When Zhao Mingting received the intelligence report and rushed from Donghua Gate to Taowu Camp, he was startled to see the brightly lit military prefecture’s administrative citadel above, with its orderly armor and weapons.
The Imperial Guards and Imperial Attendant Guards of the current era primarily combined the garrison troop system and the military household system, allocating specific lands to support military households, then conscripting able-bodied men from these households and incorporating them into active service Imperial Guards and Imperial Attendant Guards. With the cooperation of local forces like provincial troops, they would attack and defend major cities and defensive lines.
Although military household status was lifelong—passing from elder brother to younger brother, from father to son—besides farming the land, they also had to procure their own armor, horses, and mules at their own expense, which was an extremely heavy burden. Therefore, it was impossible to incorporate all able-bodied laborers from all military households into active service.
Otherwise, the entire military system would immediately collapse.
Military households were incorporated into active service through rotation training and rotation garrison duty, with an average active service period of about three to four months per year. In other words, at any given time, about one-quarter to one-third of registered able-bodied men would be incorporated into the military.
When the Dragon Sparrow Army undertook the vassal-reduction campaign against Tanzhou, at one point over half the able-bodied men were conscripted into the battalions. Although the initial consideration was to ensure the suddenness of the Tanzhou vassal reduction, it was also viewed as excessive exploitation of the military households under the Dragon Sparrow Army.
Fortunately, the campaign proceeded smoothly, with remarkable achievements and extremely generous rewards, so no resentment was bred.
In more extreme circumstances, the vast majority or even all able-bodied men from military households would be mobilized and incorporated into active service battalions.
However, mobilization and organization required time. Communication methods in this era were limited, and military households needed to be dispersed to live near their fields. Military orders had to be issued layer by layer, notifying garrison camps large and small, gathering scattered personnel layer by layer, completing the distribution of armor and weapons, organizing the battalions, and assembling at designated locations.
Even for internal assembly by garrison military prefecture units, it usually required three to five days.
Yet here at Taowu Camp, it had taken only three hours.
Moreover, in these three hours, not only had nearly six thousand officers and soldiers completed assembly, they had even completed deployment of the administrative citadel and surrounding outpost fortifications, and gathered over forty thousand women, children, and elderly into the Qiuhu Mountain estate.
If Zhao Mingting hadn’t always had people watching this place, he would deeply suspect that the Third Prince’s faction had long been prepared.
Zhao Mingting’s brows furrowed darkly. He immediately felt this was extremely troublesome.
In any political upheaval, most people were fence-sitters and observers. This time inside and outside Jinling City was no exception.
The Anning Palace’s original plan was to first control the palace and Imperial City with the support of the two Bureau of Military Affairs ministers Niu Gengru and Wen Muqiao, take control of the Bureau of Military Affairs and Administrative Hall, then take over the nine city gates’ defenses. At that point, they could basically win over these fence-sitters and observers inside and outside Jinling City. Subsequently, they would transmit edicts to prefectures and counties, reorganize Jinling’s military forces, and could then pressure generals like Zhang Xiang, Yang Zhitang, and Du Chongtao who were stationed outside but whose families remained in Jinling City, forcing them to pledge loyalty to the court. Only as the final step would they move against the Second Prince and Third Prince who possessed elite troops and garrisoned provincial towns.
Now they had only reached the second step. They hadn’t even completely taken over the nine city gates’ defenses. Marquis Zhenyuan Yang Jian, Count Chengyi Kou Shixiong, and others had all closed their camps outside the city, refusing to accept orders not personally signed by Emperor Tianyou. Yet at this time, this Dragon Sparrow Army force loyal to the Third Prince had completed assembly and successfully positioned itself at the southern foot of Baohua Mountain outside the eastern city to watch Donghua Gate. This would only make some fence-sitters’ attitudes become ambiguous and vague.
At least until they used their direct forces to crush Qiuhu Mountain, a considerable portion of people might choose to wait and see rather than immediately pledge loyalty to the Anning Palace and Crown Prince.
In other words, their hope of smoothly crossing the third step without using military force had become impossible.
Although currently, aside from Kou Shixiong’s and Yang Jian’s two forces, the other Imperial Guards and Imperial Attendant Guards had not shown particularly strong resistance, if they dared to mobilize these troops to attack Qiuhu Mountain at this time, even if these troops didn’t mutiny and defect, their combat would be extremely lax, thereby twisting the situation in a direction even more unfavorable to them.
However, the ten thousand elite troops Xu Mingzhen had secretly transferred to Chaozhou under Xu Zhu’s command could cross the river and enter Jinling at the earliest by noon tomorrow. Currently, the thirty thousand troops they directly controlled had to guard against movements from Yang Jian’s and Kou Shixiong’s forces, defend the nine gates and Imperial City, and intimidate other powers. For the moment, they couldn’t spare overwhelming forces to attack Qiuhu Mountain.
Could it be they truly had to accept Han Daoxun’s suggestion and compromise to some degree with Prince Xin, the Second Prince, and the Prince of Tan, the Third Prince?
Zhao Mingting had a secret headache, but such a major matter was not his place to comment on. He was only responsible for gathering this intelligence and presenting it before Empress Dowager Xu, the Crown Prince, Niu Gengru, and Wen Muqiao for them to make the final decision.
Zhao Mingting had just dispatched several people back to the city to report the latest intelligence to Niu Gengru when the eastern sky revealed a pale fish-belly white. Heaven and earth seemed immersed in clear, deep water, with threads of faint light prying open a crack in the dark night that felt suffocating.
Suddenly, the south main gate of the Taowu administrative citadel burst open with a thunderous sound. Dozens of riders spurred their horses out recklessly.
“What are they trying to do?” Zhao Mingting muttered to himself. However, he didn’t remain confused for long and instructed his subordinates: “Capture one alive and see what they’re actually trying to do!”
After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, several Bureau of Geography secret agents captured a rider who had just left the Taowu administrative citadel and brought him back, handing Zhao Mingting a silk document.
Unfolding the silk document, Zhao Mingting saw at the top the bold characters “Proclamation to Denounce the Rebel Xu Clan.” He cried out: “This is bad! We fell for that dog traitor Han Daoxun’s delaying tactic! Quickly prepare horses and follow me into the city!”
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“Hiss! That useless piece of trash Marquis Xinchang secretly returned to Jinling, and you had absolutely no awareness?”
No one had expected Empress Dowager Xu’s burning fury could tear the “denounce the rebel” silk document in half. Zhao Mingting watched this scene with a trembling heart, not expecting that Empress Dowager Xu’s seemingly withered body possessed strength no weaker than a man’s.
Besides denouncing the Anning Palace for causing chaos, arbitrarily killing ministers, attempting to harm imperial princes, imprisoning Emperor Tianyou, and plotting usurpation, the proclamation to denounce the rebellion also explicitly stated that the Princess Dowager Lady Wang, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu, Chuzhou Defense Command’s Chief Clerk Wang Wenqian, Vice Minister of Personnel Han Daoming, Supreme Court Vice Minister Zheng Chang, and others were at Qiuhu Mountain representing the Second Prince and Third Prince in raising forces, calling for loyalist righteous troops to assemble at the southern foot of Baohua Mountain to jointly denounce the rebellious actions of the Anning Palace and Crown Prince.
Only upon seeing the proclamation to denounce the rebellion did Zhao Mingting confirm that Marquis Xinchang Li Pu had secretly returned to Jinling.
Although in Empress Dowager Xu’s eyes, Marquis Xinchang was a useless piece of trash, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu’s secret return to Jinling at this time was like a poisonous thorn stuck in their throats—impossible to swallow or spit out, extremely uncomfortable.
Truth be told, with Marquis Xinchang Li Pu deliberately concealing his tracks and acting quickly, even though the Bureau of Geography’s secret agents embedded in Tanzhou had some awareness, due to the inconvenience of transmitting messages, their failure to discover this in Jinling in time was normal.
However, Zhao Mingting did not dare defend himself at this moment.
“Have any false proclamations entered the city at this time?” Only after Empress Dowager Xu’s fury had somewhat subsided did Niu Gengru speak up to ask Zhao Mingting.
“We intercepted the false proclamation and immediately rode back to the palace. Temporarily there are no other discoveries in the city, but I fear it will be difficult to prevent,” Zhao Mingting answered while kneeling prostrate.
Now the Second Prince and Third Prince were collaborating in desperation. To bring them down, they had actually joined hands so quickly—this caught them completely off guard.
Currently, the Dragon Sparrow Army and Chuzhou had only withdrawn their openly affiliated direct forces, but they must certainly still have large numbers of hidden secret agents embedded within Jinling City. The Bureau of Geography had no possibility of investigating and clearing them all one by one.
At this time, as long as one proclamation was secretly delivered into the city, by dawn there might be hundreds or thousands of copied proclamations circulating.
Even though a complete curfew had been implemented in the city after nightfall, they could not completely prohibit the spread of false proclamations, let alone that Marquis Xinchang and others had already sent false proclamations to nearby prefectures and counties at the first opportunity.
They had lost the initiative. Even if they issued the abdication edict before noon, they could not prohibit speculation and rumors in the marketplace that they had harmed His Majesty and usurped the throne with false edicts.
With an illegitimate succession, while Jinling City would merely appear somewhat unsettled and wouldn’t escape their control, in the subsequent struggle for control over local prefectures and counties, they would become quite passive.
This was precisely the most fatal issue.
On one hand, the Third Prince occupied Hunan with influence extending into Jingxiang and Jiangxi-Jiangxi, while the Second Prince occupied Chuzhou with influence expanding into Yangzhou and Taizhou. If the three sides truly fought a prolonged stalemate, the Jingxiang, Huainan, and Yangzhou-Taizhou areas north of the river would probably all fall into the hands of the covetous Liang army.
Speaking of the whole matter, it was still that they had too few direct forces they could immediately deploy in Jinling and their preparations were not sufficiently thorough, making it difficult to control the entire city at the first opportunity. At the same time, they had not anticipated that Marquis Xinchang Li Pu and his people would move so quickly at Qiuhu Mountain, nor had they expected that Wang Wenqian and Marquis Xinchang Li Pu could collude at this moment.
“When can Xu Zhu get here?” Empress Dowager Xu’s withered, claw-like hand gripped the silk document torn in half. Forcefully suppressing the fury in her heart, she asked Zhao Mingting.
“If crossing the river tonight, the ten thousand troops can complete assembly at Caishi at the earliest by tomorrow afternoon. Even if riding without stopping and not resting in between, reaching Jinling City would be at the earliest by the morning of the day after tomorrow,” Zhao Mingting said.
The River Fleet Army’s water camp was just north of Jinling City, with the broad river surface on both sides under its control. Before Marquis Zhenyuan Yang Jian’s attitude was clear, they absolutely did not dare organize boats to transport troops across the river under the very nose of the River Fleet Army’s water warships.
Before plotting this matter, they had primarily prepared boats secretly around Caishi on the north side of Dangtou County city, so that at a critical time, they could conveniently transport Chaozhou Military Commissioner Xu Zhu leading Chaozhou elite troops across the river at the first opportunity.
If everything went smoothly, Xu Zhu’s forces would reach Jinling the day after tomorrow.
For the Eastern Palace estate guards and Left Wuwei Army to conduct further mobilization and expansion of their affiliated garrison military households under such chaotic circumstances, if they wanted to expand by another twenty to thirty thousand troops, assembly could be completed at the earliest the day after tomorrow.
Currently, Yang Jian and Kou Shixiong held twenty thousand elite troops and kept their camps closed. Among Jinling’s garrison forces, the other fifty thousand Imperial Guards and Imperial Attendant Guards superficially still acknowledged the effectiveness of orders signed by the Bureau of Military Affairs, but with unstable military morale, they could not be entrusted with important tasks, let alone hastily dispatched to forcefully attack Qiuhu Mountain.
Niu Gengru also felt this was somewhat troublesome.
At this moment, an old eunuch walked in. In his panic, he was tripped by the high threshold and nearly fell flat on his face.
“What are you panicking about? Was the Imperial Seal found?” Although Empress Dowager Xu was furious in her heart, she still could not tolerate others appearing flustered before her. She sternly rebuked the old eunuch.
Imperial edicts came in various forms—zhao, chi, and gao—requiring different imperial seal stamps depending on the need.
Chongwen Hall routinely issued orders using chi documents. Niu Gengru and his people had already obtained the six seal stamps specifically for chi documents and could draft and issue ordinary imperial edicts on the Emperor’s behalf. Only the Imperial Seal needed for zhao proclamations was not normally used. They had now searched Chongwen Hall top to bottom, arrested and interrogated the seal-keeper and edict-attending secretaries for most of the night, yet still had not found it.
If they now found someone to carve a new Imperial Seal modeled after old proclamations, the abdication proclamation would be delayed another day or two before it could be drafted and issued. This truly was an urgent crisis.
Seeing the old eunuch walk in so hastily, they thought there had been some discovery at Chongwen Hall.
The old eunuch had not come to report the Imperial Seal’s whereabouts, but shouted with a sobbing voice:
“His Majesty has passed away!”