The conference and small meetings are over, but Gao Pragmatic can't rest yet. No matter what, he can be regarded as a tired person. Especially this time, Fa Yuan, in order to achieve a once and for all result, mobilized an army of 600,000 to increase the momentum. As a result, all kinds of monsters and monsters jumped out.
It stands to reason that if all the monsters and monsters that have jumped out now are brought together, they may not be enough to beat the 600,000 elites of Jiubian. It's a pity that there is no such good thing in the world. Now the chaos in various places is divided into several parts. Although the foundation of the Ming Dynasty has been solid for more than 20 years, it will still be difficult if the troops are divided and fought in all directions... of.
Gao Pragmatic is not very worried about Fa Yuan himself. Although the current situation is a bit unexpected, he still thinks it is not a big problem.
The advantage of Fayuan in this battle is hard power. In theory, as long as there is no unprepared sneak attack, any army along the way can forcefully defeat the Chahar-Transkarkha coalition. When the encirclement and suppression situation is completed, the Yuan coalition can Certain death.
However, I still have to talk about the current surprise: as time progresses, Chahanhot, the "Mongol Khan" station, has been occupied by Xiao Ruxun's troops under the command of Li Rusong. However, this occupation is actually of little significance, because when Xiao Ruxun's army reached Chahanhot, the place had long been deserted, and only the low city wall made of rammed earth was still showing its original character in the spring breeze. status.
Chahar has always maintained nomadic customs, and all Mongols, including Tumen Khan, lived in tents. After they withdrew, all that was left behind were those earthen walls that the Ming army did not care about at all. Apart from saving some effort in building deer and firewood to resist horses, they had almost no other effect.
As mentioned before, it was Xiao Ruxun's troops who went to Chahanhot, while the direct descendants of the Li family army led by Li Rusong took an uppercut and headed for Yuerhai. At this time, Li Rusong was naturally dissatisfied with the fact that he only occupied an empty city in Chahanhot, but he had no choice but to hold his nose and write a report of victory to Gao Pangshi. As for how to report it to Master Jinglue, He didn't bother to ask any more questions.
Along with the victory report, Li Rusong's plan for the next advance was sent to Daning's headquarters. There is nothing much to say about the plan itself, it is nothing more than continuing to pull the net. Since Chahanhot is empty, the Liaodong Allied Forces will continue to search for traces of the enemy. Because the Liaodong Army came from the east and south, the main search direction in the next stage is the west and north of Chahanhot. .
Gao pragmatically approved the plan very quickly and fully agreed with Li Rusong's proposal, except that he told him not to divide his troops easily. Because he was worried that Li Rusong would "receive the fate of the foreign emperor", he also added that if the troops were really divided, it must be ensured that any route after the division of troops could at least resist the Mongolian attack.
However, Li Rusong and Gao Pragmatic had different judgments. He believed that since Tumen could give up Chahanhot so easily, it meant that he had given up his mind and no longer planned to fight the Ming Dynasty in this place. In this case, Li Rusong believed that Tumen's purpose should be to return to Helin.
From Chahar back to Helin, you have to run all the way northwest. Li Rusong also has some news about other armies. He knows that the Ming-Mongolian coalition composed of Datong, Tumote, and Ordos received an order to "go north to Outer Khalkha and fight on camera", and the leader of this army is Gao. A pragmatic and die-hard direct descendant, General Datong's general is Ma Gui.
Although Ma Gui is not the patriarch of the Ma family, because his two brothers are gone, he is now the de facto talkative of the Ma family. In addition, he was actually the first famous general in the Ma family army who was taken under Gao Pangshi's command. Because of his high status among Gao Dang generals, his subordinates were also "upgraded" by the imperial court. Very forward - to put it simply, his army is not only well-trained, but also well-equipped. It is definitely a truly elite division.
On his way, Datong sent 60,000 troops, together with 40,000 troops from Tumote and 20,000 troops from Ordos, for a total of 120,000 troops. Not only was the Ming army the most capable in Datong Town, but the Tumote and Ordos troops were also elite.
120,000 elite troops went to Transkalkha to "block the road". If the Tumen army was not intercepted and ran into it, Li Rusong thought that the Tumen would not be able to get a favor - in other words, it would mean that the great achievement of destroying the Yuan Dynasty was not achieved by him. What happened to Mr. Li?
Therefore, Li Rusong was very anxious and continued to divide his troops into two groups and narrow the encirclement net. The direct descendants of the Li family army he led had been wandering near Yuerhai for less than half a month, but they still did not wait for the Tumen army to appear. They had to turn to the southeast and cooperate with Xiao Ruxun's troops heading north to reduce the possible range of activities of the Tumen army.
On the other side, Ma Chengen's troops have completed their movement and arrived at the northern line of Daning, which can ensure that if Daning is attacked, his troops can go south to provide support in time - although everyone thinks this is unlikely. It is the strongest one, and there is a strong city to defend. Tumen has no means of siege, how can they attack this hard nut?
Perhaps it was for this reason that when Ma Chengen reported the military situation, he also cautiously expressed the hope that his troops could advance a little further east and cooperate with the Liaodong Army to "draw the net."
Of course, maybe he also considered that Li Rusong and he were "not from the same family", so his plan was to go directly eastward and join forces with Xiao Ruxun's troops, thus forming a network with him and Xiao Ruxun in the south and Li Rusong in the north, as shown in the figure The range of activities of our army will become very small, and subsequent investigation will be much easier.
Since Li Rusong only took away the elite cavalry of his own unit, Xiao Ruxun's unit now has quite sufficient troops, but the elite cavalry among them is still Ma Chengxun's unit. If Ma Chengen's plan is followed, then the Ma brothers will have elite cavalry in their hands, and the success rate of the two brothers joining forces to pull the net to find the Tumen army will be greatly improved.
In such a war, finding the location of the Tumen army is a great achievement in itself. What's more, according to this situation, if he is lucky, he and Xiao Ruxun may even join forces to surround the Tumen army. If Li Rusong's troops can be excluded, it will naturally be better in Ma Chengen's opinion.
However, there is another point that Ma Chengen did not say, but Gao Pragmatic could see at a glance: if we fight like this, Daning will be even less likely to encounter "danger", because Ma Chengen and Xiao Ruxun will completely cover up Da Ning. rather.
To put it more funny, if Ma Chengen was not a direct descendant of his high pragmatism, he would suspect that Ma Chengen was trying to steal his military exploits. However, Ma Jiajun has the word "gao" on his head, so it is not difficult to guess Ma Chengen's intention: he is afraid that Gao Pragmatic himself will be in any danger, so his whole intention is that.
Is it possible to be dangerous in being highly pragmatic? In other words, will Tumen come to fight Daning?
Logically speaking, it would not be possible. After all, the newly built Daning City was originally a fortress-like city, and the Mongols should not have any means to quickly seize it.
However, the Mongolian army with Burihatu in it may not really dare to take a gamble - the reason for taking a gamble is that no one knows whether Burihatu still has gunpowder in his hand.
You know, Burihatu has mastered the art of digging tunnels under the city and planting explosives to blow down the city walls.
Of course, in theory, even if the city wall is blown down, Gao Jingshi has enough troops to defeat the Mongols head-on. However, Gao Jingshi himself knows that he has already lost nearly 70,000 troops: the Imperial Guards have no basis at all. Not in Daning!
The banner with the word "Qi, Commander of the Guards" hanging on the top of the city of Daning is actually a plan to empty the city. Qi Jiguang has gone elsewhere a long time ago. Before Gao Pinggang discussed military affairs in Daning, he always discussed it with Cao Yu. This is the reason. .
Of course, Gao Jingshi was not really worried about Daning being attacked. After all, Cao Yun's troops were not bad either. Apart from his own servants, most of the rest were Jizhou soldiers trained by Qi Jiguang. Although the strength here is not as good as that of the Imperial Guards, with the support of the Wanli Type II bayonet rifles and a large number of artillery, and relying on the bayonet hollow square formation, it is not at a disadvantage in a head-on battle with the entire Tumen army.
Therefore, after Gao pragmatic thinking, he agreed to Ma Chengen's request and allowed his troops to advance eastward. In this way, a north-south encirclement was quickly formed starting from Chahanhot in the south and reaching Yuerhai in the north, compressing the Tumen troops who had never shown up within this distance of about a thousand miles.
Is it also called siege when we are thousands of miles apart? Well, it's a bit far, but this is the Mobei Grassland after all, so there's really nothing we can do about it. To be honest, if it was so easy to surround a nomadic cavalry, how could Chengzu's Five Expeditions to Mobei have such pitiful actual results?
The other department, the furthest one, the Magui Department, also sent a battle report. It is better to say it is a battle report than a report on the situation. After all, there is no possibility of a war on his side now.
The news from Ma Gui's headquarters is that he has traveled more than 1,400 miles north from Guihua and arrived at Saliqier, and divided his troops to control a key terrain not far to the north of the place, called "San San". "Gateway" place.
Saliqir is also known as Salichuan, and the Ming Dynasty called it "Two Spring Sea". It is said to be the birthplace of Genghis Khan. This place is also the best passage from Chahar to Helin.
No Han people have been here for a long time, and there are actually very few local herdsmen. Therefore, it took Magui a lot of effort to find some scattered herdsmen and inquire about the local and surrounding terrain.
According to proven information, there is an earthen city here called "Halaotu City", located on the west bank of the Halaotu River. There is a spring at the source of this river, which the locals call "Bololiu Wute Spring". Haratu City is ten miles north of this spring. There is an old salt lake between Tucheng and Quanshui. It is almost dry now, but it is also rich in pool salt - the kind that can be loaded directly into the car.
Ma Gui even said helplessly that the Datong Army invariably packed a lot of salt, which was regarded as a war fortune. On the contrary, the Tumut and Ordos coalition forces were indifferent to this and behaved very generously and calmly - of course, there are many salt lakes in their territories, which can also be directly loaded into vehicles. I have seen them before. Out of the world.
It is a good sign that the salt is guaranteed, but Ma Gui also raised concerns that because of the thousands of miles of raids, the food carried by his troops was not particularly sufficient. Tumut and Ordos performed much better than the Datong Army because they had a large number of cattle and sheep accompanying the army. Whether they drank milk or killed them for meat, they could last longer than the Datong Army.
At the same time, Ma Gui also mentioned one thing, that is, both the Tumut and Ordos tribes proposed that they could send people to gather nearby scattered herdsmen tribes, and then let them provide supplies for themselves. Ma Gui said that he had agreed with the two ministries to do this, but for the time being he only did half of it, that is, to gather the herdsmen.
The reason why they have not been forced to provide food supplies to the army is that Ma Gui is not yet clear about Gao Jinglue's attitude. According to his thinking, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to directly rule Mongolia in the future, it would not be good to forcefully squeeze it out, so he also asked Gao Pragmatic in his battle report how to deal with it.
Gao's pragmatic answer may be slightly beyond Ma Gui's expectations, because he said that if the Datong army is short of food, he can order the herdsmen to provide food, regardless of meat or vegetable.
This answer actually means one thing: Gao Pragmatic has no intention of allowing the Ming Dynasty to directly rule the territory of the Outer Khalkha tribe after this war.
In fact, it's not that he doesn't want to do it, but that he knows he can't do it for the time being.
As he had discussed with Liu Xin before, rule comes with a cost. Before the post roads and post stations from the Ming Dynasty to Zaikarkha were fully built and rolled out, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to directly rule Zaikarkha across the Tumut territory, it would need to station at least 50,000 elite troops in Zaikarkha. cavalry.
The cavalry of the Ming Dynasty did not shepherd sheep "part-time". It was a pure waste and produced almost no income. People's grain and horse feed had to be transported thousands of miles from home, and the cost was sky-high. At the same time, these cavalry can only be stationed in the key position of Helin, and cannot be stationed elsewhere. They may be able to make do with temporary stationing, but long-term stationing may even be dangerous for basic survival.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic had no intention of annexing Outer Khalkha to the Ming Dynasty in the near future. His intention was to let Tumote annex Outer Khalkha, and the Ming Dynasty only ruled indirectly through Tumute. Anyway, Tumut's sinicization has been deepening day by day, and it is only a matter of time before it becomes part of the Ming Dynasty.
In this case, Gao Pragmatic's reply to Ma Gui was relatively simple: continue to guard the key points of Salixier and wait for the Tumen army that may arrive at any time.
When Gao pragmatically answered Ma Gui, he obviously did not place all his hopes of encircling and suppressing the map on the Liaodong Army and the Xuanfu Army. Ma Gui was actually another insurance.
At the same time, Tumen and Burihatu certainly have no intention of waiting for death, and they are acting according to the plan. Not long after Gao Pragmatic's orders arrived at their respective destinations, traces of the Chahar-Outer Khalkha coalition forces appeared in a place called Helanzhenshatuo, more than two hundred miles southwest of Yuerhai.
Immediately, Li Rusong's tribe near Yuerhai in the northeast, and Ma Cheng'en and Xiao Ruxun's tribe further to the southeast also immediately took action after hearing the news. An army of over 200,000 people began to swoop towards Helanzhenshatuo.
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