Chapter 79: Your Majesty, There Are Traitors Who Mean You Harm! (Please Favorite, Please)

Cao Wenbao was originally Cao Huachun's nephew, adopted by Eunuch Cao. He was born in the second year of Chongzhen, the same age as Zhu Cilang — both sixteen — and held a hereditary post as an Embroidered Uniform Guard Vice Chiliarch. But he had never seen battle, and now, watching a thousand armored cavalry ride toward them in formation, his young face had gone pale with fright.

These were iron cavalry, every man helmeted and armored! And their ranks were strict and uniform — even from a distance, the killing intent came pressing over like a wave!

Eunuch Cao, however, remained perfectly composed; not a trace of alarm showed on his fair, clean-shaven face. After handing the telescope to his son, he merely smiled and said, "Help your father down. They're coming straight for us. Once they get close, we'll know whose men they are."

Cao Wenbao supported Cao Huachun as they carefully descended the stairs, and in a low voice asked, "Father, which side should our Wangqingtuo back?"

So the choice of sides had not yet been decided! Although Zhu Cilang had painted a rosy picture of Jiangnan feudalism when he sent Cao Huachun out of the capital, Cao Huachun had a large family here in Wangqingtuo and could not simply follow the Great Ming down a dead-end road without careful thought.

Besides, whether the Chongzhen Emperor and his son could even get out of Beijing was still an open question!

Cao Huachun smiled. "Let's wait and see... Our family is only struggling to survive in these troubled times. Don't we have to lean whichever way the wind blows?"

Cao Wenbao's eyes darted about, and he lowered his voice further. "Father, the hearts of the people in town are all with the Shun!"

Cao Huachun snorted. "The hearts of the people? The hearts of men are treacherous!"

As the two spoke, they had already descended from the watchtower and now stood on the wall at the northern side of Wangqingtuo.

Wangqingtuo was a market town and originally had no wall. It was only after Cao Huachun prospered that he spent money to build one. Because it was his own money spent to protect his own home, the wall was built extremely solidly, using great quantities of grey brick, with a moat outside. Without Hongyi cannon, taking this fortified town would be no easy matter.

Cao Huachun's elder brother, Cao Hua, was already quite old, his beard and hair completely white, yet he too had climbed onto the wall.

This was a moment of life and death for the Cao family of Wangqingtuo! If they backed the wrong side, the whole clan would be wiped out!

Seeing his fifth brother Cao Huachun come down from the high platform, Cao Hua asked urgently, "Fifth Brother, is it the Shun army?"

"Most likely..." Cao Huachun said in a low voice. "All iron cavalry, ranks perfectly ordered. There's no such elite force inside Beijing!"

"Then should we..." Cao Hua's aged face already showed panic, "should we go out to welcome the Roving King?"

Cao Huachun sighed.

The Cao family was the largest landowner in Wuqing County and also ran businesses, and Cao Huachun and Cao Huayu were both high officials who had skimmed plenty from their posts. Such a powerful house naturally had no love for a Roving King who cried, "Eat his mother, wear his mother."

Incidentally, the Shun army's extortion of military funds by torture did not begin in Beijing! They had always done this — otherwise how could they promise three years of tax exemption? If the poor commoners were all exempted from taxes, and no money was extorted from the rich, what would Li Zicheng's million-strong army eat? What would they use?

So the extortion of military funds was not the reason Li Zicheng failed in Beijing at all... Being defeated by the Manchus was the only reason!

"Eldest Brother, set your mind at ease," Cao Huachun said with a smile, comforting his eldest brother. "I've already had Wenbao prepare a hundred thousand taels of silver and ten thousand shi of wheat... If it is the Shun army that comes, we'll offer it up at once. That should be enough to keep our family safe."

"Good, good..." Cao Hua let out a breath. "Now we can only spend money to save our lives. As long as they don't redistribute our land, everything can be settled."

Compared with forced "contributions," land redistribution was far more terrifying!

But however terrifying forced contributions and land redistribution might be, they were still better than having the whole clan exterminated by the Shun's heavenly troops, weren't they?

As the Cao clan waited in fear and trembling, the armored cavalry in the distance finally drew near Wangqingtuo.

Under the dim yellow twilight, an imperial warrant banner and a great command flag suddenly appeared in the telescope Cao Wenbao held raised before his eyes.

"Regional Commander of Liaodong, Count Who Pacifies the West..." Cao Wenbao read the characters on the general's banner in a low voice, and Cao Huachun, standing beside him, started in alarm.

"My son, what did you say?"

"Father, the title on the general's banner is 'Regional Commander of Liaodong, Count Who Pacifies the West.'"

"Regional Commander of Liaodong, Count Who Pacifies the West... Wu Sangui!?" Cao Huachun was stunned. "What is he doing here in Wangqingtuo?"

The old man Cao Hua beside them was also somewhat startled. "Fifth Brother, isn't the Regional Commander of Liaodong garrisoned at Ningyuan? How has he come to our Tianjin?"

Cao Huachun said, "Eldest Brother, on the sixth of the third month His Majesty ordered Wu Sangui to abandon Ningyuan and come to the capital to rally to the throne."

"But we're a hundred and fifty li from Beijing. Why has he come here to us?" Old Cao still could not understand.

It was his nephew Cao Wenbao who was quick-witted and cut in: "It must be that Wu Sangui thinks Li Zicheng is too strong and doesn't dare go directly to lift the siege of Beijing, so he's brought his troops to Tianjin instead."

Cao Huachun frowned. "That must be it... Ah, this Wu Sangui — he could have gone anywhere, so why did he have to come straight to our Wangqingtuo?"

Cao Hua asked, "Fifth Brother, should we go out to receive him?"

Cao Huachun's frown deepened, and he sighed. "Wu Sangui has come — can we refuse to receive him? Wu Sangui's Guanning Army is not just a thousand-odd men; he has tens of thousands of troops! Our family cannot afford to offend him!"

The iron cavalry now arriving were likely Wu Sangui's personal guards, the "Yi Ding Shock Cavalry"... a thousand men handpicked from among three thousand Wu household retainers. Every one of them wore iron helmet and iron armor, and all were highly skilled in martial arts, especially adept at mounted charges in squads of fifty.

Among the forty thousand men of the Guanning Army, the only ones who could truly stand toe-to-toe with the Manchu elite troops were these one thousand Yi Ding Shock Cavalry.

Never mind that Wangqingtuo had nearly three thousand able-bodied braves — if they were actually led out to fight the Yi Ding Shock Cavalry, the enemy wouldn't even need to commit all one thousand; a single charge of fifty horsemen would be enough to break them.

Even if they held the fortress, once the rear column of the Guanning Army arrived, breaking Wangqingtuo would be a trivial matter.

And if it truly came to that, the whole family would be wiped out! So even if Cao Huachun dared betray Chongzhen and Zhu Cilang, he did not dare refuse to receive this great warlord Wu Sangui!

"Wenlu!" Cao Huachun summoned his second brother Cao Huayu's eldest son, Cao Wenlu, twenty-six years old this year.

"Fifth Uncle, what are your orders?"

Cao Wenlu was a Confucian scholar with a xiucai degree who had attended the Imperial Academy, and was now the public face of the Cao family.

"Take some good food and drink and go out to receive them," Cao Huachun paused. "If it really is Wu Sangui, send someone back at once to report. This old man will have to go out of the city to greet him."

"Your nephew obeys."

......

"Thousand Years, it seems someone has come out to welcome us!"

Wu Sanfu, standing on his stirrups to peer ahead, turned his head and asked Zhu Cilang beside him, "Should this subject continue pretending to be my second brother?"

"Keep pretending! Keep on pretending!" Zhu Cilang laughed. "Until we're inside Wangqingtuo!"

"Thousand Years, do you not trust Cao Huachun?" Wu Sanmei, riding alongside Zhu Cilang, cut in.

"Heh heh," Zhu Cilang was still all smiles. "We are willing to trust Cao Huachun... which is precisely why we must fly your second brother's banner."

"Oh..." Wu Sanmei did not understand at all; she simply felt that the Crown Prince's words were profound and unfathomable, and worthy of admiration.

"Sanfu," Zhu Cilang said to Wu Sanfu, "We cannot conveniently show Our face. In a moment, it will be up to you to handle things. Remember, the more you say, the more you risk... Cao Huachun won't come out that far from the city; it will surely be his sons or nephews. So don't say much to them — just insist that we need to enter the town to rest. Once we reach the city gate, Cao Huachun will have to come out to greet us. Then We will reveal Ourself and take control of him, and he will naturally become a loyal subject of our Great Ming!"

"This subject understands!" Wu Sanfu accepted the order, immediately spurred his horse forward, and, following Zhu Cilang's instructions, went to the front of the column to bluff the Cao family's fence-sitters.

Zhu Cilang, the Crown Prince who had become a homeless dog, was cautious to the extreme. If not for the fact that the several thousand people who had fled Beijing had been marching for nearly a day and a night, covering close to a hundred and fifty li, and were utterly exhausted — and with many pursuers still on their heels, they absolutely needed a safe place to rest and regroup — he would not have come to Wangqingtuo to seek out Eunuch Cao at all...