Chapter 627: The Qing Caitiffs

History proves that humankind is the civilization most adept at learning — this includes all races.

Of course, it does not include those ethnic groups who rule the many with the few, because once they learn from an advanced civilization, they dig the grave of their own race; therefore, they must suppress the majority ethnic group, driving the nation ever further toward ignorance and darkness.

After the Battle of Luoyang, when the Chuang army suffered a crushing defeat and Li Zicheng lay dormant for a time, perhaps deeply stung by Wang Dou and having undergone profound self-reflection, Li Zicheng, upon his reemergence, began dispatching officers to garrison cities, establishing battalions, distributing farmland, and diligently training elite troops.

However, perhaps overly stimulated by Wang Dou, after consulting with his staff and scholars, Li Zicheng actually shouted the slogan "Five years without paying grain tax" — this too was one of the effects Wang Dou brought about; historically, Li Chuang had called for three years without paying grain tax.

When Wang Dou saw this intelligence, he could not help but laugh, and said to his subordinates: "I start collecting grain and taxes in the second year, and Li the bandit still says five years without grain tax? He can just wait to die."

He had reason to say this. Li Chuang's followers were always in the hundreds of thousands, even millions. Without collecting grain tax, where would the funds for such a massive military force, its army expenditures, and provisions come from? They would have no choice but to persist in the roving-bandit style — feasting on the wealthy, extorting local landlords and gentry, and desperately plundering cities everywhere.

This style may work in the early stages, but it is unstable and in the later stages it is certain death.

Even if we set aside all else, suppose Li Chuang seized power — once there was nothing left in the realm to plunder, could he still not collect grain tax? Absolutely impossible!

Yet commoners who have grown accustomed to getting things for free, the moment you try to charge them, instantly turn you from benefactor into bone-deep enemy. A pint of rice earns gratitude, a bushel of rice earns hatred — an ancient maxim. This not only loses the people's hearts in an instant, but the realm could well descend into chaos once more.

Thus, "Welcome the Chuang King, pay no grain tax" — this one slogan cut off Li Zicheng's regular fiscal revenue at the source, and also demonstrated his short-sightedness and lack of capable subordinates. Not to mention that paying grain and taxes is also a vital function in forming a grassroots regime.

Li Zicheng had fought wars all his life and was tactically brilliant, but strategically far too shortsighted. Therefore, in the end, he could not escape the fate of making the wedding dress for someone else. It is not without reason that later generations mockingly called him the Wedding-Dress King.

Of course, at this moment, the slogan Li Zicheng shouted possessed incomparably mighty power. Countless commoners swarmed to join him. He distributed land and fields in Henan Prefecture, winning the people's hearts utterly, and when government troops entered, they resisted desperately.

At this time, the newly appointed Three-Frontier Viceroy Fu Zonglong had only recently arrived in Shaanxi. After the fall of Luoyang, he received strict orders from the imperial court to dispatch troops immediately and suppress the roving bandits.

As in Henan, drought and locusts ravaged every part of Shaanxi. Supplying provisions and pay for the punitive expedition was beyond their strength. In the end, they scraped together all the military funds in the Guanzhong region and set out. Not only were local complaints everywhere, but the troops on campaign, having not received their full pay and provisions, were equally full of grievances.

In the twelfth month, Fu Zonglong finally dispatched his forces, leading tens of thousands of Sichuan and Shaanxi troops, with He Renlong and Li Guoqi as his generals. The discipline of these government troops was hardly good, and fighting in a foreign territory, they inevitably burned, killed, and plundered. Some landlords and gentry who had fled from Henan Prefecture to Shaanxi also brought local militias to accompany them back home, and these were even more ferocious.

Thus, the moment they left the pass, they faced fierce resistance all along the way.

At this time, the defending general left in Henan Prefecture, Liu Fangliang, was also a battle-hardened commander. He employed the tactic of luring the enemy deep, secretly setting an ambush at Quemen Mountain.

Having retaken several cities in succession, government troop morale was high, and before they knew it, they had fallen into the ambush.

Ming armies everywhere — they were not the Jingbian Army; their scouting capabilities were poor, and falling into ambushes was routine. Liu Fangliang concealed all his elite troops in the forests and by the riverbanks. At the first contact, the Qin troops immediately collapsed. He Renlong was the first to flee, and Li Guoqi followed him.

The two men, leading their household retainers and elite cavalry, rode day and night without stopping, fleeing all the way to Lingbao, abandoning only Viceroy Fu Zonglong and the bulk of the Sichuan and Shaanxi troops, who were surrounded.

Chuang troops streamed in continuously from Henan Prefecture, encircling Fu Zonglong and his men so tightly that not a drop of water could seep through. Fu Zonglong attempted several breakouts but could not get out. He sent urgent dispatches to He Renlong and Li Guoqi for rescue, but neither came.

Around the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth of the twelfth month, the Qin army ran out of food. Fu Zonglong slaughtered horses and mules to feed the troops. The next day, with all the horses and mules in camp gone, they killed the enemy and took their corpses to share and eat.

On the first day of the first month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, when the gunpowder, lead bullets, and arrows in the camp were all exhausted, Fu Zonglong led his remaining troops in a breakout. However, except for over a thousand men who scattered after breaking through, the rest still could not get out. In the end, the tens of thousands of Sichuan and Shaanxi troops all surrendered to Li Chuang.

Fu Zonglong was captured and cried out: "I am the Qin Viceroy. I have had the misfortune to fall into bandit hands. All around me are bandits."

The bandits spat on Zonglong and forced him to surrender. Zonglong cursed the bandits, saying: "I am a grand minister. Kill me if you will. How could I surrender to bandits to delay death!"

The bandits were enraged, drew their blades and struck Zonglong, hitting him in the head so that he fell. When the matter was heard, the Emperor said: "Such as this can be called simple and loyal."

He was posthumously restored to the post of Minister of War, granted the title of Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent, given the posthumous name Zhongzhuang, his son was granted the hereditary rank of Company Commander in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and he was given a state funeral.

Hearing of Zonglong's death, He Renlong fled back to Qin territory under the stars. The Emperor was helpless and ordered him to atone for his crimes by meritorious service...

In the early twelfth month, Earl of Jingnan Cao Bianjiao and Earl of Ningnan Wang Tingchen led their main battalions and new army battalions south.

Having just returned from a great battle, with less than a month of rest at home, they had to set out again. The troops of both garrisons had some complaints. However, in terms of obeying military orders, the men under both commanders still performed very well. So, complaints aside, the soldiers still packed their gear and followed Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen south.

From Yutian and Zunhua to Kaifeng in Henan, the journey was over two thousand li. Even marching fifty li a day, it would take the two men's troops over a month.

What troubled the two men was still the army's provisions.

According to the Great Ming's provision supply system, when an army went into battle, a portion of the provisions was supplied by the imperial court, but the bulk was supplied by the local government. If a large army was on campaign away from home, it was supplied by the local government of the host territory, which would then seek reimbursement from the army's home government.

This provision supply system of the Great Ming was a major reason why guest troops were unwilling to go on distant campaigns. Even double battle-merit calculations made many armies balk.

Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen naturally did not have a professional logistics battalion like Wang Dou's. At most, they had some civilian laborers accompanying the army, who could not carry much in the way of provisions. Therefore, before they had gone far, the provisions they had brought with the army were nearly consumed.

For some reason, as they marched south, both generals faintly sensed hostility all around them. Many local government offices along the way used every means to shirk responsibility, unwilling to supply provisions, or supplying very little. In the end, the two men had to use their own silver to buy grain.

With the spoils from Yizhou, plus the imperial court's rewards, the two men still had some silver on hand.

However, as they journeyed south, the countryside was desolate, and grain and goods were scarce in every city and town — that was part of it. But for some reason, there always seemed to be some force at work that trapped the two men, so that even with silver in hand, they often found themselves in the predicament of being unable to buy grain, just like Lu Xiangsheng back then.

Thus, the great army on the march often suffered from hunger and cold. Moreover, in the bitter cold of the twelfth month, with the New Year festival not far off, the troops were already not very willing to go to war, and this bred even more complaints. This made Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen furious, and at the same time, somewhat disoriented in their hearts.

Of course, on their journey south to suppress the bandits, there were still things that warmed the two men. For example, when passing through Zhuozhou, not only did the defending general of the Jingbian Army in Laishui, as agreed, send five thousand eastern-style arquebuses and three hundred thousand rounds of powerful cartridges, but he also brought the two generals a considerable amount of grain, rice, and fodder.

When they marched to Baoding, and also to Zanhuang and Gaoyi in Zhending, the Baoding Regional Commander Hu Dawei and the Zanhuang Mobile Corps Commander Xu Yue'e both provided the two men with considerable assistance. Xu Yue'e in particular, though pregnant at the time with her belly high and bulging, still made arrangements to provide them with provisions, moving the two generals to tears of gratitude.

However, when talking with Hu Dawei and the others, everyone lamented that it seemed the surrounding officials and generals were growing increasingly hostile toward them. Xu Yue'e especially had been deliberately or inadvertently pushed aside. The Baoding Viceroy Yang Wenyue was no longer as warm toward her as before.

Marching south from Lincheng, as far as the eye could see, the land was barren for a thousand li, a vast expanse of yellow. Sometimes they would not see a single resident for a hundred li, and other times they would encounter huge swarms of refugees. Except for slightly larger towns, there was virtually no sign of human habitation.

By this point, the army's provision supply had become even more difficult. Under hunger and cold, the soldiers could not avoid plundering.

At first, the two men had tearfully executed some of the plundering soldiers, but in the end, they could not stop it, and those sneaking out of camp to plunder grain and rice were endless.

Cao Bianjiao sighed: "I truly do not know how the Marquis of Yongning, back then, managed to march a thousand li without plundering."

At this moment, the high spirits they had felt when first setting out on the expedition were completely gone. What lingered in the two men's hearts was a blank uncertainty about the road ahead.

In the first month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the second year of Qing Shunzhi, in Shengjing.

The Qing Shunzhi Emperor Dorgon, brimming with pride and satisfaction, stroked the imperial throne in the Hall of Exalted Governance. After a thousand struggles and ten thousand contests, this seat had finally fallen into his hands.

In his heart, the imperial throne should have been his long ago. Back then, the Taizu Emperor had intended to pass the throne to him; he never imagined Huang Taiji would snatch it away. Yet after going full circle, had it not returned to his own hands? Thinking of this, Dorgon laughed with satisfaction.

Unlike the historical situation, at this time the Two White Banners were powerful and strong, and Hooge was dead. Fulin, a little brat of a few years old, naturally could not contend with Dorgon.

With hearts full of fear and at a moment of crisis, what the Manchus needed was a ruthless character like Dorgon, not a little bottom like Fulin who still nursed.

Grand ministers like Daišan and Jirgalang also did not want internal strife to erupt in the Great Qing, so they all compromised with Dorgon.

Coupled with Mongol support, the banner lords and ministers of the Two Yellow Banners had even less ability to resist Dorgon's power. Therefore, after Huang Taiji's death, with little dispute, the imperial throne fell into Dorgon's hands.

Of course, all sides had shown their support for him, and the call for Great Qing unity was very loud, so in order to ascend the throne quickly, Dorgon also made a series of compromises.

Continuing to use the Great Qing dynastic title was one; treating Fulin well was two; not carrying out major purges after ascending the throne was three. Judging by the current situation, these measures were effective, rapidly stabilizing the domestic situation of the Great Qing.

Of course, what was left to Dorgon was also a vexing and battered mess.

In the great defeat in Liaodong, over ten thousand Manchu soldiers alone had died in battle. Within the city of Shengjing, nearly every household wore mourning white and every family was in filial grief.

Moreover, many Mongol soldiers were killed or wounded, and the Han Eight Banners were nearly wiped out.

Many tribes of the Outer Vassal Mongols also suffered terribly from Wang Dou's plundering — raided twice, back and forth, stripped bare everywhere. Without relief from the Great Qing, many surviving tribes might vanish forever into the grasslands once a single snowstorm passes.

Not to mention, the Eight Banners Mongols and the Outer Vassal Mongol tribes had only submitted to the Qing state in hopes of riding the tide and seizing advantages, hadn't they? Now, far from gaining any advantage, they tried to steal a chicken only to lose the bait instead. A portion of the Mongols growing disaffected and estranged is already unavoidable.

More importantly, through Huang Taiji's painstaking efforts before, the Qing state had already faintly formed an encirclement of the Great Ming.

Now, that encirclement, unsurprisingly, is already full of holes everywhere — as good as gone. (To be continued) ^-^Book()^-^