Li Rusong...
Gao pragmatic frowned and thought deeply, but after a moment he shook his head: "It's better for him not to move lightly this time."
"Why, are you afraid that Gu Yangqian can't command him?" Liu Xin raised her eyebrows slightly and said, "Even if Gu Yangqian can't command him, wouldn't you be able to command him?"
"Me?" Gao Pragmatic smiled suddenly: "How can I command him? I am the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, not the Minister of the Ministry of War. Why should I command him, a general military officer in Liaodong? If it was a year ago, it would be easy to say, because At that time, I still had the false reputation of being a seven-town manager.
Now I am in charge of finance, and I have gained a lot of financial power last year. I already have all the power in the government and the opposition. Naturally, it is not appropriate to interfere too much in the military... The reason why the emperor specially mentioned this and asked me to make suggestions through the mouth of Zhou Benbing is not because Is that so? "
Liu Xin said: "Then why can't Li Rusong be used? Although Li Chengliang lost some soldiers and horses last time, according to the intelligence, Li Rusong has almost made up for the lost soldiers and horses after returning to Liaodong. The direct line of the Li family army has been basically restored. The scale is about 40,000.
If you don't use such an elite cavalry to deal with Mongolia, do you still have to use them to fight against the Japanese mountain city defense system on the Korean battlefield? I remember very clearly that it was you who told me that the Japanese-style mountain forts on the Korean battlefield caused the Ming army to suffer a lot. "
"I have a way to solve the problem of the Japanese mountain fortress system, and Li Rusong and his cavalry troops will have other uses in the Korean battlefield in the future." Gao pragmatically said: "Besides, not using Li Rusong this time is actually not just for military reasons. , more for political purposes.”
Liu Xin put her hand on her forehead and said helplessly: "Don't you want the Xin School to make meritorious deeds?"
"No, the political purpose I am talking about is not an internal purpose, but an external purpose. Whether you believe it or not, my political bias is not as serious as other people of this era." Gao Pragmatic shook his head and denied it.
"Oh? The purpose of external affairs?" Liu Xin said in surprise: "For external affairs... you mean the Mongols?"
"Mainly the Mongols, but you can also include the Jurchens." Gao pragmatic curled his lips and said: "I want to make the Mongols and even the Jurchens feel that since Li Chengliang's defeat last time, the court no longer trusts Li Chengliang. It’s home—not a general distrust, but the emperor’s distrust coupled with the suppression of our real school.”
"Oh, I understood when you said that!" Liu Xin's eyes lit up, she clapped her hands and said, "You are deliberately hiding the 40,000 elite Li Jiajun in the snow, so that they can fight against the Ming Dynasty during the Mongolian and Jurchen war. They were removed from the military strength estimate, and then they were suddenly revealed at the critical moment and used as a surprise force!"
Gao Pragmatic nodded lightly and said: "This is one of the plans. It is a plan before the Chahar War broke out before the Korean War. If the reverse is true, and the Korean War breaks out first, then this plan will not be of much significance. ”
"You can't decide who will break out first among the two wars? This is not in line with your usual style." Liu Xin laughed.
"My original intention in doing this and that in Japan was to delay the outbreak of the Korean War, hoping to finish the Battle of Chahar first. But there are still some variables, so I can't say for sure now."
"Sometimes it's really not as good as God." Gao pragmatically said, suddenly sighed and said: "According to my original intention, in the past two years, I want to try to avoid letting the Mongols notice that our Ming Dynasty cavalry force is growing rapidly. situation, because they only ignored one point. When the decisive battle of Chahar is launched, I can set up a trap and strive to fight a decisive battle to resolve the Mongolian troubles in one fell swoop. But the current enemy situation involves Horqin, which is... He must be rescued, and cavalry must be used to rescue Horqin."
Gao pragmatic rubbed his eyebrows with a headache and said: "Just now when Zhou Benbing asked me to send troops from Jinghua to support me, I was thinking that it would be best to let Tumut send troops to support. After all, Tumut is not only powerful, but also Once the main focus is on their support, the Tumen side may ignore the strength of the Ming cavalry, which can be said to be the best of both worlds."
"I think this is a good idea, why not do it?" Liu Xin said immediately.
"The Tumote cavalry is certainly useful, but you have to know that Tumute is now considered a foreign vassal. They surrender, but the accounts must be settled clearly. For example, how many men and horses they sent, what things should be done, and after the things are done, we, the Ming court, No matter how you want to reward me, it’s all about giving money in the final analysis.”
Gao Pragmatic smiled: "If you don't give money, no one will help you. If you don't give enough money, people will not work hard. In business, no one wants to lose money. This is a reasonable thing, don't you think?"
"Well, how much do you want to spend and how much help do you want them to have?" Liu Xin asked.
"It wasn't until just now that I thought of a...perhaps a better way." Gao pragmatically said with a smile: "Da Ming can suffer a little loss this time and buy more geldings - buying more means that Tumut's existing geldings I, Da Ming, will take care of the horses and the geldings for the next one or two years. If the court really can’t afford them, I, Jinghua, can help.”
Liu Xin was greatly surprised: "Why is this? Didn't you always buy as few geldings as possible in the past and buy more mares and stallions?" As she spoke, she suddenly looked thoughtful and said to herself: "Wait a minute. You mean...a war is imminent?"
The so-called gelding is a horse after castration, also known as a castrated horse. However, many people may have some misunderstandings about geldings, thinking that these horses are not good and are all junk. This view is actually quite unfair to geldings, especially Mongolian geldings.
In fact, the Mongolians have long formed a unique method of raising horses during their thousands of years of nomadic life. Generally speaking, it is like this: within one or two years after the horse is born, it is first carefully trained to ride on the grass, so that it can eat enough green grass and become full and strong.
The castrated horse will be castrated as soon as four teeth grow. In Mongolian, the castrated horse is called "Atasi", and in Chinese, it is called gelding. Horses castrated so early actually grow strong, strong, supple, and better able to withstand cold weather.
The castrated horse is allowed to graze on pasture for two or three years before being ridden again and trained again in the same manner as the initial riding training. After the second training, the horse's temperament has become more docile, its gait is also ideal, it will not bite or kick, and the rider feels very stable on the horse's back. There is no need to tie the horse after dismounting, and the horse will not wander away. In addition, hundreds of thousands of horses gathered together did not neigh randomly.
The Mongolians never give feed to the trainers during the day. They graze on the grass at night and prepare saddles for riding at dawn. Although they do not need to be tied after riding, as a horse breeding method, they must be tied to a post. Let the horse raise its head and wait until its breath is completely calm and its hooves have cooled down before it starts grazing on the grass. This is because it is very harmful for a horse to eat grass and drink water before it recovers from fatigue after running.
After participating in the battle, the war horses must graze on the grassland so that they can eat green grass and drink good water. They must not be ridden during this period. Only when another battle is approaching, the horses are driven back to the camp from the pasture and tied to the horse. On the bolt. Then, only a small amount of grass is fed. After a certain period of time, the fat shrinks and the body becomes strong. At this time, the horse can continue riding for hundreds of miles.
With this method of raising horses, the horses can run long distances without sweating very much, so they can endure any expedition. Never feed or drink grass and water during the journey, because if the horse is tired and stressed, the food it eats will not only not turn into flesh and blood, but will make it sick.
The strongest and best among the herding horses are kept as stallions without being castrated. In the discourse of mixed Mongolian and Han areas, stallions are generally called "moving spur horses". Except for spurred horses, most stallions will actually be castrated and very few will be sick or weak.
Yiji horses are usually official horses. Mongolians who have the responsibility of feeding such official horses will also manage the mules and horses as skillfully as a herdsman manages a herd of horses. However, geldings and geldings are in their own groups and never interact with each other. mix.
A herd of mules and horses generally consists of forty or fifty horses, and a group of horses must be equipped with a stallion (moving spur horse). If the Yigima discovers that one of the mules and horses under its control has escaped from the group, it will immediately catch up with them and drive them back with kicks and bites. When a spur horse from another group of horses runs into a group of horses that does not belong to its own group, the official horse of the group will stop it, bite or kick it and then drive it away.
The professional shepherds often hold iron whips to supervise the horses, so the horses are particularly afraid of the Mongolian iron whips. If the herdsman spots a horse that is rushing to drink water regardless of order, he will wave his iron whip and stop it immediately. Therefore, even when drinking water, the horses are arranged neatly and drink the water in order before leaving. This kind of thoughtful breeding and management is what makes the Mongolian horse breeding method superior to that of other ethnic groups.
How do you know these things? Of course he got it from his good student Erdemutu. Erdemutu was not only his student, but also the eldest son of Hannaji by Tümed Chechen Khan, who had already been canonized as Tümed's Huangtaiji - equivalent to the meaning of "Crown Prince".
With such a disciple, Gao Pragmatic had already grasped some of the Mongolian's know-how in raising horses. Of course, some techniques are simple to say but very complicated to execute, so Gao Pragmatic spent a lot of time to have Cao Gan make careful arrangements and dig some horse-breeding experts from the Tumote people to breed good horses for Jinghua. .
Over the years, Jinghua has acquired many good horse breeds through the two Silk Roads, both land and sea, including the famous Arabian horses, Akhal Tekin horses (the legendary sweat-blooded horses, and later Turkmenistan’s national treasures), Kekha-Teke horses (also Central Asian horse breeds), Kazakh horses, etc. are then carried out various breedings for breeding research. Of course, the largest number of Mongolian horse bloodlines are also included.
At present, there is a relatively successful breeding breed. Its body is smaller than the Kazakh horse, but stronger than the Mongolian horse. Its speed and agility are slightly lower than the Arabian horse, but its endurance is quite good. At present, this kind of horse has been transported to some places. Conduct climate adaptation research in southern Xinjiang.
Since the horse was bred at the Liangzhou Horse Farm in Gansu Province owned by Jinghua, it was temporarily named Liangzhou Horse by Gao Pragmatic. However, since it takes at least several generations to finalize the bloodline of a horse breed, it is not yet easy to breed them in large quantities, let alone carry out large-scale equipment and actual combat.
In this case, continuing to purchase excellent Mongolian geldings as the main war horses is what the question is supposed to mean. However, in the Ming Dynasty... or simply in the entire history of China, the Central Plains Dynasty had a mentality that key production must be controlled by itself. Therefore, when the Ming Dynasty approached Tumote to buy horses, they often wanted to buy more mares and stallions. I hope to breed war horses at my own racecourse.
Gao Pragmatic had not interfered too much with this principle before, but after these years of development, he found that this idea seemed to have its own problems.
Judging from the Mongolian method of raising and training horses just mentioned, this process actually has quite high requirements for horse farms and pastures, but this does not matter to the Mongolians, but it is very stressful for the Ming Dynasty. .
Even though the Ming Dynasty had much better conditions in terms of racecourses than the Song Dynasty, if this relative improvement were compared with the Mongols, to put it bluntly, the level of conditions would still be in two words: lousy.
Because of this, even if Ming Dynasty's official racecourse has undergone some reforms, its performance can only be said to be mediocre. If there are any problems, it is still so-so. Compared with the geldings or war horses bred by the Mongols, it is really bad. not enough.
Since the war horses bred by the imperial court are not very good, and there is a large-scale demand at this stage, plus the current need to reward the Tumuts, the three conditions are added together, and Gao Pragmatic, who does not want to directly reward them, thinks of buying them in large quantities. This is the gelding method.
However, if you want to talk about this matter, you have to hurry up. After all, the Tumen are already preparing to send troops. If the process of negotiating the business with the Tumut people cannot be shortened as much as possible, the day lilies may be cold by the time the Tumut people take action.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic no longer delayed and immediately sent someone to call Erdemutu over. Erdemutu is now the military secretary of the Beijing Secretariat, and he happens to be in charge of the army. It is very reasonable to discuss this matter with him.
After hearing the teacher explain the matter, he immediately agreed in principle and said: "The teacher wants to buy a gelding. The student can agree to this on behalf of the Khan first, but the specific transaction details still require the Khan's nod. The student I can only exert a certain amount of influence in my personal capacity, so please be considerate of this."
Gao pragmatic smiled and said: "This is natural, I won't make it difficult for you."
Erdemutu said gratefully: "Thank you, teacher, for your understanding. Since the matter is of great importance, and this matter should be done sooner rather than later, I suggest that the student go back to Guihua City in person, propose to the Khan face to face, and try his best to facilitate it as soon as possible, so as to avoid hold up."
Gao pragmatically kept him by his side to exert ideological influence, not as a proton to send Hannaji. Therefore, he did not object to Erdemutu's request to go back to Tumut in person, and immediately said : "Well, thank you for your hard work. It's rare for you to return to the north this time. Regardless of whether the matter can be settled or not, you can stay for a while longer depending on the situation, not only to fulfill your filial piety in front of your father, but also to settle accounts with him. My ministers, please communicate more, it will be good for you in the future."
Erdemutu nodded, but Gao pragmatically continued: "In addition, it is not surprising that the Tao is polite to many people. The teacher will prepare some gifts for you. You can be more generous when the time comes, and it will all be done by yourself." Distribute them in the name of... Be careful, the gift is just a gift, don't give any hint to them, no matter what, do you understand?"
"Yes, teacher, I understand." Erdemutu paused and then asked, "Teacher, do you have any other instructions? If there are no other instructions, I plan to clean up overnight and leave early tomorrow morning."
Gao Pingshi smiled and said: "No. You have packed up well tonight, and I have asked you to prepare gifts for you... Oh, you don't have to come to my place to say hello tomorrow, just go directly."
Unexpectedly, Erdemutu shook his head and said: "The etiquette must not be discarded. I still want to come to the teacher tomorrow to say hello before leaving. Even if it is late, it will not be later than this and a half."
Gao pragmatically smiled: "If you have this intention, then it's up to you."
Having said that, Gao Pingshi felt warm in his heart, and thought to himself: After teaching for many years, it seems that his Chinese level is higher than that of his father. Yes, this is good news...
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