With the establishment of Turpan as a province, the remnants of the Jungar people fled westward in confusion, and the empire's western border became more stable.
Under such circumstances, the empire's senior officials naturally turned their attention to the northern region.
The north of the Chu Empire is not empty now, there are also some local uncivilized indigenous people and Russians.
Among them, the Russians pose the greatest threat. They are now entrenched in the middle and lower reaches of the Lena River and the Yenisei River. In recent years, they have engaged in relatively frequent battles with the Chu army around the upper reaches of these two rivers and their tributaries. .
A few years ago, the Chu army tried to march from the upper reaches of the Lena River in an attempt to completely expel the local Russian colonists. However, due to supply difficulties, it was not suitable to fight in the extremely cold areas of the north. The most important thing was that the strategic focus of the Chu Empire was also Not in these bitter cold places in the north.
Therefore, they failed to capture Yakutsk, the core city of the Russians on the Lena River, and finally had to withdraw due to supply problems and severe cold problems.
However, although it failed to capture Yakutsk, it also severely damaged Russia's colonial system in the area east of Lake Baiga.
In battles that lasted for many years, the Chu army successively captured the city of Kiliansk in northern Baikal and the upper reaches of the Lena River, and also captured the two cities of Bratsk in the northwest of Lake Baikal and along the eastern branch of the upper reaches of the Yenisey. A city with a certain strategic position.
In addition, it also thwarted the Russians' attempt to invade the Heilongjiang Basin and the Pacific coast. In the past few years, these Russians ran all the way to the Pacific coast through some small river tributaries and some dry roads, which is the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. settlement...
Because there was no one there in the cold weather, the Chu Empire didn't notice it for a while. It wasn't until a year later that a small fleet of the navy came here for navigation training and it was discovered that there was an extra building in the place. Russian port city.
Immediately afterwards, the Chu army mobilized its fleet and ground forces to directly land and kill the more than 200 Russian colonists who stayed in the area.
From then on, the Chu Empire began to take the initiative to build a number of fortresses and ports in these coastal areas to prevent the Russians from coming over to establish colonies, and sent troops to conduct searches and investigations.
But accidentally, I discovered that these Russians had gone to the northern coast of Kamchatka Peninsula and built a coastal city. When I inquired, well, this ruined colony had been there for more than half a year.
This disgusts the Chu Empire!
After destroying this coastal stronghold of the Russians without saying a word, the Chu Empire began to carefully consider the issue of whether to resume the strategy of earlier years, which was to completely control the Lena River Basin to prevent Russia from continuing to move. East penetration.
Damn, these Russians don't have much fighting power, but they are always evil. Moreover, Siberia's vast territory, sparse population, and inconvenient transportation will also make it difficult for the Chu army to detect the Russian colonial trends in time. Sometimes Russia establishes there. It took the colony a year or two to discover...
This is very disgusting.
If this continues, these Russians will be like rats, one will be killed but another one will pop up within a few days.
For this reason, the senior leaders of the Dachu Empire had to reconsider the Lena River strategy that failed a few years ago.
As long as we can remove several Russian strongholds in the Lena River, replace them, and then send river warships to patrol, it will be enough to detect Russia's eastward advance and intercept it in time.
And after taking control of the Lena River, it doesn't matter even if the opponent secretly crosses the Lena River. Anyway, a small number of Russians ran over, but without follow-up organized and large-scale support and supplies, sooner or later it will be a dead end.
In addition, after capturing the Lena River, the Chu Empire can focus on the offensive in the Yenisey River Basin. Once the Yenisey River Basin is attacked, these Russians may have no intention of continuing to advance eastward.
If all goes well, the Chu army will even be able to capture the Yenisei River Basin and then connect this area with the Western Region to the south.
And pushed the western border to the Ob River and its upper tributary Irtysh River Basin.
If this can be done, it will be of historic significance to the Central Plains Dynasty!
Because this means that the border problems in the northern grasslands that have troubled the Central Plains Dynasty for thousands of years will be able to be completely solved.
Conquering the northern grasslands and defeating some nomadic groups cannot completely solve the problem of border troubles in the north. Otherwise, this problem would have been solved long ago in the past thousands of years, especially during the Han and Tang Dynasties.
But no!
Because the Central Plains Dynasty did not completely rule the northern grasslands, the nomads in the north were like leeks. After one crop was cut, another crop would pop up soon.
Luo Zhixue’s idea is to directly immigrate to the above-mentioned places.
Relying on several major rivers, namely the Heilongjiang, Lena, Yenisey, Ob and Irtysh rivers, they migrated, built cities, and settled farming.
Turn these places into farming lands for the Chinese people in order to achieve complete actual control.
Implement administrative rule in conjunction with the fixed herding system to prevent the emergence of new uncontrolled large-scale nomadic tribes.
Finally, military force was used to suppress and exterminate the remaining tribes in the above areas.
After completing this whole process, Luo Zhixue feels that there is great hope to completely solve the problem of border troubles in the north for the Chinese region.
Of course, Russia needs to be expelled before that!
After all, strictly speaking, the enemies of the Chu Empire in the north are no longer nomads, but the Russians.
Now Zhungeer has been crippled by the Chu army and can only retreat to Lake Balkhash and the upper reaches of the Irtysh River. There are only 200,000 of his tribesmen, including men, women, old and young, left, and there is news that , after they moved westward, they competed with Kazakhstan for territory, and the two sides were already fighting.
The threat from the Western Region has been eliminated!
And Mobei Mongolia completely defected to the empire early.
Under such circumstances, Luo Zhixue felt that the time was ripe.
In February of the 20th year of Chengshun, the northern issue was formally discussed at the imperial military meeting held by Luo Zhixue.
During the meeting, after discussions among many ministers, a new round of northern strategy was officially finalized.
This time the northern plan is different from the previous one that was limited to the Lena River. It not only covers the Lena River Basin, but also the Yenisei River Basin.
The initial strategic goal was to completely expel all Russian barbarians in the areas east of the Yenisey River Basin, and to colonize and build cities in the above-mentioned areas, in order to actually control the areas east of the Yenisey River and make them inseparable from the empire. a part of.
In order to completely solve the problem of border troubles in the north.
If it can be done, there is no doubt that this will be the most gorgeous chapter in Chinese history.
Because from ancient times to the present, including later generations... no dynasty has ever been able to fundamentally solve the problem in the north... The enemies have changed one after another, but the threat from the north has always existed and has never disappeared!
Well, not counting the Yuan Dynasty, they were originally a frontier invader in the north...but the attack here was so fierce that it occupied the Central Plains...and suddenly became what some people call the orthodox dynasty of the Central Plains!
What Luo Zhixue has to do is to completely solve the problem of border troubles in the north, which is much more difficult than colonization in Nanyang. It requires not only strong military power, but also strong national power as a guarantee.
Because it is useless to defeat the enemy in the north for a while, the vast northern region must be controlled practically and completely.
This will be a big issue that combines military and civil affairs.
What is needed is not only military victory by the military, but also the coordination of various administrative measures from the cabinet. Both are indispensable.
After the Northern Strategy Conference in February finalized the general strategic plan, the senior leaders of the Da Chu Empire also began to take action.
As the saying goes, food and grass must be put in place before troops and horses are deployed. Before embarking on such a large-scale northern strategy, funds must be in place.
The first batch of funds, 5 million Chu Yuan, was prepared immediately. These funds were only the first funds and were used as special war expenses to mobilize troops in advance, maintain logistics lines, and hoard supplies for early needs.
Although there are not many troops participating in the war in the northern region, the expenses are not small, especially the logistics expenses will definitely be extremely huge!
In the past, the scale of the battles in the northern region was not large. Most of the battles between the Chu army and the Russians in areas such as the Lena River were actually small and medium-sized battles involving hundreds of people and thousands of people.
So far, neither side has fought even a single battle with more than 5,000 troops on each side!
This distance is too far, and the local climate and environment are very harsh. With current transportation technology, it is very difficult to maintain the logistical supply of a large-scale force thousands of kilometers away. If we have to maintain a large-scale force, the cost will be It would be very scary.
This is true for the Chu army, and it is also true for the Russians.
In fact, the food and grass expenses of the local garrison are usually settled through cultivation and grazing on the spot. What is transported from the rear is usually weapons, ammunition, clothing, tents and other materials. There is not much food and grass...
If grain and grass have to be transported thousands of miles from the North China Plain to the rear, with the current transportation technology, we might as well stop fighting... just go home and farm.
However, if the Chu army wanted to capture the Lena and Yenisei river basins, it would inevitably have to use more troops. If more troops were needed, on-site cultivation and grazing on the front line would not be able to meet the needs of the army.
As for sending fewer troops, that's not okay... After all, there are actually a lot of Russians in the area.
After decades of continuous migration, there are at least hundreds of thousands of them in the Yenisey River Basin and the areas east of it.
Except for a few of these immigrants who are in the army, the young and strong among the other immigrants can also be armed. They cannot engage in offensive operations, but they can still be used in defensive operations.
This is similar to overseas immigration in most countries. The young people who have immigrated can basically be used as militiamen.
The Dachu Empire organized immigrants to Malacca, and all the young immigrants were organized into militia groups and issued basic weapons... This gave them not just matchlocks and cold weapons, but a lot of them. Retired old 2-year-old flintlocks were issued to these militiamen.
The purpose of issuing weapons to militias is mainly to allow them to deal with local indigenous people, and secondly to assist the regular army in defensive operations when attacked by the enemy's regular army.
The Chu Empire did this, and the Russians were no exception...
In fact, those Russians who dare to immigrate to Siberia these days are poor people at the bottom who cannot survive.
They had nothing to ask for, or after arriving in Siberia, they grabbed a piece of land and livelihood from the local natives.
For the sake of land and livelihood, they really dare to risk their lives.
In addition, among the people who come to Siberia, there are still quite a few desperadoes who only have money in their eyes. Not to mention these people, who are typical of people who want money rather than their lives, such as those Cossack mercenaries.
The Chu cavalry fought with them many times and concluded that these barbarians were difficult to deal with... Although their weapons and equipment were not very good, they were very brave and were particularly good at inland river warfare.
Trivia: The most powerful thing about Cossacks these days is not horseback combat, but inland river warfare. The Russian dignitaries hired Cossacks to come to Siberia to serve as armed forces. What they valued was their inland warfare ability. As for the cavalry combat ability, that was incidental!
Finally, the Russians can also obtain part of the local indigenous soldiers!
Because the Russians also controlled a large number of the local indigenous population and recruited soldiers from the indigenous people.
The Russians' eastern expansion is different from the overseas colonization of other countries. After defeating the local indigenous regimes by force, they usually establish ruling institutions on the spot to rule and naturalize the local indigenous people... and they are different from the British and French who treated the indigenous people in the colonies as outsiders. Similarly, the Russians adopt an assimilation policy and turn all the indigenous people into their own people...
This is also the main reason why the Russians were able to expand from Europe all the way to the Pacific coast in just a few decades. Their colonial policies were relatively loose and acceptable to the ordinary local indigenous people.
Of course, this is also because there are not many indigenous people in Siberia, only a few hundred thousand in total. The Russians can assimilate... If the Russians go to India to colonize, they will face hundreds of millions The third brother probably doesn’t have the guts to play with the assimilation policy.
Just like the Great Chu Empire did not dare to engage in any kind of enlightenment in several colonial strongholds in India... Without him, there are too many indigenous people in this poor place. If they really try to assimilate, they still don’t know who will assimilate whom.
Therefore, the Chu Empire did not engage in any civilizing policy in its colonies in India. It basically consisted of garrison troops and militia working together to gradually expel the indigenous people piece by piece, and then immigrate from the country for farming.
As for the puppet areas controlled by the Da Chu Empire outside the directly affiliated overseas territories, they adopted agent colonial rule similar to that of the British, focusing on plundering economic benefits.
No matter what kind of overseas expansion policy it is, in the end, there will inevitably be a large number of people and indigenous troops.
If the Chu army were to attack Russian immigrant settlements on a large scale, in addition to the Russian colonial army, the enemies it would face would also face a large number of Russian militiamen and the indigenous troops they recruited.
If the offensive troops or firepower are insufficient, it is very likely that they will not be able to penetrate!
The Chu army's previous attempt to attack the Russian stronghold on the Lena River failed because they underestimated the Russians' mobilization ability and thought that there were only one or two thousand enemy troops defending the city on the opposite side.
As a result, although their army only had one or two thousand, they were armed with thousands of militiamen... In the end, the Chu army fell short due to too few troops and insufficient firepower and was forced to withdraw.
If the Northern Strategy is launched this time, the Chu Empire Army will definitely not make the same mistakes as before!
They are now counting the number of enemy troops...not just the enemy's regular army, but also the youth and even the population.
Just like when they estimated the military strength of the Jungar people before, they estimated it directly based on the population of the other party... because these nomads played the game of using all the people as soldiers.
The men of his clan are taller than the chariot wheels, and those who have not lost all their teeth can ride a horse and fight the Chu army...
Therefore, you will see the Zhungeer headquarters and the combined tribes. These nomadic tribes have a combined population of only a few hundred thousand, but the Chu army mobilized an army of 200,000 to fight a Zhungeer!
Because even though they only have a population of a few hundred thousand, they have all the people in the army, and the number of people who take weapons to the battlefield is at least hundreds of thousands.
If the Chu army has fewer troops, it is possible that it will overturn!
This time, the Chu army treated the Russian colonists as nomads who were all soldiers. Regardless of the combat effectiveness of these young colonists, they were counted among the regular army first, and then their own side was fully prepared. That's right.
Doing this will naturally cost a lot of money!
It's not about how much direct military expenditures there are. After all, no matter how large the number of troops is, it is estimated that tens of thousands of people will be able to support the sky.
But in order to maintain military operations on the front line, a complete logistics supply route must be established in the rear.
Then consider resettlement and settlement.
Then the entire northern strategy is no longer a purely military issue, but a comprehensive issue that combines military, immigration and development.
That's why it costs so much money.
The Chu Empire wanted not only to defeat Russia and regain large areas of the north in name, but to actually rule these places.
These two concepts are completely different, and the expenses are also very different.
The first batch of 5 million Chu Yuan funds is just preliminary preparation funds. When the plan really starts, tens of millions will definitely be poured in in the following years.
As the imperial center finalized the northern strategic plan, the war machine of the Dachu Empire was activated again!
It's just that the early stage has nothing to do with the war. Instead, it's all concentrated on the rear!
For example, in the north, a small arsenal will be built in the 'Kur City' (Inrkutsk) on the bank of the Angara River, the upper branch of the Yenisey River, to produce ammunition, cold weapons, muskets, and even some simple weapons on site. artillery.
Although the output cannot be large, it can replenish the frontline army to some extent.
After all, if all weapons and ammunition had to be transported from the rear, it would be far away, not to mention expensive, and extremely expensive.
Therefore, it is very cost-effective to directly establish a small arsenal locally to provide weapons and ammunition to the frontline army on the spot.
The Chu Empire had done this before when it was in the Western Regions. The Lanzhou Arsenal, the Jiayuguan Arsenal, and the Turpan Arsenal and the Yinli Arsenal, which have just started construction, are all very typical small arsenals established purely for frontline operations. arsenal.
The purpose is to solve the problem that transporting weapons and ammunition from the rear is too far and too expensive.
If an arsenal is built on site in the city of Kur, then weapons and ammunition can be supplied directly from the local area to the garrison in the Yenisey River Basin. They can also be transported by land for a certain distance before entering the upper reaches of the Lena River, and then the weapons can be transported down the river. Ammunition was transported to the garrison in the Lena River Valley for use.
Building an arsenal here can radiate most of Siberia nearby, and the strategic role it can play is very large.
As for safety, there is no need to worry about it. This place was originally the most important fortress city of the Chu Empire in the Lake Baikal area (Little Beihai), and it was also the most important settlement area. It has more than 3,000 troops and thousands of troops stationed all year round. migrant.
It is also the seat of Xiaobeihai Mansion.
The Little Beihai Prefecture of the Great Chu Empire was also the former Beihai Prefecture. However, since the Great Chu Empire officially called the Sea of Japan the North Sea, Lake Baikal was renamed the 'Little Beihai', which incidentally surrounded Lake Baikal. The Beihai Prefecture established in the area was also renamed Xiao Beihai Prefecture.
Xiaobeihai Prefecture is directly under the jurisdiction of Mobei Province. It is also the largest prefecture-level institution in the Chu Empire currently under its jurisdiction... Its actual control area is more than 1,200 kilometers from north to south... from east to west... The maximum width reaches more than 800 kilometers.
It includes the entire Little North Sea, which is Lake Baikal, and its northern end extends to more than 600 kilometers away from the northernmost tip of Lake Baikal, and also covers a large area in the southeast of Lake Baikal.
The total area is more than 700,000 square kilometers!
However, the small Beihai Mansion, which is so large, does not have many ordinary people under its jurisdiction. The total number is more than 20,000, including local administrative officials, which is not as many as the local garrison...
There is nothing we can do about it. It is difficult to attract domestic immigrants in the bitterly cold north. Some of them are prisoners organized by the government and sentenced to exile, and some are businessmen. Although the north is bitterly cold, it is rich in fur resources. Many fur merchants will Run over and buy the fur.
Over time, many people have naturally settled in the area.
Finally, there are also various risk-takers and speculators who want money but not their lives.
The mess of people, plus administrative officials and their family records, made up just over 20,000 people.
This is not unique to Xiao Beihai Mansion. In fact, this situation is very common in the northern region. People's sense of these places is not even as good as the Western Region.
Many people would rather immigrate to the Western Regions than immigrate to the North.
After all, there are still a few large oases in the Western Region that can be cultivated normally, or you can enclose a piece of land to graze and become a herdsman or something.
But in the north...especially the northernmost Xiaobeihai Prefecture and several newly established prefectures in the north of Heishuilong, it is a really bitter and cold place.
This year, half of the year is winter...and the temperature in winter can easily reach dozens of degrees below zero.
Under normal circumstances, no one would want to go there and suffer.
Even if you can't survive and have to immigrate, there are still a lot of places to choose from. Not to mention overseas, not to mention some places in the south of China, even Liaobei Province in the north and southern Heishui Province are better than places like Xiaobeihai Province. ah!
The harsh natural environment has greatly affected the empire's immigration settlement in the north, which has also resulted in the local general population never being able to increase.
Strictly speaking, there are not as many immigrants from the Chu Empire in the north as there are from Russia... After all, there are a lot of people in Russia who can't survive and have nowhere to go, so they can only come to Siberia to make a living.
It would normally take a long time to increase the local population.
What the senior leaders of the Da Chu Empire have to do is to shorten this time!
Shortened by what?
What else can you rely on, throw money at it!
As long as the money is in place and other supporting policies are implemented, organizing a certain number of official immigrants will not be a big problem in the past.
