stubborn thief

In February of the seventh year of Chongzhen, Liu Chengzong had personally led the five battalion troops to set off from Xining.

Compared with the offensive route at the southern foot of the Qilian Mountains, the route of his main Chinese army is farther away. They have to go south from Xining to the Heka Grassland, then go west to Delingha via Chaka Yanchi and Wulan Mountain, and then turn around. Head north to Guazhou, with a total length of [-] miles.

This road was chosen by Liu Shizi. It is nearly [-] miles farther than the road that marched along the southern foot of Qilian Mountains through Hala Lake to Yumen, and there are fewer water sources along the way.

However, this route is superior in its strong population carrying capacity. In Heka, Ulan, Dulan, Delingha, Golmud, and Chuandan, there are all the pastoral camps and chieftains of the Marshal's Mansion. Although there are fewer water sources, they are All under his control.

Although due to the extreme terrain and environmental conditions, it takes fifty days to calculate the marching time, but there is a stronger guarantee.

At first, Liu Chengzong's advance was very slow, because the imperial court's counterattack from Lanzhou in the east was very slow, which made him feel uneasy, but with a letter from Ren Quan'er, he felt relieved.

Liu Chengzong never regarded the leaders and fellow clansmen who stayed in Yan'an Mansion as his subordinates in his heart.

They used to be friends who fought against the wind and waves in difficult times. Sometimes people are close, and sometimes people are far away. Those who are close are like monkeys in the sky, who share the same interests and help each other; those who are far away are like Chuang Wang Gao Yingxiang. If you live below others, then join forces.

Anyway, at that time, no matter whether it was General Liu or King Gao Chuang, no one had any hope of overthrowing Daming, and everyone was very tolerant.

But there are also special times when people's aspirations are not the same.

Even if they all have the surname Liu, not everyone is willing to rebel after eating enough. Even because they are of the same clan, one is an uncle and the other is a brother.

To put it bluntly, you are the one who insisted on ruining your family and business. Shouldn't you support me when you become a big leader?
In order to avoid the escalation of conflicts, there was Yan'anwei where many people were surnamed Liu.

Yan'an Guard is essentially the reservoir where Liu Chengzong lost his contradictions, and the Yuzi Camp of his father Liu Xiangyu in the early years also served this purpose.

There are originally three types of people. Liu Chengzong's Lion Camp is his subordinates, who can command according to his will; Rebellion is a group of people forced by circumstances.

Only Ren Quan'er can be called a subordinate in his hometown, but Liu Chengzong also did not dare to regard him as a subordinate in his heart. After all, time has passed, and the poor boy at the beginning became a commander with real power in the court, and he can still obey His orders?
Whether he is a subordinate or not, he doesn't count, Ren Quan'er treats him as an officer, that's what counts.

Ren Quan'er's letter had three pages. The first page told him that the imperial court had dispatched at least three battalions to attack Lanzhou in the direction of Lintao, and also gave a clear account of the situation of the generals of the three battalions.

This made Liu Chengzong very puzzled, because the Marshal's Mansion had sufficient defensive forces on both sides of the Yellow River in Lanzhou, and because the surrender of the old Ming army was so powerful, it was almost clear that the court should know how many troops they had.

Lanzhou has a battalion led by general brigade commander Wang Wenxiu, and three nearly full battalions of Luo Rucai, Li Wanqing, and Yang Chengzu.

There are several counties around Lintao Mansion, and the Lintao Brigade composed of the old Ming army under the command of three surrendered generals Shi Xiang, Li Zude, and Zhang Yunqi. When Liu Chengzong awarded them the positions of deputy generals and generals, he made it clear and asked them to vote for their names.

Therefore, when the three of them recruited the battalion and flag army to surrender, they fought fiercely against several surrounding counties. Moreover, it was the responsibility of the three to surrender in Kaesong.

In the face of this army, the governors of the five provinces of the imperial court put out three battalions of more than ten thousand troops, which seemed too shabby. They were all heavenly soldiers and generals if they wanted to fight with one against two in the siege battle?
However, on the second page, Ren Quan'er explained in detail the melee in the Central Plains, Huguang, and Sichuan, the imperial court's net, the official army's successive victories, and the peasant army's long drive, everything makes sense.

Liu Chengzong believed in the court's battle report because he had experience in joint operations and knew the difficulty of commanding coordinated operations on a large battlefield that spanned hundreds of miles.

This situation appeared in the battle reports of the Ming army, not because the generals of the Ming army lied about their military exploits, but because the 10,000+ peasant army was breaking through.

The 10,000+ peasant army has some direct descendant old battalions of leaders who have the ability to fight head-on with the official army, but they are still not regular troops, and the leaders with strong old battalions are often relatively independent leaders.

After four years of war, Liu Chengzong established the Marshal's Mansion and had his own political structure; although the peasant army who stayed in the Central Plains did not have this set of things, they also lost their innocence and learned cruelty during the war.

They are breaking through, and no one will hold a strong army in the back of others, leaving their own direct descendants surrounded by the official army.

Ren Quan'er summed up this situation sharply in the letter: the strong run amok, and the weak fill the ditch.

Those capable of marching quickly broke through the army, killed generals, destroyed the city and plundered the land, while the old and weak were intercepted and hunted down by the army on the road, leaving behind a headless corpse, which became the military exploits of the army.

Liu Chengzong was a little lost.

He thought that the Marshal's Mansion's capture of Lanzhou would make him the number one enemy in Shaanxi and reduce the threat of the peasant army, but he didn't expect that in Chen Qiyu's eyes, he would instead become a secondary target of the imperial court.

As for the third page of Ren Quan'er's letter, it was his plan for defecting on the Yan'an Camp battlefield. Liu Chengzong didn't worry about these things, and asked someone to send them to Wang Wenxiu. The frontline battlefield matters still had to be decided by the frontline generals.

Liu Chengzong just informed the whole army of the situation of the peasant army in the Central Plains, and told the soldiers to hurry up. Only by taking Gansu quickly can the peasant army die less.

The five battalions under his command had already turned into nine battalions when they reached Delingha.

However, the four extra battalions were only on the same road with him. One battalion was the nobles and guards of the Oirat tribes. The Mongolian nobles such as Batu Erhuitaiji walked happily, but many tribes left Xining. up.

Their mighty army left the Tianshan Mountains, and when they came back, there were only more than 3000 people left, and they also brought two fierce Han army camps, not to mention how uncomfortable they were.

Batur Huntaiji and others were happy. First, they were able to go home. Second, Liu Chengzong gave them a lot of gifts, and also agreed on a comprehensive trade agreement for furs, arms, and daily necessities.

Despite losing a lot in one battle, the nobles were all richer, and for the foreseeable future, they would get richer along the trade routes.

Batur Huntaiji was the most serious person in the march, not only because Oirat was in charge of leading the army of the Marshal's Mansion, but also because he was learning to march from the Marshal's Mansion, mainly pulling heavy artillery to march in the desert and Gobi.

Since he was defeated and surrendered, he was thrown into the school of the Marshal's Mansion to learn Chinese language. In a militaristic place like the Marshal's Mansion, he would accidentally learn some military knowledge by learning Chinese. He really learned a lot. thing.

At this moment, more than 3 people dragged out a winding long snake array along the Gobi Desert at the foot of the snow-capped mountain. The size of the army camp.

In the more than half a year in the Marshal's Mansion, Batur Huitaiji's harvest is not only familiar with the various firearms of the Marshal's Mansion, but more importantly, he has learned a lot of history and armed his mind.

His teacher is an old pedant who admires the ancients. He always talks about Confucius and even the five emperors. He was sent to another courtyard to teach a group of Mongolian nobles the language.

But these things are different for Batur Huntaiji. In his opinion, the fertile land of the Central Plains became the Central Plains of the Han people, and it was based on that period.

People built strong cities, divided the princes in various places, connected the vast areas with roads, divided the country with blood, formulated the etiquette system of respecting the king and fighting the barbarians, and waged endless wars against the barbarians, making the Central Plains an impenetrable country for thousands of generations. .

This has a strong guiding significance for the tribal form of Junggar, which fully demonstrates the significance of development. A seed was planted in Haojing 3000 years ago, and the Han people carefully watered the branches and leaves, and today's Daming was born.

He went back to Tianshan today to build a city, enfeoffed the nobles in key areas of the pass, built official roads based on rivers and mountains, locked all the barbarians he saw in it, and sent elite cavalry to plunder. After 3000 years, a Mongolia will appear in the vast Siberia. Power, at that time Genghis Khan will become a figure like the Yellow Emperor, and he will be dubbed Zhou Wen... no, the title of King Wen of Mongolia.

He is ready to go back to Tianshan to do a big job. The two Mongolian battalions are standing troops. As long as the fur and fluff are brought over this year, they can buy weapons and equipment for the two battalions.

Waiting for next year to pull 33 light and heavy artillery to talk to the Raksha people about the issue of free trade in Siberia.

In fact, the normal march of more than 3 people was nothing special to Batur Huntaiji except that he needed to learn how to transport heavy artillery. Until Liu Chengzong ordered the whole army to speed up, all the Oirat nobles were frightened.

It’s not that they haven’t seen the rapid march. The Mongolian cavalry itself is an expert in rapid march, but the soldiers are extremely happy to march towards Jiayuguan, which has never been breached, where the barbarians dismount their horses... No one has ever seen it .

The nearly [-] troops of the Fifth Battalion of the Marshal's Mansion lived on this road with good food and drink. When walking down the marching road, the livestock in the several grazing camps along the way, except for those who had cubs, almost all died quickly. It was eaten up by them, and if it wasn't for the melting snow in the mountains, they would drink up even the river water.

Batur Huntaiji didn't understand why these troops were in such a hurry to go to Jiayuguan to die despite such a fairy life. If the troops of the Marshal's Mansion had such a high fighting enthusiasm, why did they come to Qinghai? ?

In fact, not only Batur Hui Taiji didn't understand, even Liu Chengzong didn't understand. He ordered the fast forward to avoid delaying the time. Zhuanglanghe is facing each other, and the battle of Lintao Mansion is about to start. The sooner he arrives at Jiayuguan, Zhang Tianlin The unit can act sooner, distracting the enemy's attention between the two battlefields.

The army of the Marshal's Mansion has not always had such a high fighting enthusiasm.

When the army set off from Xining and Xincheng, Liu Chengzong also specially summoned the commanders in the army to let them pay attention to the mentality of the soldiers in the army and tell them the justice of the trip.

At the beginning of the slow march, the morale of the army was neither low nor high, but the order to march quickly cheered up the people.

Liu Chengzong only found out what was going on after calling his subordinates to inquire. In fact, the reason is quite funny, because the soldiers finally left Hehuang.

It wasn't to fight back to their hometown, but after leaving Hehuang, their sense of superiority as soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion returned.

Hehuang was fine, but in the few months after the harvest in Hehuang Juntian, the soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion, except for the locals in Hehuang, lived a miserable life.

Before equalizing the fields, the common people in Hehuang suffered from both widowhood and inequality. Although the soldiers of the Marshal’s Mansion had no military pay, each of them had enough food to survive. Even if there was no war, they could rely on rations to support the whole family. Can also help others.

The soldiers of the Grand Marshal's Mansion are the most proud soldiers in the world, even when they walk on the road, they stand upright with their chests up.

But after the bumper harvest in Juntian, a psychological gap came. Everyone lived well, and every household had almost inexhaustible grain, and sold the surplus grain to the Marshal's Mansion, and had endless money.

The soldiers of the Marshal's Mansion suddenly realized that they didn't seem to have so much food in their hands, and even less money, and it was better to plant a few acres of land at home than throwing their heads and blood.

People vaguely felt that something was wrong, but they couldn't tell what was wrong. They rebelled because they couldn't survive. Now they saw that the people under the command of the marshal were happy, and they were also happy from the bottom of their hearts, but they just felt that they were at a loss.

They don't blame the Marshal, the Marshal has never treated them badly, no matter at any time, the soldiers' pay has never been cut off, but it is true that many people have the idea of ​​returning to the field.

Fortunately, the time has not been long enough for them to make up their minds to disarm and return to the fields. After all, these gangs of out-of-country fighters are really not very good at farming.

This gap did not disappear until they entered the grazing camp and the chieftain's territory. Although the people here lived a good life, they mainly engaged in animal husbandry, and food was still a scarce hard currency here, and their fixed value doubled again.

Only then did people suddenly realize that not everywhere in the world is like Hehuang under the rule of the general. They are going to Gansu. Once again changing everything in the ups and downs, enjoying people's love.

Breaking through Jiayuguan, they are still respected and proud fighters.

With such belief and careful thinking, the soldiers of the Fifth Battalion from the Marshal's Mansion to Jiayuguan were extremely excited, and the people were full of energy in the smoky Gobi march.

When people arrived in Subei, Liu Chengzong finally issued an order, and thousands of Tangqi alternately shuttled between the Gobi valleys.

The simple password is the yellow command flag and the red cotton armor galloping on horseback riding with Tang, they carry the dust from the Gobi dunes, reverberate in the melting snow mountain canyon, pass through the endless salt lake and the rushing snowmelt river, and finally pass clearly into the In Zhang Tianlin's ears.

The password is only four words: "March into Gansu!"