Chapter 167: Attack and Defense (Six)

On the great banner of the Pacifying-the-Vassals force, Zhou Shixiang could see it clearly: what was embroidered on that banner was unmistakably a golden dragon. But Song Xianggong beside him looked at it and said it was no dragon — it was actually a python.

The saying went that five claws made a dragon, four claws made a python. Shang Kexi, as a Han vassal prince under the Manchu Qing, naturally would not dare wear the bright-yellow five-clawed dragon as his robe.

If he truly used a five-clawed dragon as his banner, that would be setting himself up as the Son of Heaven. When that happened, the Manchu great army would not be coming to attack Yongli — they would first come to strike down this presumptuous vassal prince.

Beneath the great Pacifying-the-Vassals banner with its four-clawed coiled dragon, the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, was surrounded by several hundred of his princely household guards.

These household guards were all old soldiers from Liaodong, every man clad in bordered-blue-banner armor: pointed helmets on their heads, cotton armor on their bodies.

That cotton armor was thick cotton studded with iron plates, fixed in place by copper nails, looking like a cotton overcoat. Guangdong province was at the height of its heat just then, and these household guards bundled up like this were truly suffering a living torment.

Yet on closer look, apart from the sweat on their foreheads, not one of the guards showed the slightest discomfort, and not one showed the least impatience — the very look of battle-hardened elite troops.

Shang Kexi had been assigned to the Han bordered-blue banner when he joined the Jin, so the banner colors and uniforms in his army were all bordered blue. Now that the great Pacifying-the-Vassals banner was raised, the army was a blaze of blue.

Scattered Green Standard camp soldiers with their green flags bordered it on all sides; banners and pennants waved — a magnificent sight.

The Prince of Pingnan's mount was also a first-rate Mongol fine horse, all black, yet with white on all four hooves, not in the least inferior to the heir Shang Zhixin's White Cloud Chaser.

Besides the household guards, accompanying Shang Kexi were more than a dozen high and low officers under the Prince of Pingnan: colonels, vice colonels, assistant colonels, Han-banner Regional Commanders, and Vice Regional Commanders, each standing to either side, every man with a hand on his saber, chest out and head high.

The Guangdong Governor-General's yamen had also sent men — it was Assistant Regional Commander Hu Guoli, who led the Governor-General's yamen's picked troops.

This time the Prince of Pingnan was personally leading the army out to war, and Li Shuaitai had unusually sent out his own picked troops. Though they numbered only six hundred, they were the finest of Guangdong's Green Standard.

One need not say one against ten — one against five was well within their power.

Hu Guoli was also a fierce general. He had begun as a pirate, plying his trade on the seas beyond the coast during the Chongzhen years of the previous dynasty.

In the Hongguang period he had accepted the Guangdong Ming government's amnesty and become a government soldier. After Li Chengdong led the Qing army to break Guangzhou, he surrendered with his troops.

In the fifth year of Shunzhi, when Li Chengdong turned back to the Ming, Hu Guoli did not follow. Instead he led his troops to abandon their posts and take to the sea, watching which way the wind blew.

When Li Chengdong's cause failed and the Qing army re-entered Guangdong, this Qing general who had not "followed the rebels" was naturally given important employment. However, his pirate background never found favor in the eyes of the two princes, Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao.

It was the newly appointed Governor-General Li Shuaitai who regarded him with special favor, deliberately promoting him until he was now an Assistant Regional Commander of the third rank, directly commanding the Governor-General's picked troops, and already holding a firm foothold in Guangdong's Green Standard.

Even the Governor-General's office had sent picked troops, so the Prince of Jingnan, Geng Jimao, had no reason not to send soldiers to help. Xinhui was the gateway to Guangzhou; its gain or loss directly bore on the whole situation in Guangdong.

Otherwise Li Dingguo would not have besieged the place for so long with tens of thousands of troops the year before. In the end it came down to one sentence: Xinhui absolutely must not be lost.

Though Geng Jimao was young, he had grown up in the army since childhood and was no stranger to military affairs. So when word of Xinhui's fall arrived, he too could not sit still.

He went in person to the Prince of Pingnan's residence and paid his respects to Shang Kexi with the courtesy of a junior. In the end Shang Kexi, with the dignity of the Prince of Pingnan, personally took the field.

Geng Jimao remained in command of Guangzhou, but the Prince of Jingnan's household still selected a picked force of soldiers and officers for the Prince of Pingnan to command.

The force Geng Jimao dispatched was smaller than Li Shuaitai's picked troops — only five hundred men — but they were all genuine elite troops of the plain-yellow-banner Han army, with no adulteration, no fobbing off of old, weak, sick, or crippled men.

The commander was Geng Zhongde, a colonel of the Prince of Jingnan's household. He was the cousin of Geng Jimao's father, Geng Zhongming, and an old acquaintance of the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi.

Back in the Dongjiang days, he and Shang Kexi had once scooped food from the same pot.

Geng Jimao was young and hot-blooded, but Geng Zhongde was mature and steady. Though in his bones he carried the pride of "our Geng family are vassal princes now too," on the surface he was still quite respectful toward this old acquaintance Shang Kexi.

That respect, rather than being respect for the Prince of Pingnan, was better described as respect for Shang Kexi the man who could fight. For after Geng Zhongming's death, the Geng family's talent capable of commanding an army on their own had essentially withered away.

Even this princely title — had it not been for the Empress Dowager in the Forbidden City, who for the sake of the late Emperor and the deceased Dorgon had made the Emperor speak — the Geng family's princely seat would have vanished long ago.

Leading an army to war was no child's play, and this was a matter bearing on the whole situation in Guangdong. Geng Zhongde knew his own abilities were limited, so he willingly led his five hundred banner troops in obedience to the Prince of Pingnan's command, without complaint.

While still on the road, Shang Kexi had already received word that the heir was dispatching troops in a fierce assault on Xinhui. He did not interfere overmuch.

First, he wanted to let his son personally command a battle, gain some experience, and in passing establish the authority of the Prince of Pingnan's heir. Second, he wanted to see just what the strength of that force in Xinhui city called the Taiping Army really was.

After arriving at the camp, before he had even dismounted, he heard the order to recall the troops already sounding through the camp. Startled, Shang Kexi raised his telescope and looked toward Xinhui city.

Through the telescope, the Green Standard troops assaulting the walls were retreating in disarray, while the Taiping Army on the walls was cheering and leaping with joy.

At the sight, Shang Kexi flew into a towering rage. A nameless fire rose in his heart, his face black as charcoal.

He set down the telescope in fury and, without turning his head, gave the order to his assembled guards: "Sound the horn! Send our own household troops forward — this day I swear to break Xinhui!"