Chapter 282: Inside and Outside the Palace (3) Mongolian Musketeers
Generally speaking, emperors are very taboo about the word death, especially when it is used on themselves. Although Zhu Yijun is far less harsh than his grandfather Jiajing on this point, he usually does not say this. Since he said it today, it means that he
Very annoying indeed.
Gao Pingshi entered the side hall and was about to step forward to meet his Majesty according to the rules of meeting. However, at this time, Zhu Yijun was not sitting at the main seat waiting for him to kowtow, but was walking towards him.
As soon as Gao Pangshi made the gesture of bowing down, Zhu Yijun held him firmly and said, "Okay, okay, there are no outsiders here. Let's get down to business."
The emperor's tone was a bit urgent, which surprised Gao Pragmatic. Although it was a big deal to have a military situation in Gansu, in fact, it was generally not an "urgent matter". The two places were too far apart. No matter how anxious the capital was, there would be
There will be no new instructions for a while, and it is impossible to get immediate support. There will always be a long period of time where we can only rely on the locals to figure things out.
To put it simply, it is useless for the capital to be anxious. In the final analysis, "long-term planning" is still needed.
But Zhu Yijun seemed to be really anxious. He took Gao Pangshi to the warm pavilion in the side hall, so that the two of them did not have to sit separately. Sitting far away from each other was not conducive to communication in Zhu Yijun's opinion.
- and said at the same time: "It turns out that you have returned triumphantly today, and I also have a happy event here. The queen finally gave birth to a son for me. It's a pity that you were harmed by this incident in Gansu..."
Gao pragmatic couldn't help but ask: "What happened in Gansu? Even if it's the Burihatukou border, we can just deal with it in an orderly manner. If we are anxious for a while, we can't quench our thirst far away..."
"What happened?" Zhu Yijun sighed, shook his head and said: "In just six days, the two guards of Suzhou and Weilu were almost wiped out, and the city of Suzhou fell. Burihatu personally led an army, known as one hundred thousand, to intimidate Gan
The five guards of Ganzhou and Ganzhou did not dare to fight, so they could only defend the city.
The governor of Gansu, the Xingdu Division of Shaanxi, and Prince Su's Mansion all sent a total of seven urgent messages on the same day to ask for help. According to their words, if no reinforcements arrive within a month, not only Ganzhou will be lost, but Yongchang will soon be lost.
Liangzhou, even Zhuanglang, Xining and other guards are afraid that they will fall one by one, and then the whole Shaanxi will be shaken, and the three assistants will be shocked in a day!"
This news was so shocking that Gao Pragmatic, who had always remained calm when hearing the collapse of Mount Tai, could not help but change his expression after hearing this: "How could it be so tragic? As far as I know, there are forty-six castles in Suzhou alone, and the number of soldiers
More than six to seven thousand. In terms of ordnance and military pay, the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War have all allocated the full amount in these years. Even when the Korean War was at its most intense, there was no shortage of them. In this case, how could it be that this time it was completely defeated in a few days? "
"I want to ask this too!" Zhu Yijun said angrily: "Give me whatever you want, and you actually repay me like this! However, Xu Sanwei mentioned something in his memorial, saying that the former army of Burihatu possessed firearms.
Don't be inferior to me,' do you think this is credible? The Mongols also use firearms? Where did they get the firearms?"
Xu Sanwei is the current governor of Gansu. Gao Pragmatic was very surprised by his statement. His first reaction was whether there were border troops smuggling arms in Gansu.
But then I thought about it. Gao Pragmatic felt something was wrong. It’s not that the Gansu border army will definitely not smuggle arms, but that if firearms are to be supplied to an army, it is not just a matter of smuggling a batch of guns and ammunition. It also requires related systems to maintain it.
In terms of reliability, the guns of this era are far inferior to those of later generations. Some damage is inevitable during daily use, not to mention if it is a large-scale battle, it must be repaired by specialized craftsmen. Moreover, the user himself It also requires a certain amount of simple maintenance capabilities, and these seem unlikely to be problems that the Mongols in the Chahar tribe can solve.
We can’t say that the guards’ craftsmen in Gansu defected to the Chahar tribe on a large scale, right? It’s okay to say that one or two defected, but if there was a large-scale defection, even the governor of Gansu would not dare to know about it and not report it.
But if the smuggling of firearms by the local guards in Gansu is excluded, then the situation reported by Xu Sanwei is difficult to explain. If it should be difficult for the Chahar tribe to even maintain firearms, can they still use their own ability to imitate the Wanli II? Formula? Impossible, absolutely impossible.
Gao pragmatic thought for a while and asked: "Does Li Zhijun have an explanation?" Zhijun is the governor, and of course he is talking about the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi. Gansu in the Ming Dynasty was different from other dynasties in that it was militarily under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi capital. , so the military areas under the governorship of Gansu are also under the responsibility of the governors of the three sides.
Zhu Yijun shook his head: "Li Wenyuan is in Guyuan. When he receives the news from Gansu, he will have to wait two days before arriving in Beijing. Besides, since he is so far away, I don't think he will know too many details. , instead of listening to his second-hand news, it is better to read the local memorials in Gansu."
As expected, the emperor has matured and already has his own opinions on which memorials are more credible. Gao Pragmatic is very pleased with this, but now is not the time to lament, solving the problem is the top priority.
Thanks to being a veteran of strategy games in his previous life, Gao pragmatically thought for a moment and came up with a guess as to how Burihatu could have a large number of muskets to equip the Mongolian army: "Your Majesty, I guess, Burihatu's troops The muskets probably came from the Rumi country, which is the country called Ottoman Turkey in the Jinghuakan atlas."
"Ottoman Turkey?" Zhu Yijun nodded and had an idea in his mind - ever since Gao Pragmatic submitted the atlas of Kantu, he has read it often. Now, if not familiar with it, at least it has been compared to larger countries. A relatively clear concept.
Of course, Zhu Yijun's concept is not particularly accurate to a certain extent. For example, although Gao Pragmatic often emphasizes that certain countries in Europe "will rise in the future," Zhu Yijun inevitably feels a little confused when he sees that they only have such a large territory on the map. scoff.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! In turn, he paid more attention to Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Turkish Empire, because these two countries looked relatively large from the map - big means strong, this is Zhu Yijun A rather deep-rooted concept.
After pondering for a moment, Zhu Yijun asked: "Given its geographical location, Ottoman Turkey can indeed pass firearms to the Chahar tribe in the Western Regions through the Silk Road, but I can't figure out why they would do this?"
According to Zhu Yijun's concept, firearms, a "national treasure", should not be sold casually as ordinary goods. Although Chahar and Ottoman Turkey can be connected by the Silk Road, they are still quite far apart. Therefore,
If there were no special circumstances, how could there be a firearms transaction between the two sides? This is completely unreasonable.
But Gao Pragmatic knew that his idea was too bright. In Europe and the Middle East, businessmen's thinking dominated the country's will, not the agricultural thinking of China in the past dynasties. Europe does not need to explain, this has always been the case in the Middle East.
In the past, the Arab world was characterized by connecting the East and the West, and its millennium-long tradition was all about changing hands. Many scholars in later generations have said that their sacred scriptures were essentially formulated under the veil of theocracy.
A trade code with many provisions aimed at ensuring free trade.
[Note: The areas involved may be relatively sensitive, so I won’t go into details here. Interested friends can check the information themselves.]
Although the rulers of Ottoman Turkey were not originally local Arabs, they were almost completely Arabized in their sects, and therefore inherited this kind of thinking.
Of course, Europeans believed that the Ottoman Empire blocked exchanges between the East and the West, especially trade exchanges, but that was during a certain period of time, and they were some blockade measures taken by the Ottoman Empire when it was trying to conquer Europe. In essence, the Ottoman Empire still
They needed to do resale trade, but they wanted to create a monopoly at that time.
Let’s get back to the topic. The Ottoman Empire also has a demand for Ming Dynasty’s goods, especially now that the Ottoman Empire has discovered that the Portuguese and Spanish have established relations with the Ming Dynasty (actually with Jinghua), and the Dutch are also crazy about it.
Moving eastward along the waterway explored by the Portuguese, it is said that they are fiercely competing with the Portuguese for Mauritius.
Mauritius is a medium-sized island in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar, the largest island in southeast Africa. Of course, this is not the key. The key is that you can follow the ocean currents from here to the Southeast Asian Islands. In other words, once the Dutch defeat the Portuguese
, after capturing Mauritius, it may not take long to reach Nanyang and establish relations with the Ming Dynasty (Beijing).
The Ottoman Empire was very worried about this. Although the Ottoman Empire was still powerful at this time, it was also slightly dangerous.
Internally, with the rise of the New Turkish Army, Sultan Murad III did not dare to leave Istanbul or even Topkapi Palace in the last years of his rule - because the New Army threatened him, saying that as long as he dared to leave
, the New Army will depose him as Sultan. [Note: The New Army is the Ottoman Guards.]
The New Army is of course a military group, but it is also an interest group that needs the Sultan to constantly appease with various benefits. Since you want benefits, you must find ways in all aspects - obviously, reopening trade with the Ming Dynasty
Threading is also one of the things worth trying.
From the outside, although the current Ottoman Empire still maintains a strong deterrent to Europe, its expansion is actually close to its limit. In game terms, it is "unable to push". At this time, Europe seems to be united.
Signs of confrontation.
Of course, the current Ottoman Empire is not very worried about this, because the Turks are confident that even the Christians in Europe combined cannot defeat them.
But Tsarist Russia is another threat, especially since something happened this year. Tsarist Russia completely eliminated the Siberian Khanate and greatly expanded its power eastward.
Siberia is very cold, and in the eyes of the Ottoman Empire, it is just a big piece of bad land. They are not important in themselves. But the Ottoman Empire believes that if the Russians continue to expand eastward, sooner or later they will have to border the Ming Dynasty, which is very bad.
The Turks were not worried that Tsarist Russia might invade the Ming Dynasty. They were worried that Tsarist Russia would open up the trade line with the Ming Dynasty and obtain the high-value goods of the Ming Dynasty, so that they would not be able to raise prices and make huge profits in the future.
Although they were far away, the new Sultan Muhammad III of the Ottoman Empire, with the idea of taking a shot when he had nothing to do, still sent people to contact several khanates in Central Asia, hoping that they could find a way to pull the Tsarist Russia in the north.
.
An unexpected thing happened. The other khanates did not respond at all. On the contrary, the former Yarkand Khanate in the east, and the now occupied Chahar tribe, actually responded eagerly to the Sultan.
Burihatu representative Buyan Chechen Khan expressed to the Sudanese envoy that they were willing to go north to curb Tsarist Russia's eastward advance, and were also willing to contact the Ming Dynasty eastward to try to "help Sudan develop trade." However, they lacked strength, especially the lack of advantage.
The firearms may not be able to defeat the vanguard of Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion.
This is really nonsense, because the eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia after defeating the Siberian Khanate could hardly be regarded as a state behavior for a long time. It was just that the Tsar supported some adventure groups in his own name, and these were often only No. 100
An adventure group of several hundred people spontaneously marched eastward.
The level of firearms in Tsarist Russia at this time was not very high, and it might even be lower than that of the Ottomans. In contrast, due to the highly pragmatic military reforms of the Ming Dynasty, the overall level of firearms in Tsarist Russia was higher than that of Tsarist Russia at this time.
Of course, the Ming Dynasty and Tsarist Russia are still quite far apart. Even if Tsarist Russia crazily marches eastward, the most they can encounter is the Tumote tribe that became powerful after the victory in the Battle of Yuan Dynasty, and Tsarist Russia has more firearms than
Tumut is still much taller - at least Tsarist Russia's "shooting army" has been established for almost fifty years now.
Even so, the Chahar tribe has acquired the Yarkand and Hami regions in recent years, and its strength has recovered quickly. It will always have no problem in defeating Tsarist Russia's adventurous team.
However, the Sultan's envoy did not know this. He believed that this tribe, which claimed to be the orthodox Yuan Dynasty, may have a total population of only more than 400,000. It would indeed be difficult to defeat the Czarist Russian advance team. Therefore, it is feasible and should be provided with some firearms for them.
Yes, but... this cannot be free assistance, it must be a fair transaction.
Burihatu readily accepted the proposal of the Sudanese envoy, and immediately discussed the specific matters of the transaction seriously with the Sudanese envoy.
The economy of the Yarkand region has always been based on nomadic pastoralism. There are not many goods that can be provided to the Ottomans, and the Ottomans are not in short supply. However, Burihatu, who has experienced high pragmatic reforms and "Tumut reforms"
But in the past few years, I have tried to take a new path.
He actually started to allocate manpower to farm in Yinli Valley!
Of course, the Mongols in the Chahar tribe are really not interested in this. Most of the people assigned to farm by Burihatu are local people who were conquered by them. In addition, there are also some people who were coerced from the original left-wing Mongolia.
Han people.
These Han people were kidnapped to the Chahar tribe a long time ago. Their status was very low at first, but now they are very precious because almost all of them have become technicians - specialized in farming.
In addition to farming, they also planted cotton, and by the way, they also built a Ming Dynasty loom to weave cloth with cotton. Now they found the right path. The local conditions were extremely suitable for growing cotton, and the results improved year by year.
With high yield, the cotton cloth produced was sold to various Central Asian khanates and was very popular, becoming the flagship product of the Chahar tribe.
Although these Han people were taken away early and had not seen the Jenny spinning machine, their spinning efficiency was not very high. However, no matter how low it was, weaving cotton for trade was better than the original herding life.
Too strong.
So the result of the discussion between Burihatu and the Sudanese envoy was to "exchange cotton for muskets". In this way, Burihatu found that the population currently under the control of the Chahar tribe was not enough.
Whether they hope to expand cotton cultivation or expand the scale of the textile industry, they are in great need of population now.
However, the population of Central Asia has always been relatively limited. Even if they conquered the Kazakh Khanate, Bukhara Khanate and other places westward, I am afraid they will not be able to capture many people. Moreover, these khanates are not in decline yet. They have just finished their licking.
Chahar, who was wounded, did not dare to use force rashly.
What about the Northern Expedition to the Junggar tribe? Although the Junggar tribe is severely divided, their current combat effectiveness is not bad. Burihatu carefully tried it twice and launched two limited-scale operations, but found that the effect was not good - they were also on horseback.
Nationality, even if you win, it will be difficult to capture a few people.
As a result, Burihatu had no choice but to turn his attention back to the Ming Dynasty again.
To be honest, Burihatu actually doesn’t want to fight against Ming Dynasty again, especially against Gao Pragmatic. This old opponent is too difficult to deal with. Although his fighting methods are not particularly brilliant in Burihatu’s opinion, his
Power is all-round - he conquered the country first and was able to rely on Ming's powerful strength to overwhelm him.
This is how one force defeats ten societies. No matter how clever and clever Burihatu is, there is really nothing he can do.
But this time, Burihatu got good news - Gao Pragmatic was not in the DPRK! He went to North Korea half a year ago (the news transmission was delayed for some time).
The news that Burihatu received was that North Korea, a loyal vassal of the Ming Dynasty, was beaten to the point of near-annihilation by Japanese pirates. The Japanese pirates dispatched more than 200,000 troops. What is particularly worth mentioning is that these Japanese pirates possess sophisticated muskets.
Burihatu had seen enough of the power of muskets, so when he heard that the Japanese pirates had dispatched an army of 200,000 muskets (there was a misunderstanding), he immediately concluded that Gao Pragmatic's dispatch of troops this time was unlikely to lead to a quick victory, and at least there should be a fight.
Two years.
Based on this judgment, Burihatu frantically urged the Ottoman Empire to provide large quantities of muskets, and traded all the cotton cloth he could spare. At the same time, he also accelerated the training progress, and used the highly pragmatic weaponized army in the past
The experience of being beaten inspired the Mongolian warriors of the Chahar tribe to give up their bows and arrows and use muskets.
Revenge is a word that is very useful in any martial nation. As a result, the Chahar tribe's musketry training has progressed rapidly, and the musketry unit has also expanded rapidly. Before the dispatch of troops this time, Burihatu had already gathered enough troops.
Sixteen thousand musketeers.
Although this ratio seems to be still not high compared to their so-called "hundred-thousand-thousand-strong army", as long as the cavalry advantage is still there, it is at least enough to compete with the local Ming army in Gansu.
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Yun Fuyue Yu" and "Cao Mianzi" for their rewards and support, thank you!
ps: I was typing again last night until I fell asleep. Fortunately, it was the weekend. I hurriedly rushed in the morning. The 5k chapter can pay off the 1k debt. Now I still owe 5k.