Chapter 17: Hearing That the Ming Is Saved (And Hearing There Are Recommendation Tickets Too)

The Chongzhen Emperor lay in bed and turned over once more.

It was only on the afternoon of the fifteenth that he had received the dispatch from Wang Yongji, Governor-General of Ji-Liao, and learned of the fall of Juyong Pass and Tang Tong's defection to the rebels.

The news was not really surprising, because before Juyong Pass, the two strategic strongholds of Datong and Xuanfu had already surrendered to the bandits one after another. The Ming dynasty already had the momentum of an avalanche crashing down a mountain. Under such circumstances, Tang Tong's defection was not strange at all; someone like Zhou Yuji, who held out to the death, was the real anomaly.

Yet when the Chongzhen Emperor learned that Tang Tong had handed over the pass and surrendered to the bandits, he still felt as though he had fallen into an ice pit.

Setting aside Wu Sangui's troops still at Shanhai Pass, Tang Tong's eight thousand men were the Chongzhen Emperor's last hope for holding Beijing. On the question of how to use Tang Tong's force, the Chongzhen Emperor had hesitated for a long while before finally choosing Juyong Pass — a place easy to defend and hard to attack, and close to Beijing — for Tang Tong to hold.

He did not truly expect Tang Tong to stop Li Zicheng; merely forcing Li Zicheng to detour would count as mission accomplished.

Because if Li Zicheng had to detour and break through elsewhere along the Great Wall, he would lose some time, and Beijing would gain a little precious time. Moreover, after Li Zicheng broke through the Wall, Tang Tong's force could quickly return to reinforce the city and continue holding Beijing.

With those two delays, they should be able to wait until Wu Sangui's relief troops arrived. With Wu Sangui's forty thousand troops, Beijing's garrison would number fifty or sixty thousand, and quite elite at that.

By then, holding Beijing and repelling Li Zicheng should pose no problem. The only problem was the Tartar scum beyond the passes: relying on Wu Sangui's and Tang Tong's troops alone to defeat both Li the Roving King and the Tartar scum at the same time was impossible, so the move south would have to be carried out in the end. Once Li Zicheng was repelled, they could again find a way to push forward the move south... But now, the wishful thinking had completely collapsed, and Beijing was about to be besieged by the Roving Bandit's great army.

And no preparations at all had been made for moving the capital and the imperial progress south. If he fled in panic, he would be a solitary man with no one; once in Nanjing, could he still command the realm as he did now? Even within Beijing, people outside hardly obeyed the edicts he issued — otherwise how had the Ming come to this? If he lost the imperial ancestral tombs, abandoned the hundred officials and the ennobled nobility, and went to Nanjing in miserable disarray, would his authority not be utterly swept away?

The Chongzhen Emperor sat up abruptly and let out a heavy sigh.

The eunuch on duty outside was instantly alert. He crept on tiptoe to the curtain and listened to the sounds within. It was now the yin hour of the sixteenth, time to prepare for morning court. Compared with those late emperors who disliked holding court, the present Son of Heaven of the Ming was truly too diligent. From the day of his enthronement he had toiled daily; the morning court that began before dawn had scarcely ever been interrupted, and most of the time he arrived at Fengtian Gate earlier than his ministers. After court he still had to review memorials, listen to the lecturers expound the great principles of Confucianism, summon inner and outer officials, and ponder strategies for suppressing the bandits and pacifying Liao. Every day he was busy until after the hai hour before he could retire, and who knew whether he could sleep even two double-hours a day? Even a body of forged iron and diamond could not endure it! Yet this Son of Heaven had stubbornly kept it up for seventeen years!

Truly he labored day and night and handled ten thousand affairs daily! Looking across all the Ming ancestors, probably only the Exalted Founder Emperor and the Accomplished Ancestor Emperor had shown such diligence.

But what was even more remarkable was that under this emperor's so painstaking governance, the Great Ming had actually reached a state of tottering in wind and rain, on the verge of destruction... For the sake of the Ming realm, the thirty-three-year-old Son of Heaven had worried until much of his hair turned white, yet he still could not stop the collapse on every front!

Truly Heaven had no eyes!

The Chongzhen Emperor got out of bed and gave a light cough.

"Your Majesty, do you want some water?" The eunuch on duty gently lifted the curtain, pitched his voice soft, and asked the Chongzhen Emperor in a tender tone.

The Chongzhen Emperor nodded. Earlier in bed he had been in a daze, utterly unable to sleep; now that he sat up, he felt dizzy and muddled, his whole body weak.

The night-duty eunuch hurriedly brought plain water and handed it to the Chongzhen Emperor.

The Chongzhen Emperor drained it in one gulp and asked, "What time is it?"

"The fifth watch," the eunuch answered.

"Time for morning court..." The Chongzhen Emperor sighed.

He already vaguely sensed that great disaster was near, and he did not know how many more days this morning court could be held.

At that thought, the Chongzhen Emperor was so grieved that tears nearly came.

The eunuch on duty beside him did not know how to console the Chongzhen Emperor, so he simply called the other attendants on duty to light the lamps, while he himself helped the Chongzhen Emperor put on shoes, stockings, and robes. Before long, Qianqing Palace was brightly lit, and palace maids and eunuchs moved busily and silently along the long corridors in the early morning hours, as though the great upheaval happening outside the palace had nothing to do with them at all.

The Chongzhen Emperor, as on any other day, washed his hands and face, took some tea and refreshments, and soon seated himself behind the writing desk in the Eastern Warm Pavilion. On the desk lay the imperial edicts and rescripts that had been marked in red the previous night, all personally approved in the Chongzhen Emperor's own hand. He was a wise sovereign, so of course he would not let the eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial do the work for him. Still, these approved edicts and rescripts had to be carried to court by the people of the Directorate of Ceremonial.

Gao Yushun, the seal-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and Wang Zhixin, the second-ranking brush-holding eunuch, had both already arrived. After paying their respects to the Chongzhen Emperor, they began gathering up the edicts to be issued that day.

"Has Wang Cheng'en not come?" the Chongzhen Emperor asked. The words had barely left his mouth when he remembered, and with a bitter smile answered himself, "Right, he has gone to defend the city..."

Putting Wang Cheng'en in charge of Beijing's defense was really a bit of a farce, something only the Chongzhen Emperor could have thought up.

The Ming's inner-attendant system actually had civil and military branches as well. The civil eunuchs controlled the Directorate of Ceremonial, and the military eunuchs controlled the Directorate of the Imperial Horses. The Directorate of the Imperial Horses had always managed military affairs, so those who could rise to become grand eunuchs within that system all had some military experience. But Wang Cheng'en was a civil eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial system, with no military experience.

With Beijing facing catastrophe, putting a civil eunuch who understood nothing in charge as commander of the city's defense — could that possibly end well?

"Your Majesty," said Gao Yushun, the seal-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, "shall I summon Wang Cheng'en to attend you?"

The Chongzhen Emperor shook his head. Defending the city was urgent; let Wang Cheng'en busy himself with that for now. Seeing that Gao Yushun and Wang Zhixin had finished packing up, he rose and strode out of Qianqing Palace toward Fengtian Gate.

He had walked only a few steps past the gate when he saw a eunuch in a bright red python robe hurrying toward him with great urgency, nearly colliding with Wang Zhixin, who was clearing the way ahead.

Wang Zhixin was just about to rebuke him when the Chongzhen Emperor recognized the man as Tian Cunzhi, the supervising eunuch of the Directorate of the Imperial Horses.

Though a eunuch, this fellow's manner and conduct were those of a military man. He was also powerfully built, with a somewhat fierce face and dark, rough skin; stick a beard on him and he would be the very image of a fierce Zhang Fei.

Because of his rough appearance, he had been sent off to the Valiant Guard Camp from the early years of Chongzhen. Over the past dozen or so years, he had spent most of his time moving about the front lines, which had bred in him this headlong, urgent manner.

"Is that Tian Cunzhi? Step forward and speak." The Chongzhen Emperor beckoned to Tian Cunzhi, calling him forward.

Tian Cunzhi came forward, made a bow, and then said in a voice tinged with pleasant surprise: "Your Majesty, good news! When this subject entered the palace, I saw several thousand people lining up on the great street north of the palace wall. Only after asking did I learn that they are all righteous citizens who have come to enlist and serve!"

By the old rules, eunuchs were not permitted to keep residences outside the palace. But such rules had long been obsolete. A grand eunuch of Tian Cunzhi's rank not only had an outside residence, but also wives and concubines, and his household wealth was counted in the tens of thousands of strings of cash.

So Tian Cunzhi, like the court officials, entered the imperial city every day before dawn for duty. But eunuchs did not enter the imperial city through the Great Ming Gate; they entered through the Bei'an Gate. That was why he had seen the sturdy men of the capital, who had been lured into the trap by Zhu Cilang, lining up and waiting on the great street north of the palace wall.

The Chongzhen Emperor could scarcely believe his ears. He stared blankly at Tian Cunzhi. "Truly? Truly several thousand?"

"Truly, Your Majesty. This subject dares stake his life on it!" Tian Cunzhi said with certainty. "Several thousand came early in the morning; by evening it will surely exceed ten thousand! It seems the people of the capital still have their hearts set on the Ming!"

The Chongzhen Emperor let out a breath: "Thank Heaven and thank Earth — it is all the grace of our ancestors... The Ming is saved! Saved!"

......

"Thousand Years, the Ming is saved! Saved..."

At the same time, Zhu Cilang, who had just risen, heard the same news. It was brought to him by the old eunuch Li Jizhou, the director of the Eastern Palace's Bureau of Medicines.

Because Zhu Cilang was "ill," Li Jizhou was supposed to be attending him at his side, but yesterday the ailing Crown Prince had roamed about outside the Palace of the Crown Prince's Residence for an entire day. So Li Jizhou had no choice but to rise early today and hurry to the Palace of the Crown Prince's Residence to intercept Zhu Cilang. And on his way into the palace, he too had seen the long line on the great street north of the imperial city wall.

(End of Chapter)