stubborn thief

Chapter 460 Chijin Guard

Liu Chengzong's siege of Jiayuguan was on the third day, and the preparations outside the pass had reached the final stage.

Under the protection of 36 heavy artillery pieces, the Tianshan Army carried out large-scale earthworks at [-] steps outside the pass, built trenches as long as ten miles, and piled up ten four-foot-high earth mountains at key nodes, taking advantage of better advantages than the city wall , The watchman waving the flag will have a panoramic view of the defenders' dispatch.

At the same time, thirty staggered ditches on the ground spread towards the Guancheng and hanging walls of Jiayuguan.

This is because the defenders are equipped with large-caliber Francois machine guns with rapid-fire capability. This thing is slightly weaker than the Hongyi cannon when firing solid iron bullets, but firing scattered bullets can give the siege soldiers who advance to [-] steps a lot of damage. The catastrophe.

Digging tunnels is not easy in this place. On the one hand, the Guancheng of Jiayuguan itself has a relatively high terrain, and there is an inverted triangular moat that is three feet deep outside. The sides of the ditch are covered with pebbles. Less is to give away the head, and there are more soldiers to enter, and the soil work is too difficult.

And stuffing gunpowder to blow up the city wall will not work in Jiayuguan. Guancheng is only a small city with a circumference of more than 700 steps, but there are three city walls, surrounded by fortifications and military camps. Blowing the outer wall, there are two city walls inside. not big.

Blow up the inner wall, and there are two walls inside and outside, which is meaningless.

As for blasting three city walls at the same time, Liu Chengzong thought it was a job for himself. He didn't have the skills, and he didn't have the thought. He had to repair it himself after blowing it up.

He just hoped to create the appearance of storming Jiayuguan City. In fact, his real intention was in the thirty trenches, and five trenches on the right wing were wider than the other trenches, allowing them to walk on scooters.

As for this impenetrable Guancheng, Liu Chengzong did not plan to attack it by force. Siege is a matter of high risk and high return. The wealth in this small Jiayuguan city is pitifully small, so it is not worth attacking by force.

So Gao Yingdeng was only asked to feign a few times to put pressure on the defenders. The real purpose was to tear down a hole in the southern hanging wall and let the army pass through Jiayuguan.

After all, the pass city and hanging wall are badly built, and the oasis and lake are on the other side. At that time, only a small number of troops should be left to besiege them until they surrender...Anyway, Liu Chengzong also saw it. Putting the ignition on, the meaning is very obvious, that is, to put eye drops on him.

I just want to tell him, don't attack by force, if we attack by force, we will set fire to people.

During the three days of artillery fire, the Marshal's Mansion fired more than 3000 shells, knocked down pieces of battlements in Guancheng and the hanging wall, and destroyed eight defensive guns.

The price was that one of the 36 heavy field guns was damaged by a direct hit, and the other three were deformed. At this time, the cannons were all misfired, and the remaining few guns were hidden. Presumably, they were intended to be used as killers in close combat.

Of course, it is also possible that he did not want to return the shells to Liu Chengzong.

After all, shells are consumables, and the marshal's army came from afar. This kind of consumables that took up the baggage was gone, and the follow-up replenishment was a big problem in theory.

But everything has a but.

A little to the west of Jiayuguan is the former Yumenguan, which is now the pastureland of the Chijin tribe of Mongolia. There is a city called Yima City in the local area.

When the leader of the Chijin Department passed by Jitutaiji, he was taken to Ganzhou by Zhao Zhirui, the general of Suzhou, to report to the general soldier Yang Jiamo.

There are not many people left in the tribe. As the Mongolian tribe who moved inward, they have no fighting power and no desire to fight. The red gold commander thought to himself, this is nothing to do with us, the last tribute will be forgotten.

The person from the Chijin Department is a commander, surnamed Kang, named Kang Liangfu, who claims to be from Kuaiji, and says he is a commander. In fact, there are about two hundred men, women, and children under his command. He is a big landlord who herds horses and sheep, and pays tribute. The tribute was six finely crafted iron pots, all of which were stamped with the seal of the Marshal's Mansion Baigong Bureau.

Liu Shizi almost laughed out loud in the big camp. The man from Kuaiji actually gave him the iron pot he rewarded as a tribute.

After careful questioning, I realized that the Kuaiji that Kang Liangfu was talking about was not the Kuaiji in Jiangnan.

In the Jin Dynasty, Yumen was divided into two counties, Guma and Kuaiji, and the Xiliang regime changed Kuaiji County to Kuaiji County. In the Tang Dynasty, it was collectively called Huren. When people come, everyone is a color-eyed person again.

At that time, they were the descendants of Chubo, who were originally the kings of Chagatai. During the Haidu rebellion, they led an army of [-] horsemen to defect to Kublai Khan. The later family lived in Hexi, and the seven guards outside the pass in Ming Dynasty except Handong. Except for the Wei, the six Wei are all related to the kings of Chagatai in the Yuan Dynasty.

When Chijinwei's ancestor Talini surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, he claimed to be the son of King Bin's Prime Minister Kushu.

They once made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, but they were hit hard by Turpan and asked to move to Suzhou, and then regained their Han surnames.

It would be that Kang Liangfu wanted to say something nice and close the distance between the two sides, because he was afraid of Liu Chengzong, especially afraid.

For Kang Liangfu who had lived outside the customs for a long time, the name Liu Chengzong was no stranger, and he was very familiar with it.

The area from Hami to Suzhou has always been a land of no man in the cracks in the Ming Dynasty, especially after the Ming Dynasty shrank its borders, it became a buffer zone.

Most of the people living here are culturally awkward. Men in the east think they are Tartars, while Tartars in the west think they are men.

In the land of no man, there are few people in this place, and there is a big monster guarding next to it. It is difficult to separate itself, so whoever comes is the result of the master. Chuoke Tutaiji, who has never won a battle in his life, has been the master here. .

When Taiji was in charge, Kang Liangfu's uncle was in charge, and he took Chuoketu Taiji to Jiayuguan to ask for rewards from the Gansu General Army, which was a kind of landlord's kindness.

Later, Xu Jiashou, the general soldier of Gansu, patted his cannon, and Taiji didn't dare to make decisions here.

In the sad sigh of the uncle, Kang Liangfu heard Liu Chengzong's name for the first time.

He bowed his body and raised his head slightly, looked at Liu Chengzong who was sitting in the top chair outside the commander's tent, and said carefully: "My uncle said that the rebel leader of Ming Dynasty entered Qinghai, occupied Qinghai, and led the army to burn incense and worship Buddha in Uzang. Ji wants to pay a visit, our family is worthy."

"Forty, let my uncle lead Taiji away." He said, he raised a finger: "Just come back with one."

"Oh." Liu Chengzong suddenly realized, clapped his hands and sat up straight: "So, your Chijin Department has enmity with me?"

"No hatred!"

Kang Liangfu shook his head and answered decisively: "Just... King Khan is so hospitable and hospitable, let them stay there, good luck!"

Liu Chengzong was overheard and was very happy. He even chose to ignore the second half of the sentence that he disliked because he was too flattering. He said with a smile, "King of Han, you are very good at talking... How many households are there in the entire Chijin Department?"

"Go back to the king, there are more than five hundred households."

Liu Chengzong raised his hand to summon the guards to fetch a pen and paper, and wrote a few sentences without raising his head, "What is your name Kang?"

"The villain Kang Liangfu."

He nodded, wrote a letter of appointment, ordered the artisans accompanying the army to engrave a copper seal, raised his hand and handed it out: "Kang Liangfu, appointed you as the commander of the Chijin Guard of the Marshal's Mansion, with jurisdiction over Yumen, Guazhou, and Dunhuang. Do you dare to gather the troops and recruit all the barbarians outside the pass to defend the baggage?"

Kang Liangfu never dreamed that Liu Chengzong would make him the commander of the Chijin Guard so easily.

Although he is now the Commander Chijin who was awarded the imperial edict by the Son of Heaven, under the same title, it is clear what Liu Chengzong meant in his words that he should not only be given the title of Commander, but really want to give him the title of Commander. Give him command power.

And it is the power in Yumen, Guazhou, and Dunhuang, which is almost the sum of the territories of Chijinwei and Shazhouwei in the early Ming Dynasty.

The Chijin Guards had already existed in name only when they moved inward to Suzhou. They, the commanders and even the governors, had neither force nor power. They were just a group of nomads raising camels on the Gobi Desert.

Although these three places are really not good places, there are settlements along the way from Yumen to Guazhou, which are called small oasis at best, but at worst they are just a few big villages and villages barely alive.

Basically there is more sand than fields, more fields than horses, more horses than commoners, more commoners than lambs, more lambs than horses, more horses than nobles, more nobles than rivers, and more rivers than caravans a state.

Dunhuang, Dunhuang has to be singled out. This place was very glorious in ancient times. It was an important strategic location and a commercial market town from the Central Plains to the Western Regions. However, after the Anshi Rebellion, natural disasters, man-made disasters and great changes in the environment caused Dunhuang's status to plummet.

Yangguan is in the southwest of Dunhuang. Wang Wei said that there are no old friends when you go west from Yangguan. In this era, going west from Yangguan is no longer a question of whether you can meet old friends, but no one at all.

There are no people, no livestock, no roads, no rivers... West out of Yangguan, it is a large desert that undulates and stretches for a thousand miles.

It is no longer an important transportation hub. The Central Plains link to the Western Regions is from Yumen to the northwest through Guazhou, via Hami and Turpan. Dunhuang, which has been forgotten in the corner, is just a desolate land with lush grass and ruins everywhere.

Kang Liangfu had never been to Dunhuang. He had only heard about the appearance of Dunhuang from the lucky tribe who escaped from Qinghai. There was lush grass, big trees grew in the wasteland, and the canals were washed into rivers by melted snow mountains and dried up again. , the trees fell down and the houses collapsed and turned into bustling ruins, and there were desolate scenes where there were no people for hundreds of years.

The environment in Dunhuang is not bad. If you want aquatic plants, there are aquatic plants, and if you want wasteland, there is wasteland, but there are no people, it is too dilapidated, and it is meaningless for people to live there.

Adding all the people in these three places together, none of them has as many people as Hami, and Hami has only more than 1 people.

Power is a good thing, although it cannot bring people happiness by itself, on the contrary, the process of obtaining power often makes people unhappy, but as long as they have power, many people will try their best to make him happy.

Kang Liangfu hurriedly bowed to Xie En to accept the letter of appointment. He had already dreamed of cutting off the Silk Road and collecting business taxes.

Suddenly, a strange accent in front of the tent woke him up: "Khan, let him move the government office to Dunhuang."

Kang Liangfu raised his head, and saw next to Liu Chengzong a Mongolian nobleman wearing a plain satin tunic, with a flintlock on his right waist, a goose feather knife with a silver leather handle on his left, and a big mink hat with his arms around his chest, revealing With his bald head and Tianling's six or seven-inch long braid, he was looking at him with scrutiny.

If he had to say it, Kang Liangfu felt that this person actually looked more like a sweat than Liu Chengzong, but that was just taller than a dwarf. In fact, neither of them looked like a sweat.

Liu Chengzong, dressed in red cotton armor, was sitting there with a murderous look, playing with a meteor hammer. He looked like a rebel leader replenishing his strength between battles; Like a fucking tiger.

Tell these two people to stare at him, and Kang Liangfu will be done shaking for the rest of his life.

It's not that he hasn't seen Han generals or Mongolian nobles, but those people have a sense of alienation of sitting on top of the world. These two are different.

Before he could wonder who this person was, Liu Chengzong had already introduced: "The Earl of the Marshal's Mansion, Junggar Batu."

Batur Huntaiji put his right hand on his chest and bowed slightly: "Choros Heduoheqin."

Kang Liangfu hurriedly returned the salute, thinking it was no wonder, no wonder the Mongolian leader standing next to Liu Chengzong was full of murderous looks, this guy wasn't surnamed Bo'er, he was just Jin.

The last time I heard this name, Junggar Huntaiji was one of the leaders who led the army to invade Qinghai, and now the two seem to wear a pair of pants.

He explained: "My lord, move to Dunhuang. There is no one in Dunhuang. This sandbar and Guazhou are not self-sufficient places. There are no caravans. No one will go there except wandering herdsmen."

"I know, I led the troops from there, but he is right. Chijinwei should go to Dunhuang to revive it. From now on, there will be caravans passing by every year, a large caravan."

As Liu Chengzong spoke, he pointed his thumb at Batur Huntaiji and said, "He is the major shareholder of the caravan. Your duty is to protect the safety along the route."

Kang Liangfu's eyeballs almost fell out, and he said to me, protect him?
Huntaijin of Junggar can mobilize tens of thousands of Wala Tartars. Even if I take over the whole Chijin Mongolia, I can gather [-] herdsmen and [-] war horses, barely ride on donkeys and mules, and have no weapons at hand.

What are you going to do to protect him?

If Dunhuang, Guazhou, and Shazhou can have thousands of soldiers who are good at fighting, their mothers have established a country in Kansai long ago, and why have they been bullied for hundreds of years?

Liu Chengzong saw the embarrassment on his face, so he smiled and said: "It's not hard for you, it's all about later, there is something that needs to be done by you, the commander of the Chijin Guard, and if it is done well, I will call you 300 people, help you recruit and bring the strong momentum of the outsiders."

Kang Liangfu's eyes lit up as soon as he heard it, and he said hastily: "Please tell me, my lord, the villain will definitely do it."

"My army needs copper and iron ore, where can I find it?"

The army of the Marshal's Mansion needs to cast artillery shells. If the wartime situation entering the pass falls into a confrontation, they may also need to cast a few more artillery pieces in Jiayuguan to supplement their military supplies.

"Chijin, there is the resident of the Chijin Department, copper mines, iron mines, and gold mines."

Liu Chengzong frowned. He felt that Kang Liangfu might have misunderstood the amount needed by the army: "You are guarding the iron mines, but even the iron pots are scarce?"

"The imperial court only allowed us to lend money to collect rent, and not to mine mountains. Suzhou is a place like heaven and earth, and no one wants to be driven out of the customs just because of petty profits."

Snapped.

Liu Chengzong clapped his hands, and the problem of military supply and supply was easily solved. He smiled happily: "Very good, from now on, you don't need to listen to the words of the east... I am the imperial court."

　good afternoon!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)