Chapter 382: Hetu Ala Ten Years Ago

In the new city by Juer Bay, it was hard to find men gathered in groups.

Children in ill-fitting clothes hopped and skipped about — a single worn soldier's tunic was enough to cover a scrawny little body, and a wooden stick for a hobby horse could make a poor child feel like they owned the whole world.

Sturdy women in the shade of trees drove flies from the plow oxen, wiped sweat as they steadied the seed-drill, and occasionally cast glances eastward, their eyes carrying worry and hope.

Faint drum and pipe music drifted from the distance, indistinct at first to people's ears, until riders waving yellow banners galloped past the field ridges trailing dust, forcing out hoarse cries that rang across the fields with glad tidings: "Victory, victory! The Grand Marshal has swept through Lanzhou!"

The entire new city boiled over with excitement — the old, the weak, women and children all rushed to set down what they were doing, streaming in a rolling tide of people toward the city's east side, where someone was already holding high the firecrackers long prepared, setting them off in a crackling burst.

The Later Jin Tiancong Khan's eldest son by his primary wife, Aisin Gioro Hong Taiji, sat in a side courtyard clutching tsampa; the distant crackle of firecrackers and the clamor of cheers made him lose himself for a fleeting moment, as if he were back in Jianzhou Garrison — the Jianzhou Garrison of ten years ago.

This place was too much like his grandfather's Hetu Ala.

Hetu Ala was a distant name for Hong Taiji and even for the whole of Later Jin — it had been the Jin capital during Nurhaci's time, when Jianzhou's greatest foe was the Ula tribe of the Haixi Jurchens, and the Wanli Emperor seated within the Forbidden City was still the most powerful man under heaven, at the height of his glory.

Hong Taiji was twenty-four this year; he had first gone into battle at fifteen under his grandfather, and had now followed the army on campaign for nine years, living through the dire straits at the start of his father's succession — the Jin state had become a power that bestrode the northeast and stood on equal footing with the Great Emperor; as one waned and the other waxed, the Great Ming was still that same Great Ming, but to the Jin state it no longer looked so fearsome.

"Beile, they say the Grand Marshal has returned in triumph. Shall we go out to welcome him, or wait to be summoned?"

Turgai, former commander of the Bordered White Banner and the Jin Ministry of Personnel's undertaker, shut the courtyard gate and reported in a low voice; he raised his head and swept a glance at the Bordered White Banner guards in the courtyard, who were donning chain armor and pulling the leather sheaths off their crescent-moon blades, and frowned: "Bring bows and sabers — do not wear the great blades."

Hong Taiji sat on a low stool without speaking, merely finishing the tsampa in his hand quickly and drinking a mouthful of cold water; his gaze crossed the courtyard wall to the parapet atop the new city's ramparts in the distance, and only then did he rise, strap on his waist saber, and say: "Of course we go to welcome him. My uncle-by-marriage is a veteran of the army — it's a perfect chance to see his family's troops, and whether they are stronger or weaker than ours."

In Hong Taiji's mind, Liu Chengzong's army had managed to maneuver against Ming forces and survive, so if they had won victories, they must have some particular strength.

Now his only question was where exactly Liu Chengzong's strength lay, and just how long it was.

That would determine his attitude when he met Liu Chengzong; Hong Taiji had prepared two approaches — he had heard that Kong Youde in the east was leading a complete firearms corps over ten thousand strong to request submission; if Liu Chengzong was not very strong, he also hoped to give it a try and incorporate him.

But if his power was greater than Kong Youde's, then he would attempt to form an alliance and secure military aid.

Turgai's father was Eidu, one of the Five Ministers of the Jin state; in his later years Eidu married Nurhaci's daughter Mukushen, and after Eidu's death, Mukushen, following the tradition of levirate marriage, became Turgai's wife — hence Hong Taiji called him uncle-by-marriage.

Yet this form of address and relationship, whether for the one who spoke it or the one who heard it, was merely just right: when such a relative was needed, they happened to be relatives; when such a relative was not needed, the kinship happened not to be so absolute.

Twelve guards led out fourteen warhorses, helmets on and armor clad, clustering around Hong Taiji and Turgai as they followed the crowd eastward.

Riding at the front, Hong Taiji's eyes were full of anticipation: at last he would see the legendary roving bandits!

As the eldest son by the primary wife of the Jin Tiancong Khan Huang Taiji, Hong Taiji coming to the Grand Marshal's estate as an envoy with only a dozen-odd mounted guards was, for him personally, a step of tremendous importance.

To put it simply, just a few months ago, the Tiancong Khan Huang Taiji had been dazed by the string of good news over these past years, and the Khanate's development had fallen into an unprecedented brief bewilderment.

The Later Jin at the start of Huang Taiji's succession had been a regional splinter tribe on the verge of total collapse — the previous king had died suddenly, the meritorious nobles defied orders, there were natural disasters within and blockades without, it faced simultaneous threats from the Great Ming, the Mongols, and Joseon, and there were large numbers of Han and Jurchen spies within its borders.

But in the Later Jin of today, Huang Taiji, by proclaiming that Manchu and Han were one body, had separated some Han people from the Eight Banners' slaves, weakening the power of the meritorious nobles and princes and gradually centralizing authority; he had attacked Joseon, forcing it into a brotherly covenant and opening trade; through the Jisi Incident he had plundered population and wealth to break the blockade, and swept through Inner Mongolia to open the old Duoyan route.

The Later Jin, long beset by suppression, blockade, famine, threats, and near collapse, suddenly looked back and found that everything Nurhaci's era had dreamed of was now theirs in abundance.

A scene like that would leave anyone dazed.

Take a step back, and the Jin state had already met all the needs for bare survival — the princes and soldiers, with the slightest slackening, would lose their drive to advance; but take a step forward, and victory or defeat against the Great Ming was still undecided, the Ningyuan-Jinzhou fortress cluster was hard to break through — how to keep people vigilant?

So after pursuing the Chahar Khan Ligdan Khutugtu and entering the city of Guihua, Huang Taiji summoned the princes, beile, and soldiers and asked: "From now on, when we go to war, what should take priority?"

Hong Taiji, who had followed the campaign, answered fluently: "Attacking Jinzhou and Ningyuan is of no benefit, because the methods we use to assault cities are all known to them; moreover, our troops have attacked them before without success — if we order another attack, there will surely be fear of the difficulty."

"Even if we take Jinzhou, the other seven cities beyond it will still require troublesome assaults; if we merely take one city and the rest all fortify their walls and refuse to fall, it will drag on for weeks and days, and I fear our army's morale will drop if it remains in the field too long."

For this kind of stalemate, Hong Taiji's suggestion was to proceed in three steps.

First, adopt measures to placate and win over Joseon — it was already a little brother; campaigning against it again would at most turn it from a little brother into a son, which held little meaning.

Second, deal with the remnants of the Chahar Mongols as circumstances allowed — annihilate them if possible, drive them away if not; it was not advisable to exhaust the troops on distant expeditions.

Last, and the main strategic direction in his proposal, was the Great Ming.

Adopt three routes: in the Liaodong region, avoid head-on clashes with Jinzhou and Ningyuan; mainly from the old Duoyan territory and the new and old routes of Inner Mongolia, commit the whole state's strength to smashing the border walls at Xuan-Da and Tongzhou, and penetrate deep into Ming territory.

Whether successful or not, troops must be stationed long-term in these places, and during the offensive, plunder as many people, goods, and resources from Xuan-Da and Tongzhou as possible, to offset the losses of war and incentivize the soldiers taking part.

Most importantly, seize the moral high ground — before attacking, widely distribute proclamations to the fortified villages and cities, stating that the Jin state wishes for peace but the Ming state does not, and that the attack is forced by circumstance, so that the local people resent their own ruler rather than resenting the Jin state.

The reason Hong Taiji was here was that, on top of presenting this strategy of stationing troops at Tongzhou and Xuan-Da, he had mentioned sending capable men deep into Ming territory to recruit the roving bandits and make them submit to Later Jin.

Even if recruitment failed, they should still station troops at Tongzhou and send men to scout the roving bandits' movements; when the Great Ming divided its forces to defend, they would take advantage of the situation and advance swiftly by night along two routes from Ning-Jin and Tongzhou, striking Shanhai Pass in a pincer to reverse the roles of attacker and defender.

Hong Taiji was the first person in Later Jin to propose allying with the bandits to attack the Ming.

Huang Taiji gave his proposal full affirmation, and decisively rejected it.

The plan was a good plan, but Later Jin had no one capable of executing it... just fighting Joseon, the Grand Beile Amin had nearly set himself up as an independent ruler; stationing troops at Luanzhou, the army had nearly slipped out of control.

With these cautionary precedents, any single decisive battle that determined fate would inevitably see Huang Taiji personally lead the army on campaign — all the more so since he was doing his utmost to weaken the Jin princes' and nobles' hold on power in order to further centralize authority; dividing the army to station troops in Ming territory at Tongzhou and Xuan-Da was, for him, impractical.

Without stationing troops, naturally there was no way to scout the roving bandits' movements, but the suggestion was not entirely without merit — in fact, aside from the lack of a candidate who could take charge of a whole front, the thinking in his eldest son Hong Taiji's proposal deeply resonated with Huang Taiji.

Once the army caught its breath, raid the Great Ming, plunder as many of its people, goods, and resources as possible; don't batter yourself to death against the tortoise shells of the fortified Ning-Jin positions — go around them and plunder elsewhere; all of this held great significance for the Jin state.

It was just that the business of enticing and pacifying the roving bandits was enormously costly and extremely impractical.

The Great Ming had so many roving bandits, this king and that general — even if one wanted to win them over and buy them off, the Jin state, separated by mountains and rivers, could not even accurately tell who was who, much less know whom to win over and buy off... not to mention the Jin state didn't know — the Great Ming didn't know who was who either.

Even Zuo Liangyu, after getting beaten at Wu'an, had no idea that the man who beat him was called Li Zicheng.

And the reason it was "extremely impractical" rather than "impossible" lay in this: there was in the world one roving bandit whose name could be called out and who was easy to identify, who had turned into an entrenched bandit — this man was in the northwest, styled himself Grand Marshal of Qinghai, and his name was Liu Chengzong.

Huang Taiji said: "Since you want to look for him, go and try."

Amid the gunpowder smoke that burst and then dispersed along the official road, the vast Mongol contingent stretched out in a long single-file line; the Mongol soldiers under Xie Erhu had practically traded shotguns for cannon — the men with rolled armor on their horses' rumps and arrow quivers stuffed full of forged arrowheads could hardly hide the foolish grins on their faces as they searched the crowd of women and children lining the road for their own families.

The moment they found them, they would joyfully untie the bags holding their marching rations and share the leftover dried meat and hardtack with their wives and children.

A long time passed, until the entire Mongol contingent of over ten thousand had fully passed by, and only then did Meiduo, surrounded by Tibetan women and children at the roadside, finally relax her furrowed brow — she simply could not bring herself to like Mongols, even if they were Mongols under the Grand Marshal's command.

Those rowdy, boisterous Mongols had once stolen the necklace the Lady had given her; for a very long time she had believed that was the only thing in this life that belonged to her.

But soon enough, when the welcoming crowd erupted in a huge cheer and the captives had pushed past cart after cart laden with coin, grain, and treasures, at the far end of the mass of livestock, Meiduo at last caught sight of the All Under Heaven Peace banner flying high.

The troops beneath the Peace banner were eerily quiet, nothing like the clamor of the Mongol soldiers; the former noble lords sat astride their horses, holding lances with twisted shafts, while squads of veteran infantry had shed their heavy armor and long shields and advanced carrying their long spears; the lean, whipcord infantry were silent and taciturn, heads lowered as they pushed light carts laden with armor and shields forward.

Meiduo's eyes searched and searched, her face shifting from hope to doubt, and her heart growing more and more anxious — she saw the old but vigorous General Aliu, she saw the young and noble-looking General Wasi, she even saw the tongueless monk Awang.

At last, at the very tail end of the hunting camp, she saw Basang riding on horseback, a tall helmet plume atop his head and clad in red cloth-faced armor; even though the cheek-guard hid the side of his face, Meiduo could still tell from that neck which clearly could not lift yet stubbornly insisted on staying straight — that was her General Basang!

Within the Jin envoy party, separated from the crowd by the Grand Marshal's estate guards, Hong Taiji's gaze was fixed on the squads of soldiers passing before him; his attention was not on the Mongol or Tibetan soldiers, but on the war carts, laden with coin and grain, that the Grand Marshal's captives were pushing back.

This held no surprise for him — in the early years at Hetu Ala, such scenes had been common; whenever the Jianzhou army sacked a city, the Eight Banners soldiers returning in triumph would look just like this, and compared to those spoils, Liu Chengzong's haul this time was merely a bit more plentiful.

What astonished him was that Liu Chengzong's new city exuded an air of poverty everywhere, yet it could hold vast amounts of wealth and goods without distributing them to nobles or soldiers... and the troops seemed to find nothing strange about it, every one of them beaming with joy.

Hooge truly could not fathom what they were thinking. Did the Mongols of the northwest fight only for some dry rations and dried meat?

Just then, Turgel, standing at his side, nudged him with his elbow. "Beile, look there — Liu Chengzong's Han army."

Turgel saw a Han army in strict formation. The force was divided into three battalions, with more horses than men, more mules than horses, and it was towing thirteen enormous cannons.

Using the Han tongue, he asked the Marshal's Residence guard beside him, "Are those the Grand Marshal's household troops?"

The Marshal's Residence guard froze for a moment, hesitating over whether he should nod. In theory, Turgel's words were not wrong — everyone was the Grand Marshal's household troop.

But in terms of organization, it was not so. The guard therefore answered, "That is the Marshal's Residence training battalion."

"Training battalion?"

Turgel's eyes blazed.

Standing from the perspective of economy and development, Hooge saw the Marshal's Residence and thought it resembled the Jin Kingdom of ten years ago; while Turgel, from the vantage of a veteran commander, had initially thought the Marshal's Residence would be like the Jin Kingdom of ten years ago, yet he had not expected the military gap between the two to be so small.

The Jin Kingdom had an organizational unit called bayara — elite cavalry.

In the early days of the Jin Kingdom, the predicament Nurhaci faced was in fact much the same as the Great Ming's.

The Great Ming's problem was how, under declining national strength, to organize an army capable of razing Jianzhou to the ground and sweeping its lairs clean — and to sustain them.

The Jin Kingdom's problem was how, against a backdrop of scarce funds and grain, beset by troubles both internal and external, to organize an elite force that could maneuver rapidly in the Jianzhou region to block Ming armies — and to sustain them.

The bayara were Nurhaci's means of solving this problem: imitating the household troop system to strengthen the armies of the nobles under him, granting the nobles quotas of armored soldiers and letting them equip those soldiers themselves, in return for which a portion would serve as their personal guards, at their command.

This measure armed the various regional lords, petty kings, and their subordinate nobles throughout the Nurgan region with elite cavalry. These elite cavalry at one point accounted for half of the armored soldiers in each banner, becoming the core strength of Nurhaci's offensive assaults.

By the era of Hong Taiji, the Jin Kingdom began carrying out forceful centralization. The personal guards dispersed among various commanders were no longer the ad-hoc assault reserves that Nurhaci had temporarily assembled on the battlefield; instead, Hong Taiji organized them into the Bayara Camp, transforming them from private soldiers into a standing army under the Great Khan's control.

Here, however, it was plainly evident that centralization could be effortlessly accomplished without the complex means of converting household troops into a standing army.

A bureaucracy with only a bare framework, a destitute and backward economy, and the militant maintenance of a standing army far exceeding what they could sustain — these formed the entirety of Hooge and Turgel's impression of Liu Chengzong.

Aisin Gioro Hooge removed his helmet and scratched his scalp where green stubble was sprouting. In the Jianzhou dialect, he grumbled irritably to Turgel, "These savages!"

Turgel laughed and asked, "What does Beile plan to do?"

Hooge drew a deep breath, glanced at the Marshal's Residence guard watching over them, and said to Turgel, "It is fortunate Father Khan gave me two letters. Let my uncle tell him — Hooge of the Aisin State awaits... an audience with the Royal Brother."