Generally speaking, emperors are very taboo about the word death, especially when used on themselves. Although Zhu Yijun is far less harsh than his grandfather Jiajing on this point, he usually doesn't say this. Since he said it today, it means that he is indeed very annoyed.
Gao Pingshi entered the side hall and was about to step forward to see the emperor in accordance with the rules of his Majesty's meeting. However, at this time, Zhu Yijun was not sitting at the main seat waiting for him to kowtow, but was walking towards him.
As soon as Gao Pangshi made the gesture of bowing down, Zhu Yijun held him firmly and said, "Okay, okay, there are no outsiders here. Let's get down to business."
The emperor's tone was a little urgent, which surprised Gao pragmatically. The military situation in Gansu is certainly a big deal, but in fact it is generally not an "urgent matter". The two places are too far apart. No matter how eager the capital side is, the other side will not get new orders for a while, let alone immediate support. There will always be a long period of time where the locals can only take care of things.
To put it simply, it is useless for the capital to be anxious. In the final analysis, "long-term planning" is still needed.
But Zhu Yijun seemed to be really anxious. He took Gao Pangshi to the warm pavilion in the side hall, so that the two of them did not have to sit separately. Sitting far away from each other was not conducive to communication in Zhu Yijun's opinion. - and then said: "It turns out that today you have returned in triumph, and I also have a happy event. The queen finally gave birth to a son for me. It's a pity that you were harmed by this incident in Gansu..."
Gao Pragmatic couldn't help but ask: "What happened in Gansu? Even if it's the Burihatukou border, we can just deal with it in an orderly manner. If we are anxious for a while, we can't quench our thirst far away..."
"What happened?" Zhu Yijun sighed and shook his head: "In just six days, the Suzhou and Weilu guards were almost wiped out, and the Suzhou city fell. Burihatu personally led an army, known as one hundred thousand, to intimidate Gan The five guards of Ganzhou and Ganzhou did not dare to fight and could only defend the city.
On the same day, the governor of Gansu, the Xingdu Secretary of Shaanxi, and Prince Su's Mansion made a total of seven urgent calls for help. According to their words, if no reinforcements arrive within a month, not only Ganzhou will be lost, but Yongchang, Liangzhou, and even Zhuanglang, Xining and other guards will probably fall one by one. Then the whole Shaanxi will be shaken, and the Sanfu The number of days is amazing! "
This news was so shocking that Gao Pragmatic, who had always remained calm when hearing the collapse of Mount Tai, could not help but change his expression after hearing this: "How could it be so tragic? As far as I know, there are forty-six castles in Suzhou alone, and the number of soldiers More than six to seven thousand. In terms of ordnance and military pay, the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War have all allocated full amounts in these years, and there was no shortage of them even when the Korean War was at its most intense. In this case, how could it be that this time it was completely defeated in a few days? "
"I want to ask you this too!" Zhu Yijun said angrily: "Give me whatever you want, and you can repay me like this! However, Xu Sanwei mentioned something in his memorial, saying that the former army of Burihatu possessed firearms. Don't be inferior to me,' do you think this is credible? The Mongols also use firearms? Where did they get the firearms? "
Xu Sanwei is the current governor of Gansu. Gao Pragmatic was very surprised by his statement. His first reaction was whether there were border troops smuggling arms in Gansu.
But then I thought about it. Gao Pragmatic felt something was wrong. This is not to say that Gansu border troops will definitely not smuggle arms, but if firearms are to be supplied to an army, it is not enough to smuggle a batch of guns and ammunition. It also requires relevant systems to maintain it.
The reliability of the guns of this era is far inferior to that of later generations. Some damage is inevitable during daily use, not to mention if it is a large-scale battle, it must be repaired by specialized craftsmen. Moreover, the user itself also needs certain simple maintenance capabilities, and these seem unlikely to be problems that the Mongols from the Chahar tribe can solve.
It can’t be said that a large number of guard craftsmen in Gansu have defected to the Chahar tribe, right? It's fine if one or two people defected, but if there was a large-scale defection, even the governor of Gansu would not dare not report the situation.
But if the smuggling of firearms by local police stations in Gansu is excluded, then the situation reported by Xu Sanwei will be difficult to explain. If it should be difficult for the Chahar tribe to even maintain their firearms, can they still imitate the Wanli II style with their own abilities? Impossible, absolutely impossible.
Gao pragmatic thought for a while and asked, "Does Li Zhijun have an explanation?" Zhijun is the governor, and of course he is talking about the governors of the three sides of Shaanxi. Gansu in the Ming Dynasty was different from other dynasties in that it was militarily under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Xingdu Division, so the Gansu governorate area was also militarily under the responsibility of the governors of the three sides.
Zhu Yijun shook his head: "Li Wenyuan is in Guyuan. When he receives the news from Gansu, he will have to wait two days before arriving in Beijing. Besides, since he is so far away, I don't think he will know too many details. , instead of listening to his second-hand news, it is better to read the local memorials in Gansu."
Sure enough, he was a mature emperor, and he already had his own opinions on which memorials were more credible. Gao Pragmatic is very pleased with this, but now is not the time to lament. Solving the problem is the top priority.
Thanks to being a veteran of strategy games in his previous life, Gao pragmatically thought for a moment and came up with a guess as to how Burihatu could have a large number of muskets to equip the Mongolian army: "Your Majesty, I guess, Burihatu's troops The muskets probably originated from the Rumi country, which is the country called Ottoman Turkey in the Jinghuakan atlas."
"Ottoman Turkey?" Zhu Yijun nodded and had an idea in his mind - ever since Gao Pragmatic submitted the atlas of Kantu, he has read it often. Now, if not familiar with it, at least it has been compared to larger countries. A relatively clear concept.
Of course, Zhu Yijun's concept is not particularly accurate to some extent. For example, although Gao Pragmatic often emphasized that certain countries in Europe "will surely rise in the future," Zhu Yijun inevitably scorned them when he saw that they only had such a large territory on the map.
In turn, he paid more attention to Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Turkish Empire, because these two countries looked relatively large from the map - big means strong, which is a relatively deep-rooted concept of Zhu Yijun.
After pondering for a moment, Zhu Yijun asked: "Given its geographical location, Ottoman Turkey can indeed pass firearms to the Chahar tribe in the Western Regions through the Silk Road, but I can't figure out why they would do this?"
According to Zhu Yijun's concept, firearms, a "national treasure", should not be sold casually as ordinary goods. Although Chahar and Ottoman Turkey can be connected by the Silk Road, they are still quite far apart. Therefore, if there are no special circumstances, how can there be a firearms transaction between the two sides? This makes absolutely no sense.
But Gao Pragmatic knew that his idea was too bright. In Europe and the Middle East, businessmen's thinking dominated the country's will, which was not the agricultural thinking of China's past dynasties. Europe doesn’t need to explain much. This has always been the case in the Middle East.
In the past, the Arab world was characterized by connecting the East and the West, and its millennium-long tradition was all about resale trade. Many scholars in later generations have said that their sacred scripture is essentially a trade code formulated under the veil of theocracy, and many regulations are to ensure freedom of trade.
[Note: The areas involved may be relatively sensitive, so I won’t go into details here. Interested friends can check the information themselves. ]
Although the rulers of Ottoman Turkey were not originally native Arabs, they were almost completely Arabized in their sects, and therefore inherited this kind of thinking.
Of course, Europeans believed that the Ottoman Empire blocked exchanges between the East and the West, especially trade exchanges, but that was during a certain period of time, and they were some blockade measures taken by the Ottomans when they were trying to conquer Europe. In essence, the Ottoman Empire still needed to do resale trade, but they wanted to create a monopoly at that time.
Without further ado, let’s get back to the topic. The Ottoman Empire also has a demand for the goods of the Ming Dynasty, especially now that the Ottoman Empire has discovered that the Portuguese and Spanish have established relations with the Ming Dynasty (actually with Jinghua), and the Dutch are also frantically exploring the routes that the Portuguese The channel moved eastward and was said to be fiercely contesting Mauritius with the Portuguese.
Mauritius is a medium-sized island in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar, the largest island in southeast Africa. Of course, this is not the key. The key is that you can follow the ocean currents from here to the Nanyang Islands. In other words, once the Dutch defeated the Portuguese and captured Mauritius, it might not take long for them to reach Nanyang and establish relations with the Ming Dynasty (Beijing).
The Ottoman Empire was worried about this. Although Osman is still powerful at this time, it is also slightly dangerous.
Internally, with the rise of the New Army in Turkey, Sultan Murad III did not dare to leave Istanbul or even Topkapi Palace in the last years of his rule - because the New Army threatened him and said that as long as he dared to leave , the new army will depose him as sultan. [Note: The new army is the Ottoman Guards. ]
The New Army is of course a military group, but it is also an interest group and needs the Sudan to constantly appease it with various interests. Since we want profits, we must find ways in all aspects - obviously, re-opening the trade line with the Ming Dynasty is also one of the things worth trying.
From the outside, although the current Ottoman Empire still maintains a strong deterrent to Europe, its expansion is actually close to its limit. In game terms, it is "unable to push". At this time, Europe seems to be united. Signs of confrontation.
Of course, the current Ottoman Empire is not very worried about this, because the Turks are confident that even the Christians in Europe combined cannot defeat them.
But Tsarist Russia is another threat, especially since something happened this year. Tsarist Russia completely wiped out the Siberian Khanate and greatly expanded its power eastward.
Siberia was cold, and to the Ottoman Empire it was just a big piece of shit, unimportant in itself. But the Ottoman Empire believed that if the Russians continued to expand eastward, sooner or later they would border the Ming Dynasty, which was very bad.
The Turks were not worried that Tsarist Russia might invade the Ming Dynasty. They were worried that Tsarist Russia would open up the trade line with the Ming Dynasty and obtain the high-value goods of the Ming Dynasty, so that they would not be able to raise prices and make huge profits in the future.
Although they were far away, the new Sultan Muhammad III of the Ottoman Empire, with the idea of taking a shot when he had nothing to do, still sent people to contact several khanates in Central Asia, hoping that they could find a way to pull the Tsarist Russia in the north. .
An unexpected thing happened. The other khanates did not respond at all. On the contrary, the former Yarkand Khanate in the east and the now occupied Chahar tribe responded eagerly to the Sultan.
Burihatu representative Buyan Chechen Khan expressed to the Sudanese envoy that they were willing to go north to curb Tsarist Russia's eastward advance, and were also willing to contact the Ming Dynasty eastward to "help Sudan develop trade." However, they lack strength, especially the lack of firearms, and may not be able to defeat the vanguard of Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion.
This is really nonsense, because the eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia after defeating the Siberian Khanate could hardly be regarded as a state behavior for a long time. It was just that the Tsar supported some adventure groups in his own name, and these were often only No. 100 An adventure group of hundreds of people marched eastward spontaneously.
Tsarist Russia's level of firearms at this time was not very high, and it might even be inferior to that of the Ottomans. In contrast, due to the highly pragmatic military reforms of the Ming Dynasty, the overall level of firearms was higher than that of Tsarist Russia at this time.
Of course, the Ming Dynasty and Tsarist Russia are still far apart. Even if Tsarist Russia crazily advances eastward, the most they can encounter is the Tumote tribe, which became powerful after the victory in the Battle of Yuan Dynasty. And Tsarist Russia has more firearms than Tumut is still much taller - at least Tsarist Russia's "shooting army" has been established for almost fifty years now.
Even so, the Chahar Ministry has gained Yarkand and Hami areas in recent years, and its strength has recovered quickly. It will always have no problem at all to defeat Tsarist Russia's adventurous team.
However, the Sultan's envoy did not know this. He believed that this tribe that claimed to be the orthodox Yuan Dynasty might have a total population of only more than 400,000, and it would indeed be difficult to defeat the Czarist Russian advance team. Therefore, it is feasible and appropriate to provide them with some firearms, but... this cannot be free assistance and must be traded fairly.
Burihatu readily accepted the proposal of the Sudanese envoy, and immediately discussed the specific matters of the transaction seriously with the Sudanese envoy.
The economy of the Yarkand region has always been based on nomadism, and there are not many goods that can be provided to the Ottomans, and the Ottomans are not in short supply. However, Burihatu, who has experienced high pragmatic reforms and "Tumote reforms", has tried to take a new path in the past few years.
He actually started allocating manpower to farm in the Yinli Valley!
Of course, the Mongols in the Chahar tribe really have no interest in this. Most of the people assigned to farm by Burihatu are local people who were conquered by them. In addition, there are also some Han people who came all the way from the original left-wing Mongolia.
These Han people were kidnapped to the Chahar tribe a long time ago. Their status was very low at first, but now they are very precious, because almost all of them have become technicians - specialized in farming.
In addition to farming, they also grew cotton, and by the way, they also built Ming Dynasty looms to weave cloth with cotton. Now we have found the right path. The local conditions are extremely suitable for growing cotton. As a result, the yield is getting higher and higher year by year. The cotton cloth produced is sold to various Central Asian khanates and is very popular. It has become the flagship product of the Chahar tribe.
Although these Han people were taken away early and had not seen the Jenny spinning machine, their spinning efficiency was not very high. However, no matter how low it was, weaving cotton for trade was better than the original herding life. Too strong.
So the result of the discussion between Burihatu and the Sudanese envoy was to "exchange cotton for muskets". In this way, Burihatu found that the population currently controlled by the Chahar tribe was not enough.
Whether they hope to expand cotton cultivation or expand the textile industry, they are in desperate need of population now.
However, the population of Central Asia has always been relatively limited. Even if they conquer the Kazakh Khanate, Bukhara Khanate and other places westward, I am afraid they will not be able to capture many people. Moreover, these khanates are not in decline yet. They have just finished licking Chahar, who was wounded, did not dare to use force rashly.
What about the Northern Expedition to the Junggar tribe? Although Junggar is severely divided, their current combat effectiveness is not bad. Burihatu carefully tested it twice and launched two limited-scale operations, but found that the effect was not good - they are also a horseback nation, even if they win, they will not win. It's hard to catch a few people.
In this way, Burihatu had no choice but to turn his attention back to the Ming Dynasty again.
To be honest, Burihatu actually didn’t want to fight against Daming again, especially against Gao Pragmatic. This old rival is too difficult to deal with. Although his fighting methods are not particularly brilliant in Burihatu's opinion, his strength is all-round - he has taken care of the country first, and can rely on the Ming Dynasty to be so powerful that he can crush it. If strength is used, this means defeating ten groups with one force. No matter how clever and clever Burihatu is, there is really nothing he can do.
But this time, Burihatu got good news-Gao Pragmatic was not in the court! He went to North Korea half a year ago (the news transmission was delayed for some time).
The news that Burihatu received was that North Korea, a loyal vassal of the Ming Dynasty, was beaten to the point of near-annihilation by Japanese pirates. The Japanese pirates dispatched more than 200,000 troops. What is particularly worth mentioning is that these Japanese pirates possess sophisticated muskets.
Burihatu had seen enough of the power of muskets, so when he heard that the Japanese pirates had dispatched an army of 200,000 muskets (there was a misunderstanding), he immediately concluded that Gao Pragmatic's dispatch of troops this time was unlikely to lead to a quick victory, and at least there should be a fight. Two years.
Based on this judgment, Burihatu frantically urged the Ottoman Empire to provide large quantities of muskets, and traded all the cotton cloth he could spare. At the same time, he also accelerated the training progress, using his past experience of being defeated by the highly pragmatic firearms army to inspire the Mongolian warriors of the Chahar tribe, making them willing to give up bows and arrows and use muskets.
Revenge, this word is very useful in any martial nation. As a result, the Chahar Department's musketry training progressed rapidly, and the musketeer force expanded rapidly. Before sending troops this time, Burihatu had gathered 16,000 musketeers.
Although this ratio seems to be still not high compared to their so-called "hundred-thousand-thousand-strong army", with the advantage of cavalry still there, it is at least enough to compete with the local Ming army in Gansu.
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Yun Fuyue Yu" and "Cao Mianzi" for their rewards and support, thank you!
ps: I was typing again last night until I fell asleep. Fortunately, it was the weekend. I hurriedly rushed in the morning. The 5k chapter can pay off the 1k debt. Now I still owe 5k.
