First of all, the army cannot gather together because there is not enough pasture to eat, so it must be dispersed.
Secondly, unlike the Central Plains, or even Yunnan where we just conquered, it was difficult to plunder enough food. Everything depended on the livestock brought with us during the expedition. We had to march and graze at the same time, and the speed was limited.
Third, although the grassland is vast and flat, with roads everywhere, but limited by water resources, there are actually only a few routes.
Zhu Jin gained most of his military experience in the Central Plains. In the past year, he had practiced the grassland combat model and gained some understanding. However, such a long-distance march still made him feel incredible.
But looking at the others taking it for granted, I couldn't help but sigh: Shao Xia's regime is very full of Hu Feng!
On May 23, Zhu Jin, who was appointed as the vanguard beheading envoy, led the national army's cavalry, and 4,600 Jurchen volunteer troops were the vanguard, with 5,000 tribesmen as auxiliary troops, driving livestock, and left first.
Heichengzi headed west and embarked on a journey.
Shao Shude thought of Zhu Jin's impatient look and felt a little emotional. When he was thirty years old, he didn't come over and went out to fool around. When he was almost fifty, he was anxious to say, "Coach, I want to play basketball." Why bother?
After Zhu Jin set out, Wang Yanzhang was appointed as the right-wing envoy to attack Yi, leading the government troops, town troops, state troops and two cavalry units in Pinglu and Hengye, totaling 10,000 people, with 8,000 tribesmen as auxiliary troops, detouring to the northern line.
On May 25th, we drove our livestock to the west.
On May 26, the left-wing Youyi counterattack envoy Oritsugu led a cavalry force of 10,000 people and set off via the southern route, assigning 2,000 tribal soldiers to serve as warning cavalry and to herd cattle and sheep.
Shao Shude was hunting in Heichengzi, waiting for further gathering of supplies and personnel.
At the end of May, he received news from Beijing.
King Shao Mingyi of Yan put down the rebellion in the Tonghai Dudu Mansion, but fell ill after returning to Kunzhou and recovered in early May.
Shao Shude read the memorial carefully three times before putting it down.
Fortunately, the prince immediately sent a good doctor south. Although King Yan had already recovered from his illness by the time the medical officer arrived, this attitude was a good one.
Another thing that Shao Shude is interested in is that Liulang studied martial arts diligently, and his physical fitness can not only be described as good, but can even be said to be outstanding, but he still fell ill for unknown reasons. After this, he is still willing to go to Yunnan
?
In early May, Crown Princess Zhu gave birth to a son, and all the officials congratulated her.
Shao Shude was also a little relieved, but it was also a problem that the prince did not like to play with women. He was thirty years old and had only one son and one daughter. Shao Shude deeply suspected that he was the kind of person like King Carl XII of Sweden during the Great Northern War.
Unmarried, without heirs, and a war maniac, he fights outside all year round and stays with warriors.
If he hadn't forced Erlang's head down, he would probably prefer to live in the military camp instead of the prince's mansion.
Thinking of this, Shao Shude touched Wang's gradually bulging belly and smiled. I have "created" so many younger brothers and sisters for the prince. Will you still be able to smile when you pay Lumi?
Mrs. Wang looked dejected. The saint brought four women with him to serve him, but he was determined to get her pregnant, but there was nothing she could do. As the queen mother of a country, pregnancy and childbirth were simply too challenging for her.
She had a new outlook on life, but she didn't have the courage to commit suicide, so she could only live in secrecy and live day by day.
A few days ago, the saint had an alliance with the chiefs of various tribes, and what he said in public made her doubt her own ears. She was from Nanzhao, but she was very Chinese. This naked grassland sweat style really made her
Too much to eat.
Oh, by the way, she is not a Wang family now, but a Meng family. Because the saint heard that her great-grandfather Wang Cuodian was given royal status and changed his name to Meng Cuodian, so he let her return to the Meng family name.
What a day...
Shao Shude continued to read the memorials.
An inspection censor sent to Yunnan impeached Li Tangbin, saying that he killed too much and made Yunnan's army and people uneasy. Finally, he secretly mentioned that King Yan had "neglected his duty" and said that when he fell ill in Kunzhou, the Longhu Army attacked Tonghai Dudu Mansion.
They went on a killing spree and plundered countless people's property.
Shao Shude actually believed these words of the censor.
What kind of army is the Dragon Tiger Army? The old foundation of the Huainan Black Cloud Long Sword Army.
Although this army is capable of fighting, its military discipline is notoriously poor, and it was the subject of key supervision during Yang Xingmi's era. Shao Shude did not believe that they just surrendered to Daxia and immediately changed their behavior.
The killings probably occurred, and they might even have been suppressed.
He regretted it slightly now.
How many people are there in Yunnan? Because Nanzhao neglects household registration statistics, it is difficult to say clearly. But in its heyday, there must have been more than one million people. Otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine that there were large-scale armored cavalry and large groups of cavalry.
It also mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to fight for long periods of time - starting from the official founding of the country in the eleventh year of Tianbao (752), Nanzhao spent more than 140 years fighting against Tang, Tubo, and other countries for 42 years.
The Piao people and even the various tribes within the territory fought wars, often dispatching armies of more than 100,000 people.
Without a certain population size and a certain economic foundation, it would not be able to support such aggressive military activities - of course, it would not be able to support it twenty or thirty years before its demise, otherwise Zheng Maisi would not be able to change dynasties so easily.
People's livelihood is in decline, and no one can stand Montessori anymore.
How many people are there in Yunnan now? No one can tell clearly.
Reminiscent of the early Ming Dynasty, when an army of 300,000 troops attacked Yunnan. Due to the mountains and geography, most of the supplies recorded in history were captured. This shows that the local population and economic scale cannot be underestimated - attacking Yunnan, since the Tang Dynasty and Korea Yu Zhongtong
From the beginning, there was no practice of transporting grain thousands of miles from other places. The transportation conditions were really unsupportable.
Being able to support an army of 300,000 in a short period of time was quite impressive. The population of Yunnan at that time was thought to be more than 2 million - but most of them probably did not have household registration. In fact, until the late Ming Dynasty, the vast majority of the population of Yunnan should still be
No account registered.
Shao Shude guessed that the population of Yunnan at this time was likely to be less than one million, and the proportion of "invalid population" (unregistered households, non-paying taxes) was very high. Li Tangbin and Zhu Yanshou were involved in the massacre, and according to the secret police sent out,
According to the report, there were no less than 100,000 people, which was a bit excessive. In fact, it exceeded the needs of raising food. It was a bit intentional to kill people and steal wealth.
If he continues, he is afraid that the whole country will be on fire and chaos will occur everywhere. Considering that epidemics have been spreading frequently in the army, it is time to stop. So he called the palace official Jie Shi and ordered him to write a letter and send it to the prince.
.
"Your Majesty shouted to kill the Uighurs in Gaochang, and ordered to stop the killing in Yunnan. Why?" Meng suddenly asked, stroking his belly.
"Oh, I want to pray for our unborn child." Shao Shude replied casually and continued to read the next military newspaper.
Montessori lowered his head.
Nanzhao worshiped Buddhism, so she really believed in this statement.
"Wait a moment, and then let my son recruit people from Jiangnan and Jiangxi and send them to--" Shao Shude thought for a while and said: "The killings in the Tonghai Governor's Mansion were a bit harsh, so let's send them here."
In the early Ming Dynasty, most of the 300,000 troops remained in Yunnan and were distributed to various places. These soldiers were actually the best immigrants, but Shao Shude knew that he did not have the conditions at this time.
If you let the Longhu Army stay in Yunnan, burn, kill and loot, they are willing to do so, but if you let them settle down and colonize, don't be ridiculous. If you really give this order, it is most likely to separate the city and cause chaos.
There was no other way, we still had to move the authentic people there. The Tonghai Governor's Mansion was brutally killed by Zhu Yanshou, leaving a lot of space, so the people from Jiangnan were allowed to take over first.
Shao Shude also had selfish motives in this matter.
Tonghai Dudu Mansion is Duan Siping's "Longxing Land". It is a place with a relatively large plain area in Yunnan, and the mountains are relatively gentle, not as steep as other places, which is conducive to the reclamation of sloping fields.
The southern barbarians have developed that area for more than a hundred years. Let the Han people do it again, and it will be much easier to handle later.
The last one is about Khotan.
Their monarch died the year before last, and it had been two years since the new monarch took the throne, and the domestic situation had just been stabilized. However, according to a secret report from the Secretary, the new monarch changed his name because his ancestor had married a daughter of the Li Tang clan, and he admired the Tang Dynasty very much.
"Li Shengtian" was similar to the various vassal states in the Central Plains. He became the emperor behind closed doors and celebrated the founding of the Yuan Dynasty together. He also gave himself a title: the great dynasty, the great government of Khotan, the great government, and the great filial piety emperor.
Shao Shude didn't care about proclaiming himself emperor behind closed doors since ancient times.
Li Shengtian sent an envoy to Luoyang, saying that he would send 20,000 troops in July to attack the Uighurs, and expected to meet with the Chinese royal division in Xizhou.
Luoyang comforted the envoys and sent people to return visits to urge Khotan to send troops.
After Shao Shude read it, he felt that there was no problem and he did not intend to operate remotely on this matter.
After dealing with this situation, on the first day of June, he appointed Xu Hao, deputy envoy to the Privy Council, as the military envoy. He continued to stay in Heichengzi to receive the cattle, sheep, horses and camels sent by various ministries, and led the main force of the Chinese army, more than 57,000 people.
Go west and start the westward expedition.
****
It is already June, which is the best season on the grassland.
It was the first time for many accompanying officials, court officials, and sergeants to conduct such a long march on the grassland, and they felt very fresh.
Because we are on the prairie and there is a lack of camping equipment, so every evening, except for unloading wood from some carriages and roughly building a small fence for the saint to live, most people set up tents in the wild.
, even covering the sky and covering the earth.
Every day before dawn, auxiliary soldiers recruited from various tribes began to milk the cows and cook.
The livestock had not yet been slaughtered in large quantities, because they had brought a lot of dried meat with them when they set out. They collected some wild vegetables on the grassland, dried mushrooms, and mixed them into a pot of broth, which was considered a big stew.
The dried meat tastes weird.
Lingzhou has a large-scale meat processing industry. Before the Western Expedition, the government went to farmers to purchase old cattle. After slaughtering them in large quantities, the red meat with less fat was taken out. After drying for a long time, the weight became only a fraction of its original value.
1, then beat it hard, grind it, further compress it, and then put it into a sealed jar - if you are not particular, you can just stuff it into the cow's bladder, which is easier to carry.
The process of making this kind of meat is very long. When it is taken out and eaten, it swells several times when exposed to water and can feed ten people for half a month - of course, this is in theory, but in practice it is not enough, and the taste is not complimentary.
Compared with meat, dairy products are the main food. The army carries cheese, milk powder, freshly squeezed cow and goat milk every day, etc. Even the saints with the best conditions eat wild vegetable milk porridge in the morning.
Life is hard, and those who feel it is new at first will not be able to bear it after more than ten days of marching.
The scenery is monotonous, except for grasslands, there are still grasslands. Occasionally, I see a little mountain, which makes me happy.
There were too many mosquitoes, and they were bitten every night so they couldn't sleep well. They were not saints. They had twins to help drive away the mosquitoes, and there were people dedicated to drying the bedding and clothes every day, as well as plenty of insect repellent drugs.
The food I eat makes me angry and my mouth blisters.
Cheese, milk powder, physalis, milk tofu... In addition to milk, there is milk. There are a handful of wild vegetables and a bag of mushrooms that make people's eyes light up. When the saint invites you to drink wine, drink tea, and eat snacks, it is even more unforgettable.
The ultimate enjoyment.
Except for dry dung, there were no branches or dead grass, and there was an extreme lack of fuel. Most of the time, eating cold food made people want to die.
Another point is that water is in short supply.
We didn't march along the river every day. Sometimes we couldn't find any water source for several days in a row. We had to count the drinking water in the cowhide water bag we carried with us to drink, let alone bathe.
At this time, the literati accompanying them had no choice but to laugh and scold those warriors. No wonder they could march day and night when there was seven feet of snow on the ground, chasing the enemy and cutting them down. They really couldn't compare to their animal strength.
In early July, after more than a month of long march, towering mountains finally appeared in front of us.
The secretary Lang Cuicheng and the right supplementary Cui Miao saw him and wrote several poems excitedly.
"What mountain is this?" Shao Shude asked.
Cui Chao carefully studied military books, historical records and documents, and immediately replied after hearing this: "Your Majesty, this is the southeastern tail gate of Jinshan Mountain. It has no name."
Jinshan is a Chinese name, and the Tibetan people call it "Altai".
I don’t know where Shao Shude is at the southeast end of Jinshan Mountain. The guide only knows the way, but if you ask him to name each mountain range, he won’t be able to name it. Perhaps even the Tibetan people don’t have the leisure to name each mountain range.
Are all the peaks named?
Shao Shude guessed that this should be the Gobi Altai Province of Outer Mongolia in later generations, not far from the China-Mongolia border. The northern route of the ancient Silk Road often traveled here because there is a flat corridor on the south side of the Altai Mountains with many grasslands, suitable for supplying aquatic plants.
food.
This place is still about 1,200 miles away from Beiting, and we are only halfway there!
But you have to be careful going forward. Zhu Jin, who is acting as the vanguard, is more than 200 miles away. He is so idle that he has just raided a small tribe. He doesn't know the enemy or friends. Anyway, he is done.
The battle process was very easy, because the enemy had no time to gather their men and was killed directly. But this incident itself was already sounding the alarm to Xia Jun: if they go further, they will enter the enemy's hinterland.
In fact, this was also the southwest border of the Uighur Khanate in history.
"Tell Zhu Jin not to stop and continue moving forward." Shao Shude ordered: "In addition, give orders to Wang Yanzhang and Zhe Siyu to follow closely and keep three days' journey each."