Chapter 35: The Liaodong Pacification Plan

“This has cost you again. That pearl must be worth several hundred taels, right? With how things are, I won’t be able to pay you back any time soon!”

Yang Xin said outside the Xu residence.

Of course, there was no sense of indebtedness on his face.

“A little money is just a worldly possession. Your ‘uncle’ must have already gone to Consort Zheng to embellish the story. Now we are just missing a corroborating witness. Xu Xianchun has no connection to you at all; his testimony will make Consort Zheng believe it. Consort Zheng and the censors have been fighting for decades; they are like fire and water. Plus, she has some goodwill towards you. With her temper, she will certainly not admit defeat to the censors. The fiercer their fight, the greater your hope. But if Consort Zheng fails, your ending will be equally miserable.”

Chen Yujie said.

“Who’s afraid? At worst, I can just run away!”

Yang Xin said with a fierce smile.

The walls of Beijing could not stop him. They were only about ten meters high. With a rope and a grappling hook, he could be up in ten seconds. As long as he made sure not to be controlled by others, he could run whenever he wanted.

So he was not afraid of making a big scene.

If he didn’t make a big scene, how could he enjoy the show?

As he spoke, he looked into the distance. A few sneaky fellows were there, drinking tea and watching him. Clearly, the Five City Military Inspectorate also feared he might escape. It seemed he might not be able to leave through the Inner City gates later. Although the nine gates were managed by the eunuch Commander-in-Chief of the Nine Gates and soldiers of the capital guards, under these circumstances, Consort Zheng might not let him go either. After all, if he ran, Consort Zheng would be in an awkward position.

Yang Xin and the other man then headed back.

Xianyi Neighborhood.

“Brother Cao!”

Yang Xin looked at Cao Wenzhao who was waiting for him.

“Brother Yang, Young Master Chen! I must say, the day we’ve had feels like a dream!”

Cao Wenzhao exclaimed with emotion.

His day truly felt like a dream. He suddenly met a loyal friend. Then this friend became a fugitive and dragged him in as an accomplice. He was just resolving to be loyal, ready to flee to the ends of the earth with this good brother. Then this good brother was summoned by the emperor. Yang Xin indeed felt no turbulence about Wanli’s summons, but for Cao Wenzhao, it was seeing the imperial face, a stroke of incredible luck from his ancestors’ graves. Immediately after, he met a benefactor. The new Liaodong Provincial Governor took him on as one of his Personal Guards. This was not comparable to being a junior officer under Liu Kongyin. Xiong Tingbi was the supreme commander on the Liaodong battlefield. Even if Liu Kongyin went to Liaodong, he would have to listen to Xiong Tingbi. Now that he was Xiong Tingbi’s personal guard, his future was absolutely bright.

All this happened in less than a day, leaving him dazed and unable to believe it!

“Do well in Liaodong!”

Yang Xin patted his shoulder and said.

“Brother Yang, how will you resolve your situation?”

Cao Wenzhao said.

“I… I still have some troubles!”

Yang Xin said.

As they spoke, the three entered the door. Xiaocao quickly and diligently poured tea. Chen Yujie simply tossed her a silver ingot, telling her to go outside and order a table of food and wine. After Xiaocao left, Yang Xin closed the door. He then cleared away the tea, took a blank sheet of paper from the study and spread it out, preparing ink and brush. This move left Chen Yujie and Cao Wenzhao utterly confused.

But they soon understood.

Because Yang Xin drew a map of Liaodong’s terrain. It was only approximate, as Yang Xin was not very clear about the coastline at that time.

But it was enough.

“This is the Jiannu base, Hetu Ala. It’s over four hundred li from Shenyang, but it’s all mountain forests. The Jiannu are not nomads; they are fishing and hunting people, mainly hunting, growing a little grain. So they are all exceptionally skilled archers. Within ten paces, they can shoot a person’s face, almost never missing. This we cannot learn. They rely on this to survive; those with poor archery who can’t kill game starve. So attacking their base is unrealistic. Once we enter the mountains, they can shoot us like rabbits.

However.

This also means their food supply is very fragile.

Fragile, understand?

The slightest mishap means they go hungry.

Therefore, the key to exterminating the Jiannu does not lie on the battlefield. If they cannot win a fight, they retreat into the mountain forests. We cannot enter the forests to fight them anyway. In fact, given the current state of the imperial army, it’s hard to defeat them in open battle either; defending cities is the only hope.

We must blockade them.

The core strategy is one: make them unable to find enough to eat.

First, set fire to the mountain forests.

In Liaodong’s terrain, we hold the plains; they control the mountains. The forests are highly flammable. Liaodong has mostly pine trees. So what’s needed is to set fires, continuously set fires. As long as the wind direction is right, from Shenyang to Jinzhou and all along the eastern Liaodong peninsula, light fires every day. Even make countless large Kongming Lanterns to drift with the wind inward, creating ignition points deep in the forests to start raging wildfires. Even if the wildfires don’t burn them, they will burn the wild animals in the mountains. In winter, they won’t have enough food to survive.

Second, strictly control grain smuggling.

This depends on Xiong Tingbi’s ability.

Third, relocate people.

Not relocate people to Liaodong, but move refugees from Liaodong south as much as possible. Don’t let refugees enter various cities; ship them all into the interior by sea. Since the Tianjin area can grow rice, move Liaodong people south to that area to open up wasteland and farm. Even further south to Sichuan. Best to move them to Sichuan for reclamation.

Forget about ‘Liaodong people defending Liaodong land’.

If they can’t defend it, they will surrender to the Jiannu. The Jiannu will organize them into an Eight Banners Han army. Even if they don’t surrender, they will be captured by the Jiannu as slaves, farming to provide food for the Jiannu. But non-native garrison troops will not surrender, because if they surrender, their families back home will suffer. Although the garrison troops won’t fight desperately to defend Liaodong, as long as they don’t surrender, that’s enough. If they don’t surrender, they can hold the cities. If the cities are held, the Jiannu cannot seize grain. The rest is just about encouragement; there will always be those who want to achieve merit and build a career. Our key is not to fight them, but to do everything possible to prevent them from getting anything edible or replenishing their population.

But traitors can ruin our plan.

In fact, the Jiannu won at Sarhu precisely because of traitors. Without traitors, how would they know Yang Gao’s deployments? And traitors can only be from among the Liaodong people. After all, garrison troops couldn’t be traitors even if they wanted; they simply have no connections. Since we cannot identify traitors, we move all the people away.

Send all Liaodong refugees to Sichuan; this also eases the grain shortage in Liaodong.

Only keep fortress-level cities and key water transport points. The rest is for the court to organize and train a New Army.

Fourth, send troops into Joseon. In Your Majesty’s name, depose Li Hun, who has unclear dealings with the Jiannu, and install his nephew Li Zong as King of Joseon. Also station troops in Joseon to threaten the Jiannu’s rear, especially along the Yalu River line. Try to recover fortresses like Zhenjiang to Kuandian, then station elite troops there to carry out raids behind enemy lines.

Fifth, here.”

Yang Xin pointed at Vladivostok.

“Build a city here, establish a fortress. Use Joseon as a springboard to transport goods like tea and sugar to recruit the Wild Jurchens, having them exchange Jiannu heads for these things.”

He said.

“Are you joking?”

Chen Yujie said, stunned.

“Not joking. Just tell me, with the Great Ming’s sea transport capacity, can we maintain a garrison of a thousand elite soldiers in this place?”

Yang Xin said.

“Even ten thousand is no problem. Transporting grain from Jiangsu-Zhejiang there isn’t much farther than to Tianjin. But such an isolated fortress, how can it withstand Jiannu attacks?”

Chen Yujie said.

“The Jiannu cannot attack. It’s a long, narrow peninsula extending eighty li into the sea. On both sides are thirty to forty li of seawater. Beyond the seawater are coastal marshes. Beyond the coastal marshes are deep, dense forests. In winter, the mountain forests are buried in snow that can kill people. In summer, if you enter the marshes, you can forget about coming out. The only external passage is a river to the north, but it leads to the territories of the Wild Jurchens originally under the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. For the Jiannu to attack, they’d have to trek a thousand li through mountain forests. But the sea route from Joseon is only two hundred li. The climate is cold, but at most similar to Tieling. And we don’t need to farm there; just store enough firewood for the winter. The key is to have ample grain and ammunition.

We can conscript Joseon people to build the fortress.

We don’t need to build an excellent one. That place is full of towering trees. We can build an earthen fort with wood and soil, then mount cannons. A thousand elites are enough to hold it. We aren’t planning to attack outward anyway. Just use good goods to lure the Wild Jurchens, re-grant official titles to their chieftains, and have them kill Jiannu, trading heads for good goods.

The Wild Jurchens are not the Jiannu.

These are my Liaodong pacification plans. You two can deliver them to Xiong Tingbi.”

Yang Xin said.

Actually, at this time, Wild Boar Skin had only conquered up to the Tumen River area. The Wild Jurchens around and north of Khanka Lake only paid tribute to him, just as they had previously paid tribute to the Great Ming Dynasty.

Don’t think the Great Ming didn’t control Heilongjiang.

In fact, ten years ago, the Wild Jurchens of the Heilongjiang area still paid tribute to the Wanli court, once offering over three hundred horses. This means that until the Wanli era’s thirtieth-odd years, the Great Ming still effectively exercised suzerainty over the tribes of the Heilongjiang basin. The Haixi Jurchens were only destroyed by Wild Boar Skin this year, namely the Yehe Tribe. The Yehe chieftain cursed before dying: even if only one woman of the Yehe Tribe remained, she would destroy the Manchus. Then he could rest in peace, because their descendants became the Empress Dowager Cixi.

What if we tempted them now?

The Wild Jurchens would surely like tea and sugar. In fact, all barbarian tribes liked these. Black tea with white sugar would be irresistible. Then they could bring Jiannu heads, paddle south from Ussuriysk to Vladivostok to trade.

Even if they killed innocents to claim credit, it didn’t matter.

Who else could they kill? That entire area was, over the next few decades, gradually becoming the main force of the future Eight Banners of Manchuria, including some Wild Jurchen tribes. Whoever they killed would reduce the future population of the Eight Banners of Manchuria. As long as we could incite the Wild Jurchens and the Jiannu to engage in head-hunting, even providing them weapons would be fine. The fortress at Vladivostok would just serve as a trading post. As for Wild Boar Skin attacking, forget it; he simply didn’t have the capability. Even the Kangxi Emperor personally leading a campaign with cannons couldn’t do anything about the Russians’ earthen forts, let alone Wild Boar Skin who didn’t have cannons at this time. And the Russians had almost no support from behind, while the Ming Army could rely on Joseon. From northern Joseon, not just sailing ships, but even a bunch of galleys could transport supplies across those two hundred kilometers of sea.

Even if the Wild Jurchens couldn’t defeat Wild Boar Skin, it didn’t matter.

As long as they joined the Great Ming’s side, Wild Boar Skin would have to divert significant forces for defense.

After all, this was the back.