From Ju'erwan, go south along the Yaoshui River, passing through Yingou Fort, Xincheng Gun Factory, and Riyueshan Iron Factory. It only takes one day's march to reach 60 miles away. Here is an ancient city of the Tang Dynasty built on the mountain. It's called Yingpan City.
The terrain of Yingpan City is dangerous, with Riyue Mountain as its back, Bison Mountain to the south, watershed to the east, and Shibao City to the north.
It's just that the current camp is far from being called a city. Its solid earthen walls have crumbled under the erosion of time. There are only wild grass growing everywhere on the huge mountain platform, a beacon tower full of ruins, and a lonely Mawang Temple.
The construction history of the Mawang Temple is no earlier than the Wanli period. After the Tumote tribe migrated here, merchants who smuggled tea horses built it to protect the horses from falling dead on the way home. The gods enshrined in the temple are not the Mawang Yinjiao or Mayuan that are common in the Central Plains. , but the Western Han Dynasty marquis and the Xiongnu slaughtered the crown prince Jin Rixi.
The majestic altar of Mawang Temple is filled with cigarette smoke. The three-eyed and six-armed Mawang Ye has wide eyes and an astonishing face.
Under the altar, Wu Bian's entourage presented the tribute plate. Liu Shizi looked solemnly and took a bowl of water and a bundle of pure grass. He respectfully placed it on the altar and bowed his head again, saying something to himself.
After doing this, he took two steps back, straightened his back, transformed from a devout and superstitious fool into a military commander, and said: "Come in."
As the words fell, soldiers from the Huben camp who were standing in neat formation in the Mawang Temple filed in, carrying several new statues of gods into the main hall, which was five rooms wide.
What people carried up was the statue of Chu Xu. This man was once the deputy general of Huangfu Weiming, the governor of Longyou in the Tang Dynasty. He was killed in the battle against Shibao City. Liu Chengzong asked craftsmen to make a statue of the god, and he was named the Lord of the Land. It is here to attract the souls of the dead.
In the corridors on the east and west sides of the Mawang Temple, soldiers from the Huben Battalion holding cloth bags were entering, neatly placing the skulls that had been washed from the soil in the corridors, and taking them out one after another. Once you get in, it seems like it will never stop.
There are so many remains here.
From Xincheng to Yingpan City, and even extending for another twenty miles to the southeast and southwest, the entire eighty miles of land were once ancient battlefields of the Tang Dynasty.
In the past, the people living here were sparsely populated, and no one noticed any problems. It was not until Tianhou took charge of building the iron factory, and Shi Cheng made me build a new gun factory, that a large number of craftsmen, soldiers and civilians were stationed in the valley. The huge demand for life spawned one after another along the Yaoshui River. town.
The military and civilian families were not content with building terraces in the mountains, but focused on reclaiming wasteland in the flat and fertile valleys. The ancient warriors who had been buried underground for nine hundred years finally came to light.
Ordinary people have never seen such a scene. They dug up seven or eight heads from two acres of land, built the foundation of a house, and smashed three or five tibia bones.
The corpses were buried very shallowly, and no one knew what was going on here. Even the people of the Seven tribes of Riyue Mountain who used to live in the mountains did not know the origin of the corpses buried in the river valley.
We can only deduce that a terrible war broke out here from the place names passed down by word of mouth nearby. Some places are called Dead Man's Ditch and some are called Mass Graves.
The natural development of new market towns was interrupted by the war nine hundred years ago. People returned to the mountains to find wasteland suitable for cultivation, and no longer set foot under the mountains.
It wasn't until Liu Chengzong led his army southward, and when the sergeants dug camp trenches in Yingpan City and dug out skulls from nine hundred years ago, that he knew the ins and outs of all this, people didn't know that it was the Tang army buried underneath.
In fact, it is not all the Tang army. Longyou, Hexi, Shuofang, Turks, and Tubo have repeatedly fought over this narrow Yaoshui River Valley for decades. The soldiers have been buried in the soil and have long been separated. No one can tell who is who.
But to Liu Shishi, it didn't matter who the corpses belonged to, with the ribs and leg bones shattered at a touch, leaving only the hard heads. What was important was to build a cemetery for them to bury them alive.
This is not only to complete what the predecessors should have done but failed to do, but also because these ancient warriors are buried underground, at least 70,000 acres of irrigated fields in the Yaoshui River Valley cannot be used.
Before the cemetery was repaired, the skulls presented by the people along the Yaoshui River following his order could only be parked in Lord Ma's temple.
This can be considered Liu Chengzong's compensation to Prince Ma. He went to sea with the Marshal's Mansion to crack down on smuggling with unprecedented intensity. Prince Ma Jin Rixi's house was in dilapidated condition and had not been used for nearly three years.
So he sent hundreds of children to Jin Rihui to chat with Master Jin and make it lively.
Liu Chengzong's military commander's tent was located in the courtyard of Mawang Temple. He held a Kaiyuan Tongbao and looked north, looking at the red peak not far away, which was Shibao City.
Shibao City is not a city, but a mountain peak that can be used as a natural fortress and observation tower. The green mountain has twelve towering peaks, the most dangerous of which is called Shicheng Mountain.
The mountain is fifty or sixty feet high, with red rock cliffs on three sides and a steep peak on one side. It looks like a city, with only a path called Gagou accessible.
The top platform is covered with snow that never melts in spring, autumn, and winter. Several map painters from the Marshal's Office are on the mountain at this time, where they can draw a map of the entire open area from Yingpan City to Bison Mountain.
In addition, there is a small hill platform on the stone castle city with several houses and homesteads. It can be built to gather a team of people, wave the flag and monitor, and have a panoramic view of the information here.
After Liu Chengzong and Mr. Jin discussed the matter of temporarily borrowing the treasure land, Shangtianhou, who was escorting the guns and baggage, came over, placed the ammunition, food and grass properly, and came back to return.
During the Marshal's Mansion's expedition, the army was divided into three routes, and there were also three food routes. The west route was in charge of the Navy Yamen, and was supported by two field battalions of the Xie Erhu Department; the east route was in charge of Xining City, and was supported by two field battalions of the Basang Department; in the middle, Xincheng is responsible for the army's food route, and Shangtianhou from the iron factory is responsible for taking care of it.
Relatively speaking, as the shogunate of the Central Army, who was on the defensive and supporting the army, the food road was the shortest, and the work of the Sky Monkey was the easiest. Therefore, in addition to being responsible for the baggage, he also planned the construction of cemeteries and reclamation of wasteland in the Yaoshui River Valley.
Transporting baggage is not a problem for Shangtian Monkey, but for the reclamation of Yaoshui River Valley, even though the work has not yet started, Shangtian Monkey has already backed down.
He was worried that even if a cemetery was built, people would still be unwilling to cultivate wasteland in this gloomy river valley.
This worry is not without reason. In the final analysis, there is still a lack of people. There are very few serious people in the Yaoshui River Valley. They are all family members of soldiers and craftsmen.
In the Ming Dynasty, such a status guaranteed unparalleled treatment for those who were poorer than three generations, but in the Marshal's Mansion, until Liu Chengzong awarded the entire army, they all represented the richest group of people in the Marshal's Mansion.
Craftsmen were the first to receive money from the marshal's government. What they received was not military pay, but money for work and food. In the past, the custom of the government was to give money for work and food when there was work, and there was no need to support the craftsmen when there was no work.
But the Marshal's Mansion didn't have this kind of rules. Their craftsmen worked every day, and their wages naturally became monthly wages. The Marshal's Mansion also allocated rations, and they were very wealthy.
Moreover, the river valley lacks a population, and the ancient roads that have been in disrepair have also caused inconvenient transportation. Without the market towns spawned by immigrants, it has become a barren land where trade is difficult.
The craftsmen, soldiers and civilians had nowhere to spend their money. The nearest market was the Juerwan Market sixty miles away. People usually entrusted horse teams to carry their daily necessities. Some people simply settled their families outside the new city.
Even if you want to reclaim wasteland for your family, the source of Huangshui in Xincheng to irrigate the fields is a better choice than this corpse valley.
The Sky Monkey asked: "Commander, even though the cemetery has been built, the people are still unwilling to cultivate it. What is Commander-in-Chief going to do?"
“The earth always opens up.”
Liu Chengzong didn't take it seriously. He marked the strongholds on the map and drew the defense line without raising his head: "There are corpses everywhere, which is not so scary. There are no people buried in the loess."
Liu Shizi laughed, turned to the Sky Monkey and said, "You can ask the craftsmen, miners, soldiers and civilians who have worked hard for the commander's ordnance, and if they are willing to open up land, they will be given thirty acres of land per person. How much is it?" Income, I don’t want to and I don’t force it.”
As soon as Shangtianhou heard the commander say that he would not force anything, his hanging heart finally dropped. He was afraid that Liu Chengzong would give him a military order to open up the valley. As long as it was not a military order, he would not feel so burdened.
But immediately afterwards, Liu Jiusi heard Liu Chengzong's hidden message: "What is the commander-in-chief's plan?"
Liu Chengzong smiled: "If this person doesn't open it, that person will."
In his opinion, the reclamation of 60,000 to 70,000 acres of irrigated fields is imperative.
Although there are not many river valleys here, for Liu Shishi, it is not the quantity of the land but the quality of it.
Drought has always been the background of this era. Even though Hehuang was not affected by the drought at this time, Liu Chengzong was always worried about the drought in his heart.
Because of this, he paid too much attention to the fields at the bottom of the Hehuang Valley and lacked attention to the Hehuang mountainous area... When the drought came, all the fields in the mountains were abandoned. Only the fields close to the river and where water conservancy projects such as rolling over were built were possible. Let people survive the brutal drought.
Keeping people alive is the greatest merit of this era.
Liu Chengzong smiled and said: "If the military and civilian families are unwilling to farm, let Huang Cheng sneak across Lanzhou and pull a team of seven or eight hundred people to pick out those who have eaten but not finished their meal. They should not mind digging up the ground and digging out two pieces of Chen." Year skull."
Liu Jiusi couldn't remember who Huang Cheng was for a moment. He was stunned for a moment before asking with some uncertainty: "The leader who raised troops in Hehuang?"
"Yes, the third-class Zhechong Captain." Liu Chengzong nodded: "Sent to Xining Prefecture to study."
The third-class Lieutenant of Zhechong is the lowest casual official in the Marshal's Mansion, equivalent to the deputy commander of the battalion, the deputy commander of the field troops, and the deputy commander of the five towns' people.
Huang Cheng's position made Liu Shishi scratch his head before the award. Such a person who defected to him should be given a similar official position, but there is really no suitable place for him at the moment.
The deputy of the battalion team who assists the captain in managing sixty people needs to be literate; the deputy general of the field soldiers needs experience in leading troops and arithmetic.
Huang Cheng was born as a battalion soldier, so he could meet the training needs of the Minzhuang deputy generals. However, Liu Chengzong's five-town Minzhuang generals did not have vacancies... This level was originally prepared for ordinary soldiers who had made several military exploits in a row. of.
But then Liu Shishi figured it out.
If he does not meet the conditions, send him to study. Learning is always useful to people. Only learning can make people move forward. Experiencing affairs in the army is learning, and studying in an academy is more efficient learning.
Send him to study and learn numeracy. If there is any vacancy in the future, he can put it wherever he wants. Anyway, now that there are casual officials, the third-class discount captain will have one or two six months of silver, one stone and five buckets of monthly grain, thirty bunches of horse grass, and the corresponding tea, Sauce, ghee, dried meat, and dried fish are rationed.
Not too much, just enough to read with peace of mind.
The monkey in the sky asked: "But what if the people you invite are still taboo?"
"Is it still taboo?" Liu Chengzong turned his head and said with a relaxed smile: "Even a fierce ghost whose body has not been collected for nine hundred years has to hide away when he encounters a poor ghost."
"Poverty means the desire for a prosperous life. As long as there is an opportunity to turn over, you should seize it. If you are taboo even about this, you will not open up good land that can grow food."
Liu Chengzong shook his head: "I will pay them travel expenses to send them back to Lanzhou, and then they will eat one meal without finishing another. They should live like that...waving the flag."
Just as he was talking, Liu Chengzong saw Tang soldiers waving flags on Shicheng Mountain in the distance to the north. He immediately picked up his telescope and looked. Only when he saw clearly that the waving yellow flag was a yellow flag was he relieved. It was Tang soldiers who had returned.
After a while, someone in Yingpan City blew a bugle to signal the arrival of the troops.
The Tang soldiers bypassed the Huben battalion sergeants who were building earth walls and digging trenches. They held yellow flags and went straight to the Chinese army. They reported: "Commander, urgent report from Nanshan."
With that said, the letter was handed to Liu Chengzong by the Chinese army guard. When he opened it, he saw that it was a long letter from Dai Daozi.
Twenty-five Tang soldiers under Dai Daozi shaved their heads into the Oirat hairstyle with only one pigtail, put on the Oirat people's mail-armored red tassel helmets, and went deep into the Heka grassland where the enemy was everywhere, to ascertain the Oirat coalition forces. In the areas west of the Yellow River where livestock are grazed and where troops are stationed.
The Oirat coalition camped along the radial Chaka River and formed a T-shaped camp on the Heka grassland. Along the way, Dai Daozi's Tangqi discovered seventeen units. Each unit was a small camp with seven to eight hundred people, each herding hundreds of head. livestock.
The intelligence was sent to Nanshan Fort. After Yang Yao's speculation, he estimated that even if there were enemy troops that Tang Qi could not detect, the number of enemy troops stationed in Hexi would not exceed 20,000. After weighing the strength of the enemy and ourselves, he decided to request a fight.
The purpose is to rob livestock and destroy food and grass.
Liu Chengzong calculated the gains and losses. If Yang Yao's troops took the lead in attacking, it would most likely attract enemy support from the east. If Oirat was allowed to seize the ferry southeast of the Heka Grassland, Wang Wenxiu's army would be unable to cross the river for support at a small cost.
In this way, the crisis between Bajiao City and Chahar Khan was resolved, but it was not in Liu Chengzong's interests.
Because Oirat is very capable of running, and there are countless valleys and hills crisscrossing Uland-Dulan, they are likely to withdraw their main force to the area from Golmud, Tuidan to Dulan, forming a de facto separatist regime.
At best, it will be a protracted guerrilla war. If Oirat retreats after a while to recuperate, Liu Chengzong has provoked the enemy in vain and has not caused any harm to the enemy. Sooner or later, he will have to fight a second battle.
Compared with this situation, Liu Chengzong would rather trap the Oirat Allied Forces in Huangnan, where the environment is better, and form a de facto blockade on the Oirat Allied Forces. Even if the war will be more tragic, he will completely defeat this army, defeat it, and completely eat it.
Therefore, his first order was not to Yang Yao, but to report the situation at this time to Wang Wenxiu, the commander of the East Road brigade who was stationed in Guide City, and ordered him to organize his army to feint to the south in two days to threaten the Oirat army in the east of Hedong. , to restrain it from deploying troops eastward.
The second order was then issued to Yang Yao, ordering him to send troops to sweep the Heka grassland in four days. He would first seize the passes leading to Wulan, Dulan and other places, and then sweep all the way eastward, plunder livestock, destroy food and grass, and annihilate the enemy. .
In addition, Liu Chengzong also drew an offensive route for his Chinese army. His three battalions also sent troops four days later to cooperate with Yang Yao to seize the Yangqu Ferry in the southeast of the Heka Grassland, occupy the tidal flats on both sides, and cut off Traffic on the east and west banks of the Yellow River.
In the end, he and Yang Yao successfully joined forces and crossed the river with a large army to support the east road.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Good morning! My wife's fever has gone away, but the child's jaundice is high again...his head hurts.
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