Chapter 307: Revenge

The Yellow River South Bend occupied by Little Lhazang was, aside from a corner of Xining, the most fertile four-hundred-li stretch in all of Qinghai.

No one could have imagined that, at this critical juncture, Little Lhazang would hand over the Yellow River South Bend without firing a single arrow.

And Lhazang did not leave in a hurry — while Choktu was thrashing his elder brother Guru Taiji on the west bank of the Yellow River, Lhazang was setting up defenses on the east bank, unhurriedly relocating the old, weak, women, and children among his followers toward Xining and Gurwan Bay.

The colossal task of shifting tens of thousands of people in winding columns, dividing up livestock and distributing wealth and goods, was carried out by him in perfect order.

So much so that neither Liu Xiangyu nor Liu Chengzu realized Little Lhazang was about to bolt; they thought this spiritual preceptor of all the Qinghai Mongols was preparing to fight to the death.

Who would have guessed that once the final stage of the population transfer was done, after just a few days without word, he would finally send someone over to say: the Yellow River South territory is hereby handed over to the Grand Marshal of Qinghai; Lhazang will cross the river from the south, travel through the Zoigê Grasslands toward Luhuo County, and ultimately enter Tibet via Chamdo.

The Liu father and son were stunned for a long while upon hearing the news. In a fury, Liu Chengzu wanted to send troops in pursuit, but Liu Xiangyu stopped him: "He's abandoned his territory and his people — could you even chase him back? Prepare for battle. With Lhazang pulling his defenses from the Yellow River, this fight just got a lot harder."

Liu Chengzu slammed his fist hatefully onto the table spread with maps, stared at the small river bend from Guide to Hezhou on the map, and spat out a vicious curse: "That blockhead!"

The Marshal's headquarters had its own concerns. The Xining Guard did have troops, true, but those were garrison battalions — to prevent the rear from catching fire in the direction of the imperial court, those troops could not be moved.

He had painstakingly assembled forces, coaxed the soldiers of Zhenhai Camp and Fuqiang Fort with kind words, and persuaded several tusi to send troops as well, just to scrape together three thousand mobile troops capable of reinforcing Lhazang — and the Little Lhazang who needed reinforcing fled without a fight.

And Lhazang clearly did not want to be chased down by him. The Marshal's headquarters learned the news too late; Choktu Taiji had been keeping his troops massed on the opposite bank all along and got word earlier than they did — by now he had most likely already moved into Yellow River South.

Forty thousand Mongol troops, arrayed from the west and south, encircled the Marshal's headquarters' core heartland around Qinghai Lake.

Naked betrayal.

"Even if he was going to leave, he should have waited until my troops entered the Yellow River defense line first. Now we're well and truly screwed." Liu Chengzu was so angry he laughed, clapping his hands. "No need to worry about the troops being immobile now — we'll fight right on our doorstep. That muddle-headed fool!"

Liu Xiangyu, however, took it in stride and shook his head. "He's no fool. Only now does this old man see it clearly. Lion, Lhazang, Baiten — they all spoke of being as close as one family, and we truly believed it. In truth, none of the three who said it believed it themselves."

Liu Chengzu was baffled by this and stared blankly. "Father, what do you mean?"

Liu Xiangyu shook his head and said no more. "Figured it out — he doesn't want to be our shield."

By now, Old Master Liu could roughly grasp Lhazang's thinking. Slipping away was not panic-stricken flailing but a carefully considered expedient.

Every house looks after its own affairs; staying in Yellow River South held no benefit for Lhazang.

With just Lhazang's few thousand men protecting the tens of thousands of dependents of the Khuluchi tribes, he could neither hold them off nor win.

Now that Baiten Taiji had taken the expeditionary force to settle in Ü-Tsang, and Guru's followers had been shattered like dry weeds and rotten wood, Lhazang had little choice left.

Staying here to fight to the bitter end would benefit the Marshal's headquarters, but Yellow River South would inevitably become the battlefield where the Marshal's headquarters and the Khalkha vied for mastery of Qinghai.

Choktu's forty thousand troops had come to seize their meal — the very meal of the Khuluchi. If that side won, Lhazang would meet no good end; but if the Marshal's headquarters won, would Lhazang meet a good end?

At most, he could earn himself a position where Liu Chengzong would reward him based on his merits.

And that still involved the problem that Liu the Lion had no interest in religion and might not reward him based on his merits at all.

By then his followers would be smashed, he himself would be cooped up in some temple being prostrated to by a hundred monks all day, and he would still have to worry about when his religious influence might offend Liu Chengzong — without even the means to protect himself.

Forget it.

If Liu Chengzong's conquest of Kangning Prefecture in one year and Choktu's defeat of Guru in half a month could teach Lhazang anything, it was this: a common man is blameless, but possessing a treasure brings blame upon himself.

Hold as much land as your ability allows. The brothers had been pecking at each other like chickens in Qinghai for years, then suddenly discovered that the fellows flooding into Qinghai were stronger than the last, fiercer than the last — how could he not feel a sense of crisis?

Rather than shamelessly cling on until he was kicked aside in the end, he might as well trot off into Ü-Tsang right now. He would not contend for power and profit with you secular rulers here — the Living Buddha was entering Tibet to pay homage to the Buddha.

As for offending Liu Xiangyu and Liu Chengzu by pulling his defenses and heading south, Lhazang did not care. Neither of those two could possibly run all the way to Ü-Tsang to drag him out and kill him.

Liu Chengzong was the one who might charge into Ü-Tsang to drag him out and kill him. So the land was given to the Marshal's headquarters, and the people were given to the Marshal's headquarters.

Moreover, with Liu Chengzong returning in relief from the west, Lhazang would head south from the east — he would rather take a longer detour and miss the chance of meeting face to face. If it really came down to it, he could always send you some rubies from Ü-Tsang later, right?

Liu Xiangyu adjusted his mood and waved a hand. "Forget about him. If he runs, let him run. It just happens to free up space so we can spread the Tartar troops out. Calculate when Lion can get back. We don't need to seek glory — focus on scouting the enemy's situation. Wait until Lion is about to make contact with the enemy forces, then launch a full-scale attack to pin down their strength."

Liu Chengzu nodded. "That's exactly what I was thinking, son. The enemy outnumbers us; before we've pinpointed Choktu's location, it's not wise to attack. We'll have Commander Yang of the garrison battalion handle this — Battalion Commander Wei has quite a few scout riders under his command."

Having said that, Liu Chengzu cursed Little Lhazang once more. "Father, there's something you don't know. I hate this Lhazang — not for running, but for giving up Yellow River South. Now the Xikang post road has no relay stations, and the eastern route through the Songpan Grasslands to Luhuo and Markham is cut off too."

"Before the new year, Lion sent word back saying he'd spend the new year at Dajianlu. That's much closer to Chengdu than to Nangqên. If Lion moves fast enough, counting from mid-fourth month when he gets the news, it'll take eighteen days to return to Nangqên. Assembling troops from various areas and preparing supplies — at the earliest, he'd set out on the fifteenth of the fifth month. But for us waiting for reinforcements, we should count a bit slower: the twentieth of the fifth month."

Liu Chengzu spoke as he calculated, then looked up at his father. "The north bank of the Yellow River's source is likely already occupied by the Tartars, or close to it. From Xining to Nangqên is twenty-two relay stations. Split the road into two sections — the eleven stations south of the river are high mountains, bitter cold, and lack roads. I think Lion won't march too fast but won't be too slow either: forty li a day, one rest day every nine days..."

Liu Chengzu knew Liu Chengzong's marching speed extremely well. From Xining to Nangqên, Liu Chengzong had taken over three months — but that wasn't a march; he was accepting tribute from tribal chiefs along the way and conducting a population census on the side.

From Nangqên back to Xining, two months would be enough.

As Liu Chengzu talked on this side, Liu Xiangyu took notes on the other. These were all lessons from the experience of a frontline officer. The eldest son could rattle them off like family treasures from experience, but Old Master Liu only had a rough impression, so he needed to write these things down.

As he spoke, Liu Chengzu unconsciously used his left hand to pinch his knuckles and calculate rapidly. A moment later, he looked at his father and clenched his fist. "Father, today is the tenth of the sixth month. I estimate that within fifteen days, Lion can reach the Yellow River's source."

Liu Xiangyu had been listening and writing, but now he looked up sharply, astonished. "That fast? From the Yellow River's source to the Salt Lake is still eight stations. Can he fight as soon as he arrives?"

"He can, and those eight stations will go very quickly." Liu Chengzu spoke with absolute certainty. "Lion never rides a horse on the march. You've seen Commander Yang Yao's unit too, Father. On a long march along the post road, leading their horses, sixty li a day is nothing for them. On a forced march, sleeping on muleback, a hundred li a day wouldn't be strange either. It just depends on which unit Lion brings back with him."

With a rough sense of Liu Chengzong's marching speed in mind, father and son set about preparing for the coming war.

Now that Lhazang had fled, the fighting would take place on their own doorstep, so Yang Yao's garrison battalion stationed at the Haibei main camp could be shifted slightly. Liu Chengzu therefore planned to divide the battlefield into eastern and western sectors centered on the Yellow River.

West of the river, the Lion Army's garrison battalion under Yang Yao would serve as a diversionary force, emerging from the southern mountain pass with the objectives of harassment, killing the enemy, and pinning them down.

Yang Yao was adept with cavalry, and under his command were three battalion commanders — Wei Qian'er, Han Shiyou, and Yang Chengzu — more than half of whom were veterans who had followed Liu Chengzong through campaigns in Shaanxi and Shanxi. Their combat strength was extremely high, and they could easily be mistaken by the enemy for the main force.

East of the river, Liu Chengzu would lead the Zhenhai Camp, Fuqiang Fort, and native troops, splitting forces from Guide Battalion to seize the fortresses in the small river bend. Seizing the fortresses themselves was not particularly meaningful, but preventing the enemy from taking them was very important.

Especially the Eight-Pointed City in the southeast, which guarded the Gansu-Qinghai Corridor — a critical military site contested between the Central Plains dynasties and northwestern regimes throughout history. No matter what, Liu Chengzu could not let anyone else occupy it.

If Choktu took it, they could just take it back. If the Ming army took it, they probably wouldn't be getting it back anytime soon.

Just as the Marshal's headquarters was launching simultaneous eastern and western campaigns in the north, at the Yellow River's source in the south, a new campaign had already begun.

Liu Chengzu had overestimated Liu the Lion's marching speed. In reality, Liu Chengzong could only cover thirty li a day.

In terms of the Lion soldiers' physical stamina, eighty li a day was quite tiring; fifty or sixty li a day allowed them to maintain high morale.

But in this place of high mountains and freezing cold, sleeping in the open and eating in the wind, thirty li a day was sheer misery for the Lion soldiers.

The Lion soldiers were accustomed to army life, bore hardship well, and excelled at marching — a pair of feet could outpace four hooves. They had no great demands for their standard of living: ten jin of parched flour for six hundred li, plus one jin of dried meat and three liang of pickled vegetables, supplemented by donkey-meat sandwiches that could even provide an accelerating effect.

But everything has two sides. Over time, their literacy and military knowledge had both improved. They could not bear to see grain wasted. A road that could clearly be finished in fifteen days, they had to take a month to walk — grain consumption doubled, and they still had to suffer the cold. As a result, morale was extremely low.

So much so that the rank-and-file soldiers were full of complaints about this pace.

There was no helping it. A large formation on the march was not just the Lion soldiers; marching speed was never determined by who walked the fastest, but by the slowest one in the column.

More than half the soldiers in the Left Battalion lacked the physical fitness for a long march. After fifteen days, over six hundred had fallen behind. The nobles in the Right Battalion already had low morale to begin with — if those noble lords had just a bit more confidence in their own survival skills, seven or eight hundred of them would have deserted too.

Fortunately, Liu Chengzong had gained a few days by racing all the way back from Dajianlu to Nangqian, so his marching speed was roughly what Liu Chengzu had estimated.

The main force was still slowly advancing in the rear, while up ahead Dai Daozi was secretly overjoyed — he was moving fast.

Moreover, after receiving a plea for help from Huangyuan Station at the relay post and getting the Grand Marshal's approval, the relay cavalry pushed forward at full speed and had long since begun a standoff game with the Mongol flanking force that had crossed the Yellow River.

A hundred or so relay soldiers, spaced one li apart, surged mightily toward several hundred Mongol horsemen, scaring them into a hasty retreat and making them frantically send exaggerated reports northward claiming the Marshal's main army was attacking.

Two days later, discovering the relay cavalry were still only that many, they mustered their courage and chased after them to give them a beating — but they couldn't catch anyone. The relay cavalry whooshed away in an instant, so they hurriedly sent a corrected report northward saying it was not the Marshal's main army, just a hundred or so scattered soldiers.

Still, even these hundred or so scattered soldiers made them suffer a bit.

The northern relay cavalry's whole set of tactics had been honed against Mongol armies in the first place; dealing with them was their specialty. They would absolutely never fight a pitched battle, but in one-on-one skirmishes they would absolutely never come off worse.

The three-eyed gun was not as dominant as the arquebus or heavy muskets in large-scale formation battles, but for soldiers in encounter battles it was still an excellent self-defense weapon.

And these herdsmen warriors who had come running from the northern desert — their courage was commendable, but they were not as familiar with this style of warfare as the southern Mongols.

They wanted to attack whenever they saw the relay cavalry advance, wanted to pursue whenever they saw them retreat, yet when the relay cavalry actually stood still and held their ground they did not quite dare to charge. In the chase, their formation was pulled apart, so that before the fighting even began their own ranks were already torn into a sorry mess.

Dai Daozi had rushed over in a hurry not to annihilate the Mongol forces on the southern bank of the Yellow River — he did not have that capability anyway — but mainly to screen the battlefield for the relay station soldiers so they could withdraw to the rear.

But he was a few days late after all. Dai Daozi scouted along the Yellow River for two days without seeing anyone and, worried the Mongol troops had left and returned, was just about to pull back in disappointment when he heard gunshots coming from Starry Sea. Two ferries equipped with jingal guns sailed out from the great lake. Station Master Zou Feng, an iron seal hanging at his waist, stood at the prow, weeping with joy: "Reinforcements, reinforcements are here!"

On the other side of the lake, at the foot of a mountain three li away, over a thousand people came running out of the valley, jumping and waving toward Dai Daozi's relay cavalry.

Nearing the shore, Zou Feng jumped down from the boat and came running quickly, wading through knee-deep lake water, one step deep, one step shallow. He nearly fell twice. Carrying his musket, he ran ashore and said, "General, I am Zou Feng, Station Master of Huangyuan Station. Is the Grand Marshal launching a northern campaign to recover lost territory?"

Dai Daozi was stunned by the question. Recover lost territory?

To be honest, he had been following Liu Chengzong all along, and in his mind the outline of Kangning Prefecture was the area between the Yushu Hundred-Household domain and Chamdo, while Xining Prefecture was the area between the Chaka Salt Lake and the Qilian Mountains. As for the land between Xining Prefecture and Kangning Prefecture, he did not really think of it as their territory.

At most they had a few relay stations here, but Dai Daozi had heard that those stations had not even finished building their walls yet.

But stunned as he was, Dai Daozi quickly answered, "Station Master Zou, the Grand Marshal is leading the army behind us. He should arrive tonight."

Zou Feng nodded heavily. "I will go welcome him. I will take the station soldiers of Kuhai and Huangyuan to welcome him."

That evening, the Right Battalion was the first to reach the southern bank of the Yellow River, followed by the Left Battalion. Liu Chengzong and Zhang Tianlin, bringing up the rear with the central army, made camp ten li south of the Yellow River and there received Zou Feng, who had requested an audience.

Zou Feng led nine station soldiers into the camp and kowtowed deeply. "Your humble subordinate, Zou Feng, Station Master of Huangyuan Station, leading the two stations of Kuhai, pays respects to the Grand Marshal. Eight hundred and seven Mongol and Tibetan commoners from both places are all taking refuge on the western mountain of Starry Sea. Station Master Xie Baixing of Kuhai Station led eleven Kuhai station soldiers to cover the rear for the commoners. Meng Xiao, Du Maocai, and Ma Jianghan of Huangyuan Station blocked the enemy on the river and all died in battle on the northern bank."

Liu Chengzong said nothing. He stepped forward and gripped Zou Feng's shoulders firmly. "You did well. You are all true men. This place will be made a county with a garrison in the future, and the spirits of these brave warriors will all be enshrined in the City God Temple... Can you still fight?"

Zou Feng kowtowed fiercely again and declared in a ringing voice, "The two hundred and twelve soldiers of Huangyuan and Kuhai Stations, along with Mongol and Tibetan troops, are willing to be the Grand Marshal's vanguard!"

"Good. Your unit is temporarily incorporated into the Guard Corps and will move with me." Liu Chengzong pulled Zou Feng to his feet and raised his eyes to gaze northward. "Revenge."