stubborn thief

Chapter 632: Satisfied

Tomsk city.

This city is located on the right bank of the Tuomu River, and its geographical location is extremely critical.

It is eighty miles away from the confluence of the Tomu River and the Ob River and 5,800 miles away from Moscow. It was established in the 32nd year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. It is a strong fortress that has been reinforced by the Russians for thirty years.

Although this is still a wooden village, it faces river cliffs on both sides. There are two connected wooden villages in the east and west. Outside the wooden village, there is a large wooden fence, two small wooden fences, and two trenches, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

Every ship heading east from the Balabin Grassland to support various strongholds must pass through Tomsk. Likewise, every batch of furs and supplies transported from the east to Tyumen must also pass through Tomsk.

At this moment, this strong fortress was under siege precisely because of its critical location.

The initiator of this war was not Liu Chengzu or Batur Hutaiji of Oirat.

Neither man would wage war for control of the land; they were more interested in looking inward and guiding Oirat onto the right path.

In the entire north of the Tianshan Mountains, there is only one person who is not interested in Oirat, but has a soft spot for opening up new territories, the civil servant of the Marshal's Mansion: Sunday Qiang.

Zhou Zhouqiang originally had a high enthusiasm for educating the people, but after two years of unremitting efforts, the Tianshan Army was about to be educated into a new Oirat.

They have too few people. The several thousand Tianshan troops are just a drop in the ocean to the millions of people in Oirat. They are all bachelors. As the two parties get married and live together, not many people learn Chinese. On the contrary, all the Tianshan troops can speak fluently. The Wara dialect.

They are like the Portuguese who leased Macau and have extremely limited influence on the mainland.

Sunday Qiang's work has reached a dead end. It seems that even if he turns into a tomb, he will not be able to turn Liu Chengzong's painting into reality.

After all, in the final analysis, Oirat is a huge tribal alliance with an imminent survival crisis. They need more pasture land. There is no pasture land in the north, and the fields cultivated by the Tianshan Army are of no use. Only the war with the Kazakh Khanate is the top priority.

For the vast majority of the nobles in Oirat, the titles that the Khitan Khan could give them were just icing on the cake and were far less meaningful than real trade.

Therefore, apart from the large-scale trade, it is difficult to say that they and Liu Chengzong are a community of interests.

This deadlock didn't finally change until last winter, when Chu Huer, who was leading Jiubai to pay tribute to Liu Chengzong, returned to Tianshan.

Chuhuur is a problem in Oirat.

He was originally Taiji of the Junggar tribe, the younger brother of Batur Hutaiji.

Many years ago, this man almost destroyed the entire Oirat by himself.

At that time, one of their younger brothers died. In order to fight for the inheritance, Chu Huer killed the other younger brother, which made his father furious and launched an attack.

If what happened back then had only come to this point, Chuhu'er wouldn't be considered a problem for Weilat.

The problem is that at that time their biological father was the leader of Junggar and one of the two leaders of Oirat, and sent 10,000 troops to attack Chuhuer.

Both the Torhut tribe and the Duerbot tribe joined the war, and the two sides fought against each other for several years... Chuhu'er not only was not killed, but also thrived.

He was deprived of his Taiji status and pasture land by his father, and he led his remaining hard-core followers to resist his father's attack, forcing the Turgut tribe to move westward to the Volga River, and also disabled the last Kuchu of the Siberian Khanate. Khan, let the Russian Cossacks reap the benefits.

In the end, this turmoil ended with Chuhuer as a homeless man occupying the Altai Mountains.

Batur Hutaiji always wanted to get him somewhere else.

After all, everyone in Oirat knew that Chu Hu'er was brave and good at fighting. All the tribal chiefs from the Altai Mountains to Zaisang Lake, even if they had more soldiers than Chu Hu'er, were not willing to go to war with such a fool. People kept going there. Migrating southward led to confusion in the boundaries of pastureland in northern Oirat.

Batur Hutaiji was in charge of the alliance and had nothing to do with Chu Hu'er, so he sent him to escort the goods to see Liu Chengzong.

This is indeed unkind.

If Chu Hu'er committed an asshole in Qinghai and was killed by Liu Chengzong in anger, Oirat would be able to gain a moral advantage in negotiations with the Marshal's Mansion and lay the groundwork for his full-fledged betrayal of the alliance in the future.

If Liu Chengzong likes Chu Hu'er and keeps him in Qinghai, that would be even better. Letting him fight for Liu Chengzong will still count Weilat as a contribution, and it will also save him from returning to Tianshan as a disaster.

Huitai Ji respected Liu Chengzong very much, but respect did not mean that he would accept all the agreements he negotiated with Liu Chengzong when he was a prisoner in Qinghai.

After all, now that he is no longer a prisoner, the status of both parties has changed a little, and Oirat can only accept terms that are beneficial to him.

As for the use and control of Oirat as a vassal and vassal in the agreement... Batur Hutaiji felt that there was no need to rush.

If you don't ask, I'll just assume it doesn't happen.

If you ask, I will tell you that I am ready to do it.

Just one word, drag.

After all, who knows whether the situation will change in the future?

It's just that Liu Chengzong seems to like Chu Hu'er a little too much.

Not only did Chu Hu'er come back alive, he also got a hundred muskets made by the commander-in-chief and was given the title of general of the Chu Hu'er camp.

This kind of official title is meaningless to others, but it means too much to Chu Hu'er.

When he came back, he changed his position and went directly to report to Liu Chengzu. He also asked Sunday Qiang to help him communicate with Huitaiji and ask for a station.

Sunday Qiang's education work was at a deadlock, and he was worried.

Suddenly I found that the commander-in-chief was far away in Qinghai, and he could actually instigate a good general with more than a thousand soldiers, and he immediately became excited.

He was thinking about where else to stay, so he decided to go from the Altai Mountains to Zaisan Lake.

To others, that area is really not that great. There are quite a few mountains, hills, deserts, and plains, but the climate conditions are poor. Summers are hot and dry, winters are cold, and there is heavy snow and strong winds that can blow away sheep.

But for the navy's Yamen, which is strong on Sunday, it is a rare Feng Shui treasure.

Zhou Qiangxin said that the path of culture and education was not going to work. Obviously, educating millions of people was beyond my ability as a former magistrate of Ningzhou. But I also have another official title called Ningyuan Colonel, which sounds like he also knows a little bit about boxing.

Sunday Qiang assisted Chu Huer in completing the reorganization of a battalion.

There are only 2,700 soldiers in this camp, and everyone is skilled in bow and horse. However, because they are all warriors, they are not good at fishing and herding, and they are also very good at eating, resulting in extremely poor living conditions.

The dog-headed strategist is extremely important to the Mountain King's dominance.

Just like all the problems Chu Huer encountered, they were a piece of cake for Sunday Qiang.

In the second month after Sunday was strong in Altai, the small rafts in all the lakes under Chuhu'er's rule were replaced by large pine fishing boats of Shandong origin.

At the same time, bricks were burned to build houses, forts built that would not be blown away by strong winds, and irrigation canals, farmland plots, and mines and kilns were planned. They just waited for the tribute residents from the north to be recruited. Farming and raising sheep, all-round development. The unruly Chu Hu'er just prostrated himself under Zhou Zhouqiang's official robe.

As long as this civil servant is around and he is allowed to work here for five or ten years, what does Junggar mean?

Chu Huer even felt that given time, he could overturn Oirat with Altai alone.

Of course, Zhou Qiang will not support his rebellious idea.

To Zhou Zhouqiang, Chu Hu'er was more like a tool for the Khan's development plan. He begged: "If we want to fight, isn't it better to attack Qiu Ming than to kill each other? When the general captures Qiu Ming, Ming Dynasty will Handsome, it’s not a bad idea to beg for help!”

The so-called Shibier Khan is also the Siberian Khan.

When Zhou Qiang said this, he did not know that Santaiji of the Junggar tribe in front of him was one of the masterminds behind the final demise of the Siberian Khanate.

At that time, it was the chaotic era of Oirat. Kuchu Khan of the Siberian Khanate killed the Cossack leader Yermak. He succeeded in revenge and tried to lead his tribe to move to the south of the Irtysh River to station herders.

But the grassland has never been an unclaimed land. It borders the Junggar in Oirat, and a conflict between the indigenous people and outsiders broke out immediately. The Russians pursued it from Tala City, and the Junggar surrounded it from Zaisang Lake. They fought wherever they went.

Kuchu Khan's two sons died in the war, and his other two sons, eight wives, and eight daughters were all captured. In the end, he had to flee to the Bukhara Khanate alone, and the Siberian Khanate was destroyed.

Up to now, there are still many descendants of soldiers from the Siberian Khanate under Chuhu'er.

Migrant households have always been more supportive of change than locals, so they were the hard-core pawns who traveled around after Chu Huer was deprived of his identity and territory.

But compared to the Siberian Khan, Chu Huer paid more attention to the Marquis of the Marshal's Mansion.

Other nobles paid more attention to the title of Khan and the status of Taiji, but he was originally Taiji, but was deposed. Even if he restored the status of Taiji, he would not feel anything wrong. On the contrary, he was a marquis with the same level as Khan in the Marshal Palace. It seems more noble.

This is unique in the whole of Oirat.

At that time Chu Huer wanted to go to Qiuming.

Fortunately, he was stopped on Sunday.

The attack on Qiu Ming was the same thing in their minds, but it was not the same concept.

For Chu Hu'er, the so-called attack on Tyumen means to fight, rob, and then go home.

But what Zhou Qiang wants is obviously not that, but to stay there for a long time and turn it into a country.

Without long-term governance, it would be meaningless for him as a civil servant to open up new territories.

This cannot be accomplished overnight. It is not that Qiu Ming cannot be conquered. The year before last, Batur Hutaiji set fire to Qiu Ming as soon as he came back.

But it is useless to burn it. The next year, another wooden village will grow in the ground.

To occupy, to defend, to see-saw, just like Ming Dynasty's repeated defeats against Hami, the competition is resilience.

As for resilience, Sunday Qiang, as the chief officer of the Marshal's Navy Yamen and an officer in charge of logistics, knew very well that their resilience in this direction must be much worse than Orusi on the other side of the ice sheet.

Based on this point of view, Zhou Qiang was more willing to instruct Chu Huer to attack the city of Tomsk, which was closer to Oirat.

In fact, even in Tomsk, he doesn't know if he can hold on until next year.

After all, this year and next are critical to the Tianshan Army in the Marshal's Mansion. It's time for the first rotation of the garrison.

Three years passed in the blink of an eye, and the Marshal's Mansion began to fight eastward.

Even Sunday Qiang, the latest news he knows is that Liu Chengzong deployed training guards in Qinghai for defense replacement, but that troop was pulled to Lanzhou to garrison in Lanzhou by Dalai Taiji in order to deal with the threat of Ming general Tu Shixian to Hehuang.

If the new troops cannot arrive on time, the morale of the Tianshan Army will be very poor, which means that everything they do here is in vain.

On the other hand, if the replacement training guards arrive in Tianshan in time, plus the Chuhuer Camp and the subjects of the Kyrgyz tribe in the north, the Marshal's Mansion's direct troops in Tianshan can exceed 10,000 in a short time, which is enough to withdraw the Tianshan Army in the first phase. Before leaving, organize a battle to attack the city.

To achieve this goal, Sunday Qiang spent nearly a year.

Even in the twelfth lunar month of winter, the herdsmen wrapped in fur coats took a sled deep into the glacier, found the mouth of the Tomu River and the Ob River, and found out the Russian supply lines. Only then did they persuade Chu Huer to launch an attack on Tomsk. The siege of the city.

Soon, under his coordinated deployment, a mixed army with a strength of nearly 4,000 was organized. This summer, the troops were divided into three groups and attacked north.

Along the way, 2,700 battalions led by Chu Hu'er were divided into three groups, front, middle and rear, and attacked northward through the corner of the Altai Mountains.

The second route is Eqirtu Khan, who was kidnapped by Chu Huer and put on the chariot.

He is the eldest son of the eldest brother of Heshuote's National Preceptor Khan. He is relatively young. After the National Preceptor Khan led his troops into Qinghai, he still stayed in Heshuote's hometown at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, in the Tacheng area, very close to the Altai Mountains. He has been avoiding Chu Huer's sharp edge.

This time Chu Hu'er was about to launch a northern expedition and sent people to invite Eqiltu Khan. The Khan was so quick that he brought fifty armored cavalry and two hundred animal husbandry cavalry to help.

This Heshuote Khan only had a thousand warriors in his tribe. When Liu Chengzu went to Tianshan and paraded in Urumqi, three thousand soldiers frightened him to the point of trembling.

It's interesting enough to send two hundred and fifty.

Chuhu'er didn't care how many troops Oqiltu Khan sent. The main reason for asking this man to come over was to borrow the bloodline of Bor Jijin and call on the Kyrgyz people who were nomadic between the Ob River and the Yenisei River to send troops.

The effect was very good. Four Kyrgyz Ulrus came out eight hundred and led the way in twists and turns in the swamp, making their advance both concealed and swift.

The last route was the Tianshan Army. Liu Chengzu did not send many troops to fight. He only sent out the artillery force of the Hundred Commander Wang Jinzhong, with four lion cannons, 20 flying cannons, 30 lifting guns and 50 rockets to assist in the battle.

More ordnance was personally escorted by Liu Chengzu, transported by land to the northern foot of the Altai Mountains, and then taken by boat to the north by the Ob River. However, this journey required a safe environment along the way, so it fell behind and could not arrive until the siege began. .

Taking advantage of this time difference, the small Tsarist Russian strongholds along the upper reaches of the Ob River received the news that Tomsk was being besieged first, and immediately assembled Cossack teams and hunter teams to support the north.

After they left, the few civil servants who stayed behind in Muzhai saw the wheeled warships with red-bottomed dragon flags and shouting Mongolian chants coming from south to north on the Ob River.

Those strange ships with big wheels approached the fortress. Without waiting for them to fire warning shots, they roared out the sampans and threw out a piece of explosive that trailed long flames. The seeds are flying around and the smoke is filling the air.

Then the sampan rowed to the shore. Groups of infantrymen wearing red cloth armor clashed in separate lanes. The ones in the front set up guns and big blunderbuss and fired at the Muzhai sentry tower one after another. The ones in the back carried small wooden boxes and rushed to the gate of the village in an extremely orderly manner. .

With a loud explosion, the infantrymen rushed in and rushed into the single-story wooden fort, capturing or killing the civilian officials and soldiers who were left behind.

The whole process was just a stick of incense and flowed smoothly. The ears of the tax collectors who stayed behind in the small bunker were still immersed in the screams of the rockets. When they realized it, they were already trapped and thrown into the stuffy and cramped cabin, listening to the shouts of the Mongolian sailors. Son, watch the Mongolian sailors pedaling on wheels.

It was July 16th, the eighth year of Chongzhen's reign, when the Tsarist Russian expedition realized for the first time that an army that was completely self-sufficient in gunpowder could have more firepower in a conflict.

good afternoon!