Chapter 244: Fight, Nobles!

Inside the city of Nanjing, the killing formation aimed at Zhu Ci was also quietly unfolding.

A clarification is needed here: not all the noble houses of the Southern Capital were especially eager to stake their lives against Zhu Ci. Although everyone hated Zhu Ci for seizing their benefits, the amount of benefits seized varied from house to house. A number of noble houses whose titles had been passed down unbroken since the reigns of Taizu and Chengzu were powerful and held many benefits, so naturally they had the capital to resist.

Another portion of the nobles were those first enfeoffed in the Taizu era, whose lines had later been interrupted for various reasons and only renewed in the Jiajing era with descendants of meritorious officials — men such as Huaiyuan Marquis Chang Yanling, Lingbi Marquis Tang Guozuo, and Chengyi Count Liu Kongzhao. Precisely because their titles had been renewed so late, the benefits of the southeastern guard stations had already been divided up by others, and they could not get a foot in at all; the salt profits allotted to them were also meager, so naturally they had nothing worth defending with the lives of their entire families. At the critical moment, they would either simply flee or play the turtle, shutting their gates and staying inside.

So those now gathered in a secluded garden belonging to the Xu family inside the Guanyin Gate of Nanjing's rather desolate outer city to take part in the conspiracy were Xu Hongji, Zhao Zhilong, Xu Yunjue, Xu Yongji, Liu Zuochang, Guo Zuoyong, as well as Huang Shu and Lu Jiude, who had just arrived from Fengyang; the former Minister of the Nanjing Ministry of Personnel, the seventy-year-old veteran official Zhang Shenyan; and the Nanjing garrison eunuch Han Zanzhou.

Zhang Shenyan and Han Zanzhou were both true loyalists. Even after receiving the Chongzhen Emperor's pointers in Yangzhou, upon returning to Nanjing they still threw themselves without hesitation into the cause of "protecting His Majesty and ruining the Great Ming."

"Greed, debauchery, unfilial conduct, bloodlust, cunning, tyranny, and heresy — the Crown Prince has seven great offenses in all. Even with the merit of escorting His Majesty on the southern tour, they are not enough to offset his offenses. Moreover, he bears the crime of holding his father hostage and driving out his brother — in any dynasty, that would warrant deposition. As for the matter of His Majesty having no son by his side, there is no need to worry: there is already word of the Prince of Yong and the Fifth Prince, and they can be ransomed back from the roving bandits. Furthermore, a chosen consort beside the Son of Heaven is already pregnant, and may well give birth to a prince."

The one speaking was the white-haired, white-bearded, thoroughly upright veteran official Zhang Shenyan. The Six Ministries of Nanjing had by now been abolished, and the great majority of their officials had either been reassigned, were awaiting appointment, or had simply gone home to retire.

This old minister, who had entered official service in the Wanli era and served through the four reigns of Wanli, Taichang, Tianqi, and Chongzhen, had been forced to remain in Nanjing because of his advanced age and poor health, and because his native Shanxi had been occupied by Li Zicheng. And because he had been close to Zhao Nanxing, the former leader of the Donglin Faction, he too was regarded as a Donglin man, and was on good terms with the Donglin and Restoration Society gentlemen of Nanjing. After making a circuit through Yangzhou, he had seen through Zhu Ci's true face and formally endorsed the seven crimes Huang Shu had summed up against Zhu Ci.

With the certification of Zhang Shenyan, Master of Miaoshan, Zhu Ci's identity as a wicked Crown Prince was now nailed down beyond dispute!

"The old gentleman speaks truly!" Huang Shu, who had just arrived back in Nanjing travel-worn, nodded smugly. "Supreme Commander Ma and Commander Huang have already marched south with six thousand picked troops and will reach Nanjing soon! Inside Nanjing there are also Commander Zhao's and Commander Guo's troops, the household retainers of the Duke of Wei's estate, and men mustered from all the houses — sixty thousand in all! And the Southern Capital's scholarly world supports us too! These past days, the scholars and talents have all hated the Crown Prince for his unfilial and disloyal conduct, and all wish to be rid of him as quickly as possible!"

Zhang Shenyan stroked his snow-white beard and nodded gently. "Depose him, yes — but do not take his life."

"The old gentleman is right." Since the old gentleman had spoken, Zhao Zhilong had no choice but to nod along. "It is only that the Crown Prince also has some troops, and when the time comes he will most likely resist. Swords and spears have no eyes—"

"Does Commander Zhao actually mean to fight?" Zhang Shenyan fixed his eyes on Zhao Zhilong. "Since you know swords and spears have no eyes, are you not afraid of harming His Majesty? If anything should happen to His Majesty, our crime would be one that ten thousand deaths could not redeem!"

"But if we don't fight—" Zhao Zhilong was taken aback. "How is this matter to be settled without fighting?"

Zhang Shenyan said, "We must not fight. We can only coerce."

"Coerce?" Zhao Zhilong asked. "How do we coerce?"

Zhang Shenyan said, "Naturally, by displaying a killing formation that makes death certain, so as to force him to repent and return governance to His Majesty!"

"But what is a killing formation that makes death certain?"

After hearing Zhang Shenyan's words, Zhao Zhilong was still utterly baffled. His ability as Nanjing Commander to lead troops was, frankly, a notch below that of Beijing Commanders Zhu Chunchen and Li Guozhen — to say nothing of fighting against Wu Xiang and Wu Sanfu, that father-and-son pair who had crawled out of heaps of corpses.

With his meager ability, what killing formation could he possibly set up?

Cough, cough, cough—

Old Xu's coughing suddenly rang out, and then the old man spoke: "A killing formation that makes death certain is not so hard. If the Crown Prince does not enter the city of Nanjing, he may be hard to deal with. But once he enters the city, it is our world! With the fewer than twenty thousand troops he brings, can he stand against our sixty thousand and more?"

"My Lord Duke, if you have some brilliant stratagem, out with it!" Zhao Zhilong looked at Xu Hongji, who might well be muddled by illness, but could not very well snap at him, so he played along and asked him to produce a plan.

Old Xu stroked his beard and asked, "The Crown Prince's party is traveling by land this time, is it not?"

"They are traveling by land," Han Zanzhou said. "First crossing the Yangtze at Guazhou, then taking the main road between Zhenjiang and Yingtian to enter the capital."

Old Xu chuckled. "If they take the main road, they must enter through the Qilin Gate or the Crane Gate in the southeast of the outer wall, then proceed along the outer wall of the Xiaoling Mausoleum toward the Chaoyang Gate. Once through the Chaoyang Gate, they are at the imperial city.

And midway along the route by which the imperial carriage enters the Chaoyang Gate, there is Purple Mountain and the Xiaoling Guard to the north, the Great Sacrifice Altar and the mountains and rivers to the south, the Chaoyang Gate barbican to the west, and the channel of the Qinhuai River to the east. So long as we deploy our picked troops at Purple Mountain, the Xiaoling Guard, the Great Sacrifice Altar, the mountains and rivers, and the Chaoyang Gate, and secretly plant death-sworn men along the Qinhuai River — then when the Crown Prince's and His Majesty's carriages enter that space, we strike all at once. Why should we fear we cannot force the Crown Prince to return governance?"

Zhao Zhilong nodded. "If it can truly be done, then victory is certain. I only fear the Crown Prince will not take the bait! The Crown Prince is known for cunning and savagery, and we have been stirring up trouble in Jinling for so many days — would he know nothing of it? Would he fall for it so easily?"

Xu Hongji stroked his beard. "If he does not take the bait, we simply withdraw our troops into the inner city. With the strong walls of Nanjing, we can stand against him! So long as the General Who Pacifies Bandits is willing to come east down the river, we still have a chance of victory."

"The Lord Duke speaks truly!" Huang Shu took up the thread. "This humble official is on close terms with the General Who Pacifies Bandits, and can make a trip to Wuchang to urge him to send troops to purge the wicked ministers around the throne."

"But the General Who Pacifies Bandits has already gone over to the Crown Prince," Han Zanzhou reminded him. "The Crown Prince has even enfeoffed the General Who Pacifies Bandits as the Border Marquis of Wuchang, and given him half of Huguang."

"Ha ha ha," Huang Shu laughed loudly. "The Crown Prince is openly rewarding him while covertly stripping him! Right now the whole province of Huguang is the General Who Pacifies Bandits' territory, yet the Crown Prince has handed over southern Huguang to He Tengjiao and the Huaiyuan Marquis to administer, and has also stationed the Chengyi Count at Jiujiang — plainly he does not trust the General Who Pacifies Bandits.

As for the Border Marquis title and the rest, it is all empty. It would have been more practical to reward him with a few hundred thousand taels of silver! The Crown Prince has squeezed so much out of Yangzhou and Huai'an, yet he does not even think to share a little with the General Who Pacifies Bandits. How shortsighted!"

"It is not only the General Who Pacifies Bandits who has gotten nothing — Huang the Raider has gotten nothing either." Lu Jiude, the Fengyang garrison eunuch, broke in. "The Crown Prince has only said that Military Commissioner Ma should raise military funds in Fengyang Prefecture. That is plainly meant to starve Huang the Raider's thirty thousand troops to death!"

Huang Shu declared loudly, "With the help of the General Who Pacifies Bandits and Commander Huang, even if war breaks out in Nanjing, victory is certain for us!"

"Right!" Old Xu nodded heavily. "We hold the strong city of Nanjing in our hands, we have two garrisons of relief troops outside, and we also have the righteous cause of rallying to the throne. Even if the Crown Prince has twenty thousand new troops, what can he do to us?"

But Zhao Zhilong's brows remained tightly knit. "Yet when His Majesty and the Crown Prince arrive, we are supposed to go out of the city to greet them. If the Crown Prince seizes the moment when we are out of the city offering welcome to arrest us, what do we do?"

That was indeed a problem!

Zhang Shenyan smiled at this. "That is easily handled. This old man is the head of the Nanjing civil officials; the Commander, as Nanjing garrison commander, is the head of the Nanjing nobles; Eunuch Han is the Nanjing garrison eunuch. So long as the three of us go out, the other houses can each send someone to make do. Eunuch Han, what do you think?"

Han Zanzhou said loudly, "This servant is not afraid!"

Zhao Zhilong looked at the two fearless men before him and thought to himself: I'm not afraid either! I have long been an undercover agent. If the Crown Prince sees through the Nanjing nobles' plot, then I am a loyal subject as an undercover agent; if he does not see through it, then I am a loyal subject of His Majesty. I am truly too clever!