Chapter 364: Double Joy at Dorgon's Door

"My Prince, are we really going to let Wu Sangui go?"

"Yes, Wu Sangui didn't even say a word before bolting off to Ningxia with forty thousand troops — he's clearly setting himself up as a warlord!"

"He's an ungrateful wretch, a menace. He has to be eliminated."

Zu Dashou departed with endless thanks, and now it was the turn of Fan Wencheng, Ning Wanwo, and Gang'atai — that crew of loyal, reliable Han traitors and dog-slaves — to come to the Prince Regent's mansion clamoring for blood.

But Dorgon sat unmoved, a smile even on his sallow face.

"Enough, that's about enough. We know you are not the same as Wu Sangui. Wu Sangui was never willing to truly submit to our Great Qing, and his sister is the favored consort of the Southern Dynasty's Army-Soothing Crown Prince. You lot don't have a fine sister or daughter to offer to Zhu Cilang's bed."

Dorgon looked at the three loyal good traitors with a grin — these men were Qing men in life and Qing ghosts in death, not at all the same as the turncoat Zu Dashou. And their clamoring for blood was really just a way of declaring where they stood, not an actual suggestion that Dorgon abandon the fight against Li Zicheng to go strike Wu Sangui, who had hidden away in Ningxia.

The Great Qing's true mortal enemy was still Li Zicheng! Until he was driven off, no one could say who the Central Plains would belong to!

Moreover, Wu Sangui's slipping off to Ningxia actually solved a problem for Dorgon — otherwise, what was to be done with those forty thousand Guanning troops? Wiping them out would be a struggle, and absorbing them — how would that be sorted out within the Eight Banners?

"My Prince," the good slave Fan Wencheng, who understood Dorgon's mind best, said with a smile and a cupped-hand salute, "this slave comes to congratulate Your Highness."

"Oh? Where does this joy come from?"

Fan Wencheng said, "Your Highness now has double joy at your door. The first joy is the Shaanxi campaign — the outcome is all but settled! And it will produce the result most favorable to our Great Qing."

"Heh heh." Dorgon merely smiled.

Fan Wencheng continued, "For our Great Qing, whether Li Zicheng lives or dies hardly matters, and how many roving bandits are killed hardly matters either. What matters is driving the tiger to devour the wolf — driving that tiger Li Zicheng south to Jiangnan to swallow that wolf Zhu Cilang. So it's actually fine that Wu Sangui didn't fight Li Zicheng to the death. If they truly mauled each other, Li Zicheng would be a tiger with no teeth and no claws."

"Hahaha!" Dorgon laughed loudly. "And the second joy?"

"The second joy, of course, is that the Southern Dynasty is about to submit as a vassal to our Great Qing!" Fan Wencheng said. "Once Li Zicheng reaches Huguang, the Southern Dynasty will be attacked from front and rear! Then the Great Qing will descend from Northern Zhili into Shandong and Henan, and our troops will reach the Huai River. Li Zicheng, meanwhile, will enter the Yangtze from the Han and sail straight down to Jinling."

"However capable the Southern Crown Prince may be, can he simultaneously hold off Li Zicheng and our Great Qing's heavenly troops? This slave believes he will have no choice but to submit to the Great Qing."

"But even if the Southern Dynasty submits, our Great Qing should still press it with military might, so that it lacks the strength to push west, break the rebels, and unify the southeast. Only when the roving rebels and the Southern Dynasty check each other can our Great Qing sit back and reap the fisherman's profit. Perhaps our Great Qing will even have the chance to unify all under heaven!"

"Excellent! Hahaha, well said!"

Dorgon stroked his beard, the smile on his face no longer concealable. "Then what of Wu Sangui? Do we just let him roam free in Shaanxi and Gansu?"

"How could we give him all of Shaanxi?" Fan Wencheng said with a smile. "Guanzhong and Hanzhong are rich lands — they cannot be given to Wu Sangui."

"Yulin and Yan'an cannot be given to him either," Ning Wanwo added. "Yulin and Yan'an are close to the Lüliang Mountains! We cannot let that whelp Zhu Cijiong collude with Wu Sangui!"

Dorgon nodded repeatedly. "And the other places?"

Gang'atai laughed. "Aside from Guanzhong and Hanzhong, the rest of Shaanxi and Gansu is the most barren, bitter land under heaven. If Wu Sangui wants to suffer there, let him."

If Hong Chengchou were still here, he would certainly have leapt up in opposition!

Because the crack troops of the late Ming were either Guanning or Gansu-Shaanxi men!

Wu Sangui himself was Guanning, and now he had gained the stalwarts of Gansu and Shaanxi — the equivalent of the historical Gansu-Shaanxi Green Standard merging with Wu Sangui. As for barren and bitter — was that any trouble for a military-aristocratic bloc with formidable fighting strength? The poorer they were, the more fight they had in them!

"My Prince, Li Zicheng won't be easy to drive off either! And Wu Sangui didn't leave the Tong Pass stronghold to Prince Yu. Besides, Prince Yu only has twenty or thirty thousand men at hand, and he still has to keep an eye on Zhu Cijiong up in the Lüliang Mountains. It's not enough!"

The speaker now was Holoi, the Plain Yellow Banner's gūsa ejen. He had not read Romance of the Three Kingdoms well, so he could not get a word in on strategic questions; now that the matter of driving the tiger to devour the wolf was mostly settled, it was his turn to raise operational-level issues.

"How about sending Prince Su's forces west?" Fan Wencheng probed.

Dorgon smiled. "Prince Su's troops should indeed be moved. Kaifeng Prefecture must be taken, and the territory of Henan Prefecture that Wu Sangui left behind after moving west must be taken too. But Tong Pass need not trouble Prince Su — let Prince Su himself garrison Kaifeng Prefecture and await orders."

Holoi asked, "Have Prince Su garrison Kaifeng? Is Your Highness worried about the Southern Dynasty?"

Dorgon smiled. "We must keep an eye on Zhu Cilang! That boy has a sense of the big picture. He won't just sit and watch us deal with Li Zicheng. If Li Zicheng loses his old nest in Shaanxi, then in the Central Plains and the north, who else could stand against our Great Qing's Eight Banner heroes?"

Fan Wencheng interjected, "But Prince Yu has too few men, and Zhu Cijiong is tying down Your Highness. Do you have some hidden move in reserve?"

Dorgon chuckled. "As expected, nothing gets past you, Fan Wencheng! We do indeed have a surprise force to deploy!"

"A surprise force? Where?"

Dorgon smiled. "At Datong. The forty thousand crack troops under Ajige will serve perfectly."

"Prince Ying's troops?" Fan Wencheng was startled. "Isn't Prince Ying besieging Datong?"

"Yes," Holoi said too. "Datong's city walls are extremely strong. Who knows when it can be taken?"

"Lift the siege!" Dorgon waved a hand, laughing. "Zhu Cilang laid a fine trap at Datong, tying down tens of thousands of our men for nothing. We were momentarily muddled and actually fell for it, letting tens of thousands of men waste months at Datong!"

Holoi shook his head. "My Prince, Datong is a vital place. Why abandon the fight?"

"Hmph, Datong is a vital place," Dorgon said with a smile, "but Zhu Cilang could not send a vital man to hold it. Wang Yongji or Jiang Xiang — either way, they're stay-at-home types, useless wretches who don't even understand that when the lips are gone the teeth grow cold. What can such wretches do even if they hold Datong's walls? Would they dare march on Beijing?"

"They certainly wouldn't dare," Fan Wencheng said.

Dorgon sneered a few times, then went on, "We have thought it over repeatedly and concluded that we should set Datong aside for now, pull Ajige's main force west into the Ordos Loop, and then turn to strike Yulin and Yan'an. Then Li Zicheng will be attacked from three sides, and with his main force tied down near Tong Pass, he surely won't dare hold Guanzhong to the death. He'll have no choice but to abandon the land and flee to Huguang."

"Once Guanzhong is taken, Datong and the Lüliang Mountains will be no trouble at all! And once Li Zicheng moves south, we can always take Shandong. With Shandong in hand, the north-south split can finally be settled."

"My Prince," Fan Wencheng frowned, "are we just going to withdraw from Datong like that? Won't it cost the Great Qing too much face?"

Dorgon smiled. "No face is lost. In war, a small setback is unavoidable. But we shouldn't simply withdraw like that either — we should negotiate another truce."

"Another truce?" Fan Wencheng asked. "How do we negotiate it? Who should go?"

Dorgon laughed. "Just tell Jiang Xiang and Wang Yongji that We wish to suspend hostilities for a few months so the Eight Banner warriors can go home and keep their wives company. Send Luo Yangxing! He's been there once already; it won't hurt him to make a few more trips."

(End of Chapter)