Chapter 340: All Are Equal in the Hunting Battalion

In the first month of the sixth year of the Chongzhen reign, a military force returned from Gu Yuan Prefecture to Jinglu Garrison in Gansu.

Yellow sand covered the road; dust-laden soldiers with merit plaques at their waists, wearing battered, bloodstained armor, leading gaunt warhorses, dragging donkey carts carrying the corpses of fallen comrades — their resolute, somber faces held no joy of survival, only an indescribable confusion.

They were the Lutang Battalion soldiers under the command of Mo Yujing, Mobile Corps Commander of Lutang Battalion at Jinglu Garrison in Gansu. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, they had marched out upon hearing that the great bandit Wang Laohu was besieging Zhuanglang.

Later, they followed Gansu Deputy Regional Commander Li Hongsi into Gu Yuan Prefecture, joined forces with Gu Yuan Deputy Regional Commander Wang Xingshan to pursue the roving bandits, chasing them from Gu Yuan Prefecture to Baoji, shifting battle through Jingning Prefecture and Luoshui City, until Wang Laohu was driven deep into the mountains.

The nature of the bandit-suppression war had changed. The swarming bandits had mounted scouts, elite warriors, pack cannons, and armor. Those helmets with their crests torn off were a clear reminder to every soldier: this was borderland troops fighting their own.

For an entire year, the soldiers had not had even half a month to remove their armor and rest. Even the hardiest troops were exhausted by it, and the commanders were all the more pained and regretful. To never relent in a pursuit where men never shed armor and horses never unsaddled was indeed a point of pride.

But what appeared before Mobile Corps Commander Mo Yujing's eyes was not merely the enemy collapsing dead from exhaustion — his own soldiers were pissing blood, falling one after another in the chase as well.

In the end, it could hardly even be called a victory. Though victory reports were sent to Shaanxi one after another, Mo Yujing knew they had not won. Wang Laohu had won.

Because Wang Laohu won simply by staying alive, and moreover, several thousand roving bandits skilled in mounted archery held the mountain defiles, making it impossible for the pursuing troops to press deeper.

When Lutang Battalion extricated itself from the grueling war and looked back, the great drought was still ongoing. Around Pingliang, Longzhou, Huating, Wu'an, Zhuanglang, and Jingning, tens of thousands of refugees had gathered again and scattered to plunder.

Victory reports — one after another, victory after victory. Apart from thousands upon thousands dead, nothing had changed.

Mo Yujing's performance in the war was not outstanding; he was merely one of many Shaanxi commanders with much toil but little merit. He could neither bring himself to slaughter the rebels ruthlessly, nor could he turn a blind eye to their plundering, because he knew he could not win this war.

They wanted to raise their arms and fight, but had no arms to raise; though they faced an enemy, they had no target to fight; though they held weapons, it was as if they held none.

They did not even know who the enemy was.

When a group of starving people passed before him leaning on hoes, he would wave his soldiers aside to clear the road; yet when that same group began to loot, he would lead his troops to attack them.

After victory, the starving people scattered and fled. A victory report would be sent to the imperial court, but before long, these people would gather again and continue their looting.

It seemed there was no solution short of killing every single person in sight. But no soldier had joined the army to kill every single person in sight.

If that was the case, they might as well become rebels — at least rebels knew whom they were supposed to kill.

In the Mobile Corps Commander's office at Lutang Battalion, Mo Yujing had no time to inspect the wounds left on his body from prolonged armor-wearing before the imperial envoy arrived. A single commission promoting him to Xining Deputy Regional Commander nearly caused a mutiny in Lutang Battalion.

Xining was Mo Yujing's hometown.

The battalion soldiers who had survived life-and-death struggles were weary of the war to suppress the roving bandits. Everyone knew the final fate of staying here — becoming a deserter or dying in the pacification war... People pleaded one after another for the commander to take them with him.

They thought that once they reached Xining, there would be no more pacification wars.

But a letter that followed from the Lanzhou Mobile Corps Commander shattered the veterans' illusions. A transfer order came from Shaanxi, permitting Mo Yujing to take seven hundred troops to his new post — the Hehuang region had risen in revolt.

The Hehuang revolt was not instigated by Liu Chengzong. Although inciting revolt was indeed part of Liu the Lion's plan when he launched his eastern campaign, before he could send Huang Cheng and others to stir things up, the Han commoners of the Hehuang Valley had already risen in arms.

Hehuang was a very unique region, roughly the east-west Huangshui River valley between Ju'erwan and Lanzhou, but encompassing over a dozen smaller north-south river valleys.

The settlement patterns of the local populace were also sharply divided. The domains of the chieftains all lay in the small north-south valleys. Han and Hui commoners whose ancestors migrated from the southeast, along with troops, officers, and native officials, had lived for generations in the central Hehuang Valley. The native tribes and Tibetan tribes dwelled in the north-south valleys and the mountains.

However, due to the large number of garrison troops in the valleys, staging a revolt here was far more difficult than when the great chaos in northern Shaanxi first began. People were passively forced to skip the stage of banding together to raid the wealthy estates. They might just loot one fortified compound, and in the blink of an eye, they would be fighting native and regular garrison troops.

Liu Chengzong received the news on the sixteenth day of the first month. The army's preparations were not yet complete, but Liu Chengzu at Xining Garrison had already selected and readied two thousand troops from Zhenhai Barracks and two thousand banner troops from Xining Garrison. He immediately ordered his elder brother and Li Wanqing to advance into the Hehuang Valley as the vanguard.

It was not until the nineteenth day of the first month that Haibei County Magistrate Chen Qindai, Haixi County Magistrate Liu Guoneng, and Zhong Hu of Nanshan jointly received their orders for westward defense at the Marshal's Manor. Subsequently, Wang Wenxiu led three thousand infantry to garrison New City.

For a time, guard troops, scout troops, Yang Yao's cavalry battalion, Huang Shengxiao's artillery battalion, along with the tribal soldiers of the Hunting Battalion and the Mongol soldiers of the Fishing Battalion, moved back and forth to garrison between New City and the east. Over ten thousand troops were assembled and ready to march. The chieftains residing at the Marshal's Manor were gripped with fear, each feeling imperiled.

In those few days, Chen Shiwen rendered great service, traveling back and forth to persuade the chieftains. The Hehuang Valley would change hands sooner or later; rather than staying in New City like lambs awaiting slaughter, it was better to follow the campaign — at least they could preserve their clans.

Subsequently, Li Tianyu, the largest chieftain in Xining, immediately defected and was the first to request to join the campaign from Liu Chengzong, stating that if he encountered any sons of the Li clan along the way, he would do his utmost to persuade them to lay down their arms... Though he dared not guarantee it — there were far too many people surnamed Li in Hehuang, and even a clan head could not control everyone.

Li Tianyu had only one request: after the war, allow him to lead at least ten thousand clan members to relocate away from Hehuang. He neither wished to serve as a springboard for the imperial court to attack the Marshal's Manor, nor was he willing to be Liu Chengzong's pawn in an eastern offensive.

Staying in Hehuang clearly meant suffering from both sides.

Of course, even if they went west, they still could not escape being caught between two fires... The chieftains all knew that Khundulen was going to enter Qinghai. For Li Tianyu to move west was, at best, choosing the lesser of two evils.

At least Khundulen was easier to deal with than Hong Chengchou.

Liu Chengzong gladly granted this request, immediately declaring that let alone taking ten thousand clansmen away — if Li Tianyu had the ability to take all thirty thousand households surnamed Li in Hehuang, he would have no objection whatsoever.

The people leave, the land stays — why not be happy about that?

In truth, people often struggle to be shrewd when handling public affairs, but when acting purely out of self-interest, their intelligence surges upward by leaps and bounds.

Take, for example, the Chongzhen Emperor and Khundulen Khan. Both needed to cut their own flesh to win others over, but since they could not bear to cut their own flesh, they ended up in a situation of cutting other people's flesh to win over others.

Chieftains like Qi Guoping were unwilling to join the campaign at first. No matter how Chen Shiwen tried to persuade them, even bringing up the merit of following the true dragon, it had little effect.

Yet as soon as Li Tianyu persuaded them, the remaining twelve chieftains all declared their willingness to join the campaign.

There was no other reason — the two men stood from different angles. Chen Shiwen genuinely thought all the chieftains were like him, with a few hundred clan members who were all family so close they could not be closer. In essence, a minor chieftain like him was like a village head; his submission to Liu Chengzong was to lead the whole village to prosperity.

But the other chieftains were not like that. Li Tianyu had tens of thousands of clansmen — who the hell knew who? The moment he opened his mouth to persuade, it was: "You, Qi Guoping, refuse to surrender — can you guarantee that none of your three thousand Qi clan sons will surrender?"

"If none surrender, can a hundred-some native soldiers defeat over ten thousand troops? If you can't, the Qi clan is finished. If even one surrenders, your family's twelfth chieftain will exist. Stay in New City, and your only path is to be slaughtered."

"Better to come west with me. To hell with the Oirats or the Chakhar — we thirteen families will bind ourselves into one rope and continue to guard the western frontier."

Li Tianyu told the chieftains, "Forget preserving the clan — first preserve yourselves."

After brief consideration, the twelve chieftains all agreed with Li Tianyu's reasoning, casting strange looks at Chen Shiwen.

Chen Shiwen was inwardly howling with rage: Damn it all, the Xining chieftains are fourteen families! Fourteen!

Liu Chengzong was extremely satisfied with this outcome — aside from the "one rope" part. In his heart, he did not regard Chen Shiwen as a chieftain either. He immediately made a promise, enfeoffing the four great chieftain clans — the two Li and two Qi families — to the area north and south of the Ulan Mountains, permitting them to relocate thirty thousand clan members.

The remaining minor chieftains were enfeoffed to the Huangnan Oxbow, permitted to relocate twenty thousand clan members. There, on land once reclaimed by the Tumed Mongols, they would be directly administered by Deputy Chiliarch Bao Hu of Guide City and Mobile Corps Commander Chen Shiwen of Bajiao City.

In any case, the chieftains had grain in hand. By relocating those who could be moved, the commoners left in Hehuang would only need to organize farming to resolve the food crisis more quickly.

After handling this matter, it was not until the twenty-second day of the first month that Liu Chengzong personally led the army composed of various forces under his command, marching all the way toward the Hehuang Valley.

The selection of troops for the eastern campaign cost Liu Chengzong considerable effort. Over a thousand guard and scout troops, along with Huang Shengxiao's battalion-sized artillery unit, served as his direct command. Over a hundred students from the prefectural academy accompanied the army, ready to be assigned to local posts. The central army consisted of three thousand six hundred cavalry under Mobile Corps Commander Yang Yao, who had missed the southern campaign.

In Liu Chengzong's design, the central army served only to anchor the formation and deliver the decisive blow in battle. The actual fighting was to be done by the auxiliary campaign forces.

The three auxiliary campaign battalions were Basang's Hunting Battalion, Xie Erhu's Fishing Battalion, and Ahaidaiqing's Logistics Battalion. They each recruited men from the shores of Qinghai Lake to Xining, forming a main force of nearly twenty thousand troops.

The vast majority of Liu Chengzong's army preparations were aimed at allowing Xie Erhu and Ahaidaiqing to select soldiers for the campaign.

Among the Mongols now under the jurisdiction of Xining Prefecture, those who could fight and were willing to fight were beyond counting. For these people, being a soldier and eating army rations was far more comfortable than laboring for work.

Whether Tumed or Khalkha, the surrendered troops and captives were overwhelmingly warriors. Xie Erhu and Ahaidaiqing could leisurely select the best of the best.

As for Basang — Basang was different from the others. Although his origin was merely that of a slave, he was extremely confident and had his own ideas, and in sticking to his ideas, he even surpassed many nobles.

Whether it was Xie Erhu or Ahaidaiqing, both were of Mongol noble birth, yet when Liu Chengzong told them to pick soldiers, they immediately assumed their own subordinates were not good enough — even if they didn't really think so, they would agree out of flattery.

Basang was different. He refused the suggestion to pick soldiers, saying his slave whelps ate well, slept well, and were well equipped, having fought over ten battles — they were afraid, but none had ever turned and fled.

The unruly Xifan nobles had also been broken up by the Mongols and, thoroughly cowed, reorganized into the slave-whelp cavalry unit.

Basang said, "The Grand Marshal need only give a little help, and Basang can lead the slave whelps to earn merit. I will never give the chance for promotion to anyone else."

It was only then that Liu Chengzong realized those Xifan nobles had also become Basang's slave soldiers... Although this was a slight departure from Liu the Lion's original intent, at least within the Shooting and Hunting Camp, the wish for universal equality had been achieved.

Their standard of living, treatment, and personal status had changed, but the name in Basang's head had not — they were still the Grand Marshal's goddamn slave whelps.

Liu Chengzong thought it over. The Shooting and Hunting Camp's combat strength was not particularly strong, but they truly possessed extraordinary willpower. Besides, with Wasi and A'liu's heavy elite troops, they were actually a more well-rounded force than the two Mongol camps.

So he asked, "What kind of help do you need?"

Basang said, "Please assign me six hundred Han troops — the kind of musketeer-artillerymen who can lead a charge after firing their pieces."

When Basang said this, Huang Shengxiao was right beside Liu Chengzong and nearly kowtowed in apology.

Huang Shengxiao's artillerymen were a bunch of gunners whose main focus was not on operating cannons.

His superior, Cao Yao, had developed a set of close-range bombardment tactics during the campaigns across northern Shaanxi.

Later, during the reorganization at Xining, because Liu Chengzong had originally wanted to establish a troop-training and recruitment system, the commanders of the infantry, cavalry, and artillery camps devised a combined-training method: artillerymen had to understand infantry and cavalry tactics, and infantrymen had to understand cavalry and artillery tactics.

As a result, all three branches mastered the tactics of the other two. At that time, this was nothing strange for soldiers in the training camp — it just meant artillerymen could ride horses and infantrymen could fire cannons.

The problem was that Huang Shengxiao, while garrisoning the Nangsuo Qianmo Palace for over half a year, had continued training his artillerymen in exactly this manner.

Consequently, the soldiers under his command had become a bit odd — you could call them shock infantry equipped with firearms, or you could call them artillerymen adept at charging. Every single one of them could even fire an arquebus from horseback... provided the arquebus was relatively short.

Their skills were very evenly distributed.

No one expected Basang to be into exactly that. He explained, "Slave whelps can endure hardship, but they're timid and easily frightened. Gunfire and charging boost morale."

As soon as Liu Chengzong heard this reasoning, he promptly waved his hand and transferred six hundred combat troops from Nanshan Fort... Zhong Hu's men were infantry who knew how to use firearms, not as good at charging as Huang Shengxiao's men, but they had another advantage.

These men had missed the southern campaign and stayed in the north, where they had learned a fair bit of knowledge. They spoke the Xifan tongue well and were perfectly suited to be inserted as officers.

The vast, sprawling army, swaying like a dragon, followed Liu Chengzu's vanguard eastward. Any enemies they might have encountered had already been cleared out by Liu Chengzu in advance. They took over fields and estates along the way and in the blink of an eye advanced to Nianbo. It was hard on the elder brother Liu Chengzu and Li Wanqing, though — they took quite a few beatings along the road.

When commoners rise in revolt, they don't care whose troops you are — they'll fight anyone they see. Robbing one person is as good as robbing another. The key point was that Li Wanqing didn't have many troops, so the rebelling commoners all wanted a piece of him the moment they saw him.

As they neared Nianbo, Huang Cheng, who had been sent earlier to incite defection at the Gaodianzi Camp, sent a rider at full gallop seeking aid. They had been routed by the leader of Xining's Monastic Affairs Office, the master of Qutan Temple, the Great State Preceptor Banzhuo'er Lingzhen, leading monks and tribal troops. Even the rebel forces around Nianbo had nearly all been wiped out by Banzhuo'er Lingzhen.