Chapter 1348: The Crown Prince Has Made Progress (Seeking Subscriptions)

How should we fight next? Zhu Hexing thought to himself: Is the old man springing another test on me out of nowhere? I'd better think this through carefully before answering! Otherwise I'll get another scolding.

The Crown Prince Zhu went on pondering: once the roving bandits reached Chongqing Prefecture they turned into entrenched bandits, and for twenty years they never stopped building up fortifications. By now they've formed a multi-layered defensive fortress system backed by mountains and facing water, and the core of the fortress, Chaotian Palace Citadel, is built right at the angle where the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers meet — a triangle with water on two sides. The stone-built walls follow the riverbanks, with many cannons mounted on top, so it's simply impossible to launch an attack from the Yangtze or the Jialing to seize Chaotian Palace Citadel. The only line of attack is to strike from the west side of the Chongqing Prefecture city defense system.

But both Chongqing Prefecture city and Chaotian Palace Citadel are built against the mountains. West of the prefectural city stretches a chain of hills, and the Shun court has built more than a dozen mountain forts there, layer upon layer protecting Chongqing Prefecture city, while Chaotian Palace Citadel lies east of Chongqing Prefecture city.

In other words, to strike from the west side of Chongqing Prefecture city, we'd first have to break through several of those dozen-plus mountain forts, open a passage, then take Chongqing Prefecture city, and only finally could we attack Chaotian Palace Citadel.

If we tried to fight step by step in proper order, we might well be at it for two or three years and still not have reached Chaotian Palace Citadel!

Could Emperor Zhu stay in Fengdu Ghost City for two or three years? Is he the Emperor of the Great Ming or the King of Hell? And how many men would die in a two- or three-year siege?

So storming Chongqing Prefecture city and Chaotian Palace Citadel by force is out of the question.

If a frontal assault won't work, then it's a siege! Zhu Hexing switched to another line of thought: besiege the city and starve them out. That doesn't seem very feasible either, because the Chongqing Prefecture city — Chaotian Palace Citadel defense system covers a huge area, and completely surrounding it would require committing quite a lot of troops.

At the same time, the garrisons inside Chongqing Prefecture city and Chaotian Palace Citadel aren't large, and the civilian population is even smaller — most of the garrison troops' families have already been moved away. With fewer people, grain consumption drops too. How long would we have to besiege them — until the Year of the Monkey and the Month of the Horse?

A frontal assault won't work, a siege won't work, and persuading them to surrender seems impossible too. The roving bandits still have territory in Yunnan and Burma to flee to — how could Li Laiheng possibly surrender? Even if he fled to Burma, he'd still be a king of his own realm!

This problem is not easy to solve!

Seeing Zhu Hexing sink into deep thought, Emperor Zhu nodded, thinking: This boy has finally matured a bit — he knows to use his brain now!

"Yuying, you answer first!" Zhu Cilang decided to let his son think it over, so he had Ding Yuying answer first — Ding Yuying's expression looked as if she had a well-thought-out plan, perhaps she already had a solution.

"Imperial Father, your daughter-in-law is not well versed in military affairs," Ding Yuying said thoughtfully, "but your daughter-in-law does feel that the roving bandits cannot remain long in Chongqing Prefecture."

"Oh?" Zhu Cilang asked with a smile. "Why is that?"

Ding Yuying said: "Because most of the roving bandits' garrison-farmer households in the twenty-odd counties of eastern Sichuan withdrew before the government troops arrived, and there are also reports that garrison-farmer households from other parts of Sichuan are withdrawing toward Yunnan as well. The roving bandits' local control is based on the garrison-farmer households; once those households withdraw, they have no way to command the localities. Right now in eastern Sichuan, only Chongqing, where the bandits' puppet emperor is stationed, remains, along with what appear to be large forces at Hezhou, Luzhou, and Nanchong. And according to what our scouts and spies have learned, the bandits' main forces are all inside the cities, while the garrison-farmer households in the countryside outside the cities have also already withdrawn.

This shows the roving bandits have largely given up on Sichuan. Perhaps they feel they cannot hold Sichuan and are preparing to move into Burma to eke out a lingering existence. So we are certain to take Chongqing — it's only a matter of time!"

Zhu Cilang nodded: "Well said. But We have dispatched several hundred thousand troops into Sichuan, and the daily military expenditures are enormous. Waiting for the roving bandits to leave on their own is hardly a solution, is it?"

"Then your daughter-in-law does not know what to do," Ding Yuying said. "Your daughter-in-law only knows that if we keep recovering one county and one prefecture at a time as we are now, putting down firm roots, controlling each county we recover and securing each prefecture we take, then sooner or later we can squeeze the roving bandits in Sichuan down to just three or four cities."

Zhu Cilang nodded with a smile, thinking: Ding Yuying answered well — this is surrounding the cities from the countryside! The true essence of surrounding the cities from the countryside is to firmly hold the cities!

He looked at Zhu Hexing again.

Having heard Ding Yuying's analysis, Zhu Hexing now had an idea too.

"Imperial Father, your son thinks Yuying's method of recovering one county and controlling one county is sound," Zhu Hexing said. "But we can't really just squeeze the roving bandits down to three or four cities and then slowly wait. How long would that take? Your son has been thinking we could send troops to attack Yunnan, giving Li Laiheng the impression that we're about to seize his home base.

In addition, we could put out some rumors saying that we intend to offer amnesty to the bandits' puppet Prince of Jin, Li Dingguo, and enfeoff him as Prince of Yunnan. That way Li Laiheng might well abandon Chongqing Prefecture and withdraw toward Yunnan."

He really has made progress!

Zhu Cilang nodded and laughed: "Good! Good — the boy has indeed made progress. But you still have to serve as county magistrate! You can't spend all your time outside the city suppressing bandits; you must handle government affairs together with Yuying."

Finally, some praise!

Zhu Hexing smiled and clasped his hands in salute. "Your son obeys the decree. Your son will certainly serve well as county magistrate and govern Fengdu County in perfect order!"

"Minister Li, Guoyong, tell me — do we have a way to persuade one of the roving bandits' puppet Deliberative Princes to surrender? Li Dingguo, for instance — would enfeoffing him as Prince of Yunnan work?"

Inside the Fengdu traveling palace, Zhu Cilang was discussing the matter of inducing surrender with Li Yan and Wu Guoyong — in fact, the Emperor had already thought of it without Zhu Hexing's reminder.

Now that the Sichuan campaign has reached this point, the outcome is no longer in doubt, because the roving bandits have adopted a delaying tactic. Their aim is not victory, but to postpone defeat so that they can arrange the evacuation of their people.

Although Zhu Cilang did not much care if several hundred thousand or even a million or more roving bandits slipped away to Burma, he could not let the fighting in Sichuan drag on too long!

Otherwise military expenditures would be too great, and it would also hinder postwar reconstruction.

So he had to "hurry along" Li Laiheng — if he was going to leave, he should leave quickly, not dawdle and cling to Chongqing Prefecture!

"Your Majesty, enfeoffing him as Prince of Yunnan probably won't work," Wu Guoyong said. "For more than ten years now, the roving bandits have nominally had two capitals, north and south, but in reality they've treated Kunming as their primary capital. Moreover, the bandits' princes and marquises have been relatively restrained in Sichuan and haven't carried out large-scale land enclosures, but in Yunnan they've seized quite a number of estates and control many private retainers. No single Deliberative Prince has the power to suppress the various factions."

The Shun's garrison-farmer system was a feudal military service system based on land, and in the long run it was bound to produce land consolidation and great feudal lords. Although Li Guo and Li Laiheng tried every means to curb consolidation, the Shun's princes, marquises, ministers, and generals had such a great demand for land that the father and son could not ignore it, so they could only allow them to enclose land in Yunnan.

And Yunnan's terrain is characterized by many mountains, valleys, and basins, which is highly conducive to feudal fragmentation — otherwise there wouldn't be so many native chieftains there.

After the original native chieftains were wiped out by the Shun army, their lands fell, to a greater or lesser extent, into the hands of the Shun's princes, marquises, ministers, and generals. Thus within the Shun realm a situation emerged where the land of Sichuan belonged entirely to the garrison-farmers, while most of the land of Yunnan belonged to the princes and marquises.

And a Yunnan bristling with princes and marquises was not a territory that any single Deliberative Prince of the Shun could bring under control.

"Then where should he be enfeoffed?" Zhu Cilang asked.

Li Yan said: "He could be enfeoffed in Ü-Tsang!"

"Enfeoffed in Ü-Tsang?" Emperor Zhu frowned. "Ü-Tsang hasn't been taken by the roving bandits yet!"

"But Ü-Tsang isn't in our hands either," Li Yan said. "The Khoshut tribe in Ü-Tsang is too close to the Grand Lama, and they also have close relations with the Dzungar Khanate and the Khoshut Khanate in the Western Regions. Letting them rule Ü-Tsang for the long term will always be a hidden danger. Better to let the roving bandits go in.

Besides, the roving bandits' western expedition force has already taken Chamdo, so there is no one left who can stop them from occupying Ü-Tsang!"

"Whose troops are occupying Chamdo?" Zhu Cilang asked.

"It should be Ai Nengqi's troops," Wu Guoyong said. "Right now Li Dingguo's force in northern Sichuan is also moving westward and is expected to enter Long'an Prefecture and Songpan Guard soon. We could try offering amnesty to Li Dingguo and Ai Nengqi as Military Governor of Ü-Tsang and Vice Military Governor of Ü-Tsang. At the same time, we could put out word that the two of them have already accepted pacification."

"How would we put out such word?" Zhu Cilang asked.

Wu Guoyong said: "The Embroidered Uniform Guard has a man on hand who can be put to use for exactly this!"

(End of Chapter)