Chapter 288: Liu Zongmin's Aggression

Gazing from afar, these simple camps enclosed by wooden palisades were filled with soldiers of the Dashun army in white armor coming and going, with men shouting and horses neighing—combined with the several tall banners flapping loudly in the wind, there was indeed a somewhat grim and solemn atmosphere.

But if you looked more carefully, you would shake your head and laugh helplessly—and Chen Qiyu was doing exactly that.

Although the Dashun army's camp looked imposing at first glance, with banners blotting out the sun and row upon row of tents filling the eye, the interior was in utter chaos. Though each camp wore unified white armor, the organizational structure had not improved in the slightest—it remained thoroughly disordered.

At this time, the Dashun army seemed to suffer from the same ailment as the Capital Camps of old—the commands of various generals and camp officers overlapped with one another. When Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an, he had enfeoffed his generals, a move meant to win over hearts and minds.

At the time, this approach had indeed made everyone rally to him, single-mindedly eager to march east and destroy the Ming. But now that time had dragged on, the drawbacks of Li Zicheng's approach were gradually becoming apparent.

This so-called Great Shun had, in fact, been riddled with problems and lacking in unity of purpose from the very founding of its court.

Chen Qiyu even spotted quite a few refugee camps left over from the early days of the Dashing King's camp. Clearly, Li the Dashing King, who had built his foundation on refugees, knew full well that refugees would greatly disrupt military order—yet he still chose to drag refugees along into his army, unwilling to give up his former main cannon-fodder force.

As things stood, these refugees did indeed have their value. Though they had fought the government troops beneath Guguang Pass for over ten days, the Dashun army's regular soldiers had barely moved from their positions—all the casualties had been suffered by these refugee camps.

In Chen Qiyu's view, setting aside how a famous general or supreme commander ought to arrange his camp to perfection, at the very least the simple principle of digging trenches along the palisades was obvious—even Bai Guangen knew that.

Before his eyes, no trace of any ditch or trench could be seen outside the Dashun army's camp. Whether these bandit generals did not value such things, or had never read military manuals and thus had no idea such a practice existed, he could not tell.

Beyond that, the placement of camp gates was also extremely important, generally set according to the size of an army. These matters all followed established regulations. Given the number of men currently under Li Zicheng's command, the camp gates ought to have been several times larger than those of an ordinary camp, leaving enough space for soldiers and logistics personnel to move in and out, and making it easier to clear congestion in times of chaos.

Yet the camp gate of the Dashun army before him was the most crowded spot of all—refugees, regular soldiers, and some old camp soldiers were squeezed together shouting, while various carts and wagons were piled about in complete disarray. One could not discern in the slightest the neat uniformity that a proper army of a new dynasty ought to possess.

A truly strong army was not only reflected in its combat power—even in the trivial details that ordinary people rarely noticed, one could observe their fighting strength and morale, and from that infer the true state of that army.

Though Chen Qiyu came from a literary background, he had abandoned the brush for the sword and spent the better part of his life in the cause of suppressing bandits. Naturally, he had seen all manner of government troops and bandit armies.

The force led by Li Zicheng, though fundamentally changed from the roving bandits he had nearly wiped out in the beginning, still possessed none of the bearing of an army that had founded a dynasty.

Seeing this scene before him, no matter how brutal the fighting below the pass, Chen Qiyu remained utterly unshaken—because he could not see how such a so-called Dashun army could achieve anything great in the future.

"Dashing King, why have you still not given the order?"

Liu Zongmin, standing in the main tent, had said these words more than once already. In his view, this so-called Guguang Pass, though sturdy, was not on the same level as Ningwu Pass at all.

Last year they had been stopped at Ningwu Pass by Zhou Yuji. Judging by how things looked now, it seemed they would be stopped outside Guguang Pass for another year or more. The hot-tempered Liu Zongmin could not wait any longer—and the generals under his command, each harboring their own schemes, could wait even less.

"The Marquis is right. In my view, we should just order the taking of Guguang Pass directly. If not for this delay, we would have already breached the capital by now and be using that dog emperor's head as a chamber pot!" Zhang Nai also shouted boisterously.

After the two of them finished speaking, the other Dashun generals immediately began discussing among themselves. Most of those who voiced their opinions supported Liu Zongmin. And it made sense—if Li Zicheng ordered a full-scale assault, the generals would surely fight tooth and nail to conquer territory for him in pursuit of their own plundering ambitions.

But why was he delaying the order at this critical moment? Was he not treating his brothers' bellies as bellies?

Zhang Nai was the Right Martial Might General of the Central Guard Command under Liu Zongmin—in other words, one of Liu Zongmin's men—so naturally his words leaned toward his master. But among those who spoke up afterward, besides the Central Guard, there were also quite a few generals from the four camps of Front, Rear, Left, and Right—mostly subordinates of Ma Shiyao, Liu Xiyao, Yuan Zongdi, Li Guo, and He Jin.

Each of these men had their own interests at stake. Though they called each other brothers on ordinary days, they had come to blows more than once over trifling gains. For them to shout the same words in such unison at this moment naturally carried the intent of pressuring Li Zicheng into ordering an attack.

In truth, their urgency was understandable. After all, the Dashun army was still behaving as it always had—following the practice of plundering wherever they went, having no tax system of their own at all. Silver and grain only decreased with each use.

The Chongzhen Emperor was also worrying over such matters. In the past, the silver and grain he had used to build new armies and develop the realm had come from the confiscated assets of ministers and Shanxi merchants. Now those resources were nearly exhausted, so he naturally had to consider a new way of raising money.

Li Zicheng had never given this matter any thought, continuing to do as he pleased. After all, the world was vast—where couldn't he go to plunder?

The Chongzhen Emperor, however, was different. Having thought the matter over carefully, he felt that levying commercial taxes was the only viable path. He had thus made up his mind that once he dealt with this business of Li Zicheng, he would return and begin collecting commercial taxes throughout the realm, forcing those merchants who devoured people without spitting out bones to cough up their silver!

The generals of the Dashun army's four great camps each had many mouths to feed beneath them. Without military pay, the men below could not be kept in line; if they could not be kept in line, they would plunder everywhere, and might even turn on each other in armed conflict.

When that time came, the loss would not be Li Zicheng's—it would be their own. The generals would naturally press their demands upward.

Liu Zongmin had been used as a pawn more than once. Though Li Zicheng knew in his heart that Liu Zongmin respected him, there were times when he was overly arrogant and overbearing, giving Li Zicheng a feeling of wanting to be rid of him as soon as possible.

"The emperor's authority belongs to my elder brother; the authority to command troops and extract wealth by torture belongs to me, Liu Zongmin!"

Ever since Tian Jianxiu had secretly reported these words to him, every time Li Zicheng looked at Liu Zongmin, he felt that the man harbored intentions of making himself emperor. As long as Liu Zongmin remained unremoved, Li Zicheng could not rest easy enough to consider his battle strategies.

But from another angle, the generals under Liu Zongmin might not even listen to Li Zicheng's own orders. If Liu Zongmin were removed, the loss of a fierce and capable general would be secondary—those men of Liu's faction would very likely scatter, each returning home to become mountain bandits and outlaws again.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Li Zicheng waved his hand, bypassing Liu Zongmin's question without answering. Instead, he looked toward Tian Jianxiu and asked:

"What does the Regional Commander think?"

No one wanted to take this hot potato. Seeing everyone's gaze turn toward him—especially Liu Zongmin's look as if he wanted to swallow him whole—Tian Jianxiu trembled with fear.

Immediately, Tian Jianxiu stepped back a few paces, clasped his fists, and bowed as he said: "This humble officer feels that what the Marquis said is best. The brothers are all weary, and it is fitting that we rest and recuperate at Guguang Pass."

"If we take Guguang Pass, the Zhenbao region will surely surrender upon receiving our proclamation, and others will submit upon seeing the wind blow our way. As the military advisor said, the sooner we reach the capital, the sooner we gain the legitimacy of orthodox rule."