While the old empires of Europe dithered and debated, paralyzed by their own self-interest and the subtle poison of Qing intelligence, the Russian Bear began to stir on China's northern frontier. The news of France's abandonment and Britain's sudden, inexplicable reluctance to act had reached St. Petersburg. The Tsar and his ministers understood the terrifying truth: they were alone on the long land border with an empire that was now flexing its muscles with impunity. Their gambit of internal subversion was no longer a long-term strategy; it was their only immediate defense.
On the vast, windswept grasslands of Outer Mongolia, the seeds of that subversion had taken root and blossomed into open rebellion. Khan Toghrul, his confidence buoyed by a steady stream of Russian rifles and promises of a reborn Mongol Empire, had grown bold. His horde of horsemen, no longer content with small raids, had descended upon and sacked a major Qing garrison town on the border, a place called Khovd.
Inside the captured town, a chaotic celebration was underway. Mongol warriors, their faces flushed with victory and fermented mare's milk, galloped through the streets, dragging colorful Qing banners through the dust. They looted the merchants' shops and distributed the spoils, proclaiming the beginning of a new era.
"The Manchu dogs run before us!" Khan Toghrul roared from the steps of the governor's yamen, holding a captured Qing officer's sword aloft. "Their so-called Emperor hides in the south, playing games with the Japanese dwarfs! He has forgotten the true power of the steppe! The White Tsar in the north is our brother, and his guns are true! Soon, we will ride to Beijing itself and water our horses in the Forbidden City, as our great ancestor once did!"
His warriors let out a great, guttural cheer, a sound that seemed to echo the conquests of a bygone age.
But the Dragon Emperor had not forgotten them. He had anticipated this move. And his response was not to send a traditional, slow-moving army to retake the town. He unleashed a new kind of weapon, an army designed specifically for this kind of war.
A week later, the Qing Pacification Division arrived. It was not a massive force, only five thousand men, but they were unlike any army the Mongols had ever seen. They were composed almost entirely of cavalry—a mix of swift Mongolian horse archers from tribes loyal to the Qing and heavily armed Manchu lancers—supported by a dozen light, fast-moving artillery pieces that could be disassembled and carried on horseback. They were led by a young, ruthless general named Cai, a man who had earned the Emperor's favor for his absolute lack of sentimentality.
General Cai's orders from the Emperor, which he had read in a private audience before leaving Beijing, were burned into his mind. "The Mongols are a proud, nomadic people. Their strength is their mobility. You cannot defeat them by taking their towns back; they will simply melt away into the steppe. You must defeat them by taking their horses, their grass, and their pride. Do not seek a decisive battle with their main horde. Hunt them. Harass their smaller clans. Burn their grazing lands so their herds starve. And when you do fight them, show them no mercy. Show them that the past is dead."
The Pacification Division did not march on Khovd. They began a systematic campaign of terror across the surrounding steppe. They burned the vast grasslands, turning the life-giving sea of grass into a black, smoking desert. They captured the Mongols' herds of horses and sheep, driving them off. They fell upon smaller, isolated encampments at dawn, killing the warriors and taking the women and children captive.
Enraged, Khan Toghrul led his main force out of the captured town to hunt down this new, frustratingly elusive enemy. He finally cornered them on a wide, open plain. Believing his superior numbers would grant him victory, he ordered a charge.
It was a magnificent, terrifying sight. Thousands of Mongol horsemen, screaming their ancient war cries, charged across the plain in a great crescent formation, just as their ancestors had done under Genghis Khan.
General Cai, however, did not meet them in a traditional line. He had learned the lessons of the West, and of his Emperor. His army formed hollow squares, a tactic the British had used to devastating effect against cavalry charges in their colonial wars. The outer ranks knelt, their rifles resting on crossed stakes, while the inner ranks stood ready to fire over their heads. At the corners of each square were the new, terrifying Gatling guns, their multi-barreled muzzles promising a storm of lead.
The Mongol charge, so full of spirit and fury, broke upon the disciplined squares like a wave breaking on a rocky shore. The Qing repeating rifles and Gatling guns created a wall of lead that the horsemen could not penetrate. Horses and riders went down in screaming, tangled heaps. The glorious charge dissolved into a bloody rout. The Mongols, masters of open-field warfare for a thousand years, were helpless against the cold, murderous geometry of modern firepower.
That night, in the Khan's depleted camp, the mood was somber. The victory celebration had turned to ashes in their mouths. The Russian agent, Dimitri Volkov, found Khan Toghrul staring into a campfire, his face a mask of despair.
"Your warriors are the bravest I have ever seen, Great Khan," Volkov said, his voice quiet. "But their courage and their tactics are from another age. You cannot defeat his new army in the open field."
"Then what are we to do?" Toghrul growled. "My best men are dead. Our herds are scattered. The grass is burning. This devil Emperor in Beijing has taken the sky, the sea, and now he takes the land itself!"
"You must fight differently," Volkov replied. "You must become the shadow that haunts his new empire." He gestured to his men, who brought forward a set of heavy wooden crates. He pried one open with a crowbar. It did not contain rifles. Inside, nestled in straw, were sticks of dynamite, long coils of fuse, and complex-looking metal detonators.
"The Tsar has sent you new weapons," Volkov explained, picking up a stick of dynamite. "New tactics. The Dragon Emperor wants to build an empire of steel and order. His strength is his railways, his bridges, his telegraph lines. These are the veins and arteries of his new power." He held up the dynamite. "And this is the poison we will inject into them. I will teach you how to blow up their railways. How to destroy their bridges. How to make the very ground they stand on their most hated enemy."
A new, darker light began to kindle in Khan Toghrul's eyes. He could not win an open war, but perhaps he could win a secret one.
The episode concluded a week later. A small, elite group of Mongol warriors, personally led by Volkov, crept through the night. Their target was a newly constructed section of the Trans-Siberian Railway's southern spur line, a vital artery that QSH had been building to transport troops and supplies rapidly into Manchuria. They laid the charges carefully against the supports of a high wooden trestle bridge.
Volkov connected the wires and unspooled the detonator cable, taking cover behind a rock outcropping. "The Dragon Emperor wants to bind the world together with his iron," he whispered to the Khan's son, who was with him. "We will show him that iron can be twisted, and order can be turned to chaos with a single, glorious spark."
He pushed down the plunger. A brilliant flash of light lit up the night sky, followed a second later by a massive, earth-shaking BOOM that echoed for miles across the silent steppe. The great bridge, a symbol of Qing progress and power, splintered, buckled, and collapsed into the ravine below in a tangle of burning timber and twisted steel. The clandestine war for the control of the Asian heartland between the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon had just truly begun.