Chapter 747: Next Year, Come Again

The water battle on the Taizi River lasted only two shichen before ending, one after another.

The naval cavalry were struck by alternating charges from outside; after holding out three times, they could take no more.

The fleet, meanwhile, had six ships sunk by cannon fire.

Lu Keyong wanted to withdraw to the north bank, but before his sailors could board the boats, several hundred Mobei cavalry came charging down along the south bank of the Hun River and loosed arrows relentlessly at the vessels.

They were an advance party sent by Subadi to report on the city defenses around Shengjing; they had originally planned to go by way of eastern Liaoyang, but the sound of cannon fire drew them over.

Both ends of the river channel were blocked by sunken ships — Zuo Guangxian to the south, Mongol troops to the north — trapping him squarely on the water with no way forward or back.

Lu Keyong did not deliberate long before ordering the sails struck and the two huge characters for "Truce Talks" written on them, then waded south.

Before the battle had even begun, Liu Chengzong had already reckoned that this naval force would surrender when cornered, and had long since drawn up terms of surrender; the envoy had barely been ashore with the flag for the time it takes a stick of incense to burn before he was sent back.

The terms were the same old rule: surrender after losing, and you get demoted.

In truth, Liu the Lion did not particularly look forward to Lu Keyong's surrender — campaigning across the northwest, he had taken in no less than eighty thousand surrendered troops if not a hundred thousand, and had long since worked out the most effective method for accepting surrenders.

Killing the commander-in-chief on the battlefield, then compelling his trusted subordinates to surrender and entrusting them with important posts — that was the easiest way to win hearts, and the quickest way to turn them into a core strength of one's own side.

Because whether Han, Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, or Russ, in any faction's army, so long as a clear hierarchy exists, there will be bonds of personal dependence, stronger or weaker, within the ranks.

If the commander-in-chief stays alive, everyone listens to him; even after surrendering, they become difficult rivals carrying their own prestige — like Zhang Xianzhong, Zuo Liangyu, the State Preceptor Khan, or Dalai Taiji — and you have to figure out what they want and keep them comfortable before the army can be subtly transformed to serve your own ends.

Conversely, people like Chao Tu Taiji and Wu Sihu after Ligdan Khan's death, or Zhao Zhirui and Wang Xingshan after Yang Jiamo's death, were far easier to command.

Of course, this was also because Liu Chengzong, deep down, looked down on the armies of the Three Compliant Kings.

He was wearing tinted spectacles right from the start.

He simply despised these people, and even his pre-battle assessment of the enemy's strength to Zuo Guangxian carried a note of disparagement.

He said: "The troops of the Three Compliant Kings, compared to Ming armies of similar caliber, may be somewhat fiercer in a desperate fight, but their resilience when outmatched and taking losses is bound to be even worse. Handle them with care!"

What he was telling Zuo Guangxian, plainly put, was: they're a bunch of cowards who bully the weak and fear the strong — go ahead and thrash them.

And as it turned out, Liu Chengzong was dead right.

When it came to a fight, they really did go all out, but the moment things looked hopeless, they immediately thought of escape, and if they couldn't run, they surrendered.

You would never see what you saw with Ming armies — even with victory hopeless, they would kowtow in the direction of Beijing and then stand firm against cannon and gunfire, fighting to the death.

Naturally, tinted spectacles did not impair Liu Chengzong's intellect.

It was not that he looked down on people and therefore made this analysis; rather, he made this analysis and therefore looked down on them.

For one thing, the truly fierce, battle-hungry desperadoes and reckless fools among the Three Compliant Kings' forces had already died back during the rebellion and its suppression.

For another, they had surrendered multiple times, their thinking was in disarray, and their morale could hardly have been high to begin with.

To put it plainly, they could find no reason to fight to the death — they did not know what they were fighting for.

The Ming armies knew, the Eight Banners knew, the rebel armies knew too, but surrendered generals and troops like these, poorly treated as they were, had fighting morale even lower than the herding Mongol battalions under Liu Chengzong.

Liu Chengzong's Mongol battalions could only ever play a supporting role, and that was despite Liu Chengzong treating them extremely well — the grass on the Han Liu emperors' grave mounds was theirs to graze as they pleased.

What kind of treatment did the Three Compliant Kings get among the Eight Banners? No pay, no status, no dignity.

When Geng Zhongming's subordinates had an iron pot stolen by Eight Banners Mongol troops, he had to write a special letter to the Chongde Emperor to lodge a complaint... was that any kind of thing for a prince to be doing?

It was really only because Lu Keyong and his men possessed naval experience that the Marshal's Headquarters lacked that Liu Chengzong was willing to accept their surrender.

Their treatment, however, was naturally nothing great. Lu Keyong's nine-hundred-odd men, surrendered and captured alike, were all stripped of armor and weapons and assigned to Sun Long's Liaoyang Battalion, where they formed a brigade headquarters.

Sun Long was so delighted he could barely find north.

Because back in the day, when Lu Keyong followed Shang Kexi, he had beaten Sun Long so badly at sea that he couldn't find north.

After these men surrendered to the Jin, they had also strutted around in front of Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming's troops.

How the wheel of fortune turns — back then you were so high and mighty, and now you come to serve under me.

So, your day has come at last!

Liu Chengzong did not fully trust Sun Long either, but to Liaoyang's first general to surrender, he gave the full face-saving treatment with a grand promise: "These men are not like your turncoat troops. Keep a close watch on them and get that pontoon bridge built. When we return to Shaanxi, I'll allocate you a fine area to settle your families, establish a navy, and make you a grand commander."

In Liaodong, he had no way of trusting the Liaoning men; only once these people followed him back to Shaanxi could he freely put them to use.

As the pontoon bridge over the Taizi River went up and the Mobei Mongol advance party returned to report on the plundering of the Shengjing capital region, Liu Chengzong calculated the time and knew he had to withdraw.

"Gather up the valuables, armor, weapons, warhorses, cattle, and sheep. There's no time to tear down the city. Push any cannonballs we can't carry into the river. Send word to Zhang Xianzhong — whatever can't be taken from the east, set ablaze. Once it's burned, come to the Hun River and build pontoon bridges."

Pontoon bridges were also being built on the Taizi River, using the warships — lash a few large sand junks together across the river, and they served as a pontoon bridge.

One pontoon bridge was not enough, however. Warships from Haizhou and Liaoyang were all requisitioned; some had to be hauled out of the river first, portaged overland a stretch, then pushed back into the water. To speed the main army's crossing, a pontoon bridge was set up every hundred-odd paces.

As soon as one was completed, it was put to use at once, ferrying across the oxcarts loaded with cannons, valuables, grain, gunpowder, and supplies.

The Marshal's army did not transport rice; they carried only a small portion of fodder and provisions — the bulk of it was dried meat.

Before setting out, every unit ate a huge meal in Liaoyang — rice, meat, and vegetables in unlimited quantities, they ate their fill — and after eating, they set fire to several warehouses in the western part of Liaoyang.

At the same time, on the east bank of the Taizi River, the Eastern Capital city also went up in flames.

Zhang Xianzhong, having received the order, had set the fires directly.

Zhang Xianzhong was not the least bit greedy. In truth, he could have taken many things with him, but aside from gold, silver, silks, gunpowder, and lead ingots, he saw no value in transporting anything else... if Shaanxi could produce it, hauling it was pointless.

Setting fires, on the other hand, held great meaning for him.

So things like blue cotton cloth were simply heaped into a room and burned. Even the cloth-faced armor was stripped of its plates and the fabric burned. Any copper or iron implements they found were likewise dumped somewhere.

If it could be dumped in the river, it went in the river; if it could be thrown down a well, it went down a well.

In the end, he moved even faster than Liu Chengzong. While the main army was still being ferried from south to north across the Taizi River, Zhang Xianzhong had already taken his handpicked valuables and finished building two pontoon bridges over the Hun River.

His plunder from ransacking the Eastern Capital city was remarkably monotonous: gemstones, large wild ginseng and lingzhi, and artworks hammered into cakes of gold and silver — over seventy hemp sacks full.

He had chests too, but the chests were filled with books.

This was a case of "what the superior loves, the subordinates will outdo themselves to provide."

Zhang Xianzhong figured, what damn use was there in hauling gold and silver? The west had shipped over so many chests of the stuff, and the Grand Marshal hadn't so much as praised him.

That junk could just be stuffed into any old hemp sack; the good chests had to be filled with anything that had writing on it.

The Grand Marshal has a taste for this — he's bound to praise me when we get back!

With that kind of praise, wouldn't this old Zhang be in the cabinet already?

That bastard Zuo Liangyu better not think he can cut ahead of me!

And the last thing Liu Chengzong did before withdrawing from Liaoyang was to have Qian Shisheng write a letter to Zu Dashou.

"Liaoyang has been taken. Minister Qian may send the Jinzhou army to take over its defense. In the city and the river there remain goods, provisions, firearms, cannons, armor, and weapons. Even if General Zu is unwilling to take over Liaoyang, he may dispatch soldiers to rush-transport these supplies away — do not let the eastern slaves seize them."

Qian Shisheng thought to himself, that sounds generous enough, but in truth you haven't really left much behind.

Throughout the Marshal Army's entire plundering operation, Qian Shisheng was shocked time and again by the orderly efficiency of their looting process, and also heartbroken and indignant at their brutally destructive acts — until he finally grew numb.

Some of their actions were even purely malicious.

If one were to say they were pressed for time, Liu Chengzong had nevertheless specially set up a furnace just for melting down bronze vessels.

Many extremely valuable works of art — fine objects inlaid with gold filigree, traced in silver, and set with gems — the Marshal Army, with limited transport capacity, was unwilling to carry. So they pried off the gems and took those, then tossed the objects into the furnace to be burned into plain, unadorned bronze ingots, which they pushed into the Taizi River.

And in the end, exactly as Gao Yingdeng had suggested, the large numbers of single-barrel hand cannons, three-barrel hand cannons, and small-caliber artillery like Crouching Tiger cannons were indeed difficult to transport.

The Marshal Army picked and chose, sorting armor plates, arrowheads, firearms, and other items into three grades, loading them onto carts in batches. The first and second grades were taken away; the third-grade military equipment, of cruder workmanship, was pushed into the Taizi River.

That jumbled mess of stuff even blocked up the moat.

So when Liu Chengzong had Qian Shisheng write the letter, the old man was indeed not resistant — he wasn't lying.

There really were quite a few good things in the river.

Enough to arm an entire battalion.

Even among the city's great cannons — four large Red Barbarian Cannons — Liu Chengzong had oxen haul away three.

The remaining one was cast iron of poor workmanship, with rather large sand holes. Liu Chengzong had it left on the city wall. Of the one hundred and twenty General Cannons, he likewise took only eighty-eight.

The several dozen remaining were all pushed up onto the city wall. Together with that one Red Barbarian Cannon, they were packed with gunpowder, their muzzles plugged, and long fuses were linked so they could be fired three times in succession. One by one, they were all forced to burst apart right there on the wall.

The muffled booming of cannon fire and the chain of heavy cannons bursting their barrels — Qian Shisheng would never forget that sound for the rest of his life.

In the end, on the Liaoyang city wall, amid the scattered wreckage of large cannons everywhere, only a single General Cannon remained, standing alone.

A soldier was about to plug its muzzle and burst it too, but Liu Chengzong stopped him, saying that cannon was fated not to die.

He had a squad of Feathered Forest Cavalry climb the wall and push it off, sending it crashing down beside the rampart wall, where it stabbed deep into the earth.

Ruins.

Liaoyang, the foremost mighty city of Liaodong — Qian Shisheng, as a witness, watched with his own eyes as it escaped the chaos of Nurhaci, only to fall to the calamity of Liu Chengzong, becoming a wasteland.

But Liu Chengzong had money — he really spent it.

First, after the victory at the Taizi River, Zuo Guangxian's Ranger Battalion and the First Brigade's artillery company lined up to receive their rewards.

Later, when the Liaoyang job was thoroughly finished and the entire army was about to break camp, Liu Chengzong even brought Qian Shisheng along, with the Feathered Forest Cavalry escorting the carts, and toured from battalion to battalion.

Aside from the reinforcement battalion led by Zhang Xianzhong and Wu Sihu's Northern Yuan Battalion, which were away, from the Tiger Guard, Feathered Forest, and Imperial Clan down to the other battalions of the First Brigade, every battalion formed up by company to lead their horses and queue for rewards.

Over twenty thousand men.

Silver bars, each weighing one catty — one for every man, all stuffed into their saddlebags to carry with them.

Even the newly surrendered Liaoyang Battalion was made to form a separate column of the ninety-six officers whom Sun Long had led out of the city to surrender. Watched by the other surrendered soldiers and captives of the battalion, they too were given silver bars.

Over twenty thousand silver bars — over twenty thousand catties of silver.

Liu Chengzong didn't even blink. He just moved his lips and handed it all out.

Qian Shisheng stood at the side watching, listening to Liu Chengzong spout nonsense beside him, calling this "reducing the burden on the baggage train."

By now, Liu Chengzong's grand gestures had so thoroughly desensitized him that gold and silver stirred no more feeling in him than ordinary lumps of iron.

Truly, Minister Qian felt that this was something only Liu Chengzong would dare to do — and only on the eve of a great battle in Liaodong at that.

For one, his men were all mounted, so carrying an extra catty was no great matter; for another, the western soldiers were strangers to both the land and the people of Liaodong, and had no thought of deserting on the eve of battle here.

Even back in Shaanxi, if silver were handed out before a major battle, it was quite possible some would take the money and slip away from the ranks.

And besides, even if every soldier were filled with gratitude, no one was as generous as Liu Chengzong — everyone had merit, everyone got a reward, and each reward was sixteen taels.

The only person Qian Shisheng knew of who had done such a thing was Zhu Zhifan, the Prince of Anhua in Ningxia during the Zhengde reign, who gave the entire army a reward of one tael of silver and was instantly hailed as the Son of Heaven, then killed the Grand Coordinator An Weixue and rebelled.

And Liu Chengzong, amid the soldiers' mountain-shaking cries of "We will die for the Grand Marshal," gave the order to break camp, and with their laden spoils, they turned northward.

The return journey was, as before, destruction all the way.

After crossing the Taizi River, all the boats used to build the pontoon bridge were dragged ashore and set ablaze. When the troops crossed the Hun River, the boats were likewise hauled ashore and burned, leaving only three small vessels. These were loaded with six coffins dug up from desolate graves, packed with gunpowder, and left under the guard of two squads.

They were only waiting for the Northern Yuan Battalion and Subadi's Mongol cavalry to withdraw before sailing the boats into the bridge arches and blowing up the stone bridge over the Hun River as well.

By the time Liu Chengzong's main force crossed the Pu River, the vanguard had already reached the border wall, and the riders sent to deliver the letter to Zu Dashou had also returned.

The riders had not gone all the way to the Sancha River mouth; they had merely ridden west to the border wall, where they spotted the Jinzhou army on the opposite bank of the Liao River. The river was already patrolled entirely by Ming warships.

They simply lit a fire to raise smoke and draw their attention, then shot the letter over on an arrow. As for what Zu Dashou would do after receiving the letter — that was not something Liu Chengzong concerned himself with.

If Zu Dashou could seize the opportunity to push the Ming front line to Liaoyang and conveniently wipe out Shang Kexi, who was entrenched at Haizhou, that would naturally be best.

If he lacked the ability, or considered such a move inappropriate, Liu the Lion couldn't care less.

In any case, Liu Chengzong had done everything he wanted to do, accomplished everything he wished to accomplish.

In fact, if Zu Dashou did nothing at all, Liu Chengzong would be even more at ease.

Because his baggage train moved slowly and would be difficult to get across the Xing'an Mountains before the Eight Banners army caught up; meanwhile, there was still no word from Zuo Liangyu and Feng Rang's forces advancing on the eastern route.

So once the main army exited the border, they would certainly have to fight a delaying action for a while at Kulun or Khorchin.

Liu Chengzong sent word to Zu Dashou solely to keep the Jinzhou army from causing trouble.

If Zu Dashou dared not even take Haizhou or Liaoyang, then he also wouldn't dare come north to cause trouble.

And if he did take Haizhou and Liaoyang, he would be unable to spare attention for the north.

In reality, the Jinzhou army did indeed intend to cause trouble in the north.

He Huchen and Chaktu Taiji, who had been left to guard the Songmo Garrison, received Liu Chengzong's request for support and led their troops south.

Ever since Liu Chengzong had gone south, the two of them had been coordinating with Wang Cheng'en in Shangdu to shift troops eastward. They transferred some of the better-recovered wounded to garrison the Songmo Garrison, while also gathering Elinchen and Sachang Taiji, who had withdrawn from the Chechen tribe in the north, and selected troops fit for battle to march south.

In the end, right at the breach where Liu Chengzong had broken through the border, they spotted the patrolling Jinzhou army and their warships.

Sechen Taiji still harbored a bit of probing intent toward the Liaodong army.

But He Huchen, this Regional Commander, was a Grand Defensive Commandant long accustomed to recklessness — especially seeing Liaodong troops in a place like this, he didn't even need to consider whether they were friend or foe; his intent to steal the spoils was blatantly obvious.

He Huchen hauled his cannon forward and attacked.

The three-hundred-odd Liaodong cavalry scouting the riverbank were terrified out of their wits, thinking: we're just here to observe the situation, was it really necessary to bring six or seven thousand men to hit us?

Just as that fight ended, Liu Chengzong emerged from the border wall. As usual, out came silver bars weighing one jin each, along with one brigade of reinforcement troops — every man in the three battalions got one.

Once the smelted silver bars were handed out, the rest of the merit was recorded temporarily, to be issued after the silver cakes went back and were melted down.

He also had someone put up a sign: "This year was very good. We'll come again next year."

Just as the recording finished, Subadi's men sent word from the border wall: they'd captured the Aisin noble Dudu, and the main force was withdrawing toward the border wall, having already crossed the Hun River. They'd blown up two of the three stone bridges; the remaining one was undamaged.

Liu Chengzong immediately detailed He Huchen, who had come as reinforcement, to provide support inside and outside the border wall. Sechen Taiji's troops coordinated with the Tiger Guard Battalion to oversee the Liaoyang Battalion as they escorted the baggage and livestock further north.

At the same time, he dispatched riders on a long detour to relay the western front's military situation to Zuo Liangyu, Feng Rang, and Little Zhamusu's Darkhan Army, instructing them that if they hadn't completed their mission of setting Jianzhou ablaze, they should also withdraw quickly via the northern edge of the Liao Marsh.

Liu Chengzong himself led the central army, the First Brigade, and the Liaoyang Battalion toward the Kulun Steppe, searching for terrain suitable to deploy his formations.

Cart after cart of baggage, captives, livestock, and warhorses were escorted out along the border wall by Mobei cavalry, then transported through the Kulun Steppe toward Songmo Prefecture in the Khingan Mountains.

The troops, however, emerged slowly — large columns and battered small squads, unit by unit, gradually came out through the breach.

As the withdrawal entered its final stage, the breach in the border wall descended into chaos. Sometimes it was panicked Mobei cavalry rushing out; other times it was the vanguard of the Eight Banners bursting through in attack. He Huchen drove them back once, but then, seeing the enemy numbers swelling, he too abandoned the border wall and withdrew toward Kulun.

The last to withdraw from the northern bank of the Liao River were the scout cavalry who, under Wu Sihu and Subadi, had fought through the entire campaign in the outskirts of Shengjing. Brandishing their triangular dragon banners, they glared menacingly at the Eight Banners massing beyond the border wall, retreating league by league toward the territory beyond the border.

"Grand Marshal, the eastern caitiffs have come out beyond the wall. The number sighted exceeds twenty thousand — we can't get any closer."

At the edge of the Kulun Desert, Scout Cavalry Battalion Commander Ma Xiang, having compiled the reports of the rearguard scout cavalry, reported to Liu Chengzong: "They're pushing shield-carts, lining up muskets and cannon, arrayed in eight columns, advancing in the One-Two formation — their momentum is ferocious."

"Tch!"

Liu Chengzong couldn't help but sneer aloud. The looting was done, the goods were already transported away, and the men had all gotten out past the border wall — of course they were ferocious now.

Subadi, Gombu, Baba Taiji, and Erdeni Khong Taiji, who had likewise reaped rich spoils along the way, now gathered around Liu Chengzong.

This bout of plundering had them utterly overjoyed, and they now thoroughly identified themselves as being in the same gang as Liu Chengzong.

However, the expressions of these four Mobei chieftains differed considerably. The latter three had committed fewer troops, and their faces all bore a look of wanting more.

Subadi, on the other hand, had committed the most troops and seized the most wealth, goods, people, and livestock — but he had also taken the fiercest beating during the pursuit, surviving entirely thanks to He Huchen's support. Even so, his losses were not small.

His face was full of wariness as he cautioned Liu Chengzong: "Great Khan must be careful. Their field formations are formidable."

Liu Chengzong's gaze toward him could not help but carry a sympathy Subadi did not understand, but his expression was managed well enough as he nodded gravely: "Elder brother speaks truly. I will handle this with care."

Of course he sympathized with Subadi.

The One-Two formation — famously renowned, the god of Liaodong's rank and file, Li Chengliang's signature battle formation that made the Mongol tribes beyond Liaodong's borders wail for their parents.

Yet Subadi, this old brother from Mobei, simply didn't have the muscle memory to turn tail and run at the sight of three great horizontal lines. It seemed he'd been badly mauled.

But now that Huang Taiji had brought out this formation and spread it wide to pursue him, Liu the Lion couldn't help but find it amusing.

He mused: this Chongde Emperor had even deployed the One-Two formation — he really was treating him like a northern caitiff to be beaten!

?? Good evening!

? (End of chapter)