Section Four

Sun Yanling, for the merit of his submission, was granted the title of General of Anjing and was taken by Wu Sangui as a son-in-law.

Beyond Wu Sangui’s Southern Zhou military bloc, Shang Zhixin in Guangdong, Zheng Jing in Fujian, and Jieshu in Zhejiang were all locked in ceaseless war. Not long after the autumn harvest, Shang Zhixin personally led sixty thousand men from Chaozhou, defeated the forces Feng Xifan had left to hold Longyan, and drove their main army back toward Fuzhou. Only then did he gain a foothold in Longyan, whereupon Zheng Jing’s senior general Liu Guoxuan immediately marched out with twenty thousand reinforcements. After joining what remained of Feng Xifan’s troops, he met Shang Zhixin in stalemate along the Longyan line.

Among the three southeastern powers, Jieshu still commanded the strongest army. Yet at this moment the Qing court was suffering repeated defeats, the capital had fallen, the emperor had died for his country, and the army’s morale had sunk to its lowest ebb. Thus, though his forces were the most numerous, they were in no condition for large-scale offensives. While Zheng Jing and Shang Zhixin were still locked in fierce battle, Prince Kang Jieshu on the one hand pulled back his troops, repaired the city walls, and strengthened the defenses; on the other, he sent General Pingnan Lai Ta with several thousand Plain White Banner cavalry to launch raids and harass Zheng territory. Each attack, however, was beaten back by Chen Jinnan. Soon afterward, alarming news came from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang rear areas: Zheng Jing personally led the Taiwan fleet in surprise attacks on Wenzhou, Taizhou, Ningbo, and other places. After landing, he captured one prefecture after another. The Qing forces, caught utterly unprepared, suffered heavy losses, and Zheng Jing carried off vast quantities of gold, silver, grain, supplies, and able-bodied men. From then on, Jieshu’s prestige collapsed, and he was even less able to mount any offensive against Fujian.

When these tidings spread, Jiangxi and Hubei were thrown into chaos. More than ten thousand Khorchin iron cavalry broke through several counties of Jiujiang Prefecture in succession, slaughtering and looting at will. They then forcibly seized boats, crossed the Yangtze by way of Poyang Lake, and, acting alone, drove straight toward Huangzhou and Anqing. Yet nearly two hundred thousand elite Qing troops nearby merely cowered in defense, and not a single man dared fight.

When Yang Qilong, who had been facing the Qing army along the Ruzhou front, heard the news, he was overjoyed. Nearly one hundred thousand peasant rebels poured out in full force, divided into two columns. One was commanded by the famous rebel general Pang Dabaizi, nicknamed “Leveler of Injustice,” who led thirty thousand men to besiege Xinyang. The other was personally led by Yang Qilong, who marched with sixty thousand troops through Yingzhou to attack Hefei.

With one hundred thousand rebel troops pressing from the front and Mongol cavalry using the roads behind them, the whole province of Anhui was shaken to its core. Soldiers and civilians alike were gripped by panic. Anhui’s military governor Bartai and governor Yuan Gongmao were utterly helpless. Dispatches for aid, sent in all directions from the governor’s yamen and traveling eight hundred li at full speed, raced one after another toward Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and other places. Before the enemy even arrived, the Qing deputy censor Li Fuguai, the river official Shi Yue, and the Huainan prefect Wu Anguo had already abandoned their posts and fled. Yang Qilong’s army occupied several cities one after another without striking a blow: Yingshang, Xia Cai, Shouxian, Huainan. He then camped at Wabu Lake near the Dongfei River, sent envoys to Hefei, and in the name of the Crown Prince of Great Ming promised high office and rich rewards, hoping to induce Anhui’s military governor Bartai and governor Yuan Gongmao to surrender.

At that very moment, Lin Feng dispatched envoys in all directions. They skirted the major military strongholds and openly distributed the King of Han’s edicts in every prefecture and county. Though these Han envoys traveled light and with few attendants, wherever their banners pointed the provincial governors and intendants trembled. Small parties of only a few dozen men swaggered southward through Henan, Shandong, and other provinces. Across the land, Qing forces numbering in the tens of thousands shut their city gates tight, neither daring to sortie and intercept them nor daring to receive the King of Han’s proclamation.

When the Han envoys entered Anhui, the entire province of soldiers and civilians felt as though they had grasped a lifesaving straw. After reading the King of Han’s manifesto, Governor Yuan Gongmao that very night conspired with Anhui’s commander-in-chief Zhou Qiu and several dozen Han army Green Standard officers. A coup in Hefei followed at once: eight thousand Green Standard Han troops, under the officers’ urging, cut off their queues and turned their uniforms inside out. They slaughtered the several hundred Banner troops stationed there to keep watch, then set fires and caused chaos throughout Hefei. Governor Yuan Gongmao and Commander Zhou Qiu personally led the main force to storm the governor-general’s yamen. As soon as the encirclement was complete, the Han soldiers and servants working inside the yamen turned their weapons around at the governor’s shout and struck back. In less than half an hour, the governor-general’s yamen was engulfed in flames, and Anhui’s military governor Bartai and his entire family perished.

After the Han envoys were welcomed into the city, Yuan Gongmao not only sent a swift horse to report to Beijing, but also dispatched envoys to Yang Qilong’s army and to the Mongol Khorchin cavalry. Within less than ten days, Lin Feng received the news and immediately promoted Yuan Gongmao to be the Han Great Han’s governor of Anhui, and Zhou Qiu to be the Han Great Han’s Commander of the Building of Valor. At the same time he ordered the Second Infantry Army of Great Han, under Liu Laosi, to break camp at once and march west toward the border of Henan. Forced by circumstances, Yang Qilong had no choice but to turn his main force westward and join up with Pang Dabaizi’s “Leveler of Injustice” troops in a joint assault on Xinyang.

The Mongol cavalry of Khorchin, however, ignored Yuan Gongmao’s messengers completely and continued advancing on Anhui’s prefectural cities, burning, killing, and looting all the way. Lin Feng was enraged when he heard the news and immediately ordered the forces of Zhao Liangdong, Great Wall Raider’s Northern Middle Commander, Zhao Guangyuan, Xuanhua Mongol Commander, as well as Wang Dahai, Ningjin and Jingliao Commander, and Ma Ying, Nurgan Conqueror-Quelling General, to concentrate their troops and move east toward Mongol Khorchin. Bueryagama was struck with terror and hurriedly sent the envoy Zhamuha to Beijing with five hundred warhorses and two thousand taels of gold, asking for peace. At the same time he sent a flying horse to reprimand the Mongol cavalry in Anhui, ordering them to return north by the route designated by the Han officials.

According to the report submitted by Wang Shirong of the Ordnance and Armaments Bureau, the situation in Shanxi was now alarming. With the Dzungars’ massive eastward advance, large numbers of Mongol cavalry poured from the northwest plateau into Gansu, Shaanxi, and elsewhere. After Galdan defeated Tusheetu and occupied Hohhot, tens of thousands of Mongol horsemen invaded from Yulin in Shaanxi, crossed the Great Wall, and entered northern Shaanxi and Shanxi. Meanwhile the Central Plains were in utter turmoil, with warlords everywhere fighting one another. Faced with so dire an enemy suddenly upon them, there was no strength left to resist. The Dzungar army, numbering in the tens of thousands, broke through the border forts one after another, and their iron hooves had already trampled Paodezhou flat. Yet at this moment the main Qing forces in Shanxi had all been drawn south to fight the peasant rebels. Hastily assembled to block Galdan, they had suffered defeat after defeat for months. Shanxi’s military governor Amutu had died in battle, Governor Yu Chenglong had been routed and fled, and by now the Dzungar vanguard cavalry had already followed the Fen River south, threatening Taiyuan.

How to respond to the Shanxi crisis became a matter of dispute within the Han army. The civil officials led by Li Guangdi believed this was merely the enemy’s own chaos, and that the Han forces should seize the chance to rest and recuperate, waiting to reap the profit when the time was ripe. A group of youthful, extreme nationalist officers in the General Staff, however, insisted that the Han army should launch a great offensive, drive out the Mongol cavalry, and recover the lands of the Han. The two factions argued with one another, denouncing each other bitterly and making a din in court without end.

For two straight days, the council was consumed by argument. Aside from deciding that Liu Laosi’s Han army should be allowed to pass through Henan en route to Anhui, they reached almost no firm conclusions. Both sides kept pressing their views upon the King of Han, demanding that he adopt their own policy and driving Lin Feng to the point of exhaustion. By the time later meetings were held, he mostly just came in, sat for a while, and left, letting them argue as they pleased.

The moment he stepped through the gates of the prince’s mansion, his personal guard commander Li Ergou hurried into the hall.

“Your Lordship, the Supervisory Censor Chen Menglei seeks an audience!”

Ever since taking up that thankless office, Chen Menglei had become less and less popular within the Han army’s system. And because of his official duties, he usually spent his days traveling about the Han territories on inspections, so his opportunities to see Lin Feng had grown fewer and fewer. Even when the ministers had come out together to greet Lin Feng on his triumphant return, his colleagues had left him behind in Beijing to hold the fort. Thus, though his rank was high and his power considerable, life had not been easy for him. In Lin Feng’s eyes, however, he still mattered greatly. Setting everything else aside, he had after all been the first strategist to pledge himself in service, and face had to be given to such a man. So despite his fatigue, Lin Feng forced himself to perk up and said to Li Ergou, “Invite Master Zhezhen in.”

Because of all his running about, Chen Menglei had grown noticeably thinner. Before he had even finished bowing at the doorway, Lin Feng was already smiling and taking him by the hand.

“There’s no need for all that ceremony today. Come, come, Zhezhen, sit.”

Once Chen Menglei had taken a seat at the very edge of the chair, Lin Feng smiled and said, “It’s so late, and you’ve still come all this way. It must be something urgent, yes?”

Chen Menglei folded his hands respectfully. “Your Lordship, I have come precisely to report an important matter.”

So there really was something. Lin Feng was startled. By the nature of his office, any “important matter” of his was almost certainly bad news. Could some senior Han official be embezzling funds? Had a general risen in rebellion? Unable to help himself, he asked tensely, “What is it? Zhezhen, don’t frighten me.”

“Returning to Your Lordship, this humble official truly has a case here that is difficult to dispose of...” To Lin Feng’s surprise, Chen Menglei’s expression turned extremely odd, and he said haltingly, “Ahem... ahem... Your Lordship, this case is unprecedented in our Great Han, so I have specially come to ask you for a course of action.”

Lin Feng stared at him in disbelief. “What sort of case is so strange that even Zhezhen doesn’t know what to do?!”

Chen Menglei gave a bitter smile. “Your Lordship, the matter is indeed... ahem... ahem... One of my subordinates is a junior official named Wu Zhirong. He was originally a principal clerk in the Qing Ministry of Personnel, but later, moved by Your Lordship’s righteous cause, he came over to serve Great Han. I saw that this man had a clear head and handled business fairly briskly, so I appointed him as a local censor. This case was made by him...” Embarrassed, he stroked his beard, reached into his sleeve, and produced an official memorial, then stood and presented it respectfully to Lin Feng. “This... this, Your Lordship will understand at a glance...”

Lin Feng was baffled. He opened the dossier and saw that the heading was actually a long poem of exquisite diction and soaring literary grace. Unable to stop himself, he murmured aloud:

“On the day the palace cauldron left the human world,
The enemy was broken and the capital reclaimed beneath the pass.
The six armies wept in white mourning robes,
A single fury, raging through the breast, was for a beauty’s sake...”

Then he suddenly came to himself and cried in alarm, “This... isn’t this that song about Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan?” He gave a wry smile. “And this counts as some sort of ‘important matter’? Zhezhen, are you making fun of me?”

Chen Menglei’s face was solemn, without the slightest hint of humor. “Your Lordship, Wu Zhirong annotated this dossier to say that the author of this ‘Song of Yuanyuan,’ Wu Weiye, harbored sinister motives and slandered the present Princess Consort. This constitutes gross impiety and may be treated as treason, for which he has therefore been sentenced to waist-cutting and extinction of the third clan...”

“What a joke!” Lin Feng said, dumbfounded. “This counts as treason? And dragging in his whole family as well? ...”

“Ahem... ahem... Your Lordship!” Chen Menglei replied with a bitter smile. “Well... the Princess Consort really is the daughter of the Zhou lord and Lady Chen. Wu Zhirong and the others have judged that Wu Weiye was making veiled insinuations and humiliating the Han Princess Consort. We... we cannot exactly refute that point.”

Lin Feng felt thoroughly awkward. With no other recourse, he lifted his teacup and changed the subject. “Then this... this Wu Weiye—has he died yet?”

“Returning to Your Lordship, we thought the matter should be decided by the King of Han, so no punishment has yet been carried out. Wu Weiye is still imprisoned in the Censorate’s jail...” He hesitated slightly. “Your Lordship, I believe this Wu Weiye perhaps... ought not to be killed if it can be avoided. Since he was taken into custody, the northern literati have been abuzz about it, and many celebrated scholars have submitted memorials seeking his pardon. For the sake of Great Han’s reputation, I think... I must ask Your Lordship to treat this very seriously.” He shot Lin Feng a furtive glance. “This time, this humble minister has also brought another man with me. He is a great scholar of the age, of very high renown. He came to the capital this time in order to plead Wu Weiye’s case before Your Lordship!”

“Oh? A great scholar?” Lin Feng looked at Chen Menglei in puzzlement. “Who?”

“Kushan’s Master Gu Yanwu, also known as Gu Ningren!” Chen Menglei rose once more and bowed deeply to Lin Feng. “I beg Your Lordship to grant him an audience!”