Chapter 422: The Thirty-Seventh Stratagem — Quit While You're Ahead

Outside the Hall of Martial Valor in Beijing's Forbidden City, beneath the blazing June morning sun, the square was once again packed with Qing officials, Manchu and Han alike, in their official hats and peacock plumes.

The Great Qing was now ruled by a child emperor with a Prince acting as regent, so grand court assemblies were rarely held. Usually the Prince and the deliberative princes and ministers simply gathered inside the Hall of Martial Valor to discuss state affairs. It was rare to assemble the entire civil and military officialdom at once — yet today was just such a day. Before dawn had even broken, strings of sedan chairs and horse-drawn carriages lined up outside the Forbidden City, white lanterns dotting the darkness like stars as they guided the immaculately dressed ministers to the square outside the Hall of Martial Valor. Everyone was beaming with joy.

It had been some time since the Great Qing had established its capital in Beijing. Those officials who had turned traitor and joined the Qing only after the Qing entered the pass now understood Dorgon's concern for face. If he did not have something glorious to announce, he would never summon a grand court assembly! What point was there in getting up so early, leaving the Empress Dowager's bed, and coming to the square outside the Hall of Martial Valor to stare at a bunch of yawning officials and slaves?

In recent days, one piece of bad news after another had come from the front. First, the Ming had built a fortress on Juehua Island and declared they would counterattack western Liaoning!

Then came word that the Ming had established a Regional Commander's headquarters for the Dongjiang Garrison on some island called Zhangzi Island off the coast of Liaodong!

At the same time, envoys from the King of Joseon had come weeping and wailing for help, saying Japanese pirates had invaded and seized their Jeju Island.

The war situation in Shandong was also not going well. The ever-victorious Prince Yu, Dodo, had actually suffered a setback beneath the walls of Qufu! He had even reported that Qufu was protected by the Sage Confucius and was not easy to attack, and that he wanted to find a few lamas of profound magical power to chant sutras and break Confucius's spiritual protection — word was that Dorgon had already sent men to Tibet to invite the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, to the Central Plains!

The situation on the Shanxi and Shaanxi battlefields under Ajige's command was also grim. The siege of Yulin had been bitterly fought with heavy losses. Around Datong Prefecture, the fighting had devolved into a grinding back-and-forth, with no strength left to maintain a siege. They could only resort to scorched-earth tactics, sending troops into Ming-controlled Datong territory to burn and kill.

The Ming troops at Datong had also been driven to desperation, sending death squads to strike back inside Qing territory, killing any man with a queue at the back of his head. As a result, the entire area around Datong Prefecture had become a slaughterhouse of tit-for-tat raids.

That young prince up in the Lüliang Mountains was not content to sit idle either. In the spring he had sent men to join the fray, spreading the flames of war to the Fen River valley!

All of Shanxi was now a chaotic mess, and no one knew when it could be stabilized.

The situation in Shaanxi was no better. Although Wu Sangui had taken Fengxiang Prefecture this spring, he had delayed attacking Xi'an, instead seeking to expand toward northwestern Sichuan. No one knew whether he intended to enter Sichuan.

Moreover, the news from Henan was also bad. The great army commanded by Prince Su, Hooge, had been invincible of late — Hooge being invincible was, of course, not good news!

Dodo was humiliated in Shandong, Ajige was locked in bitter fighting in Shanxi and Shaanxi, yet Hooge was feasting on rich meat in Henan! He had already seized more than half of Kaifeng Prefecture, all of Ruzhou, half of Guide Prefecture, and had also swallowed three counties in Nanyang and Runing Prefectures. These days no one dared even mention the word "Henan."

No one knew what good news had reached Beijing this time to prompt another grand court assembly. Whether or not they had inside information, the Manchu and Han officials all wore expressions of delight — everyone had to match the expression on their master Dorgon's face!

"His Majesty arrives! The Prince Regent arrives!" At the eunuch's announcement, the Qing officials, Manchu and Han, standing in the square outside the Hall of Martial Valor all prostrated themselves with shouts of "Long live the Emperor!"

"Rise, rise!"

Dorgon's voice rang out immediately. Everyone scrambled to their feet and stole glances upward. They saw Dorgon already standing beside a yawning little emperor, his sallow face brimming with smiles.

Seeing that the assembled officials had risen and taken their places, the Qing Prince Regent smiled and said: "First, let me tell everyone a piece of good news! Prince Yu has won a victory at the Eastern Depot Prefecture in Shandong Province — a great victory! More than fifty thousand southern barbarian soldiers were killed or captured! The southern barbarians' Governor of Shandong, Gao Hongtu, was driven nearly to drown himself — had the water of the Tu River been a little deeper, the old fellow would have been dead.

After the Battle of the Tu River, the city of Liaocheng, seat of the Eastern Depot Prefecture, fell into turmoil. The southern barbarian Vice Regional Commander Bai Yongfu expelled the Regional Commander Liu Zhigan and surrendered the entire city. All of the Eastern Depot Prefecture now belongs to our Great Qing. And the troops of the southern barbarian Prince of Lu's household and the militia of Zuo Maodi, coming from Mount Tai and the Yimeng Mountains, have seen the divine valor of our heavenly soldiers and are now fleeing in disarray!

The lands along both banks of the Grand Canal in Shandong are now completely under the control of our Great Qing's heavenly soldiers! Next, Prince Yu plans to attack Qufu again, using the same old tactic of besieging the city to strike at reinforcements."

Dorgon's tone was light and brisk, almost as if he were about to laugh, but after finishing Dodo's victory report, his voice grew heavy: "Although Prince Yu has fought well in Shandong, compared with his two previous incursions into Shandong before we entered the pass, the results are far inferior. This is not because Prince Yu cannot fight, nor because our Eight Banners' crack troops are exhausted, but because the southern court has changed masters. This Prince has long said that the southern court's little Crown Prince is a formidable ruler! In the more than two hundred years of the Ming dynasty, the only ones who can compare with him are Zhu Yuanzhang and his son Zhu Di. So no one should grow complacent because of the victory at the Tu River.

The Battle of the Tu River was fought well, but it did not annihilate the forces of the southern court's Governor of Shandong, Gao Hongtu. Now Gao Hongtu has retreated to Jinan to lick his wounds. He will be quiet for a year or half a year at most, and then he will rise again.

As for the troops of the southern court's Prince of Lu, the Shandong Militia Commissioner Zuo Maodi, the Shandong Regional Commander Li Ruolian, the Governor-General of Seven Provinces Shi Kefa, the Governor of Denglai Su Guansheng, and the Northern Seas Minister Shen Tingyang — their forces have not been hurt at all! Their six armies combined amount to one or two hundred thousand men! Prince Yu has too few troops, so he can only use the tactic of besieging cities to draw them out and strike. But whether it will work is hard to say!"

In truth, the reported kill count from the Battle of the Tu River that Dodo submitted was nowhere near fifty thousand — Gao Hongtu had only brought twenty-eight thousand men, and even if all of them had been killed, it would not have reached fifty thousand! Moreover, Gao Hongtu had escaped with over ten thousand men and was now recruiting troops and buying horses, preparing to rise again! How could Dodo dare report fifty thousand kills? If he reported that many, how would he ever request reinforcements in the future?

Dodo's actual results were only twelve or thirteen thousand, and he reported twenty thousand. Dorgon thought twenty thousand was too few, so he rounded it up to a nice round number and reported fifty thousand!

But he himself could not take the fifty thousand figure seriously — that would make him a fool. So although Dorgon appeared jubilant, his heart was clear as a mirror. He already knew the war in Shandong would not be easy.

But difficult did not mean defeat. There were still ways.

Dorgon paused, then continued: "The fighting in Shandong is not easy, but with Prince Yu there, this Prince is entirely at ease. His current strategy of relying on the Grand Canal, establishing a foothold in western Shandong, using Qufu as bait to lure the enemy and strike at their reinforcements, is indeed extremely brilliant. Even if Zhuge Liang were reborn, or the Marquis of Wu returned to life, they could do no better.

But some people do not understand Prince Yu's brilliance, nor do they understand what kind of man the southern court's Crown Prince is. They recklessly underestimate the enemy and advance rashly, forgetting themselves at the slightest gain, and even clamor about watering their horses in the Yangtze — they have no idea what the stratagem of 'quit while you're ahead' means!"

The stratagem of quitting while ahead? The ministers outside the Hall of Martial Valor were all taken aback. They had never heard of such a stratagem among the Thirty-Six Stratagems!

Dorgon looked at the bewildered officials below and snorted: "From now on, the Thirty-Six Stratagems must add one more — the stratagem of quitting while you're ahead. It shall be the Thirty-Seventh Stratagem! If our Great Qing is to establish itself in the Central Plains, we must use this stratagem well. Never be so greedy that while eating from your bowl, you're already eyeing the pot!

Right now Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong are not yet pacified, and western Liaoning and Liaodong are still under threat from the southern barbarians' navy. We should not — nor do we have the strength to — think about Huainan or Jiangnan. Instead of entertaining such thoughts, we would do better to focus on how to pacify Shanxi and Shaanxi.

As for Shandong, without ten years of war, it simply cannot be pacified!"

All of Dorgon's words were, of course, directed at the princes and ministers in court who were aligned with Hooge, to stop them from cheering Hooge on. Hooge himself was actually quite cautious — otherwise he would have marched on Huainan long ago. But his rhetoric was loud; the nonsense about watering horses in the Yangtze and punishing the southeast was on his lips every day, which was extremely annoying! And the clique of pro-Hooge princes in court joined in the clamor. Though it accomplished nothing, at least it irritated Dorgon!

(End of Chapter)