PFC Chapter 75 The Wounded Mangultai
Chapter 75 The Wounded Mangultai
Chapter 76 The Wounded Mangultai
Chapter 075 On the east bank of the Yehe River (within the present-day Siping City), the Songliao Plain was still a lush grassland. The yellowing grass lay flat in layers, making the plain seem to ripple with waves of grass that spread in circles all the way to the horizon. In the azure sky, flocks of wild geese flew by, their clear cries echoing through the clouds, a sign that autumn was coming.
At this time, the Yehe tribe, one of the four Hulun tribes of the Haixi Jurchens, had become the backbone of the Jurchens and occupied the most fertile Songliao Plain.
The herders of the Yehe tribe, who were also bannermen, were driving their flocks of sheep to graze in the lush pasture. Because the pasture was so abundant, the sheep had all become round and plump, almost like balls.
The Yehe tribe herders that Meng Gun was targeting actually had no connection to the Plain White Banner. They were actually subordinate to the Plain Blue Banner, whose leader was Mangultai.
The Jurchens are currently at the height of their power, winning more battles than they lose in their wars with the Ming Dynasty. They have not considered that someone might penetrate deep into the east bank of the Yehe River, which is the heart of the Songliao Plain.
These young bannermen of the Plain Blue Banner were singing songs of harmony with young girls in the distance. The lyrics were even more provocative than the "Eighteen Touches" (a euphemism for sexual innuendo), and they were completely unaware of the danger that was approaching.
Meng Gun stared at the unsuspecting soldiers of the Plain Blue Banner, his eyes gleaming with a wolfish greed: "So much money—"
A Jurchen head can be exchanged for a precious sword as hard as snow iron, five heads can be exchanged for a suit of armor that even heavy arrows cannot pierce, and a head is worth a bag of salt, more than 20 kilograms, worth a cow.
In Meng Gun's eyes, the bannermen of the Yehe tribe of the Zhenglan Banner were not human, but walking treasures.
During the day, Meng Gun led more than 150 skilled warriors from the tribe and infiltrated the tribe, but he did not make a move immediately. Those who know you well are definitely your enemies.
Meng Gun was also a member of the Haixi Jurchen, and he knew the habits of the Yehe tribe of the Haixi Jurchen. Although this tribe was currently not on guard, they adopted a policy of being strict on the outside but relaxed on the inside. As long as a battle broke out here, elite troops from all directions would surround them in a very short time.
Meng Gun was there to make money, not to lead a suicide squad. He wasn't willing to risk his life for money. To prevent the sheepdogs from alerting him, he sent more than a dozen men to make noise with wolf urine about four or five miles from the camp to attract the sheepdogs' attention. The sheepdogs' unusual movements did indeed attract the attention of Zhenjinshi, the head of the Yehe tribe of Zhenglan Banner.
Jin Shi led his men and sheepdogs to investigate, but the wolf urine had already evaporated and he couldn't see it. Instead, he saw scattered wolf droppings, gave the sheepdogs a good scolding, and then continued to enjoy himself.
After this happened repeatedly, Jinshi got so angry that he beat all the sheepdogs. The hardworking sheepdogs were beaten black and blue and felt very wronged. Unfortunately, sheepdogs can't speak. Now Jinshi no longer relies on herding for a living. The rewards he gets from fighting a battle are more than he earned from herding for three years.
Meng Gun successfully fooled Jin Shi. He was very patient, lying motionless in the waist-high withered grass. His face was covered in black mud, blending into the night, with only his eyes reflecting the faint moonlight, like the eyes of a wolf staring at its prey.
Fifty paces away, the campfire of Zhenjinshi, the head of the Zhenglan Banner, was about to go out. Six or seven thousand cowhide tents were arranged in a circle, and the occasional snort of the hundreds of tethered warhorses was particularly clear in the silence.
Outside the tent, seventy or eighty bannermen lay sprawled, wine bowls rolled aside, their snoring deafening. Some were even exchanging wives with other bannermen, taking turns for fun.
Behind Meng Gun, a faint sound was made from grass leaves. This rhythmic sound quickly drew 150 Gualecha warriors toward him. Each of them had their mouths gagged with cloth strips, their bodies wrapped in animal skins, and even their weapons were blackened with grass ash so that they reflected no light.
"Remember all of this!"
Meng Gun lowered his voice and said, "Don't use knives, don't draw blood. Anyone who dares to use a knife will have three catties of salt deducted from their pay when they get back. Only this is allowed—"
He raised his hand, revealing a thin leather rope in his palm, with wooden handles at both ends, like a leash. This was the wolf-trapping rope used by the Gualcha people to hunt wolves, giving them no chance to struggle.
Sneaking in and beheading the person while they're asleep is easy, but the problem is, we're all seasoned foxes; let's not try to play the ghost story game.
The experienced Haixi Jurchens were all excellent hunters; they could keenly smell blood. With only a little over 150 people, they were simply no match for six or seven hundred at the same time.
Meng Gun stared at the largest tent in the camp, the residence of Niru'e Zhenjinshi, with a tattered plain blue flag flying outside. He licked his chapped lips, a glint of pleasure in his eyes.
Ten years ago, the Jianzhou people stormed into the Gualecha tribe in the same way. It was night, and it was just as silent. His father died in his sleep, and his mother was dragged away and never returned.
Tonight, it's their turn.
"Let's do it."
One hundred and fifty men moved simultaneously. They moved along the ground like snakes, without footsteps, without the sound of clashing weapons, and even their breathing was extremely low. The first dozen or so men reached the outer edge of the tent, spotted the dozens of drunken flag bearers lying on the ground, and put leather ropes around their necks from behind, tightening, pulling, and twisting them.
"Click."
The slight sound of bones dislocating was even fainter than a horse's hoof snapping a dry branch. The first flag bearer didn't even have time to open his eyes before his body went limp and collapsed.
Meng Gun personally reached for the largest tent. The tent flap was half-open, and thunderous snoring came from inside. He peeked inside and saw Niru'e Zhenjinshi lying on his back on a leather rug, clutching a wine sac in his arms, fast asleep. Beside him were two women—completely naked.
Meng Gun slid in silently, the leather cord circling twice in his palm. He looked down at Jin Shi, at the thumb-thick gold chain around his neck, at the silver-inlaid dagger at his waist, and at the unguarded satisfaction on his face.
The moment the leather strap was placed around his neck, Jinshi suddenly woke up, his eyes wide open. But Menggun was much faster. He pulled the leather strap away, crossed his hands, and used his knees to press hard against the other man's back.
Jin Shi opened his mouth as wide as he could, but no sound came out; only a hoarse, hissing sound came from his throat. His hands flailing about, overturning the wine flask and tearing the leather rug, but Meng Gun's arm remained as still as an iron band.
Ten breaths, twenty breaths —
Jinshi's struggles grew weaker and weaker. He kicked his legs a few times, and finally stopped moving.
Meng Gun held on for another ten breaths before releasing his grip. He looked at the corpse with its eyes wide open in death and said calmly, "Let's go—next one."
One hundred and fifty people disappeared silently into the night, just as they had come. They were not greedy; each of them took only one corpse, totaling one hundred and fifty-seven corpses.
When they reached the dense forest where the horses were hidden, their hooves were covered with thick cloth, and they walked on the grass without making a sound. After they had gone about sixteen or seventeen miles from the camp, Meng Gun ordered them to stop.
A large pit has been dug here.
"Beheading—"
The Gualcha man skillfully drew his short knife, and with a swift stroke, 157 heads were stuffed into a leather bag. The headless corpses were stripped naked and then pushed into a pre-dug pit, covered with soil, weighed down with stones, and sprinkled with dry grass to erase all traces.
Before dawn, they had disappeared into the vast forest.
The camp wasn't discovered until late morning. The dozen or so tents were empty, the campfire had long since gone out, and no one knew where Jin Shi and the other 156 people had gone, nor did anyone know what had happened.
No one saw the enemy, and no one heard a sound.
The other bannermen did not make a fuss about this situation, because the Jurchen Niru Ejen were different from the Ming Dynasty's border generals. Border generals did not issue troop deployment orders, and these soldiers launched their attacks on their own initiative.
The problem is that the Jurchens were different. Unless Nurhaci was mustering troops for an important battle, they could move around automatically at other times, which was considered a side job.
Unlike Meng Gun's secrecy, Hamutai preferred a more direct approach.
"See that?"
Hamutai squatted on a hilltop, pointing at the small tribe below with smoke rising from their chimneys, his eyes gleaming: "At most three hundred people, eighty or so men, plus fifty or sixty offspring, and the cattle and sheep are very fat!"
Behind him, two hundred Xibe warriors were all eager to fight. Unlike Gualcha, they did not paint their faces black or use leather ropes. Their knives were gleaming, and their bowstrings were taut.
Hamutai waved his hand, and the two hundred men behind him split into four teams, silently flanking them.
This tribe was much smaller than the one on the east bank of the Yehe River, with only a dozen or so dilapidated tents and no wooden fence. The people in the tribe were busy slaughtering sheep and cooking meat to prepare for winter. Dozens of teenagers were chasing and playing at the edge of the camp, their giggles carrying far away.
As the sun gradually set in the west, the people in the tribe began to light fires and cook. Amidst the rising smoke, no one noticed the figures crawling in the surrounding grass.
Hamutai had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
"Release the arrows!"
The first volley of arrows rained down on the camp from all directions. A dozen men who were starting fires screamed and fell to the ground. A woman carrying a bowl of meat soup was shot through the throat by an arrow before she could react. The children screamed and scattered, but were caught up by the second volley of arrows and fell into a pool of blood.
"Rush!"
Hamutai took the lead, brandishing his gleaming broadsword as he charged into the camp. A Yehe tribesman had just emerged from his tent and hadn't even seen the enemy clearly when Hamutai slashed his neck, spraying blood all over his face.
Hamutai wiped the blood off his face without a care and continued charging forward with a maniacal laugh.
"Kill! Leave no one alive!"
The Xibe warriors were not much worse than the Jurchens, except that their equipment was worse. But now they were caught off guard and attacked the Yehe tribe. They rushed into the camp from all directions like tigers descending the mountain.
A flash of light, a head rolled off, an arrow pierced the air, a chest was pierced, screams, cries, and the clash of weapons mingled together.
A Yehe cavalryman attempted to mount his horse and flee, but as soon as he was on the back, he was shot in the back by an arrow. He screamed and fell to the ground, one foot still caught in the stirrup, and was dragged for dozens of feet by the frightened horse.
The tents were set ablaze, flames shooting into the sky. The cattle and sheep were startled and scattered, only to be herded back by the Xibe people who had been lying in ambush.
The battle lasted less than a quarter of an hour. When the last Yehe man fell in a pool of blood, Hamutai stood in the center of the camp, covered in blood, panting heavily, but laughing with unbridled joy.
"Clean up the battlefield! Cut off the heads and tie them together! Gather the women and children aside and count them! Take all the cattle, sheep, and horses!"
The Xibe warriors immediately sprang into action, some beheading prisoners, some binding them, and others herding cattle and sheep.
The firelight illuminated excited faces, as well as the corpses lying scattered on the ground.
A young soldier approached, leading a trembling, crying little boy: "Sir, what should we do with this?"
"You, call me father!"
The little boy was very stubborn, staring intently at Hamutai. He wasn't angry. The Jurchens liked to tame the Haixi Jurchens into their warriors, and he decided to do the same, taming all these children into warriors of the Xibe tribe.
Do you know what "training a hawk" means?
"Know!"
"Use the same methods as training hawks to make these children your sons and daughters!"
Hamutai stood up and said, "Keep the women who can bear children. Tame all these children; don't waste food on those that can't be tamed!"
"yes!"
This small tribe is burning. In the firelight, the headless corpses of the Yehe tribe lie scattered, and women and children are being driven up the mountain, their cries filling the air.
Hamutai smiled faintly and said, "This is just the beginning."
Twenty days later, in Shengjing (Shenyang), at the residence of Mangultai, the banner chief of the Plain Blue Banner.
Mangultai sat upright on a tiger-skin chair in the center of the hall, with a bowl of mare's milk wine beside him, and seventeen or eighteen ragged and terrified Niru Ejen kneeling before him.
-
Outside the hall, the autumn wind blew bleakly, rustling the fallen leaves, but it could not suppress the almost solidified silence inside.
"What did you say? Say it again—say it again."
Mangultai was dumbfounded. He had received news that people from Zhenglan Banner had been going missing one after another recently. In fact, many of the Haixi Jurchens hunted in a manner similar to Menggun's: they would first strangle the person, then drag away the body, leaving no trace of the person, whether alive or dead.
At first, no one paid attention because they were already lax in their management. More importantly, the Songliao Plain was located in the heart of the Jurchen territory, with few enemies around it, and the Ming army had never attacked it. In fact, the Ming army did not have the strength to reach the Songliao Plain at that time.
Until Nurhaci decided to deal with the Mongols first and stabilize the internal situation, Mangultai was ordered to gather the Plain Blue Banner. As a result, five days later, he discovered that 2,371 of his followers had gone missing.
"What happened? Where did those bastards go to gather hay?"
"My lord, I have asked all the Niru Ejen, and none of us have gone out to gather hay recently—"
The Zhenglan Banner now only has eighteen Niru belonging to Mangultai. Among the four Beile, he is the weakest. To make matters worse, eight of these eighteen Niru have experienced personnel disappearances to varying degrees.
"Who are the missing people?"
"Niru'e Zhenjinshi, and his 157 men, while 24 members of Nayan Niru are missing—"
A total of 452 men in vests, 3 in white armor, and over 550 bondservants.
Mangultai instantly broke down: "Go find them, even if you have to dig three feet into the ground—"
"Master, something has happened!"
A bondservant wailed loudly, explaining that when someone was burying people, they had buried them too shallowly, and the sheepdogs had smelled the blood and dug out more than a dozen already rotting corpses.
The sixth brother liked to scout the Zhenglan Banner's sentries because the Yehe tribe of Zhenglan Banner had been too comfortable for too long and had lost their vigilance. This was mainly because Huang Taiji of Zhengbai Banner was now desperately expanding his manpower. They were attacking everywhere and capturing Haixi Jurchens. It was good enough if they didn't get beaten up. How could they possibly deal with him?
The reason Mangultai was dealt with was because he was arrogant.
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