Chapter 558: Reinforcement Chief Commander Zuo Liangyu

"And then?"

On the ancient Longguan Road, inside the garrison command post of Mapaoquan Fort east of Qinzhou.

Zuo Liangyu, sporting a short beard and wearing a crimson open-shoulder robe with subtle patterns, drained a cup of wine and asked, "Zhang Yichuan entered the Marshal's yamen. And then?"

Across from him sat He Renlong, one of the three Ming generals stationed in Shaanxi. Hearing the question, He Renlong shook his head. "My people couldn't get into the Marshal's yamen. If Zhang Yichuan hadn't gone over there, my people couldn't even have entered Lanzhou. Naturally, I have no idea what was discussed inside. I only know that Zhang Yichuan received the post of Chief Commander under the Marshal's office."

"Ridiculous." Zuo Liangyu's hand, holding the wine cup, paused mid-motion. He said with disdain, "Him? Chief Commander? Liu Chengzong has no eye for talent."

Zuo Liangyu had clashed with the Chuang Army's five battalions long ago, and later had also fought Zhang Yichuan one-on-one. If not for Zhang Yichuan's good luck, he would have died at Zuo Liangyu's hands long ago.

This luck wasn't because someone rescued Zhang Yichuan, but because the timing of Zhang Yichuan's encounter with Zuo Liangyu was favorable.

Zuo Liangyu as a person was very simple — eight words summed him up: he treated people sincerely and repaid kindness with gratitude.

He was an orphan; both his parents died, and he was raised by his uncle. He mastered martial skills and filled his head with loyalty to the sovereign and service to the nation. He enlisted in the army in Liaodong, fought ferociously, and earned merit in every battle. By his twenties, he had risen to the rank of field officer, serving as a Liaodong Regional Commander — an outstanding talent in the military.

During the Ningyuan Mutiny, soldiers swore a blood oath to demand four months of back pay and stormed the command headquarters. Zuo the Great Genius took the road less traveled — he brought his good brother Qiu Lei to loot military supplies. The scheme was exposed, and Qiu Lei took the blame for him. Originally sentenced to execution, they managed to get the case transferred to the Ministry of Justice's prison instead.

For Zuo Liangyu, the situation still held a chance. Qiu Lei was alive; he had to fight on, raise money outside, and sooner or later buy his good brother's freedom.

To raise money, he attached himself to the Ministry of War Vice Minister Hou Xun, serving as a henchman and retainer.

Hou Xun was Zuo Liangyu's benefactor, enabling him — during the Jisi Incursion — to be appointed as Vice General despite being a demoted officer, and to lead troops once more.

First, to repay Hou Xun for recognizing his worth; second, to repay Qiu Lei for saving his life. Zuo Liangyu threw himself into battle with no regard for life or death. At Songshan and Xingshan against the Later Jin, he earned the highest battle merit. With his own ability and backing from above, he climbed at lightning speed: Qiu Lei's rescue was just around the corner!

In the blink of an eye, by the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zuo Liangyu had become the Chief Commander of Changping. He joined Deng Qi and others at Wu'an and elsewhere in a major campaign against the roving bandits. At that time, every commander was fighting with desperate ferocity. Qin Liangyu's daughter-in-law, Zhang Fengyi, died on the battlefield supporting Zuo Liangyu. Deng Qi, trapped deep in encirclement, would have died too, but Zuo Liangyu broke through and pulled him out — like a god of war.

He believed that as long as he seized this heaven-sent merit of annihilating the peasant army, he could surely rescue Qiu Lei from prison. Then he would ask Hou Xun to recommend Qiu Lei for a Chief Commander post, and the good brothers would fight side by side. What a fine tale that would be!

It was also during this period that Zuo Liangyu discovered he was... exceptionally skilled at warfare.

How to put this — before turning to banditry, he had been a Chariot Battalion Regional Commander in Liaodong. At that time, the court was drawing elite troops and fierce generals from the Nine Border Garrisons to form the Guanning Army. Zuo Liangyu was a very young junior, not yet thirty, and he had learned a great deal — whether in drilling troops, tactics, or strategy.

Later, when Hou Xun reactivated him and he fought the Later Jin, he was still charging into battle under the command of the older generation of generals.

This experience meant that when Zuo Liangyu led two thousand Changping troops into the Central Plains to fight the peasant armies, though he was still very young — just past thirty — his skill in battle far outstripped those old generals in their forties and fifties.

Those peasant armies simply could not beat him. If not for the fact that he had only two thousand men, any peasant army that stood before him would have been swept away.

Zuo Liangyu was riding high at the time. With a mere two thousand men of the Changping corps, he beat tens of thousands of roving bandits until they were spitting teeth and calling him Grandpa Zuo. Even when hundreds or thousands of roving bandits were arrayed before him, the moment they saw the white banner of his Zuo Family Army — even if only three or five riders stood beneath it — the bandits dared not advance.

Annihilate the roving bandits — what kind of man was he? For the next hundred years and more, he would be like Grandpa Yue. Children would grow up hearing his stories. He was the towering hero who would prop up the collapsing edifice of the nation!

Yet, just when the Ming army had finally trapped over a hundred thousand peasant troops in Shanxi and was about to reap total victory, the Emperor sent eunuch army supervisors, and then sent Ni Chong, Wang Pu, and other capital garrison troops to steal the credit.

If the battle situation had turned unfavorable and there was suspicion that the generals were holding back, and the court lacked effective military intelligence, then sending army supervisors would be one thing.

But the situation had just been stabilized. Every commander had tied his head to his belt and was fighting the bandits with desperate fury. In a few months, over a dozen field officers had died. Victory was in sight — what was the meaning of sending army supervisors?

And what a fine mess that turned out to be. The army supervisor took bribes from the peasant army. With the situation slightly favorable, he forbade them from attacking, letting the peasant army tear down door planks in the dead of winter to pave the frozen river surface and leap out of the encirclement to escape.

Over a hundred thousand peasant troops poured into the Central Plains, passed through Shaanxi, and ultimately entered the Qinling region. What they left behind for Zuo Liangyu and the others were shattered cities and devastated countryside across the provinces.

Those who died, died for nothing. The battles fought, were fought for nothing.

Zuo Liangyu felt as if he had been slapped across the face. Just when he felt he was drawing closer and closer to being like Grandpa Yue, a resounding slap knocked him flat on the ground.

Picking himself up, Zuo Liangyu felt like crying — Maybe I'm not Grandpa Yue reincarnated, but damn it, this dog of an Emperor is definitely Qin Hui reborn!

Heaven truly has eyes — Qin Hui sitting on the golden throne. Magnificent!

He ground his teeth to dust, but he could not show his rage. Qiu Lei was still squatting in the Ministry of Justice's prison.

To save Qiu Lei, he had to climb higher. To climb higher, he could not show rage.

After that, Zuo Liangyu felt irritated at the sight of eunuchs, even more irritated at the sound of imperial edicts, and could not stand eunuchs reading imperial edicts most of all.

As for annihilating the roving bandits and bringing peace to the realm — Zuo Liangyu later gave it serious thought. He felt he should meddle less in other people's family affairs. The realm, after all, was something the old Zhu family ought to worry about themselves. He would just handle the mess in front of him and leave it at that.

From then on, if bandits came, he'd chase them away. Battles he could win, he'd fight. Battles he couldn't win for certain, he absolutely would not fight. Lead him and he wouldn't move; whip him and he'd step backward. Threaten him with death and he still wouldn't budge. But if he won, he'd demand rewards — you had to reward him!

After a battle, he'd sweep the field, accept surrenders, take heads, and report merit in one seamless operation. He absolutely would not do a single extra thing. Once done, he'd find a place to garrison and let the brothers eat, drink, and make merry.

With discipline suddenly relaxed, it was actually rather easy. Even if soldiers robbed commoners, as long as no one was killed, Zuo Liangyu would only criticize them a bit. But they could not take goods without paying, because that concerned the grand plan of survival.

Zuo Liangyu had won many victories, but he had little money. It wasn't that he didn't love wealth, but private riches were useless to him. On the contrary, the more he invested in this army, the more this army could not do without him. The more the army could not do without him, the less the court could transfer him to another post.

Therefore, apart from sending money to the Ministry of Justice, he used all his money to reward his soldiers. Forbidding soldiers from taking goods without paying was also for this reason — he wanted everyone to know that he treated his soldiers well, that the soldiers of the Zuo Family Army had money and lived good lives. For every extra man who joined him, one fewer joined the bandits. It counted as doing a good deed each day.

Anyway, as long as the Emperor didn't drop dead, this realm was beyond saving. The common soldiers were risking their lives for him — so what if they did a little looting? I, Grand Commander Zuo, could never pull the kind of crap that dog court does, tormenting the men below.

Before, they didn't loot, but that dog Emper— that dog Qin Hui sent down a whole swarm of army supervisors, and over a hundred thousand roving bandits escaped to ravage everything that could be ravaged across dozens of cities in several provinces. If my soldiers don't loot, leave it for the bandits to loot?

If not for the constraints of his status, Zuo Liangyu would even have liked to do the looting himself. On the surface, it was robbing landlords; in reality, it was seizing the roving bandits' fortune. This was also a way to save the nation, adding bricks and tiles to the construction of a Beautiful Great Ming.

Besides, those looted calligraphy scrolls and antiques were of no use to those landlords and wealthy households, and of no use to the common soldiers either. Taking them and sending them to the Ministry of Justice so Qiu Lei could eat a bit better inside — wasn't that better than letting the roving bandits loot them?

The time Zuo Liangyu ran into Zhang Yichuan, it was because a eunuch read an imperial edict ordering him to fight. The force he caught up with was Zhang Yichuan's unit. Zuo Liangyu could have encircled them, but he deliberately chose not to. He chased them unhurriedly for a few days, swooped in to seize their baggage train, and then did not pursue any further.

In truth, if Zhang Yichuan's unit hadn't been carrying a fair amount of money, grain, and goods at the time, he wouldn't even have bothered to attack. He'd have just chased them out of his defense zone and left it at that.

By now, he felt that people rising in revolt had their reasons. With that backstabbing Qin Hui sitting on the golden throne, who wouldn't revolt?

At this moment, hearing that Zhang Yichuan had become a Chief Commander under the Marshal's office, Zuo Liangyu felt deep contempt. He laughed and said to He Renlong, "In that Chuang Army of theirs with its five battalions, only the Chuang General Li Zicheng has some ability. The rest of the officers in the various battalions are all worthless rats, not even as good as that Zhang Xianzhong who calls himself the Eight Great Kings of the Western Camp."

Having said this, he grinned at He Renlong and added, "That former elite vanguard of yours — rather than letting Zhang Xianzhong be Minister of Rites, you'd be better off making him Chief Commander and making Zhang Yichuan the Minister of Rites."

"Commander Zuo, your judgment is divinely accurate!"

He Renlong clapped and laughed heartily, only explaining once he met Zuo Liangyu's puzzled gaze: "The fellow townsman who brought me word said that Zhang Yichuan came out of the Marshal's yamen looking very dejected. It seems he had originally wanted to replace Zhang Xianzhong as Minister of Rites, but was refused by Liu Chengzong, and so received the post of Henan Chief Commander under the Marshal's office instead."

Zuo Liangyu had originally been the Chief Commander of Changping. This post, like the Chief Commanders of Ji Garrison, Guizhou, Sichuan, Canal Transport, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Baoding, Zhejiang, Shanhai, Lintao, and Denglai, was a minor Chief Commander without a seal of command.

The major Chief Commanders bearing seals were only those few: the South-Conquering General of Yunnan, the West-Conquering Front General of Datong, the Barbarian-Pacifying General of Huguang, the Barbarian-Conquering General of Liangguang, the Captive-Conquering Front General of Liaodong, the Garrison-Pacifying General of Xuanfu, the Qiang-Pacifying General of Gansu, the West-Conquering General of Ningxia, the Vice General of Jiaozhi, and the West-Pacifying General of Yansui.

The difference between major and minor Chief Commanders lay in authority.

Later, when Zuo Liangyu led two thousand Changping troops to Huaiqing and was ordered to transfer to Henan operations, his official post accordingly became Reinforcement Chief Commander. The Reinforcement Chief Commander's duty was to command guest armies and specialize in bandit suppression.

As it turned out, with the peasant army moving west, the court didn't let Zuo Liangyu idle, so this Reinforcement Chief Commander transferred to Henan operations ended up running over to Shaanxi, becoming a guest army of the guest armies.

In reality, this post sounded impressive, but its authority was even less than that of the Changping Chief Commander, because as a guest army, he had no command authority over local garrison troops or guard units. He couldn't even transfer troops. The only person he could control was the Joint-Suppression Chief Commander, Tang Jiuzhou.

The two were old partners. When Zuo Liangyu was Changping Chief Commander, Tang Jiuzhou was his Vice Chief Commander. When Zuo Liangyu led his troops as Reinforcement Chief Commander, Tang Jiuzhou assisted in suppression in his original post. As it turned out, no one expected that "assisting" would assist them all the way from Changping to Shaanxi.

Precisely because of this, Zuo Liangyu needed the help of local generals. As it happened, He Renlong was being driven to distraction by Yang Yanchang and urgently needed outside help. Neither man was the particularly upright type, so they got tangled up together.

"Henan Grand Commandant? Has he gone mad?"

A deeply complicated smile surfaced on Zuo Liangyu's face. The court had no Grand Commandant in Henan — and the very first Henan Grand Commandant was actually a rebel? You might as well say the first Henan Grand Commandant was a civil official.

Most crucially, the Marshal's Manor had only just barely taken Hexi; they hadn't even seized Guanzhong or northern Shaanxi. Where did they get the nerve to establish a Henan Grand Commandant?

"General Zuo may not be aware, but I have already looked into the Marshal's Manor's system for granting offices and bestowing rewards."

"Oh?" Zuo Liangyu straightened his expression and gestured. "Please, General He, tell me in detail."

He Renlong also put on a serious face. "The Marshal's Manor rose from bandits who took to the hills, so they follow old customs. They use the Grand Commandant post as a pledge of allegiance — bestowing the rank of Grand Commandant on newly surrendered men, assigning lands beyond their current territory as nominal domains, and providing troops, horses, armor, and weapons. If you conquer it, the appointment becomes substantive; if you fail, you are stripped of office."

"It is the same for Li Yangchun, Grand Commandant of Xihe, and Zhang Zhengqi, Grand Commandant of Ningqiang."

He spoke with such conviction it sounded entirely real, yet even Liu Chengzong himself had no idea he had such a system — let alone those two fellows in Xihe and Ningqiang, who were complete outsiders.

But Zuo Liangyu couldn't help believing it. He knew Liu Chengzong had dispatched three Grand Commandants to the southern Gobi with a great many troops. Now, hearing the origins of these three Grand Commandants — Zhang Yichuan, Li Yangchun, and Zhang Zhengqi — the pieces all connected.

Zuo Liangyu nodded repeatedly, then suddenly thought of something and asked He Renlong, "Earlier I had considered poaching that Xihe man, Li Yangchun — one of the Four Heavenly Kings — when he suddenly changed his title to Grand Commandant. So he had gone over to the Marshal's Manor... How many troops, staves, armor, and weapons can they get by joining the Marshal's Manor?"

"That I wouldn't know. I have no one on that side. But when Zhang Yichuan returned from Lanzhou, he split his camp from Chuang Jiang and the others, struck camp, and went to Ningyuan County in Gongchang Prefecture. Every day, armor and weapons from the Marshal's Manor are being delivered — over a thousand matchlocks alone have been shipped. They drill daily, with the posture of someone about to make a big move."

"Where does Liu Chengzong get so many armor and weapons?"

Zuo Liangyu knew the Marshal's Manor had the capacity to manufacture its own armor and weapons, but from what he understood, the ratio of soldiers to civilians there was badly skewed. Not many people were engaged in production to begin with, and now they were expanding massively. By all logic, they should be stretched thin on armor, blades, firearms, and cannon. How could they be so generous?

"This batch of armor and weapons is all marked under the name of the Five Guards of Gansu. They're not brand new."

"Oh."

Zuo Liangyu understood. Liu Chengzong had given Zhang Yichuan and the others the equipment seized from the Gansu border army. He did the math based on those numbers and quickly reached a conclusion.

Over a thousand matchlocks, proportionally, would arm at least one battalion. That meant the Marshal's Manor had provided Zhang Yichuan with one battalion's worth of equipment. Liu Chengzong most likely would not play favorites — Li Yangchun and Zhang Zhengqi should have also received one battalion's worth of supplies. Add up the equipment for three battalions, and the Gansu seizures were gone.

Moreover, given the current situation — Zhang Yichuan and the others were reorganizing their troops and sharpening their weapons to invade Guanzhong, making Gansu the Marshal's Manor's deep rear — Zuo Liangyu, with his sharp instincts, grasped the strategic opening at once: Gansu was empty.

But this opening was useless to Zuo Liangyu. If Liu Chengzong wanted to hit Shaanxi, let him hit Shaanxi; if he wanted to hit Henan, let him hit Henan. What did it have to do with him? At most, he would station his troops in Guide Prefecture to protect the home of Minister of Revenue Hou Xun from being ravaged by the rebel army.

For some people, however, this information was extremely useful. Perhaps it could be traded to get someone to release Qiu Lei from the Ministry of Justice's prison.

Zuo Liangyu's eyes darted. He clasped his fists toward He Renlong, then entered the study of the garrison command post. He asked the army secretary to draft a letter on his behalf and dispatched a man to deliver it at speed to Hong Chengchou in Ningxia.

The news that Gansu was empty — to Hong Chengchou, that was far too important!

Good evening!

End of chapter.