Chapter 470: Suzhou Regional Commander Hu Zhishen

Noon, the fourteenth day of the third month.

South of Suzhou city, the Marshal's army encamped for ten li.

Liu Chengzong gazed from afar at the greatest stronghold of the Hexi Corridor — even through the city walls, he could make out the eight-zhang-tall bell-and-drum tower at the city's heart.

Suzhou was the largest walled city in Hexi. Between day and night, the banners atop its walls had changed three times: first the Ming army's Ming-character flag, then torn down by the Three Tribulations Society insurgents and replaced with the indigo-backed three-petal white lotus Northern Dipper flag.

And now, Gao Yingdeng's division had been welcomed into the city to take over Suzhou's defense. The white lotus Northern Dipper flag had been taken down as well, and atop the walls flew the four-direction Marshal's banner that belonged to him.

Not far off, Battalion Commander Bee-Tail Needle Zhang Zhen of the Tiger Guard Battalion came galloping over. After being announced, he proceeded to the command tent, saluted, and reported: "Marshal, the military households inside the city and that White Lotus lot have all settled down. Every spot where an ambush or assassination might happen is covered by our men — absolutely nothing will go wrong. General Han has already tidied up the guard yamen; the Marshal can get a good night's sleep."

Liu Chengzong rubbed the back of his neck. Bee-Tail Needle's words, at first hearing, seemed unremarkable, but on closer thought, those "spots where an ambush or assassination might happen" he mentioned had clearly been checked by Ma Ke... the Marshal's headquarters had only this one commander with actual assassination experience.

"No rush to enter the city." Liu the Lion waved a hand and asked, "You're saying the military households and the Three Tribulations Society aren't the same lot?"

As soon as he entered Jiayu Pass, he had already received intelligence from Gao Yingdeng about the Three Tribulations Society members rising up inside Suzhou.

Strictly speaking, Suzhou was two cities: one was the ancient Jiuquan city, and the other was Suzhou city, expanded during the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty. This city was exceptionally square, with everything centered on the wall base and the three-story bell-and-drum tower, laid out to the four cardinal directions according to the Eight Trigrams.

This bell-and-drum tower at the very center was the eastern gate of ancient Jiuquan city. The half of the city spreading further east was the fruit of the Hongwu-era expansion.

Liu the Lion was no country bumpkin who had never seen a big city. Lanzhou and Pingliang were both enormous, but those two giant cities were largely occupied by princely estates, with few soldiers and commoners inside — the difficulty of assaulting them was not as great as it looked.

Suzhou was different. Seventy percent of the households living in this city were military families. If the residents resisted stubbornly, the price to pay would inevitably be immense.

The Three Tribulations Society's uprising had allowed the Marshal's headquarters to take Suzhou without shedding a drop of blood — for him, it was an unexpected delight.

But now, the implication behind Bee-Tail Needle's words, coming from inside the city, seemed to be that the Three Tribulations Society members and the military households were not of one heart.

Bee-Tail Needle couldn't help letting out a laugh, then reined in his mirth and said: "The Grand Marshal may not know, but the White Lotus believers inside the city had long been preparing to rise up. Those lotus flags were all sewn in advance. But for some reason, the leader Suo Kang, who was supposed to enter the city two days ago to direct the uprising, never showed, so the whole affair was shelved."

"Their headman isn't that one called Song Xian?"

"No. The White Lotus believers all have to pass through the three tribulations. The Grand Marshal may not know, but Suzhou has four main avenues, nine great crossroads, and eighteen lesser crossroads."

Bee-Tail Needle's tone was full of envy as he spoke. He shook his head: "That merchant Song has his own shops and trading houses at three great crossroads and six lesser crossroads. He has food when he wants to eat, drink when he wants to drink. How could a man like him have three tribulations?"

Suzhou's east, south, west, and north were all laid out with perfect cardinal precision. The city's only irregularity was that it was slightly longer east-to-west and slightly shorter north-to-south — overall a rectangle — because Ming-dynasty Suzhou was actually two cities pieced together.

Its old city ran from the west gate to the bell-and-drum tower, the Jiuquan city built in the Jin dynasty. The bell-and-drum tower used the eastern gate tower of ancient Jiuquan as its base, and atop it was built a three-story layered tower, reaching a height of nearly thirty meters — exceptionally towering.

During the Ming Hongwu reign, Jiuquan city was expanded: the eastern wall was torn down, and another half-city was planned further east, forming the present-day Suzhou.

Because Hexi lacked population in the early Ming, Suzhou did not expand naturally from a large populace like other cities. Instead, it was planned by Shaanxi to settle the banner troops of Suzhou Garrison, so the street and lane pattern was exceptionally clear. Even an outsider entering the city could hardly lose their sense of direction no matter how they turned.

With the drum tower as center, four main avenues branched out to the east, south, west, and north. Each avenue had two great crossroads. Counting the bell-and-drum tower where the roads pierced through the center, they were called the nine great crossroads.

From the four avenues and nine crossroads branched nine lesser streets and eighteen lesser crossroads, along with thirty-six half-length alleyways, forming the entire layout of Suzhou city.

Bee-Tail Needle explained to Liu the Lion: "Commander Hu Zhishen and Wang Yanming inside the city originally wanted Song Xian to put up money and grain to recruit troops. Song Xian refused. The manager of his family pawnshop was the Three Tribulations Society's local head in Suzhou and knew the uprising slogan. So when they were burning debt contracts to recruit troops, Song Xian shouted it out. Guard Commander Wang Yanming was killed on the spot, and Song Xian took Suzhou city effortlessly."

Liu Chengzong narrowed his eyes. Put that way, the timing of their entry through the pass had been just right. Two days earlier, and Suzhou would have been hard to take. Two days later, and that lot inside the city might well have fallen into infighting over the leader's position.

Now it was all fine. Gao Yingdeng's troops had stabilized the streets, which could to the greatest extent spare the city the destruction of a second round of warfare.

As Bee-Tail Needle was speaking, they saw, not far off at Suzhou's south gate, two columns of soldiers escorting several people out of the city, with cavalry squads from the Marshal's headquarters guarding them left and right.

A scout rider came ahead to report: "Grand Marshal, General Gao says the former Suzhou Guard Commander Hu Zhishen and the merchant Song Xian have come to welcome you."

Liu Chengzong raised his riding crop toward Bee-Tail Needle and laughed: "Seeing I'm not entering the city, they're the ones getting anxious. Just as well — let's meet the ones who took Suzhou."

No matter how you put it, this surrendered Commander Hu Zhishen and the uprising-instigator Song Xian had both rendered service to the Marshal's headquarters. With the surrender flag flying over Suzhou's walls, the entire Jiayu Pass fortress defense system had collapsed, securing an enormous military advantage for the Marshal's headquarters.

According to reports sent back by Wei Qian'er, who had split the army into three routes to strike at the surrounding watchtowers and forts, the vanguard army was simply marching and accepting surrenders the whole way.

The nearby defending troops all surrendered at the mere rumor of their approach. At present, in the entire Jiuquan oasis, the only fortresses and walled strongholds still holding out were Jiayu Pass behind them and Linshui Post Station across the Beida River before them.

The garrisons of these two strongholds were few and their strength waning. Although they held fortified positions, the Marshal's besieging forces could not win a quick victory in the short term. But neither did they have the capacity to sally forth and attack; they could only huddle inside their walls and wait for reinforcements to run out and provisions to be exhausted.

Not far off, two small columns in starkly different attire slowly approached. The dozen or so on the left all wore military garb — the surrendered troops of Suzhou city, by the look of them. The dozen or so on the right were all in civilian dress, and one man carried a three-petal white lotus Northern Dipper flag — clearly members of the Three Tribulations Society.

Liu Chengzong thought this flag was quite handsome. The white flag surface had been indigo-dyed, leaving only the white imprint of the lotus below and the Northern Dipper above — simple, bold, and the symbolism was excellent. The lotus grew upon the earth, the Northern Dipper flew in the heavens. This flag was rebellion against heaven itself.

He was just about to praise the flag to his subordinates when out of the corner of his eye he caught Bee-Tail Needle's expression as he looked at the Three Tribulations Society members — very complicated, brows furrowed, and even a hint of distaste in his eyes.

Truth be told, Liu Chengzong himself also held the Three Tribulations Society in some contempt, because no one in this world understood the Society's war potential as an independent sect better than he did.

In this regard, the Society's chief Wang Ziyong was inferior to him, because Wang Ziyong was a capable man, but his sense of innovation was lacking. The teaching materials he used to drill the Society members and form his army were the set of militia drill manuals that Liu Shiliu had dictated and Liu Chengzong had compiled back at Black Dragon Mountain.

That set of materials, in the specific environment of Yan'an Prefecture and used by the Liu family, could train a small Qi-family army in a year or so. But in Wang Ziyong's hands, producing a gang of bandits counted as competent command.

It was not because Liu Chengzong was strong and Wang Ziyong weak. The crux was that Liu Chengzong had compiled that material according to his own family's circumstances. It contained only troop-training content, with no rational organizational structure and no local administration or construction. His father, his elder brother, his younger brother — they had handled all of that for him in Yan'an Prefecture; there was no need to write it into the manual.

And Wang Ziyong had none of these things. His organizational structure was the loose White Lotus sect; his armament and supply relied on military households ruthlessly chipping away at the empire's foundations. This meant the Three Tribulations Society had members everywhere locally and possessed extremely strong intelligence capabilities, yet had no power to control the localities. It was like playing landlord with three cards left, holding only a single two and a pair of threes.

Either petty thievery, or the only option was violent uprising — the limitations were enormous. Most awkwardly, even if they seized a city, they had no ability to govern the territory.

Even if they were originally fierce and valiant border troops, once they entered the Three Tribulations Society, under this kind of organizational form they would turn into weaklings. A soldier with ten-tenths ability in his original unit would, in the Three Tribulations Society, be made a centurion and would be lucky to bring two-tenths of it to bear.

They simply could not compare to regular troops.

Therefore, in Liu Chengzong's mind, the Three Tribulations Society members were positioned as irregulars — village braves and bandits. It was not strange for the Marshal's headquarters officers to hold them in contempt, but for Bee-Tail Needle to hold them in contempt was wrong.

This fellow was also of bandit origin. In the past, he had partnered with Zhao Kebian to lead troops, and had been scorned to his very toes by the veterans, earning the Marshal's headquarters' first honorary title of "commander relieved of duty on the battlefield by his own soldiers." What gave him the right to look down on the Three Tribulations Society?

Liu the Lion was still puzzling over this when Bee-Tail Needle spoke up: "Grand Marshal, this White Lotus lot is no good. No ability and they won't submit to discipline. Eight out of ten robberies in the city are by White Lotus believers. They can't accomplish anything, only spoil things. That Song Xian, though — he has some ability."

In truth, he was already being quite restrained in his words.

The Marshal's headquarters troops outside the city all held a very favorable impression of the Three Tribulations Society — on one hand, they saw them as their own people, and on the other, they felt they had helped the Grand Marshal seize Suzhou. But in the minds of the troops under Gao Yingdeng and Han Shipan, who had entered the city first, their attitude toward the Three Tribulations Society had taken a complete U-turn — they were outright ashamed to be associated with them.

In just the one morning since Gao Yingdeng had entered the city, Suzhou was nominally under the Three Tribulations Society's control, but in reality, only the two crossroads in the south of the city were under Song Xian's control. The rest of the city was not controlled at all — everywhere there was smashing, looting, brawling, and killing.

To some degree, their Society members were all quite simple and honest. Bullying the common folk rarely happened in Suzhou, but in the course of looting, instances of them hacking at each other were beyond count — because after the city fell, everyone was Three Tribulations Society, a host of dragons without a head.

Bee-Tail Needle's change in thinking actually came entirely from Gao Yingdeng. When he first entered the city, he had not felt the chaotic looting was all that bad — until Gao Yingdeng taught him a lesson.

Gao Yingdeng was the fierce general Liu Chengzong had obtained in exchange for two hundred horses when borrowing troops from Yan'an Garrison for the imperial relief expedition. While pursuing He Huchen's routed troops, he had once chased himself straight into the enemy's fleeing formation, was knocked down, then pulled up by the enemy troops and dragged along as they ran — only then did his own pursuing forces catch up and capture him back.

All the ideological education he had received came from Liu Chengzong, and therefore he could not abide chaotic looting above all else.

When Bee-Tail Needle entered the city, Gao Yingdeng called him over to help stabilize order and gave him an on-the-spot lesson in the overwhelming doctrinal superiority regular troops held over bandits on the matter of plunder.

"General Gao said, plunder itself is not the problem. The Marshal's headquarters conducts organized plunder. The Marshal's aim is to equalize rich and poor, to let everyone live a somewhat better life. When they plunder on their own, naturally they become our enemies."

By now, Bee-Tail Needle could expound on it with perfect logic. He said to Liu Chengzong: "When this humble officer entered the city, I didn't understand why. Only later did I figure it out. When they plunder the great households, they keep the money and grain for themselves — and then they become the great households. Naturally, they become the Marshal's headquarters' enemies."

Bee-Tail Needle could never have dreamed that his words would in turn inspire Liu Chengzong.

His words made Liu Chengzong realize another shortcoming of the Marshal Manor's commanders — most commanders were not familiar with coordinating operations with allied forces. After a city was taken from within, regional-commander-level officers could not face the allies who had assisted them with a proper and tolerant attitude.

In the Marshal Manor, only he, his elder brother, Cheng Yun, Cao Yao, and a handful of others had that experience. After that, when they sent troops into Qinghai, they had never again coordinated with allied forces.

And now that the Marshal Army had once more entered the passes, coordinating with allied forces on all fronts was, in Liu Chengzong's eyes, unavoidable.

Though the Marshal Manor was strong, Liu Chengzong was not so arrogant as to think he could sweep the realm clean by his own power alone. Coordinating operations with allied forces was a lesson the Marshal Manor's commanders had to learn.

Realizing this made Liu Chengzong laugh right in front of Bee-Tail Needle.

Half a day of chaos was not a good situation for the city of Suzhou, but for the Marshal Manor's future development, it was an excellent learning opportunity for its commanders. After all, Suzhou's Three Catastrophes Society had no leader, and its various petty headmen were a loose sheet of sand. Even if Gao Yingdeng handled things poorly, it would not lead to internal strife.

Before the baffled Bee-Tail Needle could ask, Song Xian and Commander Hu Zhishen had already approached from nearby. After the guards announced them, the two men stepped forward, prostrated themselves, and performed the ritual salute.

Liu Chengzong stepped forward and helped the two men to their feet, smiling. "Suzhou has changed its banner. You two are men of merit to the Marshal Manor — no need for such formalities."

Song Xian demurred with a polite phrase, but Hu Zhishen on the other side hastily answered, "Reporting to the King of Han, the banner change was entirely Mr. Song's achievement. This humble man dares not claim credit."

Liu Chengzong actually had no real impression of Hu Zhishen before this.

But among his many titles, he liked being addressed as King of Han the most. The matter of recognizing the Marshal Manor's shortcomings had already put him in a fine mood, and now hearing Hu Zhishen call him King of Han lifted his spirits even higher. He immediately laughed and said, "I am a man easy to get along with. So long as you oppose the Ming within and resist the Jin without, you are all brothers and sisters to me, Liu Chengzong."

Hu Zhishen thought to himself, this opposing-Ming and resisting-Jin business — none of it really has anything to do with me. At most, I just don't oppose the Marshal Manor, and I'd still like to be a Commander who loafs around waiting to die while enjoying life.

He knew the Marshal Manor was not short of such people. Many capable surrendered officers were in a state of loafing around waiting to die, so someone as lacking in ability as himself... should also be able to loaf around waiting to die, right?

Hu Zhishen had coasted along on his ancestors' merit records in the Great Ming for so many years and had never once thought that scrounging a meal was something shameful.

But Liu Chengzong did not see it that way. With a grand wave of his hand, he declared, "I see it like this. Mr. Song rendered merit by offering up the city and has talent and ability himself. He shall temporarily assume the post of Suzhou Guard Assistant Commander, hold the official seal, and take full charge of Suzhou Guard affairs."

Wild delight immediately showed on Song Xian's face. Most of that delight was feigned, but a part of it was genuine emotion. As the first man in Hexi to open a city gate and offer surrender, he had long expected Liu Chengzong to promote him to an official post.

It was just that the post he had estimated in his mind was that of a Thousand-Household Commander.

"As for General Hu, I hereby appoint you as Suzhou Regional Commander, grant you the establishment of the Suzhou Battalion, and temporarily issue one month's provisions and fodder for you to go and persuade surrender and recruit troops. In one month, you will move to the front lines. Once you achieve merit, there will be another important assignment."

Hu Zhishen was on the verge of tears. What happened to loafing around waiting to die? He prostrated himself and said, "This humble man thanks the King of Han for the great grace of promotion, but this humble man possesses no true talent or solid learning, and I beseech..."

Liu Chengzong narrowed his eyes. "Hm?"

Hu Zhishen was so startled he faltered, and hurriedly retreated to the next best option, saying, "I beseech the Great King to assign Suzhou Instructor Dong Ju and the Righteous Husband Yan Zhi to the battalion, and to dispatch another commander skilled in battle to assist this humble man in managing battalion affairs."

Liu Chengzong was utterly unable to grasp Hu Zhishen's self-assessment as a useless little sweetheart, and took it only as modest words and a gesture to avoid suspicion. He even thought to himself that this General Hu was quite sensible. He glanced at Bee-Tail Needle and waved his hand. "In that case, Zhang Zhen, you will first serve as Vice Regional Commander in the Suzhou Battalion and lend General Hu a hand."

Having said this, he looked at Hu Zhishen and said, "However, General Hu, your deputies you will still have to go and recruit yourself. In Jiayu Pass there is a Mobile Corps Commander Ding Guodong, and in Linshui Relay Station City there is a Battalion Commander Mi Layin. Which one you can recruit will depend on your own ability."

Good afternoon!

(End of Chapter)