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

Chapter 583 The Wind Blows North China 2
Lu Xiangsheng really attached great importance to Cao Wenzhao, dealt with the gang of officials hastily, and then ran to Cao Wenzhao's mansion to cook wine and chat with him.He felt that his character was becoming more and more like a general, and he hated the twists and turns of the old literati from the bottom of his heart, and liked to get along with straightforward and upright soldiers like Cao Wenzhao.And Cao Wenzhao is the kind of person who shines brightly when given a little sunshine. Lu Xiangsheng respects him so much, so he naturally respects him even more.Hearing that the Ming army blasted Jiannu to pieces with fierce artillery fire, and then the iron cavalry stepped on the formation, trampling countless Jiannu into flesh, he couldn't help his blood boiling, he slapped the table loudly, and kept shouting: "Happy, happy! This is how wars should be fought, and they will suffer for ten years each time!" After the blood was over, he was disappointed again: "It's a pity that Lao Cao was entangled by bandits, and he couldn't catch up with this shocking battle. It's a pity. !"

Lu Xiangsheng said with a smile: "The old general is really old and strong, which makes people ashamed. However, the younger generation has been ordered by the Holy Master to promote the strategy and eliminate the Mongolian threat to the capital. The old general is still afraid that there will be no battles?"

Cao Wenzhao took a sip of his wine and shook his head again and again: "It's different, it's different! Compared with Jiannu, those Tartars are far behind in fighting skills, and they are boring to fight! I'm not afraid of you, my brother, if you let Lao Cao Bringing these thousand disciples out of the customs, Lao Cao's biggest headache is not how to defeat the Tartars, but how to find them!"

Cao Bianjiao said viciously: "Those Tartars are a bunch of local dogs. They will jump up and bite when they see the opportunity. If you want to get serious with them later, they will run away immediately. It's really annoying!"

Cao Wenzhao took a map and spread it out, and pointed it out to Lu Xiangsheng: "Look, brother, this is the Chahar tribe, this is the Tumote tribe, this is the remaining Khalkha tribe, and this is the... The territory is thousands of miles wide, and there are not many people. They migrate by water and grass, without a fixed place. Once our army leaves the border, they will disappear without a trace. Immediately rush out in all directions, biting wildly, making people hard to guard against! The grassland is too big, trying to find them is difficult, very sad!"

Lu Xiangsheng stared at the map and remained silent for a long time.On the map, each Mongolian tribe is like a pack of wolves, eyeing the land in the pass.Many of them have already turned to Houjin, and although the rest did not turn to Houjin, they were also packed up and subdued. These fierce prairie men are the source of soldiers for Houjin, and Houjin can develop and grow to this point. The potential for war cannot be ignored.What is before him is an eternal problem. It is not difficult to drive these northern wolves away. The difficulty is that the army of farming people cannot stay in the cold and arid northern grassland for a long time. Sooner or later they have to withdraw. Come on, as soon as they withdraw, the Mongols will immediately take over, and the cycle repeats.At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, General Sapphire led the elite Ming army honed in the anti-Yuan bloody battle all the way to Lake Baikal. At that time, the Ming Dynasty almost occupied the entire Mongolian Plateau, but within a century, these territories outside the Great Wall were lost. When it was all gone, the Mongols burned the flames of war to the pass again, and repeatedly invaded Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Shanxi. During the Ming Yingzong period, Wacha wiped out 20 elites of the Ming army in the first battle of Tumubao, and they came to the city of Beijing; It is near the city of Beijing; in the second year of Chongzhen, Hou Jin broke in and plundered the capital... If he could not break the boundary between the farming people and the nomadic people, then even if the Tianxiong Army won a temporary victory by virtue of their strong combat effectiveness, in the end The result will be the same as when the country was founded, at most decades of victories will be lost, and Ming will still have to defend itself according to the Great Wall!

Thinking of this, he suddenly said: "They like to drill into the depths of the grassland, and it's hard to find them, so we won't look for them, let them come to us on their own initiative!"

Cao Wenzhao shook his head: "This is unrealistic. Those wolf cubs are very cunning, and their main force will not appear until we withdraw our troops."

Lu Xiangsheng sneered: "Withdraw? Why should we withdraw? Why can't we build cities on the prairie and immigrate in large numbers?"

Cao Wenzhao was stunned for a moment, and said, "It's unrealistic to build a city on the prairie, it's too cold, no one can stand it! And this place is so dry that nothing can grow..."

Lu Xiangsheng shook his head: "That's wrong! Although the Mongolian prairie is arid, there are places suitable for farming!" Draw a big letter C on the map with his finger: "From here, from Zhangjiakou to Ulanchabu, It extends to Sanniangzi City (Hohhot), and turns again, through Baotou to Yinchuan. This area has abundant water and fertile land, which is an ideal place for farming. From Sanniangzi City to Yinchuan, it is the famous Hetao Plain. The benefit of the Yellow River! If we fight along this green corridor, we can build a city after every land we conquer, and then reclaim the wasteland on the spot, old general, guess what will happen?"

Cao Wenzhao looked at the C-shaped arc he had drawn, and said excitedly: "If this plan can be successful, the most fertile place in Mongolia will be under my control, and the Mongols are not desperate. Come and grab it! As you said, you don’t need us to look for them, they will come to your door automatically!” After a few more glances, he praised: “If our army can build a series of cities along this corridor with sufficient water flow Therefore, the four provinces of Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Northern Zhili no longer have to suffer from Mongolian raids. Instead, the Mongols in this vast area are all surrounded by us, with nowhere to go. There is a chance of survival!" Bowing to Lu Xiangsheng, he said: "My brother is a great talent, Lao Cao is ashamed of himself, ashamed of himself!"

Cao Bianjiao frowned and said: "My lord's strategy is certainly very clever, but even if our army can take down this large fertile plain, we still can't hold it, it's too cold..."

Lu Xiangsheng said: "Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Mongolia have a large number of coal mines. As long as they are mined, the heating problem will be solved."

Cao Wenzhao was stunned: "Coal mine?"

Lu Xiangsheng laughed: "Datong is full of coal, the old general forgot?"

Cao Wenzhao scratched his head and said, "That's right, the problem of heating with coal can be easily solved, but those coal mines are controlled by Shanxi merchants..."

Lu Xiangsheng's smile was a bit cold: "It will soon be out of their control."

Cao Wenzhao rubbed his palms together and said, "The problem of heating is solved, but how to solve the problem of planting? In this damn place, nothing can grow except grass!"

Lu Xiangsheng said: "You can try to grow potatoes. This kind of crop is resistant to cold and drought, and it will definitely survive. You can also try to grow some wheat, barley, and soybeans. Mongolia is not so cold all year round. There are always months. There is time for the crop to grow, and that's enough."

Cao Wenzhao was not optimistic about this. In his opinion, the Mongolian prairie could not grow anything except grass. It was too difficult for the Han people to settle there and establish agricultural areas.But seeing that Lu Xiangsheng was so confident, he couldn't say anything more, so he raised some doubts: "The biggest problem in fighting on the prairie is the difficulty of food supply! After driving for hundreds of miles, the grain transport convoy can't keep up anyway, so how can we solve this problem?"

Lu Xiangsheng said: "Learn from King Zhao Wuling and Huo Piaoyao!"

Cao Wenzhao was taken aback: "Support war with war?"

Lu Xiangsheng nodded: "During the Warring States period, Da Zhao Fei rode with three bags of kumiss and a few pieces of dried meat, and he could hunt down the enemy for days and nights, like maggots attached to bones, which made Donghu, Linhu, and Xiongnu turn pale when they talked about it; Yao led the big Han iron cavalry to fight, and never brought them to support. When he wiped out the Xiongnu, he looted all the livestock of the tribe as military rations, absorbed the young and strong of the tribe to join the Han army, and fought for the big Han. The Han army he led was snowballing every time. The Huns were terrified when they heard about their strength! From Datong to the Hetao Plain, there are many Mongolian tribes and herds of livestock. These are all ready-made military rations. Our troops go out of the fortress, so why worry about not having enough to eat!"

Cao Wenzhao and Cao Bianjiao were stunned and speechless.

In fact, Lu Xiangsheng has seriously studied the several problems raised by Cao Wenzhao.He found that for thousands of years, the reason why the Han people have always been unable to completely eliminate the threat from the north, even at the time of their strongest, they can only subdue the opponent temporarily, is nothing more than three reasons:

First, it is difficult for the Han people who mainly focus on farming to gain a foothold on the grasslands, because it is difficult to grow food on the grasslands, and the number of people that nomads can support is too small. This means that even if the Central Dynasty vigorously immigrated to the grasslands, It is also difficult to gain an advantage in terms of population base, and eventually they will have to abandon the grasslands and retreat to the Great Wall.This is the geographical advantage of the nomads. You can only eat turf when they attack, but they can conquer any county at will and have everything they need. It is such a disadvantage.

The second is that the Han army, which is dominated by infantry, has no advantage in the face of nomadic cavalry on the grassland, and is even in a passive situation of being beaten!Of course, the Central Dynasty could raise a large number of horses to form a powerful cavalry and gain a strategic advantage, but the cost of raising horses in the pass was astonishing. With the collapse of the horse government, the strategic advantage no longer exists, and it is still necessary to rely on infantry to fight against cavalry.This is a disadvantage in arms destined by the innate environment, and it is difficult to change. Therefore, the Han people have played crossbows to the peak, relying on long-range attack corps to restrain the lightning-fast cavalry.

The third is that the supply of military rations is not enough.Shaanxi and Shanxi, which are adjacent to Mongolia, are relatively barren, and the output of grain in ancient times is very sad. Thank God for self-sufficiency. How can there be a large amount of grain to supply the army?Most of the military rations have to be transported from the Central Plains. A field army of tens of thousands of people has to use hundreds of thousands of civilians to transfer supplies, and those hundreds of thousands of civilians have to eat. It is conceivable that the supply of military rations is difficult. up.You can't even eat enough, what do you use to fight those prairie wolves?You can't let your soldiers chew on the turf, right?
The arms are at a disadvantage, the grasslands cannot develop agriculture, and the supply of military rations is insufficient. If these problems are not solved, it will not be easy to completely conquer the nomads!

However, with the maturity of muskets and artillery, the Tianxiong Army has successfully reversed its disadvantages in terms of arms. For the Tianxiong Army infantry regiment equipped with rifled flintlock guns and howitzers, it relies heavily on riding bows The Mongols with sabers were at a disadvantage instead.The Battle of Lushun has proved that facing the indestructible line array of the Tianxiong Army, no matter how many cavalry rush up, they will only die, unless they can have a force advantage several times that of the Tianxiong Army!

The emergence of potatoes solved the second major problem. As long as there is sufficient water, fertile land, and enough sunshine time, it can live no matter where it is, and have a good harvest. There is no problem in mass planting in the Hetao Plain.

The third problem is not a problem at all in Lu Xiangsheng's view. Fighting to feed the war, eating the enemy for ten minutes, and the ancestors have been very good at it thousands of years ago. If he still doesn't know what to do, just Just go home and grow sweet potatoes!

The three problems that have plagued the Han people for more than 2000 years have been solved. If we don’t fight now, when will we wait?

(End of this chapter)