No one has too much free city.
Just when Sunday Qiang informed Hami of the ins and outs of his surrender, Chinese Army Staff Officer He Huchen came over and interrupted the conversation between the two. He cupped his fists and said, "Commander, the horses have been changed."
"The military situation is like a fire, and the order is sent to break up the camp and march eastward." After Liu Chengzong said this, he looked up at the sun, turned to Sunday and said forcefully: "General Zhou didn't eat anything when he came on the way. Come with me to the west first, and eat something on horseback. I have something else I want you to take back."
The soldiers immediately gathered, leaving only a small group to clean up the camp. Soon the Huben camp set up their formation and stepped onto the long yellow sand.
Zhou Qiang followed Liu Chengzong for a long time. Although he was about twenty steps behind Liu Chengzong, he never heard Liu Chengzong's summons. He could only be seen rising and falling in front of him with the back of his horse, staring at the desert without saying a word. The three-way brigade.
He didn't know how long it had been, but after walking out for about four miles, he heard the guard say: "General Zhou, the commander-in-chief asks you to come forward."
When he came forward to mount the horse, the surrounding guards held up banners and separated from the front, left, and rear, and opened a cordon of ten horses during the march. Only then did Liu Chengzong say: "Go back and tell my brother, Babai will surrender as soon as he surrenders, and Hami will not surrender." Garrison troops, no taxes, but the best weapons, soldiers and horses must be forced to go to Tianshan Mountain as soon as possible.”
Before Zhou Zhouqiang could understand, he cupped his fists and said "Yes!", and then asked: "I heard that Turpan is recruiting Ding Jianjun. Which general will the commander-in-chief transfer to garrison Hami?"
"No one will adjust." Liu Chengzong shook his head expressionlessly and said, "I don't plan to go to war with Turpan."
"this……"
Zhou Zhouqiang did not expect Liu Chengzong to have such an attitude towards Hami, and hurriedly said: "That's Hami. In a hundred years, Hami has never been as easy to get as it is today. I hope the commander will think twice!"
This was the great cause of regaining Hami that made him excited. Just like the fate of Hami city in the Ming Dynasty in the past, Sunday Qiang would never let it become a mirror image.
In fact, in Zhou Zhouqiang's opinion, only the Marshal's Mansion has the ability to regain Hami now. He hopes to persuade Liu Chengzong to pay attention to Hami.
Liu Chengzong obviously didn't pay enough attention to his persuasion. He just took out a piece of dried meat from the horse's backpack with a smile, put it in his mouth and chewed it quietly.
The brigade marched in silence, the horses' hooves rhythmically stepped on the sand as they rose and fell, causing the riders on the horses to collide with each other. Under the roar of the military train, Zhou Qiang was extremely anxious.
After Liu Chengzong swallowed the dried meat, he said without hesitation: "I have the impression that General Zhou is far-sighted. This time he was a little moody, but it's not bad."
In fact, Liu Chengzong was very happy deep down in his heart about Zhou Qiang's attitude.
All he thinks about are military supplies, military strength, tactics and victory, so that others can think of something more important than a bite to eat under the conditions he created.
Recovering lost ground is a more important thing, and completing the unfinished business of the previous dynasty is even more important.
"Babai surrendered, but Hami belongs to him. He, a small noble, has no say. Turpan will eventually take Hami back."
After saying that, Liu Chengzong changed the subject, his face full of confidence: "Of course, we can take Hami back as many times as they can take it away, but..."
Hope lit up on Sunday Qiang's face again: "It's just?"
"It's just that this is not the key to the Hami problem. The key is an arithmetic problem."
Liu Chengzong looked at Zhou Zhouqiang and said with a smile: "General Zhou is not familiar with military books and war books, but his arithmetic is very good. Let's put it this way, I have seen Yerqiang's blunderbuss and armor on Wala. The forged armor bow and sword are good, and the sharpness is The weak point in melee combat is guns and cannons."
In fact, blunderbuss are not necessarily short. He had seen Yarkant's self-made bird blunderbuss and the purchased bird blunderbuss in the hands of Batur Hutaiji.
Individual firearms were the advantage of the Central Plains dynasty, because the firearms of this era had not yet developed to the point where they could eliminate all weapons and armor. They had only one irreplaceable advantage: they were simple to manufacture and use, and the easiest to quickly form an army.
The Central Plains dynasty's bureaucratic centralized system, huge handicraft industry, and huge population are the biggest advantages of using firearms. Most of the tribal aristocrats or feudal aristocratic societies in the world do not have a mature craftsman management system and have not completed centralized power. What do they do with it? Talk about standardization?
Of course, this does not mean that guns are inferior if they do not have standardized firearms. The various firearms themselves are very different.
The human body is too fragile for gunpowder weapons, and even a small kick with a small stone without any killing purpose can kill a person.
Not to mention a specially equipped pipe and an iron ball stuffed into it, whether long, short, far or close, they can kill people.
The advantage of the Marshal's Mansion was that Liu Chengzong knew better than anyone else that the development of firearms was inseparable from the development of the handicraft industry. He used craftsmen from the Central Plains to quickly establish a relatively large and complete gun manufacturing system in Qinghai.
This determines that in the northwest, the Khanate, which is about the same size as the Marshal's Mansion, cannot have more guns than him... not to mention that Yarkant's body is much smaller than the entire Marshal's Mansion, almost the same as Xining Mansion.
"Turpan can mobilize 20,000 to 30,000 troops. Hami is a small city with bad terrain, but fortunately it is easy to defend. At least one battalion is required for defense. You must also be prepared for internal and external cooperation, and what if the enemy does not attack you."
After Liu Chengzong finished speaking, he asked the question to Zhou Qiang: "You can calculate where the food for three thousand men will come from. If you figure it out, I will assign you three thousand men to guard Hami. If you can't figure it out, go and tell my brother as I say. "
Sunday Qiang thought of this too simply.
In their enthusiasm, people can easily get carried away and perform extraordinary feats, just like Sunday Qiang, the first Han general to climb the city of Hami in a century.
The general did not have many soldiers and horses at his disposal. Under his call, eighteen Mongolian Arhats, more than a hundred shipbuilders, and three hundred Mongolian sailors from the Navy Yamen all wore armor and weapons and prepared a battle with the small city. Prepare to live or die together.
He felt that with the strong military power of the Marshal's Mansion, fighting in Hami, as long as they could hold on until the army came for reinforcements, they would be able to easily overwhelm the troops assembled in Turpan.
But fighting is not a simple matter of two minus one.
How many troops can defend Hami, how long it will take to mobilize these troops to garrison Hami, how long they will be stationed if the enemy does not come, how many people are needed to transport food to maintain the garrison, and where the food comes from... all require precise calculations.
Transporting grain is Zhou Qiang's job; calculating the road consumption of military grain is also a necessary skill for local civil servants.
He thought quickly in his mind and soon came up with an embarrassing number.
Hami, with a population of less than 10,000 under the feudal fief system, did not have the ability to support a standing army of 3,000 people. Suzhou under the guard system could no longer support the Suzhou guards. It had the manpower and capacity to transport food, but no food.
The three places of Chijinwei, Dunhuang, and Guazhou, which rely on animal husbandry, have less than 10,000 people together. They do their best to feed themselves, and transporting grain is even more nonsense.
The only place where the Marshal's Mansion has surplus grain is Hehuang. Although it is extremely far away, it is actually quite easy to transport grain here.
The army relied on external transportation for food. Oxen carts carried 500 kilograms of grain and traveled thirty miles a day. It took three months to transport it from Xincheng to Hami. Even if the cattle plucked grass from the ground every day, the grain had to be transported to Hami by cattle shepherds, cart drivers and The armed escorts ate four hundred kilograms, and at least another hundred kilograms were delivered.
The real difficulty lies in what Liu Chengzong said, if the enemy army does not come, how long will the army be stationed?
Every day when the three thousand troops were stationed, it cost fifteen thousand men food.
There is no need to guard against thieves for a thousand days. If you guard against thieves for three hundred days, the grain reserves of the Marshal's Mansion will be exhausted by Hami.
The fire in Zhou Qiang's heart was extinguished, and Liu Chengzong smiled slyly and said: "You should listen to me. Brother Zhou, don't be discouraged. I have three strategies: garrisoning troops in Hami and fighting Turpan."
Sunday Qiang said happily: "Then I dare to ask the commander, what is the best strategy?"
He doesn't ask about the best strategy because there are usually explanations for the top, middle and bottom strategies.
The worst strategy is stupid and naive, and treats the symptoms but not the root cause; the best strategy is good and perfect, but difficult to implement. Therefore, when counselors usually offer advice, they hope that the monarch will use the middle strategy.
However, his reaction stunned Liu Chengzong for a moment, because he was the monarch and did not need to play these tricks. He hoped that what he was forced to ask him on Sunday was the best strategy.
Therefore, Liu Chengzong's reaction was very dull: "No troops will be stationed, no taxes will be collected, Hami will remain as it is, and we will negotiate peace with Turpan and open the market in exchange for nominal rule."
Sunday Qiang sighed: "What if Turpan doesn't negotiate for peace?"
Liu Chengzong was amused by this rhetorical question. He let go of the reins and spread his hands on the horse, saying: "Then this problem will be left to Turpan? They have to garrison troops in Hami, transport grain to Hami, and they have to be prepared for me to lead the army to attack. They'll be worn down by this time next year."
Liu Chengzong opened his hands indifferently and said: "The cities and towns in Yarkand are all oases surrounded by deserts, and the east-west communication is not smooth. Turpan is also a few oases in the Gobi. Whether Yarkand sends an army or Turpan mobilizes an army, it is not as good as It’s easy for the Marshal’s Mansion to send troops.”
"On the Hami issue, both sides are actually in the same environment. There is always one side that has to make concessions. The Ming Dynasty made concessions for a hundred years in the past, and now it is their turn to give in."
Liu Shizi said it easily, but Zhou Zhouqiang was thoughtful and shocked.
He knew about Hami as early as when he was studying, but the Hami he knew at that time was not the lonely desert city that it is today with a few people and a declining city, but came from the concrete lamentation of the decline of national power by scholars.
In fact, the teacher who forcibly initiated Sunday had never seen what Hami was like.
It wasn't until Babai surrendered and forced his way to the top of the Hami city on Sunday, relying on Popeye from the Navy Yamen as an interpreter and chatting with the people of Hami, that I had a general understanding of the Western Regions in this era.
Even so, he still had limited understanding of Ye Qiang, let alone the difficulty of mobilizing troops from Ye Qiang's perspective.
However, Liu Chengzong has clearly never been to the Western Regions, but he is very familiar with the geographical environment of Yarkand, and can even make strategic arrangements for the Marshal's Mansion based on these. This is obviously a very determined heart... But where is the source of the determination?
This is not the first time Zhou Zhouqiang has doubted life. Over the years, Liu Chengzong not only predicted the decline of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of Jianzhou, but also accurately described the topography of Mobei, Liaodong, Qinghai, Uzang, Sichuan, and the Western Regions. He even told Batur that there was the Ural Mountains northwest of Hutaiji.
At the same time, Zhou Zhouqiang was also relieved. Since Liu Chengzong already had a grasp of the geography of the Western Regions, he would never lack ambition for other people's lands.
So he raised his hands on horseback and asked: "I dare to ask the commander, what is the best policy?"
"Oh, I told you the best idea a long time ago."
Liu Chengzong laughed quite contentedly and said: "Let my brother not station troops in Hami or collect taxes in Hami, and everything will continue as usual, but he will not negotiate peace with Turpan. He will only forcefully levy Hami's best weapons, soldiers and horses as soon as possible." Go to Tianshan."
Sunday Qiang's mind was still filled with the huge road consumption of food. Before he could clear his thoughts for a while, he asked: "The commander-in-chief, do you mean to waste it with them?"
"It's not wrong for you to understand it this way."
Liu Chengzong said: "Jiang Wei defended Hanzhong, Deng Ai crossed the Yinping Road to destroy Shu, Liu Chan surrendered at Chengdu, and the sword pavilion in Hanzhong was not captured by Wei. If Hami is not easy to solve, we will deal with the entire Yerkang. When Yerkang collapses, Hami It will take care of itself."
"But that's a story for later. The most important thing right now is the Tianshan Army. The people who can really decide where Hami belongs is not Babai, but Batur Hutaiji and my brother. The key to changing the situation in the outer northwest is in their hands. .”
As Liu Chengzong spoke, the smile on his face gradually disappeared, and he said to Sunday in a serious tone: "Next, you must tell my brother when you go back that the impact of the Battle of Qinghai is fermenting, and the Oyrat forces will be reshuffled with the arrival of the Tianshan Army. Whether Batur can rely on his brother's Tianshan Army to stabilize the situation is the most important thing that will truly have a profound impact on the pattern of the outer northwest. "
"Hami is not important, nor is shipbuilding. These are all things that Batur Hutaiji has to worry about. Brother and Brother Zhou, just exercise the power of the Great Khan in Oirat."
"The Marshal's Mansion is not a foreign aid for Junggar to annex various tribes, but the master of the four Oirat tribes, hoeing the strong and supporting the weak. Do you understand?"
Sunday Qiang swept the floor politely and blurted out the quintessence of the Chinese nation, saying to himself that when Batur Hutaiji was here, that was not what happened!
"So surprised?"
Liu Chengzong asked expressionlessly and said: "I have never heard that Oirat would obey the Great Khan. You want to change the feudal system in Tianshan into counties, with a thousand miles northwest of Yinli as the boundary, and establish prefectures and counties within a thousand miles. .”
"When you stabilize the situation in Oirat, I will inform Oirat in my name that no matter how big or small the nobles, Zaisang Darhan, herdsman Manu, or even a strong woman, the land in the west will belong to whoever captures it. The land thousands of miles northwest of Yinli Outside, let them race and enclose their territory."
"The general led his troops to the west, and the marshal's office provided the necessary guns and warships in the form of trade as support. He conquered the land and reported it to the Tianshan Yamen. The Tianshan Yamen reported back to me. I conferred titles on the fiefdoms and used the ingenuity of the Central Plains to seize the heavenly crafts and help them. Stay in this land forever."
Liu Chengzong took his words in a big circle, and finally returned to Hami. He said: "Hami, this is the place where these heroes of Wala sell furs and buy guns. Do you think we still need to worry about it? You should worry about it. It should be the entire Western Region!”
