Chapter 132: So That's Where You Were!
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Emperor Jingtai, Zhu Qiyu, patted little Zhu Jianshen on the head and muttered under his breath:
“Look here, nephew. Your fat grandpa is green with envy. If only you’d let him play with thunder magic, I reckon he’d even be willing to make Grandpa here say, ‘My father dares eat pig feed.’”
Uncle, your jealousy is nothing to scoff at.
“Mhm! I can see that.”
Little Zhu Jianshen nodded solemnly, without exposing him.
The Chenghua Emperor, Zhu Jianshen, came over and sighed deeply. “Uncle, if you’d had this much courage and ferocity back then, what need would there have been for my living father?”
“Grandpa couldn’t possibly have called you timid and spineless. He wouldn’t have dared say such a thing.”
Zhu Qiyu hunched his neck and let his eyes wander. He hurriedly said, “Don’t go spreading nonsense!”
The Taizong Emperor had truly eaten pig feed before, but that was a subject no one could even touch. Whoever brought it up would die.
By now, the Jurchens had fallen into complete chaos. They fought the Ming soldiers in savage, vicious hand-to-hand combat.
Zhu Yuanzhang watched over the entire battlefield with grave attention.
Whenever the fighting grew too fierce, he sent down a bolt of lightning.
Zhu Xiongying burrowed into Zhu Youjian’s arms, staring unblinkingly at the battlefield. In a small voice, he asked, “Isn’t this a little cruel?”
Zhu Youjian glanced sideways at him and said softly, “These are the foreign tribes who destroyed our Southern Ming.”
“Oh. Then it’s fine.”
Zhu Xiongying watched with keen interest, occasionally shouting:
“Grandpa, there’s another one! He’s almost getting away!”
“Where? Where?”
Zhu Yuanzhang looked around frantically.
Zhu Youjian watched coldly from the sidelines.
Cruel?
The Three Massacres of Jiading had slaughtered two hundred thousand Han Chinese!
The Ten Days of Yangzhou had killed nearly a million Han Chinese!
Wiping out two thousand three hundred households was practically an act of mercy. If the Founding Grandfather knew that was all they had killed, he would immediately ride back and slaughter his way from the Hongwu era to the Chongzhen era.
Not a single savage would be left alive!
…
Jurchen Territory.
Left Guard.
The Jurchens set fire to their settlement to impede the Ming army’s advance. Each sought an opening through which to break out, attempting to contact the Jianzhou Jurchens of the Right Guard—not to ask for reinforcements, of course.
They wanted the men of the Right Guard to flee and seek the aid of the Haixi Jurchens and the Hugaeli tribes. Together, those forces numbered in the tens of thousands—enough to keep the Ming army trapped in the north!
Several hundred Jurchens howled as they spurred their horses toward the encircling troops, only to be driven back again and again by long spears and cavalry lances.
“Charge with Your Majesty! Kill them all!”
The elderly Zhu Di gripped a long spear and shouted in a thunderous voice.
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With the Taizong Emperor himself joining the battle, Ming morale soared without limit. Every soldier flushed with excitement, wishing he could die before the Taizong Emperor.
“Fifty taels of silver for every man you kill!”
Zhu Di, brimming with confidence, swung a great saber and bellowed the order.
Fifty taels of silver!
A frontier soldier earned only a dozen or so taels in an entire year, and the capital troops did not make much more. Killing a single Jurchen meant two years of wages—and the reward came directly from the Taizong Emperor!
The several hundred Ming soldiers at the front erupted. When the troops in the rear heard the news, they nearly broke discipline and rushed forward to hack off Jurchen heads themselves.
“Warriors, kill those… those two Ming emperors!”
Even the Jurchen chieftain leading them was confused. His voice held a note of uncertainty.
He had once caused trouble in the Liaodong military camp together with Commander Dong Shan. Back then, in order to persuade the Ming court to grant them python robes, he had taken special care to learn what the Ming emperor wore.
Although the two men with similar appearances were clad in armor, the dragon robes visible beneath their armor could only be worn by Ming emperors!
After all, they had asked the Ming for dragon robes before, and the Ming had refused.
They had even tried to reason with them!
“Warriors of Badu, never… surrender! Surrender, and stop fighting!”
One chieftain stammered out a few words. But after watching a Jurchen beside him be hacked into ash, he lost every last shred of fighting spirit.
“Shut your damned mouth!”
The Ming soldiers barked at him. If you surrender, are you going to pay me my fifty taels?
A long spear swept across.
A head fell at once. The soldier hoisted it onto the spear and, without the slightest disgust, shook it hard to drain the blood before hanging it from his saddle and returning to the battle to farm monsters for silver!
One Jurchen head was worth fifty taels—practically the price of a cavalry lance, and that was the internal rate!
Sold to foreigners, a single cavalry lance cost at least a thousand taels of silver!
No wonder the Ming soldiers were so excited. Further back, some comrades were even fighting one another over a single head.
Several hundred Jurchens held out for half an hour before being slaughtered to the last man.
Elder Zhu Di reined in his horse at the settlement gate and coldly ordered, “Leave not one alive. Exterminate their entire kind.”
“By your command!”
Zhao Fu roared, “The Taizong Emperor commands: exterminate their entire kind!”
“Waaah!”
The Ming soldiers let out a frenzy of excited howls and surged inside all at once. They hacked their way from one end of the settlement to the other, leaving headless corpses strewn everywhere.
Blood truly ran like a river.
“What a bunch of miserable bastards!” Zhu Di laughed and cursed.
“You’ve really made yourself rich. The Jianzhou Left Guard has more than a thousand households—at least six or seven thousand people. You’ve just thrown away three hundred thousand taels of silver. Your eldest brother is going to die of heartbreak,” Elder Zhu Di teased.
Zhu Di froze for a moment before realizing the seriousness of the matter. After a brief silence, he said, “What’s yours and what’s mine? Why divide things between us? We’re the same person. If you really feel sorry for my eldest brother, then pay the whole sum yourself.”
“No, stop right there. I’m enjoying myself just fine!”
Elder Zhu Di refused outright.
Zhu Di chuckled. “I was only joking. How could I make you pay it all? I’ll cover half. That should be fair, shouldn’t it?”
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“That’s more like it… Wait, why would I ever pay together with you?”
Elder Zhu Di finally caught on and immediately shook his head.
“No money!”
Then he spurred his horse into the Jurchen settlement to hunt for any survivors who had slipped through the net.
Zhu Di followed sheepishly. If he killed a few more, he could reduce the amount he had to pay by several hundred taels. One should save where one could and spend where one must.
Otherwise, his fat eldest brother would once again accuse him of always exceeding everyone’s expectations by pouring all his money into the dull side of the blade.
Clop, clop!
Elder Zhu Di rode slowly through the settlement, where smoke and flames swirled in every direction. Ruined walls and charred wreckage lay everywhere. The place had become a wasteland.
Suddenly—
“Whoa!”
Elder Zhu Di reined in his horse. His ears twitched. He leapt down, walked to a large house that had partially collapsed in the fire, paused for several breaths, and pushed open the door.
Inside was pitch-black.
A few faint sparks only made the room seem deeper and more forbidding, thick with the smells of hair grease and blood.
This must have been the residence of a Jurchen chieftain.
Elder Zhu Di stepped inside and drew the imperial sword at his waist. His voice carried absolute certainty.
“I can see you. Come out.”
“Why hide? This place isn’t very large.”
“Little one, where could you possibly hide?”
The house was spacious, and it was crammed with belongings: two large brick sleeping platforms, a small wooden bed, and four or five scattered cabinets.
Inside one of those cabinets, a small figure trembled violently. Through the narrow gap in the doors, a gaze filled with hatred fixed itself upon the shadow of the man outside.
The man outside searched around and muttered to himself, “There’s no one here after all. I must have heard wrong.”
His footsteps gradually receded.
At last, the figure inside the cabinet relaxed and let out a long breath. The venom in his eyes grew even darker, while his clenched hands creaked.
Creak!
The cabinet door suddenly swung open.
“So that’s where you were.”
The ghostly voice rang beside his ear, terrifying him nearly out of his wits.
…
Good night. Kisses!
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