Chapter 632: This Old Man Won't Play Dead

In the heartland of the Central Plains, at the southern foot of Mount Mang on the border between Henan Prefecture and Huaiqing Prefecture, there stood a fortified stronghold built against the mountain. Such strongholds could be seen everywhere in the northern mountains these days.

The masters of these strongholds were usually powerful local clans, men who had once dominated their districts as local magnates. When the troubled times came, in order to preserve their families and clans, most of them banded together and withdrew into the mountains, building stockades at nearby strategic points to serve as refuges for their entire lineage.

If the prefecture they lived in came under a regime that could protect their interests to some degree, they would often choose to cooperate and leave their mountain fortresses. For example, the powerful families of Qingzhou, Dengzhou, and Laizhou in Shandong all chose to cooperate with the Hongxing Emperor's regime. Although the Zhu emperor wanted to carry out the equalization of land tax and unified grain levies in Shandong, his regime did not touch the bottom line of these powerful families — namely, their land — and Zhu Cilang's army had also shown that it could protect their interests.

But here in Henan Prefecture, because of the land-grant-by-headcount policy that Dorgon had implemented, many powerful landlord families had no choice but to keep resisting, entrenched in mountain strongholds and holding high the banner of resisting the Qing.

The master of this stronghold at the southern foot of Mount Mang was surnamed Wu, claimed some distant kinship with Wu Zetian, held a long-"expired" Ming-dynasty juren degree, and was known as Filial and Incorruptible Wu. He had originally been a great landlord of Yanshi County at the foot of Mount Mang. When Li Zicheng stormed Luoyang and killed the old Prince of Fu, Filial and Incorruptible Wu realized that chaos across the realm was unavoidable. So he distributed some of his loose wealth, took his clansmen up Mount Mang, built Fort Wu, and stockpiled a hundred thousand shi of rice and flour, hoping to ride out the troubled times in the mountains and preserve his clan.

But he never expected that the eastern barbarians, who had defeated the roving bandit Li Zicheng and seized the Central Province, had swallowed some wrong medicine and set about doing what even Li Zicheng had failed to accomplish — equalizing land by headcount. And this land equalization utterly ruined the Wu family of Mount Mang.

The tens of thousands of mu of land his family had accumulated over generations were all equalized away. The peasants who had paid rent to his family for generations all turned into landowners overnight and paid the Wu family no more heed. Unwilling to accept this, Filial and Incorruptible Wu led his clan soldiers down the mountain to seize grain, only to be beaten by the Qing troops garrisoning Luoyang as if he were a local bandit. He fled back to Mount Mang discarding his armor, then gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, and sent men to submit to the Third Crown Prince of Mount Lüliang. He received the office of Magistrate of Yanshi County and began his great enterprise of resisting the Qing and preserving the Ming from Mount Mang.

But by the twentieth year of Chongzhen, something far beyond his expectations happened again. The Southern Ming, which was doing better and better in the southeast, did not march on Henan, nor did the swaggering "Loan King" Third Crown Prince on Mount Lüliang. Instead, Zhang Xianzhong, who had long vanished from everyone's sight, appeared from nowhere, swept all before him, and took Luoyang.

That meant he held both eastern and western capitals. Wasn't that exactly the situation after Li Shimin defeated Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong?

Filial and Incorruptible Wu was a firm believer in the saying "He who gains the Central Plains gains the realm," so he went to Luoyang and threw in his lot with Zhang Xianzhong, becoming the Xi Emperor's Magistrate of Yanshi County.

But he had not sat in the great hall of the Yanshi county yamen for more than a few days before Zhang Xianzhong's adopted son Zhang Kewang was defeated at Gong County, and Yanshi too was reported indefensible. Filial and Incorruptible Wu had no choice but to leave the county seat reluctantly and go back up Mount Mang.

Just as he was preparing to resign his office under the Xi dynasty and go back to eating the Third Crown Prince Zhu's "returned grass," the eastern barbarians started fighting the Southern Ming's northern expedition army in Shandong.

At this, Zhang Xianzhong, who had originally planned to abandon Luoyang and flee back to Guanzhong, got his energy back and prepared to fight a life-and-death battle with the Qing army at Yanshi. According to the news Filial and Incorruptible Wu had received, that madman Zhang Xianzhong had even killed dozens of his consorts in a row to show that he was burning his boats and would either die or survive.

After killing the consorts, Zhang Xianzhong went on a mad mobilization of troops. He not only drew out more than eighty thousand elite Xi soldiers, but also issued conscription and grain-levy orders to hangers-on county magistrates like Filial and Incorruptible Wu. Moreover, he requisitioned Fort Wu as the Xi Emperor's temporary residence — Zhang Xianzhong intended to command the decisive battle against the Qing army from Fort Wu on Mount Mang.

According to Zhang Xianzhong's plan, he would personally lead the elite troops to lie in ambush on Mount Mang, while Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo, and others besieged Yanshi to draw Qing reinforcements, and finally surround the relief force and annihilate the Qing reinforcements in one blow.

But what happened next again defied Zhang Xianzhong's expectations. Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo, and the others besieged Yanshi for many days, yet the Qing army simply ignored them. Zhang Xianzhong ordered them to storm the city, but the small city of Yanshi seemed impregnable and could not be taken no matter what.

Just when Zhang Xianzhong was feeling vexed and suffocated, the Qing relief force arrived. At this, the Old Ten-Thousand-Year's self-regard improved again, and he immediately led his troops out to strike, wanting to give the Qing army a taste of his power.

Who could have known that Nikan, in charge of the Luoyang front, had already joined forces with Mandahai, the one who had earlier broken into Suining. After Li Yan marched south, Mandahai had retreated westward all the way, withdrawn from Southern Ming territory, and returned to Henan, where Dorgon had assigned him to serve under Nikan. Thus Nikan now had twenty thousand Nine Banner troops in hand, so the Qing force reinforcing Yanshi numbered over fifteen thousand men, with twelve 3-pounder cannons.

The result goes without saying — naturally a disastrous defeat! Even Zhang Xianzhong himself was grazed by an iron ball fired from a Qing 3-pounder during the battle, one arm shattered to pieces, and he fell from his horse. By the time his men carried him back to Fort Wu, he was already failing fast.

Filial and Incorruptible Wu, who knew the terrain, had no choice but to risk going down the mountain to fetch the four adopted sons — Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo, Zhang Wenxiu, and Zhang Nengqi — and bring them up the mountain.

It was now deep in the night. The heavily burdened Filial and Incorruptible Wu was leading the four even more heavily burdened Xi princes along the mountain paths of Mount Mang.

The group walked on in silence, straight up to Fort Wu, and not one of them made a sound the entire way.

The Old Ten-Thousand-Year Zhang Xianzhong was already dying. The army physician accompanying them had boiled thousand-year wild ginseng into a broth to barely keep him alive, and he had managed to hold on until Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo, Zhang Wenxiu, and Zhang Nengqi arrived.

In a room lit by dim candlelight and furnished plainly, Zhang Xianzhong, his face ashen and his eyes already devoid of spirit, laboriously gave his final instructions.

"Fuck his mother's hair, it looks like this old man won't get past this hurdle! But it doesn't matter — this old man even became emperor, and what's more, he fucking did it twice. Totally worth it! But I never expected those dog Tartars to be so formidable. Seems leaving Sichuan and marching north was a muddle-headed move. Now this old man is done for. As for the little bit of family business I'm leaving behind, you four little brats figure it out yourselves."

Zhang Xianzhong slowly spoke his last words, his tone full of desolation. The adopted sons all had tears in their eyes, gazing at this emperor-father with complicated expressions. When Zhang Xianzhong had slowly finished a passage, Zhang Dingguo began to weep. "Old Ten-Thousand-Year, please say no more. Rest well, and you will surely recover. Once you are well, we will follow you again to conquer the realm!"

"Ai," Zhang Xianzhong waved his hand. "At this point, what rest is there? I'll soon be going down to see Li Zicheng. This old man will make it clear to you four first — you four must not make this old man play dead. A real man dies when he dies. What's the point of playing dead? It makes one look afraid of death, no hero at all."

Zhang Kewang wiped his tears. "Ama, Old Ten-Thousand-Year, we cannot do without Ama!"

Zhang Xianzhong's breathing suddenly grew rapid, and his face turned livid. He looked on the verge of death.

"Fuck his mother's hair," Zhang Xianzhong cursed again, then took a deep breath. "This old man has two more instructions. First, the Xi army must not be split up. If you four little brats want to survive, you must not divide the family and go your separate ways!

Second, you must not surrender to the Tartars. This old man was killed by the Tartars! The Tartars are the enemies who killed your father — you must not share the same sky with them!"

"We children will surely avenge this!"

The four adopted sons said in unison.

By now Zhang Xianzhong was breathing out more than in, and his voice had grown so faint it was barely audible. "The Ming is no good... the Ming is no good either. All fucking treacherous ministers and fatuous rulers, scum!... This old man and the Zhu family cannot share the same sky. Better to... better to go with Li Guo... after all, we're all righteous armies, all..."

(End of Chapter)