Chapter 104: Chapter 104

When Zhu Cilang's banner of the Three Armies' Commander appeared above the north wall of Tianjin, another assault by the Shun army had just been beaten back. Below the section of wall where the fighting had been fiercest, corpses lay heaped in a thick layer. Some were not yet dead, still writhing and wailing amid the mud and the piles of dead. Most were wounded men struck by turtledove-foot muskets or matchlock muskets, flesh and blood flying, rolling and howling. Everyone who saw it felt their hair stand on end, and no one knew whether they would end up the same way.

Atop the wall, corpses were likewise stacked layer upon layer. At the point of fiercest combat, the dead were piled as high as the battlements, and blood, carried down by the rain, flowed in pale red streams. The militia on the wall moved about numbly, turning over bodies, stripping off armor and clothing, searching for money, and only then dragging the naked corpses down to be buried. Now and then, if they came upon someone still breathing and without fatal wounds, they carried him down for treatment regardless of whether he was friend or foe. Once revived, he was enrolled into the ranks all the same.

Several hundred of Tang Tong's men, soaked through, withdrew. The officer leading them was none other than Tang Tong's kinsman, Tang Laosi. He had already changed into the uniform of a Shun veteran-camp soldier: a blue cloth robe, an arrow coat, cotton armor, and over his helmet a white felt hat.

This outfit had been "calculated" by Song Xiance. He had calculated that the Shun and Li Zicheng were both rather watery, of the Water virtue, and therefore blue was the favored color for clothing. Tang Laosi's donning of the blue uniform meant he had become one of the Shun army's own men!

More Shun veteran-camp soldiers in blue uniforms were hiding behind stacked barricade walls. They did not need to storm the city themselves; they merely used bows and arrows to force Tang Tong's troops to attack. Tang Laosi and his men had withdrawn at the sound of the gong, in full compliance with military orders, yet at the sight of their bedraggled state, someone among those veteran-camp soldiers cursed, and then a wave of abuse followed.

These veteran-camp soldiers had followed Li Zicheng for many years and had fought no small number of battles against Ming troops in mandarin-duck battle jackets. Now that they had become masters over these surrendered Ming soldiers, could anyone expect them to be polite?

Tang Laosi was cursed at until he dared not even raise his head, and every one of his subordinates was seething, though none dared show it. In the past, when they served as government troops, their pay had been meager, but they always got a little, and every time they went into battle there were extra rewards, and when they took a city they were allowed to loot. Now that they had gone over to Li Zicheng, they had not a penny of silver, and even their food was worse than before. What was most hateful was that Shun army discipline was severe: advance and retreat both had to obey orders, or else they would be dealt with by military law! Nor could they loot at will — such good things all belonged to the veteran-camp soldiers, while these newcomers could only serve as cannon fodder.

On the wall opposite, there now stood a tall general in golden armor. The soldiers outside the city all knew him to be Wu Sangui (in fact it was Wu Sanfu), and his iron-armored troops were the most hateful of all! Whenever Tang's soldiers fought on the wall to the point of exhaustion, they would charge out and kill. Among them, the braves wielding long-handled sabers were the fiercest; they formed ranks and fought alongside Wu Sangui. The long-handled sabers were heavy, and when swung they were unstoppable — even shields and iron armor would be shattered! Tang Laosi had led several charges, and every time they had been beaten back!

A Company Commander under Tang Tong, likewise wearing a soaked blue uniform, came toward Tang Laosi with several subordinates in mandarin-duck battle jackets, escorting a group of conscripted laborers. Spotting Laosi in blue clothes and white hat from a distance, he shouted: "Fourth Brother, by order of the Regional Commander, I've brought you several hundred men. Will they do?"

Tang Laosi swept his eyes over the common folk who had been seized as conscripts, drew a breath of damp air, strode forward, and shouted at them: "All of you, follow me! Join the Shun army, and you'll get two dry meals a day. Take Tianjin, and there'll be wine and meat!"

Taking a great city like Tianjin and offering only a bit of wine and meat — that truly set a new record for stinginess. If this had been in the old days, fighting for that bandit Zhu, retaking a great city like this would have meant a good haul no matter what. The court's rewards would certainly not be small, and the wealthy households and gentry in the city would have to shell out a bit too; otherwise the men would simply let loose and loot!

But now, following the Roving King, not only was military discipline harsh, but there was damn well no money to be seen, and looting was not their turn either — that was the veteran camp's gravy. And they weren't even allowed not to risk their lives: the veteran-camp soldiers drove them forward, and anyone who did not advance would get a blade. Tell me, is there any justice left in the world?

Right in front of the barricade where those battle-supervising veteran-camp soldiers were positioned stood a row of long spears thrust into the mud, and on each spear hung a freshly severed head!

To tell the truth, Tang Laosi could not help missing the Great Ming. In the past, when he made his living under the Great Ming, he had never felt there was anything good about it. Now, after less than a month with the Shun, he had actually begun to long for his former master... Could this be the legendary awakening of conscience?

In fact, Tang Laosi was not the only one missing the Great Ming. Those able-bodied conscripts assigned under him were also beginning to miss the Great Ming a little.

Tianjin Garrison, after all, lay in the Northern Metropolitan Region. It could not be counted as at the foot of the Son of Heaven, but it could count as before the imperial gates. Though not as rich as the Southern Metropolitan Region, it was still considered a good place in the north. The grain transport and sea transport converged here, and with the lifting of the sea ban, Tianjin Garrison could also live off the sea. Even the lives of ordinary commoners could still be managed.

They had thought that once the Roving King came, everyone's lives would become more prosperous, and at the very least there would be three years without paying grain taxes.

But who could have imagined that "not paying grain taxes" and "not levying grain" were not the same thing at all! The proper land tax and the three surtaxes were indeed no longer paid, but that did not stop them from conscripting labor and requisitioning grain, stripping the villages around Tianjin Garrison so clean that not even a hair remained.

Rich or poor, man or woman, old or young — all were swept up to pile earth, fill moats, and serve in the army. Of course, the Shun heavenly troops did not do this everywhere. The reason they ravaged the area around Tianjin Garrison was because they were besieging the city of Tianjin Garrison itself.

The Shun dynasty was still practicing "three years without taxation," which meant it had not established a sustainable fiscal and tax system. Without fiscal support, the army naturally had no proper logistics, and so of course it lived off the land wherever it went.

Moreover, the Shun could not recruit soldiers — without money, how could they recruit? If they neither recruited nor swept up the people, where would a host of a million come from? Relying on a promise of "three years without grain taxes," would the poor and lower-middle peasants bring their own grain and come join the revolution? Where in the world was there such a good deal?

……

Outside the besieged city, everyone was missing the Great Ming. Yet inside the siege lines, among the people still on land belonging to the Great Ming, quite a few harbored thoughts of welcoming the Roving King!

Zhang Chengzhi, a juren of Tianjin Garrison born into a hereditary Chiliarch family, was now utterly determined to welcome the Roving King. It was not that he wanted to "eat his fill, drink his fill" — the Zhang Chiliarch family of Tianjin Garrison had plenty of money and grain. Their family was the local power in the city of Tianjin Garrison, having swallowed up the land of a quarter of a Chiliarch station. And their family not only had land but also ran businesses. Inside the city of Tianjin Garrison there was an entire Zhang Chiliarch Street belonging to their family, and it was a very prosperous location.

Furthermore, as early as after the Jingnan Campaign, the Zhang Chiliarch family had begun to follow the path of both civil and military cultivation. On one hand, they held fast to their hereditary Chiliarch post; on the other, they encouraged their sons to study and advance. They had produced a succession of juren and xiucai, becoming the foremost scholarly family in the Tianjin Garrison area.

If Li Zicheng had not fought his way into Beijing and become master of the realm, or at least of the north, Zhang the juren would absolutely never have entertained thoughts of submission. The most important thing for a juren like him was to pass the jinshi examination. If he submitted to the roving bandits, where would he go to take the jinshi exam? And besides, there was no such mesmerizing female bandit as Hongniangzi to carry him off to the mountains as her fortress husband — he was not handsome anyway, so presumably no female bandit would fancy him.

But now, Li Zicheng was master of Beijing. Chongzhen and Zhu Cilang had merely fled to Nanjing to hold half the realm. Could Zhang the juren abandon his family property and follow them? Since he could not follow them, he naturally had to regard Li Zicheng as the true Son of Heaven, and Chongzhen and Zhu Cilang as bandits.

To kill bandits for the Son of Heaven was, of course, the proper duty of a scholar.

Therefore, within the Zhang family mansion in the south of Tianjin, Zhang the juren, this local power, was busy on the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth days of the third month, summoning like-minded civil and military strongmen of Tianjin Garrison to prepare for a great venture that could win merit unmatched in the age...

(End of chapter)