Wulan Mountain is a paradise in the desert of Huaidan.
Thirty miles to the west is the Keke Salt Lake, to the south are Yak Mountains, Dulan Lake and the Great Wetland, to the north is the lush forested Harihatu Mountain, and to the east is the Chaka Salt Pond across the 140 miles of mountain road.
There are both vast woodlands suitable for grazing and large amounts of irrigated land for farming.
The Mongolian men set up an endless camp at the foot of the mountain and built a city.
The city was built very simply. The wall was wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was one foot high and square. The base of the wall was six feet wide. The upper part of the city was four feet wide. There was a foot-thick parapet.
The city wall is very low and narrow, and no other fortifications were built except for water diversion trenches, but it is enough to make Arslan proud... This is the city he presided over the construction of, what a city!
In such a large Mongolia, there are only a few people who are responsible for building cities. Starting from this city of Ulan, he, Arslan, must be one of them.
At this moment, Arslan stood at the foot of Wulan Mountain, looking at this rammed earth city, his heart almost floated to the sky: relying on the 10,000 troops left by his father, he strangely found the feeling of sweating profusely. .
Arslan never felt like a leader.
In the past in Khalkha, his elders were the leaders of the tribes in Khalkha, and his father was just one of the many nobles. As for himself, he was not special among the many noble warriors.
Even outside Gansu, with his father as the leader, he only considered himself one of the dozens of thousands of men in this Mongolian army.
Even if he has an army under his command, he does not consider himself a leader... The traditional nomadic tribe life is not just about warriors, but they only have warriors who are tired, hungry, and fleeing here and there.
Only in Wulan Mountain.
Not long after Chuoktu Taiji launched the Eastern Campaign, countless Mongolians came from Monan to defect to the Mongolian heroes who invaded Qinghai - not to Chuoktu, but to him, Arslan.
These newly defected Mongols came from the right-wing Tumut, Yongshebu and Ordos. They were the losers in Lin Dan Khan's Western Expedition.
When the war ended, they lost their hometown and were stationed in Yanbian. They followed Chuoktu Taiji in search of Lin Dan Khan's messenger and went all the way to Qinghai.
Arslan considered not accepting them.
The vast majority of these people are not soldiers. The strong and powerful people died or died in the war, and most of the old and weak died in the early frost last spring. The survivors are mostly defeated soldiers and women and children, who pose no threat to them. .
One month after they settled in Wulan Mountain, the place was changing with each passing day. They were no longer a group of failed troops who had fled from various places. They now had knowledgeable old men, gentle and hard-working women, and even some who were good at riding colts. boy.
In the June grassland, under the junipers and green poplars, rapeseed flowers bloomed everywhere. The displaced people finally found a place to settle down. They indulged in love in the grassland and in the forest bonfires, and imagined their future under the boundless night sky.
In the laughter, Arslan found the feeling and happiness of being a leader.
People are grateful to him. Women and children are grateful to him for his magnanimity and providing a place for the exiles. Soldiers are also grateful to him for his tolerance and magnanimity, for bringing wives and children to bachelors.
Someone told Arslan that he was just a boy and could create a new Wanhu, the Ulan tribe.
Just like lightning flashing across the sky, it only flashes away, but it can ignite a raging fire in the forest. Maybe the speaker just mentioned it casually after having fun, but it was deeply rooted in Arslan's heart like an obsession.
He has a city with tens of thousands of tribesmen, fields suitable for farming, endless pastures, inexhaustible salt lakes, mines with huge reserves, inexhaustible forests, and powerful artillery.
Why can't we establish our own Wanhu Department?
It's just that there are good and bad in everything. As people support him more and more, he has noticed more than once that the brave and capable warriors are slacking off.
The monks who accompanied the army said that this was the will of the Buddha, a piece of dreamed land, and even women and children, and they did not need to march eastward.
Arslan worshiped the Buddha statue and said in his heart very devoutly: fart.
Born into the most prominent family in Khalkha, although he was not special among the same nobles, he still received an excellent education. He was not a fool and did not believe this.
When they were eating artillery fire from the Gansu army in the desert outside Suzhou, what was the purpose of the Buddha's teaching?
But it doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not, nor does it matter whether people have a clear understanding of the teachings and scriptures. What matters is identity.
The Mongolian nobles pay attention to the blood relationship of the golden family, but the Mongolian tribes cannot be united by blood, especially the Mongolian tribes in Qinghai.
Ever since Ada Khan sent people to occupy the sea, this place has been like a gathering of losers, gathering all the tribes from the Red Army of Central Asia to the people in the forests of Lake Baikal.
Pick two herdsmen at random, they may have the same grandfather, or they may be more distantly related by blood than Emperor Chongzhen and Lin Dan Khan.
From the time when Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty arrived in Yanhan, the various Mongolian tribes had been enfeoffed many times. Each tribe still used its old name, but the blood relationship was a mess, not to mention that there had long been no powerful Khan who could unite all the tribes and call them Mongolia. .
So what do you rely on to maintain your identity? religion.
At this time, Mongolia was in an embarrassing situation. They had to live without the identity brought by religion, but if they wanted to rely on this, they had to passively join in the sectarian disputes on the snowy mountains.
This is really funny to say. As a Mongolian noble, Arslan may hope that the disputes in the snowy mountains can be restored to peace more than many Uzbek nobles.
Another iron cannon was forged. Arslan looked at his own magical weapon and felt extremely satisfied.
The iron cannon made in Wulanshan was based on the bronze cannon captured by the Orus bandits in Oirat, but Arslan was unable to imitate it because he was very short of copper.
To illuminate Chao Ren's thinking, if there is no copper material, cast iron cannons should be used.
Arslan wanted to cast iron cannons... Although cast iron cannons were heavy and not as durable as cast copper cannons, they were very simple according to the technology of the Ming Dynasty. Liu Chengzong got two red barbarian cannons in Shanxi, and only kept the copper cannons. The heavy iron cannon was thrown at Yan'an Guard.
Because the performance of the cast iron cannon is not very good, it has only one most important advantage, it is cheap.
But looking around the world, the production process of cast iron cannons is one of the first echelon of technical difficulties in the world. Even the maritime power Spain does not know how to do it, and only a few countries have this technology.
During the Apocalypse, Sweden's export of cast iron cannons attracted the attention of the United Kingdom, because before this, the export of cast iron cannons throughout Europe was completely monopolized by the United Kingdom.
For Daming, this thing is technology that can be used at any time, but for Arslan, it is science that needs to be studied.
With a large number of craftsmen and enough materials, Arslan can forge the best scimitar, the best armor, the sharpest arrow clusters, and even knock out a good blunderbuss tube. There are ready-made bird blunderbuss imitations, and various There are no technical difficulties with the parts either.
But put a cast iron cannon in front of him, no matter how many Mongolian craftsmen you give him, he can't imitate it.
But if you can't imitate it, you can go another way. There is not much difference between people in terms of intelligence. Arslan's cannon is a wrought iron cannon about the same size as a lion cannon. It uses a hammered iron barrel as the barrel. Referring to Hami's muskets, the layers are rolled up layer by layer with wrought iron bars, rolling forward and backward.
It is light and of very good quality, with almost no shortcomings except for the high cost, long working hours and small caliber.
For more than a month, he mobilized many craftsmen and only made five iron cannons and more than 200 cannonballs.
Iron cannonballs were also hammered by craftsmen because they did not know how to cast iron. Only the Mongolian craftsmen of Tumut on the grassland could cast iron. However, Arslan did not participate in the Eastern Expedition and there was no one under him who could cast iron.
Even so, since everyone who ran from Monan to Mobei to Wulan Mountain has rich experience in being shot in various places, every iron cannon and every cannonball is forged, which is of great significance to the Mongolian tribes. Like a festival worth celebrating.
However, on the day when the fifth iron cannon was forged, Arslan did not have time to celebrate when he received an urgent report from the herdsmen grazing in the eastern forest.
"The local Han army crossed the Chaka Salt Pond and built a wooden fort at the mountain pass!"
Arslan was gearing up to test the power of artillery. The galloping cavalry surged out from outside Ulan City and rushed from the wetlands to the forest.
They found that the Han people were building a mountain wooden fort with an outer fence among the mountain roads. While there were only dozens of defenders on the fort, they immediately launched a siege without waiting for the artillery to arrive.
The siege went very smoothly. After taking dozens of heavy bullets and losing dozens of soldiers, the Mongolian army set up camp under the lonely fortress mountain.
When Arslan arrived at the foot of the mountain, he looked at the condescending wooden castle and scolded the hunting herdsmen around him.
The fort seemed to have at most a hundred defenders. With the size of the garrison, it would take at least a month to build the fort. For a month, they didn't know that the Han army had cut off the main road. Arslan thought it was The shepherd's dereliction of duty.
He really wronged the tribesmen who were hunting nearby. This fortress was actually built three days ago and was discovered by the Mongols on the second day after construction started.
The guard of the wooden fort was Bai Zong under Qian Zhong Hu. He had already discovered a suitable location in the local area for building the fort. He prepared the wood for building the fort in the east in advance. He asked for 300 men from Zhong Hu and drove the donkey cart directly. They rushed to the mountain pass and built a stronghold overnight, and then allowed the large army to retreat.
His mission was to conceal the enemy's intelligence from the east and delay it for two days to cooperate with Liu Chengzong's plan to inform Arslan.
This hundred generals were Liu Chengzong's guardsmen and had very good archery skills. When defending the city, one man had two pots of arrows and more than a dozen marshal's heavy muskets to block the mountain road to attack the fortress. When there were fewer people, he would shoot more. Just use five or six heavy guns to fire a volley, and the Mongolian soldiers besieging the city can't attack at all.
But the next day, when Arslan's iron artillery joined the war, the situation was different.
In order to manage five iron cannons, Arslan specially formed a hundred-man artillery team. The selection of artillerymen was very strict and the rewards were generous. As long as the artillerymen were selected, they would be rewarded with a war horse.
Arslan also had no choice but to do this. At a technical level, each of his more than 10,000 men was capable of being an artilleryman.
Except for the few craftsmen who participated in the cannon test, most people's understanding of artillery was on the same starting line: they were all Mongolian guys who had been beaten by cannon.
Which hero galloping on the grassland has never thought that one day he can also use cannons to blast others?
In this case, he can't just assign some people to serve as artillery, otherwise he won't be able to convince the public, and he has to set a threshold... But the threshold can't be too high. If you set a threshold that is too high at once, for example, if you have touched a cannon, then you will brush it off. More than 10,000 people went down.
Arslan thought hard and finally figured out two very demanding requirements, which had little to do with the artillery and could also maximize the power of the artillery under the current conditions.
The first is that they must have been fatally injured in previous battles; the second is that they are still alive and kicking.
Luck, the selection criterion for artillery is luck.
More than 200 steps apart, a hundred Mongolian soldiers transported five iron cannons to the mountain road. There was no artillery position. The five iron cannons were lined up towards the mountain fort.
Then dozens of monks clasped their hands next to the cannon and invited out the majestic clay Bodhisattva. They chanted Buddha's trumpets and five cannons fired one after another. The sound of the cannons echoed in the mountains, frightening the soldiers on the wooden fort.
When the gunfire was about to sound, the soldiers shrank back and hurriedly hid behind the wooden fence.
The one who was most afraid was General Bai. As an officer, he had to stand upright with his upper body exposed outside the wooden fence, his calves were shaking, and he had to stare at the five artillery pieces with bright eyes.
No one is afraid of artillery. The more veterans have seen several major battles, the more afraid they are of artillery.
Because the artillery these days is not a howitzer that can directly blow people to pieces or shock them to death. It shoots iron eggs. Unless it directly penetrates the chest and crushes the skull, otherwise, the gun will not go directly to the sky, and there will be no chance of recovery. It is very likely that After the battle is over, if a person is still alive, it is a standard death.
The sound of the cannon was so loud that a thin layer of sweat broke out on the forehead under the brow of President Bai's helmet. His eyes quickly roamed around the wooden castle. He was so panicked. He had just stared so big that he couldn't see the impact point of the cannonball!
Nothing happened to his soldiers, and all the commanders were loudly reporting the news that there were no casualties. Instead, he lowered his head and looked down the mountain. A large number of Mongolian soldiers gathered near the artillery had withdrawn, and some were running up the mountain.
President Bai ordered to prepare to defend against the enemy, only to find that the Mongolian soldiers who had climbed up the mountain were returning with cannonballs.
He was so angry that Mr. Bai wanted to throw off his helmet and go down to fight with them hand-to-hand... How could they be so intimidating?
Several more bombardments followed, and the soldiers stationed at the wooden fort discovered something was wrong with the enemy's artillery. They finally figured out something.
The enemy had a total of five cannons. Every time they fired, each cannon had its own idea. No two cannonballs ever hit the same place, and they hit their wooden stronghold. The Mongols looked more anxious than if they missed the hit. .
It seems that after they fired a cannon, they had to send someone to pick up the cannonballs. Unfortunately, a cannonball hit the wooden village and was embedded in the wooden fence, so the cannonball could not be picked up.
The lion soldiers guarding the wooden fort were not even interested in fighting back. President Bai was also happy to train the soldiers' ability to withstand shelling. Everyone was bombarded by five iron cannons from 200 paces away. It only took one person to change their expressions from panic to indifferent. afternoon.
In the evening, the Mongolian soldiers gradually withdrew to rest in the forest. The Lion Soldiers also burned the wooden stronghold and retreated. Before leaving, they sent a prisoner and a letter to Arslan.
Arslan unfolded the letter and found a monk who knew Chinese to read it out: "Arslan, your father's name is, no, it's Choktu Taiji. He ordered you to immediately lead your troops with artillery and march into the Heka Grassland to attack Liu Chengzong from east to west. Don't delay, fall..."
After reading the text message, the monk was a little doubtful about life. He looked up at Arslan, looked down at the letter, blinked in confusion, and then looked up at Arslan: "Well, this letter, this letter is signed Liu Chengzong, this is written by Liu Chengzong letter."
"ha!"
Arslan was overjoyed. He sneered and stared at his left and right: "Does he think I'm stupid? Do I believe this kind of fake military information?"
