Chapter 500: The Entire Army

Liu Chengzong did not rush to distribute land in Ganzhou, because summer had arrived.

The summer heat made this a season inseparable from the farming rush, and during the farming rush, absolutely no disruption could be tolerated.

This year's spring planting on the Zhangye oasis had been built on the chaos of two armies clashing; the reason Zhang Tianlin and Gao Yingdeng's troops could quickly accept the surrender and reorganize the old Ming army after losing their command structure was that they shared many common understandings — for instance, they were all Shaanxi men, and they all knew they had to get the planting done fast.

For many officers leading troops who seized forts, the very first thing they did was press the military households to open up farmland; the Ming army did it this way, and the Marshal's army had to do it this way even more.

Because from the soldiers' perspective, the outcome of the battle at Gaotai that decided Gansu's allegiance did not affect them that much — but if spring planting was delayed and they had no wheat flour or rice to eat in autumn, every last one of them would suffer.

Liu Chengzong also dared not make any sweeping, drastic moves, because from the moment he advanced into Ganzhou, the Marshal's headquarters' largest grain-producing region had shifted from Hehuang to Zhangye — he had finally gained a piece of land whose per-mu yield could surpass the national average.

The army he led grew larger the more he fought; the troops that entered Jiayu Pass numbered barely twenty thousand, yet now his strength had already swelled to thirty thousand.

Any more trouble, and come autumn his soldiers would have no wheat flour or rice to eat; stir up trouble in autumn, and come winter his soldiers would have no napa cabbage to eat.

Wheat flour, rice, and napa cabbage — they mattered enormously.

Ganzhou City was the most important place on the Zhangye oasis; this city gathered the elite talents of the Great Ming's Shaanxi Regional Military Commission, and both the Gansu Garrison and the Gansu Grand Coordinator's yamen were located here.

By all rights, the problems of occupying Ganzhou ought to have been extremely complex, but Zhang Tianlin's method of resolving them was simple and brutal... he had troops. With an over-strength battalion of seven thousand men in his hands, what did that mean for Ganzhou?

The whole of Zhangye had only a little over twenty thousand households, and each Ganzhou household had only two or three people; those fit to be soldiers had been nearly wiped out at the Battle of Gaotai, and all the remaining able-bodied males combined would struggle to reach seven thousand.

He summoned every circulating official, hereditary military officer, and local power broker he could find inside and outside Ganzhou City, and told them that from this day forward, everything from the Tianshan Mountains to the Qilian Mountains bore the surname Liu; if they were unwilling to follow and serve, no matter — leave behind the wealth and resources of Gansu, and the Marshal's headquarters would escort their entire families to Liangzhou with courtesy.

But if they insisted on clinging to Ganzhou and refusing to leave, whoever dared disobey Grand Marshal Liu's words — don't blame me, Zhang the Fifth, for being impolite!

Faced with his demands, the old generals, gentry, and hereditary officers of Ganzhou, utterly powerless to resist — a few, like the septuagenarian old generals Zhao Zongli and Zhao Zongzhu, chose to be escorted to Liangzhou; the rest all accepted their fate of submitting to the Marshal's headquarters.

When Liu Chengzong reached Ganzhou City, the dozen-odd forts along the way had all been planted with the great banner bearing the character Liu; faced with Zhang Tianlin leading the gentry and commoners to spread yellow earth on the roads and sprinkle clean water on the streets, he merely paused briefly, spoke a few words, and then rode straight into the city to the Grand Coordinator's yamen.

He wanted to see the Grand Coordinator of Gansu, Bai Yiqing.

Bai Yiqing was an old, perennial hard-luck case. When the flames of war first reached Ganzhou, he had intended to defend the city, but seeing Li Hongsi's army fall into chaos, he decided to leave together with Li Hongsi — yet no sooner had they left the city than their column was scattered by Zhang Tianlin's troops, and his cart driver was killed.

With no other choice, Bai Yiqing returned to Ganzhou City, hired a new cart driver, but before he could attempt a second breakout, Zhang Tianlin seized Ganzhou City — and the unluckiest part was that the newly hired cart driver turned out to be a member of the Three Tribulations Society.

This cart driver was also a Ganzhou man, named Bao Shizhong, a laid-off post-station runner who had switched to driving carts; by all accounts, his background was thoroughly known, eight generations of his ancestors had been post runners, and he was honest and dependable — that was why Bai Yiqing dared hire him to drive. Unfortunately, a laid-off post runner was an extremely risky profession in this era; even the most honest men were no longer docile.

There was no flash of blades or rain of blood; Bai Yiqing and his family sat in the carriage, and Bao Shizhong simply drove the cart straight into Zhang Tianlin's main camp outside the city.

Bao Shizhong said to Zhang Tianlin, "Great General, Lord Bai is a good man — if he goes back, the court will ruin him."

Bai Yiqing did not fare too well in Zhang Tianlin's hands. Ever since he heard that Yang Jiamo had died at Gaotai, he had tried to bash his head against the wall; after one attempt, Zhang Tianlin tied him up. Later he tried a hunger strike, and Zhang Tianlin had Bao Shizhong feed him, only for Bai Yiqing to bite Bao Shizhong in the process.

Bao Shizhong pleaded with all the earnestness he could muster, but nothing worked; just as Bai Yiqing was on the verge of collapsing from starvation, Liu Chengzong finally entered Ganzhou City.

In the inner chamber of the Grand Coordinator's yamen in Ganzhou City, the very moment Liu Chengzong laid eyes on Bai Yiqing, he burst out laughing — he saw a man wrapped up like a zongzi and tossed onto a thousand-man-hour canopy bed.

Zhang Tianlin, at his side, explained, "Marshal, I didn't lock him in a prison. Anyway, it makes no difference where he's locked up — in our hands, don't even think about escaping. Eight soldiers watch him; apart from refusing to eat or drink, everything else is fine."

Liu Chengzong nodded, waved for someone to untie Bai Yiqing, and ordered the soldiers to prepare a meal; only then did he move a folding chair and sit opposite the canopy bed, saying, "Grand Coordinator Bai, you know who I am, and I know you."

Bai Yiqing was so starved he had no strength even to speak, let alone run; he strained to sit up on the canopy bed, his eyelids fighting to stay open, glanced at Liu Chengzong a few times, then lifted his eyelids and said irritably, "Who are you?"

Liu Chengzong paid no mind to his tone, merely chuckled, and asked in a slow, unhurried manner, "During your tenure in Gansu, you sent quite a number of scholars to Hehuang; those men are now all capable talents building reservoirs for my Grand Marshal's headquarters. Several of the letters you wrote to them have also been seized by my anti-smuggling troops. With both witnesses and material evidence of your secret dealings with the Marshal's headquarters, why are you now making a scene about starving yourself — afraid the Emperor will have you executed?"

To be honest, the hunger strike had not starved Bai Yiqing to death, but Liu Chengzong's barrage of inverted truths and falsehoods very nearly angered him to death.

If these matters had not been brought up, it would have been fine; the moment they were, Bai Yiqing himself grew furious, and he desperately wanted to jab a finger at Liu Chengzong's nose and curse: what kind of lunatics were the Marshal's headquarters?

Over a dozen letters of correspondence! Every single one sent with extreme caution — whether hidden among goods as contraband, stuffed inside a sock, or even sewn into the sole of a cloth shoe — you people managed to ferret them all out... yet a letter openly carried against the chest with Bai Yiqing's name written large on it could be delivered into Gansu intact and unmolested.

It was only when Liu Chengzong uttered the name "anti-smuggling troops" that Bai Yiqing suddenly saw the light — these bastards were specifically tasked with investigating smuggling; they were not responsible for inspecting correspondence. If you hid it, it was confiscated; if you didn't hide it, it might just pass through without issue.

"Gansu has fallen; Bai has no way to escape blame. What face do I have left to cling to life in this world?"

Liu Chengzong cast a mocking glance at Bai Yiqing, leaned back against the folding chair, and said, "Yang Jiamo is dead — Zhang Tianlin should have already told you. I exhausted every argument, good and bad; he refused to surrender, stood atop the wall directing his soldiers to pour fire oil on my assaulting troops, and in the end, defeated, he plunged into fire and boiling water."

"He died at Gaotai; he did not fail the soldiers who fought to the death for him. He died a worthy death, a true man. Had he still been alive, fleeing after defeat, I would have looked down on him."

As he spoke, Liu Chengzong's brows suddenly furrowed; he clapped both hands together, then spread them open toward Bai Yiqing, utterly baffled. "Gansu lost the battle — the Regional Commander goes to die. Gansu's army is gone — the Supreme Commander goes to die. Gansu's common people are still alive — what business does a Grand Coordinator like you have dying?"

Bai Yiqing blinked; he felt Liu Chengzong's logic was flawed, but he no longer wished to say another word to him. He simply crossed his legs and closed his eyes on the bed, refusing to listen to Liu Chengzong preach.

But Liu Chengzong did not seem to care whether he answered or not, and was not the least bit angered by talking to himself: "The day before yesterday, the battalion commander who earned first merit for being first atop the walls at Gaotai asked me why I rebelled. I didn't tell him; I told him to use his own eyes and see. You served as Military Defense Circuit and Assistant Administration Commissioner in Shaanxi — you know why we rose in arms."

"You are a scholar; I ask you — is Zhu Youjian's single family and single surname more important, or are the countless common people under heaven more important?"

Bai Yiqing opened his eyes and said, "The realm under heaven is not your Liu Chengzong's single family and single surname's realm either!"

Liu the Lion was very satisfied: "Now we're getting somewhere. Have you read the Six Secret Teachings? Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Grand Duke Jiang said: The realm under heaven is not one man's realm; the realm under heaven belongs to the people under heaven. He who shares in the benefits of the realm shall gain the realm; he who monopolizes the benefits of the realm shall lose the realm. Heaven has its seasons, earth has its wealth; to be able to share these with the people — that is benevolence. Where benevolence resides, the realm under heaven turns toward it."

"By acknowledging this point, you show that the two of us can still communicate. Don't put on that act of single-mindedly seeking death. In the Great Ming's realm, people die at every moment; one more Bai Yiqing is not too many, one fewer Bai Yiqing is not too few."

"We will all die sooner or later. Holding high office, what you ought to consider is what to leave behind for the realm. If you die just like this, your books were read in vain, your life lived in vain. So — I'll make an agreement with you."

Liu Chengzong said, "Let's talk openly and frankly. Afterward, we'll share a meal together. Once you've eaten, if you still want to die — wherever you want to die, I'll send you there; however you want to die, I'll help you die that way. How about it?"

Bai Yiqing blinked, thinking: You bastard, after all this fuss, you came here just to watch the show — you just want to see how I die, is that it?

"Ah, you officials always think so highly of yourselves, calling others by the name of 'common people.' What difference is there between one person and another? Don't act as if the sky will fall the moment you die. We're all just people — just three days ago, atop the walls of Gaotai..."

Liu Chengzong shook his head and raised a hand, pointing westward: "Over two thousand men — all equally fine warriors, wearing the same soldiers' uniforms and armor — for a battle that could have been completely avoided, they used every weapon under heaven that could be found, and they all died. Compared to them, what are you? What am I?"

"Today, people call me a rebel and a traitor, yet I have merely done the same thing the Hongwu Emperor did. What crime is there in that?"

Bai Yiqing seemed to genuinely ponder this question for a moment, then said, "The Hongwu Emperor drove out the barbarian caitiffs, restored the Central Plains, established principles and laid down laws, and delivered the common people from suffering. What have you done? How are you worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the Hongwu Emperor?"

Liu Chengzong laughed, raised a finger and pointed at Bai Yiqing, pausing it before him, and said, "I admit it — the barbarian caitiffs have not yet been wiped out, the common people have not yet been delivered. I have not done enough. When my army fights its way to Beijing, we can thoroughly resolve the barbarian caitiff problem, and on the eastern campaign, we can also resolve the matter of delivering the common people."

Bai Yiqing glanced at Liu Chengzong: "Arrogant and conceited. You occupy only a corner of Hehuang, using foreign caitiffs and undermining the court's national policy of isolating the foreign caitiffs — and you still dare to boast of thoroughly resolving the barbarian caitiff problem."

"What barbarian caitiffs, what foreign tribes?"

Liu Chengzong grinned easily, revealing a mouthful of even white teeth: "Born on the high mountains, and you're a foreign tribe; born on the grasslands, and you're a barbarian caitiff. As long as they don't look too different from us, don't be too rigid about bloodlines when the Central Plains dynasty is strong and flourishing — they're all Han people."

This single sentence from Liu Chengzong opened an enormous chasm of disagreement between the two men.

Bai Yiqing said, "Grand Marshal Liu, keep those words to fool yourself. If the dynasty were truly in a period of strength and flourishing, would you dare rebel?"

He thought to himself: Had this been the early Wanli years, with Zhang Juzheng in the cabinet, a mere regional lieutenant could have wiped out your Marshal's headquarters without leaving a single hair behind.

Liu Chengzong fell silent.

He was silent for a very long time, gently rubbing the short mustache above his lip with the pad of his left thumb, a soft sigh escaping his nose. Only then did he speak, with the utmost seriousness: "Sir Bai, the Central Plains dynasty I refer to is not the Great Ming... it is me."

"I have expanded territory three thousand li to the southwest — with such military achievement, can I still not be called strong and flourishing? If that is still not enough, at the very moment I breached Jiayu Pass, my elder brother, leading officials and troops, had already advanced four thousand li northwest to the Tianshan Mountains and recovered Hami. Is that enough?"

Bai Yiqing opened his mouth, then hung his head in silence.

In truth, he had a great deal he wanted to say. These were all incomparably monumental achievements. Even if you split these deeds among a hundred men, each one could bring glory to his ancestors. What the Marshal's headquarters had done in Kangning alone was enough to turn those hundred men into native chieftains ruling that land in perpetuity for generations — even five hundred years later, the people of that place would still regard them as emblems of honor.

But he could not speak. On one hand, because Liu Chengzong was an enemy of the Great Ming; on the other, because... his throat was burning and he truly could not utter a word.

Just then, the mess soldiers Zhang Tianlin had sent brought food into the room: wheat-gluten meat soup from Gaotai, cold-eating mutton from Zhangye, mutton-stuffed rolls from Shandan, chicken-stuffed rolls from Ganzhou itself, and they had even procured two bottles of yellow wine.

Liu Chengzong had the wine taken away. To him, Ganzhou was no place for drinking, this was no time for drinking, and Bai Yiqing was even less a man suited for drinking.

The way things had progressed so far, one could say everything was developing in a favorable direction. There was no one who absolutely had to die.

If he succeeded in persuading Bai Yiqing to surrender, and then the fellow drank too much — what if he woke up tomorrow, forgot he had already surrendered, turned around, found a rope, tied it to a roof beam, and hanged himself? How miserable would that be.

On the contrary, looking at Bai Yiqing's parched state, with not even a drop of saliva at the sight of those fragrant dishes, Liu Chengzong instead called for a large pot of water. Only then did he point at the dishes on the table with his chopsticks and smile: "I suppose I owe this to Mr. Bai's good fortune. It's been a long time since I've had a proper meal. Don't stand on ceremony — this is enough to feed a squad of ten. I can't finish it alone. Let's both eat heartily; don't waste the food."

Bai Yiqing did not put on airs. Since Liu Chengzong had already said that after the meal he could die if he wished, there was no need for courtesy treating this as his final meal. He picked up the water pot and drank it down in great gulps — glug, glug, glug.

Only when he had drunk his fill did he wipe his mouth and ask, "Commander Liu, what do you usually eat?"

Liu Chengzong raised a hand and untied two small leather pouches from his waist. Smiling, he opened them and set them on the table: "Marching rations — parched flour, dried meat, salted fish."

Bai Yiqing took the pouch and examined it. The small leather pouch was exquisitely crafted, the stitching and materials all of the finest quality. Inside it was divided into three compartments, separately holding parched flour, dried meat, and salted fish — though the smell it gave off was not particularly pleasant.

All high-energy provisions. It didn't look like much, but it was enough for four or five meals.

Frowning, he scooped a spoonful of parched flour into his mouth to taste. There was sugar, salt, and a hint of butter. The flavor, he had to admit, was better than he had imagined, but perhaps because he had not drunk water for a long time, it was so dry it made him want to retch.

He then took a piece of dried meat. It was so salty it made him knit his brows. It seemed they had also added soy paste during the air-drying. The taste was far worse than he had imagined, and it was so tough it nearly cracked his aging teeth.

When he looked up again, the way he looked at Liu Chengzong was completely different. He thought to himself, this Grand Marshal's self-discipline rivals that of the Chongzhen Emperor himself. He eats worse than a licentiate. So it turns out that I, Bai Yiqing, am giving you a New Year's feast with my final meal.

This, however, stirred Liu Chengzong's competitive spirit. He brooded: I'm a grand commander, leading thousands upon thousands of troops, with conquered lands richer than the four seas — why are you looking at me with such pity?

"This stuff isn't meant to be eaten that way. The parched flour you drink mixed with water. The dried meat you hold in your mouth for a while. This is army rations — do you know what army rations are? They don't slow the march. They've got salt when you need salt, fat when you need fat. After you eat, you've got strength. You were thinking about flavor."

Liu Chengzong patted the helmet set to one side: "In the dead of winter, set this over a fire, boil a bowl of water, toss in three pieces of dried meat, and once it's bubbling, stir in three handfuls of parched flour and drink it down. Then you mount your horse and can fight another thirty bouts."

With that, he waved a hand: "I don't eat this all the time either. Pointless self-denial is useless. If I can't eat well, my soldiers can only eat worse. After a battle, we eat meat when there's meat to eat, and baked buns when there are baked buns — donkey-meat buns, horse-meat buns. Whatever livestock dies in the greatest numbers, that's what we eat."

"Near a river, we eat fish. Near the mountains, we eat pheasant and Mongolian gazelle. Near the nomadic tribes, we demand cattle and sheep. In Xining, we ate naked carp. In Kangning, we ate caterpillar fungus stewed with chicken — a whole giant pot of caterpillar fungus. You've never seen such a way of eating in your life. Birds in the sky, beasts on the ground — when it comes to hunting, I'm the best under heaven."

"In short... whatever my soldiers eat, I eat."

Liu Chengzong lowered his head, picked up a piece of cold-eating mutton, dipped it in the fine salt brought from Qinghai, placed it in his mouth, and chewed slowly. Only after swallowing did he look Bai Yiqing in the eye, raise a hand and point slightly behind him, and say: "Go outside and take a look. This is no final meal I've prepared for you. We've taken Golden Zhangye, and today my entire army eats meat. What does the Great Ming have left to stop me?"

Good evening!