Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

His last words were somewhat meaningful. After Zhang Shikang and his party left, Zu Dashou's expression became particularly ugly.

"Sir, I made a mistake just now." Zu Kuan immediately knelt down in front of Zu Dashou.

"Get up, it's not entirely your fault." Zu Dashou sighed.

He seemed to have aged several years in an instant, and felt that a lot of strength in his body had suddenly dissipated.

If the civil servants from the imperial court had come, Zu Kuan's words would have made those civil servants who did not understand military affairs somewhat fearful.

But their great marshal is obviously not that kind of person. He is obviously the kind of guy who is not afraid of anyone if you want to confront him head-on.

Zu Dashou even suspected that Zhang Shikang's arrogance today might be due to his intention of forcing him to rebel.

But he had never had this thought!

But what Zhang Shikang said was indeed true. He was afraid of death at the beginning, so when he found out that Governor Yuan was killed by the emperor, he ran back to the outside of the Great Wall at all costs. Even when the emperor summoned him back, he did not obey.

As a military general, this is indeed despised by others.

In the past ten years, he would feel very uncomfortable every time he thought about it.

However, he had already done the thing and had lost trust. It would be of no use even if he regretted it. He could ask for forgiveness and go to his death, but his generals might not follow him.

He is over sixty years old and doesn't have much time left, but his subordinates are still young.

If he really went to the capital to die, it would only make Guan Ningjin's generals more alienated from the court. At that time, I think only Huang Taiji would be happy.

"Sir, has he... accepted our surrender?"

Zu Kuan was very frightened just now. He had seen Zhang Shikang before and he always had a smiling face, but he didn't expect that he would be so scary when he got angry.

But no matter what, as long as Zhang Shikang accepted their surrender, they would be fine, at least in the short term.

“How can you be so rude? You should call him Grand Marshal,” Zu Dashou corrected.

After a long silence, Zu Dashou said:

“Not necessarily!”

He remembered what Zhang Shikang said when he left just now.

"You should think about it carefully."

……

Zhang Shikang took his personal guard of a thousand men and strolled around Shanhaiguan City.

"Nephew, how do you plan to deal with Zu Dashou? This will allow me to be prepared." Sun Weifan said cautiously.

Since Zhang Shikang didn't give a definite answer, he always felt uneasy. Being in Shanhaiguan City felt like being in the enemy camp, and he felt uncomfortable all over.

"You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. Let's wait a few days." Zhang Shikang didn't say more.

Just now, Zu Dashou surrendered to him, and he neither agreed nor refused. Instead, he asked the other party to think about it carefully.

He didn't say exactly what he was thinking, as he felt it was unnecessary.

Surrender is not something you can convince others by shedding a few tears and saying it casually.

What a joke, this is a military and national issue, and he has always adhered to the principle of trusting people when employing them, and not employing people if he is not sure.

And now Zu Dashou is a suspicious person to him.

Especially at Zu Dashou's age, his mind must be complicated. Unless Zu Dashou can show real sincerity and make Zhang Shikang believe that he has really realized his mistakes and really wants to surrender.

At that time, it would not matter whether you surrender to him or to the court.

It is impossible that he came all the way here and asked someone if they were loyal to the Ming Dynasty. The person replied, "Of course," and he believed it and went back.

This is just a joke.

The reason why Zhang Shikang did this was actually to give Zu Dashou an opportunity. Whether he could seize it depended on himself.

Of course, Zhang Shikang also made the worst plan, which is that after a few days, Zu Dashou still did not make any response.

At that time, Zhang Shikang would have to make his own decision. He couldn't trust such a man to hand over such an important military town to him.

Since the other party was ungrateful, he could only take the risk. With his 10,000 elite guards in the city, he only needed to secretly send a message to the capital and ask Wen Bangguo to bring 20,000 men for quick support.

By then, he would join forces with Wenbang State. Ningyuan and Jinzhou might not be captured, but Shanhaiguan would not be a problem.

Of course, Zhang Shikang has discovered that the actual garrison in Shanhaiguan is not large, at most only about 12,000 people.

If it was really too late, he could certainly capture Shanhaiguan with 10,000 elite guards and pay a certain price.

No matter what, as long as Shanhaiguan was captured, even if it was a pity to lose several cities outside the pass such as Ningyuan, Jinzhou, Dalinghhe, etc., at least the basic foundation of the Ming Dynasty would be preserved.

This was not the result Zhang Shikang wanted, but as a marshal of the army, he had to consider the worst case scenario.

Everything depends on Zu Dashou’s choice.

Shanhaiguan City is not big. Apart from the military camp, there are not many residential houses in the city, and naturally there are not many shops either.

Apart from two inns and a brothel, there was only one store selling daily consumer goods such as grain shops, grocery shops and cloth shops.

Zhang Shikang was more accustomed to the soft Wu dialect of the south of the Yangtze River and was not interested in the brothels outside the Great Wall.

He walked around the city. He didn't know whether it was due to psychological reasons or because it was really too cold here. Although it was only a short distance away from Beijing, Zhang Shikang always felt cold.

So he took his guards to the only fur shop in the city. The shop owner was almost scared to death when he saw the huge crowd of guards outside.

At that time, shops basically did not have ready-made clothes. They all were made according to measurements. Zhang Shikang therefore asked the shop owner to measure his approximate body shape and custom-made a tiger-skin coat and a fox-skin coat.

After all, we are outside the Great Wall, so of course we have to adapt to the local customs.

After leaving the store, Zhang Shikang was bored, so he climbed up the city wall of Shanhaiguan with great interest.

The Liao soldiers on the city wall only knew that an important figure had come from the capital, but they didn't know who he was. Fortunately, Zu Dashou seemed to have given a greeting, and the Liao soldiers did not dare to stop him.

Zhang Shikang climbed to the highest point of Shanhaiguan and overlooked the entire area outside the pass. He saw a vast expanse of white fields that looked as if they were frozen.

So he was inspired to recite the great man's poem:

"The scenery of the North is covered in ice for thousands of miles and snow drifting for thousands of miles."

……

"All the past is gone, but the heroes of today are still to be seen."

Sun Weifan and his son looked at each other and both seemed to not know Zhang Shikang.

"What a good poem. What a good poem." Sun Dasheng was the first to react.

When Zhang Shikang heard this, he felt like he was talking to a cow, so he rubbed his hands and left the city.

After dark, Sun Weifan originally suggested that Zhang Shikang live in the barracks of the Guards, but Zhang Shikang accepted Zu Dashou's kindness and agreed to live in the general's mansion.

Sun Weifan had no choice but to let his son protect him closely, and told Sun Dasheng to sleep in the same room with Zhang Shikang at night no matter what.

After giving the instructions, he was still not at ease, so he reminded Hong Xiucheng again, asking him to send more personal guards at night to keep an eye on the place at all times, and to send someone to notify him immediately if anything happened.

Zhang Shikang had only roughly confirmed it before, but after talking with Zu Dashou, he was almost certain that this guy had no intention of betraying the court at all.

Therefore, he was not worried that this guy would do something bad to him. He lived in the general's mansion, waiting for Zu Dashou's sincerity.

When he was led to his room by a servant in the general's mansion.

But on the table in the room, there was a tiger-skin coat and a fox-skin shoulder guard, which were exactly the two items he had ordered at the fur shop this afternoon.

"Grand Marshal, this is what Master Zu told me. Master Zu said that the north is very cold, and these two pieces of clothing are new. I hope the Grand Marshal will keep warm."

……