Chapter 127: The Roots of Wu Sangui (Seeking Favorites, Seeking Recommendations)

The sun traced its arc over Shanhai Pass, gradually slanting westward over the vast land within the pass, bathing this beautiful and majestic landscape of mountains, rivers, and plains, along with the Great Wall built along the ridgeline, in the boundless beauty of the setting sun.

Atop the gate tower of the foremost pass under heaven, two Ming officials—one civil, one military; one old, one in his prime—stood with their hands resting on the battlements, gazing at the great expanse of makeshift shelters being erected inside Shanhai Pass, and both could not help but sigh.

The younger military officer was a man of imposing and robust build, with a square face, thick brows, large eyes, a straight nose, a wide mouth, and whiskers running into his sideburns—a figure of awe-inspiring presence. This man was none other than the genuine Wu Sangui, Zhu Cilang's second brother-in-law, who held forty thousand crack troops in his hands and could change the fate of the realm with a single thought: Wu Sangui, Regional Commander of Liaodong and Earl Who Pacifies the West of the Great Ming!

"Such a mighty pass—it was originally the bulwark of the Han realm. If we let the eastern barbarians enter through it, will it not become a case of inviting the wolf into the house, and thereby committing a great blunder?"

The person Wu Sangui addressed was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a python robe, with a dark face and long beard, his thick brows tightly knitted as if deep in anguished thought.

This man was named Wang Yongji, courtesy name Xiuzhi, currently serving as Governor-General of Ji-Liao, which made him Wu Sangui's immediate superior. However, this Governor-General had lost nearly all the territory under his jurisdiction, with only Yongping Prefecture remaining, and even that was in imminent danger.

Now, inside Shanhai Pass lay Li Zicheng's "million-strong army," while outside the pass the Eight Banners of the eastern barbarians watched with tiger-like covetousness. It truly was a situation of being attacked from front and rear, with no way out.

"Changbo," Wang Yongji called Wu Sangui by his courtesy name, raising a hand to point at the common folk who were erecting the shelters, "at this point, how can we still worry about the future? Even if not to repay the great grace of the court, you and I must at least think of the three hundred thousand souls here, must we not? They all abandoned their homes and followed you and me into the pass. You and I must find them a way out, must we not?"

The people building the shelters were all commoners who had been relocated from Ningyuan outside the pass. According to the imperial edict issued by the Chongzhen Emperor on the sixth day of the third month, while abandoning the strategic town of Ningyuan, the people had to be withdrawn into the pass at the same time. Those who followed numbered as many as three hundred thousand, most of them family members of the officers and soldiers of the Guanning Army. Some of the officers' families still had a little surplus wealth, so their food and clothing were at least secure, and they could even take lodging in Linyu County near Shanhai Pass. But the families of ordinary soldiers, and the common people in general, lacked clothing and food, and after the long trek they were suffering beyond endurance.

They had thought that once inside the pass they could quickly be transferred to various places in the Southern Metropolitan Region and be properly settled. But no one expected that Wu Sangui's vanguard had only reached Yutian when word arrived of the fall of Beijing and the dreadful news that the Chongzhen Emperor and the Crown Prince's fates were unknown—and Li Zicheng's great army had seized the opportunity to press forward. Left with no choice, Wu Sangui had to withdraw his troops back to Shanhai Pass. And the three hundred thousand commoners who had followed him into the pass could only take temporary shelter beneath Shanhai Pass.

Now every face was clouded with worry, and every person was full of resentment. And worse than the feelings of worry and resentment was the despair of seeing no future and no way to survive!

The three hundred thousand people here, including the fifty thousand officers and soldiers under Wu Sangui and Gao Di (Regional Commander of Shanhai Pass), could now all be said to have had their road to survival cut off!

Before this, the soldiers among them had the court's pay and provisions to live on, while the commoners either farmed, or ran shops, or were supported by family members serving in the army—by and large they were free from worry about food and clothing. If not for the Manchu troops raiding and plundering from time to time, these people could have been said to be living in a paradise amid a world in chaos.

But now, they had not only lost their homes and fields, but could no longer receive support from the court. How were the food and clothing of these three hundred thousand people to be resolved? The grain and fodder brought from Ningyuan and the reserves at Shanhai Pass could not be called plentiful. If a way to survive could not be found within a few months, then the three hundred thousand people gathered inside Shanhai Pass would all become corpses of starvation!

Wang Yongji patted the battlements of the wall and sighed: "Changbo, apart from borrowing the eastern barbarians' troops to fight our way back to the capital, this old man truly cannot think of any other way out. Going south is impossible—not to mention whether His Majesty and the Crown Prince can break through to Tianjin.

Even if they could reach Tianjin, they would have to leave in haste, sailing south across the sea.

Even if they could stay in Tianjin for a time, they could not possibly take in the three hundred thousand people here at Shanhai Pass! Shen Tingyang has only a hundred or so seagoing vessels in his hands. Even if they could make several round trips, hauling away fifty or sixty thousand people from Dagukou would be the absolute limit. What about the rest? Let them starve to death, or be killed by the roving bandits?

As for surrendering to the roving bandits—that is also a dead end. The three hundred thousand or so people here—the roving bandits will not give us territory capable of supporting three hundred thousand people, nor will they give us sufficient pay and provisions. With no land, no pay, no grain, within a few months everything below Shanhai Pass will be corpses of starvation!"

If Zhu Cilang had arrived at Shanhai Pass at this moment and heard Wang Yongji's analysis, he would probably have had nothing to say either. Because Zhu Cilang had no intention of taking away all three hundred thousand or so people at Shanhai Pass—that was impossible! For Shen Tingyang to transport fifty thousand people from Dagukou would already be an extraordinary feat. Transporting several hundred thousand was fundamentally impossible!

Moreover, Wu Sangui was unwilling to abandon the three hundred thousand or so people here at Shanhai Pass—not because he loved the people so much, but because these three hundred thousand people were Wu Sangui's roots.

Having his own "roots" was precisely Wu Sangui's greatest strength! Unlike the vast majority of Ming armies at this time, Wu Sangui's army actually held land grants—in Liaoxi there was no longer any room for nobles and scholar-officials to meddle, so it was all under the control of the Liao army. Moreover, from the time Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan began managing Ningyuan, the policy of "Liao people defending Liaodong" had been implemented. In effect, this had turned the Guanning Army into a military-agricultural group based on the land of Liaoxi, combining soldier and farmer in one.

In other words, the Guanning Army ate the court's pay while farming the land of Liaoxi. Not only was it extremely secure economically, but it had also sunk its roots firmly into the soil of Liaoxi—behind every Guanning Army soldier stood a family!

Having families and livelihoods meant that their fates were firmly in the hands of the Guanning Army's leader—that is, Wu Sangui himself. It also meant that the Guanning Army possessed additional capacity for mobilization and replenishment, since a family often had more than one able-bodied man who could serve in the army.

Therefore, forty thousand Guanning Army troops were not merely forty thousand men, but forty thousand households and several million mu of land! Now that they had left the land of Ningyuan, they had temporarily become "potted plants," existing in a state of considerable helplessness and bewilderment.

Finding a new patch of soil, and sinking their roots into that soil once more, had become the goal that all in the Guanning Army, from top to bottom, pursued as one!

Whoever could satisfy them—that person would be the object of the Guanning Army's loyalty!

Incidentally, Wu Sangui's military and administrative ability was in fact extremely formidable! In history, Wu Sangui ruled Yunnan and Guizhou as a dictator for more than ten years, and built the Guanning group to the point where it could contend against the Great Qing Dynasty!

And that was only managing Yunnan and Guizhou! What kind of territory are Yunnan and Guizhou? According to the nationwide land survey presided over by Zhang Juzheng during the Wanli era, the total registered farmland in Yunnan was no more than 1,799,000-odd mu, and Guizhou had only 516,000-odd mu. The two provinces combined amounted to just over 2.3 million mu, with total tax grain of less than 200,000 shi. With territory like that, he nearly toppled the Great Qing—if he had been given a large province with thirty million mu of land to manage, the consequences would have been unthinkable.

And to demand that he abandon his own foundation, take only a small number of household retainers south, and go seek refuge with Zhu Cilang, whose whereabouts were unknown—that was truly asking too much of a man.

Furthermore, Qiu Zhizhong and Zu Zepu had also sent Wu Sangui the Prince of Ding, Zhu Cijiong. If Chongzhen and Zhu Cilang were no longer among the living, then Zhu Cijiong was the inevitable heir to the Ming throne!

Wang Yongji continued his analysis: "For the several hundred thousand people here to have a way to survive, the only path is to borrow the eastern barbarians' army, and, upholding the Prince of Ding as Deputy Grand Marshal of All the Realm's Armies, march west. As long as we defeat the roving bandits, we can always find a piece of territory to settle these several hundred thousand people. Even if we have to cede the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun and promise annual tribute, we could still have a situation like the Northern Song!"

If His Majesty and the Crown Prince are still alive, then after we smash the roving bandits and recover the vast territories of Shanxi, Henan, and Northern Zhili, we will still have rendered meritorious service. And with tens of thousands of troops in hand, the court will have no choice but to rely on you, Commander!"

Wu Sangui nodded slightly. This analysis was entirely correct—that was exactly how things stood!

In this present age of chaos, he who has soldiers is a king of the hills. He, Wu Sangui, now had forty thousand troops, and he also had the great banner of the Prince of Ding, Zhu Cijiong—how could he not achieve a great enterprise?

"Very well!" Wu Sangui finally made up his mind, and said, "This noble shall send Zu Zepu on a trip to Shengjing at once, to contact the eastern barbarians' Prince Regent Dorgon and borrow troops from him to suppress the bandits!"

It's the sixteenth of the fourth month—half a month left until the first of the fifth month, when the book goes on sale. Luoluo hereby begs for subscriptions and monthly tickets. In the first month after the new book goes on sale, Luoluo is going all out. Have all you great readers got your monthly tickets ready?

(End of Chapter)