Chapter 463: Laying Plans in the Shadows

Cao Zong deliberately provoked the Guanning officers into walking out today — it was all planned beforehand.

The reasoning is simple: only by falling out with the Guanning Army, the largest military clique of the late Ming, could he dispel the suspicions of the court bureaucratic bloc, including Chongzhen, and only then could Cao Zong gain the space and treatment needed to develop normally.

Otherwise, the moment this powerful military strongman from the south started linking arms and swearing brotherhood with the Guanning Army, the Emperor would lose all sleep.

This man surnamed Cao was originally a sea bandit who came in through recruitment and amnesty, with faint signs of setting up a separatist warlord domain in the south — his loyalty was questionable. If now he secretly befriended the Guanning Army, which had already shown centrifugal tendencies... was this a pincer movement from north and south, aiming to divide the realm along the river?

Based on this principle, in fact, back on the road to Tianjin, the Transmigrators had already planned out Cao Zong's persona in the north.

One: brash, steeped in the ways of the Edo, yet Cao Zong was wholeheartedly devoted to serving the court — a traditional Edo man who had accepted recruitment and amnesty and dreamed of winning titles for his wife and sons.

Two: because he understood nothing of the twists and turns of officialdom and could not tolerate the slightest sand in his eye, this man surnamed Cao offended people everywhere — not just the Guanning Army, but later he would strive to offend some civil officials too, creating the appearance that only the Emperor's backing kept him afloat. This was meant to give the Emperor a sense of security: With a flip of my hand I can summon clouds; let this man surnamed Cao taste both thunder and rain.

These two preset personas were the personal image Cao Zong intended to present to the entire court of civil and military officials.

Precisely for these reasons, Cao Zong had just now seized the first moment to escalate the rhetoric with Zu Dashou, forcibly pushing their relationship into outright opposition.

In truth, Zu Dashou's earlier reply — and other military strongmen besides — even Zhang Dongdong, who had been a manager at an advertising company, understood at once: it was just a common negotiation routine. First, desperately find reasons to establish your footing; then both sides shout and posture, attacking and defending; finally, shake hands, make peace, and reach an agreement.

Was the Guanning Army short of money? Certainly not — the Guanning Army was the fattest military strongman faction of the late Ming. Zu Dashou's ultimate goal was simply to spend some silver to buy a few heads.

Unexpectedly, what the Cannibal ran into this time was not the smooth-talking Stone Huang, but Mr. Cao, who was dead set on picking a fight with him.

Mr. Cao had not crossed over alone; Mr. Cao's back was especially stiff, with a chemical plant and electric furnaces supporting him. So Mr. Cao did not follow the unspoken routine the military strongmen had always used among themselves. Instead, he shut Zu Dashou's mouth at the very first moment, viciously tearing open the Guanning Army's true face of discarding armor and fleeing.

With that, under the eyes of the crowd, Zu Dashou had no way to continue negotiating. He could only escalate the quarrel with Cao Zong, and the outcome was that everyone declared the talks dead, and Zu Dashou turned hostile and stormed off.

After the group of Guanning Army officers stormed out in fury, an indescribably awkward atmosphere settled over the great hall.

Old Man Lao Sun, his face full of bitter smiles, sat at the head seat shaking his head ceaselessly, muttering, "How did it come to this, how did it come to this — we must bear with one another for the nation's sake!"

Ma Shilong, the grand steward of the various King's Rescue armies, was likewise tongue-tied, at a loss for what to say.

By contrast, the people remaining in the hall all wore faint smiles, looking as if they were watching a lively show and feared no trouble. This group numbered a dozen or so in total, all Guest Armies that had hurried here from various regions. Among them were Regional Commanders, Deputy Regional Commanders, and also Vice Generals and two Assistant Regional Commanders.

The reason for their faint smiles was that, to these Guest Army officers, Cao Zong driving off the Guanning Army was actually a good thing.

One must understand that in this period, the Guest Armies arriving from various places had never gotten along with the local-boss Guanning Army. Whether in terms of military pay, provisions, supplies, mission assignments, or merit claims, the Guest Armies could never outplay the local bosses, so everyone had swallowed plenty of abuse from the arrogant and domineering Guanning Army.

As a result, seeing Cao Zong, a fellow Guest Army man, furiously slam Zu Dashou today, these fellows were inwardly hitting the like button like mad: even if there was no benefit, at least they'd vented a bellyful of foul air, hadn't they?

At that moment, the soldiers delivering wine and food walked in from outside, just in time to break the awkward atmosphere on the scene.

At the sight of large platters of roast horse meat, big basins of syruped lychee preserves, and iron-bucket white liquor, the military officers could not help but lick their fingers. They rolled up their sleeves, shouting and hollering as they improvised tables and chairs on the spot, calling for the two wryly smiling bigwigs to come down. Together, they fell to feasting right in the main hall of the General Headquarters.

Seeing this scene, the several Transmigrators could not help exchanging knowing smiles: these Guest Army officers, it seemed, were all shrewd characters. Though they had not spoken, they had used performance art to resolve the situation and express goodwill.

And so, Cao Zong likewise rolled up his sleeves, put on the manner of drinking from great bowls in the Loyal and Righteous Hall, and threw himself into the fray: "Someone, bring a few bottles of Rarely Confused! Today, your little brother here will drink with all you elder brothers until we're utterly drunk!"

After a round of wine and food, every Ming general present was full of boundless praise for the lychees and the Iron Bucket Whiskey, openly demanding some for themselves.

Zhang Dongdong's side was naturally not stingy, so each military strongman received some gifts.

Maintaining a normal collegial relationship with these frontier garrison strongmen of low influence was still a necessity. It would not violate the court's taboos, and one day in the future, perhaps relying on this bit of lingering goodwill, a guest might influence a frontier general's choices.

After the banquet came the segment the military strongmen cared about most: the "inspection."

Every Ming person present, including the two bigwigs, was in truth intensely curious about exactly how Cao Zong had achieved such unparalleled feats of merit.

In their view, these Green-Jacket Soldiers, who did not even have armor, were purely out here relying on the deadliness of their firearms. So everyone's attention had been focused from the very start on the long guns in the soldiers' hands.

Well then, now that Cao Zong had settled things with the bigwigs, exchanged calling cards with all the elder brothers, and shared drinks, surely he could no longer hoard his treasures, right?

Cao Zong did not disappoint them.

The next moment, right on the Scout Field in front of the great hall, the Green-Jacket Soldiers very proficiently demonstrated the power of the rifles in their hands to the various generals.

After the shooting performance ended, facing the grave-faced elder brothers who were stroking the bullet holes in the armor and sighing endlessly, Cao Zong very considerately ordered someone to bring a gun over, disassembled it into its parts on the spot, and gave a popular-science lecture on the construction of the Type 38 Rifle.

Next, the generals tried the guns one after another.

When they saw that the bullets they had fired themselves could also pierce iron armor three hundred meters away, nearly everyone's eyes turned green with envy: if they could buy two hundred of such deadly fire lances to equip their personal troops, wouldn't they too be able to get several thousand Tartar heads to go with their wine?

And so the elder brothers could hold back no longer. Right there on the spot, someone proposed paying out of his own pocket to buy a batch of Type 38 Rifles for use.

However, when the excited men learned the price of the percussion caps, they were all completely dumbfounded — two taels of silver per piece.

The gun in the Green Jacket Army's hands, its full name being the "1628 Breech-Loading Rapid-Fire Rifle," was derived from the ancient Sharpes Rifle. For this rifle to fire a bullet, there was one thing that could not be bypassed: the percussion cap.

Without this thin sliver of copper, the Type 38 Rifle was nothing but scrap.

Picking up an iron hammer, he smashed it down continuously onto a row of percussion caps on the table. In the end, every single cap successfully detonated, bursting forth with a ball of flame.

Cao Zong then told everyone present: this rifle, including its bullets, was purchased from a sea merchant from a Western country called "Alaska." This trade had begun back before he had become an official.

Through his ceaseless efforts over the years, the workshops under his command could now produce all the other components except the percussion cap. Yet this one copper piece that produced the fire — to this day, no one knew how the Alaskan craftsmen produced it. It remained a mystery.

So up to the present moment, Cao Zong still had to buy percussion caps from the sea merchant, at two taels of silver per piece.

After hearing this, the military generals all clicked their tongues: calculated this way, adding the lead bullet and gunpowder, the cost of firing one shot was two taels and five mace. Fight one battle, win or lose, and several thousand or even ten thousand taels of silver were gone first?

Don't even ask — it really was that much.

Cao Zong counted on his fingers and settled an account for everyone. In short, from the time he marched out of Tianjin through the successive bitter battles, in order to exchange for these four thousand Tartar heads, on ammunition alone, this old man had spent over one hundred thousand taels of silver.

Don't ask; to ask is to answer: bullets fell like rain.

This bout of wild boasting from a certain someone truly intimidated the elder brothers. Although the late Ming had seen a certain amount of inflation, the purchasing power of silver still far exceeded that of later generations. To the Transmigrators, a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand taels was nothing much, but to a frontier garrison general, never mind a hundred thousand — even ten thousand was an astronomical figure.

One must know that the Three Levies Chongzhen imposed, which practically scraped three feet of ground off the entire Empire, amounted to no more than eight million taels of silver, and that had to support the troops and horses of the entire nation.

And so the generals could only express that they were giving up. This thing was good, all right, but it was simply too expensive — not something penniless wretches like them, who struggled even to maintain their troops, could afford to play with.

At the end, it was instead Old Man Lao Sun who once again studied the firearm with keen interest. Lao Sun was not like the others; he had once been a man in charge of vast military funds, a man for whom, in a single second, sums of over a hundred thousand had passed through his hands. So Lao Sun's interest in this kind of rifle proved more enduring.

But even having interest was useless now. He was no longer the bigwig Regional Commander of Jizhou and Liaodong; his patron had long since died, he had no direct-line troops under him, and the Guanning Army had long since become its own independent faction. So Lao Sun's interest was limited to understanding only.

After the second half of the exchange event, which could be counted as pleasant, came to an end, it was time to get down to real business.

Sun and Ma, the two men, returned to the rear government offices with Cao Zong and began writing their respective memorials to the throne. Once these memorials were finished, they would be sent separately by express relay horses to Beijing for the Emperor to read. Sun and Ma would also hurry to Beijing shortly after.

After Cao Zong finished his memorial, he too would set out at dawn the next day, taking his own men to Beijing. On the road, he would rendezvous with two hundred soldiers coming from Tianjin — those soldiers were bringing a great many heads.

As for the other officers, since they had all come from other provinces, they would set out now, taking their own troops to Beijing. Once outside the capital, the officers would enter the city for an Imperial Audience Departure and to receive their rewards before returning to their garrison posts.

And here at Santunying, after discussion among everyone, Sun Chengzong would leave three thousand local troops outside the city, who would take over this place once Cao Zong departed the next day.

At this point, the grand and vigorous Jisi Incident could be considered to have drawn its curtain. Due to the existence of the Transmigrators, the Ming state had driven all the Tartars out of its territory over a month earlier than in history, and had moreover left behind over four thousand enemy corpses.

To some extent, this wave was no loss — in this period, the Manchu core fighting strength totaled only a little over twenty thousand. Setting aside everything else, losing around 3,000 Manchus in one stroke meant Later Jin had genuinely suffered a severe blow at the strategic level.

Just as the relevant parties were each writing their memorials in the hornet's nest at Santunying, far away in Beijing three hundred li distant, an inconspicuous rear gate of a large residence quietly opened. Xue Haiyuan, sent by the Transmigrators to Beijing to make covert arrangements, lowered his head and walked through the gate.