Chapter 588: Wu Sangui, Where Does Your Road Lie?

Ah, and there's still a Zunghar out west!

When Zhu Cilang heard Wu Guoyong say this, he thought of Galdan. Right now he should still be a small child, perhaps serving as a lama in Tibet. But he and his Zunghar Khanate did not appear out of thin air — they went through a process of accumulation and rise.

The Zunghar Khanate has not yet appeared, but its predecessor, the Choros tribe — one of the four Oirat Mongol (Wala) tribes — should be doing quite well by now.

In fact, ever since Hong Taiji crushed Ligdan Khan, whose power base was the Southern Mongols, the strength of the Eastern Mongols and the Khalkha Mongols of the north had declined sharply, and they were successively ruled or subdued by the Great Qing. The Wala tribes roaming far away north and south of the Tianshan Mountains thus got their chance to rise, and began expanding eastward, swallowing up some of the Khalkha and Southern Mongol tribes.

Among them, the one doing best was the Khoshut tribe, leader of the four-tribe Wala alliance. In the ninth year of Chongzhen, the Khoshut chieftain Güshi Khan, at the invitation of the Gelug regent of Tibet, Sonam Chöpel, sent troops into Qinghai and Tibet to support the Yellow Hat Gelug school. Seizing this opportunity, Güshi Khan successively destroyed the Khalkha left-wing Hong Taiji Choghtu Khan's forces (a collateral branch of the Tüsheet Khan line), the Béri chieftain Donyo Dorje of Kham (a follower of the Bön religion), and the Tsangpa Khan who controlled Ü-Tsang proper. He also established the Khoshut Khanate in Qinghai, becoming the supreme ruler of most of Qinghai, Tibet, Kham, and the Wala tribes north and south of the Tianshan Mountains (Güshi Khan remained the Wala alliance leader).

If one looked only at the map, the Khoshut Khanate established by Güshi Khan was a great power that could stand as an equal to the Great Ming and the Great Qing.

"Your Majesty, although this Khoshut Khanate has a vast territory and a large population, it has no ambition to contend with the eastern barbarians. As early as before Güshi Khan's eastern campaign, he sent envoys to Shenyang to offer horses and local products as tribute. Last year, he even joined with twenty-two chieftains of the various Wala tribes to jointly submit a memorial to the eastern barbarians, expressing submission. The eastern barbarian court in turn bestowed armor, bows, and arrows, and ordered Güshi Khan to command the various tribes. Therefore Wu Sangui is now beset by enemies on all sides — wolves and tigers on every front!"

Wu Guoyong was Wu Xiang's adopted son, so naturally he had to speak on Wu Sangui's behalf, making this Great Qing Green Banner Iron-Cap Prince's situation sound as difficult as possible.

Zhu Cilang glanced at Wu Guoyong and said with a smile, "The Khoshut Khanate is large but loose. Güshi Khan surely lacks the strength to subdue the Wala tribal chieftains, which is why he has to borrow the eastern barbarians' tiger skin to scare people. If the eastern barbarians expect him to contain Wu Sangui, that is sheer fantasy. One well-managed Xining Guard would be enough to hold off Güshi Khan."

"Your Majesty speaks most wisely," Wu Guoyong said, "but how could Wu Sangui have the spare strength to manage the Xining Guard? The military houses of Gansu and Shaanxi are deeply entrenched, with over two hundred years of interwoven roots. Who among them would submit to an outsider like him?"

Zhu Cilang thought for a moment and laughed. "That's easy to handle. We have a way!"

Wu Guoyong thought to himself: Of course you have a way, but Wu Sangui, trapped in Shaanxi and Gansu, is at his wit's end!

The hat of Wu Sangui, the "Green Hat Prince" of the Great Qing's Bordered Green Banner, was not actually entirely green. It had a black brim, red fringe, and a ruby finial. Only the two-eyed peacock feather stuck in the back of the hat — two bird feathers — had a bit of green to it.

But even that little bit of green, Wu Sangui disliked intensely!

So he basically never wore this slightly green hat, except when meeting officials sent from Beijing, when he would grudgingly put it on. Otherwise, this Wu Sangui — Great Qing Prince Who Pacifies the West and "Green Hat Prince" of the Bordered Green Banner — either went bareheaded or wore a black gauze official's cap.

To be precise, most of the time he wore a black gauze cap on his head and a bright red python robe, with a qilin rank badge on the front of the robe symbolizing a Ming Duke.

That's right — he was now dressed entirely in the manner of a Ming Duke, and he had even grown out the hair on his head, tying a small topknot at the crown.

But he had not gone back to the Ming side. Although he dressed like a loyal Ming subject, the bowl he held in his hands was still that of the Great Qing court.

The poor, remote territory he now occupied, first of all, did not border the Ming, making it very hard to get support from that brother-in-law who had screwed him over, Zhu Cilang. Secondly, it bordered the forces of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. He and Li Zicheng had a blood feud — Old Li had been well on his way to uniting the realm, and it was all ruined by Wu Sangui's meddling. Thirdly, his rule over Ningxia and Gansu was far from secure. He was, after all, an outsider with no local foundation, and he could not do without the Great Qing as his backer.

So he was still the Great Qing's Prince Who Pacifies the West, Grand General Who Pacifies the West, and banner lord of the Bordered Green Banner — and still a great traitor to the Han!

And the reason he dressed like a Ming Duke was to show that he still cherished his former sovereign and was ready at any moment to defect back to the Ming and become a thrice-serving minister. Only by doing this could Wu Sangui temporarily keep the Gansu-Shaanxi military leaders under his command in line.

These men all came from the Ming's northwestern border army. They were not that afraid of the Manchus, and they were not from the same system as Wu Sangui. Why should they accept Wu Sangui as their boss? Wasn't it precisely because Wu Sangui had come under the banner of the Great Ming?

At first everyone thought Wu Sangui had already become a thrice-serving minister, sent by Zhu Cilang's order to revive the Ming's northwestern border army. At that time, Li Zicheng's Shun was also doing poorly and looked about to collapse. Nobody had any way out, so they all wanted to join in and advance together — these local bosses of Shaanxi and Gansu had followed the Ming for generations. When the Shun had not yet arrived, they hadn't felt the Ming was anything special, so not many had resisted to the death; most had surrendered to Li Zicheng. But after surrendering, these people discovered that the Ming had actually been good!

Under the Ming, they had eaten from those below and taken from those above, and could even shield Shaanxi merchants in smuggling. Though they couldn't make a great fortune, their lives had been quite comfortable.

But once the Shun came, the Shaanxi merchants all went bankrupt — there was no source of goods and no market for smuggling! And the Shun court above was utterly tight-fisted — they couldn't even take care of their own veteran camp troops, so would they care about a bunch of twice-serving ministers like you?

As for below — when the Roving King comes, no grain taxes!

Although these twice-serving ministers who had gone over to the Shun would not exempt those below them from levies, the difficulty of extorting had still risen considerably.

So everyone's lives got worse day by day, and they missed the Ming more and more. When Wu Sangui arrived, of course they all scrambled to join him.

But who knew that Wu Sangui's thrice-serving minister act was fake! He was still a despised twice-serving minister. The northwestern border army officers now reluctantly following him had all served as Ming troops, then as Shun troops, and now as Qing troops — thrice-serving ministers, all of them — and they were all planning to go back to the Ming and become four-times-serving ministers.

You, Wu Sangui, are so far only a twice-serving minister — how can that win anyone's loyalty?

So Wu Sangui had no choice but to dress up every day as a thrice-serving minister in waiting!

And the Bordered Green Banner troops under his command were not green either — they were red. Ordinary soldiers still wore the Ming mandarin-duck battle jackets. Officers were issued two sets of official uniforms each — one Qing, one Ming — to be changed at a moment's notice depending on the situation.

There had been mix-ups, too. Last autumn, when Zu Zepu passed through Ningxia accompanying the Great Qing mission to Tibet, he got a fright.

The cavalry led by Liu Sheng to welcome Zu Zepu and his party were all dressed in Ming style. Zu Zepu thought Wu Sangui had already defected back, and was just about to join him in abandoning darkness for the light when he realized it was a mistake.

The Grand Secretary Sonin, who had come with him, was even more unlucky. He had just climbed out of the carriage and was about to accept Wu Sangui's bribe when he unexpectedly saw three thousand Ming iron cavalry arrayed before his eyes. He was so frightened he burst into tears on the spot. He even drew his knife, ready to fight this fickle scoundrel Wu Sangui to the death.

Fortunately, Zu Zepu stopped him in time — one solid punch knocked him to the ground! Only thus was Sonin spared the fate of being hacked to death by the other side.

Later Zu Zepu learned that the very day after he arrived in Ningxia happened to be the day the envoy of Prince Dai, Zhu Cijiong — the Prince of Zaoqiang, Zhu Dingshan — was visiting. Somehow the two got mixed up, and the result was that the Great Qing's heavenly envoy was badly startled. What a colossal misunderstanding! Who knew whether Dorgon would send troops to punish Wu Sangui because of it?

And Zhu Cijiong, during these days up in the Lüliang Mountains, had been forced to make considerable progress. He had done a fine job in the Lüliang Mountains — not only holding off several Qing encirclement campaigns, but also gathering many wandering Ming loyalist officials and imperial clan members, among them this Zhu Dingshan of the old Prince Dai line.

This Zhu Dingshan had no other talent, but he had a glib tongue and was a master of smooth talk, and he knew how to tailor his pitch to his audience. So Zhu Cijiong sent him scurrying everywhere to recruit people to go up to the Lüliang Mountains and fight the Great Qing. Everyone knew the Ming's northwestern border army had plenty of good fighters, so Zhu Dingshan came running to Wu Sangui's place every few days.

And Wu Sangui neither stopped him nor arrested him. Every time he entertained him well — he needed to let the Gansu-Shaanxi military leaders under him know that his loyalty to the Ming was absolute! Besides, Gansu and Shaanxi had a surplus of military men, and Wu Sangui had no posts to give them and couldn't afford to feed them. If Zhu Cijiong could take some away, so much the better.

(End of Chapter)