Chapter 284 Total Baikui (32) Beijing Secret Chess
Facts have proved that Liu Wei's worries were unnecessary. They were just a natural vigilance formed by leading troops on the front line for a long time. This canyon was deserted. Although the Liu Jiajun's eight thousand cavalry team was stretched too long due to the width problem,
In the end, the journey was extremely smooth. [Note: This place is now called Pingshan Lake Grand Canyon, and Baidu Map even has many real-life pictures.]
After passing through the canyon, the rest of the road is still on the mountain valley road, but the mountains on both sides are no longer tall and steep, and you can have an unobstructed view, which also means that our army is unlikely to encounter an ambush.
At this time, the cavalry soldiers continued to maintain the marching posture of leading their horses - this is the proper meaning of the question, because the Liu Jiajun cavalry's so-called fear of mountains is mainly because they themselves are "mountain infantry", and at the same time they have mastered
He developed the technology of leading horses in mountainous areas.
This is actually natural, because people can do mountain training, but horses may not. Humans are the most learning species, but horses can basically only rely on talent. Especially today's Ming army war horses are based on
Based on Mongolian horse blood, they were not born to move in mountainous areas. They need help to travel in mountainous areas.
Since even marching requires the help of the cavalry around them, the cavalry naturally cannot ride, but can only dismount and walk. In fact, it is not just in mountainous areas. Even when Liu Ping's cavalry is marching on flat ground, as long as they need to travel long distances, they will often
Let the cavalry dismount and lead them.
This truth has been mentioned before, because the advantage of horses, apart from carrying weight, is mainly in explosive power, and endurance is not as good as humans. Of course, Mongolian horses have more advantages than war horses from other parts of the world in this regard, but the Ming army war horses
——Especially the few Ming army war horses that received special care from Gao Pragmatic. Almost all of them were not pure-blooded Mongolian horses, but were bred by crossbreeding the bloodlines of other horse breeds.
To put it simply, Mongolian horses have strong endurance and are particularly easy to feed, but they are short in stature and lack explosive power. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic had long ago asked Jinghua’s racecourse to cultivate a more “universal” or “balanced” war horse.
The target in his mind at that time was actually the Don Hippo of the Cossack Cavalry. Of course, he was referring to the Oriental type of Don Hippo.
There are two main types of Don horses: the Oriental type, which has a dry constitution, is powerful, fast, and suitable for riding; the Western type, which has a stronger constitution, a thick body, a deep and long middle body, and substantial bone mass, and is a type that can be used both as a horse and as a rider.
The reason why Gao Pragmatic targeted the Don hippopotamus was because the origin of the Don hippopotamus breed made him feel that Jinghua was capable of cultivating it. The Don hippopotamus itself is based on the strong Mongolian horse on the treeless steppes of Siberia, and is closely related to the Akhal-Ta, which is famous for its speed.
It is bred on the basis of mixed bloodlines such as the Grammar horse (produced in Central Asia), as well as Persian and Arabian horses.
Later, Orlov, purebred and mixed-bred senior Arabian horses were also used to improve the level of Don horses in the early 19th century.
Ignoring the "later" batch for the time being, there is no doubt that some of the outstanding Mongolian horses in the early days were not difficult for Gao Pragmatic, while the Central Asian horses, Persian horses, and Arabian horses were all goods that Jinghua could obtain through commercial means - although they were very rare.
It's expensive, but it's fine if you can get it. Of course, what Gao Pragmatic wants more is for Daming to directly control Central Asia, where BMW is produced.
Because the goals are clear and the conditions are sufficient, the training of war horses has been carried out over the years and great progress has been made. With the size of the 8,000 Liu Ping cavalry, no more than 30,000 war horses are needed (the actual number is only 20,000, due to
Jinghua Supply, jointly funded by the Ministry of War and Yuan Masa Temple), its horses are selected and bred from the same population that is relatively stable, with high consistency. [Note: The attributes of the populations bred in the early stages are often less stable, and it takes longer to stabilize genes.]
In short, the horses of Liu Ping's cavalry are not as durable as the Mongolian horses, but their speed and explosive power are greater. In terms of speed, their explosive power is not as good as that of the Central Asian horses, but they have strong endurance and are not delicate. Overall, these horses basically meet high pragmatic requirements.
It's a bit like beating a hippopotamus.
After passing the canyon, Liu Wei knew that the soldiers could still hold on, but considering that although the horses were not carrying people, they were carrying dozens of kilograms of various supplies, he decided to take a rest and feed the horses. Rest here.
The only disadvantage was that there was no running water, so snow had to be collected, burned, cooled and then fed to the war horses, which was somewhat troublesome. Considering this, Liu Wei simply ordered the entire army to eat a meal of dry food on the spot, so as not to waste time.
The whole march was probably like this. Liu Wei first passed through the Longshou Mountains, walked in the green space on the edge of the mountains and the Gobi, and walked in the northwest direction until he saw a big river in the distance - not the Yellow River, but the Heihe River.
.
Heihe, that is, ancient weak water (the section north of Heli Mountain), Heishui (generally refers to the Inner Mongolia section of the Heihe River downstream of weak water). It was formerly known as Heli water, Qiang Valley water, fresh water, surface water, side water, Zhangye water
, Ganzhou River is the second largest inland river in northwest China, and later the largest inland river in Gansu Province.
The Heihe River originates from the middle section of the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountains and flows through Qinghai, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia. The lower reaches are called weak water (ancient weak water), and the section in Inner Mongolia is called the Ejina River, which means black water in Xixia and disappears in the Juyan Sea. The Heihe River
It is also the main source of domestic water for Ganzhou and its surrounding area of tens of thousands of miles, with a total length of nearly two thousand miles.
However, seeing the Heihe River at this time had two main meanings for Liu Ping's tribe: first, it could replenish the fresh water consumed by walking on the edge of the Gobi for two or three hundred miles, and second, it could determine the direction to go next.
Replenishing fresh water is an important task in fighting in the northwest semi-desert area. It does not need to be explained in detail every time, but it is very important to determine the direction, because according to the pre-war plan, it is time to cross the Heihe River at this time, and the entire army turns to the southwest
Traveling in the same direction - a hundred miles away in this direction is Jinta County, Gansu Province in later generations. Keep going in the same direction and continue another hundred miles to Suzhou, which is later Jiuquan City in Gansu Province.
By the way, more than twenty miles northwest of Suzhou is the famous Jiayu Pass. It was first built in the Ming Dynasty. After its completion, it became the most important pass to control the northwest in the Ming Dynasty, which incidentally led to the gradual desolation of Yumen Pass.
From this perspective, Xu Sanwei may feel that losing Suzhou is not terrible, but losing Jiayuguan is the real big trouble. He asked Liu Wei to send troops as soon as possible because he was worried that the court would hold him responsible for losing Jiayuguan. Of course, he
There is no need to say what you think about it for the time being. At this time, I will express it to Liu Wei.
Of course, the name "Jinta County" does not exist today. The Ming Dynasty only had "Weilu Guards" here, and the name of the administrative place was "Weilu City". This city is not big, only three in three on a Wednesday. Generally, there are no troops stationed in such a city.
It's too many, but if necessary, it wouldn't be difficult to put 20,000 people in there.
However, in fact, Weiluwei no longer exists. This does not mean that Weiluwei was killed by Burihatu. It was abandoned as early as the Yongle Dynasty.
At the beginning of Yongle, "the troops of our army (Weilu Guards) won merits and beheaded the prisoners. Zhao Chun, the imperial censor, thought that he would kill them and surrendered, and wanted to kill the officers and soldiers who had won merits, so he led the people to rebel..." The result was that the people
After being sent away, the castle was empty, so in the third year of Yongle's reign, the Weilu guards were cut off.
However, although Weiluwei is gone, in the past few years due to the highly pragmatic policy of strengthening the border, it has begun to be consolidated into a large-scale fort. The new "Weilu City" was renamed "Weilu Fort", although there is no
The imperial army was stationed there, but there were "three thousand local warriors", and it actually became a satellite city of Suzhou.
Of course, the above is not the reason for introducing Weilu Fort in such detail. The real reason is: Liu Wei learned that Weilu Fort has not been broken so far and is still in the hands of the Han family!
This news is shocking, right? Liu Wei thought so at first. The reason is very simple. Weilu Fort itself is not big, and there are no regular troops stationed there. There are only "three thousand local braves". This size is not comparable to that in Buri.
What use would Hattu's 100,000-strong army have when the tide comes?
Theoretically speaking, as long as Suzhou is lost, Weilubao, one of the key satellite cities of Suzhou, should fall immediately, and Burihatu should not allow it to remain unconquered by the Mongolian army for so long.
!
However, as a general under Gao Pragmatic, Liu Wei, in addition to being able to obtain information from the imperial court, could also receive intelligence support from the Jinghua Trading Company along the way - just as he had learned the secret road through Longshou Mountain.
The Gansu branch of Jinghua Trading Company informed Liu Wei that the so-called "three thousand local braves" in Weilubao were actually all from Jinghua, and their official organization was: Jinghua Mining Gansu Weilubao Copper Mine Protection Team.
Yes, Jinta County in later generations, now Weilubao, has an advantageous mineral resource-copper mine. The Ming Dynasty court actually had restrictions on the mining of copper mines. However, Gansu was too remote and the court did not
Interested in excavation. So Jinghua got the deal and built a copper mine in Weilupu. At the same time, it also established a mine protection team as usual.
As an important strategic material in the current era, the copper mine was too inefficient for the imperial government to bother with, but Jinghua did not dislike it. Therefore, six to seven thousand miners gathered here, and with a little more selection, there were three thousand mine protection teams.
These people usually work in mines and will only turn to arms when danger is approaching. Because they have serious jobs to do, they will naturally not leave Weilubao, so that Suzhou, which is close at hand, does not know how much strength they have. Wait until Suzhou
The city was captured by a wave of raids by Burihatu. Weilubao urgently armed itself and withstood the attack of a Mongolian army under Burihatu's command.
After the Mongolian army learned about it, they mobilized nearly 10,000 troops to attack again. Unexpectedly, they were easily repelled. At that time, Burihatu got a rare anger. However, when Burihatu inquired about Weilu Fort's defense in detail,
However, he no longer criticized the incompetence of his men, but after pondering for a long time, he ordered that only a small number of scout horses be used to continuously monitor Weilu Fort. However, as long as the people in the fort did not escape from Wubao, the Mongolian army would no longer invade.
Of course, Burihatu is not merciful, but Weilu Fort is impeccable. Thanks to the small original city here, Jinghua rebuilt its city defense into a fortress. Sixteen No. 3 heavy guns, more than two hundred cannons,
The intersecting city defense artillery fire network made the Mongolian army, which lacked heavy firepower siege means, can only look back and sigh at Fort Weilu. It was a wall of sighs.
The reason why Liu Wei was confident of taking Suzhou in a sneak attack was that another secret hand was revealed at this moment: the sixteen No. 3 heavy artillery pieces of Fort Weilu and the mine protection team in the fort.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
PS: The stuffy nose is not healed, and the voice is still hoarse, ah... why? This strain is somewhat unnatural.