Chapter 607: How Could We Let Dorgon Off?

"Zu Kefa, tell me — can we afford to let Dorgon off now?"

With the northern expedition going so well, the Hongxing Emperor was naturally in excellent spirits, and when he turned the question back on Zu Kefa, he could not keep the smile from his face.

Zu Kefa was a master at reading expressions. In his years behind enemy lines, his other skills might not have grown much, but his ability to read faces had risen steadily!

"Your Majesty, of course we cannot let Dorgon off!" Zu Kefa said through gritted teeth. "How could we let that villain go? How many of our people has he killed? Before, when the eastern barbarians held the upper hand, our Great Ming had to swallow humiliation and make peace with him. Now it is our Great Ming's heavenly troops who hold the advantage, and the eastern barbarians' defeat is only a matter of a few years. How could we let him off?

Your Majesty, I, Zu Kefa, am a military man too, and I want to take the field and kill barbarians. I beg Your Majesty to issue an edict sending me to serve in Wu Guoyong's army!"

Zhu Cilang only smiled, neither agreeing nor refusing, and turned his gaze to Li Yan.

"Your Majesty," Li Yan said with a smile, "the prefectures south of the Yellow River in Henan that the Tartars actually control now are only Kaifeng Prefecture, Guide Prefecture, Ruzhou, plus a few counties of Henan Prefecture and a few counties of Nanyang Prefecture. To trade that scrap of territory for our Dengzhou, Laizhou, Qingzhou, and the southern part of Jinan Prefecture — their calculations are a little too clever.

Moreover, Shandong is a coastal province, surrounded by sea on three sides. Our navy comes and goes as it pleases, and every coastal fort is impregnable; the Tartars could never take them. Right now Commander Gao is advancing smoothly at Jinzhou and is on the verge of seizing the strategic point of Lüshunkou.

With the two great coastal strongholds of Lüshun and the Dengzhou water fortress, the entrance to the Bohai Sea is in our grip, and we can come and go along the Joseon coast at will. How could we hand over such fine territory to the eastern barbarians? Even if we cannot take Beijing this time, by holding the sea routes through Dengzhou and Lüshun and grinding away at them month after month, year after year, we will sooner or later wear the eastern barbarians down!"

Because both the northern and southern prongs of the northern expedition had been advancing smoothly, the temporary court at Huai'an was brimming with optimism, and most people believed victory was just around the corner.

But Li Yan, the Left Military Adviser, was more cautious and still making long-term plans. In his view, landing at Dagu Estuary and striking straight at Beijing was somewhat rash. What if they lost? How would the landing force get back?

Now that Great Ming held a clear overall advantage, they should not be overly aggressive on any local battlefield. Advancing steadily and slowly draining the eastern barbarians' strength was the best strategy of all.

Li Yan continued: "Your Majesty, judging from the present situation, we are now advancing exactly against the eastern barbarians' weak spot. The northern route follows the thousand-li coastline of Liaodong and Liaoxi, where we can land anywhere. But for the Tartar army to keep pace with us, they would run their legs off!

The southern army is built around wagon camps, advancing along the Grand Canal waterway. At any moment it can form a crescent-moon formation to hold off enemy cavalry, and on the canal there are transport barges carrying cannon and supplies, advancing in coordination. The eastern barbarians have no answer to them either!"

He paused, and his tone grew heavier.

"It is just that we are already in mid-autumn. In another two or three months, the north will be sealed in ice and snow. By then the coasts of Liaodong and Liaoxi will be hard to land on. And the canal in Shandong will freeze over, so our transport barges cannot sail, and supplies and cannon will be hard to move. Relying on the wagon camps of the Shandong armies alone, I fear they cannot withstand the eastern barbarians' iron cavalry. So this subject estimates that once winter sets in, the eastern barbarians will launch a counterattack."

Zhu Cilang turned his gaze back to the fourth-ranked subject, Zu Kefa. "Kefa, tell me — where will the Tartars launch their counterattack?"

Zu Kefa had long since thought this through for Dorgon over and over. When it came to understanding the Qing army, he far surpassed Li Yan. And his military talent was not far behind anyone's either. Were it not for his ignorance of the Maurice formation and the new tactics combining artillery, infantry, and cavalry, his command ability would have been superior to both Wu Sanfu and Wu Guoyong — let alone this half-converted Li Yan, Li the Filial and Incorrupt.

"Your Majesty," Zu Kefa said, "before I left Zhengzhou, I heard that Dorgon had sent Dodo to Shengjing, granted him the seal of Great General Who Pacifies the State, and established three amban janggin posts — Garrison Commander of Shengjing, Garrison Commander of Ningguta, and Garrison Commander of Shanhai Pass — filled respectively by Ebilun, Yekeshu, and Oboi. Dodo has always been the brother Dorgon relies on most, and he is a proven warrior. Ebilun and Oboi are among the foremost Manchu champions. That they have all gone beyond the passes suggests Dorgon intends to counterattack beyond the passes."

Zhu Cilang turned and glanced at Zhu Chunjie, the Guard Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who had accompanied the army on this campaign.

"Your Majesty," Zhu Chunjie reported, "what Zu Kefa has reported is true. This subject has just received the same news and was about to memorialize it."

As he spoke, he produced a memorial and had the brush-holding eunuch Huang Xiaobao hand it to the Zhu Emperor.

Zhu Cilang unfolded the memorial and saw that it indeed recorded the news of Dodo and Oboi being transferred beyond the passes.

Besides those two items, the memorial also reported on Nikan's battle with Zhang Xianzhong in Henan Prefecture. Nikan had barely ten thousand men, half of them Green Standard, yet he had beaten Zhang Xianzhong black and blue, and Zhang was now holed up in Luoyang, not daring to show his face!

The reason Nikan had won such a complete victory, apart from the old Eight Banners cavalry being as sharp as ever, was a type of light artillery that could maneuver alongside cavalry and mounted infantry — which must be the 3-pounder field guns issued to the Ming army!

Zhu Cilang actually already knew about this!

As early as the beginning of this year, when Van Diemen had transferred from Governor-General of Batavia to General Manager of the East India Company's Shanghai trading post and Special Envoy of the Republic of the United Netherlands to Great Ming, he had informed Zhu Cilang that the English East India Company was exporting artillery and military advisers to the eastern barbarians through Joseon.

English imperialism truly was hateful — its heart set on our destruction, never giving up!

Still, that the Manchus could handle 3-pounder guns so well did take Zhu Cilang somewhat by surprise — though it should have been expected. Historically, the Manchus were still quite adept with cannon all the way into the Kangxi years. Was not the Battle of Ulan Butung won precisely with Hongyi cannon? To drag Hongyi cannon a thousand li from Beijing to the Ulan Butung battlefield and deploy them there — that was no mean standard.

And this generation of Manchus under Dorgon and Dodo had a capacity for military learning far beyond the already-decaying Eight Banners lords under the Kangxi Emperor. It was no surprise they could manage cavalry-artillery coordination.

Of course, the single trick of cavalry-artillery coordination did not frighten Zhu Cilang.

What was there to fear in an artillery duel with the Tartars? If Dorgon wanted to try line-infantry volley fire, so much the better — with their tiny population, even if every one of them fought like lobsterbacks, they would still be thrown away for nothing!

"Military Adviser, take a look too." Zhu Cilang handed Zhu Chunjie's memorial to Li Yan.

Li Yan glanced through it and frowned slightly. "Zhang Xianzhong defeated so badly... and Dorgon at Zhengzhou — it seems the likelihood of the eastern barbarians counterattacking in Shandong is not small either."

Zhu Cilang nodded. "A counterattack is certain. The only question is when."

"In winter," Li Yan said. "He will not move until the canal freezes. And until the canal freezes, we cannot take Liaocheng!"

He paused. "The key is Liaocheng!"

Liaocheng was the hardest fortress to take along the canal in Shandong — it sat in a lake, and it happened to straddle the canal's throat. Without taking Liaocheng, the southern Ming army could not advance north. And in the season when the canal was not frozen, there was no way to take Liaocheng.

With a lake that wide, how do you attack? Row small boats at the shore? How many men would that cost? And the lake around Liaocheng was not big enough to sail warships into.

So to take Liaocheng, one had to wait for the canal to freeze in winter — and once the canal froze, Great Ming's transport barges could not sail, while Dorgon's cavalry could move freely.

Zhu Cilang laughed. "Then it is Liaocheng. This autumn we go to Liaocheng and no farther north. We will besiege the point and strike the relief force! If Dorgon dares to come, we will make him a second Hooge!"

He then said to Zu Kefa: "Zu Kefa, do not go to Wu Guoyong after all. Go to Shaanxi instead — go see your cousin Wu Sangui!"

"See Wu Sangui?" Zu Kefa was taken aback. "Your Majesty, what would you have this subject say to Wu Sangui?"

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Why, the matter of his turning coat and coming over to us, of course!"

(End of Chapter)