Chapter Twelve: Lessons from the Past

Du Yishan did not dare to openly oppose Liu Futong.

Once, Du Zundao had killed a cousin of Liu Futong’s, and Liu Futong had sworn afterward that he would have his revenge. Du Yishan had no wish to be the one to meet that blade. Though Du Zundao would undoubtedly seek justice for him after the fact, justice is a poor consolation for the dead.

After rebuking Du Yishan, Lady Jinhua found Liu Futong exceedingly courteous. “Marshal Jinhua, General Xiao Liu, since you have met with Du Zundao, we should have a proper discussion.”

Lady Jinhua’s face was all smiles. “Prime Minister Liu, please instruct us—we will see to it that your wishes are carried out.”

Liu Futong, however, cast another glance at Du Yishan. “No need to rush. Du Zundao sent a commander of a thousand here, didn’t he? I shall send one too. Since you just said that Chuzhou would be left to Du Yishan, and household affairs to General Xiao Liu, then I will take charge of all military campaigns. Du Yishan, do you have any objections?”

As the foremost figure among the Red Turban Army, Liu Futong was a man none dared cross lightly. Du Yishan, though he had served as centurion in Du Zundao’s central army, dared not utter a word of dissent before such a towering figure. Stifling a curse, he could only accede. “Since Lord Liu so decrees, how could Yishan not comply?”

Now that Du Yishan had conceded, Liu Futong turned to Lady Jinhua. “Marshal Jinhua, as we march south, you need only concentrate on taking Chaohu Lake.”

Lady Jinhua and Liu Yi had not expected Liu Futong to seize the reins of military command at the very outset, but there was no choice but to bow one’s head beneath another’s eaves. Lady Jinhua could only offer praise. “Prime Minister Liu, your strategy wins battles a thousand miles away. With you overseeing our southern campaign, victory at Chaohu is assured.”

Liu Futong’s voice remained deep and resonant. “That is well. Come here, I have a few more words for you and General Xiao Liu.”

Though he said he had words “to convey,” his tone was closer to an interrogation. “Has Du Zundao raised the matter of crossing the river with the whole nation again? Nonsense!”

Lady Jinhua knew there was rivalry between Liu Futong and Du Zundao, but she had not expected the divisions within the Haozhou Red Turban Army to run so deep that Liu Futong would call Du Zundao’s plan to invade the south utter nonsense.

But since Du Zundao had already sent Du Yishan, Lady Jinhua knew it was best to keep silent. The room fell abruptly quiet, and seeing the stalemate, Liu Yi stepped forward. “I believe Prime Minister Liu is not opposed to crossing the river and campaigning in the south; outsiders often misunderstand.”

These words were well chosen, and Liu Futong’s tense expression softened at once. “Indeed, I do not oppose a southern campaign. Would the Guo family army have reached Hezhou without my approval? What I oppose is recklessly abandoning our Central Plains ambitions and dashing south without forethought.”

This assurance was enough. Lady Jinhua and Liu Yi had already discussed countless times the specifics of what must be done after taking Chaohu. “Prime Minister Liu, your words are gold and jade. The southern campaign is to achieve hegemony in the Central Plains. With the rice and wealth of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, we can sustain our struggle for supremacy!”

As they traveled, Lady Jinhua and Liu Yi had observed that the order of production in territories controlled by the Haozhou Red Turban Army was devastated by war. Though the towns and cities conquered by the Red Turban Army showed an unnatural prosperity—populations even exceeding prewar numbers—the countryside was a wasteland, even the best fields left untended. The Han-Song regime was aware of this issue, but even in Haozhou, its heartland, only thirty or forty percent of the land had returned to cultivation.

Under such circumstances, the supply of money and grain was an almost unsolvable problem. But if they could seize the rice and wealth of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, such difficulties might vanish.

Liu Futong agreed wholeheartedly. “Exactly. With the crack troops of Jinghuai and the wealth of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the restoration of the Song is within reach. But Marshal Jinhua, General Xiao Liu, do not be careless. Jiangsu and Zhejiang are both fat and tough—now is not the age when a mere few thousand men under Xiang Nu’er could sweep the land. By the way, Du Zundao must have mentioned Xiang Nu’er’s example—how with only a few thousand new recruits, he campaigned across two provinces?”

Xiang Nu’er was the given name of Xiang Puluo. The name “Xiang Puluo” marked him as a White Lotus adherent—the White Lotus sect used the four characters “Universal Enlightenment of the Wondrous Way” as their spiritual banner, and in the late Yuan, any Red Turban general with “Pu” in his name—such as Ou Puxiang, Zhao Pusheng, Li Pusheng, and Zou Pusheng—was a White Lotus follower.

Xiang Nu’er was the same. After joining the White Lotus, Peng Yingyu himself had given him the Daoist name “Xiang Puluo.” At the mention of Xiang Puluo, Lady Jinhua grew somewhat excited. “Prime Minister Du did speak of Xiang Puluo. When he first marched on Jiangsu and Zhejiang, he had only four hundred men. If I help the court take Chaohu, that will be fifty thousand land and naval warriors—a hundred times what Xiang Puluo commanded.”

Lady Jinhua, who also hailed from the White Lotus and the Qihuang Red Turbans, knew Xiang Puluo’s deeds well, and knew his expedition had begun with no more than four hundred men.

Liu Futong had long since formed a clear analysis of this matter. “True, Xiang Nu’er set out with only a few hundred, but the times are different. Then, the world was without walled cities; now, everywhere is a stronghold, everywhere is a fortress. Even if Xiang Nu’er had a hundred thousand men today, he’d find it hard to take a single step.”

After the Yuan dynasty destroyed the Song, in order to suppress uprisings, they launched a campaign of city demolition—nearly every city, large or small, was torn down, and the officials were judged by how thoroughly they demolished city walls. Every region competed to see who could raze more walls.

The Yuan court’s intention was to maximize the effectiveness of Mongol cavalry and deprive rebels of defensible positions. But when the Red Turban uprising erupted, they found they had brought disaster on their own heads. With the walls gone and no defenses, the Red Turbans swept unhindered—Hangzhou, one of the greatest cities under heaven, could not even mount basic resistance. As the scholar Liu Ji wrote, “Hangzhou, without walls, was entered by the rebels at will.”

Xiang Puluo’s ability to capture over forty cities across Jiangxi and Jiangsu-Zhejiang owed much to the absence of fortifications; he nearly took Jiqing Circuit (Nanjing), seat of the Southern Inspectorate.

But the lesson of defenseless cities was so bitter that by the twelfth year of Zhizheng, both the Yuan armies and their opponents began a frenzy of fortification. The more ruthless the demolition, the more frantic the rebuilding. Last year, when Toqtai’s four hundred thousand men collapsed at Gaoyou, a key reason was a failure to adapt to the new reality of deep moats and strong walls, thinking Gaoyou would fall at the first assault—only to find Zhang Shicheng had turned it into an impregnable fortress.

With Toqtai’s defeat as a cautionary tale, Liu Futong was more certain than ever that a nationwide river crossing was no wise course. “To say it’s impossible may be too strong, but even with a hundred thousand troops, without inside help, not a single stronghold could be taken in haste.”