During the past twenty days of rest, Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui sent dozens of small groups of cavalry to continuously detect the enemy's situation day and night along the edge of the desert. They even entered a few miles into the desert to detect the enemy's traces.
However, the more than 10,000 Tatar troops who fled into the Mu Us Desert disappeared without a trace.
Although this makes people a little uneasy and confused, Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui firmly believe in their judgment. After the Tatars enter the desert, they will definitely fall into a dead end. Since they have no organization to rush out of the desert to break out, the only possibility is that they try to
Cross the desert to the north and escape to the grasslands of Donghetao.
Crossing hundreds of miles of desert is an almost impossible task. Even if the Tatars can successfully cross, the price paid will probably be huge. In any case, the Tatars will suffer heavy losses.
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After resting for more than 20 days, Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui decided to lead an army of 150,000 to advance north to completely regain the Hetao Grassland and annihilate the Tatars there or drive them north of the Yellow River. In this way, the plan to dispatch troops could be initially completed.
The first strategic goal is to regain the entire Donghetao area.
Due to the need for logistical supplies, they left 40,000 troops to garrison Baichengzi.
Baichengzi will serve as a relay station for logistics supplies to solve the problem of supply difficulties after the supply line is lengthened.
The army consumes a lot of materials, especially grain, grass, charcoal and other materials. The weather is very cold, so it needs to eat a lot of food and burn a lot of firewood and charcoal to keep warm.
Cao Yuan, who is in charge of Yulinwei, sends a material transport convoy consisting of hundreds of large vehicles to transport various materials to the army every day. However, the weather is severe and the roads are difficult to travel. As the front line lengthens, supplies will become increasingly scarce.
difficulty.
Therefore, it is extremely necessary to establish a supply depot in Baichengzi. All materials can be transported directly from various border towns to Baichengzi for collection, and then transported from Baichengzi to the army. This greatly shortens the supply distance and also
Increase efficiency and reduce risk.
However, due to the unknown movements of the Tatars who escaped into the desert, it can only be initially judged that they fled north across the desert. But after all, it is not certain. In order to prevent accidents, Yang Tinghe left more than 40,000 troops to garrison Baichengzi.
, to ensure the safety of logistics material transfer and transportation and protect the smoothness of logistics supply lines.
The army went all the way north from the north passage on the east side of the desert, and entered the endless Hetao Plain in early February.
Arriving from the Gobi Desert to this prairie, the terrain changes greatly, and the weather also changes greatly. To the south of the Hetao Land is the plateau Gobi Desert, so the temperature is warmer. It was sunny continuously before departure.
weather.but in
When the army arrived at the Ordos grassland in the southeast of Hetao, they were hit by a blizzard. The entire grassland turned into a frozen snowfield covered with heavy snow. The snow was as deep as the calves, which made the march of the army become difficult.
Extremely slow and difficult.
Moreover, because they were not familiar with the terrain, the rivers and tidal flats that crisscrossed the grassland were covered with snow, and soldiers and horses often strayed into them while marching, causing great trouble. Moreover, the wind, snow and cold made the soldiers freeze to death and frostbite.
Extremely serious.
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What's even more troublesome is that due to the obstruction of wind and snow, material vehicles cannot move, and the baggage convoys are even more difficult to move. Heavy firearms such as hundreds of Franco machine guns and Zhankou general cannons are difficult to move forward on the snow, and they are simply unable to keep up with the advance of the army.
pace.
It would be extremely disadvantageous to continue marching under such circumstances. They had to wait for the snowstorm to pass and the weather to become warmer before they could continue to move forward. Although they knew they could not delay too much time, after entering the grassland, they entered an area where Tatar soldiers and horses gathered.
A war may break out at any time. We need to find the Tatars as soon as possible and annihilate them. However, under such weather conditions, we can only camp temporarily.
So after struggling to walk deep into the grassland for three days, Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui had to discuss and decide to camp on the spot.
At an unknown river mouth, hundreds of thousands of troops set up camp on the grassland. The hundreds of thousands of troops were divided into two camps, the east and west, and the front, middle and rear armies set up camp. Since there were not many usable trees on the grassland,
The camps were all built with tents. There were no trees on the outside to serve as the outer walls of the camp, so the snow could only be piled up to form a half-person-high snow wall as a barrier. Although I knew it was of little use, that was all I could do.
The entire Ming army camp stretched for more than ten miles, making the originally empty and lonely grassland become noisy and noisy. The dark tents were as conspicuous as a dazzling patch of cow dung on the snowy grassland.
But after setting up camp, the situation did not improve.
Due to the large number of soldiers and horses, the snow in the camp was quickly trampled and melted, forming a large puddle. The environment of the entire camp was extremely bad. Walking around in the cold and smelly mud every day, the soldiers were in a bad mood.
Morale became extremely low.
The canvas tent was not very effective in resisting the severe cold. At night, the tent was as cold as an ice cellar. The soldiers had to secretly light a charcoal fire in the tent to keep warm. According to military regulations, in order to prevent fires, lighting fires in tents was not allowed. After all,
They are all made of linoleum tents. But some people still can't stand the cold, so they do this secretly.
However, many soldiers did not know that to light a charcoal fire in a tent, they needed to open a canvas window at the top for ventilation. They thought that would allow cold wind to come in, which would make the tent unwarm.
As a result, hundreds of people were killed by the charcoal fire overnight. At dawn, the straight bodies were carried out and placed in a row in the open space of the camp. All of them were killed by the poisonous gas of the charcoal fire in their sleep.
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Less than four days after setting up camp, the army lost more than 500 troops, which was simply unacceptable to Yang Yiqing, Zhu Hui and others. If this continues, if we don't fight, we will lose our troops and horses, and it will take ten days and a half, so there is no need to fight.
Already.
Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui held an emergency meeting to discuss the next step. They finally decided to quickly send out a scout team to find out the surrounding situation and look for traces of the enemy. At least one Tatar camp on the grassland should be captured for supply.
Soldiers and horses are stationed. There is no need to suffer in this snowy wasteland.
It is best to find the place where the main Tatar troops and horses are on the Ordos grassland and conduct a decisive battle. In this way, the troops and horses can continue to go north, pass through the edge of the Kubuqi Desert, and attack the front and back sets. That is, on the banks of the Yellow River.
Tumochuan Plain and Bayanchor Plain.
After capturing these two areas, the entire area south of Jiziwan is basically under control. The rest is to use the Yellow River as a defensive line. At the same time, the remaining enemies inside will be eliminated, and the Dongtao area will be completely controlled.
More than a dozen scout teams set out in the wind and snow to explore the surrounding areas. This investigation was not important, but the results of the investigation shocked Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui. The area they were currently in was actually far away from where the Tatar Ordos Ten Thousand Households tribe was located.
Dongsheng City is less than sixty miles away. Both sides are almost under the eyes of the other side.
This Dongsheng City was originally the garrison of the Dongsheng Guard established by the Ming Dynasty in Ordos. During the Chenghua period, the Ming Dynasty was seriously harassed by Tatars, and the logistics support could not keep up. Moreover, the Dongsheng Guard was repeatedly breached, resulting in heavy casualties.
In the end, the Dongsheng Guard had to be abandoned and retreated to the south of the Great Wall. The Ordos tribe of the Tatars completely occupied this place.
As one of the six Wanhu households in the Hetao garrison, the Wanhu tribe of the Ordos tribe is not the Wanhu soldiers of the Chahar headquarters to which Batu Mengke belongs, but it is still a Wanhu tribe with a long history.
The so-called Ordos means 'the palace of the Khan and the place of mausoleum'. The Ordos Prairie is where Genghis Khan was buried after his death. This is how this grassland got its name.
Thousands of households in Ordos call themselves the guardians of the Great Khan's Tomb. They claim to be 'the wings of fierce falcons, the guards of chariots, the fortitude of wise men, the white chambers of generals like mountains, the wholehearted defenders.'. They have been here for generations. Back then.
The Ming Dynasty had to give up the land of Dongtao because it could not stand the constant attacks and harassments of thousands of households in Ordos, so it had to make a choice.
A strong enemy was right around them, which made Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui sweat. But it was obviously a good thing. Taking down Dongsheng City, annihilating the fire and driving away this tribe of ten thousand households was of great significance. With Dongsheng
With the city as a support, it has a foothold on the grassland. The supply transfer line can be extended to the grassland.
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In this situation, there can be no further delay or hesitation, otherwise the army's situation will deteriorate and an attack must be launched.
After an emergency meeting, Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui reached a consensus and decided to immediately attack Dongsheng City, annihilate or drive away thousands of soldiers and horses in Ordos, and establish logistics transportation channels from the north to the south of the Mu Us Desert.
Two days later, Yang Yiqing led 50,000 troops and marched in a detour from the west. Ma Ang led 30,000 troops and marched in a detour from the east. Zhu Hui led the remaining army and advanced directly from the south to the north. Still encircling three palaces and one
Act and launch an attack on Dongshengwei.
The reason for dividing the troops is not only to attack from different directions, but also for the efficiency of the march. Hundreds of thousands of troops advance together, trampling and dragging, which is really difficult to control. By dividing the troops, you can spread out the formation and make it easier to encircle and get in place.
Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui reached a consensus: they did not seek to completely annihilate the Tatars, but only needed to occupy Dongsheng City. If the army had a place to station on the grassland, it would be victory.
It has to be said that Yang Yiqing and Zhu Hui's goals are quite practical. They actually understand that sending troops this time is an extremely hasty decision. They completely underestimated the power of severe cold and snow in the Hetao area in winter. Even with superior troops,
Some goals simply cannot be achieved.
The most practical thing to do now is to keep your footing, work steadily, and wait for the weather to get warmer, and things will be much easier to handle. It is already February, and if you wait for another month or two, the temperature will warm up. So you can't be too hasty or unsure.
Set unrealistic goals.
On February 13th, the wind and snow stopped and the weather cleared. The army led by Zhu Hui set off and headed straight for Dongcheng City. In one day, the lightly-armed army arrived at the wasteland a few miles south of Dongsheng City.
Dongsheng City, this city expanded from the Weisuo Walled Fort, is located on a high slope on the grassland. It is a rare defensive terrain on the grassland. This is why the Walled Fort was built here in the first place.
Zhu Hui set up camp on the spot and spread out his troops. The next morning, Yang Yiqing's 50,000-strong army also arrived at the wilderness of Xicheng from the west and immediately set up camp. The two armies were in position and waited for Ma Ang's troops to arrive.
Besiege on three sides and wait for the arrival of subsequent siege artillery before launching the siege.
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However, Ma Ang's 30,000 troops, who were supposed to arrive before Yang Yiqing's troops, made no sound. Until dark the next day, no trace of them was seen.