In the Southern Song Dynasty, I competed with Mongolia for the world

Chapter 287 Attacking Mongolia’s Bridgehead Base
When Gerile woke up again, he was already in Zhou's tent outside Diezhou City.

He was knocked unconscious by the force of the artillery at close range. When he woke up, his mind was still buzzing, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses.

After walking out of the tent, I saw all the tribesmen outside, but everyone was downcast and listless.

Soon he found out that he had become a prisoner of war of the Song Army, and this place was full of prisoners of war.

But the Song army is negotiating with Tubo. Both sides should stop fighting and negotiate peace. Some people may have the opportunity to return to their clans.

There are also rumors that if their master does not want them to go back, the remaining ones may be asked by the Song people to dig holes and then cut them all down. After all, the Song people did this when they were in Diezhou City.

After this rumor came out, the entire prison camp was filled with fear and depression. Everyone was afraid that their master would not want them.

Gerile thought that he was his master's most loyal and brave slave, and his master Gashir would definitely not abandon him. He couldn't help but look forward to his return to the tribe, because he had begun to miss his relatives at home.

When he woke up early the next morning, armored and armed Song troops found Gerile.

A group of 20 of them were taken outside the camp.

After he and his tribe were taken out, everyone in the prisoner-of-war camp looked at them in horror.

"Brother Gerile, will we be killed?" Suddenly a trembling voice came from beside him.

Gerile turned around, but it was Multi, a young man from the same race.

Murti is only 17 years old, and her face is full of immaturity.

He and his father Merti were both slaves of Gashir. Originally, Gashir drew a dice from three households this time, and Merti was the winner.

But Multi was old. He fell off his horse last year and his legs and feet were not good, so the young Multi took his father's place in the expedition.

Multi had never fought on horseback, and he was not even familiar with using a bow.

He didn't even have any leather armor on him, but he was lucky enough to survive.

Looking at Multi's horrified face, Gerile quickly comforted him: "No, the Song Army is negotiating with the MiZha from various ministries. The war is over, and we will definitely be able to go home."

"I don't want to die." Murti was about to cry, his eyes were red: "Abba and Amma are still waiting for me at home--I don't want to die--"

Gerile stared blankly at the crying Multi, wanting him to stand up like a man and not let the people of Song Dynasty look down upon him, but he couldn't say it for some reason.

"Why are we fighting? Why do the Song people want to fight us? Did the Mizas anger the Song people?" Multi cried.

Yes, why the war?I don’t know either, Gerile thought quietly, if the masters ask us to fight, we can just fight?
But why did the Song people attack us?

And slaughter our people with incomparable cruelty?
What the hell did we do?
Gerile had countless questions in his mind, but he didn’t know who to ask.

Soon they were taken to the Dorqu River outside the city.

The Dorqu River is a branch of the main stream of the Bailong River. It comes from northern Sichuan and is not far from Diezhou City. I don’t know why slaves were not mobilized to dig the moat when Chao Agechang was here. The project was actually not very big.

Of course, Diezhou City is surrounded by mountains, with ravines and rugged terrain. If it is equipped with a moat and has troops, it will not be easy for the Song army to break in.

Everyone was detained by the river, surrounded by hundreds of Song troops.

Everyone was trembling with fear, and some thought they were going to be chopped down in the river.

At this time, a military attaché from the Song Army came over and asked, "What's your name?"

Gerile bravely turned around to look, but he was asking a tribesman.

The tribesman's face turned pale with fright, and he was stammering in his speech. Although he could speak Chinese, he couldn't pronounce his words clearly.

The officer didn't seem to understand and suddenly waved his hand.

Zheng, there is a Song Army drawing a sword behind him.

"Maimaili, his name is Maimaili." A tribesman next to the man shouted quickly.

Then he pushed the purchasing power: "Talk, talk, I want to ask you something."

That buying power came to his senses and finally said the word buying power, but it was still not standard.

"Which noble does it belong to? How many people are there in the family?" The Song Army officer asked while a gentle man was taking notes on the other side.

Gerile heard clearly, and the Song people asked in detail.

Who is the owner, what is his status in the clan, how many people are in the family, how many adult men are there, how many boys are there, and how many cattle, horses and sheep they raise.

After you finish speaking, you will be pulled aside.

He soon discovered that those with more people, cattle, horses and sheep in the family would be pulled to the east side, while the other group of people would be pulled to the west side.

He seemed to have discovered something. When it was his turn, he immediately said that there were six people in the family, ten horses, ten cows, and more than 100 sheep.

Gerile was pulled to the east side as he wished.

Murti's family also had a large number of people, cattle, horses and sheep, so the two of them were taken away together.

The group soon arrived at another camp.

There are also many tribesmen imprisoned here. After asking Gerile, he found that they were all like them, with a large family and many cattle, horses and sheep.

But Gerile thought to himself that the cattle, horses and sheep in their home were all raised for their masters and could be taken away by their masters at any time. Why did the people of Song Dynasty ask this?
They spent another night without incident that day. The next day, some Song people brought tools they had never seen before, saying they were calling engineers to shovel, and asked them all to start digging a ditch a hundred steps away from the Duoqu River.

At this time, Gerile knew that the Song army was preparing to build a moat and then divert the water from the Duoqu River to it.

Then tribesmen joined them one after another, and the basic situation was the same.

Gerile and Murti worked until June, basically working for seven days and taking one day off, but there was no news that they could go back.One morning in late June, all of them were resting. Not long after, a group of cattle, horses, sheep, and many people came outside the camp.

Then someone yelled and started crying.

Gerile rushed out with Murti from the tent, only to see a crowd of people outside, including men, women, old people and children.

Only then did Gerile know that the Song people had taken all of them, including their families and family wealth.

After this battle, the Song army still had one covenant with Tibet.

Five thousand households were selected from the captives and moved to Diezhou City, which was owned by the Song army.

If five thousand households are not enough, the nobles will provide it.

Song Jun all chose households with a relatively large population. Basically, each household had two or even three adult men working.

In mid-August, all [-] Tibetan households were all assigned to houses in Diezhou City. Some of them were also allocated the fields left by the previous Diezhou people. The Song people would teach them how to farm.

Diezhou is here, its location is very important, guarding the south bank of the Yellow River between Tubo and Xixia.

It is located in the high mountain canyon between the Yanmin Mountains and the Dieshan Mountains in the west of the Qinling Mountains, at the junction of Ganchuan and Sichuan on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; it is adjacent to Zhuoni County in the north, Zhouqu County in the east, and Hadapu Town in Dangchang County in the northeast. It borders Ruoergai County and Jiuzhaigou County in Sichuan Province in the southwest.

The territory is full of mountains, high mountains, deep valleys, crisscrossing ravines, and rugged terrain. If managed well, it is quite easy to defend but difficult to attack.

In history, the Mongolian army entered Tubo for the second time. The first time was when General Tuyi led his troops into Tubo. They went here. However, Yu Jie sent people to cross the snowy mountains to block them and fight them back.

The second time Kublai Khan personally conquered Dali, he also went here.

Entering Tubo and Dali, and going around to the back of the Song Dynasty, this is the path that must be taken.

Similarly, sending troops from Tubo to Xixia is also the path that must be taken.

In the past, Brother Zhao Achang had no intention of doing this. Now the Song Army occupied this place and began to carry out large-scale construction. Their five thousand herdsmen became the labor force of the Song Army here. At the same time, the Song Army was in Ruogai Demana on the Ruogai Grassland. On the other side, five thousand strong men were recruited to work together on large-scale fortifications here.

The total area of ​​the Diezhou area is about more than 700 million acres, but most of it is rocky and there is not much arable land. Even the farmland in later generations is only 16 acres, but it is suitable for grazing and is rich in mineral resources.

In later generations, Diezhou (Diebu County) had a population of 6 to 20 and raised nearly [-] cattle, horses and sheep annually.

But now it mainly relies on animal husbandry. When Brother Zhao Achang was there, there were tens of thousands of tribesmen, raising 50 million cattle, horses and sheep every year.

When Brother Zhao Achang was there, the population was larger than that of later generations, because most people in later generations have gone to big cities, and no one is willing to stay in their hometown to raise cattle, horses and sheep in the mountains.

Now that the Song Army occupies this place, as one of the most important import and export points for Mongolia and Tubo, they must carry out extensive construction and overhaul of fortifications. First, Diezhou City must be reinforced and repaired.

At this time, there were 3 Gerile and other herdsmen households in Diezhou area, about 5000 people, and 4 Song troops, totaling more than [-] people.

There were also five thousand strong men from Ruogaidema to help build the fortifications, and the Song army paid money, salt, tea and other items.

The people of the Song Dynasty expanded Diezhou City and expanded the area of ​​Diezhou City based on the mountains and rocks, so that Diezhou City could become a large city that could accommodate more than 4 people.

The Song army fought against various Tubo tribes, leaving behind [-] cavalry and [-] infantry battalions (plus two artillery battalions), all remaining in Diezhou.

Meng Ying is the main general, and Shader and Zhang Neng are the deputy generals.

Gao Liangyao, a native of Xixia, was the magistrate of Diezhou and led some of the former Xixia herdsmen to supervise and guide the herdsmen in herding cattle, horses and sheep.

In Zhao Yurui's mind, this place was the bridgehead and logistics base for future attacks on the former Xixia territory (Mongolia).

In the future, when the Song Dynasty sends troops from the west, they can start from here and take Xixia directly.

Meng Ying asked herders to dig holes in the local mountains and store grain and grass.

As a result, local minerals were accidentally discovered.

We must know that Diezhou is rich in mineral resources. In later generations, 36 mineral deposits of various types were discovered there, 13 mineral deposits have been explored, and 18 mineral deposits have been proven to have reserves through exploration, including 1 large deposit and 3 medium deposits. There are 32 small deposits.The proven mineral resource reserves are: 1.4 million tons of iron ore, 8.7 tons of gold metal reserves (of which 1.7 tons are grade D or above), 2.5 million tons of dolomite, 8 million tons of cement limestone, 97 tons of copper ore reserves, and coal mines. Reserves of 12 tons (anthracite, high sulfur content, low heat).

Zhao Yurui didn't know there was a mine here, but in order to dig a granary, Meng Ying actually blasted out an iron mine, which happened to be near Yiwa Township in later generations, and most of the other minerals were also concentrated here.

This made Diezhou an important base for the Song Dynasty in Tubo, and Meng Ying also began to search for other minerals locally.

In early September, the chief security officer, Gerile, was called to a meeting.

The people of the Song Dynasty organized them into a bao for every ten households, a big bao for a hundred households, and a bao for every thousand households, and placed them in various parts of the state.

The meeting this time was held by the chief security officer and above, and about dozens of people were present.

Gao Liangyao, the governor of the state, spoke to them.

The first one was like news, which surprised Gerile, who had been following the Song Dynasty for several months.

"We, the Song Dynasty, have reached an agreement with the nobles of various ministries. From today on, we will end the master-servant relationship between you and your respective nobles. Now you are no longer the slaves of the nobles. From now on, you are the subjects of the Song Dynasty. .”

"In the future, you will no longer have to pay tribute to them, nor will you be recruited by them."

Gerile thought to himself, we all live here, and we still pay tribute. However, he turned around and saw that most of the people seemed to have no expressions, and their faces were dull.

Then came the bad news, which Gerile also knew was coming.

"Recruit one man from each family to serve as cavalry. Starting tomorrow, we will train intensively."

The scene was dull again, as if everyone was used to it.

After all, they were often called upon by their original owners.

Gerile suddenly understood why people in the Song Dynasty chose households with a large population.

(End of this chapter)