Chapter 899: The Northern Expedition Army Turns South

An army was making its way through the mountains and dense forests beyond Hanlong Pass.

The army was so vast in number that standing in the middle of the column, one could see neither its head nor its tail whether looking forward or back. Stretching on and on, men and horses numbered in the tens of thousands; the vanguard had already marched into the Mubang stockade, while the rear guard was still inside Hanlong Pass.

Hanlong Pass had originally been a border pass of the Great Ming, and beyond the pass lay the territory of the Mubang Pacification Commission. Before the rise of the Toungoo dynasty, the Mubang Pacification Commission had always belonged to the Great Ming. But in the decades after the Toungoo dynasty rose, the Mubang Pacification Commission began to waver between the Ming court and the Toungoo dynasty. When the Toungoo dynasty was strong, this land would be swallowed up; when the Toungoo dynasty weakened, the land would break away again and attach itself to the Ming.

And in the thirty-fourth year of Wanli, King Nyaungyan (grandson of the great king Bayinnaung), who achieved the Toungoo dynasty's second revival, unified Upper Burma (northern Burma) and once more brought Mubang under Toungoo rule.

In the original course of history, the Han clan tusi of Mubang, which had been passed down for more than two hundred years, was utterly extinguished after this fall of Mubang and never rose again.

But now history had already changed. When the Shun army pacified Yunnan, Han Side, a descendant of the Han clan living in exile in China, had seen with his own eyes the might of the Shun army, and so he conceived the idea of borrowing the Shun's power to restore Mubang. Thus, not long after Li Dingguo entered Yunnan, he led his clansmen to offer their service under Li Dingguo's command and became the Shun army's Elephant Corps Commandant — after entering Yunnan, the Shun army had also acquired some war elephants. Though they were of little practical use, they still looked very imposing! And the soldiers who handled the elephants were all recruited locally in Yunnan. Han Side had played with elephants since childhood and was an expert in this field.

After the Shun pacified Yunnan, he repeatedly urged Li Dingguo and Li Laiheng to plot against Burma — although the Han clan tusi regime had been extinct for nearly fifty years, the Han family's influence in the Mubang region still remained. They could help the Shun court lead the way in a surprise attack on Mubang! And the Mubang stockade was only three or four hundred li from the Toungoo capital of Ava. With the Han tusi family helping to guide the way and gather provisions, those three or four hundred li of mountain roads would not be hard to cross.

And once they passed through the Mubang highlands and took the Toungoo capital of Ava, it would be fine, open country — plant a little rice and it would yield three harvests a year. The Toungoo dynasty had collapsed several times yet always managed to rise again, all because of that fine land.

If the Shun could seize the Ava plain, they would have a way of retreat in the future!

Historically, separatist regimes centered on Sichuan had never been long-lived! Liu Bei and his son Liu Adou, with their two generations and forty-three years of Shu Han, counted as long-lasting. And they even had a genius like Zhuge Liang to assist them!

So when Li Laiheng, the Shun's Army-Supervising Crown Prince, heard that Burma could be plotted against, he was immediately stirred — counting from Li Zicheng's entry into Sichuan, it had already been nearly ten years! If "Shu Shun" could have the same prospects as Shu Han, then only thirty-some years remained. And looking at Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance, those two did not much resemble Zhuge Liang either!

And the Great Ming had produced a heroic ruler of restoration, who had already beaten the Great Qing to its last breath. Judging by the situation, it was hard to say whether the Shun dynasty would even have thirty good years left!

When Li Laiheng had not yet firmly settled into his position as "Shu Shun" Crown Prince, he had greatly envied Liu Adou. But now, the longer he served as Army-Supervising Crown Prince, the more he savored it! If he became emperor later, it would surely taste even better — how could he bear to become a "Later Ruler of Shun"?

Therefore, starting two years ago, he had strongly advocated marching south to plot against Burma — take Burma, and if Sichuan and Yunnan were ever lost, he could still be emperor in Ava. Whether the Shun dynasty's fortunes would thereby be prolonged was hard to say, but he would not have to worry for the rest of his life.

And his idea of expanding southward to seek survival happened to coincide perfectly with Li Dingguo's thinking.

It turned out that after Li Dingguo conquered Yunnan, he had already begun contemplating expansion into Burma. Because in the process of pacifying Yunnan, he had become well acquainted with many of the small tusi of Mubang in northern Burma. Through them, Li Dingguo learned that the Toungoo dynasty's military strength was now quite feeble — because the three generations of kings Tabinshwehti, Bayinnaung, and Nanda Bayin had exhausted the state with endless wars, inflicting grievous losses on the Toungoo dynasty. So after Nyaungyan and Anaukpetlun revived the Toungoo, they changed the previous state policy, no longer seeking expansion, and instead settled into their own quiet existence.

The Toungoo dynasty's steps toward adopting Western military technology had also been halted because of the Syriam Incident (the Portuguese mercenary captain Filipe de Brito, seizing the opportunity of the Toungoo dynasty's weakness, had carved out Syriam for himself and declared himself king).

Thus the Toungoo dynasty's military power had been slowly declining for decades. By now, it had gone from a strong state once capable of standing against the Ming court to a weak country that, in Li Dingguo's eyes, could not withstand a single blow.

As for the suzerain-vassal relationship between the Shun and the Toungoo, Li Laiheng and Li Dingguo could not have cared less! The Shun was not the Great Ming Celestial Court — they were roving bandits to begin with!

However, after confirming the plan to march south against Burma, the Shun high command still decided to employ some stratagem to make victory come more easily. And Song Xiance, who could divine the future but never quite got it right, offered a plan of "clamoring in the north, striking in the south."

They would ostentatiously form a Northern Expedition Army in Kunming, giving the Burmese the false impression that the Shun dynasty was about to march north against the Central Plains, while secretly contacting the various small tusi of Mubang and bribing them to serve as guides.

On the thirteenth day of the third month of the seventh year of Shun Joint Rule, after news of the Great Qing's restoration reached Kunming, the Shun Northern Expedition Army held its oath-taking ceremony in Kunming and set out northward!

Then, under the command of its two commanders Li Laiheng and Li Dingguo, it secretly turned south, passed through Hanlong Pass, and with Han Side's help launched a surprise attack on the Mubang stockade, opening the gateway to the Toungoo capital of Ava.

A clatter of hoofbeats sounded, and Li Laiheng, who was leading the main army column along Mubang's rugged mountain roads, saw several dozen riders galloping toward him from ahead. The two leading riders were none other than Li Dingguo and Han Side.

"How did it go?" Li Laiheng called out loudly before the two men's warhorses had even come to a stop before him. "Has the vanguard crossed the Ava River?"

The Ava River lay south of the Mubang stockade, its waterway running straight to Ava, the capital of the Toungoo kingdom. Moreover, the river was broad and its current not too swift, so it was navigable.

After taking Mubang, building boats and rafts on both banks of the Ava River and then sailing downstream to attack Ava was part of the surprise-attack plan devised by Li Dingguo and Han Side.

But at the Ava River, the Shun Northern Expedition Army had encountered a Toungoo army of unknown strength blocking the way, and this Toungoo force also had a dozen or so war elephants, which made it look somewhat formidable.

"They've crossed!" Li Dingguo said with a laugh. "The Toungoo troops can't withstand a single blow! We set up cannons on the north bank of the Ava River and fired several rounds, and their elephants went mad, charging and stampeding wildly. Our men seized the chance to force a crossing in small boats. A few hundred-man companies charged over, and their several thousand men couldn't hold. They completely collapsed, and we cut them down until the field was strewn with corpses."

Han Side added, "That army must have been the garrison the Toungoo state posted in Mubang — by Toungoo standards, first-rate elite troops. But that is all they amount to; after all, the Toungoo have not fought a war in decades. Your Highness the Crown Prince, we should advance quickly and seize Ava in one stroke before Nandawmin and Pindale can assemble a large army!"

The Toungoo dynasty's military foundation was also a system of combining soldiers and farmers, called the Ahmudan, so it likewise suffered from the weaknesses of slow mobilization and inability to endure prolonged warfare. The main reason for the Toungoo dynasty's decline was that Tabinshwehti, Bayinnaung, and Nanda Bayin had overextended the strength of the Ahmudan. And over the past twenty or thirty years, the Toungoo dynasty had almost ceased campaigning altogether, which had made the Ahmudan sluggish and corrupt. After its small standing army was routed, it would be very difficult for the Toungoo dynasty to organize a massive Ahmudan force in a short time.

That was why Han Side had proposed the surprise attack on Ava!

"No need!" Li Laiheng rejected Han Side's suggestion. "The main army will rest and refit at Mubang and build war boats. Give Nandawmin and Pindale time to assemble their forces — the more troops they gather now, the more will be killed or wounded! Our Shun Northern Expedition Army is full of battle-hardened veterans who have survived a hundred fights; those peasant soldiers cannot stand against them. So we should take this chance to kill more now! Kill a hundred thousand or eighty thousand of them, and make the Toungoo people never dare to rebel against our Shun Celestial Court again!"

(End of Chapter)