Chapter 688: Ningxia Garrison

Ningxia, known in ancient times as Shuofang.

The Helan Mountains ring its northwest; the Yellow River winds around its southeast. Its terrain is perilous and secure, a shield for the Guanzhong plain and the throat of the Hexi–Longyou corridor.

Though small in area — barely over a hundred li north to south, barely over two hundred li east to west — it is famed as a mighty frontier stronghold, thanks to its strategic geography.

It was once called the "Jiangnan Beyond the Frontier." It is not only a critical military town but also a vital region for garrison-farm agriculture, possessing both the fertile soil of the Yellow River's western loop and the vast irrigation coverage of the Han and Tang canals, which together sustain tens of thousands of hectares of irrigated farmland.

The soldiers and civilians of Ningxia Garrison are glorious and valiant heroes.

In the early Ming, in the third year of the Hongwu reign, a prefecture and officials were established here, but it lasted only two years. Because the Tatars were too powerful, the founding emperor decreed the land be abandoned and the people relocated to Shaanxi, leaving Ningxia a desolate place of empty cities.

Not until six years later, in the ninth year of Hongwu, did the court make preparations, once again migrating people to Ningxia to establish a guard, and dispatching an imperial prince to found a vassal state.

The migrants included people from Qi, Chu, Wu, Yue, Qin, and Jin, as well as native peoples of the Da, Tibetan, and Hui.

Over the two centuries since the Ming began, fifty to sixty thousand troops have been permanently stationed here, defending the Helan Mountains with their many passes and narrow defiles. Though the forces are split among many points and hard to reinforce, they have still been able, by relying on excellent fortifications and ample military supplies, to maintain stability in the interior guard posts and resist Mongol incursions for a long time.

But times have changed. With Hong Chengchou's relocation here, Ningxia Garrison is undergoing earth-shaking changes.

Ever since Gansu fell, Hong Chengchou has been frantic in Ningxia, dealing with Cao Yao's harassment by day and terrified of the court's unissued punishment by night.

And the entire Ningxia army, amid the successive fall of Gansu and the interior guard posts of Jinglu and Guyuan to the south, and the successive defeats of the rebellion-suppression armies, has been flooded with severe panic.

Thus military households flee, and commoners migrate away.

Faced with this situation, Hong Chengchou's response has been terrible.

Struck by Cao Yao in the west, raided by Zhou Qing in the east, he fought a battle with the Three Khans of Mobei, but it can hardly be called a great victory.

It is not for lack of ability or talent, but because his attention has long since strayed from suppressing the rebellion.

In truth, like Yang Sichang, he has decided, under the threat of external enemies, that to resist foreign aggression, one must first pacify the interior.

Only, Yang Sichang's counsel to the Chongzhen Emperor was from the perspective of the entire Great Ming.

Whereas Hong Chengchou's "resist foreign aggression by first pacifying the interior" is built on the foundation of Ningxia Garrison.

Though he is the Supreme Commander of the Three Frontiers, wielding authority over the realm, Hong Chengchou knows better than anyone: without the economic support of Shaanxi, there is no Supreme Commander of the Three Frontiers.

If he still regards Ningxia and Yansui as the court's arms, he fears there is only one path left: sitting and waiting for defeat.

Others can flee to Shanxi, but as the Supreme Commander bearing responsibility for the loss of the Three Frontiers, the best outcome for him upon entering Shanxi would likely be imprisonment by imperial decree — and he might well end up dead.

It is not that Hong Chengchou fears death exactly; he is just somewhat unwilling to accept it.

He has replayed the scenarios again and again in Ningxia, never believing there was any problem with his deployments, always feeling he was just a hair's breadth from trapping and killing Liu Chengzong in Gansu.

The Marshal's army should clearly have run out of provisions — and then the Tianshan Oirat drove sheep a thousand li to feed him. Who the hell could have foreseen that!

As for the southern campaign and defeat of the five battalions under Cao Wenzhao, Bai Guang'en, Bu Yingdi, Tu Shixian, and Shen Guangxian last year, that was far easier for him to understand.

After all, for several months he was busy writing memorials to the court, and every single one sank like a stone into the sea. He has no idea whether they simply could not be delivered into Shanxi, or whether the court refused to reply because he was asking for money and grain.

But none of that matters now.

Hong Chengchou has already realized he cannot place his hopes on others — not on Chen Qiyu, nor on the Great Ming court.

A man must still rely on himself.

Having inwardly accepted that no good end awaits him, he has formulated a complete plan for carving out his own territory.

To resist foreign aggression, one must first pacify the interior. He will build up Ningxia, in order to withstand Liu Chengzong's assault and wait for a turn of fortune in the future.

Because Yansui Garrison lies in the transitional zone between the Mu Us Desert and the Loess Plateau, combining farming and herding. It has neither high-yield fields nor excellent water and pasture — but it can make do.

Militarily, the terrain dictates that Yansui Garrison's primary strategy is defense and counterattack, using a single line of border wall as the defensive line, with three routes divided for local defense, and Yulin Garrison City commanding the overall defense.

When the enemy breaches the first border wall, the Ming army deploys its forces in the valleys and river mouths that are easily broken through, intercepts with numerous fortresses, uses the mountainous terrain between the first and second border walls to delay, and finally envelops and slaughters them.

But if the enemy comes from behind, it is a different story. The area around Yulin Garrison City has no defensible terrain and can easily be surrounded by a large army.

Hong Chengchou has no desire to be pinned down inside the city and brutally beaten by Liu Chengzong.

Therefore, Ningxia is his only choice.

However, until last autumn — that is, before the defeated generals like Cao Wenzhao fled back — Hong Chengchou had accomplished nothing with this plan.

The reason is simple. First, the Mobei Mongols and Cao Yao came in succession to cause trouble. Second, he had few capable men at his side.

This so-called "resist foreign aggression by first pacifying the interior" means that to resist Liu Chengzong, he must first make Ningxia abundant in money and grain and its soldiers fit for service.

And to make money and grain abundant, in a place like Ningxia, he must clean up the military farmlands.

Yet, as it happens, the military farmlands of Ningxia are the most difficult in all the realm to clean up.

Among the Nine Frontier Garrisons of the Great Ming, the northwest has the most military farmlands, and within the northwest, Ningxia is the foremost.

The military fields here, reclaimed in the early Ming, amounted to over eight hundred thousand mu, and later climbed steadily, once reaching as high as two million mu during the Jiajing reign.

However, the military fields reclaimed earliest were of high quality — all prime farmland near Yinchuan irrigated by the Han and Tang canals. The new military fields reclaimed after the Zhengde reign were arid and semi-arid wastelands on the fringes of the Ningxia plain, far inferior in quality to the earlier ones.

But more is more; even one extra mu is still an increase.

It is just that Ningxia not only has much military farmland, but even more civilian farmland. And in earlier years, the civilian farmland here went by another name: merchant farmlands.

That is, under the policy of the Salt Exchange Law, merchants reclaimed fields nearby and farmed them to exchange grain for salt certificates.

During the Hongzhi reign, Minister of Revenue Ye Qi reformed the law, permitting the Huai and Zhejiang salt merchants to pay silver in lieu of grain, causing salt tax revenue to suddenly surge to a million taels.

Forty-one years later, the military payroll of the Nine Frontiers had also grown from four hundred thousand taels to two million two hundred thousand taels.

The frontier merchant farmlands deteriorated, and the fields were sold off cheaply, becoming civilian farmland.

With unpaid wages, desertion, and population loss, military farmlands fell into neglect while civilian farmland increased. Large tracts of military farmland became private land, and the boundary between the two blurred accordingly.

So much so that by the time the Chongzhen Emperor ascended the throne and wished to clean up the Ningxia military farmlands, Minister of Revenue Bi Ziyan, after a thorough verification, had no choice but to memorialize: "The practice has persisted so long that verification is difficult. We request that, regardless of whether the cultivator is military or civilian, all be taxed uniformly at the civilian field rate."

In effect, the Ningxia military farmlands were completely gone.

The original intent was not problematic. Since the military fields yielded little tax revenue anyway, for the sake of fairness, they might as well all be treated as civilian fields.

Because the background at the time was that Bi Ziyan was overseeing the court's revenue and expenditure, and when Chongzhen ascended the throne, the Great Ming's finances were in dire straits. The most critical military expenditure issue was Ji-Liao.

Even if Ningxia were entirely civilian fields, collecting tax in kind could roughly cover the local troops. A year's revenue from the Huai and Zhejiang salt certificates was eighty thousand taels, and the silver transported from the capital was only twenty thousand taels.

Ji Garrison alone was owed five hundred thirty thousand taels that year, and its annual capital transport was four hundred twenty thousand taels.

By comparison, Ningxia's affairs were utterly trivial.

Who could spare the attention?

But now, these military fields had become a thorn in Hong Chengchou's side.

If he wanted to live, he had to turn all these fields into military fields, but to touch Ningxia's military fields, he needed outside troops in hand.

Because with so many civilian fields in Ningxia, quite a few had fallen into the hands of military families, and those people would not willingly let him reclaim the fields as military fields — even many garrison officers would not support it.

So last year, Hong Chengchou rebuilt his own personal guard battalion, keeping only a handful of handpicked poor soldiers from Ningxia, and filling the rest with able-bodied men chosen from the Gansu commoners he had relocated to Ningxia, with Ding Zizhen, who had come from Liangzhou, serving as acting Regional Commander.

But this single guard battalion was not enough.

Not until Zuo Liangyu, Cao Wenzhao, Zhang Yingchang, Bai Guang'en, and Cao Bianjiao led over ten thousand defeated troops back to Ningxia one after another did Hong Chengchou finally gain confidence.

He treated these defeated generals with extreme cordiality — first intimidating and threatening them upon meeting, then immediately, with a look of heartfelt concern, declaring that he would petition the court on their behalf to plead for leniency and pardon, so they could continue to serve.

Though Hong Chengchou knew perfectly well that the letter would never reach the court.

Even if it were not intercepted by the peasant armies, Tatar cavalry, and Yan'an troops crisscrossing between the Ningxia and Yansui garrisons, it could only get as far as the Yellow River — plague was raging in Shanxi, and the letter simply could not get through.

But he still wrote it, like making a wish.

He requested that the court not dismiss them from their posts.

The implication was to remind the court not to forget these losers who had lost their battles, and to deal with them promptly — strip them of rank but keep them in service.

Stripping them of rank was crucial.

Because with them in Ningxia, Hong Chengchou had to pay their salaries.

But how easy was that? Just Zuo Liangyu, Cao Wenzhao, and Zhang Yingchang — three Regional Commanders — all held the rank of Commissioner-in-Chief in the Five Chief Military Commissions, upper second rank, no less.

Hong Chengchou's own post as Vice Minister of War was only upper third rank.

Still, he needed them for major undertakings in the short term. If the court received the letter and stripped them, all the better; if not, it did not matter.

After placating the many defeated generals, Hong Chengchou took them as trusted aides and immediately launched a sweeping campaign to clear military farmlands in Ningxia, while also renovating Ningxia's fortifications and defensive works.

Because geographically, Ningxia's defenses faced east, west, and north — three directions that had long been armed to the teeth, with the Helan Mountains as a barrier and the Yellow River as a moat, as impregnable as a fortress of metal.

Yet, of all things, Liu Chengzong would be attacking from the south.

He had to strengthen Ningxia's southern defenses.

To this end, Hong Chengchou simply relocated the Ningxia Rear Guard to Lingzhou.

But before his fortifications had been under construction for long, he received a new, massive blow.

Shaanxi — it had actually snowed.

Snow in Shaanxi was of course a good thing, but Ningxia had none.

This winter, not a single snowflake fell in Ningxia; it was terrifyingly dry.

This news made Hong Chengchou inexplicably tense. He reckoned that this year's snow in Shaanxi would undoubtedly be hailed as an auspicious omen by the Marshal's Headquarters, greatly boosting the morale of those rebels.

Liu Chengzong would probably not wait until he finished his fortifications to attack him.

Still, Hong Chengchou prayed in his heart, hoping this year's snow might lull Liu Chengzong — who had just swaggered into Xi'an Prefecture like a crowned monkey — into complacency. With enough to eat, perhaps he would not go to war.

Give him one year, and he could wall off Ningxia's entire southern frontier!

Just as Hong Chengchou was indulging in this pleasant dream, an attendant reported that Yansui Garrison Regional Commander Yu Chongxiao had arrived in Ningxia.

The news astonished Hong Chengchou. Upon meeting Yu Chongxiao, he hurriedly said, "At a time like this, Commander Yu, though your martial prowess is unmatched, as a garrison commander you must above all mind your own safety."

"To be frank with Your Excellency, I too was loath to take the risk. The truth is, the Tatars came knocking, wanting to deliver a letter to Your Excellency."

As Yu Chongxiao spoke, an attendant presented a letter to Hong Chengchou.

At this, Hong Chengchou frowned and said, "Commander Yu, what is the meaning of this?"

Yu Chongxiao shook his head. He had not opened Hong Chengchou's letter, so naturally he did not know its contents. "We interrogated the messenger — a scoundrel from Ningyuan. Tight-lipped, though; he wouldn't reveal the letter's contents. Would Your Excellency like me to withdraw?"

Hong Chengchou shot him a reproachful glance and said as he opened the letter, "What is there to withdraw for? You have faced the eastern brigands in battle before — just the man to advise me."

He had read only two lines when his face twisted as if he had swallowed filth. With disgust, he said to Yu Chongxiao, "The eastern brigands are utterly delusional. They've proclaimed themselves the Chongde Emperor and play their games in Shenyang — that's one thing. But they actually intend to persuade you and me, along with the hundred thousand troops of the Ningxia and Yansui garrisons, to surrender."

"Ha!"

Yu Chongxiao was amused too. He thought Hong Taiji had lost his mind and blurted out, "That defeated wretch of a subordinate wants to persuade me to surrender?"

Hong Chengchou, for his part, turned the letter over in his hands, examined it, and showed it to Yu Chongxiao. Hmm... it was a used sheet of Liaodong official document paper.

Expressionless, he said, "He says that if you and I come and surrender with due courtesy, he will reward us with a million taels of silver."

Yu Chongxiao's smile froze instantly. The officers of his Yansui Garrison were nearly going mad pressing him for back pay.

The two men exchanged a glance, and a smile of tacit understanding appeared on their faces.

Perhaps... trick them out of some money?

Immediately after, they silently dismissed the idea.

Seeing the unwilling look on Yu Chongxiao's face, Hong Chengchou held up the letter and laughed. "Commander Yu, look at that expression. You see, they don't even have paper — they wrote this letter on scrap official documents. This so-called million taels of silver is nothing but empty boasts."

Unexpectedly, Yu Chongxiao's contempt faded, and he shook his head very seriously. "Your Excellency does not know — those accursed eastern brigands have raided us time and again, plundering our Great Ming's people and treasures. In Jianzhou, they have money but nowhere to spend it. A picul of rice costs eight taels of silver, a bolt of cloth nine taels. They have nothing but money."

"What I regret is that we have no such money in our hands."

In truth, what Yu Chongxiao was thinking was: if Liu Chengzong had such breadth of spirit and could lavish a million taels of official silver on Ningxia and Yansui, then his Yansui Garrison might very well truly surrender.

Hong Chengchou nodded repeatedly. If he had a million taels of silver, then aside from time, Ningxia would have no other difficulties right now.

This mood came quickly and passed just as fast.

Hong Chengchou believed he had the ability to manage Ningxia well. Once all the military fields were sorted out, within a year at most, Ningxia's granaries would be full.

At this thought, his mood lightened considerably, and he said to Yu Chongxiao with schadenfreude, "But looking at this letter, it seems the eastern brigands deeply resent Liu Chengzong for proclaiming himself Khan. What was it called? Daiching Khitan Khan. They say they are determined to campaign against him. Yang Qi, beyond the passes, is probably in for a rough year."

Just then, the street outside the Governor-General's yamen erupted in commotion. Before the two could even ask what was happening or call for someone to go look, they saw Guard Battalion Acting Regional Commander Ding Zizhen running swiftly toward them.

He rushed to Hong Chengchou's side and whispered urgently, "Your Excellency, grave tidings — the Ningxia troops in the garrison city have mutinied. They have already surrounded the Grand Coordinator's yamen, and some are heading toward the Governor-General's yamen. Vice Military Defense Commissioner Ding has already gone to summon troops."

"I implore Your Excellency to take temporary refuge in the guard battalion and not return to the residence until the situation is calmed."