Chapter 635: We're Rich! Grab the Silver!

In the first year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the joyous Lantern Festival.

North of Dasan Pass, at Heshang Plain.

"We're rich! Grab the silver! So much silver — hurry, grab it!"

Across the battlefield of Heshang Plain below Dasan Pass, a tremendous shout rose like the roar of mountains and seas, so jubilant and ecstatic that it hardly seemed the atmosphere a battlefield ought to have.

Yet such jubilation was hardly strange on the Heshang Plain battlefield that day, for a crowd of poverty-crazed soldiers of the Guanning Army and the Gansu-Shaanxi Army, while pursuing the fleeing Xi army, had caught sight of countless silver ingots scattered across Heshang Plain!

It was lovely, lovely silver! It nearly covered the whole of Heshang Plain — likely more than ten million taels of it!

Wu Sangui's men were all paupers — either impoverished hereditary officers and soldiers from the Gansu-Shaanxi region, or soldiers who had migrated empty-handed from Ningyuan.

Of course, among all the paupers, the poorest was Wu Sangui himself! Others were merely poor, but he was also buried in high-interest debt. He had still not repaid what he owed to Jia Busi, and for this campaign against the remnants of the Xi, he had borrowed another three hundred thousand taels in "seal money" from Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants in Qikou Town, at thirty percent interest, non-compounding — the interest alone for one year would come to one hundred thousand eight hundred taels!

And this seal-money debt was one Wu Sangui could not wriggle out of. Not repaying Jia Busi was one thing — would an Embroidered Uniform Guard dare dun the Emperor's brother-in-law for payment? But the loan from Qikou Town had been "guaranteed" by the Loan Prince, Zhu Cijiong. This guarantee did not mean that if Wu Sangui failed to repay, Zhu Cijiong would pay — it meant that if Wu Sangui failed to repay, Zhu Cijiong would be responsible for collecting the debt!

If the Loan Prince came to collect, would Wu Sangui dare not pay? His Highness the Loan Prince was the Hongxing Emperor's full brother, born of the same father and mother — and since Zhu Cilang still had no son, if he were to die young, the Ming throne might well fall to this very brother.

Moreover, though the Loan Prince was young, no one could match his talent for producing sons! After going up into the Lüliang Mountains, he had already taken twelve daughters of his creditors as concubines, and already had four sons — which showed that the reason Zhu Cilang still had no son was simply that his finances were too sound and his harem contained no female creditors. In short, if Zhu Cilang never produced a son, the Loan Prince's son would be the lawful heir to the throne.

So when Wu Sangui led his troops in pursuit of the "fleeing in panic" Xi army to Heshang Plain and saw silver covering the ground, even he felt like grabbing some — but the thought flashed by in an instant, and he immediately knew something was wrong.

Scattering silver all over a battlefield for the enemy to pick up was no kind intention! It was trading one's own silver for other men's lives — and once the lives were taken, the silver would mostly be taken back.

This trick was nothing new; how could Wu Sangui not know it?

But he could no longer control the poverty-crazed Shaanxi and Guanning soldiers. They were all hard-luck "landlord soldiers" — men whose military service depended on income from their land. But how much grain could the land of Shaanxi and Gansu grow to support such costly military service? And Wu Sangui, the Prince Who Pacifies the West, buried in debt as he was, had little money to subsidize the landlord soldiers under him.

So Wu Sangui was not the only one running at a loss — most of the landlord soldiers on the Heshang Plain battlefield were spending more than they took in, and were counting on seizing a share of Zhang Xianzhong's ill-gotten wealth to make up the difference!

Now, with silver all over the ground before their eyes, how could they not rush to grab it with reddened eyes?

The stratagem used by Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo, Zhang Wenxiu, and Zhang Nengqi was truly simple, crude, and effective!

Wu Sangui, knowing disaster was coming, hastily dispatched his personal guards to stop his pauper landlords from picking up the money. But who was willing to stop now? The silver on the ground must amount to several million taels — the greater part of the black money Zhang Xianzhong had amassed was right here. If they did not grab it now, there would be no later. Even after Wu Sangui's personal guards cut down more than a dozen heads in a row, the men below still ignored orders and went on grabbing silver like madmen.

Wu Sangui's great army instantly fell into chaos!

Just as Wu Sangui's men were grabbing money like madmen, the thirteen thousand cavalry that had originally been serving as the Xi army's main rearguard had already halted their retreat, hastily reformed their ranks, and then, under the command of Zhang Dingguo and Zhang Nengqi, launched a charge against the utterly disordered forty thousand elite troops led by Wu Sangui himself.

At the first charge, Wu's army was routed!

The Battle of Heshang Plain on the fifteenth day of the first month of the first year of Hongxing of the Great Ming taught Wu Sangui just how formidable the Xi army was without Zhang Xianzhong — not that Zhang Xianzhong was not formidable himself, but the man was half-mad, and after entering Sichuan and proclaiming himself emperor, he had become almost deranged, only somewhat normal when drunk.

Apart from the four "adopted sons" he treated as his own and the Xi Left Chief Minister Wang Zhaolin, who was just as mad as he was, everyone else lived in constant fear for their lives. Generals with a few soldiers under them naturally did everything they could to preserve their strength, lest losing it get them killed in a muddle by the old "His Majesty."

So the death of Zhang Xianzhong was an absolute boon to the officers and men of the Xi army — it was as if the Heavenly King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had gone to meet God just before the Tianjing Incident.

So everyone in the Xi army, high and low, breathed a sigh of relief.

And the arrangement of four princes ruling jointly was actually conducive to bringing out the full fighting power of the Xi army — if there were not such great external pressure now, the joint rule of four princes might well have turned into infighting among four princes, but at present everyone's head was hanging at his belt, and to stay alive they had to fight with everything they had.

So the four jointly ruling princes all staked their hidden reserves and fought to the death, and the two best fighters among the four, Zhang Dingguo and Zhang Nengqi, personally led the charge.

And Zhang Kewang also staked his capital, using Zhang Wenxiu's stratagem to scatter several million taels of the silver the old "His Majesty" had so painstakingly plundered across Heshang Plain, to lure Wu Sangui's pauper soldiers.

Wu Sangui was truly beaten badly this time — not only did his forty thousand troops lose more than half their number, but Zhang Dingguo and Zhang Nengqi pursued him all the way from Heshang Camp to the great camp at Qishan. Before he could set up camp defenses, Zhang Kewang and Zhang Wenxiu arrived with the Xi army's main force.

Wu Sangui dared not hold the camp, so he abandoned the grain, fodder, and baggage stored at the Temple of the Duke of Zhou and fled eastward, only barely stabilizing once he reached the city of Xi'an Prefecture — the city of Xi'an Prefecture and Tongguan Guard had both been abandoned by the Xi army and handed over to the detached force commanded by Zu Kefa and Wu Guogui.

Only after receiving support from Zu Kefa and Wu Guogui did Wu Sangui manage to save his life. Of the forty thousand troops who had followed him to Heshang Plain, plus the five thousand left to hold the great camp at Qishan, only thirteen or fourteen thousand made it alive to Xi'an. Even counting Zu Kefa's and Wu Guogui's men, Wu Sangui now had no more than thirty thousand troops.

And at this time, the twenty thousand Eight Banners troops led by Nikan and Mandahai had also advanced to Shanzhou, east of Tongguan Guard.

When Wu Sangui got the news, he truly felt as though the end of days had come. With no other choice, he invited Zu Kefa to his headquarters for a serious discussion. Should he just go on being a traitor to the Han?

"That won't do." Zu Kefa shook his head like a rattle-drum. "Changbo, you lost so much at Heshang Plain — can the eastern barbarians make up your shortfall? You still owe a huge sum in compensation for the dead and wounded! How many did you lose? Twenty thousand?"

Wu Sangui's face was mournful. "More than that. Thirty thousand! Though some have straggled back to the ranks, the final loss will still be at least twenty-five thousand!"

Zu Kefa asked, "How much compensation per man?"

Wu Sangui said, "It was agreed at fifty taels of silver. For Centurion officers it doubles, and for Chiliarch officers it triples — to be paid in full within three months after the battle!"

"Leaving aside the Centurions and Chiliarchs, at fifty taels per man, that's still one million two hundred fifty thousand taels!" Zu Kefa looked at Wu Sangui with sympathy. "Changbo, do you think you can get away with not paying? If you don't pay, will the three hundred thirty Chiliarchs under you let you off?"

Wu Sangui was on the verge of tears. He had tried to steal a chicken and lost the rice — no, not just a handful of rice, but more than a million taels of silver!

Zu Kefa went on calculating: "You still owe Jiale Market (a trading house) two hundred thousand taels in seal money, and you owe the Shanxi merchants of Qikou three hundred thousand taels in seal money — principal and interest together, how much is that? Without two million, you simply cannot get through this! Apart from your brother-in-law, who else can give it to you? And you still want to be a traitor to the Han now — can you afford to be a traitor? Do you have two million?"

(End of Chapter)