Chapter 814: The Great Monk Tongyong, Ajige

In early 1653 by the Western calendar, inside the Kremlin in Moscow, capital of Russia, three parties signed a "Tripartite Ten-Year Non-Aggression Treaty": the Mongol Choros Chokhur Ubashi, representing the Grand Protectorate of the Northern Court of the Great Ming; Guang Shiheng, a loyal subject of the Great Ming representing the Great Mongol State (he had the certificate to prove it); and Tsar Alexei I of Russia (the only genuine one of the three). Thus was won ten years of precious peace for all three parties!

That's right — this treaty, which looked fake no matter how you examined it, was in the end strictly observed, because no war broke out among the three signatory parties within those ten years! Note: three parties, not three states!

For what the Ming Northern Court Deputy Protector Choros Chokhur Ubashi represented was the regional regime of the Ming Northern Court — an internal feudatory of the Ming had no diplomatic authority without authorization from the imperial court, but the Grand Protectorate of the Northern Court had received formal authorization from the Ming court to conduct protectorate-level diplomacy. That is, it represented only the protectorate itself, not the Ming imperial court.

Such local regimes holding a measure of diplomatic authority was extremely common before the invention of the telegraph. Especially for a great power with vast territory and an exceptionally complex surrounding situation, granting certain diplomatic authorization to a governor-general in a distant region was absolutely necessary.

And the Ming Northern Court regional regime represented by Choros Chokhur Ubashi, in the ten years after signing the non-aggression treaty, kept directing its offensive spearhead southward and southwestward, and did not come into conflict with Russia or the Great Mongol State.

As for Russia, its attention was now fixed on White Russia in the west, Little Russia (Ukraine) in the south, and the Baltic coast. This meant Russia would face three formidable opponents: the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Polish Republic!

Russia therefore simply could not send many regular troops toward Siberia and Central Asia. It could only scrape together a few thousand Cossacks for small-scale raids, bullying the Mongols, who had already declined to the state of a tribal confederation. Historically, the Dzungar Khanate had once been able to mount a fairly effective resistance against Russia — to say nothing of the present Dzungars, who had transformed overnight into the Grand Protectorate of the Northern Court.

The Russia of today was not the Russia after Peter the Great's reforms; its military-industrial capacity was far behind the present Great Ming!

Moreover, the surrounding Ottoman Empire, Kingdom of Sweden, and Polish Republic were all still in positions of strength, so Russia simply lacked the capacity to fight another one or two large-scale wars in the east.

Therefore, not long after signing the "Tripartite Ten-Year Non-Aggression Treaty," Russia abandoned the two forward strongholds of Yaksa and Nerchinsk in the Far East, withdrew to the eastern shore of Lake Baikal and the banks of the Lena River, and began shifting to a defensive posture. It built the Irkutsk fortress along the Angara River north of Lake Baikal, and the Ulan-Ude and Chita fortresses south and east of Lake Baikal.

In western Siberia and Central Asia, however, Russia did not completely halt its expansion. Instead, it turned its aggressive designs toward the leaderless Kazakhs and began building large numbers of fortress strongholds in the western part of the Kazakh Khanate, nibbling away at Kazakh lands.

Faced with Russian expansion in Moghulistan (the part belonging to the Kazakhs), the Grand Protectorate of the Northern Court of the Ming, with funding from the Ming imperial court, responded with the same "fortress expansion" method. In the ten years from 1653 onward, it successively constructed four great fortresses: Western Chu City (situated between the Chu River and the northern slopes of the Kyrgyz Mountains), Northern Court City (on the northwestern shore of Lake Balkhash), Suyab City (on the old site of Suyab), and Northern Frontier City (near the Yamysh salt lake in the western Kulunda Steppe by the Irtysh River). It also moved the Grand Protectorate of the Northern Court into Western Chu City.

However, this whole series of city-building, relocations, pacification of Kazakh tribes, and wars with the Yarkent Khanate and the Uzbek Khanate consumed too much of the Northern Court's energy, so the "non-aggression treaty" between the Northern Court and Russia was not broken.

As for the Great Mongol State, 1653 by the Western calendar was the tenth year of Shunzhi. The little Shunzhi Emperor Fulin and the Imperial Uncle Dodo had probably both forgotten about Guang Shiheng's mission to Russia, because from the end of the ninth year of Shunzhi, Fulin and Dodo had been preparing for an uncle-nephew meeting.

Lately the Great Qing and the Great Mongol had run into a heap of vexing troubles. The good uncle and nephew of the Great Qing, who wished they could strangle each other, had no choice but to meet and discuss countermeasures.

The place where they met was the Jian Mausoleum of the late Imperial Ama Dorgon — the Jieshi Mountain where the Jian Mausoleum stood lay between Shunzhi's territory and Dodo's territory. Neither of the two had stationed defenses on Jieshi Mountain; instead, they had entrusted this mountain region and the task of guarding the Jian Mausoleum to the Great Monk Ajige, who had been defeated at the Battle of Jieshi Mountain.

That's right — Ajige had now seen through the vanity of the mortal world. He had shaved his head and entered the monkhood at Shuiyan Temple on Jieshi Mountain, becoming a great monk with the dharma name Tongyong.

His dharma name, as one could tell at a glance, had a grand origin!

The character "Tong" in Tongyong came from the eminent monk Tongxiu of the Linji school. This eminent monk Tongxiu was only thirty-nine this year, but he had become famous very early — at the age of twenty-three he was already a renowned high monk throughout the southeast.

After Dorgon's death, the devout Buddhist Princess Dongguo feared that her Ama would fall into the eighteenth level of hell, so she begged Zhu Cilang to find an enlightened high monk to go to Jieshi Mountain to chant sutras and deliver Dorgon's soul.

Emperor Zhu also knew quite a few high monks — all high monks of the secular surname Zhu at Huangjue Temple, but sending them to chant sutras for Dorgon would hardly be appropriate, would it? There was also another high monk, Galdan, who was busy studying in elementary school and couldn't get away. So he had Qian Qianyi make a recommendation, and Qian Qianyi recommended this monk Tongxiu to Zhu Cilang. Zhu Cilang gave him tens of thousands of taels of silver as "incense money" and sent him off to Jieshi Mountain.

This monk Tongxiu was a high monk, and naturally had his brilliant points. Not long after arriving at Jieshi Mountain, he was recognized by the local Yanshui Temple as an eminent monk of great virtue. When Ajige, who was guarding the Jian Mausoleum, heard of this, he went to Yanshui Temple to pay a visit. He visited and visited until he became a believer, and moreover came to believe that he himself had an affinity with the Buddha and ought to lay down the butcher's knife and attain Buddhahood on the spot.

However, Monk Tongxiu did not dare take Ajige as his disciple. Instead, he took him as a disciple on behalf of his own master, accepting Ajige as his own last junior fellow disciple.

Thus Ajige became a high monk of the "Tong" generation!

Monk Tongxiu then chose the character "Yong" for Ajige, meaning that one must not only comprehend the Dharma but also apply the Dharma — only thus could one deliver all living beings.

Now the monk Tongyong, Ajige, together with his senior fellow disciple Monk Tongxiu, invited the visitors from afar — Fulin and Dodo — into the incense-wreathed sacrificial hall of the Jian Mausoleum.

"Amitabha. Would the two benefactors join this humble monk in offering a stick of incense to the Imperial Ama?"

Dressed in monk's robes and kasaya, his head shaved bald, Ajige wore a cheerful expression and had put on considerable weight. When Dodo and Shunzhi, uncle and nephew, first saw him, they didn't recognize him at all, and even now they still felt somewhat unaccustomed to the sight.

The great monk Tongxiu beside Ajige looked far more profound — a faint, ambiguous smile, deep and penetrating eyes, and when he spoke it was in the pleasant Wu dialect, soft yet imbued with a sacred and solemn air.

He took two already-lit sticks of incense from two young novice monks and handed them to Shunzhi and Dodo, saying only: "Please, benefactors."

Dodo and Shunzhi accepted the incense, held it and bowed before Dorgon's spirit tablet, then sat down facing each other on the meditation cushions placed before the tablet.

Neither of the two had come alone to burn incense; each had brought a retinue of followers, who had just now kowtowed along with them and now stood behind their respective masters, each glaring coldly at the other side.

The great monk Tongyong, Ajige, did not leave with his senior fellow disciple Tongxiu. Instead, he chanted a Buddha's name and then seated himself between Dodo and Shunzhi.

"Before the spirit tablet of the Imperial Ama, what words can the two benefactors not speak openly?" The monk Tongyong was today's peacemaker, and with the atmosphere so awkward, he naturally had to speak. "If the two of you won't speak, then this humble monk will begin. Is the Fourteenth Princess still to be married off or not? Is the territory in the Central Plains still to be held or not? And then there's the matter of the Dzungar tribe going over to the Southern Ming, becoming some sort of Grand Protector of the Northern Court, and even sending troops against the Yarkent Khanate, about to cut off our Great Qing's contact with Tibet — how should that be dealt with?"

(End of Chapter)