At the northwest mountain pass of Chaka Salt Lake, goshawks are circling in the sky. Guards carrying the Great Khan's nine-pink white cloth stand at the northwest mountain pass. Mongolian drummers sit astride the camels and beat the left and right war drums. Teams of Chahar cavalry come from the mountain pass. Spreading towards the lakeside.
Lin Dan, Hu Duntu and the Great Khan rode on their war horses, opened their binoculars and looked toward the south fiercely.
At the end of the endless salt-alkali Gobi, a camp can be vaguely seen at the foot of the snow-capped mountains. It is the station of Oirat, and the Heshuote cavalry and Junggar muskets and camels are watching eagerly.
The envoy of the national advisor Khan Tulubaihu had just been sent away by the Great Khan Lin Dan. His blood was still hot, and his body was left here. His head was being sent south in his braids by the warriors who regarded death as if they were home.
Under the battle flag, Chen Qindai, the magistrate of Haibei, looked solemn. He rode his horse to Hu Duntu and sighed: "If the two armies are fighting and don't kill the envoy, why would the Great Khan kill his envoy to vent his anger?"
Hu Duntu glanced at him and opened his mouth to say something, but did not say anything. He just frowned and raised his whip to the north: "Since you have become the official of the Southern Dynasty's Little King, go and take good care of your wife and children. Don't You don’t have to worry about it.”
What he hates the most is the Mongolians calling themselves khans. In the past, he felt that there was only one emperor in the southern dynasty, and he should be the only great khan in the north. Why should he be called the king everywhere?
He hit this, conquered that, and made moves that seemed to outsiders to be cutting off his right hand with his left hand. Most of the inner driving force was forced by the Ming Dynasty.
Because in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, the great leader who ruled Mongolia was Tumut, the king of Shunyi.
As for him, Lindan Batur of the Boljijin clan was still called a little prince by the people of the Southern Dynasties when he was in his adolescence. When he was in his thirties, he was called the Tiger Chief.
They didn't even want to call him Great Khan of Beiyuan.
Who wouldn't be angry if I left him alone?
From the perspective of the Han people, Mongolia is all Mongolia, and the normal state of Mongolia is that one tribe is one tribe. Whoever is stronger will have more tribute horses and receive more rewards, and the Tumut tribe has the most.
But in Lin Danhan's view, scattered Mongolia is not the normal state of Mongolia. There are Genghis Khan in the distance and Dayan Khan in the near future. Mongolia's normal state is a unified Mongolia.
As long as they have tasted the elixir of centralization, rulers will never forget the wonderful taste of centralization for generations to come.
For him, he was born to reverse the decline of the Khan Court. All Mongolians, those who dare to call themselves Khan are openly enemies; those who do not claim to be Khan and do not pay tribute are enemies who secretly challenge authority; Those who are disobedient are potential enemies.
At this point, there are no left or right hands.
The situation in the Khan Court is precarious. The legs are gone, and where are the hands?
What Hu Duntu has always wanted is to establish authority among the Mongolian tribes, and the emperors of the Southern Dynasties also want to recognize him. As for Hou Jin... what is Hou Jin?
Although the Jin Army was so scared that I ran away immediately when I heard that they were coming, and even the capital lost the ball, the Jurchens are still the little thing raising birds for Ulus. I just look down on you, and wait until I have the ability to unify Mongolia before fighting.
This was the core idea behind his crusade against the Mongolian tribes.
The Southern Dynasties can stay together, why can't Mongolia?
Comparatively speaking, Hu Duntu does not recognize all the Khans and Kings in the world. In his heart, the only one who can match his status is the Ming Emperor.
He watched Tumut become stronger after establishing a tribute market with the Ming Dynasty. He also needed to use the power of the Ming Dynasty to enrich the country and strengthen the army. However, he did not catch up with the best times. The Southern Dynasty's attitude towards him was to appreciate the times. Regardless of reward, his attitude towards the Southern Dynasties was always submissive and sometimes rebellious.
Because of this, now he has fled to the West Sea and has completely cut off contact with the emperor of the Southern Dynasty. However, with the existence of Liu Chengzong, the little king of the Southern Dynasty, for him, the Marshal's Mansion can replace the Southern Dynasty and become the key to the prosperity of the Northern Yuan Khan Court.
So when it came to the Marshal's Mansion, he pinched his nose and admitted it with a look of disgust on the surface. In fact, he was a little happy about it in his heart, and even directly called Liu Chengzong the little king of the Southern Dynasty in words.
Hey, I'm not the only one who's embarrassed, the Southern Dynasties are fucking king everywhere.
For this reason, Lin Dan Huduntu did not lose his temper with Chen Qindai. He was a great khan who wanted to take life and death, but for the sake of Liu Chengzong, he pardoned Chen Qindai from the crime of agreeing with the status of the Oirat Imperial Guard Khan in his words. He thought that he was very big Spend.
But Chen Qindai was very unhappy. What age was it? He was still relying on the bloodline given by his father and mother to make the Great Khan proud. Our Marshal's Mansion didn't even recognize the emperor. Is this feasible for you?
Besides, you only manage more Mongolians than our commanders, so what kind of khan are you?
But Chen Qindai did not dare to show his dissatisfaction in front of Hu Duntu. After all, this bird Khan was unreasonable. He killed the envoy of the national preceptor Khan and sent his head back to Oirat. The most outrageous thing is that someone actually dared to carry it. Head that way.
Chen Qindai didn't want his head to be sent back to the Marshal's Mansion. The main reason was that a Guduo couldn't solve the problem this time, otherwise he really wanted to give Hu Duntu a Guduo.
This will kill the Khan, and Chahar's army will be able to take advantage of Oirat.
He could only pretend that he had said something wrong, and hurriedly bowed and retired. He stopped observing the battlefield and only left one sentence to Hu Duntu: "The commander-in-chief said that if the military situation is urgent, the commander-in-chief will provide the Khan with supplies." With help, the Great Khan can move to the east, where there is the commander's fortress as a support."
Hu Duntu nodded silently and just waved his hand for Chen Qindai to go down.
The little king of the Southern Dynasties in the Marshal's Mansion is not much more interesting than the Ming Emperor. Oirat called and asked him to send troops, but he didn't send troops; he asked him to provide food, but he didn't provide food... Hu Duntu was wondering if I am guarding the border for you. ?
After some hard talk, a third batch of envoys were sent over, and then more than 30,000 women and children from Chahar were allowed to be temporarily sent to sea.
Chen Qindai was still easy to talk to and asked him to send the women and children from the north to Haibei County. He sent an envoy to Nanshan Fort in the east. The guard of Nanshan Fort refused to let anyone get close to him, and even the women and children were not allowed to pass there.
Hu Duntu thought to himself, he sent people over to look at it, it was just a large wasteland, and he threatened to start a war if he went there, who would care to go there?
Little did he know that Zhong Hu did not allow the Mongols to approach Nanshan Fort not because he felt sorry for the newly sown land, but because Liu Xiangyu was at Nanshan Fort at this moment.
On the hillside outside the fort, guard Zhong Hu led his horse in front. Liu Xiangyu, who was wearing a green robe, stood on the cliff with his hands behind his hands. Looking to the west, the salt lake twenty miles away was like a piece of blue satin spread out, reflecting the sky. The color is hidden in the halo of the mountains.
They can't see the battlefield where the two opposing sides are confronting each other, but they can feel the war happening very close to them.
Zhong Hu asked: "Master, Chief Tiger will leave his family members at sea?"
Liu Xiangyu shook his head and said indifferently: "It would be good for him to let him go, so that he can fight freely. If we don't let him go, it won't do any harm to the commander's house. Thirty thousand women's food is not a small amount. It just so happens that your commander-in-chief is not willing to let the tiger chief go." people enter the customs."
The old, weak, women and children are just obedient, following the tiger and the rabbit for four to five thousand miles. They are not marching in a prepared way, but running away and being defeated one after another. How can the old and the weak survive to this moment? There are not many children. It's a woman.
Zhong Hu was convinced. In the past, regardless of farming, he did not know that cultivating 30,000 acres of land in a normal year would only be enough to feed 3,000 people. To feed 30,000 people, 3,000 hectares of land would be needed. People like them would have to fight hard if they wanted to survive. Tried my best.
With a larger population, you can only reduce the number of people. If you don’t reduce your own number, you have to reduce the number of others.
He asked: "What does that mean, Marshal?"
Liu Xiangyu said nothing, turned his head to look at Zhong Hu, and sighed.
Taking in women and children was not Liu Chengzong's intention, but Master Liu's order.
Liu Xiangyu carefully reviewed the letter sent back by Liu Chengzong. Liu Chengzong meant that Hu Duntu could unite if he changed his attitude, but Guoshi Khan was not easy to fool, so he would fight sooner or later.
But for Liu Xiangyu, this was the outcome he was least happy to see.
Deep down, he hoped that Liu Chengzong could talk to the Oirat people and make some compromises to bring Qinghai a stable rear...at least for a year.
Mr. Liu was very helpless about the situation.
If the sons' actions in Lanzhou go well, the short-term food shortage problem is solved, and Hehuang gains a large number of people and farmland, they can breathe a sigh of relief and get out of the predicament.
As long as they can win the Ming Dynasty's threat in the east, the Hehuang grain-producing land is in their hands, the logistical pressure is very low, and they can afford the cost of a long-term confrontation.
The West never expected that the Tatars would come again, or two groups of Tatars.
If Liu Xiangyu thinks according to his ideas, if war can be avoided, he can accept to give up some pastoral areas and even give up the access to Tibet.
This is a question of trade-offs. Neither Chuk Rabbit nor Tiger Rabbit has a rear and dare not run into no man's land. It is easy to surround them.
However, Oirat has pastures to the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and it has a large force that is difficult to be surrounded by the Marshal's Mansion. If it cannot be annihilated in the first battle, the Marshal's Mansion will inevitably be disturbed by it, and it can only deal with it by deploying heavy troops in Haixi and Haibei. .
Even if they only had 10,000 troops stationed, they would still have to build a five-station granary road from Xining City to Haixi and Haibei. However, the road consumption of food was still a trivial matter. Their main enemy was not Mongolia, but the Ming Dynasty.
If there are 10,000 more troops stationed in the west, 10,000 fewer troops will be stationed in the east. Once they are attacked from both sides, the two enemies are likely to choose the same time to launch an attack - around the autumn harvest.
No matter which side breaks through, the land that has been cultivated for a year will be gone, especially after Liu Chengzong decided to unify crop cultivation in Hehuang. This was not only a temporary solution to solve the food gap, but also made the agriculture of the Marshal's Mansion vulnerable.
Liu Xiangyu rarely thinks about problems from the military aspect because he can't figure it out, but the political and economic aspects are clear to him.
After his calculations, the limit of Xining Mansion's ability to support retired officers and soldiers was 30,000. Having enemies on both sides and defending it from the east and west would put Xining Mansion into the most tense state.
Even a bow will break if it is pulled like this all the time, not to mention that in today's age, God is like throwing knives in the sky, and no one knows when the Hehuang Valley will be dry.
Therefore, in his opinion, instead of confronting the National Advisor Khan in Oirat, it is better for each to get what he needs. At least it can be seen from the National Advisor Khan's envoy that this Mongolian nobleman is a person who can communicate.
The hundreds of miles of no-man's land between Salt Lake and Nangqian were used for Mongolian grazing. It was best for both parties to achieve symbiosis, even if it was just for a year.
One year is enough for the Marshal's Mansion to recover, and two years can leave the National Preceptor Khan behind.
But Liu Xiangyu had no say.
The most important thing is that he himself is not sure whether his idea is right or wrong, because only Liu Chengzong's idea has been verified in the Marshal's Mansion for a long time. No matter how wild and extreme the plan is, it can eventually be achieved and everyone can survive.
So Liu Xiangyu could only shake his head and said to Zhong Hu: "Hold it, until your marshal comes back and the main force comes back, the marshal's office will not be able to intervene in the nearly 100,000 Mongolian troops."
Zhong Hu asked: "Delay?"
"Yes, it will be good for us to drag it out. The commander-in-chief wants Hu Duntu to correct his attitude, but in my opinion, Hu Duntu is not a weak person who is easy to control. He must have his own opinion before he can insist on his own way."
In this war between the Mongols, the Marshal's Office was unable to control it in a short period of time.
Even if the sky fell, even if the Mongolian soldiers invaded Juerwan and demolished the market, or even leveled the new city and marched to Xining, the main army of the Marshal's Mansion would not be able to return for reinforcements, and would have to focus on transporting Lanzhou's money and food.
Even if the Mongols surrounded Xining City, they would not be finished; but the Marshal's Mansion does not have the food from Lanzhou and will be finished before this autumn.
"In that case, Tiger Chief had better put his family into the sea. If we squeeze in enough food for 30,000 people, we can still have it. Otherwise, if Tiger Chief is defeated, Oirat will not be completely advantaged."
Mr. Liu could not change the overall situation. The two Mongolian armies were fighting on their territory, which made him feel angry again. He could only think about collecting some interest from Hu Duntu first.
Zhong Hu shook his head and said, "Sir, I sent Tang Qi over to take a look. Chief Tiger doesn't have much baggage and has been asking us for food; but the Oirat people have a lot of livestock, so they shouldn't be afraid of dragging them."
"They should be afraid. Tianshan Mountain is also the place of the Four Wars. The 40,000 Oirat Allied Forces are a strong force wherever they are. Now they are all out."
Liu Xiangyu was quite sure about this matter and explained to Zhong Hu: "Furthermore, the envoy of the Imperial Advisor Khan said that all the nobles of the four tribes participated in this southern expedition. I don't think they will stay here for long."
"Master, are you saying they will withdraw?"
Liu Xiangyu shook his head and was very pessimistic about the future situation: "We will have to fight back if we go back. There is a lot of uncultivable land in Qinghai, which is useless to us, but for the Mongolians who are grazing, this is no less than a land of abundance. We will not fight They won’t leave, and they may not leave even if they are defeated or not annihilated.”
After saying that, he shook his head: "Why are everyone running south? It's not over."
By now, Mr. Liu has already seen that all the troubles in the Marshal's Mansion have always been related to population and were caused by God.
In a normal year, if someone were to send people to the separatist regime in waves, anyone would be happy to death. However, in this era and environment they live in, the extremely precious population is more poisonous than poison.
It's all about food... If there is enough food to feed all the Oirat in the Tianshan Mountains, why would these Wala Tatars travel five thousand miles to come here to fight?
This is just great.
Liu Xiangyu shook his head slightly and looked northwest.
If the son must go to war with Oirat, once the war begins, in order for Xining to serve as the rear for the eastward attack on the imperial court, they must also send troops five thousand miles to Ili.
The Marshal's Office couldn't do this on its own, so Liu Xiangyu had his next target - Gansu.
Only the 60,000 Gansu frontier troops who were waiting for food could abandon the desert and rush to the oasis in the Ili Valley, in order to reach the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains without tiles.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Good evening!
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