Volume One: The Young Dragon Opens Its Eyes - Chapter 149: The Battle of Hulan Muhutun

Chapter 149: The Battle of Olon-Suldes

Inside the Wuying Hall.

Zhu Qizhen had long since ordered Wang Zhen to unfold a massive map—a map of Mongolia.

Stretching from Liaoning to the Western Regions, the vast grasslands and deserts of the Mongol domains were meticulously marked upon it.

This was one of the preparations Zhu Qizhen had made over the past few years.

Part of it was built upon the legacy accumulated by the Great Ming Dynasty.

During the Yongle reign, the imperial court had launched several military campaigns into the northern steppes. Even now, Tatar officials were ubiquitous within Beijing, and Zhang Fu himself, in his youth, had served in the Northern Lingbei Province of the Yuan Dynasty.

Thus, Ming China in this era was never short of men who understood the grasslands.

Similarly, this map was the fruit of years of arduous toil by the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot. Countless Jinyiwei scouts, disguised as merchants, had ventured deep into the boundless deserts solely to map out the terrain and serve as vanguard guides for the imperial armies.

Upon entering and catching sight of the map, Zhang Fu immediately knew that Zhu Qizhen had invested immense effort into it.

Seeing Zhang Fu arrive, Zhu Qizhen waved his hand, signaling everyone else to withdraw. Wang Zhen left last, carefully closing the heavy doors of the Wuying Hall behind him.

Instantly, the hall grew utterly silent. Zhu Qizhen invited Zhang Fu to be seated and spoke: "The Duke of Ying is a pillar of our dynasty. Today, right here in the Wuying Hall, I wish to ask the Duke for absolute candor: Can the Oirats be attacked?"

Reconstruction of the Three Great Halls had only just begun, and it would likely take quite a while before they were restored. Even once completed, those grand halls would rarely be used for daily affairs.

The two side halls, the Wenhua Hall and the Wuying Hall, served as the primary locations where the emperor routinely handled state business.

Naturally, every emperor had different habits. For instance, the Zhengde Emperor favored the Leopard Quarters; the Jiajing Emperor preferred the Western Park; the Chongzhen Emperor liked to receive ministers on the Platform.

And so on.

Generally speaking, however, the original intent behind the Wenhua Hall and the Wuying Hall was to represent the civil and the martial respectively. Their layout within the Forbidden City reflected this, flanking the central axis and the Three Great Halls as equal counterparts to the east and west.

Yet Zhu Qizhen had previously conducted all his activities within the Wenhua Hall.

This was the very first time he was utilizing the Wuying Hall.

From this, one could perceive the immense importance he attached to summoning Zhang Fu.

Faced straight away with such a momentous question, Zhang Fu wore a deeply solemn expression as he replied: "Since Your Majesty asks, this subject dares not conceal the truth. The Oirats cannot be attacked."

Zhu Qizhen was not particularly surprised by this verdict.

He had already arrived at similar conclusions on his own.

However, the reasoning and process by which he reached this conclusion were not necessarily identical to Zhang Fu's.

"Please elaborate, Duke," Zhu Qizhen said.

Zhang Fu stated, "There are three reasons why the Oirats cannot be attacked at present."

"First, the timing is wrong."

Zhu Qizhen nodded. The military campaign in Luchuan was currently underway; he himself had no desire to fight a war on two fronts.

Zhang Fu continued, "Second, the court's preparations are insufficient. The recent war in the northwest has already exposed this problem. When Jiang Gui marched beyond the frontier to strike Atai Khan, his vanguard consisted of no more than three thousand cavalry. Even with the rear guard added, the total barely exceeded ten thousand horsemen."

"Just as Shaanxi and Gansu are thus constrained, Xuanfu, Datong, and Liaoning are largely the same. Even when combining the cavalry of the Capital Garrison capable of crossing the frontier, the total is no more than one hundred thousand, and not all of them can be deployed outward."

"Conversely, the four major households of the Oirats, combined with the forty households of the Tatars—these forty-four households can easily muster a cavalry force well exceeding twenty thousand—nay, more than two hundred thousand."

Zhang Fu spoke in broad terms about the inadequacy of preparations.

Yet how could Zhu Qizhen not know how many complex underlying issues were concealed beneath those words?

Grain shortages in the northern provinces meant that outposts beyond the frontier could no longer be sustained and had to be abandoned one by one, much like the city of Daning.

During the Hongwu and Yongle eras, the southern desert steppes—roughly corresponding to modern Inner Mongolia—were largely an unpopulated zone. Although the Ming armies could not permanently occupy them, the Mongols dared not venture south.

In the parlance of the past, the northern nomads dared not head south to graze their horses, turning those regions into pastures exclusively for Ming use.

However, as Ming military presence on the grasslands grew unsustainable, the dynasty's control over these territories slipped further beyond its reach.

Consequently, the region reverted to Mongol control.

This was the fundamental reason why border incursions had plagued the empire continuously since the Zhengtong era: the buffer zone between the two sides had vanished.

Coupled with a shortage of one million troops across the guard garrisons, a tangled web of problems had formed. A mere shortage of horses in the army was merely the symptom; beneath it lay an extraordinarily intricate mechanism of decay.

It could not be glossed over simply by saying preparations were lacking.

Yet Zhu Qizhen understood that for Zhang Fu to speak with such candor was already a rare display of honesty.

The Five Chief Military Commissions were the governing bodies overseeing the more than three hundred guard garrisons of the Ming Dynasty, and the meritorious nobility headed by Zhang Fu had always held absolute sway over them.

Many matters here were simply unfit to be aired in public. If it were merely a matter of lacking preparation, the thirty-plus million taels of silver prepared by the Empress Dowager in the inner treasury could easily be poured into it—certainly enough to fund a massive campaign.

Yet it simply would not work.

These problems could never be resolved by merely throwing money at them.

Zhang Fu went on to say, "Third, the strength of the Oirats must not be underestimated."

A flicker of interest stirred in Zhu Qizhen’s heart. He was deeply intrigued by this and prompted, "I ask the Duke to explain the true strength of the Oirats to me."

Truth be told, Zhu Qizhen already possessed a relatively thorough understanding of many aspects regarding the Oirats.

For instance, their origins, their power structure, and so forth.

However, the actual combat effectiveness of the Oirats was something Zhu Qizhen could not fully gauge from books alone.

Whether they could fight or not could only be known after clashing with them.

Without having engaged them in direct combat, many pre-battle speculations remained mere guesses.

Zhang Fu, however, was different. He was an veteran general who had accompanied the Yongle Emperor on his northern campaigns, and he was hardly a stranger to this old adversary.

Pondering for a moment, Zhang Fu said, "Your Majesty, the largest clash between our Great Ming and the Oirats was the Battle of Olon-Suldes. This subject was fortunate enough to follow the Emperor Taizong in personally experiencing that campaign."

Zhu Qizhen perused his focus, attempting to reconstruct through Zhang Fu's dry phrasing that final strategic-level decisive battle fought by Ming forces in the northern desert.

"Emperor Taizong pursued the Oirats all the way to the Shuangquan Sea and encountered their vanguard. Realizing the main Oirat army was nearby, Arutai requested to join the battle on our side, but Taizong rejected him."

"This subject followed Taizong's main formation northward in pursuit of the Oirats. Upon reaching Olon-Suldes, the Oirat ambush suddenly erupted—a force of thirty thousand cavalry, with every single rider managing multiple mounts, totaling well over a hundred thousand horses alone."

Hearing this, a wave of profound frustration surged within Zhu Qizhen.

The number of warhorses the imperial court could currently mobilize was probably not much greater than the spare horses the Oirats had deployed during the Battle of Olon-Suldes. Compared to the Oirats, who now dominated the entire steppe, there was simply no contest.

In an instant, Zhu Qizhen felt acutely impoverished.

Unaware of the turbulent thoughts running through the Emperor's mind, Zhang Fu continued, "Mahamu stood in strict array, sending tens of thousands of heavy cavalry to charge Taizong's main camp. Our heavy cavalry was outnumbered by the Oirats, so Taizong ordered the late Duke of Rong, Liu Sheng, to deploy the Divine Machine Regiment in formation, bombarding the Oirat heavy cavalry with cannons..."

"Wait," Zhu Qizhen interrupted, "did you say our dynasty's heavy cavalry was inferior to the Oirats?"

"This subject dares not speak falsely."

"How can that be?"

That the Oirats possessed vast quantities of cavalry was something Zhu Qizhen could understand. The cost of raising horses on the grasslands differed vastly from doing so in agricultural regions.

This disparity in cost meant that while mustering hundreds of thousands of horses would exhaust the resources of the Central Plains dynasty, it was effortless for a steppe power.

However, armored heavy cavalry was entirely different.

Such a force was a composite product of a nation's comprehensive national strength.

Only a powerful and prosperous state could forge an army of that caliber.

Thirty thousand Oirat heavy cavalry—just considering the amount of iron required... One had to know that the iron of the Central Plains and the iron of the steppes held entirely different values. Especially since the days of the founding Emperor Taizu, strict bans had prohibited even a single iron cooking pot from being sold to the steppes.

How had the Oirats forged their heavy cavalry? What kind of national power allowed them to create a heavy cavalry force surpassing the elite of the Great Ming?

This completely defied Zhu Qizhen's understanding.

He had always assumed that Oirat cavalry consisted merely of mobilized herdsmen lacking armor, functioning as a highly mobile light cavalry force.

Yet now, hearing Zhang Fu's account, he was confronted with a completely different picture of the Oirats.

It forced Zhu Qizhen to completely reassess them.

Zhang Fu added, "After the battle, this subject captured quite a few sets of armor. A portion of them dated back to the former Yuan Dynasty, while another portion evidently originated from the Western Regions—not crafted using Central Plains techniques. As to how they acquired them, this subject cannot say for certain."

Zhu Qizhen thought to himself inwardly: "The Yuan Dynasty and the Western Regions?" With that single reflection, many threads clicked into place, resolving numerous doubts in his mind.