Chapter 58: The Jade Seal of the Great Yuan!

(1/3)

As is well known, the invasion of the Mongol tribes has always been a classic, mandatory scenario in any Ming Dynasty time-travel novel. Without a Mongol invasion, it simply wouldn't feel like a true Ming Dynasty simulation. Only by keeping the Mongol invasion do you realize you are playing the authentic Ming Dynasty campaign expansion pack!

As the number one external hostile force that wrestled with the Ming Dynasty for a full three hundred years, the combat record of the Mongol tribes was, naturally, exceedingly impressive.

From the era of the founding Emperor Taizu, Northern Yuan's Wang Baobao decisively crushed the Northern Expedition army of General-in-Chief Xu Da in a head-on clash, knocking Xu Da off his undefeated, peerless pedestal in history and shattering the myth of his invincibility...

During the reign of Emperor Chengzu, the Tatar tribe completely annihilated the 100,000-strong army of Qiu Fu, the "First Meritorious Official of the Jingnan Campaign" and "Duke of Qi," even killing Qiu Fu himself. Their formidable reputation shook the Ming court so profoundly that Emperor Chengzu had no choice but to launch a personal imperial expedition against the Tatars, which led to the Five Expeditions to the Mobei Desert...

During the reign of Emperor Yingzong, their military record reached an absurdly heaven-defying height. The Oirat tribe heavily defeated Emperor Yingzong's elite army of hundreds of thousands at the Tumu Crisis, virtually wiping out the entire power core of the Ming court. Over fifty senior officials, including Duke of Britain Zhang Fu, the Minister of War, and the Minister of Revenue, died in battle, and Emperor Yingzong himself was captured! Had Yu Qian not successfully defended the capital, the Great Yuan would have likely been resurrected on the spot...

Following that came the Battle of Jingzhou during the reign of Emperor Wuzong and Altan Khan's siege of the capital during the reign of Emperor Shizong...

In short, these Yuan Dynasty remnants and the Great Ming fought each other with alternating victories and defeats, locked in a long-term rivalry.

Until the Divine Emperor stepped out onto the infamous crooked-neck tree on Meishan Mountain!

After ascending to divinity, the Divine Emperor not only heavily suppressed the various peasant uprisings and the Later Jin's Liaodong territory, but also casually subdued these Mongol tribes. Under the suppression of absolute military might, the trembling Mongol tribes never dared to venture south for plunder ever again...

For seventy years, the Great Ming had almost forgotten these former enemies, so when news of Mongol cavalry raiding southward reached the capital, your mind went blank for a long time, unable to process it.

However, after snapping out of your daze, you didn't feel flustered at all; instead, you fell into deep contemplation alone...

You pondered for a full three minutes, yet you still couldn't figure out how on earth they dared to attack you!

What the hell, have they lost their minds?

Putting aside the fact that the Divine Emperor was still seated deep within the imperial palace, and ignoring the Jinyiwei who had been on a nearly decade-long extended vacation and were dying of boredom... just consider your 100,000-strong New Army of the Capital Garrison; they were hardly opponents that these old-era cavalry could touch!

Coupled with a decade of great governance across the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces, the Great Ming's imperial treasury was already overflowing, all industries were flourishing, and the strategic reserves of supplies were simply incomparable to anything the Mongol tribes possessed. Once a war broke out, it would undoubtedly be a complete, steamrolling annihilation!

How could they possibly have the guts...

You racked your brains but failed to find a logical reason, though you didn't need to overthink it—fight them first, talk later!

Order the command! Dispatch the troops on a Northern Expedition!

(1/3)

(2/3)

[...]

In the 86th year of Chongzhen, the Mongol Tatar tribe suddenly invaded, with several thousand light cavalry leaping over the Great Wall and engaging in rampant pillaging across northern Shanxi!

In this year, the Prime Minister emulated the legendary Marquis Wu Zhuge, personally leading 50,000 troops of the Capital Garrison on a Northern Expedition!

In this year, the invading thousands of Tatar light cavalry in northern Shanxi were beaten back, all their plundered supplies were recaptured and returned to the various households of northern Shanxi, and the people of northern Shanxi prostrated themselves in deep gratitude.

In this year, the Prime Minister marched out of Yanmen Pass to subjugate the Tatars!

In the following year, they were utterly crushed! Ten thousand households of the Tatar tribes were captured, and the Tatar Khan surrendered with silky smoothness, respectfully offering up the Imperial Jade Seal...

[...]

It was utterly bizarre!

Until the very moment you defeated all the Tatar forces and made the Khan surrender, you still carried a surreal, dreamlike sense of bewilderment, as if you hadn't woken up yet...

In your imagination, while you would certainly defeat the Tatars, the process shouldn't have been this smooth, seeing as these steppe tribes had never been able to see eye-to-eye with the dynasties of the Central Plains.

Once your Northern Expedition army advanced into the grasslands, they should have either fought you to their last drop of blood or exercised the traditional tactics of steppe nomads by migrating away, avoiding your sharp edge while choosing temporary forbearance...

Yet the result was that they chose neither of those options; they simply surrendered outright!

What kind of nonsense is this?! A joyous welcome for the imperial righteous army?! If they were going to be this well-behaved, why bother launching an invasion and pillaging across the border earlier?

Absolute madness!

Or rather, this war was absurd from the very beginning: you had noticed from the start that the combat morale of those few thousand cavalry who breached the border was exceptionally low. Not only did they only grab goods without killing people, but as soon as your army arrived, they fled in a panic, scattering their plundered pots, pans, rice, flour, and cooking oil all over the ground...

Well, so they raided for absolutely nothing!

Then, when your army pushed beyond the borders, you didn't fight a single hard battle. Often, after firing just a few rounds of matchlock muskets, the opposing tribe would surrender without even attempting to run... Small tribes surrendered, large tribes surrendered, and the Khan's royal court surrendered too!

It made you feel like some destined Son of Heaven mandated by fate. Along the way, you drank your fill of the mare's milk wine offered by the herdsmen, gorged yourself on the beef and mutton boiled by the chieftains, and every single one of your 50,000 soldiers gained weight...

(2/3)

(3/3)

Wait, my friend... what is going on here? If you were going to be so hospitable, why did you invade and pillage the frontier in the first place? Are you suffering from a split personality?!

In short, when you saw the Khan leading his entire family and dependents to bow respectfully before you inside the military tent, presenting the Imperial Jade Seal with both hands as a sign of surrender, you literally had ten thousand complaints you wanted to vent...

Regardless of how it happened, you had genuinely won, and victory meant you deserved the prize!

"Where did you get this Imperial Jade Seal?"

You gazed with profound perplexity at the heavy jade seal. If the history books you had read hadn't been lying, the Imperial Jade Seal of Qin Shi Huang had been lost long ago. Furthermore, a corner of that seal had been chipped during the reign of Wang莽, prompting Wang Mang to repair it with gold, making its distinguishing features extremely obvious...

Yet the Imperial Jade Seal before your eyes was completely intact, contradicting the historical records. Clearly, this was not the original seal of Qin Shi Huang, a fact corroborated by the Tatar Khan himself.

"Prime Minister, you may not know this, but this jade seal was handed down from the Great Yuan. When the last Yuan Emperor fled the capital back then, he took this jade seal with him..."

"Later on, the Jianzhou rebel chieftain Nurhaci severely defeated our tribe's Ligdan Khan, and this jade seal fell into the hands of Nurhaci and his son Fulin..."

"Later still, His Majesty pacified the rebellion of the Jianzhou bandits, and our tribe managed to retrieve it once again..."

Listening to the Tatar Khan's fluent Mandarin explanation, you gradually began to understand: so it was actually the shared Imperial Jade Seal of the Yuan Dynasty and the Later Jin!

You looked at the seal again, unable to withhold a sigh of amazement: the fact that this trinket actually survived the divine might of the Divine Emperor proved its quality was indeed top-notch...

Just as you were thinking this, the Tatar Khan bowed respectfully to you once more, his tone dripping with extreme flattery.

"Ever since the Prime Minister ascended to your position, you have been working tirelessly day and night for the well-being of the common people. Over the past decade, the realm has enjoyed great governance, the country has grown strong, and the people have grown rich. Every single subject throughout the realm is deeply grateful for the boundless grace of the Prime Minister. Even uncivilized barbarians like us yearn for the warmth of the Prime Minister's sunshine and rain!"

"This jade seal is an auspicious omen, which this humble subject accidentally recovered from the ruins of Jianzhou. That it can now be fortuitously presented to the Prime Minister is ultimate proof that the benevolence and virtue of the Prime Minister have moved the heavens!"

"As the saying goes, auspicious omens emerge in the company of a sage. Now that the auspicious omen is here, I implore the sage to follow the will of heaven and humanity by accepting it!"

...

(3/3)