Chapter 34: Li Zicheng's Pinnacle of Life (Seeking Recommendations)

"Damn it all, I've finally laid eyes on Beijing!"

The speaker was a man of thirty-four or thirty-five, tall, broad-shouldered, with prominent cheekbones, a strikingly full forehead, a high-bridged nose, and thick eyebrows. In his pair of deep-set eye sockets, only one large, piercing eye stared intently at the enormous fortress ahead, bathed in moonlight.

He wore the white pointed felt hat common among northwest peasants, its tip folded down. Since it was now mid-March by the lunar calendar, already nearing summer and rather warm, he wore only a half-worn blue cloth robe over his iron armor. To mark his special status, he had thrown a bright red cape over the robe.

He was not standing on the ground gazing at Beijing, but sat astride a tall, fine steed of deep gray with white dapples, its mane and tail cropped short.

This stalwart man was none other than the Roving King, Li Zicheng, standing at the pinnacle of his life!

Li Zicheng came from humble origins — a mere commoner from Mizhi in Shaanxi. In his childhood his family had been passably well off, so he had studied a few years at a village school and also learned some martial arts. But as he grew older, natural disasters and man-made calamities followed one after another, and his family's fortunes plummeted. Fortunately, because he could read and write and knew a bit of martial arts, he became a post-station runner. Though it would never make him rich, it at least kept him fed and clothed. He had no great complaints, and thought he could muddle through life that way.

Who could have known that the Great Ming would produce a Chongzhen Emperor so miserly it beggared belief? To save a few coppers, he abolished many post stations, and Li Zicheng lost his secure livelihood. Then, with no income and unable to repay his debts, he got into a fight with a juren from the same county and beat the man to death. After that, his wife committed adultery, and he killed her too. With two lives on his hands, Li Zicheng had no choice but to go with his nephew Li Guo to Gansu and join the army — the government army, of course — and he even managed to become a Company Commander.

If the Chongzhen Emperor had not favored Yuan Chonghuan, who killed Mao Wenlong and left Hong Taiji with no worries behind him, and if Hong Taiji had not bypassed the frontier through Rehe in the second year of Chongzhen to raid the capital, Li Zicheng might well have spent his whole life as a government soldier in Gansu, perhaps even rising to a middling military rank and becoming a loyal defender of the Great Ming. But the Jisi Incident happened, and the flustered court rushed troops from everywhere to relieve Beijing. No one knows how the planning went, but somehow even Li Zicheng's unit, far off in Gansu, was ordered to Beijing.

That in itself was nothing. If they had actually sent Li Zicheng to the capital to fight the Tartar scum, he might have been killed and become a Ming martyr. But the Ming court had no money — no money for mobilization pay, no money to make up back wages. The troops mutinied before they even marched out of Gansu, and Li Zicheng, who could have been a good government soldier of the Great Ming, became a rebel in that mutiny...

And so Li Zicheng, who could neither remain a post-station runner nor become a Ming martyr, found his life's purpose in the high-risk enterprise of rebellion, becoming an outstanding practitioner of the rebel's trade. After fifteen or sixteen years of bitter struggle, he had now not only founded a state and established a government, but also led tens of thousands of troops on a campaign that had smashed through cities and forts, swept across more than half of the Central Plain, and reached the walls of Beijing, the capital of the Great Ming.

Now he need only breach Beijing, and the Great Ming dynasty, which had ruled the realm for nearly three hundred years, would most likely come crashing down. A brand-new Shun dynasty would be born in Li Zicheng's hands.

Li Zicheng's career of rebellion would then reach its most perfect conclusion...

Final victory was at last in sight!

It was now the yin hour of the seventeenth day of the third month in the first year of Yongchang of the Shun — roughly three in the morning. The night before, with victory in sight, Li Zicheng had once again been unable to sleep. He had risen before the third watch, finished breakfast, and left his camp at Changping to march on Beijing. His temporary residence at Changping was a little over sixty li from the outer walls of Beijing. After riding for about one double-hour, he had already passed the Sha River, less than forty li from the city walls. The vast outer walls of Beijing were now faintly visible.

Yet the capital's walls, lit by the first light of dawn, looked tall and solid — beyond comparison with any mighty city Li Zicheng had ever seen before.

Although Li Zicheng had taken many great cities in recent years, few had actually fallen to direct assault. The cities that fell into the Roving King's hands either had hardly any defenders or surrendered of their own accord. When he met a strong city that resisted stubbornly — Kaifeng, for example — the Roving King's army had attacked three times in succession and suffered terribly, finally breaching the Yellow River dikes to flood Kaifeng before taking it. Li Zicheng's left eye had been shot out by a Ming arrow beneath the walls of Kaifeng, leaving him one-eyed.

And the defenses of the capital were plainly even stronger than Kaifeng's! Nor was there any Yellow River water to flood Beijing. As for the garrison surrendering — that surely could not happen... Defending Beijing were the Chongzhen Emperor himself and his Capital Camps troops! Would they surrender? Not likely, was it?

At the thought of a ruinously costly battle for Beijing, the Roving King Li Zicheng could not help turning his gaze to the long columns of high-spirited old-camp troops passing beside him. Li Zicheng's old-camp soldiers were dressed much like him: white felt hats, blue war robes, most on horseback, only a small portion on foot.

The "old camp" referred to the five elite camps organized for siege and field battle when Li Zicheng established his government at Xiangjing in the spring of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, reorganizing the various rebel armies. They were: the Central Authority Imperial Guard under General of Authority Liu Zongmin; the Left Camp under General of Control Liu Fangliang; the Right Camp under General of Control Yuan Zongdi; the Front Camp under General of Control Liu Xiyao; and the Rear Camp under General of Control Li Guo.

However, Li Zicheng had not brought all five elite camps with him. Yuan Zongdi's Right Camp had been dispatched to Huguang and Henan because of Zuo Liangyu's containment. And part of the Central Authority Imperial Guard under General of Authority Liu Zongmin, along with Liu Fangliang's Left Camp, had marched west out of the Taihang Mountains into northern Henan and the southern part of Northern Zhili, driving straight for Baoding to envelop the capital from the south.

So the old-camp troops now accompanying Li Zicheng consisted only of the Front and Rear Camps and part of the Central Authority Imperial Guard — a total of just over forty thousand men. In addition, there were newly attached troops led by surrendered Ming generals such as Tang Tong, Wang Chengyun, and Chen Yongfu, plus rebel bands and local brigands who had joined the Shun army along the march. The total strength was still only a bit over eighty thousand. Even after joining forces with Liu Zongmin and Liu Fangliang, Li Zicheng's total strength would barely exceed one hundred thousand.

If one hundred thousand troops stalled beneath the strong walls of Beijing and failed to take it, while Ming relief forces arrived one after another, the battle for Beijing would be full of uncertainties.

Li Zicheng's thoughts had already been read by a strategist dressed as a scholar riding beside him. The man spurred his horse forward, drew alongside Zicheng, and asked in a low voice, "Is Your Majesty worried that the capital's walls are too strong to take?"

Li Zicheng smiled. "Junen always knows Our mind. Have you any clever plan for taking the city?"

This strategist was named Gu Junen, a native of Zhongxiang in Huguang. The grand strategy Li Zicheng had adopted after establishing his government at Xiangjing — "First take Guanzhong, found the state and establish the enterprise; secure the three flanks; attack and seize Shanxi; then advance on the capital, with room to advance or retreat" — had been proposed by this very Gu Junen.

So far, this route to winning the realm still looked quite correct. Li Zicheng therefore trusted Gu Junen deeply and regarded him as a trusted inner-circle strategist.

"Your Majesty," Gu Junen said with a light laugh, "the art of war says: attacking cities is the lowest strategy; attacking minds is the highest. Since Your Majesty began the eastern campaign, nearly every great city has been taken by attacking minds. Only at Ningwu Pass did attacking minds fail, forcing a bloody assault on the city and causing heavy losses."

Li Zicheng nodded. "We too fear that what happened at Ningwu will be repeated at Beijing! We have only this much old-camp elite. If too many are lost at Beijing, all our previous efforts may be wasted. Besides, the Zhu emperor has already withdrawn the Wu family troops from beyond the passes. We do not know when they may strike."

The news that Chongzhen had withdrawn the Guanning Army to relieve the capital had been reported to Li Zicheng by Tang Tong and Du Zhizhi. Li Zicheng also knew the Guanning Army was formidable, hence his worry. He could not afford to batter himself bloody against Beijing only to have the Guanning Army arrive and mop up most of his old camp. That would be a catastrophic loss!

"Your Majesty could negotiate peace with the Zhu emperor," Gu Junen proposed.

"Negotiate peace?" Li Zicheng was taken aback. "We have already fought our way to the capital — what damn peace is there to talk about? On what terms?"

"The terms do not matter," Gu Junen said with a smile. "What matters is that through negotiations, the officials and Capital Camps troops inside Beijing will learn that Your Majesty is benevolent, unwilling to shed more blood, and willing to accept surrenders and win over defectors.

In Beijing today, probably only the Zhu emperor himself cannot surrender. Everyone else, more or less, harbors thoughts of opening the gates to welcome a new master. Their only worry is whether they can keep their lives and wealth after surrendering. If Your Majesty can set their minds at ease, this subject dares assert that Beijing can be taken with ease."

Li Zicheng burst out laughing. "Junen is indeed Our Zhuge Kongming! We shall do as you say and negotiate peace with the Zhu emperor. But whom should We send?"

Gu Junen said, "Naturally, send Du Xun or Du Zhizhi, whom Your Majesty has favored. If the people inside Beijing see that even such base and contemptible eunuchs can be employed by Your Majesty, what will they have left to worry about?"

(End of Chapter)