Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 31 Exercise?

"Kill the Tartars!"

A loud shout reached his ears, and then Zhu Cilang saw a group of soldiers rushing up with red eyes.

"qualified."

He whispered to Ji Qingyuan who was standing beside him, then took two steps forward and asked, "Who is the centurion?"

Li Chaodong had met Zhu Cilang before, but the scene before him made all the courage he had finally mustered disappear into thin air. Even his hands and feet were shaking, so he didn't even pay attention to what the prince said.

"Sir, His Highness is calling you."

The soldier who gave the signal saw Li Chaodong's expression and plucked up the courage to remind him. He then looked at Zhu Cilang cautiously, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he showed no signs of being angry.

"Li Chaodong, captain of Gaoqiao Guard, pays respect to His Highness!"

With this reminder, even though Li Chaodong still didn't understand what was going on, he finally remembered that he was the captain of this gang.

"Record, Gaoqiao Guard Li Chaodong's troops who climbed the city wall within one stick of incense were promoted to a thousand households, and the rest were rewarded with a live pig and five cents of silver per person."

As Zhu Cilang spoke, Ji Qingyuan wrote furiously. The soldiers also understood that they were rewarded, but Li Chaodong only felt that the vision in front of him was gradually blurring.

When he was young, he had dreamed of becoming a great general to wipe out foreign invaders and internal enemies for the imperial court. However, after being taught a lesson by reality time and time again, he had to admit that the rank of centurion was the highest point that an ordinary military household like him could achieve in his life.

Afterwards, Li Chaodong gradually learned how to get along and truly became one of the ordinary officers.

Days like this lasted for a long time, so long that he was ashamed to mention his ideals from his youth, so long that he thought there would be no more ups and downs in his life.

However, things are unpredictable. Yangzhou fell, the emperor fled, and seeing the Tartars about to approach the city, he was promoted to a thousand households just for abiding by military regulations.

For a moment, Li Chaodong, who was already emotional, could no longer restrain himself.

"Your Highness, I will die for you!"

"Get up."

Zhu Cilang said lightly, but seeing Li Chaodong still leaning over the ground, he couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

The war is about to begin, and even this weather-beaten middle-aged man who has been promoted to a thousand households will inevitably die on the city wall.

Zhu Cilang understood this simple truth, Li Chaodong understood it, and everyone present understood it.

Despite this, the old soldier was still moved to tears by the little kindness shown by his superiors.

How could this not make Zhu Cilang sigh at the kindness of the Chinese people?

Compared with them, the nobles in Yingtian City are really like cysts!

With this in mind, Zhu Cilang came to Li Chaodong and gently helped him up. After seeing his face clearly, he swallowed all his words of comfort, patted him on the shoulder, and rode his horse to his next place.

He walked and stopped along the way, and by the time the sun went down, Zhu Cilang had only patrolled forty or fifty miles.

"Mr. Ji, how many people are there?"

Zhu Cilang thought Ji Qingyuan would look through the booklet first, but he didn't do that. Instead, he fluently recited a string of numbers before he finished speaking.

"Your Highness, there are a total of 446 centurions stationed on the city wall that we inspected today, and 56 of them sent the signal, and a total of 42 people met the standard." "So many?!"

Zhu Cilang was shocked when he heard this number. Then the scene of soldiers rushing up the city wall appeared in his mind. He couldn't help but laugh at himself and said, "I was still prejudiced."

In his heart, he actually did not value this army that was coveted by various forces in Yingtian, and he did not regard them as his real reliance.

His conduct since that night had been less about keeping the army in his own hands than about preventing anyone from exercising effective control over it.

In his original plan, as long as this scattered army was successfully distributed to various sections of the city wall, he would only ensure its daily supplies and would not spend any more energy and resources.

In this way, the army was essentially abandoned by its supreme commander, and what awaited them was casualties in battle after battle until they completely lost their combat effectiveness.

By then, this army might be disbanded or broken up and placed in some unimportant places, but in any case, the influence of various forces in Yingtian City on the army would completely disappear, and Zhu Cilang's position in Yingtian would be completely consolidated.

The reason for making such a decision was, firstly, because he, as a person of later generations, had a deep prejudice against the official army of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and secondly, because he had a deep fear of the intertwined forces of all parties.

As a soul from the future, even though he had not studied it in detail, he knew that except for the rebels who surrendered to the Southern Ming, the official army of the Southern Ming had never fought a decent battle, and it was common for it to collapse at the first touch.

So from the very beginning he tried his best to prevent the militia from having any connection with this army.

If the number of militiamen was not too large and time was not too tight, he would not even be willing to select small flags from the Yingtian garrison.

Prejudice is easy to understand, but now the entire Yingtian City is operating under Zhu Cilang's command, so it seems a bit alarmist to say that there is fear.

To be honest, Zhu Cilang's fear did not have a clear target. It was just an instinct that arose after he had a superficial understanding of Ming Dynasty history and knew what he wanted to do.

And driven by this instinct, he would cut off every claw reaching into the army and release Wang Fuping.

On this basis, he naturally took the way he treated the Yingtian defenders for granted.

Can.
He wavered when the soldiers rushed to the city wall again and again at the signal.

No matter how many high-sounding reasons he came up with, they were ultimately no match for those faces distorted by fear.

These soldiers who dared to defend their country should not be blamed for the defeat of the Southern Ming Dynasty, nor should they become victims of the power struggle!

As for the mice hiding in the dark
I'll follow it!

After thinking this through, Zhu Cilang suddenly felt a sense of heroism rising in his chest. The pressure he had been feeling in recent days due to the Qing army's imminent arrival at the city was suddenly dissipated, and even his wounded body seemed to feel a lot lighter.

"It turns out that clear thoughts can really affect the body."

Zhu Cilang muttered something in a low voice. Ji Qingyuan and Xiang Rensheng who were following behind him looked at each other. Although they did not hear clearly what the prince said, they all felt relieved when they saw his mood suddenly improve.

"Your Highness, you have been running around these past few days. You should go back early and rest today."

As one of the few people who had seen Zhu Cilang in prison clothes up close, Xiang Rensheng naturally knew the physical condition of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Zhu Cilang originally planned to patrol a few more miles, but when he looked up at the sky, he found that the sun was about to sink below the horizon, so he gave up the idea.

"Then let's go back to the camp. It's a good opportunity to see if what Foreman Wang has come up with is suitable for use."

(End of this chapter)