"Excuse me, Great Khan, do you want to continue the westward expedition to Tumut?"
Huang Taiji's words stopped Tumen Khan on the spot.
Yes, with the current situation, do we still want to continue the Western Expedition? Tumen Khan himself was muttering to himself.
Tumen Khan had previously judged that the Western Expedition could be carried out because of three main considerations:
First, Chahar headquarters is safe. Chahar's troops have already retreated north, thousands of miles away from the border of the Ming Dynasty. It is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to fight that far - it would have been possible in two hundred years, but it is absolutely impossible now.
In addition, there are the three guards of Duoyan as a barrier, and the Subahai town in Neikalkha guarding Chahanhot, and it is a foolproof situation no matter how you look at it.
Second, there are great benefits in conquering Tumote in the west. Tumut has been strong for decades, and has been trading with the Ming Dynasty for more than ten years. It can be said that the family is rich. If he can succeed in the Western Expedition, even if Dayan Khan's enfeoffment cannot be changed, at least he can cut it off from Xin Ai. A big piece of meat.
In addition, it can also strengthen the authority of the Great Khan. Although the Ordos tribe is the hereditary Jinong, there is no doubt that Tumote is the actual leader of the 30,000 households on the right wing. In other words, as long as Tumut surrenders, who among the 30,000 households on the right will dare to resist this great Khan? A return to the glory of Dayan Khan's era is just around the corner.
Third, the success probability of the western expedition to Tumut is very high - of course this is Tumen Khan's own point of view.
In Tumen Khan's view, Anda's enfeoffment was unreasonable, and he did not clearly explain his posthumous affairs before his death. As a result, Xin Ai Huang Taiji's strength was not as good as that of his nephew.
However, Xin Ai's prestige is certainly not comparable to Han Naji's, let alone his combat experience. In Tumen's view, if there was no external intervention, the uncle-nephew pair, Xin Ai and Bahan Naji, should be evenly matched.
Normally speaking, since they are evenly matched, other forces within Tumut should remain neutral and let them decide the winner first, and then go to the stronger one. This is the rule and custom on the grassland.
So in this case, if he, the Great Khan of Mongolia, suddenly sent troops to help Xin Ai, how could Xin Ai not win?
Of course, Tumen Khan also knew that Han Naji was now being helped by Chataiji, but in Tumen Khan's view, this was a small problem. Although Qataiji was a rare warrior, he even won the title of Jebie's marksman. , but no matter how strong he is, he is still a human being, can he really be "defeated by ten thousand people"? He only has three thousand troops, and the remaining three thousand are the Great Khan's escorts. It is hard to say whether they are willing to fight Xin'ai Huang Taiji.
Even if all 6,000 men were counted, including Han Naji's western outpost, there would still be less than 50,000 troops. My Chahar headquarters has dispatched 60,000 cavalry this time. With Xin Ai's full efforts, he should be able to gather 30,000 cavalry. This is 90,000 cavalry. How difficult is it to defeat Hannaji?
However, they never expected that Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang actually sent out troops, and they were extremely fierce and decisive, especially the father and son Li Chengliang and Li Rusong. The father killed Hai quickly, and the son killed Dong Hu, Chahanhot was wiped out in front of his face.
Although Qi Jiguang only had a small battle with Chang'ang, Chang'ang's servant was almost captured when he fought against Qi Jiguang in the second year of Wanli (historical fact). This time, he turned around and ran away after a slight trial. He simply suffered from Qi Jiguang's phobia. Chang'ang's escape resulted in the loss of Daning, and his retreat to the east was also cut off - of course the Mongols were not very afraid of this, and at worst they would have to take a detour.
The detour is a trivial matter. If you go back to the northern route, you can pick up Chahar's troops first, but the current situation is too ugly.
Of the three Duoyan guards, only Chaohua from Liaohe Hetao is left, and Chaohua is the weakest among the three Duoyan guards, and his area of activity is also small. This is equivalent to the fact that the three guards of Duoyan have basically been lost. If calculated based on the size of the area, this is almost equivalent to losing a Liaodong or the size of the two towns of Xuanfu and Datong combined.
Although there is nothing worth grabbing in Chahanhot, what if Li Chengliang goes crazy, or wants to achieve great-sounding military success? The Han people like to "attack Huanglong" and think that it is a great achievement. What if Li Chengliang wants to do this and goes to take Chahanhot?
Although there is nothing to rob in Chahanhot, even if it is captured by Li Chengliang, it will not make the Tumen feel bad, but after all, it is the grazing place of his Zasak Tumen Great Khan, and it is the theoretical "capital". It would be ugly to just throw it away.
Moreover, the land of Duoyan and Sanwei cannot be lost. Otherwise, when he returns eastward in the future, wouldn't he face Mingren's army directly? If the Ming people really want to restore Daning Town, will they still want to go south to plunder in the future? I’m afraid I’ll have to worry about Akito hitting my door every day!
Since Kuden Khan moved eastward, the Chahar tribe's greatest achievement was to reconquer the Three Duoyan Guards, making them once again vassals of Mongolia (they were also Mongolians). If they were lost in their own hands, even if the Western Expedition was successful, it seemed that they would not succeed. It seems that it can strengthen the power of the Great Khan. After all, Tumut was only fighting internally for the throne of Chechen Khan and did not say that he would disobey the Chahar Khan Court. However, losing the three guards of Duoyan was a serious "cutting off of territory".
It’s just that now that the army has been dispatched, it has just reached the farthest west and is about to enter Tumote. Now that it has withdrawn without fighting, it seems not very appropriate...
Burihatu suddenly said: "Great Khan, I have some opinions on this matter."
Tumen Khan frowned, glanced at him, and said, "Go ahead."
Burihatu said: "With the wisdom of the Great Khan, he must know the principle of 'there is no turning back when you open a bow'. If you give up the Western Expedition and turn back at this time, it will be tantamount to showing the world that the Great Khan fell into the trap - Understand the Ming Dynasty's plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain."
Tumen Khan's face turned cold: "Trying the tiger to leave the mountain?"
"That's right." Burihatu said calmly: "The Ming Dynasty's previous attacks on the left and right wings of Monan Mongolia were often random and unorganized, but this time it was just the opposite. It became extremely strategic, even We have changed the past style of having governors and governors from one place act in a town, and now we have a comprehensive plan..."
"Speak more carefully." Tumen Khan suddenly didn't want to care about the things that Burihatu said that hurt his self-esteem, but became cautious, hoping to hear more clearly.
"I obey the order." Burihatu nodded and said to the nominal Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty: "I wonder if the Great Khan has ever noticed that in the past, whether the Ming people defended or attacked Mongolia, it was always done by someone. The governor-general or even the governor of a certain place decides to fight and defend. In this way, the military, financial and material resources that the governor can use are very limited, and he cannot play a big game and can only play small games."
"For example, if the governor of Jiliao suddenly wants to send troops, then no matter whether he has an intention against the three guards of Duoyan, or against the Chahar tribe, or even against Inner Khalkha, all he can do is to ask Qi Jiguang to send troops. Or let Li Chengliang send troops, and Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang would send troops together. Apart from that, other towns in the Ming Dynasty would not help him, such as Xuanfu and Datong, they would definitely not cooperate with him, let alone Shanxi or The border towns further away will think that this matter has nothing to do with them.”
"However, this time it is completely different." Burihatu looked at Tumen Khan, whose brows were frowning more and more, and further analyzed: "The Great Khan might as well look back and look at what happened in Monan this time. In fact, it happened one after another. They are intertwined, not only every step is calculated, but every step has the possibility of changing at any time.”
Tumen was a little confused and asked, "For example?"
"I will analyze the Great Khan step by step." Burihatu found that although Tumen Khan had great ambitions, his brain reaction did not seem to be fast. It is estimated that he is either ambitious but not talented, or he is "wise but slow" (a quote from Chen Shou's " "Three Kingdoms·Book of Wei·Xun Yu You Jia Xu Biography", "Hu Chen Gong is wise but late", which means that he has a plan but comes slowly. When encountering something, he needs to think carefully for a long time to deduce it.), and now that the matter is urgent, he has to do it himself Help him analyze it quickly.
Burihatu said: "The cause of the incident in Monan was naturally the death of Tumote Chechen Khan, and the actions of the Ming people can be found in hindsight. They were premeditated and were definitely not improvised. , temporary decision.”
"Oh? People in the Ming Dynasty already knew that Alatan Khan (the Mongolian term for Anda Khan) was going to die?" Tumen was a little surprised, because even he didn't know about it.
"No one thought of this at first, but judging from Mingren's actions afterwards, it is indeed the case." Burihatu sighed: "Let's not talk about how Mingren knew. Maybe they have just been waiting for such an opportunity. Maybe, let’s see how Akito responds first.”
"Well, that's good, go on." Tumen was very happy that Burihatu could understand the key points.
Burihatu said: "The day after the emperor of the Zhu family learned about the death of Ebuge, he made a series of arrangements, namely: appointing Gao pragmatism as the imperial envoy to confer the plenipotentiary envoy on King Shunyi's affairs, and go north to the fortress to preside over the affairs. All matters related to canonization;
Ordered Governor Xuan Zheng Luo to deploy troops to protect the imperial envoy and cooperate with the canonization;
Ordered Gao Wenjian, the governor of the three borders of Shaanxi Province, to guard the border and cooperate with the canonization matters;
Orders Wandusi (Xuanfu), Shanxi Xingdusi (Datong), Shanxi Dusi (Shanxi) and other towns to mobilize troops and horses to respond at any time;
The governor of Jiliao, Liang Menglong, the commander-in-chief of Jizhen, Qi Jiguang, and the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, Li Chengliang, and other border town officials were ordered to be on alert at all times, monitor the movements of our Mongolian troops in Chahar, Duoyan, Taining and other areas, and report them at any time. "
Tumen Khan had a bad relationship with the Ming Dynasty because of the bad relationship between the left-wing Mongolia and the Ming Dynasty. He learned very little information about the Ming Dynasty. It was not as easy as the Tumuts to get the information. The Tumuts could trade at the border and read the Ming Dynasty's newspapers. , and the Ming Dynasty's Dibao would reprint and copy the imperial edict. So at least this information on the surface, as long as you are willing to collect it, you can definitely analyze something.
Of course, there are very few Mongolians who have this kind of political thinking, but Burihatu happens to be one of them.
When Tumen Khan heard this, his expression became grim, and he said in a deep voice: "The little emperor issued so many edicts the next day, almost all the towns on the nine sides?" Then he frowned and said: "And , he asked the governors, governors and soldiers in several towns to cooperate with Gao Jingshi? If I remember correctly, although this Gao Jingshi was Gao Gong's nephew and what kind of champion, his official position was not high, right? Those governors and soldiers could Follow his arrangements?"
Burihatu said sternly: "The high pragmatism is not as good as the weak crown, and the official position does not seem to be very high. I forgot what rank he is, but he must be at most five ranks. However, he is not just what the Great Khan said." Gao Gong's nephew, the Sixth Number One Scholar, and more importantly, he served as the little emperor Wanli's companion and observer for ten years... It can be said that if the little emperor Wanli has a most trusted minister in his heart, then this person It must be highly pragmatic.”
Tumen Khan frowned and said: "Do you mean to say that the series of changes in Monan were actually caused by this little guy who is less than twenty years old?"
Burihatu said resolutely: "Exactly!"
Tumen stared into his eyes and said solemnly: "Tell me your reasons."
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