Chapter 566: Dragon in the Field

This stretch of days utterly exhausted Chen Qiyu and Lian Guoshi.

Chen Qiyu inspected the battlefield at Qingyang Prefecture while figuring out how to shift troops from Xi'an Prefecture, which was how he managed to borrow Zu Kuan's single Liaodong battalion from Lu Xiangsheng and Zu Dale in Huguang to meet the need.

Lian Guoshi was also racing back and forth, constantly shuttling between Qinzhou and Xi'an Prefecture, mainly to scrape together grain and prepare for war — threats, bribes, begging, alms-seeking, he tried every trick in the book.

The two men were dead tired, yet in their hearts they dared not relax for an instant. Both knew the Grand Marshal's headquarters was nearly out of grain, and that Liu Chengzong's posture meant he was ready to stake his life on a major campaign in Shaanxi. From Jinglu Guard all the way to Gongchang Prefecture, he had openly deployed his forces and drawn his battle lines — but they still had no idea when he planned to fight this battle.

On the official roads through Qinzhou and Guyuan, strangers coming and going had noticeably multiplied. Among them were peddlers and porters sent by the Grand Marshal's headquarters, petty merchants and hawkers dispatched by the Ming court, and, mingling with both, mounted scouts from the two armies. Sometimes sparks flew and shots were exchanged, but more often they merely eyed each other before going their separate ways to carry out their respective missions.

The waiting before war's outbreak is the most agonizing dread of all.

But no one expected that the first to send an urgent plea for aid to the imperial court would be Sichuan.

On the fifth day of the fourth month, a letter from Sichuan Governor Liu Hanru reached Shaanxi Governor Lian Guoshi's hands. The letter said the Grand Marshal's army had entered Sichuan, and that the two counties of Mingshan and Lushan in Yazhou had both been occupied by barbarian soldiers.

Lian Guoshi stared at the letter, his one head swelling into two: How could Yazhou have fallen?

Though he could not pinpoint Yazhou's exact location, he knew there was a place called Yazhou on Sichuan's western frontier — a critical pass and strategic point on the Tea Horse Road.

What he could not understand, however, was why that place came under attack. Or rather, with so many places that could have been attacked, why Yazhou on Sichuan's western border, and why at this crucial moment just before the great battle in Shaanxi?

The first thought that sprang into Lian Guoshi's mind was that Liu Chengzong wanted to draw the Shaanxi Ming army into Sichuan to suppress bandits.

Once that train of thought started, he could not stop it. The Shaanxi army enters Sichuan — then the peasant army in the mountains launches a massive sortie, cuts off Hanzhong, and the Grand Marshal's army drives straight into Guanzhong, sealing the Shaanxi army inside the Sichuan Basin. They could cry to heaven and get no answer, shout to the earth and get no reply — and from that moment, the whole situation would collapse into utter ruin!

But in truth, Liu Chengzong in Lanzhou had only just learned this news himself, though the emphasis of his intelligence was somewhat different.

On Liu Chengzong's side, because the Grand Marshal's headquarters had a complete post-road network at Kangning Station, the timeliness of information was higher. His troops, in fact, had already withdrawn from Yazhou back to western Sichuan.

Due to the winter, the Grand Marshal's headquarters had been completely cut off between north and south for four full months. The post road had only just been restored, and letter after letter was delivered to the Communications Office, where Lin Wei compiled them and presented them before Liu the Lion.

Liu Chengzong looked at Lin Wei's compiled report from Kangning Prefecture and thought to himself, Kangning had certainly had a lively winter!

The previous autumn, Liu Guoneng of Kangning Prefecture had received his order to help the Minyag exact revenge and had opened hostilities against the Shenbian and Lengbian chieftains east of the Dadu River. Li Laochai and Feng Shuangli's troops, garrisoned at Kangning, brought along a stockpile of firearms and cannon originally meant for attacking fortresses in Tibet, delivering a crushing dimensional strike against the chieftain soldiers of the Shen and Leng families.

The other side barely had a few matchlocks. When their army marched to war, it was all massive pike squares. Over here on the west bank of the Changhe River, when the army reached the battlefield, the opening music was played by thousand-jin cannon — one great iron ball plowing a bloody furrow with each shot. How was anyone supposed to fight that?

The battles were like snapping dry twigs, but for Feng Shuangli... it was unsatisfying.

Moreover, the gains were nowhere near as great as Liu Guoneng, stationed at Nangchen, had imagined. The chieftains of the Shen and Leng families were not like the Minyag — their holdings were not all on the west bank of the Dadu River. Their territory lay on the east bank, closer to the Ming side, and much of their property was invested in Yazhou, Meizhou, and even Chengdu Prefecture.

However, Feng Shuangli discovered one thing during the campaign: both the Shen and Leng families had stockpiled large quantities of tea cakes meant for sale into Ü-Tsang. The source of these tea cakes was the tea mountains in Mingshan and Lushan counties.

The Grand Marshal's headquarters already controlled sources of salt, iron, and tobacco with enormous reserves — all goods in massive demand — but had yet to secure a production area for a specialty like tea.

The winter in western Sichuan was also quite cold. Feng Shuangli's troops were encamped on both banks of the Dadu River, resting, when an urgent letter arrived from Liu Guoneng: the three Mongol taijis in Ü-Tsang had assigned them a job.

After autumn, Buyan Taiji had carried out his routine plundering in the Lhasa River valley. The three taijis of the Khulochi were nearly fought out in Ü-Tsang, so all that was left was to talk tough, sending word to the Tsangpa Khan, holed up in Shigatse's Dzong Fortress, that the Grand Marshal's reinforcements were on their way and would wipe him out the moment they arrived!

The Tsangpa Khan heard the rumors and lived in constant terror, unable to get through a single day in peace.

Ü-Tsang might be an isolated place, and the Grand Marshal's headquarters had never dispatched troops into it, but to the Tsangpa Khan, the name Liu Chengzong was like thunder crashing in his ears.

Because Dönyö Dorje had been his powerful ally, a regional hegemon of the southwest with extremely formidable strength. Then one day, Liu Chengzong came down from the north leading Han troops and driving Tatars before him, and Dönyö Dorje dropped dead without even putting up a decent fight.

In truth, for the Tsangpa Khan, if the ones who had entered Tibet back then had not been the three destitute wretches of the Khulochi house but rather Liu Chengzong fresh from a great victory, he might well have surrendered on the spot.

Even if he had not surrendered, he would most likely have fled through Nepal to India.

But he did not flee then, and now it was too late to think of fleeing. Only the stretch from Shigatse to Lhasa still remained under his control. Everywhere else was overrun with Mongol cavalry, and even in the territory his family had held for generations, who knew how many spies had been bought by the Mongols.

If he made preparations to flee today, the news would reach Güüshi Taiji by tomorrow, and the day after, Buyan Taiji would finish him off on the road.

So the Tsangpa Khan could only treat a dead horse as if it were alive, summon his own Dharma King, and send men rushing to Sichuan to beg the Ming army for aid — he was not really hoping the Ming army would enter Tibet to support him, but rather that the Great Ming could tie up Liu Chengzong's attention. Even if the Emperor just issued Liu Chengzong an edict, as long as it kept him from entering Tibet, that would be enough.

In any case, the three Mongol taijis really did look like he was about to drag them to their deaths.

But the Tsangpa Khan himself was also on the verge of ruin — and his ruin lay not in military strength, but in the hearts of men.

Nearly all of Ü-Tsang's upper religious nobility had already gone over to the Junior Lhazang's side.

The monks had never cared who the secular chieftain ruling the tribes was. To them, there was no problem with the Tsangpa, a noble house that had risen from Ü-Tsang's own soil, ruling over the region; and it was even better if Mongol brothers from the steppe came to rule the secular tribes of the snowy mountains.

For this was precisely the perfect pact that the Dharma Master Sakya Pandita had concluded with Prince Godan at the Liangzhou Conference four hundred years ago: the Mongol iron cavalry could freely enter the snow lands and rule all Tibetan tribes on the secular plane; the snow-mountain Buddha Dharma could also freely enter the Mongol Plateau and guide the Mongol tribes on the spiritual plane.

So when this conflict began, over half the religious figures had not involved themselves. As for the remaining monks who chose sides, they had no choice because the flames of war had reached them — after all, the Tsangpa and the Junior Lhazang stood behind two different sects.

They attacked and slandered each other, and monks suffered unprovoked calamity as a result.

But last winter, the situation changed dramatically, making the upper clergy of Ü-Tsang realize that the time had come when they had to pick a side.

The cause of the change was a message of mourning from the Mongol Plateau. The reigning Living Buddha there had passed away from illness. The monks and Mongol escorts carrying the news were detained the moment they entered Gansu — at that time, the Grand Marshal's headquarters was in the middle of fighting in Gansu.

The one who detained them was Gao Yingdeng. The news was reported to Cao Yao, who sent men to inspect their traveling supplies. Finding that they were indeed on their way to the snowy mountains to report a death, he dispatched a small squad of soldiers to escort them to Xining.

The man in charge of this matter in Xining was Liu Laoye. He did not make things difficult for them; on the contrary, he opened every door of convenience, selecting five men of the Feathered Forest Cavalry, each leading ten Kheshig of the Ordo, to escort them all the way via the Grand Marshal's post stations.

The fifty-five riders providing escort along the route were all men versed in both the Mongol tongue and the Western Barbarian languages. Liu Xiangyu's thinking at the time was to build good karma, since the Ming army was just then preparing to attack the Hehuang Valley, and no one could say how things would turn out in Hehuang.

That said, Liu Xiangyu was not exactly quaking in his boots either. He had a fallback in mind: if worst came to worst and they were defeated, he would take his sons and retreat all the way into Ü-Tsang. At the very most, they might fail to achieve a legacy lasting a thousand autumns and ten thousand generations, but with an army like theirs, establishing a separatist dynasty in the snowy mountains would not be any great difficulty.

So helping deliver a death notice was no great matter — who knew, they might end up as neighbors someday.

Liu Xiangyu's instruction to the Feathered Forest Cavalry was to keep a close eye on this mourning party on the road, listen to their conversations, and if they discovered they were not reporting a death but rather causing trouble, to contact the Kangning Prefecture garrison along the way and wipe them all out.

Fortunately, this group was indeed reporting a death, so the escorts saw them safely delivered to Lhasa.

Once they reached Lhasa, the Feathered Forest Cavalry and the Kheshig turned back. Then the people of the snowy mountains discovered a problem: getting in had been easy, but when it was time to send someone to the Mongol Plateau to seek the reincarnation, trouble struck — they could not get out!

The Feathered Forest Cavalry had entered Tibet under Liu Laoye's orders and traveled without the slightest hindrance. But after the Feathered Forest Cavalry left, the man in charge of Kangning Prefecture was Liu Guoneng, and one of the Kangning prefect's chief responsibilities was to blockade Ü-Tsang — not even a tiny animal was to get past Chamdo.

The only monk on the snowy mountains who could get a word through to Kangning Prefecture was the Mongol Living Buddha from Qinghai, the Junior Lhazang.

The Junior Lhazang was also quite helpless. This was not something he could resolve. Of the three brothers, only Buyan Taiji could get a word through to Liu Chengzong — and even that was just getting a word through.

What was more, he knew perfectly well in his heart that public matters were public matters. For a private matter like seeking a reincarnation, even Buyan Taiji, before they achieved stable rule over all of Ü-Tsang, could at most ask Liu Chengzong for a favor once.

And that one time, the Junior Lhazang could not possibly waste on someone else.

He spread his hands and told everyone: "For now, the best course is to end the warfare in Ü-Tsang as quickly as possible. Otherwise, my two elder brothers will appear far too useless in the Great Khan's eyes. I am not forcing anyone to make a choice — this is your problem, it has nothing to do with me. In any case, my own reincarnation will certainly be born into the household of the Grand Marshal, the Khitan Khan Liu Chengzong."

"As for your reincarnations — tsk — the Grand Marshal's army is garrisoned across the Six Ridges of Dokham. Trying to be reborn anywhere outside Ü-Tsang will, I fear, be very difficult."

"But rest assured, even if some of you support the Tsangpa, once the war is over, if my brother refuses to let him reincarnate in Ü-Tsang, you may send me a dream to intercede. One way or another, he will reincarnate in Ü-Tsang."

Who could still support the Tsangpa after that?

The Junior Lhazang had already made his meaning abundantly clear: continue to support the Tsangpa, and even reincarnating in Ü-Tsang would become a problem.

He was talking about sending a dream.

If they support Zangba now, the best outcome is that Zangba wins, and in the future they can still reincarnate in Ü-Tsang — at least Zangba follows the rules. But forget about anywhere outside Ü-Tsang; Zangba doesn't have that kind of reach. And once the three brothers Guru, Beyen, and Lhazun win, forget about reincarnating at all.

Conversely, if they support the three Guru brothers, even if Zangba wins, he wouldn't be so lawless as to deny them reincarnation.

Yet when the sea turns turbulent, heroes always show their true colors. A Dharma King with close ties to Zangba still came out of seclusion, sending seventeen groups of men to seek aid from the Great Ming.

Unfortunately, word leaked before the men seeking aid even left Lhasa. Beyen Taiji got the news and immediately requested searches and interceptions from Chamdo in Kangning Prefecture. By then Li Laochai's troops were already garrisoned at Chamdo. Nine groups were surrounded, pursued, and killed on the spot. Once they entered the territory where Feng Shuangli was stationed, six more groups died.

In the end, only two groups escaped into Sichuan.

Feng Shuangli had already planned to come down the mountain this year and seize the tea-producing regions for the Marshal's Manor. He had been preparing to break through the border defenses since last autumn. When the Zangba Khan's envoys also happened to enter Yazhou, he simply launched the attack early and charged down.

As it happened, it was a coincidence. Last year there was a locust plague, and Liu Guoneng had beaten every bordering chieftain in Kangning Prefecture — first the Shen and Leng families, then the Tianquan Six Garrisons Pacification Commissioner Gao Ji sent troops in response. Not only did he fail to win, but Feng Shuangli seized quite a lot of his territory.

In the end, seeing both sides fighting harder and harder, Liu Guoneng stepped in before the new year to negotiate a ceasefire with the Tianquan chieftain.

It wasn't that Chuanchuan didn't want to fight. It was mainly that his priority this year was getting Li Laochai and Feng Shuangli into Tibet, and he didn't want complications.

Besides, in his mind, this Tianquan chieftain's domain was very large — he could leave it for next year or the year after, when he had free hands to deal with it. Then he could directly repay the Grand Marshal three or four years' worth of debts.

The Tianquan chieftain, for his part, was also unwilling to fight the Marshal's Manor endlessly. The final negotiated result was that he ceded the Shen and Leng chieftains' territory to Muya, while Liu Guoneng returned the other lands Feng Shuangli had conquered back to the Tianquan chieftain.

They may have reached a ceasefire, but the commotion scared the Sichuan government troops out of their wits. Not counting the garrison already stationed in Yazhou, several native chiliarchs were transferred from the Sichuan Regional Military Commission, scraping together nearly four thousand troops to maintain strict vigilance around Yazhou all winter.

Only after the new year did Grand Coordinator Liu Hanru transfer the native troops back to the Regional Military Commission. The Yazhou garrison, nerves taut all winter, had just barely relaxed when Feng Shuangli led his army charging out. With only thirty soldiers, he used inside collaborators to seize Feixian Pass. That same day, he broke through the Diaomen Battalion stronghold and brought his troops to the walls of Yazhou City.

Yazhou was a small city near the Qingyi River. Feng Shuangli had come down from western Sichuan without cannons and could do nothing against the city. Fortunately, aside from the old Shaanxi bandits who followed Zhang Xianzhong, his battalion consisted of hardy western Sichuan tribal soldiers, all accustomed to mountain roads. That very night, they bypassed the city and launched a direct raid on Mingshan County.

Mingshan County had just received word and hadn't had time to set up defenses. Feng Shuangli stormed in that same day.

Feng Shuangli was very young, but having followed Zhang Xianzhong in breaking over a dozen cities, he was thoroughly familiar with the rebel routine of kill, loot, and move on. That day he opened the granaries, distributed grain, and recruited volunteer troops. In just three days, he stripped Mingshan County inside and out of coin, grain, goods, and tea, swelling his forces to over seven thousand. Then, in a mighty procession, he turned and headed for Lushan County.

This time he didn't manage to enter the city, but as usual, he plundered everything outside the walls. A vast, mighty stream of bankrupt peasants and bondservants, carrying tea on their backs and grain on shoulder poles, headed toward western Sichuan.

Feng Shuangli kept only two thousand troops with him. He had originally planned to play around in Sichuan a while longer, even considering crossing the Min River to have a look at Chengdu Prefecture. But he never expected an army to come from the south — and it stopped him cold.

This army came from Yunnan. Its commander was named Long Zaitian, a native official of no great rank — a Battalion Commander. He had originally been summoned to lead troops to Shaanxi to deal with Liu Chengzong. Passing through Sichuan territory, he happened upon this battle and was redirected by Grand Coordinator Liu Hanru to strike Feng Shuangli.

Feng Shuangli had initially wanted to clash with him, but he hadn't counted on Long Zaitian having so many troops — a full nine thousand five hundred native soldiers and two thousand cavalry.

Most absurd of all, there were four war elephants.

Those huge, black, hulking things — up close, sixteen elephant legs made the very ground shake. Feng Shuangli had no artillery with him. His tribal soldiers could advance with heads down against gunfire and cannon, but they had never seen creatures like these. A single encounter scattered their formation in terror, and they beat a clean, swift retreat back to Kangning Prefecture.

The first thing Feng Shuangli did upon fleeing back to Kangning Prefecture was write a letter to Liu Chengzong. He had figured it out: Long Zaitian's army couldn't enter Kangning. Their target was definitely the Marshal's Army in Shaanxi.

"War elephants?"

Liu Chengzong set down the letter, rubbed his hands together, and remarked with deep feeling, "This Long Zaitian is not bad. War elephants... are they tasty?"