In the Wenyuan Pavilion, a cabinet meeting is being held in the small meeting hall on the left side of the main cabinet room.
Since the emperor had successively vetoed several suggestions by the new chief minister Gao Pangshi to add cabinet ministers, and with the departure of Wenhuadian University scholar Shen Guanyi a few days ago, there are now only three cabinet ministers in the cabinet: Zhongjidian University Shi Gao is pragmatic, Grand Scholar Zhao Zhigao of Jianji Palace, and Grand Bachelor Zhou Yong of Wuying Palace.
It goes without saying that Gao Pragmatic and Zhou Yong were both elders of the Real School. Zhao Zhigao, the second assistant, became the only representative of the Xin School in the cabinet. However, due to the aftermath of the "Medicinal Diet Case", Zhao Zhigao's son was accused of collecting and embezzling salt taxes, forcing this important minister of the Heart School to surrender to Gao Pragmatic, and actually changed his stance against the Real School.
In this way, the current cabinet finally no longer has to quarrel, and everything can be done according to the pragmatic attitude of the chief minister. However, there was a little surprise today. When Gao Jingshi took out a bullet and showed it to Zhao Zhigao, the elder who was born in Nanbang did not speak for a long time.
This bullet was fired by Xu Sanwei, the governor of Gansu. He impeached Liu Wei, the admiral of the Western Expedition and the chief military officer of Sichuan, for his incompetence in the battle and let Buri Hatu, the Meng Yuan Taishi of the Chahar tribe, escape. At the same time, he also accused Liu Wei of disobeying military orders. It was precisely because he failed to report his movements in time and used troops privately that he led the Burihatu tribe to "calmly break out of the encirclement" and so on.
As the governor of Gansu, Xu Sanwei's accusations against Liu Wei were undoubtedly serious. Because if he goes by what he said, Liu Wei not only offended the tradition and authority of civil servants in commanding the army, but also caused serious consequences. There was a great disparity between the civil and military status of the Ming Dynasty. If Liu Wei was found guilty, it would not be too much to be sentenced to death for both crimes.
So, why didn't Zhao Zhigao speak? Because before this bullet, Liu Wei's victory report had already been delivered to the cabinet. In the book reporting victory, Liu Wei described in detail the process of using troops after he sent troops to Gansu. If his description is true, then it should be that he made great achievements and was not "incompetent in combat".
According to Liu Wei, when he arrived at Shandanwei not far east of Ganzhou, he received instructions from Xu Sanwei, the governor of Gansu. In the letter, Xu Sanwei asked him to pursue the enemy who had just arrived from Ganzhou. The main force of the Burihatu tribe withdrew from the city and escaped.
At that time, Liu Wei's troops were not fully present, and there were only 30,000 forwards around him. He might not be able to forcefully pursue the main force of Buri Hatu, and there was even the risk of being severely defeated by Buri Hatu. However, considering that the order of the governor of Gansu could not be ignored, Liu Wei decided to take the enemy by surprise and led his eight thousand cavalry to attack Suzhou over the mountains and ridges.
After two days of hard work, Liu Ping's troops arrived at Weilu Fort, not far from Suzhou. He joined the "local militia" in Weilubao and launched a raid on Suzhou, during which he also eliminated a group of Mongolian exploration horses.
Due to the sudden arrival of Liu Wei's troops, the Mongolian army in Suzhou City was caught off guard and lost control. They were killed before they had time to close the outer city gate. However, things did not always go smoothly. The Mongolian army closed the gate of Wengcheng at the last moment, causing Liu Wei's army to fail in their plan to break through the city in one fell swoop. The army had to forcibly blast the gate open with artillery against the suppression of firepower from three sides in Wengcheng. This caused Liu Ping's army to pay the price of more than two hundred elite cavalry before they could enter the city.
After entering the city, it was not smooth. A fierce battle broke out between the Mongolian army and Liu Wei's troops who had woken up. At this time, Liu Wei discovered that the Mongolian troops in the city were not all cavalry, but there were many musketeers. These ignorant musketeers wielded quite good muskets and fired after Luchai and Jima, causing considerable casualties to all Liu Ping's cavalry troops.
Fortunately, Liu Wei reacted in time. He first mobilized the "Weilubao Militia" to set up a musket formation to shoot at them, and then personally led an elite cavalry force to penetrate the flank line and go around to the Mongolian army musket position on the main street to launch a fierce attack. Defeated the main force of the Mongolian army in the city.
After the main force of the Mongolian army was defeated, the defeated army fled in two directions. Fleeing all the way to the west to Jiayuguan to establish a defense line, fleeing all the way to the east behind Liu Wei's tribe to look for the main force of the Mongolian army, the Burihatu tribe.
Liu Wei's troops suffered considerable losses in the city. Among the 8,000 cavalry and more than 2,000 "Weilubao militia" on hand, about 500 were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded. The number of available troops was reduced by nearly 20%, which was not enough to continue to regain the existing territory. Jiayuguan, which was on guard, was unable to leave the city to pursue the enemy forces to the east - after all, they might still encounter the main force of Burihatu here.
Therefore, Liu Wei could only strengthen the city defense immediately after clearing out the remaining enemies in Suzhou City, and prepare for the main offensive of Burihatu.
This judgment was quite timely, because early the next morning the main force of Buri Hatu had already rushed to Suzhou City. At this time, Burihatu already knew that he had been tricked by Liu Wei, and it was obvious that he came with hatred. As soon as he arrived at the foot of Suzhou City, he vowed to conquer Suzhou. His entire army of about 60,000 people camped outside the range of the Ming army's artillery and launched a forceful attack.
Fortunately, it was getting late at this time. After firing artillery on the Suzhou City Tower to frighten the Mongolian army, Burihatu had to call off the attack in the face of darkness. However, Liu Wei and his party took advantage of the last sunlight and detected through the telescope that the Mongolian army had begun to prepare siege equipment.
Faced with this situation, Liu Wei did not dare to be careless. That night, while arranging people to prepare for the Mongolian army's night attack on the city, he also took inventory of gunpowder, artillery and other supplies in Suzhou City to prepare for the fierce attack of the Mongolian army tomorrow.
However, early the next morning, an accident happened. The Mongolian army camp had withdrawn for more than ten miles without knowing when, and it did not come out to fight until half of the morning, as if some conspiracy was brewing.
Liu Wei waited for another half an hour and saw that the Mongolian army camp was still dead silent. Finally, he couldn't help but stay up late at night and not let more than 20 people out of the camp to investigate. As a result, the Mongolian army camp was deserted. The 60,000-strong army disappeared without a trace. Wooden dummies were placed at the camp gates and other places that might be detected by the Ming army's telescopes. The dummies were wearing tattered combat uniforms. A, from a distance, it looks like everything is business as usual for the Mongolian army.
Only then did Liu Wei realize that Burihatu had tricked the golden cicada into escaping last night, and the Mongolian army had already taken a detour and escaped. Now, the two of them were in a tie to a certain extent, and they were plotting against each other.
After Burihatu left, Liu Wei remembered something: Although the Hexi Corridor is a "corridor," Suzhou is just a city in the corridor, and it is not built in the middle of a pass to block the passage. More than a hundred miles around Suzhou City are "corridors" that can be passed by the Mongolian army.
In other words, as long as Burihatu is not really determined to capture Suzhou again, he can always bypass Suzhou and ignore Liu Wei's tribe in Suzhou city.
Damn, that was a mistake.
Liu Wei immediately realized this, but it was of no use. The plan to intercept Burihatu's main force had gone bankrupt. He regretted it very much at the moment, and realized later that if he really wanted to block Burihatu's path, he should have continued to attack Jiayuguan regardless of casualties yesterday - Jiayuguan is the real pass. Once captured, Burihatu would be in trouble. It has formed a trend of closing the door and beating the dog.
Of course, whether the dog can be beaten or not is another matter.
In short, the current situation is that Suzhou has indeed been recovered, but Burihatu still has the initiative to evacuate at any time. He can even choose to join the Mongolian army from the direction of Jiayuguan and fight back to Suzhou again.
Liu Yao thought about it and realized that the strength he had at hand was indeed not enough to attack Jiayuguan at this moment, so he had to send all the troops to stay at night, contact Ganzhou to mobilize the army to Suzhou, and then decide how to regain Jiayuguan depending on the situation.
Ganzhou received news from Liu Wei two days later. When Xu Sanwei learned that Liu Wei had made a surprise attack to recapture Suzhou, he was overjoyed at first, but then his face became gloomy and he sternly rejected Liu Wei's request to mobilize the Ganzhou army to go to Suzhou.
Not only that, he also publicly accused Liu Wei of making a mistake in predicting the enemy and letting Buri Hatu's troops withdraw to Jiayuguan intact. According to what he said, the main force of the Burihatu tribe suffered no losses but controlled the crucial Jiayuguan Pass. This was like the northwest throat of the Ming Dynasty being controlled by one hand. It could advance, attack, retreat or defend, while the Ming Dynasty had to face the Jiayuguan Pass. The Mongolian army may make surprise attacks and harass them eastward at any time.
In particular, Xu Sanwei believed that if Jiayuguan was not recovered, Suzhou would be in danger. Xu Sanwei became more and more angry as he talked, saying that it was not just Suzhou. Since the strength of the Mongolian army in Jiayuguan was still there, once the Ganzhou army was transferred to Suzhou, the Mongolian soldiers would rely on their mobility advantage and might even consider using the plank road to secretly infiltrate Chencang. : On the one hand, they deceived the Ming army in Suzhou City and used various means to force the main force of the Suzhou Ming army to remain on the defensive; on the other hand, they used the main force to attack Ganzhou.
By then, Ganzhou's main force has moved west to Suzhou, and the city's defenses are empty. The Mongolian army may take advantage of it and be attacked by surprise, just like Liu Wei's recapture of Suzhou. Can you, Mr. Liu, be able to shoulder this responsibility?
The Ganzhou garrison refused to obey the order and was pinned down in the city by Xu Sanwei and was not allowed to send troops. When the rest of Liu Wei's troops, who had just marched from Shandan Guard to Ganzhou, heard the news, the whole army was furious. Liu Tianfen could not suppress the violent temper in the army, so he had no choice but to ignore Xu Sanwei's strict orders and led the remaining vanguard army of more than 20,000 people from Liu Wei's tribe to the west to join Liu Wei in Suzhou - this is why Xu Sanwei accused Liu Wei's troops of disobeying military orders. The origin of.
Liu Wei, who had been waiting in Suzhou for several days, only waited for the remnants of his vanguard army to arrive. He was so angry that he cursed Xu Sanwei, saying that he lived up to his name and really "feared" the enemy like a tiger. At this time, I'm still worried that Burihatu is going to make a surprise attack on Ganzhou!
According to what Liu Wei said when he scolded Xu Sanwei in front of his subordinates, Burihatu was not even willing to attack Suzhou, which had just been captured. How could he turn around from Jiayuguan and bypass Suzhou to attack Ganzhou! Besides, the most critical question is, what’s the point of him going to fight Ganzhou at this time?
Think about it, if the main force of the Mongolian army goes to attack Ganzhou, Jiayuguan will be empty of troops. At this time, the main force of the Ming army is in Suzhou. As long as the main force of the Ming army goes to capture Jiayuguan, wouldn't the main force of Burihatu be blocked in the Hexi Corridor and unable to fly? ? Is there anyone in the world who is stupid enough to fight like this? If there really is such a fool, it wouldn't be Buri Hatu, it could only be you, Xu Sanwei!
Of course, Xu Sanwei wouldn't really be that stupid. The reason why he wanted to do this was ultimately to convince Liu Wei and let Liu Wei know that his title of "Admiral of the Conquest of the West" was not useful in Gansu, and he still had to obey the command of the governor of Gansu!
Although in theory, the governor and the general soldier cannot be directly distinguished because of their civil and military differences, the reality is that the governor, who may have a lower rank, can order the general soldier who is nominally higher in rank. Therefore, although Xu Sanwei's approach was rough, after this happened in the past, the court would most likely protect the governor and force the generals to surrender.
Liu Wei knew the imperial court's usual temperament, so he knew that his subordinates' disobedience to Xu Sanwei's orders had created problems for him. He could only quickly write a victory letter and send it to the capital first, hoping that Gao Yuan's assistant would be able to see through it at a glance. For this reason, reach out and give yourself a helping hand.
His caution did work. Gao Pragmatic immediately discovered something was wrong after receiving the victory letter. However, Gao pragmatic did not act immediately. Instead, he waited for Xu Sanwei's memorial to arrive. After comparing the two, he thoroughly understood the root cause, and then convened a meeting with the other two cabinet ministers.
At the meeting, Gao Pragmatic first took out Liu Wei's victory report. Needless to say, Zhou Yong naturally said that Liu Wei's surprise attack was very successful. Although Jiayuguan has not yet been recovered, as soon as the main force of the Western Expeditionary Army arrives, Jiayuguan will surely be recovered sooner or later. Zhao Zhigao was not very willing to praise Liu Wei, but because he had already given in to Gao Pragmatism, he had no choice but to reluctantly say that Liu Wei did a good job and "we will see the consequences later."
Then, Gao pragmatically took out Xu Sanwei's bullet. At this moment, Zhao Zhigao's face turned ugly.
There is a situation here that cannot be ignored: Zhao Zhigao is from Jinhua, Zhejiang, and Xu Sanwei is from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Although they are not in the same year, at least they are both from Nanbang, and they are both from the Xin School. It's one of our own.
Now here comes the problem. Although the things Xu Sanwei said in this bullet should be "facts", everyone has just discussed Liu Wei's actions and "agreed" that he did a good job. Now that the words are still ringing in my mind, if I immediately turn my back on Xu Sanwei's impeachment and say that Liu Wei has a problem, wouldn't that mean I'm slapping myself in the face? It’s really too embarrassing.
Gao Pingshi looked at Zhao Zhigao's complexion with an expressionless expression, and couldn't help but feel amused. Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly saw Zhao Zhigao sighing and saying: "It is really taboo to have civil and military disharmony before the battle, Yuan Fu... "
"Yes!" Gao Pingshi immediately cut off the second half of Zhao Zhigao's sentence and nodded: "Liu Wei is the admiral selected by the imperial court to conquer the west. He is responsible for the subsequent operations, but he cannot change his generals on the spot because of this. It seems..."
He pretended to be very sorry and sighed, "I have to wrong Xu Lizhai and move."
Zhao Zhigao's expression changed, as if he couldn't believe his ears, and asked: "What? Yuan Fu wants to change his position to Fujun to be a military minister? Yuan Fu, I'm afraid this will have endless consequences, please think twice."
Gao pragmatic smiled slightly and said: "Second assistant, don't be anxious, just listen to what I have to say."
——
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
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PS: My son no longer has a fever. He just still has a cough. He should be fine soon... I hope so.
(End of chapter)
