Three Thousand Heavy Armors a Month: How Could the Ming Dynasty Lose?

On the twelfth day of the third month in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, I transmigrated into the body of Crown Prince Zhu Cilang.

My father would hang himself at Coal Hill in five days.

Li Zicheng’s million-strong army had already breached Juyong Pass. At court, the Grand Secretary presented a memorial requesting that the Crown Prince be sent to negotiate peace, while the Directorate of Ceremonial had prepared ropes to bind me.

Was the nation’s fate sealed, with all hope lost?

No!

I had three thousand armored soldiers at my command, and every month they returned!

Day One, inside Xuanwu Gate.

When the eunuch arrived with an imperial edict to “summon” me, the first line of heavy infantry stepped out from the shadows behind me.

A ring of iron closed around the palace. The gates changed hands.

I stood with sword in hand before the Hall of Heavenly Purity and said just one thing to the trembling Chongzhen and his ministers:

“From today on, I take charge of the capital’s defenses. Anyone who recklessly advocates peace will be executed.”

Week One, the city is ransacked.

The empress’s father, Zhou Kui, pleads poverty? The Embroidered Uniform Guard digs eighty thousand taels of silver out of his cellar!

The officials have no pay? The grain hidden in the mansions of the nobility could feed a hundred thousand troops for three years!

The three thousand heavily armored soldiers hold their ground like a mountain, securing the nine gates. I hold up the ledger and smile at the assembled officials in their crimson robes:

“Would you like to hand over your money, or your lives?”

Month One, a bloody battle in the capital region.

The rebel army bears down on the city like a mountain. I personally lead the armored ranks at Desheng Gate.

“Tens of thousands of rebels? My three thousand ironclads can take on a million-man army!”

The steel formation stands like a dike, smashing wave after wave of human bodies. Corpses pile up into walls, and the moat runs red.

When Li Zicheng sees the Ming banner still flying above the city and the crown prince in black armor beneath it, shock finally appears on his face.

And my campaign has only just begun.

Crush the rebels, pacify Liaodong, reclaim the Western Regions and the grasslands, open the seas and launch great voyages...

Three thousand armored soldiers every month: after ten years, that will be a steel torrent three hundred and sixty thousand strong!