Chapter 81: Finally Out of the Tiger's Jaws (Please Recommend!)

In the darkness of night, a fiery dragon still stretched across the wilderness west of the Grand Canal, surging forward like a rolling tide.

The terrain around Wuqing in Tianjin somewhat resembled the south, with numerous river channels and streams, and a scattered network of waterways that was unfavorable for cavalry operations. The official road was not straight either, but wound along the rivers and streams, crossing a bridge from time to time.

For Zhu Cilang, who was fleeing for his life, such terrain was actually highly advantageous. As long as one wooden bridge was dismantled, it could temporarily block the land-bound pursuers coming from the west — though of course, most of the streams around Tianjin were not deep and could be forded.

The area around Wangqingtuo was likewise very "southern" in its terrain. Twenty or thirty li to the east lay the canal, called the Lu River; seven or eight li to the south there was actually a large lake, called Sanjiao Lake. Ten-odd li to the west was the Lugou River — essentially terrain surrounded by water on three sides. And the official road from Wangqingtuo to the Tianjin garrison city had to pass through a narrow corridor between Sanjiao Lake and the Lu River (the canal)... and after passing through, one still had to cross the Wei River (not the Wei River that led to the sea, but the canal channel leading south) before finally reaching the Tianjin garrison city.

So from the standpoint of military common sense, once the Chongzhen Emperor and his son, who had fled from Beijing, along with the troops escorting them, reached Wangqingtuo, they were basically secure.

Therefore, even if Zhu Cilang was so exhausted he coughed blood tonight, he absolutely had to bring the great fleeing column into the fortress at Wangqingtuo.

Only upon reaching Wangqingtuo would Zhu Cilang dare to sleep soundly, and then proceed onward to the Tianjin garrison. Once the main force reached Tianjin and joined up with the sea vessels of Shen Tingyang and Su Guansheng, that would truly be a dragon entering the eastern sea and a tiger returning to the southern mountains.

Under Zhu Cilang's urging, the fleeing column summoned its last reserves of spirit and advanced at forced-march speed. Everyone walked drenched in sweat, yet not a single footstep showed any sign of stopping.

Zhu Cilang himself was also advancing on foot. He had already removed his armor, and in his hand he leaned on a walking stick. His lower legs were wrapped round and round with strips of hemp cloth, called "puttees" — a trick he had learned during military training in his youth. It was said to reduce the chance of leg injury during marches, lessen fatigue in the legs, and strengthen one's ability to march on foot. Wu Sanmei had also imitated Zhu Cilang and wrapped puttees on herself, and she loyally kept close by Zhu Cilang's side. She did not carry a walking stick, however; one hand still held the reins, leading two fully equipped warhorses — these were prepared for herself and Zhu Cilang. If anything unexpected happened, she would ride away with Zhu Cilang!

All around the two of them were soldiers — officers and men of the Dragon Cavalry Battalion, the Tiger Guard Battalion, and the Eastern Palace Guard Battalion, all stripped of their armor. They all carried torches and saw with their own eyes how His Highness the Crown Prince, the Pacifying General of the Great Ming, measured the southbound official road foot by foot together with them. In their hearts, their admiration for this down-to-earth Crown Prince grew a few degrees more.

This Crown Prince truly ate with everyone and walked with everyone! And he also handed out silver in great handfuls, and issued "white slips" (imperial edicts granting land and rewarding merit) — this was truly sharing both prosperity and hardship!

If even the Crown Prince was like this, who would still complain of hardship or fatigue? What status did everyone have? Were they more exalted than the Crown Prince?

But no one knew. Zhu Cilang had long since been crying out in misery inside from exhaustion, but before the crowd he still had to put on an air of high-spirited determination. Whenever people's gazes fell upon him, he still had to wave in acknowledgment and, in the tone of a dauntless reactionary, say a few rousing words.

"Brothers, follow Us, and land there will be, and wives there will be too!"

Though an extremely plain truth, it still lifted the spirits of the exhausted soldiers. From time to time, answering shouts rang out within the ranks.

"His Highness treats us as brothers!"

"With His Highness here, the Great Ming will surely be restored!"

"His Highness shares hardship with us, so we'll stake our lives to conquer the realm for His Highness!"

"His Highness is a wise sovereign — the Great Ming is saved..."

Hearing such responses, Zhu Cilang's fatigue, and the pain from his buttocks, his inner thighs, and the blood blisters rubbed onto the soles of his feet, all lessened considerably at once. He thought to himself: from Beijing to Dagu Port in Tianjin was only a little over three hundred li — compared to the twenty-five-thousand-li Long March, it was nothing at all! How could he not manage to walk it?

The carriage shared by the Chongzhen Emperor and Empress Zhou was not far behind Zhu Cilang. Cao Huachun, who had come with Zhu Cilang from Wangqingtuo to welcome the imperial party, led his horse and walked beside the carriage — for now, apart from the Chongzhen Emperor, Empress Zhou, Empress Dowager Zhang, Consort Li, and certain other elderly officials and officials' family members who truly could not walk, or wounded soldiers injured in small-scale cavalry skirmishes, everyone else was walking on foot just like Zhu Cilang.

The reason for this was not entirely to share hardship, but to let the horses rest.

On this journey out, the forced march of over a hundred li had tested not only human strength but also consumed the horses' energy enormously. Now that they were on the verge of entering Wangqingtuo to rest and regroup, they conserved the horses as much as possible.

Of course... there was also an element of Zhu Cilang putting on a show!

Now that Zhu Cilang's authority as Crown Prince had been discounted, he had to rely on performance to boost his popularity. In this age, the highest realm of showmanship for a great man was to give away one's clothes and food, to share prosperity and hardship. In his previous life, Zhu Cilang had been a nobody who climbed up from the bottom — what airs could he possibly fail to put down?

But his conduct, in the eyes of the Chongzhen Emperor in the carriage and Cao Huachun attending beside it, was highly unusual.

Had this Crown Prince truly grown up deep within the palace? How could he play the ruthless hero's game of winning hearts so well? Which lecturer had taught him this?

"Your Majesty, if this consort may say something she perhaps should not — this child Cilang truly has something of the legacy of Taizu and Chengzu!"

In Empress Zhou's eyes, her son Zhu Cilang was of course the best son in the whole world! Without this son, her life would already have been lost! Her husband might have fled alone, or might already have died for the ancestral altars and the realm. How could there be the present situation, where she could go peacefully to Jiangnan and live comfortably in a residence?

In her view, once they reached Jiangnan, her husband should stop managing affairs and hand everything over to their son...

The Chongzhen Emperor snorted and asked in a flat, ambiguous tone: "Is the old imperial in-law still weeping bitterly?"

The "old imperial in-law" he referred to was the State Uncle Zhou Kui. The old man had been fleeced of all his silver by his grandson, and though he dared to rage inwardly, he dared not speak — all that was left was weeping. He had wept the whole way, in a manner that could rend heart and lungs! Yet no one sympathized with him; even his daughter, Empress Zhou, did not sympathize with the old miser. The Chongzhen Emperor was even somewhat gleeful at his misfortune. Had he, the Emperor, fallen to this state not ultimately because imperial in-laws like Zhou Kui had all refused to contribute money to save the nation when the country faced disaster?

This realm was not the Chongzhen Emperor's alone — these imperial in-laws and a host of princes and imperial clansmen all had a share in it. Why should they all refuse to part with a single hair, leaving their own wise sovereign to bear the blame? Now they had all been fleeced by the Crown Prince, hadn't they? Served them right!

Empress Zhou, questioned thus by the Chongzhen Emperor, sighed faintly: "This child Cilang is indeed a bit ruthless. He ought to have left his maternal grandfather at least a little silver..."

"Keeping his life is already good enough!" The Chongzhen Emperor deliberately raised his voice so that Eunuch Cao, walking beside the carriage, could hear. "Everyone says Cilang acts like Taizu or Chengzu, but what sort of men were Taizu and Chengzu? Could their eyes tolerate a grain of sand? Could they tolerate that pack of ennobled nobles, imperial in-laws, officials, and... palace attendants who have embezzled who knows how much silver?"

When Cao Huachun heard the Chongzhen Emperor mention "palace attendants," his whole body shuddered. By now he already knew of Zhu Cilang's "palace coup and seizure of power," and of the execution outside the Meridian Gate of Zhang Jinyan, Xiang Yu, Liang Zhaoyang, Zhou Zhong, Wei Xuelian, Qian Weikun, and several dozen others — and that he had personally killed the Junior Supervisor Xiang Yu... So ferocious at only sixteen; what would he be like when he grew up?

Just as Eunuch Cao was trembling with fear at the Crown Prince's ferocity, Zhu Cilang's somewhat hoarse voice suddenly came from up ahead: "Imperial Father, Imperial Mother, Wangqingtuo is here! We've finally escaped the tiger's jaws!"

(End of Chapter)