Chapter 1055: This Subject Will Be Cao Zhen After All! (Please Subscribe)

Li Dingguo, the Zhuge Liang of the Shun dynasty and its Prince of Jin, had by this time already reached the great camp at Mount Qiuchi, on the banks of the Rhinoceros River in the southern part of Gongchang Prefecture.

The terrain of Mount Qiuchi was extremely precipitous: a great mountain hemmed in by the Rhinoceros River and the Yugu Stream in the upper reaches of the Jialing River, surrounded by water on three sides, with steeply rising slopes right at the water's edge — yet once one climbed to the summit, it opened out into a broad, level expanse, a mountaintop flat some seven li long and less than one and a half li wide.

What was even more remarkable was that this flat land on the summit actually had a water source and could be farmed. Before the Shun army took it over, the local mountain folk had opened up two or three thousand mu of wheat fields on the summit of Mount Qiuchi and had cultivated them for untold years.

Not long after the Shun army arrived, however, this flat land on the summit of Mount Qiuchi became a vital position for stationing troops and stockpiling grain. For it lay exactly in the forward zone where the Ming and Shun armies confronted each other: a hundred and ten or twenty li north of Mount Qiuchi stood Mount Qi, famed as the most wondrous and precipitous place under heaven, holding the throat of Shu and Long, commanding the critical point of attack and defense.

And Mount Qi was at present in Ming hands, playing the detestable role of a plug blocking the gateway to Ba and Shu.

Although Gongchang Prefecture was largely mountainous highland, the degree of ruggedness varied: broadly speaking, the southeast was precipitous and the northwest gentle. The stretch between Mount Qiuchi and Mount Qi was the transitional zone from precipitous to gentle. Going north from Mount Qiuchi, the terrain gradually leveled out, then rose sharply again at Mount Qi; north and east of Mount Qi stretched another large area of relatively gentle country, all the way to Qinzhou (Tianshui), the key town on the upper Wei River.

In other words, by holding Mount Qiuchi, the Shun could block the Ming army from descending along the Rhinoceros River to outflank Lüeyang and Yangping Pass. And by holding Mount Qi, the Great Ming could block the Shun army from seizing Qinzhou and Longxi (the seat of Gongchang Prefecture), and thereby from pressing on into Guanzhong, Ningxia, and northern Shaanxi.

Since the high commands of both Great Ming and Great Shun had thoroughly read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, no one was going to overlook a strategic point like Mount Qi.

A surprise attack, therefore, was hardly likely to occur at a vital point like Mount Qi. Yet Li Dingguo, who had just reviewed a newly formed Shun fubing regiment on the parade ground of the camp on the flat summit of Mount Qiuchi, in the company of the Prince of Wei, Liu Fangliang, now for the first time felt fully confident about his "first march from Mount Qi."

For he had truly seen an elite force that could fight hard battles and win victories!

"Prince of Jin, the men's morale is very high, and their weapons and armor are well maintained — absolutely fit for battle!" Liu Fangliang, Prince of Wei of the Shun, who held the seal of Great General Who Pacifies the South (making him Li Dingguo's deputy), was even more confident. "In my view, there's no need to send suicide troops over the Zhongnan Mountains; we can just push straight through from Mount Qi. Our fubing are so numerous, so well drilled, so well equipped — and we even have the improved firelock-and-sword-board formation. How could we possibly fail to win? These past few years, putting our strength into Burma and Siam was a total waste of opportunity. If we had marched out from Mount Qi while Ming and Qing were locked in bitter struggle, we would long since have divided the realm with the Zhu family!"

"A few years ago, where would we have gotten such elite troops?" Li Dingguo put away his smile and said coldly. "Before we took Burma, we couldn't even scrape together enough matchlocks — how could we have equipped every hundred-man company with fifty firelocks as we do now?"

In truth, the increase in the Shun army's firelock allocation rate had little to do with the conquest of Burma. It was mainly the combined result of the demand created by the Shun fubing supplying their own weapons, and the technological progress brought by the Shun system of rotating artisans — a somewhat complicated matter, though not hard to understand. The reason Ming military production had been so abysmal was, on the one hand, official corruption and incompetence; but on the other, it was also the absence of any truly effective demand. The military households were so impoverished that they had no ability to supply their own weapons at all. Without the purchasing power of the military households, the artisan households attached to the various guard stations also disappeared, leaving only a few artisan households that handled the court's large orders. And the court's large orders often paid too little while still requiring a hefty kickback, so the artisan households naturally cut corners on materials and workmanship; gradually it became habit, and they no longer knew how to make good products.

On the Shun side, although there were also large court orders, the artisan households were mainly producing for individual fubing — if the quality was poor, they'd get a beating! Moreover, Li Guo and Li Laiheng had truly worn themselves out trying to improve the quality of guns and cannon; the managers and directors of the great manual workshops in Nanjing, Shanghai, Quanzhou, and Foshan were not half as diligent as that father and son. If those people botched their jobs, at worst they'd be fired; if Li Guo and his son botched theirs, it would cost them their lives!

So for years the two of them had tried every means to bring fine artisans into the arsenals run by the Shun Ministry of Works, even importing many foreign artisans from Syriam. These highly paid craftsmen served as master artisans in the Shun's government-run workshops, on the one hand controlling quality, and on the other passing on their skills to the rotating artisans.

As a result, the quality of the firelocks produced by the Shun's blacksmiths everywhere grew better and better, and output rose higher and higher.

But however good, however high, compared with Great Ming's large manual workshops it still fell far short — especially after the Pukou Technical School began supplying master artisans in batches to the large manual workshops, the gap between the two sides kept widening!

The Shun could stockpile over a hundred thousand arquebuses and bird guns, but the Ming could easily produce tens of thousands of flintlocks a year!

Li Dingguo paused. "We'll follow the original plan and begin recruiting suicide troops. Offer forty shi of land scrip and recruit five thousand men!"

Forty shi of land scrip was the quota of a single fubing!

In the Shun, where all benefits flowed from a single source, such a quota was enough to drive fubing with many sons into a frenzy!"

"Sangui! That false Prince of Jin of the roving bandits, Li Dingguo, is preparing to play Zhuge Liang and march out from Mount Qi to seize our Guan-Long region. We have been thinking that to deal with Zhuge Liang, one must bring in Sima Yi. Who is our Great Ming's Sima Yi? How about you do it!"

Inside the bastion at Tianjin, Zhu Cilang was smiling as he told Wu Sangui, who had ridden without pause from Hexi, something utterly terrifying: he was to become Great Ming's Sima Yi!

What sort of man was Sima Yi? A treacherous minister and traitorous scoundrel!

Wu Sangui felt that he was so loyal — how had he ended up being cast as Sima Yi?

This absolutely could not be accepted!

"No, no, no," Wu Sangui hastily shook his head. "This subject is not Sima Yi. Let this subject be Cao Zhen instead!"

"Cao Zhen?" Zhu Cilang was taken aback. "But Cao Zhen could not defeat Zhuge Liang!"

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, please do not take Romance of the Three Kingdoms as fact." Beads of sweat were popping out on Wu Sangui's forehead! What was wrong with the Emperor? A perfectly wise sovereign — how could he take the nonsense made up in Romance of the Three Kingdoms for truth?

"Ah," Zhu Cilang was startled. "Let Us think."

"Your Majesty!" Wu Sangui said. "In Zhuge Liang's first northern expedition — the one where Jieting was lost — the Regional Commander of the Wei forces was Cao Zhen. Sima Yi had nothing to do with it. Sima Yi was at Shangyong at the time, attacking Meng Da! In the second and third northern expeditions that followed, the Wei Regional Commander on the western front was again Cao Zhen! It was only by Zhuge Liang's fourth northern expedition, when Cao Zhen had already died of illness, that it fell to Sima Yi to command the western front.

Moreover, Sima Yi's record against Zhuge Liang was not impressive: one defeat and one draw. And that draw was actually pure luck — it was only because Zhuge Liang died of illness at the front that Sima Yi was able to force back Zhuge Liang's final northern expedition.

At that time Zhuge Liang had fought all the way to Wuzhang Plain — he had already entered Guanzhong! If Sima Yi had lost one more battle, even Chang'an would have been in peril!

Furthermore, Cao Zhen also pacified the Western Regions on behalf of Wei. In the first year of Huangchu, he led troops to attack the Lushui Hu in Liangzhou, beheading fifty thousand in all, taking countless prisoners and livestock, so that the road to the Western Regions was reopened, and Liangzhou's commerce flourished and grew daily more prosperous. And this subject has likewise pacified the Western Regions on behalf of Great Ming — therefore this subject is Great Ming's Cao Zhen!"

Zhu Cilang laughed aloud and said: "We have been a muddled emperor, actually taking Romance of the Three Kingdoms for fact. Very well, very well — you shall be Cao Zhen! We appoint you Governor-General of Gansu and Shaanxi, and Military Commissioner of Hexi and Anxi. Go and block Li Dingguo for Us. Remember above all: do not let the roving bandits break through Mount Qi, and do not let Li Dingguo, like Zhuge Liang, open up military farms on the various plains and slopes on the northern face of the Qinling range."

In the stretch from the northern face of the Qinling range within Fengxiang Prefecture down to south of the Wei River, there were many loess tablelands, all with names containing "plain" or "slope" — Wuzhang Plain, Monk's Plain, Huanglu Plain, and a host of others. Once Li Dingguo seized them, the trouble would be enormous!

(End of Chapter)