Transmigrating to the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty: Becoming a Great Emperor Through Idlene

On the 26th day of the first month of the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign, twenty li north of Xuanfu Town, in Heishan Valley.

Lu Wenzhao had been lying in the snow for two hours. His white robe blended into the snow, and only his breath could be seen dissipating quickly in the cold wind.

Lu Wenzhao had excellent eyesight and could clearly see the Qing army camp three miles away with the naked eye.

They are indeed the main force.

The camp stretched for more than three miles, and according to regulations, it housed at least 20,000 people. There were over 5,000 horses and several hundred large carts.

The campfire blazed brightly, and people, mostly young men and women, could be seen bound together. Qing soldiers were loading their looted goods onto carts.

"It's definitely the Plain Blue Banner and the Bordered Blue Banner," the deputy whispered beside him. "Judging from the banners, the commander-in-chief should be Abatai."

Lu Wenzhao nodded. Abatai was Nurhaci's seventh son and Huang Taiji's half-brother. He didn't hold a high position in the Qing court, but he was very fierce in battle; he led the charge in the Jisi Incident of 1649.

The eyes moved slowly.

Lu Wenzhao was looking for loopholes: where the grain and fodder were stored, where the stables were located, and where the commander's tent was set up.

He turned his gaze to a small river to the west of the camp.

The river has frozen over, but the ice layer is not very thick.

There's a bend about three miles upstream; if we take action there...

"Boss, His Majesty's decree is 'appropriate harassment'," the deputy reminded him. "We only have thirty men."

"Thirty men are enough. Go and get ready. I need twenty pounds of arsenic, thirty animal traps, and... twenty firecrackers."

"A firecracker?" The deputy was stunned.

"The kind of firecrackers you set off during Chinese New Year." A cold smile crept onto Lu Wenzhao's lips. "Make them as loud as possible."

At midnight, Heishan Valley was very quiet, so quiet it was frightening.

Lu Wenzhao led five people to the upper reaches of the river. Under the moonlight, the ice emitted a faint blue glow.

He crouched down, drilled a hole in the ice with his dagger, and poured a packet of arsenic into it. The powder quickly dissolved in the water and drifted downstream with the current.

"Boss, this dosage won't kill anyone," the subordinate whispered.

"I didn't intend to poison anyone." Lu Wenzhao continued digging the second hole: "Just to give them diarrhea. How can soldiers who are exhausted from diarrhea fight?"

Five holes, five packets of arsenic. After they finished, they retreated to the woods on the bank. The other two groups set up animal traps downwind of their camp.

These animal traps weren't ordinary traps; they were the kind with added ingredients.

The clamp teeth are coated with "golden juice" (fecal matter). Even if it doesn't cause serious injury, the wound will become infected and cause discomfort.

The most ingenious was the double-bang firecracker. Lu Wenzhao had twenty double-bang firecrackers tied together, with the fuse strung together, and buried in a snowdrift outside the camp gate. The other end of the fuse was stretched out a hundred paces away and slowly burned with incense.

"Boss, everything's ready."

Lu Wenzhao looked up at the sky. The moon was hidden by clouds, which was good.

"Let's leave. It will look beautiful here in an incense stick's time."

The third quarter of the Yin hour.

The campfire in the camp was growing smaller and smaller, and the Qing soldiers on night patrol were showing signs of fatigue. Just then, the first Qing soldier, clutching his stomach, rushed out of his tent, followed by the second, the third…

The arsenic took effect.

Chaos gradually spread. People kept running out of the tents and crouching down on the snow. The patrol formations were broken, and the officers' shouts echoed in the night wind.

Lu Wenzhao lit a stick of incense and stuck it in the snow.

The incense burned slowly, gradually drawing closer to the fuse.

The wait was long. A young subordinate couldn't help but whisper, "Boss, aren't we disobeying the imperial decree? His Majesty said 'Don't reveal your identities,' but this commotion..."

"Have we exposed our identities?" Lu Wenzhao asked rhetorically.

"No, but..."

"That's fine." Lu Wenzhao gazed at the distant camp. "His Majesty wants results, not just the process. Let the Jurchens know the pain; the Ming Dynasty is not a place they can come and go as they please."

The fuse burned to its end as soon as he finished speaking.

boom!

Twenty firecrackers went off in unison, sounding like thunder in the silent valley. Flames shot into the sky, illuminating the entire camp as if it were daytime. Startled warhorses broke free of their reins and ran amok in the camp, trampling out the campfire and setting the tents ablaze.

The most powerful one is

It was an animal trap. In the chaos, Qing soldiers kept stepping on landmines, their screams echoing throughout the area.

The entire camp was in chaos.

Lu Wenzhao waved his hand: "Withdraw."

Thirty men vanished into the night like ghosts. As they left, the Qing army camp was ablaze with fire, turning half the sky red.

On the way back, Lu Wenzhao kept calculating: twenty catties of arsenic cost five taels of silver, thirty animal traps cost ten taels, and firecrackers were worthless. For less than twenty taels, the Qing army lost over a hundred men, their grain was burned, many horses were lost, and their morale was severely damaged.

cost-effective.

This operation also proved the strength of the Imperial City Guard: a small number of elite troops, precise strikes, and a silent operation. It was more effective than deploying 10,000 troops on the main battlefield.

At dawn, they returned to their secret hideout, an abandoned brick kiln in southern Beijing. Lu Wenzhao wrote a brief report, coded it, and entrusted it to a carrier pigeon to be sent to the palace.

Then he fell asleep.

In his dream, he returned to the battlefield of the Jisi Incident. He led fifty brothers to guard a mountain pass, holding off a Jurchen Niru (a unit of military rank) for three hours. In the end, seven men survived; he had three broken ribs and a scar on his face.

After waking up, he touched the wounds on his face.

Debts must be repaid slowly.

Biaobei Hutong, Dongcheng District, Beijing.

Amidst the crackling of firecrackers, the signboard of "Sihai Trading Company" was hung above the entrance. Zhou Kui, the emperor's father-in-law, donned a brand-new silk robe, his belly protruding, and he grinned so broadly that his teeth were almost invisible.

The area was surrounded by officials and businessmen who came to offer their congratulations, all speaking auspicious words.

"Congratulations, Father-in-law! Congratulations, Father-in-law!"

"Sihai Trading Company, that's a good name, meaning wealth flows from all corners of the world."

Zhou Kui stroked his beard, full of ambition. Three days ago, his daughter, Empress Zhou, sent someone to tell him that the Emperor had shown him great favor and had specially allowed him to take on the duties of purchasing goods for the palace and transporting part of the grain.

This was an incredibly lucrative position. The palace purchased at least hundreds of thousands of taels of silver annually, and the amount of water pumped out during the transport of grain was even more staggering.

He had no idea that this was a trap set for him by the emperor.

In the accounting room in the backyard of the trading company, three accountants were busy at work. They looked no different from the accountants of other trading companies, wearing long blue cloth gowns, their fingers clicking rapidly on the abacus.

However, upon closer inspection, you'll notice that their finger joints are very large, a result of holding knives for extended periods.

If you observe closely, you'll notice that when they're using an abacus, their left hand always unconsciously rests on their waist, where a hand crossbow is hidden.

They are from the Imperial City Guard.