Chapter 470: External Threats Cease, Internal Troubles Rise (A Request for Monthly Tickets)

Huang Shu looked at the flustered Zuo Menggeng, and for some reason a flash of inspiration struck him; a faint, elusive smile suddenly appeared at the corner of his mouth: "Young General, do not worry. The situation you now face may seem fraught with danger, liable to collapse at any moment, yet you can rest easy on a high pillow!"

"Rest easy on a high pillow?" Zuo Menggeng did not know whether to laugh or cry. So this military adviser was a muddle-headed fool after all! No wonder the old man trusted him so much.

"Military Adviser, do not jest." Zuo Menggeng shook his head repeatedly. "My head is nearly gone; how can I still be free of worry?"

"The Young General is mistaken," Huang Shu said. "The one who now needs to worry and fret is not the Young General, but that unfilial and rebellious Army-Supervising Crown Prince!"

"The Crown Prince? What does he have left to worry about?" Zuo Menggeng gave a bitter laugh. "He beat Hooge to death. What is there left to worry about?"

"Of course there is something to worry about!" Huang Shu said with a smile. "While Hooge lived, all the lords of the southeast took the Crown Prince as their pillar and mainstay; to protect themselves, every man supported him and each one obeyed. But now Hooge is dead, the northern army is defeated, and Dorgon has carried out his head-count land equalization. Anyone with clear eyes can see that the northern Qing no longer has the strength to march south, and the north-south standoff is now set. With the external threat gone, will internal troubles not come swarming up?"

"Internal troubles?" Zuo Menggeng pointed at his own nose. "Apart from my father and me, what else does he have to worry about?"

"Far too much!" Huang Shu said. "The Young General and the Grand Commander holding Huguang with their troops is the Crown Prince's 'worry' — but are Huang Degong and Gao Jie carving up Huaibei not a worry? Are Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, and Zuo Maoji drilling troops in Shandong not a worry? Are He Tengjiao and Mu Tianbo controlling Hunan and Yunnan not worries for the Crown Prince? The southeastern gentry have suffered such great losses — are they truly all convinced and submissive in their hearts?

"This subordinate knows that after the Crown Prince defeated Hooge, he began stripping Huang Degong and Gao Jie of their authority, intending to reorganize their troops into the various guard armies. Even if they dare not oppose him openly, can they be happy about it in their hearts?"

"If they are unhappy, what can they do about it?" Zuo Menggeng muttered. "With that little strength of theirs..."

Huang Shu said with a smile: "Huang Degong and Gao Jie together command no fewer than fifty thousand troops, and most are elite. The Young General has a hundred thousand troops, and the three lords of Shandong have over a hundred thousand militia. Just these forces alone add up to more than two hundred thousand.

"Moreover, the realm today has already vaguely taken on a three-way division! If these two hundred thousand troops were all to turn their backs on the Ming and go over to the Qing, or turn their backs on the Ming and go over to the Shun... how the situation under Heaven would develop is truly hard to predict! So as long as the Young General can, by the Prince of Chu's decree, rally the heroes and resist the Crown Prince in the name of protecting the Son of Heaven, the Crown Prince will not dare rashly carry out usurpation, nor will he dare move against the Young General!"

Could there really be such a good thing?

Zuo Menggeng thought it over and still found it unreliable.

Huang Shu nodded and said with a smile: "In truth, Huang Degong, Gao Jie, Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maoji, and you yourself, Young General — none of you are the Army-Supervising Crown Prince's greatest internal worry!"

"Then the greatest internal worry is..."

Huang Shu paused, then spat out two words: "Too many people!"

"Too many people?"

Huang Shu gave a cold smile: "When there are too many people, the land grows cramped. The southeast was already crowded and short of land, and now so many northern refugees have fled here — will they not squeeze this little southeastern territory to bursting? And among those northerners, quite a few are so-called hardship-enduring meritorious officials, who arrived clutching nothing but their two fists. How much have they scraped off the southeastern land these days? Can the common people of the southeast not hate them until their teeth itch?"

"This... this..." Zuo Menggeng's face was full of conflict. "Military Adviser, I am a northerner too!"

Huang Shu said with a smile: "The Young General does not imagine that the people of Huguang all regard the Zuo family as the father and mother of the people, does he?"

Zuo Liangyu's army had scraped Huguang to the very bedrock and still found it insufficient! It would be a miracle if they could win the support of the common people and gentry of Hubei!

And Zhu Cilang had done no small amount of scraping in the southeast either! Although the targets of his extortion were mainly the gentry and merchants, and the poor commoners of the southeast were not greatly harmed, the Qing army's entry through the pass and the series of battles that followed had driven many northern refugees to the southeast, worsening the southeast's man-land conflict. And because of Zhu Cilang's suppression, the southeastern gentry had gradually lost the power to oppress the poor commoners — in the original history, during the late Ming and early Qing, the Jiangnan region saw multiple slave revolts, that is, uprisings of the enslaved!

Previously, with everyone facing the Qing threat, all sides endured and did not let it out. Now that the Qing army can no longer reach the southeast, the various contradictions that had been held back will naturally all begin to erupt.

"Even if the Crown Prince is trapped by internal troubles," Zuo Menggeng's brow remained tightly furrowed, unable to smooth out, "Li Zicheng is about to march south. How should I resist him?"

"Why resist?" Huang Shu asked in return.

Zuo Menggeng stared blankly at Huang Shu. "Not resist? Then surrender to Li Zicheng?"

Huang Shu said: "Better to use the pretext of entering Sichuan and shift to Jingzhou Prefecture."

"Shift to Jingzhou Prefecture?" Zuo Menggeng thought for a moment. "I fear that will not work. Going south from Xiangyang, once you pass Chengtian Prefecture you reach Jingzhou. I fear Li the Roving King's great army will strike Jingzhou first, then Wuchang!"

"The Young General is mistaken!" Huang Shu shook his head, thinking: how is it that this son of Zuo Liangyu does not even know how to run?

"Young General, Jingzhou Prefecture is vast! To the west are range upon range of mountains; to the east is the rich land of the Jianghan plain, and it is split in two by the Yangtze." Huang Shu analyzed. "What Li Zicheng can easily seize is only the part of Jingzhou on the northern bank of the Yangtze. We can first go to the prefectural seat of Jingzhou, take the Prince of Chu with us, then cross the river and garrison Gong'an and Yidu, and when the moment comes march south to take Yuezhou, Changde, and Chenzhou. Then sit back and watch Li the Roving King and the Crown Prince fight between the Han River and the Yangtze.

"If the Crown Prince wins, we seize the chance to strike back across to the northern bank and make Jingzhou, Chengtian, Xiangyang, and Yunyang our home. With Xiangyang as our lair, the Young General can swing between the Southern Ming and the Northern Qing — why worry about not attaining Wu Sangui's standing?

"If Li the Roving King wins, the Young General can go east and take Jiangnan, go south and enter Hunan, or even travel far to Guangdong. There will always be a place to set foot!"

"Excellent! Military Adviser, you are truly my Zhuge Kongming!" Zuo Menggeng had just praised Huang Shu when the smile on his face suddenly vanished. "But the Prince of Chu now listens only to Mengmei, and he has Qiu Lei and Du Yinxi assisting at his side. He may not be used by me!"

As Zuo Liangyu's illness worsened, the Zuo family army had also split, broadly forming three factions. One was the "Liaodong faction" headed by Zuo Menggeng, whose backbone was made up of Zuo Liangyu's old subordinates from his days as a Regional Commander in the Liao army. This faction was also the core of Zuo Liangyu's direct line!

The second was the Shaanxi faction, whose backbone was the roving bandits who had surrendered to Zuo Liangyu. This faction's greatest strength now lay with Jin Shenghuan, the Garrison Regional Commander of Chengtian Prefecture.

The third was the Prince of Chu faction headed by Qiu Lei. This faction's strength was nothing much, but with the great banner of the Prince of Chu in hand, it had also become a faction in its own right.

Huang Shu smiled: "Young General, let this humble official make a trip to Jingzhou. I guarantee I can persuade Regional Commander Qiu and the Princess Consort of Chu to stand on our side!"

"Good, then I must trouble you!"

Jingzhou, the Prince of Chu's residence.

In the rear garden, inside an exquisitely refined little pavilion, the Princess Consort Zuo Mengmei was leaning languidly against the railing, dressed in a long emerald-green skirt that set off her graceful figure. On that delicate and lovely powdered face, a faint smile was now drifting.

Her married life with the Prince of Chu, Zhu Cizhao, was exceedingly sweet. Before the wedding night, the little prince had disdained Zuo Mengmei for having been married before and for being older. But after the consummation, he was utterly captivated by his older-sister wife, Zuo Mengmei.

Big Sister Zuo was surely the best big sister in all the world — pretty face, fine figure, wonderful in every way!

And Big Sister Zuo was also extremely fond of this little prince husband who doted on her. The little prince was young, but strong, and his looks were pleasing too.

The young couple had truly fallen together into a honeypot.

The only thing that made Zuo Mengmei somewhat uneasy was that the little prince's rebellious spirit was far too strong; all day long he clamored about rebelling against the Crown Prince!

A perfectly good prince of the blood — why go seeking that sort of head-losing business? And the Crown Prince was such a formidable fighter; if he defeated the little prince, she herself would inevitably have to accompany him to the execution ground.

At the thought of this, Zuo Mengmei could not help letting out a sigh.

"Good sister, why the sigh? Is it for the old father-in-law?"

The little prince's voice suddenly came to her. Zuo Mengmei turned around and saw that Zhu Cizhao had somehow already arrived at her side, those bright, darting eyes now sweeping, half-intentionally, half-idly, over her flower-like face, back and forth.

(End of Chapter)