As Gao Pingshi expected, the 50,000 troops from the Economic and Strategy Headquarters set out from Daning and headed west to Liuhechuan, where they joined the 50,000 Ming troops on the flanks. During the more than 300 miles, the entire army was not attacked at all, not even a single one. No harassment was encountered. The feeling during the entire march was as if there was no longer a Mongolian soldier in the huge Chahar.
After joining the 50,000 Ming army on the flanks, the highly pragmatic economic and strategic headquarters was once again expanded to the size of 100,000 troops. Such abundant troops made Cao Yu greatly relieved, and he no longer had to worry about any sneak attacks.
However, the gathering of 100,000 troops brought another problem: the pressure on logistical supplies immediately increased.
The original supply line for the Economic Strategy Headquarters was divided into two routes. One was the main supply line, which undoubtedly took the Xifengkou guarded by Zhongyi Zhongwei to exit the customs. Along the way, it went northward through Kuanhe, Fuyu, Qingcheng and then arrived at Daning; the other was the main supply line. All the way, we exited the customs at Gubeikou guarded by Miyun guards, passed through Xiaoxingzhou, and arrived at Liuhechuan.
In fact, the travel distance of these two supply lines is almost the same, but it is obvious that the midway nodes on the main road are denser. This not only means that the main supply line is a more mature "old road", but also means that transshipment is more convenient and can The transportation capacity maintained is more sufficient.
So now that the High Pragmatic Strategy Headquarters is moving westward, changes will come. First of all, the main supply line still cannot be cut off directly. Because although the grain reserves in Daning are sufficient, the area has been occupied by the Mongols for more than a hundred years. Now they have only restored the garrison. In fact, even the vegetable production capacity is almost non-existent.
So much so that when the war was not underway, a large amount of fresh vegetables had to be transported from the territory of the Ming Dynasty to the local area to avoid the outbreak of large-scale nutritional deficiency diseases in the garrison. There are even times when some meat and fish have to be transported. Even if fresh fish and meat are sometimes difficult to handle, pickled products must be guaranteed, right?
As for the West Supply Line, it was originally only necessary to ensure the logistics of 50,000 people. Even if there were fewer nodes in the middle, it could still be barely maintained. Not to mention the number of troops now numbering 100,000, these 100,000 are not stationed in place, but are continuing to maneuver and march westward.
The food consumption of an army stationed in place is much lower than that of a marching force, and the intensity of the march has a huge impact on the increase in food consumption. In the current situation where a cavalry unit is being pursued, the food consumption directly increases. Times are not surprising at all. This means that the pressure on the Western Supply Line has not doubled, but has actually quadrupled. You can imagine how much pressure there is.
The same situation is not unique to the headquarters. The reason why Gao Pragmatic did not let Xiao Ruxun's troops participate in the westward pursuit, and even his Ma Chengxun cavalry was left behind in Chahanhot, was that apart from the need for troops to be stationed in Chahanhot, another important reason was the supply line. It was impossible to drag him all the way from Kaiyuan in Liaodong to Tumut.
Although Xiao Ruxun is only the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong, the strength of his troops at this moment exceeds that of Li Rusong, who only brings the core elite to the battle. Therefore, if Gao Pragmatic lets Xiao Ruxun's troops chase Tumut, he will either force the food transporters to death, or they will Starve those who fight to death.
Li Rusong's supply line is slightly shorter than Xiao Ruxun's, because his supply line starts from Guangning, and the actual starting point of the front line is Fuxin. It is three to four hundred miles closer to Tumut than Xiao Ruxun.
This is not to say that Li Rusong's department has no logistical pressure. On the contrary, his logistical pressure is not small. Because he was all cavalry all the way, not only did he have a long-distance attack to set up an ambush in Yuerhai, but also he had to make a long-distance attack to Tumut. Although it was the time for grass to fertilize, he still needed a lot of concentrated feed. Make sure your horse doesn't lose weight too much.
With the spread of corn cultivation in Liaodong, the concentrated feed itself is now guaranteed. The trouble is that the war horses in the war state eat too much, resulting in tight transportation capacity. In addition, since Li Rusong's troops were almost always moving at high speed, the supply lines were naturally changing, which objectively increased the difficulty of supply again.
As for the Ming-Mongolian coalition composed of Ma Gui and Bhan Naji, there was no obvious change in the pressure on the supply line, but the supply line along this route was divided into two major sections even outside the Great Wall. The first section is from Shahukou in Datong to Guihua City, and the second section is from Guihua City to Zaikar Kasari.
The distance between these two supply lines is very different. It is only about two hundred miles from the exit from Shahukou to the naturalization, but it is thousands of miles away from the naturalization to Sariqier. Such a long-distance supply line, and it is still on the grassland, is obviously very dangerous, and may be attacked and plundered by the Mongols at any time.
Therefore, when Ma Gui's headquarters set out for naturalization, they brought enough military rations to last for at least three months. Subsequent military rations were delivered according to the idea of "small batches, large quantities". Therefore, until now, Ma Gui's headquarters He was still eating the military rations he had brought - but there was only one month's worth of rations left, and at the same time, the next batch of supplies had not yet left Guihua City.
The Tumut and Ordos coalition forces under Han Naji were different. They followed the habits of the Mongols. In addition to some easy-to-carry dry food, they also brought a lot of sheep. In this way, they can drink ewe milk and eat ram meat.
Even because the Mongolian army mentioned above is accustomed to riding mares during expeditions, sometimes mare's milk can be used as a supplement. So relatively speaking, the supply situation of the Tumut and Ordos coalition forces is ten times better than that of the Ming army - not that the food is ten times better, but that the Ming army is ten times less dependent on the supply line.
They have an army of 120,000 people along the way, but the supply pressure is actually all on the side of the 60,000 people under Magui's command. The problem now is that Tumen is on his way to Guihua City. Once he surrounds Guihua City before Guihua dispatches the transportation team, Ma Gui's headquarters will most likely run out of food in a month.
Of course, Ma Gui might be able to donate some of it to Hannaji, but it’s hard to say how much he could get. After all, although the Mongolian logistics system is unique, it has always been known for its self-sufficiency. If they are allowed to temporarily divide half of it, the final result will definitely be that everyone will not have enough to eat.
The only one whose supply pressure has been relieved may be the Xuanfu and Taiyuan coalition forces led by Ma Chengen, because their supply line outside the pass starts from the Dushi Fort guarded by the Kaiping Guards [Note: The Kaiping Guards guarded here after being moved inland] Point, after the army returned westward, the distance of the supply line became shorter.
Hey, it seems that the Imperial Guards are still missing, but this is not an omission. Because the Imperial Guard is the "number one army in the world", its conditions have been the best since its establishment, and its number of draft horses exceeds one million Ming troops.
Because the Imperial Guards planned to set up an ambush during their trip, they brought a large amount of dry food, pickled meat, fish, pickled vegetables, etc. at the beginning. The food supplies they brought could normally last for five months. If they save It can even last for half a year. Therefore, there is not much of a problem for the Guards for the time being - there is no additional supply line anyway.
A comprehensive look at this shows why Gao Pragmatic mobilized those troops before: it is imperative to rescue Tumut, because even if Guihua City is besieged for a period of time, the 60,000 people under Magui's command may be without food.
And if this city is lost, the consequences will be even more disastrous, because Guihua City is a key supply storage point, not only food supplies, but also a lot of weapons, ammunition, armor and horse equipment secretly stored before the war.
Gao Jingshi told Cao Yan that he suspected that Tumen's attack on Guihua City was probably just a bluff. This statement was not false in itself, but it did not mean that he thought that Tumen had no idea about taking Guihua City.
He stated this only from the perspective of Tumen's ultimate goal. In his view, Tumen played a beautiful golden cicada and suddenly headed west this time to do something that no one had thought of before the war. Even Gao Pragmatic himself only suddenly realized it after learning the news.
However, the only contradiction between that major event and the defeat of Guihua City was one: enough time.
If Tumen thought that after taking Guihua, the main force of the Ming army still could not return in time and he could still leave calmly after plundering Guihua, then he would definitely insist on defeating Guihua City.
On the other hand, if the Ming army's return of reinforcements was extremely rapid and Tumen judged that if he did not leave, he would be surrounded and suppressed, or at least face a decisive battle with one of the main Ming army forces, then he would most likely give up naturalization and avoid the battle. Walk.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic ignored the huge pressure on the supply line of the headquarters and had to immediately set off for Tumote, just to put more pressure on Tumen and force him to give up naturalization and directly carry out his "big plan" .
Of course, the "big plan" judged by Gao Pangshi was not what Cao Yan had previously suspected. It was Tumen who led troops to attack the capital while the main force of the Ming army was exhausted.
This possibility is almost zero in Gao Xiang's view.
The hollow enemy Taiwan plan proposed and managed by Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang was adopted by the imperial court in the original history, but the number was greatly reduced. In this life, although the number of hollow enemy towers was reduced a lot at the beginning, it was still nearly 40% more than in the original history.
Later, Gao Pragmatic took charge of the household department and began to continue to add hollow enemy towers. He also made small adjustments to the hollow enemy towers in accordance with the main principles of bastion design. The main purpose was to adjust the enemy tower's external shooting angle to cross fire. In the end, more than 2,000 hollow enemy towers were built in the approximately 3,000-mile defense zone of Ji Town alone, more than 1,700 hollow enemy towers were built in the three towns of Xuanda, and even Liaodong, which had the most abundant mobile troops, also built more than 1,100 hollow enemy towers.
[Note: The hollow enemy platform is not big, so the number looks huge. The hollow enemy platforms are not evenly distributed in terms of density. The density in key areas is very high, while the density in non-key areas is relatively sparse. For example, the section with the highest density is the Gubeikou-Zhizidong section, which is only more than 11 miles long but has 37 hollow enemy towers, which can be regarded as a "dense bunker line." ]
It can be said that according to the current defense system of the Ming Dynasty, Chahar's 60,000-strong army can easily enter the pass, burn, kill and loot like Ananda Khan did in the middle and late Jiajing period, unless a senior Ming army defender surrenders to the enemy. It's impossible.
After all, the current hollow enemy platform is basically a "serial bastion" connected to the side walls of the Great Wall. Unless there is a powerful long-range artillery to directly cover and destroy it, no matter whether the infantry or cavalry go up, they will be defeated.
Where did the Mongols get their long-range artillery? Even if the Ming Dynasty switches to Tumen's side, it will be very difficult to handle this matter, because as we all know, most of the Great Wall is built on the ridge, and attacking it is an upward attack. This not only requires extremely high range of artillery, but also... at the foot of the Great Wall How to position these artillery stably is a big problem.
As a result, just leveling the sections of the Great Wall would be troublesome and very restrictive, and these sections were often the key garrison areas of the Ming army, and the firepower density of hollow enemy towers was higher. In a word, even if the main force of the Ming army in the field is almost exhausted, the soldiers of the Nine Border Guards rely on the bastion-style hollow enemy platform to only fight a defensive battle. Even if there are no reinforcements, it is not a big problem to sustain it for a few months.
Gao pragmatism believed that the most critical thing at the moment was to seize time, so after the Liuhe River merged with the flank, he set off directly and headed west without waiting for a rest.
However, after only two days of walking, I suddenly discovered an anomaly: the latest supply was four days late.
This makes Gao pragmatic feel a bit ominous. According to the pre-war deployment, the 200,000-strong army at the headquarters will be supplied three times a month. And when the army goes out on an expedition, it carries fifteen days' worth of supplies, leaving a certain margin.
But the previous supply should have arrived four days ago, but when we arrived at Liuhechuan two days ago, we discovered that not only had it not arrived, but the supply from Liuhechuan was even six days late. Because Gao Jingshi was eager to advance westward, the 50,000 Ming army near Liuhechuan was forced to set off with only nine days of supplies. Now two days have passed, and the supplies are still missing. What happened? They were robbed?
Gao Pragmatic's face was solemn, and he called Cao Yun for questioning. As a senior general in the army, Cao Yu naturally knew about this situation a long time ago, but the problem was that although he knew it, it was inconvenient to remind him too early - the person responsible for supply transportation outside the customs was Jinghua Trading Co., no matter how he said this, Cao Yu, It seems that there is a possibility that Endang will be displeased.
Now that Gao Pangshi took the initiative to ask, Cao Yan felt relieved and truthfully reported what he knew. According to Cao Yan, Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd. did not express any difficulties when it settled the supplies last time.
However, Cao Yan immediately said that when the army met Liuhechuan two days ago, the deputy shopkeeper of Jinghua Trading Company who was responsible for transporting the supply line to Liuhechuan came to him and said that he had received news from Gubeikou. Li Song, the governor of Jiliao, said that "Chahar was discovered at the border On the grounds of "fine work", he ordered all passes and passes to be closed, and all passers-by were allowed in but not allowed out.
Gao Pangshi was furious when he heard this: "The grain transport team is also allowed in but not allowed out?"
Cao Yan smiled bitterly and said: "The deputy shopkeeper at that time said that the trading company still has some respect in Gubeikou, and it is impossible to hide the craftsmen, so the operation can always transport things, but I never thought that this delay would actually take several The whole day passed without any movement, and the general... was also very worried."
When he said this, Gao Pragmatic suddenly stopped showing anger, and instead frowned and thought hard.
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