Chapter 537: Same Script for All Writings, Same Gauge for All Carriages

Chukhur of the Dzungar tribe was a man who did not play by the rules.

He secretly slipped a white camel and eight sturdy white horses into the goods the Oirat were shipping to Juer Bay.

Durberta Dalai had never in his life seen Chukhur so deferential — bringing the most precious tribute all the way from the northern Tianshan route to Qinghai, encamping by the shores of Qinghai Lake, and at a single summons from the Marshal's headquarters, leading the Nine Whites with the utmost respect to present himself in audience.

Chukhur had something to ask of Liu Chengzong; his position among the Four Oirat tribes was extremely peculiar.

On one hand, as a loser of war, his grazing lands had been pushed to the remote fringes of Oirat territory — closer to Russian outposts than to the Dzungar great temple at Ili — a situation of dire urgency.

On the other hand, although that war ultimately ended with his backers, the Torgut tribe, being battered into a forced westward migration, the goal for which he had started the war was completely achieved: he successfully inherited his brother Qing Taiji's followers and property, annexed the legacy of another brother, Bai Badu, during the conflict, and consolidated a third of the Dzungar tribe's strength, making him one of the rare powerful feudal lords among the Four Oirat.

But Chukhur had one glaring weakness: the followers and lands he controlled were not recognized by the other Oirat chieftains.

Under these circumstances, his elder brother Batur Khongtaiji had gained Liu Chengzong's support and was intensively preparing for war on both sides of the Tianshan range; Chukhur absolutely had to secure this opportunity to come to Qinghai — for three things alone.

First, he hoped Liu Chengzong would also grant him a proper noble title, securing his standing among the Oirat.

Second, he wanted to know whether the Marshal's headquarters' land policy west of the Tianshan was truly as rumored — whoever conquers it, keeps it.

As for the third, he also wanted weapons: firearms and armor, the more the better.

The nomadic warriors of the Mongol tribes found it very difficult to adopt firearms; the internal resistance was too great, not something an astute chieftain could simply change overnight — for the same reasons Liu Chengzong had struggled to use firearms back in his Lion Camp days.

Firearms required complex processing; without fixed settlements, even with a few craftsmen on hand, one could only repair existing firearms for a short time, unable to carry out large-scale production. At the same time, gunpowder and shot demanded far greater capacity for acquiring and processing mineral resources. Most critically, a large body of warriors who had spent half their lives using the bow could not easily switch their primary weapon in a short period.

The Dzungar tribe was the most unique in the Mongol world; external pressure forced them to quell internal resistance and maintain an immense hunger for firearms.

For no other reason than that on all sides — Russians, Kazakhs, Yarkand, the Marshal's headquarters — everyone was using muskets, and in times past, those muskets had made them suffer grievous losses time and again. The old traditions had collapsed; there was no way to hold on any longer.

As for Liu Chengzong, he took an immediate liking to Chukhur's appearance.

Ming soldiers had a fixed image: martial attire favored red, soldiers grew beards, and a military formation standing at attention was a sea of crimson — and Chukhur likewise had a face full of vigorous whiskers, much like the men under Liu Chengzong's command.

Even so, Liu Chengzong's nature being what it was, he paid no mind whatsoever to the deference Chukhur displayed, because such things could be genuine or feigned, and even if genuine now, they could prove false a year or half a year later.

How others treated him never depended on them; it depended on his own strength and the benefits he could bring them.

At the Marshal's headquarters office in New City, Liu Chengzong warmly invited Chukhur to take the second seat. Although Chukhur did not speak the Han tongue, with Dalai acting as interpreter, their exchange met no obstacles.

Liu Chengzong had someone pull out a map and, with simple directness, drew a crude, blunt line along Lake Balkhash to the northwest. He raised a hand and swept it westward: "West of this line, wherever territory is incorporated, a Pacification Commission will be established. Apart from regular tribute, all local affairs will be left entirely to the Pacification Commissioner, with native officials permitted to pass their posts down hereditarily, holding the land in perpetuity."

"With one exception." Liu Chengzong paused here and looked seriously at Chukhur. "Same script for all writings, same gauge for all carriages. The six directions shall share the same customs, the nine provinces shall be threaded as one."

Taiji Dalai blinked. Although he had always considered his level of Han scholarship quite high, translating this sentence was a modest challenge.

He looked at Chukhur, who was waiting for the translation, and paused for a long time. Racking his brains, he finally spoke: "From east, west, south, north, between heaven and earth — from the Shandong coast to the Irtysh River — all shall use the same script and language. Everyone shall be under the rule of Dundaa Ulus-un Daiching Sechen Khan, and the same laws shall bind all the tribes."

Chukhur did not speak out in objection, but neither did he agree at once. He simply stared fixedly at Liu Chengzong with an expression that did not look particularly bright, confusion occupying his brain — this young Han Khan before him seemed to truly believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

Chukhur could guarantee that this Han Khan had no idea that even within the tribes under his own jurisdiction, those subject barbarians, when added together, spoke at least seven languages. If one counted obscure vocabulary from every source, calling it a hundred languages would be no exaggeration.

To put it simply, after Kuchum Khan, the ruler of the Khanate of Sibir to the west, was killed by the Russians, his surviving subjects fled thirty years ago into lands controlled by the Dzungar tribe.

A portion of the furs that Chukhur had now brought, which the Oirat were presenting to Liu Chengzong, was fur tax paid by those Sibir Khanate survivors to the Dzungar tribe.

Chukhur understood that using the same language and the same laws could make a khanate stronger. In fact, his brother Batur Khongtaiji, his father Khara Khula, and indeed any ruler on the steppe had entertained such an idea.

But a correct idea was one thing; correctness and success had no necessary connection.

Naturally, there was also no necessary connection between agreeing and accomplishing.

So after a brief hesitation, Chukhur thumped his chest with a resounding boom and agreed without the slightest hesitation.

His goal was to procure some weapons from the Marshal's headquarters to support his coming war; it had nothing to do with Liu Chengzong's ambition to forge a mighty empire across this boundless expanse of land. Since it had nothing to do with the latter, why should he argue about whether it could succeed?

As long as the Great Khan provided weapons and equipment, even if you said in broad daylight that the sky was black, then black it would be!

For Liu Chengzong, however, all the efforts made over in the Tianshan region were nothing more than a means to secure peace for future generations. After all, to secure Guanzhong, one must first secure Qin-Long; to secure Qin-Long, one must first secure Hexi; to secure Hexi, one must push into the Western Regions — all fear stems from insufficient strategic depth.

"What you want, I know. That you have come to pledge loyalty, I also feel your sincerity. What you want, I can give — but I cannot give it in this way."

Liu Chengzong smiled at Chukhur and had Taiji Dalai sketch out Chukhur's territory on the map. The winter and summer grazing lands were vast, but hardly good land — almost the border between the Dzungar tribe and the Russian sphere of influence.

He said, "The great currents of the world are shifting. You have an enterprising heart; the territory you conquer in the future will be far larger than what you hold now. I will support you. I appoint you Colonel of the Chukhur Camp, to accompany my elder brother Liu Chengzu in battle. The Tianshan office will record your merits and report them to the Marshal's headquarters, and I will then confer a noble title upon you."

Liu Chengzong would have been only too happy to see the Tianshan region crawling with earls. The prestige of a title lay precisely in one having it and another not; if everyone were an earl, then an earl would mean nothing at all.

But everything had to follow a proper order. Every single noble title the Oirat aristocrats held from the Marshal's headquarters had been earned by taking a genuine beating. When the others came to Qinghai to take their beating, Chukhur did not come. Now that the beating was over, Chukhur showed up — Liu Chengzong could hardly just grant him a title on the spot.

Moreover, this fellow Chukhur was someone Liu Chengzong truly could not ennoble for the time being. The Marshal's headquarters' noble titles were originally designed to win over the Golden Lineage and Mongol chieftains, and when the rules were set, they were tied to Mongol titles. Chukhur should have been a taiji himself, but he had fought against his own father and lost the title that should have been his.

Now he was just an ordinary noble. Liu Chengzong could certainly ennoble him, but there was no need.

However, if in the future Chukhur could seize a piece of land from the Kazakh Khanate or the Russians — that was how the Marshal's headquarters' rules were set — then granting a title at that point would leave no one with anything to say.

Fortunately, Chukhur knew what a colonel was. The Oirat taiji were false taiji; the Chahar taiji were true taiji. He knew that the Chahar's Shaktu Taiji had previously served under Liu Chengzong as a colonel.

Although this official post could not be said to fully satisfy him, he was very satisfied with the superior Liu Chengzong had assigned him: Liu Chengzu.

With Liu Chengzu in place, upon his return, no Oirat noble would dare voice any further discontent with his territory. He agreed readily and happily accepted the three-thousand-man Central Camp establishment. Only then did he urgently say to Taiji Dalai, "Quick, ask the Great Khan — what about the weapons? As a colonel, can I also trade with the Marshal's headquarters?"

This time, he was to be disappointed.

With a matter-of-course smile, Liu Chengzong shook his head. "The arms trade is between the Marshal's headquarters and all the Oirat. As a member of the Oirat, you are naturally included, but you cannot come to trade independently. If you need weapons, you must discuss it with your elder brother."

Chukhur, a man who feared neither heaven nor earth, feared and respected most of all his tiger-like elder brother Batur Khongtaiji. At the mention of that name, he wilted.

Liu Chengzong observed his expression, shook his head with a smile, and said, "That said, since you are now my colonel and have also presented me with the tribute of nine white beasts, I must grant you a small gift of welcome... one hundred muskets."

In truth, Liu Chengzong had originally wanted to provide him with a batch of armor as well, but after thinking it over, he ultimately held his tongue — not because armor was expensive, but because Chukhur's territory lay far to the north. Other types of armor were not quite suitable in performance; the most fitting would be cotton armor.

Pure cotton armor.

And as for pure cotton armor, the Marshal's headquarters had only just gained the ability to produce it themselves. Because the Marshal's headquarters had faced an existential crisis in the preceding years, its land policy had placed extreme emphasis on grain, and very little cotton was grown in He-Huang. This situation only changed after Gansu was taken, providing a proper stretch of agricultural land and thus the large quantities of raw material needed to make pure cotton armor.

At present, the Marshal's headquarters itself barely had a few suits of pure cotton armor. If he were to send chainmail or the like, it would be of little significance — they could make that themselves.

After hosting Chukhur, before Liu Chengzong could free his hands, Chengzong's younger brother, Chengyun, had already sought him out.

"Brother, a major problem has come up this time."

Chengyun came forward holding the Marshal's headquarters' receipt of goods and said, "Probably because the Oirat were in a rush to collect fur tax, all two hundred fifty thousand hides are raw hides. If they ship another load next year, even if we work the Hundred Workshops Bureau's craftsmen to death, they won't be able to process it all — He-Huang needs roads built."

Only upon asking did Liu Chengzong learn that with the arrival of the Oirat caravan transporting the colossal shipment of hides, New City's Juer Bay was experiencing an unprecedented boom in trade.

From Haibei County to Juer Bay, Chengyun had requisitioned four hundred lele carts from New City to collect the goods. In the end, just the eighty thousand sheepskins alone took three round trips to transport, causing Chengyun, who was in charge of receiving the goods, to complain more than once about the Oirat people's careless handling of their cargo.

As the lowest-priced goods the Oirat shipped over, Baatur Khong Tayiji hadn't even prepared dedicated carts for the sheepskins — he simply and crudely draped them over warhorse backs or stuffed them into the corners of carts carrying other goods, and hauled them all the way from the Tianshan Mountains.

These untreated raw hides arrived all stiffened and caked solid, urgently needing salting; otherwise the fine leather would easily rot and spoil.

The technique for treating hides was a trivial matter for the Hundred Works Bureau's craftsmen, but the problem was that the Marshal's Mansion's Hundred Works Bureau at Juerwan was a department that gathered high-end artisans from every trade — even when they made leather goods, their assembly line only performed fine processing on already-treated leather, and they lacked the capacity to process raw hides in bulk.

In the past, Xining Prefecture had also sent raw hides directly to the Hundred Works Bureau, but even if every tanner in Xining Prefecture worked all year without rest, they could at most process around one hundred fifty thousand sheep and cattle hides.

That was roughly the output of Xining Prefecture's own leather industry. Suddenly saddled with an extra two hundred fifty thousand hides, a large portion of which were relatively precious furs like sable, Chengyun had calculated it over and over — left in the new city, all this fine leather would spoil.

Liu Chengzong asked, "You mean ship them to Lanzhou?"

Chengyun nodded. "Right. And the Hehuang road needs repairing — troops marched through during the earlier fighting, and the whole way is full of ruts and potholes. A few round trips with heavy carts and they'll rattle apart. The Oirat will be shipping hides every year from now on, so repairing this road won't be a loss. There's another thing too: we're almost out of carts."

"That can't be."

Liu Chengzong glared. "I captured so many carts — how could we be out?"

"Brother, we captured plenty, but we've used plenty too. Big Brother took that many carts when he headed north. You fought a campaign in Gansu, and all the supply wagons went along with the army — they're all in Lanzhou now. The new city's only got these four hundred lele carts left."

"A single script, a uniform axle gauge — how long is the Hehuang road? Three hundred li, I recall."

Liu Chengzong thought to himself: the Hehuang region was now the largest grain-producing area under the Marshal's Mansion's control. Only Zhangye and Jin County could compare in cultivated acreage, but Zhangye wouldn't have enough people to fully utilize the land for another year or so, and Jin County was the front line. In the future, the Hehuang would inevitably have to ship grain eastward year after year.

What's more, the Hehuang also held the Marshal's Mansion's largest iron mine and arsenal. Building a road there would absolutely not be a loss — if they built a road capable of rapidly transporting supplies, it would instead greatly benefit future wars.

Liu Chengzong thought it over, then clapped his hands. "Since we have to repair the road anyway, let's build a trackway in the Hehuang — from west to east, from east to west, two tracks north and south, running horse carts on rails all the way to the river mouth at Lanzhou."

Good afternoon!