Chapter 565: Saanang

The Eight White Yurts, strictly speaking, are not the actual burial site of Genghis Khan.

The White Palace built in Ordos is a spirit shrine for worshipping Genghis Khan's soul, somewhat akin to the Great Ming's Imperial Ancestral Temple.

By the banks of the Ulan Moron River, the tribesmen of the Besud clan were fishing in the water. Saanang stood on the shore facing a sheepskin, utterly at a loss for how to begin writing. Irritated, he bit open the wooden stopper of his wineskin and gulped down fermented mare's milk.

Paper was an extremely precious commodity on the steppe. The Mongols could not manufacture it themselves, with most of it coming from Tibetan and Han lands. This problem that plagued the Mongols had persisted for a very long time — as long as their history itself.

As early as the Hongzhi reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Dayan Khan — the restorer of the Mongols, whom the Central Plains called the "Little Prince" — lacked paper to such an extent that when an envoy needed to rewrite an official document, he refused to send the original back.

Saanang had paper, but he believed that for the next ten or even twenty years, everything he wrote would only count as a rough draft, so using sheepskin was more fitting.

Because the founding of the Great Ming marked the beginning of a dark age of total cultural regression for the Mongols. This was not merely a matter of lacking iron pots and iron blades — in truth, until Altan Khan established tributary relations, not a single Mongol history book was completed during those two hundred years.

So it was rather embarrassing. Saanang had made every preparation, even having ten cartloads of sheepskins hauled to his felt tent, only to discover with horror that he simply had no idea how to write a book!

After drinking, Saanang sat cross-legged on a rock and played the morin khuur for a while. Only when evening approached did he finally make up his mind and begin writing a self-introduction on the sheepskin.

"My name is Saanang, born of the Golden Lineage of Genghis Khan. I hold the title Erke Sechen Khong Tayiji, born in the jiachen year."

"My father is called Baghatur Darkhan Sechen Khong Tayiji; my grandfather is called Oljei Ilduchi Darkhan Baghatur; my great-grandfather was the renowned Khutugtai Sechen Khong Tayiji."

"My fourth-generation ancestor was called Nom Tarni Güüshi Tayiji, the fourth son of Gün Bilig Jinong — who was the eldest son of Barsbolad, the third son of Dayan Khan. For generations, our family has been enfeoffed with the Yeke Shiber region of the Ordos Right Wing, serving as the lords of the Besud and Uushin clans."

Having finished writing, Saanang carefully examined the sheepskin and frowned with some dissatisfaction. Judging by his ancestors' titles, each generation had been stronger than the last; only when it came to him did each generation grow weaker, making him seem rather useless.

But this dissatisfaction was quickly cast aside. When the entire Northern Yuan was crumbling apart, he was hardly the only one whose generation was weaker than the last. This was surely not his own failing — the era itself more or less had something wrong with it.

In truth, Saanang might well fall short of his great-grandfather Khutugtai in talent and ability, but that was not because he was weak — it was because his great-grandfather was simply too formidable. Saanang could never even conceive of comparing himself to him.

Khutugtai had another, far more resounding name: Sechen Khong Tayiji.

Even the literati of the Great Ming, when compiling the Wanli Martial Achievements Record, devoted a biographical section specifically to him.

The Ordos Tümen held a very high status among the Mongols, its leader always being the Jinong. But Saanang's family, ever since his fourth-generation ancestor, had been neither the eldest son who inherited the Jinong position nor the youngest son who kept the hearth — their status was not especially high.

That their branch of the aristocracy now wielded immense influence in Ordos was owed entirely to Sechen Khong Tayiji's past achievements, prestige, civil governance, and military exploits. They had always been the Jinong's most capable aides.

In terms of titles, Saanang indeed could not match his father's martial prowess. His father had been the bravest of the entire army at thirteen, campaigning at Ningxia against Ming troops of the Wanli era, where he achieved the feat of capturing a man alive and was granted the title Darkhan. At fifteen, he again led troops on campaign, winning a skirmish and earning the title Baghatur.

As for Saanang himself, the two titles Sechen and Khong Tayiji were bestowed upon him at the age of eleven purely because his great-grandfather Sechen Khong Tayiji had been "the first among the Six Tümens to practice Buddhism." It was inherited glory from his ancestors.

Nevertheless, born into such an aristocratic house, he enjoyed a life of comfort and was steeped in culture and politics from childhood. Immersed in this environment, he naturally surpassed others by far — not to mention that Saanang was also eager to learn.

In this dark age of Mongol cultural decline, the idea of compiling a history book would never even occur to a normal Mongol noble, because they had simply never seen a history book and had no concept of what one was.

Saanang was different. Ever since his great-grandfather Sechen Khong Tayiji's time, their family had mastered the languages and scripts of the Mongols, Han, Muslims, and Tibetans, and possessed an entire large yurt full of books — whether Buddhist, Confucian, or texts from Tibet, India, Mongolia, and the Central Plains, they had them all.

They even had three sets of the White History — that is, the canonical work on Buddhism and civil administration established by Kublai Khan, Emperor Shizu of Yuan.

The first volume was from the Ordos Jinong's collection; another was a Yuan-dynasty manuscript that Sechen Khong Tayiji had chanced upon among the Uriankhai; the third was a creative work by Sechen Khong Tayiji himself, who cross-checked and adapted the first two manuscripts, then continued writing Mongol historical events of the Ming era to compile a complete book.

The kind of thing that would be treated as a national treasure in Ligdan Khan's hands served as Saanang's childhood primer.

Precisely because of this, Saanang stepped onto the Northern Yuan's political stage at seventeen, continuing his family's tradition of assisting the Ordos Jinong in governance — serving as an envoy to negotiate with the Great Ming, and also as a representative to deliberate policy jointly with the Tümed clan.

He should have had a wonderful life, a life better than that of most people in the world.

But just like those people of the Great Ming born in the final years of the Wanli reign, Saanang came into the world at the very peak of a golden age. After that, east, west, south, or north — no matter which direction he went, every step was downhill.

As a representative, he resolved disputes with the Great Ming and handled the endless conflicts that arose in Ordos under drought. When his youth ended, the Mongol clans of that time could not be called weak by any measure, yet within a complex environment, they were strangely always at a disadvantage.

Saanang constantly wondered: what exactly had happened to the Mongols?

He did not know.

In the days that followed, Saanang felt as if he were lost in clouds and mist. The situation shifted with dizzying speed. Great nobles could not secure their own safety amid the chaos, and the herder tribesmen suffered even more bitterly from war. When he was a child, it had been Han people, crushed under unbearable burdens, who crossed the border walls and fled to Mongol lands, building the area north of the walls into a southern frontier of prosperity.

Yet in his youth, both Han and Mongols were crossing the border walls and fleeing south.

Because the steppe south of the Gobi was always at war — war with the Great Ming, war with the Later Jin, war among themselves.

This state of affairs became a dark cloud looming over Saanang's heart, and it finally became reality when Ligdan Khan, fleeing the Later Jin, moved west into Tümed territory.

Saanang's lord — Ordos Jinong Erinchen — was stripped of his Jinong title by the Great Khan. The entire Ordos was forcibly dragged into that conflict. They followed Ligdan Khan into battle against the Tümed clan, their neighbors for generations. After a brutal war, they won first and then lost, and were then swept along to continue migrating west, thrown into wars attacking Ningxia, attacking Gansu, attacking Qinghai.

It must be said that during that period, they were indeed swept along at first. But as time passed, Saanang could not help but be deeply influenced by Ligdan Khan.

After all, Ligdan Khan was the orthodox Great Khan of all Mongols. Though he acted rashly and lacked the bearing of a true sovereign, when all was said and done, how many of the Mongol khans under heaven nowadays had the bearing of a sovereign? Among the khans everywhere, Ligdan Khan was already the one with the most heroic spirit.

Therefore, even though his lord Erinchen had been stripped of the Jinong title by Ligdan Khan, and the nobles and troops of the entire Ordos clan were unenthusiastic toward the Chahar — unenthusiastic cooperation was still cooperation.

And to some extent, Saanang believed Ligdan Khan's theory was correct: the Mongols' weakness lay in their disunity. Ligdan Khan was merely the Khan of the Chahar, whereas the Chongzhen Emperor was the emperor of all the Great Ming, and Nurhaci and Hong Taiji were the khans of the entire Later Jin.

He had simply used the wrong methods.

Saanang believed this outcome was not a matter of khanly authority at all. Rather, over the past two-hundred-odd years of the dark age, the Mongols had lost their cultural inheritance, and at the same time had forgotten the noble bloodline of the Golden Lineage and its great, long-standing history.

Those who had forgotten the noble bloodline of the Golden Lineage here were not the common herder tribesmen — the herder tribesmen had always remembered. It was the members of the Golden Lineage themselves who had forgotten. Chasing fame and profit, they had played themselves into the state of a steppe filled with countless enfeoffed khans everywhere.

They could even show extraordinary resilience under conditions of extreme material scarcity, yet against the backdrop of border markets with the Great Ming, they were lured into a muddled stupor, turning into shameless wretches who knew neither honor nor disgrace.

Without spirit, one's defenses against temptation are extremely low, and one will be exploited by others.

But weakness aside, decline aside, in their hearts, none of the Mongol nobles truly believed they would be utterly defeated.

It was not that they could not fail, nor that they could not be driven into some remote corner. Rather, ever since Temüjin became Khan of the Khiyad clan over four hundred years ago and founded the Mongols, the Golden Lineage had, at its very root, no concept of annihilation.

A person cannot imagine something they have never heard of or seen.

Until Ligdan Khan died of illness at Eight Corner City. At that time, the Ordos army had become separated from Ligdan Khan. By the time they received word again, Liu Chengzong had already seized the Nine-Tasseled White Banner and the Imperial Seal, and was about to proclaim himself Great Khan of all Mongols.

This colossal upheaval happened in the mere snap of a finger — a few short years. Both Saanang and Erinchen were left utterly stunned by fate.

The nobles of Ordos looked at one another in dismay. Just like the most normal choice people make when struck by a devastating blow, they made no choice at all. They simply dealt with each situation as it came, taking one step at a time, and returned to Ordos, returned to the lands their families had held for generations.

The Mongol Khanate, which had lasted four hundred years, was gone.

How could it have just... ended?

The cruel reality and the terrifying future hammered at Saanang's heart, filling him with anxiety. Yet the Later Jin and the Marshal's Headquarters pressed ever closer on the steppe south of the Gobi. He knew perfectly well that he had to do something, but he was powerless to change the greater tide, and could only watch as the Northern Yuan crumbled, unable to turn back the heavens.

In truth, never mind the greater tide — when Yang Qi and the Northern Gobi allied army swept into the Southern Gobi in a grand procession, he could not even protect the grazing lands of the two clans his family had governed for generations, the Besud and the Uushin. He, their lord, could not protect them.

It was the same for all the many nobles of the Ordos Tümen. Faced with Yang Qi's rampant enfeoffments across the Southern Gobi steppe, granting four or five thousand cavalry from the Northern Gobi Mongols fiefs right in Ordos, even Jinong Erinchen dared not utter a word — the troops the Mongol Jinong currently controlled were not even as numerous as the cavalry Yang Qi had enfeoffed.

Of course, what decides a war is often not the number of troops, but tangible conflicts of interest. In this regard, the Southern Gobi Protectorate did not have too many entanglements with the Southern Gobi Mongols. And in truth, Ordos's current population had no real use for its vast grazing lands anyway.

Although those lands were not ownerless, it was also true that only the owners remained. The herders had all run off to Ningxia and Yansui to serve as soldiers and raise horses for the Great Ming.

When the sky darkened, the sound of clattering hooves came from outside the felt tent. Sacang lifted the tent flap and saw that his own lord, Erinchen, had arrived.

Erinchen dismounted and first gave Sacang a fierce embrace, then called for his accompanying herders to carry milk wine, paper, and brush and ink into the tent. Sacang hurriedly performed the rites, then asked, "Why has the Khagan come?"

Erinchen's name and title was Linqin Ejei Daiqing. He had held a khagan title earlier — Jinong Khagan.

By his own proclamation, the previous Jinong was his elder brother, and the one before that was his father. His elder brother had the poor luck to fall ill and die, so Erinchen gained the support of the Mongolian presiding Living Buddha, Maidari Khutuktu, and arrogated the title of Jinong Khagan for himself.

But just as his elder brother's luck was poor, Erinchen's luck was poor too. Had he arrogated the title just a few years earlier — after all, the Ordos territory had been their family's domain for generations — as long as he coordinated the interests of the elders and brothers well, his position as Jinong would have been secure.

What's more, he had Sacang at his side. As a descendant of Chejin Huang Taiji, Sacang held very high status in Ordos, both politically and religiously. People trusted him deeply. For him to proclaim the khagan title to the various tribes — one could say it was absolutely foolproof.

But as it happened, the year he arrogated the title was the first year of the Tianqi reign. The Mongol Khagan Ligdan had already set the strategy of "first settle the interior, then deal with the exterior" and led the Chahar army in a westward migration. He was furious at seeing khagans sprouting up all over Mongol lands, so he came and abolished his khagan title.

Abolished or not, this khagan title was one Sacang himself had traveled all across Ordos to proclaim to the people. Even if Ligdan Khan did not recognize it, he had to recognize it — this man was still his Jinong Khagan.

Erinchen sighed and shook his head. "Those nobles come to my place every day to lodge complaints. It's terribly vexing. Better to come here to you."

"Because of the Han Commander-in-Chief's pastureland division?"

Erinchen nodded, helpless. "The situation being what it is, what can I do? Am I supposed to muster the troops and fight a battle with Commander-in-Chief Yang? If we all die, then no one has to worry about pastureland anymore."

"Those Han can't conjure grain out of thin air, and they have no brilliant solutions either. Dividing up our grazing lands was the only way to stabilize those troops from the Khalkha — we knew all along that the Marshal's Headquarters was no good thing. That Commander-in-Chief Yang is full of wicked schemes."

Yang Qi's enfeoffment of the northern desert nobles in the southern desert was precisely to divert disaster eastward. Enfeoffment means delegating power and delegating responsibility. The lord gains sovereignty over land and population — if people don't have enough to eat, that's obviously because you, the lord, are incompetent. What does that have to do with me, the Commander-in-Chief?

The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal, so I don't have to provide food for the vassal of my vassal.

"Khagan, I actually think this is no bad thing. When the Later Jin come again, there must be troops to resist them." Seeing that the herders had all left the felt tent, Sacang said to Erinchen, "Only when there are troops who can hold back the Later Jin will the Khagan have his chance."

Erinchen said, "But with people from the northern desert everywhere like this, our Ordos Tumen has become far too weak."

"No."

Sacang shook his head, delivering the word "no" with absolute finality. His eyes blazing, he looked at Erinchen and said, "It is others who have become weak, not the Khagan who has become weak. Since Commander-in-Chief Yang likes to enfeoff lords, the Khagan's urgent task is to have the Marshal's Headquarters recognize the Khagan as Jinong. The more Mongol troops there are in Ordos, the safer the Khagan will be!"