Chapter 20
The Mingue Campaign, 7 K
(Iroquois Campaign, MN, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, 1375)
The winter passed busily with classes. Once again Paula and Mathilde helped with the reading and writing classes. It seemed that Padraig and Mathilde would be leaving us in the spring. He had been made commander of a new plains Ordu that would be set up along the Absaroke River, at its juncture with the Coal River. Paula and Mathilde were going to miss each other, but it was quite an honor for Padraig. Toward the middle of winter, Paula announced that she was again with child. It would be born while I was away in the early fall. I got Givevneu to give her some of the herb mixture she needed and to promise to keep an eye on her for me. George was already quite a rider, at least on small horses, and he was working with a toy bow and arrows. We did manage to make a run up to the Hawk Ordu to visit Henry. We waited until the river was frozen and went up on the dogsled, much to George’s delight. Nitsiza had also come along, so he wouldn’t forget how to use a sled. Actually he was quite taken with a young Siksika girl who lived there, and we saw none of him until the return trip. There was quite a bit of intertribal marriage and that, as well as the Mongol tolerance, had done much to eliminate tribal animosities. Still, there were occasional problems, especially with misunderstandings about various taboos. The Mongols’ taboos were no exception to the confusion. But great pains were taken to discover and honor each other’s prohibitions with as much goodwill as possible. Of course, kumis remained a problem. These must be the only people in the world who didn’t have some sort of alcoholic beverage. Talaswaima said his people used some sort of sacred plant that gave them visions. I suspected it was likely the mukamur of the Tungus tribes of the old land or something similar. Smoking Mirror said that the southern tribes like his father’s people had a strong drink, but it was made from the juice of a tall barrel-shaped plant with spines on it called the maguey. He was not impressed by the kumis and thought the southern drink was stronger. I wondered what he would think of the “burnt” (distilled) wine and the chiu lu” (distilled spirits) of the Hanjen.
Henry had made a special surprise for me. Having heard that I would be in command of a tumen, he found out that it would be the Wolf Tumen and made me a helmet with a very realistic wolf’s head on it. He had found the time to become very artistic since he had so many apprentices. Some of his students, including his two boys, were also producing excellent work. I praised him lavishly and could see he was quite proud.
In early spring, Padraig, Mathilde and their children set off for their new Ordu, the Antelope. Paula, George, and Smoking Mirror accompanied me to the training ground where I would take charge of the newly forming Wolf Tumen. The training ground was in the old Ocheti shakowin village near Lake Ocheti. It was a lovely spot, and Paula enjoyed it. It was also very nice to have her with me for a change. A few more mapping expeditions were sent out to flesh out some blank spots. Shingabaossin was sent to map the western borders of the Mingue and, if possible, the northern borders as well. Pesequan was sent with Watang’a to map the northern shore of the land above where the latter left off the year before. Desthewa and Anawangmani were sent to map the shore south of where the latter left off the year before. They were to stop if they met any hostility, but both groups would have a sizable escort. Mahohivas and Pakonkya were to map the rest of the Wazhazhe River, then cross it and map the southern side as far as they could go among friendly tribes. Again a mapper was assigned to each tumen.
The training went quite well. The men had to get used to the horses and our bows. The greater range of the latter necessitated aiming changes. They got used to our various arrows also. The armor-piercing one was puzzling to them, since none of them nor anyone they knew of wore metal armor, but it was always a good idea to be ready for anything. Some of them took to the sword, but many preferred to use axes, and Henry had made quite a few steel axe heads for them. The maneuvering was probably the hardest thing to teach them. They had no trouble moving stealthily through the woods, but reaching a certain spot at a certain time took quite a bit of training. It was fortunate we had plenty of time to train them. By midsummer, however, I could wait at a clearing in the forest and almost the whole Ordu would poke through the surrounding trees at the given time. They were as ready as they would be.
Word came to move to the jump-off point. I sent Paula and the other women and children back to the Eagle Ordu with a strong escort. She was quite large, but still had some time to go before the baby came. I told little George to take care of her and made her promise to look up Givevneu when she arrived. We all left at the same time, they heading west, and we heading southeast. There were three other new forest tumen as well as mine. These were the Deer, the Moos (we had begun calling the large elklike animal by the name given it by the eastern tribes), and the Otter. My tumen was assigned the northern flank at the southern end of Lake Michigamaw. The other Ordu were placed on a line to the south of us about seventy-five li apart. The friendly tribes in our immediate path were already advised of our approach and assured we would bother neither them nor their game when we passed. All of them had given indication that they would likely confederate with us, and, indeed, the observers they had sent the year before were among the Ordu. They wanted to send more, but we didn’t really want any untrained and undisciplined auxiliaries along.
Smoking Mirror was still along with me. He had sent word to his brother through one of the returning Kitikiti’sh that he would return in the winter after the current campaign. He had been observing and taking part in all the exercises, and, although he now had a steel sword, still used his own. It was hard to say how he would advise his brother, he never gave any indication, and I thought it would be rude to ask. He stayed by my side throughout the campaign and even wore a wolf’s head like my other minghan commanders.
A copy of Shingabaossin’s map of the western “borders” of the Mingue was waiting for each of the tumen commanders. There didn’t seem to be any special terrain problems in the area covered by his map. We all moved forward on the given day, about eight days after we arrived. Juchi’s Foxes were to my right. The people through whom we would be passing were the Iliniwek. We passed through their country as quickly as possible, remaining on horseback and making long marches. It only took us three days to clear them and begin encountering their eastern neighbors, the Twanhtwanh. These had a very large contingent among us and more were kept from tagging along only with great difficulty. It took four days to clear their land. Toward the end of the third day, we came to the large lake where Juchi had found the Twanhtwanh the year before. I decided to name it Lake Twanh after them since they had been such help. The land near the western end of the lake was rather marshy, but farther south, along a slow meandering river, it was more like a swamp. Assured no one lived in the swampy area, we hugged the lakeshore until the land became more solid.
As soon as we cleared the marshy border of the Twanhtwanh, we changed over to the infiltrative advance. This, of course, slowed us down considerably, but would help us avoid ambushes. Word soon came of a palisaded town ahead. It was isolated along the bank of a small stream that emptied into the lake. I brought up the horses to expedite surrounding the town. The palisade was quite high, at least thirty feet, and it was impossible to see over it from our position. The townsfolk were doing some late harvesting and were obviously not expecting us. They were no taller than any other tribe we had encountered, but they did wear very little clothing for being so far north. The men’s hair was all shaved except for a thin line in the middle of the head, from forehead to neck, dressed to stand up like bristles. Just as the horses were brought up, a heavily laden hunting party could be seen approaching the town from the east. This caused some excitement, and further covered our getting mounted up. I waited until the party was almost to the palisade before ordering the encirclement. The men streamed around the village in a large arc. The stunned Mingue stood for a moment, then ran back to their town. Once we had surrounded the town, I sent one of the Twanhtwanh, who could speak a little of Mingue language, forward to deliver the usual ultimatum.
I could see that their palisades had platforms on the inside, for their warriors were visible above it. When my man finished the ultimatum, he was promptly pierced with several arrows and fell. I was furious, but quickly overcame the fury, and gave orders. We were out of their bowshot, but they were not out of ours. First, I had the men shoot three volleys of arrows high over the palisade, then two volleys of fire arrows, then more regular arrows. I thought they might be able to put out a regular barrage of fire arrows, but with a little softening up, and overkill with the fire arrows, and enough deadly hail to keep them from putting out the fires, it should get out of control. Indeed, it was obvious that the fire was spreading fast. A gentle breeze off the lake fanned the flames, and soon even the palisade was smoldering. In desperation, the warriors clambered over the palisade and tried to rush us, only to be cut down. Even their women and children poured out of the palisade opening and headed for our lines armed with sharp sticks and stones. These also were cut down. When resistance seemed over, the men advanced carefully, and as expected when they got close enough, some of the apparently lifeless warriors sprung up to the attack. This cost us a few men, but only a few.
We recovered our arrows and took the rest of their harvest, before moving on a little to camp for the night. I sent out scouts to reconnoiter and set up sentries. Nothing happened in the night, but the next morning one of the scouts did not return. The others reported no less than three towns nearby. One was quite small and a short distance ahead. The other two were to our south and to our southeast. The missing scout had gone south, so we went south. Late in the day, we arrived at the palisaded town. It was larger than the one we had destroyed. There were fields all around the town that had not been fully harvested, but no one was in the fields. There was a lot of noise coming from the town, and only a few warriors were visible on the palisade. Their attention seemed to be directed inward, with occasional glances outward.
Not wishing to waste any more men on ultimata, I ordered the men around the town. As we broke out into the open, the lookouts finally noticed us and tried to raise the alarm. By the time we had surrounded the town, the noise died down, and the palisade began to bristle with warriors. I used the same strategy with the same effect. The warriors spent less time on the fire, however, and rushed us with an odd sort of frenzy. They screamed wildly and seemed to need more arrows than one would expect to cut them down. Some even got close enough to be cut down with sword or axe. This was also true of the women and children, even the rather small children, who rushed us like rabid dogs. I was quite taken aback by this and asked Smoking Mirror if he had ever seen the like. He admitted that he hadn’t seen anything quite this extreme, but sometimes after the Hasinai warriors had partaken in the flesh of a captive, they did fight with extra ferocity. A sickening thought occurred to me, and when the fire in the town burned itself out, I went in and found the charred, dismembered remains of a captive, still tied to a stake. I couldn’t tell, of course, but I had a feeling it was our missing scout. Again, I felt a wave of fury and only with difficulty overcame it. We paused long enough to bury our dead (including what was probably our scout) and retrieve our arrows, then set off to the east to the next town.
We reached it a little before dark on the next day, and we camped for the night. Before first light, we had surrounded the town, and as the Mingue lookouts squinted into the early dawn, they saw our force emerge from the woods into the cleared fields encircling the town. Before I could order the first barrage, a lone man emerged from the palisade and came toward our line. He was unarmed and held his hands up to demonstrate the fact. As he drew near, I could see he was an older man, but I was on my guard, fully prepared for some sort of treachery. I found one of the Ottawa who could speak the language of a tribe related to the Mingue. The old man looked at our horses and us; then his eyes returned to me. It was obvious he was bewildered by us in general and me in particular. I told the interpreter to deliver the ultimatum. He did, and again the man turned to me.
“Why have you come to my village with this ultimatum?” he asked. “What have we done to warrant destruction at your hand? Who are you? You are not one of our neighbors.”
“You are a warlike, belligerent people, whose very existence is an affront to the Blue Sky,” I answered coldly. “Your people and your relatives to the east attacked our peaceful expedition last fall and must answer for the outrage. As to who we are, we are the Mongols, the Wolf Tumen of the Khanate of the Blue Sky.”
“My village attacked no strangers such as you last fall,” the old man rejoined. “If we had, we would accept the consequence of our actions. You cannot hold us responsible for the deeds of distant relatives only some of whom are even loosely allied to us.”
“You can always surrender the town,” I said. “Otherwise, you must share the fate of your towns to the west.”
“What was that fate?” he asked.
“Annihilation,” I answered.
“If we surrender, what will become of us?” he wanted to know.
“You will have to join us,” I began. “Of course, we could not trust you, at first; you would have to earn that. But in time and in the absence of treachery, you would become Mongols. We would require a group of your warriors to accompany us, and eventually we would appoint a governor whose orders you would have to obey without question.”
“You would not kill any of us or make us slaves?” He seemed surprised.
“No,” I answered. “You have until midmorning to bring us your decision.”
He returned to the town, and the men got ready to attack. They seemed to be sure the Mingue would never surrender. Smoking Mirror asked me if I thought there was some similarity between the language of the Mingue and that of the Kadohadacho. I couldn’t see it, but reminded him that he was much more familiar with it than I was. Still, I couldn’t imagine how a people this far removed from his could speak a related language. I asked him what he thought the chief would decide to do. He had no idea, but suggested that I not enter the town if it did surrender, just in case they did plan treachery. He was right, of course, but I hated to order someone else to take such a risk.
Before long, the old man returned to our lines, again holding his arms up to show he was not armed. He reported that the town had agreed to surrender and would send out the young men requested. He then invited me to visit the town. I prudently replied that I had to move on. They would be left alone for now, and should any other group of Mongols approach, they should say that they had already surrendered to the Wolf Tumen. We gathered up the men and proceeded north to the small village. They also surrendered quickly after one of the Mingue explained the situation to them. We continued eastward with occasional excursions to the south and accepted the surrender of several more towns before we came to another large town that killed the Mingue who delivered our ultimatum. This upset the others from his town, and they wanted to take part in the attack, but I told them, they were on probation and would have to obey orders or else. The town suffered the same fate as the others that had resisted. The demonstration was also instructive for our Mingue guests, who were shocked at how totally we destroyed the town at such minimum cost.
The shore of the lake was taking us farther north, so I thought it wise to contact Juchi to see if he was covering me well enough or if I had to stretch farther south. We made contact, and it turned out he was still a little to the west of me, but he was covering my flank pretty well. While he had been slowed by the need to reduce six of the towns, the tumen to his south were shifting north due to running into a mountain range free of any Mingue or anyone else except for scattered hunting parties from the Amani yukhan. To the south, the tumen had found a small group of Mingue towns that called themselves the Honniasontkeronon. These had offered no resistance at all. The group we were currently fighting our way through called themselves the Yenresh, or people of the long tail (a reference to a medium-sized panther-type cat). Their resistance varied along the line, but all the tumen had seen some action. Donduk ordered that we keep in contact with neighboring tumen every day.
On the sixteenth day of the campaign, we reached a town that our Yenresh said belonged to a different group of Mingue, the Atirhagenrat. They also surrendered, as did the six other towns they had on this side of the lake. We found that the lake ended in a river at its northeast tip. The river flowed northward over a broad band of waterfalls and on to another large lake. I called it Lake Mingue, since they seemed to surround it. The Atirhagenrat said that most of their villages were on the northwestern end of Lake Twanh, across the river with the falls. I sent some of them to contact their other villages, promising them destruction on our way back if they didn’t surrender. The next town we encountered was of yet another group of Mingue. They killed the Atirhagenrat we sent with the ultimatum, so we had to destroy them. This seemed to be the pattern with these people, and of the eight villages I encountered, only one surrendered. It seemed they called themselves Oneniute’ron’non. Few of them surrendered to the south either. Juchi only got two of seven to surrender and only five of the rest surrendered. The next group of Mingue were the same, only a total of six of the towns surrendered, none to me. This group called themselves the Kwenio’gwen and, while less numerous than the last group, were no less fierce. Our losses were beginning to mount. One of my minghan commanders was killed fighting this group.
Our more southerly tumen were also encountering a very fierce group, the Kanastoge. These were the ones who had first attacked Juchi. They turned out to be living in a very broad valley along a wide shallow river. They had no real tribal cohesion owing allegiance only to their town. Only one of their towns ended up surrendering. Not as far south, there was a small group called the Awenro’ron’non, who surrendered all of their few towns.
The next group we encountered surrendered almost half of their towns. They called themselves the Ononta’ge. They were almost as numerous as the Oneniute’ron’non, but less bellicose. The next group was another small one, but only a few of their towns surrendered. They were the Tiionen’iote’. The last group we encountered was the worst. They resisted savagely; only four of all their towns could be induced to surrender. These called themselves the Kaniengehaga. We were much relieved when we finally finished them and found the northern neighbors of the Leni lenape along an east-flowing river that proved to empty into the Leni Lenape River. They sometimes called themselves the Mahican, that meant People of the Wolf, making my tumen quite a hit among them. This leg of the campaign had taken us to late fall, but the Mingue were destroyed as a threat.
Our losses were not as inconsequential as in the Hotcangara campaign. I had lost about seven hundred dead and twice as many wounded. The other tumen’s losses were comparable. One of the southernmost tumen, the Kestrels, had almost four thousand killed and wounded. The Bear Ordu set up camp at the eastern limit of Mingue territory on the bank of the river (I named it for the Mahicans since they controlled its lower end) that flowed east to join the Leni Lenape River. The seriously wounded were left with them so they’d have a chance to recover or at least die in peace. The Osprey Ordu set up camp near the eastern end of Lake Twanh, right in the middle of the river that connected the two lakes. The rest of the Atirhagenrat had decided to surrender also, but we were a little suspicious of them. It also turned out that there was yet another group of Mingue on the north shore of Lake Mingue. These called themselves the Wendat. It was too late in the fall to make an attack on them, so Donduk ordered the Atirhagenrat to contact them with a surrender demand they could think over during the winter. Donduk further decided to remain as governor so he could keep an eye on them as well as the rest of the Mingue. The Otter Ordu was placed at the headwaters of the Wazhazhe River, not far from where two rivers join together to form it, and the Moos Ordu was placed on the western border of the Yenresh tribe, not far from the first of their villages to surrender. This would enable them to come quickly to aid the other Ordu if needed. Meanwhile, the Mingue were charged with burying their dead and keeping all four of the Ordu fed for the winter. The rest of us started back. The Kestrels returned to their old Ordu, as did the Foxes. The Deer and my Wolves went to the old camps of the Bears and Osprey. I settled them in, put my second in command, Temur, in charge and went on to the Eagle Ordu. It snowed off and on most of the way, but the new fully functional yam network made it an easy trip.
Smoking Mirror wanted to return to the Eagle Ordu with me and take his leave of Kaidu before returning home. I asked him what he thought of the Mongols after being with them for a year. He said we were good warriors, but our main strengths were our superior weaponry and the horses. Our tactics were more logical than innovative, and the forest tactics were quite typical of the southeastern tribes. We would not easily conquer them, but we would in the end, from sheer force of numbers. He thought it little short of miraculous that we had been able to unite as many tribes as we had, and turn them into a cohesive, disciplined army. He was particularly surprised that we were so successful since we seemed to do nothing for our gods. He couldn’t imagine how they could be so benevolent to us when we all but ignored them.
I assured him that Kaidu made the requisite sacrifices to Tengri and the more devout Mongols made appropriate offering to their lesser gods. Also the locals who joined us continued to honor their gods, but we just didn’t let it interfere with our orders. He then said that he had never seen me offer any sacrifices at all in the year we had been together. Did I actually feel no obligation to the gods? I tried to explain that my “tribe” believed in a god that did not need sacrifices. We offered him our work and strove to do the best we could at it to honor him. He said that I sounded like an artisan. I told him about our family history and explained that I was the first one who was not a swordsmith. He then said he understood. His father revered the god of the merchants, Yacateuctli, the Lord of the Nose. Smoking Mirror also served that god even though he was not exactly a merchant.
I went with him when he took his leave of Kaidu. He thanked him for his hospitality and the openness with which he was received. He told him that he was fortunate to be served by me, and he was grateful that he had been allowed to remain with me throughout his stay. Finally he said that he would tell his “brother” that he should confederate with us, or, at the very least, remain at peace with us, for we could easily destroy the Hasinai. He then thanked me again and took his leave. We gave him the horse and weapons he had been using as a gift.
Kaidu was pleased and told me he hoped the Hasinai would confederate. I reported on the campaign, fleshing out the dispatches Donduk had sent. He was satisfied with the campaign, but regretted that it had been so bloody for us. Of course, the elimination of a large hostile force was necessary, but it would behoove us to mop up the following year instead of taking any new ground. The various mappers had come in, and I would be able to flesh out my maps further. All of the major tribes we had contacted the year before, except for the Hasinai, had either confederated or joined us. Actually only the scattered, primitive southern tribes had joined us, the rest would only confederate. Still, the ploy was working, and more and more of the confederates were joining as individuals, if not as tribes. It looked as though we would not only be able to replace all of our losses, but we would be able to raise at least two more tumen. Kaidu did not want to take on the southeastern tribes for a while.
I told him that the main flaw in our strategy was our dependence on the weather. While we had been lucky to have had a fairly dry fall to aid in our fire arrow attacks, it was quite likely that the damper southeast would need another approach. I suggested that he let me try to find a source of saltpeter or, failing that, petroleum. With the former, I could make gunpowder, and if Henry could make a cannon, we could make short work of the palisades even if it was raining. We could also terrify the enemy with the rockets the Hanjen used to make. From the petroleum I could distill the clear burning liquid that was used in the Hanjen fire thrower. He thought the saltpeter was worth looking for, but considered the fire thrower too dangerous as an offensive weapon, but an excellent defensive weapon. If we ever went on the defensive it would be useful, but he had seen too many accidents with it on offensive operations. He told me to look for both, but especially the saltpeter.
Paula, meanwhile, had presented me with a daughter. She wanted to name her for her friend, Mathilde, and I thought it a good idea. The delivery had been easier than the first, and both mother and child were fine. George was only a little interested in his sister, but was especially thrilled with the miniature replica of my helmet that his cousin, Henry, had made for him. Mathilde had written that their Ordu was in a beautiful spot, and they hoped we could visit them if time permitted. Padraig had sent out his mappers toward the west to contact the tribes beyond the Salst and the Nimipu. They would winter there and return in the summer. Perhaps that prospect would help draw us there? I was interested in the western shore tribes, but whether I could go there in the summer would depend on whether I had found any saltpeter. I decided to see if any of the newer recruits from the eastern tribes were familiar with it. None were familiar with it until one of the Wazhazhe tasted it. He was certain he had tasted the “salt that cools the tongue” before. He said it was in a cave in the northern part of the tribal lands. He was sure he could take me there in the spring. I had not heard of it being in a cave before, but it sounded more promising than the miserable method of making it artificially with rotting vegetation and ash.
The maps were interesting. The men had been again rebuffed on the large island off the northeast coast, but to the north of it, the very rugged coast gradually turned westward. They eventually ran into people that sounded like the Inuit from the description. They had been allowed to map the coast and found it occupied by them until it plunged south into a very deep bay. At the southern end of the bay, they had run into Kensistenoug. They would go back to finish mapping the coast the next spring. Great rivers cut the central part of the eastern coast. At the mouth of the Leni Lenape River was a group of islands, one very long and narrow, and the others much smaller. They named the largest island Montauk for the main group of villages on the island. All along the mainland coast to the south of the Leni Lenape River, there were barrier islands broken occasionally by channels. The interior coast was very marshy on both shores of the back bays. After some distance, they arrived at the tip of a peninsula jutting in to narrow the mouth of a broad bay. They followed this up to another great river, on both sides of which lived the Leni lenape. Since it was a great river, but there was already one named for the tribe, they decided to name this one the Raven River. That was flattering, but not very politic. I changed the name to the Chingis River. Beyond the bay, they again found barrier islands and again came to a peninsula and a huge bay. They followed the western side of the peninsula all the way up to the mouth of the same wide river along which the Mingue had been found. They had not named this river yet, so I named it the Kubilai River. At this point, it was late fall, and they went to the Bear Ordu to winter and sent their maps west with the dispatches. They would continue the following spring. Shingabaossin had finished mapping most of the northern side of Lake Twanh and filled in some of the area farther north of it. He would start mapping the area occupied by the Atirhagenrat and the Wendat and fill out what he had missed during earlier expeditions the following spring. South of the Wazhazhe River, the lands of the Amani yukhan seemed to extend to the foothills of a chain of mountains running from northeast to southwest. Mahohivas and Pakonkya had made it as far south as one of the two great rivers we had noticed joining the Wazhazhe from the south. Along it they had run into the strange tribe Juchi had found the year before. They had reluctantly decided to confederate. They called themselves “Tsoyaha Yuchi” which apparently meant “Children of the Sun from Faraway.” It seemed they believed they were descended from the sun and traveled from “far away” to arrive at their current location. They did not consider themselves related to any other tribe. We decided to call them Tsoyaha, and they were quite happy with that name.