Gao Yimin did bring it up. Not only did he bring up the issue of sending troops to recover Xicheng as soon as possible, but he also told Cao Yan without any concealment that Ye He planned to send a princess to Gao Pangshi.
In fact, this kind of thing cannot be hidden. As long as Ye He's tribute team sets off, all the people in it must report their identities. How could Cao Yu not know? Rather than being discovered then, it would be better to tell him directly.
Ye He's actions were not completely beyond Cao Yan's expectations, but Cao Yan was still somewhat surprised by the matter of "sending Princess". It is understandable for Ye He to do this, but Cao Yan is a little doubtful about Gao Pragmatic's willingness to accept this kindness.
To be honest, if he, Mr. Cao, had a beautiful girl of the right age, he would be willing to let her be Gao Pragmatic's concubine. Unfortunately, after working hard for most of his life, Mr. Cao only has a son, and he doesn't even have a "little cotton-padded jacket". In fact, he only has a son. Can give up. As for the question of whether it would be embarrassing for the daughter of a famous general to be a concubine, Cao Yan would just roll his eyes.
If he asked his daughter to be a concubine for a fellow general who was also a general, he would naturally refuse to do so even if he was killed. But what kind of family background did Gao Situ have? How could it be a disgrace for his daughter to be his concubine? Marshal Cao wrote a letter to Gao Pingshi himself, and he had to call him "Entang" and call himself "Cao, the lackey of Mu En's sect".
Even he was happy with something, so why was it so strange that Ye He was happy with it?
But Cao Yan always felt that it was very doubtful whether Gao Situ cherished his wings so much that he would accept Ye He's "service" in this way. However, this has nothing to do with Cao, and he will not stop Ye He for this.
Regardless of whether Ye He's investment efficiency is successful or not, even if it is successful, they are still Jurchens. Judging from Gao Situ's past performance, he will not regard Ye He more seriously than his direct generals in the Ming army.
And from Cao Yu's personal point of view, it is not impossible to support Ye He. After all, Beiguan controlled by Ye He and Nanguan controlled by Hada are both top priorities in the border cities of Liaodong. The Ming Dynasty supported the two of them. Either one is feasible and most efficient.
On the contrary, if you want to support Jianzhou, you have to develop Fushun Pass. Although Fushun Pass is not bad, its location is still not as good as that of the North and South Passes. At least, if Fushun Pass is used as the trade center, the goods of the savage Jurchens will have to take a long way south, and it will be even more difficult for the left-wing Mongolian ministries to take care of both.
Only the Kaiyuan North and South Passes are the intersection connecting the three parties and are the most suitable as a trade center.
A suitable trade center would be beneficial to the entire Liaodong, and it would also be profitable for the generals of the aristocratic families who hold a large number of trade privileges.
Originally, the Ming Dynasty supported the Hada tribe in Nanguan, but the Hada tribe had begun to show an obvious trend of decline in the late Wan Khan. Now with the death of Wan Khan, this decline has not only not improved, but has become more serious.
The division of the three families into Hada became three. Daming originally did not intend to intervene because he felt that it was not without benefit for the leader of Hada to be weaker, at least it would be easier to control. However, Ming Dynasty did not want Hada's internal friction to be so severe that it would not be able to form any advantage over other surrounding ministries.
You must know that when it cannot form an advantage over the surrounding ministries, it cannot suppress the ministries on behalf of Ming Dynasty. Once something happens, Ming Dynasty will have to personally solve it.
In that case, what do I want you to do?
Eagle dogs cannot hunt. Am I raising you just to look good?
Therefore, judging from Meng Gebulu's recent performance, he is not worthy of being a dog for the Ming Dynasty. Now the Ming Dynasty must choose a new hound. This dog must not only be obedient, but also have the power to frighten the tribes - at least in the Ming Dynasty We must have such ability with the support of others.
Judging from the current situation, both Ye He and Jianzhou can become options. Ye He's overall strength is stronger, while Nurhaci's troops seem to have stronger combat effectiveness.
As for being "obedient"... Cao Yan felt that they were just the same, they were all barbarians who feared power but were immoral. They could raise their tails to the sky if they had some ability, but they all needed to be beaten from time to time.
It was Gao Jingshi who beat Ye He and sent Qing Jia Niu and Yang Ji Ni to the west; the beating of Nurhachi was a little lighter for the time being, and Gao Jingshi just sent him away from Fushun Pass with a letter.
Of course, this is not because Gao Pragmatic hated Ye He, but because Hada was unstable at that time. Ye He had the intention to annex Hada, and he probably had such strength, but this was something that the Ming Dynasty could not tolerate - the North and South Passes were so important. , How can I let your family cover the sky with just one hand? So Qing Jia Ni and Yang Ji Ni were sacrificed to the flag.
Nurhaci was slightly different. Firstly, Gao Pragmatic had no skills at the time; secondly, there were many affairs in court at that time, and Gao Pragmatic did not want to go to war in Liaodong; thirdly, Nurhachi himself did not have strong military strength and weak foundation, so he was not considered a major threat for the time being. As for killing them quickly; in the end, it was because once Nurhaci was destroyed, Ye He would start to dominate the family again.
Not everyone can do a good job in balancing, just like Prussia can dance on three eggs only when Bismarck is in office. With so many Jurchens in Liaodong, there are only three that are really strong: Hada, Yehe, and Jianzhou.
There is only one common characteristic among these three companies, that is, they are close to Mingjing and each has its own city. Therefore, in terms of general balancing methods, the key point is to maintain the balance between the three of them, allowing them to be strong or weak, but never allowing one to dominate among them.
As for the rest of the Jurchen tribes, they remained independent most of the time. Sometimes they would obey a certain powerful chieftain without listening to the announcement. The Ming Dynasty paid a little attention to this, but overall he was not particularly concerned about it.
Compared with Nurhaci, Ye He Erbeile, at least for now, has not shown any particularly big ambitions. If they are willing to be efficient and pragmatic, Cao Yan feels that it is not a bad idea to let them become the largest Jurchen group. After all, Beiguan is located in an important location. In addition to being needed to open the Yuan Horse Market, they can also become a barrier for the Ming Dynasty to resist the expansion of Tumen - just like this time.
In this case, it would make sense to send troops a little earlier to help them regain West City.
So Cao Yu sent someone to inform Nalin Bulu and Bu Zhai that the army would be repairing in the east city for two days and would set out on the third day to help Ye He recover the west city.
Of course, Cao Yu did not intend to let the Ming army take over the task of recapturing the west city. He asked Ye He to send troops at the same time as him, retaining part of the city's defense force to prevent the east city from being unexpectedly attacked by Tumen and losing its nest, and the remaining strength. They must all be involved in the battle to recapture the West City.
Bu Zhai naturally had no objection to this. It was unclear whether Nalin Bulu had other ideas, but he agreed after thinking about it for a while. He did not show any embarrassment during the period. It seemed as if he was just planning to stay. How much strength can be used to defend the city?
Cao Yu himself asked the military clerk to draft a memorial that night. In addition to reporting the victory to scare off the Tumen and rescue Dongcheng, it mainly mentioned Ye He's initiative to request tribute.
Naturally, he fully agrees with this approach. Although the Ming Dynasty has basically lost money in these tributes, repayments, and tributes so far (the value of rewards is always higher), this time Ye He's tribute has It was an obvious sign of surrender. The adults in the imperial court always liked this tone. He believed that this proposal would not be rejected.
Ye He's work efficiency was unprecedentedly high this time. Even if the court's reply was as fast as possible, it would probably take ten days and a half. However, Ye He still prepared the tribute team early the next morning and walked slowly along the way. Head south.
They planned to stop and wait for the court's reply when they arrived in Liaoyang or just Shenyang, and then take a boat south to Yingkou New Port while the Liaohe and Hun rivers were not completely frozen. If the river is frozen, you can go south by land. In the end, you won’t go through Shanhaiguan and go to Tianjin by sea.
Originally, in the early years of Ming Dynasty, this kind of "changing routes" was not allowed. Later, because too many nobles from the capital and even civil servants were involved in Tianjin Port, this rule gradually became empty words. Except for those landlubbers who dare not even get on a boat and go to sea, many people will choose to take the sea route as long as it is convenient.
Shenyang and Liaoyang are both covered by high-pragmatic forces, but there is an "outsider" in Liaoyang, Governor Li Song. Ye He is also vaguely aware of this now, so they prefer to stay in Shenyang and wait.
But this had nothing to do with Cao Yu. He set off with his army at the appointed time and headed west to recover Xicheng. Accompanying them were Bu Zhai's 3,700 cavalry and Nalinbulu's 4,200 cavalry, while all the infantry under the two men stayed in the east city to look after their homes.
This can also be seen that Ye He's original strength was indeed not weak. In the current situation, the cavalry of the two Baylors combined still had almost 8,000 people.
The eight thousand people can be regarded as a moderate leader force in Mongolia, but if they are placed in the fragmented Jurchens, they will naturally be even more powerful. What's more, Ye He's eight thousand cavalry are not their entire strength. They also have infantry who are no less than cavalry. Even if they are cavalry, this is not their complete family fortune.
As mentioned before, Ye He's trade is characterized by a large number of resale transactions. In areas such as Huifa, Wula, Changbai Mountain tribes, and Savage Jurchen tribes, Ye He's caravans regularly collect goods. Obviously, these caravans cannot rely solely on two legs to travel such a long distance for acquisitions. They always need some ox-carts and horse-drawn carriages, and they also need to be protected by their own horse teams.
Although these people and horses are usually scattered, if Ye He had made preparations in advance, they could still gather together. This is also the reason why Gao Pingshi judged that Ye He could muster nearly 20,000 cavalry at most when he killed Qing Jia Niu and Yang Ji Niu.
But having said that, Ye He focused on commerce, and the cavalry under his command were often used as transport teams, which also led to their lack of professionalism in combat. In the original history, Ye He was beaten by Nurhachi in the later period, and I am afraid this is also the reason. After all, in terms of military strength alone in Ye He's several major defeats, most of the people who were actually at a disadvantage were Nurhachi.
Twenty thousand Ming troops, eight thousand Yehe cavalry, and nearly thirty thousand troops marched westward. Tumen's elite Mongolian scouting horses naturally discovered the traces early. However, according to the scout report from Ye He, Tumen did not take much action and just "closed the city and defended to death."
After hearing the news, Cao Yu snorted coldly: "Seal the city and defend to the death? I think he really wants to defend the west city to the death."
Zhang Wanbang laughed even louder, glanced at Ma Chengxun, and said, "Shen Rong, your command just received a batch of new cannons a few days ago. I remember that there are now a total of seventy or eighty No. 3 cannons, right?" "
Ma Chengxun is a general of the Ma family, one of Gao Pragmatic's closest confidants, and he is also responsible for guarding important places like Kaiyuan, so it is natural that he should change his guns early. However, he quickly waved his hand at Zhang Wanbang's joke and said: "There are more than seventy cannons, but you also know that these No. 3 cannons are not used to attack the city. If you want to blast open the city gate or even the city wall, At least we need to bring a batch of bigger ones, like the No. 2 cannon, but we didn’t bring them this time.”
In Jurchen territory, the roads are not very well built. It can even be said that they are not built roads at all. It can only be said to be at the level of "more people walk, and it becomes a road." With such road conditions, being able to carry so many No. 3 guns was achieved only by the convenience of the new gun carriages. If they were to carry heavy artillery, who knows how many miles they could cover in a day.
Zhang Wanbang shook his head after hearing this: "That's not the case. I took a closer look at Ye Hedong City this time. If the defense level of the West City is similar to that of the East City, then there is no need to use the No. 2 Cannon at all. As long as the No. 3 Cannon can be used intensively, It can definitely be blown away...it's just a matter of time."
Who knows that Ma Chengxun still disagrees and shakes his head: "You only talked about the aspect of firepower. There is another point that you didn't think about in detail: to achieve a breakthrough in the No. 3 artillery bombardment of the city defense, a large number of artillery shells are needed to slowly close the breach. The city gate or wall is blasted until it finally collapses, but how many shells are needed?
Cannonballs don't matter, as long as they can be picked up, they can always be used several times (if used too much, they may deform and damage the cannon), but what about gunpowder? The gunpowder we brought this time is not a lot. If we insist on using the No. 3 gun, we will have to send an order to open the source and send supplies. "
As expected, Zhang Wanbang became troubled when he heard this. He couldn't help but glance at Nalin Bulu and Buzhai, and said angrily: "You are usually idle, don't you know how to repair the road?"
The two Baylors did not dare to contradict the young general who was said to be a highly pragmatic general, so they could only smile bitterly. However, they disagreed with these words in their hearts: Our road is fully used for business, what's the use of building it better? Those who need wider and neater roads are your Ming Army family. If I repair them, you will hit me someday if you don't like me?
Seeing this, Cao Yu waved his hand to stop Zhang Wanbang's complaints, and everyone continued to discuss ways to attack the city. Qi Jinzheng came up with an idea, thinking that since a gap had been opened in Xicheng by Burihatu before, it was probably impossible to repair it with the damn construction capabilities of Tumen's troops during this period, or even if it was repaired, it would not be able to reach the original level. In terms of strength, we might as well follow the same pattern and find ways to open the gap and achieve a breakthrough.
Cao Yu also felt that there was some truth in it, and was about to speak, but Gao Yimin, who had been silent all this time, suddenly said: "General Rong, generals, I think that Tumen's 'closing the city to defend' is a bit abnormal... I'm afraid there is a fraud in this matter."
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