Chapter 453: The Surrendered General

"Li Jichun, do you know your crime?"

"My lord, your subordinate knows his crime."

The middle-aged man kneeling below the hall was calm-faced, looking entirely resigned to whatever punishment or beating came his way.

Zhang Zhongqi, sitting behind the official desk, had the corners of his mouth turned up, putting on the airs of a lofty magistrate. With a hint of amusement, he asked, "The civil official dies by remonstrance, the military officer dies in battle. Look at those lords who perished at Yongping. Li Jichun, kneeling here today, do you feel even a shred of shame?"

In ancient times, because communication technology and social administration lagged behind, the government could not extend its reach into every cell. Therefore, in the construction of military systems, to divide power and maintain checks and balances, dynasties including the Song and Ming adopted the principle of "civilians commanding the military, the Great Minister System."

The so-called Great Minister System was essentially a scaled-down version of military feudalism: the only troops a Governor-General could directly order were his own Dubiao Camp; for all other provincial forces, the Governor-General had to issue orders through the Regional Commander.

By the same logic, a Regional Commander could only command his own Garrison Standard Battalion. To give orders to a specific unit, he had to go through the intermediate Vice Generals and Assistant Regional Commanders.

This is the principle of the feudal system: you cannot directly manage one layer removed. A monarch with a matter could only approach the feudal lord; the vassals below listened only to their feudal lord and had no relation to the monarch.

Although China's feudal system had some differences from the West after the Han dynasty, the core rule remained the same — the Emperor and the court could not govern the farmers in the countryside. The clan landlords, analogous to feudal lords, were the farmers' masters. The so-called "imperial authority does not descend below the county" actually illustrates this core idea of feudalism.

In this respect, the West made it even more explicit: a king could only tear at each other with great feudal lords of the Duke and Marquis level. The Knight (gentry) class under the Dukes and Marquises obeyed their own liege lords.

Once war broke out, it was usually some Marquis or some Earl leading his own band of vassal knights to join the battle. The king could only issue orders down to the level of the high Nobility.

Returning to the Prefectural Yamen of Yongping City.

According to the principles above, theoretically, the Transmigrators could not touch Assistant Regional Commander Li Jichun. His direct superior was the Shanhai Pass General. Whether to kill or cut, it should be reported to the imperial court by the Shanhai Pass General, and ultimately decided by Chongzhen.

But the present was not a normal situation. Yongping City had just been recovered, and the Transmigrators were implementing a "military government" system in the city, able to kill anyone at any time — Li Jichun resisted stubbornly and covered the Tartars' retreat, so he was executed by military law. Simple as that.

So the Assistant Regional Commander Li kneeling below the hall was, in truth, hanging by a thread, liable to be dragged out and slaughtered at any moment.

"Kneeling here today, do you feel even a shred of shame?"

Hearing the mocking question from the hall, Li Jichun first kowtowed, then, still expressionless, replied: "My lord, on the day the city fell, over twenty of my personal soldiers had already all died in battle... If I am incompetent, I accept that. As for shame, that truly is not there. Even ants cling to life. I surrendered only after fighting with all my strength. What crime is there in that?"

"Now that's a fresh take!" Yao Jianshe, the Jin Station Chief sitting to the side, chuckled and said to this military man who carried a trace of later-generation thinking: "By that reasoning, dying to the last personal soldier settles the matter? Were the two thousand garrison troops under your command just for show?"

"They really were just for show." Li Jichun gave a bitter smile upon hearing this, and kneeling on the ground, cupped his hands toward this green-jacketed official whose rank he could not determine: "My lord, allow me to explain."

"Since the Tianqi era, the court's border affairs have been strained, with expenses growing daily. In a place like Yongping, which I was assigned to defend, because it had not seen warfare for a hundred years, the military funds and pay allocated by the Ministry of War decreased year by year, and among what was sent, much was rotten and useless waste."

Li Jichun paused here, a trace of embarrassment flickering across his face: "Even the Military Defense Circuit, Lord Zheng himself — every time I went to request military pay, I still had to give him a full ten percent as customary fee."

"All the payroll I embezzled in normal times went entirely into these personal soldiers." Li Jichun's facial muscles twitched, appearing deeply pained: "With just that bit of silver, that was all the troops I could afford to maintain."

"Yongping had been at peace for a hundred years; military preparations were neglected, equipment was rotten. Of those two thousand city defenders, more than half were actually civilian laborers temporarily recruited by the wealthy households in the city."

"Those soldiers under my command normally did not even have a decent padded jacket. When they saw the wolf-like, tiger-like Tartar Soldiers, they scattered in a single uproar on the spot. Only I and my personal soldiers held the line for a while... My lord, my personal soldiers all perished, fulfilling duty and loyalty. I already did my utmost. I have no shame. Even if I saw the Emperor, these would be my words."

The Transmigrators, hearing this, were momentarily speechless.

Indeed, to have a military unit complete a military task, the bare minimum is ensuring the soldiers are fed, clothed, and have basic training and basic weapons.

So it comes back to that saying: the first step in the collapse of any regime is always a fiscal problem.

The fundamental reason the Ming Army could not defeat foreign tribes in the mid-to-late period lay in the fact that the Gentry, Huangqin Guochi, and other rentier classes embezzled vast amounts of government tax revenue.

Of the so-called 6 million taels of annual military expenditure for the Guanningjin Defense Line, more than half had already "settled" within the bureaucratic system of Beijing before it even left the Capital.

Over time, the military funds in the hands of commanders became insufficient. With insufficient funds, they could only take the path of skimping on ordinary soldiers to support elite personal soldiers and household retainers.

Then, on the Battlefield, facing the Tartars, where every man was a soldier, the main Troops had no choice but to collapse in rout — you get what you pay for. The logic holds; no problem there.

In fact, how were key defensive positions of the Ji Garrison, including Santunying and Zunhua, taken without bloodshed when the Tartars broke through? Sorry to say, the soldiers opened the gates themselves.

Why did the soldiers open the gates? Because these men were not receiving their pay.

Just shortly before the Later Jin army entered the pass, Chongzhen had just cut a portion of the military funds for the various garrisons of the Nine Border Garrisons and conveniently dismissed some soldiers.

Then the gates of the Capital's doorway, the core defensive strongholds of Santunying and Zunhua in the foremost garrison under heaven, the Ji Garrison, were opened by laid-off soldiers.

There is a reason later-generation governments care about employment rates, because once the number of unemployed vagrants rises, society will fall into turmoil. The gate-opening incidents at Zunhua and Santunying, and the laid-off postman Li Zicheng — these are all vivid examples. Including the core cavalry under Li Zicheng, they were likewise composed of laid-off Border Army troops from Ganshan.

Li Jichun, kneeling before the Transmigrators at this moment, was in truth just like thousands upon thousands of Ming military officers, the kind of person constantly stewing in the vicious cycle of insufficient military funds. It was just that this fellow had bad luck; the Tartars attacked Yongping City after entering the pass.

After hearing Li Jichun's defense, Zhang Zhongqi, sitting in the hall, waved him away, and then the several Transmigrators began exchanging opinions.

In real history, Chongzhen did not spare Li Jichun in the Aftermath. After the Tartars withdrew, the Yongping surrenderers, including several officials, were all ordered by Chongzhen to be hacked to death by wild swords.

In the eyes of the Transmigrators, who possessed later-generation thinking, a soldier who surrenders after exhausting his strength in war does not need to bear the infinitely elevated moral demands of ancient times.

In later-generation warfare, under circumstances of being wounded or surrounded, governments of all nations permit troops to surrender, and afterward will find ways to exchange them back. No psychological barrier exists.

What the Transmigrators were now discussing was mainly the issue of Li Jichun's disposition.

According to Zhang Zhongqi's opinion, for someone like Li Jichun, there was no need to waste resources on him. The whole family, young and old, should go into hiding, change their names, and be exiled to the Philippines to form a land-reclamation team and deal with the natives. Done.

However, the two intelligence personnel had different ideas.

After this Qin Wang Campaign, the Transmigrators would begin a series of deployments In the North. Under these circumstances, a northern general with leverage held over him would undoubtedly have a positive impact on the overall layout.

Cao's faction's Power Base was currently entirely in the south. As for the north, it was a complete blank. Now was precisely the time to establish network nodes and recruit men and buy horses.

After the opinions from both sides were laid out, the remaining Qian Tieshan and Du Dewei did not express a stance. They were pure soldiers; once the battle was over, they'd dust off and leave, not meddling in this kind of affair.

Although the northern Delegation had a nominal Delegation Leader in Zhang Dongdong, when it came to specific professional domains, each person still called the shots in their own area.

Now that the two sides' opinions were not unified, this matter could only be temporarily shelved, awaiting a decision from the higher-ups back at base.

And so General Li, who had been waiting outside, was summoned in once again. Zhang Zhongqi then told him to "go back, shut your door, and reflect on your errors," and that he would be notified when there was news.

After Li Jichun left, the news was sent back to Tianjin and the Dayuan via telegraph. Then everyone dispersed, each finding a place to rest. After fighting continuously for an entire day, everyone was utterly exhausted.

That evening, a small interlude occurred. The sentries dispatched to Monitor Luanzhou City sent word: the remaining 400 Tartar cavalry in the city had split into over a dozen scattered small groups and begun rounding Yongping, Escaping toward the Yan Mountains to the north.

The Transmigrators took no action upon receiving the news. Let them go. It was only 400 men. In the dead of night, to send out soldiers who had fought bitterly all day to disperse and pursue the enemy — whether they could even catch them aside, there was simply no Necessity for it.

The next morning, the troops, having rested well through the night, rose one after another and began packing their gear, preparing to march.

The most important part of the gear was still the heads.

After overnight pickling by the residents of Yongping City, the heads taken the previous day had all been packed and wrapped by that morning.

Regarding the head count, the Transmigrators had taken 550 at Santunying, 400 at Qian'an, 300 on the road to Luanzhou, and the most at Yongping, totaling 1400 including Amin and the others. After discarding some of poor condition that the civil officials would not recognize, the Transmigrators now had a full 2500 heads on hand.

This was a haul sufficient to make the entire court, high and low, drop their tongues, eyeballs, and molars in shock.

Yet this was still not enough.

The total number of Later Jin garrison troops stationed in the several Ming cities this time was 5000. Apart from the 400 who had fled the previous night, in Zunhua City, which was still resisting the Ming Army, there were still a full 2000 Eight Banners troops.

These two thousand men were likewise a fat prize — if they could be bagged.

So now they had to pack up and depart. Yesterday Amin had already dispatched a messenger to Zunhua; the Transmigrators could not predict what might happen in that direction, so leaving early was the wisest course.