Chapter 92: Chapter 92

"…Every word this humble official has spoken is true. The Zhu traitor's emperor and crown prince are both inside the city of Tianjin Garrison! I beg the two generals to send a great force at once and besiege Tianjin, so that these two traitors may be caught in one net!"

Twenty li west of Tianjin city, Li Guo and Tang Tong listened to Yuan Yuzong's report. The two exchanged a glance and remained silent, both wearing a look of some surprise.

Li Guo and Tang Tong already knew that the Chongzhen on Zhengyang Gate in Beijing was a counterfeit. The news had been brought to them by the three thousand reinforcements Li Zicheng had sent, troops of the old-camp rear army under Li Guo's command. Along with the reinforcements had come a strict imperial edict ordering Li Guo and Tang Tong to seize the Chongzhen Emperor and his son!

The two had received the edict to seize the Chongzhen Emperor and his son not long before, and then learned of the pair's whereabouts—so there was naturally nothing surprising in that. But the news that the Chongzhen Emperor and his son had already joined forces with the Liaodong Regional Commander Wu Sangui gave Li Guo and Tang Tong a great shock.

According to the field reports they had received earlier, Wu Sangui's main army was still within the borders of Yongping Prefecture. How had it suddenly reached Tianjin Garrison?

This was serious! Wu Sangui's army had fought the Manchus in Liaodong and was famed for its ferocity. Moreover, the Liaodong army had eighty thousand men on the muster rolls, and its actual strength could not be less than forty thousand.

Yet the troops Li Guo and Tang Tong had on hand, counting every last man, came to only a little over eleven thousand. With so few men they were supposed to besiege Tianjin and catch the enemy in one net… no matter how one looked at it, this was suicide!

"Circuit Intendant Yuan," Tang Tong asked with a frown, "did you truly see Wu Sangui?"

Yuan Yuzong nodded. "I saw him! It was he who led the barbarian cavalry in a charge through Tianjin's west gate and shattered my troops and Assistant Regional Commander Li's!"

Earlier, although Cao Youyi had told Yuan Yuzong and the others that Wu Sangui was not in Zhu Cilang's army and that those big fellows were all Han generals, Circuit Intendant Yuan was well read in military texts, and so he already knew he had been "deceived." How could Han generals possibly be so ferocious? Those had absolutely been the barbarian cavalry personally led by Wu Sangui!

"Barbarian iron cavalry?" Tang Tong drew a sharp breath. "Those barbarian cavalry are all picked men, one in a hundred, every man clad in iron armor!"

"Right, right, every one of them was huge!" Yuan Yuzong nodded repeatedly. "Each man was in full iron armor, proof against blade and arrow!"

Tang Tong added, "The barbarian cavalry customarily fight in squads of fifty horsemen, charging to break formations—utterly ferocious!"

Yang Weihan, still badly shaken, said, "Exactly! They came in squads of a few dozen horsemen, charging in groups, unstoppable…"

Tang Tong turned his head to Li Guo. "My lord Marquis, there is no mistake—Wu Sangui has truly reached Tianjin!"

Li Guo frowned. "Circuit Intendant Yuan, Vice Regional Commander Yang, do you know how many men Wu Sangui brought?"

"Perhaps two or three thousand," Yuan Yuzong said. "In addition there were several thousand infantry, called something like the Adversity-Overcoming Battalion, the Tiger Guard Battalion, and the Palace Guard Battalion—they must be what the Zhu traitor and his son brought out of the capital. There were also some stout volunteers Cao Huachun recruited at Wangqingtuo, another two or three thousand."

"How many in all?" Tang Tong pressed.

"More than ten thousand," Yang Weihan said. "The garrison troops of Tianjin Garrison should still have some left, and most likely they have also gone over to the Zhu traitor. But their total will not exceed fifteen thousand, and of those the only true elite are Wu Sangui's two or three thousand."

"Is that all?" Tang Tong asked again.

"That is all," Yuan Yuzong said. "If there had been more, how could this humble official and Assistant Regional Commander Yang have escaped?"

Tang Tong turned to look at Li Guo. "My lord Marquis, what do you think we should do?"

Li Guo stroked his beard. "If it is only a bit over ten thousand, we have nothing to fear… and what of the barbarian iron cavalry? I too have two thousand iron cavalry, all elite of the old camp. Even in open battle, I do not fear his Wu Sangui!"

Yuan Yuzong said with great certainty, "It is only a bit over ten thousand. If the entire Liaodong army had truly arrived, this humble official would not have dared set an ambush inside Tianjin!"

Li Guo looked at Tang Tong. "Regional Commander Tang, what say you?"

Tang Tong understood Li Guo's meaning. He cupped his hands and said, "My lord Marquis, this humble officer will lead the troops first, while you command the elite as the reserve. Then nothing can go wrong."

Li Guo smiled. "Then so be it! But Regional Commander Tang must be careful not to lose your edge again.

Now all across Northern Zhili people are surrendering at the first sight of our banners; the tide is with the Shun, not the Ming… so we need not seek a quick decision. We need only pin down the Zhu traitor and not let him slip away. If they truly can fight, His Majesty will send a great host to attack them!"

Tang Tong said with an ingratiating look, "My lord Marquis's divine calculations—this humble general is full of admiration!"

Li Guo burst into loud laughter again.

……

Tianjin Garrison had gradually quieted down. Even the scattered fighting had ceased, and the entire city was completely under the control of Zhu Cilang's Ming army.

Everywhere in the city one could see Ming officers and soldiers in mandarin-duck battle jackets patrolling in formation. Almost no common folk of Tianjin Garrison moved about the streets. The heads of rebel troops, roving bandits, and rioters who had taken advantage of the chaos, cut down in the earlier fighting, hung everywhere as a warning to the people.

Along the long street from the west gate to the Tianjin Governor's yamen, corpses lay everywhere. The headless bodies of Jin Bin and Lou Guangxian lay outside the Governor's yamen; both had been seized by their own former subordinates, then dragged before the Governor's yamen and beheaded. Killed along with them were several dozen sons of the Jin, Lou, Yuan, and Yang families, and the womenfolk of the two families had been confiscated as slaves—naturally no good end awaited them…

More than a thousand officers and men had joined the rebellion of Jin and Lou and the fleeing Yuan Yuzong and Yang Weihan. Nearly half had died in battle or fled, and five or six hundred had been captured. By Zhu Cilang's order, they were all dragged to the great parade ground inside the city and publicly flogged! Every officer and man of the Tianjin garrison army was required to step forward and strike them a few lashes.

Those who still breathed after the beating were formed into a "Death Soldiers Battalion," to be used for the most dangerous tasks.

Such severe punishment was, of course, meant to kill the chicken to warn the monkey. At present, most of the Ming troops here at Tianjin Garrison were restless and unsettled!

As for that group of stout fellows from the former Shun army—no one knew whether their surrender was feigned or genuine, whether they were deceivers or deceived—they were at this moment sitting on the ground outside the main hall of the Tianjin Governor's yamen, drinking wine and eating meat.

And there was a bandit crown prince eating and drinking together with them!

"Brothers all, I deceived you once on the battlefield—don't take it to heart! All's fair in war, after all. On the battlefield, one part is fighting, and the other part is trickery. But now you are all my men, and I always treat my own with an open heart, so I will not deceive you…"

Zhu Cilang sat side by side with Hao Yaoqi, one hand holding a cracked bowl filled with wine, the other clutching a piece of some unknown meat, dripping with juices and looking rather filthy—nothing like a crown prince at his meal. Just as improper were Zhu Cilang's words, actually calling a gang of newly recruited rebels his brothers.

And Hao Yaoqi and the others no longer dared look down on the Crown Prince. For they already knew they had fallen for Zhu Cilang's trick and let slip the Chongzhen Emperor, who had been within their grasp!

Moreover, they had seen with their own eyes how Zhu Cilang lost his temper, how he ordered several hundred men flogged, and how he ordered dozens of rebels great and small, along with the male members of rebel families, all beheaded.

This sixteen-year-old young crown prince had been perfectly composed when deceiving people—clearly an old hand! And when killing people his face had been as calm as ever—plainly not his first time either.

And now he was calling more than two hundred surrendered troops of Li Zicheng's old camp his brothers, eating and drinking with them… was this man really the Ming Crown Prince?

Zhu Cilang glanced at the dumbstruck Hao Yaoqi and said with a smile, "Brother Yaoqi, I just received a field report from my scouts: more than ten thousand of the Roving Bandit's men are crossing the river and will reach Tianjin by tomorrow. Do you know which unit they are?"

Hao Yaoqi's heart stirred. He reckoned he must find a chance to get away from this unfathomable crown prince, or sooner or later his own scheme would be seen through.

He said at once, "Thousand Years, that is the Roving Bandit's nephew Li Guo and the Ming turncoat Tang Tong—two commands… about ten thousand men. Most are Tang Tong's subordinates, not particularly elite. Tomorrow this subject can lead the common folk out to fight together with Regional Commander Wu's barbarian cavalry and wipe them out to the last man!"

"No need," Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "Wu Sangui is not at Tianjin Garrison, and the barbarian cavalry are not here either. The iron cavalry you saw today were Han generals putting on a show—they cannot fight a hard battle. So we will hold the city and not sally out. And there is no need for Brother Yaoqi and the rest of you to mount the walls; just rest well in camp. It is not that I do not trust you, but that I would not harm your sense of brotherhood. You are all men of the jianghu, and brotherhood matters most to you. What I value in you is also your brotherhood.

So I have already ordered men to take away the weapons, armor, and warhorses you left in camp. That way you will not have to choose between the Roving King and me. Rest easy and go to the camp in the northern part of Tianjin across the Wei River. When the sea ships from Dagukou arrive, you will go south together with me. I give you my word here: once we reach Jiangnan, you will be my heroes of the Adversity-Overcoming cause! Silver, land, women—all will be yours! And I will not make you cross blades with your old brothers of former days… Brother Yaoqi, what do you say?"

Hao Yaoqi's face changed color. Today's feast was a banquet at Hongmen! He had thought this crown prince easy to fool, but it turned out he himself was the fool who had been taken in.

At that thought, Hao Yaoqi immediately knelt before Zhu Cilang. "Thousand Years, your righteousness reaches the clouds—Yaoqi is full of admiration. Accept this bow!"

(End of Chapter)