Chapter 725: The Contest

Changping fell in the most humiliating way.

Juyong Pass held — Ajige's main army was still west of the pass, battering the gate in fierce assaults but unable to break through, essentially trapped.

Yet Ajige and his twenty banner commanders were all battle-hardened veterans of immense daring; seeing themselves about to be pinned down, they began manipulating the Ming forces by sheer experience.

One moment they'd send a dozen men threading mountain paths to infiltrate east of Juyong Pass; the next they'd mass troops as if to storm Wei Prefecture, trying to stretch and tear the Ming's ironclad defensive line.

The Ming army performed superbly in this phase, because on this same battlefield, the Ming troops on the Juyong Pass line had already fought the Jin army two years earlier and knew their tactics well.

Moreover, the Ming commanders here were all at the rank of Mobile Corps General or Battalion Commander, and the troops they wielded were specialized anti-Jurchen units like the Slave-Hunting Battalions — Ajige simply could not pull them apart.

But right at this moment, Changping itself imploded.

The garrison of Changping's prefectural seat was crack troops, though over the years many veterans had been transferred out to quell rebellions — the Changping soldiers under Tang Jiuzhou and Zuo Liangyu, for instance, had all come from here.

Beyond that, two thousand surrendered troops had earlier been settled here — both frontier defectors and former bandits from the Central Plains.

At this critical juncture, that lot mutinied inside Changping city.

Regional Commander Chao Peichang fought a bloody battle through the streets, and the pass garrison rushed back in relief — a redeployment that served as a gift to Ajige.

At the basic level, Ming and Jin troops held no clear advantage over each other; victory came down to who made no mistakes. A gap in the Ming defensive line at a single mountain pass, lasting barely a few double-hours, was all Ajige seized upon — and in one leap, he burst into Changping Prefecture.

Once inside Changping, Ajige immediately split his forces into multiple columns: one pushed forward with shielded assault carts to besiege Changping city, while the rest fanned out to plunder, setting the whole region ablaze with beacon fires.

The Ming army could neither catch them nor block them.

Worst of all, the walls of Changping's prefectural seat did not hold for even a single day.

The Jin army attacked with savage intensity from the outset: they drove conscripted laborers to fill the moat and dig at the walls; elite troops shielded by assault carts and door-planks deflected cannon fire while raining arrows onto the battlements; at the same time, they pushed double-decker scaling ladders against the wall and thrust long poles lashed with powder kegs into the corner tower where the Ming stored their gunpowder.

The tower caught fire, and as the defenders on the wall scrambled to fight the blaze, the defense line slackened at its first moment of weakness — whereupon the Jin threw their main force onto the walls and stormed Changping's prefectural seat.

Meanwhile, beyond the frontier.

The first formal clash between the Marshal's army and the Later Jin army had also erupted, south of the Khorchin grasslands east of the Khingan Range.

Over the ten-odd days before this, Liu Chengzong and Hong Taiji had been exchanging letters continuously across the Khingan Range.

The letters held little substance — just laying out facts and reasoning.

Though both men knew perfectly well that in this age, reason counted for nothing, each man's reasoning was meant for others to hear, so they threw themselves into it with considerable gusto.

Hong Taiji's line was: "Your forces and Our Person have never borne enmity; we ought to join forces against the Ming. Why then do you repeatedly encroach upon Our Mongols, seize Our grazing lands, and plunder the people and herds of the Kharchin tribe who have submitted to Us? We have been unwilling to stoop to your level. If you know what's good for you and withdraw, We are willing to restore our former amity. If you persist in obstinate folly, then the soldiers who die in battle will not be killed by Us — they will be killed by you."

Liu the Lion's reply was equally sanctimonious: something about "I have ever acted with benevolence and righteousness, received the abdication of Ligdan Khutugtu Khan by virtue, and been acclaimed by all the tribes as Lord of the Mongols — truly the Mandate of Heaven and the hearts of men. The lands south of the Gobi are my domain. You sent troops to covet them last year and failed; this year you march east again. Did you think I truly would not come?"

Then the two began denouncing each other, each striving to prove to the surrounding tribes of the northern desert and the clans aligned with either side that he had always been amiable and it was the other who was at fault — that he alone was the true protector of the Mongols.

After two rounds of mutual accusation, Liu Chengzong was the first to resort to outright abuse.

He wrote that the Later Jin's old Khan who invaded the Ming was a traitor to his master, and if the ridgepole is crooked, the rafters will be too — that Hong Taiji had attacked the Mongols, betrayed alliances, seized the Khan's title, bullied the weak by invading Joseon, plundered his Jurchen neighbors in fratricidal strife, and imprisoned and slaughtered his own brothers and sisters in power struggles, making him a man loathed by Heaven and men alike.

This broke through Hong Taiji's defenses.

The main reason it broke him had nothing to do with the facts, but because Liu Chengzong actually had the gall to say such things about him.

It enraged Hong Taiji so much that he sat in his great tent bleeding from the nose in unstoppable gushes, filling an entire bowl.

Let's be honest — did you, Liu Chengzong, really think you were anything good?

A whole family of rebels, especially adept at skulduggery and thievery.

How many Fishskin Tatars have Our Eight Banners even captured? And how many Ming soldiers have you slaughtered in Shaanxi? Yet you turn around and accuse Us of "fratricidal strife among neighbors."

Ligdan Khan fled to Qinghai to ally with you against the Oirats — and after all that allying, somehow Ligdan Khan was gone. Did your Khan's title, his consorts, and those tens of thousands of Mongol women come to you by honest means?

Such a consummate villain — where did you find the face to speak of Us this way?

Then came the mutual abuse, a frenzy of airing dirty laundry.

Throughout this exchange of letters, the main forces of both armies remained stationary on opposite sides of the Khingan Range; only the forward outposts at the mountain passes clashed in small-scale skirmishes to gather intelligence.

It was not until both men had exhausted their vocabulary of insults and had roughly mapped the surrounding terrain and the enemy's troop dispositions that the two armies, on the same day, moved with an unspoken mutual understanding.

First, Hong Taiji's army pulled back from the Khingan passes and set an ambush along the banks of the Xar Moron River.

At the same moment, Liu Chengzong issued orders for his forces to push over the Khingan Range in a two-pronged pincer.

He knew this was a glaringly obvious bait, but even bait had to be swallowed.

He did not want a protracted mountain campaign against the Later Jin Eight Banners. His army carried a fair amount of pre-made field rations, but the total quantity was not large and could not sustain a long campaign.

So he pinned his hopes on pushing the battlefield out onto the Khorchin grasslands. Once across the Khingan Range, his army could free its hands to plunder the tribes aligned with the Jin state, striking wherever it pleased.

That would not only solve the provisions problem but also seize the initiative on the battlefield.

But the Later Jin Eight Banners were clearly not going to let him have his way.

In an extremely short time, the Eight Banners abandoned their battle formation by the Xar Moron River. Their various divisions rolled up their armor and raced through the mountains, covering eighty to a hundred and twenty li in a single day, converging to strike the Marshal army's detached northern force that was coordinating the pincer through the mountain paths.

When Liu Chengzong learned the Eight Banners had abandoned their formation, he was still stuck at a Khingan pass with his main force and the First Brigade. He immediately sent elite cavalry to force a path and raced eastward at full speed, terrified that the northern force would be lost.

That northern detached force was composed of Wang Cheng'en, He Huchen, and other Southern Desert Army units, plus several scattered battalions of the Marshal army not yet organized into brigades — their coordination was never as good as the main force's to begin with.

And they had no intention of coordinating. The mountain paths were rough; to quicken the pace of march, they had to advance in dispersed columns. Otherwise, the vanguard would clear the Khingan Range while the rear was still jammed up at Keshigten, and they would certainly be mauled.

Rather than reorganize them into two brigades on the fly, it was better to advance by individual battalions — even if trouble came, smaller units could run faster.

But Liu Chengzong forgot one thing: among the Marshal army's lot, only he was any good at running away.

By the time he led the main force out of the Khingan Range and dispatched Elinchin and Sechen Taiji with Mongol cavalry to screen the northern flank and scout the situation, the word that came back was that fighting had broken out there, and it was savage.

The northern force's marching order had Wang Cheng'en in the van, He Huchen bringing up the rear, and Ding Guodong, Feng Rang, and others in between.

But as they marched, Ding Guodong's men somehow ended up at the front, where they were hit by a charge of Later Jin cavalry that split their formation clean in two.

Then Eight Banners troops came charging from all over the hills, Wang Cheng'en's division threw itself into the fray right after, and in the chaos Wang Cheng'en himself was wounded by a heavy arrow. He Huchen's mounted column then joined the battle, and for a time the field was locked in a desperate, indecisive melee.

It was not until Feng Rang's wagon fort deployed, scattering the Eight Banners' Mongol cavalry that was attempting an envelopment, and volleys of musketry and cannon fire screened the battlefield, that Wang Cheng'en, He Huchen, and Ding Guodong's men were able to withdraw in good order into the formation.

Hong Taiji, observing the battlefield, was sick with regret.

The tactical situation — the swift envelopment — had unfolded almost exactly as he had envisioned, and the Eight Banners warriors had fought ferociously, smashing through an entire Marshal army battalion with thunderbolt force at the first clash and inflicting heavy damage on Wang Cheng'en's mounted column.

Yet the one thing he had not anticipated was that Liu Chengzong had a wagon fort — and had placed it with the detached force.

A wagon fort was nothing to fear; in fact, more often than not, it was a formation that was hard to put to any great use.

But in the current situation, once a wagon fort unfurled like a turtle shell, it was enough to leave the Eight Banners at a complete loss.

Because gnawing through a wagon fort was easy enough — it only took troops and time. They could build a wall outside, surround it, and simply wait for the enemy army to collapse on its own.

The problem was, Hong Taiji knew full well he had no time.

The most critical factor: cannons.

His troops moved fast, but the cannons were still far behind.

No — to be precise, he no longer had any cannons.

That had happened a little later, in another battle fought on the eastern side of the Xing'an Range.

A Later Jin force of over five hundred men, using one hundred and eighty oxen to drag nine newly cast red-barbarian cannons, was hurrying toward the battlefield when they encountered over seven hundred Ordos cavalry under Sazang Taiji.

One charge swept through, and Sazang Taiji's strength broke past a thousand.

Because the officer guarding the cannons was Baishar of the Plain White Banner.

He had originally been in the east, raiding the Wild Jurchens alongside Wuxiteyi, with only one hundred and seventy Eight Banners soldiers under his command, responsible for guarding captives and escorting them to Shenyang.

He had just reached Shenyang when Hong Taiji had already marched out. Since the earlier cannons had been taken away by Ajige, he was ordered to take the nine newly cast cannons and deliver over three hundred Wild Jurchen captives to the battlefield.

These captives were from the Hurha tribe. They had no weapons or armor — some did not even have clothes. They were meant to be issued blades and armor at the battle line and pushed to the front as expendable death soldiers.

But when the Ordos cavalry on Sazang Taiji's side charged, these men first grabbed stones and pelted the Eight Banners guards, beating the garrison troops into a routed, fleeing mess.

Of course, these Hurha captives had no desire to join the Marshal's army either. They were simply fleeing in the chaos when Sazang Taiji captured them and brought them back.

Liu the Lion had been racing north at a frantic pace, preparing to fight the final decisive battle against Hong Taiji there.

But then he received Sazang Taiji's report of capturing nine cannons, and suddenly his heart felt as steady as if he had swallowed a calming pill. With perfect composure, he gave the order to Erinchen and the others: "Advance on Shenyang."

He was certainly not planning to attack Shenyang. In fact, from beginning to end, he had never intended to march all the way to Shenyang to besiege the city.

Although the enormous silver and coin reserves at the Later Jin headquarters held immense allure for the Marshal's Office, fighting there would mean overextending too deeply, with the Xing'an Range cutting off the rear — retreat would also be troublesome.

Even if they could win a few battles, they would inevitably end up defeated and retreating, and might well have to flee in disarray.

Liu Chengzong had not forgotten his original purpose in raising troops: to seize all of Southern Mongolia in one sweep, and to wound the Later Jin's vitality as much as possible, so that for the next several years they would be unable to pose a major threat to the southern steppe again.

And to achieve that goal, the best option was of course to set Shenyang ablaze.

But that was far too risky. His officers and soldiers knew nothing of the terrain, climate, local customs, or human conditions around Shenyang.

So Liu the Lion's thinking was that, aside from striking the Later Jin's reinforcement units in this campaign, he would take the opportunity to cripple the Naiman, Aohan, and other tribes near the Xing'an Range, and most importantly, the Khorchin tribe.

That would fulfill his objective to the greatest possible extent.

But now, his flanking force had been pinned down by the enemy's main army on terrain where he was unwilling to fight a pitched battle.

In that case, he would certainly have to maneuver Hong Taiji a little.

In any case, without heavy cannons, the Later Jin could not chew through Feng Rang's men anytime soon. If he went straight for Khorchin on his end, it might not force Hong Taiji to turn back — perhaps it would even make him launch a ferocious assault on Feng Rang and the others.

But if a Mongol army group over ten thousand strong charged toward Shenyang, the situation would be entirely different.

He did not believe Hong Taiji could sit still. If he truly could sit still and just hammer Feng Rang's force relentlessly, then Liu Chengzong would actually be quite comfortable.

Erinchen and Sazang Taiji could at any moment turn north and split off forces toward Khorchin, while he himself, leading his main division, could also provide support to the flanking force at any time.

That way, no matter how he calculated it, he would not come out too badly.

But the battlefield always held variables.

Hong Taiji's scouts had long since detected Mongol cavalry operating around the battlefield, and this spurred Hong Taiji to intensify his fierce assault on Feng Rang's wagon fort.

In just two days, the Eight Banners troops broke through the wagon fort's outer perimeter three times, tearing open the abatis and wooden palisades. Once they even burst into the wagon formation itself — only to be driven back by wagon fort gunners who drew their waist sabers.

Seeing no possibility of annihilating this force in a short time, and worried that Liu Chengzong might use his numerical superiority to encircle him, Hong Taiji began to consider withdrawing elsewhere to choose another opportunity to fight.

Just then, he received a scout report: an endless, boundless mass of Mongol cavalry was surging mightily toward Shenyang.

Hong Taiji's instinct was that Liu Chengzong was trying to lure and maneuver him.

Because that bunch of Shaanxi paupers in the Marshal's Office — few of them had ever even served in the Guan-Ning region. How could they possibly know which routes through the Liao Marshes were passable in this season?

Never mind that it was less than a thousand li — ninety-nine out of a hundred of these men would never even reach Shenyang!

He even made a judgment, ordering his scouts to search harder within a two-hundred-li radius. He believed Liu Chengzong must be lying in ambush nearby with his army at that very moment, waiting for him to withdraw and turn back, ready to strike his troops on the march or to outflank and encircle his rearguard.

As a result, Hong Taiji, who had originally wanted to lift the siege, was now constrained by the threat and dared not withdraw.

Not only did he not dare withdraw, he also dared not launch another fierce assault on the wagon fort, turning nearly all his attention to scouting and defending against the surrounding situation.

Liu Chengzong was puzzled too. Seeing no movement for two days, he wondered — could Hong Taiji really be this unflappable?

Then he received intelligence sent back by Erinchen's messengers: they had gotten lost at the edge of the Liao Marshes.

Liu the Lion suddenly understood. No wonder the man was so unflappable — he was certain they could never even find Shenyang!

But Liu Chengzong did not even have time to get angry. He had just given the order for Erinchen to gather his soldiers and prepare to pull back for the main battle, when a letter from the east shattered the battlefield stalemate.

That evening, the Later Jin Eight Banners launched a fierce assault on the wagon fort, then struck camp and marched east that very night. Feng Rang's force, detecting the signs, lit signal fires, and immediately the entire battlefield came alive.

The letter Liu Chengzong received stated clearly: the lost Erinchen had led his troops straight into over five thousand newly recruited Khorchin and allied tribal enemies of the Later Jin, and annihilated them in the marshlands along the Qing River — a complete and total victory!