Chapter 896: The Queue in the Heart Is There Forever!

Gang'atai and Shang Kexi's nineteen-year-old son Shang Zhixin had neither expected Sony to raise such a sensitive subject right outside the Great South Gate of Shenyang, and both tensed up at once. Gang'atai handled it a little better; he first glanced around, taking in the astonished and nervous expressions on the faces of all the high officials from Shenyang who had accompanied Dodo, and only then turned his gaze to Dodo. Shang Zhixin, on the other hand, stared nervously at Dodo from the very start, barely able to breathe.

Dodo's "great bear paws" also released the hands of Sony and Suksaha. His face, fierce-looking to begin with, now turned grim and terrifying.

Dodo had been speaking Chinese with Sony and Suksaha just moments before, but now when he spoke again it was in Manchu: "What sort of man am I, Dodo? I am the most beloved son of the Great Jin's Mandate Khan, and the Mandate Khan meant to leave the Great Jin throne to me! Tell me, do I have the Great Qing in my heart? Tell me, do I want to rebel against the Ming and restore the Qing?"

"Then why did you cut off your queue and put on Ming court robes?" Sony pressed.

Dodo said, "The queue on my head may be cut off, but the queue in my heart is there forever, and no one can cut it off!" He turned to look at his subordinates and roared, "All of you, tell him — isn't that so!"

The crowd answered in one voice: "His Highness speaks true! The queue in our hearts is there forever!"

Dodo suddenly thrust out both hands and violently tore open the Ming Prince's everyday robe he was wearing, revealing the robes of a Qing prince underneath!

The group of high Ming officials who had come with Dodo did the same as Dodo, tearing open their Ming official robes to reveal the Qing official robes underneath.

So these men had all along been wearing Qing official robes underneath. It truly seemed they kept the Great Qing in their hearts!

Dodo roared: "This prince submitted to the Zhu Ming only because he had no choice. If His Majesty had not rashly left the capital, been defeated at Hejian, and been surrounded at Tianjin Garrison, would this prince have been defeated by Shi Kefa at Deshendian? If His Majesty had not, to save himself, submitted to the Zhu Ming as a vassal, this prince would rather die than acknowledge Zhu Cilang as his sovereign!"

He sighed: "What use is it for you, Sony, to come and say these things to this prince now? If you want to revive the Great Qing, you must go and speak with His Majesty!"

Sony was stirred by Dodo's declaration. So Prince Dodo was, after all, a loyal prince of the Great Qing!

And Dodo's subordinates were loyal subjects of the Great Qing too! The Great Qing, it turned out, had many loyal subjects!

Just as he was getting worked up, Shang Zhixin suddenly spoke: "Your Highness, His Majesty has already resolved to rebel against the Ming and restore the Qing. Now we await only one word from you!"

Dodo nodded heavily: "Good! This prince has long awaited this day! As soon as the banner is raised in Beijing, this prince will immediately muster the army. Once the Ming army outside Beijing is worn out and weary, this prince will personally lead a hundred thousand troops through the pass and fight the Ming army to the death!"

"Your Highness, are your words true?" Gang'atai asked.

"How could they not be true?" Dodo looked around. "This is no place for talking. Come, let us return to the princely residence! This prince wants to speak with you at length! If we are to raise troops this time, we must have certain victory!"

"Can victory be certain?" Sony asked.

"Of course!" Dodo said firmly. "Once this prince tells you, you will understand!"

As he spoke, Dodo again took Sony and Suksaha by the hands and strode toward the Great South Gate of Shenyang.

A month later, at the end of the first month of the eighth year of Ming Hongxing, the travel-worn Sony, Suksaha, Gang'atai, Shang Zhixin, and the others had circled through Chahar Mongol territory and returned to Beijing, a city thick with the smell of gunpowder.

Although spring had already begun, the area around Beijing was desolate and uninhabited; all one could see were many abandoned villages that had been put to the torch. Many of the small towns around Beijing had also been destroyed in a round of devastation: the buildings inside had all been burned, the city gates had vanished without a trace, and in some places even sections of the city walls had been torn down.

The stretch of plain south of the Yan Mountains now had something of the look of the grasslands beyond the frontier. Gazing out as far as the eye could see, only the lone city of Beijing and a few supporting forts nearby still held any sign of life.

Everywhere else was a wasteland. This was what they called "clearing the fields and scorching the earth" — nothing more than this!

When entering the city through Desheng Gate on the north side of Beijing, Sony took the hand of Sun Zhixie, who had come to welcome him, and asked: "What is going on? How did the area around Beijing end up like this? Has the Ming army been here?"

Sun Zhixie only shook his head and said nothing. He mounted his horse together with Sony, and only after they had passed through the barbican and reached the sloping street by Shichahai did he say to Sony: "It was all done by the men of the Three Obedient Princes and the One Obedient Duke."

"The Three Obedient Princes and the One Obedient Duke?"

Sun Zhixie nodded: "The three princes and the duke have nearly gone mad. They have been carrying out the scorched-earth policy without restraint, and have nearly looted everything around Beijing. Now no one outside the city dares farm the land. If the Ming army does not come to besiege the city — heh — in two or three years we will starve to death ourselves!"

Sony said: "The Ming army will be here soon."

Sun Zhixie asked: "What? The Imperial Uncle..."

Sony nodded: "Outside the pass in Shenyang there are still many loyal subjects of the Great Qing! The Imperial Uncle gave me one thousand Hispanian muskets, and has promised to send troops to Beijing once the Ming army is worn out and weary!"

"Is this true?"

"Of course!" Sony let out a breath. "Heaven will not let the Great Qing perish!" He paused. "Has His Majesty been well these days?"

"Well, well enough, only growing thinner by the day."

Sony said: "That is all from worrying over the state and the people. Come, take me into the palace at once — I must bring good news to His Majesty!"

"Can the Imperial Uncle really do it?"

In the Coal Hill fortress, Fulin was still somewhat skeptical of Dodo as a savior.

"He can!" Sony nodded. "After the Imperial Uncle withdrew beyond the pass, he trained new troops. Following the Ming army's method with firearm cavalry, he mixed lance cavalry, bow cavalry, and firearm cavalry into a new army of twenty thousand horsemen. This new army may not be suited for hard fighting, but for harassing the Ming army's supply lines there is no problem at all.

In addition, the Imperial Uncle has trained eighty thousand infantry! Once the Ming army runs out of grain and its soldiers are exhausted, he will fight the decisive battle with them, and he certainly will not lose."

The method Dodo had told Sony was still to strike at logistics, because he did not know how to defeat the Ming army in a head-on clash. Dodo's peasant soldiers were clearly no match for the Ming army's full-time soldiers, and the old Eight Banners were far too precious to be spent in a war of attrition.

Therefore, Dodo could only wait until the Ming army became a weary force, then strike at its logistics, and then wait until the Ming army ran out of grain before fighting the decisive battle!

This sounded fairly reliable, and Fulin's brow furrowed.

"In addition," Sony said, "this slave has sent men to Xiangyun Island in Yongping Prefecture to send word by fast boat to the Shun side. By this summer at the latest, the Shun army will march north!"

Fulin asked: "This summer — then we..."

"Your Majesty, raise the banner!" Sony gritted his teeth. "Dragging this out does us no good. Take advantage of this moment, before the Ming army's grain and fodder have all arrived, and be the first to raise the Great Qing banner. Then send envoys to Datong Prefecture and the grasslands, inviting Jirgalang, Chang'adai, and the Mongol tribes to send troops to Beijing, to jointly punish the Zhu Ming and restore the Great Qing!"

As Fulin listened to Sony's words, his heart was in turmoil.

None of this sounded reliable at all!

Would the Shun really march north?

Would the Imperial Uncle really bring troops from beyond the pass? And if he came, could he really defeat the Ming army?

The Mongol tribes seemed even less dependable!

Seeing the conflicted look on Fulin's face, Sony spoke again: "Your Majesty, the arrow is already on the string and must be loosed. Even if we wanted to stop now, Shang Kexi and the others would never let us go!"

Fulin's mouth twitched. What kind of situation was this?

In the matter of restoring the Great Qing, he, the emperor, was not even anxious — so what were Shang Kexi and the others so anxious about?

"If anything should go wrong..."

"Your Majesty," Sony lowered his voice, "this slave has a plan. We can hide several hundred elite soldiers in the Western Hills, then dig a secret tunnel in the Thousand Buddha Temple beside Desheng Gate, and have Your Majesty's trusted men guard it. If anything truly goes wrong, Your Majesty can leave the city through the secret tunnel, and the elite troops hidden in the Western Hills will receive you, and you can escape cleanly."

"Escape cleanly? And go where?" Fulin said.

Sony sighed and said: "Heaven never bars one's way. This slave will do everything possible to find a way of retreat for Your Majesty."

(End of Chapter)