Chapter 11: The Yongwei Camp

After the midday meal, Chongzhen boarded his carriage and, escorted by a large contingent of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, set out for the Yongwei Camp.

The Yongwei Camp was formerly the Tengxiang Four Guards, an imperial guard force directly under the Emperor and managed by the inner court. Its officers and men were selected according to the standard of "the ablest and most vigorous officers and men from guard stations across the realm, as well as men who had escaped back from the barbarians." Initially numbering around three thousand, its fighting strength was formidable. Later, during the Jiajing reign, it was reorganized into the Warrior Camp and the Four Guards Camp; numbers gradually increased, but combat effectiveness gradually declined.

After Chongzhen ascended the throne, in the second year of Chongzhen he ordered Cao Huachun to concurrently serve as seal-holding eunuch of the Directorate of the Imperial Horses and to reorganize the Yongwei Camp. Cao Huachun was himself a brush-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, with a welter of affairs, and had little energy to devote to managing the Yongwei Camp. He therefore selected his trusted eunuchs Lu Jiude and Liu Yuanbin as supervisory eunuchs to take exclusive charge of the army's day-to-day affairs. Its garrison was located outside the palace city but within the imperial city—leaving through the Donghua Gate and following the palace wall northeast for about half an hour would bring one there.

Outside the Directorate of the Imperial Horses lay a vast military encampment, within which was an extremely large drill ground. Outside the yamen gate of the drill ground, several eunuchs and a number of helmeted, armored officers stood waiting.

Seeing from afar that Chongzhen's carriage had not yet arrived, the group hurriedly advanced to meet it under the lead of the eunuch at their head. Before the carriage Chongzhen rode in had even come to a full stop, all knelt to the ground. The leading eunuch reported in a shrill voice: "Your slave, Cao Huachun, seal-holder of the Directorate of Ceremonial and the Directorate of the Imperial Horses, leads the officers of the Yongwei Camp in respectfully welcoming His Majesty!"

The carriage came to a stop, and Wang Cheng'en attended Chongzhen as he alighted. Chongzhen looked around and said in a gentle tone: "Rise! Since I ascended the throne, though I ordered you to reorganize the camp, I have been perpetually troubled by affairs of state and never came to see for myself; today, having found the leisure, I have come to see how you, Cao Huachun, have trained the troops—whether you have failed the trust I placed in you!"

All kowtowed and rose. Cao Huachun raised his hands above his head and bowed as he replied: "Since His Majesty entrusted this heavy responsibility to your slave, though your slave holds several posts concurrently and is burdened with mundane affairs, I have feared nothing more than delaying His Majesty's great enterprise. I therefore specially ordered Liu Yuanbin and Lu Jiude to be permanently stationed at the camp, exclusively supervising the daily conduct of officers and men. These two have indeed not failed the trust placed in them—rising early and retiring late, they have trained a force of elite soldiers. I beg His Majesty to inspect and review them!"

Liu and Lu hurried forward to kowtow and pay their respects. Chongzhen waved for them to rise and said: "You, Cao Huachun, speak with no small confidence, daring to claim you have trained elite soldiers! Very well—today I shall see for myself just what your so-called elite soldiers are like! And who are these several military officers?"

Hearing the Emperor's question, the several officers strode forward and knelt to kowtow. The one at the head looked frail and gaunt, while the other two officers were both broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, tall and powerfully built.

The frail one at the head kowtowed and reported in a loud voice: "Your subordinate, Vice Regional Commander of the Yongwei Camp, Sun Yingyuan, pays respects to Your Majesty!" "Your subordinate, Assistant Regional Commander of the Yongwei Camp, Huang Degong, pays respects to Your Majesty!" "Your subordinate, Mobile Corps Commander of the Yongwei Camp, Zhou Yuji, pays respects to Your Majesty!"

Hearing their reports, Chongzhen could not help but nod inwardly—these were all famous loyal ministers and fierce generals of history! All were heroes who fought to the death for their country. Sun Yingyuan and Zhou Yuji both fell in fierce battle against the roving bandits, while Huang Degong was one of the Four Garrisons of Jiangnan during the Longwu reign of the Southern Ming, and in the end also died on the battlefield.

He raised his hand in a gesture of support and said warmly: "Gentlemen, please rise! In the days to come, when we pacify the bandits and destroy the barbarians, you generals will still need to fight fiercely on the battlefield to rescue the common people from fire and water. When the day of success comes, I will not stint on rewards of dukes and marquises!"

Sun Yingyuan and the others were seeing the imperial countenance for the first time and were already stirred beyond measure; hearing the Emperor's words of encouragement, their blood boiled and rushed to their faces. All three answered in loud voices: "We are willing to die for our sage sovereign!" Then they kowtowed heavily once before rising.

Cao Huachun led the way, and the party entered the drill ground. At this time the drill ground was filled with officers and men of the Yongwei Camp, each wearing a red mandarin-duck battle tunic and a conical hat on his head, all holding sabers and spears, standing tall and unmoving, silent and still.

Under Cao Huachun's guidance, Chongzhen ascended the reviewing platform on the south side of the drill ground. A red carpet had already been laid on the platform, along with a dragon throne and an imperial desk. After Chongzhen was seated, the others took their places on either side.

Chongzhen spoke: "Begin the drill!" Sun Yingyuan, holding a red flag, walked to the front edge of the platform and waved it left and right. At once came the clatter of armor plates and the tramp of feet as the camp soldiers below retreated like a tide. In less than a quarter of an hour, several thousand men had withdrawn to the edges of the drill ground and stood in place. Sun Yingyuan again waved the red flag, and with it came several short, piercing blasts of a trumpet. Slowly the earth began to tremble, and in the distance a sound like thunder faintly rose. Dust and smoke billowed on all sides; the ground seemed to quake. The sound grew steadily louder and closer, and amid the rumbling thunder, a body of cavalry suddenly burst forth from the swirling dust—thirty riders to a rank—and column after column of evenly matched war horses trotted in orderly fashion into the drill ground. The cavalrymen, wearing open-front cotton armor and iron helmets, each held a long spear in the right hand and reined in with the left, the spears pointing straight up at the sky. Spears like a forest—the phrase was in no way an exaggeration here. In the field there was only the sound of hooves and the occasional neigh of a war horse as they thundered past the reviewing platform.

The cavalrymen who reached the front of the platform raised their spears high toward the sky and turned their eyes to the platform in a salute of honor. Not a single one made a sound. Over a hundred columns of cavalry galloped past; the leading riders circled the field once and then arrayed themselves neatly to the left front of the platform, while the cavalry behind circled the field in turn and, under the direction of the drill officers, halted their horses and formed up.

In both his past life and this one, Chongzhen had never before seen armed cavalry on such a scale. From the entry of the horses to the completion of the circuit and the forming of ranks, the entire process took very little time, yet the overwhelming aura that rushed at him left him shaken beyond words—as if such force could destroy heaven and earth. Individual bravery before a cavalry formation was like an ant before a giant, utterly incapable of resistance. Compared to the cavalry in the costume dramas on television in later ages, which were like child's play, the difference was as vast as between clouds and mud.

Once the cavalry had formed up, Sun Yingyuan again raised and waved his flag—this time a black one. At the sound of the trumpet, the infantry who had withdrawn began to assemble, then advanced toward the open ground at the other end of the drill field.

First, a thousand soldiers bearing bows and arrows arrived and split into two ranks. An officer stepped out of formation, raised a triangular flag, and waved it once. The soldiers drew their bows and nocked their arrows, pointing them obliquely at the sky. The trumpet blew a short note, and with a hum, a thousand long arrows shot into the air ahead, and after a brief flight turned and plummeted sharply downward. The open ground about a hundred paces ahead suddenly seemed to sprout a crop of feathered arrows.

Each archer loosed ten arrows, and the open ground ahead was now carpeted with long shafts. If the enemy had stood there, under the cover of these ten thousand arrows, their survival rate could well be imagined.

After loosing their ten arrows, the archers swiftly unstrung their bows, turned, and withdrew. Twenty-five hundred spearmen advanced in several blocks to the beat of drums. Once in position, the spearmen stood shoulder to shoulder in a tight formation; the front rank thrust their spears forward, while the rank behind rested theirs on the shoulders of the men in front.

At the drill officer's command, the spearmen shouted in unison: "Guard!" and thrust out their spears, over a zhang in length, their gleaming tips sharp beyond compare, as if they could pierce anything before them. On each flank, five hundred sword-and-shield men advanced to protect the two wings against enemy flanking attacks. Then, under the officers' direction, the spearmen and sword-and-shield men closed ranks and marched in orderly step to the center of the drill ground, where they formed up not far from the cavalry. The drill came to an end.

Chongzhen secretly approved. The armies of the Great Ming were not all feeble troops that collapsed at the first sign of a strong enemy. Under a strong general there are no weak soldiers; the famous men of history truly lived up to their reputations. These eunuchs and these military officers had not betrayed the Emperor's trust—they had indeed trained a powerful army.

Cao Huachun approached Chongzhen and quietly requested: "Your Majesty, would you care to address and instruct the officers and men?" Chongzhen nodded, rose, and walked to the front of the platform. Gazing down at this awe-inspiring host, he saw young faces full of excitement and fervor, eyes holding both reverence and expectation.

He raised his voice and called out: "Warriors of the Yongwei Camp, you have worked hard!"

The cavalry below dismounted, and together with the infantry knelt on one knee, chanting in unison: "We pay respects to His Majesty!"

Chongzhen waved for them to rise. Sun Yingyuan and the other officers quickly signaled for everyone to get up, and the officers and men stood at attention once more.

Chongzhen continued in a raised voice: "You are my personal troops—a brave and battle-proven host of the Great Ming! You come from every corner of the Ming realm—some from Liaodong, some from Xuan and Da, some from Shaanxi, some from Henan, and still other places! Today's Great Ming faces roving bandits ravaging within and the Jianzhou barbarians wreaking havoc without. Some of you have had your kin murdered and your families destroyed; some have had your homes laid waste and your families scattered and homeless. The peaceful lives you once had have been destroyed by the flames of war! Who is responsible for all this? It is the roving bandits and the Jianzhou slaves! They killed your fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters! They destroyed the fields that were about to yield their harvest! Therefore, only by utterly exterminating the roving bandits and the Jianzhou barbarians can you and the people of the Great Ming live secure and peaceful lives! I hope you will train hard—before long, I will send you out of the capital to sweep away all lawless men under heaven on my behalf, and to avenge your kin!"

The officers and men below listened in silence. There was no scene of surging passion and thunderous slogans like in the television dramas of later ages, which left Chongzhen slightly embarrassed. He knew he had no experience with such grand occasions, and his eloquence was only ordinary—he could only do his best to express what he thought and felt.

He continued in a raised voice: "I make you this promise here: any man who dies a hero in battle shall receive one hundred taels of silver for burial expenses! Twenty mu of hereditary land shall be granted to his family, with taxes and corvée remitted in perpetuity! The wounded and disabled shall receive fifty taels of silver and ten mu of hereditary land, with taxes and corvée remitted in perpetuity! The local authorities shall send someone to visit and offer condolences at every festival and New Year! I shall select a site in the capital to build a Shrine of the Loyal and Valiant, where all who sacrifice their lives for the country shall be enshrined and worshipped—as long as the Great Ming endures, the incense shall never cease! When I return to the palace, I shall issue an edict proclaiming this to all the realm. I cannot let loyal and steadfast men shed their blood and then shed tears as well! I swear before heaven—I will not break my word!" By the end, Zhu Zhenqing was stirred, his tone growing fervent and impassioned.

In this age of extreme scarcity of silver, a poor family might not see even a few taels in an entire year; for a common family of four, a dozen or so taels a year already counted as well-off. That the Emperor could offer so much silver as reward, along with land exempt from taxes in perpetuity—many of the officers and men below were orphans, their parents and siblings all dead in the chaos of war. People of that time feared nothing more than dying without burial and without anyone to make offerings. Now the Emperor had said with his own mouth that a shrine would be built for worship, with incense burning year after year—then there was no fear of becoming a wandering ghost. To sell this worthless life of theirs to the Emperor—it was worth it!

The officers and men in the front ranks, being closest to the Emperor, heard every word. The moment Chongzhen's words fell, the men in front knelt with both knees. Some were red-faced with emotion, some wept bitterly, some shouted hoarsely at the top of their lungs. As Chongzhen's words reached every officer and man, there was no soldier left standing below—all knelt and kowtowed, weeping and shouting until the sound filled the entire drill ground. Those on the platform were also infected by the fervent atmosphere, and all prostrated themselves behind Chongzhen. Sun Yingyuan and the other three officers felt both stirred and elated in their hearts—to follow such an enlightened sovereign, even dying wrapped in horsehide on the battlefield would be a life not lived in vain.

Chongzhen raised both hands in a gesture for the officers and men to rise, but no one obeyed the command. The soldiers' emotions were in a state of frenzy that would not soon subside. After a long while, at the orders of those on the platform, the officers and men finally rose and stood at attention, tear tracks still visible on their faces.

Chongzhen was deeply moved as well. Perhaps before long, many among these simple warriors would lie forever beneath the earth, while others would be crippled for life. But it was precisely because some dared to sacrifice that more people could live and work in peace.

At these thoughts, his eyes grew slightly moist. His emotions stirred, and fearing that if he spoke he would choke on his words, he simply bowed with clasped hands and made a deep obeisance to the officers and men below. The soldiers were stunned; once they recovered, they prostrated themselves on the ground again. Those on the platform hastily knelt as well. Sun Yingyuan and the others were moved in their hearts, and Huang Degong could not contain himself—he straightened his torso, clenched his right fist, thrust it into the air, and roared: "I am willing to die for His Majesty!"

The officers and men below clenched their fists and waved them in unison, roaring with all their strength: "We are willing to die for Your Majesty!" The shouts began in disorder, then gradually became one unified voice, shaking the very clouds.