Chapter 118: Let's Go Catch Zhu Cilang Together!

Near the East Cross Street, close to the Tianjin Governor's yamen and the Regional Commander's yamen, the slaughter had reached its most savage pitch.

Chen Yongfu's men had taken advantage of the popular uprising in Tianjin's southern city, catching the Hard-Work New Army off guard at the very start, seizing the city gate and marching their main force inside. They had thought the battle for Tianjin was as good as settled, but what happened next took everyone by surprise.

Had this been an ordinary Ming army, the fight would have ended the moment the city fell — men would have been too busy fleeing for their lives to keep fighting to the death. And with Beijing already lost and the Shun now master of the realm, how much morale could these Ming troops inside Tianjin possibly have left?

So the Shun troops who had broken into Tianjin's southern city began fighting and looting at the same time — they normally received no pay, and most of them had been converted from the old Ming army, so their discipline was naturally poor.

Last time, when they broke into Beijing, they had not been allowed to loot, and the officers and men had long been grumbling. Now that Tianjin had fallen, they were determined to have themselves a proper plunder.

Moreover, having learned their lesson at Beijing, Chen Yongfu's officers and men feared that an order forbidding looting might come down at any moment, so they could not even wait for the fighting to end before falling to large-scale pillaging.

Truly, the common people of Tianjin were to be pitied. First they had been suppressed twice by Zhu Cilang's troops for welcoming the Roving King, and now they were being plundered by the Roving King's own army... This was what came of welcoming the Roving King, longing for the Roving King — the Roving King arrived, and their misery only grew worse!

And while Chen Yongfu's officers and men were busy looting, they gave Wu Xiang, Zhu Chunchen, and the other Ming commanders the chance to reform their lines.

Of course, the reason the southern-city front at the Tianjin garrison could be reformed at all also had to do with the special character of the Hard-Work New Army.

Though this army was newly raised and raw, with unremarkable fighting power, its morale and cohesion were no less than those of Li Zicheng's veteran camp troops.

Every officer and man of the Hard-Work New Army carried one of Zhu Cilang's "blank notes" — not necessarily in Zhu Cilang's own hand, but all issued in his name, and all on file, so that even if lost they would still be honored! Somewhere in Jiangnan, at least fifty mu of paddy land was waiting for them... As long as they could escort Zhu Cilang safely to Jiangnan, every last one of them would become a landlord and a rich man!

Besides the blank notes, Zhu Cilang was also generous when handing out rewards and pay, and he made sure every coin reached the soldiers in full. Although the Hard-Work New Army had been built around the Wu family retainers as its original backbone, by now no one knew how much sand had been mixed in. It had long since ceased to be the Wu family's private army, so no single man could dominate it. Skimming pay and pocketing the wages of phantom soldiers were simply out of the question!

What was more, the troops were fed extremely well. Zhu Cilang, exalted as he was as Crown Prince, made a point of eating at least one meal a day down among the common soldiers.

And the banner company he visited was chosen at random — even Wu Sanmei did not know in advance. No one dared play tricks with the food; doing so would be putting one's own head on the line.

Precisely because both their daily treatment and their promised future were secure, the cohesion of the Hard-Work New Army was extraordinarily strong.

Even with the city fallen, everyone still wanted to keep fighting!

And Wu Xiang was one of the many Hard-Work New Army officers and men who wanted to keep fighting for Zhu Cilang.

He still dreamed of "Zhu and Wu, sharing Jiangnan together"! Even if he could no longer protect Chongzhen, he had to protect the more than four million taels of silver in the Marshal's Office of the Army-Pacifying Command — that was the Crown Prince's very lifeblood!

So the old man had turned fierce, personally leading a band of white-haired household retainers to the front line. First he led the cavalry in a charge, slashing back and forth along East Cross Street, scattering the Shun troops — who were too busy looting to hold formation — into utter disarray, inflicting heavy casualties and very nearly driving them out of the city.

Zhu Chunchen, who had just discovered that his martial skill was not half bad, also got worked up. He dragged along Zhang Shize, Duke of Ying, and Li Guozhen, Earl of Xiangcheng, and rounded up a crowd of ennobled lords and meritorious officials, then led their trusted household retainers and family officers to the front. Hand-to-hand combat was beyond them, but some of them could shoot arrows and some knew how to handle firelocks, and now each displayed his own skill — some loosing hidden arrows, some firing concealed shots — and they actually made quite a show of it.

But Chen Yongfu was no ordinary man either. Seeing that things were going wrong, he immediately led his household retainers in a counterattack and at last managed to hold off Wu Xiang's charge.

Then the slaughter unfolded along East Cross Street. The ground there was narrow, after all, and cavalry could not deploy at any width. Once both sides' infantry had formed up with long weapons, Wu Xiang also withdrew behind the lines and began directing the battle from his command post.

Because Wu Xiang had in effect taken over command of the Hard-Work New Army's Left Division, Li Ruolian became its de facto Vice Regional Commander, while the Vice Regional Commander Wang Zhou went down to command the firelock battalion.

The Left Division's firelock battalion had been tempered in the battle for Tianjin's northern city, and under Zhu Cilang's personal supervision had learned to fire volleys at prescribed ranges and to use prepared cartridges.

Their firelocks were also quite good — most were turtledove-foot firelocks from Guangdong, with a minority being northern imitations of passable quality.

In the fierce fighting on East Cross Street, these three hundred-odd firelocks unexpectedly displayed tremendous power. Shielded by pikemen and sword-and-shield men, they fired volley after volley, cutting down Chen Yongfu's elite troops in droves. Several assaults were beaten back by the intense volley fire, leaving the ground strewn with corpses.

After several failed attempts, Chen Yongfu also turned ruthless. He ordered his men to set fires near East Cross Street, hoping to burn open a broader battlefield — once the battlefield expanded, a mere three hundred-odd firelocks would no longer be able to seal it off!

Because of the earlier heavy rain, the fires were slow to catch. But the Shun soldiers kept scavenging all sorts of rubbish to feed the flames, tossing it into the blaze without stop. After burning for a while, the fire finally surged, and in an instant it linked into a single sheet, roaring skyward until a great swath of the heavens was dyed red.

...

"Thousand Years! A great fire in Tianjin's southern city!"

"It seems the fighting inside the city is still raging! Hoist the Three Armies' Command Banner! Take the Great Dragon Head as vanguard and advance at full speed... Let us all go to the rescue!"

"Aye!"

Zhu Cilang, who had already shed his iron armor and wore only his close-fitting cotton armor, now climbed to the top of the Great Dragon Head's cabin, accompanied by Shen Tingyang, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanmei.

The great fire in Tianjin's southern city blazed furiously, leaping skyward, and Zhu Cilang saw it from far off.

The fire was still burning fiercely, which perhaps meant that resistance inside the city had not yet ended. With the Great Dragon Head — armed with two 12-pounder red-coated cannons — as his backing, Zhu Cilang was full of confidence at this moment, and of course he was not about to stand by and watch men die.

So he immediately ordered the fleet to sortie, and with the Great Dragon Head, the very ship he rode, as the vanguard, they drove at full speed toward the stretch of river between Tianjin garrison's northern and southern cities.

...

"Madam Hong, the Zhu rebel's dragon banner — and what looks like a Three Armies' Command Banner as well — are both flying from a big Zheng-family ship..."

On a large grain-transport junk, high up on the towering mast, a skinny barefoot fellow as nimble as a macaque shinnied up to the top. He peered through a spyglass with one hand for a while, then shouted his report down to Hong Niangzi on the deck.

"A dragon banner and a Three Armies' banner together? Could it be the Zhu rebel's Crown Prince?" Hong Niangzi remembered that during the recent battle for Tianjin garrison's northern city, Zhu Cilang had used exactly these two flags together as the marker of his central command.

"Madam Hong, a whole fleet of sand-boats is coming up the Wei River! Looks like the Zheng family's ships are back! And that big ship flying the dragon banner and the Three Armies' banner is in the lead!"

"Back again? And led by the Zhu rebel Crown Prince's ship?" Hong Niangzi gave a cold, mocking laugh. "This Zhu rebel's Crown Prince certainly has nerve!"

"Madam Hong, could it be a trick?" one of Hong Niangzi's subordinate officers quietly warned from beside her.

"And what if it is a trick?" Hong Niangzi arched her fine brows. "Is this old lady afraid of the Zhu rebel's schemes?

Besides, the Zhu rebel's fleet is now moving upstream, and with no southeast wind to help them, how can they possibly contend with our grain junks? We hold the advantage of the current. This little Crown Prince must have seen the great fire in Tianjin's southern city, realized his father and mother were in danger, and rushed out to save them. A filial son, to be sure — pity he's a bit short on brains."

Hong Niangzi swept her gaze to both sides. Seeing that all her sworn brothers were eager for action, she let out a cackling laugh: "Brothers, do you still have strength in you?"

"We do!"

They roared back in unison.

Hong Niangzi burst into another peal of wanton laughter: "Good! Then let's go catch the Zhu family's little Crown Prince!"

(End of Chapter)