Three hundred rockets were launched, Liu Chengzong thought to himself, his brother really went to Tianshan.
The eldest brother is a military fanatic. Before, he was worried that if he failed to complete the affairs of the Marshal's Mansion, he would be used as a gunman by Oirat and become Batur Huitaiji's right-hand man.
Now it seems that his worries were overblown. The eldest brother actually came to watch the game at the edge of the Amesh Salt Lake. To be honest, this matter was indeed a bit beyond Liu Shizi's imagination.
Because although the muskets and artillery sold to Oirat by the Marshal's Office had not yet arrived when the war started, the muskets and artillery of Liu Chengzu's Tianshan Army were all equipped. The Rakshasa people had a small dilapidated fort with hundreds of defenders by the lake, let alone As a brother, even Liu Shishi can't guarantee that he can watch the battle.
His hands were weak, and he might have fired two cannons, and the fort would be gone.
Two volleys of the Tianshan Army's Qianjin Cannon and Lion Cannon hit the wooden barrier. There were at least six gaps in one wall. As long as there was a gap, Oirat's cavalry jumped into it.
Relying on the firearms fortress, when Huang Shengxiao was still called Huang Xiao, six bandit troops could protect the pier when thousands of Monan cavalry passed through, let alone hundreds of Rakshasa soldiers.
But if the fortress is really broken and the soldiers are fighting hand to hand, even if one Rakshasa soldier has three heads, he won't be able to be chopped off.
If Liu Chengzu helped Weilat to lay down this wooden fortress, it would not be very powerful. After all, it was the Weilat cavalry who really rushed in to kill people, but it would be very powerful if he could resist not taking action to build momentum for himself.
This actually made Liu Shizi let out a long sigh: Maybe the strategy of pushing the border line to the Ural Mountains can be achieved with the help of his brother.
In fact, Liu Chengzong had no idea about this matter before. He sent the Tianshan Army to the Tianshan Mountains. He did not do this kind of great work. He just wanted them to go south to wipe out the Yarkand.
After all, even if he is the generalissimo, he cannot let his subordinates do meaningless things. In the eyes of people of this era, running to blockade the Ural Mountains is a meaningless thing.
In comparison, wiping out the Western Region was a feat.
There is no need to worry about his brother at the moment. The only problem left is the rotation of the Tianshan Army. After all, Liu Shishi can promise the officers and soldiers of the Tianshan Army to guard the border for five years or three years and give them a good background to return.
With this in mind, Liu Chengzong turned around and issued an order at the Marshal's Mansion in Lanzhou, summoning Li Bei, Dalai Taiji, and Rakshasa veteran Qiban from Xincheng Academy to come to Lanzhou.
I have nothing else to do with the three of them. I just want them to set up a military training guard at Nanshan Fort in Qinghai. There is the Qinghai Lake Navy Yamen to the north and Heka Grassland to the south. They are both good training grounds. Li Bei will be the commander of the palm seal. Dal came to Taiji to be the commander and advisor.
Let them first draw 300 battalions from Gansu, Xining, and Lintao as officers. The task is to recruit troops from Uzang, Kangning, Xining, Lintao, etc. every year, train and study in the training guards for one year, and send them to the Tianshan Army to supplement rotation and assist in defense. , served there for two years, and upon his return, both officers and soldiers were promoted to two ranks.
It's a pity that Li Bei couldn't do it, not because he thought his official position was low or had any opinions on the matter, but because he was seriously ill and it was difficult to teach in the academy, let alone train in the army.
Seeing this, Liu Chengzong had no choice but to give up, and instead of letting him teach tactics at Xincheng Academy, he sent him directly home to be raised. He appointed Zhong Hu again as the commander of the training guards, and asked him to be responsible for recruiting three thousand soldiers every year and training them.
Not two days after this order was issued, Zhang Xianzhong, the Minister of Rites Yamen, entered the Marshal's Mansion.
"Commander, this training guard is going to fight on the ground in Oaratazi?"
Liu Chengzong didn't think too much about why Zhang Xianzhong came here for this matter. He nodded as an answer and said with a smile: "Why, brother Bingzhong also wants to go there for a visit?"
Zhang Xianzhong shook his head like a rattle, thinking that there was no way he could come back to that barren land of the Wala Tatars, and I wasn't stupid, so I didn't want to go there.
However, he still smiled sheepishly and said: "Commander, three thousand troops, it's not good to go anywhere, so why go there?"
Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed at him, turned around to look for a map on the bookshelf, and said with a smile, "If you don't understand, I'll explain it to you."
He searched for the map but couldn't find it, so he simply spread a piece of paper on the public case, drew an outline with a pen, and waved Zhang Xianzhong over. While drawing, he said: "Look, this is the Ming Dynasty. The Marshal's Mansion is in the northwest, in the desert." The south is in the north, Oirat is in the northwest of the Marshal's Mansion... you know the Rakshasa Kingdom."
Zhang Xianzhong's heart trembled, and he nodded calmly and said with a smile: "I've heard of it, but I'm humble and stupid. I don't know what's wrong with that country."
Feng Shuangli led his troops to Kangning. When passing through Xining Prefecture, it was like visiting a zoo. He led his brothers from Xiying to watch the Rakshasa Language Teaching Class at the academy. Later, he wrote a letter to Zhang Xianzhong, describing what he saw and heard.
He had only heard of the Rakshasa Kingdom in that letter. Now that Liu Chengzong was sure that he knew, he felt that he was surrounded by informants.
But this was because he was overthinking it. Liu Chengzong had no time to care about the letters of his few Xiying generals. Xiying was not on the same level as the Marshal's Mansion, and there was no need to be so careful. He just judged others by himself. I thought Zhang Xianzhong knew.
"It is a big country. It is probably larger than the Marshal's Mansion in this place. You know our situation. Anyone with a larger territory than us must be much stronger than us."
Zhang Xianzhong nodded when he heard this. This is not because Liu Shizi is being humble or destroying his prestige, but rather an objective law of existence.
The territory of the Marshal's Mansion is huge and weird, and it can be called the king of bad lands in Asia.
After last year's chaos in Monan, Hou Jin suffered some losses in Monan. The journey back to Shenyang was particularly embarrassing. The tribes outside the mouth also fled northward one after another under the pursuit of the Ming army. Yang Qi's governor's mansion not only lived in Monan came down, and with the help of the huge force of the Three Khans of Mobei, they swept away the entire Monan with a voracious force.
By the first month of the year, Yang Qi had sent covenants, maps, and artifacts from various tribes, and the pastoral areas of the tribal leaders who requested submission had extended as far as outside Zhangjiakou.
Of course, that is a disputed territory, and Hou Jin will not let it go. When spring begins and Liaoze thaws, Huang Taiji will definitely have to come out of the Horqin Grassland again, but at least in these two months, the nominal territory of the Marshal's Mansion has covered the entire Monan Grassland. .
Zhangjiakou, Lanzhou, Qamdo, and Lhasa, which Huo Luochi was besieging, were connected into a line on the map, almost completely coinciding with the 400 mm rainfall line.
Outside the line is Liu Shishi's territory.
He expanded it a little further, and it became the Heihe-Tengchong Line, China's geographical population dividing line. Four hundred years later, 94% of the population lived to the south of this line, while only 6% of the population lived to the north. .
In fact, in this era, the population ratio was similar. Oirat and Uszang, plus one area, were worth 1.8 million. The territory Liu Shizi controlled, Lintao, Gongchang, Xiningkangning, Gansu and Monan, was only 2 million.
His territory is almost half of the country, but his population only accounts for 6 or 7%.
This kind of monster whose territory and population are stitched together cannot stand in the forest of the world for a long time. It is destined to be short-lived and will inevitably be divided and annexed sooner or later.
Based on this weird territory, the consensus of the Marshal's Office is that the territory has one-third of our power, so the military strength should be stronger than ours.
Zhang Xianzhong looked at the map Liu Chengzong drew casually, and was secretly surprised. The outline of the territory map drawn by the generalissimo, alone, seemed to be more detailed than all the maps he had seen in the past, and it also had a better understanding of the northwest. The uncharted territory on the edge provides greater credibility.
This is a wise man who refers to heaven and earth.
He looked at the map carefully, thinking about the distance between the Rakshasa Kingdom and the Marshal's Mansion, and asked cautiously: "Are we going to go to war with them?"
"We can't talk about starting a war. The north is not that dangerous. Although the Rakshasa Kingdom is strong, it is experiencing chaos in the country. It was humiliated by the Westerners in the west and humiliated by the Tatars in the south. However, it is expanding to the east. It’s this line.”
Liu Chengzong drew a line on the north side of the map, extending all the way to the northern part of Liaodong Province. He clicked it carefully and said: "Qiban told me that they built a fort here three years ago, called Yakutsk, and set up a military governor, with a garrison of fifty - —You can run pretty well, right?"
Zhang Xianzhong almost ate his tongue when he looked at this line, not because of the distance or the funny "Fifty garrison", but because the line drawn by Liu Chengzong on the map was from the north of Oirat to the north of Mobei, and finally again Arriving in the northern part of Houjin, Liu Chengzong didn't draw anything on the entire route, and it was a completely unknown area.
Common sense is that the further north you go, the colder it gets, and the more north you go, the more desolate it becomes. There are no living people in Monan right now. Mongolians are knocking on the door in large and small groups to ask for help, but Liu Chengzong told him that now there is a big country from the barren land in the north. Large stocks expand eastward.
Zhang Xianzhong was dumbfounded. What kind of monsters did these people become?
The old popsicle has become a sperm?
However, after experiencing a brief shock, Zhang Xianzhong's eyes regained clarity and he said to Liu Chengzong seriously: "Commander, you don't have to worry about them."
Liu Chengzong: "Oh? Tell me what you think."
"From here, to here." Zhang Xianzhong raised his hand and clicked in the north of Oirat, then clicked to Yakutsk, and said: "It is further than Us hiding to the capital. Even if thirty-six stations are set up throughout the journey, it will take ten days to run." It’s not over, not to mention it’s freezing cold in the north, and if something happens in the east, the west won’t know about it for a month, and they can’t control it.”
"I estimate that the commander-in-chief is worried that they threaten Monan. Even if their troops approach Monan and march three thousand miles, they will still be exhausted. Our army is waiting for work and can attack them without any effort."
Liu Chengzong glanced at Zhang Xianzhong appreciatively, it was not simple.
He praised: "You are insightful. You are right."
Zhang Xianzhong was absolutely right. He even expected the enemy to be lenient. Not only did he not underestimate the difficulty of marching in Siberia, he even overestimated it. If an army starts marching from Moscow and reaches Lake Baikal, not only the division veterans will be exhausted, but also the food supply will be exhausted on the road. It crashed seven or eight times.
But it's no use.
It's cold and freezing over there, and there's no normal marching environment at all. It's like two armies confronting each other. If the casualties reach a critical point, the army will flee; but if this army is surrounded, there will be nowhere to run. Victory If the other side refuses to surrender, the defeated side will most likely fight to the last soldier.
This is the situation in Siberia. You will die wherever you run, you will die if you return the same way, and you will die if you wander on the ice field. If you reach the target and start a fight, you will have the greatest chance of survival.
"But I'm not worried about them threatening Monan."
Liu Chengzong shook his head with a smile, and then raised his hand to cover the boundless unknown land in the north of the sketch: "What I want is this land, with inexhaustible furs. In one hundred or two hundred years, we can We can’t use it, but we can’t give it away – blocking the Ural Mountains is a real great cause!”
Zhang Xianzhong's eyes widened. There were so many nonsense in these words that he didn't know where to start. He just felt that Liu Chengzong was crazy.
He has been attached to the Marshal's Mansion for some time. As a senior official, he knows the specific situation of the Marshal's Mansion better than many qualified generals.
Let’s not talk about how petty it is to launch a war for a little fur. Let’s just say that the biggest specialty on the territory of the Marshal’s Mansion is fucking fur. Kangning Mansion, which is rich in furs locally, is basically closed due to the long distance and heavy snow. The ground was digested, but even so, as soon as the furs from Oirat were delivered, the leather industry in Xining Prefecture collapsed.
That's it, but you still think it's too little?
What do you need so much skin for?
Zhang Xianzhong looked confused, thinking that this Liu Shizi was not a particularly greedy person. What's more, even if he was very greedy for money, we would just kill him for Hanzhong Mansion. What would he want? Why are you staring at the barren land in the north?
But when it came to this, Lao Zhang suddenly remembered what he was doing here, and immediately, regardless of whether he understood Liu Chengzong's spirit, he directly clasped his fists seriously and said: "Commander, I want to send troops to the territory of the Walatar. I have a plan." This plan can save a year of training time."
"What's the plan?"
"Sweeping King Zhang Yichuan, have you heard of it, Marshal?"
Liu Chengzong nodded, feeling somewhat impressed that he was a rising star among the rebels.
They first met in Qingjian and decided on a four-way strategy to enter Shanxi. At that time, Zhang Yichuan was still a small leader with hundreds of men under his command. He was not even qualified to enter the house, so he defected to Gao Yingxiang, who was third in the ranking.
But later Wang Zuogao surrendered in Suide and was appeased. One of his subordinates, a leader named Ke Tianhu, followed Zhang Yichuan. He had the capital to start a business. He made a big fuss in Suide and became famous. He became a follower of Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others. A second-rate leader with the same name.
Liu Chengzong asked: "I remember that he is the leader of the camp together with Brother Li, and is known as the fifth camp of the Chuang Army, right?"
"Yes, that's him, working together with Huang Wazi." Zhang Xianzhong nodded in great excitement and said, "He sent someone to look for me. He couldn't stand it in the mountains and was looking for something to do. He has thousands of men and horses who are very reliable, so he sent him to Tianshan." Bar."
Liu Chengzong thought, what do you think is a good strategy to save time on military training? Is this it?
The training time in his mind was actually the two years after he was transferred to Tianshan. The newly recruited soldiers spent one year in the training camp. They mainly learned language and ice field survival skills. Even if Zhang Yichuan came over, he would still have to learn these things.
On the contrary, Zhang Yichuan's troops' ability to be accustomed to fighting was of no use in the north.
In Liu Chengzong's mind, the Tianshan Army and the eastward-expanding Rakshasa Army would never fight a battle. The real Rakshasa heroes would die in the battle to seize the throne, and would not go to Siberia to imitate the howling of foxes or watch the shamans dance.
The Rakshasa people rely on rivers to advance, and the Tianshan Army of the Marshal's Mansion also relies on rivers to advance; the Rakshasa people build forts at important nodes on the river, and the Tianshan Army of the Marshal's Mansion also builds forts on important nodes of the river - nothing more than a competition for technology and military strength. , With the ability to compete with arms, who is afraid of whom?
Build fortresses on several important roads that must pass through rivers, and directly cut off the east-west main roads in the middle. What can you do no matter how much the east side expands?
As long as the Tianshan Army can withstand it in the west, Liu Chengzong can completely kill all the Rakshasa soldiers who penetrate deep into the Far East until they become Mongols.
What will we fight and who will we fight with?
Why would Zhang Yichuan lead his troops there? It would be better to stay in the Central Plains to contain the government troops.
Every year, three thousand troops learn fishing, sailing, building forts, and speaking. They go to Siberia for two years to garrison, and they may come back without being able to fight a single battle. This counts as three years of guarding the border. When they come back, they will be veterans who can join the battlefield in the Central Plains. The Lu division built forts and the Navy division could do all the work of sailing boats. This was Liu Chengzong's plan.
Zhang Xianzhong felt anxious when he saw that Liu Chengzong was not interested in this proposal.
Of course he didn't hold back when he recommended Zhang Yichuan. He got the news that Zhang Yichuan planned to break into Fengyang Mansion to dig up the ancestral graves of the old Zhu family - this is what Zhang Xianzhong wants to do. He must not let him, Zhang Yichuan, take the lead. I happened to hear that Liu Shizi was recruiting soldiers for the Tianshan Army, so he rushed to recommend him.
"Commander, let's meet Zhang Yichuan. He wants to break into Henan! We can't let him go. If he goes to Henan, where will the dignity of our Marshal's Office go?"
"He is going to Henan?"
Liu Chengzong was very happy. It would be great to enter Henan. Let's go in together. He directly waved to Yu Linqi and said: "Go to Gansu quickly, transfer the Sanjie camp southward, and let the king come to see me."
With that said, he turned to Zhang Xianzhong and said: "Ask Zhang Yichuan to come to see me and ask him about guns, cannons, soldiers, armor, chariots and horses. If he needs anything, I will give him what he needs!"
Good evening!
(End of chapter)
