Chapter 1748: Hand Over Military Command — Now!

Tianshou Mountain, the main camp of the Later Jin army.

Inside the yellow tent, the Tiancong Khan Hong Taiji waited and waited. He had been waiting since early morning, all the way until the sky turned dusky, until he grew drowsy, until he actually fell asleep and began snoring — and still he had not waited for the little Ming emperor Zhu Youjian to walk into his trap.

The trap had long been laid! The Great Beile Daishan was old and crafty, so he was put in charge of luring the enemy. The Second Beile Amin and the Third Beile Manggultai were brave and skilled in battle, so they led troops to lie in ambush in the old forest on Tianshou Mountain. Abatai and Ajige, those two of the younger generation, were reliable enough in their work, so they were tasked with blocking the Changping garrison troops from leaving the city beneath the walls of Changping.

And Hong Taiji and his son Hooge led the elite of the two Yellow Banners in the main camp, conserving their strength. The moment the little Ming emperor up ahead fell for the ruse, Hooge would lead the two Yellow Banner army out to strike the fatal blow!

The Mongols who had followed Hong Taiji were responsible for the final pursuit.

It was such a fine plan that when it was all set in place last night, Hong Taiji was too excited to sleep! After a whole night of excitement, waiting for this day to crush Zhu Youjian, Hong Taiji received the first piece of unexpected bad news that morning — the Later Jin state's finest White Armor soldiers had been ambushed with black powder guns! And in one strike, a great many had been killed or wounded!

This truly pained Hong Taiji. White Armor soldiers!

From a niru of three hundred households, only ten White Armor soldiers were chosen — ten out of three hundred! The Great Jin state had over three hundred niru, and in all only a little over three thousand White Armor soldiers! And this time, the White Armor soldiers who had followed Hong Taiji into the pass numbered only a little over a thousand. Last time, when the two White Banners' White Armor soldiers of the "Duo Family Army" had been treacherously killed by Shi Kefa — more than a dozen of them — Hong Taiji had already felt some pain. But this time, the White Armor soldiers he had placed outside the Guangou valley had been knocked down all at once by the Ming army's night scouts with black powder guns — some seventy of them — and then another thirty-odd had been taken out by a Ming cavalry charge with lances. Added together, that was over a hundred. This kind of loss made Hong Taiji so pained that tears flowed. He could not bear to leave the White Armor soldiers out there any longer, so he withdrew them all and replaced them with Mongols who dared not fight the enemy's elite troops in close combat.

And once the Mongols went up, Hong Taiji could no longer get accurate intelligence about Zhu Youjian's great army. Because the Mongols did not dare approach closely to reconnoiter; they only watched from far away — unless they occupied a particularly good vantage point, they could not see men or horses at all, at most the dust kicked up when a great army passed. But watching dust was not as accurate as watching men! Dust could be manufactured. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms described the method of making artificial dust, and the Southern Emperor might well have read that book too.

But Hong Taiji was not worried that the Southern Emperor Zhu Youjian would fail to take the bait, because he had already occupied the Southern Emperor's ancestral tombs, and had even set a fire in the Dingling mausoleum among them.

Did the Southern Court not claim to rule the realm by filial piety? Would the Southern Emperor Zhu Youjian dare not act the filial son? So even though he knew Tianshou Mountain was a dragon's pool and a tiger's den, he would have to risk his life to charge in!

So Hong Taiji had adopted the strategy of guarding the tomb and waiting for the emperor — and waited a full half day, waited until he fell asleep, and still had not waited for the Southern Emperor.

Where had this Southern Emperor gone? How could he not even want his own ancestors? This was unfilial and rebellious!

How could he know that this Southern Emperor Zhu Youjian wanted his ancestors' realm, not his ancestors' tombs. With the realm in hand, was there any fear of lacking tombs? Even if Hong Taiji and Dorgon robbed the graves, the Southern Emperor could rebuild new ones for his ancestors.

Moreover, excavating an imperial mausoleum was an enormous undertaking. Unless Hong Taiji and Dorgon dug a robber's tunnel and went down to touch gold and seize treasure, they would have to busy themselves for quite a while before they could open the underground palace of Dingling. But what sort of men were Hong Taiji and Dorgon? No matter what, they could not dig a robber's tunnel and descend into the underground palace — that would not suit their status.

Therefore Zhu Youjian made a prompt decision: for the time being, he would ignore his ancestors, and led twelve thousand iron cavalry around the south side of Tianshou Mountain and Changping town, then forded the Wenyu River southeast of Changping town to reach the north bank of the Wenyu River (east of Changping, west of Shunyi), and finally drove straight for the main camp of the Ji-Liao army commanded by Yuan Chonghuan and Zhao Shuaijiao.

The Ji-Liao army's main camp lay between Changping and Shunyi. At night it was very easy to find, because it was a Ming camp — lanterns and bonfires dotted the wilderness like stars, as if the Milky Way in the sky had fallen to earth.

Yuan Chonghuan was in his own tent writing a letter to Zhu Chunchen on the other side of the Wenyu River, proposing that they advance together.

Although Zhu Chunchen had for several days in a row sent battle reports of astonishing losses, this could not fool Yuan Chonghuan. His great army was now only twenty or thirty li from Zhu Chunchen's main camp — a journey of three or four days; if one stood high enough, one could see it. And the Ji-Liao army's night scouts were not so useless; they could slip right up outside the Capital Camps' encampment and watch Dorgon's troops "feign attack and pretend defeat."

Some of the bolder night scouts even joined the fighting outside the Capital Camps' camp, cut off a few Mongol heads, and brought them back to Yuan Chonghuan to claim merit.

And Yuan Chonghuan also knew that Zhu Chunchen was cooking the books, so he did not go to join him, but only crawled slowly toward Changping — he was the Governor of Liaodong, so of course he did not have to take responsibility for the imperial tombs being dug up. The Da'ankou, Longjing Pass, and Xifengkou through which Hong Taiji's great army had entered the pass were Ji Garrison territory. And Yiyuankou, near Shanhai Pass, although it had once been broken through by the eastern barbarians, had been retaken by the combined efforts of the Ji and Liao armies. So no matter how Yuan Chonghuan worked his little abacus, he felt that this time he had merit and no fault, and would surely be promoted to Governor-General of Ji-Liao!

Just as he was feeling pleased with himself, Zu Dashou's frantic voice suddenly came in from outside.

"Governor, Governor! The slave bandits' great army is heading for us!"

What? The slave bandits' great army?

Yuan Chonghuan's heart trembled!

Never mind that Yuan Chonghuan was always shouting about pacifying Liaodong in a few years — that was all bluff to fool people. If he believed it himself, he would be a fool. His current snail's pace of six or seven li a day made that clear enough.

"Governor, Governor!" Zu Dashou had already come in while shouting, lifting the tent flap. Seeing Yuan Chonghuan, he was about to salute, but Yuan Chonghuan waved him off.

"Fuyu, no saluting — there are no outsiders here!" Yuan Chonghuan asked, "How many slave bandits have come?"

"Twenty thousand!" Zu Dashou said. "All cavalry, every last one. They've already crossed the Wenyu River and are heading this way. They're all carrying torches — a terrifying sight. And they're moving fast; they'll certainly be outside the camp before dawn. Governor, do we fight or do we leave?"

"Leave?" Yuan Chonghuan glared at Zu Dashou. "Fuyu, what are you saying? We have more than fifty thousand men holding a camp as tight as an iron barrel — are we to fear a mere twenty thousand slave bandits? Someone come! Beat the drums and assemble the officers!"

If the slave bandits dare come, this governor will make certain they lie dead in heaps!"

Yuan Chonghuan was not afraid of the Later Jin Eight Banner troops attacking, even if twenty thousand Eight Banner troops came!

If Zhu Chunchen on the other side of the Wenyu River met this situation, he would probably take to his heels and flee back to Beijing overnight. But Yuan Chonghuan would not run; his courage was far greater than Zhu Chunchen's.

But the opponent he met this time was one he could not drive back by daring and willingness to fight — because what came was the great Ming's supreme sovereign, Zhu Youjian.

"Your subject Yuan Chonghuan respectfully inquires after Your Majesty's sacred well-being!"

"Your subject Zhao Shuaijiao respectfully inquires after Your Majesty's sacred well-being!"

"Your subject Zu Kefa respectfully inquires after Your Majesty's sacred well-being."

"Your subject He Kegang..."

By the time the sky had begun to lighten a little, Zhu Youjian had already led twelve thousand cavalry, bold and swaggering, to the gates of the Ji-Liao army's camp.

"Rise, rise." Zhu Youjian had come to seize military power, but his manner was not the least bit fierce; his face was full of smiles.

In truth, he did not need to put on a ferocious display, because the mere fact that he had dared to lead twelve thousand cavalry out through the Guangou pass at Juyong Pass, pass right under the noses of fifty or sixty thousand Later Jin troops, and then march through the night to the gates of the Ji-Liao army's camp — these Ji-Liao officers, who feared the enemy like tigers, could only obediently prostrate themselves in admiration.

Seeing that the Ji-Liao commanders had all risen, Zhu Youjian smiled again and said to Yuan Chonghuan: "Yuan Chonghuan, look — was We not right? That Ningjin defense line of yours is utterly useless! Fifty or sixty thousand slave bandits broke through the border wall right under your nose, and fought all the way to Changping to dig up our great Ming's ancestral tombs..."

At the start, his words had a half-joking tone, light and breezy, but now his voice had turned stern. The officials below all sucked in cold air, standing there, not daring to move.

Zhu Youjian continued: "All of you tell me — what use is holding Ningyuan? Is one mighty Shanhai Pass not enough? Why can we not pull the troops back and use them inside and outside the Ji Garrison's border wall?"

"Your Majesty," Yuan Chonghuan now understood Zhu Youjian's meaning. This young Son of Heaven still wanted to abandon the defense of western Liaoning and then strengthen the Ji Garrison's border wall. But he still wanted to argue for it. "The Liao army's soldiers all have their homes beyond the pass, and they have opened up several thousand qing of military farmland and settled several hundred thousand people. If we abandon it suddenly, I fear it will shake the morale of the army!"

"It is not abandonment," Zhu Youjian said. "It is moving the garrison — from western Liaoning to the Yan Mountains beyond the Great Wall at Ji Garrison! With the Yan Mountains, there is a Ji Garrison! Holding the Yan Mountains, we can pacify the grasslands; pacify the grasslands, and we can cut off one of the slave bandits' arms! Cut off one of the slave bandits' arms, and there is hope for recovering Liao!"

(End of Chapter)