Chapter 91: My Name Is Tang Xingyun

The Qing cavalry under Abatai suddenly appeared in the outskirts of the capital—something Liu Fangliang had never anticipated, and even the Emperor Chongzhen himself was caught completely unprepared.

After Dorgon had sworn his oath of war in Shengjing, there had been no word of him whatsoever. Wu Sangui at Shanhai Pass was tense to the breaking point, fortifying defenses and sending urgent dispatches, yet in the end he never caught so much as a glimpse of a single Tartar.

Everyone had assumed Dorgon was still squatting beyond the pass, but who would have thought he would suddenly lead a great army right up to the vicinity of the capital?

At this moment, the Ming army was still locked in its final struggle with the remnants of the Dashun army inside and outside military pay and provisions, yet Liu Fangliang had already crossed blades with the Tartar cavalry of the Plain Blue Banner.

For Abatai, this battle was a chaotic mess. At first he had firmly believed the enemy before him was the Ming army from the Huangcun camp; only after fighting for a while did he realize these men were not dressed like Ming soldiers at all.

As for who the enemy actually was, Abatai had no idea—but it made no difference to him. Whoever they were, they certainly weren't brave warriors of their Qing, so he simply fought on. Why bother worrying about such things?

"General of the Army, I've seized a Tartar horse! Mount up and ride—any later and it'll be too late!"

Liu Fangliang looked at his personal guard, grievously wounded yet still urging him to flee, and without hesitation swung himself onto the horse, then shook his head and shouted:

"If I ran at a time like this, how would I be any different from the government troops? Kill the Tartars, that's all!"

His guards had initially thought Liu Fangliang meant to ride straight off, but they soon realized that wasn't the case at all. Once mounted, Liu Fangliang seemed a changed man—one stroke cut down a towering Tartar, and he charged forward with fierce valor, showing not the slightest intention of fleeing.

Seeing this, the remaining Dashun old-camp soldiers surged with confidence. Liu Fangliang was like a beacon in the vast sea of men, and around him slowly gathered a band of old-camp soldiers fighting to the death, who actually began to counterattack against the Qing army.

But their good fortune did not last. Though the old-camp soldiers fought bravely, they were all infantry after all, and the Qing army that had struck suddenly in the dark of night held an overwhelming advantage, soon surrounding the remaining old-camp soldiers at the very center.

This muddled battle lasted from midnight until dawn. As sunlight spilled across the ground, only then did the Qing and Dashun forces see what their enemies before them looked like—indeed, many Qing soldiers still had no idea who they had been fighting so fiercely half the night.

The Qing troops numbered only a little over three thousand. Abatai had come out this time because Dorgon had sent him to scout the enemy's situation—there had been no order to engage directly. Yet Abatai was a man who, even more than Hooge, had courage without strategy.

When Abatai reached Huangcun and found not a trace of the Ming army, he was furious, thinking that if he returned he would be looked down upon by Dorgon and Hooge. He was caught in a dilemma of whether to advance or retreat.

At that moment, Liu Fangliang fleeing from military pay and provisions was like a stroke of fortune dropped from the sky. Abatai didn't hesitate for an instant—he immediately ordered a full-scale assault.

No matter how valiantly Liu Fangliang led from the front, the routed old-camp soldiers still made up the majority. In truth, fewer than three in ten fought to the death beside him; the rest, facing a Qing force of comparable numbers, quickly collapsed into total disarray.

Inside military pay and provisions city, Huang Degong, discovering Liu Fangliang had vanished, killed Squire Zhou in a rage. Immediately after, Tang Tong volunteered for the mission, leading troops into the secret tunnel to pursue the roving bandits.

In fact, Tang Tong had arrived before dawn, drawn by the sounds of battle, but seeing the fierce fighting he did not wade straight in. Instead, he quietly crouched there with his men, intending to reap the spoils without lifting a finger.

"Commander, do we go in or not?"

At this moment, his household retainers, seeing the Dashun army in full rout, anxiously urged him on. Tang Tong, however, was unimpressed—he let out a cold chuckle and, gazing at the scattering bandits, asked in reply:

"What would we go up there for at a time like this? Are you missing a few screws in your head? Let the Tartars and the roving bandits tear each other apart like dogs. Best if they kill Liu Fangliang outright—saves me the trouble!"

Tang Tong also understood full well that even Liu Fangliang's ten-thousand-strong old-camp army had collapsed before the Qing forces. His own hastily assembled troops, though greater in number, would be courting death if they charged in—likely to rout even faster than the bandits.

With this thought, Tang Tong's expression turned grave, and he said sternly:

"Household retainers hold the line! Without my command, no one moves an inch!"

"Hahaha, the southern barbarians are finished!"

Abatai, reining his horse on a distant hillside, had no idea that tens of thousands of Ming troops lay crouched not far behind him. He was roaring with laughter, pointing from afar at Liu Fangliang, trapped and fighting desperately at the very center, and declared with boundless swagger:

"This dog of a barbarian is mine—this prince will handle him. You lot go find the others. It's getting late; time to end this, or the Prince Regent will grow impatient!"

"Your slave obeys the order!"

Having just withdrawn from the battlefield to rest for half an hour, Abatai now led several hundred Baya bodyguards of the Plain Blue Banner in a howling charge. It was like the last straw that broke the camel's back—the final remnants of the old-camp soldiers burst apart in chaos.

Though Liu Fangliang sensed a killing intent from due east, he was surrounded on all sides by Tartar cavalry—two hands cannot fight four—and was utterly unprepared for Abatai's swift charge. His chest was pierced straight through, and with a 'pfft' he spat out a mouthful of blood.

The sight of blood drove Abatai to even greater frenzy. He increased the force in his hands, his tiger spear piercing straight through Liu Fangliang's shoulder, and then, with Liu Fangliang unable to resist, drove another thrust straight for his neck.

Facing this killing thrust from Abatai, Liu Fangliang knew he could not withstand it. He had no choice but to abandon his horse and roll desperately to the ground. Two old-camp soldiers, seeing their commander in peril, shouted and rushed forward—only to be cut down with two swift strokes from Abatai, left gravely wounded.

Watching Liu Fangliang stagger backward, Abatai was beside himself with rage, but several more bandits swarmed around him like a cloud of flies. Brawny as Abatai was, he could not kill them all at once, nor drive them away—he could only watch helplessly as Liu Fangliang vanished from his sight.

Before long, after Abatai had dealt with the petty thieves before him, he opened his eyes and looked carefully—but could find no trace of Liu Fangliang anywhere. He flew into a rage, shouting and cursing.

"Rao Yu Prince, the Prince Regent has issued his decree—you are to return at once!"

"Rao Yu Prince, the Prince Regent is furious! If you do not turn north immediately, you will be charged with a grave crime!"

"This prince knows!" Seeing the cooked duck fly away, Abatai glared in fury, but he still kept his wits about him. Hearing that Dorgon was enraged, he lost his nerve at once.

Abatai hurled his blood-stained tiger spear to the ground, reined his horse around, and bellowed:

"Back to camp!"

The Qing army was entirely cavalry—they had come in fast and withdrew just as fast. The bandits' severed heads, armor, and baggage seemed to them nothing but dead weight. Apart from a few soldiers who casually hacked off some heads, the battlefield was stripped of almost nothing else.

In about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the Tartar troops of the Plain Blue Banner had vanished in a whoosh. Tang Tong's eyes lit up, as if he had discovered a new continent.

Tang Tong waited a while longer, until the last Tartar cavalryman in full blue armor had disappeared from view, before rising. He made a point of gazing in the direction Abatai had vanished, then turned and shouted:

"Brothers, after a night of fierce battle we have routed the rebel Liu Fangliang! Quickly sweep the battlefield and cut off heads to report our victory to His Majesty!"

"Yes!"

After a night of intense fighting, apart from the scattering Dashun soldiers, the battlefield was left with nothing but corpses, weapons, and baggage strewn everywhere. These things the Tartars had disdained were treasures in the eyes of the Ming army.

The Ming army had stumbled into a great victory by sheer luck. There were heads of both Tartars and bandits, and good things lay everywhere across the battlefield. They eagerly picked them up like precious treasures to keep for their own use—they even stripped the armor, layer after layer, off the fallen Qing and Dashun soldiers.

At times like this, the one thing never in short supply was the dead. Every day one could see people breathing their last, so armor naturally had to be left for those who could use it. No one cared whether it had been worn by a corpse—as long as it could save your life, that was enough.