Chapter 750: Riding the Tide

June 11, afternoon.

A warm wind whipped up the sand; yellow dust swelled to the sky.

The Eight Banners army split into twelve columns and trudged west, heads down.

On the very day Liu Chengzong's troops reached the desert and resolved to make a detour, Hong Taiji ordered all units to rest and reorganize on the grass flats for sixteen double-hours.

It was not out of tactical consideration — he simply had no mind for tactics or anything of the sort.

Because he had received a letter sent from Shengjing five days earlier. Wei Qi, who had stayed behind to guard Shengjing, wrote that beacon fires had been raised at Fushun Pass, and the city of Hetu Ala in the old Jianzhou homeland had been burned.

Before the Eight Banners' main force had marched beyond the border, Hong Taiji had ordered troops transferred from the niru outside the passes to reinforce the capital. Over four hundred soldiers coming from Huifa City, not even wearing armor, encountered nearly ten thousand enemy cavalry at the Hun River outside Fushun Pass. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, only two survived to flee into Liaodong.

Who could have imagined they'd get beaten up right in their old Jianzhou home!

Later, Wei Qi sent troops beyond the pass to investigate. They found that an army had indeed split into two routes: a wagon corps deployed defensively at the mouth of the Hun River, while cavalry advanced down the Suzi River. In a single day, they overran the stockades of Jiefan, Gule, and Bama'erdun in succession, closing in on Hetu Ala.

The village men on the banner rolls had been pulled away by Hong Taiji, and the women and children who could shoot bows and firearms had been transferred by Wei Qi. All that remained were the weakest of the weak and the oldest of the old.

Zuo Liangyu's Batu Assault Battalion couldn't even be bothered to strike them; they simply let Little Jamusu's Darkhan Army do the work.

The urgent report from Shengjing struck Hong Taiji's head like a heavy hammer.

It dazed him even more than Liu Chengzong crossing the river in a sandstorm and looking up to see the Eight Banners' single-file long-serpent formation spread right across his face.

Hong Taiji could not figure it out.

Dorgon, however, came very close to grasping the key.

He believed they had been deceived — the scout cavalry strung out ahead to seal the battlefield was nothing but a decoy. Up to this point, Dorgon was completely correct.

But then he went astray. With absolute conviction, he told Hong Taiji, "This is luring the tiger from the mountain!"

He said that Liu the Barbarian had calculated they could never catch his supply train, so upon leaving the border he ordered the captives to escort the supplies straight west, while he himself led his elite troops straight east. From outside Fushun Pass, he would first strike Jianzhou, then attack Shengjing, leaving them unable to tend to both head and tail.

If they turned back to relieve Shengjing, the supply train would safely cross the Khingan Range, and his elite troops could easily escape. If they chased the supplies directly, they might not catch them anyway — and they would lose Shengjing.

He laid out this analysis in Hong Taiji's field command tent, clear and persuasive in every point.

Therefore, Dorgon proposed that they should immediately pull back to defend Shengjing first, and not let Liu Chengzong keep running wild like this. If they mishandled it, the destruction of the state might be just a matter of days.

In truth, talk of the state's destruction was more or less Dorgon exaggerating to alarm.

The real issue was that Dodo was a hands-off nonentity, and Dorgon was the de facto banner lord of the Two White Banners — which were the Jianzhou Jurchens of the Two Yellow Banners from the old Khan's era. The Suzi River region was their homeland.

Even though no one lived there anymore, that didn't mean bandits from the west could just burn it as they pleased.

The Two White Banners were now desperate to return. As banner lord, Dorgon at the very least had to make his stance clear to Hong Taiji: go back!

Dodo was a staunch supporter of this proposal.

It was not that the youngest prince of the Aisin family thought Dorgon was right — in truth, he lacked the judgment for that.

He simply wanted to go back to Shengjing to listen to operas.

Dodo had never wanted to fight this war from the very start. Every single flaw possessed by every member of the Aisin clan — this spoiled youngest son had them all.

Greedy for play, greedy for money, cruel, lecherous, fond of mischief, incompetent in battle, skilled at fleeing, and inaccurate with a bow.

He once shot an arrow at a roe deer and hit Dorgon in the thigh, putting his own brother flat on his back for months.

Years ago, when Hong Taiji asked his brothers for strategic advice — Mongolia, Joseon, the Great Ming — to lay out a campaign plan.

Everyone else said strike Mongolia first, then conquer Joseon, and only after building up enough resources, fight the Great Ming.

Not Dodo. Purely profit-driven, he thought Mongolia and Joseon were both dirt poor. Ignore them, he said, and just go hit the one with money.

Fighting the Guanning Army and fighting Beijing were both fighting, so they might as well just hit Beijing directly. The Jinzhou army, he couldn't beat — the memory still made his heart quail.

So he saw absolutely no point in provoking that dirt-poor, ruthless Liu Chengzong.

Especially by now.

Although Dodo had zero military ability whatsoever, that did not stop him from doubting Hong Taiji's military ability.

He had followed his fourth brother on campaign for over a month. One moment this place was burning, the next moment that place was being looted. Every day they force-marched north and south, led by the nose until their tongues were hanging out.

After all this time in the field, they still could not find where Liu Chengzong was — they had not even seen his face once.

Dodo had one good point: having made a fool of himself in circles among his brothers since childhood, he never considered losing face a problem. He had immunity.

"That Liu Chengzong is like a ghost, drifting back and forth across the battlefield with tens of thousands of men. Unless he wants you to catch him, a man you can't catch in three days, you won't catch in three months."

Dodo said to Dorgon, "And Fourth Brother still won't accept it. Our old home's been torched, and he's still gritting his teeth in pursuit. Even if he catches up, can he snatch the money back or what?"

Hong Taiji did not much care about the opinions of Jianzhou and the Two White Banners. His power base was the Two Yellow Banners, descended from the Haixi Hada tribe.

But he truly could not make up his mind.

After all, Dorgon's judgment was not without basis.

The army that was ravaging Jianzhou had appeared precisely several days after they themselves had marched beyond the border — a timeline that matched the time Liu Chengzong would need to rush to the Fushun border region after leaving the frontier.

The situation gave Hong Taiji a terrible headache, so frantic that boils erupted on his rear from the heat.

He wondered, could this Liu Chengzong really be a god of war? Burn Liaoyang, then strike Jianzhou, use his supply train to draw the main force out of Liaodong, then turn around and hit Shengjing?

Could he truly toy with him in the palm of his hand?

The Chongde Emperor refused to accept it.

He sent Ubai of the Vanguard Battalion to probe ahead. Breaking through the scout cavalry screen, Ubai ran headlong into Liu Chengzong's Northern Frontier Battalion troops left to the west. In the sudden assault, he gained a slight upper hand, but He Huchen fought back with the imposing air of reinforcements at his flank and frightened Ubai into retreat.

This on-the-spot reconnaissance intelligence gave Hong Taiji a reason not to withdraw.

Mainly, he was well aware that even withdrawing now would be useless.

For one, Shenyang had no troops at the moment. As long as Fushun Pass was breached, eight hundred cavalry could drive straight through along the Hun River and pierce it end to end.

Hong Taiji had pulled out virtually every man on the banner rolls; Liaodong no longer had any proper garrison force left.

For another, Liu Chengzong's attacks were ferocious. Taking the strong city of Liaoyang and separately raiding the outskirts of Liaoyang and Shenyang had taken only three days. By the time he led the army back to relieve them, he feared he would return to find only Shengjing reduced to ashes.

In his heart, he agreed with Dorgon's proposal to pull back, but he was unwilling to return empty-handed and fight such a humiliating, frustrating campaign.

So he halted for a day, waiting for new intelligence from the rear.

In the early hours of this morning, news came from the rear that left him half relieved and half worried.

The good news was that the army hadn't attacked Fushun Pass — it hadn't even reached Hetu Ala before withdrawing north. It seemed this wasn't Liu Chengzong's main force, but rather a detached force he'd split off.

This meant Liu Chengzong was still within the realm of what a man could handle.

Splitting one's forces — getting the enemy to split their forces — is exactly the outcome any commander would scheme and strive by every means to achieve, and Liu Chengzong had gone and done it to himself!

And the bad news.

The reason that Marshal Army detachment hadn't attacked Hetu Ala was that there was no need — ahem... Hetu Ala had rebelled on its own.

Contrary to what Liu Chengzong had imagined, the old Jianzhou territory held hardly any Jurchen Jusen at all. There were, however, some Han people under the Eight Banners — former Ming troops.

Back when Nurhaci invaded Liaodong, he placed the Ming troops who surrendered willingly under Li Yongfang's command. At its height, that force exceeded ten thousand men.

Much like when he took Liaoyang and moved the Han residents from the south city to the north city.

Who'd be stupid enough to not stay in a good place?

Li Yongfang rendered tremendous service to Nurhaci. Men like Sun Degong, the three Shi Tingzhu brothers, and the cities of Liaoyang were all subverted by him. He became a son-in-law of the Jin state and established an Efu residence in Hetu Ala.

However, in Nurhaci's later years, because the old Khan was killing Han people and Li Yongfang was Han himself, Han uprisings everywhere brought much suspicion upon him. Politically, he gradually lost influence, his power far diminished from before.

After Hong Taiji succeeded to the throne, he employed Li Yongfang again, but was deeply wary of them, isolating them outside Liaodong.

The one he mainly employed was Li Yongfang's eldest son, Li Yangeng, also called Yingge.

He rose to the rank of Jalan Zhangjing, one of the three Chengzheng of the Ministry of Personnel.

But the Six Daicing Ministries were much like the Marshal's Six Offices — the ones truly in charge were still the Banner Lord Beile. The vast majority of official posts merely provided a rank; their actual function was extremely limited.

Two years ago, Li Yongfang died of illness. Yingge took command of the six niru he left behind, farming and garrisoning at Hetu Ala.

He was the one who rebelled at Hetu Ala.

Li Yangeng felt his end was near.

When his father surrendered to Jin, he was just a boy of ten or so — at the age when one distinguishes good from evil and burns with righteous passion. He watched Nurhaci go mad, and later Amin and others called his father a barbarian slave. He found everything about the Eight Banners nobility detestable and had been secretly sabotaging them all along.

During Nurhaci's reign, he helped the Han people of Fuzhou flee the Later Jin — that was the root of the suspicion Nurhaci held against Li Yongfang.

After Hong Taiji succeeded, he helped the Liu Xingzuo brothers escape to Dongjiang, and even passed intelligence to the Great Ming on the eve of the Dalinghe campaign.

He'd been safe before — first, because Li Yongfang shielded him; second, because the Han faction within the Later Jin was strong; and third, because of the external threat from Dongjiang.

Now Li Yongfang was gone, the Liaodong Han had been mostly slaughtered by Nurhaci, and those Dongjiang troops — Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, Shang Kexi — had even surrendered to the Later Jin.

The matter of him helping the Liu Xingzuo brothers was known to many in Dongjiang. It could no longer be concealed.

His death was near.

So when the forces of Zuo Liangyu, Little Jamusu, and Feng Rang advanced to within forty li of Hetu Ala, Li Yangeng set the city ablaze in response, took his six niru, dug up his father's coffin, and joined up with Zuo Liangyu.

The truth was, the reason Zuo Liangyu's appearance outside Fushun Pass at that moment caused Dorgon's misjudgment was nothing other than this: he was lost.

Feng Rang, Zuo Liangyu, Little Jamusu — all three of these fellows were outsiders.

Once they entered the mountains east of Kaiyuan, they got lost in the deep forest. They were delayed three days before finding the Hun River.

Liu Chengzong had thought Feng Rang, having fought at Sarhu, would know the area well. In truth, he was just as blind. What Feng Rang knew was the route from Shenyang to Fushun — that was how they'd marched at Sarhu back then. They hadn't gone far beyond the border before getting pummeled.

He didn't know the lands beyond the border at all.

By contrast, the relay riders Liu Chengzong sent to order their withdrawal — moving in small squads, unafraid of enemy detection exposing their movements, skirting along the border wall — actually reached Sarhu a day earlier than Zuo Liangyu.

They scurried everywhere unable to find their own men, terrified of being caught by hunters, hiding in the mountains nearly scared to death.

So by the time Zuo Liangyu and the others actually began their operation, they already knew Liu Chengzong was preparing to withdraw beyond the border.

Thus they struck fast and withdrew fast, raided a few stockades, and just as Hetu Ala spontaneously combusted, they scooped up the captives and surrendered troops and ran for it.

Hong Taiji did not yet know about the things Li Yangeng had been doing behind the scenes. Seeing this news, both he and Dorgon went berserk.

Dorgon oversaw the Ministry of Personnel. Upon hearing the report, his face went pale with shock: "Ying... Yingge has turned? It must be false?"

Even if Kong Youde or Shang Kexi turned, neither of them would have imagined Li Yangeng turning.

He was Li Yongfang's son! Their entire family had intermarried with the Aisin Gioro clan — they were an Efu family. How could they rebel?

Both men were exceedingly quick-witted. Almost in an instant, through the phenomenon of Li Yangeng's defection, they saw the fundamental problem the Daicing state would face next: Han and Mongols alike could not be trusted.

Since Hong Taiji ascended the throne, he had placed great trust in the Han and Mongol commanders under his rule.

Because after Nurhaci's selection process, those who could be driven to revolt had revolted, those who could be driven to flee had fled, and those who could be killed had been killed.

Those who remained were mostly men who had committed unforgivable crimes against the Great Ming or the Northern Yuan, and had shaved their heads. Only the Later Jin could serve as their refuge, so employing them gave great peace of mind.

Take someone like Li Yangeng — as Li Yongfang's son, let alone defecting, even if surrounded by Ming troops on the battlefield, he would have to fight to the death. He had no chance of surrender at all.

But now the situation was different.

These traitors to the Great Ming — no matter how great their crimes against the Ming, they amounted at most to what happened in a single garrison of Liaodong: surrendering a city, fighting a few battles.

Could that possibly be a greater crime than Liu Chengzong seizing the Three Frontiers and trampling five garrisons?

That was simply a small traitor meeting a great traitor — blending in without the slightest resistance.

Crucially, the head-shaving, their trump card, was useless against Liu Chengzong too.

According to Kong Youde's report after fleeing back, the troops under Liu Chengzong looked somewhere between Ming troops and Jin troops — very much like Jin troops wearing Ming armor.

What Daišan had seen near Shengjing were all Mongol soldiers with various braided hairstyles.

And this fellow was a Great Khan to boot.

Just thinking about this made Hong Taiji's blood pressure spike with rage.

You're a perfectly good Han man — you don't become Emperor, you lower yourself to become the Great Khan of the northern barbarians, and then you imitate them by raiding inside the border.

You caused me, when I proclaimed myself Emperor, to be mocked in a public notice by that eunuch Gao Qiqian, who said I was on the same level as Zhang Zhi.

Leading northern barbarians to strike Shaanxi — what difference is there between you and that Great Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan, who led Han troops to attack Karakorum to contest the Khan title?

Of course, there was a difference: Liu Chengzong's claim to the Khan title was legitimate.

Liu Chengzong was the designated successor in Ligdan Khan's will — a will recognized at the Khurultai assembly, a Khan voted into power and supported by the various Taijis.

As of this morning, Hong Taiji had sealed the news of Li Yangeng's defection and decided to continue the advance.

On the march, he adjusted the formation, placing all Han troops with firearms and cannons — over ten thousand men, including Geng Zhongming — in the very front, watched by Eight Banners and Mongol regiments to prevent chaos when battle was joined.

A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit — from now on, he must be more cautious in employing Han people.

Hong Taiji was about to walk the same old road as Nurhaci.

Just as they were advancing south in three horizontal formations with heads down, the three formation commanders — Jin Yuhe, Third-rank Jalan Zhangjing of the Han Army on the far right wing; Wu Keshan of the Mongol tribes; and Hooge of the Plain Blue Banner — successively received reports from their soldiers that vague figures of men and horses were moving through the windblown sand to their right rear.

Hooge dispatched several cavalrymen to break away from the column and climb a dune to look into the distance. They had barely glanced when they came tumbling and scrambling back to the ranks: "The enemy, it's the enemy — it's Liu Chengzong!"

There was no need for them to report back.

To their right rear, beyond the rolling dunes, within the dust haze, first the tall banners emblazoned with the two characters "Marshal" loomed faintly, then row upon row of spearheads.

The tall helmet plumes of their bowl-shaped helmets flickered in and out of view atop the dunes. Cavalry clad in red armor sat astride powerful Hequ warhorses, their bodies rising and falling with the horses' rhythm. The body armor and thigh-guard plates beneath the red cloth rubbed and clashed together, producing a continuous, rhythmic, crisp clatter.

The Marshal's cavalry chewed on dried meat mixed with grit as they closed in on the enemy forces.

The sound of striking iron gradually became audible. The right wing of the Daicing army formation stirred with unrest; men looked toward the flank in alarm, but everything was hidden within the dust haze, and none could tell where the sound was coming from.

Dispatch riders galloped through the Eight Banners formation.

Suddenly, cannons boomed, and firelight burst from the dunes.

Iron shot shrieked through the air. Dozens of iron balls slammed into the army formation from the other side of the dust haze. The wailing of horns suddenly rose, and together with the thumping of waist drums, it seemed to envelop the battlefield from all directions.

Hong Taiji rushed out of the imperial tent drawn by oxcarts and raised his eyes to gaze north.

The wind came, and the dust parted.

The vanguard cavalry galloped like torrents, sweeping down from the dunes with snakes of sand coiling in their wake.

Behind them, the vast main force spread out in a horizontal line stretching beyond sight. Before the troops and horses even arrived, the dust they raised surged like a tidal wave, cascading down from midair and engulfing the three battalions of the right wing.

?? Good morning!

? (End of chapter)