Chapter 913: Fulin's Last Battle! (Please Subscribe)

Shang Zhixin had only just left when Sonin and Suksaha arrived together!

Suksaha was holding an envelope in his hand, looking utterly mysterious.

"Your Majesty, this is—this is a letter in the Princess's own hand for you!" Suksaha glanced left and right, and only after making sure there were no outsiders did he present the envelope with both hands.

"This is..." Fulin's hands were trembling slightly as he took the letter, tore open the seal, drew out the paper inside, unfolded it, and began to read.

It was a letter in the own hand of Princess Jianning, Ajige. The content was very simple: an appeal to surrender! In the letter, Ajige told Fulin that although his Zhu Ama and Prince Gong had both been taken away by Bombogor, Zhu Cilang was still willing to give him one last chance. If he was willing to slip out and surrender, Zhu Cilang would be willing to enfeoff him as a marquis and let him live out his life in Nanjing with no worries about food or clothing.

If he did not cherish this opportunity, then once Beijing fell, the Zhu Emperor would not be so easy to talk to, and if Fulin was captured again, he would be charged with rebellion.

Rebellion meant beheading, and if the crime was severe, he might even be executed by slow slicing—he was no beauty like Kong Sizhen, so he should not think he could pay with his hair!

"Your Majesty, what does the letter say?" Suksaha asked.

The letter had been delivered to him by one of his trusted men, an old Manchu guard officer who was now the commander defending Desheng Gate. It had been brought back by released guard prisoners, he said, and was a letter in Princess Jianning's own hand written to the Emperor.

"It's an appeal to surrender."

Sonin asked, "What are the terms?"

"Pardon from death, and enfeoffment as a marquis."

Sonin shook his head. "Why not wait a little longer? Three hundred thousand Ming troops are surrounding the city. Their daily consumption must be at least twenty thousand shi. Drag it out another month, and there will surely be better terms."

His reasoning had some merit: twenty thousand shi a day meant six hundred thousand shi in a month! If Zhu Cilang could not bear the cost, he would surely offer better terms to lure them into surrendering.

"We cannot wait..." Fulin shook his head. "Just now Shang Zhixin came to say that Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, Kong Tingxun, Shen Yongxing, and the others want to march out and fight the Ming army to the death. They want to stake everything!"

"Stake everything? Why?" Sonin was startled.

"Because Beijing can no longer be held... They say the Ming army has already dug its trenches right up beneath the Chaoyang Gate bastion." Fulin's face fell. "Tell me, is this true?"

Sonin and Suksaha exchanged a glance, then both nodded.

Suksaha, who was involved in Beijing's defense, said, "The Ming army is advancing by digging trenches east of the city. The trenches have not only reached the outside of the Chaoyang Gate bastion, they are also only a few dozen paces from the moats of the Dongzhi Gate bastion and the Lesser East Gate bastion... Moreover, the Ming army's eight great cannon can lob explosive shells with uncanny accuracy, and the troops on the Chaoyang Gate bastion have suffered terrible casualties from the bombardment!"

Sonin lowered his voice. "Fortunately, the Ming army has not dug long trenches north of the city. They have only set up defenses at the North Earth Wall, and they have not paid much attention to the Long River."

The Long River, originally called the Jade River, and in even earlier times known as the Goldwater River, the Zao River, and the Gaoliang River, was a waterway west of Beijing connected to the northern moat. Before the middle of the Ming dynasty, it had been the imperial river by which Ming emperors, empresses, and consorts traveled out of the city to the pleasure palaces and gardens in the western suburbs. By the late Ming, however, it had gradually fallen into disuse; the channel had silted up and could no longer carry boats. But after Beijing fell to the Great Qing, Dorgon had the Long River dredged and restored its navigability.

Fulin understood what Sonin meant and nodded gently. "Then we shall draw up our battle formation between the Desheng Gate bastion and the Anding Gate bastion north of the city!" He paused. "We should also go down Coal Hill and take a look. We shall take command from the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas. If the battle outside the city goes well, We shall ride out to raise the troops' morale; if it goes badly, We shall also ride out. Sonin, Suksaha, what do you think?"

Sonin and Suksaha looked at each other and both nodded.

Sonin said, "Your Majesty, this slave will go and make preparations at once. Nothing can possibly go wrong!"

Suksaha also said, "Your Majesty, this slave will also go and prepare. Your Majesty's safety is absolutely assured!"

Fulin sighed and gave a bitter smile. "At this point, what is the use of talking about absolute safety... We have only failed the late Emperor!"

Early the next morning, when Kong Tingxun, Geng Zhongming, Shang Zhixin, Shen Yongxing, and the others went up Coal Hill, Fulin had already put on the cotton armor reserved for the Qing Emperor, with a treasured saber hanging from his belt, and was sitting motionless on the imperial seat. Beside him, Sonin, Suksaha, Bambursan, and the others had also changed into military dress, their faces taut as bowstrings.

"Our mind is made up. We shall fight the Zhu Son of Heaven to the death! We shall personally take the field to raise the morale of the three armies!" Fulin said through gritted teeth. "Send someone to deliver a letter of challenge. We shall draw up our battle formation north of the city and fight it out with the man surnamed Zhu! If he is a true hero, let him not hide and refuse to come out!"

Excellent!

Kong Tingxun and Shang Zhixin glanced at each other, both feeling as though they had been saved.

Geng Zhongming and Shen Yongxing, however, were badly startled. What medicine had the Emperor taken by mistake? He was giving up a perfectly good life of hanging on by a thread to go stake his life! There were three hundred thousand Ming troops outside Beijing, well equipped, well trained, and with morale so high it could not be higher—all of them waiting to capture the Qing Emperor and win merit! And he was going out himself? Whose morale did he think he was raising?

"Your Majesty, you must not!" Geng Zhongming dropped to his knees with a thud. "Your Majesty, the Zhu Ming is mighty now, while our dynasty's troops are weak. We can only hold the strong walls, weary their army, and wait for Prince Yu's great host to arrive. You must not risk a sortie and throw the Great Qing realm away on a single cast!"

Shen Yongxing also knelt. "Your Majesty, think thrice! On the battlefield, swords and spears have no eyes, and now there are also cannon that can take a commander's life from several li away. Even if Your Majesty must engage the Ming army outside the city, you need only send a great general to fight. Your Majesty's person is worth ten thousand in gold—you must take care of yourself!"

Fulin nodded. "You both speak reason... But the Ming trenches have already reached beneath several bastions east of the city. If those bastions fall, the day the city breaks will not be far off. Therefore We have decided to stake everything on one throw and go out for a decisive battle. If We do not win, then We shall lead you in breaking out and go beyond the passes to join Prince Yu.

But We cannot be too reckless either. We shall first take command from the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas, and when the battle outside the city reaches its critical moment, We shall ride out with three hundred armored cavalry of the imperial guard!"

"The Temple of a Thousand Buddhas?"

Inside the Palace of Double Splendor, Shang Kexi had already received the reports from Shang Zhixin and Kong Tingxun. The old man muttered, "There's no trick in this, is there? The little emperor is a fool, but Sonin and Suksaha are cunning as monkeys. They wouldn't be playing some scheme, would they?"

"Father King, what trick could they possibly play? It's only three hundred cavalry at most. Out in the open fields they could charge, but inside the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas what use would they be? Give your son a thousand men and three cannon, and I'll finish them off for sure! Anyway, the Zhu emperor never said he wanted him alive—handing over a head works just as well!"

Kong Tingxun added, "That's right, Prince Shang. We have forty thousand men in hand, while the little emperor has only a few thousand. Once he comes down the hill, he'll be entirely in our grasp!"

Shang Kexi nodded. "True enough... The only worry now is that he stays holed up on Coal Hill. Once he comes down Coal Hill, what is there left to fear?"

He looked at his son. "Zhixin, take three thousand armored soldiers and five 3-pounder cannon. You must capture the little emperor!"

"Orders received!"

Shang Kexi then said to Kong Tingxun, "Old nephew, send someone to see your younger sister and the Ming Emperor. We must get a definite word. I have heard that the Ming Emperor's word is as good as his bond. Only if we get his word can our lives be preserved."

"Very well," Kong Tingxun said. "I'll have my sworn younger brother Kong Sibao slip out of the city."

"No need to slip out," Shang Kexi said. "Go under the pretext of delivering the letter of challenge. We'll still go through the motions of marching out and drawing up a battle formation, put on a sham fight with the Ming army, and when the time is right, coax the little emperor out of the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas. Zhixin, you set an ambush at the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas and take him alive."

"Father King, isn't that making things complicated?"

Shang Kexi waved his hand. "Don't forget Ajige. That girl is a beauty in the making... She has been with the Zhu Emperor since childhood, and that girl Sizhen probably cannot compare to her. So we must not push things to the extreme! As long as we can take him alive, do everything possible to take him alive."

(End of Chapter)