Napoleon once said: "Never do what your enemy wants you to do. The reason is very simple, because the enemy wants you to do this." But Burihatu understood this truth without Napoleon's guidance.
Since he judged that Gao Rixin wanted him to think that he was in a hurry, it meant that he could not use the premise that "Gao Rixin was very anxious" to guide his behavior. However, Burihatu still has some thoughts about Gao Pragmatic's final intention.
The two sides on the battlefield do not see each other clearly. Otherwise, the art of war would not regard "knowing yourself and the enemy" as the prerequisite for victory in every battle.
There have been almost no large-scale battles in this battle, but there have been several confrontations between you and me. It has been nearly two months, and it is difficult to say that there are not some strange things. Just as Gao Pragmatic's judgment on Chahar's strategic intentions is still uncertain, Burihatu now also has some doubts about Gao Pragmatic.
In fact, compared with the strategies of nomadic tribes, it is difficult to judge. The strategic intentions of farming peoples in foreign wars are very obvious, and generally speaking, it is unlikely that there will be any obvious changes. Of course Burihatu knew this, so his previous plans were all executed well, especially the move of Jin Chan escaping from his shell, which was regarded as Chahar's biggest tactical victory since the fight against Gao Pragmatic.
The incident that stirred up the northwest wind and clouds before was also considered a big start for Burihatu. However, because after Gao Pragmatic's intervention, the situation in the northwest was quickly reversed by the Ming Dynasty, Brihatu did not achieve full success, and the whole thing seemed to be a bit regretful.
Of course, that operation gave Chahar at least a year of preparation for the war. This was recognized by the Chahar Khan Court and was an important basis for Burihatu's current status. From this aspect, Burihatu’s efforts were not in vain.
But no matter what, it is better to make a greater contribution to turning the tide for one's own family than to mess up other families. Tumen entrusted the Nine White Silk to Burihatu outside Shacheng. It happened after the golden cicada's escape plan was successful. The reason is self-evident.
Since then, he took the initiative to invite Ying to come to Buyantaiji. This was not only a gesture of support for Tumen and Buyan and his son, but also meant that he had to take on greater and more direct responsibilities. He will no longer be just a nominal ruler and actual military advisor, but a future Mongolian grand master with "custody rights" of Buyantaiji to some extent.
In other words, this time Buyantaiji divided his troops, and nominally Buyantaiji was the coach, but in fact it was Buyantaiji who really spoke the words. This arrangement is somewhat similar to the fact that during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the prince was often appointed as the general manager of the march, but the actual person in charge was the deputy general manager of the march next to the prince.
Since it was the first time he directly took control of the military in Chahar, and he was facing a powerful and difficult opponent like Gao Pangshi, the "first literary commander in the Ming Dynasty", Burihatu had to examine every detail in place and consider every detail. A possible danger is nipped in the bud.
Different from Gao Pragmatic's self-examination, in Burihatu's eyes, Gao Pragmatic's advantage at this moment is completely overwhelming. The 600,000 troops in his hands are undoubtedly the most elite field legions of the Ming Dynasty, accounting for at least 54 (four-fifths) of the total strength of the Ming Dynasty that completed the previous round of military reforms and refitted.
Although Burihatu expected that the 600,000-strong army would not be able to maintain its march out of the fortress for a long time, it was not only the cold winter in Mongolia, but also the high military expenditure of the Ming army.
Burihatu admitted that the ability to manage the country's finances in a pragmatic manner was indeed unprecedented, but in any case it was impossible to maintain an army of 600,000 in a state of war abroad for a long time. In addition to the normal expenses of food and grass and the huge transportation losses, there is another simplest reason: "wartime military pay."
The army's military pay during war has always been different from that in peacetime. When sending troops to war, they must be paid according to the highest standards. How much does war cost? In the "Three Major Wanli Expeditions" in history, although the number of troops sent by the Ming army was not large, the campaign to aid Korea alone cost 7 million taels, and the battle of Ningxia cost 2 million taels. These were both in the early Ming Dynasty. An unimaginable expense.
However, even if the three major Wanli expeditions in history were tied together, they would not have as many troops as this time. Even though his wars have always been relatively fast and rarely lasted for years, it is conceivable that the cost of dispatching such a huge force may be tens of millions.
Of course, since a lot of military supplies have been slowly hoarded and stored there in the past few years, it does not mean that these tens of millions of taels of silver have to be spent by the Ministry of Revenue at once. It is equivalent to Gao Pragmatic making installment payments in advance. .
However, Burihatu did not fully understand Gao's pragmatic financial methods, and he did not understand some things. In addition to "early installments", Gao Pragmatic actually also has "pay first and settle later" installments - Ming Fed small-amount banknotes.
After Gao pragmatically gathered financial power and established the Department of Large Accounts, he persuaded the court to agree that the whole world could use these small-denomination bank notes from the Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve to pay taxes. Therefore, the small-denomination bank notes from the Ming Dynasty Federal Reserve actually had the function of legal banknotes.
Moreover, this paper currency is not the "anchor-free currency" that the global currency gradually evolved after the disintegration of the Bretton Woods system in later generations. The small-denomination silver notes of the Federal Reserve Bank of China are anchored currencies, and they are anchored to silver - if you take the small-denomination silver notes to the Federal Reserve Bank of China, you can definitely exchange them for Kuping silver at face value.
When the country's sovereign credit did not reach the level of later generations, only the credibility of this anchored currency was guaranteed, avoiding the original Ming Dynasty's trend of devaluing treasure banknotes until they became waste paper.
Since the banknote itself has value, it also has reserve properties. This means: Since the credibility of banknotes is guaranteed, I can just keep the banknotes with me as savings for emergencies, or I can deposit them in a bank. In short, I can spend them immediately without getting them.
In this way, assuming that Gao Pragmatic issued a small amount of five million taels of silver notes for this battle as military pay for the troops participating in the war, and half of the face value was stored, then the impact on the market would be only Two and a half million taels is acceptable. Even if it causes a certain degree of inflation, the intensity will be relatively limited.
Even if the remaining 2.5 million taels will be slowly released, it will no longer have any impact on a market as huge as Ming Dynasty. Therefore, time and scale will directly dissipate the economic impact of this war. The country There will be no turmoil as a result.
Even to a certain extent, if this money is distributed, for example, 2.5 million taels will enter the market, it will have a positive effect on economic development - if you, a soldier, come back from the war with money, you will naturally To consume, then the person selling things will make money. They either buy other things, or continue to invest, expand production or trade, which ultimately promotes economic prosperity. In the north, where a comprehensive commercial tax has been introduced, economic prosperity means that the court can still recover some of it.
The above is easy to understand for future generations, but it is not so easy for "ancient people", even smart people like Burihatu, to understand. After all, a long-standing thinking bias in ancient society is to regard "the world's wealth" as a constant value. When it is in the hands of the court, the people will be embarrassed, and when it is in the hands of the people, the court will be embarrassed. This is also the basis of the so-called "not competing with the people for profit".
Gao Pragmatic certainly does not believe in this backward thinking. Wealth is created. In this era, there is no ghost called the "world financial capitalist class" in the world, so insufficient wealth only means insufficient production and insufficient trade. The solution is to increase production and increase trade. ,that is it.
Ming Dynasty's current production is definitely increasing year by year, and trade is also gradually increasing, so a certain amount of inflation is actually beneficial. What is really bad is that deflation, also known as money shortage, will occur just like in the original history. This will lead to insufficient employment and shrinking trade, which will then force some people to seek medical treatment in a hurry and violate the law to start fighting with the Mongols and Jurchens. Certain transactions are strictly prohibited.
So in the final analysis, Burihatu believes that the high pragmatic urgency is likely to come from financial pressure rather than military pressure. This is actually a miscalculation.
On the contrary, the high pragmatic "eagerness" really stems more from military pressure. This pressure is largely due to the fact that he has too high demands for the political goals that need to be achieved in this war - to completely eliminate the residual Yuan, ensure the long-term stability of the northern border and become the military horse farm of the Ming Dynasty, so as to deal with the inevitable coming of Tsarist Russia in the future. Expand eastward.
The main force in Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion in the early days was always Cossacks, which led to Gao Pragmatic's increased attention to cavalry. When he discovered that the Ming Dynasty's cavalry company could not annihilate the Mongols who had been blocked for two hundred years, he naturally thought about what would happen when facing the Cossacks in the future - how about being beaten?
Due to the nature of his work in his previous life, Gao Pragmatic read "The Quiet Don" by Soviet writer Sholokhov carefully. The heroic image of the protagonist Gregory was as deep in Gao Pragmatic's mind as a saber.
This book mainly writes about the history of the Don Cossacks in Russia in the first 20 years of the 20th century. The author uses his wonderful pen to vividly depict the magnificent war history of this period. In fact, the real Cossack history is probably more colorful than literary works.
In Gao Pragmatic's view, they were born specifically for the wars of this era. A history of the Cossacks is most of the history of Russia. From the day they were born, they were given the important task of opening up territory for Tsarist Russia, so much so that they helped the young father of the Tsar to conquer more than half of Russia's territory in later generations.
Gao Pragmatic is still somewhat confused about the future direction of the Ming Dynasty, or the future direction of Chinese civilization. However, the expansion of the Ming Dynasty from north to west by land is basically his main idea.
Since we want to go north and west, conquering and assimilating Mongolia is just the first step. The main "BOSS" in the later period must be Tsarist Russia and the Cossacks. If you can't defeat the Cossacks, no matter what your long-term plan is, you are doomed to fail.
In fact, many people in later generations do not have a deep understanding of Cossacks. They probably only have a few labeled images in their minds: fierce, saber, and Don hippopotamus; manic, good at drinking, and stupid in battle.
Some of the previous labels given to Cossacks are pretty much the same. The only strange thing is that they are "stupid in fighting". It seems that when the Cossacks are mentioned, they can only think of the 100,000 Cossacks who could not defeat a mere 8,000 Japanese soldiers during the Russo-Japanese War. It seems that the Cossacks are so stupid that they only use cavalry to charge the Japanese trench machine guns. They are simply stupid and self-destructive.
But the fact is that the main responsibility lies with the commander who is too stupid, and the art of command has completely failed to keep up with the times! Let’s look at the early days of Soviet Russia. What was the status and performance of the Cossack cavalry in the Soviet army at that time? It was a guard-like existence among the Soviet cavalry, so much so that the Soviet cavalry troops at that time were proud of the number of Cossacks in their own army. It was not until they were replaced by armored troops that their glory ended.
The wild Cossack cavalry has always been an important pillar of Tsarist Russia's armed forces, known as the "Tsar's Horsewhip." In hundreds of years of history, Cossack cavalry played an important role in every foreign campaign of the Tsar. From the conquest of the Kazan Khanate to the eastern expedition to Siberia, from the bloody battle against the Ottoman Empire to the struggle for hegemony on the European battlefield, the Cossack cavalry played a decisive role.
In the Seven Years' War, the Prussian army, which was invincible due to its "oblique attack" tactics, was swept away by the Cossack cavalry. The Russian army occupied Berlin in one fell swoop, forcing the powerful Emperor Frederick II to almost commit suicide. The Cossacks became a powerful force in Europe from then on. After the Battle of Borodino in 1812, Napoleon, who had experienced the power of the Cossack cavalry, sighed: "If my army has these Cossacks, it will be rampant in the world!"
Tolstoy even had a famous saying to describe the Cossacks: "The Cossacks are not cowards, they are born warriors!"
It's outrageous that such an awesome cavalry would later become synonymous with "stupid".
What's more, even if there is still a certain amount of preparation time for the war with the Cossack cavalry, Gao Wushi now thinks of the decisive role of the cavalry in the war to aid Korea that is likely to be imminent.
In fact, in Japanese history, cavalry has been seen frequently in wars. Decades ago in Japan's late Warring States period, the Takeda family's cavalry was said to have reached the scale of thousands of cavalry. Before Oda Nobunaga used iron cannons on a large scale, Takeda Shingen's cavalry traveled across Japan and had almost no opponents.
However, the Japanese cavalry can only be fierce on the island, and they are vulnerable to the cavalry on the mainland. In the Imjin War when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea, the Japanese cavalry was no match for the Ming Dynasty's frontier army, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry. Their size, horses, and tactics were all at a disadvantage. They did almost nothing during the entire war, and were beaten from beginning to end by Li Rusong. The whole scene.
The reason why the Japanese cavalry was weak was its lack of size and short horses. As an island country, Japan has a small territory and limited resources. A cavalry battle involving a thousand cavalry is already the most spectacular war scene in Japan, and the Japanese cavalry is not good at large group combat, but is obsessed with "one cavalry attack".
Japan's native horse breed, the "Jairai Horse", is a Mongolian horse imported from China. It is already short in stature, and has been further degraded in the environment of the island country. It is only 1.3 meters tall at the shoulder, has little strength, slow speed, and poor power.
What about the Don and Orlov horses of the Cossack cavalry? Their shoulder height is about 1.5 to 1.6 meters, and their speed and power are much better than Japanese horses. The combat mode of the Cossack cavalry is usually to launch an overwhelming assault with tens of thousands or even more than one hundred thousand cavalry on a wide front, which is simply unimaginable in Japan.
The advantages must be continuously strengthened, and the disadvantages must be made up as soon as possible. Anyone with vision and ability to take charge of the strategic level will consider this, and Gao Pragmatism is no exception.
In his opinion, it is imperative to clean up the remaining elements as soon as possible, re-examine the development direction of the cavalry, and determine a new idea. At the same time, this will also help defeat Japan faster in the coming war to aid Korea, preserve the vitality of the Ming Dynasty, especially the Liaodong frontier army, and curb the rise of the Jurchens.
It's just that the Mongols' current movements are suspicious. If some conditions are not created to tempt them to take the bait, even if the main force of the Ming army comes out this time, they may not be able to complete the mission, so they have to take risks. Unexpectedly, Burihatu refused to take the bait because he could not judge his true intention. After much deliberation, he finally decided to take the pragmatic approach and issued four orders:
Expand the scope of the Mongolian army's reconnaissance to three hundred miles to ensure that it is always known whether other Ming troops are approaching; closely monitor the movements of Gao Pragmatic's headquarters to prevent it from suddenly making unexpected new moves; send someone to report Gao Pragmatic to Tumen Khan The headquarters is abnormal, but the messengers are not allowed to give any hint to the Khan at any level or level; Buyantaiji's headquarters retains physical strength and horse power, and always maintains a distance of 150 miles from Gao Pragmatic's headquarters, that is, it fully maintains "the ability to move" Let’s go, we can fight if we want”.
At the same time, many generals in the Ming army believed that narrowing the scope of horse detection would bring serious threats to their own side. It is very likely that the early warning would not be timely, and they would be suddenly killed by the Mongols without having time to put on their armor.
They strongly recommended that the crossing platform immediately restore the distance between horses, otherwise they would have to keep marching in armor - which is actually basically impossible and consumes both horse power and human energy. Moreover, once detected by Mongolian detective horses, it will inevitably arouse the other party's vigilance and expose Gao's pragmatic intentions.
Danger is definitely dangerous, but being pragmatic right now is taking risks. If you are pretending to be untrue, you might as well not pretend at all. At this moment, he remembered Herodotus's famous saying: Great achievements are achieved by taking risks.
After eating some cold dry food for lunch that day, Gao pragmatically called the last batch of returning emissaries over to ask for some key information. He then gestured on the map by himself for a long time, and then called all the eight guerrilla generals over for a lecture. .
"Keep a distance of a hundred miles to explore a horse, keep a distance of a hundred miles a day, keep the goal of naturalization." Gao Pingshi didn't have any explanation, put on the only scarlet silk in his army, sat on a python and looked around proudly at the generals, He reiterated the military order with a stern expression: "Anyone who wavers again will be punished with the crime of disrupting the morale of the army... and he will be executed without mercy!"
The generals sternly alerted themselves, and the whole place was immediately silent, with no one daring to discuss it further.
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