Chapter 678: A Fugitive Prince Indeed

Lihua Post by the Lihua River.

The town bearing this poetic, picturesque name was in fact a shabby border settlement at the end of its rope — no pear blossoms, no post station, and certainly no poets.

The "Lihua" in Lihua Post came from the Lihua River, which was the Red River running from Yunnan into Annam. The "Post" came from a long-abandoned relay station and an Annam campaign that had ended in gloom.

In the years when the Yongle Emperor conquered Annam, Lihua Post had indeed been a post station — an important relay point for communications between Yunnan and Annam.

After the Xuande Emperor abandoned the Annam campaign, however, Lihua Post lost its reason to exist. But the people who had lived off the station soon found a new livelihood: carrying on a little cross-border trade along the barely navigable Lihua River. It did not make them rich, but it fed their families and kept the little town of Lihua Post going for more than two hundred years. It also gave the fleeing Ming Prince of Yunnan, Zhu Cizhao, a temporary foothold before he entered the territory of the Annam Military Commission.

It was now the second day of the fourth month of the second year of Hongxing. The Ming Prince of Yunnan, who had abandoned Kunming at the end of the second month and once again taken to the road as a fugitive, had already spent more than a month in a life of restless wandering. Still, Zhu Cizhao, who had turned eighteen this year, possessed the sturdy constitution he had inherited from the Chongzhen Emperor, and he had hardly known a settled day since the fifth year, so he had long grown used to a life of constant flight.

Thus, by the time he reached Lihua Post, the prince was still in high spirits.

And the men fleeing with him were all old hands at running. Zhang Yong could not beat the eastern barbarians, and he could not beat the roving bandits — but could he not run?

Qiu Lei was a fine runner too. When Beijing fell five years ago, he had been commanding troops in Shandong, and now he had run all the way to Yunnan. What a runner!

The princess consort who followed Zhu Cizhao, Zuo Mengmei — now called Qiu Mengmei — was likewise accustomed to dashing about. Over the years she had been to all sorts of places, north, south, east, and west.

As for the troops who had entered Yunnan with the Prince of Yunnan, they too were good marchers — not only because of the stamina built up over years, but also because they had not brought their families when they entered Yunnan. Their dependents had all been left in Guizhou, since the plan had been to reunite only after Yunnan was fully secured. So they could leave at a moment's notice.

An army of nearly thirty thousand men, plus more than ten thousand laborers leading horses and hauling carts, marched south out of Kunming in a single column.

Because they had fought Sha Dingzhou and his wife in Lin'an Prefecture for more than a year, they knew the roads well and knew where to requisition grain and fodder.

Thus more than a month of marching had not worn down this army, made up chiefly of northerners and men from Jing.

Even when they reached Lihua Post, they did not show the abject look expected of a defeated, fleeing army. They had brought not only their weapons and armor but also ample supplies. For along the Kui Long River, more than a hundred li south of Lihua Post, lay the Mu family's reward estate — land that in later times would belong to Vietnam — and in the river valley there were broad stretches of fine farmland. During the last campaign against Sha Dingzhou, Zhang Yong and Qiu Lei had learned of this estate. So this time, when they fled, they had sent picked troops ahead to seize the estate, then called up laborers from several nearby tusi to haul the grain to Lihua Post.

So when Zheng He, Prefect of Annam's Guihua Prefecture, arrived at Lihua Post with his men under the Prince of Yunnan's warrant — Annam being still nominally the Ming's Annam Military Commission — the old man's heart was in his throat.

The old man looked dried-up and shriveled, dark and swarthy, like an old peasant. But in fact he was a fierce general of the Zheng lord's family! Six years earlier he had followed the Zheng lord Zheng Trang in the assault on the Truong Duc ramparts, leading the charge and winning great merit, which was how he had become Prefect of Guihua.

As a veteran of the Zheng family's imperial guard, Zheng He had a sharp eye. One glance told him whether an army could fight.

And this so-called "fleeing army" before him clearly had the bearing of battle-hardened veterans. Where was the slightest trace of flight?

Zheng He had bound up his hair and joined the army as a youth, following Zheng Trang in more than twenty years of bitter fighting against the Nguyen of Quang Nam. He was especially good at losing battles. Apart from following the Zheng lord in storming the Truong Duc ramparts six years ago, he had spent his whole life losing battles — the Zheng army had been fighting the Nguyen for more than twenty years and had lost nearly every one — so he had seen more than his share of defeated soldiers.

Defeated soldiers ought to throw away their helmets and armor, hang their heads in despair, and live in constant dread.

How could the so-called "fleeing soldiers" here at Lihua Post look like this? Nearly every soldier carried his armor — who carries armor while running from a lost battle? Is it not heavy?

What was more, many of the soldiers were toting pikes over ten feet long. Who flees carrying one of those things?

Oh, and there were cannon and matchlocks too!

The matchlocks were all turtle-foot guns. One look told him they were fine pieces bought from the Dutch — in fact they had been purchased in Foshan. The cannon were three-pounder bronze field guns, exactly the same as those used by the Nguyen army — both were products of the Bocarro factory in Macau. Used well, they were formidable.

But what aroused Zheng He's suspicion most was the timing of this Ming army's arrival. The Thanh Do lord, Zheng Trang, had just suffered a crushing defeat at the Truong Duc ramparts — a truly catastrophic defeat. The Zheng army had long been accustomed to losing, but this time they had set a new standard for defeat.

A hundred thousand imperial guards had been routed by the Nguyen family's twenty thousand men — the Nguyen lord's army was semi-Westernized and had fought a defensive counterattack from the strong position of the Truong Duc ramparts — and the hard-won semi-Westernized units had been annihilated to the last man. Worse, the Le emperor Le Duy Huu, who had personally led the campaign, had died under unclear circumstances in the midst of battle.

So when the sons of the Annam Zheng clan learned the full extent of the disaster, every one of them broke down in loud weeping.

And Zheng He, too, had tears streaming down his old face. Before he had even dried his eyes, word came that the Ming Prince of Yunnan was coming to seek refuge.

If the Zheng imperial guard had not been crushed, the Zheng lord of Annam, with his strength, would not have feared a Ming attack. The Zheng lord had a hundred thousand troops, several Western-style warships, Dutch military advisers, and more than ten thousand semi-Westernized elite soldiers. That army could not defeat the Nguyen of Quang Nam entrenched at the Truong Duc ramparts, but it did not fear a Ming army exhausted by a long expedition.

The problem was that the Zheng lord's hundred thousand imperial guards had just been smashed, and before they had time to recover and lick their wounds, you Ming troops arrived right on cue. Was that not a little too convenient?

Who would believe there was no scheme behind it?

Great Viet would not perish, of course, but the Zheng family was surely finished — their clan would be wiped out.

At the thought of his clan's extermination, old Zheng He could not hold back and burst into loud sobs — right in front of Zhu Cizhao, Qiu Lei, Zhang Yong, and the others!

"Old man — old man, why are you weeping? Has someone wronged you?" Zhu Cizhao's reaction was quick. While everyone else stood dumbfounded, he had already asked with sympathy.

He spoke, of course, in Chinese. Ordinary Annamese could not understand it, but Zheng He was a learned man. He had even sat the civil examinations and passed as an Annam jinshi, so he understood Chinese.

At Zhu Cizhao's question, Zheng He wiped his tears. He did not kneel to the Prince of Yunnan, but stood there and declared righteously: "Prince of Yunnan, you have taken advantage of our king's recent death and the Thanh Do lord's crushing defeat to march tens of thousands of wolves and tigers upon us — and now you ask this old man who has wronged him?"

He spoke in Guangdong Mandarin. Zhu Cizhao found it a little hard to follow, but he grasped the general meaning.

Annam had apparently just lost a battle, and its king had died — whether killed in the fighting or not, he did not know. In any case, the country was leaderless and its people in panic, so the sight of him arriving with troops in flight had aroused suspicion.

"Old sir, you misunderstand." Zhu Cizhao gave a long sigh. "We too have lost a battle. We came to the Annam Military Commission only because we had nowhere else to turn. We have absolutely no designs on the post of Annam Military Commissioner. We are a prince of the imperial clan — would We covet a mere commissioner's office?"

Still trying to deceive.

How could Zheng He be taken in? Did an army with nowhere to turn look like this? You were plainly here for a surprise attack!

"Hmph!" Zheng He snorted. "Why does Your Highness bother with such mockery? Zheng is an Annamese in life and an Annamese ghost in death. I will never surrender. If you mean to kill me, then kill me!"

Kill him? Zhu Cizhao did not know what to say. He looked to his left and right. "This old man seems to have lost his mind. Perhaps we should just enter the territory of the Annam Military Commission first. It is all Ming land anyway — where may We not go? We will wait until We reach Thang Long and speak with their commissioner."

(End of Chapter)