Chapter 871: What? The Great Qing Is Gone! (Thirteen)

"It's over, it's over. Our Great Qing is going to be gone. It's really going to be gone."

The Shunzhi Emperor's legs went weak, and he plopped down onto the floor. His heart was so stricken with grief that he could not hold back his tears no matter what; they streamed down his face in torrents, and he broke into loud sobs.

What a fine Great Qing it had been!

It had only just opened for business a few years ago — how could it be about to vanish?

If the Great Qing were gone, that would be one thing, but what was to become of Us, the Great Qing Emperor? Acknowledging Zhu Cilang as Ama and Princess Jianning as mother would be no great matter. This Emperor can bend and stretch as needed — a puppet emperor is still an emperor! What We fear now is that We may not even get to be a puppet emperor, and will have to go to Nanjing as some worthless Prince Gong. Then We could weep and not a tear would come. No matter how many salaries We drew, We would be living under another's roof, liable at any moment to be invited to sample red-crowned crane poison! By then We would likely die young, and in death We would be too ashamed to face Our two Imperial Amas!

"Imperial Ama, Imperial Ama, open your eyes and look! Our Great Qing is about to be gone! What is to become of Us?" As Shunzhi wept, he thought of his Imperial Amas, Dorgon and Hong Taiji.

"Your Majesty!" The speaker was not Imperial Ama Dorgon, nor Hong Taiji, but Sonin, Grand Secretary Son. "This slave does have one plan."

"If you have a plan, then out with it!" Shunzhi roared.

"Your Majesty," Sonin said, "as long as the green hills remain, there will be no shortage of firewood!"

Shunzhi looked at Sonin, then suddenly gave a bitter smile. "Green hills? Do We still have any green hills?"

"You do!" Sonin said. "Within the Pass, Your Majesty still has the city of Beijing, and within Beijing there are still twenty thousand guards. In Tianjin there are no fewer than ten thousand elite troops. The Manchu and Mongol forces scattered in various places add up to no fewer than twenty thousand more. And Your Majesty still holds the title of Great Khan of the Mongols.

Furthermore, although the Imperial Uncle suffered defeat, his strength still remains. Beyond the Pass there is still a vast expanse of fertile land and a population of several million. All of these are Your Majesty's green hills!"

Shunzhi smiled bitterly and shook his head. "The Great Qing is about to be gone. What use is there in speaking of these things?"

"Your Majesty, if the Great Qing is gone, there is still the Great Mongol Empire! If Your Majesty cannot be a puppet emperor, you can still be a puppet khan. In any case, as long as Your Majesty can get out of the Tianjin garrison and make it back to Beijing, then never mind being a son to Zhu Cilang — being a grandson would do just as well!"

A grandson?

Then Emperor Zhu would be of the same generation as Nurhaci, and Hong Taiji would have to call Zhu Cilang "Uncle Zhu."

Shunzhi's brow furrowed, but his gaze turned to Zu Kefa. "And what is the meaning of this, you Ming envoy sent to urge surrender?"

"Your Majesty," Zu Kefa said with a smile, "the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming would of course like to invite you to Nanjing to enjoy yourself. But if you are willing to be a filial son to the Ming Son of Heaven — to patrol the frontiers and expand the realm on his behalf, to win over the Mongols — then the Son of Heaven might be quite pleased as well. However, Beijing is the ancient capital of the Son of Heaven. What would it mean for you to occupy it?"

After years of development under Dorgon and then Shunzhi, Beijing had become a fortress hardened upon hardness. Taking it by storm would be no easy matter.

Through interrogation of prisoners captured at the Battle of Guanyintang, the Ming army had also learned that there were still twenty thousand troops of the Guard Battalion inside Beijing, that the walls were mounted with many Hongyi cannons and Folangji cannons, and that the grain reserves in the city were enough to last several years.

Moreover, Beijing lay more than two hundred and several tens of li northwest of Tianjin. The Grand Canal was now impassable, and water transport on the Wei River could not be opened for the time being either, because several fortresses near Dagukou remained in Qing hands. The great army besieging the Tianjin garrison therefore depended on grain purchased from the war zone to maintain its supplies. But the military grain the Ming army could raise in the Beijing-Tianjin area was ultimately limited and could not sustain a long war.

And so the heavy task of taking Beijing "fell" upon Emperor Zhu's imperial adopted son, the Ming Prince Gong, Fulin!

But how could Fulin be willing to hand over Beijing?

Beijing was the greatest trump card in his hand!

Yet he did not dare refuse Zu Kefa outright, and could only cast a pleading look toward Grand Secretary Son.

Sonin's brow was knit; clearly he was also mulling the matter over. Seeing Fulin's look, he had no choice but to speak to Zu Kefa: "It is getting late. Perhaps the honored envoy should first retire to the guesthouse and rest. Tomorrow we can discuss it slowly. After all, there is plenty of time, is there not?"

Zu Kefa yawned and said with a smile, "I am indeed a little tired. Then this official shall take his leave and call again tomorrow."

Sonin smiled. "Very well, very well. Allow me to see you out."

With that, all smiles, he escorted Zu Kefa out of the Shunzhi Emperor's imperial study. When he returned, he brought with him G'undai, who commanded the defense of the Tianjin garrison; Gang'atai, another Grand Secretary who had accompanied Shunzhi on campaign; and Wu Weihua, the infantry commander of the Tianjin garrison.

Sovereign and ministers gathered together to continue discussing the funeral affairs of the Great Qing dynasty!

The Great Qing was certainly finished, but the Great Qing dynasty still had a great pile of assets, and Emperor Zhu in the south could not possibly swallow them all in one gulp.

Qingyuan County, seat of Baoding Prefecture.

Into the empty, deserted city at this hour came a "Great Qing Heavenly Host" that looked bedraggled no matter how one viewed it. Riding in front was the cavalry. Their white armor was caked with filth, tattered and torn; at least a third of the troops no longer even had a set of ragged cotton armor, and rode dejectedly on horseback dressed in their own clothes. Few long-hafted weapons could be seen in the marching column; the great majority of the troops carried only a few one-handed short weapons and bows and arrows. Firearms and cannon had all but vanished. Behind the cavalry came an infantry column that was almost empty-handed. Most had no armor to protect them, their clothes were in rags, they were utterly exhausted, and they no longer kept any formation. Seen from a distance they looked less like an army than like refugees.

As for the baggage train, it had vanished entirely! Every infantryman and cavalryman struggling along carried a bundle on his back, stuffed haphazardly with whatever could be eaten — that was their ration for the whole march.

The master of this refugee army was none other than the Great Qing Imperial Uncle Dodo, who not long before had been insufferably arrogant. He still wore his white plate armor and rode a tall foreign horse, surrounded by more than a thousand baya guards in mail, and he marched at the very rear of the column — at least he still kept the dignity of an Imperial Uncle.

Seeing his army enter the city bathed in the afterglow of dusk, Dodo finally let out a great sigh of relief.

Qingyuan County was the seat of Baoding Prefecture; surely he could scrape up some supplies and people there. And the Ming army had not caught up — it seemed Nikan had drawn them off toward the Tianjin garrison.

At that moment two or three riders galloped up from the front. When they reached Dodo, the foremost was none other than Yolo. Yolo reined in his horse and made to dismount and salute Dodo, but Dodo waved him off: "We are all our own people here; no need for ceremony. Speak quickly — how many men and horses are left?"

"Reporting to the Imperial Uncle, this slave has already made a rough count. Although each unit has suffered heavy losses, apart from the infantry and the field ujen cooha, their vitality remains. Not counting the seven thousand-odd men Nikan took with him, our vanguard and elite cavalry together still number about eight thousand. The Imperial Uncle's baya troops still number about a thousand. The ten-banner infantry still has more than five thousand. In all, there are still fourteen thousand fighting troops.

In addition, there are another fourteen thousand newly elevated booi bondservants. The men and horses now following the Imperial Uncle number about thirty thousand. If Nikan's force can get away, then we will still have thirty-six thousand men."

More than half lost.

Dodo's heart ached! The vanguard camp he had brought out numbered eight thousand. The elite cavalry camp, which counted as the men of Jirgalang and Chang'adai, numbered fourteen thousand. Add the baya troops, and that was two thousand more.

Of those twenty-four thousand, the great majority were old Eight Banners! Now only sixteen thousand remained — and that only if Nikan could get away! Eight thousand men were surely gone!

Moreover, among the field ujen cooha and the infantry musket companies there were also many old Manchus and old Han troops. Those two groups together had numbered nearly five thousand — by now they must be all but wiped out!

In other words, in this Battle of Deshengdian, Dodo had lost twelve or thirteen thousand of the Great Qing's core armed forces.

Even after deducting the losses of Jirgalang's and Chang'adai's commands, it still came to nearly ten thousand. How many able-bodied Manchu men were there beyond the Pass in total? At the very most, thirty thousand would be a generous estimate — and now a third of them were gone in one stroke!

In addition, Dodo's infantry had lost nearly twenty thousand. This was no small matter! Behind those twenty thousand men stood twenty thousand bannerman farms, involving at least several million mu of land!