Chapter 926: Alas, We're Going to Take a Loss! (Please Subscribe)

The "Santa Clauses" had arrived — a full hundred of them, every one carrying a matchlock on his back and a battle-axe over his shoulder, in red coats, red caps, and big beards. The sight alone was terrifying...

Prince Babu and the nearly twenty thousand warriors in the Chechen Khanate's winter camp all held their breath, hands on sword hilts, staring fixedly at these dreadful "Santa Clauses" as though the men might suddenly work some magic.

Truth be told, these hundred "Santa Clauses" were nothing to fear — the matchcords on the matchlocks they carried were not even lit. If the Mongols suddenly attacked, they could only fight back with their big axes. Could a mere hundred axes possibly cut down twenty thousand Mongol warriors?

But His Majesty the Tsar in Moscow possessed at least two hundred thousand such "Santa Claus musketeers," and countless Cossack cavalry besides.

And what was more terrifying was that these Russians were exceptionally savage! They were not like the Han or the Manchus to the south, who were comparatively reasonable and did not make it their purpose to exterminate the Mongols. These people truly slaughtered Mongols with hearts full of hatred. Of the Green-Islam Mongol khanates they had destroyed, nearly all had been wiped out — wherever they could kill everyone, they killed everyone!

And so the warriors of the Mongol steppe feared the Russians to the very marrow of their bones. Not that the Russians had the power to kill off all the Mongols of the Mongol steppe and Moghulistan — had they the power, they would have done it long ago! There was no need to doubt the savagery of Tsarist Russia. It was simply that on the Central Asian steppe and the Mongol steppe, far from Europe, the Russian knife was still not quick enough...

But the Russians' fearsome reputation still made every Mongol tremble with dread!

Now, though there were only a hundred "Russian Santa Clauses," they had still cowed twenty thousand Mongols. No one dared even breathe loudly — except Wu Keshan.

He was a true "hero and brave man," not the least afraid of the "Santa Clauses." He actually strode up to them with perfect composure, clasped his fist in salute toward the black-haired Russian at their head, and said with a laugh, "Vice Envoy Bekov, with all this wind and snow on the road, you haven't frozen, have you?"

Bekov — that is, the Spanish captain de Belasco — was nearly frozen to death. How warm Spain was! How could he possibly endure the bitter cold along the Kherlen River? But to keep up the pretense of being a Russian, he had no choice but to play the fearless hero and answer in Spanish, "Not afraid — we Russians do not fear the cold... Achoo! Achoo!"

He was about to catch a cold from the freezing weather!

Babu Khan had brought along a Mongol interpreter who knew the Russian tongue. All smiles, he went forward to greet them. Hearing the Russian lord Bekov speak, he asked the interpreter beside him, "What did the Russian lord say?"

What did he say?

Beads of sweat were already dripping from the interpreter's forehead!

He could not understand a word of the Russian this Russian lord was speaking!

The man was plainly a Russian — one could tell just from his face — and behind him followed so many "Santa Clauses" with Western faces. Without a doubt, this was the Russian matchlock army!

"What did he say?" Babu pressed again.

The interpreter dared not admit he had forgotten Russian — he was the man Babu Khan had sent at great expense to Nerchinsk to learn the Russian language. After only so many days without speaking it, he could no longer understand... If the Khan flew into a rage, would he not have the man's skin flayed off?

"He says he is a special envoy sent by the Tsar!" the interpreter had no choice but to invent a lie.

Babu hastily bowed in salute. "I have seen His Excellency the Special Envoy."

The interpreter at once translated these words into Russian...

Now it was de Belasco's turn to be dumbfounded. He had assumed that no one in the Chechen Khanate understood Russian, which was why he — a Russian special envoy who could not speak Russian — had come.

"Ah, achoo!" De Belasco hastily sneezed.

Oboiski also knew they were about to be exposed, and quickly said in Mongolian, "The special envoy says the weather is too cold and he would like to find somewhere warmer."

"Ah, achoo!" So that was how one translated in Russian?

Babu Khan's interpreter looked at Oboiski with eyes full of admiration.

Babu Khan said attentively, "Quickly, quickly, please come into the tent."

Oboiski knew a little Spanish, which he had learned crossing the Pacific, and at once relayed this to de Belasco.

Hearing him speak, Babu Khan's interpreter grew even more flustered — he understood nothing at all! Could it be that Russian had many dialects? That must be it!

The fellow was in fact a half-baked interpreter himself. How much Russian had he actually learned? Barely enough to get by.

Fortunately, though, the great Russian lord had brought his own interpreter, so he need not open his mouth and could still muddle through.

"Khan, His Majesty the Tsar of our Russia has learned that the Ming dynasty has already defeated the Great Qing and has also drawn over the three tribes of the Chahar, the Merlat, and the Dzungar. He is deeply worried. He has therefore already dispatched ten thousand matchlock soldiers and five thousand Cossacks eastward, and they will soon reach Lake Baikal. Before the great Russian army has completed all preparations for advancing into the Mongol steppe, he hopes you can slow the Ming dynasty's northern expedition, and under no circumstances are you permitted to side with the Ming. Otherwise the great Russian army will slaughter the entire Mongol steppe!"

The man speaking inside a warm, cozy tent was none other than Oboiski. In name he was the interpreter, but in truth every word he spoke was his own.

"What? There really are that many Russian soldiers at Lake Baikal?" Babu Khan felt his heart was about to leap out of his chest.

Fifteen thousand Russian soldiers!

Not to say they could annihilate the Chechen Khanate, but at the very least they could drive the Chechen Khanate from the rich pastures of the Kherlen River valley.

After losing this grassland, where could the Chechen Khanate go?

Migrate west into Oirat Mongol territory? Would the Dzungar tribe let the Chechen Khanate off?

Go south and submit to the Great Ming... Oh, if that door were open, Babu would be willing to give it a try. But the problem was that the Great Ming now supported the Chahar and the Tumed — one a great khan, one a lesser khan. Once they rose again, they would surely ride on the necks of the three Khalkha tribes and lord it over them.

Moreover, the Chechen Khanate had long ago gone over to the Great Qing and was an outer-vassal Mongol on the Qing side. After so many years of enmity with the Great Ming, could they still switch allegiance?

Even if they could, they would probably be put by the Great Ming on the front line against the Russians!

Turning it over in his mind, Chechen Khan Babu felt that the only path to survival seemed to be going over to Russia... If they did not submit now, then when the Russians came killing, it would mean the extermination of the tribe!

Seeing that Babu Khan was silent, Wu Keshan assumed he was still hesitating, and said with a smile, "Prince Babu, Prince Dodo of the Manchus has already joined hands with the Tsar through the mediation of the Hispanians, and our Khorchin tribe is also part of it. If you three Khalkha tribes join as well, that will be a grand alliance against the Ming dynasty. Victory is entirely within reach! And you three Khalkha tribes need not bear much of the Ming army's pressure — their main enemy is still Prince Dodo!"

That seemed to make sense!

Just as he was speaking, the tent flap was suddenly thrown open. After a gust of cold wind, Mongol strongmen were seen carrying in chest after chest of matchlocks. A brother of the Chechen Khan followed them in and reported to Babu, "Khan, they have been counted — one thousand matchlocks in all, all top-grade firearms made in the city of Moscow in Russia, far better than the Ming Nanjing-made guns we bought from the Ordos tribe!"

So the Chechen Khanate had also gotten hold of Zhu Cijiong's knockoff guns — crude, shoddily made things from the craftsmen around Yulin and Yan'an. They would fire, all right, but at most three shots in a row before they had to be cooled at once, or they would surely burst the barrel! And the powder could not be loaded to full charge either, or there was likewise a risk of the barrel bursting.

Yet even such firearms were treated like treasures in the Chechen Khanate, and they could not bear to use them — they would break after only a few uses.

But the guns Oboiski had brought to the Chechen Khanate were foreign guns made in the Milan arsenal of Hispania. Though they were old stock from the Thirty Years' War, the workmanship was still quite fine — except that the inscriptions carved on the gun bodies were strange... Some were entirely in Russian letters, and some even bore Chinese characters. In any case, the Chechen Khan's brother could not read any of them.

"Quick, quick, bring one over for me to see!" The Chechen Khan's interest was piqued.

A brand-new matchlock was quickly brought up. The Chechen Khan stroked it again and again, looked it over again and again, and finally noticed the Chinese-character inscription on it. He knew a few Chinese characters, so he read aloud, "Made in Russia in the Chongzhen year..."