Late Ming Dynasty: From the Defeated Soldiers at Daling River to Ascending the Throne

The silence in the mountain valley was eerily quiet after the fighting stopped. Zheng Sanfu leaned against the rock wall, his chest heaving violently.

From being surrounded and killed to the mountain king's intrusion, and then to the sudden appearance of troops from the mountain.

It all happened so fast, like a bizarre nightmare.

"Third...Third Brother Fu?" A trembling voice came from behind. "Th-those people..."

Zheng Sanfu snapped back to his senses, wiped the blood off his face with his tattered sleeve, and whispered, "Don't move, I'll go out and take a look."

"Could they be routed soldiers? Those routed soldiers from the past two days..."

"What's there to be afraid of!" Zheng Sanfu spat out a mouthful of blood. "These defeated soldiers are Ming people too. Are they more terrifying than the Tartars? Just stay put!"

He took a deep breath, then raised his hands from behind the rocks and walked step by step toward the desolate ravine littered with corpses.

On the hillside, Aji and Meng Changgeng immediately drew their bows and aimed at him.

Zheng Sanfu glanced at the two people on the hillside but did not stop.

By the light of the few torches scattered on the ground, he carefully examined the man standing in the center.

The man's hair was disheveled, and his face was covered in blood and grime, making it almost impossible to see his features.

The breastplate was completely deformed and dented, and the breastplate had three shocking claw marks, revealing the rolled-up armor plates inside.

Blood soaked through his entire front, making it impossible to tell whether it was his own blood or the blood of the Tartars.

He stood there holding the knife, his body covered in blood, looking just like the god of death that storytellers had described, crawling out of hell.

Zheng Sanfu stopped ten paces away, his throat feeling a little dry.

He carefully chose his words, trying to make his voice sound as steady as possible: "I am Zheng Sanfu, a garrison commander in Yizhou... Thank you all for your righteous assistance."

Chen Feng didn't reply immediately, his gaze sweeping over Zheng Sanfu—his tattered clothes barely covered his body, his shoes were made of straw rope, and the knife at his waist was so broken it could barely be called a piece of iron.

At this moment, Zhao Sheng leaned close to Chen Feng's ear and whispered, "I've heard about the Yizhou garrison... I heard they're a bunch of lunatics harassing the Tartars in Yizhou..."

He paused, then added, "Yizhou has been occupied by the Tartars for nine years. I don't know what they're resisting for."

Chen Feng's eyes flickered slightly as he looked behind Zheng Sanfu.

Seven or eight more people emerged from behind the scattered rocks, all dressed in rags, pale and emaciated, their weapons so broken they were almost embarrassing to call weapons.

They stood straight, and although some were visibly trembling, they were ready to charge at any moment.

Suddenly, the image of the general who led his troops to defend the country to the death in the occupied territories of later generations flashed through Chen Feng's mind, and he couldn't help but straighten his body.

"Chen Feng, Commander-in-Chief of the Liaodong Garrison of the Ming Dynasty," he began, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.

Zheng Sanfu's eyes suddenly lit up. "Commander...Commander? You...you're from Jinzhou? Is the army...is the army about to attack?"

Chen Feng avoided the intense gaze, remained silent for a moment, then waved to the two people on the slope, "It's alright, come down."

Aji and Meng Changgeng hesitated for a moment, then put away their bows and went downhill.

Zheng Sanfu turned around and shouted from behind the rock, "Come out, it's one of us!"

The two teams met in the middle of the battlefield.

When the Yizhou garrison troops entered, Meng Changgeng and Zhao Sheng couldn't help but gasp in shock.

The eight or nine soldiers stationed in Yizhou were almost naked on a snowy winter night.

A young man's thin shirt was torn to shreds, and his bare chest and arms were covered with frostbite and old scars.

The other old man's "shoes" were just two pieces of tattered leather tied with withered grass, and his ankles were swollen and shiny.

Their weapons were even worse; the tip of one spear was rusted down to a small piece of iron, and the wooden pole was bent from dampness.

The bowstring of the hunting bow was made of several strands of animal sinew twisted together haphazardly, and had long since lost its elasticity.

Meng Changgeng stood behind Chen Feng, his fingers unconsciously tugging at his earlobe.

He was from Liaodong and considered himself a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations. After the Tartars attacked, he fled with the refugees all the way to Jinzhou. After joining the army, he fought more than ten battles, big and small, always running away, comforting himself that he was keeping his body to serve the court...

But the group of people in front of them didn't run away... They looked like a bunch of ghosts crawling out of the ground.

These ghosts, however, don't even have a complete set of clothes, yet they still guard this land that the court has long abandoned, using rusty iron pieces and cracked wooden bows to ram into the elite troops of the Tartars.

He turned his face away, unable to look any longer.

Zhao Sheng's hand was pressed on the hilt of the knife, his knuckles turning white from gripping it so tightly.

He suddenly remembered something he had overheard other scouts saying in casual conversation: "Those lunatics in Yizhou are a bunch of idiots. They can be easily fooled and then rush up to be killed by the Tartars."

At the time, he treated his experiences as jokes, but when he actually encountered them, he couldn't laugh anymore.

When he saw this mob of ragtag people, the only ones standing tall and straight, he was struck by their upright posture.

He felt his face burning as he thought about how he was wearing the best equipment but had been routed time and time again, and how he had treated those who fought to the death as fools.

Chen Feng's gaze swept over the soldiers of the Yizhou garrison, but he dared not answer Zheng Sanfu's question directly.

Chen Feng suddenly recalled a yellowed photograph from his middle school textbook: militiamen during the War of Resistance Against Japan, standing in the snow with homemade guns on their shoulders, and a charred village behind them. At this moment, the people in that photograph materialized before his eyes; they were flesh and blood, they were panting heavily, they were bleeding, yet they still stood tall.

His throat tightened, and his nails dug deeply into his palms. The rusted iron plates and straw sandals shone brighter than any steel armor at that moment.

Since transmigrating, all he's thought about is escaping. Although he kills Tartars, it's only because they want to kill him, and he'll die if he doesn't resist.

But after seeing this group of people whose country was destroyed and whose homes were destroyed, an extremely strong thought surged in his heart: kill all the Tartars!

He may not be able to rewrite history on his own, but he has to do something.

After a moment of silence, he said, "We can't stay here any longer. We have a temporary place to stay not far from here. Let's take the injured brothers back to treat their injuries first."

Zheng Sanfu nodded quickly and turned to say a few words to the brothers behind him.

The soldiers helped each other as they followed Chen Feng and his group out of the ravine.

As Zheng Sanfu passed by the battlefield, his gaze swept over the Tartar soldiers' armor on the ground, and he couldn't help but swallow hard.

Chen Feng told his men to keep their equipment, and Meng Changgeng and Zhao Sheng didn't say anything, silently helping those people collect their weapons.

The way back to the cabin wasn't far, but it was a slow walk in the deep snowy night.

Zheng Sanfu walked behind Chen Feng, muttering to himself the whole way: "Commander Chen... we've been waiting for you all. The last time we saw a whole unit of officers and soldiers was back in the second year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign..."

"You are the first general to lead troops here in recent years..."

"A few years ago, a guerrilla named Zhao led more than two hundred men to sneak over here, saying he wanted to attack Yizhou. But he ran into a large Tartar army at Gewangbei Bridge and was wiped out in one battle..."

"Did they win in Dalinghe?"

"How far is our army? Are we about to launch a counterattack...?"

"I've heard that the current emperor is extremely wise, and the officials in the court are all highly virtuous..."

He kept talking, his tone filled with anticipation and excitement.

Chen Feng listened silently, occasionally humming in agreement.

Every question was like a needle piercing his heart. He was too ashamed to admit he was a defeated soldier, and he dared not tell the man before him that the Ming Dynasty would never be able to fight back.

Apart from Zheng Sanfu's voice, the only sounds in the group were the crunching of snow underfoot and the suppressed breathing of the wounded.

Aji and the youngest-looking boy in the garrison walked at the back.

The boy was only about fifteen or sixteen years old. His nose was running from the cold, and he curiously peeked at the composite bow on Aji's back.

Aji noticed his gaze, grinned, and said, "Bow, okay."

The boy paused for a moment, a hint of shyness appearing on his face, and pointed to the tattered hunting bow on his shoulder: "I...I have one too..."

The rest of the group remained silent as the snowstorm seemed to intensify.

The hut wasn't far away. Hao Dadao stood guard at the door like an iron tower. When he saw that it was Chen Feng, he quickly came to greet him.

Chen Feng stopped and looked back at the ragtag group.

"We're here," he said.

Zheng Sanfu entered the small house and saw two seriously injured men lying on the ground and Old Putou standing guard beside them.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and he fell silent.