Chapter 772: All Things Strive and Burgeon

Strange.

Liu Chengzong combed through every official dispatch.

From distant Taimeng Garrison on the right bank of the Tomu River, to the Ü-Tsang Regional Command above the snowy mountains; from Yulin City on the desert's edge, to Hanzhong Prefecture south of the Qinling Mountains.

Across four provinces and nine circuits of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia, he could not find a single place at peace.

Commandants and colonels everywhere were either fighting battles, on the march to fight battles, or suppressing bandits in their own garrisons — there were even units like the Chijin Garrison beyond the Gansu border that were in the middle of putting down a rebellion.

Liu the Lion saw this novel phrasing and could not help thinking Kang Liangfu had a fine sense of humor, even using a word like "putting down a rebellion" for this.

The Chijin Garrison — Liu Chengzong had rebuilt it himself; he knew perfectly well what kind of place it was.

Seven hundred li of desert in every direction.

A full five hundred herdsmen-bandits, desert robbers, Great Ming deserters, Mongol stragglers, and other crack troops had gathered there, reinforced by three hundred Heavenly Soldiers of the Marshal's Army, and together they formed the Chijin Garrison.

Even by the widely-traveled Marshal's Command's standards, that godforsaken place was the worst of the worst — unfit for human life, its only produce being kerosene, saltpeter, and gold.

The sole hope of survival for the eight-hundred-odd souls of the Chijin Garrison was to enter Jiayu Pass and buy grain.

And they were rebelling?

Then Liu the Lion looked closer — and it really was a rebellion.

Only the ones rebelling were not the Chijin Garrison, but the Yarkent Khanate's Governor of Hami, Baba Khan.

As for the Chijin Garrison — the Chijin Garrison was just as absurd; it had actually begun to show signs of prosperity, with Dunhuang as its center.

What the hell kind of sorcery was this!

And the bizarre circumstances of this rebellion and its suppression naturally stemmed from a casual move of Liu Chengzong's.

With the trade route between the Marshal's Command and the Oirat in place, hundreds of thousands of living souls migrated back and forth along this route every year — Liu Chengzong knew the Chijin Garrison would prosper sooner or later.

It was just that this was a little too soon.

Because Chokur had been there.

During his short stay at the Chijin Garrison, Chokur had dug several Taiji Wells... It sounded like a simple, trivial matter, yet it was a great deed that neither Liu Chengzong nor Baatur Khong Tayiji had managed to accomplish.

Because digging wells in the seven-hundred-li desert around the Chijin Garrison was no wise undertaking.

It was like a man traveling who, camping in the wilds for a single night, would not build a house on the spot.

When Liu the Lion believed Dunhuang would flourish again, he was thinking that one day enough people would camp in the wilds, and naturally someone would build a house.

But he would not build one, and so naturally he would not repair wells — because no one would use them even if repaired, and the wells would just get buried by sand.

Nothing but wasted effort that drained the soldiers' strength.

Chokur, however, was not that kind of man. He cared nothing for your strength or lack of it — if he could not get water, he wanted a well. Before the well was even finished, he entered the pass to find Liu Chengzong and get himself a beating.

He left over a hundred subordinates behind, who spent a winter outside the pass. When he came back out, he did not even go to Dunhuang — he simply summoned his men at Guazhou and returned to the Tianshan Mountains.

He never drank a single mouthful from those Taiji Wells.

But it did not matter — at least at the moment he gave the order to dig, Chokur was satisfied.

The wells Chokur ordered dug — he never drank from them, but someone did.

That someone was Liu the Lion's old superior officer, He Renlong, who was leading troops toward Yarkent.

Liu Chengzong was a man who repaid kindness. When he left Yuhe Fort years ago, He Renlong had asked no questions about his armor and weapons and had filled his quivers full — that was honorable enough.

So he gave He Renlong a Regional Commander's commission, filled the quivers of the three thousand former government troops under him, supplemented the two thousand militia with firearms, and dispatched him to advance on Turpan.

Liu Chengzong's habitual hypocrisy was still at work. Though he sent the force toward Yarkent, he never explicitly told He Renlong to declare war on Yarkent... It was basically a state of "go over there and do whatever you like."

In truth, within He Renlong's army there was also a small handful of ruthless men Liu Chengzong knew nothing about — for instance, Li Zicheng's missing good friend, Gao Jie.

He Renlong, of course, knew exactly what he was there to do: carve out territory.

He went straight in and plundered Turpan.

The most absurd part was that the general He Renlong fought was not Aji Khan, who ruled Turpan, but Chai Shihua — a defeated Ming general who had fled Gansu and escaped to the Western Regions, once beaten by Liu Chengzong's forces.

When Chai Shihua saw these people, he went mad.

He had fled from the Zhuanglang River to Gansu, with Liu Chengzong's troops chasing him the whole way. After Gansu fell, Chai Shihua fled all the way to Hami beyond Jiayu Pass, only to find that Baba Khan, who had collaborated with him in smuggling outside the pass, had been tormented beyond recognition — searching the entire city, he could not find a single suit of iron armor.

Chai Shihua finally fled to Turpan, where he was taken in by the Governor of Turpan, Aji Khan, who enfeoffed him as an Emir noble and stationed him at Liuzhong.

Before he could enjoy that pleasant life for more than a couple of days, He Renlong's vanguard of three hundred cavalry crossed five hundred li of desert, and with dust clouds trailing, bore down on Liuzhong.

It was not that He Renlong did not want to launch a kingdom-destroying campaign against Yarkent with five thousand troops — he simply lacked the capacity.

If Hami had any capacity to support troops, Baba Khan would never have allowed a whole procession of people — Baatur Khong Tayiji, Liu Chengzu, Chokur, He Renlong — to come and go as they pleased.

By the same token, neither did Liuzhong.

Liuzhong was the ancient State of Jushi Anterior — a fine place, an oasis, rich in everything: iron, copper, lead, coal, saltpeter, kerosene, and all kinds of minerals. Everything was abundant; one strike of the pick and it was there.

It was just short on people. Even if captured, it lacked the foundation to supply five thousand troops as a forward base.

He Renlong's five thousand troops were, in practice, widely dispersed across the vast lands of Turpan, Hami, Chijin Garrison Dunhuang, and Tianshan Garrison Barkol.

On the contrary, over on Turpan Aji Khan's side, once they figured out where these people came from, their first reaction was to think this bunch was mentally deranged.

You — from the Great Ming — came all this way to attack me?

A mere Zhangye was wealthier than Turpan by who knew how many times.

A rich magnate robbing a pauper — how was this any different from Ming troops crossing the border to plunder the Mongols?

How could anyone under heaven do such a thing?

Aji Khan thought these people were insane.

Though Chai Shihua repeatedly urged caution, saying that Liu Chengzong's crew were all villains and rebels, Aji Khan remained steadfastly determined to negotiate peace with Liu Chengzong.

Rebels and villains were even better, in fact.

As the ruler of Turpan, Aji Khan cared nothing for the state of that Great Ming to the east.

He cared only for the Golden Road — only whether the Great Ming's successor was willing to accept his tribute.

As long as they were willing, then never mind if the Great Ming's successor was a rebel or a bandit — they were all fine, upstanding people.

It might even be better if they were former rebels — negotiating tribute would be a little easier, the tribute party and goods could be a bit larger, and they might not even need to smuggle anymore. It wasn't impossible that the Gold Road could go straight to official operation!

If He Renlong had personally led the army on this western campaign, the matter might have been settled.

But as it happened, facing unfamiliar people and terrain, He Renlong couldn't stake all his capital. The three hundred vanguard troops he dispatched were led by Gao Jie and Li Chengdong.

When these two faced the household servant Chai Shihua sent to convey his wish to negotiate peace, they drove him out with beatings. Two days later, their troops reached Turpan and sacked two towns.

A joke — if we make peace, won't we have to go back to Gansu? And then wouldn't Li Zicheng be able to find us?

We absolutely must fight our way in!

He Renlong was locked in fierce battle in the Western Regions, sending streams of captives to Hami, and then on through Hami to Chijin Garrison.

Because Chijin Garrison needed people to pan for gold.

Kang Liangfu was quite anxious about this. He had been busy all last year, and what little gold he panned was all snatched by Chokur. Though the Grand Marshal hadn't blamed him, he hadn't praised him for a job well done either.

So he needed more people to pan for gold.

But Chijin Garrison had no more grain, so the people coming to pan for gold would certainly rebel, and Kang Liangfu would have no choice but to suppress them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Marshal's headquarters border, Ü-Tsang was also at war.

The Prefect of Kangning, Liu Jiusi, received a plea for aid from Bäyan Taiji, just as the Commander-in-Chief Shi Xiang, appointed by Liu Chengzong, arrived in Nangqên.

According to the original plan, Shi Xiang's commandery headquarters had only five thousand troops. They were to complete part of their recruitment in Kangning Prefecture, and only after reaching Lhasa could they muster a full brigade.

But upon receiving the plea for aid, Shi Xiang had to leave the recruitment to Liu Jiusi to handle slowly. He led his troops to garrison Chamdo, and under Li Laochai's guidance, dispatched a thousand men of the advance force to Lhasa, from where they would continue pushing westward.

To be honest, Liu Chengzong found this battle report even more absurd than the news that Chijin Garrison was suppressing a rebellion.

Because he simply could not figure out what the three Hulochi brothers were doing in Ü-Tsang... It had been years now. Ever since he returned via Kangning, Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningxia, the Tianshan Basin, and the Monan grasslands had all been taken.

Those three of the Hulochi family were still playing hide-and-seek with the Tsangpa Khan in Ü-Tsang.

But there really was no helping it.

Those three brothers were all the type who wouldn't release the hawk until they saw the hare. It was only with this plea for aid that Bäyan Taiji finally sent out the maps of the Ü-Tsang region that they had drawn.

One look told Liu Chengzong that the territory was indeed vast.

The map they handed over was only slightly smaller than all the territory he had conquered over these years.

This even made him think more highly of Bäyan Taiji's military talent, because both were extremely difficult.

The enemies he faced on his side were stronger, but what Bäyan faced was a worse environment.

Marching distances were shorter, combat endurance was poorer, and non-combat attrition was higher.

At present, the three Hulochi brothers had pushed the Tsangpa Khan out of the Lhasa River valley and established trade relations and unofficial monastic exchanges with the Brugpa tribe south of the Himalayas and the three kingdoms of Nepal.

Their military edge had once pointed straight at the Oros Military-Civilian Marshal Headquarters in western Ü-Tsang — that is, the small kingdom of Ladakh.

But the shortcoming of Hulochi's insufficient troop strength had grown ever more apparent over these years of campaigning. They could win field battles but could not hold territory long-term, and without efficient means of governance, everywhere was only nominally submitted. They would submit when he attacked, and ignore him when he didn't.

That was why they had no choice but to request military support from the Marshal's headquarters.

Liu Chengzong understood, in truth, that unless absolutely necessary, the three brothers were unwilling to borrow troops from him.

It was strange, really. By all logic, in terms of personal relations, the one closest to Liu Chengzong was Bäyan Taiji, who led the army, while the most estranged was Little Lhazang.

Yet when it came to accepting Liu Chengzong's direct rule, the one most inclined to submit to the Marshal's headquarters was also Little Lhazang, while Bäyan Taiji, who had actual contact with him, was the most resistant.

After all, Little Lhazang operated on a different system of identification. He knew deep down that, first, Liu Chengzong would not kill him, and second, would not send him to the battlefield. In fact, because the Marshal's headquarters needed someone like him to stabilize Ü-Tsang, his living conditions would not change much.

Not to mention he had long since made plans to be reincarnated as a son in Liu Chengzong's family after his death.

Bäyan Taiji was different. Once he truly submitted, Liu Chengzong would certainly send him out of Tibet to fight. With his troop numbers and strength, he was invincible in Ü-Tsang, but outside, the change in warfare would likely get him beaten to a pulp.

To say nothing else, what if Liu Chengzong simply pulled him from the snowy mountains to fight in the basin? Four months of marching, and an utterly exhausted army meeting the enemy on the battlefield — how could they not lose?

Therefore, even though the Chamdo line was blockaded by Kangning Prefecture and submitting to the increasingly powerful Marshal's headquarters was the general trend, Bäyan Taiji was willing to drag this trend out as long as possible.

After all, how could being someone else's hired leg ever be as comfortable as being the boss yourself?

So Ü-Tsang was like squeezing toothpaste. Though they understood the general trend and wouldn't resist too brazenly, they still introduced the Marshal's headquarters bit by bit, relinquishing authority section by section.

Liu the Lion had nothing much to say about this. He truly was unwilling to send troops there to fight. Being able to take Ü-Tsang through subtle, gradual influence was already a good thing.

As for time, even if it stretched to ten or twenty years, taking a generation or two, it didn't matter.

In Liu Chengzong's heart, he had only one grand wish for Ü-Tsang: that it not delay him from someday placing the Minister of the Rites into India.

And aside from the distant borders, the interior of the Marshal's headquarters was the same as ever — fighting everywhere.

Ren Quan'er, in charge of assaulting Yansui Garrison, had achieved results two months prior.

Wang Yongji, the Battalion Commander of the Second Brigade's Reinforcement Battalion, had fired a cannon during the siege and killed General Wang, who was defending the southeast corner tower of Yulin.

But exactly which General Wang of the Yulin Wang military clan had been killed by the cannon, the army outside the city still didn't know. After all, there were a full six men surnamed Wang who had served as General in that city, making it very hard to identify this lucky General.

The battle report Ren Quan'er sent made Liu the Lion's expression involuntarily turn solemn.

The defensive disposition of Yulin City was excessively luxurious — they were using full Generals to defend the corner towers.

But Liu Chengzong knew that those Generals, Colonels, and Brigade Commanders of hereditary rank and stipend all understood very well that Yulin could not hold. Its fall was only a matter of time.

The entire defensive system of Yansui Garrison had been pierced through. A single garrison city was surrounded on all sides. Even crammed with over a dozen Generals and several dozen Colonels and Brigade Commanders, they could only rely on experience to tactically see through some tricks, unable to change the reality of having neither reinforcements nor provisions.

Their refusal to surrender, their resolve to defend to the death, was nothing more than... doing what they knew could not be done.

And by last month, the entire Yansui Garrison had long since been completely taken. In some places, life had even returned to normal.

Only Yulin City remained, still holding out to the death.

And Ren Quan'er simply besieged it relentlessly.

On this point, Ren Quan'er had inherited Liu Chengzong's disposition for helping others fulfill their wishes. He had prepared fifty fine coffins outside the city, intending to let those loyal ministers and renowned generals die a worthy death.

In the Guannei Circuit, Li Zicheng, who had slipped into Yunyang the previous year, had broken out.

He no longer dared to fight to the bitter end against people like Lu Xiangsheng and Zu Dale.

With over five hundred riders, he entered Henan, stirred up over ten thousand men, and attacked Luoyang. But like Zhang Yichuan, he too was startled by Luoyang's city walls.

Afterward, he clashed with the Henan General Zhang Renxue, winning first and losing later. Part of his force also contracted a plague, and with only a thousand riders remaining, he fled to the outskirts of Tong Pass.

Zhang Tianlin, the Guannei General whose hands were itching and who was stifled from inaction, dared not let him enter the pass. He sent someone to point out a remote mountain valley for Li Zicheng to crawl into and lick his wounds, then dispatched his own troops to ambush Zhang Renxue at Lingbao, seizing over a thousand horses in return.

Meanwhile on the Hanzhong route, Regional Commander Luo Rucai and his subordinate officers displayed awe-inspiring might. On the thirteenth day after entering Hanzhong, they stormed the strategic stronghold of Hanzhong Prefecture City, allowing Hanzhong Prefect Jiang Yingchang to assume his post smoothly.

By now, Prince Rui no longer had any chance to cry out "Zhenzi, save me!"

He had been escorted under guard into Xi'an Prefecture City.

Luo Rucai's battle report was spectacularly impressive.

Luo Rucai first appointed his subordinate Li Rujue — a man both cunning and ruthless — as vanguard commander. He had Li lead troops dressed in tattered rags to pose as a peasant army outside the city... That battalion didn't even need disguising; they were originally a peasant army, just an experienced one.

The defending troops, having been suppressed by Gao Yingxiang for so long, were already bursting with pent-up fury. The moment they spotted a group that looked easy to bully, they immediately sallied forth to exterminate the bandits.

But they hadn't pursued far beyond the city before Zhang Shangxuan's Zhengan Army, lying in ambush on the flank, pinned them to the ground and gave them a savage beating. When they tried to retreat and regroup, Zu Chengyong's Liaodong cavalry, wielding iron whips and flails, gave them another fierce thrashing.

In the end, Luo Rucai's Brute Brigade simply rode their horses straight onto the walls of Hanzhong City, which had been collapsed by the great flood.

Hanzhong Prefecture — taken.

Good evening!

(End of chapter)