open sea

Chapter 1328
To the west of Dunhuang, the old place of Yangguan, Zhang Chen, a veteran of the Ming Empire, looked at the ruins of Chengguan with worry on his face.

He didn't know why the emperor of the Han Dynasty chose to set up a city gate here, but he knew that the most sensible choice for Ming was to garrison Jiayuguan.

According to the ancient teachings of Emperor Taizu: if you come, you will resist them, and if you go, don't chase them. This is the best policy. If you specialize in poor soldiers, I will not take them.

There is water here, but there are very few oases along the way. Jiayuguan is already the westernmost end of the entire Hexi Corridor. If there is water but no grain, it means that this is not a grain-producing area.

The nearest grain-producing area is Guazhou, where [-] husbands are conscripted, transported back and forth, and the annual grain production is enough for [-] soldiers stationed in Yangguan.

However, this location is excellent, guarding the water source and the only green space, and the terrain is extremely high and has a wide view. Although there is no danger to defend, choking the water source is the greatest danger.

No army can guarantee supplies in the desert west of here. To be honest, Zhang Chen thinks that even the wealthy Central Plains Dynasty cannot.

In his understanding, the maximum distance an army can march away from the country is [-] miles. Once it exceeds [-] miles, the road consumption will consume all the food and grass.

Here, the biggest problem is that it is difficult to obtain fodder on the road west of Guazhou, and the livestock greatly reduces the transportation capacity.

Zhang Chen sent a letter to Jiayuguan, and Xing Jie, a civil servant transferred from the Central Plains, sent someone to reply, saying that the wood and stone needed to repair the city pass and establish the Acropolis had already been put on the road, and the telegraph line was being repaired at the same time. The location of the acropolis was chosen, and at the same time, it was convenient for the soldiers to inspect the landforms along the way.

Civilian officials and guard officers in Jiayuguan are not at all easier than military expeditions.

Wanli's command is from a high-level view. He wants to control his empire like a finger, assigning tasks to the six ministries and localities, and many tasks must be completed together.

Needless to say, the supplies needed for the war, he still needs places to build the railway, and there are not many corvees along the way. Send people to build a channel for buried telegraph wires along the road.

At the same time, twelve small green dragon heads were dragged to the Weihe River by boat trackers, where they hung on horses and galloped along the desolate ancient road in Gansu.

Xing Jie was going to be very nervous. He had participated in the construction of railways in Beizhili earlier, and supervised the laying of telegraphs in Shandong. However, there was a whole system in operation for such a huge project, and he was just an insignificant part of it. screws.

Now that the emperor has high hopes, it is not easy for him to build a railway from Wuwei to Jiayuguan or even to the mouth of at least [-] miles within two years.

Fortunately, Xing Jie still has one thing that can be fortunate, that is, the difficulty of building railways in the northeast and southeast lies in the road, while the difficulty for him lies in the railway.

It is difficult to say that building a railway is difficult, and it is easy to say that as long as you don’t look for difficulties yourself, for example, this road is [-] miles long and winding, and it only takes [-] miles to build a straight line, but there is a small river in front of you. In Xing Jie's opinion, it is difficult to build a bridge with reinforced concrete.

Sometimes there is no way to build a railway in the Central Plains but to look for difficulties. For example, the road is uneven, and it takes 150 miles to go around. Waste is a small matter, and the main reason is inconvenience. Once inconvenient, it becomes a big problem.

The railway in the Central Plains is not only used for military purposes, but also part of the canal function in the imperial court's agenda to promote prosperity, but it is different in the Northwest.

Basically, the cities of the common people of the Ming Dynasty all have roads, all along the ancient roads thousands of years ago, and the roads are all flat, not to mention that this road is mainly used for military purposes in Xing Jie's view, otherwise why did the emperor build this road?
That's great, let's concentrate on building roads in Sichuan, okay?

Why do you ask Sichuan to take asphalt out of the mountains, and let Shaanxi transport the rails and wooden tracks to Gansu?

What's more, the road they built is still halfway. From Wuwei to Jiayuguan, all the difficult places have been avoided. There is no way to go up to the sky or down to the ground. What can he do with this road?

Xing Jie didn't know, anyway, at most it was transporting troops, the farthest was Liangzhou Wei's flag army, a small green dragon sent two hundred households to the front line in two days, twelve ranks transported three thousand troops in two days When he arrived at Jiayuguan, he guessed that the emperor must have calculated this in his notebook, and he was undoubtedly very happy when he issued the edict.

Think about it, the Oala tribes in the west gathered tens of thousands of nomadic cavalry and came across the desert. He took the northern line, and Hami got the news and sent a telegram; he took the southern line, and Yangguan Yumenguan sent a telegram.

The guards, horses, and materials from all counties gathered along the railway line. Four days later, the Oirat army was still looting under the city of Hami, and the soldiers who reported the letter from Hami had just arrived in Guazhou. After leaving the customs, an ambush was set up in Guazhou.

So he was very honest, since the emperor said he wanted to repair it, let him do it, and what the emperor said was right, then he would repair it.

When it is time to levy corvee, it will levy corvee, and if it is time to levy guards, it will levy guards. It is rare that the household department even allocates 120 million taels to buy grain and build roads... It is right to spend the money earned by coastal merchants to the Northwest to promote the economy.

However, as the road construction twelve small green dragons entered Gansu, he knew what the emperor was doing to build the road here.

Zhang Chen, who stayed with the army near Xiningwei, came out of the mountain to study the Beiyang, and found a salt pond there, and asked Xing Jie to come from Gansu Town to Xuanfu dignitaries to collect nitrate and build a factory. One was to produce fire nitrate and leather nitrate.

Immediately afterwards, many places in Xining were also discovered by Beiyang research, and according to their speculation, there should be more outside the customs.

It didn't take long for this speculation to become true.

Not to mention how much change the telegraph can bring to the military, just a telescope can determine the outcome of a war.

The merchants who were investigating Hami's military situation rushed back to Tubo without stopping. Tubo Ma Heima, who received the news on the way, was convinced of the information and immediately decided to lead his army to the city of Hami at full speed.

At the same time, he also ordered Hu Chi'er, who was guarding Tubo, to gather strong soldiers and lead them to help Hami within the next two months.

It is about to perform a good show of grabbing food in front of the Ming army, snatch this pearl-like city in the Western Regions, and remotely control the most precious green land in the surrounding Western Regions.

They hurried all the way, two people and three horses hurried forward lightly, they rushed four hundred miles in three days, eight hundred heavy cavalry and servants stopped at the place called Qijiaojing on the third night to rest in peace, waiting for those who fell behind cavalry.

If you go further east, you can't be in a hurry for the four hundred miles. You have to be careful and destroy the Ming army outside the city of Hami with the force of thunder.

It's just that Tubo Ma Heima didn't expect that in Qijiaojing, he would encounter the greatest moment of humiliation in his life.

In normal battles, regardless of whether it is a day battle or a night battle, it is difficult for people to know the number of enemies clearly. Only this time, Tubo Ma Heima counted clearly, because the number of enemies was too small.

In the dark night, Da Yun, the general of the Ming army, led 29 cavalry from Liangzhou, rushed into the Qijiao Well where he was camped to rest, and killed him.

　Good morning! Chapter 2 is a little later.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)