Chapter 11: Is This Guy the Prototype for the Great Hero Guo Jing?

When they reached the central army tent, after a round of polite deferral, Wang Cheng'en took the seat of honor and said to Mao Wenlong, "Grand General, His Majesty has a few more words he bade us deliver to you. Listen carefully." He then began to recite the Chongzhen Emperor's oral edict.

"General Mao, remember: when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy camps, we harass; when the enemy tires, we strike; when the enemy retreats, we pursue."

"These sixteen characters, General Mao, you must engrave upon your memory. On no account act on impulse; do not contest a momentary advantage with the Jianzhou barbarians."

"Do not meet the Jianzhou barbarians head-on; simply keep making trouble for them without cease."

"Just remember: the Dongjiang Garrison's present task, apart from drilling the troops, is to carry out harassment raids against the Jianzhou barbarians and keep them constantly on the run."

"While you harry the Jianzhou barbarians in Liaodong, We shall drill the New Army in the capital. The day the New Army is ready, We shall personally lead the campaign!"

"What the Jianzhou barbarians owe the Great Ming, We shall take back with Our own hands!"

"When We personally lead the campaign and victory is won, that day shall be the day General Mao is enfeoffed!"

The sixteen-character harassment policy of Chongzhen was originally put forward by the great founder of the Red Dynasty of a later age, the greatest military strategist and grand strategist of that era — a great strategy tested and proven by reality.

Now that the Chongzhen Emperor had proposed it, it became his own original creation. How could Mao Wenlong not be utterly awestruck?

He straightaway believed Chongzhen to be the reincarnation of Sun Tzu and Wu Qi, and at once said to Wang Cheng'en, "Please, Eunuch, relay to His Majesty on Mao Wenlong's behalf: Mao Wenlong shall not fail the trust His Majesty has placed in him.

Henceforth, the Jianzhou barbarians shall know no day of peace!"

Wang Cheng'en, hearing this, burst out laughing. His shrill voice, far from sounding effeminate, actually carried a certain hearty openness. "Good! We shall certainly convey the Grand General's words. His Imperial Majesty will surely be most pleased to hear them."

The two chatted a while longer, and then Wang Cheng'en said, "Grand General, His Imperial Majesty has a further command. If Liu Xingzuo is still in contact with you and seeks to return to the Ming, the Grand General must agree and arrange to receive Liu Xingzuo back to the Ming.

Afterwards, dispatch men to escort him to the capital; His Imperial Majesty has other plans for him."

Mao Wenlong, hearing this, smiled and said, "Good. Liu Xingzuo has finally held out long enough. Now that a sage Son of Heaven sits upon the throne, Vice Regional Commander Liu's ardent devotion shall surely not go unrewarded."

Had he still been muddling along as aimlessly as before, Mao Wenlong would certainly not have taken this matter to heart.

But now that Mao Wenlong had resolved to sell himself to Chongzhen and gamble on winning an immediate enfeoffment, he was also very eager to see Liu Xingzuo succeed in returning to the Ming.

For the Great Ming, having a general who had spent many years among the Jianzhou barbarians, who knew their situation intimately, and who could still fight, willing to take the lead in defecting back to the Ming — this was a tremendous boon.

At the very least, Ming generals could thereafter become familiar with the Jianzhou barbarians' personnel, equipment, training, and many other aspects of warfare not yet fully understood — things that sending a few spies could never achieve.

Unless one has a particular fondness for spy dramas or is deeply versed in the history of the late Ming, the name Liu Xingzuo — whom the Jianzhou barbarians called Liu Aita — is probably unfamiliar to most.

For whether in the History of Ming later compiled by the Manchu Qing, or in their own records, they did everything possible to erase the accounts concerning Liu Xingzuo.

Where they absolutely could not avoid mentioning him, they simply resorted to the Spring and Autumn brush technique and glossed over him in a single phrase.

In the thirty-third year of Wanli, Liu Xingzuo was abducted by the Jianzhou barbarians. Later, because of his outstanding ability and because he was "clever and adept at reading others' wishes," the old Jianzhou barbarian Nurhaci valued and favored him, assigning him to Daishan's Plain Red Banner.

Afterwards, Liu Xingzuo even participated in several Manchu Qing campaigns against the Ming. Because he repeatedly distinguished himself in battle, he rose swiftly to Vice Regional Commander and was ordered to govern the four southern garrisons of Jinzhou, Fuzhou, Haizhou, and Gaizhou.

It can be said that at the time, the Liu Xingzuo clan was a military aristocratic force among the Manchu Qing that could not be ignored.

If that were all there was to it, then in the history books of later ages, Liu Xingzuo would likely have been no different from Fan Wencheng — reviled for ten thousand years and nailed by posterity to the pillar of historical shame.

But this fellow, witnessing the inhuman enslavement and oppression of the Han people in Liaodong by the Manchu Qing Tartars, actually rediscovered his conscience!

"The slaves sought to root out the Liao people; Xingzuo did all he could to preserve them."

He at last conceived the firm conviction to escape the Later Jin and serve his country. From that point on, he unswervingly embarked upon the path of abandoning the Manchus and returning to the Ming.

He feared no danger or obstacle,

and never yielded despite repeated setbacks. In the third year of Tianqi (the eighth year of the Mandate of Heaven, 1623), Liu Xingzuo was sent by the Jianzhou barbarians to garrison Fuzhou.

This fellow then began preparing to return to the Great Ming, constantly sending men to contact the then Governor of Denglai, Yuan Keli, saying he "desired to have troops cross by sea, with himself acting as an internal agent."

This was a plan to sell out the Great Manchu Qing outright.

Only, Wang Bing betrayed the secret. After the affair was exposed, Liu Xingzuo's younger brother Liu Xingren was killed, and the Jianzhou barbarians once again initiated their city-slaughtering mode. Over twenty thousand people in Fuzhou were killed. Those not massacred were all relocated elsewhere.

Of course, Wang Bing, the informer who had reported him, was hacked to death by the old Tartar Nurhaci because Liu Xingzuo steadfastly refused to admit to plotting defection to the Ming.

Later, the old Tartar even arranged a marriage alliance with Liu Xingzuo, but none of this could stop Liu Xingzuo from returning to the Ming.

In the end, Liu Xingzuo abandoned his aged mother and his wife and chose to return to the Ming. Before his return, his mother enjoined him: "If you return, you must serve the country.

Should the Jianzhou barbarians use this old body to threaten you, you need pay them no heed. Otherwise, even beneath the Nine Springs, I would have no face to meet your Liu clan ancestors."

With such a deeply principled and righteous old mother, it is not hard to see why Liu Xingzuo's conscience had not been extinguished and why he chose to return to the Ming. By the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Sun Chengzong had resumed supreme command of Liaodong.

Liu Xingzuo used a ruse of self-immolation and faked death to deceive the Jianzhou barbarians and successfully returned to the Great Ming.

After "Friend of the Great Qing" Yuan Chonghuan arbitrarily executed Mao Wenlong, Liu Xingzuo was dispatched to Pidao to take charge of its affairs.

When ordered to lead troops to Yongping, he had his soldiers disguise themselves as Jianzhou barbarians and killed several hundred Mongol troops who had entered the pass.

Upon learning of this, Hong Taiji dispatched Abatai and Jirgalang with cavalry to encircle and intercept Liu Xingzuo's eight hundred infantry. In the end, Liu Xingzuo fought to the death, whereupon the Jianzhou barbarians hacked his corpse to pieces to vent their fury.

This was why Chongzhen found the fellow Liu Xingzuo so intriguing.

According to his original thinking, no matter the reason, anyone who had surrendered to the Jianzhou barbarians — regardless of rank, merit, status, or background — would be uniformly executed, with their punishment extended to three degrees of kinship, making them stink for ten thousand years as a warning to those who came after!

But thanks to having watched Lurk in his previous life, Chongzhen simply could not bring himself to feel murderous intent toward Liu Xingzuo.

In Chongzhen's view, this Liu Xingzuo was exactly like the prototype for Guo Jing, the great hero Guo Jing, in Jin Daxia's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

He had rendered service to a foreign people just the same, held high office and enjoyed rich emoluments among a foreign people just the same, had a deeply principled and righteous old mother just the same, returned to his native country just the same, and after returning to his native country, fought to the death against that foreign people just the same.

Taking all these factors together, even though Chongzhen had long since resolved to first execute a batch of generals who had surrendered to the Jianzhou barbarians, he could not bring himself to feel murderous intent toward this Liu Xingzuo.

Instead, he vaguely felt this man was worthy of respect and could not be lightly killed.

After sending men to examine the archives of the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of War, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the Directorate of Ceremonial, Chongzhen discovered that Liu Xingzuo had not yet succeeded in returning to the Han fold.

As it happened that Wang Cheng'en was to go to Pidao to deliver an edict, he simply had the old fellow take care of the matter along the way. If Mao Wenlong had truly submitted, then Mao Wenlong was to be instructed to receive Liu Xingzuo back to the Ming.

If it could not be confirmed whether Mao Wenlong had truly submitted, then the matter was not to be raised, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard would be sent separately to handle it later.

Fortunately, Wang Cheng'en judged that Mao Wenlong had already been successfully won over and submitted by Chongzhen, so he brought the matter up. And Mao Wenlong, who had already known of Liu Xingzuo's wish to return to the Ming back when Yuan Keli was Governor of Denglai, readily agreed.