On the bank of the Zaqu River, the Nangsuoqianmo Palace of King Nangqian stands majestically on the top of the mountain, protected by a stone forest, overlooking the land that the Zhu family has ruled for fifteen generations.
Nangsuo Qianmo Palace was built in the second year of the reign of Emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty.
When the Yuan army crossed the Lancang River, Ga Ma's ancestors made a heavy gift and were given the power to command 10,000 households in six areas. They also sent Xixia craftsmen to build this castle for them.
Monk Ga Ma looked up at this familiar mountain fortress on the bank of the Zaqu River, his eyes sad and filled with hatred.
Last summer, his elder brother Luo Zhou refused to fight for King Baili and demolished Genbeng Temple to drive away the monks. War between the two sides was inevitable.
The armies of the earth kings in this land are strong or weak in terms of soldier composition, army organization, weapons and equipment, tactics and tactics, soldier treatment, training level and fighting will, but there is no qualitative difference.
Quantity has become an important factor in determining victory or defeat.
Nangqian is located on the main road into Tibet. There are countless Mongolian Taijis who come and go with their troops into Tibet. With four thousand households, even if one household has three men, wives and children, the war will be nothing more than a few extra weapons.
Just a corpse.
Therefore, they attach great importance to economic development, brewing wine and stewing meat, redouble their worship to Buddha, and all the people who come here are good friends. They have been getting along well with the Mongolians who entered Tibet for a long time, and have formed many good relationships.
The military system they implemented was that each household had a monk and every ten households had a native soldier.
However, King Baili, who was extremely militaristic, implemented the policy of sending out one native soldier per household. All men could either ride and shoot or shoot on foot. If they really couldn't afford bows and arrows and couldn't ride horses, they also had to master the skills of throwing stones and dare to carry them.
Kill people with a knife.
Although Nangqian's soldiers are more elite, and even have fifty plateau heavy armored cavalry, they only have elite forces but do not have a large enough base of soldiers. Putting them together on the battlefield is just dust in the wind and sand in the snow.
From the beginning of the war, the division of labor between the two families was very clear.
Bai Li is responsible for conquering cities and territories, and Nang Qian is responsible for crying for his father and mother.
King Baili sent 4,000 troops to march 600 miles from Qamdo to Nangqian Palace. The tribes that were subordinate to him rebelled and defected to the enemy. On the 14th, the whole territory collapsed, and 8,000 Baili troops came to the palace. p>
I almost ran over mountains and ridges, and I was exhausted.
The final decisive battle took place right where Monk Gama was standing.
He is at the Genbung Temple at the foot of the mountain. What a wonderful temple it was. It was built in the eighth year of Emperor Taizong of the Yuan Dynasty and was the foundation of the Tuolong Kagyu Sect.
At this time, the magnificent temple, which was once divided into three floors, supported by 120 stone pillars and could accommodate 1,500 monks chanting sutras, had been completely destroyed in the war.
More than 300 monks suffered heavy siege and were unable to break out, and were eventually burned to death in a fire.
As for the palace on the mountain, his brother Luo Zhou defended the palace on the mountain for eight days and eight nights with 400 defenders. In the end, traitors opened the city and they were outnumbered. The castle fell on the afternoon of the ninth day.
At this moment, the palace is still there, but the people living in it have become King Baili’s minister Nangqian.
Ga Ma turned around and saw that between the destroyed ruins and the huge Mani stone piles, there were Mongolian felt tents connected to the sky, and a huge siege camp surrounded the entire mountain fort.
But the situation is not as good as it seems.
There are many Mongolian herdsmen, crossing the mountains and snowy fields, they are as hard-working as the mounts from the desert.
They are better soldiers than the local soldiers who are bloody but know nothing about war.
But no one wants to lose their lives on this mountain where nothing grows except stone forests and loess.
The commander of the siege camp is Baiyan Taiji. Thousands of Mongolian soldiers under his command have been besieging this place for twelve days and are helpless against the 600 Baili native soldiers occupying the palace.
Except for the initial tentative attack, for the next eleven days, Baiyan Taiji used the excuse of waiting for the generalissimo to besiege and not attack.
In fact, only nine people died in that attack. Later, eleven people were shot to death while trying to climb up the mountain platform to snatch the bodies.
This mountain is eighty feet high from the valley. There are two directions up the mountain. There is no road on the west line, just a small muddy ditch carved out of the snow on the mountainside.
There are stone steps on the east line and a small platform at a height of 60 feet, but it is very narrow and can only accommodate three people climbing side by side.
There is no fulcrum for erecting ladders in other places.
He pretended to have built a catapult, but it couldn't hit that high or that far. The rocks it hit rolled down the mountain and destroyed a felt tent.
Monk Gama couldn't wait any longer and wanted to ask Baiyan Taiji about his plan.
"I tell you the truth, monk, in this mountain fort, even if the Generalissimo's Han army comes over, there is nothing he can do. His small cannons can't hit that far, and the big cannons can't be sent up. Anyway, there are so many people, just one word, waste."
He said that more than 3,000 people had dispersed in the past few days, and asked them to attack the nobles who surrendered to King Baili from various places, collect intelligence, and grab all the farm tools.
"When the weather gets warm, I dig a seven-mile-long trench at the foot of the mountain. We can't get up, and they can't fucking get down."
He pretended to be vicious, but in fact he felt happy inside because he didn't want to attack the city.
Having already reached the gate into Tibet, the gathered Mongolian herdsmen were filled with excitement. They had no interest in attacking the living bastard in the mountain castle.
In the past few days, he has released more than 3,000 people, including Xie Erhu, and attacked noble manors in various places that surrendered to King Baili. The main purpose is to maintain the morale of the enemy by plundering them.
As for the secondary purpose, it is to collect trench-digging equipment and to give Liu Shizi an explanation.
As for this mountain fortress where the cannon cannot be mounted and the arrows cannot hit anyone, even if you come here, what can you do? There is no way.
How annoying this fortress is. The bottom is a stone foundation made of irregular stones, and the top is a bianma wall, a kind of wall made of tamarisk branches tied together and tamped with concrete.
When the arrow hits the target, it is nailed, and the people on the castle can easily pull the arrow away and shoot it back.
Although this kind of wall is not as strong as a pure stone wall, there is no way to destroy it on the top of the mountain.
Therefore, Taiji's countermeasure is to dig a deep trench, which requires hard work and no credit.
In this way, when Liu Shizi comes, he can calmly leave two thousand Mongolian herdsmen to go east to deal with King Baili, and lead the army into Tibet.
Maybe after King Baili's territory was completely robbed by the Mongolian herdsmen, even after he came back from Lhasa, this mountain fortress has not yet been conquered.
Anyway, just leave a thousand people around it.
Baoyan has fought against the Tibetan soldiers not once or twice. Except for some heavy cavalry who are really powerful, the other levied peasant soldiers are not even as good as the Naliang soldiers near Han.
As for Monk Gama being anxious, just be anxious and pretend you don’t care.
Liu Chengzong's army came slowly, it was really slow.
After conquering the Gannan and Heka grasslands, Liu Chengzong was busy meeting the chiefs of the Fan tribe who brought gifts to see him.
There are twenty-three tribes here and forty-six tribes over there.
There is an endless stream of small aristocrats and small-headed people walking along the street to greet them.
Some knew that he was opening a market in Haibei and wanted to pay tribute in exchange for the status of being able to do business.
Some have heard about this military group, which is dominated by Han people, and pay tribute as soon as possible to avoid being beaten.
There are also some who have disputes with neighboring tribes and rush to pay tribute, hoping to borrow two hundred from the king's army to avenge the world.
This is not outrageous.
What's more, I don't know who he is, what he does, or what he wants to do. He just passed by the territory and came to surrender with gifts.
There were too many, so many that they seriously slowed down the march. There were even so many that after entering Golok, no soldiers in the Lion Army suffered from altitude sickness.
After a day's march, the altitude climbed twenty meters. I didn't even use the bowl of Yunnan candies prepared by Su Fan. I slowly passed the highest point of the plains on the Yushu side.
However, it’s not like Liu Shizi is not doing anything serious. His people are busy running around among the tribes that have submitted to them, calculating their population and special products.
This made many people who had surrendered to the leader very unhappy... We just saw you passing by and paid tribute. Who wouldn't pay homage after entering the temple? It's quite interesting.
Putting aside our ancestors, none of the Han people in the Tubo Empire cared so much about us.
Grandma, it’s too scary, what do you want to do?
Fortunately, Liu Chengzong didn't plan to do anything. He asked people to count the population and special products, and after looking at the mountains and terrain, he led his troops to continue walking south. He neither accepted nor rejected the request of these local small-headed people who wanted a hereditary place.
I just want to talk about bringing the troops back.
People came to join him one after another, and he was really flattered at first.
But this is the case wherever you go. Even in places far away from the Han Dynasty where transportation was cut off, tribal leaders still do this.
This journey made Liu Shishi grow a lot, and he understood.
In recent decades, Mongolian nobles have entered Tibet one after another, and all the tribal leaders along the way have been counted, and the whole education has become a source of tribute.
Their tribute is just like what people in Beijing say about you. It seems to have a lot of meaning, but it doesn't seem to have any meaning.
To a large extent, it is just a habit. You have come with your troops, but I don’t pay you a tribute. Is this appropriate?
After thinking about this, Liu Chengzong understood why King Baili fought with King Nangqian.
There are too many legal principles in this land. Some people have fiefdoms from the Tubo period, some have the seal of Emperor Yuan, some have the canonization of King Weizang, and some have the edict of Emperor Yongle.<
/p>
There are also people who hold all of the above land certificates at the same time.
Everyone has legal principles, which means they have no legal principles.
As long as the power is strong enough, anyone can easily rule this land, at least in name.
But when it comes time to contribute, only the nobles in this land can provide any support other than their own.
Loyalty is not absolute, and there is absolutely no loyalty.
When Liu Chengzong arrived at the siege camp of Nangqian, it was already the afternoon of sixteen days after the palace on the top of the mountain was besieged.
On the sixty-mile road approaching Nangqian, Monk Gama and Baiyan Taiji kept chattering in his ears.
The two repeatedly reiterated the importance of capturing the Nangqian Palace to rule this land.
The other kept explaining the many difficulties in attacking this mountain fortress.
They are all right.
Liu Chengzong felt numb when he saw this mountain fortress.
On the way, he was still thinking, the Lion Army moved to northern Shaanxi, what kind of mountain fortress has he not seen before?
Come over and take a look, I’ve never seen anything like this.
It is true that northern Shaanxi is full of mountains, but there are very few high mountains in northern Shaanxi, and there are no people who build castles on such high mountains.
What's more, this is a mountain castle with a Tibetan fortress and Xixia's rustic atmosphere. It just puts the Xixia gate tower on top of the Tibetan fortress.
His cannon really can’t be mounted.
Even if it is the lightest Lion Cannon, it is impractical even if the gun carriage is removed and soldiers can carry it up the mountain.
The stone steps made of fresh snow were so slippery that the soldier carrying the cannon could not step firmly on his feet. The more than 200 kilograms of copper cannon could go down the hundreds of stone steps and smash half of the headquarters into tears. p>
After equipping the Lion Cannon, they no longer equipped small cannons such as the Yongzhuhu Crouching Cannon to attack the mountain fortress from their backs. The difficulty was not that high.
Moreover, according to the reports from the Mongolian leaders Dai Qing, Xie Erhu and others sent by Baiyan Taiji, battles broke out one after another in the southeast, and their arrival was known to King Baili Dunyue Duoji.
When the Mongolian nobles teleported the Baili Army's formation to the siege camp, and Liu Chengzong's officer corps sketched it into a diagram, the situation was clearly presented before Liu Chengzong's eyes.
Starting from the Nangchen Zhaqu River in the northwest and reaching the Tongtian River Basin in the southeast, Baili's army is increasing its troops to Qamdo.
Dunyue Dorje gave up the gate to Tibet, Leiwuqi, which is located in the west between Qamdo and Nangqian.
On the surface, he gave up part of the occupied land, but in fact, he used the noble manor fortress along the mountain as a fulcrum to set up a position, making it easier to defend and counterattack in the confrontation with the Mongolian army.
In particular, Dai Qing of the Khalkha tribe led more than 300 people to encounter Baili's army when attacking the manor. Relying on the good equipment of his troops, he rushed and fought fiercely, winning first and then losing. Finally, he was lucky enough to retreat with more than a hundred losses.
Riding, even Dai Qing himself was almost retained.
The way Dunyue Duoji's troops dealt with Dai Qing was very simple.
A small group of soldiers rushed forward and dispersed in a flurry. When Dai Qing's troops found that the enemy was vulnerable and dispersed in pursuit, heavy cavalry wearing chainmail and carrying long contradiction cards took turns attacking from behind.
Dai Qing used bloody lessons to quickly educate all the Mongolian herdsmen. They were not familiar with the terrain here and used stragglers to fight against stragglers. They could defeat the enemy with superb skills and tactics.
But when the enemy is organized, even if it is just a group of peasant soldiers and a small number of elites, it will be difficult for them to win in a confrontational positional battle.
In the Chinese army tent, Baiyan Taiji looked very anxious.
Dunyue Dorje had something. He knew what the Mongols wanted and that they wanted to enter Tibet, so he gave up the way to Tibet.
This will make the Mongolian herdsmen have no intention of continuing the confrontation here, but now they are pretending that they dare not leave.
Liu Chengzong had no intention of entering Tibet. If he pretended that he was going to Tibet, his retreat might be cut off at any time if he pushed the front forward in a month or so.
At this time, all the Mongols under his command were generally afraid of war.
"What are you afraid of?"
But Liu Chengzong was very relaxed: "Three days, three days to capture this palace city, he gave up Leiwuqi, and we occupied Leiwuqi and pushed the battle line all the way to the southeast."
Baiyan Taiji shook his head and said: "There are so many mountaintop fortresses, how do you push them? You can't just surround them one by one, right?"
"You don't have to worry about pushing it. I'll give you one day to find me fifty blacksmiths, thirty carpenters, five hundred kilograms of iron, and ten big trees. I think there are a lot of fir trees. They will be delivered before noon tomorrow to attack the fort."
You don’t have to worry about anything.”
After Liu Chengzong finished speaking, he turned his attention to Monk Ga Ma: "I will capture this fort within three days. From now on, your family will build a village to live at the foot of the mountain, and the fort on the mountain will serve as my garrison camp."