Chapter 198: Abandonment

"The State Lord and the Western Bureau are both heroes of their age, and the troops under their command are all the elite of our Daxi Army.

In the past, resisting the Qing depended entirely on these two princes, yet now they turn their weapons on each other, kinsmen slaughtering kinsmen, squandering the strength of the anti-Qing cause. This is a matter that pains our own and delights our enemies!"

"In my humble view, the Western Bureau's great army will surely abandon the two Guangs and strike straight into Guizhou, seizing the Son of Heaven before the State Lord can move him.

And the State Lord, to keep the Son of Heaven from falling into the Western Bureau's hands, will surely commit his full forces to a punitive campaign.

Once that comes to pass, Hunan will inevitably fall to the Qing army, and the Qing forces in the two Guangs will have nothing left to fear.

Our army's present situation is like a small boat threading through wind and waves — with the Qing army's gale and tempest bearing down, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to strike, and at any moment the boat may be wrecked and all aboard perish."

"Where our army should go from here, I beg the Battalion Commander to decide at once. Any later, and I fear there will be no road left to survival!"

Qi Hao, with the eye of a man who had once served as a Regional Commander and with his deep familiarity with Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo, analyzed the trajectory of the Southern Ming's situation after the infighting between Sun and Li, and at the same time put forward his own proposal for where the Taiping Army, trapped defending a lone city, ought to go from here.

Clearly, knowing that Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang had fallen out and that Li Dingguo's great army would never make a third eastward advance, Qi Hao no longer held any hope for the Taiping Army holding Xinhui — otherwise he would not have so tactfully raised the suggestion of breaking out and fleeing.

The assembled Taiping Army officers in the hall fell silent at these words, each pondering the possibilities Qi Hao had described. Most wore grim expressions, plainly thinking that if they truly broke out, how many of the entire army could slip through the Qing army's encircling layers.

Seeing the officers' morale sagging, Song Xianggong could not help but speak up: "What makes Company Commander Qi so certain that Li Dingguo will abandon the two Guangs and strike straight into Guizhou, and that he will surely contend with Sun Kewang for Yongli?"

He was not of Daxi Army origin; by background he belonged to the old Eastern Merit faction of Li Chengdong, and so his speech lacked the deference toward Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang that Qi Hao showed.

He did not go about calling them "State Lord" and "Western Bureau" at every turn, but without any scruple simply used their names directly.

Before Qi Hao could answer, Li Fuguo — a surrendered Green Standard officer, now a probationary centurion in the Taiping Army — said disdainfully: "The Yongli at Anlong is called Son of Heaven, but in truth he is a puppet.

In former times the Son of Heaven still had his feudal lords, and the feudal lords still knew there was a Son of Heaven. Now the Son of Heaven cannot even command himself.

Is such a Son of Heaven worth fighting over back and forth?"

These words were truly most irreverent. The Taiping Army, after all, fought under the Southern Ming banner, and all its ranks regarded themselves as a Ming army.

Yet after Li Fuguo spoke these words that showed no regard whatsoever for the Son of Heaven, more than half the officers in the hall nodded in agreement, which made Qi Hao's brow furrow at once.

What he did not know was that this Li Fuguo had originally been a Green Standard Battalion Commander, and that most of the Taiping Army officers in the hall were either bandits or Green Standard men by origin — there was not a single proper Ming military officer among them.

How much reverence could such a crowd, thrown together, truly hold for a Son of Heaven they had never seen?

Zhou Shixiang said coolly: "However useless the Son of Heaven may be, a subject who holds him can command the feudal lords."

He paused, then shook his head: "Li Dingguo may not necessarily intend to hold the Son of Heaven to command the feudal lords, but Sun Kewang's holding of the Son of Heaven is beyond doubt.

Otherwise why would he leave the Son of Heaven stranded in Anlong instead of bringing him to Guiyang, and why would he style himself State Lord while never once paying audience to the Son of Heaven?

Now with Li Dingguo making this move, I fear Sun Kewang wishes the Son of Heaven would die all the sooner."

The irreverence in Zhou Shixiang's words toward the Yongli Emperor, Li Dingguo, and Sun Kewang likewise stirred displeasure in Qi Hao.

Though he was content to serve in the Taiping Army as a mere Company Commander, in years past he had been a Regional Commander of the Daxi Army, and had moreover received a commission from the Yongli Emperor.

Li Dingguo, though he kept Qi Hao at a distance, was after all the adopted son of the Daxi Emperor and the Anxi Prince personally enfeoffed by the Ming Emperor; likewise, Sun Kewang was also the adopted son of the Daxi Emperor and a first-rank imperial prince, the Prince of Jin, personally enfeoffed by the Ming Emperor.

Thus, both in sentiment and in principle, he held the three in the deepest reverence — even though Sun Kewang was displeased with him, Li Dingguo kept him at arm's length, and Yongli did not even know he existed, none of that diminished his reverence for the three.

Now, the man he served viewed those he revered in such a light, and displeasure inevitably rose in his heart. But he was, after all, seasoned and prudent.

He saw that not one of the Taiping Army officers in the hall showed any change of expression; this Taiping Army had seized Xinhui with a lone force and held out under the Qing army's heavy siege, refusing to surrender — in moral integrity, none in the hall was lacking.

And when he thought further of how the State Lord he revered was slaughtering his own kin, the Western Bureau, in the contest for the Son of Heaven, most of his displeasure dissipated.

The remaining trace of dissatisfaction could only be pressed down into the bottom of his heart, impossible to reveal before all these men.

Zhou Shixiang, perhaps realizing that his words had affected Qi Hao, changed the subject and asked him: "The Prince of Anxi twice led his army to attack Guangdong — what exactly was his intent?" As he spoke, he had already replaced the name Li Dingguo with the respectful title Prince of Anxi.

Zhou Shixiang's slight shift eased Qi Hao's expression considerably. Without overthinking it, he said: "Why the Western Bureau led his army to attack Guangdong, I know little of it myself.

But I once heard comrades in the army say that the Western Bureau intended to join forces with the Zheng clan of Xiamen, striking Guangdong from east and west together, so that with the combined strength of both armies they might recover Guangdong, and after securing control of the province, then consider the matter of moving the imperial seat."

Zhou Shixiang fell into thought upon hearing this. The Yongli court had been established at Zhaoqing in Guangdong, but because Guangdong had fallen to the Qing army, it had long been stationed in Guangxi, and now had moved even further to Anlong Prefecture in Guizhou.

If Li Dingguo had long harbored the intention of relocating Yongli, and had succeeded in seizing Guangdong, then he truly might have moved the Yongli court to Guangdong.

In that case, Sun Kewang — based in Guiyang, actually controlling parts of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Hunan — would have found the Yongli court in Guangdong beyond his reach, and Yongli might truly have turned his fortunes around and become a real emperor.

But whether Zheng Chenggong would have served Yongli as master the way Li Dingguo did was hard to say.

The factional struggles of the Southern Ming were fiercer than the world could imagine; one emperor after another took the stage and then yielded it, more vicious even than the decades of factional strife that played out across the Wanli, Taichang, Tianqi, and Chongzhen reigns.

If one asked where the Southern Ming truly perished, factional strife would likely account for the greater part.

In fact, Zheng Chenggong's historical conduct would mostly place him among the warlords who hoarded troops for their own power, rather than among loyal ministers and righteous men.

His thoughts reaching this point, Zhou Shixiang could only sigh inwardly. The matter had not come to pass, after all, and further speculation was of little use.

What mattered now was how the infighting between Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo would affect the situation in Guangdong, and how much it would affect the Taiping Army trapped defending Xinhui.

He said to the assembled men: "The Prince of Anxi's intentions were good, but it is a pity that his two attacks on Guangdong ended in defeat one after another, and the original plan could not be realized.

Meanwhile, Sun Kewang on his side has been eyeing the Son of Heaven like a tiger watching its prey. The Prince of Anxi had no choice but to rely on his own troops and risk a sudden thrust into Anlong, snatching the Son of Heaven and the court out from under Sun Kewang's rule.

Only thus could he summon the realm in the Son of Heaven's name. At that point, though his troops and territory might not match, it would not necessarily be impossible for him to put up a fight against Sun Kewang.

What a pity that this Prince of Anxi of ours never stopped to think that by leaving, he has brought bitter hardship upon us — troops still struggling to hold on, sworn to fight the Qing to the death!

To put it bluntly, the Prince of Anxi's departure is nothing less than the utter abandonment of us all!"