In the new town of Cowan it is difficult to find men in groups.
Children in ill-fitting clothes are jumping around. All they need is a shabby military robe to cover their thin body, and a wooden stick to pretend to be a mount can make a poor child seem rich.
The strong woman drives away flies from the cattle under the shade of the trees, supports the sowing columbine and wipes the sweat. Occasionally she looks towards the east with worries and expectations in her eyes.
There was faint drum music coming from the distance, but it didn't sound real to people's ears at first, until the cavalrymen waving yellow flags led the dust across the fields, shouting the good news in the fields with their hoarse voices: "Victory, victory! The commander-in-chief is gone." Loot Lanzhou!"
The whole new city was excited. The old, weak, women and children put down their affairs and ran to the east of the city along the rolling flow of people. There, there were already people holding high the firecrackers that had been prepared and setting them off with crackling sounds.
Aixinjueluo Hauge, the eldest son of Hou Jin Tiancong Khan, was sitting in a courtyard holding tsampa in his hands. The crackling of firecrackers and cheers in the distance made him lose consciousness for an instant, as if he had returned to Jianzhou Wei, where Jianzhou was built ten years ago. State Guard.
This place is so similar to my grandfather’s Hetuala.
Hetuala is a distant term to Hauge and even the entire Hou Jin Dynasty. It was the capital of the Jin Kingdom during the Nurhaci period. The biggest enemy of Jianzhou at that time was the Ula tribe of the Haixi Jurchens and Emperor Wanli who lived in the Forbidden City. He is still the most powerful person in heaven and earth, and he is still at the peak of his powers.
Hauge is twenty-four years old this year. He first went into battle with his grandfather at the age of fifteen and has been in the army for nine years. After experiencing the difficult situation at the beginning of his father's succession, the Jin Kingdom has become a powerful power that dominates the Northeast and is evenly matched with the Great Emperor. This news Bi Chang, the Ming Dynasty is still the same Ming Dynasty, but it doesn't look so scary to the Jin Kingdom.
"Baylor, they said that the Generalissimo returned victoriously. Should I go out to greet him or wait for the summons?"
Turge, the former commander of the Xiangbai Banner and the chief official of the Jin Kingdom, closed the courtyard door and reported in a low voice. He raised his head and glanced at the Xiangbai Banner guards in the courtyard who were wearing mail and pulling off the holster of the Yanyue knife. He frowned and said: "With bows and knives, that's it." But, Mopei broadsword."
Hauge sat on a low stool and did not speak. He just quickly finished the tsampa in his hand, drank a sip of cold water, and looked beyond the courtyard wall to the female wall at the head of the new city in the distance. Then he stood up, put on his waist knife, and said : "Of course I have to go to greet him. My uncle is a veteran in the army, so he just wants to see how his army is stronger and weaker than ours."
In Hauge's mind, if Liu Chengzong's army could survive against the Ming army, it would have something to gain from winning.
Now his doubt is just where Liu Chengzong is and how long he is.
This determined his attitude when he met with Liu Chengzong. Hauge made two preparations. He heard that Kong Youde led a complete firearms regiment of tens of thousands in the east to request surrender. If Liu Chengzong was not very strong, he also hoped to give it a try and bring it to the east. Incorporation.
However, if its power is stronger than Kong Youde, it will try to form an alliance and military assistance with it.
Turge's father was Eyidu, the fifth minister of the Jin Kingdom. Eyidu married Nurhachi's daughter Mukush in his later years. After Eyidu's death, Mukush became Turge's wife according to the tradition of step marriage, so Haug said His uncle.
However, this kind of title and relationship, no matter how it is called or heard, is just right. When such a relative is needed, it happens to be a relative; when such a relative is not needed, there happens to be no such absolute affinity.
Twelve guards pulled out fourteen war horses, and surrounded Haug and Turg with helmets and armor and followed the crowd towards the east.
Hauge, who was riding ahead, had eyes full of anticipation: He could finally see the legendary bandit!
As the eldest son of Tiancong Khan Huang Taiji of the Jin Kingdom, Hauge only led a dozen or so cavalry guards to go to the Marshal's Mansion, which was an extremely important step for him.
To put it simply, just a few months ago, Tiancong Khan and Huang Taiji were stunned by the continuous good news in the past few years, and the development of the Khanate fell into an unprecedented temporary confusion.
At the beginning of Huang Taiji's succession to the throne, the Hou Jin Dynasty was a state where the late king died suddenly, nobles disobeyed orders, suffered internal natural disasters, and faced blockades externally. At the same time, they faced threats from the three parties of Ming Dynasty, Mongolia and North Korea, and there were a large number of Han and Jurchen spies in the country. The whole was on the verge of collapse. Local separatist tribes.
In today's post-Jin Dynasty, Huang Taiji declared that the Manchus and Han were integrated, and separated some Han people from the slaves of the Eight Banners, weakening the power of noble princes and gradually centralizing power; attacking North Korea and forcing them to form a brotherly alliance to open trade; with the changes of Jisi They plundered the population and property to break the blockade, and swept through Monan to open up the old Duoyan Road.
Houjin, which has faced suppression, blockade, famine, threats, and was on the verge of collapse for a long time, suddenly looked back and realized that everything it had dreamed of during the Nurhaci period was already there.
In such a situation, whoever is hit on the head will be confused.
Taking a step back, the Jin Kingdom has completed all the needs for survival, and the princes and soldiers will lose their enterprising spirit if they relax even a little bit; and further, the outcome of the Ming Dynasty has not been decided, and the Ningjin fortress group is difficult to break through. How to keep people alert?
Therefore, after chasing Chahar Khan Lin Dan Hu Duntu and stationed in Guihua City, Huang Taiji summoned Prince Baylor and his soldiers to ask: "From now on, who should we prioritize in battles?"
Hauge, who was on the expedition, responded fluently: "It is useless to attack Ningyuan in Jinzhou because our country's siege methods are well known to others. Moreover, our troops have been unable to attack it. If we order to attack it again, we must be afraid of difficulties."
"Even if Jinzhou is captured, the other seven cities still need to be attacked. If we capture only one city, the rest will be entrenched. It will take many days. I am afraid that our army's morale will be low for a long time."
For this deadlock, Hauge's suggestion is to divide it into three steps.
The first step is to appease and win over North Korea. He is already a younger brother, and further conquests will only lead from younger brother to son, which is of little significance.
Secondly, there is the remnant Chahar Mongolian army. They must act according to the opportunity. If they can be annihilated, then annihilate them. If they cannot be annihilated, then expel them. It is not advisable to expend troops on an expedition.
Finally, there is the main strategy direction in his suggestion, Daming.
Adopting three roads, the Liaodong area avoided head-to-head battles with Jinzhou and Ningyuan; the old and new roads mainly came from Duoyan's hometown and Monan, and devoted all their efforts to destroy the border walls in Xuanda and Tongzhou, and penetrated deep into the Ming Dynasty.
Regardless of whether they get it or not, they must station troops in these places for a long time, and try to plunder the people, property, and materials of Xuanda and Tongzhou during the attack, so as to make up for the losses in the war and motivate the soldiers who participated in the war.
The most important thing is to occupy the moral high ground and publish an announcement in the garrison city before the attack. The Jin Kingdom is willing to make peace, but the Ming Kingdom is not willing to make peace. The attack is forced and helpless, making the local people blame themselves for their masters, but not the Jin Kingdom.
Hauge's appearance here is because he, on top of his strategy of garrisoning Tongzhou and Xuanda, mentioned sending capable people deep into the Ming Dynasty to recruit bandits and make them join Houjin.
Even if they cannot recruit, they still have to garrison troops in Tongzhou and send people to detect the movements of the bandits. Waiting for the Ming Dynasty to divide their divisions to defend, they can advance rapidly from Ningjin and Tongzhou at night to attack Shanhaiguan and change the offensive and defensive positions.
Hauge was the first person in Houjin to propose joining forces to attack Ming Dynasty.
Huang Taiji was very positive about his suggestion and decisively rejected him.
The plan was a good one, but there was no one in Hou Jin who could execute the plan... When they attacked North Korea, the great Beile Amin almost became independent; when he garrisoned in Luanzhou, the army almost lost control.
Having learned from this experience, Huang Taiji will inevitably lead the army in person in any fateful battle. What's more, he is trying his best to weaken the power of the princes of the Jin Dynasty in order to further centralize power and divide his troops to garrison in Tongzhou and Xuanda in the Ming Dynasty. , impractical for him.
Without garrison, it would naturally be impossible to detect the movements of bandits. However, this suggestion was not without merit. In fact, apart from the fact that there was no candidate to take charge of the task alone, the eldest son Hauge's ideas in the proposal won Huang Taiji's heart.
As soon as the army regained its strength, it robbed the Ming Dynasty and tried to plunder its people, wealth and goods; instead of fighting the king of Huanningjin in the fortress, it went around and robbed elsewhere, which was very meaningful to the Jin Kingdom.
It's just that the cost of recruiting rogue thieves is extremely high and the operability is extremely low.
There are so many thieves in the Ming Dynasty, this king and that general, even if they want to win over them, the Jin Kingdom, separated by mountains and rivers, can't accurately identify who is who, let alone who to win over and bribe... Not to mention that the Jin Kingdom doesn't know, the Ming Dynasty doesn't know who is either. who.
Even when Zuo Liangyu was beaten in Wu'an, he didn't know that the person who beat him was named Li Zicheng.
The reason why operability is extremely low, rather than impossible, is that there is a named and easily identifiable bandit who became a bandit. This man is in the northwest and calls himself the Grand Marshal of Qinghai. His name is Liu Chengzong.
Huang Taiji said: "Since you want to find it, then go and try."
In the smoke that exploded and dissipated at the official road, the mighty Mongolian brigade spread out in a long snake. The Mongolian soldiers under Xie Erhu almost exchanged their guns for cannons. The faces of the people with their horses' buttocks wrapped in armor and their quivers filled with forged arrowheads couldn't help but smile. He covered himself up and searched for his family members among the women and children waiting in the street.
Once found, he happily took off the bag containing the military rations and took out the uneaten dried meat and dry rations to distribute to his wife and children.
After a long time, until the Mongolian brigade of tens of thousands of people had completely passed through, Mei Duo, who was surrounded by Western women and children on the roadside, finally relaxed her frown. She just couldn't like the Mongols, even if they were also Mongolians under the command of the generalissimo.
Those messy and noisy Mongolians once snatched away the necklace given to her by the lady in the past. For a long time, she thought it was the only thing that belonged to her in this life.
But soon, when the welcoming team burst into loud cheers and the prisoners passed by pushing carts loaded with money, food and treasures, at the end of the large number of livestock, Mei Duo finally saw the peace flag of the world flying high.
The team under the Taiping banner was unusually quiet, far less noisy than the Mongolian soldiers. The former nobles were sitting on their horses with their spiral spears, and teams of experienced infantrymen removed their heavy armor and long shields and walked forward with their spears. ; The lean infantrymen were silent and pushed the light chariot loaded with armor and shields forward with their heads bowed.
Mei Duo's eyes searched again and again, her face changed from expectation to confusion, and her heart became more and more anxious. She saw the old and strong General Ah Liu, the young and noble General Gas, and even the tongueless Monk Awang.
Finally, she saw Basang riding a horse at the end of the hunting camp, carrying a tall gun and wearing a red cloth armor. Even though the side of his face was covered by the item, Mei Duo could still lift it from the gun that he could not lift. She had to straighten her neck to recognize that it was her General Basang!
In the Jin envoy who was separated from the crowd by the guards of the Marshal's Mansion, Hauge looked steadily at the team of sergeants passing by. His attention was not on the Mongolian soldiers and Spanish soldiers, but on the prisoners pushed back by the Marshal's Mansion. A chariot loaded with money and food.
This was no surprise to him. In the early years, Hetuala often saw such scenes. Whenever the Jianzhou Army attacked the city and captured territory, the Eight Banners generals who returned victoriously would be like this. Liu Chengzong's trip was compared to those battles. The profit is just too much.
What surprised him was that Liu Chengzong's new city was full of poverty, but it could distribute the huge amount of wealth to the nobles and soldiers... The soldiers seemed to think it was not strange, and they were all happy.
Hauge really couldn't figure out what they were thinking. Did the Mongols in the northwest just fight for some dry food and dried meat?
At this moment, Turge, who was standing beside him, touched him with his arm: "Baylor, look at that, Liu Chengzong's Han army."
Turg saw a well-organized Han army. The army was divided into three battalions, with more horses than people, more mules than horses, and it also towed thirteen huge cannons.
He asked the guard at the Marshal's Mansion beside him in Chinese language: "Is that the Generalissimo's servant?"
The guard at the Marshal's Mansion was stunned for a moment, wondering whether he should nod. In theory, Turg was right, everyone was the servant of the Grand Marshal.
But in terms of organization, this was not the case, so the guard replied: "That is the training camp of the Marshal's Mansion."
"Training camp?"
Turg's eyes burned.
When Hauge looked at the Marshal's Mansion from the perspective of economy and development, he felt that they were like the Jin Kingdom ten years ago; while Turg, from the perspective of a military veteran, initially thought that the Marshal's Mansion would be like the Jin Kingdom ten years ago. The same, but I didn't expect that the military gap between the two was not that big.
In the Kingdom of Jin, there was a formation called Baya La, which was a fine cavalry.
In the early days of the Jin Kingdom, the dilemma faced by Nurhachi was actually similar to that of the Ming Dynasty.
The problem faced by the Ming Dynasty was how to organize an army capable of clearing holes in Jianzhou Liting and feed them when the national power was declining.
The problem of the Jin Kingdom was how to organize an elite force that could quickly maneuver to stop the Ming army in Jianzhou and feed them under the background of internal and external difficulties due to lack of money and food.
Bagala was Nurhaci's method to solve this problem. He imitated the servant system to strengthen the noble army under his command, and organized armored soldiers for the nobles, allowing them to equip their own armored soldiers. In return, some of them served as their bodyguards and were allowed to run at will.
This move enabled the various kings, petty kings and nobles under their command in Nurgan to arm themselves with elite cavalry. These elite cavalry once accounted for half of the soldiers in each banner and became the backbone of Nurhachi's battles.
In the Huang Taiji era, the Jin Kingdom began to implement strong centralization. The guards scattered in the hands of various generals were no longer the temporary offensive reserves assembled by Nurhaci on the battlefield in the past, but were organized by Huang Taiji to establish the Baya Army. Laying, transformed from private soldiers into a standing army under the control of the Khan.
Here, it is obvious that centralization of power can be easily accomplished without the complicated means of transforming servants into a standing army.
The bureaucracy with only a simple framework, the poor and backward economy, and the militarism to maintain a standing army far beyond what they could bear formed the entire impression of Hauge and Turg on Liu Chengzong.
Aixinjuero Hauge took off his alms bowl, scratched his stubbled scalp, and complained angrily to Turge in Jianzhou dialect: "These barbarians!"
Turg laughed and asked, "What does Baelor plan to do?"
Hauge took a deep breath, looked at the guards of the Marshal's Mansion who were watching over him, and said to Turge: "Thanks to Father Khan for giving me two letters. My uncle asked him to tell Liu Chengzong that Hauge loves the new country and waits for... Brother Wang to summon him. "
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
I've been waiting for a long time. Let me report. Mother and daughter are safe. They were discharged from the hospital the day before yesterday. I accompanied my wife during the confinement period and changed my notebook. I am not used to writing. I have to take a few days later this month to apply for the birth certificate and register for the child. I may write it. It will be a little slower, I am very happy, thank you all for your blessings and tolerance, thank you very much!
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