Chapter 1226: Not Senge-shi Khan, but Seng Guofan! (Please Subscribe)

Aurangzeb was now the leader of the allied army — he had the most troops, a full eighty thousand! He also had the most money; everyone, including Anusha Khan, General Khalifa, and Lev Golov, had received silver rupees. With their hands now weighed down by his gifts, they naturally had to show him a little face.

The great emperor of the Timurid Empire wore a face of iron and blood, but inside, the abacus beads of his little calculations were clicking away at top speed. In coalition warfare, of course, one must expend one's allies and preserve oneself.

So what Aurangzeb was now calculating was whether it was more advantageous to keep the Persian Red Hat Army at his side, or to let them make the flanking maneuver together with the Turkmens.

The Persian Red Hat Army was a firearm cavalry force, equipped with matchlocks and camel guns, and they had also brought along several British-imported 6-pounder field guns, so they did possess a certain strength. If they were sent to flank with the Turkmens, the probability of a successful flanking maneuver would be greater, but Aurangzeb's own position would then be in danger!

Although Aurangzeb did not intend to fight a decisive battle with Senge, but rather planned to build a fortified camp beneath the walls of Samarkand and stand off against Senge, the fighting power of the Dzungar army was very strong, and they also possessed an extremely formidable capacity for storming fortifications.

"General Khalifa," Aurangzeb said in fluent Persian to the renowned general from Persia, "I hope that you and the Persian Red Hat Army will remain at Samarkand and fight side by side with us, dealing a crushing blow to the invading Dzungars! To inspire the fighting spirit of the Red Hat Army and all the warriors taking part in the Samarkand campaign, I have already prepared ten million rupees. All officers and men who render meritorious service shall receive rich rewards!"

Ten million rupees!

This Aurangzeb had really gone all out!

The moment his lavish reward was announced, not only was Khalifa unwilling to leave Samarkand, even several of the Turkmen tribal chieftains began to look somewhat displeased.

Seeing the looks on their faces, Aurangzeb promptly scattered money with a generous hand. He said to the Turkmens: "The Turkmens making the flanking maneuver shall also receive rich rewards. Every Turkmen warrior who takes part in the battle shall receive a reward of fifty rupees!"

The Turkmens had this time brought out fifteen thousand men. At fifty rupees per man, that was seven hundred fifty thousand!

The common soldiers below, of course, could not possibly receive that much; getting ten rupees each would already be quite good. So the several tribal chieftains were now all rich men!

After placating the Turkmens, Aurangzeb then ordered Shayista Khan: "Send an envoy north of the Jizzakh Pass to invite King Senge to come south for a decisive battle! Tell him that we will withdraw our troops south of the Jizzakh Pass. I, Alamgir of the Timurid Empire, will fight him to the death beneath the walls of Samarkand!"

The camp of Senge's great army was made up of countless yurts, situated in the oasis north of the Jizzakh Pass, and it was enormous in scale. If one looked down from the Turkestan Mountains, one would surely be frightened out of one's wits by the astonishing sight of so many yurts arrayed together.

So many yurts — how many Mongols must be inside? Probably no fewer than a hundred thousand. A hundred thousand Mongol warriors! Back when Genghis Khan marched west, he probably had about this many men.

Now the great army of Genghis Khan had returned, and moreover it had come back carrying muskets and bringing cannons. The Samarkand oasis was in for a disaster now!

Senge dwelt in a great golden-domed tent, similar in form to the great tent Genghis Khan had once dwelt in. Outside, however, there was no nine-tailed white banner, but instead hung the Ming sun-and-moon flag and the Dzungar Kingdom's swastika flying-dragon flag — the dragon flag had been granted to the Dzungar Kingdom by the Ming court, symbolizing that the Dzungar king held the status of a Ming Prince. Senge had also had the Buddhist swastika embroidered onto the dragon flag, turning it into the Dzungar Kingdom's swastika flying-dragon flag.

But unlike what the people in the city of Samarkand imagined, the Senge dwelling within the golden-domed tent was not a rough, burly man in a filthy leather robe, with a ring of hair shaved around his head and a braid left hanging on each side. Rather, he was a great Ming official in a python robe and black gauze cap, his hair done up in a topknot, and he was clean and tidy, the sort who looked refined and scholarly at a glance.

Inside the great tent where he dwelt, there was also a row of bookshelves, filled with all manner of thread-bound volumes — Senge was now a man of learning, already able to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms from beginning to end. Although there were still quite a few characters he did not recognize, it did not affect his reading. So he was now a scholar-general, and he had also had people find many thread-bound books to place in his great tent. This was not merely for show; whenever he had a moment of leisure, he truly would study them.

When the envoy sent by Aurangzeb arrived at the Dzungar army's great camp at the Jizzakh Pass, Senge was sitting behind his writing desk, holding a thread-bound book called The Plum in the Golden Vase and reading it carefully. From his look of concentration, one could tell he was a man of learning.

Mingzhu Lama came hurrying in with Aurangzeb's letter of challenge. Seeing Senge studying The Plum in the Golden Vase, he leaned in with a smile and said: "Great King, is this book to your liking?"

Senge was reading with great relish. When Mingzhu asked, he answered offhandedly: "Not bad, not bad. Are there more fine books like this? This king would like to read a few more."

"There are, there are. This subject recently received from a friend a copy of The Carnal Prayer Mat, written by the Jiangnan literary master Li Yu. It has quite a bit of flavor. I shall present it to Your Highness for appraisal at a later time."

"Good, good," Senge said with a chuckle. "Bring it to me at once!"

At that moment, Mingzhu happened to be holding Aurangzeb's letter of challenge, and he handed it over. Senge took it and glanced at it: "Why is it in Persian? How come this Jiangnan literary master writes books in Persian?"

"Great King, this is not The Carnal Prayer Mat. It is a letter of challenge sent by Aurangzeb."

"What? Another letter of challenge?" Senge frowned deeply. "He came all the way here from India, has not fought a single battle, and yet he sends one letter of challenge after another. Does he not find it troublesome?"

Mingzhu laughed: "Great King, perhaps that Aurangzeb fancies himself a man of literary talent, and wants to write a bit more so that people will know of it."

"Oh," Senge nodded. "And what does he want this time?"

"He says he will move away the troops blocking the southern mouth of the Jizzakh Pass and let us march south to Samarkand for a decisive battle."

"What?" Senge was taken aback. "He is really letting us march south?"

"Really!" Mingzhu said with a smile. "Great King, this saves us a great deal of trouble!"

Senge burst out laughing: "Indeed it saves us trouble! But we are not afraid of trouble either. We can march south, but we will not fight a decisive battle with them! We have few men, they have many. We cannot afford to die, while they cannot be wiped out. Lining up and fighting head-on is something we should do as little as possible."

"Your Highness is wise!" Mingzhu offered a flattering compliment.

"Enough with the flattery," Senge said with a laugh. "First go and urge Sanbao Lama to hurry up and finish the fortress at the northern mouth of Jizzakh!

Once the fortress is finished, we will march south to the southern mouth of Jizzakh and build another fortress! When both fortresses are complete, we will go outside Samarkand and build a third fortress. Once the fortress beneath the walls of Samarkand is finished, victory will be firmly in our grasp!"

That was right — this was Senge's tactic: build fortresses right up to the walls of Samarkand!

Then use the fortresses and the garrisons within them to pin down the allied forces inside and beneath Samarkand, while the Dzungar cavalry struck out in all directions, burning the wheat fields in the Samarkand oasis that were about to be harvested, and then cutting off the communications between Samarkand and the Amu Darya, so that grain from Khwarezm could not reach Samarkand.

After accomplishing all this, Senge would be able to quietly await the arrival of victory beneath the walls of Samarkand!

The people inside Samarkand thought that a "Senge-shi Khan" had come, but none of them imagined that what had come was a steady, methodical "Seng Guofan."

On the third day after receiving Aurangzeb's letter of challenge, the fortress at the northern mouth of the Jizzakh Pass, supervised by Sanbao Lama, was completed. Leaving behind a garrison of three thousand, and then dismissing half of the civilian laborers (forcibly conscripted from the Fergana Valley floor), he then led his main force of about thirty thousand men and fifteen thousand Fergana laborers responsible for transporting military grain and doing hard labor, and in a mighty procession marched through the valley that had long been firmly controlled by the Dzungar army, entering the northeastern corner of the rich Samarkand oasis, and began building a second fortress at the foot of the Turkestan Mountains and by the banks of the Sanzar River.

Thus began the prelude to the Samarkand campaign, far longer than Aurangzeb, Anusha Khan, and the others had ever imagined!

(End of Chapter)