Chapter 153: The Two Princes

The news of Xinhui's fall left Li Shuaitai unable to hide his alarm.

Three days earlier Zheng Guodong had sent a rider to Guangzhou with an urgent plea for help, and it had already startled the Governor-General then — though the startle was not over rebel troops closing in on Xinhui, but over the death of Wu Jinzhong, Right Wing Regional Commander under the Prince of Pingnan's command.

Although the Governor-General had many reservations about the two princes of Pingnan and Jingnan, even outright dissatisfaction, he knew perfectly well that the two princes were the key to the Qing court's control of Guangdong.

Once war broke out in Guangdong, geography meant the Qing court could not dispatch Manchu and Han Eight Banners to Guangdong at the first moment, so it had to rely on the two princes — and what the two princes relied on was the several thousand Han Banner troops under their command.

If the two princes could not stabilize Guangdong, it would mean Guangdong was no longer the Great Qing's, and retaking it would cost far heavier casualties, which the Qing court absolutely could not accept.

Back then, Li Chengdong's defection had made several southern provinces change color and left the entire Qing court speechless.

To be honest, the Governor-General both liked and hated the two princes. He liked them because with the two princes there, and with the several thousand Han Banner troops under them, Guangdong was in no danger of being lost, and he could be governor without fearing for his head.

He hated them because it was precisely the two princes' presence in Guangdong that made his post as Governor-General of Guangdong utterly flavorless.

With the Southern Ming not yet destroyed, the court depended heavily on the two princes and needed their strength against the Ming army, so it could not place too many restrictions on them or weaken their military and political authority — and it had long since conceived the idea of settling the princes permanently.

Once permanent enfeoffment became reality, Guangdong would have even less to do with the Governor-General.

Though Li Shuaitai repeatedly petitioned the Qing court, the court supported him only on minor points and still took no action on the larger ones.

His governorship was in name only: apart from the governor's own camp, most of the Green Standard in Guangdong answered to the two princes rather than to him, and most local tax revenue went into the two princes' coffers as military pay rather than into the governor's treasury.

With no military authority, no fiscal authority, and not even full control over official appointments, one can imagine how deeply Li Shuaitai hated the two princes.

Hate them as he might, Li Shuaitai was no pampered heir. It was true his wife came from the imperial clan, but his rise had come not from his wife but from his own genuine ability.

So however many grievances he had about the status quo, as long as the Southern Ming was not completely wiped out, he knew the times took priority, avoided direct clashes with the two princes as much as possible, and mostly satisfied their demands.

Militarily he gave the two princes his full support; the governor's office neither meddled nor secretly dragged its feet. As a result, the situation in Guangdong had turned in the Qing court's favor.

At the start of the year, the Green Standard under Guangzhou Prefecture's jurisdiction had received the two princes' support in its encirclement campaign against Southern Ming forces in Xiangshan, pulling out the thorn under their very noses, bringing Xiangshan County entirely under Qing control, and further shrinking the Southern Ming army's range of movement.

Once the naval forces finished training, the Qing army would be able to completely control the Three Rivers basin without fearing that the Southern Ming army would enter the rivers from the sea as it had during Li Dingguo's incursion the previous year.

In the east of Guangdong, since Chaozhou was successfully occupied, the situation had grown steadily more stable. The Zheng clan of Fujian wavered between surrender and war, missing the golden chance to coordinate with Li Dingguo's advance on Guangdong. Once Li Dingguo was defeated, the Zheng clan

was even less capable of advancing on Guangdong alone. Though it still made moves against the Chaozhou-Shantou region, it could no longer affect the larger picture.

Letters from Beijing to its favored officials even said the Zheng clan was negotiating peace with the court, and if the talks succeeded, the Zheng problem would resolve itself without being solved.

In the west of Guangdong, Li Dingguo had fallen back to Gaozhou. His two crushing defeats in attacks on Guangdong made it hard for him to threaten Guangzhou again in the short term.

Ming troops still existed in several prefectures such as Leizhou and Lianzhou, but they were mostly motley forces cobbled together from other Southern Ming factions, and mostly naval forces, posing no real threat to the Qing army.

Although last month Chen Qice, the Southern Ming's General Who Crosses the Sea, had led his troops ashore in a raid on Leizhou and killed or wounded many Green Standard garrison troops, Chen's force did not dare stay long on land, still less had the strength to seize the prefectural seat.

As long as the Green Standard held its cities, Chen's force was no serious menace.

The situation was excellent, and they were only waiting for a breakthrough on the Hunan front — yet unexpectedly, a rebel force had appeared at Xinhui, right under their noses, and had killed Wu Jinzhong, Right Wing Regional Commander under the Prince of Pingnan!

Wu Jinzhong, as Right Wing Regional Commander under the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, was admittedly not of bannerman origin, but he was one of the ranking generals under Pingnan's command.

On the march south into Guangdong he had always served as vanguard of the main army: he was there at the attack on Guangzhou, there at the attack on Chaozhou, there defending Xinhui. One could say he had won illustrious merit for the Great Qing.

In last year's battle of Xinhui, command nominally belonged to You Yunlong, a bannerman by birth, but in fact the man who contributed most was Wu Jinzhong — a point the Governor-General privately had to concede.

It was precisely for this that Shang Kexi had recommended him to the court as Provincial Military Commander of Guangdong.

Though the imperial edict had not yet arrived, with Li Chengdong as a cautionary precedent, the court would most likely not object this time, lest it provoke another Li Chengdong.

No one expected that before the Provincial Military Commander appointment arrived, Wu Jinzhong would die in battle first — and not at the hands of Li Dingguo's troops. What killed him was a Ming force no one had ever heard of.

The Taiping Army — which Southern Ming faction's troops were they? Who commanded them? How many soldiers did they have?

After receiving the urgent report, Li Shuaitai's mind churned over these three questions again and again.

The governor's staff combed through every piece of official correspondence from the past two years relating to the Southern Ming army, yet no one could find a single word about this Taiping Army.

Wu Jinzhong dead, Xinhui in peril!

What was Xinhui? It was the southern gate of Guangzhou, the strategic point Li Dingguo had thrown everything at and failed to take. Lose Xinhui, and the Ming army could drive straight on Guangzhou; lose Xinhui, and the Ming forces in western Guangdong could link up into one continuous front!

Damn him, damn him, damn Wu Jinzhong!

The furious Governor-General immediately went to call on the two princes of Pingnan and Jingnan. The military situation was urgent: whether this Taiping Army was a rebel band or a Ming force, as long as it appeared beneath the walls of Xinhui, it had to be destroyed!

The two princes of Pingnan and Jingnan had received the urgent report almost at the same time as the governor's office.

While Li Shuaitai was still in his office puzzling over what this Taiping Army was, the Prince of Pingnan, a veteran of decades of campaigning, had already dispatched his eldest son Shang Zhixin at the head of troops to reinforce Xinhui.

At the hospital — my wife had surgery yesterday at 4:30 in the afternoon, uterine curettage and laparoscopy. The operation lasted two and a half hours.

For six hours after she came out she couldn't sleep; because of the anesthetic, she had to be called every few dozen seconds, then put on an IV, with a catheter for urine. I stayed up all night.

At seven in the morning my mother-in-law arrived, and I took the chance to get one section out. Please don't blame me, readers.

This year has truly been an unlucky one for me — my mother and my wife, do I not have to look after them, not have to care for them? I'm frustrated too, but there's nothing I can do.

I can only promise that "We Sons of Han Will Never Be Slaves" will not be abandoned — absolutely will not be abandoned, because if I abandon another one, I won't be able to write web fiction anymore, and no reader will ever buy my work again!