Chapter 326: Staying in Autumn

The speed with which Liu Chengzong captured Eight Trigram City was something no one expected — not even his own father or elder brother.

Liu Chengzu, who had just finished organizing the second batch of supplies in Xining, received the city-fallen report from Li Wanqing. His first reaction was not a cheer, but to immediately have his subordinates place Li Wanqing under house arrest.

Liu Chengzu knew what Eight Trigram City was like. That city, if not harder to take than Zhenyuan City, was at least equally matched in defensibility.

When they had taken Zhenyuan, the garrison there numbered only a few hundred — not even enough men to post one behind every crenellation. With men swarming the walls on all four sides, taking it in a single day was no surprise.

But Eight Trigram City had ten thousand defenders, and Liu Chengzong's siege army numbered less than ten thousand. The formal encirclement began on the third of the ninth month, and by the thirteenth, Li Wanqing had already ridden to Xining to report the city had fallen.

Even assuming Li Wanqing rode fast, the city must have fallen by at least the ninth of the ninth month. Six days — how could Liu Chengzu believe it? Did they think a city was something you took for fun? That was faster than his own gunpowder-procurement speed.

If a dozen-odd cannons could breach a city in six days, the Later Jin should have fought their way to Xining by now.

He suspected Li Wanqing had already surrendered to Choktu, and that perhaps his younger brother had been defeated — this was the enemy putting out false news as a baiting tactic.

Although the idea of his second brother being beaten by Choktu was also absurd, it was still far less bizarre than taking a city in six days.

For this reason, Liu Chengzu detained Li Wanqing for two days, refusing to listen to a single word he said. On one hand, he sent trusted men south to scout for news; on the other, he actively prepared for battle to avenge his younger brother.

Two days later, Bao Hu, the Assistant Chiliarch of Guide Battalion, sent a man galloping in with a report: the Grand Marshal was escorting seven thousand Khalkha captives and wounded soldiers into Guide territory, asking Liu Chengzu where they should be sent. He also explicitly ordered that the Tusi Chen Shiwen immediately muster five hundred households of commoners and march to Eight Trigram City, and that Chen himself go to South Mountain Fort to pay respects to the Grand Marshal.

Liu Chengzu was dumbfounded. "He actually won?"

This was two unimaginable things happening back to back. That Liu Chengzong could win so quickly was the first unbelievable thing; the second was this Bao Hu.

Liu Chengzu remembered it clearly — this Bao Hu feared Xining like a tiger.

Earlier, he hadn't dared take a single step into Xining, burying his head in Guide like an ostrich. He'd even laid landmines at the ford when they were fighting the Khalkha, hoping to blow Liu Chengzu sky-high. What had made him come around now?

In truth, there was no other reason: Bao Hu had met Liu Chengzong.

In the months since Choktu Taiji had invaded Qinghai, the mindset of Bao Hu and the native and Han officers of Guide Battalion had undergone a massive shift.

It all went back to the corpses they had painstakingly seized from those Khalkha fortune-seekers.

After that battle, Bao Hu decided to draw Liu Chengzong into opposing Choktu. They holed up inside Guide City and refused to come out, only sending men to deliver the severed heads to Hezhou Guard. The bodies were kept at the Chiliarch's yamen to await official inspection. Who knew that once the heads were sent, no further word ever came back.

Around that time, Liu Chengzu's troops were locked in a back-and-forth struggle with the Khalkha around the forts in the river valley. Bao Hu also tried his best to keep his men from running around, so he waited a long time before sending someone to Hezhou to inquire. The corpses, kept at the battalion yamen ready for inspection, had gone fucking rotten.

Only when the banner troops went over did they learn that the court had long since verified and accepted eighteen heads. It was just that the roads were blocked, so neither the news nor the reward silver had been sent this way. Only when the guard yamen saw the men in person did they grudgingly hand over twelve taels of silver.

Bao Hu brooded over this in the Guide yamen, then summoned all the native and Han officials to gather in one hall. A group of guard officers of Mongol descent, brows tightly furrowed, transformed into great mathematicians, their abacus beads clacking furiously. Staring at the result, they looked at each other, doubting life itself.

One Tatar rebel head is worth... six qian, six fen, six li, six hao, six si, seven hu of silver?

Having long lived under Lhatsun's rule, the Guide Battalion was not well-versed in affairs of the realm. A soul-searching question lurked in everyone's heart: had the court's prices really fallen this low?

We don't even know what the hell kind of formula makes eighteen heads worth twelve taels of reward silver — the damn thing doesn't divide evenly!

In any case, they knew full well in their hearts: as long as the Qinghai Marshal's Office remained here, this road would probably never be open again.

Xining was effectively enemy territory. Every message the court sent went read but unanswered. Any official dispatched into the Hehuang Valley was only three hundred li away from becoming a missing person.

Some, like the utterly loyal Vice Prefect Zhou, had been ordered by imperial decree to go undercover by Liu the Rebel's side. Ever since he left Xining City that year, no one had ever received any definite word of his whereabouts. You couldn't ask, either — the Xining commandery spoke with one voice: ask, and they'd say he was at Qinghai Lake, researching a naval force.

What utter bullshit. A naval force on Qinghai Lake — where exactly did they plan to sail the boats? Even lies to fool children weren't this sloppy. They might as well say he's fighting a naval battle against the Mongol Empire in the Great Desert.

Word was that even Vice Prefect Zhou's family back in Baoding Prefecture had become missing persons.

A Company Commander held up four fingers and said mysteriously, "A court official of the fourth rank, gone just like that. To this day, no one seen alive, no corpse found. Too terrifying."

Being born into this place was indeed too terrifying for Bao Hu.

But something even more terrifying lay ahead. That day, Chiliarch Li Wanqing of Xining Guard galloped straight through Guide Battalion and sent word that the Marshal had won a great victory — Choktu Taiji's entire army had been annihilated — and that the native and Han officials of Guide Battalion were to go south to pay their respects.

The awe of a great victory — Choktu's ten-thousand-plus Khalkha men, bottled up inside Eight Trigram City, had been wiped out. Bao Hu felt that while his own city walls were fairly sturdy, they might not hold against Liu Chengzong.

He dared not block him, and there was nowhere to run. He could only steel himself, call up the native and Han military officers, bring nine oxen and nine sheep as provisions for the troops, and bury his head heading south.

Six native and Han officers went in total. Their hearts were deeply anxious, all wearing expressions of men resigned to capture and heroic sacrifice, convinced that on this trip south, most of them would not return.

The best possible outcome, they feared, would be no better than how things were when Lhatsun was still in the Little River Bend — paying the tribute levy.

Yet they had heard that Liu Chengzong was black-hearted, ruthless, and the worst sort of scoundrel, whose manner of bleeding the common people dry nearly rivaled the Chongzhen Emperor himself.

In the mood of men attending their own funerals, they met Liu Chengzong. He looked very imposing, but not like a man-eating demon. The thing was, he smiled the moment he saw them, asked their names and official posts, and even had stools brought over for them — which was terrifying in its own way.

It wasn't Liu Chengzong bringing stools that was terrifying; it was those great lances. The stools were taken from beneath six camp-guard great lances, two lance racks put together to form a bench. It was a bit hard on the backside, but no one dared mention it.

To their utter astonishment, Liu Chengzong was overjoyed at their visit. He first praised their valor in resisting Choktu's assault, then rewarded them for their merit in defending the city.

The six men, from Company Commanders to Assistant Chiliarchs, were treated equally according to rank, regardless of whether they were native or Han officers. Those who deserved sheep got sheep; those who deserved oxen got oxen.

After inquiring about the details of their resistance against Choktu and the merit of the severed heads, Liu Chengzong also granted one hundred and eighty taels of silver to Guide Battalion, bringing tears to the eyes of the native and Han officers... To be honest, the sum wasn't large — at most, only fifteen times what the court had given — but this number, it divided evenly!

The reward silver was merely Liu Chengzong's sympathy, along with some intimate words about how he himself had once been government army. His true act of buying off the officers of Guide Battalion was promotion.

Bao Hu was promoted to full Chiliarch, and the remaining five were all elevated to Assistant Chiliarchs of Guide Battalion. They were told to take their letters of appointment to Xining City to get their official seals.

Facing the letters of appointment presented by the guards, Bao Hu and the others looked at each other. Everyone knew this thing should not and could not be accepted, yet in the end, they could not resist a helpless sigh and could only accept with complicated feelings.

Accepting the letter of appointment was easy; the hard part was the ceremony of expressing gratitude.

Given their status as Great Ming military officers, and Liu Chengzong's status — which was impossible to define — how exactly were they supposed to express thanks?

In the end, no one had any idea what to do, and all eyes turned to Bao Hu. Facing so many questioning looks, Bao Hu was just as helpless.

His family had received professional training from the Great Ming court for generations — if you failed the exams, you couldn't inherit the Tusi position. He knew the procedure for expressing gratitude to the emperor like the back of his hand, but he had never received ceremonial training on how to express gratitude to a Tusi.

What's more, this Liu Chengzong, from head to toe, didn't resemble a Tusi in the slightest!

In the end, Bao Hu reflected on Hezhou Guard's performance in this war, on how in this tiny corner of the world the Marshal's Office was far more reliable than the court, and then glanced again at those great lances taller than a man around them. He hardened his heart. To hell with it — treat it as receiving an imperial decree, face be damned, just kowtow a few times.

He immediately led the five native and Han officers and was about to perform the three kneelings and nine kowtows: "We humbly thank the Marshal for his heavenly grace, and shall forever serve—"

"Enough. We're all military officers here; no need for all this kowtowing. After all these years, there's long been no real distinction between Han and native. The court can't help this place. Follow me steadfastly, and I won't treat you poorly."

This was just an empty phrase, but Liu Chengzong had proven it could be realized. He had Bao Hu deliver a letter to Chen Shiwen, saying that since Chen was the first Tusi to submit to him, he was going to make good on his promise not to treat him poorly.

After that, Liu Chengzong left all the mopping-up work in the Yellow River's Southern Bend to his elder brother and led his army west. Beneath the Ulan Mountains to the west, there was still an Arslan — only by dealing with him would the victory be complete.

However, the coming campaign meant little to Liu Chengzong now. The Khalkha's forty-thousand-strong army had been flattened; only Arslan's ten thousand men encamped at the Ulan Mountains remained. No matter what, they could stir up no more storms.

Compared to the battles ahead, Liu Chengzong was more concerned with Qinghai's future development.

The annihilation of Choktu had further swelled the Marshal's Office's coffers. The captured precious metals, weapons and armor, warhorses, and livestock alone were worth nearly five hundred and eighty thousand taels.

But after comprehensive accounting, this figure proved very hollow. No one had ever been able to calculate the spoils seized from an enemy so precisely.

The reason Liu Chengzong could figure it out so clearly was simple — the vast majority of the captured supplies had been made by them.

All kinds of ornaments, luxury goods, household utensils, gold and silver jewelry, weapons and armor — at least seventy percent bore the marks of the Marshal's Manor Armory Bureau, the Hundred Crafts Bureau, and the Weaving Bureau.

Even the dried noodles that Choktu Taiji had used as army rations were produced in Gulf Bay.

All of it was goods Gulf Bay had sold to the Mongol and Tibetan tribes of Qinghai, then seized by Choktu. These things had circulated among the various Mongol tribes, and in the end, with Choktu's defeat, they came back into Liu Chengzong's hands.

This made Liu Chengzong realize a problem he had not considered before: the greatest impact this war had brought to Qinghai was probably not the Marshal's Manor asserting its authority over the surrounding regions.

Rather, the Gulf Bay market he had built with his own hands, which had raked in a fortune daily, had been destroyed at its very source.

His market was still there, but the customers were gone.

The customers of the Gulf Bay market had never been ordinary Mongol commoners, but large-scale trade caravans led by Mongol and Tibetan nobles. Now, the Mongol population in Qinghai had not decreased — it was even somewhat larger than before — but very few Mongol and Tibetan nobles remained.

From now on, the trading partners would no longer be Mongol and Tibetan tribal chieftains, but the merchants of the surrounding counties.

That place would become the commercial hub connecting Xining City with the counties of Haixi, Haibei, and beyond, further radiating southward.

Liu Chengzong led his army toward South Mountain Fort at great speed, but he could not match the speed of Arslan's flight.

When word of Choktu's defeat and death arrived, it greatly shook the Mongol forces at the foot of Ulan Mountain. Arslan immediately decided to flee back beyond the Gansu border, but his Ulan tribe followers did not obey him.

Some of them were Khalkha troops, but more were women and children from south of the Gobi. Having just begun to enjoy a couple of good days, none of them were willing to leave Ulan Mountain.

Because it was already nearing the tenth month — winter was coming.

They had not taken part in the attack on the Tumed Guru Taiji, and their living supplies simply could not sustain them beyond the Gansu border until next spring.

Under pressure from within and without, the Ulan tribe disintegrated. Arslan led two thousand-man units loyal to him, seized a great deal of livestock and supplies, and fled beyond the Gansu border.

The more than sixteen thousand followers who remained at Ulan Mountain elected several highly respected leaders and surrendered to Zhong Hu at South Mountain Fort.

Zhong Hu was terrified. He had at most twelve hundred men under his command — how could he dare accept the surrender of sixteen thousand?

The Haixi County magistrate Liu Guoneng could not make that decision either. The entire Haixi County had just over four thousand people, barely self-sufficient. Even if these sixteen thousand people ate every last head of livestock, they would not last until the new year.

The moment they were let through South Mountain Fort, before the Lantern Festival next year, Haixi County would see people eating people.

For the Mongol chieftains who had surrendered, matters were developing in a direction they did not wish to see. The choices left to them were few: either, like Arslan, abandon the old, the weak, the women, and the children; or fight a battle.

Nearly all the Mongol chieftains who had fled from south of the Gobi had been through this before: in autumn, their tribe faced a food crisis, no surrounding tribe could offer help, and they could only demand coin and grain from the Ming border defenses, or submit memorials of allegiance to the commanders.

Sometimes, the Great Ming would open the border markets, letting them trade furs and fine horses for grain at high prices, or directly provide provisions and aid, in exchange for military assistance.

But more often, the court's border defenses could not afford to feed them either.

It is not that nomads innately despise the old and weak and value only the young and strong — it is simply that they often face situations with no other choice. Many times, people are unwilling to abandon the old and weak, and when surrender fails, the young and strong can only draw their scimitars and fight to the death.

Win, and they burst through the border walls to plunder. Lose, and hundreds or thousands die.

Win or lose, the rations problem would be solved, and the winter crisis would pass smoothly.

It only required some people to remain forever in that autumn.

When Liu Chengzong led his army to South Mountain Fort, this was the situation awaiting him: sixteen thousand Mongols, short on grain and lacking padded coats, placing the power to decide their life or death in his hands. Whether the enemy fought or surrendered hung upon his single thought.

Liu Guoneng was utterly helpless. "Marshal, Xining has been recruiting refugees all along, but the reclaimed fields have yet to yield much harvest. Grain prices in the Hehuang Valley have already risen by twenty percent. With over twenty thousand captives, I fear we have no surplus capacity."

"A good thing, though..."

Liu Chengzong spoke the most cheerful words in the bitterest tone, tilting his face up toward where the towering snow mountains met the blue sky and white clouds. "The heavens don't want this many people to live. I am not the heavens. Whether Xia or Yi, all are human. Then we shall weather this hardship together. Settle them."

Having said this, he drew a deep breath, the look of compassion fading entirely from his face. He raised his head and declared, "Haixi, Haibei, Gulf Bay, Xining — take in as many as each can. Those who cannot be taken in will fish under the Naval Office. If grain is still not enough, then I can only put my brothers out a little — this winter, eat less grain and more meat."

"At worst, I've fought this whole campaign for nothing." Liu Chengzong turned to the commanders beside him, thumb raised, and laughed. "We'll eat every last one of Guru Taiji's cattle and sheep, damn it all!"