Like Beijing, winter in Xiningwei is extremely cold.
The main reason is that the cold wind on the Loess Plateau is blowing hard, chilling my bones.
Cold weather is not all bad.
Since there was nowhere to go, the Western craftsmen invited by Yuzhu happened to be staying in the house, studying imitation rifles and field artillery.
In this era, the main weapon of the modern army, in addition to the front-loading smoothbore musket, is the front-loading smoothbore cannon.
According to gunsmiths in the Netherlands, the artillery of the British army, including naval guns, is mainly made of gray cast iron.
Gray cast iron has low hardness, low brittleness, low melting point, good fluidity of molten iron, good casting properties, and is very easy to process.
However, although this kind of cast iron is good, no one among the technicians in Xining knows how to smelt it.
Since Kangxi had extremely strict control over artillery, Yuzhu's strength was still very weak. He did not want to irritate Kangxi for the time being, so he simply asked Western technicians to focus on researching the material of the barrel.
Yuzhu was originally engaged in metallurgy. Naturally, he knew very well that the reason why Western, including Japanese, materials were ahead was because they had really put their minds into experiments and accumulated results over a long period of time.
Basic experiments are very, very expensive. But if you don’t do it, it will definitely not work. If you don’t do it, you will always fall behind.
There is no way. Due to the backwardness of metallurgical technology, many basic things need to be poached from Europe.
Everything is difficult at the beginning, but as long as you persevere and accumulate for more than ten years, Yuzhu believes that no matter how hard you work, you will gain something, and the technology tree will bear fruit sooner or later.
After the beginning of spring, Yuzhu sent people to send invitations to the banner leaders of the Mongolian tribes in Qinghai and asked them to meet in Xining.
Yuzhu, an invitation from the Xining native emperor, those who dare to come are barely considered friends. Those who dare not come are definitely enemies.
Sometimes, the choice of team is not complicated, and you will know it once you try it.
Yuzhu invited the princes on the grassland to come to Xining. It was a lie that he was a guest and he was mainly trying to find a suitable excuse.
Because he wanted to take advantage of the summer to understand the topography and landforms along the way from Golmud, Qinghai to the snow-covered plateau, and draw an accurate military map.
Now that he has come to Xining, Yuzhu will definitely leave a deep impression in Kangxi's mind: Yuzhu is the person he knows best in the Snowy Land.
When the time comes, Yuzhu will definitely be involved in the two snowy battles and get a big share of the pie, right?
With Kangxi's shrewdness, it would be difficult for Yuzhu to gain greater military power under normal circumstances.
In addition, despite the fact that Yuzhu is nominally the King of Xining, in fact, he only has military command authority over the Eight Banners Firearms Battalion.
The Green Battalion was also subordinate to the Admiral of Gansu Province, and Yuzhu also only had temporary command rights, but no personnel rights for promotion and appointment.
As for the Eight Banners garrisoned in Xining, they are in a state of decay, and Yuzhu cannot rely on them at all.
I have to say that Kangxi’s brilliance can be seen here.
Yuzhu holds the highest military command of the Xining garrison, but has no power to appoint or remove personnel. Everyone is restraining each other and it is impossible to let Yuzhu do whatever he wants.
To put it bluntly, Yuzhu also saw through Kangxi's thoughts, and he had no intention of cultivating too many confidants in Xining.
Taking rash actions when the time is not ripe will only arouse Kangxi's suspicion, but will not have any strategic significance.
For example, even if Yuzhu takes control of hundreds of Green Camp soldiers, what can he do?
Throughout the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 600,000 green soldiers in various places.
These few hundred green soldiers are simply not enough to see.
Besides, the Wuwei camp controlled by Yuzhu is only a small force of more than 500 people.
Trying to control the situation of the government with such a small number of people is simply a fantasy.
Of course, Yuzhu is out there leading the troops, and there is room for him to flourish.
For example, Ma Qingfang's Volunteer Battalion was not an imperial army. This gave Yuzhu a great deal of room for maneuver and would not easily arouse Kangxi's suspicion.
Throughout the winter, Ma Qingfang's volunteer camp of rural soldiers trained with the Wuwei Army.
Six months have passed, from October to April, and the three hundred rural soldiers in the Volunteer Battalion can already be regarded as qualified reserve troops.
Five hundred main soldiers and three hundred reserve soldiers, the total number did not exceed a thousand, which was definitely within Kangxi's tolerance.
However, the equipment of the three hundred reserve soldiers is very diverse.
There were more than a hundred matchlock guns seized from Xiao Celing, dozens of old flintlock guns replaced by the Wuwei camp, and even more large swords and spears.
There are policies and measures to counter.
Using these more than a hundred guns, Yuzhu quietly conducted a complete drill for Ma Qingfang's volunteer camp.
Not to mention anything else, when Yuzhu left the capital, there were only more than 500 people in the Wuwei camp. Now there are 300 more fully-controlled reserve soldiers, and the basic strength has made a qualitative leap.
You must know that during the First Opium War, the total force sent by the British army included about 5,000 British Army, 7,000 Indian servants and 7,000 Royal Navy, totaling about 5,000 people.
What Yuzhu is doing now is just a little bit of how ants move.
How could it be possible to achieve the goal in one step under Kangxi's nose?
Yuzhu could only adopt the tactic of cracking down on brown sugar piecemeal, using a hammer in one place and a stick in the other, slowly accumulating his own wealth.
After the invitations were sent out, quite a few Mongolian princes came to Xining to attend the meeting.
However, it is regrettable that most of the Mongolian princes west of the Golmud River did not come in person, but sent their elders.
This was the excuse Yuzhu was waiting for.
So, on the eighth day of April in the forty-ninth year of Kangxi, Yuzhu led the Wuwei Camp, the Volunteer Camp and the Green Camp, a total of 1,300 people, out of Xining again, under the banner of a routine inspection of the Qinghai prairie, towards Golmud
The regional and Xiyouzhong Banners marched.
This is about the entire topography of Qinghai.
The area at the junction of Qinghai and Gansu is straddled from north to south by several large mountain ranges from west to east, including the Qilian Mountains, the Yema Mountain-Shule Mountain-Datong Mountain System, and the Zongwulong Mountain-Qinghai Nanshan Mountains.
However, starting from Xining, as long as you cross Datong Mountain, you can follow the Henan Zuomo Banner (Haiyan County), Beiyou Banner (Gangcha County), Hebeiqian Banner (Tianjun County), and Beizuo Banner
The gentle hilly area in Moqi (Delingha City) leads smoothly to the Qaidam Basin.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! In history, when the Fourteenth was the general king, he took this route and invaded the snowy region.
The reason is actually very simple. As long as you cross the gap between Zongwu Longnan Mountain and Qinghai Nanshan, all the way to the border with Xiyou Middle Banner (Golmud), there is a smooth plain, which is very convenient for the army to transport supplies.
In a war, logistics is all about fighting. If the army doesn't even have enough to eat, why fight?
To put it bluntly, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway takes the Golmud line, crosses the Kunlun Pass and Tanggula Pass, and then enters the snowy area, which also relies on the favorable terrain of the Qaidam Basin.
Yuzhu led the Qing army, which had grown in strength, and was still marching while arranging people to survey and map the map.
As a result, Yuzhu and his party spent almost two months in Datong Mountain before arriving at Beizuomo Banner (Delingha City).
Going south from Beizuomo Banner, bypassing Elsuchi (Tuosu Lake) and Xidabusunnur, Yuzhu finally entered the territory of Hexiyouzhong Banner.
This route perfectly avoids the Qaidam River, which almost crosses the east part of the Qaidam Basin.
As we continue walking south, the mountains become steeper and steeper, and the temperature drops rapidly.
I saw the majestic and majestic Kunlun, with four seasons of cold winter, covered in snow, rolling mountains, and thousands of clouds reaching into the sky.
At the foot of Kunlun Snow Mountain, Yuzhu could not go any further and could only regretfully walk back.
It was early October again, and Yuzhu returned to Xining smoothly.
After spending a month correcting various parameters of the map, Yuzhu compiled the brand-new military map into a volume and rushed it over six hundred miles to the imperial palace in the capital.
During Yuzhu's second Spring Festival in Xining, the entire General's Mansion seemed particularly lively.
On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Yuzhu held Xu's two-year-old son in his arms, sat on the kang, and chatted with Cao Chun.
The son born to Cao Chun is the eldest son of the eighth family of the old Tong family, nicknamed Iron Hammer after Yuzhu.
Yuzhu majored in metallurgy, so his son was named Iron Hammer, which had an obvious meaning, hoping that materials such as gun barrels would achieve great success.
Yuzhu arrived in Xining in July of the year before last, and Cao Chun was pregnant with Tiechui in April of that year. She gave birth to her son in February of the following year, which was exactly a few days apart from ten months.
The child Tie Shui was born at full term, weighing eight pounds and very healthy.
However, the hammer was so heavy that Cao Chun suffered quite a bit when giving birth to him.
After Kangxi got the news, he enthusiastically conferred the name Changsheng in his own hand.
Yuzhu's eldest son was named Xuanyu. The character "Xuan" was given by Kangxi, and the character "yu" was deliberately added by Yuzhu after trying to figure out Kangxi's thoughts and not bothering to worry about taboos.
As a result, Kangxi indeed treated the Cao family favorably, and he gave Cao Chun's son two names.
Hey, Kangxi's little idea of suppressing the Fucha family is quite obvious.
The first-class dukedom of the old Tong family will definitely be taken by Xuanyu in the future.
The third-class title of Yongyizi that Yuzhu earned by himself, because Kangxi specially added favor to the hereditary system, will also belong to Iron Hammer in the future.
Judging from the books, Tiechui must have suffered a loss. After all, Xuanyu and Tiechui are both Yuzhu's biological sons, and they are both eldest sons.
However, the gap in treatment between first-class men and third-class men is so huge that they are completely different.
However, Cao Chun was quite satisfied. She once told Yuzhu that she had a hunch that the title that Iron Hammer would inherit in the future would definitely be more than just a third-class title.
When Yuzhu heard this, he knew that Cao Chun was talking about his son openly, but secretly promoted him to Lao Gao.
The reason is very simple. The higher the title that Iron Hammer inherits, it means that Ama Yuzhu has the ability to obtain a higher title.
Since Cao Chun had the hammer, his position was naturally extremely stable.
However, the only fly in the ointment is that Xingrui has followed Yuzhu to Xining for a year and a half, and there is no movement in her stomach at all.
Instead, Hongmei, who rarely slept with her, became pregnant.
In a few months, Yuzhu will have another child on his knees.
Just after the New Year, a decree came from Beijing, calling Yuzhu back to Beijing to see his Majesty to report on his work.
After Yuzhu accepted the order, he knew that he was about to leave Xining.
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