Chapter 919: The Villains Are Russia (Please Subscribe)

"Prince of Khorchin, do you think the three Khalkha tribes would be willing to be used by us? And what use would they be anyway?"

Dodo actually looked down on the three Khalkha Mongol tribes. A few years earlier he had been ordered by Dorgon to put them in their place, and it had been like dry weeds and rotten wood swept away!

In Dodo's view, although the territory held by these three tribes was not small and their subject population was considerable — enough to stand as a third leg of the tripod alongside the Western Mongols led by the Dzungars and the Southern Mongols led by the Khorchin, Chahar, and Tumed tribes — their location was too remote, making it very hard for them to obtain iron weapons and firearms from the Central Plains or the Western Regions. Their military strength was therefore weak, and they simply could not withstand a single blow.

The only thing they could rely on was that their territory lay far from the Central Plains and was difficult to send a punitive expedition against.

But now that the Tumed and Chahar tribes had submitted to the Great Ming, with them to guide the way and provide logistics, it would be as easy as turning over one's palm for the Ming court to deal with the three Khalkha tribes.

"Your Highness may not be aware," Wu Keshan said with a cold smile, "but the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming has just made a fatal blunder in handling the question of the Southern and Northern Mongols!"

"What blunder?"

Wu Keshan said: "The Son of Heaven of the Great Ming wants to drive the tiger to devour the wolf — to use the Tumed and Chahar tribes to swallow up the three Khalkha tribes."

Dodo frowned. "What is the problem with that?"

"If this were the past, there would indeed be no problem." Wu Keshan smiled. "The present Tumed tribe has its roots in the old Ordos Tumen and Tumed Tumen — two of the six tumens enfeoffed by Dayan Khan! And the Chahar tribe is the central Chahar Tumen, which has always been the most powerful. The roots of the three Khalkha tribes, however, are no more than a single Khalkha Tumen. But the Tumed and Chahar tribes have suffered heavy losses through decades of war, and large numbers of their people have scattered to the Western and Northern Mongols — they long ago lost their former strength.

The three Khalkha tribes, on the other hand, submitted to the Great Qing early on, and their location is especially remote, so the Great Qing could not reach them either. That is why over these decades they have been able to keep absorbing the people of the Southern Mongols and gradually grow strong. If one looked only at population and military strength, they could already crush the Tumed and Chahar tribes. It is only because they are blockaded by the Great Qing and the Dzungars to the west, making it very hard to import firearms and iron weapons, that they have become so unable to withstand a blow."

The Mongols are a nomadic people, after all; their mobility is far greater than that of an agrarian people.

The small tribes under those great tumens are all mobile, so once a great tumen weakens, the small tribes beneath it will drift away and attach themselves to the stronger great tumens.

So when striking at Mongol enemies, one cannot fail to take this factor into account. One cannot seek only momentary satisfaction and end up causing some great Mongol tumen to absorb other tribes' small tribes and rapidly grow powerful.

For example, if the Zhu Emperor now gives the sixteen banners of the Tumed and Chahar tribes a thorough beating, then large numbers of small Mongol tribes will certainly drift over to the Khalkha and Oirat tribes — and then Khalkha and Oirat will rapidly grow powerful!

As for a thunderbolt strike and total annihilation — the later Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region covers 1.18 million square kilometers! Even after deducting the territory belonging to the Khorchin tribe, that is still at least 800,000 square kilometers!

At present the Ming army's main forces plus the cavalry under the Prince of Dai number no more than forty thousand in all — that is only one man for every twenty square kilometers.

So Zhu Cilang's policy for governing the Mongols is to build up Chahar and Tumed, then use them to sweep away the Khalkha Tumen and the Khorchin tribe, and then have Chahar and Tumed establish outer feudatories on the Khalkha Tumen's territory, while at the same time permitting them, as inner subjects, to use part of the pastureland in the old Southern Mongol and Khorchin lands as winter grazing grounds — if this were not done, the Khalkha steppe would find it very hard to support so many Mongols, and then it would be unavoidable that large numbers of Mongols would go over to the Oirats, making the Dzungars too powerful.

Wu Keshan said: "Right now Chahar and Tumed together have only sixteen banners. One banner can at most field two thousand able-bodied men, so sixteen banners can at most field thirty thousand men, while the three Khalkha tribes can field at least eighty thousand able-bodied men!"

Dodo waved a hand dismissively: "A hundred thousand would be useless too. They cannot win."

"They cannot win because they lack good weapons," Wu Keshan said. "As long as Your Highness can give them some firearms produced by the country of Hispania, there is no need to fear they cannot defeat Chahar and Tumed. If Chahar and Tumed suffer a crushing defeat in the Northern Mongols, the Great Ming will have to send its own troops, and then it will have far less energy to deal with us."

"Useless," Dodo still shook his head. "Will the Great Ming not give them firearms? Their firearms are far better than the ones the Hispanians give us!"

Wu Keshan smiled and said: "That is nothing to fear either. Your Highness, do not forget who the Prince of Chahar is!"

"The Prince of Chahar?" Dodo was taken aback. "Right! He is of the direct line of the Northern Yuan!"

Wu Keshan laughed: "The Zhu Emperor has been shrewd all his life, but this once he has been foolish!

He actually built up the Chahar tribe — that is the central Chahar Tumen of the Mongols, the legitimate line of the Mongols!

If the Chahar tribe crushes the three Khalkha tribes, then Abunai will be able to rightfully gather the people of the three tribes for his own use, and then the Khalkha Tumen and the Chahar Tumen will be unified!"

In truth this was not Zhu Cilang being foolish; he simply had no choice.

The Tumed Tumen had already gone over to Zhu Cijiong. If Zhu Cilang built them up too vigorously, then Zhu Cijiong's strength would become too great — that would be improper!

And the three Khalkha tribes and the Khorchin tribe had always been on the side of the Great Qing, and they lived quite comfortably; they had no need to seek anything from the Great Ming.

As for the Oirats of the Western Mongols, they were already very powerful!

So the Zhu Emperor could not let the Oirat Dzungars swallow up the three Khalkha tribes either.

Therefore he could only build up the Chahar tribe, which held the legitimate Mongol line, to deal with the three Khalkha tribes and the Khorchin tribe.

Wu Keshan laughed: "Although the Zhu Emperor is building up the Chahar Tumen, he will never fail to guard against them, so he will certainly not give them too many muskets and cannon. If we can give the three Khalkha tribes enough guns and cannon, Chahar and Tumed will surely suffer a crushing defeat!"

Dodo nodded lightly. "There is some sense in that." He swept his gaze around the Hall of Proclaimed Governance once more. "What do you all think?"

"Your Highness," Oboi now spoke up, "this slave thinks it would not be good for us to show our hand! We cannot afford to provoke the Great Ming right now! All our elite troops are pinned down in the eight provinces of Joseon, and it will be two or three years at the earliest before they can return to Liaodong. If the Ming court sends troops to demand an accounting, what are we to do?"

"That is true." Dodo nodded, then glanced at Oboi. "Oboi, what plan do you have?"

Oboi smiled: "Your Highness, this slave knows that Russia in the northwest has always had the wild ambition of a wolf, wanting to swallow up the Khalkha tribes and the Heilongjiang basin whole! This slave has also heard that the Chechen Khan tribe, one of the three Khalkha tribes, has long had dealings with Russia. It may well be that when our Great Qing is weak, they will go over to the Russians and obtain some muskets and cannon forged in the Russian city of Moscow."

Dodo laughed: "Yes, yes, the Russians are the worst of all! They will certainly take advantage of the Great Qing's collapse to meddle in Khalkha Mongolia. Oboi, go at once to Busanpo and find us some Russians!"

Oboi rose and bowed: "This slave will not fail in his mission!"

The collapse of the Great Qing also proclaimed the closing of the Great Mongol State once again. As Ming tributary subjects, the Andong Protectorate and the Kingdom of Joseon had no diplomatic authority without authorization from the Great Ming, so the Spanish legation to the Great Qing could only suspend its operations.

But the Spaniards did not simply strike their flag and leave. Instead they moved to Busanpo, the treaty-port city of the Kim Joseon, and continued to maintain close relations with Dodo under the name of the Pacific Trading Company's commercial office. Moreover, the Pacific trade of furs and eastern pearls for arms remained as brisk as ever.

The Kim Joseon, for its part, adopted a "half-opening" policy, opening the two treaty ports of Busan and Incheon. Of these, Busan developed rapidly because it was close to Japan and Vladivostok and had a long tradition of commerce and development, and quite a few Western merchants had settled there.

As long as Oboi was willing to spend money, he could still find a few "Russians"!

Dodo nodded, and his tone suddenly turned grave: "As for the situation of us, the last embers of the Great Qing, this prince will not say more. Borrowing the name of Russia to make trouble for the Great Ming is also a matter of having no choice. You are all the trusted core of the Manchus, and this prince trusts you completely. You must also keep your mouths shut and by no means let word leak out. Understood?"

(End of Chapter)