At the northwest pass of the Chaka Salt Lake, goshawks were circling in the sky. Guards carrying the Great Khan's nine-pink white cloth stood at the northwest pass. Mongolian drummers sat astride the camels and beat the left and right war drums. Teams of Chahar cavalry came from
The mountain pass spreads towards the lakeside.
Lin Dan, Hu Duntu and the Great Khan rode on their war horses, opened their binoculars and looked southward fiercely.
At the end of the endless salt-alkali Gobi, a camp can be vaguely seen at the foot of the snow-capped mountains. It is the station of Oirat, and the Heshuote cavalry and Junggar muskets and camels are watching eagerly.
The envoy of the national advisor Khan Tulubaihu had just been sent away by the Great Khan Lin Dan, and his blood was still hot. He stayed here, but his head was being sent south in his braids by the warriors who regarded death as if they were home.
Under the battle flag, Chen Qindai, the magistrate of Haibei, looked solemn. He rode his horse to Hu Duntu and sighed: "If the two armies are fighting and don't kill the envoy, why would the Great Khan kill his envoy to vent his anger?"
Hu Duntu glanced at him and opened his mouth to say something, but did not say anything. He just frowned and raised his whip to the north: "Since you have become an official of the Southern Dynasty's little king, go and take good care of your wife and children. Don't
You don’t have to worry about it.”
He hates seeing Mongolians calling themselves khans. In the past, he felt that there was only one emperor in the southern dynasty, and he should be the only great khan in the north. Why should he be called king everywhere?
He hit this, conquered that, and made moves that seemed to outsiders like cutting off his right hand with his left hand. Most of his inner driving force was forced by the Ming Dynasty.
Because in the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, the great leader who ruled Mongolia was Tumut, the King of Shunyi.
As for him, Lindan Batur of the Boljijin clan was still called a little prince by the Southern Dynasty people when he was in his adolescence. When he was in his thirties, he was called Tiger Chief.
They didn't even want to call him the Great Khan of the Northern Yuan Dynasty.
Who wouldn’t be angry if I left him alone?
From the perspective of the Han people, Mongolia is all Mongolia, and the normal state of Mongolia is that each tribe is a tribe. Whoever is stronger will have more tribute horses and receive more rewards, and the Tumut tribe has the most.
But in Lin Danhan's view, dispersed Mongolia is not the normal state of Mongolia. There are Genghis Khan in the distance and Dayan Khan in the near future. A unified Mongolia is the normal state of Mongolia.
As long as they have tasted the elixir of centralization, rulers will never forget the wonderful taste of centralization for generations to come.
For him, he was born to reverse the decline of the Khan Court. All Mongolians, those who dare to call themselves Khan are openly enemies; those who do not claim to be Khan and do not pay tribute are enemies who secretly challenge authority;
Those who pay tribute but are disobedient are potential enemies.
At this point, there are no left or right hands.
The situation in the Khan Court is precarious. My legs are gone, so where are my hands?
What Hu Duntu has always wanted is to establish authority among the Mongolian tribes, and the emperors of the Southern Dynasties also want to recognize him. As for Hou Jin... what is Hou Jin?
Although the Jin army was so scared that I ran away immediately when I heard that they were coming, and the capital city lost the ball, the Jurchens are still the little thing raising birds for Ulus. I just look down on you, and wait until I have the ability to unify Mongolia before fighting. This was the core idea behind his crusade against the Mongolian tribes.
The Southern Dynasties can stay together, why can’t Mongolia?
Comparatively speaking, he doesn't recognize all the Khans, kings, tigers, and rabbits in the world. In his heart, the only one who can match his status is the Ming Emperor.
He watched Tumut become stronger after establishing a tribute market with the Ming Dynasty. He also needed to use the power of the Ming Dynasty to enrich the country and strengthen the army. However, he did not catch up with the best times. The attitude of the Southern Dynasty towards him was to appreciate the times.
Regardless of reward, his attitude towards the Southern Dynasties was always submissive and sometimes rebellious.
Because of this, now he has fled to the West Sea and has completely cut off contact with the emperor of the Southern Dynasty. However, with the existence of Liu Chengzong, the little king of the Southern Dynasty, for him, the Marshal's Mansion can replace the Southern Dynasty and become the key to the prosperity of the Northern Yuan Dynasty.<
/p>
So when it came to the Marshal's Mansion, he pinched his nose and admitted it with a look of disgust on the surface. In fact, he was a little bit happy about it in his heart, and even directly called Liu Chengzong the little king of the Southern Dynasty in words.
Hey, I'm not the only one who's embarrassed, the Southern Dynasty is also fucking king everywhere.
For this reason, Lin Dan Hu Duntu did not lose his temper with Chen Qindai. He was a great khan who wanted to take life and death, but for the sake of Liu Chengzong, he pardoned Chen Qindai from the crime of agreeing with the status of the Oirat Imperial Guard Khan in his words. He thought that he was very big
degree.
But Chen Qindai was very unhappy. What age is it, and he is still relying on the bloodline given by his father and mother to make the Great Khan proud? Our Marshal's Palace does not even recognize the emperor. Is this feasible for you?
Besides, you only manage a little more Mongolians than our commanders, so who do you think you are?
But Chen Qindai did not dare to show his dissatisfaction in front of Hu Duntu. After all, this bird Khan was unreasonable. He killed the envoy of the National Preceptor Khan at his request and sent his head back to Oirat. The most outrageous thing is that someone actually dared to carry it.
Head over there.
Chen Qindai didn't want his head to be sent back to the Marshal's Mansion. The main reason was that this time a Guduo couldn't solve the problem, otherwise he really wanted to give Hu Duntu a Guduo.
This will kill the Great Khan, and Chahar's army will be able to take advantage of Oirat.
He could only pretend that he had said something wrong, and hurriedly bowed and retired. He stopped observing the battlefield and only left one sentence to Hu Duntu: "The commander-in-chief said that if the military situation is urgent, the commander-in-chief will provide the Khan with supplies."
With help, the Great Khan can move eastward, where there is the Commander's Fortress as a support."
Hu Duntu nodded silently and just waved his hand for Chen Qindai to go down.
The little king of the Southern Dynasties in the Marshal's Mansion is no more interesting than the Ming Emperor. Oirat called and asked him to send troops, but he didn't send troops; he asked him to provide food, but he didn't provide food... Huduntu was wondering if I am guarding the border for you.
?
After some hard talk, the third batch of envoys were sent over, and then more than 30,000 women and children from Chahar were allowed to be temporarily sent to sea.
Chen Qindai was still easy to talk to, so he asked him to send women and children from the north to Haibei County. He sent envoys to Nanshan Fort in the east. The guard of Nanshan Fort refused to let anyone get close, and even women and children were not allowed to pass there.
Hu Duntu thought to himself, he sent people to look at it, it was just a large wasteland, and he threatened to start a war if he went there, who would care to go there?
Little did he know that Zhong Hu did not allow the Mongols to approach Nanshan Fort, not because he felt sorry for the newly sown land, but because Liu Xiangyu was at Nanshan Fort at this moment.
On the hillside outside the fort, guard Zhong Hu led his horse in front, and Liu Xiangyu, who was wearing a green robe, stood on the cliff with his hands behind his hands. Looking to the west, the salt lake twenty miles away was like a piece of blue satin spread out, reflecting the sky.
The color is hidden in the halo of the mountains.
They can't see the two opposing battlefields, but they can feel the war that is so close at hand.
Zhong Hu asked: "Master, would Chief Tiger leave his family at sea?"
Liu Xiangyu shook his head and said nonchalantly: "It would be good for him if we let him go, so that he can fight freely. If we don't let him go, it won't do any harm to the general's government. Thirty thousand women's food is not a small amount. It just so happens that your general is not willing to let the Tiger Chief go."
people enter the customs."
The old, weak, women and children are just obedient, following the tiger, the rabbit, and the rabbit for four to five thousand miles. They are not marching in a prepared way, but running away and losing one after another. How can the old and the weak survive to this moment? There are not many children.
It's a woman.
Zhong Hu was convinced. In the past, regardless of farming, he did not know that cultivating 30,000 acres of land in a normal year would only be enough for 3,000 people. To feed 30,000 people, 3,000 hectares of land would be needed. People like them would have to fight hard if they wanted to survive.
I tried my best.
If you have a larger population, you can only reduce the number of people. If you don’t reduce your own number, you will have to reduce the number of others.
He asked: "What does that mean, Marshal?"
Liu Xiangyu said nothing, turned his head to look at Zhong Hu, and sighed.
Taking in women and children was not Liu Chengzong’s intention, but Master Liu’s order.
Liu Xiangyu carefully reviewed the letter sent back by Liu Chengzong. Liu Chengzong meant that Hu Duntu could unite if he changed his attitude, but Guoshi Khan was not easy to fool, so he would fight sooner or later.
But for Liu Xiangyu, this is the result he is least happy to see.
Deep in his heart, he hoped that Liu Chengzong could talk to the Oirat people and make some compromises to bring Qinghai a stable rear...at least for a year.
Mr. Liu is very helpless about the situation.
If the sons' actions in Lanzhou go well, the short-term food shortage problem is solved, and Hehuang gains a large number of people and farmland, they can breathe a sigh of relief and get out of the predicament.
As long as they can win the Ming Dynasty's threat in the east, they have the Hehuang grain-producing land in their hands, the logistical pressure is very low, and they can afford the cost of a long-term confrontation.
The West never thought that the Tatars would come again, or two groups of Tatars.
If Liu Xiangyu's idea is to follow, if war can be avoided, he can accept giving up some pastoral areas and even giving up the access to Tibet.
This is a question of trade-offs. Chuock Rabbit and Tiger Rabbit have no rear and dare not run into no man's land. They can easily be surrounded.
However, Oirat has pastures to the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and it has a large force that is difficult to be surrounded by the Marshal's Mansion. If it cannot be annihilated in the first battle, the Marshal's Mansion will inevitably be disturbed by it, and it can only deal with it by deploying heavy troops in Haixi and Haibei.
.
Even if they only had 10,000 troops stationed, they would still have to build a five-station granary road from Xining City to Haixi and Haibei. However, the road consumption of food was still a trivial matter. Their main enemy was not Mongolia, but the Ming Dynasty.
If there are 10,000 more troops stationed in the west, 10,000 fewer troops will be stationed in the east. Once they are attacked from both sides, the two enemies are likely to choose the same time to launch an attack - around the autumn harvest.
No matter which side makes a breakthrough, the land that has been cultivated for a year will be gone, especially after Liu Chengzong decided to unify crop cultivation in Hehuang. This was not only an expedient measure to solve the food gap, but also made the agriculture of the Marshal's Mansion vulnerable.
Liu Xiangyu rarely thinks about problems from the military aspect because he can't figure it out clearly, but for him the political and economic aspects are clear at a glance.
After his calculations, the limit of Xining Mansion's ability to support retired officers and soldiers is 30,000. Having enemies on both sides and defending it from the east and west will push Xining Mansion into the most tense state.
Even a bow will break if it is pulled like this all the time, not to mention that in today’s age, God is like throwing knives in the sky, and no one knows when the Hehuang Valley will be dry.
Therefore, in his opinion, rather than confronting the National Advisor Khan in Oirat, it is better for each to get what he needs. At least it can be seen from the National Advisor Khan's envoy that this Mongolian nobleman is a person who can communicate.
The hundreds of miles of no-man's land between Salt Lake and Nangqian are being used for Mongolian grazing. It is best for both parties to achieve symbiosis, even if it is just for a year.
One year is enough for the Marshal's Mansion to recover, and two years can leave the Imperial Guard Khan behind.
But Liu Xiangyu’s words don’t count.
The most important thing is that he himself is not sure whether his idea is right or wrong, because for a long time in the Marshal's Mansion, only Liu Chengzong's idea has been verified. No matter how wild or extreme the plan is, it can eventually be achieved and everyone can survive. So Liu Xiangyu could only shake his head and said to Zhong Hu: "Hold it, until your marshal comes back and the main force comes back, the marshal's office will not be able to intervene with the nearly 100,000 Mongolian troops."
Zhong Hu asked: "Delay?"
"Yes, dragging it out is good for us. The commander-in-chief wants Hu Duntu to correct his attitude, but in my opinion, Hu Duntu is not a weak person who is easy to control. He must have his own opinion before he can insist on his own way."<
/p>
In this war between the Mongols, the Marshal's Office was unable to control it in a short period of time.
Even if the sky falls, even if the Mongolian soldiers invade Juerwan and demolish the market, or even level the new city and march to Xining City, the main army of the Marshal's Mansion cannot return to support, and must focus on transporting Lanzhou's money and food.
Even if the Mongols surrounded Xining City, they would not be finished; but the Marshal's Mansion does not have the food from Lanzhou and will be finished before this autumn.
"In this case, the Tiger Chief would have better put his family into the sea. If we squeeze in the food for 30,000 people, we can still have it. Otherwise, if the Tiger Chief is defeated, Oirat will not be completely advantaged."
Mr. Liu could not change the overall situation. The two Mongolian armies were fighting on their territory, which made him feel angry again. He could only think about collecting some interest from Hu Duntu first.
Zhong Hu shook his head and said: "Sir, I sent Tang Qi over to take a look. Chief Tiger doesn't have much baggage and has been asking us for food; but the Oirat people have a lot of livestock, so they shouldn't be afraid of dragging them."
"They should be afraid. Tianshan Mountain is also the site of the Four Battles. The 40,000 Oirat Allied Forces are a strong force wherever they are. Now they are all out."
Liu Xiangyu was very sure about this matter and explained to Zhong Hu: "Furthermore, the envoy of the Imperial Advisor Khan said that all the nobles of the four tribes participated in this southern expedition. I don't think they will stay here for too long." "Master, are you saying they will withdraw?"
Liu Xiangyu shook his head and was very pessimistic about the future situation: "We will have to fight back if we go back. There is a lot of uncultivable land in Qinghai, which is useless to us. But for the Mongolians who are grazing, this place is no less than a land of abundance. We will not fight
They won't leave, and they may not leave even if they are defeated or annihilated."
After saying that, he shook his head: "Why are everyone running south? It's not over."
By now, Mr. Liu has already seen that all the troubles in the Marshal's Mansion have always been related to population and were caused by God.
In a normal year, if someone were to send people to the separatist regime in waves, anyone would be happy to death. However, in this era and environment they live in, the extremely precious population is more poisonous than poison. p>
It's all about food... If there is enough food to feed all the Oirat in the Tianshan Mountains, why would these Wala Tatars travel five thousand miles to come here to fight?
It’s better now.
Liu Xiangyu shook his head slightly and looked northwest.
If the son must go to war with Oirat, once the war begins, in order for Xining to serve as the rear for the eastward attack on the imperial court, they must also send troops five thousand miles to Ili.
The Marshal's Office cannot do this on its own, so Liu Xiangyu has his next target - Gansu.
Only when the 60,000 Gansu frontier troops waiting for food give up the desert and rush to the oasis in the Ili Valley can they reach the non-tiled areas in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
