As Gao Pingshi expected, the 50,000 troops from the Economic and Strategy Headquarters set out from Daning and headed west to Liuhechuan, where they joined the 50,000 Ming troops on the flanks for more than 300 miles. The whole army was not attacked at all, and was not even attacked.
No harassment was encountered. During the entire march, it felt as if there was no more Mongolian soldiers in the huge Chahar.
After gathering the 50,000 Ming troops on the flanks, the highly pragmatic economic headquarters was once again expanded to the size of 100,000 troops. Such abundant troops made Cao Yu feel relieved, and he no longer had to worry about encountering any surprise attacks.
However, the gathering of 100,000 troops brought another problem: the pressure on logistical supplies immediately increased.
The original supply line of the Economic Strategy Headquarters was divided into two routes. One was the main supply route, which undoubtedly took the Xifengkou guarded by Zhongyi Zhongwei to exit the customs. Along the way, it went north through Kuanhe, Fuyu, Qingcheng and then arrived at Daning; the other
All the way, we exited the customs at Gubeikou guarded by Miyun guards, passed through Xiaoxingzhou, and arrived at Liuhechuan.
In fact, the travel distance of the two supply lines is almost the same, but it is obvious that the midway nodes on the main road are more densely packed. This not only means that the main supply line is a more mature "old road", but also means that transshipment is more convenient and can
The transportation capacity maintained is more sufficient.
Then the move of the High Pragmatic Economic Strategy Headquarters to the west will bring about changes. First of all, the main supply line still cannot be cut off directly. Because although the grain reserves in Daning are sufficient, the area has been occupied by the Mongols for more than a hundred years. Now it is only
The garrison has been restored, but in fact even the vegetable production capacity is almost non-existent.
So much so that when "non-war is in progress", a large amount of fresh vegetables have to be transported from the Ming Dynasty to the local area to avoid the outbreak of large-scale nutritional deficiency diseases in the garrison. Sometimes some meat and fish, even if they are fresh, have to be transported
Fish and meat are sometimes difficult to handle, but pickled products must be guaranteed, right?
On the West Supply Line, it was originally only necessary to ensure the logistics of 50,000 people. Even if there were fewer nodes in the way, it could still be maintained. Now it has become 100,000 people. Not to mention, these 100,000 people are not stationed in place.
Instead, we must continue to maneuver and march westward.
The food consumption of an army stationed in place is much lower than that of a marching army, and the intensity of the march has a huge impact on the increase in food consumption. Like the current situation of chasing a cavalry unit, the food consumption directly increases.
It is not surprising at all. This means that the pressure on the Western Supply Line has not doubled, but has actually reached four times as much as before. You can imagine how great the pressure is.
The same situation is not unique to the Economic Strategy Headquarters. The reason why Gao Pragmatic did not let Xiao Ruxun's troops also participate in the westward pursuit, and even his cavalry of Ma Chengxun's troops were left in Chahanhot was because Chahanhot needed to have troops stationed there.
In addition, another important reason is that the supply line cannot be dragged all the way from Kaiyuan in Liaodong to Tumut.
Although Xiao Ruxun is only the deputy commander-in-chief of Liaodong, the strength of his subordinates at this moment exceeds that of Li Rusong, who only brings the core elite to the battle. Therefore, if Gao Pragmatic lets Xiao Ruxun's troops chase Tumut, he will either force the food transporters to death, or they will
Starve to death those who fight.
Li Rusong's supply line is slightly shorter than Xiao Ruxun's, because his supply line starts from Guangning, and the actual starting point of the front line is Fuxin. It is three to four hundred miles closer to Tumut than Xiao Ruxun.
This is not to say that Li Rusong's department has no logistical pressure. On the contrary, his logistical pressure is not small. Because he was all cavalry all the way. Not only did he go to Yuerhai to set up an ambush on a long-distance attack, but he also went to Tumut next.
It is still a long-distance raid. Although it is the time for grass to be fertilized, a lot of concentrated feed is still needed to ensure that the war horse does not lose weight seriously.
With the spread of corn planting in Liaodong, the concentrated feed itself is now guaranteed. The trouble is that the war horses in the war state eat too much, resulting in tight transportation capacity. In addition, since Li Rusong's troops are almost always moving at high speed, the supply line is naturally limited.
It has been changing, and objectively it has once again made supply more difficult.
Ma Gui, the Ming-Mongolian coalition formed by Han Naji, the pressure on the supply line has not changed significantly, but the supply line along this road is divided into two sections even outside the Great Wall. The first section is from Datong to kill Hukou
To Guihua City, the second section is from Guihua City to Transkarkhasari.
The distance between these two supply lines is very different. It is only about two hundred miles from the exit from Shahukou to the naturalization, but it is thousands of miles away from the naturalization to Saliqier. Such a long supply line is also difficult to reach.
Being on the grassland is obviously very dangerous, and you may be attacked and plundered by the Mongols at any time.
Therefore, when Ma Gui's headquarters set out for naturalization, they brought enough military rations to last for at least three months. Subsequent military rations were delivered according to the idea of "small batches, large quantities". Therefore, until now, Ma Gui's headquarters has
He was still eating the military rations he had brought - but there was only one month's worth of rations left, and at the same time, the next batch of supplies had not yet left Guihua City.
The Tumut and Ordos coalition forces under Han Naji were different. They followed the Mongolian habits. In addition to some easy-to-carry dry food, they also brought a lot of sheep. In this way,
They can usually drink ewe milk and eat ram meat.
Even because the Mongolian army is accustomed to riding mares in expeditions as mentioned above, sometimes there is mare's milk as a supplement. Therefore, relatively speaking, the supply situation of the Tumut and Ordos coalition forces is ten times better than that of the Ming army.
Times - not that the food is ten times better, but that the Ming army is ten times less dependent on supply lines.
They have an army of 120,000 people. In fact, the supply pressure is all on the 60,000 people under Magui's command. The problem now is that Tumen is on the way to Guihua City. Once he rushes to Guihua City to send a transport team
Having surrounded Guihua City before, it is very likely that Ma Gui's troops will be without food in a month.
Of course, Ma Gui may be able to go to Hannaji for alms, but it is hard to say how much he will get. After all, although the Mongolian logistics system is unique, it has always been known for its self-sufficiency. If they are allowed to temporarily divide half of it,
, the final result will definitely be that everyone will not have enough to eat.
The only supply pressure that has been relieved is probably the Xuanfu and Taiyuan coalition forces led by Ma Chengen, because their supply line outside the pass starts from the Dushi Fort guarded by the Kaiping Guards [Note: the Kaiping Guards were stationed here after being moved in]
Point, after the army returned westward, the distance of the supply line became shorter.
Hey, it seems that the Imperial Guard is missing at first glance, but this is not an omission. Because the Imperial Guard is the "number one army in the world", its conditions have been the best since its establishment, and its number of draft horses ranks among the best in the world.
Wan Mingjun.
Because the Imperial Guards planned to set up an ambush during their trip, they brought a large amount of dry food, pickled meat and fish, pickled vegetables, etc. The food supplies they brought could normally last for five months. If they save
It can even last for half a year. Therefore, for the time being, the Imperial Guard does not have a big problem - there is no extra supply line anyway.
A comprehensive look at this shows why Gao Pragmatic mobilized those troops before: the rescue of Tumut is imperative, because even if Guihua City is besieged for a period of time, the 60,000 people under Magui's command may be without food.
And if this city is lost, the consequences will be even more disastrous, because as a key supply storage point, Guihua City not only contains food supplies, but also a lot of weapons, ammunition, armor and horse equipment that were secretly stored before the war.
Gao pragmatic told Cao Yun that he suspected that Tumen's attack on Guihua City was probably just a bluff. This statement was not false in itself, but it did not mean that he thought that Tumen had no idea about taking Guihua City.
He stated this only from the perspective of Tumen's ultimate goal. In his opinion, Tumen played a beautiful golden cicada and suddenly headed west this time to do something that no one had thought of before the war, even high
Pragmatically, it was only after he learned the news that he suddenly realized it.
However, the only contradiction between that major event and the defeat of Guihua City is one: enough time.
If Tumen thought that after taking Guihua, the main force of the Ming army was still unable to return reinforcements in time, and that he could still leave calmly after plundering Guihua, then he would definitely insist on defeating Guihua City.
On the other hand, if the Ming army's return of reinforcements was extremely rapid and Tumen judged that if he did not leave, he would be surrounded and suppressed, or at least face a decisive battle with one of the main Ming army forces, then he would most likely give up naturalization and avoid the battle.
Walk.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic ignored the huge pressure on the supply line of the headquarters and had to immediately set off for Tumote, just to put more pressure on Tumen and force him to give up naturalization and directly carry out his "big plan"
.
Of course, the "big plan" that Gao Pingshi judged was not what Cao Yu had suspected before, but that Tumen led troops to seize the opportunity to attack the capital while the main force of the Ming army was exhausted.
This possibility is almost zero in Gao's pragmatic view.
The hollow enemy tower plan proposed and managed by Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang was adopted by the imperial court in the original history, but the number was greatly reduced. In this life, although the number of hollow enemy towers was also reduced a lot at the beginning, it was still smaller than in the original history.
Nearly 40% more.
Later, Gao Pragmatic took charge of the household department and began to continue to add hollow enemy towers. He also made small adjustments to the hollow enemy towers in accordance with the main principles of bastion design. The main reason was that the enemy tower's external shooting angle was adjusted to cross fire. In the end, only Ji Town belonged to about 3,000 miles.
More than 2,000 hollow enemy towers have been built in the defense zone, more than 1,700 have been built in the three towns of Xuanda, and even Liaodong, which has the most abundant mobile troops, has built more than 1,100.
[Note: The hollow enemy platforms are not large, so the number looks huge. In terms of density, the hollow enemy platforms are not evenly distributed. The density in key areas is very high, while non-key areas are relatively sparse. For example, the section with the highest density is Gubeikou
-The Pigeon Cave section, with a total length of just over eleven miles, has 37 hollow enemy towers, which can be regarded as a "dense fortress line".]
It can be said that according to the current defense system of the Ming Dynasty, Chahar's 60,000-strong army can easily enter the pass, burn, kill and loot like Ananda Khan did in the middle and late Jiajing period, unless a senior Ming army defender surrenders to the enemy.
It is no longer possible.
After all, the current hollow enemy platform is basically a "serial bastion" connected to the side walls of the Great Wall. Unless it has powerful long-range artillery to directly cover and destroy it, no matter whether the infantry or cavalry go up, they will be defeated.
Where did the Mongols get their long-range artillery? Even if the Ming Dynasty switched to the Tumen side, it would be very difficult to do this, because it is well known that most of the Great Wall was built on the ridge, and attacking it is an upward attack, which not only requires the range of the artillery
It's extremely high, and... How to position these artillery pieces stably at the foot of the Great Wall is a big problem.
As a result, just leveling the sections of the Great Wall is very troublesome and very restrictive, and these sections are often the key garrison areas of the Ming army, and the firepower density of hollow enemy platforms is higher. In a word, even if the main field force of the Ming army is almost exhausted
, but the soldiers of the Nine Border Guards only relied on the bastion-style hollow enemy platform to fight a defensive battle. Even if there were no reinforcements, it would not be a big problem to sustain it for several months.
Gao pragmatic believed that the most critical thing at the moment was to seize time, so after the Liuhe River merged with the flank, he set off directly without waiting for a rest, all the way to the west.
However, after only two days of walking, I suddenly discovered an anomaly: the latest supply was already four days late.
This made Gao Pragmatic feel a bit ominous. According to the pre-war deployment, the 200,000-strong army at the headquarters was supplied three times a month. When the army went on an expedition, it carried only fifteen days' worth of supplies, leaving a certain amount of supplies.
margin.
But the previous supply should have arrived four days ago. However, when we arrived at Liuhechuan two days ago, we discovered that not only had it not arrived, but the supply from Liuhechuan was even six days late. Because Gao was eager to move westward, Liuhechuan
The 50,000 Ming troops near the river were forced to set off with only nine days of supplies. Now two days have passed, and the supplies are still missing. What happened? They were robbed?
Gao Pragmatic's face was solemn, and he called Cao Yu to ask. As a senior general in the army, Cao Yu naturally knew about this situation a long time ago, but the problem was that although he knew, it was inconvenient to remind him too early - the person responsible for supply transportation outside the customs was
Jinghua Trading Co., no matter how Cao said this, it seemed that he might make Endang displeased.
Now that Gao pragmatic took the initiative to ask, Cao Yu felt relieved and truthfully reported what he knew about the situation. According to Cao Yu, Jinghua Trading Company did not express any difficulties when it settled the supplies last time.
However, Cao Yu immediately said that when the army met Liuhechuan two days ago, the deputy shopkeeper of Jinghua Trading Company who was responsible for transporting the supply line to Liuhechuan came to him and said that he had received news from Gubeikou that Li Song, the governor of Jiliao, said that "Chahar was discovered at the border
On the grounds of "fine work", he ordered that all passes, passes, and passers-by be closed, and all passers-by are allowed in but not allowed out.
Gao Pangshi was furious when he heard this: "The grain transport team is also allowed in but not allowed out?"
Cao Yan smiled bitterly and said: "The deputy shopkeeper at that time said that the trading company still has some respect in Gubeikou, and it is impossible to hide the craftsmen, so the operation can always transport things, but I never thought that this delay would actually last several times.
The whole day passed without any movement, and the general... was also very worried."
When he said this, Gao Pragmatic suddenly stopped showing anger and instead frowned and started thinking hard.
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