Perhaps due to his promotion from Governor of Liaodong and Governor of Jiliao to Minister of War, Grand Sima Zhou Yong, who had just taken office for a short time, actually visited Gaofu in the evening of this day, and it was not even close to the Holy Day banquet. Three hours.
Gao Jingshi was upstairs discussing with Liu Xin the current risks of mobilizing troops in Jiliao. Upon hearing Da Sima's visit, Liu Xin took the initiative to request to avoid it. Gao pragmatic nodded and asked her to go to the next room to rest first, while he changed into a sapphire blue robe, and then went to the small reception room on the third floor to receive Zhou Yong.
It was a coincidence that Zhou Yong came to Gaofu. He met Chen Ju on the way back from the palace, and then he knew that Chen Zhangyin had come to Gaofu.
Zhou Butang thought for a while and felt that Chen Ju's trip was not simple. It was most likely for the news about Jin Yiwei and the subsequent events. Gao Situ had stayed in Liaodong and had made extraordinary achievements. If the emperor wanted to know the possible impact of these changes in Liaodong, it would undoubtedly be reasonable to send Chen Zhangyin to ask Gao Situ.
What would Situ Gao say? Judging from the last time Gao Situ advocated the rescue of Ye He, there is still a high possibility that he will insist on rescuing Ye He again this time. This will involve military affairs, and he will be in charge of someone Zhou.
Because Zhou Yong was born in the top three, he seemed to have insufficient qualifications in the court, and he knew this very well. Therefore, once he had the opportunity to prove his abilities, he would certainly be interested in it. This was his motivation to take the initiative to visit Gao Pragmatic.
Of course, to prove yourself is to prove yourself, and you still need to have self-awareness. Gao Pragmatic is the big boss of the Practical School, and almost all the power of the Practical School in Liaodong is controlled by Gao Pragmatic. Zhou Yong understands these situations very well. Therefore, the decision-making power of how to fight in Liaodong only lies with Gao Pragmatic. In his hands, Zhou Benbing can at best be a puppet on the stage. How would he know how to sing this play if he didn't come to Gao Pragmatic?
"Da Situ, if the Jin Yiwei's report is not a false alarm, I am afraid that it will be difficult for me, the Ming Dynasty, to stay out of the matter." Although he knew that the decision-making power rested with Gao Yong, Zhou Yong still expressed his judgment as soon as he came up and said sternly: "Ye Henai The balance of power in Manchuria depends on it, and Horqin's survival depends on Ye He's safety. Therefore, if I don't save Horqin, Ye He will be in danger, if Ye He is in danger, Manchuria will be in danger, and if Manchuria is in danger, Liaodong will be in danger - this is my Ming Dynasty Therefore, Horqin must be saved."
Gao pragmatic asked calmly: "I understand what I mean, but this Nenjiang Horqin tribe... it's not easy to save them! I don't know how much I know about this tribe?"
Although Gao Pragmatic seemed to be asking casually, Zhou Yong knew that these words had the purpose of testing himself, so he did not dare to neglect, and replied seriously: "Horqin's tribe is outside Xifengkou, and the distance from its place to the capital was originally one thousand two hundred and eighty." Li. The distance from east to west is eight hundred and seventy miles, and the distance from north to south is two thousand and one hundred miles. It is adjacent to Laite in the east, Chahar in the west, Liaodong Border Wall in the south, and Heilongjiang in the north.
In the past, Taizu of the Yuan Dynasty flattened the northwest kingdoms and defended them for generations such as King Jian and Prince Consort. It was the origin of Mongolia. The ancestor of Horqin was named Habutu Hasar, who was the younger brother of Taizu of the Yuan Dynasty. Since then, all Horqin tribes have descended from him, and the Horqin discussed by this chant and Great Situ is the Horqin tribe of Nenjiang..."
Zhou Yong's service as governor of Liaodong and governor of Jiliao in recent years has not been in vain, and he has some understanding of the Nenhorqin tribe, which is not the main force of the Kou border. However, his explanation is still not very detailed. Of course, it is possible that he just thinks that Gao is pragmatic. I just asked him because he was afraid that he didn't understand Nen Horqin's situation at all. It was enough for me to show that I had paid attention to him.
In fact, Horqin can trace his ancestors back to at least the so-called eight tribes of Nezasak. These eight tribes are: Horqin, Duerbot, Guoerluosi, Zhalaite, Alukorqin, Sizi tribe, Maoming'an, Urat.
The ancestor of these eight tribes was Hasar, the second son of Yesugei and the second brother of Genghis Khan. He assisted Genghis Khan from his youth and laid the foundation for the formation of the "Mongol Community" and the establishment of the Great Mongolia. A great achievement. Genghis Khan once said: "Hasar's shot and the power of the ancient tower of Beli are the reason why I conquer the world."
Of course, there is no need to talk more about Hasar now, let’s go back to Horqin. The word "Horqin" comes from the Xianbei language, which means a guard with a bow and arrow. Horqin was one of the deacons of "Qixu" earlier.
"Qixu" is a group of two thousand "Horqin" who are selected from each "thousand households" and "ten thousand households" who are young, strong, strong in martial arts, and outstanding in archery skills. Together with "the guards selected from each thousand households" Eight thousand people" together formed a pro-army of 10,000 people. Horqin, a military organization, is responsible for guarding the commander's tent in peacetime, and is the main force in the charge during wartime.
At that time, this guard army was led by Genghis Khan's second brother Habtu Hassar, who was called the "Horchen with Bow and Arrow". He repeatedly made military exploits while following Genghis Khan. By the beginning of the 15th century, "Horqin" had evolved from the name of a military institution into a general name for the ministries to which Hassar's descendants belonged, and became the Horqin tribe.
The Horqin tribe originally lived in the Erguna River, Hailar River and Hulun Lake area. During the Hongxi period of the Ming Dynasty, they were defeated due to a fight with the Wala. Adai Khan and Arutai Taishi led some Horqin people to move eastward to the east of the Daxingan Mountains. Livestock herders in the Nenjiang River Basin. From then on, this part of the Horqin people was called "Nenjiang Horqin", or "Nenjiang Horqin" for short. The Horqin people who still stay in the same place are called "Alu Horqin".
After Dayan Khan reunified eastern Mongolia, he merged the separate large and small territories of Monan and Mobei into 60,000 households, divided into left and right wings, with 30,000 households in each wing. When the territory was re-divided, ten thousand Horqin Ulus households were retained, and they were respectfully called "Abaga Horqin" (uncle King Horqin), so that they could stand side by side with 60,000 households in Mongolia.
At that time, Horqin Ulusi Wanhu was also divided into left and right wings. The left wing includes the seven tribes of Xinming'an, Taben, Maoming'an, Urad, Tadalqin, Butaqin, Altaqin, and Gorros (Otok); the right wing includes the Kliet (Keliet) There are six tribes (Yi Ti), Gagun Heshige, Zhu Yiti, Tuyibiegun, Yikmingan and Saachiti (Otok).
The Horqin Tribe enjoys a special status among the Mongolian tribes, and it has military jurisdiction over the Uuliangha Ten Thousand Households. During the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, Dayan Khan died, and tens of thousands of households in Wuliangha, Mobei, rebelled and war broke out. In order to avoid the war, the Nenhorqin tribe moved south during the Jiajing year to station their herdsmen in the Uuliangha Sanwei area, which had moved westward, and became a close neighbor of the Yehe tribe. It did not take long to form an alliance with the Yehe tribe, who had part of Mongolian ancestry. .
In the past few years, Tumen Khan was severely beaten by the Mingmeng and Mongolian (Tumut) coalition forces in the east of Tumut, and then the Chaohua tribe was quickly and completely destroyed by Gao pragmatism. This created opportunities for the Nenhorqin tribe, and they continued to Expand to the southwest.
However, this expansion did not go well, and was blocked by the Inner Khalkha tribes such as Zalut (submitted to Tumen Khan). Therefore, they had to continue to strengthen their ties with the Jurchen Yehe, Ulla and other tribes, forming a closer alliance. relation.
For a long period of time before, the relationship between Nenhorqin and Chahar was that they sometimes jointly attacked the Ming border, sometimes attacked each other, and were generally in a state of separate affairs.
In recent years, especially after Tumen Khan attacked Ye He directly through the nominal southernmost territory of the Nenhorqin tribe, the relationship between the tribe and Tumen Khan suddenly became tense. The leader Weng Guodai began to accept secret contacts from Jinghua. Trade is carried out through Ye Hebu's turnover and Jinghua's stronghold in Changchun (have you not forgotten this point?).
Because of the relatively stable source of goods from the Ming Dynasty, the Horqin Department has been much less affected by the white and black disasters in the past two years than in the past. However, precisely because he had gone through a smooth road, it was unacceptable for him to go back and walk on a narrow path. Therefore, Horqin paid more attention to his relationship with Ye He, so as not to cut off this blood transfusion.
Any relationship is mutual. Horqin worked hard to maintain the relationship with Ye He, and Ye He naturally couldn't ignore it. Even if they did not mention their common needs and common interests with Horqin in terms of security, even in business, Ye He could not turn a blind eye to Horqin's danger.
Ye He was a second-rate dealer. If Horqin, the newly opened big customer, was killed by Tumen, wouldn't Ye He also be cut off from a way of making money? Therefore, even if Ye He's envoy has not yet arrived in the capital to ask Gao Jingshi directly for help, Gao Jingshi can be sure that Ye He will do so after hearing the information from Jin Yiwei.
Now that Zhou Yong said this, it can be seen that he still understands Horqin's situation. Gao Pragmatic also felt relieved, nodded and asked: "Since I understand Horqin's situation, it's the best. The problem now is The imperial court has not yet completed all preparations for the decisive battle against Chahar.
However, if we really want to send troops to intervene this time, it is meaningless just to temporarily push them back. Horqin is different from Ye He. They are nomadic in the true sense and do not live in villages like Ye He. In this way, even if our army sends troops, it is impossible for them to stick to a certain place and attack them hard while waiting for work.
On the contrary, Chahar is also mainly nomadic, and the people were not distressed after losing Chahanhot for several days. In this way, as long as our army does not severely damage the main force of Tumen, Tumen cannot be truly restricted - if our army goes out of the fortress, he can retreat; if our army returns to the division, he can attack again.
I should know that our army's expedition is expensive, but we may not be able to find the main force of Tumen on the grassland to inflict heavy damage. If we pull back and forth like this, the advantage lies with the captives and not me...Does this soldier have a good strategy? "
Zhou Yong has been dealing with military affairs in these years, and at least he is quite familiar with military literature, so he immediately replied: "Under such a situation, the only way to lure them into taking the bait is to attack them and save them, and our army should be in the middle." Set up an ambush on the road, wait for the rabbit to break it."
Gao Pragmatic smiled and asked: "So, where do I think Tumen's 'must save' is?"
"I am... about to discuss this with Da Situ." Zhou Yong slightly replied with some embarrassment.
"That's where the difficulty lies." Gao Pingshi sighed and shook his head: "For the real Mongols, there is no 'must-save' place in this world for them."
After a pause, he added: "Perhaps Genghis Khan's mausoleum can be counted. Unfortunately, we don't know where it is. Even if we knew...it couldn't be outside the Liaodong Great Wall."
Of course, although the specific location of Genghis Khan's mausoleum could not be determined until later generations, according to the Ordos tribe, the grazing area of the mausoleum guarding tribe, we know that it is most likely to be in the Yellow River Hetao or nearby areas. No matter what, we will not go there. northeast.
This is a major advantage of the nomads. Thousands of miles of grassland is their living area. Although the land with abundant water and grass is always the best, it is not impossible to live in other areas. Therefore, when they are in danger in one place, they can only You can just avoid other places if you need to, so what’s the point of “rescue”?
Only if the nomadic people look at the farming people in reverse, there will be much that must be saved. For example, the famous "Sixteen Yanyun Prefectures" is a typical example. As long as the Central Plains farming people lose the Sixteen Yanyun Prefectures, they will probably be suppressed by the nomads.
All in all, although what Zhou Yong just said is in line with the common sense of military art, the Mongols are not within the "common sense".
According to Gao Pragmatic's past thinking, it is not difficult to "conquer" the Mongols. Like Tumut, one only needs to first ensure that the Ming Dynasty can defend itself, and then rely on economic influence to make the Mongols bow their heads; but "recovering" Mongolia But it's not easy, because regaining means you have to be able to destroy the opponent. But driving the Mongols away is easy. To destroy them... you must first be able to catch up, and secondly, you must be able to defend them. Only then is it possible.
In an environment like the prairie, just "catching up" is already as difficult as climbing to the sky, let alone being able to defend it? How to defend the boundless prairie? It's just that you yourself send a cavalry to hunt them down, leaving them no chance to graze. This will consume their strength and make them either surrender or go into exile. There is no other way. .
However, before there was mechanical power, there was only one way to do this: your cavalry was more powerful than the Mongolian cavalry.
The reason why the Ming Dynasty spent so many years preparing for the decisive battle of Chahar is because it really cannot win on a frontal battlefield? Obviously not, because the Battle of Monan has shown that with the correct idea of using firearms, firearms troops already have the ability to fight head-on with the Mongolian cavalry. After the Battle of Southern Liaoning and the Battle of Northern Liaoning, this advantage became even more obvious.
It can be said that if there could be a battle in which Tumen used his 60,000 cavalry to fight the main force of the Ming army, Gao Pragmatic would not have to wait for a moment and could directly mobilize the main force of Jiliao to go out and destroy Chahar in one battle.
The problem is that Tumen is not a fool. After three battles, can he still not see this trend clearly? He and Burihatu would never do such a test again, let alone a decisive battle. They will only resort to the old tricks of the Mongols again and implement "Manggu evil" tactics from the entire strategic level.
What is the core idea of Mangu's evil tactics? In fact, I am the only one who can hit you, and you are not allowed to hit me.
So what preparations has Daming made over the years? On the one hand, it is to continue to strengthen border defense, on the other hand, it is to strengthen infantry and anti-cavalry, but the most important aspect is to take advantage of the benefits of Tumut's surrender to continue to accumulate cavalry and train a powerful cavalry unit.
Why did Gao Pragmatic refuse to let the Li family's army in Liaodong suffer too much loss? Why did Gao pragmatically put extra emphasis on cavalry general Ma Chengxun and others? It's because they have many cavalry seedlings under their hands.
However, this time it is not a decisive battle for the entire Chahar. Considering that the Li Jiajun's position is still unclear, it is natural to use it if possible. Then there are not many cavalry units that Liaodong can use.
Gao Pangshi and Liu Xin had calculated just now that the main cavalry force that could be assembled east of the Liao River with Ma Chengxun's troops as the core was only about 8,000. It's not that the total cavalry strength east of the Liao River is only this large, but that these are the only ones that can ensure that they can go out at any time.
Use the main force of 8,000 cavalry to go out to rescue Ye He and Horqin? No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t seem safe enough...
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