Chapter 509: The Secret Edict Cannot Be Found!

Huang Shu had no idea that his movements had already been discovered by the Prince of Chu's household and the Jingzhou prefectural authorities. Still thinking his scheme had worked, after entering the Jingmen garrison town he took out the name card Gu Junen had given him when passing through Wuchang on his last mission to Jiangnan, requested an audience with Wang Deren, the garrison commander of Jingmen, and stated his purpose. Then, under Wang Deren's protection, he galloped all the way to Hanyang, which was shrouded in the rumble of cannon fire.

The artillery duel between the Ming and Shun armies across the Yangtze was still going on, but the Ming army clearly had the upper hand, because a few days earlier another batch of cannon had arrived in Wuchang from Nanjing. This was a newly delivered batch of twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon, twelve guns in all, every one cast in bronze and fitted with sinicized sighting rules and scales. Arriving with them were fifty graduates of the second artillery class of the Nanjing Military Academy, led by Xu Er'me.

The first class at the Military Academy had been very short, only three months — essentially a crash training course. The second class had doubled in length to six months. And the upcoming third class had doubled again, to a full year.

With the twelve brand-new twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon, the Wuchang Ming army's artillery firepower immediately overwhelmed the Shun army in Hanyang. Not counting the three-pounder battalion guns used for field operations and the Hongyi cannon mounted on the navy's centipede boats, the heavy guns Wuchang's Ming forces could bring to bear on Hanyang numbered as many as twenty-two! Of these, twenty were twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon, with one twenty-four-pounder and one thirty-six-pounder as well.

And still more cannon would be shipped upriver from Nanjing and Shanghai to Wuchang — if the Bocarro factory in Macau was counted as well, Zhu Cilang's Southern Ming now had five foundries using Western techniques to cast bronze cannon: the Bocarro factory, the Anping factory, the Shanghai Lopez factory, the Shanghai Jiangnan factory, and the Nanjing Cannon Bureau. Their combined monthly output of bronze cannon of all types could reach sixty or seventy guns.

In a contest of big guns, Li Zicheng did not stand the slightest chance!

So by the time Huang Shu reached Hanyang, the wall around the Chaozong Gate on the city's south side had already been battered full of holes by the twenty twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon mounted on the Hanyang Gate wall across the river, with breaches collapsed in quite a few places.

The two giant guns on Fenghuang Hill had also stopped firing at Guishan — because Guishan was thickly wooded and too far from Hanyang Gate, the Ming artillerymen simply could not observe their fire, so no matter how much they fired they could not hit the Shun army's artillery positions. Wu Sanfu and Feng Sizhong had therefore simply abandoned the plan of suppressing the Shun artillery and switched to shelling the urban districts of Hanyang and Hankou to spread panic.

Although there were only two giant guns, which could not possibly inflict serious damage on Hankou and Hanyang, the stone shot that could fall from the sky at any moment still placed severe psychological pressure on the Shun troops garrisoned in the two cities.

Li Zicheng was, of course, no exception — he had no wish to be smashed into a deceased emperor by a stone falling from the sky while sleeping at night. So he moved his residence from the Hanyang prefectural yamen to a villa outside Hanyang city by the shore of Moon Lake — Moon Lake lay north of Guishan, and with Guishan as a screen he need not worry about the great stones hurled by the Ming giant guns.

But having a great army encamped under the muzzles of Ming cannon was, after all, a disadvantage.

So before Huang Shu arrived, Li Zicheng had already been discussing with his subordinates a plan to build a strong fortress on Guishan to hold the strategic junction of the Han and Yangtze Rivers, then burn Hankou and Hanyang and withdraw, and turn the main force to the capture of Jiangling.

It turned out that the envoy Li Zicheng had earlier sent to Chengdu to contact Zhang Xianzhong had returned, and brought back good news — Zhang Xianzhong was willing to ally with Li Zicheng, and had agreed to step back and change his title to King of the Great West. He would take the four prefectures of Chengdu, Long'an, Shunqing, and Baoning, plus the five departments of Tongchuan, Qiongzhou, Yazhou, Meizhou, and Jiading, along with Songpan Guard, Tianquan Division, Lizhou Division, and other places as the fief of the Great Western Kingdom.

But Zhang Xianzhong was a literate man, and of course had read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms thoroughly and knew how Liu Bei had swindled Liu Zhang. He certainly had no intention of becoming a second Liu Zhang, so he kept his wits about him and refused to let Li Zicheng "aid the west" by way of Hanzhong. He also sent his adopted son Zhang Dingguo to garrison Baoning Prefecture and Zhang Wenxiu to garrison Long'an Prefecture, to block Li Zicheng's army.

At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong invited Li Zicheng to advance along the river and, together with the Great Western army, attack the Ming forces occupying Chongqing Prefecture and Kuizhou from both sides.

Since he could not match the Ming in cannon, Li Zicheng knew there was no way to continue eastward. Even if he built more tower ships, how could they pass under the muzzles of several dozen Hongyi cannon? So he could only halt at Hanyang and Hankou.

Of course, it would not be easy for Zhu Cilang to cross the river, take Hankou and Hanyang, and open the water routes for an advance west and north.

The Yangtze, after all, was famed as a natural moat! And current artillery firepower was sufficient to seal off the surface of the Yangtze and the Han River, so once the Guishan fortress was completed, the Shun army could blockade the Han and Yangtze with a small number of Hongyi cannon plus a larger number of General cannon.

And until the Guishan fortress was reduced, even if Zhu Cilang's army could cross the Yangtze, it could not freely campaign against the prefectures and counties between the Han and Yangtze. After all, the lifeline of the army's logistics was still held at the throat by the Guishan fortress!

Li Zicheng therefore decided to use the Guishan fortress to delay Zhu Cilang's main Ming force, then swing his army west to seize Jiangling and Yiling, and after the waters rose the following spring, advance upriver to take Kuizhou and Chongqing.

It was at just this moment that Zuo Menggeng's envoy Huang Shu arrived at the Moon Lake traveling palace outside Hanyang — it truly seemed as though Heaven was aiding Li Zicheng!

The number of scholars around Li Zicheng had been growing, and he had gradually come to understand the temperament of these bookish men. Most of them had no great ability, but nearly all thought highly of themselves, each imagining he was a Zhuge Liang, longing to meet a Liu the Imperial Uncle who would pay three visits to his thatched cottage.

So Li Zicheng gave Huang Shu, who had delivered himself to his door, full face. Three visits were out of the question, but greeting him outside the palace gate was something he could manage.

Huang Shu, who had come to the Moon Lake traveling palace together with Gu Junen, saw the Great Emperor Li himself come out to welcome him, dressed in a plain blue robe and all smiles, and was so moved he could hardly contain himself. He hurried forward a few steps, knelt, and kowtowed.

"Your subject Huang Shu kowtows before His Majesty the Emperor — ten thousand years, ten thousand times ten thousand years!"

Li Zicheng had not yet granted him any office, and already he was calling himself a subject!

Li Zicheng, for his part, played the part of a wise sovereign and enlightened lord to perfection. He stepped forward, helped Huang Shu to his feet, and said with a smile: "I heard of Master Huang's great name back when I was campaigning in the Central Provinces. Even then I wondered why the Ming emperor did not put such a great talent to use. Had he employed you sooner, how could the realm have come to this? That you have come to join me today is truly Heaven's aid to my Great Shun!"

At last he had met a worthy lord... Huang Shu was moved from the bottom of his heart!

Although Zuo Liangyu and his son had treated him well, they had never treated him as a Zhuge Liang. And the Zuo family, father and son, were not men destined for the imperial throne — sooner or later they would be swept away by this age of chaos.

Huang Shu had already figured it out back when Li Zicheng raised the banner of "counting mouths and equalizing land": from now on the realm would be divided three ways among the Qing, the Shun, and the Ming!

Although the Shun was the weakest of the three, it might well still enjoy a foundation of a hundred and several decades — no great problem for Li Zicheng to become a "First Ruler of the Shun." And if he, Huang Shu, went over to him, would he not at the very least be a Zhuge Liang of the present age?

Li Zicheng, still beaming, took Huang Shu's small hand in his and together they strode into the Moon Lake traveling palace. In the great hall, a banquet had already been laid out, and a most lavish one at that!

There was calabash chicken, water-basin mutton, steamed platter, pig's trotters on the bone, milk-soup pot fish, and of course the Wuchang fish stuffed in steamed buns that Li Zicheng had lately grown so fond of — today it was not steamed fish but fried fish in buns, fresh and fragrant and crisp, a true delight!

Huang Shu put on the airs of a celebrated scholar, gnawing vigorously at the hard buns and hard fish while discoursing at length on the state of the realm.

In fact it was just the same old routine from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: take Jingzhou, plan for Sichuan, then launch a northern expedition against the Guanzhong and Long regions, and so on. Li Zicheng played the part of an enlightened lord receiving instruction, patiently enduring a recitation of strategies that any storyteller knew by heart. At last he waited until Huang Shu had had his fill of playing Zhuge Liang, and only then did they get down to business.

"Your Majesty," said Huang Shu, "this subject has a plan by which Your Majesty may take Jingzhou and secure Huguang!"