Chapter Four: Seeking Life Amidst Death-Iron-Blooded Ming Dynasty(The Lonely Swordsman)

Back at the main Ming camp in Songshan, chaos had erupted into utter bedlam. Shortly after Wang Pu led his troops out of the encampment, General Tang Tong from Miyun, exactly as Wu Sangui had anticipated, was the first to withdraw his forces toward Ningyuan. Upon hearing the news, Wu Sangui, Ma Ke, and Wang Tingchen all swiftly broke camp and began their retreat. General Li Fuming from Xuanfu and Deputy General Zhao Wuzhu from Datong quickly followed suit, unwilling to lag behind. The simultaneous, sudden retreat of all six garrison commanders found the Ming soldiers wholly unprepared, plunging the ranks into a massive, frenzied rout.

By the time news reached Hong Chengchou’s headquarters, it was already too late. The Qing army, however, had foreseen this. Upon receiving word of the Ming’s nocturnal withdrawal, the Manchu chieftain Hong Taiji immediately ordered Dorgon to pursue and slaughter the fleeing enemy, while personally leading the Eight Banners to encircle Songshan, cutting off Hong Chengchou’s escape and any hope of rallying the six garrisons. Thus was lost the final chance to reverse the tide.

The retreating Ming troops, harried by Dorgon’s relentless pursuit, collapsed in utter defeat; countless were trampled to death by their own comrades. Those who managed to flee found themselves intercepted again and again by Qing ambushes. In the end, over fifty thousand were slain, with uncounted more driven into the sea to drown. Only Wu Sangui and Tang Tong escaped with their lives, while Qing casualties numbered merely a few hundred.

Lowlands.

Little Qi sidled up to Wang Pu, excitement lighting his eyes. “General, the Manchu camp is almost empty—should we strike now?”

He did not understand Wang Pu’s intentions, assuming the plan was to exploit the enemy’s weakness with a sudden assault.

“Strike the camp?” Wang Pu shook his head gravely. “No, that’s not our aim.”

“Then what is it?” Little Qi asked, bewildered.

Wang Pu offered no answer but barked out, “Pass the order: the whole force is to lead their horses and proceed on foot, skirting the Manchu camp from the flank. Tell everyone to keep silent and, above all, don’t get separated!”

“Don’t worry, General,” Little Qi replied, hurrying off to relay the command.

In short order, the men hidden in the low ground emerged, one after another, leading their warhorses. Each soldier clung tightly to the tail of the horse in front to avoid losing his way. Under the pitch-black night, this force of a thousand mounted retainers moved like a host of specters from hell, silently slipping past the side of the Qing encampment.

By now, the Qing had already emptied their camp, sending every able body to the front lines. Only a handful of the old, infirm, and disabled remained to guard the camp. With the Ming main force utterly routed, the Qing saw no need to post scouts or patrols around their rear, never imagining a small Ming detachment would dare sneak by.

In truth, only Wang Pu—an outsider to this age—could have conceived such madness: to slip past the enemy’s flank and strike at Shengjing itself.

Not until they had traveled more than ten miles, leaving the Qing camp far behind, did Wang Pu order Little Qi to light a torch and lead the way. He then told his men to mount, and the force swept eastward like a gust of wind.

As dawn broke, Wang Pu led his men to the banks of the Great Ling River and ordered a brief rest. He had Little Qi summon Big Beard and Scarface—both former bandits of formidable skill and temperament, who had become Wang Pu’s trusted retainers after he had crushed their stronghold two years prior. Despite his own timidity, Wang Pu knew how to win men’s loyalty; he had brought their families to Datong and cared for them. Grateful, the two had risked life and limb for him and now served as captains, each commanding a portion of his mounted guard.

“General.”

Big Beard and Scarface quickly arrived and saluted.

Wang Pu nodded and spoke gravely. “I’ve called you here to tell you one thing: we are going to attack Shengjing.”

“What? Attack Shengjing? That’s the Manchu stronghold!” Little Qi blurted, stunned.

“They must have heavy defenses there,” Big Beard exclaimed, equally shocked. “How can just a thousand of us hope to succeed?”

The three stared at each other in disbelief, wondering if the general had gone mad or if they had misheard.

“You heard me right,” Wang Pu said coldly. “We are going to launch a surprise assault on Shengjing—strike straight at the Manchu heart!”

Wang Pu’s decision was not made in a fit of hot-blooded passion, but after careful consideration. Though it seemed insane, in truth it was not impossible. Were there another choice, Wang Pu would not risk all on such a desperate gambit—but harsh reality forced his hand.

From his knowledge of Ming history, Wang Pu knew that by now, Hong Taiji had conquered Mongolia, Korea, and the indigenous peoples of the Amur region. Outwardly, the Qing dominion stretched over thousands of miles, ruling over a population of more than a million, seemingly poised to destroy the Ming Empire. But this was mere illusion.

The undeniable fact was that the Manchu foundation was perilously thin. During Nurhaci’s reign, all the Jurchens in Liaodong numbered only a few hundred thousand. By Hong Taiji’s day, large numbers of Han Chinese, Mongols, and Koreans had been absorbed and rebranded as “Manchus,” swelling the population to three hundred thousand. It’s worth noting that Liaodong originally had over two million Han inhabitants, but during Nurhaci’s decades of rule, these were almost entirely slaughtered, with only a few tens of thousands left, pressed into the Eight Banners as “Manchus”—in truth, little more than Jurchen slaves.

[The histories speak of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji as brilliant statesmen who established policies of ethnic equality from the start; this is utter nonsense. In reality, Nurhaci intended only to rule a small tribal domain in the Changbai Mountains, while Hong Taiji never aspired to rule all China or treat the Han well. Take, for instance, Fan Wencheng, the notorious traitor who urged Dorgon to invade China—he nearly lost his head under Nurhaci, and was of little consequence under Hong Taiji. It was not until Dorgon became regent that Fan was truly put to use. It was thanks to Fan and his ilk that Dorgon resolved to invade China at all—a step Nurhaci and Hong Taiji had never dared contemplate.]

Back to the matter at hand: due to their constant wars, the Manchus had severely depleted their own men. Of their population of three hundred thousand, at most one hundred thousand were adult males, and after subtracting minors and the elderly, only about sixty thousand were fit for battle. Without Nurhaci’s creation of the Eight Banners system to maximize their war potential, such a slender population could never have unified Liaodong, let alone conquered China.

Even by the time Dorgon led the Qing into China, the total Manchu population never exceeded three hundred thousand (excluding the hundreds of thousands of Han slaves seized in repeated invasions, whose status was lower even than the few Han left from Nurhaci’s time—unworthy even to become banner slaves). The Eight Banners army itself was always about sixty thousand strong; including Han and Mongol banners, Qing total military strength was no more than a hundred, at most a hundred and twenty thousand.

This is not hard to understand: the Manchus were deeply wary of Han and Mongols, never allowing the non-Jurchen banners to outnumber the Jurchen ones.

Because of these limits, every major battle with the Ming—at Sarhu, Ningyuan, and most recently at Songshan—required the full mobilization of every able-bodied male. In the Songshan campaign, after early setbacks, Hong Taiji had conscripted every male between thirteen and sixty in “Manchuria.” Of course, the old and young did not fight, but remained behind to guard the rear.

This meant the Manchu capital, Shengjing, was defended only by a few thousand old men and children. It was, indeed, an opportunity—at least worth a try. Of course, Wang Pu could have chosen not to strike at Shengjing, but simply fled to Korea and then by sea to Dengzhou. Yet if he did that, upon reaching Dengzhou, he would have been arrested, imprisoned, and ultimately executed in Beijing, just as in the original history.

ps: New book uploaded—brothers, please lend your support with recommendations. Thank you.