The First Gongsheng of Ming Dynasty

on the grassland.

Early in the morning on New Year's Day, the soldiers were still preparing for the day's battle.

The heavy snow had passed for four or five days, but there was still ice and snow everywhere, making it difficult for the soldiers to march. However, the soldiers did a good job of keeping warm.

"Report... There is a Tatar camp ahead."

When the news came, Tang Yin seemed to be a little excited.

In recent days, such reports have been endless. After the heavy snow, it seems that just a few steps away, you can find the traces of the Tatars, and then fight with them, and this kind of battle is something the Tatars cannot guard against.

Even Tang Yin felt that as long as he could survive that snowy day, all that was left was to pick up various opportunities, and he could lead his troops to run rampant on the grassland.

"That's great." Zhang Rui seemed very excited when he heard the news.

Tang Yin said, "Young Master, I will send you to lead the troops this time. If you can take it, you can only fight. If you can't take it, you have to wait for the follow-up troops to arrive. I will give you 300 soldiers. Is that enough?"

Xu Jing, who was standing by, frowned when he heard this.

Just three hundred men for a battle?

Are you sending away beggars?
But Zhang Rui seemed very energetic and said, "I will obey your orders."

Zhang Rui then selected three hundred soldiers and horses. The horses were tied up with special anti-slip iron chains. The soldiers could not ride horses for the time being, so they could only lead the horses forward. They could ride horses only when they were about to charge. They could even not ride horses at the beginning and charge forward on foot to fight the Tatars to the death.

……

……

"grown ups."

Not long after Zhang Rui set out, Ma Yi came upon hearing the news.

He came over on horseback, and said to Tang Yin, "I heard that a Tatar camp was discovered ahead? I wonder how big it is?"

Xu Jing said: "Why don't you let General Zhang go and check it out first? He hasn't reported back yet."

"Should we hurry up?" Ma Yi asked, "We are probably quite far north. If we encounter a large group of Tatar cavalry, I'm afraid they will surround us."

Tang Yin seemed very calm and said, "If they wanted to encircle us, they would have sent troops here a long time ago. At present, it seems that the main force of the Tatars may not be here. This is their rear area. Three hundred people over there should be enough. After all, we don't have many light artillery pieces. He also brought six light artillery pieces."

The most lacking thing in the army is artillery.

Before Tang Yin went on the expedition, he did not take this thing too seriously.

But after the expedition, they found that with artillery, the long-range lethality and coverage could be greatly improved, while the simple use of flintlock guns was more used in medium and short-range combat, but it could not have a sufficient deterrent effect when facing the Tatars' superior force charge.

Xu Jing looked at the rising sun and sighed, "This is the first battle of the year. I wonder if it will be a good start."

"We will definitely win this battle." Ma Yi said, "We can win this battle. The soldiers are very motivated."

Tang Yin said: "Winning is good, but it also depends on how you win. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to strangle all the Tatars."

Xu Jing asked: "Why is this?"

Tang Yin sighed and said, "In the heart of the grassland, the Tatars' soldiers can be replenished almost endlessly, but we only have 7,000 to 8,000 soldiers. If we lose soldiers in the battle, we will not be able to get replacements. And the losses in the war are also unacceptable to us... So we have to fight to support the war, this is the highest realm."

"Yes." After hearing this, Ma Yi's respect for Tang Yin increased a little. He said, "As Lord Tang said, the most important thing now is to stay alive so that the soldiers can come and go without a trace on the grassland. So I also told the soldiers not to use firearms when they can. Even fire bombs are resources, which cannot be replenished."

Tang Yin asked, "Are there any reports of a shortage of ammunition in the camps now?"

"The situation is still okay for now, but after all, we have one less bullet to fire, and now we have to deal with the invasion of the Tatars. Today...in fact, the fire bombs are prone to jamming." Ma Yi was a little helpless.

Cold weapons may work better at this time.

But it’s different with hot weapons. In such cold weather, they will be completely unusable after they freeze. Even if they don’t freeze, there will be certain problems due to thermal expansion and contraction.

Tang Yin said: "Keep going forward, let the horses get enough rest, and see what the situation is ahead."

……

……

After more than an hour, Tang Yin's central army had advanced more than ten miles.

Under such a harsh environment, the overall marching speed was already very good. After all, the baggage that the troops needed to carry was all carried by horses, and the road was difficult to travel, so the soldiers even needed someone to lead the way.

Fortunately, at this time all the rivers and lakes on the grassland have frozen, and the ice is more than three feet thick, so there are no obstacles to travel.

After they climbed over a hill, they saw a fire not far away.

Zhang Rui led his troops to charge into the Tatar camp. The two sides were fighting fiercely, but in fact it was a one-sided suppression. The Ming soldiers had muskets at their disposal, which guaranteed the suppression in this small-scale battle.

"Why was the fire set?" Xu Jing took a look.

If it happens on a snowy and windy day, setting fire is not a big deal. After all, it is difficult for the fire to spread and the smoke and dust cannot rise too high to be discovered by the Tatars in the distance.

But now it is a clear sky after a snowy day, and this kind of fire will bring a lot of smoke and dust. Not to mention ten or eight miles away, it is likely that clues can be detected dozens of miles away.

Ma Yi said: "I heard that there are also beacon towers on the grassland, but they are close to the Khan's location."

"What Khanate?" Xu Jing asked stupidly.

Tang Yin frowned and said, "Generally speaking, it is similar to the Xiongnu's royal court, which means that their central army and main camp are not far from here... probably less than a hundred miles away."

"what?"

When Xu Jing heard this, his blood pressure rose instantly.

Originally, a small-scale encounter was nothing, as it had happened every day in the past few days. But now he was suddenly told that he was not far from the main force of the Tatars, that is, the Khan's tent of the Tatar prince. He felt under great pressure.

"Isn't this a good thing?" Tang Yin asked. Xu Jing said, "Bo Hu, are you sure this is a good thing? Are we not well prepared? A few thousand people... the Tartars have hundreds of thousands of troops... do we have enough muskets and ammunition? Even food and grass may not be enough."

Ma Yi said cautiously, "It seems that we must rush to help. We can't let the young master continue to take risks. If the Tatar reinforcements arrive, we may lose the troops ahead if we can't rush in time."

"Yeah." Tang Yin nodded, seeming to agree with Ma Yi.

But Tang Yin did not order the troops to go out immediately. He first took out a compass and then a map, and compared them for a long time, but seemed to have no clue.

Xu Jing asked: "Aren't you going to rush to help?"

Tang Yin compared the position of the sun again, pointed to the direction behind him and said, "If I'm not mistaken, that's where the Tatar reinforcements might be coming from."

"What do you mean?" Xu Jing asked.

Tang Yin said: "According to the direction of the terrain, there should be a river to our east, but this river is not too long. I can't be sure of the point marked on the map, but if the Tatars set up camp along the river, their Khan's Court should be downstream of the river, which is... this way."

Xu Jing was surprised and asked, "Doesn't that mean that we have been traveling through the heartland of the Tatars before? Then why haven't we seen the main force of the Tatars?"

Ma Yi said, "Have we not been fighting with the Tatars every day these days? It's just that previously they were just a few small tribes, and we probably haven't reached their core. Besides, we are now to their north, and the beacon towers they use to guard against the Ming army should be mainly in the south. After all, the beacon towers in the north are very close to their Khan's court."

"Yes." Tang Yin seemed to agree with this statement and nodded, "If my guess is correct, we are only thirty or forty miles away from the little Tatar prince."

"Tsk tsk..."

Ma Yi's face looked a little ugly.

If before he was only thinking about withdrawing from the grassland after the war, now he has to think about how to save his own life.

If we run to the north of the Tatars, which is about thirty or forty miles away from the center of the Tatar Khanate, we will be killing our way to the vicinity of the Tatar capital. The Tatars do not have any city walls guarding them. If the Tatars knew that the Ming army had only a few thousand people, they would definitely come out in full force.

"Let's go in this direction. We'll occupy the hill over there and set up camp on it..." Tang Yin pointed to a place about two or three miles away from where Zhang Rui had fought.

That is a relatively high area on the grassland.

Xu Jing said: "Set up camp? The terrain there is high and there is no water."

Ma Yi said hurriedly, "We can set up camp from a high place and occupy positions on the mountain and below. The place where the young master is currently located seems to be a river valley, but we cannot be sure now. We can only see it clearly after the snow melts."

"It doesn't matter whether it's a river valley or not." Tang Yin said, "According to the current layout of mountains and rivers, we can occupy an area of ​​about four or five miles square. There will be no big problem in replenishing water. But we have to plunder as much food and grass as possible before the main force of the Tatars arrives."

Xu Jing asked: "Are we waiting to die here? Not... breaking out? Or... fighting them?"

"You need to have your own rear base." Tang Yin said, "In the previous battle of Huamachi, Liu Jin led his troops outside. The reason he was able to delay until the reinforcements arrived was mainly because he chose a good place and negotiated with the Tatars. Although the Tatars cut off his food supply, they did not notice that his position was both offensive and defensive."

Xu Jing suddenly realized: "Even if we fight the Tatars, we still need to have a large rear base to deal with them?"

Ma Yi smiled and said, "That's right. We are in the north, like a thorn in the throat of the Tatars. It's wrong for them to retreat, and it's wrong for them to attack."

Xu Jing frowned and said, "After hearing what Pinglu Hou said, I feel that... we have nowhere to retreat and nowhere to advance."

Tang Yin didn't seem to care about these things. He was looking at the sky again.

Ma Yi asked, "How many people should we send to occupy the hilltop?"

"A few hundred people will be enough." Tang Yin said, "It would be best if we could gather up some of the remaining Tatar soldiers and have them help build the camp. The soldiers need to rest and recuperate, and they also need a large amount of firewood. Now that we have a rear base, we must ensure that it is presentable, with room for cooking and for garrisoning, at least like a city."

Xu Jing asked: "Let alone bricks, there are not even wooden fences. How can it be considered a city?"

Ma Yi said: "Lord Xu is worrying too much. As long as there are light artillery and fire guns, and a little bit of barrier, it can stop the Tatars' bows and crossbows. That's a city, and they can't easily kill us. Or maybe we even hope they can kill us!"

……

……

A city-building activity in the snow and ice and the clearing of a Tatar camp were carried out almost simultaneously.

At the same time, Tang Yin divided his troops into more than a dozen groups, each with its own duties.

The most important thing for him now, in addition to accumulating war resources to ensure that he can take root on the grassland, is to find out whether the Khan's court of the Tatars is in the location he preset. This requires a large number of troops to move forward so that he can gain the upper hand in the battle with the Tatars.

Because the Tatars had received early warning from beacons, although they did not believe that the Ming army would appear behind them, they still sent out a team of 2,000 people to move upstream along the river.

But Tang Yin happened to be right.

The troops led by Ma Yi consisted of only seven or eight hundred men. They took advantage of the situation and charged out, engaging in a battle with the troops of more than two thousand men.

The other groups of troops sent by Tang Yin, after discovering that something was wrong, also rushed towards the river to provide assistance.

"It seems like the fighting has started again." Xu Jing had moved to a higher place at this time.

To their north was the river valley that Zhang Rui had just occupied with his troops. Zhang Rui was still leading his men to clean up the battlefield. About five or six miles to their south was the place where Ma Yi fought with two thousand Tatar soldiers. That was another river valley, but the surrounding terrain was flatter.

Tang Yin didn't care about the success or failure of the battle. He was still looking up at the sky, as if trying to find the direction of the river's flow, to determine which river on the map it was similar to, and then find his exact location.

"Bo Hu, aren't you anxious?" Xu Jing asked.

"Marquis Pinglu has been through many battles, he can handle this situation." Tang Yin seemed to not care about fighting with two or three thousand Tatars.

Because this was not his goal at all.

In other words, in his opinion, if Ma Yi could not win even with 800 elite soldiers ambushing 2,000 to 3,000 Tatar troops, then they could just wait to die on the spot.

"There are reinforcements." Tang Yin added, "Aren't the troops on both sides attacking from the middle?"

Only after Xu Jing saw the situation clearly through the telescope did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Among the dozen or so armies heading south from the Ming Dynasty, at least four or five were moving in the direction of Ma Yi, with a total of two to three thousand soldiers.

Tang Yin said: "It seems that the Tatars set up their camp along the river. This is their principle for wintering. So if they have something to do, they will investigate along the river, because they know that their tribes are on both sides of the river. In this way... we can use the frozen river... to do something." (End of this chapter)