Chapter 146: We Are All the Prince of Ding's Men

"My Lord! We should send an envoy to the Qing Prince Regent's army at once and ask him to march on Shanhai Pass without delay!"

"But His Highness the Thousand Years has ordered us to hold Shanhai Pass and keep the Qing troops out. Shanhai Pass is the greatest stronghold under heaven. Even if the roving bandits truly have two hundred thousand men, they cannot take it in a hurry. As long as we hold out until the Qing army enters through Jizhou and Miyun, the roving bandits will surely withdraw."

"But what about all the common people inside Shanhai Pass and the soldiers' families with the army? The pass's fortress towns are all small; they cannot hold so many people."

"Then move them out beyond the pass."

"Out beyond the pass? The Qing army is also marching toward Shanhai Pass! Do you want to hand our soldiers' families over to the Qing troops as slaves?"

"Right, we cannot ignore the soldiers' families! And the pay and provisions are not enough either! We asked the court for a million taels as a mobilization allowance, and not a single cash has arrived. Once battle begins, we will have to pay pensions and rewards as well — money will flow like water! Shanhai Pass is strong, true, but damn it, we still need silver to hold it! The court expects our Guanning Army to fight, so it cannot refuse to pay!"

"Better to let the Qing troops in! I hear a hundred thousand Qing troops are coming. Add our own men and horses, and we would have a hundred and fifty thousand. We could defeat Li Zicheng no matter what. Once Li Zicheng collapses, whether we go to Shanxi or to Beijing, anywhere is better than being bottled up at Shanhai Pass!"

Inside Wu Sangui's headquarters, his staff officers and commanders were in an uproar. These men of the Guanning Army could fight, but only if you coaxed them with mountains of gold and silver.

To make them truly go and fight a pitched battle against Li Zicheng's great army, they would need a reward of several hundred thousand or even a million taels of silver!

But Zhu Cilang did not have that much silver to squander, so he had not sent Wu Sangui any money. For now, the Guanning Army's pay was being sustained by the silver Wu Sangui had previously embezzled.

Yet with expenses and no income, he could not sustain it for long! If they really fought Li Zicheng's two hundred thousand troops beneath Shanhai Pass for a month, how much would that cost? Even if Wu Sangui were willing, he did not have it!

On top of that, the several hundred thousand common people who had withdrawn into Shanhai Pass were giving Wu Sangui a headache — truly, bringing these people inside the pass was worse than leaving them in Ningyuan!

If those commoners and soldiers' families were all still in the castles and surrounding forts of Ningyuan Guard, Ningyuan Central Right Post, Ningyuan Central Left Post, Guangning Central Right Post, Guangning Central Rear Post, Guangning Front Garrison, and Guangning Central Front Post,

then he, Wu Sangui, could truly sit back and watch how things developed. Even if Li Zicheng took Shanhai Pass, what would he have to worry about? Li Zicheng could never go beyond the pass to contest western Liaoning with Wu Sangui fort by fort, town by town. Fighting all the way like that, Dorgon would have taken not just Beijing but even Shaanxi.

If the Guanning Army had entered the pass after the Song-Jin campaign and been settled within Yongping Prefecture and Jizhou Garrison, then Li Zicheng would never have broken the capital.

As long as the Guanning elite had gone to reinforce Datong and Xuanfu, the garrisons there would not have surrendered, and Li Zicheng would not have touched even the edge of Shuntian Prefecture.

But the Chongzhen Emperor had issued the order to abandon the Ningyuan cities and move the people inside the pass only on the sixth day of the third month — a mere ten-odd days before Beijing fell. That worthless decree would have been better never issued!

Without that decree, Wu Sangui would still be sitting comfortably in Ningyuan Guard right now!

As it was, they were bottled up at Shanhai Pass by the Shun and the Qing! Truly unable to advance and unable to retreat. Now even returning to Ningyuan was impossible!

Dorgon's great army had for the most part already crossed the Liao River. Would he allow Wu Sangui to shrink back into Ningyuan?

Wu Sangui was worried sick!

Chongzhen's edict had trapped him, Dorgon's Qing troops were pressing him, and that bandit chief Li Zicheng — who knew what he had eaten — instead of going to Dagu to hunt down the Emperor, was coming to Shanhai Pass! And then there was that Crown Prince who had stolen his sister and duped his father and brothers, and who actually regarded the brilliant plan of inviting Qing troops into the pass as a poor strategy!

Then again, inviting Qing troops in was easy; sending them away was hard. If things went wrong, he might really end up outsmarting himself and be forced by that Tartar Prince Regent Dorgon to submit to the Tartars.

By now the men below were still in an uproar, all talking at once, and the noise was only growing louder. The veins on Wu Sangui's forehead were throbbing, and at last he could bear it no longer and roared: "Quiet!"

The shout was so loud that everyone in the hall was startled into silence, none daring to speak.

Wu Sangui's gaze swept over his commanders and staff one by one, and all he saw were faces at their wits' end.

His faction leaned toward the martial and slighted the civil. He had no shortage of men who could fight and kill. But he did not have a single strategist who could plan for him. Even the few civil staff officers he had were no better than clerks and copyists.

Just as he was sinking into disappointment, he suddenly noticed an unfamiliar dark face with a somewhat different expression, as if the man had some idea.

This man was — Wu Sangui thought for a moment and remembered that he was a guard who had come with Chen Yuanyuan, named Liu Sheng. He seemed to have served under Sun Chuanting, knew the roving bandits fairly well, and could read a few characters, so he had been given a minor post and placed among the staff.

"Liu Sheng, do you have something to say?" Wu Sangui asked.

Liu Sheng nodded and said: "My Lord, you have forgotten the Prince of Ding."

This rough-looking dark-faced man was actually a juren! And no mediocre one at that. Were it not for the chaos of war, passing the jinshi examination and becoming a civil official would only have been a matter of time.

As a prospective civil official, Liu Sheng naturally knew how to pass the blame.

"Right, right, right." Wu Sangui slapped his forehead. "I nearly forgot that great deity, His Highness the Prince of Ding! Tell me then — how should this lord make good use of this great deity?"

Liu Sheng smiled and said: "Did my Lord not previously borrow troops from the Manchus in the name of the Prince of Ding? Continue to fly the Prince of Ding's banner now. On one hand, use it to manage the Manchus; on the other, post proclamations throughout Yongping Prefecture saying that His Highness the Prince of Ding has borrowed a hundred thousand Manchu troops and will shortly counterattack Beijing. If the Roving Bandit hears of it and withdraws, then we need not open Shanhai Pass to let the Manchu troops in."

"Hahaha," Wu Sangui laughed. "I never expected a rough fellow like you to have such strategy. Good, good, good — we shall do exactly that! This lord is merely a lowly Regional Commander of Liaodong. Above me there is the Governor-General of Ji-Liao, and there is His Highness the Prince of Ding of the Great Ming! This lord is a great and loyal subject, and of course he must obey the Governor-General and His Highness the Prince of Ding!"

Li Zicheng had left Beijing on the thirteenth day of the fourth month to begin his eastern campaign against Shanhai Pass — one day later than Dorgon's departure from Shenyang. The distance from Beijing to Shanhai Pass was about the same as that from Shenyang to Shanhai Pass, both seven to eight hundred li. But Li Zicheng's march was far more arduous than Dorgon's.

Before entering the territory of Ningyuan Guard, Dorgon's great army had marched entirely through Qing territory. Not only did they have no fear of attack, but the local officials along the route organized corvée laborers and provided food and drink. The morale of the Eight Banners troops was also extremely high; nearly every man was eager to enter the pass and seize Beijing.

Li Zicheng's great army, however, was marching through "enemy territory," which came as a great surprise to him. The so-called enemy territory did not mean that the land from east of Beijing to Shanhai Pass was still firmly under Ming control. Rather, the gentry and common people along the route all regarded the Shun army as invaders!

This was the complete opposite of what he had encountered on his march toward Beijing. Back then, everyone had welcomed the Roving King. Wherever the great army passed, the people came out with baskets of food and pots of drink to welcome the royal army. The Roving King's great army had not even needed to prepare provisions; it had marched all the way on the supplies of the people along the road.

But now, wherever the great army passed, not a single person was to be seen! To say nothing of provisions, they could not even find anyone to ask for news!

After entering Yongping Prefecture, not only was the roadside empty, but even Kaiping Guard City and Luanzhou City were completely deserted. Commoners and officials alike had all fled, not one remaining. The only thing greeting Li Zicheng's great army was the proclamations posted on the city gates.

"Your Majesty, look."

Outside Luanzhou City, Li Shuangxi, who commanded the imperial camp, handed Li Zicheng a proclamation that had just been torn down, holding it in both hands. Li Zicheng took it and looked, and his thick brows furrowed involuntarily.

"Chief Military Advisor! Second Military Advisor!" Li Zicheng summoned Song Xiance and Gu Junen before him and handed them the proclamation. After they had finished reading it, he asked in a deep voice: "What do you make of it?"

(End of Chapter)