The Ming Dynasty: Starting with the Carpenter Prince!

On the day Sun Chengzong left the capital, a light snow fell in the city.

The cabinet's approval was meticulously worded—"The lecturer will go to Liaodong for on-site investigation to prepare lecture notes," and the Ministry of War also issued a warrant in accordance with regulations. Grand Secretary Fang Congzhe glanced at the document without uttering a word.

It was nothing more than a peripheral lecturer going to the border regions, nothing of great importance to the world. Besides, this Sun Zhisheng already had experience in border affairs, so it was just a return visit to familiar places.

As for the two workshop participants who accompanied him?

The roster lists him as a literate tenant farmer, but he is actually a retired soldier.

Before his departure, Zhu Youxiao saw him off in a side hall of the Eastern Palace. He only gave him one instruction: "When you arrive in Liaodong, whatever you see, just count it. Do not judge or discuss it. Remember it, sign it, and bring it back."

His tone was exactly the same as when he was speaking at a formal lecture—polite and restrained.

Sun Chengzong bowed, said nothing more, and only said as he was about to step out the door, "Your Highness, please rest assured, I will go and take a look and then return."

Zhu Youxiao nodded slightly.

Just take a look and then leave?

These four words were spoken very lightly. Yet, the journey from the capital to Liaoyang, along the official road of over 1,500 li, would take even a fast horse more than ten days. In the winter months, the north wind was like a knife, and for a fifty-seven-year-old civil official to ride a horse was an ordeal that would literally shake his bones apart.

But he had to go.

Without him.

Between the ink stains on the Ministry of War's memorials and the corpses in the border towns, lay thousands of intricately intertwined hands of the Ming Dynasty. For the ink stains to become human again, someone had to personally count and examine them.

After watching Sun Chengzong disappear at the end of the passageway, Zhu Youxiao turned back into the house, took out the note he had locked in the drawer the night before from his sleeve, and pressed it back under the inkstone. He then sat down and continued to peruse the old archives from Liaodong.

The matter of supplying medicine to the palace is currently off-limits. The investigation has reached the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs, which is an impenetrable wall. Since we can't act on it, we can only stand by and watch.

But leaving it aside doesn't mean forgetting it.

As for the matter in Liaodong?

Not a moment can be wasted.

The shocking words "sacrificed himself for it" in the Puhetang newspaper lingered in his mind day and night.

……

Eleven days later, Liaoyang.

The Liaodong Military Governor's Office was located in the west of the city, and it was renovated during the Wanli era. The two stone lions in front of the gate had chipped and broken corners on their snouts, and the moss on the stone steps had frozen into a thin layer of ice, making them slippery to walk on. The pale sun hung lifelessly in the sky, offering little warmth and only glare.

When Sun Chengzong arrived, it was afternoon. He left his luggage at the post station without resting and went straight to the military governor's office to submit his name card.

After waiting for about half an hour, a guard came out to lead the way, passing through two ceremonial gates and entering the signing room.

The signing room was cramped. The four walls were covered with maps of the Liao River's east and west armies, the largest one in the center, showing the entire line from Shanhaiguan to Kaiyuan and Tieling. The Pu River, northeast of Shenyang, was heavily circled in vermilion ink, with two lines of tiny writing next to it, barely visible from a distance.

Xiong Tingbi sat upright behind his desk, his body like an iron tower, his face rough, with high cheekbones and a tangled beard, making him look more like a fierce general than a civil official. The collar of his third-rank scarlet robe was wide open, and the ceremonial official's badge on his chest had long been washed white. Official documents were piled up on his desk, and on top of them was a rough porcelain teacup, the tea inside long since cold.

Hearing the commotion, he glanced at Sun Chengzong, but didn't get up or exchange any pleasantries.

"Another one from the capital."

His voice was so loud that the guards leading the way shrank back.

Sun Chengzong bowed halfway according to custom: "General, I am Sun Chengzong, Left Vice Minister of the Left Spring Palace. I have been ordered to go to Liaodong for an on-site inspection in preparation for the lectures at the Imperial Academy."

"On-site investigation." Xiong Tingbi chewed these two words between his teeth.

With a sudden, powerful slap, he landed heavily on the table!

The teacup jumped violently, spilling cold tea all over half the table of official documents, startling the guards who shrank back again.

"Investigate what?!" Xiong Tingbi roared like thunder. "Of the silver allocated by your lords in the capital, only half reached me! I used that half to support twice the number of soldiers, and now that I can't, you blame me for not being able to defend Liaodong! Those people sit in the warm pavilions of the capital, eating hot pot and writing exam papers, all righteous and indignant. They intercepted the silver, they replaced the officers, and now that the city is on the verge of collapse, they send people to investigate me!"

His words flew like pebbles, scattering the papers on the table.

The entire signing room was deathly silent for several breaths.

Sun Chengzong neither dodged nor yielded, his back slightly hunched and his feet rooted to the spot. A fifty-seven-year-old lecturer who had sat on the sidelines of the court for sixteen or seventeen years, and had even been refuted to his face during lectures, this little show of force couldn't break his knees.

After Xiong Tingbi had caught his breath, Sun Chengzong finally spoke, his voice low and his pace extremely slow, yet each word carried immense weight.

"General, I'm not here to interrogate you. His Highness the Crown Prince wants to know what the front lines are truly lacking."

Xiong Tingbi stared intently at him. Those were eyes tempered by the winds and sands of Liaozhen and the affairs of the military, looking at people as if assessing a city's defenses, first judging the strength and weakness of its foundation, and then deciding whether it was worth the effort to launch a strong attack.

"The Crown Prince?" He let out a cold laugh. "How many memorials has Yang Dahong submitted? Three or four? Those people in the capital can't wait to get rid of me, Xiong, tomorrow! And now the Crown Prince has sent you here..."

He paused, his tone dripping with sarcasm: "Are you investigating my background, or saving my life?"

This sentence can be seen as tearing open the bloody secret battle in the court over the past few months, in which the Donglin Party wanted to change its leader and the Crown Prince wanted to protect his leader.

Sun Chengzong remained calm: "General, His Highness ordered me to come and see the troops from Puhe, not your seat."

The signing room fell silent once again.

Xiong Tingbi's gaze lingered on Sun Chengzong's weathered face for a long time. The cheap charcoal brazier emitted a pungent smoke that stung the eyes.

He grabbed the teacup, drank the remaining tea, and abruptly stood up.

"Come on, I'll take you to Puhe."

From Liaoyang to Puhe, one must first travel northeast along the official road, passing through the territory of Shenyang Guard and then turning towards the banks of the Puhe River. It takes about half a day to travel by horse.

When they passed the Hunhe ferry, Sun Chengzong reined in his horse and stood on the riverbank for a moment.

Hun River.

The river is not wide, and the water is low in winter, with ice shards flowing slowly along the river stones. The banks are flat and unobstructed, a vast plain, with only withered yellow grass and ruined fortresses as far as the eye can see.

If cavalry charge from the north bank, it will take them more than half a day to cross the river. There will be no natural defenses on the south bank, and they will have nowhere to retreat.

He had considered this judgment countless times during his time in Datong.

However, standing on the riverbank at this moment, what comes to mind is not military strategy, but something else entirely.

Six months ago, the Crown Prince let slip the word "Hunhe" when he was talking to someone in a side hall.

At the time, he thought it was a coincidence. It wasn't unusual for a fifteen-year-old crown prince who had never left the capital to casually mention a place name after flipping through a few maps.

But now, standing here at the ferry crossing, he truly realized one thing: the tactical value of the Hunhe River crossing could not be understood by flipping through maps. Maps only show lines and place names, but not this desolate, flat terrain, not the shallow, wading river beneath the ice, and not the natural gathering place formed by the abandoned forts on the north bank.

You only know these things by stepping onto this land.

The crown prince never stepped on it.

How did he know that?

Sun Chengzong didn't continue thinking about it. It wasn't that he was afraid to think about it, but that he couldn't come up with a reasonable answer. A question without an answer is better left unanswered than to be guessed at.

"Sir?" a student from the training institute behind him called out.

Sun Chengzong withdrew his gaze, loosened the reins, and spurred his horse forward.

……

The journey from Liaoyang to Puhe takes almost half a day by horseback. The horrific scenes along the way are ten times more glaring than the written accounts in the Ministry of War's report.

Half of the fortresses were abandoned, and the city walls had gaps every few meters. Some were hastily sealed with wooden palisades, while others were simply left wide open. Occasionally, a few soldiers could be seen by the roadside, their tattered cotton armor worn white and frayed, with no swords at their waists and their worn-out shoes that couldn't even hold their frostbitten toes.

The two trainees from the workshop rode off in silence, the old soldier gripping the reins tightly, his knuckles white. He had endured two years of hardship in Liaodong, and by the time he retired, he was half-dead. He knew this scene all too well; it was even worse than when he left.

Xiong Tingbi rode ahead, his back straight as a spear, never looking back.

By the time they approached the Puhe outpost, it was already dusk. The outpost was an expansion of a ruined fort on the high ground on the north bank of the Puhe River. It was less than three miles in circumference, with water on the south side and low rammed earth walls on the other three sides. Outside the walls, chevaux-de-frise were planted diagonally, and the barbed wire had long since rotted into a pile of scrap iron.

Sparse wisps of smoke rose from the camp.

Sun Chengzong sat upright on his horse, silently going through the process in his mind.

Less than four hundred strands.

The commander who came out to greet him was about forty years old, with a hideous scar on his left cheek that ran from his cheekbone down to his jaw—ironclad evidence left from resisting the Mongols during the Wanli era. Seeing the governor arrive in person, he hurriedly came out of the camp to greet him.

Xiong Tingbi dismounted without exchanging pleasantries, pointed at Sun Chengzong, and said, "Show him everything, including the lecturer from the capital. Don't hide anything from him!"

He Qianhu hesitated slightly.

Xiong Tingbi glared angrily: "Let him see! Once he understands, he can go back to the capital and tell those gentlemen what Puhe really looks like!"