Chapter 839: Our Great Mongolia Must Send Troops

Just as the bad news from Shandong was being relayed wave after wave toward Beijing by the Qing relay riders, something was also happening in Beijing itself... it was starting to look very much like it was turning back into Khanbaliq, the capital of the Yuan!

Because from the start of winter in the tenth year of Shunzhi, countless Mongols had crossed the Yan Mountains and come to Beijing. Most of them pitched their yurts on the open fields outside the city and drove their cattle and sheep around looking for things to eat, which caused no small number of clashes with the Han farming households outside Beijing — and those Han farmers were not all tenants of bannermen masters; many were garrison troops defending Beijing and their families, so who was going to give the Mongols any face? What "Mongols and Manchus are one family"? Here in Beijing, Manchus and Han were one family too!

So armed brawls were breaking out practically every day!

It did, however, train the fighting spirit of the Beijing garrison soldiers...

Some Mongols also entered Beijing itself and moved into houses left empty by the mass relocation of bannermen!

But these houses were basically empty — everything inside had been hauled back beyond the pass by Dodo's troops. That junk would be garbage in the southeast, but in the Qing lands beyond the pass, where handicrafts were utterly undeveloped, it was still quite valuable... it wasn't even a matter of money — the stuff simply didn't exist! Beyond the pass there was no shortage of furs, grain, eastern pearls, ginseng, or anything else that could be found in the deep mountains and old forests.

But apart from those things, everything else was in desperately short supply...

Because the houses were mostly empty, the Mongol nobles who entered the city mostly just pitched a yurt in the courtyard and went on living inside it.

Because of their arrival, the whole style of Beijing's streets changed. The once empty thoroughfares finally had a bit of life again, but everyone coming and going was a Mongol in a leather deel with a curved blade at his waist.

The Great Qing was starting to look like it was turning into the Great Yuan!

When Guang Shiheng, just back from Russia, first entered the city, he thought he was about to become a "fourth minister"... it was only after he saw Luo Yangxing that he learned these were the "lords" the Shunzhi Emperor of the Great Qing had brought back from the Hetao grasslands.

They were not to be offended!

"Your Majesty... Great Khan, this is the state letter from the Tsar of Russia, and also a copy of the Tripartite Non-Aggression Treaty..."

Guang Shiheng met the Shunzhi Great Khan, dressed entirely as a Mongol, inside a yurt outside the Fengtian Gate!

Beside the Great Khan there was also a middle-aged monk with delicate features, and a Semu official in Mongol clothing... no matter how you looked at it, it was like being back in the Yuan dynasty!

So Guang Shiheng simply switched to calling him Great Khan.

"Don't call me Great Khan," Shunzhi corrected him. "Call me Emperor... you are a bannerman, not a Mongol."

"This slave obeys the decree."

Guang Shiheng had long been a slave... he was a slave of the Qing Bordered Green Banner!

Shunzhi waved at Wu Liangfu beside him, and the latter immediately went over, took the Tsar's state letter and the text of the Tripartite Non-Aggression Treaty, and presented them to Shunzhi.

The Shunzhi Great Khan took the Tripartite Non-Aggression Treaty, opened it, and began to read — and at once felt a little dizzy.

"By the grace of the Heavenly Father on high, I, the Caesar-King and Autocrat of Russia, Moscow, Vladimir, and Novgorod... what is all this? Why is the writing so crude? And it's all chicken scratch! Guang Shiheng, aren't you a jinshi? How is it that after one trip to Russia you've forgotten how to write?"

"Reporting to the Great Khan," Guang Shiheng explained at once, "what Your Majesty just read aloud was not written by this slave; it was written in the own hand of the Ming envoy Choros Chokhur Ubashi. The three parties to this treaty are Russia, the Great Mongol Nation, and the Ming, so it was written out once in each of the three scripts, with roughly the same meaning in each. This slave represents the Great Mongol Nation, so I was responsible for the Mongol-script portion..."

"You understand Mongolian?" Shunzhi asked as he went looking for the Mongol script — and he actually found it.

But... he still couldn't quite read it.

"It's all topsy-turvy. What does it mean?" Shunzhi asked.

"This, this..." Guang Shiheng stammered, "the meaning is, it means that our Great Mongol Nation, Russia, and the Ming shall maintain peace and not attack one another."

"Nonsense!" Shunzhi slammed the table. "They're already fighting! There's fighting every day on the Hetao grasslands, and here in the Central Plain the southern bandits have besieged Dezhou, Liaocheng, and Anping, and they've nearly taken all of the territory of Jibei, the Eastern Depot, and Western Yanzhou!"

"Great Khan, calm your anger, Great Khan, calm your anger..."

"Call me Emperor!"

"Your Majesty, calm your anger. Hear this slave's explanation," Guang Shiheng said. "This Choros Chokhur Ubashi can only represent the Ming's Northern Protector-General Sengge, not the Ming Emperor, so this treaty can only guarantee that the Northern Protectorate army will not fight us."

"Northern Protectorate?"

"That is the Dzungar tribe..."

"Outrageous!" Shunzhi flew into a rage. "How can such a treaty be signed? We still intend to personally lead a campaign against the Dzungars!"

"Your Majesty," Guang Shiheng had completely lost his bearings and could only say, "this is a draft treaty. Your Majesty may simply not ratify it..."

"Rejected! Rejected! Get out, get out..." Shunzhi shouted.

This treaty was already out of date!

Now that Shunzhi had brought tens of thousands of Mongols into the Central Plain, he had to emphasize his identity as Great Khan, and Sengge's "betrayal" was a contemptuous insult to the authority of the Mongol Great Khan, so of course he had to put on an attitude of sooner or later punishing him.

After shouting Guang Shiheng away, Shunzhi summoned Sonin, Suksaha, and Wu Keshan, all three of them, to the yurt.

It was not because of the news Guang Shiheng had brought back — Shunzhi had no time to deal with that matter now; the war in the south was what was burning his eyebrows.

When he saw Sonin and the others come in and kowtow to him, he spoke first, before they could even finish their greetings.

"What does the Imperial Uncle say?"

"Your Majesty," Sonin hastily presented an envelope with both hands, "the Imperial Uncle's letter has just arrived. Please read it."

Shunzhi quickly had Wu Liangfu bring the letter over, then take out the letter paper and hand it to him. He glanced at it a few times and snorted: "He still calls it a feint... if Dezhou falls, the next is Cangzhou, and then it's the Tianjin garrison! Tianjin is only a little over 360 li from Dezhou! The Tianjin garrison blocks the sea mouth. If it's lost, the southern army can come in great force by sea — and then can Beijing still be held?"

The sea mouth at Tianjin had been a mortal worry for the Great Qing ever since the era when Dorgon held power. So they had thought up quite a few ways to block it, and at present it would be somewhat difficult for the Great Ming to land there from the sea.

But the Ming army could, after taking Dezhou, strike straight for Tianjin, seize the walled city of the Tianjin garrison, and then sweep away the forts along the Wei River to open up the sea mouth at Tianjin.

At that point, Shunzhi would be finished...

"But the Imperial Uncle is convinced the Ming army will certainly go for the great camps on both banks of the Yellow River," Suksaha said. He had already read the letter and naturally knew its contents. "He wants us to hold on a while longer... wait until the Ming army reaches the Yellow River camps before sending out troops. As for the siege of Dezhou, it need not be heeded."

Just as they were speaking, a eunuch's announcement suddenly came from outside: "Bambulshan requests an audience."

Now the Great Qing's six Grand Secretaries and six chamberlains of the Imperial Bodyguard together formed a Deliberative Council of Princes and Ministers, responsible for carrying out the Shunzhi Emperor's orders and for day-to-day affairs.

This council met in the Six Offices corridor opposite the Hall of Martial Valor, which was also the nerve center of the Great Qing. At all times at least one chamberlain or Grand Secretary was on duty there, and the man on duty now was Bambulshan.

For him to come to the yurt in person, it had to be an emergency.

"Your Majesty, a report from Hejian Prefecture..."

Before Bambulshan could finish, Shunzhi spoke in a trembling voice: "What? The southern army has broken into Hejian Prefecture?"

"No, no," Bambulshan shook his head. "It is that the southern army has announced a three-year grain-tax exemption throughout the districts of Jibei Prefecture..."

"Three-year grain-tax exemption?" Shunzhi was taken aback. "Isn't that Li Zicheng's trick? Why is the Ming using it too?"

"Your Majesty," Sonin said, "the Ming surely intends to use this move to beguile the common people of Jibei and even Hejian!"

"Isn't it just four sheng of flour per mu?" Shunzhi was somewhat puzzled. "They can't even pay that?"

"It's long been far more than that figure," Sonin shook his head. "The flour actually collected per mu has probably already exceeded one and a half dou! And we also collect cloth — one bolt per household — and fodder, and we also conscript corvée labor..."

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