Chapter 1693: Fight the Tartars to the Death

"Gentlemen, the Tartars have already broken through the Great Wall!"

Every officer of the Headquarters Army on the field stood ramrod straight, helmeted and armored, motionless, with only their heavy breathing audible. All of them were huffing and puffing — just hearing it made one angry! Every man's face was flushed with agitation, the muscles twitching.

Zhu Youjian was also fully armed, wearing a very heavy suit of long body armor. Although he and the Tianqi Emperor were brothers, their physiques were nothing alike. The Tianqi Emperor looked like a bean sprout — you could tell at a glance his health was poor. But Zhu Youjian was still robust, and since his rebirth he had paid special attention to physical training, ate a great deal, and every day lifted stone locks and drew a heavy bow. In hot weather he even swam in the Taiye Pool, and swam extremely well! This was a good habit he had cultivated over several decades in his previous life — otherwise how would he have lived to ninety?

After nearly ten months of training, Zhu Youjian's build had thickened by a full size, and now that he was clad in battle armor, he looked almost like a military commander. Beside him stood two young strongmen of similar stature — one was Wu Sangui, and the other was Hei Yunlong's adopted son, named Hei Wentao. Wu Sangui and Hei Wentao were both youths of sixteen or seventeen, and like Zhu Youjian, they were tall and powerfully built, though their martial skills were a notch below Zhu Youjian's.

What? Wu Sangui's martial skills are inferior to Zhu Youjian's?

Of course they are! Zhu Youjian had decades of accumulated skill from his previous life, and after this recent period of recovery training, he had essentially reached his peak condition — he could even claim to be the foremost martial artist under heaven!

If weapons were unrestricted, even the foremost Baturu of the Manchus, were he to meet the present Zhu Youjian, would be killed with a single shot!

Besides the two young personal guards Wu Sangui and Hei Wentao, behind Zhu Youjian stood several dozen young knights clad in gilded armor. They were all young warriors recruited from the households of officers of every rank in the Headquarters Army — either the officers' own sons or adopted sons, every one of them highly skilled in martial arts. Ever since Zhu Youjian had contracted out the salt tax to Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan, he had assembled this band of young warriors and kept them by his side twelve hours a day. Even when he was indulging in debauchery with Empress Zhou, Noble Consort Tian, Noble Consort Yuan, and the others, he would still have a squad of young warriors standing guard outside Qianqing Palace.

These men had no connections within Beijing, and their families' fortunes depended entirely on the Headquarters Army — at present they were the most reliable.

Moreover, their martial skills were all extremely high — every one of them was capable of taking the field and killing Tartars!

And Zhu Youjian kept them by his side not only as personal guards but also as students. He was not merely the foremost martial artist under heaven — his mastery of military strategy was also the foremost under heaven!

Therefore he had no need to imitate that unfilial son by opening a military academy and hiring foreign officers to teach — he could teach them himself.

Of course, the foreign officers and soldiers from Macau still had to be hired; one could not simply work behind closed doors! Zhu Youjian was only a paper strategist, and had never actually commanded a Western-style army, so he still needed to bring in foreign officers and soldiers as a reference.

But for now Sun Yuanhua had not yet brought the foreign officers and soldiers over. He had only sent up a memorial from Macau, saying that he had already met with the Portuguese military commander there. The other party was willing to provide men, though it would take some time to assemble them. Additionally, Zhu Youjian had never personally operated a cannon — he had only read about them in books — so he still needed foreign officers to teach the artillerymen.

Furthermore, Sun Yuanhua had also sought out the manager of the Bocarro cannon foundry in Macau and, following Zhu Youjian's instructions, had put forward a request to purchase 3-pounder bronze battalion guns. Twenty had already been ordered, and the Bocarro foundry was now working at full speed to produce them.

In short, it would still be some time before everything was in place.

Fortunately, Zhu Youjian was in no hurry. The Jisi Incident had occurred in the second year of Chongzhen, in the tenth month — there was still more than a year to go!

These foreign soldiers, foreign officers, and foreign cannon ought all to have arrived by then. With twenty 3-pounder battalion guns and ten thousand armored household cavalry, plus several hundred foreign officers and soldiers to screen and operate the battalion guns — no matter what, they would be able to blast Hong Taiji out.

At the thought that the great enterprise of the Ming's restoration would soon be realized by his own hand, Zhu Youjian could not suppress his excitement. He looked at the rows of Headquarters Army officers standing before him, at a military banner fluttering and snapping in the wind, and further off at nearly ten thousand men fully armored and drawn up in strict formation, every one of them chest out and belly in, morale soaring, just waiting to cut down Tartars.

Looking at these tiger guards whom he had spent his life's blood to recruit and train, Zhu Youjian's eyes actually grew moist.

"The Tartars have come — come to seize our land, come to seize our wealth, come to seize our women! You are all now Our knights of the headquarters, every one of you allotted several hundred mu of farmland, and those of you not yet married have been given wives. All around the capital are your houses and estates. Now the Tartars have come to seize them — tell me, what should be done?"

What Zhu Youjian said was all very plain reasoning — no grand national righteousness, no doctrines of Confucius and Mencius. Just one principle: the Tartars have come, come to seize your land, your wealth, and your women! You are now propertied-class warriors with women, houses, land, and money — so what will you do?

His words were repeated in unison by the youths standing behind him, and everyone on the drill ground of the Nanhaizi camp heard them.

They were all enraged!

"We'll fight to the death! I'll fight the Tartars to the death!"

The first to roar was Li Zicheng!

He was nearly exploding with fury!

The Tartars were too wicked — they actually wanted to come and seize his wife, his land, and his house! That was a daughter of the old Zhu family whom His Majesty had bestowed upon him! Only sixteen years old, fair and tender, noble in bearing — a woman of the Zhou Prince's line from Kaifeng. Li Zicheng was merely of commoner stock from Mizhi in northern Shaanxi. To have won a wife of this caliber was truly a blessing of eight lifetimes!

And the Tartars actually wanted to come and seize her! Li Zicheng wished he could eat the Tartars alive!

"Right! I'll fight the Tartars to the death too!"

Li Jin was also enraged. He too had been given a daughter of the old Zhu family — a woman of the Qin Prince's line, fair and plump, and just looking at her one could see she was blessed.

Li Jin was a real man — how could he let the Tartars seize his plump little wife? Such hateful Tartars had to be hacked into mincemeat!

"We'll fight the Tartars to the death!"

"We'll fight the Tartars to the death!"

"Kill, kill, kill!"

Then more of the headquarters knights erupted in fury. Ten thousand men roared, all vowing to fight the Chahar Tartars to the death.

This was no ordinary Ming army — these were the Son of Heaven's household retainers, ironclad knights to a man. Though they lacked good horses, they had armor, and they had drilled hard in massed-charge tactics. They could form up by regiment and battalion and launch wave after wave of charges.

Do not underestimate this style of fighting. It might not necessarily break the Later Jin infantry formations, but charging armed nomadic herders on the steppe posed no problem at all.

The armed herders of the Chahar were nothing like the Mongol warriors who had once followed Genghis Khan and thrashed the four directions. These men could only manage horse archery — they scattered at the first clash and were of no great use.

In fact, the backbone of Khutugtu Khan's campaigns in all directions was not those nomads at all, but the Iron Lance Kono Ten Sumu, an elite force selected from among them — ironclad cavalry much like these household retainers of the Son of Heaven. But their numbers were far smaller — not ten thousand, at most three or four thousand.

So Zhu Youjian did not need to mobilize any great host. Just by taking the ten thousand ironclad cavalry before him to Datong, he could hang Khutugtu Khan up and beat him.

Once Khutugtu Khan was beaten, Zhu Youjian's prestige would soar.

Then he would no longer need to worry about that useless lot of ennobled favorites inside Beijing. This imperial campaign in person was, in fact, also meant to put some distance between himself and them.

Because the profits in the southeastern salt trade were enormous. Even with the Donglin Faction and the Liaodong border army standing in front, there was no guarantee that nothing would go wrong.

So Zhu Youjian had been extremely cautious during this period, and to truly set his mind at ease, he still needed to pack that useless lot out of Beijing.

At this thought, Zhu Youjian bellowed: "Gentlemen, are you willing to follow Us westward to slay the barbarians?"

Westward — not to Liaodong to kill the eastern barbarians!

The Mongols to the west were no longer formidable — everyone knew this, so no one feared them.

"We are willing!"

"We're willing!"

"We swear to follow to the death!"

Seeing the impassioned scene, Zhu Youjian's own blood boiled!

"March!" Zhu Youjian shouted with all his strength. "The enemy is at Baideng Mountain!"

The men below roared along with him: "Kill the enemy! The enemy is at Baideng Mountain!"

(End of Chapter)