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Chapter 961 The Bear is Coming 2
As soon as Sun Yuanhua finished speaking, a man wearing the robes of a first-rank official stood up beside him. He had three long wisps of beard neatly trimmed, and he looked handsome and gentle. But his speech was not at all gentle, and every sentence was full of gunpowder.

When Wang Zaijin, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War, turned 65, he submitted his resignation in accordance with the Ming Dynasty law and went home to enjoy his grandchildren. According to the order, the left assistant minister should have taken over, but Xiong Tingbi was only two years younger than Wang Zaijin and would have to retire in two years, so the emperor simply let the younger right assistant minister Wang Jiazhen take over.

This top scholar, who had been passionate about military affairs since childhood, worked in the Ministry of War for 24 years. He mostly read books and played chess with people. It sounds like he was not doing his job properly, was lazy and had no ambition, but in fact he was constantly recharging himself.

Most of the books he read were about modern science, including military manuals and analysis of battle examples of the army and navy, as well as European military works. The chess he played was not an ordinary game, but a sand table simulation specifically for military purposes, and his opponents were all staff officers.

Now his attainments in mathematics, geometry and physics are no worse than those of the confidential staff officers in the General Staff. His belly is full of naval and army battle examples over the years, and his knowledge of military theory is more solid than that of most staff officers.

His only shortcoming is that he has never participated in actual combat, otherwise he would be no worse than Tan Mingming as the Chief of the General Staff. He is a master of paper tactics and has a good sense of the overall situation, or strategic vision.

"Chief of Staff Tan, Minister Wang, why did the Russians come all the way here to cause trouble? The pastures of the three Outer Khalkha tribes have already reached the North Sea. The land further north can only be cultivated for two or three months each year. What's the point of getting it?"

The next person to speak was a senior official of the first rank, not very tall, with gray hair and beard, dark yellow complexion, and a thin face. He looked listless and had little energy, and it was obvious that he was not in good health.

If it is said that the biggest help to Emperor Jingyang after he took power came from Li Zhi, Yuan Keli and Yuan Yingtai, no one in the court would object. But there is another person who was also a great contributor to the smooth implementation of the new policy, and no one would deny it. He is the Governor-General of Nanyang, Zuo Guangdou.

From Fujian to Guangdong and then to Luzon, Zuo Guangdou served the court in the border areas for more than 20 years. He never made any major mistakes in the places he governed, and the economy developed very fast. He also trained a large number of young officials and clerks for the new policies.

As a frontier official, he never lost the emperor's trust. If he had not contracted typhoid fever during his inspection in Annan, he would probably have spent the rest of his life as the Governor-General of Nanyang.

Although he finally saved his life by eating cinchona bark, his body was ruined by the disease. The emperor could not bear to watch the old meritorious official die in office, so he transferred him back to the capital and still entrusted him with an important task, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate.

Utilizing his rich experience in local governance, he reselected a group of young censors and assigned them to various places to perform supervisory duties to continue to protect the Ming Empire.

"...According to the reports regularly sent back by the Russian ambassador, the Tsar and his ministers have not mentioned any intention of invading the east in the past six months. Could it be that the Tushetu Khanate has made a mistake?"

If you want to answer Zuo Guangdou's question, you can't just rely on assumptions, you must have solid evidence. Yang Sichang, the Minister of Rites, had to stand up and answer. The current Ministry of Rites has an additional function, which is to send envoys to various countries, regularly receive their reports, and organize and classify them for archiving, so that detailed evidence can be provided when needed.

"According to the information obtained by the Army General Staff, the Russians have been slowly expanding eastwards, not in the name of the country, but in the name of armed expeditions. They usually interact with the various ethnic groups passing by under the pretext of purchasing furs, and also build some forts along the way.

It's just that due to language problems, we are temporarily unable to figure out their specific route, scale and location of their fortresses. In order not to provoke the three Outer Khalkha tribes, especially the Zasaktu Khanate, the Army is not in a position to send a large number of people to the north for field investigation. "Faced with the questioning of the Ministry of Rites, Tan Mingming took out a stack of files from the General Staff from his briefcase, which recorded the information about Russia collected by the Army Statistics Department over the years. At the same time, he also explained the reasons why further confirmation was not possible.

"The expedition team alone can control part of the Oirat to invade the east. The Mongols are not that easy to deal with, right?" However, Tan Mingming's answer did not satisfy everyone present. The Tongzhengshi Xiong Wencan raised another doubt.

"Are the Mongols strong? Emperor Taizu drove away the Mongols and founded the Ming Dynasty. The current emperor also defeated Ligdan Khan and made the Mongolian tribes in the south of the desert submit. The Mongolia of today is no longer the Mongolia of Genghis Khan hundreds of years ago, otherwise the Russians might still be vassals of the Golden Horde.

According to information collected by the General Staff, the Russian Empire successively annexed the Khanate of Kazan, the Khanate of Astrakhan and the Khanate of Siberia, which split from the Golden Horde, and moved eastward to the Ob River Basin...this river.

During the annexation of these three khanates, the Russians did not use too many troops, the largest number of which was no more than a thousand people. Most of them were a group of militiamen, called Cossack cavalry, who were very good at cavalry combat and the use of muskets and artillery.

The Crimean Khanate, which is the only remaining state, would probably have ceased to exist if it had not become a vassal of the Ottoman Empire and received protection.”

Tan Mingming has his own opinion on this issue, which is divided into different time periods. In the war mode hundreds of years ago, the Mongolian cavalry was indeed very powerful, but with the continuous improvement of muskets and artillery, the power of the cavalry has been greatly reduced.

The eastward advance of the Russians also indirectly illustrates his point. Over the years, craftsmen and ambassadors stationed in the Russian Empire have sent back a large amount of relevant information via Dutch merchant ships, including descriptions of the Cossack cavalry.

"Ahem... I understand what you all mean. Most of what you said hits the point. It's very good, insightful, and necessary! But there are some omissions and incomplete details that need further explanation.

The eastward expansion of the Russian Empire was not the first choice of the Tsar and the nobles, but was forced. Let's take a look at the map... Here is the Russian Empire, here is the Kingdom of Sweden, here is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and here is the Ottoman Empire.

Did you notice, my dear ministers? The Russian Empire occupied a large area of ​​land, but it did not have a good access to the sea. The Baltic coast was occupied by the Kingdom of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Black Sea in the south was firmly controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

To become a powerful country, access to the sea and good ports are essential. However, given the current strength of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire are not easily defeated by it.

The Port of Arkhangelsk is located in the cold Arctic Ocean, which is frozen for seven months each year and is completely unable to meet the needs of maritime trade. If we want to break through geographical restrictions, the only possible direction is to go east.

In addition to high-quality furs, there may also be suitable outlets to the sea in the east, so exploring eastward is inevitable. If everything goes well, then keep going eastward. If you encounter a strong enemy, there will be no big loss, so why not give it a try?
The Cossacks are not an ethnic group, but a special group of armed refugees. Their relationship with the Russian Empire is more like that of mercenaries. As for their combat effectiveness, I have not seen it with my own eyes, so I have no way to judge. "

(End of this chapter)