As the saying goes, there are five of the Four Heavenly Kings. This time, the Ming Dynasty conquered Mongolia in three ways. In fact, according to the actual route of sending troops, there were four ways.

The first route is naturally Liao Town, with 40,000 troops, led by generals such as Du Song and Xiao Bozhi. Although there are few soldiers on this route, almost all of them are servants of the major generals in Liao Town: Liao Town was the earliest warlord in the late Ming Dynasty.

Although Zhu Youdong quickly killed the Jurchens after they founded the country, and tried his best over the years to provide sufficient military pay to the important towns in Jiubian to prevent the war between military towns and soldiers. But this place in Liao Town is too special: the land and population

They are all equivalent to a medium-sized province within the pass, but they do not have a complete civil affairs bureaucracy. The whole place is a large military town, and the black land here is so vast. Therefore, the generals who have stayed here for a long time are all

It is inevitable to have a large number of servants.

This time, the Ministry of Household Affairs and other three departments jointly checked the quality of the soldiers. Although the passing rate of soldiers in Liao Town was very average, the number of qualified soldiers was the largest among the important towns in Jiubian: they were basically the servants of the generals who were guarding them.

The second route is the four guards of Jizhen, Jingying, Tengxiang and part of the new army. Its commander is Cao Wenzhao, and there are generals such as Mao Wenlong and Huang Degong under his command. As an important town to defend Beijing, Jizhen's warlordization is relatively small.

It is light, but this also leads to the low passing rate of soldiers in Ji Town this time. Only more than 13,000 soldiers in Ji Town passed the assessment this time. Including the Beijing Camp, Tengxiang Four Guards and other troops, it is not enough

Thirty thousand people. After being joined by the two new army towns of Cao Wenzhao and Huang Degong, the number of soldiers in this army was 60,000.

The third route is, of course, the West Route Army commanded by Man Gui. Because this route has the farthest offensive route, it is equipped with the largest number of troops. In addition to the 45,000 people in the three new army towns, there are also five separately drawn

Thousands of new army cavalry, as well as more than 30,000 soldiers from the five towns of Shanxi, Yansui, Ningxia, Guyuan, and Gansu. A total of 88,000, and their commander is Mangui.

The last route is the Middle Route Army, which is subordinate to Cao Wenzhao in terms of command, but in fact it marches independently. The soldiers from Xuanfu and Datong towns total 20,000 soldiers. Its commander is Li Rubai, the commander-in-chief of Datong Town.

, the generals under his command mainly include He Shixian, You Shiwei and others.

Although this route has the smallest number of people, Wang Xiangqian also considered whether to appropriately reinforce this route when deploying troops. However, both Ma Gui and Zhu Youdong from the Military Academy rejected Wang Xiangqian's consideration.

Ma Gui’s reason is that the Datong soldiers are not weak, and they are facing the Tumote tribe, whose combat effectiveness is relatively weaker than the Chahar tribe. As for Zhu Youdong, as a time traveler, of course he knows that He Shixian,

How fierce are Shaanxi people like You Shiwei who were born in Yulin? And although there are no new troops among the 40,000 servants in Liao Town, they have already taken the lead in completing the change of uniforms. This Xuanda army has neither changed its uniforms nor new troops.

Zhu Youdong wants to see what level he can perform with the help of the army.

Therefore, this army was the last large-scale expedition of pure Ming Dynasty original soldiers.

…

"Commander, there is news from the scouts ahead that the Mongols have escaped and have placed the carcasses of cattle and sheep in the rivers and ponds along the way."

"Humph! They are all using old tricks. After the order was sent, the engineering team, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry personnel, looked for new water sources and dug wells. After the well water came out, according to the food regulations of this troop dispatch, the medical team members used it first.

After microscopic monitoring, it is boiled, cooled, and administered to the horses. Then it is administered to the soldiers in small batches."

"Got the order!"

On March 1, 1620, Li Rubai swore an oath to fight in Datong. He encountered no obstacles along the way. By March 20, the entire army had marched to the Hetao Plain. The core area of ​​Qiantao was called Baotou in later generations.

The place.

"Is this the Jiuyuan County of the Han Dynasty? It is said that Lu Bu, the invincible flying general during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty, was born here."

"Hahaha, although Li Shuai is not from Shaanxi, he is very familiar with the customs and customs of our area."

"This general has served as the commander-in-chief of Datong for many years." After answering with a smile, Li Rubai summoned a few more messengers: "Who is at the front of our unit now?"

"Coming back to the commander-in-chief, it's Commander-in-Chief He Renlong."

"Ah, it turns out to be the Qilin'er of He Shuai's family." After smiling at He Shixian next to him, Li Rubai said to the messenger: "Give General He the order to temporarily stop the advance of our army today and set up camp here. Let him take the lead.

The army will go out thirty miles for reconnaissance. If we can catch a few tongues and come back, that would be the best!"

"Got the order!"

After the order to the front line was issued, Li Rubai ordered You Shiwei to arrange for the entire army to camp, while he and He Shixian rushed to the rear group in person: In this battle, Zhu Youdong repeatedly warned that it would be difficult for the Mongols to destroy the Ming army militarily.

In the attack, the Ming army lost because of logistics. Therefore, the commanders of the four armies attached great importance to the logistics troops this time. Once they decided to set up camp, the chief officer arranged the general affairs and went to the logistics troops as soon as possible.

As the saying goes, before the soldiers and horses are moved, food and grass go first. As a time traveler, Zhu Youdong launched this large-scale expedition, on the one hand, to completely solve the Mongolian problem, and on the other hand, it was also to conduct an assessment of the existing logistics support system of the Ming Dynasty.

Thanks to the fact that the Ming Dynasty had money in the bank and grain in the grain depot at this time. Moreover, in this military household assessment organized by the Ministry of Household Affairs, although many soldiers were eliminated, in another sense, this logistics support

, there is no need to recruit pure civilian husbands.

In this expedition, the magnanimous emperor arranged for each expeditionary army to have twice as many baggage troops as the soldiers. Therefore, Li Rubai's army had 20,000 soldiers and 40,000 baggage troops.

There are more logistics staff, and there are also a lot of supplies: in addition to a large amount of staple food such as rice and noodles, a lot of dried potatoes, sweet potato chips, fried noodles, etc. are also prepared. Fresh meat cannot be stored for a long time and I don’t bring much, but various smoked meats are available.

I also brought a lot of meat and dried meat. In addition, thanks to the advancement of science and technology, canned food is also very popular: after high-temperature sterilization, it is similar to the canned meat, beans, and fruits of later generations.

We also prepared a lot of daily drinking water for the army. Considering that the enemy was likely to pollute water sources everywhere, the Ming army also prepared a large amount of distilled glass bottled water this time when they went on an expedition.

It was easy to transport such a large amount of materials from the mainland to the troop dispatching site in Datong. After leaving Datong, all the roads on the grassland were original, which put great pressure on logistics.

At this time, the advantage of using military households instead of ordinary civilians as heavy troops came out: at least in terms of discipline and organization, military households were much stronger.

"See Li Shuai, He Shuai."

"Well, how are you doing today?"

"Two marshals, they marched forty miles today. The two-wheeled and one-wheeled carts sent by the humble post were not damaged. Three more four-wheeled carts got stuck in the mud. When they were lifted out, one of them was broken."

"Well, what about the supplies in this car?"

"Don't worry, Li Shuai, our army consumes a lot of supplies every day. If a vehicle breaks down, the supplies on the vehicle will be consumed on the same day. I just feel that if you go further inside, this four-wheeled vehicle will really slowly

There will be no more.”

"If not, then there will be no more. Write a letter to the officials of the Ministry of Industry in the rear and report the situation here. Ask them not to send any more four-wheeled carts. After more than half a month of marching, it has been fully proved that the original use of wheelbarrows is

The two-wheeled carriages are the most suitable for the road conditions here. Let them send these to us."

"yes!"

After taking care of the situation of the vehicle team, Li Rubai went to the team of cooks who were responsible for the daily meals of the entire army.

"Everyone, during today's march, are there any problems with the various cans you opened?"

"Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, the 2,300 cans of various types opened today have not been found to have leaks, flatulence or odor. The 60,000 bottles of distilled water distributed today have not been reported by soldiers or officers about odor.

"

"Okay! With this army out there, eating well and eating safely are the most important tasks of this expedition. I would like to ask everyone here to keep it up!"

"Yes, I will obey the commander-in-chief's order."

After completing the routine inspection of the logistics troops every day, Li Rubai was about to go and see the soldiers encamped when he heard the rapid sound of horse hooves coming from far and near.
Chapter completed!