Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 720 The Prelude to the Great Expansion 1
Lei Shisheng is very righteous, and he did not hesitate to choose to support Timur when the Oirat Department was facing the test of life and death.Timur took a thousand strong Don horses and rushed to the Ulanqab camp worriedly, and then quickly returned to Oirat Wood City with a confident smile. With him, there were more than 3000 people who voluntarily joined the Oirat tribe Mongolian prisoners of war, more than 4000 bows, 30 fine steel arrowheads, thousands of sets of leather armor, more than 4000 high-carbon steel sabers, and more than 2000 spears.Under his repeated request, Lei Shisheng also provided him with more than 2000 powerful grenades. These grenades gave him great confidence—he had seen the power of these grenades in the city of Yingzhou. The army cavalry held a knife in one hand and threw bombs in the other. Wherever they went, blood and flesh flew everywhere, and people turned on their backs. The Mongolian army had ten times more cavalry than the Ming army in the air, and they couldn't organize a decent resistance. This scene has become his nightmare. Now that he has such a sharp weapon in his hand, he is confident that he can teach Boyan a bloody lesson and let him know that the Oirats are not easy to mess with!

"It's a pity that this thing is too sophisticated and too expensive for us to imitate... If we could imitate it, I don't believe anyone would dare to take advantage of our Oirat Department!" He held a grenade and looked at it repeatedly, murmuring. Talk to yourself.

Wu Yunna rode her horse to catch up with him, frowning and said: "Brother, this thing is too ugly. It has a wooden handle and an iron head. What's so good about it?" She pulled out the gold-plated flintlock pistol and showed it off proudly. : "This one is different. Look, how beautiful it is! With a slight pull of the trigger, hot lead bullets will roar out and pierce a big hole in the person's body!"

Timur smiled: "My Wuyunna, stop showing off the gifts General Lei gave you, you have already shown off many times!"

Wu Yunna said: "Such an exquisite thing, no matter how much you can show it off!" Putting the pistol back to her waist, she suddenly said depressedly: "Brother, when do you think we Mongols will be able to make such an exquisite and powerful weapon?" Weapons?"

Timur was also depressed: "It's impossible, my Wuyunna. If you want to manufacture this kind of weapon in large quantities, you need a lot of people to mine and make steel, and you need a lot of people to process the steel into various precision parts. When they are assembled, these people have to specialize in this, and they cannot be distracted from grazing. How can we have so many people to do it? We should be satisfied if we can have a steel knife to use."

Wu Yunna said: "Then let the Han people specialize in the production of muskets, and we can buy from them... By the way, we can also buy that grass cake from them! With muskets, no one will dare to fight against our tribe. My idea, with grass cakes, our livestock will not be short of feed even in the middle of winter, so our herd will flourish in no time!"

Timur said: "Let's talk about it after we get through this hurdle." Lei Shisheng's words echoed in his mind: "Brother Timur, I always think that you are more suitable to be the master of Tumochuan than your father-in-law. !”

Maybe he can really fight to see if he can become the master of Tumochuan with the support of the Ming army?If he can really rule Tumochuan, he will lease the land suitable for farming to the Han people for farming, and take out the land with a lot of iron ore for the Han people to mine and build factories, while the Mongols collect rent while grazing , With the income from rent and grazing, you can easily buy a large amount of grain, cotton, cloth, refined salt, tea, ironware and other daily necessities from the Han people. Isn't this a win-win situation?For hundreds of years, the Mongols have worked hard to get these things, isn't it?If you can get enough daily necessities without bloodshed, ghosts are willing to send their children to the battlefield!
Thinking of this, he felt a little crazy.

When the Mongolian grassland was covered with battle clouds, the Tianxiong Army was also not idle. While enclosing the land with barbed wire, they were also planning their next move.

The war will not be fought for the time being. The climate on the Mongolian Plateau in winter is too harsh. Even though the will of the Tianxiong Army is like steel, it is still a bit too much. So throughout the winter, they are busy accumulating supplies, fattening the horses, and It is to train new recruits and the new Mongolian army, and prepare to wait until next spring to carry out a big sweep of Tumochuan.There is no doubt that the long and boring winter on the Mongolian plateau is tiresome. Since the formation of the army, the Tianxiong Army has been either fighting or on the way to the battlefield. With nowhere to go, the boring winter really hurt morale.In order to find some work for them, Lu Xiangsheng set his sights on a more distant place in the northwest.

Lanzhou!

Under his order, Zheng Jing, a young general who had emerged in the Battle of Yingzhou, led [-] soldiers to fight against the Mongolian cavalry who came to harass them. The goal was directed at Lanzhou. .Now the entire Hexi Corridor has become the world of the Mongols. Lanzhou is one of the few areas in Gansu that can be controlled by the Ming Dynasty. The black disaster has also spread to Gansu. The Mongols are anxious and fight Lanzhou's idea, and the guards in Lanzhou are vulnerable, and the situation is very critical. Now that the Tianxiong Army has freed up their hands, it is natural to go to support them.

Just marching hundreds of kilometers long distances in this kind of ghostly weather is a huge test for any army. Every one of the Tianxiong Army soldiers had their lips cracked by the cold and their blood flowed. They marched hard during the day. , it took a lot of effort to set up the tent at night. If you were not careful, the tent was blown away by the strong wind. The kind of hard work is unimaginable to ordinary people.Lieutenant General Jin Jun said to Zheng Jing with some complaints: "I really don't know what we did wrong, which made the Marquis angry and sent us to that ghost place in Lanzhou to eat sand!"

"Outraged?" Zheng Jing squinted his eyes and looked at the blurred front of the smoke and said with a smile: "No, no, no, it should be said that I don't know where I got the appreciation of the Marquis for entrusting such a glorious and arduous task to Kill us!"

Jin Jun's eyes widened: "I still appreciate it? Appreciation means sending us to the Hexi Corridor to eat sand?" He was from the Shaanxi Army, and he performed well in the Battle of Yingzhou. Xiongjun didn't know much about Tianxiong Army yet, so he complained a lot about being sent to Lanzhou.

Zheng Jing said: "Brother Jin, let me tell you the truth, Lord Hou not only vowed to take down the entire Mongolia, but also pushed the border of Ming Dynasty all the way to Huijiang, and put the entire Western Region under the rule of Ming Dynasty! "

Jin Jun was taken aback: "You mean, Lord Hou is going to take over the entire Western Region!"

Zheng Jing nodded: "Yes! What we have to do now is to operate Lanzhou as a springboard for westward expansion, control the entire Hexi Corridor, gain a firm foothold in Lanzhou and then move westward, take down the entire Qinghai, march back to Xinjiang, and keep fighting The flag is planted in Congling, Lhasa, Yuerhai, and Hangaishan to reproduce the great achievements of the Han and Tang Dynasties!"

Jin Jun said: "But those places are very desolate, even if they are taken down, there is no benefit!"

Zheng Jing said: "Whether it is beneficial or not, it must be taken down! The four towns of Anxi have been the four pearls on the sword of our Central Plains dynasty since ancient times. When the four pearls were eclipsed, the barbarians scrambled to harass and harass them. Do you know why? Because when these four pearls fell from our knife handles, it meant that the blades of our Han people were blunt and did not cause any damage. Strong!"

Jin Jun wanted to refute, but when he thought of the grand occasion when the Ming army ruled the entire Western Regions in the early Ming Dynasty, all nations came to court, and the Quartet surrendered, and now the shrinking territory, even a small Japan dared to go to North Korea to wrestle with the Ming Dynasty, so he couldn't help it. He nodded.Yes, from the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the period of ruling the Western Regions was always the strongest and most glorious moment of the Central Plains Dynasty, and once the Western Regions were lost, the national fortune of the Central Plains Dynasty would take a turn for the worse.His eyes began to light up: "If this is the case, then we will be satisfied even if we die outside the Great Wall! This is the career that a man should devote himself to!"

Zheng Jing said: "Who says it's not? Zongbing Qian yelled loudly that he was going to lead the troops to Lanzhou in person. Several soldiers fought fiercely. In the end, Lord Hou tried his best to dispel all opinions and took this The task was given to me! Dude, be content, you have encountered such a good opportunity as soon as you joined the Tianxiong Army, and I have been waiting for this day for several years!"

Jin Jun laughed loudly: "That makes sense! It's a pity that I complained just now, I have no knowledge, I really have no knowledge!"

After the unified understanding, no one complained about the Tianxiong Army, and they trekked hard against the wind and sand with great vigor. Blow away, continue to stay in the sleeping bag and sleep soundly. The next day, everyone always spends a long time digging out the companions buried in the yellow sand, making fun of each other, and then continue on the road.After more than 20 days of arduous trek, after paying a heavy price for nearly half of the people being frostbitten and more than a dozen people missing, the team finally arrived in Lanzhou.

Lanzhou people welcomed the arrival of this army with great enthusiasm, and sent them a large amount of dried mutton that they usually would not bear to eat, so that they would nourish their bodies and restore their strength.Now the Mongols who were tormented by the black disaster wandered around the area around Lanzhou, gathering more and more, and there was a tendency to launch an attack to plunder Lanzhou. The soldiers and civilians in Lanzhou were worried.

———In the entire northwest region, apart from the Tianxiong Army, there are really very few things that can make the people of Ming Dynasty feel at ease.

Some soldiers from Zheng Jing's Institute stationed themselves in various useless guard posts to repair these severely damaged defense facilities and consolidate the city's defenses.Their arrival has improved Lanzhou's defense strength by more than one level.The most important thing is that they not only brought a large number of guns and ammunition, but also potato seeds, and organized people to start planting as soon as spring arrived.The land around Lanzhou seems to be particularly suitable for growing potatoes. There was a bumper harvest of potatoes in the first season, which not only solved the problem of eating for the people of Lanzhou, but also sold the surplus grain.As a result, the people's enthusiasm for planting potatoes was unprecedentedly high. In just a few years, Lanzhou became a major potato grower. The massive land not only solved the problem of food and clothing for the people of Gansu, but also made it possible for the Ming army to return to the Western Regions.

(End of this chapter)