Chapter 321: Kong Youde's Delicate Situation

Zhu Mingxia placed the baggage train and the old, weak, sick, and disabled in the middle, with Huang Xiong’s company bringing up the rear. He himself led the van, with the cavalry platoon patrolling back and forth. He also had someone bring out the large flags he had prepared in advance. With dozens of flags flying and the neat formation, from a distance, it looked like an army of several thousand marching. Without getting close, it was quite imposing. This was Zhu Mingxia’s strategy of turning beans into soldiers. He wanted to act as a paper tiger to scare the rebel army in Huang County from acting rashly. If the rebel army did attack, the refugees, with their movements restricted, would not be able to get in the way. They could either be driven as cannon fodder or thrown aside. In short, a rout would not be caused by the refugees panicking.

“Pay attention to collecting stragglers!” Zhu Mingxia issued a new order. The entire column began to move slowly across the icy and snowy land.

The first leg of the journey was to return to the relay point before nightfall and spend the night in the village.

Zhu Mingxia mounted a captured warhorse. When he was in Lingao, he would go to the cavalry training detachment in the Gaoshanling area for riding training every week. Although he might not be able to wield a saber on horseback immediately, he had no problem commanding the battle on horseback.

The wind was strong, and it hurt his face. But seeing the rolling stream of people and horses beside him, he couldn’t help but feel a little proud. Although most of them were gaunt refugees, in a few years, they would all become a formidable army.

The crowd moved slowly. Although the speed was slow, they could still cover three or four kilometers per hour. Zhu Mingxia felt that there would be no problem returning to the relay station before nightfall.

Along the way, they could still encounter scattered refugees and rebel cavalry. The number of rebel cavalry was large, and they were widely distributed. Obviously, Kong Youde attached great importance to Huang County and had sent out a large number of reconnaissance cavalry.

Zhu Mingxia knew that to the southwest of Huang County was Laizhou. If the rebels wanted to expand their sphere of activity, they had to first attack Laizhou to be able to stretch their legs. Otherwise, they would be trapped between the mountains and the sea in Dengzhou. From the perspective of history and the reality of this time and space, the fact that the rebels sent troops to attack Huang County in the first lunar month confirmed that no matter which time and space, the enemy’s behavior pattern would not change much.

Since the fall of Dengzhou, the city had been restored to order after the initial chaos. The rebel army had gathered, and the guards were stricter than ever. The traces of the massacre of the natives had been cleaned up, leaving only the blackened bloodstains on the streets and walls.

After Li Jiucheng, Kong Youde, and others had inspected the warehouses and incorporated the defeated and surrendered soldiers, they had tightly sealed off the entire city. Each city gate was guarded by a company commander and many soldiers, and entry and exit were strictly checked—all were Liaodong people from Dongjiang. Outside the city, all strategic points, such as Mishen Mountain, were garrisoned with cavalry and infantry. Not only were all the houses occupied by the army, but the suburbs were also filled with tents and herds of warhorses. At night, the sound of drums and horns, and the neighing of horses, were constant. No one knew how many rebels there were. All travelers from the south to the north had to go through layers of interrogation.

Because the killing was too heavy when the city was breached, Li, Kong, and others were afraid that the surrendered soldiers and civilians who were not from Liaodong would harbor resentment and become spies for the government forces. Therefore, the control in Dengzhou city was extremely strict. The main roads in the city were forbidden to locals and southerners. Anyone found would be executed on the spot.

And recently, the security in the city had been strengthened again. Not only were there night curfews and additional sentries everywhere, but people were also not allowed to walk around without reason during the day, and passes were required for entry and exit. The city walls were also heavily guarded, with arrows being passed day and night as a warning. Anyone who did not respond to the passing of the arrow would be executed without question. The entire city of Dengzhou was heavily guarded.

A few days ago, the rebels had privately cast a “Grand Marshal” seal, appointing Li Jiucheng as “Grand Marshal,” Kong Youde as “Deputy Grand Marshal,” and Geng Zhongming as Governor-General.

The rebels’ “Marshal’s Mansion,” which was also the center of the entire army’s operations, was set up in the former Dengzhou Governor’s Mansion of Sun Yuanhua.

Most of the rebel generals were veterans of war. Li Jiucheng had also been the deputy commander of Dongjiang, and he had his own way of managing the army and preparing for war. All matters were handled in an orderly manner.

At this moment, Kong Youde was standing with his hands behind his back in a hall of the “Marshal’s Mansion,” looking at the two large trees in the courtyard. He was not old, only thirty. He was a former miner and had been in the army for a long time, which had given him a strong and sturdy body.

From his face, his expression was calm, showing no signs of tension or anxiety. However, deep in his heart, he was still constantly thinking about his own and Dongjiang’s future.

Raising troops to rebel was not Kong Youde’s original intention; it was more the idea of Li Jiucheng. But once the banner of rebellion was raised, he had already made up his mind to see it through to the end.

Neither Kong Youde nor Li Jiucheng had any intention of becoming emperor themselves. Although the Ming Dynasty was already showing various signs of being terminally ill, it was still a behemoth. The chances of a successful rebellion were only three out of ten, but the risks were nine deaths and one life. Although they had considered pulling Sun Yuanhua into their camp, it was only to expand their influence. As for how far the rebellion would go, the rebel high command did not have a unified understanding.

The door to pacification was not closed. Both Li, Kong, and Geng were well aware that the court was currently in a difficult situation. For any military mutiny or civil unrest that reached a certain scale, pacification was almost the court’s most preferred course of action. Not to mention the distant past, even the several military mutinies in the late Tianqi and early Chongzhen periods had almost all ended in “pacification.” Huang Long was beaten by rebellious soldiers in Pidao, and even his leg was broken, but in the end, it was also settled by “pacification.”

So, in general, they still planned to use the rebellion to get the best “pacification” conditions. Therefore, from the very beginning, they had constantly expressed their willingness to accept pacification by all means. At first, this was a delaying tactic to delay the arrival of the government’s suppression and to expand their territory and increase their strength as much as possible.

As long as they had strong strength, they could put forward sufficient conditions to the court. And this condition was what many generals from Dongjiang had always been aiming for.

That was to turn the Dongjiang garrison into a third force that was nominally subordinate to the Ming but could actually move between the Ming and the Later Jin.

Such a trend had already vaguely appeared in the Guanning garrison at that time—the military families in command were transforming into warlords. Not only did they receive a large amount of military pay, but the court also gradually lost its ability to command them.

Compared to the Guanning garrison, the Dongjiang garrison was located on the Liaodong Sea. It could advance to contain the Later Jin who were trying to enter the pass, and retreat to threaten the Ming capital and Shandong. In order to deal with the Later Jin and ensure the safety of its flanks, the court could only continuously transport military pay and grain, allowing them to form a de facto military group that controlled a region. This was the old trick of “allying with the Manchus and coercing the Koreans” that the Dongjiang soldiers had always been aiming for, to establish a third force in the gap between the two powers of Ming and Qing.

The Liu Xingzuo brothers, who had once controlled the Dongjiang garrison after Mao Wenlong’s death, had had such a plan. But the Liu brothers were not the old Dongjiang men who had followed Mao Wenlong to rise in rebellion, and their appeal was limited, so they ultimately failed.

In contrast, Li Jiucheng, Kong Youde, and the others were almost all old subordinates who had followed Mao Wenlong to rise in rebellion and had single-handedly created Dongjiang. Li Jiucheng had also been the deputy commander of Dongjiang and had a high reputation among the old Dongjiang men.

As long as the court was willing to pacify them, with Li Jiucheng as the commander of Dongjiang, the old Dongjiang subordinates could get rid of Huang Long, this “outsider,” and act freely.

The plan was well-thought-out, but Kong Youde knew very well that things would not be so simple—especially a few days ago, when Sun Yuanhua had mysteriously disappeared from the Supervising Censor’s yamen where he was under house arrest, and had disappeared without a trace!

The guards watching him were either dead or knew nothing. Although the guards stationed at the Supervising Censor’s yamen were all Liaodong people, the guards were still tortured with severe punishment after the incident, but nothing was found. They were either asleep or had heard and seen nothing.

The loss of Sun Yuanhua meant the loss of their biggest bargaining chip. Compared to the other officials who were captured together, Sun Yuanhua had the highest official position, the widest connections in the court, and was the highest official in the Deng-Lai area. His words and actions could have a great impact. Originally, Li Jiucheng and others had planned to use him to contact the court for pacification matters.

Sun Yuanhua’s mysterious disappearance also brought a more terrifying potential threat, that is, who on earth could have taken him away from the heavily guarded Dengzhou city without anyone knowing?

Although all the soldiers guarding the watchtower were found killed on a watchtower the next day, and it was very likely that the other party had entered the city by climbing over the wall, neither Li nor Kong, nor almost anyone else, believed that anyone had such an ability—even if there was a strange person like Hongxian in the world, what she had stolen was only a box, while Sun Yuanhua was a living person.

Not only Sun Yuanhua had disappeared, but also the two servants and one retainer who served him. No one dared to say they believed that these four living people could be taken out of Dengzhou city from the city wall in the dark of night.

An order was issued on the same day that no news should be spread. All the other guards in the Supervising Censor’s yamen who were alive that day were silenced from top to bottom. But this matter caused suspicion among the rebel high command—many people believed that this was done by a high-ranking general in the city, who had probably hidden Sun Yuanhua as a bargaining chip for his future “defection.”

And Kong Youde was the most suspected person—almost everyone believed that if someone would do this, then Kong Youde was the most likely person.

Firstly, he had received great favor from Sun Yuanhua—and it was not just that. The relationship between Sun Yuanhua and Kong Youde was not as simple as just favor. Many people had heard the rumor that Sun Yuanhua was able to become the governor of Deng-Lai because of Kong Youde’s secret bribery of the bigwigs in the court. And after Sun Yuanhua became the governor of Dengzhou, he was indeed not bad to Kong Youde.

Secondly, Kong Youde’s power and appeal in the rebel high command were second only to Li Jiucheng. If he wanted to defect, he was in the most favorable position—as long as he got rid of Li Jiucheng, this “chief culprit,” he would not only be innocent but might even have merit.

These factors combined made Kong Youde’s situation very unfavorable.