Yesen fled in a sorry state under the desperate protection of his personal guards.
The hundred thousand troops he had brought had arrived in a fearsome rush, but when they left, they could barely muster fifty thousand.
The remaining fifty thousand had stayed forever on this snowfield, stained red with blood.
This battle had utterly broken the Oirats' backbone.
Watching the black cavalry behind him, hounding his men like maggots clinging to bone, Yesen felt his soul fleeing his body.
He finally understood why that useless Arutai had suffered such a crushing defeat.
This wasn't an army of mortal men!
A surviving Commander of Ten Thousand wailed, "Grand Preceptor! We've been tricked! The Ming army's Grain and Fodder were never cut off!"
"Their horses are even stronger than ours!"
"And their soldiers are all made of iron!"
"I saw it!"
Yesen was so enraged that he spat out another mouthful of blood.
He had thought he was coming to pick up an easy prize. Instead, he'd charged straight into an iron wall.
No, it wasn't an iron wall. It was a moving steel fortress!
"Quick! Hurry back and tell Arutai! Make him run, too! We've all fallen into a trap!"
"That old bastard Zhu Di has been pretending to be weak all along. He was waiting for us to take the bait!"
Yesen roared himself hoarse.
But Arutai no longer had any chance to escape.
While Zhu Zhanjun was chasing Yesen's army and beating them into retreat, Zhu Di had already led the recovered remnants of the Ming army out of the valley himself. They clashed with Arutai's main force.
As one side weakened and the other gained strength, the Tatar army—already shaken by the destruction of its right-wing camp—collapsed at the first contact.
Arutai, the formidable warlord who had repeatedly eluded Zhu Di's campaigns without ever being fully defeated, was finally cut down from his horse by Duke of England Zhang Fu, who charged out from among the chaotic ranks.
When Arutai's head was raised high on a flagpole, the entire Mobei battlefield fell utterly silent.
The remaining Tatar and Oirat forces had no will to fight. They knelt in the snow, weeping as they begged to surrender.
The Battle of Mobei came to an end in a way no one could have imagined.
Three days later, in the Ming army's central command tent.
Zhu Di sat in the place of honor. Though his face remained pale, his spirits had never been better.
Below him, Zhang Fu, Xue Lu, and the other generals gazed at Zhu Zhanjun, standing beside Zhu Di, their eyes filled with awe and gratitude.
Without His Highness Prince Zheng, they would all have become bones scattered across the snowfield by now.
"Your Majesty, our army won a great victory! We killed more than seventy thousand enemies and captured over a hundred thousand! Arutai is dead, Yesen has fled, and the forces beyond the borders will be unable to invade south for decades!"
Zhang Fu reported the results, visibly excited.
"Excellent! Excellent!"
Zhu Di clapped his hands and laughed, but his gaze fell on Zhu Zhanjun. "The greatest credit in this battle belongs to my grandson Zhanjun!"
"Without Zhanjun and his three thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders, I would have been in grave danger...and Great Ming would have been in grave danger!"
At these words, every general in the tent rose and bowed deeply to Zhu Zhanjun.
"We thank His Highness Prince Zheng for saving our lives!"
The grand display made Zhu Zhanjun a little embarrassed. He scratched his head. "You're all too kind, generals. We're family. It's only right, it's only right."
Just as the tent was filled with celebration and good cheer, a commotion suddenly rose outside.
A rough voice rang out. "Get out of the way! This prince demands to see Father Emperor! Who dares stop me?"
The tent flap was then abruptly thrown open.
Two tall generals, both clad in princely robes, strode inside, snow and wind clinging to them.
They were Prince Han Zhu Gaoxu and Prince Zhao Zhu Gaosui, who had hurried through the night from their respective districts after hearing the news, racing to the emperor's rescue.
They were Zhu Di's second and third sons, and both had won great renown as fierce generals during the Jingnan Campaign.
When the two entered the tent and saw that Zhu Di was safe and sound, they froze for a moment, then broke into delighted smiles.
"Father Emperor! You're unharmed! Thank goodness!"
Prince Han Zhu Gaoxu took a long stride forward, about to pay his respects.
But when his gaze swept over Zhu Zhanjun, standing beside Zhu Di with an easy expression, his face darkened at once.
"Zhu Zhanjun? What are you doing here?"
Prince Han Zhu Gaoxu's tone was openly hostile.
"Second Uncle, Third Uncle."
Zhu Zhanjun greeted them with a lazy wave. "Why shouldn't I be here?"
"I came to save my grandfather. Is there a problem?"
"Save him?"
Prince Han Zhu Gaoxu seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. Pointing at Zhu Zhanjun, he shouted to Zhu Di, "Father Emperor! Don't let this brat fool you!"
"On my way here, I heard that you were trapped in the Great Snow Mountain, with your Grain and Fodder cut off and your life hanging by a thread!"
"As an Imperial Grandson accompanying you, Zhu Zhanjun not only failed to protect you, but let you fall into such dire straits!"
"This is a grave crime of failing to protect the emperor!"
Prince Zhao Zhu Gaosui added fuel to the fire from the side. "My second brother is right! Father Emperor, this brat spends his days idling away in the capital, cockfighting and walking dogs, and that would be bad enough."
"Now he's even been negligent in his duties on the battlefield!"
"In my view, he must be severely punished to uphold military law!"
The two of them sang the same tune, pinning the charge of failing to protect the emperor squarely on Zhu Zhanjun.
They had no idea what had happened on the battlefield.
As far as they were concerned, Zhu Zhanjun could only have ended up here because he'd been trapped alongside Zhu Di.
And since Zhu Di was safe, it had to be because they, his sons, had arrived with their armies and driven off the enemy.
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