[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-720":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1206009,1561,"Chapter 720: The Newspaper","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-720",720,"\u003Cp>Lao Bai Niu: Wolf Xiangru’s Gu Sect, book number 3095017. Friends who are interested can take a look — it’s a book with a very rich flavor of worldly human experience.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>……\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the twenty-ninth day of the ninth month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, in the capital, the Forbidden City, inside the Eastern Warm Pavilion, the grand ministers were assembled.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Senior Grand Secretary Zhou Yanru, Minister of Personnel Zheng Sanjun, Minister of War Chen Xinjia, Minister of Revenue Ni Yuanlu, Minister of Justice Liu Zeshen, Minister of Works Yuan Jingwen, and even the impossibly aged Minister of Rites Fu Shuxun were all in attendance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Also entering the cabinet, though not heads of a ministry — Vice Minister of Rites of the Right and Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion Wei Zaode, and Vice Minister of Rites of the Left, Co-director of the Supervisorate of the Heir Apparent, and Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion Chen Yan — were likewise seated within the Eastern Warm Pavilion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Yan was adept at colluding with the inner palace servants; from the mouths of the eunuchs he could secretly learn what the Emperor intended to ask the next day, and he always answered fluently, greatly winning Emperor Chongzhen’s favor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wei Zaode excelled in rhetoric and possessed great eloquence; he was very good at guessing the Emperor’s thoughts and always managed to cater to them, so he too was lodged in the imperial favor. Although the most favored at present was Senior Grand Secretary Zhou Yanru, the two, though not heads of a ministry, were by no means at a disadvantage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Using minor officials to check grand ministers — this was a tradition of the Great Ming. Perhaps Emperor Chongzhen felt that Zhou Yanru’s momentum was too great, and since he, Ni Yuanlu, and Zheng Sanjun were all men of Jiangnan and members of the Donglin faction, he did not wish to see one party dominate the cabinet, and vaguely intended to use the two to counterbalance him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, Li Banghua, who had been restored to the post of Left Chief Censor of the Chief Surveillance Bureau, also sat quietly upon a brocade couch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the great upheaval in the capital in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, although Li Banghua had temporarily resigned in acknowledgment of fault, his roots ran deep and his branches luxuriant — his disciples and former subordinates spread across the realm. He himself had long served in the cabinet and had also held key posts such as Minister of War.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His clansman Li Rixuan had likewise served as Minister of both War and Personnel. The men of the Li clan all enjoyed smooth official careers; in the clan, Li Zhenyu, historically, would successively serve as Minister of Works, Justice, Revenue, and Rites — four ministries in all. Among the common folk there was even a saying: “One family, eight ministers; nine sons, ten department magistrates.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus not long ago, Li Banghua was restored to office. At this moment, he merely held a newspaper in his hands, watching with an expressionless face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“…Your servant has heard that the great righteousness of all under Heaven ought to be unified. The Xiongnu Huhanye Chanyu has already declared himself a vassal of the north; only Zhizhi Chanyu rebels and has not submitted to his punishment. West of the Great Xia, he believes that the mighty Han cannot make him a subject. Zhizhi Chanyu’s cruelty and poison are inflicted upon the people; his great evil presses against Heaven. Your servants Yanshou and Tang, leading the righteous troops, carry out Heaven’s punishment. Relying on Your Majesty’s divine spirit, yin and yang answered together. We broke the lines and overcame the foe, beheading Zhizhi and those of royal rank and below. It is fitting to hang the heads from the lodges of the barbarian quarters, to show across ten thousand li: whoever dares offend the mighty Han, though distant, shall surely be put to death!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Looking at this passage in the newspaper, the assembled ministers within the pavilion wore varied expressions. Facing the Emperor, none of them knew what expression they ought to wear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A heavy snow had just fallen upon the capital not long ago. Although the pavilion had thick heated walls, a chill still lingered. Emperor Chongzhen sat upon the dragon throne, merely watching the cabinet ministers below with cold indifference as they leafed through the various daily newspapers and the military dispatches arriving from all quarters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a long while, he said flatly: “All of you, speak.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The military dispatches from beyond the frontier and from the Central Plains had both reached the capital on the twenty-fourth. The difference was that the Kaifeng battle dispatch arrived on the morning of the twenty-fourth, while Wang Dou's victory dispatch from beyond the frontier arrived that afternoon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the Kaifeng dispatch was received, the sovereign and his ministers were all thunderstruck, as if the very sky were about to collapse. In their terror, they all without prior agreement sought news of Wang Dou. Inexplicably, many actually hoped that Wang Dou had suffered a great defeat — even the Emperor harbored such a sentiment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But events defied their wishes. What soon arrived was instead Wang Dou’s victory dispatch — moreover, a great victory unprecedented since the mid-Ming.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A few days later, the Xuanfu Times also began arriving in an unbroken stream. It was no longer issued once every six days, but every other day a new edition appeared. On it, the praise was extravagant and excessive, lauding this great victory beyond the frontier as something rarely seen between heaven and earth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou’s own dispatch attributed this great victory to the Emperor’s vast good fortune and to the strategic planning of the court gentlemen, placing his own name only at the very end. But the newspaper paid no heed to such restraint — it truly blew the trumpet with all its might, with desperate force, with terrifying force.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The headlines, too, were each more startling and eye-catching than the last: “Watering Horses on the Vast Sea, Sealing Wolf Mountain Below,” “The Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper Shine High, Geshu Draws His Blade by Night,” “So Long as the Flying General of Dragon City Stands Guard, No Barbarian Horse Shall Cross the Yin Mountains” — and so on and so forth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In particular, the lead headline of the first edition on the twenty-sixth, “Watering Horses on the Vast Sea, Sealing Wolf Mountain Below,” at the end of the article quoted the memorial submitted by Chen Tang after his great defeat of the Xiongnu in the third year of the Jianzhao era, and further cried out with wild fervor: “Salute the ever-victorious Grand General!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, it ran a series of reports, speaking at great length about each of the Jingbian Army’s commanders, Wang Pu and the rest, even down to the affairs of common foot soldiers, all occupying several full pages. Every day brought new twists; no one knew when the uproar would end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the lengthy and voluminous coverage of the Xuanfu Times, Wang Dou’s great victory beyond the frontier — as far as the sovereign and his ministers knew — had already set the Xuanfu Garrison boiling over. The Datong Garrison and the Shanxi Garrison were likewise in the same state.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For several hundred years of the Great Ming, these three garrisons had suffered severe border troubles. Countless common folk had seen their families torn apart. Now the old lair of the Tartars had been swept clean in one stroke by the Marquis of Yongning; the Tartars south of the desert were utterly destroyed, and those not destroyed had become slaves. For at least several decades, the three garrisons would be free of worry, and the common people would enjoy peace — how could they not rejoice?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On everyone’s lips, everywhere one looked, was the name of Wang Dou and the might of the Jingbian Army. Wang Pu’s Datong Army also gained considerable reflected glory; even the Loyalty Battalion and the Newly Attached Battalion saw their fame rise swiftly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The capital too was boiling over. Teahouses and wineshops everywhere were packed to bursting; every establishment was filled with news-criers. Even outside the establishments, dense, dark crowds gathered. Against the backdrop of the great defeat in the Central Plains, the common people desperately needed a victory, and the Jingbian Army had just satisfied that need.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially in the popular imagination, watering horses at the Flowing Sands River and campaigning on the northern frontier had always been the highest achievement of generals through the dynasties, the deepest longing in the innermost hearts of all. Literati through the ages had composed countless frontier ballads, and so this great victory beyond the frontier was especially stirring to the hearts of the people.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Xuanfu Times of the twenty-eighth, besides continuing to report the great victory, also reported the full details of the battle before and after Zhuxian Town — far more detailed than the court gazette. It offered the most profound mourning for the fallen officers and men such as Hu Dawei and Jiang Mingwu, and further denounced the warlords like Zuo Liangyu!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The newspaper sternly declared: “Men act, Heaven watches; three feet above one’s head, the gods are present. Zuo Liangyu, for his own selfish ends, cast aside the safety of over a hundred thousand officers and men, abandoning his army at the critical moment of battle, ultimately leading to the great defeat of the government troops and the ruination of the Central Plains. Such a despicable wretch will ultimately come to no good end!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The newspaper's reports stirred the anger of the common people of the capital. Generally, the various Regional Commanders, Provincial Governors, Viceroys, and the like all maintained guild halls in the capital for gathering intelligence and copying the court gazette. This was especially true for military men; these personnel selected and stationed in the capital had other subtle uses. Qi Jiguang in his day had bitterly denounced this phenomenon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“…On the day a general is transferred to follow a campaign, before he himself has even set out, he first dispatches men to spread out along the roads to the capital, and at the gates of the Ministry of War and the inner palace offices, calculating a certain day when he might catch up with the enemy. Without waiting for a report to arrive, they already spread word everywhere, saying: ‘A certain general has caught up with the enemy.’ Little do they know that out of three thousand troops, only two or three hundred have arrived, and some are still a hundred or two hundred li away. Who investigates this? Before the enemy is even sighted, when the appointed time draws near, those same men again proclaim everywhere: ‘A certain officer was surrounded in such-and-such a way, and how he slashed and killed.’ Those who wish to envy another’s merit or avenge their own grudges then say: ‘A certain officer was encamped at such-and-such a place, and how he failed to come to the rescue.’ Soon after: ‘How this officer slashed and killed and broke through the encirclement.’ It even reaches the point of stirring the imperial ear…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zuo Liangyu likewise maintained a guild hall in the capital for his “Pacify-the-Bandits” garrison. The agents within, both before and after events, spread just such deceitful rumors. Zuo Liangyu’s image among the court gentlemen as a vital pillar of the army and a great general of the state — aside from his own large forces — was not without the contribution of these very men.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The common people of the capital had no deep impression of Zuo Liangyu; they only knew he was very capable in battle and deeply valued by the court. They never imagined he was of such moral character. They scrimped on clothing and food, paid grain and taxes, to support this kind of bandit-general? This runaway general?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, relying on their master’s deep reliance by the court, Zuo’s household men ordinarily ran rampant and tyrannical in the capital. Enraged crowds surged forward, dragged them out one by one and beat them, and that guild hall was burned to ashes in a single blaze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who had been friendly with them never imagined a mere newspaper could possess such power. Dazed and at a loss, each hastened to distance themselves, all fearing to be implicated, and one after another they shunned them. Zuo Liangyu’s various properties in the capital suffered severe losses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nor was this all. One could imagine that this fury would spread to every corner of the Great Ming. Zuo Liangyu’s name was truly notorious far and wide. Men like Hu Dawei, with the passage of time, would also be known in every household, their names preserved in the annals of history.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, as the cabinet gentlemen observed Wang Dou’s conduct, each felt a complex mixture of emotions in his heart. Since when was public opinion under Heaven to be guided by a mere military man? Where was the superiority of the literati that had endured for a thousand years? Each also secretly trembled — a mere newspaper, and Zuo Liangyu’s reputation was utterly destroyed, though he had little reputation to begin with.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If one day Wang Dou should use it against themselves — they dared not imagine what the outcome would be!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Emperor Chongzhen himself did not know what feeling stirred in his heart. Victory beyond the frontier — moreover, a great victory unprecedented in the dynasty for a hundred years — yet he simply could not feel joy. He could only think: Wang Dou’s fame has grown even more resounding. Especially with this sharp weapon of the newspaper, how many within and without the court would press him to transfer the Jingbian Army south to suppress the bandits?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But — could he rest easy?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A weak sovereign and a strong subject — this is an omen of a realm in chaos!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially in the deep stillness of night, he would often ponder Wang Dou’s career in detail, and the circumstances of their own meetings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He pondered again and again, yet could never fully fathom this man, never knew what he was thinking, and felt his mind was unfathomable in the extreme. To call him loyal — he was indeed the most loyal man in the Great Ming; the great victory beyond the frontier he also credited to himself and the court, humble and observant of propriety. But to call him treacherous…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The story of Wang Dou’s rise also gradually surfaced. In truth, many things did not need to be witnessed firsthand; by carefully examining the details, one could slowly deduce them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wherever he went, storms of blood and wind followed. Truly, he had climbed up treading upon a ground littered with corpses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, Wang Dou served as a Platoon Leader in the Jingbian Army. Then, not long after, Vice Battalion Commander Du Zhen died — the cause of death: encountering bandits. Wang Dou quickly climbed up and became a Defense Commander.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then Wang Dou served as the Garrison Commander of Baoanzhou City. Not long after, Assistant Regional Commander Mao Bin died — the cause of death: the laughable “death by sexual exhaustion.” Wang Dou again quickly climbed up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In between, there were soldiers rioting for pay, merchants shutting their shops, students boycotting classes — Wang Dou slaughtered them all, fully revealing his ruthless and merciless methods.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then came the Battle of Julu. Wang Dou abandoned Chen Xinjia and led his troops south to follow Lu Xiangsheng. In the midst of this, the Army Supervisor Gao Qiqian disappeared, and to this day not a trace of him has been found. Emperor Chongzhen slowly came to suspect that Gao Qiqian had died at Wang Dou’s hands. After all, Gao Qiqian had held his troops back and refused to render aid; Wang Dou had the motive to kill him, and also the ruthlessness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially the matter of the Shanxi merchants spreading slander and rumors after the Battle of Songshan — this revealed even more Wang Dou’s cold-blooded ruthlessness and utter lack of scruples.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How vast were the wings of the Shanxi merchants? Moreover, behind them were involved imperial princes. Ordinary men would think thrice before acting. But Wang Dou dared to strike. He led his troops from the Xuanfu Garrison, slaughtering his way to the Datong Garrison, and then to the Shanxi Garrison, until rivers of blood flowed. It seemed that in all the world, there was no one he dared not kill.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eunuchs and imperial princes — these were men before whom the civil officials and military officers of the Great Ming all quailed and halted. Of the civil officials, nothing need be said. Even among the military officers, no matter how domineering, none had ever been heard to dare kill a eunuch. This showed that Wang Dou had no regard for anyone, utterly audacious and reckless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And judging from his career, he could be called the bane of all superiors. He had killed his way up through the ranks of officialdom; who knew how many superiors had died at his hands? This man’s will was firm, his heart ruthless, his judgment extremely independent. Step by step he had climbed up, each step cold and merciless. What was his goal?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If one day, he himself should obstruct that goal — would he…?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this thought, a kind of terror surged up in Emperor Chongzhen’s heart. (To be continued…)\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>〖∷Fast Updates∷∷Plain Text∷〗\u003C\u002Fp>",2910,"2026-06-03T14:06:10.567Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","c98129d16dcfe0cdc25b169f140032c9dd97b8873cdb99b770b2b61ddebb4fe4","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-721","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-719",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]