Chapter 665: Hammering

Late afternoon, the second day of the tenth month, eighth year of the Chongzhen reign.

The city of Xi'an Prefecture was eerily silent. Ever since the siege began, martial law inside the walls had tightened by the day.

By the time Chen Qihuang returned from outside the city, an even deeper gloom had settled over it.

No one knew what had happened — only that something seemed to hang in the air, a restless, seething thunder building toward eruption.

Until the curfew.

Every household shut its doors and barred its gates, yet from the streets came the long-absent sound of marching troops, then furious curses, desperate struggles, wailing sobs, and after that the mighty rumble of cartwheels grinding over the flagstones of the long avenues — over and over, until dawn.

By daybreak, calm had returned to the city, but people discovered that a greater uproar was now coming from the direction of the princely compound.

Yet everything happening inside Xi'an Prefecture had nothing to do with Liu Chengzong outside its walls.

The entire attention of the Marshal's siege army was fixed on the construction of two great encampments west of Xi'an, on the tablelands north and south of the Wei River.

Winter had already arrived, and the army could no longer remain in field camps, so Liu Chengzong had planned two permanent fortified encampments on either bank of the Wei River and begun building barracks.

The construction of these two camps had little to do with the siege itself — it was simply that Xi'an Prefecture's infrastructure had never been designed to garrison a large army.

There were barracks here; the four Xi'an Guard units had countless residences, but those had long since transformed from drill-focused barracks into farmland-focused civilian dwellings, with a single Thousand-Household Command spread out over an area the size of ten Yuhe Forts.

If Liu Chengzong's own two brigades and two battalions were dispersed and garrisoned to that standard, delivering an order would take three days.

Moreover, permanent camps north and south of the Wei River could also provide grounds for winter training for his own troops, counteracting the slackening of discipline that came with a prolonged siege.

So the great encampments had to be built.

That said, the siege of the prefectural city continued as before, just not quite as tight as earlier — but to the defenders inside Xi'an Prefecture, that made almost no difference.

After all, though the besiegers had never built any siege engines from the start, their siege works were more than ample — trenches and parapets crisscrossed the ground, and even with sharply reduced numbers, anyone who couldn't get out before still couldn't get out.

Not to mention that the eastern wall of the great camp Liu Chengzong planned on the Wei River's south bank was simply the western wall of the siege earthworks.

Then again, the prefectural city's defenders had no thought of charging out at this point anyway.

The Marshal's army outside the walls was hard at work building barracks with roaring enthusiasm; with winter here, who wouldn't want to rest comfortably in proper quarters?

Inside the city, the Ming army's morale burned even hotter, because Governor-General Chen Qiyu had finally come around — he ordered the four Guard armies to enforce martial law across the four main streets, dividing the city into four sectors, and during curfew to demand grain from the wealthy households in each sector.

If they got it, fine; if they didn't, they moved on. Once every main street had been canvassed, those who had refused to hand over grain were to have their homes raided en masse.

That night, the city was terrifyingly chaotic.

Chen Qiyu had not been ready to order house raids the moment Chen Qihuang returned to the city.

He understood perfectly: Liu Chengzong was forcing him to turn on his own people.

From making up his mind to completing the preparations had taken him several days.

For instance, he had specifically moved his governor-general's headquarters to the western city gate, assigned his personal guard troops to hold the defenses there, and stood ready at any moment to open the gate and flee to the Marshal's camp if things went wrong.

At the same time, during the day before issuing the order, he had summoned Wang Qiaonian and others to his headquarters and ordered his guards to seize and place them under house arrest.

This was, of course, for their protection.

After all, for the defenders of Xi'an Prefecture, carrying out such an order was far easier said than done.

Orders required men to execute them, and many of those doing the executing were themselves from wealthy local families — and the wealthier the family, the higher their rank in the army and the more resolute their will to defend the city.

Fortunately, the raging flames never reached him; many officers from wealthy families were taken out by those around them before they could organize any resistance to the mad decree.

Beneath the night sky of Xi'an Prefecture, on the surface, Chen Qiyu had ordered the house raids and the four Guard armies were carrying them out.

In reality, it was more like an officer battle royale — the moment any common soldier drew his blade against an officer from a wealthy family, Heaven itself would automatically match him with teammates, instantly turning a duel into a gang fight.

There was no helping it, because many Guard officers with some means but not that much means did the math and realized that rather than defy the governor-general's order, they might as well raid their own homes along with the rest.

Raid your own house, then raid the neighbors' — the wealth you could pocket would surpass everything you'd accumulated over the previous twenty or thirty years.

Besides, once the commander was taken out, the deputy moved up, and you could climb a rung yourself.

By daylight, when the four Guard officers reported their haul, a single night had yielded over eighty thousand dan of grain and fodder, more than twenty-five thousand jin of gold and silver, and an incalculable amount of copper coin.

Early morning.

Chen Qihuang stood in attendance beside Chen Qiyu, listening to the Guard officers report the sums of coin and grain, and his eyes narrowed to slits.

But before he could speak, Chen Qiyu tugged his sleeve, accepted the figures with a beaming smile, promoted the surviving Guard officers, and made a point of winning over several of them.

Once everyone had withdrawn, Chen Qihuang said urgently, "Brother, these military thugs have gone mad — the spoils of those raids are all being watched by Liu Chengzong outside the walls, and they still dared to skim? Do they not want their heads?"

The Chen brothers knew perfectly well that these numbers, without even needing to guess, were wildly off from what had actually been seized.

The grain might be sixty or seventy percent accurate — after all, even the great households inside Xi'an Prefecture couldn't store much grain at home.

But the coin and valuables were certainly a mere fraction, not even half.

Thirty percent at most.

A city as vast as Xi'an — the shouts of killing, the rumble of carts coming and going, had sounded all night long, and in the end they produced only four hundred thousand taels? Who would believe that?

Even their own hometown of Baodezhou City held more wealth than that.

Either someone had buried the money underground, or the soldiers had taken far too much.

Chen Qihuang said, "I don't believe it — can Liu Chengzong believe it? The day the city gates open will be the day our clan is exterminated, brother!"

Chen Qiyu, however, exuded an air of utter resignation from head to toe, and waved his hand feebly.

Only under Chen Qihuang's insistent questioning did he sit up straight and say, "Jin Xuan — Xi'an has been sealed for three months, and among its officers, only one, Commander Cui Hu, has died of illness, and he was an unconfirmed hereditary commander."

"In a single night, nine Guard commanders died — and not one was reported as killed by internal strife. Do you believe that?"

"Heh."

Chen Qiyu let out a snort and said to Chen Qihuang, "I already know the defenders can't be relied on — do you think Liu Chengzong believes they can be relied on? And if they can't be relied on, why does he still want me to do this?"

"Uh, that..."

Chen Qihuang did know — he had just tripped over his own tongue.

In his heart he could feel what Liu Chengzong was aiming at, but too many thoughts crowded in at once, and he couldn't put it into words, could only stand there with his mouth open, stammering.

Chen Qiyu clearly had a far stronger ability to articulate the matter; he simply patted his own chest. "Making me do it — it's just making me hammer myself."

"Yes, that's exactly what that fool of a bandit means!"

Chen Qiyu rolled his eyes. "Exactly. If he doesn't even care how much money gets seized, why should I? I'll just knock some sense into myself."

Still, Chen Qiyu felt that his half-brother's biggest problem in his thinking was that it wasn't thorough.

That wasn't his fault — all these brothers of his had followed his advice and never taken office.

To put it bluntly, how much gold, silver, and valuables they seized right now didn't matter at all.

Because before the city gates opened, it made no difference whose hands the gold, silver, and valuables were in.

Silver doesn't have legs — it can't run away.

No matter how much gold and silver the Xi'an Prefecture garrison troops pocketed now, it was all just temporarily stashed away to feast their eyes on. Once the city opened and the Marshal's army swept in like wolves and tigers, every bit of it would be carted off.

Chen Qiyu had no way around this. He was only responsible for issuing the order, but before this morning, he hadn't imagined the order would trigger such massive upheaval.

Nine Commandants — third-rank military officers — had been killed. That meant the Xi'an garrison's inertia of passive submission had been thoroughly shattered.

Those newly appointed commandants reporting to the west gate tower were no longer the military officers who once followed orders obediently. They were now unorganized, violent warlords.

The inertia of power has always been formidable. Even if the entire system fell apart, so long as one last fig leaf remained, the power structure could still stumble along on inertia — until that leaf was torn away.

Until that leaf was torn away.

Chen Qiyu thought only of himself — if he could preserve his clan's lives amid this turmoil, that would be enough.

He said to Chen Qihuang, "Jinxuan, once we leave the city, you and all our brothers should take office."

Chen Qihuang's eyes went wide as bronze bells. "Brother, in the past you wouldn't let us take office. Now that we're about to surrender to bandits, you're telling us to take office instead?"

Chen Qiyu's bitterness was absolute. He shook his head. "I was wrong."

He wasn't wrong.

Chen Qiyu did not believe for a moment that his past advice had been mistaken.

In the past, not letting his clan brothers take office was a response to the Great Ming's national conditions.

The Great Ming was entirely a machine running on inertia. Everyone hoped a little oil would restore it to its former self, but every component was already worn out — it couldn't be done.

Instead, once you oiled one side and the operating speed picked up, the pressure increased, and a component on the other side would shatter.

When that side finally managed to swap in a usable old part, components elsewhere shattered again.

Constantly patching and mending, it lurched forward, trembling and tottering.

Under such circumstances, anyone could run into trouble.

The inevitable result was: the more you did, the more mistakes you made — and before the sky fell, it was very easy to make catastrophic mistakes.

So his decision had been correct: avoid taking office as much as possible to reduce the cost of committing a grave error.

But that set of theories — useful against the Great Ming — was useless against the Marshal's Office.

Chen Qiyu's current understanding of Liu Chengzong could be summed up in eight words: vicious and cruel, fond of collective punishment.

Not taking office wouldn't protect you from him either.

However, all those matters of exterminated households and wiped-out clans after surrendering to the Marshal's Office were far too remote for Chen Qiyu. The real problem he faced right now was just one thing: how to seize the Prince of Qin's estate.

In practice, taking the Qin fief was far easier than confiscating properties inside Xi'an Prefecture.

The main issue was that it lacked proper justification.

The Xi'an Prefecture garrison troops were not rebels. Getting them to plunder wealthy households was easy — the soldiers were already on the verge of clamoring from hunger and cold anyway.

But clamoring was one thing; mutiny was another. Actually becoming rebels was yet another level entirely.

The intensity of these three things was not equal — they escalated step by step.

Most importantly, the confiscations were ordered by Chen Qiyu. The soldiers were merely the executors. Even if the court pursued responsibility afterward, it wouldn't pin the blame on the soldiers.

Even though everyone vaguely knew in their hearts that they probably wouldn't be caught by the court anyway.

Knowing it was one thing, but having Chen Qiyu as a scapegoat still helped ease the deeply ingrained notions that persisted in their minds under inertia.

But plundering a vassal state — that was clearly another matter entirely. It was practically equivalent to openly raising the banner of rebellion.

Even at this stage, when the officials could already see the signs and knew perfectly well what was going on, the rank-and-file soldiers still wouldn't be willing to believe that Chen Qiyu, the Viceroy of Five Provinces, intended to surrender.

There was another reason: among the four garrison units stationed in Xi'an was the Left Guard — the personal guard of the Prince of Qin's fief. Its authorized strength was three thousand; its actual strength was just over twenty-two hundred.

During last night's confiscation operations, they had suffered the fewest losses, reported the smallest haul, and their Commandant hadn't been killed. You couldn't call it shrewd command, but they had indeed managed to hold onto a quarter of the city.

The reason lay in the special circumstances and status of the princely guard. Though they had the fewest men, their standard of living was the highest among all the Xi'an guards, and they had the highest proportion of men from official and noble families.

Take the current Commandant, Cui Erda, for example. His father had served as Prefect of Taizhou, and his elder brother Cui Erjin had served as Vice Minister of Revenue and concurrently Governor of Tianjin — now recuperating at home.

The officers of the Left Guard and the nobles and officials of the Qin fief had long since formed an intricate, tangled web of relationships.

Getting them to carry out confiscations had been impossible from the start — let alone sending the Prince of Qin's own guard to plunder his fief.

Chen Qiyu had roped in some guard officers precisely to deal with Cui Erda. But now that the moment had come, after mulling it over again and again, he genuinely doubted whether those guard officers could finish off Cui Erda.

Besides, this sort of thing had to be done swiftly — otherwise, a long night brings many dreams.

If he openly directed the guard officers to kill Cui Erda, and the plan wasn't watertight enough, the remnants of the Left Guard's banner troops might withdraw into the princely city. Then the three guard banner troops wouldn't be of one mind, and the situation might spiral beyond his imagination.

At this thought, Chen Qiyu couldn't help but curse inwardly.

That scoundrel Liu Chengzong was truly vicious!

Getting him to surrender to the Marshal's Office — easy. By now, probably no one in all of Xi'an Prefecture would raise any objection.

But getting him to first plunder the city's wealthy households, then arrest the clansmen of the Prince of Qin — how could it be that simple? And where would he get that kind of prestige?

The crux of it was that Liu Chengzong's intent, conveyed through Chen Qihuang, was far too obvious.

It wasn't about money, grain, or manpower — it was to force him to dirty his own hands.

So this matter had to be done in his name.

That was precisely the difficulty.

At this moment, Chen Qiyu missed General Ren Quan'er twice as much.

By now he already knew that Ren Quan'er had taken his troops and defected to Liu Chengzong, but knowing that only made him more resentful.

He was still holding the post of Commander-in-Chief's Staff Adjutant open for Ren Quan'er.

Why are you in such a rush to defect to him? You might as well serve as a Regional Commander under me for a while. At least then I wouldn't be so short-handed that I have no one usable right now.

If Ren Quan'er's army had been inside the city, why would Chen Qiyu need to worry about Cui Erda? He could have just charged straight over and been done with it.

When the time comes, I, Chen Qiyu, will bring you along to defect. Could that possibly be worse than you, a minor officer with no backing, defecting to Liu Chengzong alone?

He thought to himself, with your ability, what rank could you possibly get? Battalion Commander?

If you come with me, the Supreme Commander of Five Provinces, and defect as a Supervisory-Standard Regional Commander, wouldn't you at least get a Regional Commander post?

Ren Quan'er, you fool!

Thinking this, Chen Qiyu took a deep breath and looked at the defense map hanging on the west gate tower, his gaze focusing on the southern wall that Cui Erda was responsible for defending. His eyes held a ruthless determination.

"Jin Xuan, things have come to this. Draft a letter on my behalf, with respectful wording, requesting the Grand Marshal to send troops tonight to attack the south gate. Ideally, have the commander Cui Erda killed on the wall, so that I can seize the Qin Prince's clansmen."

Having said this, Chen Qiyu ignored his brother's incredulous stare and simply slumped into his chair, utterly drained.

This was also part of the warning.