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Chapter 1027: Destroy Wala

Seeing this, Khoshut leader Tulubaihu, who had been hesitating whether to attack, regretted it a little. If he had known that the Ming army was moving supplies, he should have launched a fierce attack while they were still unstable. Now the enemy has stockpiled a large amount of supplies and has camels for transportation, so it is even more difficult to repel them.

But we can't just wait like this, we have to do something before the Junggar reinforcements arrive. We might as well sneak into the camp at night. As long as we can set a fire in the fortress, the wind will help the fire and the fire will help the wind. Even if the Ming army doesn't withdraw immediately after losing its supplies, it won't be able to go deep into the hinterland.

The result was, of course, unsuccessful. The herdsmen who attacked at night could not even get within a mile of the fortress. The Ming army's deployment was very strange. They dispersed the soldiers in groups of three or five to various places on the hillside, with a distance of about 100 meters between them.

Some of them hid behind large rocks, while others dug holes in the meadows to hide in. During the day, they would shoot anyone approaching them, and at night they would light the kerosene hidden nearby to warn others.

No matter how agile the Khoshut herdsmen were, they could not avoid the barrage of arrows from all directions, let alone fight the enemy with bows and crossbows. The Ming army seemed to be full of sharpshooters, not only with fast shooting but also with high accuracy. Anyone who dared to show his head at a distance of 100 steps would be hit.

What was even more troublesome was that the Junggars’ reinforcements were unlikely to be counted on. The messenger sent to get reinforcements had not yet returned, but Baturhun’s messenger had arrived first. For the same reason, Beshbaliq was also attacked by the Ming army, requesting the Khoshuts to send troops for assistance.

Seeing that there was no chance of winning a direct confrontation, the Khoshut tribe did not hesitate and immediately chose to retreat. This was also a common tactic used by nomadic peoples to deal with agricultural peoples. After all, they had no cities or farmland to protect, and at most they would kill the cattle and sheep that they could not take away as dry food.

However, the army of an agricultural nation cannot live in the open air in grasslands and deserts for too long. As long as the supply lines are lengthened, it will become increasingly difficult for the Ming army to transport supplies, and they will soon reveal their flaws, or simply cannot sustain the consumption and will retreat on their own.

At that time, sending light cavalry to pursue closely would not only turn defeat into victory, but also obtain a large number of baggage abandoned by the Ming army. Even if there is no large number of casualties, it is still a profit.

The Ming army was indeed fooled as before, and immediately followed the Khoshut tribe to move northward. With the help of camels, the army could travel sixty to seventy miles a day in hot pursuit.

However, the Khoshut light cavalry sent to harass the Ming army from the flank did not succeed. Not only did they fail to effectively cut off the supply line, but they also suffered losses to varying degrees.

Who could protect the Ming army's supply line that stretched for hundreds of miles? The answer is not complicated: the Ming army itself. Every other day, they dug circular ditches using local materials and piled up soil and rubble to build low walls. The small ones had only two circles, and the large ones had five or six circles.

One hundred soldiers were stationed in each circle, pouring kerosene into the earth pit to make a bonfire. They communicated with the Inner Mongolian cavalry roaming nearby by relying on the thick smoke during the day and the firelight at night.

To be honest, the height of these earthen walls and the width of the trenches could not stop the cavalry from crossing over. However, the Ming soldiers hidden inside had sharp muskets, whose firing rate, range and accuracy exceeded those of bows and crossbows, making it difficult for small groups of light cavalry to deal with them.

If they failed to break through the simple earthen wall in a short time, the Inner Mongolian cavalry cruising nearby would rush in to kill them. If the Khoshut light cavalry ran too slowly, they would not even be able to save their lives, let alone harass the Ming army's logistics supply.

The Ming army relied on this seemingly stupid method to transport logistical supplies from Hami across the Tianshan Mountains, dozens of miles away to the front line. Even if there was a heavy snowstorm and the delivery was delayed for a few days, it would not cause much trouble.

The Ming army riding camels and following the Khoshut herders seemed to be able to go without food or water for several days, but their fighting capacity did not drop at all. After dragging on and on, it was not the Ming army that was worn down first, but the herders with their families. Finally, at the southern foot of the Altai Mountains, a heavy snowfall cut off the road to the north, and also cut off the Khoshut tribe's survival. Facing the mountain road covered with snow, Tulubaihu could only sigh at the sky.

Originally, he planned to lead his entire tribe to fight and retreat, cross the Altai Mountains to rest and recuperate near Har Lake for a winter, and then take back the lost territory in the south after the spring.

Although Khar Lake belongs to the territory of the Zasaktu Khanate of Outer Khalkha Mongolia, the two sides have always had contacts and both oppose the Ming army's annexation of Inner Mongolia. They should not refuse at this moment.

However, the Wala warriors, who were best at running on the desert grassland, could not get rid of the Ming army. Now they encountered heavy snow and blocked the mountain. Crossing in such weather would almost mean death. So they led all the men in the tribe who could ride horses and hold knives to turn south and fight to the death with the Ming army that was following closely.

In ancient times, there were battles where the enemy fought to the death and finally survived. Any army that fought to the death can often demonstrate extraordinary combat effectiveness, and it is not surprising that a smaller force can defeat a larger one.

But this time the desperate fight of the Khoshut tribe did not work. In the face of muskets and field artillery, morale made no difference, and was not even as great as the impact of the wind and snow.

Facing the desperate herdsmen charging forward in the heavy snow, the Ming soldiers fired as many times as they should. They couldn't see the enemy's face or appearance clearly from a distance of 100 to 200 meters, and even couldn't see blood. They killed the enemy with a flick of their fingers, and there was no psychological burden in killing.

The Khoshut tribe was also quite ruthless. They took turns charging at the Ming army's camel formation. As one group fell, another group came up, trying desperately to carve out a way to save their families.

Unfortunately, flesh and blood are not as hard as flames and lead bullets. When the effect of adrenaline dissipated and the madness passed, seeing the corpses of their own people and the wailing wounded all over the mountains, they no longer had the courage to charge towards death.

Of the more than 30,000 men, less than 10,000 were healthy and uninjured, and nearly 100,000 old, weak, women and children were shivering in the cold wind. Most of their leaders, including Tulubaihu, known as Gushri Khan, also fell on the way to the charge.

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On the other side, the Western Army made more smooth progress. Huang Zhong sent two guards to build a fort near the pass at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains day and night, as if to store supplies for a large-scale attack. However, he himself took the two guards' army and the Inner Mongolian cavalry and attacked the Baihejian in the northwest at night.

There is a river valley running through the north and south of Tianshan Mountain, and the northern foot of the mountain is the famous Dabancheng in later generations. The leader of the Junggar army stationed here is called Duoluo, and he has another identity, the eldest son of Chashak, the Taiji of the Ordos tribe.

For more than ten years, the Ordos tribe has been living under the wings of the Junggar tribe, but their life is getting worse day by day. After all, they are outsiders, and it is not easy to live under someone else's roof. They cannot get good pastures, and their base is in the southernmost part, which means they are guarding the Junggar tribe's house.

After Chashak died four years ago, his eldest son Duoluo took over the position of the tribe leader, but he never got the approval of Batur Hun Taiji, the leader of the Junggar tribe. There are rumors that Batur Hun intends to break up the Ordos tribe and make it a group of his three sons.

(End of this chapter)