Chapter 524: The Old Lady Is the Formidable One After All

The area around Huyashan, some one hundred and eighty li from Jiangling, was anciently called Xiaoting. It was the junction where the thousand-li-long Wushan mountain range met the Jianghan Plain, which lay as flat as a tabletop, and at the same time it commanded the Yangtze waterway.

For Li Zicheng, who intended to follow the example of Liu Xuande in entering Sichuan and carving out a realm in which the empire was divided three ways, Huyashan was beyond doubt a strategic point that had to be contested and held. Yet his opponents — whether Jin Shenghuan, who had earlier been stationed at Yiling Prefecture, or He Tengjiao and Wu Guoyong, who later encamped at Hukou Crossing, or Zhu Cilang, who arrived in early summer — had none of them paid much attention to this critical ground.

Li Zicheng, however, was different. After entering Jiangling, he immediately dispatched Li Guo at the head of more than ten thousand picked troops from the old camp's rear army to advance west and seize Huyashan before Jin Shenghuan could, and then, relying on the terrain, he built the great camp of Huyashan.

Even after forcing Jin Shenghuan out and capturing Yiling Prefecture and Guizhou, Li Zicheng did not abandon the Huyashan camp; instead he turned it into a grain depot.

In the earlier melee at Jiangling, Li Zicheng's army had seized roughly one million shi of stored grain from the Prince of Chu's mansion and the Zuo family army! It had also swallowed up the several hundred thousand taels of silver that Zuo Liangyu and his son Zuo Menggeng had accumulated. Added to what he had gained from "struggling against landlords and profiteers" in the four prefectures of Chengtian, Hanyang, Jiangling, and De'an, the total came to more than four million taels of silver, along with a great quantity of copper cash and an incalculable amount of silk, cloth, tea, salt, and other goods — all of it boxed and packed, and transported in one shipment to the Huyashan camp for storage.

In addition, Li Zicheng had sent men west of the Jiangling pontoon bridge to collect a considerable number of boats capable of passing through the Three Gorges when the river rose in summer, and these too were concentrated at Yiling Prefecture, west of the Huyashan camp.

On the surface, this series of actions seemed intended to make defensible Huyashan the base from which the Shun army would hold Jingzhou. But in reality, he was quietly making preparations for either outcome — if the battle of Jiangling could be won, that would of course be best, but what if it could not? Then he would have to enter Sichuan and seize Zhang Xianzhong's domain.

And if he was to enter Sichuan at his leisure, the holding or losing of Huyashan and Yiling Prefecture was the key of keys.

At present, Guizhou, west of the Three Gorges, was already in the hands of the Shun army, so the gateway into Sichuan was not entirely closed. As long as he could break through the two strongpoints of Wushan and Qutang Garrison to the west, then Kuizhou would basically fall into his hands.

The Ming forces at Chongqing and Kuizhou were now beset on two sides, having already fought bitterly with Zhang Xianzhong for many days, and their northern flank was also threatened by the Shun armies stationed at Hanzhong and Yunyang. Taking them would not be too difficult.

But Li Zicheng could not look after his head and ignore his rear. If Zhu Cilang came chasing after his backside, then what would he be doing in Sichuan? Sweeping the local tyrants and rich gentry of Sichuan Province for Zhu Cilang's benefit?

Therefore, if things went badly, someone would have to hold Huyashan for him and block the Crown Prince Zhu's pursuing troops!

And these past few days, while the Jiangling front was still relatively quiet, Li Zicheng had simply left his temporary palace at Jiangling and come to Huyashan to inspect the camp's defenses.

He was just reining in his horse on the slope, gazing out over the vast, hazy land to the southeast, and turning over in his mind how he might defeat Zhu Cilang and once more decide the fate of the realm, when someone beside him suddenly reported: "Your Majesty, the Second Military Adviser has arrived!"

"Gu Junen?" Li Zicheng looked down and saw his Second Military Adviser Gu Junen being supported along by two imperial guard soldiers, panting for breath as he struggled up the mountain, a sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. After another while, Second Military Adviser Gu finally reached his side.

Seeing Gu Junen's gasping, bedraggled appearance, Li Zicheng's heart gave a thump — what had gone wrong now?

This Gu Junen was ordinarily a man of literary refinement and easy, elegant bearing; he very rarely got into such a flustered state. The last time he had been this badly rattled seemed to have been that time when the Tartars marched through Datong and struck at the rear flank of Taiyuan... Could it be because of the Tartars!

Li Zicheng immediately asked: "Second Military Adviser, have the Tartars come looking for trouble with me again?"

Gu Junen only shook his head, his expression at once helpless and anxious, and it was a good while before he caught his breath. Li Zicheng's main camp was set in a valley at the western foot of Huyashan; while Li Zicheng had gone up the mountain to look at the scenery, Gu Junen had been dozing down in the valley.

While he was napping in his tent, he had received an urgent military dispatch sent by Yuan Zongdi via six-hundred-li express relay. After reading it through, he had not even finished dressing properly before running all the way over; by the time he reached the mountainside he was spent, and fortunately he had run into two imperial guard soldiers, who supported him the rest of the way to the summit.

"Your Majesty! The Ming army has invaded the territory of Xiangjing Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture!"

When Li Zicheng heard this, more than half of his hanging heart was already set down. "I thought it was something serious. Xiangjing is no ordinary city — it is an iron-built stronghold. Even if Zhu Cilang has his great red-barbarian cannon, he cannot break the walls in a hurry.

Nanyang is even less of a worry. Though it is no strong city, it lies in the drought-stricken lands of the Central Plain, and unless Xiangjing is taken there is no water route by which to move them. How would the bandit Zhu's great cannon be transported there?"

Gu Junen still shook his head, drew another breath, and said in a grave voice: "Marquis Yuan's memorial says that after the Ming vanguard broke into Biyang County and Zaoyang County, they posted proclamations everywhere, announcing that within Xiangjing Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture land would be granted by headcount and the fields divided equally, and they had men compose songs to spread the word: 'Open the great gate and welcome the Crown Prince; when the Crown Prince comes, the fields will be divided...'"

"Y-y-you, what did you say?" Li Zicheng was so shocked he could barely get the words out, and simply pointed a finger, meaning that Yuan Zongdi's memorial should be presented to him at once.

Gu Junen hurriedly handed over the memorial. "Your Majesty, I never imagined Zhu Cilang could be so base — a proper Ming Crown Prince, and yet he too stoops to using the division of fields and land to incite the common folk!"

Li Zicheng took Yuan Zongdi's memorial, unfolded it, and read it through carefully. Then he let out a long sigh: "Ah, that scoundrel Zhu Cilang is craftier than a Han traitor, fiercer than the Tartars, and better at beguiling the hearts of the people than I, Li Zicheng!"

"Your Majesty," Gu Junen's composure was utterly gone as he looked at Li Zicheng, "what are we to do?"

"What are we to do?" Li Zicheng stamped his foot. "If that bandit Crown Prince Zhu went elsewhere to stir people up with talk of dividing fields and land, I would not fear it in the least. But the common folk of Xiangjing and Nanyang Prefectures cannot withstand such incitement!"

What Li Zicheng had carried out in Xiangjing and Nanyang Prefectures was enclosure and land grants. Without regard for whether the land belonged to landlords and gentry or to poor and lower-middle peasants, he had enclosed it all and then distributed it to his old-camp officers and soldiers.

And although those old-camp officers and soldiers were all of bitter origins, once they had turned over and become landlords, every one of them was more ferocious than the former scholar-officials!

They had all come to be landlords with their two fists clenched and their eyes red with greed — could they possibly be courteous to their tenant farmers?

Moreover, Li Zicheng was not giving land to his subordinates for nothing. The land was given to them on the condition that they bear feudal military service! And this feudal military service was not something one could fulfill empty-handed; one had to provide one's own weapons, armor, warhorse, servants, and a fixed amount of fodder and provisions.

In dividing land among his fighting men, Li Zicheng had at the same time thrown off his own fiscal burden.

Under such circumstances, could his old brothers below help but go out with red eyes and squeeze the people? If they did not squeeze hard, what would they use to outfit themselves? What would they use to establish their households and careers? What would they use to buy horses and hire servants?

And what sort of men were they, after all? They were roving bandits who had turned over — men who had risen up by rebellion and killing, and whose capacity for suppression was who knew how many times greater than that of the former scholar-official landlords... They had no fear whatsoever of poor and lower-middle peasants resisting rent and interest.

And so, over the past year and more, the poor and lower-middle peasants of Xiangjing Prefecture had suffered grievously!

So much so that even Li Zicheng, who sympathized with the laboring people, could not bear to watch. After taking Jiangling, he had simply stayed on there and never returned to Xiangjing — out of sight, out of mind.

And now Crown Prince Zhu had taken Li Zicheng's own "script" straight to Xiangjing and Nanyang, using the story of dividing fields and land to mobilize the poor and suffering people who had been oppressed for more than a year by the old-camp landlord bandits. This struck precisely at Li Zicheng's soft spot.

"Your Majesty," Gu Junen said through gritted teeth, "had we not better turn the army around at once and fight a decisive battle with the bandit Zhu's forces!"

"Second Military Adviser, do not lose your composure!" Li Zicheng glared at his Second Military Adviser, whose composure was already lost, and inwardly felt a little helpless.

He had spent this period reading quite a few history books — the likes of The Investiture of the Gods, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Tales of the Sui and Tang, he had read them all — and the more he read, the more he felt his lot was bitter! How was it that when other men became founding emperors they had so many counselors and strategists to aid them, while when it came to himself, the only strategists he had were Song Xiance and Gu Junen, these fellows whose heads were none too quick?

He sighed: "Second Military Adviser, I ask you — who else knows of this matter?"

"What matter?" Gu Junen asked.

Li Zicheng lowered his voice: "The matter of Zhu Cilang dividing the fields at Xiangyang!"

"N-no one else." Gu Junen looked left and right; all who knew were right here, every one of them Li Zicheng's trusted confidants.

Li Zicheng looked around at those present and raised his voice: "What the Second Military Adviser just told me — none of you may pass it on to anyone!"