me!” Zhu Youjian ordered.
He vaguely remembered that when the city fell, Fan Jingwen, then Minister of Works and Grand Scholar of the East Pavilion, had been unable to kill the enemy and, gazing at the moon in despair, lamented: As a minister, if I cannot wield my sword for the Emperor, what use is it to live? Afterward, he drowned himself in a well.
...