stubborn thief

Chapter 688 Send Troops

West of the Helan Mountains, there is long flowing water.

This place is close to Tengger, but because of the melted snow from the Helan Mountains, it has become a land with abundant water and grass.

The old shepherd wearing a Mongolian red hat wrapped his fur coat tightly, watching the skinny old dog chasing the flock of sheep in the cold wind, muttering incoherently that Taiji was crazy.

Last winter was very cold. The sand wind from the desert froze many livestock to death.

Just a few days ago, the cavalry ran through every winter pasture in the entire grassland, conveying the order of the lord Gulu Taiji, asking the herdsmen to deliver the lord's sheep and horses to where Zaisan was.

This kind of order undoubtedly made the herdsmen feel familiar. Just a few years ago, when the defeated Khan Lindan passed through the border, the Taiji also issued such an order.

The difference is that the order that time was to leave behind the breeding sheep and horses, and send the rest to the garrison; while this time the order was to send all the herds of sheep and horses over.

Leave no one behind.

Of course Gulu Taiji was not crazy.

He was just like a man swimming against the current, trying to grab every straw.

The name Gulu sounds a bit weird, like a hungry child, but he actually has a very prominent background in Mo Nan.

His great ancestor was Dayan Khan.

Liezu was the third son of Dayan Khan, the father of Habuhai Khan and Altan Khan who had seized the throne of the Northern Yuan Dynasty. His name was Barsborot, and his title of Khan meant Imperial Uncle Khan.

Tianzu was the eldest son of Habuhai Khan, the head of the 30,000 households in the right wing of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, Jinong, and Gunbilik.

My great-grandfather was the eldest son of Gunbilik, the eldest son of Jinong Nayan.

My great-grandfather was the eldest son of Nayan Daer, also known as Huang Taiji. When his father died, he was stationed in the Greater and Lesser Song Mountains in Gansu, and was also in the army that marched westward on the Oirat Mongols.

Therefore, he only inherited his father's post as deputy governor, and before he could go to the Babai Room to hold the ceremony of succession to Jinong, he was killed by Exuelebe, a noble of the Huite tribe under the Durbert tribe of the Oirats.

His grandfather was Bu Shitu, the eldest son of Buyan Batuer Huang Taiji. He was only thirteen years old. With the support of Qiejin Huang Taiji, he inherited his grandfather's position as Jinong and reigned for forty-eight years.

His father was Xue Ling Huang Taiji, also the eldest son of Bushitu Jinong. He inherited the throne of Jinong at the age of 36, reigned for six months, and died in the same year.

Gulu Taiji was the eldest son of Xueling Huang Taiji.

His uncle, E'linchen, took advantage of his youth and won over Sanang Taiji, the great-grandson of Qiejinhuang Taiji and the ruling minister of the Right Wing Sanwanhu, to publicize the title of Khan and inherit the throne of Jinong.

However, Gulu Taiji, who lost his father at a young age, was left with only a few thousand tribesmen and a thousand herdsmen, and lived in seclusion in the west of the Helan Mountains.

He once regarded Ligdan Khan, who was on the Western Expedition, as a wise leader and offered him sheep and horses when his troops passed through the country, but received nothing in return.

The Khan did send troops, but not for him, nor to defend the Northern Yuan tradition.

The Khan just beat them randomly, sweeping across 30,000 households on the right wing and defeating his uncle E'linchen, turning the southern part of the desert upside down, but he had no intention of letting him inherit Jinong.

Khan Lin Dan doesn't want Jinong!

This time, the new Khan's order came from south of the border wall.

In fact, Gulu Taiji knew very well that the Khan named Liu Chengzong was of the wrong bloodline and had not received a decent traditional aristocratic education.

Just as the lack of knowledge revealed between the lines of the letters sent by the Khan, he obviously had no noble attendants from the orthodox Khan's court around him, and they didn't even know that he came from a prominent family south of the desert. They treated him like a small noble of the Northern Yuan Dynasty living in a remote area.

But in fact, it was precisely because he saw that Liu Chengzong didn't know who he was and treated him with a normal attitude that the weak and powerless Gulu Taiji felt the rare respect and aroused great favor from him.

In the letter, Liu Chengzong did not order him to submit and pay tribute. He just said that there was no hatred between them. He knew that you did not have many troops and your people were poor and miserable. If you wanted to work for me, we could do trade. You would provide horses and sheep, and I would provide liquor and summer clothes.

The rate is thirty thousand. If you provide more horses and sheep, I will grant you or your son an official position according to your contribution.

If you are willing, I will protect your right to graze in the west of the Helan Mountains, and allow your people to sell Shaojiu and summer clothes to the 230,000 households in the south of the desert without being disturbed by anyone.

With the example of Lin Danhan before him, Gulu Taiji had mixed feelings when he was suddenly faced with Liu Chengzong, a Khan who seemed to be able to communicate and was easy to communicate with.

Liu Chengzong's envoy only sat in the tent for an hour, and Gulu Taiji finished his thinking, sent people to pass on the order to the winter pastures under his command, and handed the reply to the envoy.

The letter to Gulu Taiji was written by Liu Chengzong in Pingliang.

When the reply was received, he had already passed Guyuan and the troops had arrived at the second border wall.

Just as Gulu Taiji imagined, Liu Chengzong didn't know much about him.

But this is not because there are no Mongolian talents around him who are proficient in the affairs south of the desert.

Liu Shizi has a lot of them around him.

In his Tiger Guard Camp, there were the great ministers of the Chahar Khanate, Sangwushu, Goltuchechen, Qitatecherbei, Galma, Gelong Heshang and others.

They have now changed their names to Wu Sihu, Gao Letu, Zitate and Gelma.

Among the Yulin cavalry who served as guards and attendants, there were also Northern Yuan warriors such as Bayasihu, Elinqindaiqing, and Dorjidarhan.

However, without exception, all these people knew about the affairs in southern Mobei were about the situation of the Chahar tribe, and they didn't know much about the 30,000 households on the right wing, which had its own independent system.

Not to mention Gulu Taiji, one of the many families of the Ordos tribe under the right wing and one of the hundreds of descendants of Gunbilik.

Even Liu Chengzong did not actually attach importance to this small nobleman who lived behind the Helan Mountains. The reason why he wrote a letter to him was just a casual move.

There are three nobles stationed there. Gulu Taiji's power is slightly greater. The other two, Chaotu Taiji and Duoerji, are brothers. Only when they join forces can they compete with Gulu Taiji.

But even if the three nobles were tied together, they did not have the strength of a battalion.

Liu Chengzong was too lazy to persuade them to surrender one by one, and was worried that when he sent troops to Ningxia, the three of them would come out and plunder again, so he wrote a letter to Gulu.

According to his intelligence, out of the 30,000 sheep, Gulu Taiji could only provide half, and only if these three small leaders were added together, could they provide the total, based on estimates from the perspective of sustainable development.

Early spring wine and summer clothing are the most sought-after commodities on the grassland.

Because the raw material for making wine on the grassland is milk, and in the cold winter, horses, sheep and cows have no milk, only camels can still produce milk.

But few people raise camels.

Typically, on the grasslands west of Ordos, the livestock ratio is two horses, four cows and forty-five sheep for every one camel.

Edom had no camels or very few, but had one more horse.

This ratio is basically fixed.

The nobles prefer horses and sheep, firstly because they are convenient for herding, and secondly because they have high economic value, can effectively increase the value of property, and can also cope with disasters well.

After all, one litter can produce two or three lambs, and three litters can be produced in two years. Not only is it easy to raise them, but they will give birth to lambs when they are one and a half years old. In three years, your wealth can be tripled or quadrupled. If you encounter a snowstorm or wind disaster, as long as all the sheep are not killed, you can quickly make a comeback.

Moreover, sheep dung can be burned, milk can be drunk, meat, internal organs and blood can be eaten, the skin can be made into clothes and the wool can be made into felt, which can adapt to various pastoral environments except those that are humid.

Apart from the lack of self-protection ability and the fact that their hooves damage the grass roots and they cannot stay in one place for a long time, they are economic livestock with no major shortcomings. Coincidentally, these two minor flaws are nothing to the nobles who control the pastures.

The herders themselves will choose to raise cattle. Although raising cattle is laborious and not suitable for group herding, they produce a lot of milk. At the same time, pulling carts and felt tents, and even transporting goods and trading are the main labor force of the herders.

Camels, on the other hand, have almost no advantages except for their ability to endure thirst. Unless there is a special need for traveling through desert arid areas, nobles and herdsmen will not use them as their main livestock.

Bad temper, smelly, strong urine smell, difficult to train and herd, these are just minor problems.

The biggest problem is that it is not economical.

A sheep can give birth to a lamb when it is one and a half years old, while a camel has to be raised to be five years old and only gives birth once every two or three years, and each time it gives birth to only one baby.

This thing doesn't have milk in winter, and it takes more than 400 days to gestate a baby.

This nomadic economic mode of production determines that wine in winter and spring is a rare commodity on the grassland that only wealthy nobles can enjoy.

  As for summer clothes, needless to say, who would wear a fur coat in summer?

In the trade between Ming and Mongolia, iron pots and cloth were indispensable items of trade.

Liu Chengzong's case is relatively easy. The general under him who is in charge of this trade is Cao Yao, and the region is Gansu.

Cao Yao wanted to provide military supplies for this northern expedition.

Because Gansu is quite fertile now, the Zhangye Oasis where Ganzhou is located was originally a good place, and now Liangzhou is also a good place.

When conquering Gansu, thanks to Hong Chengchou, the Wuwei Oasis outside Liangzhou City was reclaimed by the Marshal's army after the burning of the wasteland and the reclamation of the land. In addition, the Zhangye Oasis, which was already highly productive, also brought Gansu a complete harvest.

After deducting the military rations from Gansu, the Governor's Office still had a surplus of 200,000 dan of grain.

Of course, both Liu Chengzong and Cao Yao were very dissatisfied with Gansu's surplus.

There are more than four million acres of land suitable for farming in Gansu, but the Gansu Governor's Office of the Marshal's Army can only cultivate 800,000 acres of land.

As a result, Liu Chengzong's goal of curbing soil degradation and vigorously promoting the "Pro-Farming Law" was somewhat difficult to implement.

Because there is no one.

Gansu, which had experienced the trauma of war, had an extremely distorted population structure. When all the people from all walks of life were counted together, there were only more than 21,000 households, which was even less than the number of soldiers under Cao Yao.

At the same time, it was difficult to transport these 200,000 shi of surplus grain to the battlefield.

Once the fighting breaks out, the northern route will be unsafe, so he has to transport the goods to Lanzhou first, and then transport them to Guyuan via the western logistics route.

Even if the grain was transported from Liangzhou, it would be a journey of more than a thousand miles. If it was from Suzhou, it would be more than two thousand miles. Transporting grain would be a joke.

But Gansu has a wine-making industry and a large supply of second-hand summer clothes.

Song Xian from Suzhou runs a pawnshop. He already has a lot of clothes in stock, and if he buys in more cloth, he will have even more.

These things are light, easy to transport and of high value. They were transported from Zhenfanwei in Liangzhou to the west of the Helan Mountains. In between was a 300-mile Gobi Desert and a small oasis grassland. It was more cost-effective and convenient to use a camel caravan to exchange them for cattle and sheep from the locals.

Liu Shizi's original intention was to use wine, cloth and clothes to arouse Gulu Taiji's desire, and let him persuade the other two nobles, so that the three families would work together to provide sheep and horses as reserve supplies for the marshal's army after it marched into Ningxia.

In case we cannot win quickly, we can just keep one sheep locally and save the trouble of transporting ten sheep to the rear.

However, Liu Chengzong never expected that he had underestimated the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of the grassland nobles of that era.

Gulu Taiji was grateful for his proposal and counted his belongings, saying that he could only get together 24,320 sheep and 1,066 horses.

As for the Khan's suggestion of conferring official titles, we could not afford the remaining 4,600 sheep due to our limited ability.

If the Khan is willing to appoint me as an official, I will send my younger brother Batu with 2,300 infantrymen to serve under his command.

When Liu Shizi saw the letter, he was completely confused. He suspected that his information about the strength of the Mongolian tribes outside the border was wrong.

Didn't they say that this guy could only provide 15,000 sheep at most? He would have to team up with the other two nobles to get 30,000.

How come this guy came up with 24,000 sheep and 1,000 horses by himself, and the key is that the numbers are even in integers.

  Selling off your property, right?

Liu Chengzong did not reply to him for the time being, because he really did not want another two thousand herdsmen to eat his military rations.

Camping within the second border wall, Liu Chengzong did not send a letter to Hong Chengchou as soon as he arrived at the location, because after leaving Guyuan, he divided his troops into two groups.

There are too many people on the Guyuan side. Not counting the logistics personnel, there are nearly 50,000 troops gathered. Such a large force is not conducive to a quick attack after leaving the second border wall.

It’s not their problem, it’s mainly due to Ningxia’s geography.

The area between the two border walls connecting Guyuan and Ningxia is not a flat, undefensible desert.

Instead, it is a series of sandy gullies and earthen hills on the Loess Plateau that are close to desertification. The so-called Guyuan is just two intersecting cross lines, the Qingshui River Valley in the north and south, and the two side walls in the east and west.

From half of the city in the Qingshui River Valley, there is no good road outside, only endless hills.

There is a forked road between the hills, one heading north and the other heading northeast.

Going north, it leads to Anning Fort and Mingshazhou Fort in Zhongwei. After taking those two forts, the army can cross the Yellow River and move northward along the west bank of the Yellow River and the foot of the Helan Mountains, attacking more than a dozen fortresses along the way, such as Shikong Temple, Zaoyuan, Guangwu, etc., and finally arrive at Ningxia town.

Another road between the two mountains leads to Hongsibao in the northeast. The road is wider and goes along the sweet water and the bitter water. Many fortresses must be attacked as well. The destination is Lingzhou on the east bank of the Yellow River, opposite Ningxia Town.

And to the east through the border wall, there is another border pass called Xiamaguan, which also leads to Hongsibao via Weizhou and then to Lingzhou.

However, the troops must be divided to march to Half City and Xiamaguan. Although there is a border wall connecting the two, they can only meet at Hongsibao after going out of the border.

Because between them there is Luoshan Mountain, which is eighty miles long from north to south.

It was impossible for Liu Chengzong to fight to the death fortresses one by one. Even if they surrendered one by one, it would delay the time for attacking Ningxia town.

Therefore, his plan was to use Ren Quaner's Second Brigade as the vanguard, with Zhang Xianzhong, the Minister of Rites, as the chief of staff, to lead the army out of Xiamaguan, pass through Hongsibao and attack Lingzhou directly to seize the east bank of the Yellow River.

Afterwards, Wang Wenxiu's Longxi Brigade was the left wing, taking the northern route directly to Anning Fort in Zhongwei; Ding Guodong's troops in the eastern route towards Huanxian were the right wing, dealing with the Ningxia guards mobilized by Ren Quaner.

Liu Chengzong personally led the three battalions of Yulin, Huben and Zongren from Hongsibao to Lingzhou to command the battle.

Of course, behind him, there is Gao Yingdeng's First Brigade as the rear guard to deal with possible accidents.

Night is approaching.

Liu Chengzong ordered the soldiers to deliver the letter to Hong Chengchou. Standing on the city gate of the second side wall, he handed the torch to his attendant.

Five beacons were lit and thick smoke rose into the night sky.

Five beacon cannons were fired, and the sound shook the border town.

In the dust raised by the messenger cavalry's tails, teams of cavalrymen of the Marshal's Army, riding on mules and leading horses, lined up outside the wall, following the smoke and dust, rushing northward.

good evening!