Chapter 306: Nine Golden Edicts Urging Battle

Feng Menglong found a flash of inspiration on the hilltop, immediately pulled out paper and brush to record it, then hurried down the mountain, plunged into his study, and shut himself in without coming out. Meanwhile, after the Nan'ao navy captured Guazhou, they left small garrisons at Guazhou and the Three Hills of Jingkou, while the main force continued westward.

After passing the Three Hills of Jingkou, the Yangtze suddenly widened, and the Guazhou Canal Mouth came into distant view—this was the junction of the Grand Canal and the Yangtze, the very place where Bailangzai had once pressed the grain transport and threatened Wei Zhongxian.

Looking north along the Grand Canal, Lin Qian could glimpse the bustling city of Yangzhou in the distance, with Zhenjiang to the southwest.

Both cities were built far back from the riverbank, unable to threaten the river itself, and so naturally there was no need to take them.

Affected by the chaos of war, few travelers or common folk were about near either city, though a handful of grain boats could be seen scattered on the Grand Canal.

It was now early autumn, the peak season for shipping the south's summer taxes and grain northward—cut off the grain transport, and you had the Ming Empire by the throat. Lin Qian ordered three Sea Wolf ships left to guard the Guazhou Canal Mouth, permitting limited passage to grain boats.

The fleet continued upstream, arriving outside the walls of Nanjing by dusk the following day.

In the setting sun, the walls of Nanjing rose tall and majestic, like a giant dragon coiled along the southern bank of the Yangtze. The whole city leaned against hills and faced the water, spreading outward in an unbroken expanse of rooftops that stretched beyond sight—a truly awe-inspiring sight.

A staff officer pointed southeast of Nanjing and said, "Helmsman, that is the Longjiang Treasure Ship Yard, where Zheng He's treasure ships were built."

Shielding his eyes from the sun, Lin Qian squinted. The shipyard was overgrown with lush trees, no different from wild wasteland, with only a few dry docks visible amid the woods.

The staff officer said, "After the Xuande era, the yard stopped producing, and it gradually fell into ruin—even five or six of the dry docks were filled in. Two hundred years have passed since, and this is all that remains."

On the deck, the officers gazed at the ruins of the shipyard, each lost in reflection, feeling that two hundred years had turned the seas to mulberry fields—all changed, all gone.

Even the Yongle Emperor—while he lived, his word was law and none dared defy him—yet after his death the Western Voyages were suspended, and two hundred years later, the shipyard and its shipbuilding arts alike had turned to dust.

As dusk slowly deepened, Lin Qian gave the order: "We anchor outside Nanjing tonight."

A staff officer advised, "Helmsman, there's still daylight left—why not press on a bit further?"

Nanjing was the Ming's secondary capital and the resting place of Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb—far too sensitive a spot. Anchoring here, there was no guarantee the Ming army wouldn't take some rash action. But Lin Qian was thinking further ahead: heading to Poyang Lake, he was striking from afar with no foothold on shore—he had to win quickly. His fear was that Yuan Chonghuan would transplant his "rely on strong walls, use great cannons" turtle tactics onto the water and grind the Nan'ao forces down in a war of attrition.

Along the way, Yuan Chonghuan had never sent the Poyang Lake navy out to fight, instead using the Three Hills of Jingkou to slow them—the signs were already visible.

Ahead, there were many more such points of natural advantage, the most perilous being the junction of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze—the Nanhu Zui and Jingjiang Kou area. The waters there were narrow, leaving no room for Nan'ao's great ships and cannons to maneuver.

If Yuan Chonghuan set up cannons there, backed by his navy and army in defense, even immortals couldn't break through.

That was why Lin Qian wanted to control the grain transport and threaten Nanjing—to pressure the foolish Emperor in the capital into forcing Yuan Chonghuan to abandon passive defense and commit to battle quickly.

The logic was the same as the Qin army's counter-espionage scheme at the Battle of Changping, which forced the Zhao army to march out.

So Lin Qian said, "Anchor here. Have the picket boats stay vigilant tonight. Also, the weather's been damp lately—the muskets and gunpowder on each ship are bound to suffer from moisture. Tonight, inspect the powder stores and fire a few shots to test them."

"Yes, sir." The staff officer did not understand, but he obeyed.

With that, Lin Qian returned to the captain's cabin to rest, sleeping soundly to the occasional crack of gunfire drifting up from the deck.

Meanwhile, Nanjing was in utter turmoil. Common folk barred their doors and hid in cellars; wealthy households packed their bags and bribed the gate guards in desperate attempts to flee the city. Officials and hereditary nobles scurried about like ants on a hot pan.

It couldn't be helped—ever since the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, Nanjing's administrative apparatus had been left half-idle.

Those posted to Nanjing were either losers in factional strife, the demoted, or men sent to retire.

Ask this crowd to critique the wine houses along the Qinhuai River, and every one of them was an expert.

Ask them to make decisions on military and state affairs, and each was a headless fly.

Beyond the incompetence of its officials, Nanjing's garrison troops had gathered together every ailment of the Ming army.

The last time Nanjing had seen combat was fully seventy-five years earlier—in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing, when fifty-three wokou raiders slipped to the outskirts of Nanjing and were driven off by the garrison.

Go back further, and the last time Nanjing was besieged by a great army was the fourth year of Jianwen, during Zhu Di's Jingnan Campaign—more than two hundred years ago!

In two hundred years, even the Guanning Iron Army would have been softened by the fragrant breezes of the Qinhuai.

Nanjing's Capital Camps, Xiaoling Guard, and the garrison at the Grand Drill Ground totaled, on paper, nearly thirty thousand men. In reality, there were only fifteen thousand—half of them collecting pay for men who didn't exist.

Of those fifteen thousand, three thousand were sons of hereditary nobles drawing pay in name only; three thousand were beggars and refugees filling out the numbers; three thousand were the old, the weak, and the infirm. All told, fewer than six thousand could actually fight.

In the armories, weapons and equipment had rotted away long ago; the soldiers' privately owned gear was rusted and blunt; and every firearm and powder weapon was old stock from the Wanli era, long since reduced to scrap.

Searching through the armories, the garrison found that the only serviceable weapons were a batch forged during Zhang Juzheng's time in power... The whole of Nanjing looked tall and mighty, a wall of bronze and iron, but inside it had long been eaten away to dregs.

With strength like this, forget defending the city—if an enemy army arrived at the walls, not mutinying and surrendering on the spot would already count as burning incense of the highest grade.

In the quiet moonlit night, the Nan'ao navy followed Lin Qian's instructions, inspecting weapons and equipment, firing a few test shots from every matchlock musket.

The crackling reports rang out in a continuous chain across the Yangtze, as dense as hail striking the ground.

The garrison soldiers on Nanjing's walls cowered behind the battlements, trembling.

Duke Wei, Xu Hongji, climbed the wall and berated them: "The enemy hasn't even attacked yet, and you cower like this—what sort of showing is that? Stand up!" He was the tenth-generation descendant of Zhongshan King Xu Da and the foremost noble of Nanjing. The garrison soldiers dared not disobey, cautiously rising and peering over the wall. Xu Hongji himself walked to the battlements and looked out at the river—the ships covered the water, their numbers beyond counting. His vision went black and his body staggered. "Your Grace!" His personal attendants, quick-eyed and nimble-handed, rushed to support him.

Xu Hongji steadied himself and said, "Quick—take me to see Minister Fu."

Minister Fu was Fu Zhenshang, the serving Minister of War for Nanjing—both the highest military and civil authority in the city and one of its few capable officials. When Xu Hongji arrived at Fu's residence, he found it already crowded with officials of every rank.

No one was discussing military affairs. Instead, they were united in furious condemnation of Yuan Chonghuan—after all, he oversaw military affairs for the Southern Metropolitan Region, and now he had let rebel forces reach their very gates. This was gross dereliction of duty.

Of course, speaking of private interest, impeaching Yuan Chonghuan and heaping all the blame on him would also cover up their own sinecure-holding and cowardly incompetence. Xu Hongji and Fu Zhenshang deliberated at length and decided on two tracks: first, a delaying tactic—pretending to surrender to the Nan'ao forces—and second, urgently summoning reinforcements from all directions while sending a military dispatch to the capital begging for aid.

Naturally, the impeachment of Yuan Chonghuan could not be dropped either. The memorial of impeachment was written on the spot, signed jointly by all present, and sent with the dispatch to the capital overnight. This grand meeting of blame-shifting ran through the entire night to the sound of gunfire.

The next morning, the Right Censor-in-Chief of Nanjing's Censorate set out bearing a letter of surrender to find Lin Qian—but the moment he left the city, he froze. The river lay empty before him. There was no trace of the Nan'ao forces anywhere.

Lin Qian had led the fleet onward toward Anqing Prefecture.

At the same time, urgent reports from Nanjing were flying in every direction. Armies from across the Southern Metropolitan Region converged on Nanjing, while the military dispatch reporting that the Nan'ao forces had reached the city walls arrived in the capital four days later.

The moment the Chongzhen Emperor saw the dispatch, his pale face flushed crimson.

Nanjing was not only the secondary capital—it was the very birthplace of the Great Ming and the resting place of the dynasty's founder.

If that city fell, then he had suffered "humiliation of the ancestral temple, violation of the dragon vein"—in the cruder language of the streets, someone had dug up his ancestral graves.

From a national standpoint, if Beijing fell, Chongzhen could still retreat to Nanjing. But if Nanjing fell, the Great Ming would have nowhere left to run—ruin would be near at hand. Thus Chongzhen's fury reached an unprecedented peak. He immediately ordered Han?? and Qian Longxi to come to the palace for deliberation in the Pingyi Hall.

No sooner had the Chief and Second Grand Secretaries arrived at the Pingyi Hall than Chongzhen tore into them with a torrent of abuse.

The content of his cursing had escalated beyond matter-of-fact reprimand into personal attack—calling one an "official in beast's clothing" and the other a "foolish slave who ruins the state."

At this point in the Ming, though imperial power was centralized to the extreme, sovereign and minister still maintained a certain surface courtesy and decency.

Even the Jiajing Emperor, who had flogged a hundred officials, cursed in formal written language—he would never have vented his emotions with such unrestrained abuse.

Chongzhen's conduct now was truly unprecedented among all the emperors of the Ming, leaving the Chief and Second Grand Secretaries frozen in place, not knowing how to respond. After cursing for a while, the Chongzhen Emperor threw the dispatch and the Nanjing officials' joint memorial impeaching Yuan Chonghuan to the ground.

"Read it yourselves!"

The two of them read the military dispatch and were instantly struck with terror. Han??'s face turned ashen, while Qian Longxi wore a bitter expression, thinking to himself: "Yuansu, oh Yuansu! The Grand Secretariat explicitly ordered you to build swift military achievements, yet you've made such a mess of things. This old man has been utterly ruined by you."

Chongzhen demanded harshly: "What is the meaning of this? Where is Yuan Chonghuan's navy?"

Han?? stammered and hesitated. He had long known of the news that the Nan'ao fleet was advancing up the Yangtze River. He had originally believed that the defenses at Jingkou's Three Mountains could hold back the Nan'ao army—at the very least, delay them long enough for Yuan Chonghuan's navy to arrive. He never imagined the defensive line would be breached so quickly.

The news that the Nan'ao army had surrounded Nanjing had only just reached the two of them. Facing Chongzhen's relentless interrogation, they naturally knew nothing and could answer nothing.

Chongzhen flew into a rage: "You know nothing of this, and nothing of that. What use does the Grand Secretariat have for the two of you?"

Scolded into utter helplessness, the two men dared not speak.

The more Chongzhen spoke, the angrier he grew. He rose from the imperial throne, walked before the two men, and berated them: "Yuan Chonghuan wanted money, wanted troops, wanted authority—I granted him all of it. And what was the result? He indulged rebel troops in threatening Nanjing. Fine Yuan Chonghuan, fine Grand Secretariat—do you take me for a mere boy to be deceived?"

"Your Majesty, calm your wrath. Governor Yuan, he... he..." Qian Longxi's forehead was already covered in cold sweat.

Han?? finally thought of an excuse and hastily said: "Yuan Chonghuan is a man skilled in defense. The enemy has come from afar and cannot sustain a prolonged campaign. Surely..."

"Silence!" Chongzhen roared. "The court has already lost Zhoushan and Pidao—is this what you call skilled defense? What exactly is he defending? Must the court lose Nanjing and the entire Jiangnan before you are satisfied?"

"Your servant... your servant..." Qian Longxi's voice was trembling.

Chongzhen took a deep breath and said: "Issue the decree, summon Yuan Chonghuan..."

"Your Majesty, if Yuan Chonghuan is replaced, I fear there is no one capable to take charge of the Yangtze campaign. Moreover, the enemy is merely besieging the city; Yuan Chonghuan's main force remains intact and still has the strength for one battle. I beg Your Majesty to permit him to atone for his crimes through merit." Han?? suddenly interrupted.

His fate, along with Qian Longxi's and the Donglin Faction's, was bound to Yuan Chonghuan's war chariot—they absolutely could not let him fall.

Moreover, his words were indeed spoken with consideration for state affairs. The Ming dynasty had no shortage of outstanding frontier generals in the northeast and northwest—men like Zu Dashou, Man Gui, Hong Chengchou, and Cao Wenzhao—but commanders who understood naval warfare... there were almost none at all.

The southeastern navy of the Great Ming had either been wiped out in one sweep by Lin Qian or had defected to the enemy. The Dengzhou navy had also never recovered since the days of Shen Yourong and Yuan Keli. If Yuan Chonghuan were replaced, truly no one could fill his shoes.

The only suitable candidate was Zhu Xieyuan, but he was still in mourning for his parent. To employ him, the Emperor would have to issue a decree lifting the mourning requirement.

And Chongzhen had already rejected that very suggestion when he summoned Yuan Chonghuan at Ping. At this point, he could hardly swallow his pride and contradict himself.

It was precisely with this consideration that Han?? dared to speak so boldly—and indeed, Chongzhen began to hesitate.

Qian Longxi hastily added his assurances from the side, urging that Yuan Chonghuan be ordered to dispatch troops, and so forth.

Suppressing his emotions, Chongzhen said: "Issue a stern decree, ordering Yuan Chonghuan to march immediately!"

Both Han and Qian breathed sighs of relief.

Deep in the night, atop the city wall of Ganzhou, Yuan Chonghuan stood behind the crenellations in a cloth-faced armor, his face full of worry.

Below the city, a burst of firelight appeared among the Nan'ao army's positions, followed by the sounds of battle cries and gunfire, and then the rumbling of hooves.

A troop of cavalry charged out from the Nan'ao positions, retreating toward Ganzhou city. The three layers of gates at Zhennan Gate opened in succession to let the cavalry in. One of them dismounted, ran up to the city wall, and reported joyfully with cupped hands before Yuan Chonghuan: "Governor, we burned five enemy barracks and shot dead approximately fifteen enemy soldiers."

This man was You Shilu, an Assistant Regional Commander of the Guanning Army. During the Jisi Incident, he had followed Yuan Chonghuan through the pass to defend the capital and taken part in the Battle of Guangqu Gate. With his mounted archery skills, he had killed over a dozen Tartars and rendered great merit.

The Guanning Iron Cavalry under his command were all skilled horsemen and archers. Ever since taking up the defense of Ganzhou, they had sallied forth from time to time to harass the enemy. Each raid's kills were not numerous, but they managed to vex the Nan'ao army beyond endurance.

"Mm, well done."

The worry on Yuan Chonghuan's face did not change. In the moonlight, the battlefield south of Ganzhou was now covered with zigzag trenches of all sizes.

These trenches were dug with great ingenuity—while shielding infantry as they moved through them, they made it very difficult for the cannons atop Ganzhou's walls to score hits. At night, the trenches also impeded cavalry movement.

When the Nan'ao land forces first arrived outside Ganzhou, You Shilu's every raid had yielded at least twenty-odd heads. But as the trenches multiplied, the raids' kills grew fewer and fewer, and the Nan'ao army drew ever closer to the city walls.

Though the moat held them back—the Nan'ao army dreaming of digging all the way to the city wall's base was pure fantasy, and breaching the walls through trenches was impossible—they could still manage to keep the battlefield in a stalemate.

As the defender, Yuan Chonghuan had the Gan River shipping route, allowing an uninterrupted flow of grain, weapons, and soldiers into the city. He was not originally afraid of a war of attrition. But the slave rebellion in Jiangxi was intensifying, the silver famine growing ever more severe, and more and more common folk were defecting to the Nan'ao side—all of which made victory seem increasingly remote to Yuan Chonghuan. A few days earlier, he had also received word that a massive fleet had entered the Yangtze through its mouth, smashing through everything in its path, with the Jingkou defensive line breached in just two days. This made Yuan Chonghuan feel as if needles were pricking his back.

If the Nan'ao navy broke into Poyang Lake and seized control of the Gan River, then Ganzhou would become a completely isolated city. The twenty thousand elite troops within would exhaust their supplies and simply wait to die.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Yuan Chonghuan finally made up his mind. He descended from the city wall, gathered all the army's commanders in one place, first briefed them on the military situation on the Yangtze, then told the assembled generals: "I have decided to return to Nanchang overnight. While suppressing the slave rebellion, I will personally command the navy and hold Nanhuzui."

"As long as Nanhuzui is held, Ganzhou will never fall. However fierce the rebels' momentum, they can only withdraw. Devote yourselves to defending the city." Having said this, Yuan Chonghuan assigned defensive sectors to each commander present, exhorting every single one with the utmost care and detail.

Finally, he entrusted the entire defense of Ganzhou to three men: Zhang Guowei, the Governor of Southern Gan; Yang Dezheng, the Assistant Regional Commander of Southern Gan; and Yao Xi, the Guard Commander of the Ganzhou Guard. Yuan Chonghuan always handled military affairs with swift decisiveness, yet at this moment he was endlessly verbose—covering how to defend against enemy tunneling, how to prevent the enemy from undermining the walls, how to mobilize the civilian militia, how to guard against traitors opening the gates, how to fill in collapsed sections of wall after bombardment, how to plug breaches, how to respond to enemy cannon fire—going over every matter great and small.

The officials present initially found him long-winded, but by the end, not one was unmoved.

By the time Yuan Chonghuan finished speaking, the sky outside the hall was already faintly bright with dawn.

Without any apparent reason, Yuan Chonghuan's heart tightened—he had an inexplicable feeling that his days were numbered. He sighed, walked to the doorway, turned around, and cupped his hands to the assembled generals and officers: "Ganzhou is entrusted to you all!"

Everyone returned the gesture with cupped hands in unison, their expressions extraordinarily solemn.

Afterward, Yuan Chonghuan left the official residence, rode out of the city, and boarded a boat at Ganzhou's West Gate to travel north.

At this time, the Gan River was entirely in Ming army hands—Lei Sanxiang's artillery positions could not possibly be set up across the river—so Yuan Chonghuan's boat traveled downstream without the slightest obstruction.

Gazing at the villages on both banks, he saw that many had been reduced to ashes, with vast stretches of farmland lying barren. The area around Ji'an Prefecture in the middle reaches of the Gan River had suffered the worst damage—all consequences of the Jiangxi slave rebellion.

Looking at the scene before him, Yuan Chonghuan could not help but sigh and say to his staff adviser: "Boqing (Han Runchang's courtesy name), tell me—why has the affairs of this world come to such a pass?"

Han Runchang said: "It is all the fault of that treacherous villain of Nan'ao with his wolfish ambition, stirring up trouble from within."

The Jiangxi slave rebellion originated from the silver famine, and the silver famine originated from the severance of trade with Fujian and Guangdong. But at this point, Han Runchang naturally could not blame Yuan Chonghuan's policies for being mistaken—he could only find fault with Lin Qian.

At this moment, only Yuan Chonghuan and his adviser were in the cabin, so he chatted idly: "I suppose that move of cutting off the trade routes was one I played wrongly."

Han Runchang consoled him: "At root, it is all the fault of that rebel Lin rising up. Had he not been causing trouble in the southeast, with the full strength of the Great Ming and your excellency's talents, Liaodong might have long been recovered, and the realm restored to peace."

Yuan Chonghuan sighed and said: "What's done is done; further words are pointless. Order the soldiers to hasten the boat—we must reach Nanhuzui before Lin Qian does!" After Lin Qian's fleet left Nanjing, it sailed upstream against the current, passing Dangtu, Wuhu, Chizhou, Anqing, and other places in succession, finally arriving at Hukou. It was dusk; the setting sun melted into the river, and the sky was filled with a mournful red.

On the river surface, the waters of Huguang were turbid and yellow as gruel, while Jiangxi's waters were clear and green as jade. Where the two met, they displayed two distinctly separate colors of water, as clearly divided as the Jing and the Wei.

Gazing into the distance, fishing boats could be seen dotting the river, with egrets and herons wheeling overhead. The reeds along the shore were faintly yellowing, rustling as the autumn wind blew through them. Near Nanhuzui, fortifications and cannons could be seen on both Meijia Islet and Stone Bell Mountain, with soldiers patrolling in formation on both banks, and naval vessels cruising on the river.

Just as Lin Qian had expected, Yuan Chonghuan had defended Hukou as solidly as an iron bucket.

The swift breakthrough at Jingkou's Three Mountains earlier had been possible because the Ming army had no ships to coordinate with. But now the cream of the Ming navy was concentrated in Poyang Lake—the tactic of frontal bombardment followed by flanking landings would no longer work.

While it was still light, Lin Qian ordered three Eagle Ships to advance in coordination with three Sea Wolf ships to probe the firepower of the shore defenses.

The Ming navy immediately came out to drive them off, refusing to take the bait.

Lin Qian could only send the Fuzhou forward for firepower reconnaissance. She advanced to within five hundred paces, and the Ming army held their fire with great restraint—only when she came within four hundred paces did they suddenly open up. Over a dozen cannonballs landed on both sides of the hull, frightening the Fuzhou into turning about on the spot and fleeing back.

From that single volley, Lin Qian judged that the Ming army had placed at least four or five artillery positions at Nanhuzui, with no fewer than fifteen red barbarian cannons. In such a narrow entrance, charging headlong into the firepower of red barbarian cannons was no different from sending cavalry to their deaths beneath the walls of Ningyuan.

Lin Qian ordered the fleet to stand down and rest temporarily.

That rest stretched into five consecutive days of waiting. The staff officers aboard the ships were hopping with anxiety—the supplies carried on board could not last that long.

Shipping from Zhoushan took too long and incurred heavy losses; buying on shore couldn't supply grain for nearly ten thousand men either.

The staff officers urged him to fight and the fleet captains begged for battle, but Lin Qian turned them all down flat, saying only to wait a while longer.

Meanwhile, Yuan Chonghuan, who had personally come to the Nanhuzui camp, was far more distressed than Lin Qian. He was on the defensive and held the advantage, true enough, but politically he was at an absolute disadvantage.

Just one day earlier, an imperial edict had arrived from the capital, sternly ordering Yuan Chonghuan to march out at once, recover the lost territory, sweep the Yangtze clean, and drive out the rebel Lin. Hot on its heels came an urgent dispatch from the Grand Secretariat, pressing him to move out as soon as possible, in the most frantic tone.

Han?? and Qian Longxi had also each written to Yuan Chonghuan in their private capacity, telling him to march immediately, in a very pressing tone that brooked almost no question. Yuan Chonghuan's staff officers also knew that Lin Qian had seized control of grain transport and was threatening Nanjing and such, and urged Yuan Chonghuan to give battle — even if he lost, at worst he would be demoted like Sun Chengzong, whereas defying the imperial decree was a crime worthy of having his family exterminated.

Yet Yuan Chonghuan held firm under the pressure, unmoved, stubbornly refusing to march, and submitted memorials and letters to the Emperor, the Grand Secretariat, the Chief Grand Secretary, and the Second Grand Secretary in turn, laying out his reasons.

In his letters, Yuan Chonghuan said that he had held Lin Qian's navy at Hukou and held Lin Qian's army at Ganzhou; so long as he held fast without sallying forth, the enemy would exhaust their provisions and withdraw on their own, and then he could pursue at their heels and win — and recover all lost territory in one stroke. To march out rashly would be to repeat the disaster of the Battle of Sarhu. In the end, after a dozen or so days, the Emperor issued another stern edict, directly rebuking Yuan Chonghuan for fearing the enemy and shirking battle, ordering him to march at once.

The entire edict was extremely short, with almost no ornate rhetoric — all short sentences and hard sentences.

The whole text was filled with words like "fight swiftly," "win at once," "march forth immediately," and "do not delay."

After reading it, Yuan Chonghuan sighed deeply and submitted another memorial, begging the Emperor for a grace period of three months, during which he would pacify the Jiangxi slave rebellion. Three months later would be the dry season on the Yangtze, when the water level dropped sharply — even if Lin Qian's fleet still had enough supplies, the big ships would run aground in battle. Fighting then would give him nine-tenths certainty of victory.

Not long after this memorial was submitted, another stern edict arrived.

The decree was nearly a threat, and contained one line that cut to the heart: "You hold troops to make yourself weighty — do you harbor treasonous intent? If you do not advance now, it will be judged defiance of the decree. And if you cannot prevail, come see me with your head in hand!"

A letter from Second Grand Secretary Qian Longxi arrived the same day, demanding of Yuan Chonghuan: "Stern decrees fall one after another, yet your army has long failed to advance. Could it be that Yuansu fears the rebel Lin? If so, you should state your case early — we could instead appoint you to the Nanjing postings, which would still grant you the glory of a regional governor."

"Nanjing postings" meant the sinecure positions in the Nanjing court, reserved for officials to retire into.

"The glory of a regional governor" meant the honor of a frontier commander — that is, the post of Minister in one of the Six Ministries of Nanjing, nominally a high office. This letter was already sneering at him in a roundabout way.

His staff all urged Yuan Chonghuan to give battle, but he still refused, burying his head in drafting a memorial in reply.

That very day, eight more urgent dispatches arrived from the capital — all fragmentary secret decrees and verbal orders, extremely urgent in tone, nearly every one containing a death threat.

In the Song dynasty there was the story of the twelve gold plaques recalling Yue Fei. The Great Ming had no gold plaques; its highest level of eight-hundred-li express delivery used the "fire ticket" system, which in the mouths of literati was the Ming dynasty's version of the gold plaques.

Counting the first edict he had received, Yuan Chonghuan had received nine gold plaques in a single day, all pressing him to give battle.

Yuan Chonghuan let out a long sigh, realizing that no matter how he argued, he could not turn the Emperor's heart, and said to those around him: "Transmit this commander's order — withdraw the naval forces and cannon at Jingjiangkou and Nanhuzui, and let the enemy fleet into Poyang Lake."

Pink Round

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