Chapter 1750: Hong Taiji, Come and Fight Three Hundred Rounds with Us!

Where are they buried?

Zhu Chunchen was so frightened by Zhu Youjian's question that stars swam before his eyes. Where was he supposed to find that many corpses to show the little emperor? The "dead" were all phantom soldiers — there wasn't even ash left, let alone bodies!

"Your Majesty, there is no urgency in collecting the martyrs' remains! Right now the slave-bandits are still at Tianshou Mountain plundering the tombs of the late emperors! We, the officers and men of the Capital Camps, have for the most part long enjoyed imperial favor. Seeing this, there is not one of us whose hair does not stand on end in fury. We all wish to serve as Your Majesty's vanguard and fight the slave-bandits to the death!"

The one helping Zhu Chunchen change the subject was Liu Kongzhao, Earl of Chengyi. A descendant of Liu Bowen, after all — his mind really did turn fast.

Zhu Youjian glared at Zhu Chunchen again. "Zhu Chunchen, is your hair standing on end?"

"It is, it is! This subject will lead the charge and fight the slave-bandits to the death!" Zhu Chunchen had no choice but to grit his teeth and volunteer. "In this battle, either the slaves perish, or this subject dies!"

His crimes were now enormous — not just embezzling military pay and pocketing phantom soldiers' wages, but deceiving the sovereign, caught red-handed! If the little emperor pursued the matter, beheading would be the lightest punishment.

And there was only one way to escape punishment — to become a loyal martyr.

No matter what, Zhu Youjian could not punish a loyal martyr!

"And the rest of you?" Zhu Youjian demanded sharply.

The whole pack of ennobled nobles who had fed on phantom payrolls for generations could already see their fate: beheading and confiscation of their households!

Fighting the slave-bandits now meant nine chances of death and one of life; not fighting them meant certain death with no chance at all.

"We will fight the slave-bandits to the death!"

"We have enjoyed imperial favor for generations, and now we are willing to repay the nation with our lives!"

"This subject is willing to lead the charge."

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly and smiled. "Good! You are worthy of being called meritorious nobles and imperial kin who have long enjoyed imperial favor. We give you your chance! You have two hours. Each of you return to your own camp and select stout men. The Capital Camps have thirty-six battalions; each battalion must produce at least five hundred, for a total of eighteen thousand. In two hours, we march out to kill Hong Taiji, and every one of you shall serve in the vanguard!"

Zhu Youjian was, after all, a rare benevolent sovereign. He did not want to wipe out the entire pack of corrupt nobles; he still wanted to give them a chance to die for the nation or reform themselves. After all, becoming an ennobled noble was the greatest ideal of every military man in the Great Ming! If Zhu Youjian carried out a massacre of the current nobles, then the military men still holding troops in the nine border regions and thirteen garrisons would only clutch their military power all the tighter.

Then Zhu Youjian lowered his voice and said darkly, "We will personally oversee the battle. Any who retreat without orders shall all be executed!"

Now they really were going to die!

The Capital Camp nobles all knew disaster was upon them, but none dared defy the imperial decree. Whoever dared defy it — not only would Zhu Youjian not spare him, the other nobles would not spare him either.

Because fighting to the death meant at most one man died; fleeing meant the whole family suffered along with him, and his own life would be forfeit too — the little emperor had come with twelve thousand cavalry. Did they think they could outrun them?

The nobles could not run — but Hong Taiji could!

That's right, Hong Taiji was about to become a fleeing khan too!

Because Dorgon had already fled back to the Later Jin army's main camp at Tianshou Mountain, and he had brought Hong Taiji a piece of shocking news.

The Ji-Liao army, which had been crawling along north of the Wenyu River for days, had received support last night from more than ten thousand Ming cavalry arriving from the west, and had then begun moving rapidly. By this morning, they had crossed the Wenyu River and joined forces with the "Capital Camp turtle army."

The moment the three Ming columns joined up, they formed a great army group of a hundred twenty or thirty thousand men, and now possessed the strength to fight a decisive battle against the more than fifty thousand Later Jin troops led by Hong Taiji.

And Hong Taiji had already been frightened by Zhu Youjian's "black guns" and by the sight of more than ten thousand cavalry executing a flanking maneuver right under his nose. How would he dare meet Zhu Youjian in battle at Tianshou Mountain?

If he were defeated at Tianshou Mountain, where could he run? North of Tianshou Mountain lay Juyong Pass and Badaling; to the northeast were Miyun and Gubeikou, with treacherous terrain and strong fortifications — and the little emperor had stationed heavy troops in all of them.

Moreover, the Kharchin Mongol tribes beyond the border wall at Gubeikou had already been swept clean once by that pair of wretches, Zhu Youjian and Uriyangkhai.

If Hong Taiji tried to escape through the border wall near Gubeikou, he would inevitably be hunted down by Uriyangkhai's Mongols!

So Hong Taiji made a snap decision to stop fighting! He set fire to the Ding Mausoleum (the Wanli Emperor's tomb) and the Chang Mausoleum (the Yongle Emperor's tomb) at the entrance to Tianshou Mountain, then struck camp and marched away, bypassing the town of Changping and wheeling toward the northeast.

Fifty or sixty thousand troops marching out in grand array, plus the fires blazing at the Ding and Chang Mausoleums and on the nearby hills — the commotion was tremendous.

Zhu Youjian, still south of the Wenyu River, learned of it at once, of course!

When the news arrived, Zhu Youjian was eating lunch in the Capital Camp army's temporary encampment, gnawing on a white-flour bun stuffed with a slice of salt pork. Around him were a group of young knights, every one of them wolfing down their food with great relish! Even the nobles who had finished selecting their stout men and had come to await orders before Zhu Youjian's presence were watching hungrily — was a white bun stuffed with meat really that delicious? If they survived this, and didn't end up in the Imperial Prison, they'd be content to have a meat-stuffed bun to eat from then on.

"Trying to run?" Zhu Youjian stuffed the last bit of bun into his mouth, clapped his hands, and said with a smile, "Not so easy!"

His eyes blazed as he swept his gaze over the nobles present. "Your chance to serve the court has come. We will lead you to kill the caitiffs!"

As he spoke, he shouted, "Zhang Fengyi, Yuan Chonghuan, Hong Chengchou, Hei Yunlong, Zhao Shuaijiao, He Kegang — where are you?"

The Zhu emperor had named six civil and military officials in one breath.

All six were at the little emperor's side. They immediately stepped forward, formed ranks, and saluted.

Zhu Youjian said, "Hei Yunlong and Zhao Shuaijiao, you two will lead the main body of the Headquarters Army and the Ji-Liao cavalry in the vanguard. Zhang Fengyi and Hong Chengchou, you two will lead the Capital Camp elite behind the cavalry. Yuan Chonghuan and He Kegang, you two will lead the Ji-Liao infantry and set out last!"

"In addition, Zu Dashou, the Capital Camp Commander, and all Vice Regional Commanders will each lead their household retainers and accompany Us as the army's vanguard. We shall all go together to chase Hong Taiji! We must not let Hong Taiji escape — We still intend to fight three hundred rounds with him!"

What? The Emperor charging in the vanguard to chase Hong Taiji?

The people of the Headquarters Army system were used to it — the little emperor's black guns were the best under heaven! He was surely scheming to ambush Hong Taiji again!

But everyone else was terrified, and they dropped to their knees in a rustling wave.

"You must not!"

"The slave-bandits are fierce and cruel."

"Your Majesty's body is worth ten thousand in gold."

Zhu Youjian waved his hand grandly. "Enough talk. This is not Our first time taking the field to kill the enemy! And don't be afraid — the slave-bandits aren't actually that formidable."

Right — they can't stand up to the truly effective Lumi muskets.

He glared at Zhu Chunchen and the others. "Go quickly and muster your brave men. Each man is to have two horses, three days' rations, and fine fodder. Assemble here in half an hour. Anyone late shall be executed on the spot without mercy!"

At the front, no one dared defy Zhu Youjian's imperial command — he really would kill people! And those seven great Capital Camp nobles — Zhu Chunchen, Zhao Zhilong, Zhu Guobi, Li Shouqi, Li Zunzu, Liu Kongzhao, and Xu Yunzhen — every one of them "owed their lives."

If they didn't put in real effort, Zhu Youjian had far too many reasons to kill them!

So in less than half an hour, the seven nobles had scraped together over a thousand "brave men" with faces like the dead and brought them before Zhu Youjian. Zu Kefa arrived alone with more than a thousand tough, strong household retainers — earlier than the nobles, even. Zhu Youjian himself, with over a hundred young personal guards, plus a regiment of Headquarters cavalry under Sun Chuanting, was also ready.

By this time it was the evening of the first day of the tenth month of the first year of Chongzhen. It was almost dark, but the weather was fine, cloudless for ten thousand li — a good time for a night battle.

"March!" Zhu Youjian roared. "Go kill the slave-bandits, kill Hong Taiji!"

The group of Headquarters cavalry immediately took up the shout: "Kill the slaves, kill Hong Taiji!"

Then they saw Zhu Youjian, already fully armored, be the first to swing into the saddle. Leading his hundred-odd young personal guards, under the gaze of tens of thousands of Capital Camp, Ji-Liao, and Headquarters Army officers and men, he was the first out of the main camp, heading toward the Wenyu River to the north.

The Son of Heaven really was leading the charge, taking the field at the head of his troops!

By the time the stunned officers and men recovered their wits, shouts of "Ten thousand years!" thundered across the plain south of the Wenyu River!

(End of Chapter)