Chapter 375: Already Too Late

Li Zicheng's awakening had already come too late!

In the early tenth month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng captured Tong Pass, seized Xi'an, and swept across Shaanxi. From then until the first month of the following year, when he proclaimed himself emperor and marched east, rolling through Shanxi, he had held a hand full of winning cards.

If he could have awakened at that time and realized that "winning the people's hearts" meant you first had to firmly grasp the lives and property of "the people," and only then could you consider how to win the hearts of "the people" — then the great enterprise would have been accomplished!

Otherwise, how would you even know you had won the people's hearts? By sitting alone in the palace and guessing? Wouldn't that make you just the same as the Chongzhen Emperor?

Unfortunately, Li Zicheng felt far too good about himself at that time and never realized that he had not truly "won the people's hearts." It was only that the impoverished common folk, oppressed to the point of suffocation by corrupt officials, the gentry, and that self-styled wise but benighted ruler, held goodwill toward him as the leader of a righteous army and placed their hopes in him.

That was not winning the people's hearts; it was merely the people's hearts holding expectations of him — still a long way from "winning" them!

If Li Zicheng had been able to make use of the people's expectations, confiscate the lands of the gentry and corrupt officials, redistribute them (not necessarily equally), establish a system of land allotment and land grants, bring the population and land of Shaanxi, Shanxi, western Henan, and northern Huguang under control, and at the same time distribute sufficient benefits to his followers —

then the Great Shun Heavenly Dynasty would have been made.

But Li Zicheng at that time knew only how to extort payoffs and feast on the great households, and he rushed into Beijing to ascend the throne a second time. As a result, once he entered Beijing he began sliding downhill, suffering defeat after defeat. It was not until the beginning of the second year of Yongchang (the eighteenth year of Chongzhen) that he began to come to his senses a little — yet still not fully awake! All he did was launch "land reform pilot projects" in Xiangjing and Yunyang. Was that not already too late?

Just when Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing were thinking "it is not too late," disaster was already upon Yulin Garrison in northern Shaanxi!

Yulin Garrison, also called Yansui Garrison, was one of the so-called Three Borders of Shaanxi; the other two were Ningxia Garrison and Gansu Garrison, both now in Wu Sangui's hands. As for Yulin Garrison, Wu Sangui had no interest in touching it for the time being — because the territory of Yulin Garrison was truly a bit worthless, and Wu Sangui did not think much of it.

This was because the garrison's territory was not mainly spread out in broad continuous tracts, but distributed in points and lines. From Qingshui Camp on the edge of the Yellow River in the east to Huamachi in the Ningxia Rear Guard in the west, it wound crookedly for more than twelve hundred li, forming a border defense line along the northern edge of Yan'an Prefecture. To guard this line, the Ming court had spent enormous sums building the Yansui Border Wall, more than seventeen hundred li long, and had also constructed a beacon-tower defense system stretching over twelve hundred li. Along the Yansui Border Wall, thirty-six fortified camps had been built and garrisoned. Tens of thousands of troops were stationed there year-round to guard against Mongol cavalry raiding south across the border.

Such a crooked, narrow border garrison naturally had little profit in it, unless one also took nearby Yan'an. And Yan'an Prefecture, with its thousand ravines and ten thousand gullies, could not compare with Ningxia, known as the "Jiangnan beyond the frontier," nor with Gansu, which connected to the Western Regions and the snowlands. Wu Sangui, who was set on finding a good territory for himself, naturally looked down on Yulin Garrison.

And although Li Zicheng understood very well the importance of Yulin Garrison, his Shun regime had until recently still been carrying out its promise of "no levies for three years," with its finances relying entirely on feasting on great households and extortion. Naturally, it had no great spare capacity to support the garrison troops at Yulin. Moreover, the troops now defending Yulin were mostly Ming border troops who had been absorbed. These border troops had resisted Li Zicheng's call to surrender in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, when Circuit Intendant Du Ren of Yulin and the retired Regional Commanders Wang Shiqin, Hou Shilu, Hou Gongji, You Shiwei, and others held Yulin City, resisting the seventy thousand troops of Li Guo and Liu Fangliang for thirteen days. After the city fell, You Shiwei and the other generals were all executed, and only then did the garrison troops at various places in Yulin one after another submit to the Shun.

Li Zicheng naturally did not trust such Yulin troops. He had absorbed them only because he needed someone to guard the Yulin Border Wall, lest the long-declined Mongol tribes on the Hetao grasslands run wild in Li Zicheng's old home, Tianbao Prefecture (Yan'an Prefecture).

As for pay and supplies, it was naturally impossible to give much — and even if he wanted to give more, Li Zicheng had nothing to give! His emperorship was already running at a loss; what more could he expect?

So the Yulin Guard that Li Zicheng established had been poor as church mice from the day it opened, with only the two or three thousand Shun loyalist troops stationed inside Yulin City somewhat better supplied. The "border troops" manning the thirty-six fortified camps and watching over the seventeen-hundred-li border wall truly lived worse than when they had served the Chongzhen Emperor.

Back then the pay was also meager, but there was profit to be had from the border markets — because the Tumed Khanate of the Mongols had long since declined, the Yulin Border Wall had been relatively peaceful in recent years. No Mongol raiders came south; instead, the mutual markets between the two sides were quite lively. Yulin Garrison had little land, so it lived off the border markets.

But Li Zicheng had feasted on the great Shaanxi merchant households in Guanzhong and directly eaten the Yulin border markets out of existence! This left the border troops who depended on the markets unable to survive, and more than half of them dispersed on their own. By the second year of Yongchang, the garrison troops of Yulin's thirty-six fortified camps — not counting the three thousand Shun loyalists in Yulin City — numbered at most only three or four thousand.

These men were dispersed by sentry units, stationed in camps, forts, and stockades, forming isolated strongpoints scattered along the seventeen-hundred-li border wall, pretending that the Yulin border defense still existed.

Chen Boliang, the sentry commander ordered to hold Weiyuan Fort, came down from the watchtower and said with a bitter smile to Gao Wei, the unit commander who lived in the same quarters with his sentry unit: "Another day endured! All quiet — seems neither Wu Sangui nor the Mongols think much of our Yulin! But when will this bird-forsaken dullness ever end?"

Gao Wei had earlier been a Battalion Commander in the Ming army. After being absorbed by the Shun dynasty, he was made a Mobile Corps Commander; later, when too many of his men deserted, he was demoted to unit commander, in charge of three sentry units.

When Chen Boliang came down from the tower, Gao Wei was eating steamed buns outside the barracks below the tower — dry buns soaked in mutton soup with hardly any mutton flavor, making do for a meal.

Hearing Chen Boliang's complaint, Gao Wei snorted: "Being alive is enough. You've got a house to live in, fields to plant, a woman to sleep with — what more are you dissatisfied with? Our Weiyuan Fort has nothing at all; nobody thinks it worth taking. That's exactly why we can live in peace."

His words had just reached this point when — crack! — a gunshot split the quiet of the grasslands beyond the border wall. The Mongols on the grasslands had no firearms! This had to be the night scouts that Gao Wei and Chen Boliang had sent out, opening fire.

Gao Wei immediately stood up, and together with Chen Boliang he listened intently.

Gradually, they heard the thunderous sound of hoofbeats!

Both men's faces changed color. Weiyuan Fort's peace and quiet ended today.

They just did not know whether what was coming was Wu Sangui's troops or the Mongols from the grasslands.

The call-to-arms horn immediately sounded over Weiyuan Fort. Soldiers who had just finished their evening meal came out from their homes one after another, carrying bows, long spears, and sword-and-shield, heading toward Weiyuan Fort's north gate — they were all military households who had lived in Weiyuan Fort for generations, with wives and children here too. The land outside Weiyuan Fort was now their main source of income.

To hold Weiyuan Fort was to hold their homes!

Gao Wei and Chen Boliang had already climbed onto the tower. By now the sky was dark, and all they could see in the distance was torches merging into a rolling fiery dragon. The enemy's formation was orderly — one look told them these were not Mongols from the grasslands.

And their numbers were enormous. The long dragon of torches flowed across the boundless grassland, stretching beyond sight.

Soon, a second, a third, and a fourth fiery dragon appeared in their field of vision!

"Is it — is it Wu Sangui?" Chen Boliang asked in a doubtful tone.

"Impossible," Gao Wei shook his head. "That's tens of thousands of men. Why would Wu Sangui send so many troops here?"

Wu Sangui was still flying the banner of Ming Regional Commander of Ningxia and Gansu. The garrison at Weiyuan Fort would not resist him at all — sending a few hundred men would have been enough.

Tens of thousands...

"It's the eastern barbarians!" Gao Wei's face went pale. "We're done for. Light the beacon fires, beat the war drums, the whole fort to battle stations. Everyone who can pick up a weapon is to fight! If Weiyuan Fort is broken by the eastern barbarians, not one of us will live!"

(End of Chapter)