Despite this, the Ottoman Empire's army clearly felt that their opponent's morale was very high, contrary to the feeling they had when they first entered the Volga River.
At that time, the morale of the Ming army was low, and there were constant rebellions and people came to join the Ottoman Empire. However, later on, it seemed that when the troops reached the lower reaches of the Volga River, even the tribes that were in contact, still negotiating terms, and wanted to betray the Ming Army suddenly lost contact. Not to mention, the Ming Army's The resistance was obviously desperate and greatly hindered the advance of the forward line.
At the beginning, Koprulu didn't know about this situation. With the smooth progress, he has always been relatively proud. That Abbas II explained how powerful the army was, but when he led the army to attack, it felt like nothing more than that!
Of course, in the meantime, the former Mughal Odom did give him a lot of useful suggestions, reminding him of some of the combat characteristics of the Ming army, which enabled him to make targeted deployments. Therefore, he liked Odom much more, pardoned Odom's slave status, and gave him the official position of an attendant to accompany him to encourage him to make better plans.
However, later on, the changes in the Ming army were passed on level by level. When they arrived at Mingwei Fort, Koprulu finally felt it.
This was not only the feedback from the soldiers below, but also the feeling of watching the enemy formation in person. He was very confused about this and asked Odom next to him, what was going on? It's impossible. The Ming army is relatively cheap. The stronger the enemy, the more disadvantaged it is, but the higher its fighting spirit will be, right?
"Prime Minister, I think that the enemy in front of us may have changed." Odom thought for a while and then replied, "The morale of the soldiers from their Ming country will be much higher. I think that, It is possible that they moved the soldiers with high morale to the front, and those who were afraid and did not dare to fight with the Prime Minister were moved to the back."
After hearing this, Koprulu frowned slightly and thought for a moment, maybe this is also a possibility!
However, when he asked about the situation of the commander-in-chief of Ming Dynasty, Odom could not answer. He did not dare to deceive a man like Koprulu, so he had no choice but to reply: "This commander-in-chief of the Ming army has never been to the Mughals, so I don't know much about it. Please forgive me, Prime Minister!"
Of course, Koprulu would not blame him for this, so he began to enter the fighting mode, observing the enemy's position, testing the enemy, and so on.
On this day, the Ottoman Empire's sentinels finally captured a Ming army ranger alive, and then hurried over to report the situation to their commander.
"Sir, according to the confession of the Ming army, the reason why their morale is high is because their emperor is a living god! They are fighting for God!"
"What?" When Koprulu heard this, he immediately sneered and sneered, "This is really a joke!"
"Sir, they said that just about ten days ago, an angel came from the capital of the Ming Dynasty to convey an imperial edict to them and predicted what we were going to attack."
"Oh?" Keprulu frowned after hearing this. This answer was a bit beyond his expectation. After a little calculation in his mind, although he didn't know how far the capital of the Ming Dynasty was from here, he roughly estimated that when he first had the idea, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty needed to know about it in order to send a messenger about ten days in advance. Get here. But is this possible?
The answer is obviously impossible!
However, big shots generally don't jump to conclusions. Therefore, he turned to look at Odom and said, "You have always dealt with the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. What do you think?"
Odom heard this and said without thinking: "He is a devil, not a god!"
After he finished speaking, he saw Koprulu staring at him, and he became afraid again, so he quickly added: "He is the God of War, invincible, starting from our Mughal Kashmir, all the way to Bengal, and then from Bengal We have never been defeated in Kashmir..."
Hearing this, Koprulu was unhappy, and immediately interrupted with a cold shout: "That's enough, you Mughals [fo] are fighting in your own nest, giving the Ming Emperor an opportunity to take advantage of."
When the Mughal Empire was destroyed, he had already heard Odom tell the story of the whole thing. He believes that the real reason lies in the Mughal Empire itself. Pride and arrogance, intrigues, father and son killing each other, and self-sacrifice of troops allowed the Ming army to succeed!
"My lord is wise, it was Shah Jahan who was suspicious of the third prince, and the third prince was plotting to gain the throne, so the Ming army took advantage." Odom understood that his life depended on Koprulu's thoughts, he could take him After being promoted from a slave to an attendant, I can easily knock him back to his original form, and even kill him without any burden.
Therefore, when he saw that Koprulu disagreed with his conclusion, he quickly changed his mind. Of course, in his heart, he still thought that the Ming Emperor was really the God of War! Otherwise, why didn't Abbas II conquer the Mughal Empire?
Koprulu didn't care about Odom's changes, because in his eyes, Odom was just an ant. He quickly thought about the confessions of the Ming army, and based on his own experience and experience, he finally came to a conclusion: This was a trick by the commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty! This is used to boost the morale of the Ming army. This way, everything can be explained.
After understanding this, he didn't care anymore. Continue to target the Ming army's defense at Mingwei Fort and think of ways to launch an attack to see if they can eliminate the Ming army in one fell swoop.
Compared with the previous attack by the Russian army, the Ottoman Empire's army was much more advantageous this time. Because they were attacking upstream along the Volga River, there was no obstacle from the Volga River. In terms of geographical location, the Ming army did not take much advantage.
However, when it comes to human spirit, Hong Chengchou is definitely not weaker than Koplu Lu. Even in terms of fighting, it can be said that Hong Chengchou relied on fighting to soar up the officialdom and reach his current position.
Therefore, although the Ming army has a small number of troops, it cannot maintain high morale. You have a good plan, and I have a wall ladder. Anyway, I am no weaker than Koplu Lu at all times.
Even once, Hong Chengchou suddenly sent his elite troops to raid the Ottoman Empire's surrender headquarters. With just one blow, those traitors were defeated. The rout of these defeated soldiers even showed signs of affecting the Ottoman army's own formation.
Fortunately, Koprulu responded well and immediately sent out elite troops to intercept the Ming army's retreat. At the same time, he stood ready to shoot any defeated soldiers who dared to rush into the battle, and the situation was stabilized.
After this battle, Koprulu had a better understanding of the Ming army commander and knew that he was also a scheming guy.
So, he adjusted his tactics. Relying on his strong military strength, he surrounded and refused to attack the Ming army in Mingwei Fort. He also sent cavalry troops across the battlefield to the north to attack the weak points of the Ming Dynasty.
In this regard, Hong Chengchou certainly would not let him get what he wanted. While ordering the Ming Dynasty people in the north to retreat further north, he also sent elite cavalry to intercept the Ottoman Empire cavalry that raided north. In fact, most of them were from the Crimean Khanate. of cavalry.
The battle at Mingwei Fort could not tell the winner for a while, and it was a stalemate here.
In this way, the Ming army thought that if they persisted, the emperor would come to rescue them, and their morale was not reduced at all. On the contrary, the Ottoman Empire army lost its initial overwhelming momentum, and the high morale caused by this was of course affected to some extent.
……………………
In the south, another partial army of the Ottoman Empire also went south all the way at the beginning, literally picking up cities along the way and accepting the city from the Ming army.
When they arrived in Lahore, they encountered resistance from the Ming army. The Ming troops who retreated from various places were concentrated in Lahore.
Compared with Hong Chengchou's tactics, Wu Sangui's countermeasures were different. He himself was in charge of Lahore, while his deputy Li Laiheng led 5,000 cavalry troops and was hiding in Kashmir. As soon as the Ottoman army left, he started his performance by swarming in the enemy's rear.
Different from the plains in the Volga River Basin, this is a plateau and a mountainous area. Li Laiheng led the five thousand cavalry troops and never stayed. They attacked and killed a place and immediately ran away. They never stayed and even fought into the former Bukhara Khan. country’s boundaries. In short, after killing the Ottoman Empire's Southern Route Army, they simply couldn't concentrate on attacking Lahore.
And another thing is that Li Laiheng is a ruthless person, and he hates people who betray him the most. Therefore, he will not be merciful at all to those tribes who defected to the tribes because of the power of the Ottoman Empire, and will kill these tribes to annihilation.
With such a rear route, the Ottoman Empire's Southern Route Army had to send out a large number of troops to pursue and intercept Li Laiheng's troops.
However, Li Laiheng's troops were the most elite cavalry troops on the Ming army's side, and they were the headquarters of the Ming army that had stayed behind. If fewer cavalry from the Ottoman Empire came, or only vassal cavalry came, such as those miscellaneous troops, or the Crimean cavalry, as long as the strength of the troops was not very different, Li Laiheng's troops would not be able to stay at all.
Therefore, the Ottoman Empire's Southern Route Army was no longer invincible, and was in a stalemate with the Ming Army north of Lahore.
On the Persian Empire side, Abbas II was more cunning. He pushed eastward, and he was equally unstoppable. After encountering resistance, he stopped advancing eastward and instead turned around and headed north.
His move was really beyond Li Dingguo's expectations. Because Abbas II's arrival was tantamount to parting ways with the fleet at sea.
At this time, the Persian Empire's military strength was approximately one hundred thousand. Li Dingguo's army had the smallest strength among all the armies of the Ming Dynasty, with only about 30,000 troops including the miscellaneous troops.
If Li Dingguo led his troops to catch up, without the geographical advantage, the Persian army would probably turn around and kill a carbine. If they don't follow, the Persian army will really have to fight north, and the target is probably Delhi.
what to do? A difficult problem was placed in front of Li Dingguo.
