Chapter 780: What to Do When There Aren't Enough Old Manchu?

The day after Sonin, Lan Bai, and Dulan left Shengjing and headed inside the Pass, He Luohui, the Angbang Zhangjing of Shanhai Pass on Dodo's side, entered Shengjing together with Bahana, who had come from Beijing, and brought with him a letter in Ajige's own hand.

Dodo immediately summoned all his trusted men in Shengjing — including Bolo, Nikan, Ganglin, Arjin, Handai, Langqiu, Tantai, and others — to his residence to discuss countermeasures.

"I know Twelfth Brother's temperament best — impulsive, quick to anger, and heedless of consequences." No sooner had everyone taken their seats than Dodo, with a helpless look, began to run down Ajige. "If Fourteenth Brother had not passed the succession to me, Twelfth Brother might still have tolerated me holding my own faction outside the Pass. But now, fratricidal strife is inevitable. What are your views? Speak up, all of you!"

"Since Emperor Chengzong passed the succession to Your Highness, what is there for Your Highness to be polite about? Of course we should raise troops!"

Bolo, the son of Abatai, was the first to speak. He was also a prince of the Plain Blue Banner with the right to enter the Eight Deliberations, holding three niru. He had followed Dodo when Dodo went outside the Pass to build up his power there, and now served as the Plain Blue Banner's Gushan Ejen outside the Pass and concurrently as commander of the Vanguard Battalion of the General's Office.

The next to speak was Nikan, who was now the Plain White Banner's Gushan Ejen outside the Pass and concurrently commander of the Firearms Battalion of the General's Office. His statement consisted of a single word.

"Fight!"

Then Tantai of the Plain Yellow Banner spoke up: "Fight we certainly must, but how many troops do we have on hand? Are they enough?"

Arjin, the Left Meiren Ejen of the Shengjing General's Office, took up the question: "Our nine banners outside the Pass now have nine gushan, twenty-seven jalan, and one hundred thirty-five niru. The bannermen on the rolls number nearly sixty thousand!

In addition, there are tenant households registered under the name of booi — no fewer than one hundred fifty thousand households!"

"Hah," Tantai shook his head. "Of those one hundred thirty-five niru, there aren't many Old Manchu. The bannermen are said to number sixty thousand, but Han Chinese, Barhu, and Solon people probably exceed fifty thousand of that! The true Old Manchu number no more than ten thousand, and two thousand of those have just fled here from inside the Pass!"

The moment his words came out, the atmosphere in the great hall of the princely residence grew somewhat frozen.

The policy by which Dorgon had been forced to expand the bannermen ranks desperately in order to resist the Great Ming had already produced after-effects!

By now, the Old Manchu had become a minority among the bannermen!

Outside the Pass, the Old Manchu bannermen numbered only ten thousand, yet the bannermen on the rolls of the nine banners amounted to as many as sixty thousand — meaning that fifty thousand bannermen were not Old Manchu, and more than forty thousand of those were simply Han Chinese who had been elevated into the banners.

Dodo now had to go to war with Ajige, and at the same time maintain a military presence in the Heilong River basin, the Jingqili River basin, Sakhalin Island, southern Liaoning, western Liaoning, and other places. Even scraping together all sixty thousand bannermen would not be enough — how could he still divide them into old and new?

If he used only the Old Manchu, at the very most he would have ten thousand men.

Dodo gritted his teeth: "They are all sons of the nine banners — why divide them into this and that? This prince treats all alike here!

Moreover, any able-bodied man among the booi tenant households who joins the army and wins merit may likewise be elevated into the nine banners and allotted land!"

The problem he now faced was somewhat similar to that of Yuwen Tai in history. Yuwen Tai did not have enough Xianbei; Dodo did not have enough Old Manchu — and was even more short-handed.

The able-bodied Old Manchu numbered only ten thousand, and this was now an age of muskets and cannon. What use were ten thousand men? He had to draw the Han Chinese into the enterprise!

This was ethnic fusion!

With Dodo having said this, Arjin continued: "Even if we can recruit able-bodied men from the booi tenant households, that is water far away. What we can use right now is only a bit of standing troops. The General's Office has 3,000; the Heilong River Angbang Zhangjing's yamen has 3,000; the three Angbang Zhangjing yamen of southern Liaoning, Haishenwai, and Shanhai Pass each have 1,000 — 9,000 men in all. Of these, the 2,000 in southern Liaoning and Haishenwai cannot be moved. Sakhalin Island and the Heilong and Jingqili river basins must keep at least 2,000. Shengjing must keep another 1,000. Only 4,000 men can be deployed."

"How can 4,000 men be enough?" Handai, the Right Meiren Ejen of the Shengjing General's Office, shook his head. "We need at least ten thousand, surely?"

"Even ten thousand is not enough!" He Luohui interjected. "Prince Ying ordered Zhuoluo to build Emperor Chengzong's tomb inside Shanhai Pass as a fortress for stationing troops — it can hold at least tens of thousands of soldiers!"

Dodo said in a deep voice: "Then we must also bring more troops. We need to send out at least sixty thousand men — we must raise another fifty-six thousand. Of these, forty thousand are to be levied from the nine banners' bannermen, and the rest recruited from the booi tenant households!

Arjin, Handai — are our money, grain, weapons, and horses sufficient?"

Arjin said: "Your Highness, there is not much silver in the Shengjing treasury — only 180,000 taels in all. But grain is sufficient: over a million shi."

Handai said: "Weapons are sufficient. The Spaniards' great galleons recently delivered 2,000 matchlock muskets and 20 small red-barbarian cannon. But armor is rather insufficient. According to the figures reported by the nine Gushan Ejen yamen, two-thirds of the bannermen cannot be fitted with armor. The General's Office treasury holds only 1,500 suits of armor in reserve, and the four Angbang Zhangjing yamen of Heilong River, Haishenwai, southern Liaoning, and Shanhai Pass hold only 2,000 suits in total.

Horses are also not quite sufficient. Our Manchu old rule is that each man provides his own. However, by Your Highness's order, the nine Gushan Ejen each maintain 1,000 horses — all warhorses and draft horses ready for use at any time."

Dodo nodded: "Barely enough. As long as we can win quickly and decisively, it will do!"

It really was rather barely enough!

The Great Qing's current military system consisted of a small standing army plus a large number of "landlord soldiers" who served in rotation. The standing troops were the Vanguard Battalion and the Firearms Battalion; upon entering camp, a man received pay and rations. The nine banners' bannermen who had not entered camp were the "landlord soldiers." Those inside Beijing received pay and rations from their respective banner's Gushan yamen, the main source of which was the income from banner lands. Those serving in the various Angbang Zhangjing yamen were paid by their respective yamen. The bannermen farming land outside the Pass combined soldier and farmer in one, bearing the cost of military service through the land — this was also the reason Dodo had many Han troops under him and few Old Manchu. The Old Manchu, and even the old Han troops (the Han troops from before the entry into the Pass), mostly preferred to live a settled life in Beijing or under the various Angbang Zhangjing yamen inside the Pass, content with a fixed ration of pay and grain.

Those willing to go out and make their way outside the Pass were mostly new Han troops elevated from booi with no stipends, or Plain Green Banner bannermen pushed to the front line as cannon fodder. In addition, there were some Solon and Barhu people — northeastern natives or refugees from Siberia.

Because these so-called bannermen had no fixed income, their whole families depended on farming or hunting to survive. Therefore, the period of unpaid service by bannermen could not be too long; otherwise there had to be spoils to seize. Otherwise they would turn into the Ming dynasty's beggar military households!

And the money and grain in Dodo's hands were not very plentiful. Maintaining an army of sixty thousand for a long period would be extremely difficult, so a quick and decisive victory was essential.

"But under what pretext do we raise a great army?" Ganglin, the Prefect of Fengtian, now raised another question.

Ganglin had originally been one of Dorgon's trusted men, and had gone outside the Pass together with Dodo. Dodo had become the Shengjing General, while he had become Prefect of Fengtian Prefecture — the only prefecture outside the Pass (not counting the Ming's Lüshun Prefecture).

At present, the Qing did not establish provinces. If one did not count the Shengjing General's Office, the largest local authorities were the prefectural yamen, the Angbang Zhangjing yamen, and the Gushan Ejen yamen.

Here outside the Pass, under the Shengjing General's Office there were one prefecture, four Angbang Zhangjing, and nine Gushan — fourteen yamen at the prefectural level in all, with Fengtian Prefecture at their head.

"Use the Russians as a pretext!" Aisin Gioro Langqiu, the Angbang Zhangjing of Haishenwai, had also come to Shengjing. He had escorted Sonin and the others here, and had also delivered a batch of firearms and cannon.

He suggested: "Just say that 5,000 Russian musket troops have arrived at Yaksa Fortress and are about to invade in force, and that we are raising a great army precisely in order to attack Yaksa Fortress."

Of course, 5,000 Russian musket troops could not possibly come to Yaksa Fortress — they simply could not get there! Moreover, Moscow had also learned of the "Japan-Mongolia Agreement." How would Tsar Alexei I dare provoke the eastern allies of the Spaniards?

Therefore, in the past two years, Russia had been on the defensive in the Heilong and Jingqili river basins, retreating step by step and abandoning many strongholds.

"A good idea!" Dodo laughed. "We can also say the same to that fellow Zu Kefa, the Fourfold Subject! That fellow came running to Shengjing to stir up trouble, hoping to take advantage of our Great Qing. We must not let him succeed."

(End of Chapter)