stubborn thief

Chapter 312 Luck
Wulan Mountain is a paradise in the large and small deserts.

Thirty miles west of it is the Keke Salt Lake, the south is the Yak Mountain, Dulan Lake and the Great Wetland, the north is the densely forested Harihatu Mountain, and the east is the Chaka Salt Lake, which passes through the 140-mile mountain road.

There are not only vast woodlands suitable for grazing, but also a large amount of irrigated land that can be cultivated.

The Mongolian men set up an endless camp at the foot of the mountain and built a city.

The city was built very simply. The walls that are wide at the bottom and narrow at the top are one foot square in height, the base of the wall is six feet wide, the top of the city is four feet wide, and there is a foot-thick parapet.

The city wall is very low and narrow, and there are no fortifications other than diversion ditches, but it is enough to make Arslan proud... This is the city he presided over, the city!
In the vast Mongolia, there are very few people who presided over the city building. Starting from this Ulan city, he, Arslan, must be counted as one of them.

At this moment, Arslan stood at the foot of Wulan Mountain, looking at the rammed earth city, his heart almost flew to the sky: relying on the [-] troops left behind by his father, he strangely found the feeling of being a profuse sweat.

Arslan never felt himself a leader.

In the past in Khalkha, his elders were the leaders of various tribes in Khalkha, and his father was just one of the many nobles. As for himself, he was not special among the many noble warriors.

Even outside the borders of Gansu, with his father as the leader, he only considered himself one of the dozens of thousands of households in this Mongolian army.

Even if he controls the army under his command, he doesn't consider himself the leader... In the traditional nomadic tribe life, there are not only warriors, but they only have exhausted, hungry, fleeing warriors.

Only in Wulan Mountain.

Not long after Chuoketu Taiji launched the Eastern Expedition, countless Mongolians came from Monan to join the Mongolian hero who invaded Qinghai—not to Chuoketu, but to him, Arslan. .

These newly defected Mongols came from the right-wing Tumed, Yongxiebu and Ordos. They were the losers in Lin Dan Khan's Western Expedition War.

When the war ended, they lost their homeland and stationed in Yanbian, followed Chuoke Tutaiji to find Lin Danhan's messenger, and went retrograde all the way to Qinghai.

Arslan considered not taking them in.

The vast majority of these people are not soldiers. The strong and powerful died or surrendered in the war, and most of the old and weak died in the early frost last spring. .

One month after they entered Wulan Mountain, the place changed with each passing day. They were no longer a group of failed troops who came in exile from various places. They now had well-informed old men, gentle and hardworking women, and even a young man who could ride a pony. kid.

In the grassland in June, under the juniper and green poplars, rape blossoms are blooming everywhere, and the displaced people finally find a place to live. They indulge in love in the bonfire in the forest on the grassland, and imagine the future under the endless night sky.

Amidst the laughter, Arslan found the feeling and happiness of being a leader.

People are grateful to him, women and children are grateful to him for his generosity, providing shelter for exiles; soldiers are grateful for his generosity, bringing wives and children to bachelors.

Someone told Arslan that he was Borjijin, who could create a new Wanhu, Ulanbu.

It's like lightning flashing across the sky, but it is only a flash, but it can burn a raging fire in the forest.Maybe the speaker just mentioned it casually after having fun, but it is deeply rooted in Arslan's heart like an obsession.

He has a city with tens of thousands of tribesmen, fields suitable for farming, pastures beyond the horizon, inexhaustible salt lakes, huge mines with huge reserves, inexhaustible forests, and powerful artillery.

Why can't you build your own Ten Thousand Households Department?

It's just that there are good and bad things in everything. While people are more and more supporting him, he has noticed more than once that the brave warriors are slack.

The monk accompanying the army said that this is the will of the Buddha, a piece of dreamed land, even women and children, they don't need to go east.

Arslan worshiped the Buddha statue and said something very piously in his heart: fart.

Born in the most prominent family in Khalkha, even though he is not special among the same nobles, he still got an excellent education. He is not a fool and doesn't believe this.

What was the purpose of the Buddha when they ate the guns of the Gansu General Army in the desert outside Suzhou?
But it doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, and it doesn't matter whether people have a clear understanding of the teachings and scriptures. What matters is identity.

The Mongolian nobles pay attention to the blood of the golden family, but the Mongolian tribes cannot be united by blood, especially the Mongolian tribes in Qinghai.

Ever since Altan Khan sent people to occupy the sea, this place is like a market for losers, gathering all the tribes from Central Asia to explore the horse red army to the people in the forest of Lake Baikal.

Pick out two herdsmen at random, they may have the same grandfather, or they may be more distant in blood than Emperor Chongzhen and Lin Dan Dahan.

From Emperor Yuan Shun to Yanhan, the Mongolian tribes have been entrusted many times. The tribes still use the names of the past, but the blood relationship is a mess, not to mention that there has long been no strong Khan that can bring all the tribes together and call them Mongolia. .

So how do you maintain your identity?religion.

At this time, Mongolia is in an embarrassing situation. They cannot live without the identity brought by religion, but if they want to rely on this, they must passively join the sectarian disputes on the snow-capped mountains.

This is really funny to say, as a Mongolian nobleman, Arslan may hope that the disputes in the Snow Mountains will return to calm more than many Uzbek noblemen.

Another iron cannon was forged, and Arslan felt extremely satisfied when he saw his magical weapon.

The iron cannon made in Ulan Mountain was based on the copper cannon captured by the Orus bandits in Oirat, but Arslan could not imitate it because he was very short of copper materials.

The way of thinking towards people in lighting is to use cast iron cannons if there is no copper material.

Arslan wanted to cast iron cannons... Although cast iron cannons are heavy and not as durable as cast copper cannons, it is very simple with the technology of the Ming Dynasty. Liu Chengzong got two red cannons in Shanxi, and only kept the copper cannons. Heavy iron cannons were thrown at Yan'an Wei.

Because the performance of cast iron guns is not good, it has only one most important advantage, which is cheap.

But looking at the world, the manufacturing process of cast iron cannons belongs to the first echelon of technical difficulties in the world, and the maritime power Spain does not know it. Only a few countries have this technology.

During the Apocalypse, the export of cast iron cannons from Sweden attracted the attention of the United Kingdom, because before that, the export of cast iron cannons throughout Europe was completely monopolized by the United Kingdom.

For Da Ming, this thing is a technology that can be used at any time, but for Arslan, it is a science that needs to be studied.

By mobilizing a large number of craftsmen and having enough materials, Arslan can forge the best scimitar, the best armor, the sharpest arrow cluster and even a good gun barrel. There are ready-made bird gun imitations, various There are no technical difficulties with the parts either.

But put a cast iron cannon in front of him, and no amount of Mongolian craftsmen could imitate it.

But if you can’t imitate it, you can go another way. There is not a big difference between people in terms of intelligence and intelligence. Arslan’s cannon is a wrought iron cannon about the size of a lion cannon. Refer to Hami's musket layer by layer, roll it up layer by layer with wrought iron bars, and roll it up and down.

Lightweight and very good quality, there are almost no disadvantages except high cost, long working hours, and small caliber.

For more than a month, he mobilized many craftsmen, and only made five iron cannons and more than 200 shells.

The iron cannonballs were also made by craftsmen with hammers, because they could not cast iron. On the grassland, only Tumed Mongolian craftsmen could cast iron, but Arslan did not participate in the Eastern Expedition, and there was no one under him who could cast iron.

Even so, since everyone who ran from Monan Mobei to Wulan Mountain had rich experience in shooting guns in various places, every iron cannon and every shell was forged, which was very important to the Mongolian tribes. Like a festival worth celebrating.

However, on the day the fifth iron cannon was forged, Arslan received an urgent report from the herdsmen grazing in the eastern forest before he had time to celebrate.

"The army of the Han people crossed the Chaka Salt Pond and built a wooden fort on the mountain pass!"

Arslan was gearing up to test the power of the artillery, and the galloping horse team rushed out of Ulan City, from the wetland to the forest.

They found that the Han people were building a mountain wooden fort with an outer fence in the mountain road. Taking advantage of the fortress with only dozens of defenders, they immediately launched a siege before the artillery arrived.

The siege went very smoothly. After suffering dozens of heavy guns and losing dozens of soldiers, the Mongolian army set up camp under the lonely fortress mountain.

When Arslan arrived at the foot of the mountain, he looked at the condescending wooden castle, and severely scolded the hunting shepherds around him.

The castle seems to have at most a hundred defenders. With this size of defenders, it will take at least a month to build the castle. After a month, they don't know that the Han army has cut off the main road. Arslan thinks it is The shepherd's dereliction of duty.

He really wronged the hunting people nearby. The fortress was actually built three days ago, and it was discovered by the Mongols on the second day after the construction started.

The general of the wooden castle is Bai Zong under Qian Zong Zhonghu's command. He has already found out the location suitable for building the fort. He prepared the wood for building the fort in the east in advance. He asked 300 people from Zhong Hu to drive the donkey cart. At the mountain pass, the stockade was built overnight, which made the large troops retreat.

His mission was to cover up the enemy's intelligence in the east and delay for two days in order to cooperate with Liu Chengzong's plan to inform Arslan.

This hundred is always Liu Chengzong, who was born as a guard, and has very good archery skills. When defending the city, one person with two pots of arrows and a dozen heavy guns from the Marshal's House blocked the mountain road to attack the fort. If there are fewer people, they will shoot. Just use five or six heavy guns to shoot a volley, and the Mongolian soldiers who besieged the city couldn't attack at all.

But the next day, the situation was different after Arslan's iron cannon entered the battle.

In order to handle the five iron cannons, Arslan specially formed a [-]-man artillery team. The selection of artillerymen was very strict, and the rewards were also very generous. As long as the artillerymen were selected, they would be rewarded with a war horse.

Arslan also had no choice but to do this. Technically, each of his more than 1 troops is capable of artillery.

Except for the few craftsmen who participated in the test, most of them were on the same starting line in their understanding of artillery: they were all Mongolian boys who had been beaten by cannons.

Which hero galloping on the grassland has never thought that one day he can bombard others with cannons?
In this case, he can't just assign some people to be artillery, otherwise he won't be able to convince the crowd, and he has to set up a threshold...but the threshold can't be too high. If you set up a threshold that is too high, for example, if you touch the cannon, you will be wiped at that time. More than 1 people went down.

After thinking hard, Arslan finally figured out two very stringent requirements, which had little to do with the artillery, and could guarantee the maximum power of the artillery under the current conditions.

The first is that all must have been fatally wounded in previous battles; the second is that they are still alive and kicking.

Luck, the selection criterion for artillery is luck.

After more than two hundred steps, a hundred Mongolian soldiers transported five iron cannons to the mountain road, not to mention an artillery position, and the five iron cannons lined up towards the mountain fort.

Then dozens of monks clasped their hands beside the cannon and invited out the clay bodhisattva with solemn and precious appearance. The five cannons opened fire one after another, and the sound of the cannons fired one after another, scaring the soldiers on the wooden fort.

The soldiers shrank their heads when the gunfire was about to sound, and quickly hid behind the wooden fence.

Mr. Bai was most afraid of him. As an officer, he had to stand upright with his upper body out of the wooden fence, his calves were shaking, and he had to stare at the five cannons with piercing eyes.

No one is not afraid of cannons, and the veterans who have seen a few big battles are more afraid of cannons.

Because the artillery these days is not a howitzer that can directly blow people to pieces and kill them, it hits iron eggs. Unless it directly pierces the chest and smashes the skull, the general shotgun will neither go directly to the sky nor have a chance of rejuvenation. It is very likely After the battle is over, people are still alive, which is a standard death.

The sound of the cannon was loud, and a thin layer of sweat broke out on the forehead under the eyebrows of Mr. Bai's helmet. His eyes quickly traveled around the wooden castle. He was extremely flustered.
Nothing happened to his soldiers, and the chiefs of his subordinates were loudly announcing the news that there were no casualties. Instead, he lowered his head and looked down the mountain. A large area of ​​Mongolian soldiers gathered near the artillery retreated, and some people ran up the mountain.

President Bai ordered to prepare to defend against the enemy, only to find that the Mongolian soldiers who climbed up the mountain went back with shells in their hands.

Bai Zong was so angry that he just wanted to drop his helmet and fight them hand-to-hand...how could he be so intimidating.

After several rounds of bombardment, the soldiers stationed in the wooden fort found that something was wrong with the enemy's artillery, and they finally saw something.

The enemy army has five cannons in total, and every time they shoot, each cannon has its own ideas. There have never been two cannonballs fired at the same place, and when they hit their wooden village, the Mongols seemed more anxious than they missed it. .

It seems that after they fired a cannon, they had to send someone to pick up the cannonball. If they were unlucky, a cannonball hit the wooden village and stuck in the wooden fence, so the cannonball could not be picked up.

The lion soldiers guarding the wooden fort were not even interested in fighting back, and Mr. Bai was also happy to exercise the soldiers' ability to resist shelling. Everyone was bombarded by five iron cannons at a distance of [-] steps. afternoon.

In the evening, the Mongolian soldiers gradually withdrew to the forest to rest, and the lion soldiers also burned the wooden village and retreated. Before leaving, they sent a prisoner and a letter to Arslan.

Arslan unfolded the letter and found a monk who could speak Chinese to read it out: "Arslan, your father called, no, it was Chuoke Tutaiji who ordered you to immediately lead your troops into the Heka grassland with artillery, and attack Liu Chengzong from east to west. Don't delay, fall..."

After reading the text message, the monk was a little skeptical about life, looked up at Arslan, looked down at the letter, blinked in confusion, then looked up at Arslan: "Well, this letter, this letter is signed by Liu Chengzong, this is written by Liu Chengzong letter."

"what!"

Arslan was overjoyed, he sneered and stared at the left and right: "He thinks I'm stupid? Will I believe this kind of false military information?"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)