Chapter 594: Do Not Forget Datong (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

The Regional Commander's headquarters guarding Datong.

This headquarters, which had stood within the city of Datong for over two hundred years, remained as solemn and imposing as ever. Outside its gates, tall flagpoles bore the banner of command over the three armies and the great standard of Jiang Xiang, Regional Commander of Datong. Rows of armored personal guards stood arrayed outside the headquarters, every man chest out, belly in, full of martial bearing.

Inside and outside the headquarters, a great many people hurried in and out, every face grave. Few spoke; they only walked swiftly in silence.

A military camp is by nature a place of killing austerity, yet such profound solemnity could not help but weigh a man down with gloom. Anyone with the slightest experience of soldiering could read from this atmosphere that the strong city of Datong had reached a moment of imminent peril.

In the headquarters' great courtyard, thick columns of black smoke were already rising as documents and account books were burned batch after batch. The Datong army soldiers standing guard did not dare so much as move, but the dread and unease in their eyes could not be suppressed.

Jiang Xiang, dressed in a narrow-sleeved riding jacket, stood beneath the eaves outside the main hall of the headquarters, staring blankly as his household retainers burned things. It was summer now; the weather was scorching, the sun fierce, and it was just past noon. Yet he felt none of the heat at all — only wave after wave of chill closing in on him from every direction.

His eldest son, Jiang Zhisheng, strode over and saluted. "Sir, Chiliarch Bai has returned."

This Chiliarch Bai was Bai Siwen, the last surviving male of the Bai chiliarch family of Zhenlu Guard. During the battle of Datong in the seventeenth and eighteenth years of Chongzhen, he had been captured alive by the Tartars and made a booi slave. He had been on the verge of being thrown into the city moat when the Qing army halted and withdrew, and so he had escaped with his life.

He had originally held the xiucai degree, but after enduring that brush with life and death, he no longer studied the Confucian classics. Instead he cast aside the brush for the sword and joined the Datong army. Because his family held a hereditary military office, and because Jiang Xiang approved of this hereditary officer system (Jiang Xiang himself was also of hereditary rank), when the Zhenlu Battalion was formed, Bai Siwen was made its battalion Chiliarch — a post Jiang Xiang had privately created, commanding four or five hundred men. The Datong army's battalions generally took their names from the old guard stations; soldiers from the same guard or station were usually formed into a battalion together.

The Zhenlu Battalion was made up entirely of sons of Zhenlu Guard. They had either survived the massacre like Bai Siwen, or had happened to be away from Zhenlu Guard at the time. Every last one of them bore a blood-deep grudge!

Because of that hatred, the Zhenlu Battalion had become the elite of the Datong army's infantry. They had only spears, saber-and-shield, and bows, and half their men still lacked armor. But they were fearless in the face of death, daring to fight and daring to struggle. So in these two years of back-and-forth fighting around Datong, they had gradually won themselves a fearsome reputation, becoming one of the few elite infantry battalions within Datong Prefecture that dared to leave the city alone and contest with the eastern barbarians!

Bai Siwen — now much stouter, much darker, and sporting a scruffy beard, looking neither pale nor refined — was quickly led into the courtyard where Jiang Xiang stood.

"Greetings, Commander." After performing the full salute, Bai Siwen stood ramrod straight before Jiang Xiang, his expression exceedingly grave.

"The Tartars have all withdrawn?" Jiang Xiang asked.

"Withdrawn!" Bai Siwen answered. "South of the Shili River, from Xiamizhuang, Huairen, and Xi'an Fort all the way to Jinping Mountain and Pianling Pass — they're all gone. Not a man in sight!"

"Not a man in sight?" Jiang Xiang sighed. "Then you saw no common folk either."

Bai Siwen shook his head. "None. Utter desolation! Every bridge has been torn down or burned, every village burned, looted, and wrecked into ruins — and quite a few of those villages were only just put to the torch!"

The area close to Datong had long since been ravaged beyond saving, but places a little farther out had still held some life. Last year the Tartars had even carried out land distribution by headcount there. But now the villages in those places had been destroyed too, and no one knew where the common folk had gone.

"Only just put to the torch." Jiang Xiang drew a sharp breath. "There is treachery here, sure enough!"

Jiang Xiang could not be counted a great military strategist, and from time to time he made disastrous blunders that harmed both himself and others. But the fact that he had held out in Datong Prefecture until now proved he had some real skill in military matters. Though he could not see through Dorgon's scheme at a glance, he had not let down his guard either. The moment the Qing troops outside Datong Prefecture's seat withdrew, he had immediately dispatched several battalions of infantry and cavalry to search the surrounding area.

And from the reports those infantry and cavalry sent back one after another, Jiang Xiang already knew that Dorgon would not let the soldiers and civilians of Datong go.

Although the men he sent out had found no Qing ambush, the thorough destruction of everything around Datong made it clear enough what Dorgon meant to do next.

Datong held not only its garrison but also the families of many of those soldiers. And now they had reached the point where grain was nearly exhausted, and most of the livestock had already been slaughtered.

So the soldiers and civilians of Datong would have to abandon the city empty-handed. They would need to obtain supplies from the villages and towns along their route if they were to make it into the Lüliang Mountains.

But Dorgon had ordered the Qing troops to carry out a scorched-earth campaign across Datong Prefecture. What he intended was something Jiang Xiang could figure out with his backside — first, to prevent the soldiers and civilians of Datong from withdrawing smoothly to the Lüliang Mountains; second, to force Jiang Xiang to send someone to the Lüliang Mountains to beg for aid!

The moment Zhu Cijiong sent troops hauling grain to meet them — heh heh, they'd be wrapped up like dumplings by the Qing troops, guaranteed!

This Dorgon's methods of war were truly vicious!

"Sir, what do we do?" Jiang Zhisheng was growing desperate. "There are still fifty or sixty thousand military dependents and over a hundred thousand civilians inside Datong! We can leave the civilians be, but the military dependents..."

After two years of attrition in this back-and-forth war, the Datong garrison now numbered only a bit over twenty thousand men — all of them veterans who had seen blood and fought the Tartars to the death! If this group alone broke out and fled, at least some of them could get away.

But if they had to bring over a hundred thousand civilians and dependents along...

"One night!" Jiang Xiang said. "Only one night... let the men go settle their own affairs!" He paused, then added, "Those who can keep up with the column, bring them. Those who cannot walk, leave them in Datong Prefecture's seat to trust to fate!"

"This... this..." Jiang Zhisheng lowered his voice. "What about our own household?"

Jiang Xiang glared at his son. "Your life is nearly forfeit, and you're still thinking of those concubines of yours?"

"There are children too!" Tears welled in Jiang Zhisheng's eyes. "They are your grandsons and granddaughters as well..."

Jiang Xiang gritted his teeth and raised his voice: "If they cannot go, they stay! This journey of ours is nine deaths and one life... Let all who have families be released — go back and reunite with them!"

As he spoke, tears came to Jiang Xiang's own eyes. His own rear courtyard was full of wives and concubines, sons and daughters in rows... of those who could follow on the march, there were truly very few!

The order of parting between the living and the dying was quickly passed to every corner of Datong. The entire city at once sank into a wail of lamentation.

In nearly every courtyard, lamps flickered, and people wept in each other's arms. Tonight in Datong, it seemed no one would sleep.

Bai Siwen did not weep. His tears had long since run dry; from now on, he could only shed blood! He had taken no wife, and naturally had no children. He was utterly alone; only sword and blade slept beside him.

Because he had no family, Bai Siwen, who had been ranging outside Datong for over ten days, was given no leave. Instead he spent this night of parting between the living and the dying atop the walls of Datong.

Gazing at the scattered points of lamplight within the city, listening to the rising and falling sobs, Bai Siwen only murmured to himself: "Father, Mother, Elder Brother, Elder Sister — I'm leaving now, going to kill Tartars. I won't come back again. Won't come back..."

The sleepless night was very short; it seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. At dawn, the drums summoning the troops to assembly sounded from every part of Datong Prefecture's seat.

Preparations for the breakout had long been made; all that was lacking was a single order from Jiang Xiang.

Jiang Xiang, who had led soldiers all his life, knew the principle that the soft-hearted cannot command troops. Naturally he would not allow his men — or himself — another night of reunion with their loved ones.

One night of parting was enough. One more night, and he feared they would not be able to bear leaving.

The more than twenty thousand elite infantry and cavalry, along with over ten thousand dependents who could march, quickly assembled at the various military camps within Datong once the drums sounded.

Every man traveled light, with several days' dry rations prepared. Soldiers and dependents alike carried weapons.

When the hour of si arrived, the Ming army of Datong, escorted along the streets by the entire city's populace, formed ranks and marched out of the city, heading toward the mountains to the southwest.

(End of Chapter)