Chapter 40: For the Great Ming

"Enlisting! Enlisting! The Capital Camps are enlisting!"

"By His Majesty's decree, anyone who can make it into the Capital Camps gets two meals a day, room and board included, two months' pay paid in advance, and new-style armor and clothing issued from the Armory Bureau for everyone. Come sign up now!"

"That's right—once you're selected into the Capital Camps, even your children will have a secure and stable place to go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so what are you waiting for? Hurry up and sign up!"

Outside the Xuanwu Drill Ground beyond Beijing's walls, a full row of small tables was neatly arranged, with clerks seated at each table and a burly, towering guard standing behind every clerk, while quite a few Capital Camp officers in front of the tables shouted themselves hoarse.

The scene was somewhat reminiscent of the pyramid-scheme organizations of later generations that tried to rope people in—except that everyone fled from pyramid schemes, whereas behind every table at this Xuanwu Drill Ground, long lines of people with their entire families in tow were queued up.

"Say, do you reckon they'll pick us?"

"That's what I'm fretting about too. Look—there are people as far as the eye can see back here. Just how many slots are there?"

Hearing a ragged refugee ask this question, a junior Capital Camp officer replied:

"Don't worry—as long as you all meet the requirements, everyone gets selected!"

They spoke in various regional dialects, and upon hearing this while waiting in line, they were all overjoyed. Some women, bare-chested as they nursed their children in public, were even fiercer in temperament than the men.

Just two days prior, after deliberations with Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode and others, the Chongzhen Emperor had rolled out an entire set of regulations. First, the Capital Camps—now backed by ample grain, silver, and weapons—would gradually absorb the refugees fleeing from all over.

But there were clear requirements: for instance, those entering the Capital Camps needed at least one family member, and preference was given to those with honest, simple faces, thick calluses on their hands, and heavy regional accents, among other criteria.

That said, these hard requirements were all for show to outsiders. In actual recruitment, due to the shortage of soldiers, Zhang Shize had no choice but to lower the bar—basically any man with family could smoothly enter the Capital Camps.

By today, over two hundred new recruits had been enlisted, with only a handful being rejected.

Of the refugees seeking shelter in the capital, aside from a small minority who still had their families intact, most had lost their wives and children or seen their homes destroyed and families wiped out. Considering this situation, the Chongzhen Emperor added two "regiments" under the Capital Camps, imperially designated as the "Youth Camp" and the "Jiazi Camp."

As the name implied, the Youth Camp's recruits were not chosen for combat capability—they were all filled by the sons and daughters of those civilians who entered the Capital Camps, and they rarely underwent training.

The Youth Camp was just a nicer-sounding designation. No Regional Commander was ever appointed; the children were simply gathered together in one compound, with three meals a day provided on a fixed ration.

Beyond guaranteeing their most basic needs, the Chongzhen Emperor also arranged for trusted officials to give them lessons, instilling loyalty to the Great Ming and exaggerating the dangers of the roving bandits and the Manchu Qing—after all, some things needed to be cultivated from childhood.

The Chongzhen Emperor didn't need children to go fight in battle, nor would he do anything to them. The reason he had these little brats enlist was mainly to stabilize public morale.

The Jiazi Camp was a different story entirely—its recruits were all prisoners from the various jails in the capital. Some had been wrongfully accused, while others were murderers and arsonists guilty of the most heinous crimes. This time, several thousand of them were released to join the regiment, and Regional Commander Dong Qi expressed that the pressure was immense.

Although Dong Qi held considerable prestige in the Capital Camps, that meant nothing in the eyes of these murderous, arsonist street thugs who stirred up trouble everywhere—only your methods could prove everything.

Dong Qi had himself come up from the streets, so he was deeply versed in this game. On the very day the Jiazi Camp was formed, he borrowed fifty towering, imposing guards from the imperial palace from the Chongzhen Emperor, planning to start by killing the chicken to scare the monkeys.

The Chongzhen Emperor's meaning was made perfectly clear: do whatever you need to do. Even if you don't rapidly raise their combat effectiveness, at least make these people usable to the court—so that when war comes, they don't cause chaos. That alone would count as merit. This was also the main reason Dong Qi dared to act so boldly.

When news of these matters spread, the court officials were shocked, while the common people erupted in thunderous cheers.

What shocked the officials was that the Chongzhen Emperor hadn't even mentioned such a major matter to them—reportedly, only Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode and the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard figures like Wang Cheng'en and Li Ruolian had known in advance. It was as if they didn't matter at all.

After the shock passed, the officials hated Wei Zaode—the Emperor's steadfast lackey in court—even more bitterly. Some had already come to regard Wei Zaode as a figure equivalent to Yan Song, the Chief Grand Secretary of the Jiajing era, gnashing their teeth and itching to eliminate him.

But the Chongzhen Emperor was precisely determined to oppose the officials. Whoever they wanted to eliminate, he would have the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard protect—and they watched day and night without pause. If anyone made even the slightest move, the Depot and Guard would absolutely be the first to strike.

Whenever remonstrating officials and censors impeached someone, the Chongzhen Emperor would directly issue a decree promoting and rewarding that person. Anyone who spoke even slightly critically in court would have their family property confiscated and their head chopped off over a single word of disagreement. Some were even held down by guards right in the hall and had their heads bashed bloody against the coiling-dragon pillars—now isn't that just infuriating?

Both court and country were gripped by fear, everyone daring to be angry but not to speak. According to reports from the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard, these ministers had at least been behaving themselves on the surface lately—hardly leaving their homes except to attend court.

By contrast, the city's common folk grew more and more delighted. The current Son of Heaven was truly a wise ruler rarely seen in a thousand years—decisive and swift in his actions, very much in the style of the purge of the eunuch faction in years past.

During the Jingtai reign, Minister of War Yu Qian reformed the Capital Camps, selecting one hundred thousand elite troops divided into ten regiments for training, each led by a Commissioner-in-Chief, known as the "Ten Regiments." During the Chenghua reign, the "Twelve Regiments" were added. Since in the early Zhengde years the Twelve Regiments could only muster a little over sixty thousand men, the picked elite were organized into the "Two Offices."

Later, during the Jiajing reign, the regiments and Two Offices were abolished and the old system of the Three Great Camps was restored. It could be said that throughout the Ming dynasty, Capital Camp reform was always a top priority—many emperors had considered it, but aside from Yu Qian's elite Ten Regiments, it had always been like mud that couldn't be plastered onto a wall.

Now the Chongzhen Emperor had decreed the restoration of the regiments, but only establishing the two regiments of "Youth" and "Jiazi," and without abolishing the old system of the Three Great Camps. The recruits were all refugees and criminals—yet another precedent being set.

Over these past few months, the Chongzhen Emperor had set precedent after precedent, doing things his predecessors dared not do or could not accomplish. Some said he was recklessly trying any remedy when critically ill; others said the Emperor had gone mad. But in the eyes of ordinary folk, every single act was that of a sage ruler.

While the Chongzhen Emperor was reorganizing and recruiting for the Capital Camps in Beijing, over in Daizhou it was a scene of blazing cannon fire and smoke rising from beacon fires across the land.

Zhou Yuji—Bandit-Suppressing General, Regional Commander of Shanxi, and Left Commissioner-in-Chief—had been locked in battle with Li Zicheng since the twenty-first day of the second month, and the fighting was exceptionally fierce and deadlocked. The Shanxi government troops, their morale greatly boosted by reinforcements from the court, refused to retreat a single step against the roving bandits who outnumbered them several times over—every soldier fought to the death.

The Dashun army, which historically should have marched north to besiege Ningwu half a month ago, was now stuck at a tiny Daizhou, unable to advance an inch—and had already lost two valiant generals, clearly suffering a heavy setback.

By the sixteenth day of the third month in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng and Zhou Yuji had been locked in bitter battle along the Daizhou front for over twenty full days, yet the city of Daizhou still stood as firm as ever.

"My lads, the dog officials' troops are done for—kill!"

"The Dashing King has decreed: whoever captures Zhou Yuji alive shall be rewarded with ten thousand in gold!"

Countless Dashun soldiers in white arrow-quilted tunics had already gone red-eyed at the sound of the reward. Suddenly another cannon blast rang out from the rear, and despite the corpses littering the field beneath the walls, the Dashun troops raised their blades and spears and surged forward in a fearless swarm.

Atop the city walls, Zhou Yuji—long accustomed to such scenes—remained utterly composed. He suddenly raised his blade and bellowed:

"Soldiers, for the Emperor! For the Great Ming!!!"