Chapter 181: The Loyal Minister Shi Kefa (Seeking Subscriptions, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

South Zhili, Xuzhou, Pei County.

The dilapidated Pei County yamen had by this time raised the great banner of the Nanjing Minister of War, Advisor on Confidential Military Affairs.

The small county town had also become a military town crowded with soldiers and officers, and column after column of government troops in mandarin-duck battle jackets, bearing all manner of weapons, were disembarking from grain-transport junks at the canal wharf outside Pei County, then forming up and marching into the town.

Horse carts and mule carts loaded with baggage and provisions also rumbled along the official road and entered Pei County, the northernmost county town of South Zhili.

The whole of Pei County had clearly become the main base of this army that had marched north from Nanjing to rally to the throne.

Shi Kefa, the Ming Advisor on Confidential Military Affairs and Nanjing Minister of War — a black-faced man of righteous bearing, in his forties, of medium build — stood in a python robe on a height near Jingoukou south of Pei County, hands clasped behind his back, gazing eastward. Beside him was a military officer in his twenties, his adopted son Shi Dewei. From time to time dispatch riders galloped up from the direction of Pei County, loudly reporting the arrival and encampment of the troops. Shi Dewei carried brush and notebook with him and recorded the reports on the spot, and after jotting down a few items he would show them to Shi Kefa.

Shi Kefa merely swept his eyes over them, showing little interest, then turned his gaze north again.

Just then, a relay horse came galloping up the eastern official road. Shi Kefa's personal guards were posted by the roadside and stopped the relay horse. Seeing this, Shi Dewei immediately descended the height, ran over to the halted relay horse, presented his command token, and only then took a stack of documents, turned, and climbed back up the height.

"Father, it is all the Capital Gazette."

"Quick, bring it here for me to see." Shi Kefa hastily took the stack of copied gazettes and began reading them one by one on the height. After reading a few pages, he suddenly let out a sound: "Eh?"

"Father," Shi Dewei asked, "what is it?"

"Another victory report!"

"A victory report? What is so strange about that? These days victory reports have been coming thick and fast!"

"But this victory report is not right!" Shi Kefa shook his head. "It says they defeated the Manchu Tartars and took three thousand heads! That is far too boastful. Take a look."

Shi Dewei took the gazette Shi Kefa handed him, looked it over, and his brow furrowed. He said in a low voice, "How did we come to blows with the Manchu Tartars? Yesterday, did they not say peace talks were still underway?"

"I knew a peace settlement would be hard to reach!" Shi Kefa shook his head. "How would the Manchu Tartars be willing to withdraw beyond the passes for a little annual tribute? If they wanted peace to succeed, ceding Yan and Yun would be the minimum — perhaps even everything north of the Yellow River!"

"How could we possibly cede that much land?" Shi Dewei shook his head. "Father, what do we do now?"

"What can we do?" Shi Kefa sighed. "We could barely cope with the roving bandits alone, and now there are the Manchu Tartars as well. I truly do not know how the Crown Prince, as Army-Pacifying Commander, is conducting his command!"

"Father." Shi Dewei looked at his adoptive father's grim face and said in a low voice, "The grand secretaries all support the Crown Prince! Grand Secretary Hou supports him too!"

Grand Secretary Hou was Hou Xun, a leading figure of the Donglin faction — and Shi Kefa was likewise a leading figure of the Donglin!

"Hou Ruogu has gone soft in the head from sitting in prison!" Shi Kefa said. "He has thrown away all sense of righteous principle."

If this conversation between Shi Kefa and his son Shi Dewei could have been heard by the Chongzhen Emperor, far away in Dengzhou, he would surely have been moved to tears — at last the Ming had a loyal minister!

And what was more, this loyal minister had in his hands a not-insignificant army of righteous volunteers rallied to the throne!

Shi Kefa had finished reading the gazettes and was about to descend the height for a stroll, and by the way to ponder the enormous problem of how to uphold a wise sovereign and rectify the order of the state, when he saw a dozen or more riders galloping from the direction of Pei County. The lead rider was a tall military officer in an arrow-robe; there was no need to look closely to know that it must be the Bandit-Suppression Regional Commander Gao Jie coming to pay his respects.

At this time the Ming still had four main forces on the Central Plains battlefield — the predecessors of what history would call the Four Garrisons of Jiangbei. They were: the Bandit-Suppression Regional Commander Gao Jie, stationed at Xuzhou; the Shandong Regional Commander Liu Zeqing, stationed at Huai'an; the Luzhou Regional Commander Huang Degong, stationed around Yongcheng in Henan; and the Jiangbei Regional Commander Liu Liangzuo, stationed around Zhengyang in Henan.

Among them, the Bandit-Suppression Regional Commander Gao Jie was the strongest, with nearly thirty thousand men. His core troops were all former elite roving bandits who, after surrendering to the Ming, had fought the roving bandits for nearly ten years under Hong Chengchou, He Renlong, and Sun Chuanting. Gao Jie himself had been promoted to Bandit-Suppression Regional Commander after Sun Chuanting died in battle and Bai Guang'en defected to the enemy, and he commanded Sun Chuanting's remaining forces to relieve Shanxi.

But Gao Jie had not dared to fight head-on against Li Zicheng, who was then at the height of his power. Instead he led his troops in a headlong flight south, all the way from Shanxi to Xuzhou in South Zhili, where he encountered Shi Kefa, who was leading his forces north to rally to the throne.

In the original course of history, Shi Kefa, as Nanjing Minister of War, had also attempted to organize an army to march north and rally to the throne. But before the army could set out, the dreadful news arrived that Beijing had fallen and Chongzhen had died for his country — so there was no longer a throne to rally to.

But now, although Beijing was lost, the sovereign still lived, so they had to go and "rally"!

And so on the first day of the fifth month, Shi Kefa led his hard-scraped-together army in a solemn oath and marched north. No sooner had they crossed the Yangtze than victory reports began pouring in. It was not that Shi Kefa had won any battles, but that the brilliant and martial Army-Pacifying Crown Prince Zhu Cilang was using troops with divine skill and winning every battle! First he had twice defeated the roving bandits at Tianjin, and then came the joyous news of the great victory at Shanhai Pass, where the combined Ming-Qing forces had smashed Li Zicheng's army of two hundred thousand.

And then it became even more extraordinary! The government troops who had previously been beaten into headlong flight by Li Zicheng all began to swagger again, launching counterattacks all across the region north of the Huai River. Victory reports flew to Shi Kefa like snowflakes, and Minister Shi was overjoyed.

And as Bandit-Suppression Regional Commander, Gao Jie naturally could not lag behind. While waiting for the main body of Shi Kefa's throne-rallying army, he had ordered his subordinate commanders Li Chengdong, Hu Maozhen, and Li Benshen to strike toward Shandong, and they had already taken considerable territory. Now he was riding out of Pei County in high spirits to see Shi Kefa — surely he had received another victory report of his subordinates recovering a major city.

"Grand Marshal," Gao Jie called out cheerfully, cupping his hands toward Shi Kefa before he had even dismounted, "good news — the prefectural seat of Yanzhou and Qufu County have both been recovered!"

"Oh, is that so?" Shi Kefa's face broke into a smile, then he frowned slightly. "Qufu is the hometown of Confucius — there must be no disturbance there!"

"Rest assured, Grand Marshal, this subordinate knows where to draw the line." Gao Jie dismounted, walked up to Shi Kefa, and respectfully performed a full kowtow.

In the original course of history, by the fifth month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Gao Jie would long since have had his tail in the air — how could he have shown such respect to Shi Kefa?

But the situation was different now. Not only was Chongzhen still alive, but there was also a Crown Prince who could fight and win, and in the Crown Prince's hands was a hard-won new army that seemed quite capable in battle. So Gao Jie did not dare act arrogantly in front of Shi Kefa.

"As long as Qufu is undisturbed, that is enough." Shi Kefa nodded, stepped forward to help Gao Jie up, then took him by the hand and walked toward Pei County.

"Grand Marshal," Gao Jie, who was adept at reading faces, had already noticed that Shi Kefa's dark face was full of worry, and so he too furrowed his brow. "Still troubled over the matter of the Crown Prince's command?"

The officials in Nanjing now also knew that when the Crown Prince Zhu Cilang had been surrounded by roving bandits in Beijing, he had left the palace to take command of the army, and had thereby seized supreme power and sidelined the Chongzhen Emperor.

To the officials and ennobled families who had fled Beijing, this seemed nothing out of the ordinary — the Crown Prince had received his mandate from the Great Ancestor, the Exalted Emperor, and had taken over supreme power in a time of crisis, turning back the tide. This was truly a blessing for the Ming!

Now they were simply waiting for the court to arrive at the auxiliary capital and carry out an internal abdication, so that the brilliant and martial Crown Prince could take over the throne ahead of schedule and become emperor.

But in the eyes of the grand ministers and ennobled families in Nanjing, what the Crown Prince had done was nothing short of rebellion! This was the prelude to usurping the throne!

Although Zhu Cilang was the rightful foundation of the Ming state, as long as the Chongzhen Emperor lived, he was still a subject-son, and Chongzhen was sovereign and father. Now that the subject-son had sidelined the sovereign-father, he was a traitorous minister and an unfilial son.

So here in the auxiliary capital of Nanjing, quite a few people were clamoring for the Crown Prince to return power to Chongzhen!

Gao Jie's ears and eyes were very sharp, and he naturally knew the prevailing opinion in Nanjing. Moreover, he wanted to profit from it — whether by supporting the Crown Prince or supporting Chongzhen, there would surely be benefits either way!

So after meeting Shi Kefa, he probed for Shi Kefa's true position at every opportunity.

"See for yourself!" Shi Kefa pulled out the gazette reporting the great victory at Dagukou. "We are at war with the Manchu Tartars!"

(End of Chapter)