Chapter 283 Zheng Guoben (25) Jinyiweis information
This time when he arrived at the cabinet, Gao Pragmatic had nothing to do. He only sealed the cabinet with the decree that was sent shortly, completed the approval procedures for "Fengge Luantai" and had nothing to do. At this time, Wang Jiaping was still there.
When Gao Pingshi went to find him in the pavilion, he was writing furiously, probably writing a poem.
Gao Pragmatic couldn't point it out, so he had to pretend not to know, handed over today's chief author and the cabinet seal to him, and then walked out of the palace and went to the Ministry of Household Affairs.
Because of Zhao Zhigao's incident, Yang Junmin, one of the right ministers, was absent today on the pretext of inspecting the warehouse. Cheng Wen, the left minister, Hu Zhili, and Zhao Yumin, the right ministers, were all at the Yamen. As soon as Gao Pragmatic arrived, he sent someone to invite them to discuss the supplies for the Western Expedition.
Prepare.
Without further ado, several of the Gods of Wealth of the Ming Dynasty quickly took their seats in the small meeting hall. Cheng Wen, as the left minister of the "Big Household Department", is actually equivalent to the "Standing XX" in later generations, so he first reports to Gao Pangshi.
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However, surprisingly, the first thing Cheng Wen reported was not the material preparations that Ming Dynasty had made, but rather he took out a thick piece of information that Jin Yiwei had handed over to the Ministry of Household Affairs.
Theoretically, this intelligence is not military intelligence, but happens to be related to the economy. However, it is not intelligence from the Ming Dynasty, but Jin Yiwei's civilian economic investigation of the Yarkand region - or the current Chahar occupied area.
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It must be noted here that although Jinyiwei conducts both internal and external investigations, since Dongchang has long been a permanent institution, and Dongchang generally only conducts internal investigations, Jinyiwei’s external investigations are, to some extent, more
It's even more powerful inside.
Historically, the Jinyiwei had a relatively tight intelligence network on both Mongolian ministries and North Korea. It even showed that they had some penetration into Japan during the War to Resist Japan and Aid Korea.
Of course, it should be said that Jinyiwei's investigation of the Jurchens was quite problematic. It was not that there was no intelligence network, but that its network was severely penetrated by counter-infiltration, and many front-line managers were bribed and corrupted. But this is all smooth talk.
One thing to mention, because of Gao's pragmatic butterfly wings, these things have nothing to do with today's Jin Yiwei.
Over the years, the Jin Yiwei's external investigations have always focused on Mongolia. After the Chahar tribe fled west, the Jin Yiwei also adjusted the direction of its investigation and penetrated into the Yarkand region. Over the past few years, these newly established intelligence networks have already
I can send back some valuable information.
However, it is a pity that due to the great geopolitical changes, although Jinyiwei has newly established an intelligence network in the Yarkand region, it is currently unable to penetrate the top leadership of Chahar and can only obtain some information from the middle level and the private sector.
However, ancient society had its limitations after all, and intelligence analysis work was far from being comparable to that of later generations. Therefore, the information sent by Jin Yiwei from the middle and lower levels was often ignored - just like the ones sent today.
In fact, they had been lying in the Jinyiwei Yamen for a long time, and no one looked at them. Until this time in Suzhou, the two Weilu guards were almost wiped out, the city of Suzhou fell, and Burihatu personally led an army known as a hundred thousand menace.
Ganzhou and the Five Ganzhou Guards did not dare to fight and could only defend the city. Only then did the senior Jinyi Guards remember this incident. They quickly found it and copied a copy to the Supervisor of Rites, the Ministry of Husbandry and the Ministry of War.
However, the Jinyiwei senior officials were not completely idle. At least the information they sent this time was carefully analyzed and sorted out. They even basically understood what Gansu Governor Xu Sanwei said in his memorial that the former Burihatu army "possessed firearms."
, almost as good as me” reason.
Jinyiwei comprehensively analyzed more than 40 pieces of information of varying lengths sent back from the Yarkand area, and finally came up with a rather comprehensive and in fact quite accurate information.
They learned that the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Muhammad III sent many envoys to Central Asian countries in order to alleviate the threat from Tsarist Russia. They hoped that these countries could attack Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion within their capabilities and provide as much support as possible.
Bloodletting in Tsarist Russia.
However, there was a little surprise in this diplomatic operation, that is, there was no response from the other khanates contacted by Sudan. Instead, the original Yarkand Khanate in the east and Chahar, which has now been occupied by the magpies,
Ministry, actually responded enthusiastically to Sultan Muhammad III.
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 advantageous people.
Firearms may not be able to defeat the vanguard of Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion.
This is naturally 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 adventurous groups in his own name, and these often only numbered 100 people.
, 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 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 actually much taller.
At least Tsarist Russia's "shooting army" has been established for about fifty years now, which shows that it has an organized musketeer unit. Of course, the main force of Tsarist Russia's eastward expansion is not the shooting army, but the Cossack cavalry, which will be discussed later.
Although Tsarist Russia has a shooting army, the Chahar tribe has acquired the Yarkand and Hami areas in recent years, and its strength has recovered quickly. At least it will not be a problem to defeat Tsarist Russian adventure teams.
However, the Sultan's envoy did not know this. After sending someone to conduct a private investigation, he believed that this large tribe that claimed to be the orthodox Yuan Dynasty might have a total population of only more than 400,000. It would indeed be difficult to defeat the Czarist Russian advance team -
—Well, the envoy actually didn’t understand that Tsarist Russia’s eastward expansion was not a state action.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Therefore, the envoy believes that it is feasible and appropriate to provide Chahar with some firearms. However, it cannot be free assistance. It must be a fair purchase and sale, and both parties should complete the transaction through transactions.
, rather than a unilateral gift from the Ottoman Empire.
Burihatu readily accepted the proposal of the Sudanese envoy, and immediately discussed the specific matters of the transaction seriously with the Sudanese envoy. At this point, the Jinyiwei had obviously gathered intelligence, because they explained in detail Yarkand
The current basic economic development situation.
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, Buri may have experienced too much pragmatic reform and "Tumote reform".
Hatu had inspiration, and with his encouragement, Chahar tried to take a new path in the past few years.
Under the personal arrangement of Burihatu, manpower was actually assigned to farm in the Ili 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 still better than the original herding life.
Too many. Of course, since they were Han Chinese anyway, Jin Yiwei also obtained the above information through some of them.
Therefore, the result of the discussion between Burihatu and the Sudanese envoy was to "exchange cotton cloth for muskets". In this way, Burihatu discovered that the population currently controlled by the Chahar tribe was not enough.
Whether they hope to expand cotton planting 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 conquer the Kazakh Khanate, Bukhara Khanate and other places westward, they may not be able to capture it.
How many people were there, and these khanates were not in decline yet, and Chahar, who had just finished licking his wounds, did not dare to use force rashly.
What about the Northern Expedition against the Junggar tribe? Although the Junggar tribe is severely divided, their current combat effectiveness is not bad. Burihatu carefully tested it twice and launched two limited-scale operations, but found that the effect was not good.
The Dzungars were originally one of the Oara tribes, and they were also descendants of the Mongols. They were also a serious horseback nation, so although Burihatu won the battle twice, and the victory was not difficult, he didn't catch it.
Several people arrived, which made Burihatu very disappointed.
In this way, Burihatu had no choice but to turn his attention back to the Ming Dynasty again, and the firearms held by their army were the Rumi guns obtained from the previous "cotton for muskets" transaction.
At this point, Gao Pragmatic finally confirmed the source of Chahar's muskets, but this coincided with his previous guesses, and it did not fully reflect the value of Jin Yiwei's intelligence - although it was indeed valuable.
However, Gao Pragmatic soon got more valuable information: a Chahar army was equipping a large number of standard Rumi guns. Cheng Wen said that this Rumi gun was the result of Jin Yiwei trying every possible means to obtain it from strict management.
It was obtained from the hands of a centurion from the former army of Burihatu. In order to obtain this Rumi gun, Jin Yiwei even sacrificed three lives at the end.
The gun was now placed in front of Gao Jingshi. Gao Jingshi picked it up carefully and inspected it carefully, while Cheng Wen took the information sent by Jin Yiwei and informed him about the situation of the gun.
The Rumi gun Gao Pragmatic held weighed about seven or eight kilograms, but Cheng Wen said that Jinyiwei said that the Rumi gun that Chahar received varied in weight, and some only weighed six kilograms. Jinyiwei people speculated that the weight
The difference may be due to the use of better or worse iron.
After all, Jinghua's firearms are at the pinnacle of today's Daming firearms. As an early technology provider, Gao Pragmatic is quite familiar with today's firearms. After a brief look, he roughly understood the level of Lumi's gun.
This Rumi gun is about six or seven feet long. The firing mechanism is in the bed. It falls when pinched and will rise again when the fire is burning. There is a steel knife at the end of the bed. If the enemy is approaching, it can be used as a slaying sword. When firing the gun, you should
It is the front gripper and the rear buttstock.
Although this is just a matchlock gun and not a flintlock gun, you only need to pull the trigger to fire. This Rumi gun has a front sight, which is slightly farther from the eye. From the design point of view, the smoke when this gun is fired should not be
It's not too big to be shocking. It should be more effective than those Japanese shotguns captured in the Korean battlefield not long ago.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic looked at the original gunpowder and lead bullets that Jinyiwei sent with the gun, and judged that the powder and lead bullets used were four qian and three qian. He kneaded the gunpowder carefully and looked at it, and found that the black powder manufacturing technology was still good.
Not bad. Although it has obviously not reached the technical height of so-called "granulation", it has a certain foundation and should be considered to be of medium-to-high quality among black powder.
However, the level of lead bullets is relatively average. The projectiles are of different sizes and the shape is not regular enough, which makes them look a bit crooked. Gao Pragmatic doubts that this thing was not made by the Ottoman Empire itself or not by the Ottoman Empire military.
The standard projectiles are probably low-end versions produced by private workshops, purely for the purpose of "earning foreign exchange."
Of course, it is also possible that the Ottoman Empire was too lazy to go all the way to send projectiles for sale. The Chahar people might have produced this stuff themselves. Due to the number and level of Chahar craftsmen, the quality of these lead bullets was obviously not as good as that of muskets.
level.
At this time, Cheng Wen also stopped the introduction, and Gao Pragmatic frowned slightly and asked: "There is another very critical question, that is, how many Rumi guns the Chahar tribe has obtained, and the Burihatu East crime
How many did Gansu bring...Did Jin Yiwei not find out or forgot to mention it?"
Cheng Wen shook his head and said: "It's not clear yet, Jin Yiwei's statement didn't explain it."
Gao Pingshi said decisively: "Send someone to Jinyiwei Yamen and ask their person responsible for this matter to come to the Ministry of Revenue immediately. I want to inquire personally."
Cheng Wen responded, clapped his hands and called someone in, who was a clerk from the Ministry of Household Affairs Department. Gao Pingshi took pen and ink and wrote a note, stamped his personal seal, and asked the clerk to go to Jinyiwei to inherit the throne.
After the secretary left, Cheng Wen saw Gao Pragmatic and was silent, and asked: "Is this Rumi gun considered to be sophisticated?" Cheng Wen was a typical civil servant. He really didn't know much about ordnance, so he asked this question.
Gao pragmatic shook his head slightly and said: "Compared with the firearms used by our officers and soldiers, this gun cannot be said to be sophisticated, but firearms... there is a big difference between having and not having them, especially when there is a large amount of equipment.
Down."
"Really?" Cheng Wen was still a little hesitant when he heard the words because he didn't understand.
Gao Pragmatic nodded in affirmation and said: "As long as the firearms and the instruments themselves are not far apart, the difference in their use on the battlefield will not be too big. The more important thing is actually the usage. What I am most worried about now is that Burihatu is seeing
If someone who has mastered the art of arranging guns under my command deliberately imitates it and is very charming, then the battle to conquer the west may... be a river of blood."
That's not true. If both sides queue up to be shot, rivers of blood will inevitably flow.
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ps: There are still 5 minutes left until 0 o'clock, not bad, not bad, recovery is going well today.