The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 349: Solving the grassland problem
The Ming Air Force patrolling along the railway line cooperated with the two-wheeled motor vehicle cavalry on the ground, followed the defeated and fleeing nomadic cavalry, and found the location of their tribal brigade.

It was a typical Kazakh nomadic tribe with a total population of about two thousand people.

The Ming Air Force immediately divided into two parts. One part stayed nearby to monitor the enemy's activities and report to the rear by telegram, while the other part flew back to report in person.

The motorcycle cavalry on the ground immediately attacked and killed the fleeing cavalry before they returned to the tribe to avoid alerting them immediately.

After receiving the report, the nearest temporary military camp immediately dispatched a battalion of cavalry.

A nomadic tribe of about two thousand people usually has only three to four hundred herders, and at most six to seven hundred young and strong men capable of fighting, and only three hundred of them are used as soldiers all year round.

The leader of their tribe, who had gone out with more than a hundred people to steal the Ming Dynasty's railroad tracks, was defeated and captured by the locomotive patrol.

A battalion of the Ming regular army usually had three hundred people, so there was no suspense in the battle.

The Ming army suddenly appeared and launched an attack, and the tribe that was resting and waiting was stunned.

Those giant steel birds that fell from the sky, the two-wheeled steel monsters that made strange rumbling sounds, and the extremely dense submachine gun bullets.

These uninformed tribal soldiers thought they were experiencing a horrific nightmare.

Fortunately, they were able to talk and were allowed to surrender.

So the small tribe surrendered as required, packed up their things and followed the Ming Dynasty's locomotive cavalry to set up camp in the new city designated along the railway.

The Ming army will build forts along the railway line at suitable places, and then build residential areas around the forts.

As a subsequent station, barracks, warehouse, and at the same time as a distribution center for the Central Plains and grasslands, it is expected to gather settlements of surrounding nomadic peoples.

After all, the Ming Dynasty originated from an agricultural and settled nation, so the customary way of management was naturally to register all settled citizens.

The safest management plan is to allow the members of these nomadic tribes to settle down and live like the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, it was only after the Ming Dynasty had completed industrialization that it was truly capable of realizing this transformation of social lifestyle.

In the industrial and handicraft era, the level of social productivity was low.

The materials that can be produced per unit area of ​​land and the maximum number of people that can be supplied are directly affected by land and environmental conditions.

These two indicators must at least reach the standards of Western Europe in order to form a settled farming tradition.

Otherwise, they would have to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, collecting resources over a larger area to support a relatively limited population.

In the vast area of ​​the Western Regions and Central Asia, there are only a small number of settled farming areas at the foot of a few famous mountain ranges and in the valleys and river valleys.

In most other areas, during the agricultural and handicraft eras, people could only live in a nomadic way, and some were even directly uninhabited deserts.

The feudal imperial dynasties in the agricultural era were unable to fundamentally solve the problem of nomadic raids in the north. This was a problem of productivity rather than ideology.

Whenever there was a dynasty that seemed to be effective and strong in managing the northern nomadic peoples, the end result was that the nomads became stronger again in the process of being managed.

It is too difficult and risky to let the sons of the aristocratic families from the farming ethnic groups in the Central Plains go to the grassland and learn how to use the nomadic lifestyle to manage the nomadic ethnic groups on the grassland.

If these aristocratic officials cannot adapt to the nomadic life on the grassland, it will be difficult to effectively manage these grassland nomadic groups.

If they adapt to the nomadic life, they may be able to integrate into the grassland ethnic groups and enhance the power of nomadism.

In the process of being directly managed, nomadic peoples were able to quickly absorb and digest the technological advantages accumulated by the settled farming peoples of the Central Plains.

After the Huns surrendered to the Han Dynasty, there were the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms. After the Heavenly Khan emerged in the Tang Dynasty, there were Liao, Jin and Mongolia.

The Ming Dynasty was an era that "did not know how to, and did not want to, manage the grassland ethnic groups." Officials from the south of the Yangtze River simply did not want to have in-depth exchanges with the barbarians on the grasslands.

Those who are willing to enter the Central Plains will pretend to be Han people, speak Chinese, wear Chinese clothes, and use Chinese names. Those who don’t want to come will stay outside.

When I can defeat you, I will catch you and beat you to death. When I cannot defeat you, I will insist on imposing economic sanctions on you, leaving you without a pot to cook.

They built the strongest Great Wall in history, and regularly went out to the grasslands to burn grass and kill livestock, which resulted in fewer and fewer Mongols on the grasslands.

The nomadic tribes in the northern grasslands of the Central Plains were almost exhausted by the Ming Dynasty.

But the Ming Dynasty itself was in decline, and as a result, the Qing Dynasty, which emerged from nowhere, took advantage of it and swallowed up both the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia at the same time.

The Qing Dynasty originated from a fishing and hunting nation. After conquering the world, they also used a settled way to torment the Mongols on the grasslands.

The location of Ulaanbaatar was originally uncertain, but it was fixed at the request of Qianlong.

The Qing Dynasty designed a league and banner system for the Mongols, requiring them to graze within a specified range and not to change pastures at will, otherwise they would be punished.

Combined with the temple repair and population reduction system, as well as the financial erosion of Shanxi merchants, the grassland ethnic groups were completely destroyed.

Only by allowing them to settle can the threat be truly resolved.

Zhu Jianxuan now has higher productivity, and the industrialized Ming Dynasty no longer needs to use the disgusting policies of the Qing Dynasty.

We can rely on higher productivity to forcibly develop settled life and deal with pastoralism.

Now we can build canals to divert water, dig wells to pump water, use trucks to collect fodder, and use feed to replace part of the pasture.

There is not enough water in Central Asia, but we can just hold on until the glacier river is completed.

Then the central region of Central Asia will no longer be short of water, and the population of these settlements can once again be concentrated on both sides of the large rivers.

At that time, we can directly engage in irrigation agriculture and industrialization.

The Ming Dynasty's railway continued to extend westward, while constantly incorporating nomadic tribes encountered along the way.

Another road construction team also began to move, starting from the east-west Central Asian railway trunk line to build branch lines leading to several important settlements.

The first branch line goes around the Ili River Valley from the west side of the Tianshan Mountains, connecting the Ili urban area which is inconvenient to access from the east.

At the exit of the Ili River Valley, a second branch line was built, leading to the historical Almaty region and the Bishkek region, which now has a city.

It then continues westward from Bishkek to the Syr Darya River basin.

At the same time, a third branch line was separated from the western edge of the Tianshan Mountains, bypassing the Tianshan Mountains to the south to connect the Tashkent area, the Fergana Basin area, and the Samarkand area.

The Central Asian railway trunk line mainly leads to Europe in order to cut off the connection between Shunguo and Russia and prepare for the attack on Russia.

These branches in the south are actually the ones that directly threaten Shun State’s security.

As the Ming Dynasty's railways continued to extend, the Ming Dynasty had full control over more and more large settlements, and incorporated and controlled more and more nomadic tribes.

The Ming Dynasty and the Shun Kingdom were actually at war, but the situation was complicated in name only.

I don’t know whether what is happening on the grassland now should be considered an armed conflict, a border conflict, a rebellion, or an operation to recover lost territory. In any case, it cannot be considered a formal war in name only.

The Ming Dynasty's actions became more and more aggressive, and the corresponding news spread farther and farther, with more and more intelligence being sent to India.

Li Celing looked at the situation from all sides and became increasingly unable to control his emotions.

Li Celing would occasionally denounce the Ming Dynasty's cruelty and shout that it was time for a decisive battle.

On the one hand, Li Celing already knew that the so-called railways and trains of the Ming Dynasty had most likely been built near Tashkent.

Tashkent is located outside the Fergana Basin. It is a famous prosperous and developed area in the Western Regions and an important node on the traditional land Silk Road.

After Shun State conquered this place, it set up a bureaucratic agency directly under the imperial court, and it is still under the direct jurisdiction of the Shun State imperial court.

The Fergana Basin next to Tashkent is surrounded by mountains on all sides and has only an extremely narrow exit with a lake blocking the exit. It is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is self-sufficient.

The Shun Kingdom did not launch a forceful attack at the beginning, but instead asked the Mongols to act as lobbyists to persuade the enemy to surrender, turning the Fergana Basin into a vassal of the Shun Kingdom.

Today's Tashkent is an important node for Shun State to contain the Fergana Basin, and it is also an important node for Shun State to control the entire Central Asian grassland.

Li Celing stationed 50,000 main forces here and also stored a large amount of food, horses, guns, ammunition, and swords.

Li Celing would never allow Tashkent, which was directly under the imperial court, to side with the Ming Dynasty. That would be tantamount to surrender.

If the Ming Dynasty wants to capture Tashkent, a full-scale war will break out.

On the other hand, the leaders of various Kazakh tribes repeatedly arranged for people to come to Delhi to accuse the Ming Dynasty of atrocities.

It was claimed that the Ming Dynasty was greedily encroaching on the Kazakh steppes and plundering the Kazakh population.

The Kazakh tribes demanded that Shun State step in to resolve the issue, otherwise the Kazakh tribes would have no choice but to surrender to the Ming Dynasty in order to survive.

After Li Celing took control of India, he became less and less concerned about these poor allies on the grasslands, and they seemed to be of no use to the current Shun Kingdom.

However, in Li Celing's opinion, even if they are useless to Shun State, they cannot be allowed to turn to the Ming Dynasty, as that will seriously affect the mentality of other tribes.

In particular, the Central Asian tribes, which were originally in a state of wavering and did not care about who to pledge allegiance to, might turn to the Ming Dynasty even more quickly.

The situation has now reached a dead end, and we have no choice but to step in to solve the problem, otherwise Shun State will fall apart.

At the same time, Shun State could no longer endure this. The Ming Dynasty had already penetrated deep into the interior of Shun State and could start fighting.

So Li Celing gave orders to the troops stationed in the south and the northern troops to officially enter a state of war.

At the same time, he wrote letters to Russia and the Ottoman Empire, asking them to prepare to join the war.

At the same time, they put pressure on Persia again, hoping that Persia would abandon its so-called absolute neutrality and provide convenience for the war between the Ottoman Empire and Shun State.

In accordance with the Ming Dynasty's request, Persia refused the passage of the two countries' troops and strictly adhered to the neutrality strategy.

Shun State and the Ottoman Empire really did not dare to attack Persia directly, as that might cause the Ming Dynasty to directly join the war, which was not what Shun State wanted to see.

Time slowly came to August 1, the 22nd year of Tiangong. The temperature in Tashkent began to drop and the climate became cooler.

The vanguard troops of the Ming Dynasty's road construction team's southern army also arrived outside the city of Tashkent at noon that day.

The vanguard's flying scouts circled outside the city and observed, and found that there was nothing outside the city, even the trees had been cut down.

After receiving the report from the scouts, Chen Huacheng, the division commander of the Southern Vanguard Corps, said to his staff officers with a bit of a smile:
"These remnants of bandits and thieves are actually trying to clear the countryside. What use is this to the Ming Dynasty now?"

A group of staff officers looked at each other and thought for a while, and realized that this trick was really useless now. It only made it impossible for the Ming army to obtain food supplies on the spot.

"The Ming army's supplies are coming from the trains behind us, so we don't have to worry about them collecting all the food around us."

"The Ming Dynasty doesn't need to build wooden catapults now. Even if they cut down all the trees outside the city, it won't affect our combat methods."

"They cleared all the trees ahead of time, which made it easier for our cannons with longer range to aim at the city."

Chen Huacheng discussed the matter carefully with his staff for a long time, and they all felt that the Tashkent defenders' policy of clearing the countryside would not only be useless to the Ming army, but might even be beneficial.

Chen Huacheng was deeply moved and ordered to immediately contact the Fergana Basin to prepare for a joint battle.

Now the Ming Dynasty has airplanes that can directly fly over the mountains and launch attacks from the air.

After seeing the guns, artillery and machines displayed by the Ming Dynasty, the noble leaders in the Fergana Valley wisely switched to the Ming Dynasty.

In the past two years, under the remote command of Yang Yuchun, they have mobilized and integrated the military forces of the entire valley.

In accordance with the requirements of the Ming Dynasty, they have been training hard during this period and always maintaining a combat readiness state so that they can join the battle directly at any time.

Chen Huacheng and the tribes in the Fergana Basin had made their plans and prepared for three days.

Finally, on August 4, the 22nd year of Tiangong, the third branch line of the Ming Dynasty's Central Asia Railway South Line was officially laid into the military camp under the city of Tashkent.

Yang Yuchun met up with Ruan Yuan and wrote a letter of notification to the officers defending the city, which was also a letter of persuasion for surrender.

The defenders, officials and civilians in the city were required to open the city walls and surrender within three days, or to leave the city to fight a decisive battle with the Ming army, or to respond to the Ming army's siege.

One of the letters was put in an envelope and sent directly to the defending generals and officials by a messenger.

More letters were dropped into the city at low altitude by planes to let all literate Tashkent residents know that the Ming Dynasty had arrived and that a war was about to break out.

Dropping leaflets using airplanes has a huge impact in this era. Anything that can fly and can be operated will amaze ordinary people in this world who have no knowledge.

Some people in Tashkent were stunned, some fled the scene like crazy, and many people were very curious and hid in the corners and looked up at the plane.

When the generals and officials of the Tashkent garrison read the contents of the letter, they all looked bitter and shook their heads.

Then they all gave orders for the troops in the city to defend with all their strength.

It is impossible to leave the city. Whether leaving the city to surrender or leaving the city to fight a decisive battle, there will definitely be no good result.

Relying on the city’s defense system to continue protecting the city is undoubtedly the most correct choice.

But they didn't expect that the Ming Dynasty had towed artillery and aircraft.

Just as they made up their minds to defend with all their might, a guard ran into the office in a panic, saying that a terrifying giant metal bird had appeared in the sky outside.

The metal bird could also drop quite large objects, which immediately exploded and turned into a large amount of paper with words written on it.

(End of this chapter)