Chapter 258: Standoff

By the banks of the Zhaqu River, the Nangqian King's Nangso Qianmo Palace towered atop the mountain peak, guarded by stone forests, overlooking the land the Zhu clan had ruled for fifteen generations.

The Nangso Qianmo Palace was built in the second year of the Zhongtong era under Emperor Shizu of Yuan, Kublai Khan.

That year, the Yuan army crossed the Lancang River; Gama's ancestors presented lavish gifts and were granted authority over six districts and ten thousand households. The Yuan court even dispatched Tangut craftsmen to build this fortress for them.

Monk Gama stood by the Zhaqu River, looking up at this familiar mountain fortress, his gaze sorrowful and filled with hatred.

Last summer, his elder brother Luozhou refused the Baili King's demand to conscript one soldier per household for war and to demolish Genbang Monastery and expel its monks — open conflict became inevitable.

On this land, the armies of the native kings varied in troop composition, military organization, weaponry, tactics, soldier treatment, training level, and fighting will, but there was no qualitative difference between them.

Numbers, therefore, became the decisive factor in victory or defeat.

Nangqian lay on the vital route into Tibet; countless Mongol taijis had led armies through here over the years. With only four thousand households, even if every household sent three men and the women and children all joined the fight, it would merely mean a few more corpses on the battlefield.

So they placed great emphasis on developing the economy — brewing wine, stewing meat, and doubling their devotion to the Buddha. All who came were good friends. For a long time, they had coexisted peacefully with the Mongols entering Tibet, forging many benevolent ties.

The military system they practiced was one monk per household, and one native soldier per ten households.

But the militarily aggressive Baili King, Dunduo Jiduo, enforced a system of one native soldier per household. Every man had to master either mounted archery or foot archery; if he truly could not afford a bow or a horse, he still had to master the sling and dare to hack at men with a blade.

Although Nangqian's soldiers were more elite, even possessing fifty highland heavy cavalrymen, elite forces alone without a sufficiently large base of common soldiers meant throwing them into battle was no different from scattering dust in the wind or sprinkling sand in the snow.

From the war's outset, the division of labor between the two sides was crystal clear.

Baili was responsible for conquering cities and seizing territory; Nangqian was responsible for weeping and wailing.

The Baili King dispatched four thousand troops. The six-hundred-li road from Qamdo to the Nangqian royal palace — the affiliated tribes either revolted or defected to the enemy. In a mere fourteen days, the entire realm collapsed, and eight thousand Baili soldiers pressed their siege to the palace walls.

They had practically run here over mountains and ridges — utterly exhausted.

The final decisive battle took place exactly where Monk Gama now stood.

At the foot of the mountain lay Genbang Monastery. What a fine monastery it had once been — built in the eighth year of Emperor Taizong of Yuan, it was the very foundation of the Barong Kagyu sect.

Now, the grand monastery that once had three tiers, supported by one hundred and twenty stone pillars and capable of holding one thousand five hundred chanting monks, had been utterly destroyed in the flames of war.

Over three hundred monks were tightly besieged, unable to break through, and ultimately consumed entirely by a great fire.

As for the royal palace on the mountain, his brother Luozhou held the summit fortress with four hundred defenders for eight days and eight nights, until a traitor opened the gates. Outnumbered, the fortress fell on the afternoon of the ninth day.

At this very moment, the royal palace still stood — only the person living inside had become the Baili King's Nangqian minister.

Gama turned his head. Amid the ruined walls and massive mani stone mounds stretched Mongol felt tents that seemed to connect heaven and earth — a vast siege encampment encircling the entire mountain fortress.

But the situation was not as favorable as it appeared.

The Mongol herder-soldiers were numerous. Crossing high mountains and snowy plains, they were as hardy and enduring as the desert-bred mounts beneath them.

Compared to the local native soldiers, who had blood and spirit but knew nothing of war, they were far better warriors.

But no one was willing to throw their life away on this mountain, where nothing grew except stone forests and yellow earth.

The siege camp's commander was Taiji Baiyan. The several thousand Mongol soldiers under his command had been besieging this place for twelve days now, utterly helpless against the six hundred Baili native soldiers occupying the palace.

Apart from an initial probing assault, for a full eleven days afterward, Taiji Baiyan had used waiting for the Grand Marshal as an excuse to simply encircle without attacking.

That assault had actually cost only nine lives; the eleven men who died afterward were shot trying to climb the mountain platform to retrieve the corpses.

This mountain rose eighty zhang above the river valley. There were two routes up: the western route had no path, just a muddy gully carved by melting snow on the mountainside.

The eastern route had a stone-step path, and at sixty zhang high there was a small platform, but it was so narrow it could only fit three men climbing abreast.

Elsewhere, there was no foothold even to set scaling ladders.

Baiyan did build a trebuchet, but it could not shoot that high or that far. The stones hurled up rolled back down the mountain and even crushed one of the felt tents.

Monk Gama could wait no longer. He was going to ask Taiji Baiyan what his plan was.

"I'll tell you straight, monk — this mountain fortress, even if the Grand Marshal's Han troops came, they'd have no solution. His small cannons can't reach that far, and the big cannons can't be hauled up. Anyway, we've got plenty of men. One word: outlast."

Over the past few days, Baiyan had already dispersed over three thousand men, sending them to attack nobles who had surrendered to the Baili King across various regions, gather intelligence, and by the way, seize every farming tool they could find.

"Once the weather warms, I'll dig a seven-li-long trench at the mountain's base. If we can't get up, then those bastards can damn well forget about coming down either."

Baiyan spoke viciously, but inwardly he was blooming with joy — he had no desire to storm the fortress at all.

They had already reached the very gateway into Tibet. The Mongol herder-soldiers gathered here were restless and had not the slightest interest in a frontal assault on the live turtles holed up in this high-mountain castle.

These past days, he had already sent out over three thousand men, including Xie Erhu, to raid the estates of nobles who had surrendered and pledged allegiance to the Baili King. The primary goal was to maintain morale through plundering the enemy.

As for the secondary goal, it was to collect tools for digging the trench — and also to give Liu the Lion something to account for.

A high-mountain bastion like this, where cannons can't be set up and arrows can't hit anyone — even if you, Liu the Lion, came yourself, what could you do? There's nothing to be done.

How vexing this bastion was. The base was an irregular stone foundation, and above it were bianma walls — a type of wall made by bundling tamarisk branches and ramming them solid with earth.

Arrows shot up simply stuck fast; the men on the fortress could leisurely pluck the arrows out and shoot them back down.

Although these walls were not as sturdy as pure stone walls, up on this mountaintop there was simply no means to destroy them.

Thus, Taiji Baiyan's countermeasure was to dig a deep trench — no merit perhaps, but plenty of hard toil to show.

That way, when Liu the Lion arrived, he could unhurriedly leave two thousand Mongol herder-soldiers to deal with the Baili King to the east, while he himself led the main army into Tibet.

Perhaps by the time the Mongol herder-soldiers had plundered the Baili King's territory clean, Baiyan would already be back from Lhasa, and this mountain bastion still wouldn't have been breached.

Anyway, just leaving a thousand or so men to besiege it would suffice.

Baiyan had clashed with Tibetan native soldiers more than once or twice. Aside from some heavy cavalry that were truly formidable, the other conscripted peasant soldiers were not even a match for the grain-tribute tribes near Han territory.

As for Monk Gama's urgency — let him be urgent. Baiyan did not care.

Liu Chengzong's army came slowly — truly slowly.

Ever since passing through southern Gansu and the Heka Grasslands, Liu Chengzong had been busy receiving the tribal chieftains who came bearing gifts to pay him homage.

Twenty-three clans over here, forty-six tribes over there.

A dark, swarming mass of minor nobles and petty headmen lined the roads to welcome him in an endless stream.

Some knew he had opened markets north of the Qinghai Lake and sought to trade tribute for the status to do business there.

Some had heard of this Han-dominated military group and hurried to offer tribute early to avoid a beating.

Still others had disputes with neighboring tribes and rushed over to offer tribute, hoping to borrow two hundred of the royal army to avenge a generations-old blood feud.

That wasn't even the most absurd case.

Some went even further — not knowing who he was, what he did, or what he intended to do, they simply passed near his territory and came bearing gifts to pledge allegiance.

Too many — so many that it seriously slowed the army's advance, so many that after entering Golog, the Lion Army no longer had a single soldier suffering from altitude sickness.

Marching a whole day, the elevation climbed twenty meters. The Yunnan bowl sugar that Su Fan had prepared wasn't even needed; they strolled right past the highest flatland area around Yushu.

But Liu the Lion hadn't been entirely idle either. His men were busy dashing about among the various tribes that had submitted, tallying their populations and local specialties.

This made many of the submitting chieftains extremely displeased... We were just watching you pass by and offering a bit of tribute, that's all. When you enter a temple, don't you at least bow? A token gesture is enough.

Back in our ancestors' day, even the Tibetan Empire didn't take such a keen interest in us as these Han people do.

Damn, it's terrifying — what are you trying to do?

Fortunately, Liu Chengzong had no intention of doing anything. He had people tally the populations and specialties, surveyed the mountains and rivers, then led his troops onward south. To the demands of these local petty chieftains for hereditary rule over their lands, he neither accepted nor refused, only saying they would discuss it when he brought his troops back.

With people pledging allegiance one after another, at first he was indeed somewhat overwhelmed by the unexpected favor.

But everywhere he went it was the same situation — even in places far from Han territory where contact had long been severed, tribal chieftains still acted this way.

This journey made Liu the Lion grow a great deal. He saw things clearly now.

Over recent decades, Mongol nobles had entered Tibet one after another, and every single tribal chieftain along the way had been thoroughly schooled into hardened old hands at offering tribute.

Their tribute-offering, ah, was just like Beijingers saying "nin" — it seemed to carry many layers of meaning, yet also seemed to carry none at all.

To a large extent it was simply habit. You've brought your troops all the way here — if I don't offer you some tribute, would that even be proper?

Once he figured this out, Liu Chengzong understood why the Baili King was at war with the Nangqian King.

There were far too many legal claims on this land. Some relied on fiefs from the Tibetan Empire period, some held seals from the Great Yuan Emperor, some possessed investitures from the Ü-Tsang Dharma Kings, and some clutched edicts from the Yongle Emperor.

And some people simultaneously held all of the above land credentials.

When everyone has legal claim, it's the same as no one having legal claim.

As long as your power was great enough, anyone could easily rule this land — at least in name.

But when real effort was needed, as for any noble on this land, they could only provide every kind of support except actual effort.

Loyalty not absolute is absolute disloyalty.

Liu Chengzong arrived at the siege camp outside Nangqian on the afternoon of the sixteenth day since the mountaintop palace had been surrounded.

On the sixty-li road approaching Nangqian, Monk Gama and Banyan Taiji chattered incessantly in his ears.

One repeatedly stressed the importance of capturing the Nangqian palace for ruling this land.

The other ceaselessly explained the many difficulties of assaulting this mountain fortress.

Both spoke truly.

When Liu Chengzong saw this mountain fortress, his heart went numb too.

On the road he had thought to himself, the Lion Army had campaigned across northern Shaanxi — what kind of hill fort had they not seen?

Coming here and looking, he truly had never seen one like this.

Northern Shaanxi was indeed full of mountains, but northern Shaanxi rarely had high mountains, and even more rarely had people who built castles on mountains this high.

Moreover, this was a mountain fortress blending Tibetan stronghold style with Western Xia rustic character — it was like placing a Western Xia city gate tower atop a Tibetan-style fortress.

His cannons truly could not go up there.

Even the lightest Lion Cannons — even if the gun carriages were removed and soldiers carried them up the mountain — were utterly impractical.

The stone steps, just cleared of snow, were terribly slippery. One unsteady step by a soldier carrying a cannon, and the two-hundred-jin bronze gun would go tumbling down hundreds of stone steps, smashing half a company command to wailing and screaming.

After equipping the Lion Cannons, they had also ceased fielding smaller pieces like the Gushing Pearl or Crouching Tiger cannons. Assaulting a mountain fortress uphill — the difficulty was anything but ordinary.

Furthermore, according to reports from the Mongol leaders sent by Banyan Taiji — Daiqing, Xie Erhu, and others — fighting had broken out repeatedly to the southeast. Their arrival was already known to the Baili King, Donyo Dorje.

When the Mongol nobles relayed the Baili army's troop deployments into the siege camp, and Liu Chengzong's officer corps plotted them into a map, the situation lay clearly before Liu Chengzong's eyes.

From the Nangqian Zhaqu River in the northwest to the Tongtian River basin in the southeast, the Baili army was reinforcing toward the Qamdo line.

Donyo Dorje had yielded the gateway to Tibet — Riwoqê, located west between Qamdo and Nangqian.

On the surface he had abandoned some occupied land, but in reality he had used noble estate fortresses as pivot points along the mountain contours, deploying his forces so that in the standoff with the Mongol army, defense and counterattack would be easier.

In particular, Daiqing of the Khalkha tribe, leading over three hundred men, had encountered the Baili army while assaulting an estate. Relying on his troops' decent equipment, he charged fiercely and struck hard, winning first then losing, and in the end barely retreating. He lost over a hundred riders, and even Daiqing himself was nearly held there.

Donyo Dorje's troops dealt with Daiqing in a very simple way.

They used a small unit of tribal soldiers to charge in all at once, then scatter in a flash. When Daiqing's men discovered the enemy was utterly feeble and dispersed in pursuit, heavy cavalry clad in mail armor and bearing long spears and shields from the rear charged in waves.

Daiqing's bloody lesson swiftly educated all the Mongol herder-soldiers: they were unfamiliar with the terrain and topography here. In scattered skirmishes against scattered skirmishers, they could rely on superior skill and tactics to defeat the enemy.

But when the enemy organized — even if just a mass of peasant soldiers and a small elite force — they found it very hard to win in a positional standoff battle.

Inside the central command tent, Banyan Taiji appeared extremely agitated.

Donyo Dorje had some skill — he knew what the Mongols wanted. They wanted to enter Tibet, so he yielded the road into Tibet.

This made the Mongol herder-soldiers lose all interest in continuing the standoff here, but now Banyan dared not leave.

Liu Chengzong had no intention of entering Tibet. If Banyan went into Tibet on his own, should Donyo Dorje push the battle line forward, he could cut off their rear at any moment.

By now, the Mongols under his command were generally gripped by a fear of battle.

"What are you afraid of?"

Liu Chengzong, however, was very relaxed. "Three days. In three days I'll take this palace city. If he yields Riwoqê, we'll occupy Riwoqê and push the battle line all the way southeast."

Banyan Taiji shook his head. "All those mountaintop fortresses — how do we push? We can't just besiege every single one we see, can we?"

"You don't need to worry about how to push. I'll give you one day. Go find me fifty blacksmiths, thirty carpenters, five hundred jin of iron, and ten large trees. I see fir trees are plentiful here. Deliver them before noon tomorrow. The matter of assaulting the fort is none of your concern."

Having said this, Liu Chengzong turned his gaze to Monk Gama. "Within three days I will take this fortress. From now on, your family will build an estate at the foot of the mountain to live in. The fortress on the mountain will serve as my garrison barracks."