Chapter 582: Catch Them Off Guard — Strike Straight at Yanjing!

The enemy is perfectly capable of doing something stupid!

For example, after the Ming army sorties from Juehua Island and heads straight for Ningyuan, they might march a force out of Beijing from a thousand li away — tens of thousands of Eight Banners crack troops racing a thousand li as if their lives depended on it, charging to the walls of Ningyuan, and then, heedless of their men's and horses' exhaustion, lining up for a pitched battle against two or three divisions of the Ming New Army. Didn't the Chongzhen Emperor pull stunts like that all the time?

If we could make Chongzhen the Prince Regent of the Great Qing, the northern expedition would basically be a steamroll!

The problem is that Dorgon, Dodo, and the rest are certainly sharper than Chongzhen!

As long as they don't act like fools, they won't commit heavy troops to a decisive battle on the Liaoxi and Liaodong coasts. Instead they'll use several hundred or a thousand cavalry to constantly harass and raid. What would the Ming army do then? Hide inside the forts and never go anywhere?

So to pacify Liao with fort tactics, we must have a cavalry force that can fight the Qing cavalry while relying on the forts. Relying on the two cavalry regiments the Kenan New Army currently has won't do.

Wu Xiang understood that Zhu Cilang would certainly ask about the horse farms, so when he saw the Crown Prince's gaze turn toward him, he didn't wait for the question and began answering on his own.

"Your Majesty, last year the Fengyang horse farm brought in more than one hundred twenty fine fold-eared horses from India," Wu Xiang said. "Among them were over twenty stallions, and the rest were tall, sturdy mares. More will be brought in this year — no fewer than two hundred, I estimate. If we can keep this up for ten years, the Fengyang horse farm will be able to supply our cavalry with large numbers of fine horses!"

Those one hundred twenty-plus Indian horses brought into the Fengyang horse farm had cost a fortune. Orders had been placed with Dutch and Portuguese merchants more than a year in advance. The delivered price (tax excluded) for the stallions ran as high as 1,500 taels of silver each, and the mares cost as much as 800 taels each!

Just the purchase of those one hundred twenty-odd horses cost the Ming court over a hundred thousand taels! Add in the expenses for the farm, stables, and grooms, and it was even more staggering. To prevent the Fengyang horses from having improper relations with the local native horses, the Ministry of War's Horse Administration Office even paid to build a hundred-li-long wall, completely enclosing the farm!

It was only thanks to the court now being full of loyal and upright ministers that the treasury could still manage it. Otherwise, this Fengyang horse farm would truly have been impossible.

But in this age, sea transport capacity was limited, and horses were not fond of traveling by ship — some always died en route. So transport costs were very high, and the numbers imported could never be too large. Moreover, after arriving in the Ming, more would die from failing to acclimate to the local climate and water. For any horse to reach the Fengyang horse farm safely was truly no easy feat!

Furthermore, fold-eared horses were extremely expensive, premium horses even in India, generally owned only by great nobles. So the Portuguese and Dutch could never get their hands on very many.

Therefore, no matter how much money Zhu Cilang had, he could never buy enough Indian fold-eared horses to form several cavalry regiments. Over the next ten years, buying an average of one hundred fifty or sixty per year would already be difficult. Even if not a single one died in ten years, the total would only be fifteen or sixteen hundred. Mares would certainly make up the majority — around thirteen or fourteen hundred. And horses are not very prolific animals. Relying on these imported mares, the Fengyang horse farm's average annual output over the next ten years would be only around five hundred. However, fold-eared mares born at Fengyang could produce foals after being raised for three or four years, so the growth rate of the Fengyang herd would accelerate after a few years. Within ten years it might reach five or six thousand — and in the process, some would have to be culled. So reaching five or six thousand within ten years was already quite ideal, and would be enough to support five to ten New Army cavalry regiments in frequent combat operations.

Because the Indian fold-eared horse was a breed developed through over a thousand years of continuous selective breeding — an already "fixed" breed, not a steppe horse raised in a near-natural environment. So the fold-eared horse farm's "fine horse rate" was very high. If it could produce five thousand horses a year, the number of top-grade warhorses (gelded males) usable in combat would never be less than fifteen hundred, and in the years after that, the numbers would be even greater!

"Your Majesty, horse-raising cannot be rushed!" Wu Xiang said to Zhu Cilang. "This subject has personally inspected those fold-eared horses. They are all exceptionally robust and tall. The mares stand over five chi at the shoulder, and the stallions all measure five chi two cun. Rare, fine horses!

If we can raise them in large numbers, the eastern barbarians' cavalry will be no match for ours. At the very least, in a head-on charge, the fold-eared horses hold an overwhelming advantage!

Although we cannot fight a decisive battle against a large Eight Banners mounted force, by combining with forts and infantry, a few thousand cavalry on our side can secure the situation along the Liaodong and Liaoxi coasts and the Liao River line."

What Wu Xiang was describing was in fact the method Russia had used to conquer Siberia and the Central Asian steppe: forts plus Cossacks. The forts were bastion forts, and the Cossacks' Don horses were superior to steppe horses — in cavalry clashes they could run, pursue, and charge, while the Cossacks' individual fighting ability was also greater than that of the various degenerated Mongol and Turkic steppe tribes.

And so Central Asia and Siberia gradually fell under Russia's control.

"Ten years, twenty years..." Zhu Cilang thought for a moment. "Still a bit long! What about advancing up the Tianjin Wei River and the Grand Canal, and striking straight at Yanjing?"

Going up the Tianjin Wei River and the Grand Canal to strike at the Great Qing's foundation had always been Zhu Cilang's private plan. In the past he lacked the strength for it; now he had over two hundred thousand New Army troops, after all!

If it truly came to lining up for a decisive battle with Dorgon, the odds of victory were real!

"Your Majesty," Navy Commissioner Huang Binqing was the first to take up the question, "the Haisha Island outside the Dagu estuary is easy to take, but over the past two years the eastern barbarians have built a coastal defense battery at Dagu, and they've also built a fort on an island in the Tianjin Wei River called Dongzui Island. Both fortifications have copied our sandbag wall-building method, and the walls are built low, in the bastion-fort style."

They learned fast!

Zhu Cilang pondered for a while. "We have to try it eventually. What if it succeeds?"

He thought further. "Perhaps we could march north to Ningyuan this winter, drawing the eastern barbarians' main army east to reinforce, and then land at Dagu after the spring thaw!

At the same time, have the Shandong and Huaibei armies advance westward. Three great columns — surely at least one can break through?"

"And there is this subject's third son, Wu Sangui!" Wu Xiang reminded him. "Sangui's heart is still with the Ming! These past two years in Shaanxi and Gansu he has kept flying the Ming banner! If the royal army marches north and the situation turns favorable, he will surely raise troops in response."

Li Yan also said: "The situation with the Prince of Dai in Shanxi is also not bad. Our odds of success with a three-pronged advance are at least sixty or seventy percent — worth a try!"

Just as he was speaking, from outside the Western Warm Pavilion came a eunuch's announcement: "Your Majesty, the Marquis of Gongshun requests an audience."

"Summon him."

The Marquis of Gongshun, Wu Ruzheng, was the Right Communications Commissioner. For him to come requesting an audience in such haste, there was certainly urgent business to report.

"Your Majesty, the marriage envoy Zu Kefa's memorial has arrived, marked 'utmost urgency.'"

"Bring it here." Zhu Cilang extended a hand and took the memorial that Wu Ruzheng presented with both hands. He opened it, glanced at it, and couldn't help laughing. "Dorgon got married!"

"Dorgon got married?" Wu Xiang was startled. "Did his wife die and he's remarrying?"

"No, his wife isn't dead."

"Then how can he get married?" Wu Xiang shook his head. "Taking a concubine?"

"Not a concubine," Zhu Cilang said, laughing. "He now has two wives. The new wife is the eastern barbarians' Empress Dowager, Bumbutai."

"What? The Empress Dowager is marrying?"

"Isn't that utterly outrageous?"

"Does this Dorgon have any understanding of ritual and law?"

The several men in the Western Warm Pavilion all looked thoroughly astonished — including Li Yan. In fact, he had two wives himself! One was his original wife, and the other was the Red Maiden; both held equal rank!

Zhu Cilang glanced at them. "Besides marrying the Empress Dowager, Dorgon is now also Imperial Ama Prince Regent. So Dong'e is now a proper Princess of the First Rank!"

Wu Xiang's face changed color at this news. Was Lady Dong'e going to become Empress?

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Dorgon has agreed to let Lady Dong'e become Our Imperial Noble Consort, and he also wants Us to build a detached palace for Dong'e in Dengzhou, where she can live for a few years to adapt to the southeastern climate, avoid falling ill from the change of water and soil, and incidentally learn our Ming court etiquette. It seems Dorgon is sincere about peace! Do you all think this is an opportunity?"

"An opportunity? So we're not going north?" Wu Xiang pressed.

"How could we not?" Zhu Cilang gave a cold laugh. "The Lady and the lands of Yan and Yun — We intend to take both. Now is exactly the time to catch Dorgon off guard and win by surprise!"

(End of Chapter)