Chapter 251: There Really Is a Sea

In the third month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the days grew warmer and the nights no longer froze.

Liu Chengzong led the drill cavalry battalion, with wagons forming a column five li and one hundred fifty paces long, planning to advance northwest at a march rate of seventy li per day.

In the end it took four days to cover two hundred li and reach the shore of Qinghai Lake.

The deep blue sky stretched high and far, clusters of clouds tumbled and rolled, mountains embraced them on all sides, and along the slopes melting snow and ice merged into a white line that spread straight across the grasslands ringing Qinghai Lake, crystallizing into a sheet of pinkish white.

At the end of that pinkish white, he saw the Sun-and-Moon Precious Mirror that Princess Wencheng had cast down a thousand years ago.

Gentle swells stirred the calm sea surface; bar-headed geese migrating back from the south gathered in flocks on the snow, now taking flight, now settling again.

And three thousand hardy lads who knew only the great desert stared blankly from horseback at the boundless sea, and at the snow-capped high mountains beyond it merging with the clouds and mist.

Until Liu Chengzong said, "Go run, go play!"

After a brief moment of stunned bewilderment, someone came to their senses first — in an instant a hundred horses surged forward together, trampling the broken snow and racing across the hard ice toward the shore.

Huang Shengxiao, who had completed artillery training and been sent to the cavalry battalion to strengthen his riding, charged toward the shore most urgently of all; he desperately needed to confirm one thing.

Not until his horse's hooves splashed into the shallows, startling ten thousand birds into flight, did Huang Shengxiao — once a soldier of the Baichengzi watchtower — lean his body over the left side of his horse, brace in the stirrup, reach out and scoop a handful from the sea's surface, and bring it to his mouth.

Mm, it's salty.

He had wanted to do this for a long time.

Having done it, Huang Shengxiao's mood was extremely complicated; with a face full of melancholy loss, he spurred his horse away from the shore and finally sat down on the beach together with his mount.

The warhorse lay on its side; Huang Shengxiao leaned against its back, gazing out at the great sea, feeling utterly alone.

So those convict soldiers at Baichengzi hadn't lied to him — there really was water so vast it stretched beyond sight, salty, called the sea.

Still, there were not many in the Lion Army as sentimental as Huang Shengxiao; after all, this was no season for playing in the water.

More men were galloping with bows drawn, chasing the wild geese, and some had taken lasso poles and ridden farther out, trying to snag a yak to ride.

Liu Chengzong had come here originally to look for Daiqing and Chen Qindai.

After the seven tribes of Sun Moon Mountain submitted, Gongbu Duoji's tribe became the communication station between the Lion Army and the Mongols north of the sea; the border tribes on both sides occasionally kept in contact during the winter, and had delivered the Qindai cipher to Chen Qindai several times.

But after the new year, when spring began, Chen Qindai went silent, so Liu Chengzong decided to come and demand the man from Daiqing.

Unfortunately, he found no one; Daiqing's tribe had circled around the western shore of Qinghai Lake and gone south.

According to the local border tribes, around the new year they had received orders from the Junior Lhazang to muster troops, and had struck camp and moved south.

After piecing together the intelligence, Liu Chengzong had a rough idea of why the troops were being gathered.

Originally, Lhazang had mobilized these troops to launch an offensive against him in the spring.

The men Dai Daozi sent back said that because Baiyan had spent the new year at Gurwan Bay, Lhazang had not expected him to stay so long and thought his elder brother had been detained or killed by him.

So Lhazang had spent the entire winter in a state of nervous paranoia, chanting over eight hundred scriptures at Octagon City to curse him.

Judging by the current situation, Liu Chengzong felt that the curse Lhazang had used was probably… probably one wishing him good health and success in all things.

So Lhazang had mustered his troops around the new year, ordering all the native tribes and Taji chieftains who were subordinate to him to assemble on the Gannan grasslands.

But no sooner had the troops assembled than Baiyan returned — none the worse for wear, five jin heavier, and bearing word that Liu the Lion was tough to deal with, extremely generous, and planning to open a market.

Lhazang could certainly tell the difference between one full meal and being full every meal, but the army was already here — what could he do?

You couldn't pull a "beacon fires fool the feudal lords" stunt; once the troops were assembled, they had to go to war. Fight whom? Fight the elder brother.

A vast nomadic army assembled on the Gannan grasslands advanced from east to west, crossed the Yellow River at Yangqu, invaded the Heka grasslands, and drove straight for Chaka Salt Lake.

Dai Daozi, as the most elite armed force at Baiyan Taiji's side, also took part in Lhazang's expedition.

Seeing Qinghai Lake, Liu Chengzong wanted to measure how large it was.

He knew Qinghai Lake was big, but he hadn't expected it to be this big, so he sent two squads of reconnaissance cavalry to follow the shoreline, telling them to circle around and come back — by the third day they still had not returned.

The army played by the lake for two days, then got down to business, sending men out to find border tribesfolk and ask about the surrounding area. They learned that this region north of the sea had been the easternmost hundred-household post of Handong Guard in the early Ming.

After the Hongzhi reign, Turpan grew increasingly powerful, and the native officials of Handong Guard and Anding Guard could not contain them. By the Jiajing reign, the Tumed tribe had entered Qinghai, the Ming defense line had contracted, and the native officials here had petitioned the court and relocated inland to Ganzhou.

After that, this place became the first stop for Mongols traveling from south of the Gobi or north of the Gobi into Tibet.

Coming to Qinghai, as his interactions with the Mongols and the Western Tibetan commoners grew more frequent, Liu Chengzong came to understand more and more about the broader situation on the steppe.

For instance, the environment north of the Nine Borders was slowly changing.

In the earlier Yuan period, or the early and middle Ming, when the Central Plains dynasties fought the north, the north had always had a retreat route.

Fleeing to the north and northwest of the southern Gobi — this was a superb route for escaping pursuit by Central Plains armies. Once across Lake Buir, the north was a place Han armies could hardly reach.

But now, Liu Chengzong discovered, the Mongols would never again flee to the northwest; instead, they could only flee to Qinghai.

This abnormal state of affairs seemed to have become an inevitability in Liu Chengzong's era.

The Right Wing Tumed of the southern Gobi would flee to Qinghai, and the Khalkha of the northern Gobi would also flee to Qinghai.

What was it, then, that kept them from fleeing to the northwest anymore?

The answer was on the tip of his tongue: the Mongols' once-loyal subordinates, the tax farmers of the Kipchak Khanate throughout all Rus', the Cossacks sent out by the Rus'.

In the camp tent by Qinghai Lake, Liu Chengzong, seated on a large camel-wool rug, could not help but shake his head and smile bitterly. He realized that the existence of another set of memories made his perspective on things very strange.

He was still far from being the ruler of all Qinghai, yet on some matters he would always view things from the perspective of the next generation's ruler of a Central Plains empire.

Many things in his eyes were inevitabilities, problems too entrenched to reverse, and many things were contingencies — though those contingencies also had nearly inevitable outcomes. His wish was to align with those inevitabilities and take precautions against the contingencies before they happened.

For example, the fall of the Great Ming and the rise of the Later Jin were inevitable, but the Later Jin seizing all under heaven was a contingency; the decline of the Mongols and the eastward encroachment of Russia were inevitable, but Russia becoming the new northern border threat was a contingency.

By the seventh day, his cavalry had already found arable land north of the sea and begun measuring the fields, yet the reconnaissance cavalry sent to scout the route had still not returned.

Liu Chengzong began to suspect that the hundred-odd reconnaissance riders he had sent out had been killed.

Not until the sixteenth day did the travel-worn reconnaissance cavalry circle back from east of the sea, their clothes and caps in disarray, most of them missing some of the items they had carried with them.

They had ridden nearly eight hundred li around the lake.

At the mouth of the Haixi River, they had fought a battle with a Western Tibetan stockade.

That stockade had over seven hundred people and had previously been subordinate to Guru Huang Taiji. Mistaking them for raiders sent by Lhazang, and with neither side understanding the other's language, a fight had broken out.

Neither side formed ranks or engaged in close combat; the other side had many light bows. The two sides exchanged several volleys, and the chieftain was wounded by a stray arrow. Unable to match the reconnaissance riders, they fled back to the stockade.

Neither reconnaissance squad suffered any fatalities, though one Ningxia rider had been struck on the bridge of his nose by a slung stone, shed quite a bit of nosebleed, and his nose was still swollen when he returned.

One careless moment, and the Lion Army gained another bandit nickname — they were now also called "Crooked Ridge."

The scouting riders didn't waste time settling scores with Hekou Stockade. They finished the fight and pushed on that same day. Reaching the southern shore of the lake, they calculated that the lake was far larger than expected, and feared the twelve days' rations they carried wouldn't be enough, so they spent a day searching for a Western Barbarian village.

They found no Western Barbarian village, but instead came upon a small Mongol camp where all the men had gone off to war. The women of the camp mounted horses and drew bows, ready to fight to the death.

Later, realizing the riders had no intention of fighting, they traded twenty-three sheep for two saddles, three wool blankets, and a wrist-cutting knife.

On the eastern shore, they lost another day delayed in a twenty-li stretch of desert.

Only then did they finally complete the sixteen-day, nonstop circuit of the lake.

Qinghai Lake's size not only exceeded the scouting riders' imagination — it far exceeded Liu Chengzong's imagination as well.

This made him realize his number of craftsmen was severely insufficient. As soon as he returned, he would have to assign Yang Dingrui another task: recruiting craftsmen from the east.

Moreover, he sent someone to fetch Zhou Riqiang, the Assistant Commissioner of the Qinghai Pacification Commissioner's Office.

Master Zhou, now holding an official post of the senior fourth rank, was not happy at all. He had followed the army as far as Xining and refused to go any farther west.

He had Liu Chengzong spend twelve taels to buy a two-courtyard house with a yard east of the city, and then spent his days squatting in Xining city, swindling the imperial court's salary.

He even gave that house the grandiloquent name "Office of the Assistant Commissioner of the Qinghai Pacification Commissioner."

It sounded fine — "Assistant Commissioner's Office" — but at best it was nothing more than the Qinghai Pacification Commissioner's Xining Liaison Office.

Still, Zhou Riqiang's little life was indeed quite comfortable. He did no work for the court all day, yet drew a fourth-rank official's salary. The Xining Guard had to transfer twenty-four dan of grain from Lanzhou every month for his official stipend.

Zhou Riqiang had come to terms with it. He never wanted to do this job for the court in the first place. Dragged here by force, there was nothing he could do anyway.

He had no idea what use the court thought it was stuffing him beside Liu Chengzong.

Zhou Riqiang asked himself honestly: were the affairs of the Qinghai Pacification Commissioner's Office something a mere fourth-rank official could resolve?

The Emperor, the Grand Secretary, the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of War, two Grand Coordinators, three Regional Commanders, two hundred local officials, twenty-three thousand frontier troops — in short, it would take mustering the entire strength of Shaanxi to resolve him.

What the hell did he himself amount to?

At first, Zhou Riqiang thought he would serve as a human official seal — stamped whenever needed. Later, he discovered the Lion Army did not recognize official seals.

An official seal was worth less than an autumn radish.

He didn't even have that much use, so there was absolutely no need to go any farther west.

Liu the Lion's army spent several months sleeping in dugout pits at Ju'erwan, while Assistant Commissioner Zhou became a major drinker inside Xining city.

Day after day, he drank the sweet-sour highland barley wine brewed by the Li Tusi's household, and in a daze, slept his way through the entire winter.

Assistant Commissioner Zhou in Xining city received the message on a night when he had just been drinking, muddle-headed. He lay in a horse cart and slept another full day and night.

When he sobered up, he was stupefied inside the jolting cart.

His mind was filled with: Who am I? Where am I?

After two more days of being tossed around in the cart, he finally, shakily, came face to face with Liu Chengzong.

By now he was completely sober, but looking out at the boundless, endless Qinghai Lake, he wanted to drink another flask.

"Great Commander, you called for this humble official... could you at least change that red flag's vest?"

Zhou Riqiang had just finished saluting Liu Chengzong when he looked up and spotted the third-rank official with his head down, grazing in the snowy field off to the side. His face twisted with disgust.

Liu the Lion acted as if he hadn't heard, raised a hand, and pointed toward the lake's surface: "Do you see it? Do you feel like the sea's surface is missing something?"

Zhou Riqiang looked utterly baffled: "Did you shoot all the wild geese?"

"No, I mean the sea's surface is missing something." Liu Chengzong looked at him with an expression that said "this blockhead can't be taught." "Boats! Fishing boats, merchant ships, warships!"

The moment Liu Chengzong saw Qinghai Lake, he wanted to build a port on the northern shore and establish a naval force on the lake.

He spoke with utter seriousness, but to Zhou Riqiang's ears it was anything but serious. Zhou doubled over laughing: "The Great Commander called me all the way here just to tell me a joke?"

"What joke? Do you know how long it took my men to circle it? Sixteen whole days."

Liu Chengzong was dead serious: "Sixteen days. How many sixteen-day periods are there in a year? Look at those mountains on the opposite shore — no need to look closely, you can't see clearly anyway. The mountain pass leading to the salt lake on the southern shore is right there on the opposite side."

"How much does salt cost per catty in Xining?"

Zhou Riqiang replied: "The price per catty varies. Government salt is twenty-six taels and six mace per picul."

"When the Mongols collect salt, they bring large ladles to the salt lake southwest of that mountain and scoop it up. They say the salt there is formed by heaven itself, inexhaustible."

Liu Chengzong said: "From the opposite shore to the salt lake is a round trip of two hundred forty li. A packhorse team takes five days. From there to here, a round trip of five hundred li, takes ten days."

"And from here to Xining is another five-hundred-li round trip. That means to secure the entire route, mobilizing troops requires half a month."

Having said this, Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed from the shore where he stood toward the opposite bank: "But from here to there, if there were two ports, it's only one hundred fifty li. I recall you served as an official along the Shandong coast — you're probably the person in the Lion Army who knows the most about boats."

He turned his head and asked: "If we sailed, how long would it take?"

Zhou Riqiang's expression gradually turned intent, his face growing serious.

He was slowly beginning to understand — what Liu Chengzong was talking about was money.

Twenty-six taels per picul. A thousand piculs was twenty-six thousand taels. If he dared joke about something this important again, Liu Chengzong really might kill him.

Zhou Riqiang said with difficulty: "Great Commander, perhaps you should look for someone else in the Lion Army. I've only ever modified fishing boats for commoners. How can I be called the army's most knowledgeable person on boats?"

Whether he was the most knowledgeable person on boats or not — Zhou Riqiang didn't actually care that much.

The key was... who wants to be one of your army's people!

Any slip and one day he'd be the rebel faction's number-two figure. The calamity of the entire Baoding Zhou family being executed to the ninth degree would fall from the sky — who could bear that!

Liu Chengzong's face showed helplessness: "You really are the person who knows the most about boats."

His army wasn't entirely made up of landlubbers. In the few days waiting for the scouting riders, Liu the Lion had conducted a survey in the training camp. Over a hundred men had grown up by rivers, and quite a few understood river travel.

But understanding waterborne craft was not the same as understanding boats.

What they understood were rafts — bamboo rafts, log rafts, sheepskin rafts, and ox-hide rafts.

To figure out boats, he still had to rely on Zhou Riqiang.

Zhou Riqiang sighed: "The wind here is no small thing. To use a boat to reach the opposite shore... one full day and night?"

Smack!

Liu Chengzong clapped his hands: "There, that settles it. It's you. Assistant Commissioner Zhou, from today onward your office is right here. Build the boats, build the port. Whatever you need, just say the word — I'll handle it!"