Chapter 114: Scorched Earth

The deployment of tens of thousands of troops for a long-distance expedition into the Mongol grasslands is no small matter; logistics, personnel movement, grain, and supply lines must all be secured, and speed is essential.

If we truly wait a year to attack, we might as well just surrender.

To save time, they vigorously spread the revolutionaries' ideology among the monks, scholars, and nobility of Western Xia, urging these groups to provide grain, money, and manpower.

Unfortunately, only a small fraction believed their words, but that small fraction was enough; these few my lords shortened the timeline from one year to three months.

Temujin knew deep down that engaging the revolutionaries' peerless firearms head-on would be nothing but self-inflicted humiliation, akin to an egg striking a stone. Therefore, he decisively adopted the strategy of scorched earth to win through wisdom. He ordered the Western Xia soldiers to set fires across the vast, boundless grasslands.

At the same time, Temujin meticulously planned an even deadlier action. He had soldiers throw the corpses of dead cattle and sheep into the rivers; these rotting bodies drifted downstream, emitting a nauseating stench. As time passed, these corpses became the source of a plague.

As a native of the grasslands, he knew exactly how much destruction his actions would bring to this region, but he had no choice; to defeat such a powerful enemy, he had to resort to any means necessary to collapse their economy and plunge them into internal chaos.

Yet whenever he took such actions, it seemed an invisible force quietly drifted away from him, leaving his heart feeling as though something had been lost, becoming utterly empty. Meanwhile, Nie Huaishang was busy organizing the herdsmen to conduct epidemic prevention work and guiding them to evacuate safely to designated areas. He knew exactly what he had gained in this process—that was the complete fortune.

Although they had once successfully unified this vast grassland, the national fortune seemed to always favor that Temujin. However, when Temujin took the extreme step of borrowing Western Xia troops to set fires and pollute the water sources, he completely enraged the Mongol fortune, causing it to turn against him with disgust.

"Truly, those who follow the Dao gain many helpers, while those who lose the Dao gain few," Nie Huaishang sighed, recalling the reactions of the various tribes over this period.

"Temujin, I will cut you into a thousand pieces! Even if the Qiyen tribe has only one person left, we will fight you to the death!"

Witnessing the once vibrant grassland turn into a charred wasteland, and the once clear rivers become polluted, the people of the Qiyen tribe, like soulless shells, fell to their knees, tears sliding down uncontrollably. Their weeping was not due to weakness, but stemmed from a deep attachment to their homeland and the despair of being unable to save it.

Over these few months, whenever night fell, the people of the Qiyen tribe would fall into deep turmoil. Thinking of the imminent battle against that Temujin, who had once treated them reasonably well, their hearts felt as though they were being torn apart. After all, compared to the cold-bloodedness of other tribal leaders, the care and tolerance Temujin had once shown them were like a ray of sunlight in winter—warm and precious.

Yet that Khan, who was always known for his tolerance, now showed them no mercy, not even willing to leave them a single chance to survive. He, who had herded since childhood on the vast grasslands, surely must understand what it means when the grassland becomes a charred wasteland and the rivers are so defiled they are unrecognizable.

Those innocent cattle and sheep have lost the green grass they relied on for survival and cannot drink clear water from the polluted rivers. For these herdsmen who live by grazing, losing the grassland and the rivers is like losing the very source of life.

Those who taught them to read were right; slave owners are naturally opposed to them. We are nothing more than their cattle and horses for obtaining meat and fresh milk.

"Commander Ha, you don't need to give us guns. Regardless of gender or age, the entire Qiyen tribe will join the battle. Without bows or cavalry sabers, we will wield kitchen knives and fight to the death; we cannot let them continue to devastate our grasslands and land."

The anger of the entire Qiyen tribe now burned like a raging fire, impossible to contain. They would rather fight fiercely against the enemy in intense battle, even if they were struck by multiple blades and their battle robes stained with blood, than endure the suffering of hunger and cold, barely surviving, only to starve to death.

Commander Ha Shi, responsible for garrisoning here, was very pleased to see the herdsmen united in their hatred of the enemy.

This was because it was the first time he had seen such a thing; compared to other tribal leaders, Temujin had treated these common people reasonably well, and moreover, Temujin's personal charisma was incomparable to that of people from other tribes.

This resulted in Ha Shi, despite having the smallest number of troops for reorganization and training, facing the most difficult task; while other regiments had already expanded to a brigade, their reorganization and training here had yet to be completed.

He never expected that at this critical moment, Temujin would actually help him.

"Elders and fellow villagers, as long as we, the children of the people, are still alive, you will not have to go to the battlefield. Since the day the People's Army was established, we have been prepared to sacrifice our lives to protect the people."

"Fellow villagers, Standing Committee Member Zhang said: 'If we keep the land but lose the people, both land and people are lost; if we keep the people but lose the land, both people and land are preserved.' Fellow villagers, please rest assured; we have long stored enough grain to get us through this winter. As long as we are still alive, the burned grasslands will grow green grass again, and the polluted water sources can be made clear again, but once people die, they will never come back to life."

"Therefore, you must ensure your own safety."

Ha Shi, with a solemn expression, earnestly entrusted these words to the crowd, every syllable revealing the sincerity in his heart.

Since they had always had the habit of establishing strongholds to store supplies, they quickly moved all the common people inside the strongholds; the revolutionaries only needed to guard based on these strongholds.

Seeing that the garrison had no intention whatsoever of marching out of the city to fight, Temujin's face turned ashen. If the revolutionaries had taken the initiative to attack them, he could have lured the revolutionaries to various locations, then sent his main army to strike directly at the Qiyen tribe to control all the herdsmen.

He could use these people to incite a rebellion among the soldiers who had been reorganized into the revolutionary army; once they rebelled, he could take the opportunity to annihilate the garrison stationed here and seize the weapons in their hands—firearms.

With a large number of firearms, he would have the confidence to engage the revolutionaries.

Unfortunately, no matter what he did, whether setting fires to scorch the plains or polluting the water sources, they simply did not take the bait. Most importantly, they did not erupt into internal chaos, which proved they had stockpiled a massive amount of supplies.

The question of how they managed to stockpile enough supplies for so many people in such a short time indicated that a significant force must be supporting them in secret.

This force could not be in Western Xia; it must be in the Jin Kingdom. But if the Jin Kingdom were the force supporting them, why would a Jin Kingdom possessing such weapons not have destroyed Western Xia and the Great Song? In an instant, Temujin realized that the power before him held too many secrets; their depths were profound.

Just as he was pondering how to conquer them, a messenger reported news shocking enough to stun him: "Their supply lines have been cut."