Mongolia was an arid land by any standards, unless your standard was those of the Saharan Peoples to whom Mongolia would seem like paradise. It was once said that the only notable things Mongolia ever produced were Genghis Khan and hordes of excellent steppe horsemen. And the fact that Mongolia had been in most of China’s history a constant thorn at her side didn’t hurt either. And that was why the Great Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty was enjoying a nice tan under the harsh Mongolian Sun.
It was the annual gathering of the various Mongolian Tribes similar to a massive market day as Mongols from throughout well Mongolia gathered. They were there to show off who had the biggest oxen, the best tent, and the strongest children. And of course they went showing off their horsemanship as well as archery prowess something that the Mongols were extremely vain of. Prestige, wealth, and honor could all be gained at the annual festival. Usually the festival was attended by mostly Mongolians with a few Chinese seeking to sell some delicious snacks.
This year however, the presence of several thousand Chinese crack troops was a tad disturbing. Of course, the Chinese merchants had a field day supplying food to the soldiers even though they couldn’t find out why they were here. The Mongolians of course in their typical arrogance scoffed and refused to answer any questions but to any keen eye some of the lower ranking Mongolians were just as mystified.
You see, the Qing Dynasty has always maintained an active and very good intelligence service in the Empire to see if any ethnicities were discontent with Qing Rule and whether or not they planned to do something about it. The purpose of the intelligence agency wasn’t to “purge” traitors or people following superstitions such as Islam, Christianity and so on. It was just information gathering or at least that’s what all the Confucian and Civil Officials were told.
That same apparatus had detected that the Mongolians were discontent with Qing rule because they were well Mongolians and thought themselves as the rightful inheritor of the mantle of Genghis Khan. Of course, that was mostly wistful thinking. But they really shouldn’t have been thinking in the first place, that was the Qing Emperor’s job. So this show of force was supposed to intimidate most of the Mongolians or so they thought. It actually made the younger Mongolians angry since they were furious that the Emperor would think they would be so easily intimidated.
However, in reality it seems that the Mongolians were indeed wrong. You see while Emperor Qianlong is a brilliant General and leaders of armies, he’s just as good as a diplomat. Some problems are better solved with words and shaking hands then guns and bullets. Okay, in this case a bow and arrow. In case you may not have noticed, Mongolians are obsessed with their horsemanship and archery skills shown by the annual festival’s competition. The point of the competition would be to shoot at various targets over a larger distance of land across many different types of obstacles.
The winner won nothing such as gold or silver, but instead won great prestige and honor two things which meant the same thing to Mongolians. Now if you’re a smart chap you should know what’s going to happen next. Yep, Emperor Qianlong entered that competition and won. Amazing how being an Emperor and how his enemies all tended to have “accidents” such as their horse falling over in mid gallop gave him great victory. Very auspicious omens for a Heavenly Khan, you don’t mess with a guy who’s lucky.
Of course, since the Emperor won had naturally got all that prestige and honor with the honor of a huge banquet thrown by the Mongolian Tribal Chiefs swearing eternally loyalty to Emperor Qianlong. (He noticed how they swore eternal loyalty to him and not the Qing Dynasty) Another fine example of Asian Diplomacy even though the harder part is to come, to convince the Han Chinese Majority that the Qing Dynasty wasn’t crazy.
And to find some people to dra-send to Europe to study in their famous universities but that was a secondary concern. Emperor Qianlong was doing absolutely great even though the Ambassador from Andorra kept on trying to throw flaming apples at him. Where he got the apples in such large quantities was something the intelligence apparatus was still working on.
p)
