Chapter 306: Choktu

From the Qilian Mountains to Golmud, forty thousand sturdy Mongol warriors from the north swept across the land, splitting and encircling the scattered tribes of the Qinghai Tümed Güüshi Taiji, offering surrender or annihilation, fighting one crisp, brilliant campaign after another.

In this era of surging change, among all the Mongol feudal lords who walked the earth, Choktu stood out as an oddity.

He was born into a prominent Khalkha family, a true-blooded descendant of the Golden Clan, and after the Khan's court lost power and could no longer control the lords of each wing, it seemed every Golden Clan descendant believed they could become the Great Khan.

Only this minor lord born in Khalkha remained utterly loyal to Ligdan Khan of the Chahar, supporting every one of Ligdan Khan's decisions, even willing to go to war for them.

As early as ten years ago, in his poems he compared Ligdan to a worldly sage-ruler who could rival the Heavenly Emperor, and compared himself to a virtuous aide assisting a wise king.

Unfortunately, Ligdan Khan's decisions sometimes clashed with Khalkha's interests and beliefs, so now while others were still in Khalkha, Choktu, past fifty, had come to Qinghai.

From Liu Chengzong's perspective, Choktu's assault on Qinghai resembled robbery, but for Choktu himself, it was the sum of loyalty, hatred, and survival.

He did not mean to rob — he meant to conquer Qinghai completely.

Choktu had wanted to do this ten years ago, but back then, having just arrived beyond the Gansu frontier, his followers were still too weak to attack the powerful Khulochi family of the Tümed tribe.

For this he lay dormant in the bitter cold, herding and raising horses, on one hand taking in Mongols fleeing from the northeast, and on the other biding his time, sending trusted followers into Qinghai to attach themselves to the Khulochi family lords.

Opportunity always favors the prepared; all manner of intelligence reached him beyond the Gansu frontier through his own men — the Khulochi followers were many, but the Ming blockade kept them in a half-dead state, their arms and armor extremely feeble, ironware especially scarce.

And the Khulochi family's two most powerful sons, after their father's death, had launched repeated internal feuds, weakening their strength further.

Choktu's chance had come; if he could successfully establish himself in Qinghai, he would not only solve the problem of survival but also secure a rear base for the Khan's court to recuperate.

Strangely enough, how could a Khalkha Taiji — of noble blood, meager strength, loyal to the Great Khan, and fiercely belligerent — after being driven from his own territory and pursued by enemies on all sides, see his power swell so rapidly in a short time and become a Khan with forty thousand troops on Qinghai's outer edge?

Because of the cold, and because of Hong Taiji five thousand li away.

The cold brought famine to the northern tribes, forcing each tribe to migrate south, and the south, under the Later Jin's onslaught, was clearly no good place.

But in this story, the Later Jin's Hong Taiji did not play the villain.

Under the Later Jin's pressure, many Mongol lords maneuvered in the cracks; Ligdan Khan's eyes could tolerate no sand — whoever dared secretly deal with the Later Jin would be struck with thunderous force.

Hong Taiji kept throwing sand at Ligdan; Ligdan Khan, unable to attack the sand-throwing Later Jin directly, could only rub his eyes all the harder.

Unceasing military victories, and unceasing offenses against the feudal lords, eventually drove one frontier tribe after another to rebel and defect to Hong Taiji's banner; Ligdan Khan drifted further and further from his dream of unification.

Ever more radical policies alienated the Chahar Great Khan from his lords; tribe after tribe migrated westward — and what lay in the west?

The Oirat were no good lot; hired several times by the Ming to attack the Tümed and other tribes, the hatred between the two sides had thickened beyond dissolving, while beyond the Gansu frontier there was a Choktu Taiji willing to take them in.

More and more Mongol herders, with their families in tow, arrived beyond the frontier and became Choktu Taiji's subjects; Choktu's years of preparation, enduring hunger in the desert, at last found their use.

The land beyond the Gansu frontier could not feed so many Mongols; the surrounding enemies were all formidable, and there were few lands that could give this grand alliance of losers a place to settle and survive.

Who here was the weakest, occupied the most fertile land, and had seen their strength greatly diminished by brothers warring among themselves?

The answer was on the tip of the tongue — Khulochi of the Tümed tribe!

Whether to aid Ligdan Khan's great enterprise, or to let these Mongol warriors eat their fill and prevent internal strife — they could only, and must, seize Qinghai by force.

The vast Mongol host swallowed up Güüshi Taiji's territory.

In a felt tent on the Heka grasslands that had belonged to Güüshi Taiji, the fifty-something Choktu Taiji took from the spoils a bronze mirror with a lion-shaped handle; its finely polished surface clearly reflected the old man's smallpox-scarred face.

In Khalkha, he had another name — Chörükü Choktu; Chörükü means mottled, or simply put, pockmarked.

By now Choktu's allied army of forty thousand had swiftly seized the entire Heka grasslands, offering surrender, driving out, or slaughtering to the last the tribes that had submitted to Güüshi Taiji; they were now massed on the western bank of the Yellow River, ready at any moment to cross east and continue crushing the Junior Lhazang.

One military victory after another greatly boosted his followers' morale and shot a powerful stimulant into Choktu's ambition to occupy Qinghai.

Yet Choktu's heart was still full of unease; he looked into the bronze mirror not to admire his own old face — this pockmarked, weather-beaten face was nothing much to look at.

It was because on the lion-handled bronze mirror, in both Han and Mongol script, were written the words: Qinghai Marshal's Headquarters.

This mirror, a gift the Marshal's Headquarters had sent to Güüshi Taiji's wife, was the secret behind Liu Chengzong's control of the Khulochi tribe.

Entering and occupying Qinghai was a momentous affair; Choktu could originally have chosen to wait a little longer, but the news of Liu Chengzong's victorious southern campaign made him realize this might be his last chance to take Qinghai.

He understood the Qinghai situation with perfect clarity: the Khulochi tribe's elite had all entered Tibet, and the Qinghai Marshal's Headquarters' main force had also marched south to seize Do Kham; never again would there be such a fine opportunity for him to launch an assault on Qinghai.

This war was proceeding exactly according to Choktu's plan: the first to be attacked was Güüshi Taiji, followed immediately by the Junior Lhazang, completely severing the Marshal's Headquarters' north-south link; if these two campaigns went smoothly enough, he would have three months to deal with the Marshal's Headquarters along the shores of Qinghai Lake.

So far, the offensive against Güüshi Taiji had gone off without a hitch; Lhazang had not crossed the river to reinforce him, and by now even if Lhazang wanted to cross, it was too late; next they would see whether they could cross the Yellow River from the Heka grasslands and enter the Junior Lhazang's territory.

However, smooth offensives on the east-west axis did not mean there was no pressure from north to south.

The Marshal's Headquarters was not easy to deal with; they had built a cluster of wooden forts everywhere and were now adding brick and stone on top, so Choktu's strategy was to avoid engaging them for the time being.

For this reason, Choktu's attacks had not touched the Chaka Salt Lake at all; even after Güüshi Taiji's followers were wiped out, Haixi County could still transport salt from the lake.

He even sent men specially to Haixi County to express that he bore no hostility toward the Marshal's Headquarters — this was an internal matter among us Mongols.

At first the two sides indeed did not fight; only, in the course of battle, a few newly built post stations were unavoidably destroyed — not many people, and no great losses.

Choktu thought, what the hell kind of big deal is that; at worst he'd just pay gold and silver in compensation.

But the Marshal's Headquarters entered the war.

A subordinate chieftain strode swiftly into the felt tent and reported with an extremely complicated expression: "Taiji, that cripple has sallied out again."

Choktu was so furious he nearly smashed the bronze mirror: "I've already stopped provoking them — what more do they want!"

The cripple people spoke of was the Qinghai Marshal's Headquarters' magistrate in Haixi, named Liu Guoneng; at first he had talked quite well with Choktu's men — after all, they were generous, and Choktu's men had brought one thousand three hundred taels of gold the moment they arrived.

Liu Guoneng's entire Haixi County, including the garrison of Zhong Hu's unit at Nanshan Fort, did not have assets worth one thousand three hundred taels of gold.

So both Liu Guoneng and Zhong Hu figured, fine, you go ahead and fight your fight; as long as you don't touch the salt lake, we won't interfere with you.

But the two of them still truthfully sent word to Xining.

Liu Xiangyu was in fact utterly baffled by the situation; the entire Marshal's Headquarters had zero understanding of this Mongol allied army that had suddenly risen up — the main intelligence all pointed to desert bandits, and at first they thought, since they even knew to send gold and silver, these desert bandits were rather inclined toward civilization.

But Lady Cai blew a pillow-talk wind, and it played a pivotal role in this war.

Choktu could never have dreamed that his plan, so sound in every other way, would be ruined by those few little post stations whose earthen walls hadn't even been finished.

Affairs of state — Lady Cai did not understand them, nor did she consider them; she simply felt, unilaterally, that this Choktu was no good man.

Because without post stations, she would have no way to write letters to her son.

Liu Xiangyu mulled it over — so that was it; the Tatars fighting was one thing, but if they truly submitted to civilization, why destroy several post stations in a row and create a situation where the Marshal's Headquarters was cut off north from south?

This dog of a villain most likely had far grander designs!

With a flourish of his brush, he wrote three characters in reply to Liu Guoneng: Nonsense. Attack.

Liu Guoneng received this brutally simple letter on the first day of the fourth month; he even suspected that Liu Laoye's seal had been stolen.

Once he saw that the refined and amiable Liu Laoye was cursing people out, there was no choice but to fight. He called up Zhong Hu and, in the fourth month, launched three proactive strikes from South Mountain Fort, tying down a large portion of Choktu's troops.

Broadly speaking, Choktu still only found this nuisance in the north annoying. South Mountain Fort in Haixi County had barely a thousand or so people, and their repeated sorties all relied on speed to win — strike fast, pull back fast — with an operational radius of only a hundred li.

After all, Choktu was clear on the Marshal Manor's situation: they had no mobile troops to speak of. Relying on fortresses, they were more than capable of defense but lacked the spare strength for a large-scale offensive — at most, they could tie down a few thousand of his troops along the South Mountain line.

The militia forces at the Yellow River's headwaters were the real knife hanging over his head.

The relay-station troops over there had started fighting him even earlier than the Marshal Manor in the north. By mid-fourth month, they were still just a squad of a dozen or so men with two boats, launching raids on the Mongol troops along the riverbank — they should have been wiped out in an instant.

But separated by the natural moat of the Yellow River, they instead managed to launch several sneak attacks over half a month, inflicting dozens of casualties. The garrison commander kept demanding reinforcements without end, and Choktu wondered if there was something wrong with him — couldn't he even kill a dozen or so men?

Later, after careful analysis, it turned out that place really was a critical location for buying time.

The three months Choktu had counted on after eliminating Huoluochi were calculated based on Liu Chengzong's marching speed. According to the Tumed Mongols, Liu Chengzong had taken three months to travel from here to Nangqian.

Then the return trip would also take three months. Moreover, after conquering such a vast territory, he would certainly have to disperse his troops to garrison it. The time needed for word to reach him, for him to assemble his forces, and to forcibly requisition supplies would be enough for Choktu to defeat Guru and Lhatsun, who had no elite troops left in hand.

In light of this, whether there were boats at the Yellow River crossing became critical.

To this end, Choktu dispatched another thousand-man unit to advance south, determined to destroy the opposite-bank crossing and boats before Liu Chengzong could return north to relieve them.

For the Khalkha to cross the river and destroy the crossing and boats, they first had to cross the river — and crossing the river required building boats.

For Zou Feng to preserve his own forces, he had to prevent the enemy from crossing the river — and preventing the enemy from crossing the river also required building boats.

With the arrival of this Khalkha thousand-man unit, the pressure on Zou Feng increased sharply, and on the night of the fifth day of the fifth month, his camp was even raided by Mongol troops.

In some places at the Yellow River's headwaters, the water was very narrow. Several dozen Mongol troops swam across with knives clenched in their teeth. Although they were spotted by the Father-in-Law Army, the largest gunboat-ferry was still scuttled. They could only watch helplessly as the Mongols on the opposite bank built more and more sampans.

But the Mongols on the Yellow River's north bank were not the only ones who could call for reinforcements — Zou Feng could too. His reinforcements were the relay-station soldiers from the stations to the south.

Every relay station understood the principle that when the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold. Their forces were hopelessly outmatched by the Mongols. Before the Grand Marshal's northern-expedition army arrived, the Yellow River was the sole natural moat protecting them, and to protect that natural moat, they had to support Zou Feng.

Reinforcements sent from the four relay stations along the route arrived one after another. One station master sent four men, another sent five, and yet another called in several dozen tribal soldiers from the surrounding Western Tibetan headmen.

The men were not the most important thing. The arriving reinforcements brought a large quantity of firearms. The force Zou Feng could now command consisted of only thirty-two Lion Soldiers, one hundred eighty Mongol-Tibetan troops, and over seven hundred Mongol-Tibetan herders — yet they possessed six heavy jingals, six small cannons, and twenty-five firelocks, enabling them to deliver long-range strikes across the Yellow River against enemy troops preparing to cross.

With reinforcements, Zou Feng's spine stiffened and his heart hardened. While building boats, he also blew up cowhide rafts.

The Mongol nobles garrisoned on the Yellow River's north bank were not willing to show weakness either. Recognizing that these relay-station troops' advantage lay in firepower, they even made thick, heavy shields and exchanged a round of fire with Zou Feng across the riverbank.

In any case, the results were not pretty. The heavy shields might as well have not existed against the jingals and small cannons — even the shattered splinters of wood could kill.

Once the old large ferry was repaired and a new large ferry was built, two warships carrying bird guns and jingals, along with six seventy-catty shore-defense cannons, once again made Zou Feng the invincible overlord of the Yellow River's headwaters.

But after fighting like this for over a month, just when the situation was looking excellent, the enemy dispatched even more troops. Mongol figures even appeared to the east on the Yellow River's south bank, leaving Zou Feng with no choice but to abandon the crossing. He ordered the ferries sailed to the nearby great lake, Starry Sea, and led nearly a thousand herders to hide in the mountains.

This situation also made Liu Xiangyu in the north fly into a rage. His eldest son, Liu Chengzu, mustered every man who could be mobilized, preparing to rush three thousand troops to the aid of the young Lhatsun, who was being pressed by Choktu's main army.

In the end, the young Lhatsun did not even fight. He sent tens of thousands of family dependents, the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled from the Yellow River's east bank to seek refuge at Ju'erwan, then took over three thousand battle-capable Mongol troops and fled.

He abandoned his territory. He was going to Ü-Tsang to be his Living Buddha, no longer concerning himself with the strife of the mortal world.