"Witness the Great Divine Spirit of Blood Eye! This mighty Huntong River has dozens of tributaries, stretching from downstream to upstream for thousands, even tens of thousands of miles!..."

"It is truly a Great River, possessing spirit. Legend has it that when the Heavenly Divine Abukaenduri created the heavens and earth, he released a great flood... Later, it was the Heavenly Divine’s youngest daughter Bai Yun who secretly took the treasure box of the deities, scattered mountains and plains, and let the flood form the Great River..."

Chief of Harman Ali rambled on, recounting ancient myths circulating among the Southern Shushu Jurchen tribes. As for the Wild Man Chief Maha Agudah coming south from the North, he showed bewilderment, hearing these Southern Jurchen tales for the first time. And the chief god priest Zuwaro was stretching out his fingers, tracing the thick blue line representing the Heilongjiang River on the map, exploring upstream bit by bit.

"Downstream of the Great River, from the Wusuli Wula estuary in the south, to the far northeast entrance, extends about two thousand miles, it’s ’the tail of the Black Dragon!’ At the starting point of the tail, the Wusuli River estuary, there is the Xishen Guard as the lock of the river. At the end, at the mouth of the Henggu River, are both the Nurgan Metropolitan Authority and the Manjing Guard, also locking the river..."

"These two ends, within two thousand miles downstream, are the most critical strategic locations! The Great Ming court not only conferred a large number of tribal garrisons along the Great River, but also dispatched official armies to build camps, sending officials from Han Land to administer... The Nurgan Metropolitan Authority was established in the seventh year of Yongle, and the Xishen Guard in the eighth year of Yongle, events from over eighty years ago! Until over forty years ago during the Xuande Period, Nurgan and Xishen Guard still had court troops stationed...

"After Xuande, there was the great change at Tumu Pass... the Nurgan Metropolitan Authority was relocated inward, and the official army on the Great River’s downstream withdrew entirely. All river forts were handed to the conferred Jurchen tribes by the court... Then came the continuous southward movement of the Wild Man Tribes, plundering and continuously killing along the river tribes. The strength of all conferred tribes gradually weakened, either migrating inwards to join, relocating to the mid-upper reaches of the Great River, or desperately holding on until being broken by the Wild Men...

"Alas! Ancestors witness! My Harman Guard has held on from the Xuande Period till now in the Hongzhi Era, guarding for three generations!... Fighting from a tribe of two to three thousand down to only four to five hundred people, almost one of the last few court garrisons left on the northern downstream... In the end, it was still your southward-moving Wuzhe Mountain Forest Jurchens that attacked the village and annihilated the tribe...

"Oh Blood Eye Great Divine Spirit! The killing along this Great River’s downstream never ceases, and can only be stopped by killing!... Holding the Copper Seal of the Manjing Guard’s Commander, it is certain that the Manjing Guard doesn’t exist anymore. Meanwhile, the Valka East Sea Wild Men have already breached the Zhe Tie Lie Mountain Guard stationed at the Nuannuan River Estuary...

"As for the Xishen Guard, located at the strategic Wusuli River estuary, it’s the necessary route for north and south travelers, facing migration and plunder from the Valka East Sea Wild Men and the Hu’erha North River Wild Men! That river-locking garrison, even with three conferred large tribes jointly defending, has long been breached multiple times. The guarding tribe either perishes or flees, abandoning the river estuary for over a decade, letting the Wild Men’s great tribe move southward... 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Let me think, of the present two thousand mile-long ’tail of the Black Dragon,’ the remaining garrisons... from north to south, should only be Fushan Guard, Hushimen Guard, Yierguli Guard these three places. These garrison tribes can still endure because the villages are built at strategic locations, relying on mountains and rivers, easy to defend and hard to attack! However, seeing those Wuzhe Mountain Wild Men’s claims, the southern six hundred mile Fushan Guard is already besieged and plundered by Wild Men, perilously unstable...

As the ’local tyrant’ chieftain Ali narrated, the entire two thousand mile situation of the Heilongjiang River’s downstream gradually unfolded before everyone’s eyes like a fog being lifted. And Zuwaro pondered deeply from a broader perspective regarding these arrangements by the ’Great Ming Tribe Alliance.’

"Oh Chief Divine! Establishing a series of strategic points along this mighty river. Building forts, stationing troops, conferring surrounding tribes, controlling strategic locations at each rivermouth, estuary... This long line arrangement relying on the Great River, is this how the Ming controls the Great River’s downstream, grasping its vast flowing area that stretches thousands of miles?"

"Chief Divine witness! The Southern Great Ming’s deployment of this long line of strategic points along the river is quite powerful in military control, effectively appeasing surrounding tribes through tribute, indeed the best strategy!... To expand the Kingdom’s influence over this Forest Sea, one must learn from the Ming who once ruled here!... Yet in the end, the Ming chose withdrawal; What is the reason behind this decision?...

Zuwaro squinted, gazing at the map of the Great River’s downstream. Along these two thousand miles of riverbank, countless southward Wild Man tribes are either battling each other or fighting with the Ming’s left Shushu Jurchen Tribe garrisons. This fierce clash is not a matter of a year or two, nor a mere one-off incidence, but rather it can continue for ten to dozens of years!

It is like using a saw to cut a tree, no matter how many ropes break, how many Wild Man tribes perish, new ropes are always available. The tree being sawed loses its northern branches one by one, breaks the riverbank garrisons endlessly, ultimately leaving only a rugged yet bare trunk standing strong but isolated in the south, deep within distant borders...

"Ali! Has the Southern Ming truly abandoned these northern downstream ’military fortresses’ and ’tribute tribes?’ Given their supposedly thousands of troops, as powerful as legends say, dispatching a few thousand troops, moving northward along the river for attack should be effortless, right?... "