The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 260: Ming Cavalry Rages
This time, the Ming Dynasty's northern expedition seemed to be just a scare tactic.

Wanli stayed in the southeast corner of the Qiantao Plain and never went to the north.

After Qi Jiguang led 60,000 cavalrymen from the Beijing Camp to Guihua City, he summoned the generals of several border towns to convey the imperial edict, and then there was no further movement.

He even dispersed the 60,000 cavalrymen of the Beijing Camp to various places in the Qiantao Plain to graze their horses, and there was no sign of going to war.

The spies planted by the three powerful families of Puzhou in the Qiantao Plain were all stunned.

The cavalry of the Beijing camp were really dispersing to graze horses, and they were divided into sixty groups of one thousand people, scattered all over the Qiantao Plain.

The Qiantao Plain is at least four or five hundred miles in radius. The 60,000 cavalrymen of the Beijing Camp are scattered so far, and it will take more than a day or two to assemble them.

If they wanted to assemble, it would take at least one day to pass the message, and at least two days to gather together. Then, whether they went to the mountain pass on the west side of Daqing Mountain or the mountain pass on the east side of Daqing Mountain, it would also take one or two days.

In other words, it would take at least four or five days for the Beijing cavalry to assemble and march out of the border.

The spies of the three major families in Puzhou are all being closely watched. Once the Beijing troops gather, the northern barbarians will definitely receive the news in advance.

Under such circumstances, it was impossible for the Beijing cavalry to launch a surprise attack on the Northern Tartars.

The northern barbarian tribes were also frightened at first, and they were even scared to the point of retreating to the north.

The problem was that the young emperor of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be joking with them and stayed in the southeast corner of the Qiantao Plain without moving.

It seemed that Qi Jiguang was just here to herd horses. After the cavalry of the Beijing camp dispersed, there was no sign of any gathering.

It's okay for one, two, or even ten days or eight days, but they can't bear it for about half a month.

Because they have to be nomadic, they cannot always gather their cattle, sheep and horses together. Otherwise, the grass roots where they gather will be dug up by the cattle, sheep and horses, and the grassland within a radius of hundreds of miles will be destroyed.

They even suspected that the young Ming emperor wanted to destroy their grasslands piece by piece and consume their fighting power.

The war horses of the Beijing camp were eating happily in the Qiantao Plain, and each one was fat and strong.

Their cattle, sheep and horses were gnawing on grass roots and crying out in hunger.

This won't work, they have to become nomads.

Anyway, it takes four or five days for the Beijing cavalry to assemble and march out of the border, so they still have time to withdraw after receiving the news.

So, after half a month, the tribes of Tumed, Kharchin and Chahar gradually dispersed and began to migrate.

The Beijing Cavalry was actually a cover to attract the attention of the internal thieves.

The border cavalry was the protagonist of this raid.

Wanli launched a northern expedition with great fanfare. The internal rebels and the northern barbarians all believed that at least a hundred thousand troops had to be assembled to go beyond the border to be considered a northern expedition.

Therefore, their attention was focused on the cavalry and even the charioteers of the Beijing Camp. As for the border cavalry gathering and waiting, they didn't care at all.

After all, except for Liaodong Town and Jizhou Town, which had 20,000 cavalry, the other border towns only had 10,000 cavalry.

Is it possible for the young emperor to launch a massive northern expedition with an army of 10,000 or 20,000?

They all thought it was impossible. The border cavalry must be waiting for the Beijing camp to assemble, and it was still unknown who the little emperor would attack.

If they did not dare to roam freely at this time, not only would the grasslands be destroyed piece by piece, but the cattle, sheep and horses would also starve to death one after another.

This time, they were plotted against by Wanli again.

Just a few days after the various groups of Northern Tartars dispersed to graze their livestock, the cavalry from Liaodong Town, Xuanfu Town, Datong Town, Pianguan Town, Yansui Town, Guyuan Town, and even Haibai rushed to the grasslands outside the Great Wall like crazy, raiding everywhere.

The Ming cavalry suddenly wreaked havoc on the grasslands outside the Great Wall.

It seems that the Ming cavalry did not go out to the border to fight, but they just wanted to rob.

They robbed cattle, sheep, horses, men, women, young and old, animal skin tents, ox carts and horse carts, etc., just like when they invaded the Ming Dynasty border.

The Ming cavalry was even more extreme than them.

Wherever these guys passed, they left not a single wool behind. The tribes that grazed their livestock near the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty disappeared in large numbers, leaving behind only bare grasslands.

The oil refinery was completed when Wanli received the battle report from the Nine Frontiers.

At this time, he had no time to care about the border cavalry. Anyway, this time it was just a raid and a robbery, not a war, so he could just let them rob and that was it.

As for whether the Nine Borders would be invaded, he didn't have to worry.

The reason why the 60,000 cavalrymen of the Beijing Camp in the Qiantao Plain dispersed to graze horses was actually to protect Datong Town, Pianguan Town, Yansui Town and Guyuan Town.

They dispersed and got closer to the border towns. The farthest was no more than four or five hundred miles away, and they could reach there in a day by running at full speed.

Xuanfu Town, Jizhou Town and Liaodong Town are actually also covered by the Beijing Camp Cavalry. At this moment, the remaining 60,000 Beijing Camp Cavalry have been assembled in Changping Prefecture, Yanshan River Valley and near Shanhaiguan. Once the three border towns are attacked, they can basically rush over to provide support within a day.

He doesn't need to worry about any of this.

His main concern now is oil refining.

He has invested hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in labor and materials, so he has to refine the oil quickly to make money.

Early in the morning, around noon, Wanli arrived at the oil refinery closest to the county town. The refineries they built were small courtyards.

In each small courtyard, there is a workshop nearly two meters high in the middle, surrounded by sheds built along the walls.

Inside the shed were large water tanks and oil drums. The large water tanks had iron lids, and the oil drums were two feet high and one foot square.

The oil barrels they made were much smaller than those made in later generations. One barrel could only hold about 100 kilograms of oil. This was for the convenience of transportation and processing.

Now they don’t have any large-scale machinery to process iron sheets. The iron sheets are purely pressed by water wheels and molds. The molds are made of tempered steel. The bigger they are, the harder they are to make. Therefore, the oil drums they make are this big.

Wanli looked at the large water tanks and oil drums neatly stacked in the shed and nodded secretly.

Upon hearing the news, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei and Crown Prince Wang Bing hurried out of the workshop and bowed to greet him.

Wanli nodded slightly, then asked, "How is it, are you ready?"

Yongnian Earl Wang Wei nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, everything is ready and we are just waiting for you."

Then start refining oil quickly.

Upon hearing this, Wanli immediately waved his hand and led them into the huge workshop.

The workshop was surrounded by large glass windows, making it bright and transparent. There wasn't much inside, just a pile of coal on the left, a row of iron barrels on the right, and a huge oil refining stove in the middle.

The barrels and ladles they use to transport crude oil are now made of iron sheets, mainly for fire prevention.

There wasn't a single piece of wood used in the refinery; even the roof beams and frames, and even the glass window frames, were forged from wrought iron.

Wanli looked at it carefully, then nodded slightly and said, "Let's start."

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei quickly waved his hand and ordered, "Add oil."

The crude oil is not in the workshop yet.

Upon hearing this, the ten craftsmen immediately picked up twenty buckets of water and walked out quickly with ladles in hand.

After a while, they came in one after another carrying crude oil.

They are not just conducting an experiment now. There are special steps and platforms where the oil is poured, which is very convenient.

The craftsmen would carry the crude oil directly onto the platform, then pick up the bucket and pour it into the large funnel that had been inserted in advance.

One bucket can't even fill half of the big funnel, so just pour two buckets in and someone else can come up and continue pouring.

The boilers they made were much larger than the original iron barrels. One boiler could pour in almost the amount of crude oil as a large water tank, which was two thousand kilograms, or forty barrels, at a time.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei saw that they had poured the crude oil and put the barrels and shoulder poles back in place, then he gave another order: "Move the barrels and prepare to light the fire."

Upon hearing this, the craftsmen in the workshop immediately began to divide the work. Some ran outside to get firewood, some ran outside to move oil drums, some picked up shovels to shovel coal, and some took out lighters to light the fire.

Soon, the iron barrels were brought in. Seven craftsmen each carried two, which made fourteen in total. There were large characters written in various colors of paint on the iron barrels, clearly indicating gas, fire, coal and firewood.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei saw that the oil barrels with the word "gas" on them had been connected to the oil pipes, so he immediately waved his hand and ordered, "Ignite."

The craftsman holding the lighter rubbed it hard, lit a handful of hay and stuffed it into the stove, and the firewood inside quickly ignited a big fire.

Wang Bing picked up an hourglass with the word "steam" written on it on the stove and turned it upside down, then stared at a large glass thermometer about an inch buried in the fine sand.

There seemed to be only four scales left on the thermometer, which probably represented the oil outlet temperatures of gasoline, kerosene, coal oil, and diesel.

Now they don’t use water anymore, the pot is just filled with fine sand.

The blazing fire in the stove had been burning for less than a quarter of an hour when the first mark on the thermometer was reached.

Wang Bing immediately raised his hand and said, "Add coal, turn the heat down, and keep an eye on the oil drum..."

Upon hearing this, a craftsman hurried to the oil drum and took a look at the sealing steel ring from time to time.

After about a quarter of an hour, the first tank of gasoline was full.

The craftsman immediately raised his hand and called over the two craftsmen next to him. He pulled out the oil pipe and inserted it into the iron spoon in the hand of one craftsman. He then asked the other craftsman to quickly move the full oil barrel away and replace it with an empty iron barrel. Then he poured the oil in the iron spoon into it and inserted the oil pipe into it.

This crude method of refining oil is really troublesome.

However, it can finally produce oil, and a lot of it.

This boiler can produce about 400 kilograms of gasoline, about 200 kilograms of kerosene, about 300 kilograms of kerosene, and 500 to 600 kilograms of diesel.

If one tael of silver is worth 25 jin of kerosene and one tael of silver is worth 30 jin of kerosene, that would be 18 taels of silver.

This workshop refines more than one boiler a day, because it takes less than three hours to refine one furnace. After refining one furnace, some cold water is poured into the pot to cool it down and then the next furnace can be refined.

In other words, one workshop can smelt four furnaces a day, and one hundred workshops can smelt four hundred furnaces a day, which is more than seven thousand taels a day, and more than two hundred thousand taels a month.

However, this is not enough, far from it.

(End of this chapter)