Chapter 619: Dutiful Sons and Worthy Grandsons

Northern Shaanxi, Yansui Garrison.

The stirrings of the Mongol tribes in Ordos terrified Yu Chongxiao, the newly appointed Regional Commander of Yansui Garrison.

Yu Chongxiao was a native of Jingbian, but he had been serving as a soldier in Shanxi all along, having held the post of Vice Regional Commander for only three years. By his service record, he should have gone to Lintao to serve as a minor Regional Commander; the office of Yansui Regional Commander would never have fallen to him in the normal course of things.

But Shaanxi's successive territorial losses had disrupted the Ming army's normal promotion procedures. Shaanxi not only had no minor Regional Commanders without seals, but even among the major Regional Commanders, across the Three Borders and Five Garrisons, Yansui Garrison had become the sole surviving pearl of the northwest.

Looking at it from this angle alone, Yu Chongxiao was unquestionably fortunate.

But his misfortune lay in the fact that this year was the eighth year of Chongzhen. He had been in office less than two months, and alarms were already sounding everywhere in Yansui Garrison.

It began when Liu Chengzong of the Marshal's Command dispatched the valiant general Zhang Zhen north from Xi'an Prefecture toward Yan'an, his sword pointed at Yulin, forcing the newly arrived Yu Chongxiao to hastily gather five thousand troops in an attempt to defend Suide Prefecture and prevent the enemy from advancing north into Yansui.

To be honest, Yu Chongxiao did not take Zhang Zhen seriously at all.

A man's reputation is like a tree's shadow.

The valiant and fierce generals under Liu Chengzong were all household names in the Ming dynasty's military dispatches — except for Zhang Zhen. Though he held the high rank of Brigade Commander, in terms of fame, he was a true nobody.

Reputation is very useful, at least in this era of war where military officers lack systematic promotion channels. Fame is forged with real blades and real spears in one hard battle after another.

Zhang Zhen's lack of fame meant he had no experience independently leading troops to defeat any Ming army unit.

Unlike Zhang Tianlin and Bai Guang'en.

North of the Yellow River, half the Ming realm knew Zhang Tianlin was adept at attacking with fire arrows; that same half also knew Bai Guang'en feared fire arrow assaults the most.

Yu Chongxiao felt no fear whatsoever toward Zhang Zhen's northward advance. He was even eager, itching to take Zhang Zhen's head as his first merit since assuming the post of Yansui Regional Commander.

But unexpectedly, just as his troops entered Mizhi, an alarm came from the Hengshan mountain region to the west. The great bandits Sky Full of Stars and Mixed Stars, entrenched around Bao'an and Anding, had driven two thousand men to capture Jingbian Fort and Longzhou City.

Yu Chongxiao's hometown was Jingbian. When he heard the news of the two cities' fall, he ground his teeth in hatred. Seeing that Zhang Zhen's Marshal's army was advancing rather slowly, he immediately turned his troops around and rushed from Mizhi to Jingbian.

But by the time he reached Jingbian, the fighting was long over.

Sky Full of Stars and Mixed Stars had led their peasant army to raid two cities and three forts, spending only two shichen to plunder heavily and return. Vice Regional Commander of the Western Route Li Changling sent troops in pursuit and won a minor victory, capturing several hundred warhorses, donkeys, and mules, along with countless military drums, banners, and pennants.

But there was clearly more to this story, because when Yu Chongxiao arrived at Jingbian, Li Changling was in a towering rage. He had bound two Defense Commanders on the spot, seized a Squad Commander, and executed three Centurions who had gone into battle on charges of cowardice.

"Grand Commander, you are unaware — I previously served at Gushan and have long been acquainted with these two bandits, Sky Full of Stars and Mixed Stars."

"Sky Full of Stars is named Zhou Qing; Mixed Stars is named Hui Dengxiang. Both bandits are deserters from the frontier troops, originally registered in Qingjian."

Li Changling had a rigid and upright temperament. Even with his direct superior Yu Chongxiao present, he was still beside himself with fury. Cupping his fists, he said, "In their early years, they were subordinates of the great bandit Wang Jiayin, ranked among the Ten Valiant Chieftains. They garrisoned at Dongchuan and fought no small number of battles against the frontier troops of Yansui's eastern route."

"Wang Jiayin died in the plague in Shanxi last year, and his forces all scattered. Zhou Qing and Hui Dengxiang led their men south to plunder Yan'an, but they were thoroughly beaten by rustic village fellows. Only then did they lead their remnant troops of over a thousand into the Hengshan Mountains."

Rustic village fellows?

Yu Chongxiao blinked. He knew of Wang Jiayin — a man who scurried along the border walls of Yansui's eastern route like a field mouse, gnawing at them back and forth.

His forces were not overwhelmingly large, but his subordinates were all frontier troops from the forts near Fugu and Shenmu — Zhenqiang, Gushan, Mugua, Huangfuchuan, Qingshui Camp, and Huigou Fort — and their combat strength was formidable.

By all logic, if Zhou Qing and Hui Dengxiang were bandit generals who had followed Wang Jiayin, they should possess considerable skill themselves. They should not have been defeated at the hands of village fellows.

The style didn't fit.

Yu Chongxiao wanted to say something, but mindful that he was a newcomer, he opened his mouth and said nothing.

Sensing Yu Chongxiao's hesitation, Li Changling explained, "Shaanxi has suffered drought and military chaos. The entire population of Yan'an Prefecture is barely ten or twenty percent of what it was. At present, the common people number less than a hundred thousand."

"A barren land of harsh mountains and foul waters, worst of all in Fushi, Ansai, Yanchang, and Yanchuan. The village elders there are all discharged deserters and wounded bandits who have returned home to build fortresses and drill the villagers."

"Thus they refuse taxes and corvée, privately manufacture firearms, lay landmines, conceal population, beat the Supreme Commander, revile superior officers, detain military supplies, and attack the army. They are all thoroughly villainous, hardened recalcitrants."

A moment ago, Yu Chongxiao had words he wanted to say but did not speak them.

Now he wanted to speak, but did not know what to say.

What in the world was all this?

Now he understood why Zhang Zhen, leading the Marshal's Command's arrogant troops and fierce generals into Yan'an Prefecture, was advancing so slowly.

It seemed Zhang Zhen's side was not in danger for the time being. The common folk of Yan'an Prefecture alone were enough to keep the Marshal's army busy.

Yu Chongxiao decided to prioritize matters. Skipping over the situation in Yan'an Prefecture for now, he waved his hand and said, "Let's first discuss Sky Full of Stars and Mixed Stars."

Li Changling nodded at once. He was not keen on discussing Yan'an Prefecture either. After all, Yan'an Prefecture was like a state within a state, and he had never entered it himself. It was all hearsay, and no one knew what the real situation inside was.

"Since these two bandits are Wang Jiayin's old subordinates, their method of attacking cities and forts is no different from Wang the Bandit's. They often use inside agents to open the gates. A bout of plundering costs them no effort, and when they encounter government troops attacking, they first ask whether it's a negotiated battle or a real one."

At this, Li Changling, somewhat deflated, pointed at the spoils of war on the camp's parade ground and said, "This is a negotiated battle."

In this region of northern Shaanxi, everyone fighting back and forth was an acquaintance. Jingbian Fort alone had produced Yu Chongxiao, the Regional Commander of Yansui Garrison, several generals of the Marshal's Command, and even more peasant army leaders.

As long as there was the will and the benefit to claim a connection, nearly everyone could claim a connection.

This time, when Li Changling led his troops into the earthen gullies of the Hengshan Mountains, his pursuing vanguard unit had a connection claimed by Hui Dengxiang's peasant army.

The two sides, separated by three to five hundred paces, stood on two hilltops and wildly blasted firearms and cannon into the sky at each other. Hui Dengxiang executed a few bandits who had concealed goods during the plunder to tighten military discipline, left the corpses for the government troops, and also abandoned some lame mules and horses and unneeded armor, weapons, flags, and drums.

It was essentially a division of spoils between the two sides. Hui Dengxiang attacked the cities and forts and gained tangible benefits; the pursuing frontier troops also gained battle merits and spoils.

Both sides also avoided the suffering of armed conflict and deepened their camaraderie — it could be called a thoroughly satisfying outcome for all.

Only their Regional Commanders and Vice Regional Commanders were frantic with worry... The missing troops and plundered equipment all had to be sought and requested by them, to be replenished anew.

Moreover, if this went on, where in Yansui Garrison would there still be frontier troops willing to fight?

Yet now, the court and local authorities had no countermeasure whatsoever against the roving bandits' petty tricks.

They could not catch them in pursuit. Hui Dengxiang and Zhou Qing had as many horses as they had men — their horses and mules even outnumbered their troops. The government army, however, could barely scrape together three mounts for every ten men. Once a pursuit battle began, infantry and cavalry were certain to become disconnected.

And this was under the condition of severe troop shortages in Yansui Garrison that they could even scrape together three mounts.

Just mounts — not necessarily horses, they could also be donkeys and mules.

In all of Shaanxi, the court controlled fewer and fewer lands, pastures, and horse farms. Yansui Garrison had become an isolated geographical unit. Now, the problem was not even being unable to afford warhorses.

It was that they simply could not find horses at all.

Once infantry and cavalry became disconnected, it was impossible to defeat peasant armies numbering in the thousands in mountainous terrain.

Since they could not win, frontline officers tended to avoid fighting the peasant armies.

And the more they dared not fight, the lower the army's combat capability fell, and the greater the peasant army's momentum grew.

This was a vicious cycle.

Yu Chongxiao had no good solution for this either. Several major battles over the past few years had not yet struck a crippling blow to Yansui Garrison.

But several campaigns that erupted outside Yansui Garrison had a profound impact on it nonetheless.

Guyuan changed hands, and the bankrupt refugees of northwestern Shaanxi no longer migrated toward Yansui Garrison; a Commander-in-Chief's Office was established in Monan, and Mongol herders no longer crossed the border wall to farm for the watchtower troops just to survive.

The population of Yansui truly dwindled year by year. In Great Ming's Shaanxi, the blood of the border garrisons along Yansui was nearly drained. Whether in Guard or Battalion, the number of barbarian auxiliaries already accounted for nearly a third.

In fact, during this period he had visited many old Chief Generals living in retirement in Yulin.

Those seasoned old Chief Generals were also helpless in the face of the current situation. The only advice they could offer was to retain an elite force of five thousand men, using infantry to counter cavalry.

Yet precisely at this critical juncture, the watchtower troops again reported to Yulin City that the Ordos Tümen north of the border wall was showing unusual movements.

The Uushin tribe, subordinate to Sacang Taiji, had somehow procured livestock, cattle, and sheep, and thousands upon thousands of Mongol cavalry were converging on the Uushin tribe.

The garrison commanders on the border wall analyzed that Sacang Taiji and his lord Erinchen seemed to be preparing a war of invasion against Ming's borders.

The Ming commanders had no choice but to take it seriously. The Uushin tribe was only a hundred li from the border wall; launching troops, they could cross the Mu Us Desert and ford the Wuding River, arriving by dusk if they set out at dawn.

A tribe of not particularly large scale suddenly flooded with several thousand fighting men could undoubtedly bring immense pressure to Yansui Garrison, which had a standing army of only forty-five thousand.

Because although Yansui had many garrison troops, its defensive line was also long. Fewer than fifty thousand troops were spread across a fifteen-hundred-li defensive line stretching from Huangfuchuan Fort in the east to Huamachi in the west. The mobile forces that could be shifted east or west amounted to just over ten thousand.

And even this paltry force had to be divided into four armies: the main, the flanking, the auxiliary, and the reserve, under the Chief General, Vice General, and Mobile Corps Commanders.

The Great Wall itself was not to be trusted either. The sands of the Mu Us Desert had buried the wall entirely underground. The watchtower forts were like bungalows built in the sand; the watchtower troops might well wake from sleep to find themselves buried in sand.

The military expenditure of Yansui Garrison, aside from maintenance costs including troop pay, had as its second largest outlay the annual hiring of civilian laborers to dig out the sand.

But the situation in the last two years… first, they could not recruit enough people to dig sand, and second, even when they could recruit people, they could not pay them enough. Having the soldiers dig it themselves was truly beyond their capacity.

The matter was extremely difficult.

In just a few short days, Yu Chongxiao's state of mind had changed.

Faced with these three intractable problems, the joy of being promoted to Chief General had long since worn away completely. Beset with troubles, he simply wanted to dash his brains out against the city wall.

After all, to the south, Bee-Tail Needle Zhang Zhen of Yan'an Prefecture was not easy to kill; in the Hengshan mountains, Hui Dengxiang and Zhou Qing were not easy to kill; and north of the Great Wall, Sacang Taiji did not look easy to kill either… Yu Chongxiao looked around and realized that among all of them, only he himself was the easiest to kill.

Of the three powers encircling Yansui Garrison, the greatest threat in Yu Chongxiao's eyes was the Ordos tribe beyond the passes.

Sacang's Uushin tribe had maintained close relations with Great Ming as far back as the era when Qoijing Huang Taiji was their lord. He was not only a regent of Northern Yuan but also Great Ming's Dragon-Tiger General.

Therefore, the Yulin area had a need to maintain a military presence, but in practice, opportunities for border defense campaigns were few.

Historically, all campaigns to the north had been conducted by outside, detached units.

Precisely for this reason, Sacang's gathering of troops in his own tribe made Yu Chongxiao all the more nervous.

Only, he never imagined that Sacang Taiji in Monan had no intention of mustering forces to attack Yulin Garrison at all. In reality, the situation over there was far more complicated than the crisis he himself faced.

It was rather Bee-Tail Needle Zhang Zhen to the south who was the true threat to Yulin Garrison.

Zhang Zhen was indeed moving slowly, because only after entering Yan'an Prefecture did he discover that the mission Liu Chengzong had entrusted to him was far harder than he had imagined.

Liu Chengzong's orders were divided into two stages: the minimum was to garrison the various counties of Yan'an Prefecture; the advance objective was to fight through Yansui Garrison.

But he had only the Ganzhou Battalion and the Suzhou Battalion led by Ding Guodong. The two small battalions combined numbered no more than four thousand troops.

Even the army provisions for entering Yan'an Prefecture had been obtained from Mi Layin, who was garrisoned at Yaozhou smoking horse meat.

Of course, relying entirely on Mi Layin for army provisions was impossible; they mainly came from their own wounded horses and mules.

The terrain of Yan'an Prefecture was already complex. There were only a few official roads capable of accommodating large bodies of troops, and all of them were littered with years-old landmines. Newly arrived and momentarily careless, Zhang Zhen and Ding Guodong had many warhorses blown up or wounded.

Without establishing local connections, their two small battalions would probably all be blown sky-high before they even reached Mizhi.

Given these road conditions, unless one could fly, even the Horse-Killing General Li Bei, who once raided four hundred li in two days and nights, would not be able to move fast.

He had hoped to use his identity as a Yan'an native to build ties with the local villages, to persuade the countryfolk to remove the landmines, and to guarantee that once the Grand Marshal's army arrived, Great Ming's army would never again be allowed to fight its way into Yan'an Prefecture.

Unexpectedly, the local countryfolk were equally helpless in the matter. A villager said, "General Zhang doesn't know where the landmines are buried, and neither do I."

In present-day Yan'an Prefecture, no one knew exactly how many steel-wheel landmines were on the official roads.

Frustrated, Zhang Zhen did not dare make trouble for the countryfolk. He led the two battalions off the official roads, dispersed them into a large formation, and took to the ravines and small paths.

It was not that his temper was particularly good; he simply could not afford to provoke them. Seven or eight villages could muster three to four thousand troops. They certainly could not defeat him in a fight, but once fighting started, he would not be able to accomplish anything else.

Precisely because of the complex situation in Yan'an Prefecture, Zhang Zhen was so busy he could barely spare a thought for Yu Chongxiao.

After Ding Guodong's assessment, their forces were not yet sufficient to take Yansui Garrison. The best option was to temporarily station themselves in the walled city of Yan'an Guard beside the Yan'an prefectural seat, find some of the Grand Marshal's old comrades and countryfolk, and have them contact local strongmen and Yang Qi north of the Great Wall.

Zhang Zhen agreed to this suggestion. He not only wanted to contact Yang Qi, but also sent men to his hometown of Bao'an County in the northwest of Yan'an Prefecture to seek out Skyful of Stars Zhou Qing and Mixed Sky Star Hui Dengxiang, inviting the two of them to plan great matters together.

Before that, however, Zhang Zhen still had some personal business of his own to attend to.

He had to meet the elders and countryfolk of the Yan'an prefectural seat. In this region, one could not take three steps without bumping into relatives of the Grand Marshal's generals. He had to deliver the verbal messages his sworn brothers had asked him to pass on.

Most importantly, since he was already here.

The ancestral graves on Black Dragon King Temple Mountain—he, Zhang Zhen, as an unregistered filial son and worthy grandson of Grand Marshal Liu, had to give them a proper renovation too!