Chapter 235: Hand Over Your Military Authority — Now!

Wang Zhiren had been in a rather good mood these days — until two days ago, when word reached Suzhou that Jiang Yuntai, the Regional Commander of Zhenjiang, had been defeated and killed!

He and Jiang Yuntai were not particularly close, but because their situations were much alike, he felt the fox's grief at the hare's death. Though he had served in the army for many years and risen to the rank of Commander, he was not like Gao Jie or Huang Degong, commanders who had fought their way up blade by blade and shot by shot. He had climbed step by step through the patronage of his cousin Wang Zhixin, rising from a junior officer in the Capital Camps to Regional Commander of Suzhou and Songjiang.

Suzhou and Songjiang were the richest region under heaven. There were no roving bandits nearby and no Tartars; the only threat was Gu Sanmazi, the river pirate at the mouth of the Yangtze.

But a river pirate like Gu Sanmazi was a "rich bandit," not the sort of desperate, vicious outlaw. His bandit's life goal was not to rob a mouthful of food just to stay alive, but to block the river, collect tolls, and angle for amnesty and official rank — first get rich, then become an official, and be the Zheng Zhilong of the Yangtze.

Bandits of that sort would never come and break open Suzhou Prefecture or Songjiang Prefecture. At most they would harass the shoreline a little, as bargaining chips for their amnesty.

So Wang Zhiren's main work in his Suzhou-Songjiang post was covering for smuggling — and he took in no small amount of money from great sea merchants like Zheng Zhilong and Shen Tingyang!

Would those great sea merchants really send him money?

Of course they would!

He controlled the defense of the two prefectures of Suzhou and Songjiang, and he held the mouth of the Yangtze where it entered the sea!

Whether it was porcelain from Jingdezhen, silk and cotton cloth from Nanjing, Yangzhou, and Suzhou, or salt from the two prefectures of Huai'an and Yangzhou — anything that wanted to be shipped out through the Yangtze estuary had to pass Wang Zhiren's checkpoint!

If he blocked the way and refused passage, would Zheng Zhilong or Shen Tingyang send armed fleets to fight him? That would mean tearing off all pretense and open rebellion.

So in his post as Regional Commander of Suzhou and Songjiang, he had scooped up money until the basin overflowed. But before Beijing fell in the third month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the money he scooped had to be shared with a great many people! What actually landed in his own pocket was not much.

After the fall of Beijing, however, there was truly no one to oversee him and no one to ask questions! Not only could he put all the money he scooped into his own pocket, he could also appoint his own subordinates and recruit his own troops — he was every inch a local hegemon. Even the prefects of Suzhou and Songjiang, who had once held authority over him, no longer needed to be heeded.

Everyone kept to their own wells and rivers, each scooping their own money, and that was that!

Even when the traveling court moved south to Yangzhou, Wang Zhiren's good days still did not change. A court that had fled Beijing no longer had its former authority, and moreover, a rift had opened between the traveling court and the Nanjing garrison command.

In the view of him, his trusted aides, and his private advisers, this was the time to hold out for the highest bidder! Both the traveling court and the Nanjing side would surely want to win over a great warlord like him, sitting on troops and entrenched in Suzhou and Songjiang, would they not? His demands were not high; he would be satisfied if he could just go on scooping for a few more years in his Suzhou-Songjiang territory.

And the Nanjing garrison command did indeed do as he wished, ordering him to hold Suzhou and Songjiang, protect the region and pacify the people, guard against sea pirates, and not leave his post without authorization. Just as he was waiting for the traveling court to send someone to win him over, the bad news arrived.

The traveling court stationed at Yangzhou had suddenly struck hard at Jiang Yuntai, the Regional Commander of Zhenjiang!

Five thousand arquebusiers and fifteen hundred cavalry crossed the Yangtze from Guazhou, landed at Jinshan, and then surged straight for the city of Zhenjiang in formidable array.

Jiang Yuntai, the Regional Commander of Zhenjiang, lost his head in the crisis and actually ordered his troops to shut the gates and resist!

But no sooner had his men closed the city gates than they were terrified by the murderous ironclad cavalry and arquebusiers. After a volley of arquebus fire, the soldiers defending the walls either fled or surrendered, and some opened the gates to welcome the attackers.

Jiang Yuntai, the Regional Commander of Zhenjiang, had no choice but to flee with his family, hoping to take refuge in Wang Zhiren's territory. In the end he was quickly overtaken by the Crown Prince's iron cavalry, and his whole family, old and young, was taken to Yangzhou. Most likely their fate was grim!

Wang Zhiren knew that Jiang Yuntai had also sent gifts to the traveling court, and like him, had been thinking of holding out for the highest bidder between Nanjing and Yangzhou. He had never imagined that the traveling court would not even make an offer — they sent troops!

And the troops they sent were ones that could really fight!

Just as Wang Zhiren was so frantic he did not know what to do, a courier came from the Zhenjiang side, telling him to go to Baoshan Garrison and await his cousin Wang Zhixin.

This time Wang Zhixin bore an imperial commission: he had come to deliver the decree of the Army-Pacifying Crown Prince!

"You — you've lost your head! Who do you think you are? Gao Jie? Huang Degong? Zuo Liangyu? Those men's commands were won in battle! Yours was gotten for you by me, pulling strings — can the two be the same? Come to think of it, that Jiang Yuntai was even a bit stronger than you! And what happened? In less than half a day he was finished — his house confiscated, his whole family hauled off to Yangzhou. Not a single male in his household will survive; all of them are to be beheaded! Beheaded!"

In a residence within the bounds of Baoshan Garrison, Wang Zhixin met his dazed cousin and let loose a torrent of abuse, laced with intimidation.

"Elder Cousin, don't frighten your younger brother," Wang Zhiren actually managed to keep his composure — he truly had some nerve. "Nowadays there are many garrison commanders in the four quarters just like me. Surely His Highness the Thousand Years is not going to kill us all?"

"You — you —" Wang Zhixin, stung by his cousin's retort, turned faintly blue with rage. "You muddle-headed fool! Of course His Highness the Thousand Years cannot kill them all! But his five thousand troops are marching this way toward Suzhou and Songjiang right now. If you dare resist, you will be the chicken killed to warn the monkeys! Do you want to be the chicken or the monkey?"

The chicken or the monkey? That was a question!

Wang Zhiren thought it over seriously, then answered: "Then I'll be the monkey!"

"Then pack up your naval forces and household retainers at once, and come with me to Yangzhou to plead guilty!" Wang Zhixin said. "Suzhou and Songjiang will be handed over to Governor Qiu to take charge."

This Governor Qiu Yu held great power — he governed the army when mounted and the people when dismounted! In these extraordinary times, when power needed to be delegated, it had to be delegated!

Therefore the governors he appointed — including Su Guansheng, Lu Zhenfei, Fang Gongyue, and the soon-to-be-appointed Qiu Yu — all held full authority over both military and civil affairs. Their jurisdictions, however, were not as large as a whole province; in fact each was just two prefectures.

Su Guansheng governed the two prefectures of Dengzhou and Laizhou; Lu Zhenfei governed the two prefectures of Huai'an and Yangzhou; Fang Gongyue governed the two prefectures of Zhenjiang and Changzhou; Qiu Yu governed the two prefectures of Suzhou and Songjiang. The territories were not large, but the authority was very high — all were Governors concurrently serving as Commanders-in-Chief! At the same time, each also concurrently served as Prefect of one prefecture.

Of course, although the posts of Governor and Regional Commander were held by one man, the two offices belonged to two different systems. Governor was a civil post, answerable upward to the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries. Regional Commander was a military post — that is, Regional Commander — answerable upward to the Army-Pacifying Grand Marshal's Office. The Governor's subordinates were the Provincial Administration Commissioner, the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner, and the Prefect. The Regional Commander's subordinates were the various guards under his jurisdiction and the land and naval corps assigned to the Regional Commander's headquarters.

Incidentally, the Huai'an-Yangzhou militia that Lu Zhenfei had raised would later be reorganized into the Huai'an-Yangzhou Naval Force, the First Division of the Overcoming-Hardship New Army, and the Huai'an-Yangzhou Patrol Brigade. Of these, the First Division of the Overcoming-Hardship New Army, with more than eight thousand men, would be directly controlled by the Grand Marshal's Office, and would rank as the sixth division, after the five divisions of the Overcoming-Hardship New Army: the Vanguard, Rear, Left, Center, and Right.

Wang Zhiren, who was about to lose his military authority, was unwilling to accept it. He looked at his cousin and asked: "Then what about my money..."

Wang Zhixin glared at his cousin: "His Highness the Thousand Years does not want your money, and he does not want your life. He wants only your military authority! But the lands you have seized in Suzhou and Songjiang — every last mu of them must be handed over!"

At the same time that Wang Zhiren was handing over military authority over the two prefectures of Suzhou and Songjiang to Qiu Yu, Huang Binqing on Zhoushan Island in Ningbo Prefecture was facing the same problem.

Lu Zhenfei and Zheng Sen arrived at Shenjiamen Harbor on Zhoushan Island aboard a sand ship of the Sand Ship Guild. They had come to persuade Huang Binqing to hand over his military authority, and then go to the traveling court to take up the post of Guard Commander of the Naval Guard.

The post of Guard Commander of the Naval Guard was not a small office, but its real power was not great. It was even inferior to Wu Xiang's and Cao Youyi's, because among the troops directly controlled by the Grand Marshal's Office there was no real "navy." The "navy" of Shen Tingyang, Governor-General of the Northern Seas, was specially contracted and not subject to the Naval Guard's command. Thus under the Naval Guard there were only two inland-river fleets: the Yangtze River Naval Force and the soon-to-be-established Huai'an-Yangzhou Naval Force.

The strength of these two fleets was of course very weak. The Huai'an-Yangzhou Naval Force had only grain-transport boats. And the Yangtze River Naval Force, apart from grain boats and sand ships, had only two centipede ships brought by Gu Sanmazi that had any combat capability.

Even if Huang Binqing were willing to hand over his eight hundred seafaring household retainers and two centipede ships, the Yangtze River Naval Force would still have only four centipede ships and sixteen hundred elite sailors of real combat value.

And the firearms on those four centipede ships combined amounted to only eight 12-pounder Hongyi cannon and one hundred sixty turtledove-foot arquebuses.

Yet Huang Binqing did not dare refuse to hand over his military authority, because Zheng Sen had arrived — and moreover, he was the senior fellow apprentice of Zhu Cilang, the Crown Prince. That made him trusted among the trusted!

Against Zhu Cilang alone, Huang Binqing might have dared to hold out, but with Zheng Zhilong, overlord of the Southern Seas and the Eastern Seas, added to the scale, he dared not resist.

Moreover, Zheng Sen had come on Zhu Cilang's behalf bearing generous terms for Huang Binqing: appointment as Guard Commander of the Naval Guard under the Grand Marshal's Office!

(End of Chapter)