Chapter 519: Three Khans Stand as One

In the summer of the seventh year of Chongzhen, the Great Ming, torn by war on every side, was in truth the most peaceful place under heaven.

That year in the third month, Shenyang saw heavy rainfall; by the fifth month, Tieling, Shenyang, Liaoyang, and other places southeast of the Liao River were battered by torrential rain, surging and pouring violently for seven days and nights straight. The Hun River, the Taizi River, and the Biliu River all swelled into flood, turning hundreds of li of land into a vast expanse of water.

Waters ran wild, fields were submerged, houses collapsed, crops were utterly destroyed, and people drowned. The Yalu River likewise swelled, washing away the grain market the Jin state had set up at Uiju on the Zhong River after the Dingmao campaign.

Hong Taiji had gathered the Jurchen, Mongols, and Han people of the northeast, uniting all clans under the name Manchu, and had just laid the foundation of his great enterprise when the entire Jin realm was struck by catastrophic rain damage — even a corner of the Shenyang city wall was washed out.

In this age of chaos, there was not a single place under heaven that did not fret over grain. Every decision anyone made revolved around that one central concern: grain; every action anyone took was driven by hunger.

In truth, all these years, whether in Jianzhou or the later Jin state, from Nurhaci to Hong Taiji, the Aisin Gioro family's situation had always been precarious.

To some extent, Hong Taiji, who dominated the northeast, could be called the King of Wretched Land alongside Liu Chengzong, who held sway over the northwest... though Liu Chengzong's geographical circumstances were actually slightly better.

The northeast of this era was worlds apart, geographically, from the northeast of later ages that sits on three great plains. Most fundamentally, the northeast had no water conservancy infrastructure — it could neither prevent floods nor guard against drought.

The three great plains of the northeast were, in this era, the three great swamplands under heaven. The most densely populated area along both banks of the Liao River was known in this age by a name: the Liao Marsh.

It was precisely because of the Liao Marsh that the Jin state's military campaigns against the Great Ming were always concentrated in winter and spring, for during that time the marsh's water volume shrank, its area contracted, and its waters froze solid, allowing Ming, Jin, and Mongol forces to travel across the ice unimpeded.

In Nurhaci's era, the newly risen Jianzhou confederation struggled on the brink of life and death nearly every year; by Hong Taiji's era, the conquest of Joseon and the lifeline carved out through the Brotherly Alliance finally gave the Jin state a stable grain supply.

But this year's flood disaster once again pushed Hong Taiji to the end of his rope.

The first reason was the Yalu River; the second was the Liao River.

The Joseon people had never been willing to pay grain tribute or sell grain to the Jin state, and this year the Yalu's flooding of Uiju saved them the trouble; the Liao River's flooding, meanwhile, meant that even if the Great Ming threw open Shanhai Pass, the Jin state's Eight Banners troops could not get through.

Heaven had not left Hong Taiji many choices — only one road remained, and there was little to discuss. Under each banner, the headmen of every stockade gathered their disaster-stricken bannermen, who readied their own weapons and assembled under their banner lord's command. The banner lords then opened their armories and lent their private weapons and armor to the many headmen, to meet the Tiancong Khan's requirements for the number of armored men each division must field.

Immediately, the great army massed at Shenyang and set out northward along the eastern bank of the Liao River in a mighty, endless column.

They would march north along the Liao's eastern bank all the way to Khorchin, resupply on the Khorchin grasslands, and then follow the river's northern bank where it turned, heading straight for Southern Mongolia.

This was Hong Taiji's second western expedition into Southern Mongolia. The objective this time was the complete subjugation of Southern Mongolia and the consolidation of Jin dominance there — and, if the opportunity arose, to attempt a breakthrough of the Xuan–Da defense line and feed themselves at the enemy's expense.

As for whether they could actually break through the Xuan–Da line, Hong Taiji and the various beile and banner lords did not care. If they broke through, they broke through; if not, not. As long as they did not starve to death on the western march and made it back alive after the campaign, it would count as a great profit.

At this thought, the gloom in Hong Taiji's heart as he traveled along the Liao River lifted considerably. Raising his whip, he pointed at an attendant and said, "Go back. Tell Uiju: the waters rose this year, but the grain must not be short. Also, thirty thousand frozen persimmons, twenty thousand raw pears — yes... and mandarin oranges, thirty thousand mandarin oranges."

Hong Taiji's favorite food was frozen persimmons, followed by raw pears — the precursor to frozen pears.

As for mandarin oranges, he did not care for them, but that fool boy of his house, Dorgon, loved them.

Dorgon was Hong Taiji's younger brother, but he was three years younger than Hong Taiji's own son Hooge; in Hong Taiji's eyes, he was nothing more than a child.

Dragging things out until winter, with the grain shipped from Joseon, the Jin state could survive another year.

Living in this world, who wasn't just surviving one year and counting it as one? In any case, Hong Taiji felt that he could probably outlast that elder nephew of his inside the Forbidden City.

After all, if there were great floods beyond the pass, things inside the pass could hardly be much better.

The situation inside the pass was indeed little better than outside, and even beyond the pass, Shenyang was not the only place struck by disaster that year.

Northern Mongolia likewise suffered ferocious natural calamities. The previous winter there had been exceptionally cold; the people had not yet emerged from the grief of their livestock freezing to death when drought once again visited that barren land.

The crude agriculture on the Mongol Plateau was utterly destroyed by the drought. To cope with such a disaster, the three divisions of the Khalkha living in Northern Mongolia finally convened a khurultai assembly.

The Khalkha had not held a khurultai in a very long time. In past years, the grazing routes of the various tribes had been directly assigned by their respective chieftains; now, with the assembly reconvened after years of suspension, some rejoiced and some worried.

Among the hundreds and thousands of Northern Mongol nobles, the far-sighted ones understood that the Khalkha, which in Abtai Sain Khan's era had nearly coalesced into a unified khanate, had become the moon's reflection on water. The tripartite standoff of the three khans was laid bare, and the great fragmentation of the Khalkha was now a foregone conclusion.

The khurultai assembly deliberated on only three matters: first, Gombodorji's succession as khan; second, responding to the disaster; and third, the division of grazing lands.

Gombodorji's accession was simple. He was the heir of Abtai Sain Khan, and apart from Sholoi, the entire Khalkha Right Wing and the majority of the Left Wing's nobles supported Gombodorji becoming khan.

The problem, however, was that the Left Wing could field one hundred and ten thousand troops, and Sholoi personally commanded seventy thousand of them.

The Right Wing could field eighty thousand troops, but the Right Wing supported Gombodorji's accession because the Right Wing's leader, Subadai, had long ago, back when Gombodorji was still a child, been elected by all the Khalkha nobles as Jasaghtu Khan.

That khan title, literally translated, means "khan with ruling authority," but its actual meaning was closer to Prince Regent. So the Right Wing nobles, in supporting Gombodorji's accession, could offer every kind of support except actual help... they relished the spectacle and feared no chaos; they had their own khan, after all.

As for Sholoi, he did not care in the slightest whether Gombodorji became khan or not. He had his own concerns to worry about.

Just two years earlier, Sholoi's directly commanded troops had numbered only forty thousand — though forty thousand was already a great many, more than enough for the silver-spoon-born Sholoi to dominate Northern Mongolia.

His territory stretched east to the Ergüne River, bordering the Jin state; its southern boundary adjoined the Chahar. Moreover, although Sholoi did not obey the Great Khan's orders, he also held the status of Ligdan Khan's brother-in-law.

This geographical position and this status meant that in the war between Jin and Chahar, as the Southern Mongol court retreated in defeat after defeat, many tribes unwilling to follow the Jin state all joined Sholoi's banner.

Nobles of tribes like the Üjümüchin, Sünid, and Qauchid, originally belonging to Ligdan Khan, all led their people to Northern Mongolia one after another, seeking Sholoi's protection.

This had caused Sholoi's territory in recent years to become unprecedentedly vast, and his power grew increasingly formidable.

Although Sholoi resided in Northern Mongolia, his eyes held no regard for the other two Khalkha khans at all; what he focused on was the world — the world of the Mongols.

For in Southern Mongolia, a gluttonous feast was erupting alongside war. The first to be destroyed was the Great Ming's Shunyi Prince of the Jin state, who occupied the city of Kökeqota — that is, the Tümed tribe, defeated by Ligdan Khan's western campaign.

At the same time, Ligdan Khan's Southern Mongol court was also defeated by the Jurchen Jin state and fled far away to Qinghai. In the process, the entire Mongol power in Southern Mongolia split into three.

One group of cowardly wretches was recruited and absorbed by the Jin state's Tiancong Khan; another group, unwilling to submit to Ligdan Khan, fled to Northern Mongolia and became Sholoi's subordinates; the final group, a band of stubborn diehards, followed Ligdan Khan as they surged into Qinghai, where they were devoured clean by the Khitan Khan.

This was an unprecedented crisis for the Mongols. A Jurchen Khan to the east, a Han Khan to the west — all of them damn false khans. The fate of the Mongols must be held in the Mongols' own hands — of course, these were not Sholoi's words.

They were spoken by that bunch of Chahar loyalist remnants under his command.

That lot — back in Chahar, they had been troublemakers who bowed to no one, detesting the Mongol Great Khan who acted perversely, refusing to submit to the Jurchen Great Khan who conquered far and wide, let alone that Han Great Khan to the west whom they had never even met.

So they fled to Northern Mongolia and sought out Sholoi, who was an even bigger troublemaker than they were.

What kind of man was Sholoi? Born with a silver spoon, he had spent half his life in Northern Mongolia and thought extremely highly of himself. In his heart, he ranked the heroes of the world; in the past, he had considered himself number one, but now, aggrieved... he was number two.

Before, Sholoi was number one under heaven, and Ligdan Great Khan was number two; now that Ligdan Great Khan's grave mound had grown grass, Sholoi posthumously honored his brother-in-law as number one under heaven and willingly relegated himself to second place.

A dead man, after all — you could lift him as high as you liked; there was no harm in it.

What was the most important thing on the steppe? Grass. Sholoi could allocate grazing lands to the exiled nobles from the khan's court, and these people repaid his generosity, each vying to urge him to take the throne.

Strange to say, back when Ligdan Khan was still alive, these nobles had all been dissenting troublemakers; now that news of Ligdan Khan's death in Qinghai reached Northern Mongolia, they had all turned into loyalist remnants instead, spreading word everywhere of Sholoi's grief over the Great Khan's passing.

They declared that the Great Yuan could not go a single day without a sovereign, that those now claiming the title of khan were either foreigners of dubious bloodline or incompetents without real talent, that the fate of the Mongols must be held in the Mongols' own hands, and therefore they supported the Jinong to become the Wise and Virtuous Khan — that is, the Chechen Khan.

It was a case of being draped in the yellow robe.

Under these circumstances, on the day of the Khalkha nobles' assembly, Sholoi unhesitatingly supported Gombodorji's accession as Tüsheet Khan. Let him be khan if he wished; this title meant "the khan to be relied upon," and no one was going to rely on him anyway.

Of course, the matter of three khans standing side by side was not really a big deal to the Khalkha nobles; they had long been accustomed to living under such a configuration. Formalizing it through the assembly was merely a matter of legitimizing what already was.

The more important topic of the assembly was still the three khans joining hands to overcome the crisis now facing the Khalkha.

There were two main crises. The short-term crisis was solving the problems of food shortages and the impoverishment of their tribes; the long-term crisis was how the Khalkha could maintain their independence in the face of expansion by the Daichin Khagan of the Khitans and the Sure-Khan of the Later Jin.

On the former, the three khans disagreed. Subadi in the west proposed paying tribute to Liu Chengzong again and seeking his help, but Gombu and Sholui refused to pay tribute. Sholui in the east proposed paying tribute to Hong Taiji and seeking his help, but Gombu and Subadi likewise refused to pay tribute.

Tribute or seeking aid — in their eyes, neither was submission. Besides, the location of the Mobei region meant that even if they submitted, neither Liu Chengzong nor Hong Taiji could reach them.

Gombu's idea was to solve the problem with their own strength — the three Mobei tribes continuing their northward expansion. Sholui and Subadi both thought Gombu had lost his mind. There wasn't even a chicken feather in the freezing north, so why the hell go north?

Seeing that the three khans were about to quarrel, the nobles simply decided to skip this issue for now and move directly to the second one.

On this matter, the three khans rarely reached a consensus: no matter what happened internally, the three tribes must unite when dealing with external enemies.

Ultimately, this was precisely why Subadi and Sholui each opposed the other paying tribute to the Jin Kingdom and the Marshal's Manor. They did not trust each other. If one side got too close and defected outright, neither could face the Jin Kingdom or the Marshal's Manor alone.

At that moment, Subadi said, "Since no one can do anything about the grain, why not seek out the Great Ming Emperor? Sholui has the Southern Emperor's mutual-trade tribute document for the Marshal's Manor — four hundred ninety thousand taels. Let's go sell horses."

Sholui had just steadied his emotions, but hearing this nearly made him jump to his feet... It was not that he blamed Subadi. It was just that this mutual-trade tribute document Subadi brought up had recently become Sholui's greatest headache.

Sholui's fifth son was called Babu. Last year, he had gone with Subadi to the Marshal's Manor to express goodwill and was given the title of Ningyuan Colonel by Liu Chengzong, placed in charge of the tribute trade.

He truly could not figure it out. He did not know whether to say Liu Chengzong's personal charisma was too great or his own son was a bit foolish. Ever since Babu returned from Qinghai, it was as if he had been fed a befuddling potion — his head was full of praise for Liu Chengzong and ill words for Hong Taiji.

The reason was actually very simple. Babu had strolled through the bustling Juerwan market. The dazzling array of goods was something you could never see in Mobei. So he drew two years' salary in advance from the Marshal's Manor, received four hundred eighty taels in Lion Notes, and bought several cartloads of goods to take back to Mobei.

With these four hundred eighty taels, he outfitted the ten Darkhans at his side with brand-new cloth-faced armor, helmets, waist sabers, cavalry lances, and bows, and also bought himself gold and silver ornaments and fur robes and silk garments made by top craftsmen.

Though Mobei was bitterly cold and barren, Babu's father was as rich as a kingdom — he was no pauper. Four hundred eighty taels of paper money could not buy him... What truly bought him was, after learning the prices at Juerwan, remembering the market-bestowed tribute document Liu Chengzong had given him — every year, a market-bestowed tribute document worth four hundred ninety thousand taels of silver.

This meant enough brand-new equipment to arm an army of ten thousand every year.

For this alone, Babu believed that Uncle Liu Chengzong in Qinghai truly valued the three Mobei tribes immensely.

But Sholui would never think that way. He furrowed his brow and said, "Subadi, did a horse kick your head on the way here? If the Great Ming Emperor's market-bestowed tribute were truly such a good thing, and we have no ties of kinship with that Liu Chengzong, would he give it to my son? He should be keeping good things for his own son!"

Subadi did not care at all about Sholui's mockery. He clapped his hands and said, "You've asked the right person. Liu Chengzong has no son, so he gave the good thing to your son."

"Was I talking about the matter of sons? I don't care whether he has a son or not."

Sholui said, "Right now, the Monan region is falling apart. Hong Taiji's strategic direction is the Monan Mongols. Meddling in the Great Ming's tribute trade at this moment is no different from pulling chestnuts out of the fire! Does this reasoning escape you, Jasaghtu Khan? Or are you hoping I go to war with the Jin Kingdom?"

Subadi smiled, then placed both hands on the low table in the tent and stared fixedly at Sholui.

"Whether I understand or not cannot drive away the natural disaster. Our three tribes have no grain for autumn and winter — how many will die? Rather than starve to death, it is better for the three tribes to join forces and march down to Monan, to take a look at Shahukou."

Good morning!