Chapter 147: I'm Not Afraid of the Tartars!

Song Xiance and Gu Junen exchanged a glance, and both could not help frowning.

Something was very wrong with the present situation!

It did not take the First Military Advisor or the Second Military Advisor to see it — even an ordinary soldier could tell. Ever since leaving Beijing, where was the morale the Shun's sixty thousand veteran camp soldiers had shown when they first entered the capital? Yet the veterans' sagging morale was not because they feared the Tartars. It was because Li Zicheng had not given them enough money!

Before entering Beijing, everyone had thought the Chongzhen Emperor was stingy — many of the backbone officers of Li Zicheng's veteran camp came from the northwestern border army, and if the Chongzhen Emperor had paid them enough silver, they would still be government troops now!

But after entering Beijing, these veteran camp soldiers learned that it was not that Chongzhen was stingy — it was that Chongzhen was poor! He had no money; the state's wealth had all been swallowed up by a pack of corrupt officials. Just from the batch of officials seized inside Beijing, they had tortured out thirty to forty million taels of dirty silver!

When the veteran camp soldiers learned the results of the silver extortion, they had all been quite pleased. But what followed truly showed them what stinginess meant.

Li Zicheng clearly had tens of millions of taels of silver, and had won the entire realm besides, yet he was only willing to give an ordinary veteran camp soldier ten taels of silver. Only ten taels!

Everyone's merit was so great — they had helped him take Beijing itself — and he gave only ten damn taels of silver? Was this fobbing off beggars? They were founding heroes of the dynasty!

The money was insufficient, and the other benefits — especially land that could support a family for generations — were likewise nowhere to be found. The whole pack of veteran camp lordlings now felt they had fought for Li Zicheng's realm for nothing, so how could they have any spirit left?

But Li Zicheng had his own difficulties. Under his command were not only sixty thousand veteran camp soldiers; there were also the veteran camp soldiers still left in Shaanxi, Henan, and Hubei, the veteran camp soldiers on the western expedition to Hexi and Xining, and the various local strongmen and surrendered Ming troops who had come over to him. All mixed together, they numbered several hundred thousand! Give each man ten taels and several million taels would be gone, and officers at every level would need more money besides. A proper round of rewards would cost at least ten million.

Moreover, from the fourth month of this year onward, Li Zicheng would have to start paying these several hundred thousand lordling soldiers their wages!

He could proclaim "three years without levies" to the common people, but he could not proclaim "three years without pay" to the soldiers! Before, everyone had followed Li Zicheng to conquer the realm, hoping one day to share in ruling it, so they could naturally go without pay for a while. But now the realm was won, and Li Zicheng had given them little in the way of benefits. If he still did not pay them, the next thing would be men rising in arms against this stingy emperor of theirs.

And the wages for several hundred thousand men might well not be covered by ten million taels a year!

So the thirty to forty million taels of silver Li Zicheng had plundered in Beijing would barely suffice for one round of rewards, and then to cover expenses during the three-year no-levy period. Li Zicheng himself would not have much left in his own pocket either. If he were too free-handed, this emperor's post would become a losing business — paying out money just to drum up applause!

Song Xiance and Gu Junen both knew Li Zicheng's difficulties. But they had no solution either. They were military advisors, not financial experts; they did not know how to get money for Li Zicheng, so they could only plan on the basis of having no money.

Gu Junen frowned and said, "Imperial Lord, our Shun still has prestige to spare, and can still overawe the enemy. If we return empty-handed this time, I fear the Zhu traitor's momentum will revive, our own army's morale will sink further, and the hearts of men in all quarters may well change."

Li Zicheng nodded. In truth, after the battle of Tianjin, the Zhu traitor's prestige had already begun to recover, while the Shun's morale had begun to decline. If this attack on Shanhai Pass also ended in failure, the various forces that had submitted to the Shun would all start making their own little calculations.

"First Military Advisor," Li Zicheng asked Song Xiance again, "the Zhu traitor's proclamation says he has already borrowed a hundred thousand Manchu troops. Reckon it for me — is that true or false?"

Ah... reckon again?

Cold sweat beaded on Song Xiance's forehead. Why did this Li Zicheng always make him reckon such things?

The Emperor had spoken, so he could not refuse to reckon! Song Xiance could only put on a show of counting on his fingers — one, two, three, four, five, all still there.

"Your Majesty," Song Xiance had already finished reckoning, "the Tartars are certain to come. The only question is whether they come by way of Shanhai Pass or by way of Jizhou and Miyun. This subject believes it is more likely they take the Jizhou–Miyun route. For Shanhai Pass is the throat by which Liaoxi leads to the capital, and it also has sea routes linking it to Denglai. With the Zhu traitor Crown Prince's cunning, he would never voluntarily hand Shanhai Pass to the eastern barbarians. Without word from the Zhu traitor Crown Prince, the Tartars could not possibly appear before Shanhai Pass. After all, the mighty pass is easy to defend and hard to attack from the east; even with only thirty thousand weak troops, it could hold out for a month or two. How could a hundred thousand Tartars stay outside the pass that long? Do they have that much grain? So without certainty, the Tartars would not dare come.

And the Zhu traitor chieftain will most likely use the sea routes to withdraw the elite troops from Shanhai Pass, leaving only a secondary force to guard it, while at the same time spreading a show of strength, falsely claiming the eastern barbarians are arriving in force, to frighten off our army. In that way our Shun army would meet the eastern barbarians in battle near Beijing. If both sides are badly mauled, he can counterattack from Dagukou. Otherwise he can still sail south from Dagukou and, relying on the strength of the Wu father and sons, hold the southeastern half of the realm.

Furthermore, if there really were a hundred thousand eastern barbarian troops, the Zhu traitor's side would not be shouting it everywhere. They would keep it secret, wait until we reached Shanhai Pass, and then let the eastern barbarian host strike, catching us off guard. Now they are posting proclamations everywhere, which instead reveals weakness — it shows there is no eastern barbarian host outside Shanhai Pass at all."

The First Military Advisor truly was the First Military Advisor — with a pinch of the fingers he had figured out Zhu Cilang's whole scheme! Yet he had missed one calculation: Wu Sangui — Wu Sangui was not an obedient, well-behaved child!

"Makes sense, makes sense. If there really were a hundred thousand Tartars, they would not tell me!" Li Zicheng nodded repeatedly. "And the Zhu traitor Crown Prince is so cunning that he would certainly not hand Shanhai Pass to the eastern barbarians. He would surely make the eastern barbarians take the Jizhou–Miyun route and fight us to the death beneath the walls of Beijing.

But I will not give the Zhu traitor Crown Prince the chance to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. I will strike straight for Shanhai Pass, first defeat the secondary force holding the pass, and then turn the army back to deal with the eastern barbarians!"

Li Zicheng gritted his teeth and said, "I am not afraid of the Tartars! As long as Shanhai Pass and Beijing are held fast in my hands, and I still have tens of thousands of veteran camp soldiers who can ride to and fro, moving like the wind, then no matter how fierce the Manchu Tartars are, they will be dragged down and dragged to death by me!"

Li Zicheng's confidence was not without reason — he was a roving bandit, after all. The veteran camp soldiers' mobility was extremely high, not one whit inferior to the Manchu Eight Banners. As long as Li Guo and Chen Yongfu could hold Beijing, and the defile of Shanhai Pass could be kept in hand, he could use mobile warfare to deal with Dorgon. Dorgon was on an expedition far from his own country — how long could he sustain himself around Beijing?

At worst, he would give him one or two million taels and politely escort him back out through the pass.

At this thought, Li Zicheng's confidence surged, and he gave the order in a loud voice: "Pass the word to the three armies — put more effort into it! Make camp within the borders of Shanhai Garrison. If we take Shanhai Pass in this battle, every man gets a reward of ten taels of silver!"

"Brave men of the Central Division's Vanguard Brigade, We ask you — do you fear the Tartars?"

"No fear..."

"Venerable Father-in-Law, Commander Cao, Sanfu — We did not deceive you, did We? In our Great Ming army there truly are heroes who do not fear the Tartars!"

At Dagukou, on Haisha Island, on a stretch of flat wasteland, Zhu Cilang was bringing Wu Xiang, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu to inspect a newly formed unit — the Vanguard Brigade of the Central Division of the Hard-Working New Army.

This unit was the trump-card force Zhu Cilang intended to use to shatter the myth that the Eight Banners were invincible!

The Vanguard Brigade's nearly 1,500 officers and men were all brave fellows who did not fear the Tartars. And the reason they did not fear the Tartars was that most of them were not of proper Ming army origin at all — they had been picked out from among roving bandit prisoners.

Moreover, His Highness the Crown Prince Zhu had been generous enough with them, giving them every benefit they were due, treating them exactly the same as the veterans of the Hard-Working New Army!

Hao Yaoqi, who had "feigned surrender" inside Tianjin Garrison, had been appointed by Zhu Cilang as Mobile Corps Commander of this Vanguard Brigade, with his military rank raised to Chiliarch — a great act of recognition and favor!

But Wu Xiang, Cao Youyi, and Wu Sanfu were rather critical of Zhu Cilang's promoting a pack of roving bandits so highly.

Men of roving bandit origin were always hard to trust!

Who knew whether their surrender was feigned?

As for not fearing the Tartars and all that — what did it signify? Could not fearing them defeat the Tartars? They did not fear them only because they did not yet know how formidable they were. Once they knew, they would start fearing.

Zhu Cilang swept his gaze from the corner of his eye across the three men's faces, while a faint, barely perceptible smile floated up at the corner of his mouth. He beckoned to his lead bodyguard Chen Yidao, who at once stepped forward and handed Zhu Cilang a turtledove-foot matchlock fitted with a bayonet.

"Heh heh, heavy!" Zhu Cilang hefted the matchlock in his hand. "Must be over twenty catties!"

He raised the matchlock and showed it to the brave men of the Vanguard Brigade, drawn up before him in neat square formation.

"Look well, all of you — this is the thing you will use to fight the Manchu Tartars!" Zhu Cilang said loudly. "It is the matchlock plus the socket bayonet! At long range, skilled marksmen will pick off the enemy. Most of you will be responsible for firing at twenty paces, and then charging with the bayonet!"

(End of Chapter)