Chapter 2178: Shizong Chronicles 46: Pacifying the Northern Desert

In early autumn of the eleventh year of Jianlong, before any definitive result of the Xingguo War had reached the capital, the Emperor personally visited Yuehua Palace to see his mother Xiao Chuo, who lay ill in bed. The Empress Dowager Xiao had long cultivated her body and mind, with few worldly burdens to trouble her, and so her health had always been well maintained.

Yet in the end, she could not resist the erosion of the years—she was already past seventy, and over the past few years her health had been failing. Even the finest medicines and tonics were of little use, which filled Liu Wenji with deep concern.

The Empress Dowager Xiao was not only Liu Wenji's mother, but also the greatest contributor to his rise to the throne, the most important strategist who had hidden behind him for decades. It could be said that Liu Wenji's present position was entirely shaped by the Empress Dowager Xiao, and one could well imagine the depth of his feelings for her.

During his visit, Liu Wenji apologized to the Empress Dowager Xiao regarding the "destruction of the Khitan state" from years past, but he still underestimated his old mother. The Empress Dowager's silence on the Khitan matter was not a sign of displeasure, but simply that she found it inconvenient to speak.

Sensing the complexity and anxiety in Liu Wenji's heart, the Empress Dowager Xiao maintained the attitude she had held for decades—her body and mind had already entered China, and there was no more Khitan. Liu Wenji then consulted her on the Mobei matter. Though old in years, the Empress Dowager Xiao remained clear in mind, and her opinion was unequivocal: the Naiman Jin Kingdom should be eliminated early, and the grasslands and deserts should be governed through division.

Shortly after this brief yet profound conversation with his old mother, Liu Wenji firmly resolved to launch a northern expedition into the great desert and destroy the Jin Kingdom. And so, in the autumn of the eleventh year, in the season when the sky was high, the horses were fat, and the Jin soldiers most frequently raided southward, the court dispatched its armies, formally beginning to confront and resolve the Mobei threat, and raising the curtain on the Great Han Empire's full-scale counteroffensive against the Naiman Jin Kingdom.

Of course, this was premised on the Dian-Qian Rebellion entering its final phase and the southwestern situation trending toward stability. Otherwise, given Liu Wenji's steadiness and caution in military affairs, he might not have been so hasty.

Throughout Liu Wenji's reign, though he constantly faced various pressures from both inside and outside the court, he had always been clear-eyed about his own actions. He desperately wished to cloak his rule in a sacred and magnificent mantle, but that absolutely did not include military adventurism.

Whether it was the Dian-Qian Rebellion or the Mobei threat, ultimately resorting to military action had as its primary purpose the security and governance of the empire. Yet even with such forbearance and restraint, when the northern expedition was launched, there were still those who could not resist finding fault, spreading idle gossip and insinuations, accusing the court of waging wars on all fronts and indulging in militarism.

The idle talk in the Taihe Tower could be ignored—the atmosphere of political discussion there had always been open, and for every opposition there was support. What truly troubled Liu Wenji were the opinions of certain officials at court, particularly the civil ministers he relied upon.

For instance, Liu Yun, Grand Academician of the Jixian Hall and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, submitted a memorial advising against the northern expedition on the grounds that the southwest was not yet settled, and raised a series of unfavorable factors for the northern campaign, hoping the Emperor would sheathe his weapons and cultivate culture, so as to reassure the hearts of the people under heaven...

Liu Wenji was extraordinarily furious at Liu Yun's advice. Upon receiving the memorial, he immediately summoned Liu Yun before him, harshly criticized and refuted him, then demoted him to serve as Education Commissioner in Monan, so that he might personally ask the soldiers and civilians of the war-torn northern frontier: Is the realm at peace? Are the people's hearts settled?

Liu Yun was a jinshi of the Yongxi era, once paired with Grand Academician Yang Yi as "Yang and Liu." Though not as gifted in talent as Yang Yi, with his solid foundation, pure style, and exemplary morality, he had over the decades become a literary giant of the empire and a leader of the scholarly class.

Liu Yun had served as Secretariat Drafter and Drafting Official, had overseen the imperial examinations, and had long served as a professor at the Academy of Politics and Law. It was there that he formed a master-disciple bond with Bao Zheng, who had entered the academy. He was "Lord Bao's" life mentor and guide on the path of officialdom.

The root cause of Liu Wenji's anger at Liu Yun and officials holding similar views was that he was being held to a double standard—a behavior he particularly detested and that tore at his heart. After all, in the ninth year of Jianlong, the reason he had held back and not acted was precisely out of consideration for the southwest.

Now that the southwest was firmly in hand and he was about to turn north to pacify the people and establish merit, Liu Yun and others used such rhetoric to dissuade and even accuse him. This made Liu Wenji deeply suspicious of their motives. It even led Liu Wenji to reflect that he had been "too good" to these civil ministers—otherwise, how could they dare be so presumptuous?

When his emotions ran high, Liu Wenji was tempted to cite the many great campaigns of the Shizu era as examples. Compared to those, his Jianlong era had been more than restrained, yet there were still those who resorted to overgeneralization and quoting out of context.

However, Liu Wenji also deeply understood one truth: he was, after all, not Emperor Shizu...

The Great Han Empire's northern campaign in the autumn of the eleventh year of Jianlong, strictly speaking, could only be called "the Han army's sortie beyond the frontier." In both objective and scale, it was merely a prelude to the court's great northern expedition to destroy the Jin, but once truly mobilized, it was aimed at a decisive battle.

For an imperial army that had known peace for many years, even the border troops who maintained good military equipment and training year-round—the transition from maintaining public order to a true war footing was a change that required a process.

Therefore, the scale of the Han army dispatched in this autumn campaign was not large, advancing in only two routes. One route had Xiao Hui as its commander, leading over twenty-five thousand imperial and border cavalry out from Monan to strike deep into Mobei, with the objective aimed directly at the Diluqu River basin in the heart of the Jin Kingdom. There, cities such as Tadan and Hedong, inherited from the Khitan era, were distributed—the core of the central Mobei grasslands and the vital thoroughfare connecting east and west that sustained the Jin Kingdom's tenuous rule over Mobei.

Xiao Hui, this great general of Khitan descent, this blade that Liu Wenji had been honing for a full twenty years, had finally reached the moment of unsheathing, to be used in the Mobei matter. At the same time, this was the first time in nearly six decades that the Great Han's iron cavalry once again crossed the great desert on a distant expedition to the farthest reaches.

Of course, considering only the geographical environment and the context of the era, Mobei was no longer truly "the farthest reaches" for the Han army—at least not as unfamiliar as in the past. Moreover, Xiao Hui's force was not only fully mounted and highly mule-and-horse equipped, but also had a large number of grassland tribes serving as auxiliaries and guides.

In the years after the Khitan state's destruction, the imperial court had not been idle, merely watching the Jin Kingdom's expansion and its slaughter with Raole. At least in the Monan region, the Shanyang Circuit Office had made relatively proper arrangements and restraints for the former Khitan subjects who had submitted to the south, had reorganized and retrained the scattered Khitan soldiers under military orders from the Bureau of Military Affairs, and had gained a more detailed understanding, compilation, and familiarity with Monan's geography, climate, and the Jin Kingdom and its troops. All of this was in preparation for the use of force.

And the Xiao Hui army emerging from Monan was still only a secondary force. The court's true major move was at the front line of the "Han-Jin" confrontation—the Raole and Yanbei regions. Dong Congyan, Chief Commander of Yanbei, had earned Liu Wenji's trust and bold promotion through his performance in the Xingguo War, and was directly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Mobei Field Headquarters, commanding the Yanbei, Raole, Andong, and part of the Shanyang border troops, totaling seventy thousand infantry and cavalry, to march north against the Jin Kingdom, with the objective of the Daze region.

Of course, the nominal supreme commander of the northern expedition—this honor—Liu Wenji gave to Liu Xin, King of Raole, as a form of appeasement. But the old king, after years of bitter warfare with the Jin and the siege of Xingguo, had already fallen ill. Therefore, Dong Congyan was the true commander of the eastern route army.

Once the imperial army set forth, heaven and earth shook. The Monan and Yanbei routes combined totaled a hundred thousand troops. It was at this point that Liu Jin truly felt what it was like to contend with a serious, powerful central empire. The victories of the past decade or more had, more or less, given him some illusions, even though he considered himself sufficiently clear-headed...

When the Han army marched north, Liu Jin was still stationed at Jingbian City, leading his tribes to forage and recover in the Daze and surrounding grasslands. The defeat at Xingguo was a major setback for him, but not yet a crippling blow. The heavy casualties were among his recently conquered vassal tribes; his Naiman core elite had not suffered severely.

Therefore, while the Great Han Empire was mobilizing along its northern borders, Liu Jin was also resting and recovering, gathering troops and assembling generals, preparing to take advantage of the high autumn skies to ride south again and reclaim his honor. Coincidentally, the Han army was marching north—this suited Liu Jin perfectly. The Han army was delivering itself to his doorstep, and he could use his home-field advantage to annihilate it.

Facing the surging imperial coalition forces, Liu Jin was not afraid. He employed his usual tactics, sending out several cavalry detachments to ride south in rotation, harassing and delaying the Han army, seeking an opportunity for battle amid "exhausting the enemy."

Facts proved that Dong Congyan's performance in the Xingguo War was no flash in the pan. He had long prepared countermeasures for the Jin soldiers' tactics—the marching formations, the tasks of each unit, and emergency response measures were all arranged in perfect order. The Jin soldiers' exhaustion tactics had some effect, but not much.

Of course, the most critical factor lay in the Han army's thorough preparation. Combining infantry and cavalry was the Han army's traditional tactic against nomadic horsemen, and this tradition was once again employed by Dong Congyan.

If the Jin army came in small numbers, they would be delivering themselves to death; if in large numbers, they could be held off; if they attacked, that was even more welcome. Thus, by the end of September, Dong Congyan's army, after arduous trekking, finally succeeded in watering their horses at Daze, pointing from afar at Jingbian City.

During this process, Liu Jin made many efforts, but could neither stop the Han army's advance nor find a truly advantageous opportunity for battle. He could only watch step by step as the dark clouds of the Han army enveloped the Daze grasslands.

After entering the heart of the Daze region, the Han army became far more active, splitting into two routes. One route, commanded by Liu Shangyuan, a great general of the Andong state, led twenty thousand cavalry in roaming and hunting, seeking the Jin army's main force, while Dong Congyan himself led the central army of infantry and cavalry, continuing to press toward Jingbian City.

Under these circumstances, Liu Jin ultimately chose to withdraw from Jingbian City, handing it over without a fight. As for Liu Shangyuan's army, Liu Jin clashed with it several times but never achieved his objective. First, Liu Shangyuan was capable in battle, and the Han cavalry was difficult to annihilate; second, he dared not commit his full strength, fearing he would be entangled by the Han cavalry and draw in the main force.

In a state of stalemate and attrition, the two sides tangled from autumn into winter. After winter set in and the weather grew colder, Liu Jin changed his tactics once more. He cast aside the old and weak, abandoned the Daze tribesmen to fend for themselves, assembled fifty thousand elite cavalry, stocked ample provisions, and hid away, while cutting off the Han army's supply routes.

Liu Jin had realized that confronting the Han army head-on was extremely taxing—even if he won, casualties would be severe. Therefore, he planned to borrow the power of "Eternal Heaven." He knew all too well how terrifying the Mobei winter could be, and for seventy thousand Han troops to survive would be an extraordinarily difficult challenge.

Liu Jin's judgment could not be called wrong, for that winter, thousands froze to death or suffered frostbite at Jingbian City. But before the eastern route Han army set out, they had carried ample military provisions. Besides dedicated support troops, every man and horse carried three months of dried rations. Moreover, in the early phase of the campaign, a steady stream of supplies had been delivered from southern Yan—northern Yan—Raole to the front lines. Though much was destroyed in Jin raids, what successfully arrived still provided considerable replenishment.

From the moment the cold wave swept in, snow fell from the heavens, and the Jin soldiers hid from the army's edge, the various Han units, under Dong Congyan's orders, carried out strict ration distribution and conserved food, using Jingbian City as their anchor, and managed to endure the entire winter.

At the same time, the Han troops on campaign—whether from beyond the northern frontier, Raole, or Andong—were not as poor at tolerating cold as Liu Jin imagined, especially the troops of Yanbei, Raole, and Andong.

Even so, the Han army suffered casualties in the thousands. As the days dragged on, the army began slaughtering cattle, sheep, and even horses. And as the opponent, beneath the vast whiteness, the Jin soldiers under Liu Jin's command also suffered heavy losses. The power of heaven and earth was fair to all—it only mattered who could endure longer.

Of course, in this standoff, the worst off were the local tribesmen. They had been abandoned by Liu Jin, and before being abandoned, their grain and livestock had been confiscated. Their fate was easy to imagine. For the sake of war, to defeat or even annihilate the Han army, Liu Jin had thrown all caution to the wind, adopting the most extreme and cruelest strategy.

Many Daze tribesmen, having no other choice, chose to surrender to the Han army at Jingbian City, hoping to obtain rations and a chance at survival. But the Han army could barely sustain itself—how could it care about the lives of these enemy tribes?

War on the grasslands had always been cruel, a product of the extremely harsh geographical and climatic conditions. By the spring of the twelfth year, as temperatures gradually warmed and ice and snow began to melt, Liu Jin still had not found the opportunity for battle he had hoped for.

Despite suffering considerable casualties, the Han army, with thorough preparation, held on, and actively and swiftly dispatched troops to reopen the supply routes. Under the escort of Han cavalry, logistics troops from the Great Han Empire continued to cross a thousand li, delivering grain to Jingbian.

Facing this situation, it was instead the main Jin force under Liu Jin that was approaching collapse. In the end, the battle to repel the enemy became a battle for survival. After careful observation, they could no longer hold back and launched a surprise attack on a Han logistics force of over five thousand men.

As expected, the unexpected happened—it was a bait set by Dong Congyan for Liu Jin. In a situation of skinny horses with shaggy coats, exhausted soldiers, and depleted supplies, the first great battle—indeed, the decisive battle—between Han and Jin since the war began took place.

But the scale of the engagement was far smaller than the fanfare at the war's outset. The Han army, divided into vanguard and rear, totaled over sixty thousand men; the Jin soldiers numbered fewer than forty thousand. The result of the battle was a complete Han victory and a disastrous Jin defeat, with the Jin army nearly annihilated.

In a frenzy bordering on despair, many Jin soldiers refused to flee—they either died in battle or surrendered. Perhaps the greatest surprise was that Liu Jin, this hegemon who had dominated for a time, also fell, killed by a stray arrow of unknown origin from an unknown bow. It was neither heroic nor glorious.

With Liu Jin's head sent by swift horse to Luoyang, the Mobei threat entered its concluding phase. This was a highly unexpected result. Many imperial ministers could not understand why the Dian-Qian Rebellion had dragged on for three or four years, while the Naiman Jin Kingdom, clearly more powerful and troublesome, was settled in a single battle by Dong Congyan.

Of course, the pacification of Mobei was not the work of the eastern route army alone. While Han and Jin were locked in bitter struggle in the Daze region, Xiao Hui had already led the Han cavalry to sweep clean the central and western parts of Mobei. Had it not been for the weather, he would have pressed on into the empty Naiman lair.

For the Great Han Empire, the greatest cost of this war was not the losses on the Mobei battlefield, but the fact that the empire had mobilized the north without fully utilizing its forces, resulting in massive non-combat losses and waste.

At the same time, the defeat of the Jin army and the death of Liu Jin were only the beginning of Mobei's pacification. The remaining chaos continued for more than three years, primarily as Liu Jin's descendants and remnants of the Naiman tribes continued to wreak havoc in Mobei.

However, with the fourteenth year of Jianlong, when Xiao Hui led generals such as Zhong Shihang and Di Qing to sweep across the western desert, trample flat the various Naiman tribes, and carve inscriptions on Mount Jinshan, the vast Mobei region once again entered a long period of stability.

Of course, the traces of the Naiman people in Mobei were not completely erased. Some migrated westward, some were absorbed by grassland chieftains enfeoffed by the court, and some fled north, gradually merging with the Mongol-Shiwei peoples in the lower reaches of the Onon River.

After the collapse of the Naiman Jin Kingdom, the Mobei region was a scene of devastation and chaos. This time, the empire did not again allow some nomadic regime to rise unchecked, but instead established a Mobei Protectorate directly under the court's command, with three offices beneath it—Military Command, Inspection, and Taxation—each managing the local tribes by region.

The pacification of Mobei was one of the important markers of the Great Han Empire's rise to its zenith under Liu Wenji's rule. At the same time, this war, which had touched nearly the entire northern part of the empire, chiefly elevated two men: Dong Congyan and Xiao Hui. Both, for their extraordinary merits, entered the Bureau of Military Affairs, becoming major figures in the empire's military circles during the middle and late period of Liu Wenji's reign.