Chapter 1249: No One Is Loyal

"Big brother, the government troops are all massing at Tianjin. They have ample provisions and fodder there, and can easily get support from the Capital Garrison and the Ji Garrison. They're even more likely to just dig in at Tianjin and fight a decisive battle with us there." Shi Manqiang said in a muffled voice. Even with his steady and honest temperament, he could not quite suppress his excitement about this campaign.

Zhao Jin smiled and said unhurriedly, "Given the current situation, the government troops fighting a decisive battle with our army at Tianjin would be the best choice for them. But massing at Tianjin without making any move at all — isn't that just being afraid to advance? Even if the Supreme Commander and the commanding general understand this, the court won't allow it. Even if the eunuch faction keeps quiet, someone from within the Donglin faction will jump out. Marching south to engage us has nothing to do with military strategy; it's all about court factional struggle."

At this point, Zhao Jin tapped his finger on Jinghai County, the place closest to Tianjin, and said with a smile, "So this place is the most likely. It counts as having come out, but not too far out."

The generals all burst out laughing. Ji Xiang shook his head and said scornfully, "These bookworms really are just a bunch of deadweight troublemakers. In the future, we absolutely can't..."

He had only gotten halfway when Chen Sheng coughed from the other side. Ji Xiang understood why and gave an awkward, sheepish grin, then fell silent. Zhao Jin pretended not to have heard. He pondered for a moment and said, "If we engage them at Jinghai or Qing County, the cities of Cangzhou and Xingji County in our rear will be hidden dangers. We don't have the spare strength to leave behind garrison troops. If the militia and government soldiers in those places try any tricks behind our backs while we're in battle, that's a risk. Therefore, no government troops can be left in those cities. The civil officials will be detained in our camp. Every city must have its walls breached by cannon, and then we go in to search, round up, and arrest people. We must leave them with no ability to organize resistance, and no nerve to even think about it!"

When the great army arrived beneath the walls of Cangzhou, the city's reaction was one of complete bewilderment. The city gates were closed, but after the first cannon test shot, it was discovered that the gate tunnel had not been blocked up. What followed next was an active surrender and opening of the gates. The Prefect of Cangzhou made a half-hearted show of preparing to hang himself, and was then "rescued" by the people around him.

The garrison troops at the Hejian Prefecture seat stayed holed up and did not move. The local troops of Cangzhou had long since fled and scattered. Even more absurdly, the people of Cangzhou had never believed a large force of rebels would come. The Northern Metropolitan Region had been at peace for many years. The gentry and commoners all felt that even if troops came, they would be Tatar raiders from the north. As for something coming from Shandong and Xuzhou in the south, what did that even count for? It was simply too hard to believe.

And when the Zhao Family Army appeared beneath the city walls, the officials and gentry on the battlements were equally dumbstruck, because not even the government army had such a strict and orderly formation, nor such uniformly identical uniforms and equipment. If this was a rebel army, then what was the so-called government army? And since when did Shandong and Xuzhou have troops like these, who had furthermore marched step by step into the Northern Metropolitan Region? This place wasn't even that far from the capital anymore...

Amid this atmosphere of disbelief and incredulity, the Zhao Family Army's cannons blasted open the city and swept it clean. As for the officials being detained, the attitude of the Cangzhou gentry and powerful families was very ambiguous. As long as they themselves were not arrested, there was nothing to care about. This Zhao Family Army had iron discipline. Aside from the damage to the city gates and walls, and the beheading of those blind fools who tried to loot amid the chaos, everything else was business as usual. In that case, everyone would just pretend nothing had happened and simply "protect the territory and pacify the people."

The Zhao Family Army was delayed in Cangzhou for a day. Originally, three two-hour periods would have sufficed. The reason for the long delay was that a group of people from the nearby Changlu Salt Fields came over. Everyone in the world knows about Huai Salt and the Haizhou Salt Fields, but they overlook the Changlu salt industry, which is second in scale only to the Haizhou Salt Fields. This area is known as the land of Northern Salt. The Cangzhou locality itself was nothing much, but this Changlu salt business was a mountain of gold. The salt administration, the salt merchants, and the big shots in the capital all relied on it to generate wealth.

The people from the Changlu salt business did not come out of any sense of loyalty. They laid out their terms: as long as the Zhao Family Army did not damage the Changlu salt industry, they would pay thirty thousand taels of silver on the spot, and another thirty thousand taels on the return journey. Everything was negotiable. These businessmen's information was far better than that of the local yokels. The Changlu salt people naturally knew about the Zhao Family Army's connection to Huai Salt, and they also knew how big the Xuzhou business operations had become. They even proposed terms: during the Zhao Family Army's northward campaign, there would absolutely be no unusual movements from the Cangzhou side. The Yangzhou salt merchants were the local emperors of their region, and the Changlu ones were not much different. If the Zhao Family Army wanted to negotiate peace with the imperial court, the Changlu side could also act as a go-between.

This was naturally not done for nothing. Being awed by military might was one aspect; the other was that they had seen the changes in Huai Salt. Now that the Zhao Family Army's power was about to extend out of Shandong, the Changlu salt merchants naturally had to take some action. What Zhao Jin and his companions found subtle was that the Changlu salt merchants had actually judged that the Zhao Family Army was not rebelling this time, because from a business perspective, this did not maximize profit.

The subsequent march was also very smooth. After the Grand Canal opened for navigation, the Zhao Family Army's utilization of the canal transport system was far more thorough than the imperial court's. Large numbers of canal boats and supplies concentrated at Qingjiangpu, Jining, and Linqing were transported back and forth via the canal, moving personnel, materiel, and provisions for the Zhao Family Army. The boats could even serve as temporary camps. The government troops, on the other hand, were in a very troublesome position. For every foot the Zhao Family Army advanced, the government troops lost a foot. The more the Zhao Family Army used the canal transport, the less the government troops could.

By the time they reached Qing County, even the step of blasting open the city gates with cannons was omitted. The magistrate of Qing County fled the city together with the county's government troops. The Qing County gentry opened the city gates to welcome them. The Zhao Family Army halted here for a temporary rest and reorganization, because they had received confirmed news: the various government forces had already massed at Tianjin and would be dispatching troops within days. An advance force of over five thousand had already reached Jinghai County.

By this point, the government troops had finally learned to impose a news blackout. The traveling merchants who had been hurrying along the canal route in the previous days had vanished without a trace. When the Zhao Family Army's light cavalry went out scouting, they began to encounter the government army's own scouts and elite reconnaissance troops. Villages and stockades that could previously be entered with a payment of silver were now all closed and refused entry. Some had even come out to attack...

However, Qing County was already deep in the heartland of the Northern Metropolitan Region. Even bypassing Tianjin Garrison and entering Shuntian Prefecture directly from Qing County, skirting the marshlands of Sanjiaodian, and taking the route through Dacheng County, Wen'an County, and Baoding County, it would take less than three days to reach the capital by horse. At this moment, the gates of several Shuntian Prefecture county seats near Qing County were all shut, and urgent dispatches were being sent one after another to the capital.

If the Zhao Family Army were truly a rebel mob or Tatar raiders, they would have split their forces at this time to go plunder the surrounding areas and cause alarm on all sides, sending the capital into a panic like ants on a hot pan and forcing all sorts of frantic reactions. But the Zhao Family Army did not do that. They acted as if they had not realized that Qing County was only two two-hour periods' journey from Shuntian Prefecture, nor that sending out cavalry could let them press straight to the walls of the capital.

This was because entering Shuntian Prefecture from Qing County meant there were no very reliable rivers along the way, and the terrain between Wen'an County and Sanjiaodian was too cramped. A large army could not maneuver there and would face certain risks. More crucially, the Zhao Family Army's objective this time was to win a great victory, to smash the large army the court had scraped together, and then proceed at their own pace. If they really pressed straight for the capital in a swift and decisive manner, that would lead to many unpredictable outcomes.

This time the government army claimed one hundred thousand, with an actual strength of eighty thousand. But under the current circumstances, the newly recruited government troops from Henan could no longer possibly arrive, and the troops from Shandong could not leave their province either. The government troops at Tianjin Garrison numbered only a bit over sixty-five thousand, and that was even after the Ji Garrison had sent a few thousand extra men. Even this number was far larger than the Zhao Family Army, still a huge three-to-one advantage, which made everyone at court and among the public very optimistic.

Since the distance was so close, a great deal of news from the capital could reach Zhao Jin's hands in a timely manner. Although the government cavalry had set up a screen, and the Capital Garrison and the various troops and militias of Shuntian Prefecture were on alert, Shuntian Prefecture was such a large territory that slipping through the gaps was simply too easy.

Lei Cai had already entered the capital with the elite core of the Internal Guard. This time Zhao Jin did not lose his temper, because the situation had already reached this point. Many things had to be done, rather than thinking about self-preservation. The reaction from the capital was very strange. Up to now, they were still maintaining a facade of business as usual. Even the common people only knew rumors and had no idea of the real situation.

The Donglin ministers currently in charge of the government could only force themselves to keep up the pretense. They could hardly admit that their own policy decisions had led to the Xuzhou rebels marching all the way north and being about to enter Shuntian Prefecture. Whether it was the rightness or wrongness of the policy, or the speed of the response and troop mobilization, if investigated, people would die and heads would roll. What was unexpected was that Wei Zhongxian's faction did not use this to counterattack. A few individuals occasionally stirred things up but were immediately suppressed.

By all rights, with a great army pressing close, and pressing close to the central capital of the realm at that, there should have been a state of high alert and extreme tension. Yet the Zhao Family Army's march had been far too disciplined. Military discipline was ironclad; there was no plundering of the localities. The gentry and commoners naturally would not send up urgent appeals for help. Moreover, most of the areas the Zhao Family Army passed through had long grown accustomed to the existence of the Xuzhou troops and did not even see this as any great matter.

Furthermore, even when the Zhao Family Army breached a city, they ignored the officials and runners inside. Both sides went about their own business. Under such circumstances, the localities would not send urgent appeals either. If you sent an urgent appeal saying the city had been breached, then why hadn't you died defending it? Why hadn't you resisted? How many enemies had you killed or wounded, and how many losses had you suffered? Why were you safe and sound? Was there collusion? None of it could be explained clearly. In any case, the city was there, the yamen was there, the gentry and commoners were all there — so why make a fuss?

What truly caused chaos was the massing of the government troops. The border troops from Xuanfu, the border troops from the Ji Garrison, the Capital Garrison troops, the border troops from Shanxi, and the military garrisons from Zhending Prefecture and Baoding Prefecture in the Northern Metropolitan Region — the mobilization of these forces was the real disaster. Since they were the Great Ming's government troops, it was normal to carry only three to five days' worth of rations on the march. Once those were eaten up, they could demand supplies from the localities, and everyone could take the chance to line their own pockets.

When stationed on their own home turf, they still had to maintain some semblance of decency. But once they were out in the field, who cared about anything else? If any village or market town along the way dared to refuse the great army's demands for supplies, they could be directly put to the sword and no one would dare say a word. Not to mention that many soldiers, having been pent up for so long, saw deployment as the perfect time to run wild. This made the suffering along their route even more unbearable.

Thank you everyone. I'm out right now. Monthly tickets, subscriptions, and tips — keep them coming. I'll give thanks tomorrow.