Chapter 4: Seeking Refuge

After galloping hard for over ten li, Zhou Shixiang felt as if his whole body was about to be shaken apart, and his entire right arm ached unbearably — no doubt from putting too much force into killing You Yunlong earlier.

After bending and flexing his right arm back and forth a few times, Zhou Shixiang sighed. This body was, after all, not the one he had trained daily as a soldier in his previous life. Had it been his old body, it would never have been so feeble.

During the months Xinhui was under siege, Zhou Shixiang had starved badly and grown gaunt beyond recognition.

Fortunately, after he passed the xiucai examination and married, his family's circumstances had grown somewhat comfortable, and he had spent a few years recovering properly. He could not be called plump, but he had looked like a sturdy, well-built young man.

With that foundation, after the Ming army lifted the siege, Zhou Shixiang went to collect government relief and recuperated at home for over twenty days, finally easing his starved body back to health and recovering seventy or eighty percent of his vitality.

Otherwise, he would never have dared risk assassinating You Yunlong. After all, no one in this world who can barely stand upright dares to kill a man.

Recalling how he had slain You Yunlong, Zhou Shixiang could not help feeling a secret dread. Had his own identity not been that of a scholar, You Yunlong would never have let down his guard, and he could never have succeeded so easily!

Though he had been a cavalryman in his previous life, Zhou Shixiang had never actually killed anyone. By his own reckoning, his martial skill could not have withstood more than a few exchanges against a battle-hardened veteran like You Yunlong.

Had his opponent not been careless — and had that bow of his not thrown the man into confusion — the one lying dead would not be You Yunlong, but Zhou Shixiang himself.

Killing a man is no more than making his head touch the ground, but only after truly hacking off a head with his own hands did Zhou Shixiang deeply understand what killing felt like.

Yet he felt no terror or unease after the deed — on the contrary, he felt utterly exultant, because the man he killed was his enemy, the murderer who had destroyed his parents, wife, and children!

A true man acts as his heart demands. When a gentleman seeks revenge, why wait ten years?

Death held no fear for Zhou Shixiang; what he feared was dying without purpose. Killing You Yunlong had long been his intention. If he did not kill this man, the hatred in his heart could never be relieved; if he did not kill this man, he could never avenge his parents, wife, and children!

Before he acted, Zhou Shixiang had considered that if he failed, the Zhou family would be utterly wiped from this world. But he did not regret it, because he wanted revenge.

He could not kill every Qing soldier in Xinhui, but he would kill You Yunlong, the commander. Even if he could not, he would still try — all for his dead parents, wife, and children!

How could the deaths of one's parents, wife, and children go unavenged!

With You Yunlong dead, the Xinhui garrison would be leaderless and surely thrown into chaos for a time. But by now, the Qing soldiers hunting him were probably not far behind.

Zhou Shixiang glanced back toward Xinhui. His body's instincts urged him to rest a while, but he knew that the longer he rested, the greater the chance his pursuers would catch up.

Alone, with two fists no match for many legs, how could he fight off those Qing soldiers? In the end, he would most likely be captured and killed.

If he must die, he would die for something worthwhile. Had he failed in killing You Yunlong, then death would have been death — at least he could reunite with his parents, wife, and children.

He was not even a man of this era, so why cling to life? But now that he had succeeded, he need not die in vain.

You Yunlong alone was not enough — he wanted more You Yunlongs to die beneath his blade!

In his previous life, there was a famous saying online: "Travel back to the Qing and don't rebel — get a drill up your ass." Crude as it was, it spoke the deepest words of every Han heart, the deepest longing of the silent Han majority — travel back to the Qing and you must rebel.

We sons of Han will never be slaves! We sons of Han will not keep that ugly queue!

We sons of Han will no longer be butchered by an alien race!

We sons of Han will never be slaves! We sons of Han will not keep that ugly queue! We sons of Han will no longer be butchered by an alien race!

Sons of Han — even in death, die like men!

The Great Ming has not yet fallen. In places I cannot see, countless sons of Han still grip sword and spear, fighting the Manchus to the death.

Countless Han patriots and heroes press on, one after another, striving to preserve Chinese civilization! Having lived two lives, how can I stand by with folded arms?

How can I not throw myself into the struggle!

Join the army — kill the Tartars!

At that thought, Zhou Shixiang's expression hardened with resolve. Ignoring the aches wracking his body, he gritted his teeth, spurred his horse, and galloped on.

You Yunlong's mount was indeed a fine Mongolian horse, a gift from the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi. Tall and powerful, with truly excellent stamina, it had galloped over ten li without showing the slightest sign of wind.

By the look of it, holding on for another thirty or forty li would not be hard.

He rode on for another twenty-some li. There were no settlements along the way, and he deliberately took several branching paths. Only when he reached a low hill thick with woods, and had confirmed there was no sign of pursuit behind him, did Zhou Shixiang finally decide to dismount and rest.

A stream ran at the foot of the hill. After leading the big gray horse to the water's edge, Zhou Shixiang found a patch of grass and lay down. He was utterly exhausted.

Even as he closed his eyes to rest, his brow remained tightly furrowed.

His parents, wife, and children were dead. There was no home left in this world, and Xinhui no longer had any place for him.

If he wanted to kill more Qing soldiers, he had to throw himself into the great struggle between Ming and Qing.

Given his current situation, he could never be like the protagonists of those time-travel novels from his previous life — raise an arm and have followers swarm to him, countless men gathering under his banner to fight the Qing army to the death.

To kill Qing soldiers, his only choice was to join an army and accept another's command.

But where should he go?

The body's original owner was, after all, a scholar, and over the years had heard something of the Ming-Qing conflict.

As far as he knew, the Southern Ming Yongli court, with the support of the remnants of the former Daxi Army, had temporarily stabilized its position in the southwest.

The Ming general Li Dingguo, acting on the orders of his sworn brother Sun Kewang, had marched out with eighty thousand troops to attack Hunan, then struck at Guilin in Guangxi, routing the Qing army and forcing the Qing Regional Commander, Prince Dingnan Kong Youde, to commit suicide.

Afterward, Li Dingguo again led his army north to attack Changsha, crushing the great army led by the Manchu prince Nikan. Nikan was slain in battle, his entire force annihilated — the feat known as "felling two princes."

After those two battles, the Qing army's momentum collapsed, while Ming army morale soared, and the situation turned in the Ming's favor. At that time, Zhou Shixiang too believed the Great Ming's restoration was within reach.

But then, for reasons unknown, Li Dingguo, fresh from successive victories, suddenly stopped advancing north and instead turned his army south to attack Guangdong, suffering repeated setbacks and defeats at Zhaoqing and Xinhui.

This greatly disappointed the scholars and commoners who had held hopes for the Southern Ming's revival.

Although the Qing army had not gained much advantage over Li Dingguo, and the Southern Ming's power had spread from its original base in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi into Sichuan and Hunan, the overall situation of a weak Ming and a strong Qing remained unchanged.

At the very least, the favorable position Li Dingguo's "felling of two princes" had created for the Southern Ming was gone. Back then, the Shunzhi Emperor in Beijing had been so frightened he was ready to cede the south as a condition for peace with the Southern Ming.

Now, however, he had hardened once more, yielding not an inch, determined to destroy the Southern Ming.

As for Guangdong at present, the Qing army had already occupied more than half the province, including Guangzhou. Though scattered Southern Ming forces remained in various places, most were weak, clinging to coastal areas and capable of little.

The Chaoshan region in the northeast of Guangdong was not under Qing control, but was held by Hao Shangjiu's force, which had long wavered between Ming and Qing.

This Hao Shangjiu had long followed Li Chengdong. In the sixth year of Shunzhi, Li Chengdong turned against the Qing in Guangdong, and the Southern Ming Yongli court enfeoffed Hao Shangjiu as Marquis of Xintai, garrisoning Chaozhou.

Later, after Li Chengdong's defeat and death, Hao Shangjiu surrendered to the Qing court once more, but he neither obeyed orders nor heeded commands, deliberately keeping his force independent, which made the Qing army deeply wary of him.

By rights, as a former subordinate of Li Chengdong, Hao Shangjiu's force was strong in combat, far more powerful than the Ming forces elsewhere in Guangdong, and hostile to the Qing army. Joining him would not be a bad choice.

But before the Ming army attacked Xinhui, Zhou Shixiang had heard that the Manchu Prince of Jingnan, Geng Jimao, and the Jingnan General Hahamu, stationed in Guangzhou, had already led troops to attack Hao Shangjiu. Whether Hao's force still existed now was hard to say.

They say a scholar knows the world without leaving his study — clearly that saying is wrong. Zhou Shixiang was merely a lowly scholar, limited by his status, and what he could know was very limited.

He had no way to obtain accurate news about the war; most of what he heard was hearsay, unreliable. Therefore, he did not think highly of joining Hao Shangjiu.

Moreover, in his memories from his previous life, this Hao Shangjiu was no famous figure. Such a man, he reasoned, could not have held out long.

Perhaps Hao Shangjiu was already dead, and Chaoshan already occupied by the Qing army.

Betting that Hao Shangjiu could defeat the Qing army was too risky. Besides, Chaoshan was too small a territory, and Hao Shangjiu's conduct was that of a warlord. Such a man could not last. After much thought, Zhou Shixiang concluded that joining Hao Shangjiu was not the best plan.

Zheng Chenggong's great name was certainly thunder in Zhou Shixiang's ears. Compared to Li Dingguo, whom the Qing army scornfully called "the old-bandit thief," the former was far more famous in Zhou Shixiang's previous life.

But Zheng Chenggong's territory was the Jinmen-Xiamen region along the Fujian coast. Beyond that, all of Fujian was controlled by the Qing army.

Zhou Shixiang had no confidence he could slip through the Qing blockade in Fujian to join Zheng Chenggong, and the distance was too great — he would likely fall into Qing hands before even getting out of Guangdong.

Killing You Yunlong, an Assistant Regional Commander of the Han Banners, was too grave a matter. Zhou Shixiang did not believe the Guangdong authorities and the Qing army would not hunt him everywhere. By now, the arrest warrants were probably already written, just waiting to be distributed.

As things stood, the safest course was to head for Guangxi and join Li Dingguo.

Though he did not know why Li Dingguo had suddenly come from Hunan to attack Guangdong, or why he had failed repeatedly, the fame of the Southern Ming's final guardian in his previous life's memories was enough to make Zhou Shixiang willing to go join him.

Having defeated two Manchu princes, Kong Youde and Nikan, in succession, Li Dingguo's forces must be incomparably strong.

With the memories of two lives and knowledge centuries beyond this era, Zhou Shixiang believed he could surely help Li Dingguo defeat the Qing army and keep China from sinking beneath the Tartar caitiffs.

At that thought, Zhou Shixiang's heart burned with eagerness, and his brow had long since smoothed.

Without delay, he sprang up from the ground with a "whoosh," took the big gray horse, which had long since drunk its fill and was now nibbling green grass, got his bearings, and set off westward along the mountain path.

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