The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 121: Now that I'm here, I won't go to quell the rebellion

In the battle of Wuding Valley, nearly 40,000 Northern Tartar cavalry were completely wiped out!
When this news reached back to Yulin Weicheng, Zhang Jie couldn't believe his ears.

However, the confidants he arranged in Heihedun only saw nearly 40,000 Northern Tartar cavalry entering the pass, but did not see a single Northern Tartar cavalry leaving the pass.

what on earth is this kind of happenings?
The next morning around noon, Zhang Jie couldn't help but muster up the courage to ride with his personal guards to the Wuding River Valley inside the pass for a careful inspection.

At this time, there seemed to be only horseshoe prints and dried bloodstains in the valley, nothing else.

The convoy transporting food and fodder for the Beijing camp had already left.

However, there were obviously many raised mounds of earth on the grassland on the north side of the valley, and it was obvious that the soil had been newly turned over.

When Zhang Jie saw this scene, he couldn't help but look terrified.

What should I do now?

If the Beijing army had not run out of food, it would not have collapsed.

The key point is that almost all the cavalry of the Ordos tribes in the inner area have been wiped out, so what if the Beijing camp collapsed?

Who will kill the little emperor?
Is he going?
In fact, even if these food supplies were robbed, the Beijing camp would not be out of food.

Because Wanli was a liar. The food they brought was not enough to last only about half a month.

The grain carts of the Shenjiying were made in the style of war chariots. They were larger than ordinary grain carts, and were pulled by war horses.

Therefore, this type of grain cart can carry more grain than ordinary grain carts. Ordinary grain carts can only carry about ten stones of grain, while the grain carts of the Shenjiying can easily carry fifteen stones of grain.

The grain carts of the Shenjiying actually carried ten stone of grain, and they also carried a lot of dried mutton. It’s just that the grain carts of the Shenjiying all had covers, so others couldn’t see what was inside.

He had long been on guard against the Northern Tartars' tactic of cutting off their food supply, so he naturally made preparations in advance.

The grassland in Xuanfu Town was not enough to raise so many sheep, so he ordered his men to kill almost all of the tens of thousands of rams that had been looted and smoked them into salty, fragrant and refreshing mutton jerky.

This thing is delicious and filling when paired with rice, and it saves food.
If there is no oil or water, a soldier can eat more than one kilogram of rice in one meal, and about five kilograms a day.
If dried mutton is added, two or three kilograms of rice a day is enough for them.

If there are 8,000 grain carts with 10 dan of grain per cart, that would be 80,000 dan. If 100,000 soldiers each eat two or three kilograms of rice a day, the total grain consumption would be less than 2,000 dan.

In other words, they can hold out for more than 40 days even without transporting food.

What's more, he ordered Deng Zilong to secretly bring 20,000 shi of grain when he led the fleet to build a pontoon bridge.

In this way, the food they consumed in Baode Prefecture was replenished, and when the 100,000-strong army arrived at Ningse Fort, there was still enough food to last for more than a month.

He ordered all the food to be unloaded into the camp in Ningsai Fort, and then let the soldiers of the Shenji Camp lie down in the food carts and take turns to rest.

If you only look from the outside, it looks like the Shenji Camp has only 8,000 soldiers driving the grain carts. In fact, all 40,000 soldiers of the Shenji Camp followed the grain carts to Fugu.

There is not much grain stored in Fugu, only about 30,000 to 40,000 dan at most. Each of the 8,000 grain carts can only hold less than 5 dan, so there is still a lot of space inside.

Wang Chonggu naturally could not have imagined that he would let the soldiers of the Shenji Camp sleep in the grain cart. In addition, this was the last chance for the three major families in Puzhou, so this guy naturally wanted to take a risk.

As a result, this one attack wiped out all the cavalry from the various tribes in the Ordos area.

Du Song and Wang Rulong not only annihilated this cavalry, they also captured nearly 30,000 war horses. They did not waste those war horses that were accidentally killed by them, and smoked them all into jerky.

Anyway, more than 30,000 of the 40,000 soldiers in the Shenji Camp sleep in the grain carts, so they have no problem working all night.

Now with nearly 30,000 war horses taking turns pulling the carts, their speed was significantly increased.

The journey that would have taken about two days was completed in just one day.

At about 5 p.m. that afternoon, when the sun was setting, they all rushed back to the camp in the valley south of Ningsai Fort.

Wanli had already been waiting in the camp on the hillside.

He looked at the war horses that stretched as far as the eye could see, and his face was filled with excitement.

This battle was fought beautifully, and it was worth it for him to run thousands of miles to perform in this scene.

Now we have war horses for the 40,000 cavalrymen recruited from the Shenwu Camp next year.

The key is that the Ordos tribes in the inner area were completely defeated after this battle, and they could be harvested.

At this time, Du Song, Wang Rulong and others heard that he was coming to greet them in person, and they all hurried over on horseback. Wanli, along with Qi Jiguang, Du Tong and others, came forward to greet them and said solemnly: "Generals, thank you for your hard work. How are the casualties among our soldiers?"

Du Song said rather embarrassedly, "The Fourth Battalion of the Divine Machine didn't suffer any casualties. A few hundred people were injured when I led the cavalry to encircle and annihilate them. Fortunately, most of them were minor injuries, and there were very few serious ones."

This is the strength of the Qi family army or the troops trained by Qi Jiguang.

They can all use their advantages in weapons and equipment to avoid casualties as much as possible. Even if their weapons and equipment do not have an advantage, they can still create an advantage.

For example, when Qi's army was fighting against Japanese pirates in the southeast, Qi Jiguang came up with the idea of ​​making wolf-whips out of bamboo, which blurred the Japanese pirates' vision and prevented them from getting close to the Mandarin Duck Formation to injure them. However, they could use muskets and even spears to kill the Japanese pirates.

This was the secret of how the Qi family army of several thousand soldiers could kill more than 100,000 Japanese pirates and northern barbarians. They could kill thousands of enemies but only injure a few.

If not for this, the thousands of Qi family soldiers would have been killed or wounded long ago.

In history, before Qi Jiguang died in poverty in his simple thatched hut, he once lamented that during the past thirty years, he had fought in more than a hundred battles, both north and south, on land and sea, large and small, without ever being defeated, killing a thousand enemies and only injuring two or three. Why, why?

He is the god of war of the time!

The Wanli Emperor in history was extremely confused. He turned a blind eye to this unparalleled general and allowed the three powerful families of Puzhou to kill him.

Fortunately, he retained this world-famous general.

Wanli nodded with satisfaction, and then rode his horses towards the commander's tent with a group of generals.

At this moment, a celebration banquet had been set up in the commander's tent. However, because there were too many generals, they could not sit at one table, so he ordered people to place twenty or thirty small tables on both sides.

The eight deputy generals and sixteen lieutenant generals of the Beijing camp, as well as Qi Jiguang, Shan Sinan, Du Tong and Duke Cheng Guo Zhu Yingzhen, each had a table of food and wine.

He invited the generals to sit down, then raised his glass and said, "There's not much wine here, so everyone can have a few cups. We have things to do tomorrow, so everyone should drink less. We can celebrate properly after we get back."

What else is going on tomorrow?
Wanli drank the wine in his glass, asked everyone to eat some dishes, and then he said solemnly: "There should be no cavalry left among the tribes in the inner Ordos now. Our cavalry will be like chopping melons and vegetables if they go there.

Tomorrow we will attack from Hongliu River Valley and wipe them out completely.

I have a general understanding of the situation in Neitao. Eight tribes of the Ordos tribe should have entered Neitao. Judging from the number of their cavalry, each of their tribes should have developed to about 4,000 households.

The cavalry of the Shenwu Camp is divided into eight groups, each with 5,000 soldiers. This should be enough to take us down. I have even found a guide for you. You should be able to find it by following the guide.

After you have conquered their eight tribes, you will take the captured old, young, women, children, cattle, sheep, horses, etc. to the south bank of the Yellow River in the north. There are many tributaries there and the grass is relatively lush, which should be enough for the cattle, sheep, and horses to eat for a while.

Moreover, we have naval warships to transport food and fodder, so the army doesn’t have to worry about food and fodder problems when it arrives there.

The south bank of the Yellow River is about a thousand miles from here. I'll give you half a month, and you must arrive within half a month."

His move was really unexpected.

This place is less than a hundred miles away from Ningxia Town. Now that he's here, he refuses to quell the rebellion!
All the generals knew that his target was Hetao, not the rebels, so they were not surprised.

If Wang Chonggu heard this, his jaw would probably drop in shock.

This guy took a risk this time and revealed a big flaw.

Wanli asked everyone to eat a few more bites of food, then asked, "General Du, it seems that the Hongliu River is blocked by the Heihedun Great Wall. The Northern Tartar cavalry was able to rush in and attack you. Is there something wrong with the Heihedun defenders?"

Du Song nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes, the defenders of Heihedun should be replaced by Zhang Jie's men."

Very good, as long as we catch Zhang Jie, we can get evidence of the three major wealthy families in Puzhou secretly communicating with the Northern Tartars.

Wanli nodded slightly, then asked, "How many confidants does Zhang Jie have?"

Du Song estimated, "He's not from Yansui Town, so there aren't many border troops following him, probably less than a thousand."

Wanli nodded slightly, pondered for a moment, and then said decisively: "Ying Zhen, tomorrow morning, take 5,000 Jinyiwei and General Du Tong to Yulin City to arrest Zhang Jie, and then cooperate with General Du to clean up Zhang Jie's confidants."

Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen bowed without hesitation and said, "I obey your order."

Wanli said to Du Tong again: "General Du, I will give you an imperial edict later. From now on, you will be the general of Yansui Town."

Is this the promotion to general?
He fought for more than ten years and made countless contributions before he was promoted to deputy general. Unexpectedly, he was promoted to general after the Emperor stayed here for only a few days!
Upon hearing this, Du Tong couldn't help but say excitedly, "Thank you, Your Majesty, for your grace."

(End of this chapter)