Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 402 Haidong (Part 4)

"Are you sure the Tartars have all left?" Zhang Dashan, the head of the Haidong Colonization Division, squatted on the wall of Changning Fort (now Shuangchengzi City), looked up at the quiet wilderness outside the city, and asked in a deep voice.

"Reporting to Your Excellency, the Tartars have indeed left," Xu Baonian, the militia captain of Changning Fort, replied confidently. "However, to prevent the Tartars from launching a surprise attack, I had Kuma lead a dozen or so Udegai hunters to follow behind and see if they could bring back a few heads. Those old hunters in the forest can count how many times the Tartars urinate at night."

"Very good!" Zhang Dashan nodded in satisfaction. "The barley will be harvested in a few days. We can't let the Tartars sneak up again and catch us off guard. By the way, what about the bounty notices we issued?"

“We have already sent people to read this notice to the various tribes that have submitted to us in the vicinity. I expect that it won’t be long before other tribes within a hundred miles will also receive this bounty.” Xu Baonian licked his cracked lips, a fierce look on his face. “As long as the Tartars dare to stay in our Haidong Colonization Zone, we will definitely keep all their heads.”

"A real Tartar head for a fine steel knife, twenty catties of fine salt, five bolts of Songjiang cotton cloth, plus two hundred catties of grain! The headman of Bohe Village said that their hunters even dream of counting their braids. ... Damn it, more than twenty fresh lives lost in Haixi Village!"

“This time, we were too reckless.” Zhang Dashan sighed. “No one expected that the Tartars would discover so quickly that we had extended our settlements to Beiqinhai, and that they would send people to investigate so swiftly.”

In February of last year, the Haidong Colonization Zone was officially established, and Zhang Dashan was immediately appointed as the zone's commissioner.

As the former captain of the personal guard of the Northern Expansion Commissioner, in order to achieve outstanding political achievements, he not only further developed and consolidated the colonization foundation of several coastal strongholds such as Yongming, Jinghai, Songyang (now Da Kamen), and Suian (now Zarubino), but also turned the direction of expansion to the inland, successively establishing Changning Fort, Yungang Fort (now Khorol Town), Zhen'an Fort (now Chernigovka Town), and Haixi Village, extending the tentacles of the new Chinese to the Great Lakes region in one fell swoop.

In fact, with such a small immigrant population in the Haidong Colonization Zone, extending the colonization outposts so far inland and spreading them out so widely was not conducive to overall development and made it impossible to effectively control the surrounding areas.

If attacked by a large enemy force, there would be no time for rear support to react.

Some colonization officials tried to dissuade him, but he insisted on doing so. He often used the saying of Lord Qi of the Beiying Colonization Area, "Ten thousand years is too long, seize the day," to shut everyone up, trying to expand the controlled area to the vast inland in the shortest possible time.

This wild and untamed region is inhabited by primitive and backward tribal natives. They don't even have much iron, so what threat could they possibly pose?

As for the Tartars, they are even more a thousand miles away.

Over the past two years, the colonization work has indeed progressed very smoothly. Not only have the newly established inland outposts quickly gained a foothold, but also, through trade exchanges, relatively harmonious commercial relations have been established with the local Udegai, Hezhe, Oroqen, and some Haidong Jurchen people.

They traded the furs they hunted, the winter ginseng they collected, and the roe deer they captured with the Xinhua settlement for ironware, salt, spices, wine, and cloth, which greatly facilitated their lives.

The new Chinese were fair in their dealings, had ample goods, and were relatively mild-mannered, making them much easier to deal with than their brutal and greedy Jurchen "relatives" in the Khanate.

More importantly, they no longer needed to travel long distances, carrying bundles of furs, braving the snow and wind of winter to reach Khan City as tribute, and then trade for these supplies.

Furthermore, under the encouragement and persuasion of the officials who were establishing settlements in Xinhua, many tribes that originally planned to make routine trips to Qing territory to pay tribute and worship abandoned the idea.

Because when the first Hezhe hunter traded three sable pelts for an iron pot from a village of new Chinese people, the rules here changed.

In the past, when Jurchen merchants would trade half a sack of moldy millet for a whole bear skin, that practice was crushed as it was placed on the shelves of the Xinhua Merchants' Store in the trading area.

The chieftains and hunters of many tribes learned to compare. The Han Chinese shopkeeper in Yungang Fort would weigh baskets of winter ginseng he carried on a scale right in front of the people. The warehouses in Yongming City were always piled with bags of fine sea salt and spices. At the auction in Changning Fort, the Hezhe people could even bid for silk from Jiangnan with deer antlers.

Some brave hunters also reaped a bountiful harvest in the forest because they had a large number of iron arrowheads, sharp steel knives, and iron forks.

The new Chinese would smile and brandish their muskets in front of them, saying, "Your bows and arrows can only hunt roe deer. But our muskets can easily drive back the Jianzhou Jurchens." When the Haidong Jurchens witnessed the new Chinese using muskets to easily kill a black bear, the news spread throughout the tribes of the Great Lakes region: the Han people's thunderbolts could pierce the thickest bear hide.

After the cannons on the walls of Changning Fortress unleashed deafening roars, almost all the Hezhe people looked at the newcomers with gentle and clear eyes.

I once knelt down to receive the Great Khan's reward with admiration and awe, feeling it was an immense favor.

Now, the caravans of the new Chinese trader bring countless goods directly to the open-air market, where they trade with each other on an equal footing, allowing people to choose freely.

More and more members of the tribe are beginning to put in the effort to learn to ask "price", "quantity", and "cooperation" in Mandarin.

With the arrival of the new Chinese, this land of white mountains and black waters seems to be about to change its way of life.

Given time, with its advanced civilization, abundant resources, powerful military, and friendly and appeasing attitude, many tribes will inevitably choose to gravitate towards the new Chinese, and may even pledge allegiance.

However, what was unexpected was that the Qing forces reacted quite quickly. Less than five years after Xinhua began colonizing Haidong, they discovered the unusual situation in the region and sent troops to investigate.

First, they used hundreds of fully armed Eight Banner soldiers to intimidate the tribes around the Great Lake, ordering them to once again submit to the Qing and promise to pay tribute to the Qing in Shengjing in the first month of the following year.

Immediately afterwards, they attacked Haixi Village. Except for a few prisoners who needed to be taken back to Shengjing for questioning, all the settlers and immigrants were slaughtered, and the village was burned to the ground.

If it weren't for the fact that the Yungang and Zhen'an fortresses had received advance warning, and that the fortresses were sturdy and well-preserved, with the more than one hundred immigrants stationed there constantly on high alert, preventing the Qing invaders from taking advantage of the situation, they might have also fallen victim to their cruelty.

What shocked everyone even more was that after failing to attack the two strongholds, the more than 300 Qing Eight Banners troops actually bypassed them and marched towards Changning Fort, seemingly disregarding the Haidong Colonial Government, just like when they launched a large-scale invasion of the interior last year, without any scruples.

Faced with the arrogance and recklessness of the Qing invaders, Zhang Dashan, the commissioner of the colonization area, ordered the mobilization of armed militia from various places to gather at Changning Fort in preparation for encircling and killing the Qing Eight Banners. At the same time, he issued a bounty to many surrounding tribes, mobilizing the indigenous people of various ethnic groups to launch attacks against the Qing invaders, plunging them into a vast ocean of "people's war".

Unexpectedly, the Qing general leading the troops acted with exceptional decisiveness. After seeing that Changning Fort was well-defended and difficult to attack, he did not linger and turned to leave, heading towards the Great Lake.

This is outrageous! They come and go as they please. Do they think our Haidong Colonization Area is a public toilet?

Upon realizing this, Zhang Dashan gripped the cement on the village wall tightly, a ruthless glint flashing in his eyes.

"Look, sir!" Xu Baonian suddenly pointed to the northwest.

A flock of birds were startled from the distant pine forest. A moment later, a Udegai hunter covered in blood staggered out of the bushes. Two eagle-feathered arrows were stuck in his back, but he was tightly clutching a rat-tail braid in his hand.

“Thirty…thirty li…” The hunter collapsed in front of the village gate, blood dripping from his mouth, yet a sinister smile appeared on his face. “Kuma said… let Master Xinhua…inspect the goods…”

"A reward! ...A generous reward!" Zhang Dashan gripped the hilt of his knife tightly, a delighted smile spreading across his face.

In a crack in the rammed earth wall next to it, a wild grass, topped with soil, stubbornly stretched out its green leaves amidst the bloodstains.
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(End of this chapter)