Chapter 1294: Wu Sangui! When Are You Going to Die?

It had to be said that Wu Sangui still commanded great prestige in the Lueyang army. The Anxi and Hexi garrison troops inside Lueyang city had followed him for many years, some of them even into a second generation. And the newly attached righteous militia had all heard of this "Uncle Wu of the Zhu Ming" — they had heard of him from the garrison officers above them!

Over in their Shun dynasty, quite a few of their battle-hardened princes had taken turns going head-to-head with this Uncle Wu of the Zhu Ming for so many years, and they had never managed to do anything to him. Instead, he had fought his way into their home territory and seized a place as critical as Lueyang!

Now that he was the elder brother of the Ming Empress herself and had come to the front line in person, what did anyone else have to say? Nothing but to resist with their lives. The dead were carried down and buried at once. Those still alive went on following the orders of the veterans under Uncle Wu. Firearms were not for them to use. All they could do was draw bows and shoot arrows — ordinary hunting bows did not count as military weapons, but their power was limited, and it was hard to hurt armored Shun officers and men — or hurl hastily forged throwing darts, or form ranks and thrust with hastily made long spears, which were just sharpened wooden poles, or have several men together hug a log and ram over the enemy's ladders.

Above and below the fort, the firepower of the two sides surged back and forth like a tide. Who knew how many muskets were firing at each other? From time to time, wooden-handled grenades with their fuses lit were hurled out with great force, bursting among the attacking crowd or on the parapet.

Neither side had any heavy firepower. Elephant Mountain could not be counted as very steep, but there was still no way to haul cannon up it. When the Shun army had garrisoned it, they had equipped the mountain fort with 3-jin cannon and mortars. But they had all been blown up when they withdrew, so now neither side had any artillery to use. Now it was a contest of muskets, of cold steel, of lives!

Wu Sangui's personal guards, however, were excellently equipped — uniformly armed with flintlocks, and with plenty of bullets and powder for them to practice with. If a flintlock broke, it could be replaced in time. The personal guards were drawn from the veterans of the Anxi, Hexi, and Chuanbian garrisons, men long accustomed to the battlefield who would not have trembling hands at the critical moment. For seven or eight years now, whenever Old Wu had managed to withstand Li Dingguo's heavy blows at the critical moment, it had been thanks to this band of sworn personal guards!

Under the muzzles of these Wu family guards, the Shun army's casualties soared, and men kept tumbling down the mountain. Yet their follow-up troops kept pouring in without end. Ladder after ladder of hastily lashed bamboo and wood went up against the parapet, and the moment one was in place, Shun death-soldiers charged up it under the bullets! Men kept pitching headfirst off, but still more men filled the gaps.

After two or three days of fighting, beneath the summit fort of Elephant Mountain, corpses were already piled up like a mountain!

But as the corpses below piled higher and higher, the wall above was likewise being raised higher and higher! Wang Youwen had also been dragged up to the summit by Wu Sangui, directing a gang of corvée laborers who worked like beasts, desperately hauling basket after basket of earth up onto the parapet and piling it together with the dead!

Above the wall and below it, everyone fought with everything they had. Everyone knew what this Battle of Lueyang meant!

Lueyang was not only the junction of the Sanguan Road, the Qishan Road, and the Jinniu Road; it also held Wu Sangui, Governor-General of Sichuan and Shaanxi of the Great Ming, trapped within.

If Wu Sangui could be killed, the Ming army in Shaanxi would certainly waver greatly! It was even possible they would withdraw directly to Guanzhong and Qishan!

"Wu Sangui, ah, Wu Sangui — when are you going to die!"

In the distance, Li Dingguo raised his telescope and muttered to himself. Behind him, not a single man could answer that question. Every one of them was silently praying to Heaven — Wu Sangui is no good man, take him away quickly!

"My Prince, there has been no word from the Hanzhong side for twelve hours now." Luo Hu's voice, full of worry, sounded beside Li Dingguo's ear.

Something must have gone wrong over in Hanzhong!

By Li Dingguo's order, the Dingjun Mountain camp was to send a relay of courier riders to the Lueyang front every six hours. But now twelve hours had passed with no courier riders arriving!

The absence of courier riders meant only one thing: the road from the Dingjun Mountain camp to Lueyang had been cut by Ming troops who had broken into the Hanzhong basin.

This was somewhat beyond Li Dingguo's expectations!

For Li Dingguo had deployed no small number of defenders on the Baoxie Road, the Tangluo Road, and the Ziwu Road. And apart from the stretch of the Baoxie Road between Baocheng and Hutou Pass, whose plank road had been converted under Shun rule into a stone-paved road of high capacity, none of the other roads had been repaired and were now very difficult to traverse. Even the Ming army's Guards divisions could hardly have opened up any one of the Baoxie, Tangluo, or Ziwu roads in so short a time, could they?

But the interruption of the courier riders between Lueyang and the Dingjun Mountain camp plainly told Li Dingguo that the Ming army had not only entered the Hanzhong basin but had also cut the communications between the Dingjun Mountain camp and Lueyang. In fact, the defenders Li Dingguo had deployed on the Baoxie, Tangluo, and Ziwu roads were sufficient. But in the Battle of the Bao River more than ten days earlier, there had been an oversight that had not drawn Li Dingguo's attention — when Wu Guogui was defeated at the Bao River, he had sent half a reconnaissance battalion of picked troops into the Bao Valley!

Their numbers were not large, but they threw the Shun troops defending the Bao Valley into great panic. They thought Li Dingguo had been defeated in the Hanzhong basin! And this band of scouts, trapped in a desperate position, were quite good at putting on a show, making the Shun troops in the Bao Valley believe they were being attacked from front and rear. They even drew troops away from their defensive front facing Guanzhong to guard their rear. In the end, too busy guarding the tail to guard the head, their defense was broken by a Guards division personally led by Yan Yingyuan!

Yan Yingyuan, having charged into the Bao Valley, encountered the scouts of Wu Guogui's force and learned of the defeat in Hanzhong. But he still boldly attacked, taking Baocheng in a night raid. Then, instead of attacking the prefectural seat of Hanzhong, Nanzheng, and the Dingjun Mountain camp, he advanced along the edge of the mountains to the west of the Ju River and cut the link between Dingjun Mountain and Lueyang — thus blocking Li Dingguo's route of return.

Unless the Shun could quickly move troops into Hanzhong from the Micang Road and the Lizhi Road, then once the other two Guards infantry divisions entered Hanzhong through the Ziwu Road and the Tangluo Road, Li Dingguo, even if he had three heads and six arms, would not be able to retake Hanzhong.

Although Li Dingguo now knew things were going badly, he could not turn back.

For his army had been fighting continuously for many days and was already an exhausted force. If it turned back to Hanzhong now, it could not produce victories like those at the Battle of Mian County and the Battle of the Bao River.

Moreover, Wu Sangui's reinforcements could arrive at Lueyang at any time. Once Li Dingguo's great army withdrew, those reinforcements would reach Lueyang without obstruction, and then Li Dingguo, returning to Hanzhong, would be attacked from front and rear.

Li Dingguo gritted his teeth and asked those around him: "Have the mortars been brought up? Are the gun pits dug?"

A staff officer beside him answered: "Two 12-pound mortars have already been brought up. The gun pits are being dug."

"Tell them to hurry!" Li Dingguo said. "Once the pits are dug, give them a fierce bombardment. No matter what, this battle must kill Wu Sangui!"

"Wu Sangui, ah, Wu Sangui — when are you going to die!"

The one voicing the same lament was Zheng Zhilong!

In the Duke of Quan's residence in East Lake Town, Zheng Zhilong had just finished reading the latest battle report sent over by the Marshal's Office and could not help muttering a line.

"Aba, you mustn't say such things carelessly!" The one speaking up in warning was Zheng Sen.

Zheng Sen had come to court this time to request resignation from the post of Military Commissioner of Dongning and the removal of the Dongning garrison. The Dongning garrison, which administered Quanzhou Prefecture, had now become conspicuous. Although Zhu Cilang had said nothing, Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Sen, and Zheng Jiangong all knew it in their hearts.

So starting last year, Zheng Sen had repeatedly submitted memorials requesting resignation and asking to enter court as an official. He was not coming to court to live as a retired gentleman; he wanted to succeed the aging Zheng Zhilong in the Grand Secretariat — if not as Minister of Revenue, then as Minister of Works. In any case, he would be Grand Secretary Zheng!

In the first month of the twentieth year of Hongxing, Zhu Cilang finally agreed to Zheng Sen's coming to court, but he did not agree to the removal of the Dongning garrison. Instead, he had Zheng Sen come to court to discuss the matter. Unlike other Ming emperors, who were keen on replacing native chieftains with regular officials, Zhu Cilang was not willing to remove garrisons; he preferred to relocate them — moving garrisons outward, from settled land to new land. That was far better than simply abolishing them.

The question now was: where should the Zheng family's Dongning garrison be moved?

(End of Chapter)