Daming Yuanfu

It takes time for public opinion to ferment. Generally speaking, except for some explosive news - such as a major victory or defeat on the battlefield, the longer the public opinion is laid, the greater the noise will be in the end. Therefore, after Gao Yingji explained the next stage of tasks to the four shopkeepers, he immediately resumed normal work.

Let’s talk about the court first. Under Gao Jingshi's instruction, the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War jointly made an expenditure forecast for the Western Expedition. They further narrowed the expenditure range previously roughly stated by Gao Jingshi to a relatively more accurate numerical range, and quickly reported it to the emperor.

According to calculations, the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War believe that the total force of approximately 100,000 troops in the three waves originally arranged for the Western Expedition cannot be fully committed to the battle early next year, because if this is done, the financial pressure will be further increased. How big is it? It is probably necessary to issue war bonds just like the Burma War.

Even if the imperial court is willing to issue war bonds, and this time the war bonds can still be sold out easily and smoothly, it does not mean that things will turn around, because this is only the financial problem that has been solved, but the transportation problem still cannot be solved. Specifically, the main reason is that there are not enough camels, and it is completely uneconomical to use mules and horses.

Why does it have to be a camel? Because camels can tolerate intermittent water shortages far better than mules and horses. In the northwest region next to the desert, once you get slightly lost or encounter abnormal weather changes, you may not be able to reach the next point where you can replenish water. At this time, camels can overcome it because of the presence of their humps. This is not possible for mules and horses. If the water is cut off for a little longer, they will die directly, and the losses on the way will be too great.

However, a camel cannot be conjured out of thin air. Before the Western Expedition, Gao Pragmatic had already reserved some in advance. As a result, all the camels available on the market were wiped out. After the official expedition, all the camels that could be collected by the private sector were requisitioned for a fee. Even the Jinghua Trading Company offered its own camels. Gave it to the Western Expeditionary Army. The area now controlled by the Ming Dynasty can basically be said to be hard to find.

Speaking of which, there is nothing we can do about it. The northwest has been lost for hundreds of years. The farthest area controlled by the Ming Dynasty is Hami Guard. After Hami Guard was lost, only the east of Suzhou was left. How many camels are needed? If there is no demand, there will be no one to raise them. This is an objective reality, and those who travel through time can only stare.

Together, the Ministry of Husbandry and the Ministry of War finally came to the conclusion that in the westward march in the coming spring, the main force of the Ming army could only dispatch no more than 60,000 people. As for if 60,000 people is not enough, it depends on the strength and willingness of Tumut and Ordos.

It has to be said that Gao Pragmatic was quite satisfied with the performance of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War this time, because the dispatchable force they calculated was very close to the force Zuo Zongtang used to recover Xinjiang in the original history.

At that time, Zuo Zongtang moved his camp from Lanzhou to Suzhou and prepared to launch an attack. At this time, some of the Qing army's troops were stationed at strategic locations such as Hami, Barkol, Gucheng, and Talbahatai, and were in a stalemate with the Agubah army. At the end of April, Zuo Zongtang ordered Prime Minister Zuo Zongtang to conduct camp affairs, and Hunan Army Commander Liu Jintang led the Mabu 25th Battalion to enter Xinjiang in batches and headed to Barkol via Hami. At this point, the total strength of the Qing army out of the customs was more than 80 battalions, exactly to people.

Coincidentally, this time the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War finally calculated that the available combat strength was also 60,000. It seems that in the absence of waterways and railways to rely on, the Central Plains dynasty's ability to send troops to the northwest will probably be of this order of magnitude at most.

Of course, the Mongols don't count. The Ming army could not learn from their "operation without logistics" of taking mares and sheep together. They really could not learn from it.

The emperor received the memorial and was obviously a little nervous. He had collected the memorials in the morning, and before noon, Gao Jingshixuan went to Xinuang Pavilion to inquire. The question is not uncomplicated: Is 60,000 people enough?

According to the emperor's own opinion, if Liu Wei and his 60,000 people were to fight Chahar head-on, they should be sure of it. However, the northwest area is too vast and the number of cities cannot be said to be small. If some troops are left in each place, it will become If the pie is spread, the troops that can be used for mobile combat may not be sufficient in the end. Moreover, several new battle reports have been received in recent days, which further aggravated the emperor's worries.

These battle reports actually talk about the same thing: after the Chahar Mongolian army successfully attacked the Ming army's logistics transport team some time ago, they seemed to have tasted the sweetness and began to attack the Ming army's logistics line one after another. Liu Wei sent troops to rescue each time, but the results could only be said to be unsatisfactory-seven times the transport team was attacked, five times the rescue was successful, one time he rescued about half of the supplies, and another time he could only clean up the battlefield.

Among them, even the five successful rescues actually did not show up - Liu Wei personally led one of the most elite cavalry and contracted five thousand cavalry to rescue each time, but the other side's Mongolians only had two or three thousand, and there were no Don’t fight against Liu Wei. To put it nicely, it means that the Chahar Army is "invincible". To put it badly, it means that they have learned guerrilla warfare and now they will not fight a decisive battle with the Ming army, not even a decisive battle with the cavalry.

This is very troublesome, and it means that the Chahar people have now found a truly effective way to deal with the Ming army's armored cavalry - aren't you strong in frontal decisive battles? Okay, I'll go around the front and stay out of the way, okay? But if you have the ability, make the entire Ming army "frontal", otherwise I will always be able to defeat you.

Of course, it is impossible for the entire Ming army to be "frontal". If all those transport teams had to gather at least one cavalry corps to help protect them, the expenses just calculated by the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War would have to be at least 30% higher. Who can bear this?

Under normal thinking, facing this situation, we can only consider gathering the transportation team and then sending troops to follow and protect it. However, in fact, this is not feasible because the water supply points along the way are limited and cannot support large-scale replenishment. This is also a physical flaw. In the past, it was possible for the army to attack, because the army brought a large amount of water and supplies with the army, but subsequent supplies could only be "a trickle of water", otherwise the problem would turn back - the cost could not be controlled. This is also why Liu Wei can only bring one cavalry corps to each rescue.

So now Liu Wei is as big as a fight in Hami. He ridiculed himself in a private message to Gao Pragmatic, saying that it was not long before the Mongols watched his cavalry train and created conditions for him to train well - he had recently begun taking turns to lead the troops. Different cavalry associations went out to rescue and fight. In his words, each cavalry association has "achieved something" recently. Self-deprecation is self-deprecating, Gao Pragmatic can still see Liu Wei's headache, and he knows that Liu Wei can't solve this problem on his own: the Ming army's cavalry equipment is a strategy set by Gao Pragmatic, Liu Wei cannot change it without authorization, and he can't Change, otherwise the future grand strategy of "the Ming army's heavy cavalry will form the central army, and the Mongolian army's light cavalry will form the two wings" will be aborted. This will definitely not work.

It is impossible for Ming army soldiers to compete with Mongolian soldiers for horse control. There is a natural gap in life and growth between the two sides. Therefore, the Ming army must have a comparative advantage in cavalry, that is, equipment and training. To widen the gap in equipment and training, we can only rely on equipment, and then focus on fighting the decisive battle in the battle, rather than engaging in harassment operations and chasing and fleeing to expand the results - these latter tasks are left to Tumut and Ordos. Just go to the department, they are the professional counterparts.

Facing the emperor's question, Gao Pragmatic could only comfort him by saying that it would be solved when the two Mongolian cavalry arrived in large numbers. In fact, the Erdemutu headquarters had already arrived at this time, but Gao Pragmatic was reluctant to let him do this work.

This is not because Gao Pragmatic feels sorry for his students and forgets about national interests, but among the two Mongolians, only Erdemutu is actually Gao Pragmatic's "direct descendant" who is truly assured. Although his father, Han Naji, was a die-hard pro-Ming Dynasty Khan, there were other leaders in the Fengzhoutan Khan Court, and the Great Khan could not completely turn a blind eye to their attitudes.

As for Boshu Ketu... This kid has a criminal record right there. Now he just knows that he can't disobey the Ming Dynasty, so he has to be honest after recognizing the reality, but he doesn't know what he is thinking. In short, unless he proves his "loyalty" in the future, Gao Pragmatic will always leave the hard work to him.

Everything has its consequences. The unlucky leader of a group often means the entire tribe is unlucky. Gao Pragmatic can only hope that Boshu Ketu can learn his lesson. Just in this thought, Gao Pragmatic had already arranged the next phase of work for the "Jinong Headquarters" in Ordos. As for Qie Jin's sons, they could still gain some merits on the frontal battlefield.

After listening to Gao Pragmatic's explanation, Zhu Yijun could only accept it, and then asked about some "irrelevant" things.

"I heard that you dealt with several servants?"

Although Jinghua has the most complete system design in this era, "where there are people, there are rivers and lakes", and it is not a clear water pool. Problems will still happen, so Gao Pragmatic has to deal with many servants a year. However, what the emperor is asking at this moment is definitely not the servant who was caught for corruption within Beijing, but the southern Xinjiang general who was dealt with pragmatically during the turmoil in Chittagong last time.

Gao's pragmatic answer is simple: "Unpunishment of mistakes is the source of chaos."

The emperor was silent for a moment and sighed: "Forget it, you can take care of your family's affairs yourself. Actually... I just don't think it's a big deal." What he actually meant was that when he mentioned this matter, his intention was just to say that even if it happened I also knew that it happened in the farthest reaches of southern Xinjiang, but I really didn’t expect these consequences.

The current scale of Southern Xinjiang is indeed not small, but it is still nothing in Zhu Yijun's eyes, otherwise he would not have deliberately used the term "Dingnan Protectorate" in the first place. According to his idea, if what Gao Pragmatic wants in the end is nothing more than those wild lands in the south, that would be the best - give it to him, and it can also fulfill the story of our monarch and his ministers.

It's not surprising that he has this idea. The Emperor of the Central Plains has always had this mentality towards the barbarian lands: I don't look down on your wretched place, and my biggest expectation for you is not to cause trouble, so as to save me the trouble and trouble.

At that time, Liu Shouyou, the commander-in-chief of Jinyiwei, once slandered Gao Pingxi for "accumulating strength and having evil intentions" in southern Xinjiang, but Zhu Yijun didn't listen. Firstly, Zhu Yijun did not believe that Gao Pragmatic had any "evil intentions". Secondly, he also believed that southern Xinjiang could not truly pose a subversive threat to the Ming Dynasty - it could cause trouble, even a lot of trouble, but subversion would never be possible. .

To talk about the reason, the Celestial Thought of the Central Plains Dynasty does have a large proportion. The external threats to the Central Plains Dynasty have always come from the nomads in the north. When did the barbarians who fell to the south threaten the survival of the Central Plains Dynasty? In the minds of the rulers of the Central Plains dynasty, the Nanbarbarians would at best cause some minor troubles to border provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan. At that time, the children would be disobedient and should be spanked.

As for the fact that southern Xinjiang has begun to use force against Tianzhu again, in Zhu Yijun's opinion, it is a good thing - you see how accurate my judgment is. Even if southern Xinjiang is unified pragmatically, it will only go west to find trouble for others. How can it be harmful to me, the Ming Dynasty? threaten?

As for what will happen to the people of "Tianzhu", that has nothing to do with me, the Ming Dynasty Emperor, and I have no experience. What's more, the scriptures don't seem to be of much use. I heard that the people of Tianzhu themselves don't believe in Buddhism.
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