In Songpan Acropolis, these days, the vigilance is twice as strong as in the past. The family members of the government soldiers who followed Li Dingguo here, as long as they had the strength, were recruited with two meals of dry rice and flour cakes a day, and they worked like crazy digging earth and stone, repairing the city walls, and building strongholds. The moats located in the north and south of Songpanwei Castle (Songpan Acropolis is located in a narrow valley, with rivers on the left and mountains on the right, and only the north and south can enter and exit) have also been deepened and widened. The north and south walls of the castle have also been transformed and made of sandbags. The slope was built to protect it from artillery bombardment.
The soldiers of the Li family who were stationed in various parts of Songpan Guard also shrank one by one and were concentrated in the upper reaches of the Min River and the southern foot of Min Mountain centered on Songpan Guard City.
Canglu City and Duogan Sicheng, which are also under the jurisdiction of Duogandu under the rule of Li Dingguo, have almost the same scene. Although Li Dingguo's official position was Duogan Jiedushi, his army did not control the entire Duogan Dusi territory. It only occupied the northeastern part of Duogan Dusi, close to Songpanwei's territory, and the actual control area was not large. And Li Dingguo's main force still relied on Songpan Wei's territory.
However, in the past two or three years, the Xichuan Jiedushi of the Ming Army adopted a turn-blind strategy towards the Li Jiajun entrenched in Songpanwei, as if they recognized that Songpanwei belonged to Duogansi. And Li Dingguo was not polite. He directly placed his commander's palace in Songpan Wei City, and placed most of his troops and civilians (fu soldiers and households) in the valleys and river valleys within Songpan Wei, allowing them to rob them. He took over the territory of the local chieftain and lived on his own farm. Although life is hard, I can still survive. Just when these soldiers and civilians who had survived the disaster thought that they were going to die in the mountains of Songpanwei and Duogansi, the situation suddenly became tense!
On the streets of Songpan Acropolis, there are always officers in red robes galloping past, receiving military orders from Li Dingguo's commander-in-chief, and then going to their headquarters to make arrangements. After the New Year, the atmosphere in Songpan Guard City became more and more murderous day by day.
At this time, in the festival hall, several officers of the Li family army were reporting military affairs in a low voice to the Ming Dynasty Duogan Jiedushi and the left governor Li Dingguo before the commander-in-chief's case. Li Dingguo looks much older and a little thinner than he did two or three years ago, but his eyes are still bright and his body is very healthy. He did not sit down, but stood behind the handsome desk. He wore a coarse robe casually draped around him, but he looked majestic.
Since last year, due to the hostile stance of Prince Zhu, Wu Yingxiong, Wu Guogui, Ge Erdan and others, the people in Li Dingguo's army have been a little panicked. Now it is all about his accumulated prestige over the years to support morale.
"Jie Shuai, men are being recruited everywhere recently to build city defenses. There is no need to give out money. We have not had money for a long time, but we must have enough food! Now there are rice warehouses everywhere. We only see a little every day, but not a lot. The Xichuan Jiesi has also blocked the Minjiang trade route to prevent food from being transported to our place. I am afraid that the army's food reserves will be difficult to sustain until the end of the autumn!"
"Commander Jie, I have recently counted the weapons and replenished each battalion. I have enough swords, spears, bows and arrows, but there is not much gunpowder, not enough to pull out for a fight..."
"Jie Shuai, Songpanwei and Duogansi are both bitter and barren places. I'm afraid I won't be able to support you for a long time. Why don't we take advantage of the fact that we still have some capital on hand and win the damn battle!"
Originally, Li Dingguo just listened calmly to the complaints of the officers below. He knew all about the lack of food and weapons. Although his army was recruited by the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court never regarded Li Dingguo's army as official troops. Similarly, few people in Li Dingguo's army were loyal to the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, if the imperial court can allocate territory for Li Dingguo to defend it and let him fend for himself, it has done its utmost to be benevolent and righteous. It is simply impossible to provide the imperial court with money, food and equipment. However, Songpan and Duogan were indeed barren, and the land was almost bleeding. They could not support Li Dingguo's tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of military dependents.
In this regard, Li Dingguo had no choice but to endure it. He didn't know when it would end.
Now when his subordinates talk about "playing a game", his brows tighten.
Compared with running out of food and grass, which would be a fatal problem in six months, the current confrontation with Prince Zhu's faction was an imminent crisis.
The third prince Zhu is now pressing forward step by step, but Li Dingguo, Ai Nengqi, and Liu Wenxiu can only endure it. Because the Ming court obviously wanted to make peace, Prince Zhu and the others only pressed hard, but did not start a fight.
Their wishful thinking is to force Li Dingguo, Ai Nengqi, and Liu Wenxiu into a corner and force them to take action first!
As long as Li Dingguo, Ai Nengqi, and Liu Wenxiu dare to take action first, what awaits them is the invasion of heavenly troops!
So a year ago, when Li Dingguo met with Ai Nengqi and Liu Wenxiu in Qamdo, he decided on the strategy of "you can't endure it anymore, you have to endure it some more".
In order to appease Galdan, the highest-ranked member of Prince Zhu's faction, Li Dingguo even persuaded Liu Wenxiu, the weakest among the three snow-covered vassals, to withdraw his troops from the western part of Oris and cede the territory to Galdan's men.
By the way, the area under the jurisdiction of Oris Jiedu was not completely controlled by Liu Wenxiu's army. He only controlled the eastern half of Oris, which is the Ali region. However, there were Liu Wenxiu's troops in the western half of Oris at one time, but they were not attacked, but invited there on their own initiative, so they did not take over the power, but only garrisoned troops.
The territory west of Oris now belongs to a Tibetan kingdom called Ladakh. Ladakh is now ruled by the Namgyal dynasty. The current king is named Zewang Namgyal, who is a direct descendant of the Tibetan dynasty. Although this Kingdom of Ladakh was founded by the Us Tibetans and also believed in Tibetan Buddhism, it was not the same sect as the Fifth Grand Lama. The Kingdom of Ladakh believes in the White Sect (Kagyu Sect), while the great lama belongs to the Yellow Sect (Gelug Sect). Moreover, the king of Ladakh is still a descendant of the Tubo dynasty, so of course he will not buy into the fault of the great lama.
However, Ladakh did not start a fight with the Grand Lama, because to their south, the Timur Empire of India was approaching step by step!
Ladakh has conflicts with the Grand Lama on the one hand, and is threatened by the Timurid Empire of the Tianfang Sect on the other. Life is certainly not easy.
So when Tsewang Namgyal found out that the Ming army from the east had driven away the great lama of Lhasa, of course he sent people to seek refuge as soon as possible - the Ming Dynasty used to support the Dharma King of the White Sect. Moreover, Zewang Namgyal also learned from the Indian merchants who came to Ladakh to trade that the most beautiful Princess Nisha of the Timur Empire had become the queen of the Ming Dynasty... so she had to embrace the lap of the Ming Dynasty. With him on his lap, not only was he no longer worried about the threat of the Yellow Sect, he was no longer afraid of the Timur Empire.
As for whether the Ming Dynasty would seize the power of the Nanjia Dynasty, Zewang Nanjia was not worried at all, because he felt that his country was miserable and there was really nothing to seize.
As a result... Zewang Namgyal's analysis was basically correct. Neither the Yellow Sect Great Lama nor Timur of India dared to provoke Ladakh (even if Aurangzeb knew that the bandits stationed in Ladakh were rogue bandits, he would not Don’t dare to mess with him! His army has been completely beaten by Li Jicheng in Bangladesh). The only miscalculation is that the troops entering Ladakh are not the real Ming army at all!
Liu Wenxiu brought few troops to Ladakh, only more than 2,000 people, but he scraped away a lot of oil and water! During this period, they also tentatively touched the Tianfang Sect army in the Kashmir Valley (they were Aurangzeb's vassals). They didn't really fight them, but they got a lot of food from them (Aurangzeb treated them like beggars), and he was very happy. At that time, he had to retreat to the Ngari area and gave up Ladakh to Galdan...
However, the concessions of the three feudal lords in the snowy area did not bring about peace, but instead brought about the other party's advancement - the Sichuan Ming Army, which had not dealt with Li Dingguo in the first place, had recently adopted a hostile attitude of blocking trade routes.
Therefore, Li Dingguo's men are already ready to take action!
At this moment, the Ming Dynasty's Xichuan Festival Chief sent Li Dingguo another piece of news that left him speechless - the Ming Emperor was going to transfer him to Dongchuan Festival, and he also sent some kind of prince to convey the news. Purpose...Is this to trick him into going to Chongqing to do harm?
