Chapter 107: Nine Battles, Nine Victories

August 22nd, Chessboard Street in the capital.

A crowd of commoners surrounded a newspaper kiosk, alternately cheering and falling silent, their expressions agitated.

In front of the kiosk, a well-dressed man of letters, holding a special edition of the Imperial Ming Times, continued reading aloud: "Our great Ming army set out on the 20th and retook Shunyi at the hour of Shen that very day. On the 21st, the Crown Prince led the Yongwei, Shenji, and Shenshu camps further north, met the slave bandits in battle three times and won three victories, slaying another two thousand foes, and retook Huairou at the hour of You!"

"Good!" The surrounding commoners erupted in another earth-shaking cheer.

"Read it again!" someone in the crowd called out.

"Right, read it again, we want to hear it!" Others immediately chimed in.

The kiosk manager paid the reader two qian of silver, and the man of letters, beaming with delight, began reading from the start once more, his voice rising and falling with cadence — quite a performance.

There were over a hundred such kiosks in the capital, and before each one a similar scene played out. The Imperial Ming Times had released a special edition for the Crown Prince's expedition. The special edition was only one page, about the size of a modern A4 sheet, but it came out once a day, devoted entirely to reporting the frontline battle situation.

After the news of victory reached the capital, the court officials were of mixed minds — only the Crown Prince's faction members were beside themselves with joy. The Crown Prince had retaken two cities in two days and slain seven thousand foes in total. Such a great victory truly brought honor to the dynasty.

After that day's Mapo Bridge battle, Zhu Cilang led the three camps further north. Along the way they encountered several waves of Tartars. Since entering the pass, the Tartars had rarely met strong opponents, so they mostly traveled in groups of two to three thousand, with the small bands numbering only a hundred or so.

These Tartars might have been able to intimidate other Ming troops, but what they met was the Yongwei Camp — they could only take a beating. The Qing troops behind them were wiser; knowing they couldn't win, they fled to avoid greater losses.

The Battle of Mapo Bridge was essentially a victory Zhu Cilang handed to the Shenji and Shenshu camps, and also a chance to test whether the two camps could fight jointly with the Yongwei Camp. The results were fairly satisfactory.

In light of this success, when Zhu Cilang encountered the Tartars behind them, he still had the three camps fight jointly — the Yongwei Camp clearing the way, the Shenji Camp providing support, and the Shenshu Camp pursuing.

The Shenji and Shenshu camps took the opportunity to rack up considerable military merit, and the men of both camps were all smiles. Those who had previously held some prejudice against the Yongwei Camp did an immediate three-hundred-sixty-degree turnabout and began praising the Yongwei brothers for their generosity.

With their military merit being split away, the officers and men of the Yongwei Camp felt somewhat disgruntled inside, but after being pacified by Lu Jiude's glib tongue, everyone settled down.

Lu Jiude said only one thing: Joint operations are for expanding the fruits of victory — it benefits everyone! Besides, when has His Highness the Crown Prince ever treated the Yongwei Camp unfairly?

After retaking Huairou, Zhu Cilang first comforted the city's populace, then had the three camps rest. At the same time he sent orders that, except for Ma Rulong, Regional Commander of Jizhou, all other Regional Commanders of the various garrisons were to lead their troops to assemble at Tongzhou within five days — those who missed the deadline would be executed.

The various forces were scattered across Beizhili, each acting on its own, and when they met Qing troops they didn't even fight. Better to unify the deployment for battle and hold a military council to lay out the orders and tasks clearly.

On the very day Huairou was taken, Qing forces at Miyun attempted to retake it, dispatching nearly ten thousand men to attack Huairou. Zhu Cilang judged that the Three Great Camps, after a full day of marching and heavy fighting, were already exhausted, so he ordered a defense of Huairou city.

The nearly ten thousand Qing troops failed three times to take the city. After losing over two thousand men, they camped a few li outside the city, trying to wait for reinforcements from Miyun to surround Huairou.

August 23rd, a little past four in the morning, Zhu Cilang took advantage of the first gray light of dawn to lead the Yongwei and Shenshu camps out of the city in a surprise attack on the Qing camp outside. The Qing troops retreated while fighting, beaten all the way back to Miyun. The Ming army won six battles in six engagements, slaying over five thousand foes.

Since setting out on the 20th, the Three Great Camps had in three days achieved a record of nine battles and nine victories, slaying a total of fourteen thousand enemies.

The Ming army numbered only a little over ten thousand. At first no one took them seriously, but before long, they used their actions to make the Tartars understand the true meaning of pain.

By the time the Qing commander at Miyun realized how formidable this opponent was, the Ming army was already at the city gates. Miyun had originally been garrisoned by over ten thousand Qing troops, yet they had been beaten down to fewer than five thousand.

Seeing the Ming army's ferocious momentum, the Qing commander lost his nerve on the spot and held the city, refusing to come out!

The Tartar commander's move took Zhu Cilang by surprise. What happened to being invincible in the field? Why had they switched to defending a city?

Zhu Cilang formed up his ranks beneath the walls of Miyun, then had his soldiers taunt the Tartars below the city, hurling insults with all their might, pressing them again and again to come out and fight in the open field.

One Yongwei Camp soldier even stripped off his own underpants in public, hoisted them on a four-meter-long spear and waved them about, shouting: "You ball-less dog Tartars!"

But the Tartars hadn't gotten angry yet — Cao Huachun and Lu Jiude were the ones who flew into a rage, cursing the soldier out furiously. Only then did the soldier remember that there really were two ball-less men in the army.

In the end, no matter how the Yongwei Camp soldiers insulted the Tartars — even running through every one of Hong Taiji's harem consorts — the Tartar commander still didn't dare lead his troops out.

Atop the Miyun city tower, an old Qing general in yellow cotton armor frowned deeply as he watched the cheering Ming troops below, and said: "So these are the Ming troops that crushed the force of Efu Yangguli?"

A Tartar general beside him bowed and replied: "My lord, it is them. I hear the commander of this Ming force is the Crown Prince of the Ming state!"

This Qing general of the Bordered Yellow Banner muttered: "Who would have thought that on my final campaign, I would encounter such formidable Ming troops. Truly, heaven is unkind!"

This Qing commander holding Miyun was named Adun, of the Bordered Yellow Banner. In his youth he had been a bodyguard to the Jianzhou barbarians' old khan Nurhaci, following the old slave in many wars against the Ming — among them the Battle of Sarhu. For his merits he had been made a First-Class Meiren Janggin and granted the title of Baturu.

Thinking back on the scenes of following the old khan in those years, Adun sighed deeply. Looking at today, where his own life and death hung in the balance — truly, if you walk often by the river, your shoes are bound to get wet; out in the world, what goes around comes around.

At this moment Adun's mood was like that of an old policeman who'd spent his whole life on the beat, running into a sky-shaking major case on the last day before retirement — the frustration in his heart was immense.

Suddenly, a single rider burst out from the Ming ranks and galloped straight for the foot of Miyun's walls. When he came within a hundred paces of the city gate, the horseman reached into the gun holster on the side of his mount, drew out a firearm, took a brief aim at the tower, and gently squeezed the trigger. A Tartar general beside Adun fell with the shot.

From the Ming ranks erupted overwhelming cheers, accompanied by three thunderous, ocean-roaring cries of "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The one who had charged to the foot of the walls was Yang Qili, whistle leader of the First Post of the Longxiang Night Scouts. When Zhu Cilang asked who would go taunt the enemy, Yang Qili was the first to volunteer. On this campaign he was dead set on winning the post of Assistant Striking General!

After Yang Qili shot dead a Tartar general, the Tartars on the wall loosed a frantic volley of arrows at him. At a distance of seventy or eighty paces, their arrows had long since gone weak.

Yang Qili galloped his horse in a circle around the city, drawing his saber and casually knocking aside a few arrows, then shouted loudly in Manchu: "The Great Ming Crown Prince bids me convey his words: surrender at once and your dog lives will be spared! If you resist, you will surely die without intact corpses!"

After showing off, Yang Qili promptly displayed his serpentine horsemanship and sped back into the Ming ranks, truly experiencing the thrill of showing off and then running.

Adun watched this bold Ming rider with some surprise, and a chill suddenly crept through his heart. The entire city tower fell silent — not a single Tartar general spoke. Only a nameless dread spread through their hearts.

Today's third watch — there will be another chapter tonight.