Chapter 787: Luck

The chaotic infighting, a mix of fish and dragons, was quickly quelled.

As Ren Quan'er led the Second Brigade to fully take over the offensive inside the city, the Ming troops stubbornly resisting were pressed back to the north side of the Bell Tower, still being driven back steadily.

The Second Brigade, having brought heavy equipment into the city, moved like fish in water through the streets and alleys of Yulin City, using wall guns loaded with scatter shot, coordinating with heavy arquebuses and thousand-jin cannons to seal off the long streets — a single battalion's suppressive blockade was more effective than four of Liu Fangming's battalions.

The portable lion cannons and rocket warheads likewise held advantages in assault that other weapons could hardly match; in just one afternoon, they seized every major street and wall in the northern city, sending over two thousand wounded prisoners to the rear.

In truth, the greatest conflict between Marshal Army officers and Ming officers in this campaign was how to capture the enemy generals before they could cut their own throats.

The remaining Ming troops, under Hou Shilu's command, steadily contracted their lines, until at last they were all squeezed into Cang Alley, where the Guangyou Granary stood.

Ren Quan'er estimated that the Ming troops in Cang Alley numbered no more than eight hundred.

But he could not fight his way in.

Because the Guangyou Granary was the largest grain storage depot, and both sides of the entire alley were lined with grain storehouses.

Ren Quan'er knew Liu Chengzong wanted the grain here, and he was well aware that Yulin City's geographic position was vital — it would become the key route linking Shaanxi to the lands south of the Gobi — so he could not let the Ming troops burn the storehouses.

Only at this moment did Liu Chengzong enter Yulin City, personally climbing the Kaige Tower, its walls riddled with blast holes, to stand at the third-floor railing and look down upon this formidable stronghold under heaven.

Afterward, he descended to the city below and listened to Ren Quan'er's report.

Ren Quan'er, uncharacteristically, was so angered by Hou Shilu that his teeth itched: "A disgraced, crippled general banished to the frontier — pushed to this point, he still dares to hold the storehouses hostage. If not for my fear of ruining the grain, I would have blown him to bits long ago!"

That made Liu the Lion laugh heartily: "I know you're unwilling to accept it, but you can't really treat Marshal Hou as some common banner soldier, can you?"

During the Second Brigade's assault on the northern city, every veteran general who had once served as Regional Commander inside the city resisted stubbornly; only You Shiwei and You Shilu were persuaded to stay, through Zuo Liangyu's combined pleas and exhortations.

As for the remaining Regional Commanders, capturing them before they committed suicide was exceedingly difficult.

This was also why, when Hui Dengxiang's captive was killed, he was driven to such fury that he wanted to kill Zhang Tianlu.

He and Zhou Qing came from a commoner-army background and could never see eye to eye with the former Ming troops like Xu Yong and Liu Fangming; seeing the highest merit about to be snatched by Xu Yong, he had resolved to capture a live one for Liu Chengzong.

After untold hardship, losing over a dozen extra men just to take a live Regional Commander, he had finally seized a Vice Regional Commander, You Quwen — only for that madman Zhang Tianlu to charge out halfway and hack him to death!

At that moment, Hui Dengxiang's mind simply exploded.

It was not until Liu Chengzong entered the city that two hundred twenty military horses and eighty suits of full armor were confiscated from Zhang Tianlu's Chiliarch command and delivered into Hui Dengxiang's hands.

Even with that, Hui Dengxiang, his anger already dissipated, was still complaining to Liu Chengzong.

"Grand Marshal, these former Ming troops are truly despicable — to steal the highest merit, they've thrown every damn law out the window!"

Whatever Hui Dengxiang thought, this at least showed that the heads and even the capture of Regional Commanders were an immense motivation for the Marshal Army's officers and soldiers.

But at this stage of the battle, the problem Ren Quan'er faced was not that.

Hou Shilu — his use of troops was exceedingly cunning. With few troops left and their armament far from good, he had withdrawn into Cang Alley, seized the grain depot, and placed himself in an invincible position; he was a very tough nut to crack.

Yet, to Ren Quan'er, this thing was not a bone — it was a rock.

Hou Shilu held no official post.

This perennial unlucky wretch had suffered from the troop redeployment during the Jisi Incident, still bore the black mark of a false accusation that he had robbed over ten thousand taels of the Ministry of Revenue's military pay, and had fought two losing battles; he had escaped the death penalty only because he was the first to arrive for the imperial defense, and was sentenced to dismissal from office and banishment to the frontier, thrown back to his hometown.

Therefore, to be precise, Hou Shilu's status these past few years had been that of a banner soldier of Yulin Guard.

This meant that for Ren Quan'er, Hou Shilu offered little merit but was hard to attack, and he was holding the grain depot, making Ren wary of acting for fear of damaging the grain.

However, while this matter was hard for Ren Quan'er to handle, for Liu Chengzong it was different.

"Jifang, write a letter to advise Hou Shilu. At this stage of the fight, the Ming army has already earned enough honor; further battle is pointless."

Liu Chengzong said to his attendant Zhao Jifang: "Make the stakes clear to him. For a military man, wrapping his corpse in horsehide is indeed his proper fate, but for his soldiers and comrades who have survived by chance, their lives were not meant to end here. There are still tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the city — why must he burn the stored grain and needlessly add to the slaughter?"

"Tell Hou Shilu that I will not capture him. Rather than resist stubbornly, let us make an agreement. His son, Hou Gongji — I recall he crossed the Yellow River. If he has letters or personal effects, he may give them to me; should we meet on the battlefield another day, I will deliver them on his behalf."

"Tonight, he may end his own life. The remainder of his troops will come out of the alley and surrender tomorrow morning. I will bury the officers who fell in this battle according to the rites of Left and Right Chief Commissioners, and have Magistrate Zuo of Hancheng draft a memorial to the court."

"If they do not surrender, at noon tomorrow, the commoners from every ward in the city will line up to enter the granary and receive grain. If he wishes to kill, let him kill. If he does not, once the commoners have taken the grain, our army will demolish the storehouses one by one, from south to north."

The worst-case scenario in Liu the Lion's mind was that, at most, he would simply give up on the grain inside and this Guangyou Granary itself.

After all, the city had been besieged for so long, there could not be much grain left inside anyway.

When Zhao Jifang finished writing the letter, Liu Chengzong glanced at it and said: "Delete all the polite flattery toward him. Write it again."

"That he can fight to the very end is because I am willing to fight this kind of battle with them. That alone is already the fullest respect for an old, discarded general. No need for further courtesy."

Once the letter was written, Liu Chengzong had originally planned to send a soldier under a messenger's flag into Cang Alley to deliver it, but unexpectedly, Zuo Maodi volunteered: "Grand Marshal, please allow me to deliver this letter and persuade Marshal Hou."

Zuo Maodi looked as though he had aged ten years; this battle had left his heart riddled with wounds.

At this moment, he deeply hated Liu Chengzong for making him come to Yulin, to witness with his own eyes this campaign whose outcome had been decided from the very start.

Watching one after another of the hereditary generals and nobles loyal to the nation die heroic deaths, watching hundreds and thousands of soldiers and able-bodied men shed blood against the Marshal Army in the struggle for tower after tower, only to be finally cornered in the narrow lane of Cang Alley — his heart bled.

Watching the situation rot further and further, powerless to change it.

Zuo Maodi was also nearing madness, becoming like a philosopher, brooding and doubting all day long over the meaning of loyalty and dying for one's country in this civil war between Liu Chengzong and the Ming army.

After all his pondering, there was no meaning.

Dying for one's country was inherently heroic — it was when a person, under extraordinary external circumstances, actively abandoned all hope of life and launched a final attack at the cost of his own existence, using the disdain of preferring death to surrender to shatter the enemy's confidence in ultimate victory.

Yet, this man Liu Chengzong — Zuo Maodi did not know whether to call him mentally ill or so profoundly deceitful that it seemed like sincerity.

Outside Yulin City, he had shown the utmost benevolence and righteousness to the Yulin officers, but in doing so, he had actually changed the flavor of dying for one's country.

Liu Chengzong was forcing others to die for their country.

The entire campaign was like a play; although so many soldiers died for their country, very few in the Marshal Army were troubled by the enemy's martyrdom.

Because from the very beginning, Liu Chengzong had arranged it all for them — every man in the Marshal Army knew that the enemy would become heroes under the Grand Marshal's arrangement, and could only become heroes.

It was overcorrection.

So much so that even a diehard official like Zuo Maodi, who still served the Great Ming in Shaanxi, felt that Hou Shilu inside Cang Alley had no need to fight on any longer.

He wanted to enter Cang Alley and persuade Hou Shilu to surrender.

Hearing Zuo Maodi's request, Liu the Lion was briefly stunned; his instinctive reaction was to wave his hand: "No need to persuade..."

The words had just reached his lips when he paused, then nodded and said: "Very well. Hou Shilu has walked the path of misfortune his whole life; it's about time his luck turned a little better. Then I must trouble Brother Zuo to give it a try."

When Zuo Maodi entered Cang Alley, a Marshal Army soldier first raised a truce banner and circled at the alley's entrance; the besieged Ming troops were clearly exhausted from fighting as well, and no one fired a musket, which allowed Zuo Maodi to enter the alley safely.

He passed through streets and alleys bristling with tight defenses, matchlocks, bows, and hidden sentries everywhere, and entered the government granary yamen fortified with ramparts of grain sacks.

The whole yamen was like a wounded soldiers' camp — soldiers with injuries bandaging one another everywhere, pained cries of soldiers coming from the rear hall, bloodied water from cleaning wounds flowing along the gaps in the floor tiles all the way outside the yamen.

Zuo Maodi did not see any old general masterminding strategies in the government granary yamen; all he saw was a bare-chested veteran playing chess against his household servant, slapping the table and roaring with laughter.

"A junior of later generation, Zuo Maodi, pays respects to Marshal Hou."

Hou Shilu had an old scar on his left arm, and his right arm was bound with blood-seeping white cloth. When he first learned that a messenger from the Marshal's army had entered the alley, he merely glanced sideways, twirled a chess piece, and continued playing.

Only when he heard Zuo Maodi announce his name did Hou Shilu set down the chess piece, straighten his expression, and ask: "Oh? Could it be that Hancheng Magistrate Zuo, whom both the young vanguard and His Majesty cited for outstanding distinction?"

"That is indeed this junior."

Only then did a smile appear on Hou Shilu's face. He raised his hand to push aside the chessboard and called for his household servant to bring a chair, saying: "Please sit. This old man's luck is not bad — at this dead end, I can still meet a worthy talent like Magistrate Zuo. I have heard of your deeds, keeping Hancheng County safe for several years. In times like these, that is especially no easy feat."

Luck is not bad?

Hearing Hou Shilu say this, Zuo Maodi could not help but smile. He remembered that just moments ago, Liu Chengzong had said Hou Shilu was an unlucky wretch who had been down on his luck his whole life.

Still, he had not forgotten what he came here to do. Seeing that the guards the Marshal's headquarters had assigned him were right behind him, he raised his hand and took out Liu Chengzong's letter.

But he did not present it to Hou Shilu. Instead, he pressed it down on the tea table with his hand and said: "Marshal Hou, this is a letter from the Marshal's headquarters. Grand Marshal Liu Chengzong is right outside. This junior's purpose in coming, I imagine Marshal Hou is well aware. At this stage of the battle, there is no need to fight on."

"The soldiers and officers of the Great Ming still have a place like Hancheng in Shaanxi."

Hou Shilu only stared blankly at Zuo Maodi, then lowered his eyes to the letter pressed beneath his palm, leaning back slightly.

After a moment of silence, Hou Shilu let out a rueful laugh and shook his head: "I am old. I do not understand how Hancheng could waver between two sides in this war and yet remain unharmed, but that over a hundred thousand lives were preserved is a good thing after all."

"Though I am older in years, I am but a military man and truly understand very little. In seventeen years serving as Regional Commander, I have risen and fallen five times. A man lives by nothing but luck."

Hearing Hou Shilu mention luck again, Zuo Maodi could not help but say: "The Grand Marshal said that Marshal Hou's luck has always been poor."

"That young vanguard said that? He's just a military man too — what the hell does he know? No one has better luck than me."

Hou Shilu chuckled, unconvinced, and said: "My father's tabooed name was Mingchen, hereditary commander of Yulin Garrison. I was killing captives on the battlefield as a youth, and at twenty-nine I became Vice General of Liangzhou."

The moment Zuo Maodi heard this, he knew things had gone wrong.

Hou Shilu had long resolved to die — otherwise he would not be recounting his life like a tomb epitaph here.

But since the words had already been spoken, Zuo Maodi could only nod and say: "Twenty-nine — Marshal Hou was indeed in the full bloom of youth."

"That's already full bloom?" Hou Shilu smiled rather smugly, then his expression grew slightly solemn. "That year, at the great defeat of Sarhū, the front lines had no commanders left. I had only been Vice General for four months before I was promoted to Regional Commander, leading the Liangzhou army to rush to Liaodong."

"A great defeat at Liaoyang — gravely wounded, thrown from my horse, narrowly escaping death, rescued by my household servants. Afterward, when the court assessed merits and faults, only I and the Sichuan general Zhou Shilu were deemed to have merit without fault."

As Hou Shilu recounted his brush with death on the Liaodong battlefield, he suddenly shifted the topic: "This old man has heard that the young vanguard led troops in a battle in Liaodong and even won a great victory — is it true or false?"

This topic was not only of great concern to Hou Shilu; even the veteran household soldiers sitting directly on the ground in groups of three or five behind him cared deeply. They all fixed their bright, intent gazes on Zuo Maodi.

Zuo Maodi had no idea what answer these Ming army veterans were hoping to hear, so he simply nodded and stated the facts: "It is true. They broke through the Liaodong border wall and plundered extensively across the Liaoyang-Shenyang region."

"Zhang Xianzhong of the Rites Office burned Liaoyang City. Liu Chengzong looted the Later Jin state clean — tens of thousands of troops had their saddlebags hanging from their warhorses' rumps stuffed with gold and silver bars. Hong Taiji wanted to stop him and pursued him beyond the border but could not block him. Instead, Liu used the wind and sand to circle back and strike, beheading countless barbarian heads. Nurhaci's eldest grandson and the Dongjiang turncoat Kong Youde were both captured and persuaded to surrender."

As Hou Shilu listened to Zuo Maodi's account, his mouth hung slightly open, forgetting to close.

By the time Zuo Maodi finished, the hall was so silent one could hear a pin drop, with only the heavy breathing of these old generals and veterans.

After a long while, Hou Shilu finally came back to his senses. He exchanged a glance with the old household soldiers behind him, then pressed Zuo Maodi: "What else? How was the battle fought? What were Marshal Liu's troop casualties?"

Zuo Maodi shook his head and explained: "I am the Magistrate of Hancheng. I have never crossed swords with Marshal Liu, much less followed him on campaign. I know very little of the battle beyond the border. If Marshal Hou wishes to know, why not go out and ask him yourself?"

Only then did Hou Shilu smile a bit sheepishly. He raised his hand to scratch his headscarf and shook his head: "I won't ask him. Liaoyang, Jisi — twice Hou suffered great defeat and grave wounds, relying entirely on my household servants fighting to the death to escort me out, barely escaping alive."

"Marshal Liu routed the Later Jin troops in a single battle. That broken soldiers and crippled generals like us should be defeated at his hands is only right and proper. Haha."

It was only at this moment that Zuo Maodi realized Hou Shilu had at some point changed his wording, no longer calling him "the young vanguard" but instead addressing Liu Chengzong as "Marshal Liu."

"Then, Marshal Hou — might we set aside all grudges, lead your troops out of the alley, and return with me to Hancheng?"

"Haha, Magistrate Zuo — Marshal Liu and I have no grudges. We of Yulin have no grudges with him either. A man lives by nothing but luck."

"The affairs of the state have decayed to this point. In all of Shaanxi, only a corner of Yulin remains. As we are soldiers and officers of the court, it is our duty to defend it to the death. My old friends and close comrades have all died in this war. I am an old man, twice gravely wounded, unable to draw a bow or mount a horse — go to Hancheng? Heh."

Hou Shilu's somewhat clouded old eyes fixed on Zuo Maodi's: "Do you want Hancheng to see the same sight Yulin sees today?"

Zuo Maodi could not answer.

"Enough. Today has been extraordinarily pleasant. Magistrate Zuo, go back now. Tell Marshal Liu — Yulin City... is his."

Good evening!