Chapter 280: Hanging by a Thread, the Imperial Campaign to Keep the Dynasty Alive

In the summer of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, the Yongchang Emperor of the Great Shun, swore an oath of war in Xi'an and led the Great Shun army—claimed to be a million strong—on its second eastern campaign.

For this eastern campaign, Li Zicheng adopted the advice given by the military advisor Li Yan at Daizhou in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen: "Avoid the strong and strike at the weak, with the capture of the capital as the priority." He avoided the Ningwu army and the new troops of the Northwest Grand Camp, skirted around the heavily defended Xuanfu–Datong region, and drove straight for Taiyuan.

In the words of Niu Jinxing, the main objective of the Great Shun army this time was not to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army, but to take Gugu Pass—from which they could advance directly toward Zhending and Baoding, reaching the capital in the blink of an eye, or retreat to hold most of Shanxi, preparing the ground for a third campaign the following year.

What actually infuriated the Chongzhen Emperor was not the fall of Taiyuan, but the fact that Li Zicheng—who in the past knew only how to plunder and seize by force—had now learned to advance steadily and keep a line of retreat open.

It was somewhat ironic: the Ming court was riddled with internal contradictions, and so too were the Tatars beyond the Pass and the Great Shun in Shaanxi. The capital where the Chongzhen Emperor sat was the place that both Dorgon and Li Zicheng had to take in order to contend for the realm.

Of this situation, the Chongzhen Emperor—who had crossed over from a later age—was perfectly well aware.

The current claim to legitimacy and righteous mandate belonged to the imperial court. Whoever first took Beijing, whoever first forced him to hang himself from a southeastern branch, would have seized the mandate of Heaven. So Li Zicheng, in order to divert the increasingly severe internal contradictions of the Great Shun army, launched this so-called second eastern campaign.

Such things had been common since antiquity. Whenever the internal contradictions of a dynasty or state could not be reconciled, the result was either a momentous undertaking that achieved reconciliation, or—as Li Zicheng was doing now—the launching of war to divert attention.

In the first month after Li Zicheng's oath of war, Chen Qiyu, Governor-General of the Five Provinces of the Great Ming, immediately made his dispositions. He summoned the Ming armies of the five provinces to join the new troops of the Northwest Grand Camp at Gugu Pass, and with the speed of thunder took Taiyuan by storm, beheading Niu Wancai and inducing Lin Yangcheng to surrender—for a time, he basked in glory.

But the good times did not last. After the capture of Taiyuan, the old ailment of generals scheming against one another quickly reappeared within the Ming army.

The generals had come only because of Chen Qiyu's personal prestige and the Chongzhen Emperor's ever-growing renown. On the surface they laughed and chatted together, but each of them was a warlord, thinking only of his own interests—the so-called "easy come, easy go" was exactly this.

The real spark was a bloody brawl between the troops of Gao Jie, Regional Commander of Xuanfu, and those of Bai Guangen, Regional Commander of Datong. Both of them, along with Tang Tong, were generals whom the Chongzhen Emperor had vigorously supported since the year of Jiashen in order to reverse history—men loyal to the imperial house.

In fact, all three had their own merits and had genuinely achieved the goal of turning history around.

So long as the Emperor trusted them, they never wavered on matters of righteous principle. But the old grudges and new hatreds among the three were not something that could be easily reconciled. The Chongzhen Emperor could not accomplish it with a few audiences, and Chen Qiyu, even if he were a military genius, could not in a few short years transform them either.

When Li Zicheng led the main force of the Great Shun army to Fenzhou, it was then that he heard of the brawling among the Ming troops at Taiyuan.

The contradiction between Bai Guangen and Gao Jie had truly reached a point where even Chen Qiyu could not reconcile it. Their subordinates were naturally all crows of the same black. Before the two men had even said anything, the troops of the Xuanfu and Datong garrisons had already begun fighting among themselves in private.

At the same time, the rest of the Ming army also fell into chaos. The various generals could not stop it in time, and with some generals secretly abetting the situation, Chen Qiyu's gubernatorial orders were rendered as if they did not exist.

More than a hundred thousand imperial troops transformed in an instant into a villainous rebel horde.

They kicked open the doors of common homes, raped women in the streets, and committed every conceivable atrocity. The city was soon left nine houses empty out of ten. Taiyuan, which had barely resumed production, suffered calamity once again. The people were displaced and homeless, their suffering beyond words.

It was said that when Li Zicheng, then in Fenzhou, heard the news, he immediately slapped the table and laughed aloud, exclaiming again and again that the corrupt Ming was about to fall and Heaven blessed the Great Shun. He at once dispatched Liu Zongmin with a hundred thousand Great Shun troops ahead, while he himself mustered the remaining forces behind and advanced at a steady pace.

Liu Zongmin knew this was a heaven-sent opportunity. Leading several thousand veteran cavalry of the Old Camp as the vanguard, he rushed the Great Shun army day and night to the walls of Taiyuan.

In mid-December of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, just as Li Zicheng's Great Shun army was advancing to Qingyuan County, a battle report arrived from the front: the Marquis Liu Zongmin, leading a hundred thousand Great Shun troops, had swept all before him and taken the important city of Taiyuan in one stroke.

In the battle of Taiyuan, the Ming army suffered a crushing defeat.

Two Regional Commanders were killed in action. Liu Zongmin captured three Assistant Regional Commanders alive. The Great Shun army took more than two thousand heads, and among the Old Camp troops of Liu Zongmin's vanguard that first entered Taiyuan, one man in every three had a still-dripping head dangling from the tip of his spear.

Of the Ming army that had set out from Gugu Pass claiming to be two hundred thousand strong, fewer than fifty thousand truly made it back—no longer a force to be reckoned with.

Bai Guangen gathered the remnants of his troops, more than twenty thousand men, and fled without pause to Ningwu Pass to join forces with Zhou Yuji's Ningwu army. Gao Jie, together with Mou Wenshou, Regional Commander of Shandong, and others, escorted Chen Qiyu in a night flight back to Gugu Pass.

The first thing Chen Qiyu did upon returning to Gugu Pass was to write two memorials: one confessing his crimes and requesting punishment, and the other begging the court to swiftly dispatch reinforcements—otherwise Gugu Pass would not hold and the capital would be in peril.

After taking Taiyuan, Li Zicheng did not, as he usually did, station troops to defend the city. In truth, Taiyuan, having been ravaged by war time and again, was already a dead land devoid of human habitation.

Defending it was useless; abandoning it benefited both sides. Li Zicheng wisely chose the latter, and he gave Chen Qiyu no chance to organize any resistance. On the fifth day after taking Taiyuan, the Great Shun army arrived at the walls of Gugu Pass.

In the eyes of ordinary people, the defeat at Taiyuan in the year of Yiyou was exactly like the defeat at Jia County in the year of Guiwei.

In the battle of Jia County, Sun Chuanting was Governor-General. He first won a string of victories, but before long was suddenly routed at Jia County. Chen Qiyu was the same: since assuming the post of Supreme Commander, he had first recovered the two prefectures of Zhending and Baoding, linking the capital region with the Shandong area; then taken Gugu Pass and seized the western gateway; and not long ago launched a surprise attack on Taiyuan and recovered that important city.

Yet now, without the slightest warning, he had been defeated by Li Zicheng at Taiyuan, the Ming army scattering in flight—and immediately after came the battle of Gugu Pass, which shared countless similarities with that battle of Tongguan.

In fact, many people understood that Sun Chuanting had lost to the court behind his back back then, not to Li Zicheng's hands. As for Chen Qiyu, since assuming the post of Supreme Commander, not one of his strategic decisions had been wrong. The Chongzhen Emperor had delegated enormous authority, and the court officials had offered no obstruction whatsoever.

Yet Chen Qiyu, holding great power in his hands, had still been defeated by Li Zicheng. The strength that the Ming court had painstakingly accumulated since the year of Jiashen seemed to have turned to ashes after this battle. Where would it go from here?

Many people once again began to lose faith in the future of the Ming court. Chen Qiyu holding Gugu Pass with his broken and beaten army was clearly the same helpless, desperate struggle as Sun Chuanting holding Tongguan.

As for the court, it had always done nothing at such critical junctures—many people had in fact already silently written it off in their minds.

The news struck the Chongzhen Emperor's ears like a bolt from the blue. When he returned to the warm pavilion, all the members of the Emperor's faction were already gathered there, staring at one another in dismay. Though the room was packed, no one dared utter a single word.

After hearing Wang Cheng'en's full report of the events and reading the two memorials Chen Qiyu had submitted, the Chongzhen Emperor's expression was extraordinarily calm—neither shouting nor showing the slightest panic.

"The defeat at Taiyuan has nothing to do with Chen Qiyu. He is to remain Governor-General of military affairs for the five provinces of Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, and Sichuan." The Chongzhen Emperor paused, then continued: "In addition, transmit my decree: urgently order the Earl of Pingxi, Wu Sangui, and the Marquis of Jingnan, Huang Degong, to rush to the relief of Gugu Pass by the appointed time!"

"Zhang Mingzhen, Commissioner-in-Chief of Tianjin's maritime defense, Huang Fei of the Dongjiang garrison, Yang Yufan of Denglai, and the others—each is to guard against the rebels and the barbarians. They must not act rashly, and must not abandon their posts. Furthermore, where is the Duke of Ying?"

Zhang Shize had long been waiting for this moment. He had even donned his full armor before coming. Hearing the Chongzhen Emperor call for him, he immediately stepped forward and shouted in a loud voice:

"Your servant is here!"

"Tomorrow, I shall go to the Imperial Ancestral Temple to offer sacrifices to my ancestors, praying that the successive exalted emperors of the Great Ming protect me. After that, I shall personally lead the expedition. Duke of Ying, quickly muster the imperial guard and accompany me on the campaign!"