Chapter 827: Go to the Central Plain

On the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the tenth year of Qing Shunzhi, the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The young Shunzhi Emperor spent this Mid-Autumn Festival in Guihua City, in the shadow of the Daqing Mountains and on the banks of the Yellow River. He had not stayed comfortably in Beijing, and of course he had not traveled to Guihua City in the freezing cold to eat Mongolian-style mooncakes stuffed with sheep's cheese — he had come to play the part of a Mongol Great Khan.

Now the Tüsheet Khan, Jasaghtu Khan, and Setsen Khan of the Khalkha Mongols north of the Gobi, along with the princes of the Jirem, Josotu, Ju Ud, Xilingol, and Ulanqab leagues of the Mongols south of the Gobi, had all sent their own troops to concentrate on the great grasslands north of the Ordos Loop, waiting for the Mongol Great Khan to come and command them.

Was Shunzhi not now a great khan himself? His imperial uncle Dodo only talked and did nothing, making the excuse that he had to go to Japan to fight the wokou, so he could not spare himself. If the Shunzhi Great Khan did not go, then the Great Mongol Nation would fall apart. The Great Mongol Nation was also part of the ancestral realm, so the Shunzhi Great Khan naturally had to find a way to preserve it. Moreover, the Mongol host gathered on the Ordos grasslands — the three Khalkha tribes and the five leagues south of the Gobi — was no small number: it was claimed to be a hundred thousand, and in reality numbered no fewer than eighty thousand. Though their fighting strength was barely passable, they were still an army, and cavalry at that. If they went into the Central Plain, would the Zhu Emperor not be in for a hard time?

So the Shunzhi Great Khan followed Sonin's advice and raised the banner of the Great Khan's personal campaign. But he did not push deep into the Ordos Loop; instead, at Guihua City, more than seven hundred li from the Gobi sands, he raised the Chagan Sülde, the symbol of the Great Khan's authority — the nine-tailed white banner — as if he truly were the Mongol Great Khan.

He also ordered the three khans north of the Gobi and the princes and commandery princes of the five leagues south of the Gobi to come to Guihua City before the Mid-Autumn Festival to pay homage and attend the war council.

When they had first arrived at Guihua City, Shunzhi, Sonin, Ba'intu (Grand Minister of the Interior and commander of the Vanguard Battalion), Jobotei (Grand Minister of the Interior and commander of the Elite Cavalry Battalion), and Namusengge (Grand Minister of the Interior and commander of the Kheshig Battalion) had still planned, before winter set in, to drive the Mongol host on the grasslands north of the Ordos Loop against the eastern section of the Great Wall at Yulin Garrison, attempting to break through the wall around Fugu and Shenmu in order to sweep the great rear base of the anti-Qing forces in northwestern Shanxi.

Then they would lead a portion of the Mongol host through Taiyuan Prefecture, out by the Jingxing road into Northern Zhili, and finally south into the Central Province.

But the Mongol khans and princes from south and north of the Gobi who arrived one after another at Guihua to pay homage to the Great Khan brought Shunzhi and his men an unexpected piece of bad news.

The Ming troops of Shuofang Garrison had actually gained the complete upper hand in cavalry battles in the Gobi Desert, and had inflicted extremely heavy casualties on the mobile Mongol cavalry.

"Great Khan, the Han people of Yulin have learned to fight dirty now. They won't face our Mongol heroes blade to blade in open battle — they only fight with black guns!"

"That's right. They often send out a small force of light cavalry as bait to lure our brave warriors into an ambush, then kill and wound them with firelocks, and only then charge with lancers. Every time they inflict terrible casualties on our brave warriors!"

"Great Khan, these Han black-gun soldiers are all cavalry too. The moment things look bad they mount and flee, so even when our main force goes out it is very hard to catch them — and instead we get led into ambushes laid by their infantry."

"Yes, it's too hard to fight! Now the cavalry of all our tribes hardly dare go into the Gobi Desert!"

"If the Great Khan's heavenly troops do not move out, we truly have no way left."

In the Shunzhi Emperor's traveling palace, the Silver Buddha Temple of Guihua, the khans and princes of the Mongol tribes all spoke at once, each pouring out their grievances to Shunzhi.

The Shunzhi Great Khan's Mongolian was still not fluent. He could understand written text, but speaking and listening were both somewhat difficult. If those Mongol khans spoke slowly, he might grasp the general meaning, but these khans spoke far too fast, showing not the slightest consideration for the Great Khan's hard work in learning.

"Great Khan," said Sonin, knowing the Great Khan's Mongolian was poor, and so speaking in Manchu, "the firelock cavalry of the Ming's Shuofang Garrison are skilled at luring the enemy and laying ambushes. Time and again they have used black guns to inflict heavy losses on the Mongol warriors, and every tribe has suffered terribly. It seems unwise to keep battering ourselves against the Shuofang army at Yulin Garrison."

The Shunzhi Emperor nodded, and opened his mouth in Mongolian that the Mongols found hard to follow: "Sonin speaks sense. What is there worth fighting for at Shuofang Garrison? A poor, bitter place, and it is held by mountain bandits who came down from the Lüliang Mountains. What is the greatest skill of us Mongols? It is that we can run. Each of us has several horses, while the Han have only two legs. So we should avoid the strong and strike the weak. We should not contend with the bandits of Shuofang — we should go to the Central Plain and make a great fortune!"

Luring the Mongols into the Central Plain to serve as cannon fodder was the brilliant anti-Ming plan that Shunzhi and Sonin had worked out together. They did not care how the Ming army's black-gun tactics worked; the Qing needed cannon fodder, and they needed cannon fodder that could ride and fight as mobile cavalry.

Right now the three princely feudatories in the Central Province did not have much cavalry left to feed to the Ming army's black guns. If their cavalry were shot to pieces by the black guns, or were shot into not daring to leave their gates, then the Qing army on the Central Province battlefield would become blind and deaf!

The several Mongol khans understood only half of what they heard. The long rambling speech at the beginning they did not quite follow, but the last sentence everyone understood — they were going to the Central Plain to make a great fortune!

Everyone liked making a fortune!

Who did not know that the Central Plain was rich and warm, its goods and women ten times, a hundred times those of Shuofang? Back in the days when the Mongols lorded it over the Central Plain, the ancestors of the Golden Family had been truly splendid. Every man had several great chests of silk clothes and changed into fresh ones every day. They could eat all kinds of Central Plain delicacies, never repeating a meal! And they could seize Central Plain women as concubines and maidservants. How could that compare to being cast out on the grasslands now, suffering cold and hardship?

"Great Khan, is this true?"

"Great Khan, are we really to be sent into the Central Plain to seize the Han people's goods?"

"Great Khan, will some of the households of the Central Plain be enfeoffed to the heroes of the grasslands?"

The three khans of the Khalkha were the most eager. Their fiefs were all in Khalkha Mongolia, and now, in the Little Ice Age, that place was even poorer and more bitter than the Mongols south of the Gobi. Worse, next door had come the Russians, fierce as demons, who came to raid them every few days!

Truly, it was enough to make one weep!

The Golden Family, the descendants of the Great Khan, had now become objects for Cossacks to rob at will.

"That is exactly what the Great Khan means!" shouted the Kheshig commander Namusengge. "The heroes of the three tribes and five leagues should go to the Central Plain to make their fortune. Was our attack on Shuofang not precisely to force Wu Sangui to withdraw from the Yarkent Khanate? Striking at the Central Plain is the same thing!"

Oboi's elder brother, Gūwalgiya Jobotei, could also speak fluent Mongolian, and at once took up the theme and began spinning the same tale: "The Mongols and Manchus have always been one family! Share fortune together, share hardship together. The good places of the Central Plain — we shall divide and share them equally!"

"This is truly wonderful — share fortune together, share hardship together! Long live the Great Khan!" The Khorchin Prince Joriktu, Wu Keshan, was the leader of the Jirem League, and also Shunzhi's father-in-law and Bumbutai's elder brother, so of course he had to act as Shunzhi's shill.

In any case, once they reached the Central Province, the Shunzhi Emperor would not send Khorchin warriors to be targets for the Ming army's black guns.

Shunzhi nodded: "Follow Us, all of you, and go to the Central Plain to make your fortune together!"

"Long live the Great Khan!"

"We are willing to be the Great Khan's vanguard!"

"Great Khan! Great Khan!"

A crowd of Mongol princes and nobles all burst into cheers!

Old Mountain, Yanshan Palace. At this moment the Great Zhu Emperor was in a large room arranged as a war room, discussing the situation on the Central Province front with a group of generals and military advisors.

Huang Xiaobao walked in and handed Zhu Cilang an urgent report sent from the Shuofang Courier Office.

The Zhu Emperor opened the report, glanced at it, was briefly taken aback, and then laughed: "Shunzhi has gone to the Ordos grasslands. So he is dead set on becoming the Mongol Great Khan?"

"Your Majesty," said the strategist Li Yan with a smile, "if he truly is willing to go to the grasslands and set himself up as a king, that would be fine; and if it is only a feint meant to lull us, that is no great matter either. In any case, we already have full confidence that we can take the Qing army's great camp in Henan before Shunzhi returns from the grasslands!"

Zhu Cilang nodded: "Good! Then let us choose an auspicious day and go receive Princess Jianning's dowry!"

Like the last northern expedition, this time Zhu Cilang would again personally lead the campaign, marching north against the Central Plain — and of course, he would also have to bring along a certain Prince de Condé of France!

(End of Chapter)