Chapter 198: Discovering a Foolish Surrender Faction

"A surrender memorial?" Zhu Chunjie was taken aback. "A roving-bandit general has to submit a memorial to surrender? These roving bandits really do observe the formalities."

Zhu Cilang waved a hand and laughed. "It wasn't Chen Yingyuan who submitted the surrender memorial — what memorial would he submit? With Li Yan and the Red Lady vouching for him, that counts for more than any memorial."

"Then whose memorial was it?" Zhu Chunjie asked, puzzled.

"The Prince of Heng's surrender memorial!" Zhu Cilang's smile was positively radiant. "Zhu Youju submitted a surrender memorial to Li Zicheng back in April, hoping to remain Prince of Heng under the Shun dynasty! The memorial never got sent out in time, because Li Zicheng's fortunes collapsed. When Li Yan went to win over Chen Yingyuan, Chen Yingyuan produced the surrender memorial.

Now that Chen Yingyuan has come over to us, we have a bit of strength in Qingzhou! It's only three thousand men, but it's not a force Li Shiyuan can defeat. What's more, we now have ironclad proof that the Heng princely establishment colluded with the enemy, which gives us the pretext to bring the Heng princely establishment to heel."

This Prince of Heng really is a fool! Zhu Chunjie thought to himself. He surrendered blindly without reading the situation, and then left the incriminating evidence in the Crown Prince's hands — how could that possibly end well?

"Thousand Years, how do you intend to deal with the Prince of Heng?" Zhu Chunjie asked.

Zhu Cilang smiled. "The man hasn't been captured yet, so let's not think about dealing with him for now. Yidu is a strong city, and the Heng princely establishment has passed through eight generations over more than a hundred and fifty years, so it ought to have considerable reserves. And Li Shiyuan, who assists the Heng establishment in defending the city, is a tiger of a general. We have no wish to bog our troops down beneath the walls of Yidu."

"Thousand Years, this subject can devise a stratagem to take the Heng princely establishment."

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Very well. Go draft a plan and send it to Penglai Pavilion."

"This subject obeys." Zhu Chunjie saluted and was about to take his leave when Zhu Cilang added, "Chunjie, keep watching Yanzhou, but don't startle the snake."

"This subject obeys."

Zhu Cilang continued, "As for the Heng princely establishment, find a way to take it by stratagem. Whatever method you use, you must bring Zhu Youju to Us. Remember — a secret arrest, without the slightest show, and you must not harm a single hair on his head."

"This subject obeys! This subject will set to work on a plan at once!"

Inside the barbican at Yidu's east gate, the Prince of Heng, Zhu Youju, sat his obese frame in a chair, a yellow canopy held over his head. His fat face was screwed into a knot, beaded with large drops of sweat that he did not bother to wipe away, and he simply sat there sighing without cease.

Several hundred armored soldiers, fully arrayed, stood in formation behind him, waiting in silence.

A crowd of imperial-clan officials and gentry in official robes and scholars' gowns also clustered behind the great fat Prince of Heng, baking in the sun, every one of them ill at ease.

Li Shiyuan, the Qingzhou Sub-Prefecture Assistant Regional Commander, stood black-faced behind the fat Prince of Heng, his left hand gripping the hilt of his waist saber.

The Prince of Heng's sighs, the unease of the Qingzhou imperial-clan officials and gentry, and Li Shiyuan's ever-darkening face — all of it was the doing of that bizarre prince, Zhu Youju of the Heng princely establishment.

As a Ming princely establishment prince, Zhu Youju seemed to have a peculiar enthusiasm for surrender — and what was more, he had no desire to become Emperor or even Regent.

In April of this year, after word arrived that Beijing had fallen, a movement to acclaim and urge him forward had sprung up in Qingzhou, led by Assistant Regional Commander Li Shiyuan. Apart from his fondness for surrender, this prince was passable enough in other respects — in particular, he was loose with money, and had given Li Shiyuan and the others no small amount of silver to raise troops. So Li Shiyuan reckoned the prince could at least serve as Regent.

But the Prince of Heng absolutely refused to serve as Regent, let alone take any further step.

Refusing the regency was one thing, but then he sent men to beg Li Zicheng for permission to surrender!

You are a prince of the Great Ming! If you were surrounded by a roving-bandit army with no way out, surrendering to beg for your life would be one thing. But Qingzhou was not surrounded! If you were afraid of death, you could perfectly well have fled like the Prince of Lu, Zhu Yihai.

Why the desperate haste to beg Li Zicheng for surrender? And he went behind the backs of Li Shiyuan and the city's defending officers to do it, creating a fait accompli so that everyone had no choice but to surrender along with him.

Of course, a prince of a fallen dynasty surrendering to save his skin is no great crime, and it would not be enough to leave a whole city's officials and gentry so uneasy. The Heng establishment's offense was surrendering in frantic haste without reading the situation!

As it turned out, the surrender memorial had barely been sent off when Li Zicheng lost Beijing and fled for his life. At the same time, the "missing" Chongzhen Emperor and Crown Prince Zhu Cilang arrived in Dengzhou at the head of a great army.

It was enough to make one not know whether to laugh or cry. Li Shiyuan and his lot — Ming officers and men who had been turned into twice-serving traitors by the Heng establishment — immediately turned their coats again, and even defeated the roving-bandit force that had entered Qingzhou. Though the victory was not great (Li Shiyuan did not know he had killed a major roving-bandit general), Yidu was at last secure.

But the roving bandits defeated by Li Shiyuan did not return to Jinan, because Jinan had been occupied by Gao Jie and Liu Zeqing, who were pushing north. With no way of escape, Chen Yingyuan's roving-bandit force somehow found a connection and was actually recruited by the Dengzhou side. One truly did not know what to say! Ming twice-serving traitors met roving-bandit twice-serving traitors — each more of a turncoat than the last.

And the matter of Zhu Youju and his people surrendering to the Shun — the Shun turncoat Zhao Yingyuan knew about it. Whether he would denounce the Heng establishment's crimes to the Crown Prince, no one knew.

If he did denounce them, how would the Army-Supervising Crown Prince deal with it? And how should the Heng establishment respond? Surely they could not shut the gates and resist?

A Ming princely establishment prince becomes a loyal subject of the Shun, and then the Crown Prince sends turncoats who surrendered from the Shun to suppress him?

The very thought of it was awkward! But awkward or not, shutting the gates and resisting was not entirely out of the question. Because things were a little off at the mobile court as well — there was clearly a sage sovereign on the throne, yet all power rested with the Army-Supervising Crown Prince! That did not accord with the ancestral institutions! So the Heng establishment's shutting its gates in resistance seemed to have some basis after all.

And in Yanzhou, there seemed to be people brewing a movement to restore the sage sovereign's authority. So the Heng establishment and the assembled officials in Yidu might perhaps be able to hold out for a while.

Just as the people of consequence in Yidu were all on edge, an envoy from Dengzhou arrived in Yidu, bringing news that set hearts trembling even more.

The Dengzhou side had appointed Hou Xun, Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion and Minister of War, as Governor-General of the Seven Provinces, to lead troops and recover Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Huguang, Sichuan, and the other regions occupied by the roving bandits — and he would be passing through Yidu.

A Grand Secretary and Supreme Commander marching to war, passing through! The civil and military officials of Yidu and the princely establishment would all have to go out to greet him. And Supreme Commander Hou was a Donglin grandee, a figure on a par with Qian Qianyi and Shi Kefa. Now he was leading troops to recover lost territory — how could the Heng establishment and Li Shiyuan dare resist?

But would Grand Secretary and Supreme Commander Hou Xun be carrying a secret edict to arrest the Prince of Heng and the Qingzhou officials? The crowd waiting in the barbican at Yidu's east gate was thoroughly uneasy!

They had stood baking in the sun for who knew how long, until the sun had gradually crept toward its zenith, when at last they saw the dozen or so fast riders sent out to greet the approaching party come racing back, bringing with them several mounted couriers in mandarin-duck battle jackets with signal flags at their backs. The lead rider was one of Li Shiyuan's household retainers, and from afar he shouted toward Yidu's east gate: "The Grand Secretary and Supreme Commander will not enter the city! The Grand Secretary and Supreme Commander will not enter Yidu! He only requests the city-defending Assistant Regional Commander, Master Li, to come and pay his respects!"

Not entering the city?

Wonderful!

The Prince of Heng, Zhu Youju, let out a great breath, wiped the sweat from his face, and turned to Li Shiyuan. "Assistant Regional Commander Li, go on this errand for Us. Remember to bring all the gifts and deliver them to Grand Secretary Hou."

Li Shiyuan, too, relaxed a little. Though he had been made a twice-serving traitor by the Heng establishment, his troops were all paid and kept by the Heng establishment's money, so he could not be too hard on them.

And now, no one coming after the Heng establishment was good news indeed!

"This humble general will go and return shortly." Li Shiyuan clasped his hands to the Prince of Heng, then set off westward with several dozen household retainers, escorting more than ten carts of gifts. They had gone less than twenty li when they sighted a newly pitched military camp. Soldiers in red battle robes were either patrolling in all directions or building ramparts and setting up camp, in such good order that it far exceeded anything Li Shiyuan had imagined.

Just as Li Shiyuan was marveling, a company of Embroidered Uniform Guard in flying-fish robes suddenly emerged from the main camp with two or three hundred musketeers. At their head was a Guard officer in his twenties with a commanding bearing, who called out upon seeing Li Shiyuan and his party: "Which of you is Li Shiyuan, Qingzhou Sub-Prefecture Assistant Regional Commander? The Army-Supervising Crown Prince, His Highness, requests your presence!"

What? The Army-Supervising Crown Prince requests my presence? Li Shiyuan knew at once that things had gone badly wrong — he had fallen into the Crown Prince's trap! He glanced left and right: the security was formidable indeed. Escape was clearly impossible. He could only let down His Highness the Prince of Heng.

(End of Chapter)