Xinshun 1730

Chapter 71 Peach, Plum and Hammer

The place chosen by the emperor to "hold the dry dance" is a Tsarist Russian castle near the Hulun Buir Grassland, between the Ergun River and the Hailar River.

The place where Liu Yu wanted to lead people to investigate was a bit far away. Considering that the Raksha people were unlikely to have field forces, he only brought more than 80 people.

The Hulunbuir Grassland is an excellent prairie, but the area near the Erguna River is almost becoming a no-man's land.

In the late Ming and early Shun years, too many things happened.

The eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia, the eastward invasion of the Junggar, and the arrest of Daurians and Saurons by the Later Jin Dynasty added troops, resulting in few people in this fertile grassland.

Either they went south to escape from Tsarist Russia;

Dashun also tried to station some people here in the early days, but at that time the Little Ice Age had not yet passed, and it was impossible to harvest food.

The frost-free period is too short, often before the grain grows, it is a frost.

Li Guo was probably misled by some books in his previous life. He was possessed by Khrushchev, thinking that corn is a divine food that can be grown anywhere, guided by his legacy, but he didn't even receive half a corn cob.

The Daur people are one of the few ethnic groups in the Heilongjiang River Basin and the Outer Northeast, and Dashun also tried to use the sour Fubing system in the Songhua River Basin to garrison here.

But for several years, the people sent to station worked together to cook the grain seeds and plant them in the ground, and the harvest was never reported every year.

They are not stupid, and they don't want to guard the border in such a bitterly cold place. The harvest has been lost year after year, and the court will let them go to a warmer place earlier.

The court didn't know about the boiled seeds until someone reported it later.

But it was only dealt with a little bit, not even a human head.This incident also made the imperial court clear that people's hearts are not available, and if they are forced to garrison here, something will happen sooner or later.

I also tried it later, even if I didn’t cook the seeds, I often planted one and harvested two. At that time, there was still war in the country, so I finally gave up.

In the past few years, the weather has been getting warmer and the country has been recuperating for a long time. The imperial court finally has money and people. In addition, the Russian rye has spread here, and potatoes can also be grown here. Finally, they can try to control this place.

It is possible to nomadic in this prairie, but there are no frontier troops stationed, and the imperial court is not at ease with those Mongolian tribes.

Taking advantage of the eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia, some tribes moved southward and eastward. If they could control the Hulunbuir Grassland at this time, on the one hand, they could follow the example of Monan’s feudal system and change nomadism into settled pastoralism; This pasture, such a good pasture, will be distributed to whoever is obedient.

Of course, the premise is that there is a garrison here.

Even if there is still not enough food to be grown, and even if grain is transported from the Songhua River and Nen River every year, the imperial court is determined to garrison troops.

Spending less here could cost you more in the future.Even a city like Datong may be harassed and massacred after the former government shrinks its borders, and it still loses money.The lessons of the previous dynasty must be learned.

The lesson of the dynasty must also be learned. It cannot still send Daur and local people as the main force. It has to recruit troops from the interior to forcibly guard the border, so that they are not familiar with the place and have no place to run.

Although these people who came with Liu Yu were not from the mainland, it was the first time they saw such a prairie.After passing the Xing'an Mountains, everyone was dumbfounded.

The phrase that almost everyone can memorize the wind blows the grass and sees the cattle and the sheep, poured into everyone's mind almost instantly, and there is really no other words that can better describe what they see before them.

The white clouds seem to be dyed by the blue sky, and the blue water can be squeezed out by squeezing.The half-person-high grassland stretches to the horizon, and the river is like a painting pasted on the grassland, which can be wiped off with a single hand.

"This place raises good horses."

Du Feng and other frontier soldiers couldn't help but praise, and ran to the river to let the horse's hooves make ripples, destroying a still picture.

These young frontier soldiers from Shandong, Henan, Jingzhou, or southern Hunan have never left the picturesque Nuer Gandusi since birth.

No matter how beautiful the painting is, I get tired of looking at it. Occasionally, I feel like I am thousands of miles away when I hear my family talking about my hometown.

The celestial dynasty is huge and the scenery is different, but in the eyes of these people, it is an unimaginable scene.

It's like hearing people talk about white and black, square and round pots, hot and cold snow that makes people sweat... I have never seen it before, how can I imagine it?

Liu Yu rode his horse and came among the group of people. While drinking the horse, he asked with a smile, "Have you ever seen such a grassland?"

Du Feng chuckled, and sighed: "I'm not afraid of adults joking, there are so many things I haven't seen before."

"Temple fairs in the capital, dragon boats in the south of the Yangtze River, Yangguan in the northwest, gardens in the southeast... I have never seen these things I have heard of in books. When I was a child, I read poems about plum blossoms, and I thought, what kind of plum blossoms are they? ?”

"My friends argued. Some said it looked like a hawthorn flower, and some said it looked like a cherry blossom. There were also those who said that plum blossoms and plums are the same thing. Green plums are actually the fruit of plum blossoms..."

Speaking of this, the rest of the people also asked some strange-sounding questions.

"My lord, I heard that oranges grown in Huainan are tangerines. What do these oranges look like?"

"My lord, do these bamboo shoots and radishes taste similar?"

"Have you ever seen lotus and lotus root?"

"Has your lord seen Ome?"

"Have you ever seen bamboo?"

"Have you ever eaten peaches? Are peaches as delicious as Shanlihong?"

"Does the lotus pod look like a reed mallet?"

These sad-sounding questions made Liu Yu deliberately laugh.

With a flick of the horsewhip, a water mark was drawn out, and he said with a smile, "I want to see you? It's simple. Perform well and make a great contribution."

"After the war is over, I will not only take you to Yangguan, the Dragon Boat Garden Temple Fair, cook a bowl of green plums, and eat two catties of peaches... Maybe, I will also take you to see the pine trees that are as tall as pine trees and have no leaves. The sacred hibiscus tree covered in thorns; go to see the emu in the book of mountains and seas; go to touch the snow further south than Guangdong; go to see the Colosseum built of stones by Westerners."

Pulling the reins, the horse kicked out a pile of water to wash the faces of these people, turned around and said to the group of soldiers who seemed to be dumbfounded: "You have asked me so many questions, so I will ask you a question too. I rebel in the dynasty to protect the world. Everyone talks about the world, the world, what is the world? What is the world to protect?"

Amidst the silence and hesitation of the group of people, Jiaolao Butu thought of something and tentatively replied.

"Even if you haven't seen oranges, you know that oranges grow in Huainan; even if you can't think of plums, you think of green plums to cook wine; even if you think lotus looks like reeds, you still think of those fisherman's songs. The lotus-picking girl. Wherever there are people who think this way, where is the world?"

"Hahahaha..." Liu Yu laughed loudly, lifted the rein, crossed the small river, and shouted: "Peaches are delicious, green plums are not the fruit of plum blossoms, and lotus pods don't look like mallets."

"In this situation, I want to write a poem and sing it to sing about my ambition."

On Hainan Island, flowers are already in full bloom;

On both sides of the Yangtze River, the willow branches have just sprouted;
In Daxing'an Mountains, snowflakes are still flying;
Ah, so fucking big, but not big enough!

A group of people burst into laughter and shouted: "Your Excellency, let's concentrate on fighting. Is this also called poetry?"

"Let's go, follow the adults to make meritorious service, and in the future, we will eat peaches and watch emus..."

The hooves of the horses were flying, crossed the small river, raised their whips, and a group of people stepped on the green grass and rushed towards the northwest.

…………

Near the Raksha Fortress on the Ergun River, Du Feng led a few people, riding horses, showing off his equestrian skills beyond the limit range of the muskets of the Raksha Castle, shouting into the city a sentence of Russian taught by Liu Yu .

"Suka is not listed!"

A Russian translator following Liu Yulai shouted inside: "Your female czar is a Polish army chicken. When your czar saw her, she was already pregnant, but your Peter likes a big belly..."

The Cossacks in the city laughed coquettishly, not caring at all, and someone shouted: "Tell me more in detail!"

"Tell me some details, hey!"

"Speak up! Can't hear you! You want to tell a story with such a low voice?"

"Cherkassk's egg-selling woman Hohor has a louder voice than yours!"

Despite such insults, the Cossacks in the city did not come out.The officers maintained order in the city and told those Cossacks who wanted to hear the story to shut up quickly, but there were still some Cossacks standing on the low wall enthusiastically, with their ears stretched out.

There were not many people outside the city, but the officers already knew what was happening in the east, and strictly restrained these Cossacks from going out of the city to attack.

The surrounding wheat fields have been snapped up. Although they are not yet fully mature, they can still be used as horse fodder.The nearby wooden houses were also burned down, and the shooting area had already been cleared.

The Cossacks in the city knew that it might be a hard battle, but they still took pleasure in the bitterness.

They are ordered to stand firm, reinforcements may or may not come, if not, then surrender.By killing more people, you can win a decent surrender and conditional surrender of weapons.

It was difficult for Liu Yu to judge how many people were in the city, so he could only roughly draw the outline of the outer city first.

I asked someone to dig a few shovels of soil, tested the soil quality here, and took a telescope to observe the outer defenses of Rakshasa Castle.

The soil here is relatively easy to dig. There is a layer of grass roots that are difficult to dig on the top, and there is thick soil under the grass roots.

It may be to guard against Mongolian riders. The city was built a little higher. This was wrong in the gunpowder era, but for the Mongolian tribes who were in short supply of gunpowder and had no guns, it was effective according to local conditions.

There is no way to see how many cannons are hidden in the bastion in the distance. We can only wait for the army to come in a few days and use a hot air balloon to observe from above.

After going around twice, and finishing drawing the outer structure of this simple bastion, Liu Yu laughed and said, "It's just a piece of crap, isn't it captured casually? Just bullying and bullying the nearby tribes don't even have a thousand-jin cannon. "

"You said how long has it been since the Onan River Alliance? Now that the Onan River is gone, it's really... the era of grassland nomads is really over."

Jiaolaobutu also agreed with this, pointing to the grassland in the distance and said: "In the future, as long as the Kingdom builds some such forts along the route, it doesn't take too much, and the Mongolian tribes should not dare to have different ideas, right?"

"Well, almost. It depends on the court's willingness to spend money. In the end, it depends on how the battle was fought. It was well fought. Khalkha Mongolia was convinced by the military power and asked them to contribute people and efforts to help repair the war. Well, spending some money to buy off the upper echelon is actually not that expensive. Subduing the military might is not a long-term solution. I don’t know how the court will deal with it.”

Unfolding the map "sent" by Bai Ling, Liu Yu clicked his tongue and said, "Now, there are a few boring siege battles. If this city is defeated, there will be no big battles in the future."

Jiaolaobutu was puzzled and asked, "Won't Rakshasa send reinforcements?"

"Where to send? Qi Guogong brought people to negotiate with Luocha. If this fort is easy to attack, the Luocha people are afraid that Qi Guogong will take down the fort near Lake Baikal. To show the country's prestige, Qi Guogong brought the guards to the border negotiation Can you talk to me, at least they seem to be in high spirits. They dare not send troops here if the attack is strong. If there are fewer people, it will be useless; A total of 3000 mobile troops can be gathered, right? For today's battle, the imperial court built post stations, built grain ships, and stored grain five years in advance. If they do the calculations mentally or carelessly, they can't win in a field battle."

"You can't win a field battle, you just disperse the defense... Just think about the old things in Liaodong."

(End of this chapter)