Chapter 156: Banner Commander

There is an error in the preceding text: Shang Kexi belonged to the Han Bordered Blue Banner, and Geng Jimao belonged to the Han Plain Yellow Banner. (The earlier error will not be corrected; readers need only be aware of it.)

What is that brat Geng Jimao scheming at! On what grounds does he ride above me! And on what grounds does his Prince of Jingnan's household presume to command my Prince of Pingnan's household!

Has Father grown senile? How could he agree to that brat Geng Jimao's demand!

If word of this gets out — that Geng Jimao made a casual suggestion and the Prince of Pingnan eagerly sent his heir to lead troops on campaign — what will outsiders think? Does the Prince of Pingnan's household want any face left?

Do I, the heir, want any face left!

All the way out of Guangzhou, Shang Zhixin's face was livid, a knot of pent-up fury in his chest, his mind wholly fixed on Geng Jimao's smug, petty face. The more he thought, the angrier he grew, and with a casual flick he lashed his riding crop down on his mount, Bai Yunzhui.

Bai Yunzhui was a fine steed presented as tribute to Dorgon by the Khorchin tribe of the Mongols. Because its whole body was snow-white and its speed was swift, Dorgon bestowed the name Bai Yunzhui.

In the fifth year of Shunzhi, when Shang Kexi, Kong Youde, and Geng Zhongming marched south, Dorgon distributed several superior Mongol horses to each of the three princes, this Bai Yunzhui among them.

Along with Bai Yunzhui, Shang Kexi was also given a large black horse, which he later bestowed on his favored general You Yunlong, and which subsequently fell into Zhou Shixiang's hands.

Because Shang Kexi was advanced in years and honored as a feudatory prince, he usually traveled by sedan chair and no longer rode much, so he gave Bai Yunzhui to his son Shang Zhixin.

After receiving the horse, Shang Zhixin was exceedingly fond of it, assigning four men to care for it, feeding it only the finest grain each day.

Whether going out on ordinary business or on campaign, he always rode Bai Yunzhui, and he rarely struck his beloved horse with such force.

Bai Yunzhui suddenly felt the sting and let out a pained neigh, not understanding why its master would strike it. The attendants of the Prince of Pingnan's household all knew the heir's temper.

Seeing that His Highness was in the grip of anger, none dared step forward to soothe him, each fearing they would draw the fire onto themselves.

Shang Zhixin had no outlet for his rage. Glancing over, he saw that his lash had indeed been far too hard, leaving a clear red welt on his beloved horse's hide, and he felt a pang of regret. He casually tossed the riding crop to a guardsman beside him and fell silent, brooding.

If the heir did not speak, who among the others would dare? And so they pressed on in silence.

The force dispatched this time to relieve Xinhui numbered three thousand in all: eight hundred elite troops of the Han Bordered Blue Banner under the Prince of Pingnan's command, plus twenty-two hundred Green Standard soldiers from Guangzhou accompanying them.

Commanding the eight hundred elite Han Bordered Blue Banner troops was Ban Zhifu, banner commander of the Han forces under the Prince of Pingnan's household. The man was already past fifty.

In his early years on the Dongjiang front he had been one of Shang Kexi's personal guards. When Kong Youde rose in revolt at Denglai, Ban Zhifu urged Shang Kexi to lead his troops in support of Kong Youde.

But Shang Kexi, not believing Kong Youde would succeed, hesitated and would not agree, while secretly allowing many of his Dongjiang soldiers to cross the sea and join Kong Youde.

This matter was discovered by Shen Shikui, the newly appointed Regional Commander of Pi Island, who resolved to eliminate Shang Kexi. But the plot was uncovered by Shang Kexi's subordinate Xu Erxian.

Upon learning of it, Shang Kexi knew he had no way back, and so he led his troops in surrender to the Jin. The two men Shang Kexi sent to Shenyang to negotiate the surrender with the Later Jin regime were Xu Erxian and Ban Zhifu.

After Shang Kexi surrendered to the Jin, Hong Taiji of the Later Jin was overjoyed at the news and cried out, "Heaven aids me!"

He bestowed on Shang Kexi's troops the name "Heaven-Aiding Troops," enfeoffed Shang Kexi as Regional Commander, and placed his forces under the Han Bordered Blue Banner.

Xu Erxian, Ban Zhifu, and the others were in turn granted the ranks of Assistant Regional Commander and Mobile Corps Commander.

Now, more than ten years later, the Later Jin, once confined to a corner of Liaodong, had passed through the passes and seized the Han realm, changing its reign name to the Great Qing.

And the Regional Commander of the Heaven-Aiding Troops, Shang Kexi, had risen to the rank of feudatory prince. Xu Erxian had risen to Regional Commander of Zhaoqing.

Ban Zhifu, though he held no external garrison post, had been promoted to banner commander of the Han Bordered Blue Banner. In rank, he and Xu Erxian were both first-grade officials, and both were great generals under the Pingnan feudatory.

But in terms of closeness to Shang Kexi, Ban Zhifu the banner commander stood above Xu Erxian the Regional Commander. A Regional Commander held authority over troops and governed a region alone, but he was an external official.

A banner commander, though he held no actual garrison territory and no authority to command troops independently, was nevertheless an internal official.

Compared with Xu Erxian, whom one might not see once in a year, Ban Zhifu, who could be seen every day, clearly enjoyed greater trust from Shang Kexi.

Most importantly, Xu Erxian's post as Regional Commander of Zhaoqing had not been sought by Shang Kexi from the Qing court; it had been directly appointed by the Qing court, bypassing the Prince of Pingnan's household.

Although a Regional Commander emerging from the Pingnan feudatory greatly enhanced the household's power, whether Shang Kexi still trusted Xu Erxian, the Regional Commander of Zhaoqing, as he once had — only he himself knew the answer to that.

There is a difference between inner and outer. Ban Zhifu was quite satisfied with his present position.

Though in power and prestige he could not match Xu Erxian in his external garrison, in terms of the weight of his word before the Prince of Pingnan, he felt himself far above Xu Erxian.

To say nothing else, every time men like You Yunlong and Wu Jinzhong came to Guangzhou, besides presenting generous gifts to the Prince of Pingnan, they always prepared a share for him, Commander Ban.

From this one could see how much weight His Excellency the Banner Commander carried.

As an old hand from the Dongjiang days, and one who had followed the Prince of Pingnan for nearly thirty years, looking across the city of Guangzhou, apart from the Prince of Pingnan himself, when it came to seniority, the second place had to be His Excellency Commander Ban.

Even that imperial-relative Governor-General could not match his years of service. As for that wet-behind-the-ears Prince of Jingnan — to put it bluntly, Commander Ban simply did not take him seriously at all.

In this he and the heir Shang Zhixin were of one mind. Therefore, many things Shang Zhixin found inconvenient to say before outsiders he would speak plainly to Ban Zhifu.

First, Ban Zhifu was an old retainer who had followed his father, and also the guardian general his father Shang Kexi had chosen to protect the succession.

Second, though Ban Zhifu was old, among the generals of the Pingnan feudatory, apart from Xu Erxian, he had the greatest seniority and could hold the field.

Before he himself became Prince of Pingnan, Shang Zhixin had to rely on such elder statesmen to keep those fierce generals in check, lest they look down on him.

When Zheng Guodong of Xinhui sent the urgent dispatch, Shang Kexi at first paid it little mind. Only when he heard that Wu Jinzhong had died at Guifeng Mountain did the Prince of Pingnan grow alarmed.

Xinhui was the southern gate of Guangzhou. If Xinhui fell, there would be no defensible terrain south of Guangzhou.

If the attacking Ming army proved to be like Li Dingguo's great host of the previous year, the city of Guangzhou certainly could not hold.

Fortunately, word soon followed that although Wu Jinzhong had died at Guifeng Mountain, the attacking Ming force detected by the Xinhui garrison was not Li Dingguo's army, but a Ming force calling itself the Taiping Army.

This Taiping Army was a motley Ming outfit that had somehow slipped into the vicinity of Xinhui. Because it had swept up people along its route, it had great numbers of able-bodied men, and fierce bandits had joined forces with it.

As a result, Wu Jinzhong, failing to detect the ambush, had fought desperately but, outnumbered, had died at Guifeng Mountain.

How Wu Jinzhong fell into the ambush and how he died was not mentioned in Zheng Guodong's dispatch; it came in an express message sent by fast horse from the company captain Su Xianting.

Though it was unclear why Zheng Guodong and Su Xianting had each sent a separate express dispatch, their contents were roughly the same, and both made clear that the force attacking Xinhui was not Li Dingguo's army. This set Shang Kexi's mind at ease.

In the Prince of Pingnan's view, so long as it was not that tiger Li Dingguo who had come, no Ming force could take Xinhui, let alone threaten Guangzhou. Still, reinforcements had to be sent.

There was no help for it: after Li Dingguo withdrew early in the year, the Pingnan and Jingnan feudatories had successively withdrawn their banner elite from the city.

Xinhui now had only two or three thousand defenders, and Wu Jinzhong had just thrown away more than a thousand of them. With only a thousand-odd troops left in the city, holding Xinhui would be dangerous.

Geng Jimao, the Prince of Jingnan, who had received the news at the same time, came hurriedly to the Prince of Pingnan's residence that afternoon.

But unlike the last time, when Li Dingguo's great army had attacked and he had volunteered to draw troops from the Jingnan feudatory to send as reinforcements, this time he told Shang Kexi that he could not spare any reinforcements for the moment, and that the relief of Xinhui would have to be borne entirely by the Prince of Pingnan's household.

Why Geng Jimao refused to send troops, Shang Kexi knew perfectly well. Was it not because of the last dispute over credit?

In the battle to defend Xinhui, the greater part of the credit had fallen to the Prince of Pingnan's household — could Geng Jimao be happy about that?

Add to that the Prince of Pingnan's household keeping a death grip on the post of Provincial Military Commander of Guangdong, leaving the Prince of Jingnan's household unable to exert any influence, and the greater part of Guangdong's fiscal power resting in the hands of the Prince of Pingnan's household — with all these factors combined, this time Geng Jimao was determined not to play the green leaf setting off Shang Kexi's red flower.

Had it truly been Li Dingguo's great army coming, Geng Jimao would not have dared do this. The fate of Guangzhou bore on the whole situation in Guangdong, and the fate of Guangdong bore on the whole situation in the south.

In such a critical moment, Geng Jimao would not dare shoulder the crime of losing Guangdong through inaction. But this time it was not Li Dingguo who had come, only a motley Southern Ming force.

Though this Taiping Army had badly mauled Wu Jinzhong of the Pingnan feudatory, the reports from Xinhui also made clear that the Taiping Army had brought no siege equipment, so there was no need to worry that it would storm Xinhui.

If Xinhui did not fall, Guangzhou was naturally in no danger. That being so, why should his Prince of Jingnan's household send troops and pay for provisions?

Hadn't you, Shang Kexi, said that defending Xinhui was your Prince of Pingnan's household's doing? Fine — this time, do it once more!

Geng Jimao's little calculations — Shang Kexi, grown shrewd with age, saw through them at once. But he was not angered.

Toward this junior prince, who was like a nephew to him, if not for the monk's sake then for the Buddha's, out of regard for Geng Jimao's father Geng Zhongming, he, Shang Kexi, would not truly take offense. As for how his son Shang Zhixin chose to act, that was beyond his control.

Matters of the younger generation were for the younger generation to handle; what business did an old man have meddling? One thing was certain: Guangdong must belong to the Shang family.

Cross that bottom line, and this old man was not a deaf man's ear — mere decoration!

If Geng Jimao would not send troops, so be it. That Taiping Army had no power to storm fortifications anyway.

Wu Jinzhong had suffered from poor intelligence and too few troops. In a straight fight, with banners and blades arrayed, could that Taiping Army stand against the elite troops and fierce generals under the Prince of Pingnan!

Muster the generals!

Shang Kexi agreed without hesitation that the Prince of Pingnan's household would send the troops this time, and the man to lead the expedition had long been chosen: the banner commander Ban Zhifu.

Who could have expected that Geng Jimao would dredge up a host of reasons to oppose Ban Zhifu leading the relief force, and propose another candidate instead — the heir of the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Zhixin.

Whether Shang Kexi truly listened to Geng Jimao's counsel, or was thinking of letting his son command troops alone and win real merit, showing a grand face before the court, or worried that Ban Zhifu was too old and something might go wrong — in the end he actually agreed to let his son Shang Zhixin lead the troops.

However, to guard against any mishap, Ban Zhifu would still go on the relief expedition, not as overall commander, but leading eight hundred Bordered Blue Banner elite as the vanguard, while Lin Shanzhi, Regional Commander of Guangzhou, led twenty-two hundred troops in support.

The troops were provided by the Prince of Pingnan's household. As for money and provisions, the Prince of Jingnan's household bore half the cost — in this Geng Jimao was not stingy.

In addition, Guangzhou Prefecture conscripted two thousand civilian laborers and able-bodied men to accompany the army and transport supplies.