The war in Northern Xinjiang developed rapidly in the following days, and news came from several directions, both good and bad, but overall it was mainly good news.
The good news first. The first piece of good news came from Helin. King Shunyi sent a messenger to Han Naji to report to Gao Pangshi, saying that his troops had comprehensive control over all the herding tribes stationed in Helin and the surrounding area of about 500 miles. There are more than 30,000 households and a population of about 100,000.
Considering that the population of the Outer Khalkha territory in Mobei was originally lower than that in Monan, and that some important tribes in the tribe had long been transferred away by Abadai Saiyin Khan, there should not be many tribes counted this time.
Although the "five hundred miles radius" is not enough to represent the full recovery of Mongolia in Mobei, it still means that the core area of Mobei with Helin as the center is completely under control. It can be seen that Han Naji's work is very effective.
The second good news is that the follow-up troops of the Economic Strategy Headquarters caught up with the main force after replenishing supplies, joined the high-pragmatic forward cavalry, and restored their previous strength. At the same time, the Marin cavalry who escorted Li Song back to Beijing also rushed over and unexpectedly brought a secret order.
From the literal point of view, this secret edict did not seem to have much content worth mentioning. It was probably just that the emperor said that he was aware of the war situation on the front line and thought that Gao Pragmatic had done a good job. The emperor also expressed his approval of Gao Jingshi's dismissal of Li Song, and comforted Gao Jingshi that he did not need to have any ideological baggage for this, and that he could just continue to do what he had to do, and he had the answers to everything.
But at the end, the emperor mentioned the situation in the south, saying that although the situation in the southwest has been adjusted, because the front line has learned the lessons from the past, it is now implementing a steady and steady approach. There is no news about the successful suppression of Yang Yinglong.
The emperor incidentally talked about the turmoil in the Cao army. This matter does not seem to be a big problem, because the number of the unrest Cao army is relatively limited after all, but the problem is that the battle ahead is going on weirdly.
The emperor said that the governors of Yingtian and Fengyang both expressed that they were short of troops and that the work of mobilizing military forces was obviously slower than expected. Even with the troops that had been mobilized, there were many problems. It would be better not to investigate, but it was simply shocking to investigate.
The governors of both places discovered that the quality of the soldiers mobilized from each guard station was uneven. The youngest was only twelve years old, while the oldest was sixty-seven years old. The age span was as high as fifty-five years old, which was simply shocking. What makes people even more speechless is that no matter whether they are young or old, they are all as thin as a bean sprout, and they don't look like they can fight.
In addition to their age, the armaments of each guard station are even more eye-catching. Governor Yingtian said that among the approximately 6,000 troops mobilized, less than 4,000 had qualified weapons, and about 3,000 of the 4,000 troops came with firearms, but... they either had no projectiles or no projectiles. gunpowder.
Occasionally, some projectiles are brought with them, but the quality of the projectiles is not up to standard. Many of them cannot be considered round at all. They are like a handful of stones picked up by the river. They come in all shapes. Occasionally, some are brought with gunpowder. The gunpowder has so many impurities that it cannot be ignited. It's hard to say, let alone letting the firearm fire normally.
As for the artillery, that's even worse. There is clearly a new artillery produced by Jinghua in the warehouse of the Nanjing Ministry of War. Among them, there are thirty-six No. 2 cannons and eighty No. 3 cannons. They seem to be quite powerful. Unexpectedly, after asking, he found out that only three people in the 6,000-man army said they would use this kind of artillery, and two people said... maybe they would use it.
Governor Yingtian is like this, but Governor Fengyang is even worse than Yingtian. Everything else is similar, except that there are fewer artillery guns in stock - of course, this doesn't matter, because no one in Fengyang has said that they will use the new artillery.
It was obvious that the emperor was extremely dissatisfied with the performance of the Confederate army. I know that after the Japanese pirates were pacified, it has been another 20 or 30 years since the Southern Army was released to Nanshan. It will definitely degrade, but it has degraded to this extent. It really makes Zhu Yijun so angry that he just wants to chop off a few heads - unfortunately this is impossible. Yes, because theoretically, military training issues are under the control of the Nanjing Ministry of War.
As the head of the three important officials in Nanjing, the Minister of War in Nanjing must be a civil servant, so his head cannot be chopped off easily. Besides, in the past few years, there have been more than ten ministers of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, so they can’t all be cut off, right?
Of course Gao Pragmatic is also concerned about these things mentioned by the emperor, especially the issue of the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War belongs to the "traditional sphere of influence" of the Practical School. Although the Nanjing Ministry of War and the Beijing Ministry of War are different in that they are not always held by people from the Practical School - it can even be said that they are often not officials from the Practical School - but in the final analysis, military affairs are the responsibility of the Practical School. As the leader of the school, Nanjing's military strength was so stretched that even though Gao Pragmatic was not the Minister of War, he still felt that his face was disgraced.
But having said that, Gao Pragmatic was more concerned about why the emperor wanted to talk to him about this matter. The affairs of the Nanjing Cao Army Rebellion have been pragmatically arranged, generally in two directions: one is to let Wei Guogong appease the Cao Army, exempt from the compensation for the previous losses of the Cao Army, and put this account on the head of the Japanese pirates' harassment, so that The Cao army lost the reason and necessity for the riot; secondly, Wu Xun from Ningbo Port took the lead to find out the origins of the "Japanese pirates" and ensure that the grievances were brought to justice and the debtors were held accountable.
However, the former Wei Guogong was really disappointed. He felt that he did not even prepare the troops behind him, and he really did not dare to run to meet the rioting Cajun army, so the two governors Yingtian and Fengyang gathered their forces. It is difficult for the latter to investigate so quickly. No matter how good Wu Xun is, unless he did it in the first place, it is impossible for him to find the real culprit as soon as the highly pragmatic order arrives—— You have to give people some time.
Gao pragmatically believed that Zhu Yijun was not a particularly concerned person. He was an emperor who always allowed his subordinates the necessary time to do their work. Therefore, when he mentioned the situation of the Southern Army in his secret edict, he probably did not want to rush himself. In this case, why did the emperor do this?
Preparing the Confederate Army? It's possible, but it's just a possibility. The Southern Army has no clear preparatory tasks, so the emperor should not be anxious about it. Even if we have to prepare the Southern Army, why not wait until the war in the North is over?
The Cajun riots can obviously be solved by political means. The emperor would not be worried that Nanjing would be lost because of this. That is too nonsense - it is not that Nanjing's city defense is strong, but that if the Cajun army is not crazy, it will never be real. to attack Nanjing.
Therefore, when the emperor mentioned this matter in his secret edict, he must have had other intentions. Gao Pragmatic had a vague suspicion that the emperor also felt that the southern officials' clique had threatened the rule, so this time he was testing whether he was willing to launch a purge against the south?
This matter is not yet certain for the time being. We can only say that there are some thin lines, and there are thousands of miles of speculation. Gao pragmatic decided not to make a clear statement yet, and just vaguely "agree". The details should wait until the follow-up context becomes clear. Make a decision later.
However, the emperor spoke clearly about the performance of the Southern Army, and he was probably really dissatisfied with the current situation of the Southern Army. Gao pragmatically decided to remind Tian Le, who was the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing at the time, and let him first propose some improvement measures. Anyway, such a major matter cannot be decided at once. When the whole process is almost completed, it will be time for me to return to Beijing, and it will be too late to intervene.
Well, the second piece of news was originally good news, but coupled with the emperor's secret decree, it became difficult to tell. It can only be said that if the emperor is really dissatisfied with the southern officials' unity, then it may still be good news.
The third piece of good news came from Ma Gui. After Ma Guizai and Abadai Saiyin Khan fought for a while near the mouth of the Three Gorges, they finally found an opportunity to have a fight with the latter. The battle was not a big one. Judging from the description, it should be that Ma Gui caught Abadai Saiyin Khan's tail and fought.
The results of this battle were not brilliant. Only about a thousand Mongolian troops in the Outer Khalkha region were annihilated, but Abadai Saiyin Khan was successfully driven away. Ma Gui estimated from the opponent's escape trajectory that Abadai Saiyin Khan might take a detour to the south, but this method was not common, so the specific route was difficult to predict.
In fact, if time were turned back twenty years, the annihilation of more than a thousand Mongolian troops would have been a rare victory, the kind that could make the emperor sue the Ancestral Temple. It's a pity that times have changed, and now the court has been whetted by high pragmatism, and the number of enemies annihilated in this order of magnitude has become no longer conspicuous.
Gao pragmatically estimated that after receiving the news, the court would probably only reward Ma Gui with a false title, a hereditary quota, etc., and that would be enough to give him a few dozen taels of silver and a robe. .
However, Abadai Saiyin Khan was forced to go south "unconventionally", which made Gao Pragmatic frown a little. Even if Abadai Saiyin Khan lost a thousand men, he should still have nearly 30,000 cavalry in his hands. If he robs the food route of the Magui tribe in the south, I am afraid he will be a big threat.
Ma Gui's department was too far away, and Gao Pragmatic was worried that too detailed a command would limit Ma Gui's decision-making. After thinking about it, he simply gave the order to Ma Gui and let him use his own judgment to decide the next military action. Gao Pragmatic only put forward one basic requirement, which is that all actions are premised on helping Tumut actually control the Outer Khalkha Department - how to do it is your business, and the headquarters will not control it remotely.
Then came the fourth news, this time it was bad news, and it was quite unusual: Tumen ran away, ran away.
This matter is quite complicated. From a timeline point of view, the so-called "Two defeats of the Mongolian army in one day" a few days ago is actually not accurate. In fact, the first thing that happened was Qi Jiguang's defeat of Tumen, and it was not until the next day that the so-called victory of Lightning Lake at the headquarters was . However, because it took time for Qi Jiguang's battle report to arrive from his naturalization, it appeared as if the two Mongolian armies were defeated on the same day.
The defeated Tumen gave up the siege of Guihua City and ran eastward. Buyan Huangtaiji and Buyanhatu, who were also defeated, ran westward. The two Mongolian armies soon met near Shacheng.
Shacheng, which had been suffering from bad luck for eight lifetimes, was extorted again, but the Tumen still did not choose to attack Shacheng. After receiving a large amount of supplies donated by Shacheng, the Tumen army immediately withdrew, seemingly heading north.
At this time, Qi Jiguang was turning to the east and Li Rusong was also attacking in the west. Tumen was actually in the unfavorable situation of being attacked from the east and west. Ma Chengen's troops hurriedly and slowly hurried all the way, and finally almost reached the blockade position.
However, something happened at this time: Machengen's expedition horse suddenly discovered that a large number of Mongolians were found two hundred miles north. This group of Mongolians was large in number. Tan Ma said there were "hundreds of thousands of people", and judging from their movement, they were migrating westward.
Mongols, hundreds of thousands of them. These two words and seven words made Ma Chengen immediately realize that this was the long-missing group of Chahar troops. They were not the Mongolian army, but the people of the tribe.
There is no doubt that annihilating the Mongolian army is a great achievement, but if the foundation of the Chahar tribe is directly eliminated, it will be an even greater feat! There is no need to say which one is more important between the two.
Ma Chengen immediately made a decision to deal with these "hundreds of thousands of people" first, and the task of blocking the northern line of naturalization could be slowed down a little. In Ma Chengen's opinion, it does not take much time to deal with these hundreds of thousands of people. After all, these are not an army, but just ordinary herdsmen, women, children, old and young. As soon as the army arrives, they will be easily captured, and they should be able to make it in time.
But sometimes, when a person is unlucky, his teeth are choked up after drinking cold water. Ma Chengen went north to look for those hundreds of thousands of troublemakers, and was discovered by the other party halfway there - only then did Ma Chengen know that the other party Although these hundreds of thousands of people are either herdsmen, women, children, old and young, the Mongolians are not just talking about all the people being soldiers, especially on the grassland.
The hundreds of thousands of people in Chahar are on guard. Although the sentinels are herdsmen acting temporarily, the problem is that there is no essential difference between the "herdsmen" and the "Mongolian army". They are still perfectly qualified for the job of detecting horses.
However, Ma Chengen didn't take it too seriously at that time. If the sneak attack failed, then he would attack me forcefully. It's impossible for you to beat me anyway.
This idea seemed right. After the other party discovered Ma Chengen, he didn't even think about fighting him. Instead, he sped up and fled northwest. Ma Chengen chased after him and gradually narrowed the distance between the two parties - this was because the other party "migrated with his whole family" after all, carrying too many cattle, sheep and other supplies.
At this time, Ma Chengen was very satisfied and was already thinking about what to do after catching up. It is impossible to kill them all. Although the Ma family has fought with the Mongols for several generations, it is not an exaggeration to say that they are bitter and have deep hatred. But after all, Mr. Jingtai has explained that these people can be retained for use, so At most, they can only kill a few of them who are dancing happily as a warning, and the rest have to be kept and handed over to the sutra platform.
However, before Ma Chengen could figure out how to escort these many people to the economic platform to report their merits, he suddenly heard that the other party was not running away, and seemed to have gathered many of them, seemingly wanting to have a fight with him.
Ma Chengen was not surprised but overjoyed. This was a gift of death and great merit! So he immediately ordered the entire army to advance and prepare to defeat the enemy. When they were about forty miles away from the enemy, Ma Chengen ordered the entire army to put on armor and prepare for battle.
However, when he walked another twenty miles and could already see the other party coming towards him on the endless grassland, he realized that the number of the other party was a bit large - it had been gradually found out that the other party had about 400,000 people. , I’m afraid only half of them appear on the battlefield now!
However, Ma Chengen's surprise was only for a moment. There is nothing more than a mob of 200,000, not to mention that the elites under his command are enough to fight one against two, it is not surprising even if one is against ten - the elite soldiers are just mowing the grass against the vagrants.
Facts have proved that his idea was correct. As soon as the forwards of the two armies fought - if the other side was considered an "army" - the enemy was immediately defeated. Although the Mongols fought hard, they were still beaten by a volley of gunfire and were defeated on the spot. Upon seeing this, Ma Chengen immediately ordered the cavalry to attack and prepare to officially cut the grass.
However, an accident happened. As soon as the Ming cavalry drove out, another cavalry suddenly came from behind - this cavalry was carrying a nine-pin white banner.
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