Daming: Apocalypse of Longevity

Chapter 210 The Bastion
Mangui immediately ordered people to set up cannons on the mountain, adjusted the angle, and aimed at the Ross army at the bottom of the mountain. Then he waved his flag and thousands of artillery, large and small, fired in unison, and the shells rained down from the mountain towards the Ross army at the bottom.

The Russian army suddenly heard the sound of cannons on the mountain, and was still surprised. They were caught off guard, and countless soldiers were torn to pieces by the shells in an instant.

At this time, the importance of military discipline and the quality of soldiers was reflected. However, the regular army from the center of Moscow responded faster and evacuated to the rear in an orderly manner, out of the range of the Ming army's artillery.

And those local troops who came to make up the numbers slammed into the battle like chickens without their heads. They were not killed by the Ming army's artillery fire, and many of them collided and trampled to death.

Before the two sides started fighting, the Ross army lost nearly [-] people, and their vehicles, horses, and ordnance were also thrown all over the place.

However, the Ming army did not rush down the mountain to pursue the victory, nor did they even send people to clean up the battlefield and pick up some spoils to go back, because Man Gui was ordered to defend the Ural Mountains and not allow the Ross people to cross the border, so he did not easily send troops to take the initiative to attack. !
After experiencing this defeat, the Ross people became united, and the coach became more authoritative. After all, the evacuation was all due to the coach's good command, otherwise they would all be finished!
Under the command of the commander of the Ross army, the Ross people began to build a city on the spot, intending to fight a protracted war with the Ming army here.

In fact, if it had not been for the existence of Zhu Tianqi, the combat effectiveness of the Russian army would not be so different from that of the Ming army. The weapons of both sides should also be more advanced than those of the Russians, and the Russians also learned a lot from Westerners. Less advanced military and tactics.

The fact that the Russians built a city at the foot of the mountain attracted Mangui's attention, and he began to go to the mountain every day to observe the city built by the Russians.

In fact, what the Rus people built was a bastion. This is a skill they learned from Europeans. Simply put, it is to transform the original convex polygon into a concave polygon. The most typical one is a star-shaped fortress, or each corner of a square or Another rhombus protrudes from the side.

In this way, no matter where they attack from, the siege side will have to withstand multiple blows from the defenders' multiple crossfires.

Although the Ming Dynasty's cities had a series of designs such as horse faces and urn forts, they were still somewhat behind in terms of defense compared to Western bastions.

In fact, it may not be that the Ming Dynasty did not know that the defensive power of the city would be stronger like a bastion. After all, it can be seen from the concave double-horse design of Ningyuan City. The Ming Dynasty knew very well that the more protruding parts of the city wall, the easier it would be to defend the city. But the more crossfire can be formed to deal with the enemy attacking the city.

I think the people of Ming Dynasty still had a rather feudal mentality and believed that cities should be boxy and should not be built in weird shapes. Therefore, even if they wanted to change it, they would add a rectangular horse face to the more square rectangle instead of building a rhombus-shaped protruding part. , this may be an important reason why Westerners, who have no taboos, can lead the Ming people in fortress construction.

Mangui looked at the "Spiky Ball City" built by the Russians, which was full of "spikes." The more he looked at it, the weirder he felt. He stood on the top of the mountain and looked down. The Russian bastion was just like an explosive sign. Similar.

It's strange but strange, after all, Man Gui is a battle-hardened person, and after a little thought, he can imagine how powerful this bastion is, if he goes to attack the city, it may be difficult to break through it, compared to the strong city of Ming Dynasty, Its defense ability is only strong but not weak!

Mangui immediately ordered his men to draw the appearance of the Russian city, and planned to report this matter to the emperor the next time he sent a memorial to the court.

Afterwards, Man Gui ordered his men to transport the steel cannon to the rear.

The Ross people have advanced fortification technology, as well as more advanced military knowledge and strategies and tactics. They relied on these to dare to invade Nerchinsk and start the Battle of Yaksa with the Manchu Qing.

Needless to say, the outcome of the war was that the two sides negotiated a peace and signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

Many people may have doubts because of this, is the Manchu Qing unable to defeat the Ross people at that time?Why the final result was to negotiate a peace with the Ross people, sign a treaty, and cut off the land for the Ross people?
This has to start with the incredible war.

At that time, the Ross people built a bastion in Yaxa, and there were only less than 2000 people guarding this bastion, while the Manchu Qing side sent [-] troops, and the strength of the two sides was very different.

However, the Manchu Qing army, which mainly used cold weapons, was unable to break through the Russian bastion from beginning to end. They could only dig trenches around the Russian bastion and besiege it until only 60 Russians inside died. Can't stand it anymore, surrendered to the Manchu Qing army, and the battle has just come to an end.

Although the outcome of this battle was the surrender of the Russians and the victory of the Manchu Qing army, it must have been clear in their hearts that the signatories of the treaty at the time, Soetu and Emperor Kangxi, were that if the Russians had sufficient troops in Yaksa City, this battle would be The outcome of the game is not certain.

From this, it can be seen that the defensive capability of the bastion is indeed remarkable, and the Ross people have indeed gradually surpassed the East in military terms by learning from the advanced Western countries.

Fortunately, today's Ming Dynasty is not the Manchu Qing Dynasty. It does not stick to the old ways and refuse to let go of cold weapons and old battle modes. Instead, under the leadership of Zhu Tianqi, it makes great strides to develop hot weapons and learn advanced military knowledge and strategies and tactics. .

Therefore, facing the bastion built by the Rus, Mangui would not be able to siege the city and kill the enemy like Suo'etu did in the past. Instead, Mangui would directly mount the Ming Dynasty's steel cannon and attack it within a few miles. Outside, they bombarded the Russian bastions indiscriminately.

It took a lot of effort to transport these cannons to the mountain, but the Russians were busy building the city, and Mangui also had a lot of time to worry about. Anyway, after these cannons were transported to the mountain, Mangui did not plan to evacuate them, and directly built a fort on the mountain. , it will be useful in the future.

After the Russians repaired the bastion and Mangui's cannons were set up, the role of the bastion was mainly defensive rather than offensive. Naturally, the Russian army, as the conquering party, could not just wait here for the Ming army to attack them. It is still necessary to send troops to lure the enemy to attack, consume the enemy's strength, and then take the opportunity to kill the Ural Mountains.

The Russians' abacus was crackling, and even Mangui in the Ural Mountains could hear it clearly. From the moment the Russians started building the city, Mangui knew what the Russians were planning.

Mangui is not afraid of fighting them. Anyway, the Ming Dynasty has a lot of gunpowder and cannonballs. With the range of the steel cannon, there is no problem at all in hitting the Russian bastion from the mountain, but this is the farthest range of the steel cannon. The range, not the effective range, the accuracy and power of the shells cannot be mastered.

But even so, it can deal a powerful blow to the Ross army. They were attacked by the light artillery of the Ming army at the foot of the Ural Mountains. They thought that was the range of the artillery of the Ming army, which was outside the range of the artillery of the Ming army. It would be safe to retreat another mile or two, but it turned out that they underestimated the power of the Ming army's artillery.

But there is no way. The bastion has been built, and we can no longer retreat. We have to move the residence and important military supplies to the west side of the bastion. This is further back and can rarely be hit by the Ming army's artillery.At that time, Suo'etu only had ten red cannons in his hands and could not attack the Russian bastion, so he had to fight with the Russians.

As for Man Gui now, he transported more than 30 steel cannons to the mountain this time. With the power of the steel cannons, the Russian bastion could not withstand the frontal bombardment, but Man Gui did not go down the mountain at all. The meaning of siege is just to let these steel cannons bombard the Ross's bastion every day, no matter the morning or night, no matter the time of day.

After all, Mangui was not here to expel the invaders, and the emperor did not allow him to attack or to annihilate the Russian army. He had no pressure at all, so he did not mind spending time with Ross. There were many artillery shells in Ming Dynasty, so let Ming Ming Let the soldiers of the army go and fight, just so that those soldiers who don't know how to fire cannons, or are not proficient in cannon fire, can take this opportunity to practice hard. It should be regarded as military training!

However, winter was about to begin, and military rations and supplies to keep out the cold were a big problem. Mangui then wrote a memorandum and sent someone back to the capital, reporting on the situation with the Russians on the one hand. On the one hand, it also raised the issue of the army wintering in Siberia.

Zhu Tianqi was not too surprised after seeing the picture of the Russian fortress included in the Mangui Memorial. After all, it was not unusual for him, and the Ming army now had heavy artillery such as steel cannons. It is useless for the Rus to build the fortress out of flowers.

However, what Man Gui said about the Ming army spending the winter in Siberia made Zhu Tianqi a little confused. It was extremely cold in that place, and food and heating were big problems.

Immediately, Zhu Tianqi summoned all the cabinet ministers to the imperial court and asked them to report on the current financial revenue and expenditure of Ming Dynasty, especially the expenditure on military pay.

Daming's taxation this year has just started, and it has already collected 1000 million taels. Those big bosses such as industrial and commercial taxes have not yet started to fully collect it. It is expected that it should be [-] to [-] percent higher than that of Tianqi in ten years.

However, Zhu Tianqi believed that the estimate of Liu Hongxun, the Minister of Household Affairs, was too conservative. Now that the Ming Dynasty has opened up the private sector of salt and iron, and standardized and managed huge profit industries such as porcelain, silk, tea, wine, and sugar, the tax revenue of these industries should also be higher than In previous years it was much more.

In addition, the state-owned factories in various industries have already started production, and they will surely bring a lot of fiscal revenue to the imperial court.

As for expenditures, the Ming Dynasty's fiscal expenditures were much higher than before, even doubled, because official salaries had increased, and the court was spending more on large and small matters such as opening state-owned factories and shipyards. Much more.

On the other hand, military expenditures are not that much. Now that Liaodong has been leveled, Liaodong has also begun to resume production. The Liao army inherited the tradition when Sun Chengzong was the governor of Ji Liao, vigorously cultivated land and became self-sufficient. The court was able to save a lot of money and food.

The most expensive thing now is the 10 troops from Mangui who marched north to Siberia. It has been almost a year since they sent troops, and the supply of food, salaries and armaments is constant.

However, since Tamangui occupied the Western Siberian Plain, he has also sent back many fine furs to the court every month, which can be regarded as generating income for the court.

In addition, all the tribes in Mobei surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. Those Ming army strongholds passing through the tribes in Mobei instantly became garrison points for the Ming Dynasty to rule over the tribes in Mobei. Some strongholds with good geographical locations were directly expanded into Dusifu City. , or Weisuo City.

Therefore, these strongholds along the way have been able to obtain living materials through trade, and at the same time, they have also begun to manage the surrounding land for farming or grazing to achieve self-sufficiency.

In this way, the pressure on the imperial court was naturally much less, and the problem of food and payment for at least 3 to [-] people was resolved.

As for the [-] to [-] Ming troops currently in Siberia, Zhu Tianqi has no plans to withdraw part of them. Even though it seems that it will not take so many troops to deal with the Ross people, Siberia is too vast and wants to completely occupy it. A piece of land still requires a lot of manpower.

Today's Ming army may not be able to adapt to the severe cold climate of Siberia, but they will adapt sooner or later, otherwise the Ming army will never be able to gain a foothold here.

Therefore, Zhu Tianqi had no choice but to increase investment in Manchuria and Guangxi, and asked Liu Hongxun to transport enough food for 5 people for half a year, about [-] shi of food, as well as a large amount of cotton clothes and coal to Lake Baikal at one time.

At the same time, Zhu Tianqi said in his reply to Man Gui that he should not pay too much attention to the movement of the Ross army. As long as the Ross army does not approach the Ural Mountains, he should not bother. I believe that with the national strength of the Ross country, they cannot consume Daming.

In addition, regarding the issue of the Ming army spending the winter in Siberia, Zhu Tianqi could only tell them to build more houses with thicker walls, relying on coal sent by the imperial court and local firewood for heating.

Zhu Tianqi also specifically wrote down how to mix coal slime and how to build fireplaces, coal stoves and other heating facilities. The rest can only depend on the will of Mangui and the Ming army.

Siberia, which is in the Little Ice Age, is colder and earlier than normal, so even though winter has not yet arrived, the Ming army has already put on cotton clothes.

Fortunately, it is not yet the time when the cold is unbearable, Man Gui still has a period of time to prepare for the Ming army to survive the cold winter.

The sound of artillery on the Ural Mountains still sounded every day, but the soldiers responsible for firing the artillery changed one after another. Mangui no longer stared at the Russians on the mountain, but retreated to Lake Baikal and began to command the Ming army to prepare for the winter. matters.

In order to ensure sufficient food, Man Guijia sent many people to hunt and fish. Even though the court had allocated him [-] dan of food, the more food he had, the more secure he would feel.

At the same time, he also built many log cabins according to the instructions in Zhu Tianqi's letter, and they were all double-layered and had good thermal insulation. However, fireplaces could not be built in such log cabins, and most of them used braziers or small coal stoves for heating. .

(End of this chapter)