Chapter 1309: The King's Army Has Truly Come

Niulan Pass, situated in the middle stretch of the Qiyao Mountains, was an extremely important position — a key choke point on the route from Shizhou Guard to Wanzhou and Shizhu. If it were ever broken through, the entire Prefecture of Kuizhou would tremble!

Yet such a vital pass had not been properly repaired in the past twenty years. This was because the Shun army, when facing the Shizhou army and the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan armies, had always held the advantage and remained strategically on the offensive, so there was little need to consider defensive matters — the Ming army's combat ranking now stood as follows: strongest were the Imperial Guards, next came the New Army, then the northern garrison armies, then the southern garrison armies, and finally the local tribal troops. The Shun army's fighting strength was weaker than the Ming's northern garrison armies, but clearly stronger than the southern garrison armies.

The fundamental reason Li Dingguo had expended tremendous effort in southern Shaanxi only to be defeated by the Ming army in the end was that his Shun prefectural troops could not defeat Wu Sangui's Anxi Army and Hexi Army. Even their occasional victories came at a heavy cost.

But on the front facing Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Shizhou Guard, the Shun army had things relatively easy. Although their attacks on Shizhou Guard had never succeeded, their casualty ratios were not bad, and every time they managed to loot a good deal of goods to bring back.

The Shun army's attacks on Zunyi Prefecture, meanwhile, had repeatedly been blocked at Hailongtun — Hailongtun lay north of the prefectural seat of Zunyi, originally the base stronghold of the Yang clan chieftains of Bozhou. It had been severely damaged during the Bozhou Campaign of the Wanli era. Later, after Ma Shiying lost Chengdu and retreated to Zunyi, he requested funds from the Zhu Emperor and rebuilt Hailongtun as the seat of the Western Sichuan Army's military governorship.

The Shun army's siege capabilities had always been weak, so against a fortress like Hailongtun they were naturally powerless.

But to make the Western Sichuan Army leave Hailongtun and advance north to Loushan Pass would also have meant certain defeat!

As for facing the Ming armies of Yunnan and Guizhou at Qujing Prefecture, they were even more on the defensive — defending Qujing was the Shun army's own Imperial Camp troops, ranked second in Shun fighting strength (first being the Long March prefectural troops), and the Yunnan-Guizhou armies simply could not take it.

However, the Shun army's confidence on the southern front vanished in the first year of Dongping Daxing.

From the beginning of the year, the Shun Viceroy of Chongqing, Prince of Sui Tian Jianxiu, who directed military affairs in Chongqing, Kuizhou, Luzhou, and Xuzhou, had conscripted corvée laborers and convicts from all four prefectures on a massive scale to repair the passes and city walls everywhere, while also stockpiling grain in the major cities of Chongqing Prefecture, Yong'an Fort (the seat of Kuizhou Prefecture), Luzhou, and Yibin (the grain, of course, being requisitioned from the laboring masses), making preparations for prolonged resistance.

In addition, the prefectural soldier households of the four prefectures received orders to begin moving their elderly, weak, and property to the four cities of Chongqing, Yong'an, Luzhou, and Yibin.

And Li Jinxue, who had been arrested outside Shizhu city at the beginning of the year on charges of "plotting sedition," had, because of Tian Jianxiu's orders, temporarily not been sent to Burma, but instead dispatched to the Niulan Pass construction site in the middle Qiyao Mountains to serve as a laborer.

He was no ordinary corvée laborer, but a convict laborer! The kind they worked to death. Honestly, he would have been better off going to Burma! There were few Han Chinese in Burma — even an exiled convict could obtain commoner status there. He could read and write, so he might even have managed to become a teacher or a clerk. As long as malaria didn't kill him, he could have done quite well for himself.

But at the Niulan Pass front line, he and the other convicts all did the hardest labor and ate the worst rations, to be worked until they dropped dead.

After more than a month of this, Li Jinxue, who had originally been fairly sturdy, was now gaunt beyond recognition. He no longer thought about the Ming King, no longer thought about settling scores with that Du Mulan, no longer even wanted to go to Burma. All he wanted was to eat one full meal before he died — plain white rice, no dishes even needed — to eat his fill once, and then he could die with his eyes closed.

But this small dream was ultimately impossible to achieve, because the grain supply in Chongqing and Kuizhou Prefectures was growing ever tighter. Even the corvée laborers on duty had begun to go hungry, let alone convicts.

One day, just as he and a group of laborers still able to move were hauling great logs up onto the walls of Niulan Pass, he suddenly heard the ringing strains of the song welcoming the Roving King.

"Eat his mother, wear his mother, when eating and wearing run short there's the Roving King. No corvée, no grain tax, everyone lives a merry life. Beg at dawn for a pint, beg at dusk for a gill, of late the poor man can scarce stay alive. Open your gates early and bow to the Roving King, and he'll see that great and small all rejoice."

The laborers and convicts toiling on Niulan Pass all froze. What was going on? Though they could not make out the lyrics clearly, the tune was unmistakably the song welcoming the Roving King, and they had heard the words "Roving King." Were there still people wanting to welcome the Roving King now?

And listening to the singing, it was not in the Shaanxi accent — it should not be the Shun prefectural troops themselves singing — nor was it the Sichuan accent.

"That's the accent of the Jing-Chu region!"

"Isn't the Jing-Chu region the territory of the remnant Ming? Would people there want to welcome the Roving King?"

"Look, look! An army is marching over — looks like four or five thousand men!"

"Where are they from?"

The laborers at work began chattering among themselves. The soldiers guarding the pass heard the laborers' chatter but did not shout them down; instead they chatted with them cheerfully.

"They're a righteous army come over from Shizhou Guard!" a prefectural army officer said proudly. "They've come to join our Great Shun!"

There were still righteous armies that foolish?

Li Jinxue's heart went cold. He had been counting on the Ming's heavenly troops to come and save his life!

Now the Ming army had not come, but several thousand anti-Ming rebels had arrived instead — had these rebels gotten water in their brains or what? Running to the Shun side — what were they running here for? To become prefectural soldiers? Was there still land to be allotted? Nowadays many sons of prefectural soldier households could not even get a military post. Even if they scraped together land vouchers worth forty shi, they could only register for status first, with no land to be granted and no service to perform (without land one could not serve, and could only join the Long March Army), and so they idled at home living off their elders. Could these outsiders possibly be granted land?

Li Jinxue squeezed up to a crenel in the wall and looked down — originally there had been Shun prefectural soldiers watching him, but now, with a righteous army arriving from Ming territory, those soldiers had also gone to watch the excitement, so he could steal a moment's breath.

He saw that the great gate of the pass below had already been thrown wide open, and a large body of cavalry (cavalry riding Sichuan horses) was clustered around a general-looking figure on a tall, large horse (Wu Ruyi), swaggering out of the city.

The righteous army marching outside the city halted, and from its head a dozen or so riders rode out to meet that general. Then one of the riders was seen dismounting and saluting the general.

The general exchanged a few words with the rider, then with a grand wave of his hand motioned for the rider to remount, and together they made for the pass. The great body of troops that had halted also resumed its advance, singing the song welcoming the Roving King, surging forward in mighty array, and in the blink of an eye they had entered the pass.

It seemed there was no way out. Li Jinxue let out a long sigh, then shifted his gaze into the city, staring blankly as the neatly ordered righteous army marched grandly in.

Suddenly, he saw the two or three hundred armored soldiers at the front of the column draw short guns from somewhere! Two per man, and they looked like flintlocks!

What was this? Why were they drawing guns?

Bang! Bang! Bang...

Before Li Jinxue could react, he heard a dense volley of gunfire. Through the smoke, he dimly saw the general at the very front of the column, and that rider, and the men clustered around them, all topple from their saddles.

The Shun prefectural soldiers drawn up in warning lines on both sides of the street were also caught completely off guard, and a swath of them were cut down by the suddenly attacking righteous army's flintlock pistols.

The King's army has come! This is the King's army... the King's army launching a surprise attack on Niulan Pass! The Great Ming's Sage Son of Heaven has finally sent troops to save the people of Sichuan!

The people of Sichuan have a way to live!

Li Jinxue was so stirred that tears nearly fell, and he shouted at the top of his lungs: "The King's army has come! The King's army has struck! Long live the Great Ming!"

Just as he was leading the shouting, the "King's army" who had finished firing all drew their treasured swords and threw themselves into close combat, while the "King's army" behind them also drew flintlock pistols and treasured swords, one gun in one hand and one sword in the other, and began charging up the pass's ramps toward the wall.

For a time gunfire erupted, battle cries rose, and the clash of weapons and the screams of men sounded in wave after wave!

A new group has been opened; the group number is 635667889. All readers are welcome to join. Da Luoluo bows in gratitude. Also wishing everyone good health and all the best.

(End of Chapter)