Chapter 170: Striking First: Wanyan Hong

The art of war says: appear where they do not expect you, strike where they are unprepared. The original meaning was to send troops to attack a place the enemy has not fortified; later it also came to mean doing something that catches people off guard.

For Wanyan Hong, he might not know exactly where in the Han people's military texts those two lines come from, but he was putting those two lines into practice with his own actions.

Just as Oba Taiji was conferring with the headmen of the Gorlos, Jalaid, and Dörbet tribes on how to send troops against the Sibe tribe, the Sibe tribe's Wanyan Hong had already joined forces with the Yehe, Hada, Ula, Hoifa, Jusheri, Nayin, and Feng'erca tribes — the remnants of the old Yehe Nine Tribes coalition — and together they launched a joint strike, slamming straight into the Dörbet tribe of the Khorchin.

Ever since his treasured daughter Wanyan Yuzhuo had been taken as a consort by the Great Ming Emperor, Wanyan Hong of the Sibe tribe had been putting on the airs of a State Father-in-Law.

If any of his underlings addressed him as "headman" or the like, they would usually get a tongue-lashing; if they called him "Duke Who Protects the State," or "His Grace," or "Lord State Father-in-Law," they would usually receive a reward.

This military expedition to slam the Dörbet tribe, those dog traitors who had submitted to the Khorchin, was an action that Lord State Father-in-Law Wanyan had undertaken entirely on his own initiative.

As for that war between the Yehe Nine Tribes and the Jianzhou Jurchens that took place in the twenty-first year of Wanli — others may have forgotten it, and later generations may have no one left to remember it, but among those marching out together today, which one of them could ever forget?

Many of them had personally lived through that war, or were the sons and grandsons of one of the taijis or beiles who fought in it.

In the twenty-first year of Wanli, the Yehe chieftain Nalinbulu first sent troops to attack a Jianzhou stockade, but Nurhaci did not back down, nor did he give his own brother-in-law any face.

He retaliated with brutal swiftness — he led his troops to attack the Hada tribe's Fuerjiaqi stockade, and Fuerjiaqi was nearly wiped off the map.

Not a single male taller than a cart wheel was left alive, and even among the boys shorter than a cart wheel, those killed were by no means few. As for the women, they were essentially all carried off.

And out of revenge — or rather, out of the humiliated rage of having been slapped in the face — the Yehe chieftain Nalinbulu no longer cared about any brother-in-law relationship.

He very decisively rallied the remaining Hada, Ula, Hoifa, Jusheri, Nayin, Feng'erca, and Khorchin tribes, and together they raised thirty thousand troops to go slam his own brother-in-law.

Yet at Mount Gule, the Yehe Nine Tribes were slammed like dogs by Nurhaci — one of the Yehe leaders, Nalinbulu's elder brother Bujai, was killed.

As for that clown Nalinbulu, it's hard to know how best to describe him. His own brother had been killed — all he had to do was call up his underlings and go hack them back.

Instead, Nalinbulu was so terrified he fell off his horse and had to be rescued by his own men; otherwise he probably would have been trampled to death right there on the battlefield.

Later, when Nalinbulu asked Nurhaci for Bujai's corpse, Nurhaci, whose hatred had reached its limit, personally cut Bujai's body in half and gave Nalinbulu one half. Having suffered such an insult, Nalinbulu wept day and night and soon died of sheer despondency.

After this battle, Nurhaci had killed four thousand of the enemy, captured three thousand warhorses and a thousand suits of armor, and greatly strengthened his own power.

In the wake of the Yehe tribe's Bujai and Nalinbulu, Bujai's son Buyanggu and Nalinbulu's younger brother Gintaisi succeeded them as Beile.

In any case, the Yehe had suffered a loss, his own Wanyan tribe had suffered a loss, and the remaining tribes had all suffered losses great and small.

But no one could have imagined that those three bastards — Manggus, Ming'an, and Unggadai — would actually send envoys to make peace with Nurhaci.

And by the ninth year of the Jianzhou barbarians' Tianming reign, that old wretch Unggadai's son Oba had gone a step further — the bastard had simply led his entire tribe to defect to the Jianzhou barbarians.

And that little Jianzhou barbarian Hong Taiji's shamelessness outdid even his father, that old slave Nurhaci, by three parts.

When Oba led his tribe to defect, Hong Taiji had already thought up a pretext for him — that he had been invaded by the Chahar, and that he was preparing to lead troops to slam the Chahar and exact bloody vengeance on behalf of his own nominal nephew-in-law, Oba Taiji.

Of course, right now Hong Taiji is in no position to slam the Chahar. That fellow is being driven to the brink of ecstatic agony by Mao Wenlong, and has simply raised a hundred thousand troops to march south and go slam Mao Wenlong first.

For Wanyan Hong, this was excellent news.

He himself had received an official title from the Great Ming, and was now no longer a barbarian but had transformed in the blink of an eye into the far more prestigious Great Ming Duke Who Protects the State.

This was a position that even the old slave Nurhaci and Nurhaci's father had failed to attain in their entire lifetimes — if Nurhaci's father had not been mistakenly killed by Ming troops back then, there probably would not be this great drama playing out today.

Anyway, whatever the case, he was now a man of status.

He would seek out the familiar tribes in Liaodong, and just as the Yehe tribe had done back then, rally the remaining Hada, Ula, Hoifa, Jusheri, Nayin, and Feng'erca tribes together, and then find that branch of the Yehe tribe that had not yet submitted to the Jianzhou barbarians.

Aside from the Khorchin's lackeys, wouldn't that recreate the grand spectacle of the original Yehe Nine Tribes?

Wanyan Hong's calculations were very shrewd. The more power he held in Liaodong, the higher his daughter's standing in the Ming court, and the less likely she would be looked down upon — and this, precisely, was the reason the Ming Emperor had taken his daughter as a consort.

Now that the Jianzhou barbarians' little slave Hong Taiji was marching south, as long as he himself slammed the Khorchin, that tribe of traitorous running dogs, hard enough to hurt, then that brat Hong Taiji would surely turn his troops around to rescue them.

Mao Wenlong's predicament would thereby be resolved by his own hand.

And when the time came to ask his own son-in-law for things, it would be easier to open his mouth, wouldn't it?

Having long since made up his mind, Wanyan Hong gathered the other tribes and roped in some smaller tribes willing to follow him. Unlike that fool Oba, he did not bother with any banquets or such activities.

After a round of discussion, they marched south directly. They were all cavalry anyway — send a messenger to give notice, and they could catch up quickly.

After the cavalry of the other tribes converged with them along the way, over twenty thousand horsemen slammed straight toward the Dörbet tribe.

By the time over twenty thousand cavalry had surrounded the Dörbet tribe, the Dörbet tribe was, in truth, completely dumbfounded.

Although their own tribe lived fairly comfortably by relying on the Khorchin tribe, to muster twenty thousand cavalry — only the Khorchin's Oba Taiji had that kind of strength.

More importantly, these twenty thousand cavalry had clearly not come with good intentions. If they were just passing through, why surround their tribe? And not a single one of them dismounted; instead they drew their sabers and sat on their horses hollering endlessly.

Preparing for battle in the midst of such chaos was obviously impossible.

Since their chieftain Aduqi had already gone to Oba Taiji's place to discuss important matters and had taken most of the cavalry with him, the few tribal elders remaining behind conferred and decided to first send an envoy to parley.

Though the elders did not know the phrase "to stage a comeback," they understood the simple principle that as long as the green hills remain, there is no fear of running out of firewood.

Whether they had to pay in cattle, sheep, or anything else, as long as they could keep the tribe from being massacred today, the tribe would eventually rise again one day — after all, no matter how great the losses, one plundering raid into Han territory alongside the Great Jin would be more than enough to make up for them.

Wanyan Hong indeed lived up to Cui Chengxiu's assessment of him — an old fox.

The Dörbet people wanted to negotiate? No problem. First, they were ordered to hand over all the Jianzhou Jurchen women in the Dörbet tribe — this was no problem. Women, after all, were merely accessories; at worst they could just go seize some more later. So the Dörbet elders agreed very readily.

Next, they were ordered to hand over all the children born of those Jianzhou Jurchen women.

This put the Dörbet elders in a bind. Women were accessories or expendable goods, but children were different. Once these children grew up, they could ride horses and draw bows — they counted as strategic assets.

But to preserve the tribe, the elders still gritted their teeth and agreed. Amid waves of wailing and screaming, the heads of nearly a hundred Jianzhou women and the heads of several dozen children were handed over.

Yet Wanyan Hong had no intention of keeping his word. Instead, he drew his saber and led the charge straight into the Dörbet herdsmen who had already laid down their weapons, prepared to surrender, and were kneeling on the ground begging for their lives.

When only a single elder of the entire Dörbet tribe remained, clutching the saber wound in his chest and denouncing Wanyan Hong for wanton slaughter, declaring that he would surely be punished by the Eternal Blue Sky, Wanyan Hong answered with a smile: "This Duke is the Great Ming's Duke Who Protects the State, shielded by the Great Ming Son of Heaven Himself.

No taboo binds me!"

Another book recommendation, one I promised the author I'd give a chapter shout-out to long ago: "Returning to Ancient Times to Become a Power-Playing Emperor."

Synopsis: A modern man is reborn in ancient times and becomes a prince of the Hua Kingdom. In his previous life he was ordinary, but after transmigrating, a meme app appears in his mind.

Through the app's power, he begins his path to becoming a power-playing emperor in this era. The system isn't too overpowered; this book will not feature firearms — the system merely compensates for certain innate deficiencies.

(End of Chapter)