On the third day of June, the sun was scorching hot at noon.
In the Heshuote Camp in the Mangla Valley, Batur Hutaiji of the Junggar tribe threw off the reins and led his soldiers wearing mail and carrying muskets into the camp.
Heshuote's tribe was resting. The people stepped barefooted on the sand, silently and restrainedly polishing their armor blades, and scratched the arrow shafts with notched wooden arrowheads again and again.
Batur Hutaiji walked towards the dome tent in the center of the tribe. He saw a middle-aged man with a big beard and a rat tail tied to a wooden post.
The man was stripped naked, revealing scars from battles all over his body. He was tall and strong, with only a pair of shorts covering his body. His brows were furrowed and his eyes were sharp, like a beast in the desert.
Batur Hutaiji looked up at the golden snow-tops of the mountains in the east, and chuckled lightly as he stood in front of the felt tent.
Heshuote's national advisor Khan walked out of the felt tent. The two Oirat leaders hugged each other enthusiastically, and then separated. Batur Hutaiji said: "This is really a good place."
Mangla Valley is indeed a great place.
This place is located on the southern edge of the Mugetan Desert south of Qianhu, Guide. From the Mangla River, which originates from the snow-capped mountains in the east, all the way to the west, a silver satin-like river valley breaks out in the desert until it merges into the Yellow River in the west, forming a unique natural landscape.
The river valley is separated by continuous golden sand dunes, and lush forests grow on the south bank of the river valley. The river is so low that no matter whether you stand in the woods or in the desert, you cannot see the valley hidden below.
The National Preceptor Khan smiled and invited Taiji of Junggar to enter the tent and said: "This was once the tent of Tuyuhun. It is indeed a good place... Why is Taiji here?"
After entering the tent, Batur Hutaiji took off his round hat with beaded strings, held it in his hand for a moment, exhaled heavily through his nose, and then said solemnly: "It is indeed as you expected. , the Marshal's Mansion has sent troops."
There was a slight change in the expression of the National Preceptor Khan: "Eastern?"
As Oirat pursued Chahar to this point, Lin Dan Khan hid in the Bajiao City, and the National Advisor Khan judged that the war between the Oirat coalition forces and the Marshal's Mansion was inevitable.
Even if envoys are sent to pay tribute and marriages are reconciled, the war can only be delayed but cannot be avoided.
The national adviser Khan tried to avoid war and was able to capture the vast area of Qinghai except Hehuang without a single blow. This was of course the best result for the Heshuo Special Department.
It's not that the National Preceptor Khan was greedy for too much. In the process of chasing Lin Dan Khan, he almost circled the entire Qinghai. The Marshal's Mansion showed no signs of development and utilization of the land outside the several passes of Qinghai Lake.
This is almost no man's land.
On this basis, he could make many concessions, such as becoming a tax collector for the Marshal's Mansion in Qinghai, providing two to three thousand soldiers, or marrying to pay tribute.
If necessary, he would even call Liu Chengzong a foster father.
As long as there is the reality of an independent vassal state, it doesn't matter what the appearance is.
Liu Chengzong is a Han, and the backbone of the Marshal's Mansion is also a Han who defected from the Ming Dynasty. Sooner or later, they will have to fight back to the Central Plains. In the consciousness of the National Preceptor Khan, Qinghai is not that important to Liu Chengzong.
However, the envoys sent never received a positive response from Liu Chengzong... This meant that the Marshal's Office did not want to talk to him at all.
On the other hand, the Oirat coalition's troops were poorly supplied and could no longer support their march of another five thousand miles back to the Tianshan Mountains.
But Oirat's spies could not enter the territory of the Marshal's Mansion.
In fact, it was the Imperial Preceptor Khan who was unlucky. Normally, it would be very easy for the Mongols to sneak into the west of Xining, but what identity could Oirat's spies pretend to be? Not pretending to be a businessman.
Before the spies boarded the Qinghai Lake train, they were suspected of smuggling because there was no station document. Later, they were found to be carrying a tapestry from the Western Regions, confirming the name of smuggling.
The Oirat spy did not dare to admit that he was a spy and admitted the crime of smuggling.
Facts have proved that if you don’t understand the law, you must not break it.
In the two counties of Haixi and Haibei, there is no information to be spied on, so the spies are just a matter of luck.
Generally, he would be imprisoned for a few months. If he was lucky and there was a shortage of manpower, he might be released the next day to raise lambs and mine ore. If he did well, he would go to reclaim wasteland and carve out a piece of land. The next year, he would be registered as a householder, and that would be fine. The common people.
Even if you are unlucky, if you are imprisoned for three to five months, you will be fine when the war is over. In the past, Chuck Rabbit Kitty's spies were like this. The boss sweeps the grave.
Smuggling is different. It is a crime that depends on technique.
Anyone who dares to block the handsome man's way of making money will be killed on the spot if he is caught. If he has good skills, he will be able to support himself in a wealthy family in the next life.
To the Marshal's Mansion, this was a trivial matter that almost no one knew about, but in the eyes of the National Advisor Khan, it was a sign that the Marshal's Mansion was preparing to send troops south.
Instead of transporting baggage and preparing for war, who would block the customs so that not even a bird can fly in?
By a strange combination of circumstances, although the National Preceptor Khan's conjecture was based on the wrong source of information, he came to the correct result. One month before Liu Chengzong's expedition, he predicted that the Marshal's Army would go south to fight.
Also based on this conjecture, even if the incompetent Lin Dan Khan of Guizhou was hiding in Bajiao City, the Imperial Guard Khan did not dare to attack the city immediately after a long pursuit of three thousand miles. Instead, he discussed with the leaders of the four divisions to stop fighting.
They dispersed their troops in the vast Heka grassland and Huangnan Xiaohetao, with light on the left and right and heavy in the middle. Each department was stationed in key places to strictly prevent the commander's government from going south.
In fact, at this moment, the main forces of the Chinese army assembled by both sides were only two hundred miles apart in a straight line, but they were separated by the Yellow River and the Mugetan Desert, so that each other did not know where the enemy troops were.
Liu Chengzong's dispatch of troops was expected by the National Advisor Khan, but the National Advisor Khan did not expect that the troops were sent from the east and the Junggar tribe was the first to learn about the situation.
Because the defense area of the Junggar tribe is in the east, guarding the mountain road from Guide Qianhu Station, it is not a good choice for sending troops. As soon as you come out of that mountain pass, there are Oirat troops in the west and east.
If we send troops from there, we will definitely be looking for a beating.
"They didn't rush out." Batur Huitaiji said with a relaxed expression on his face: "Thousands of households from Guide sent troops, and it seems that they also have the surname of Bo'er. They were beaten for a while by the little prince under my command, and we both won. Negative, we retreated, but they are increasing their troops.”
The feudal lords of Oirat are divided into big princes and small princes. The big princes are naturally Khan and Taiji. The big princes have their own Ulus, which are fiefs or tribes.
The leaders of the fiefdom were all noble Nayan, and these Uluses were divided into small Uluses, with Zaisang as the leader, forming the tribe's management system.
"Didn't rush out?"
The national advisor Khan frowned. This did not feel like a deliberate big war, but more like a small-scale conflict caused by an accident. He murmured to himself: "I thought they would send troops from the northwest, the mountain pass guarding the salt pond. "
After a short period of confusion, the Imperial Guard Khan came to his senses, sat down next to the tea pot with Batur Hutaiji, poured a bowl of hot tea, pushed it over and asked: "How is their army?"
Battle Hutai Ji Shaojia thought for a while and said: "There is a lot of armor, high morale, and the infantry can fight well in formation."
"Almost everyone has a helmet, and probably everyone wears armor, but the workmanship is not good. Some of the armor can be penetrated with a heavy arrow, but the fighting is very fierce. There are a few teams that fight to the death, and their traditions... Cut off people’s heads.”
Upon hearing this, the national teacher Khan felt suspicious.
There were remnants of the defeated soldiers from Chuoketu under the command of the Imperial Guard Khan. He specifically inquired about the situation in the Marshal's Mansion. As far as he knew, Liu Chengzong's army did not chop off people's heads.
It should be the Ming army who chops off people's heads.
But this Guide Qianhu Office is indeed a Qianhu Office under the Marshal's Mansion.
In the mind of Guoshi Khan, the army of the Marshal's Mansion encountered by the Junggar tribe may be a Ming army that surrendered to Liu Chengzong, so they had such a habit.
He asked, "Where are the firearms?"
"They have a cannon and a lot of muskets. Some are useful and some are not. It's very mixed."
When Batur Hutaiji said the word "very complicated", he couldn't help but touch his nose with his hand. He felt guilty when he said this.
It is difficult to find a more chaotic firearms unit in the world than the Junggar Musketry Team at this time.
They have a large number of homemade muskets of different specifications, a small number of purchased muskets from several countries, and a small number of captured muskets of different origins.
In the long war with the Tsarist Russian expedition, the Junggar tribe captured hundreds of muskets, and none of those muskets were the same.
Similarly, the Tatar blacksmiths recruited by Junggar could not make several identical muskets.
However, the firearms used by the returning German military households that Batur encountered were far more complex than those in Junggar, and they were very powerful and scary in melee battles.
There were more than a dozen musketeers holding long-handled short muskets with a tube, and they lined up at the mountain pass and fired them all at once. The Junggar infantry was about to rush up while they were changing ammunition, but they didn't expect them to take out the spearheads from their back waists. He inserted it into his musket and actually picked it up and charged.
There was a round musket with several tubes attached to it. It was spinning around to hit people, and when it got close, it used a small ax to hold the musket.
There are relatively normal muskets, arranged in three rows of horizontal arrays and fired in rotation; there are also strange things that look like normal muskets, but after firing, they install small iron pipes from the back and continue shooting; When he lifted it up and swung it, the handle of the musket actually had a knife.
There were even people carrying cabinets and pushing carts onto the battlefield, and the carts emitted a bunch of smoking arrows; the cabinets sprayed out fire from a dozen paces away, and it kept burning if it touched their bodies.
A bunch of strange-looking things really frightened the Zhungeer troops when they fought.
However, despite the scary momentum, the actual results of both sides were similar.
The returned soldiers had great advantages in small-scale melee fighting in the mountains, but when the Junggar troops retreated outside the mountains and formed a Tuocheng musket formation on the plains, they were helpless.
The range of those strange things is not very far, and their power is designed to hit people. They are not good at dealing with camels covered with animal skins and quilts. If they get close, they will be suppressed by Junggar muskets.
After several rounds of fighting, not only did they fail to achieve greater results, they also retreated hastily because the trees on the mountain road behind them were ignited by the oil tank, leaving many corpses behind.
As for Batur, he was deeply impressed by the beheading behavior of returning German soldiers, mainly because these people were too enthusiastic about beheading. No dead man could keep his own head. The tragic scene shocked many Jungar soldiers who participated in the war. They were all frightened out of their psychological shadow.
Batur Hutaiji thought for a while, searched for opponents in his mind, and made a comment on this enemy army: "Compared with Yang Jier's tribe, they are stronger in melee fighting and weaker in field fighting."
Yang Jier was a Kazakh Khan, and the Kazakh Khanate was a good reference for Oirat because the war between them had been going on for a hundred years.
The Kazakh Khanate is a veteran stronghold in the Transoxiana region. It once sent 100,000 troops to occupy Akhsiyi, Andijan, Tashkent, Samarkand and other places. It had the upper hand for most of the Hundred Years' War with Oirat.
As for the sixth year of Longqing, Huang Taiji, the right-hand man of Anda Khan and the Ordos tribe, went on an expedition to Suiye City and was beaten to the point where Kazakh Khan was all over the place. Unconvinced, he chased after him and was cut again. Huang Taiji led 700 people to fight a battle. The great victory of fantasy is an accident in the long history.
Upon hearing that Batur Hutaiji believed that the Marshal's Army was weaker than the Kazakhs in the field, the National Advisor Khan nodded slowly: "We can lure them to attack us."
After saying this, the national advisor Khan decided to summon the nobles from various tribes to the Mangla River to discuss matters.
As soon as he made this decision, he said to Batur Hutaiji: "We will go west and fight them on the Heka Grassland, but the Junggar tribe will arrive later."
Batur Hutaiji asked: "Why?"
The National Preceptor Khan raised his hand and pointed to the east: "There is a big Khan in the mountain city. He must have been unable to bear it for a long time. If the Marshal's Army goes south, he will probably come out of the city, and Taiji will need to ambush him for a while."
Huitaiji had no objection to this arrangement in his heart. It was much easier to lead the army to ambush Lin Danhan than to fight against the marshal's army with strange-looking weapons.
However, he did not agree immediately. Instead, he asked, "Who is the man tied to the pillar outside the tent?"
"A Chahar spy, a Han from Tumochuan."
"Han? I thought he was an Oirat."
Mentioning the prisoner tied outside the tent, the national counselor Khan showed a complicated expression of wanting to laugh but not being able to laugh: "I also thought he was from Oirat."
The spy pretended to be too similar. He had an Oirat hairstyle, spoke a fluent Mongolian dialect, had a full set of Oirat cavalry equipment, and even the trinkets on his braid looked fake.
Even when he was discovered, it was because he was pretending to be too professional.
Among a group of Oirat soldiers who had been on an expedition for half a year, everyone had half an inch or even an inch of hair growing on their heads, and there was a man with a clean shaven head.
Among a group of Oirat soldiers who were resting in the hot summer, all shirtless and barefoot, a man appeared in full armor and sweating profusely.
Among a group of Oirat men who were generally 5 feet 23 inches tall and weighed 123 pounds, a strong man appeared who was 5 feet 5 inches tall, covered in fat and muscular, and weighed at least 160 pounds.
Especially words, words are the biggest flaw.
What is Oirat?
The cost of communication among the Oirat people is very high. Mongolian language is not the only language they use. Not to mention the fact that the warriors of the four major tribes gather together now, even in a single large tribe, it is difficult for the people inside to communicate smoothly.
In the Junggar tribe alone, there are Kazakh tribesmen who speak Turkic dialects, Huihui from the Western Regions who teach Mongolian gunnery, Western monks and soldiers who preach to everyone, and even Cossacks who are captured and surrendered.
People of all kinds have lived together for a long time, and their words have long been mixed together.
This was Oirat's darkest age.
Due to years of war, the big nobles were still in danger, and the wealth of the small nobles was even more difficult to accumulate. People with knowledge almost disappeared during the war.
Not to mention herdsmen, most of the princes and nobles are also illiterate.
This did not interfere with the daily life of the tribe, but the impact was particularly far-reaching. Their language became increasingly confusing, further leading to the failure of writing.
The result of the failure of writing is that their history and epics, culture and knowledge are dying.
People often speak in Mongolian dialects interspersed with Turkic dialects, and suddenly borrow two words from Hui Hui, mixed with Western terms learned from monks, and there must be three or five words in the conversation that no one can understand. local dialect.
What you said I guess is a normal and common way of communicating.
At this juncture, a Monan dialect master suddenly appeared who was fully armed in the scorching heat, adhered to decent appearance, and was extremely tall and strong?
This physical condition, this knowledge reserve, and this discipline are nothing like Oirat or even Chahar.
The national teacher Khan is still doubtful whether this person is Tumote or not.
But Batur Hutaiji didn't care about this person's origins, and just asked: "Is he literate?"
"He said his name was Dai Daozi, that he knew Chinese and could write it."
With a snap, Huetaiji clapped and said: "Give me this man, and I will ambush Chahar Khan."
He wants to create a new script, a script that belongs to Oirat and Junggar!
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Good evening! After three days of blue light exposure on the child, the jaundice is gone. I'll have it checked by the doctor tomorrow and he should be fine.
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