Almost every one of the soldiers and generals of the Great Zhou Dynasty, from bottom to top, had the experience of facing the threat of powerful enemies from the north for more than ten years or decades. Most of them gathered together after suffering military disasters, which was unique to the Han Dynasty in the Central Plains. With his tenacity, he reorganized the army and fought the Mongols to the death.
Their wounds may take many years to heal, and the pain caused by the wounds reminds them all the time to prepare for fighting with the Mongols. The most important daily work content of the warriors who come and go from the Marshal's Mansion in Zhongdu is Constantly infer the route of the Mongols going south, and estimate various scenarios of the two families fighting.
Regarding the military response to the Mongolian army, Wang Shixian had no fewer than dozens of plans in his mind. When Guo Ning said this, Wang Shixian knew what strategy the emperor planned to adopt in the northeast.
Wang Shixian turned to look at Li Yun, who was standing in the outer circle. Li Yun bowed slightly towards the emperor.
In the years since the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, it has been very tolerant of the foreign military leaders in the northeastern interior, and has given a lot of financial and material support. However, after taking so many benefits from the court, there must be rewards. At the moment, the Mongols are first-hand, It threatened the northeastern hinterland with considerable force, and the emperor also needed the help of the military leaders in the northeast to hold down the Mongolian forces. These two ideas coincided with each other.
Wang Shixian's mind immediately changed and he pointed at a point on the map: "Your Majesty, the Mongolian army's launch this time brought countless defeated troops from the Western Regions with them, so it must have been very powerful at the beginning, triggering wars everywhere in the northern Xinjiang. However, that Genghis Khan was a man who knew his troops well. He was very aware of his family's weaknesses and urgent needs. Therefore, the second threatened point was Xuande...well, to be more precise, it was the Celestial City in the deep mountains and ravines to the west of Xuande, Huai'an. Waiting for a place."
"Are the Mongols trying to incite the thieves hiding in these places? Then they have to use their elite cavalry to advance over long distances and continuously pass through multiple outposts and forts."
"I think the Mongols don't lack this kind of courage, and they don't lack warriors who dare to risk their lives... This is what they are good at."
"Are these bandits in mountainous areas worth what the Mongols do?"
"Most of the bandits are from the veteran army and have had previous conflicts with our army. Although the battle scope was small and the scale was small, it was very fierce. A while ago, there was a general who underestimated the enemy during the battle and was ambushed. , died in battle. The Mongols want to create momentum everywhere and figure out our defense system in the shortest possible time, and the best collaborators are them."
"How many are the bandits?" Guo Ning asked.
This type of information comes in every month, but for a moment I didn't expect it to be so accurate. Wang Shixian pointed to a certain box of documents on a wooden shelf against the wall at the back: "I'll take a look at the documents later."
Just as he was about to move, the people of Jing'an came out to report: "In the mountains east of Datong Prefecture, there are six large groups of bandits and more than thirty small groups, totaling four to five thousand families, distributed in seven counties. They themselves have long been They no longer have the courage to become enemies with us, but if they put up flags to lead the way and shout cheers, it will still have some effect."
"Lao Jing, I remember at the beginning of the year, didn't you say that a crackdown was underway?"
"The bandits have always been single-minded, and they will flee as soon as they see the front of our troops. Starting from the beginning of the year, I led people to demarcate the mountain area and gradually reduce their scope of activities. At the same time, I also made great efforts to recruit them. That is In this way, they were forced into seven counties and non-contiguous mountainous areas. The original plan was to suppress their access to food and then make an emergency landing in winter."
Compared with the time when the Kingdom of Jin governed the borders, no tribe on the long border of the Zhou Dynasty facing the grasslands dared to be openly hostile to the Zhou Dynasty. Many bandits and bandits who had been entrenched in the complex and dangerous places for decades also Either he was recruited to work for the people, or he was beaten by the Zhou army so that he did not dare to stand up.
But the invasion of the Mongols caused terrible damage to the Central Plains. That kind of organized destruction, with the purpose of exterminating all the products of civilization and turning the land into pasture, was more brutal than any military disaster recorded in the history books of the Han Dynasty. Much more. After the establishment of the Great Zhou Dynasty, faced with millions of people whose homes were destroyed, it was inevitable that there would be times when the situation was not dealt with properly or improperly. Many of them were full of resentment and became a new unstable factor on the border.
Moreover, the rise of the Great Zhou Dynasty was rapid, and it mainly started from the center of the Jin Kingdom. Some of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers originally deployed on the borders of the Jin Kingdom were recruited, but it was inevitable that some of them would join the brave and fierce border ()
people and ambitious soldiers and bandits.
This group of people has successively gathered many Mongolian slaves who escaped from the grasslands, and they still do not obey the management of the Zhou Dynasty.
Dazhou had great experience in dealing with these mountain bandits. Jing'an Min, Miao Daorun, Zhang Rou and others who had high status in Dazhou's army were originally strong men between the people and bandits, and were the ancestors of bandits everywhere. Bandits No matter how loud the commotion was, it would not affect the Zhou army's deployment on the border.
Jing Anmin and others had veterans who were familiar with geography. They gathered the garrison soldiers who were on vacation at the rear, formed several small temporary teams, and then divided up the mountainous areas to suppress the bandits individually.
Only a few of the bandits who were particularly fierce could dare to compete with the Zhou army. However, the Zhou army's small forces continued to gain more control over their own areas, and the punishment of the bandits became more and more severe. Several bandit leaders who resisted were arrested. He was tied with a rope and dragged around the mountain by war horses, dragging him to death.
These people did not dare to resist the enemy and could not gain a foothold, so they kept retreating to the mountainous areas in the north. On the one hand, they plundered and looted the edges as their own way of survival; on the other hand, they relied on the north and the south, trying to become a link between powerful forces. buffer.
But when the Mongols launched an offensive, there was no need for the so-called buffer zone.
In Guo Ning's view, these bandits naturally have little weight. That is to say, the warriors of the Great Zhou Dynasty had similar origins to them, so they paid extra attention. When the Jurchens were in power, these people were just Han women working in front of the horse and behind the horse. , no one cares about the human shield on the blade head.
However, it is also good to take advantage of the opportunity of the Mongolian invasion to squeeze out the pustules on the fringes of the Great Zhou territory. This process is bound to be cruel, and the result will be even more ruthless. Those who want to serve the Mongols will naturally be treated with axes and axes, and the rest are just ordinary people. If you still have a human heart, it’s time to make the right choice.
When the monarchs and generals of the Great Zhou Dynasty were talking about these bandits, dozens of children and women were sitting in an abandoned castle in the mountains between the northwest and southwest areas controlled by the Recruitment Division of the Great Zhou Dynasty. The cellar trembled.
This ancient castle was one of the nine garrison cities left in the Tang Dynasty. It later experienced several rises and falls. It came under the control of the Liao people in the Later Tang Dynasty and was completely abandoned. Today, only a watchtower guarding the dangerous location is left, barely maintaining its masonry structure. It never collapsed. After the watchtower, ruins were everywhere.
When the Mongols invaded a few years ago, the bandits discovered this fortress under the cover of the mountains and saw it as a retreat in troubled times. However, the trade between China and Mongolia in the past two years has not stopped due to military hostilities. , the thieves came down the mountain several times to rob merchants, thus exposing their whereabouts.
The day before yesterday, a large group of troops followed and began to attack the fortress. The bandits' family members were hidden in a hidden cave behind the fortress and did not dare to move for ten hours for fear of being discovered by the outside world.
Although they did not dare to move or speak, it did not prevent many people present from staring at one person with contempt through the dim light coming from the cracks in the rock.
Wuxian, who was wearing tattered robes and dressed as a Taoist priest, glared back fiercely and cursed in a low voice: "What are you looking at! The fighting outside is fierce, and only a fool wants to die!"
