The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 348: Battle for Hetao
"Wan Sheng!"

"The Ming Dynasty will be victorious!"

Deafening cheers echoed throughout the venue.

Tang Hao, however, looked a little dazed.

The Jianzhou Jurchens disappeared from then on!
To this day, he still finds it hard to believe it.

After all, the threat from the Later Jin Dynasty, which was under the control of Ye Zhupi, troubled the Ming Dynasty for decades, until it finally replaced the corrupt Ming Dynasty!
Especially in the northern border, after the Battle of Sarhu, the army and civilians were even more afraid of the Later Jin!
The Jurchens were invincible if they were less than 10,000. This had almost become an unbreakable curse in the Ming army's miserable defeats day after day and year after year!
And now, this curse was shattered by this great victory created by Tang Hao himself!
In other words, the current Jurchens and the current Ming Dynasty have already changed because of Tang Hao's arrival.

Perhaps because he had changed history with his own hands, Tang Hao felt a little melancholy for a moment.

But soon this strange feeling was dispelled by him.

Everything he was doing now was for the purpose of reviving the Ming Dynasty, so naturally he had to change the order of the Ming Dynasty, which was constantly falling into the abyss!
So, there is nothing to hesitate about!
The Jurchens are just the first, not the last!
The leader of Mongolia's revival is now carrying out his great cause of unification!

I don’t know what’s going on in Anguo, whether he has marched into Hetao and tried to contact Yibula, Mandulai and others.

Thinking of this, Tang Hao turned his attention back to the battlefield.

After this battle, all the young and strong men of the Jianzhou Jurchens were killed, but there were still some old, weak, women and children in the tribe.

Tang Hao looked at Han Fu and said in a deep voice: "Our army will rest for three days, and then continue to sweep the Haixi Jurchens and the Wild Jurchens to the north until we meet up with Tang Mu and the Korean army!"

"The Jianzhou Jurchens are now in your hands. Exterminate all the tribes, killing everyone without leaving any trace. Send all the captured spoils and rescued civilians back to Liaodong."

Han Fu nodded solemnly.

This actually gave him an opportunity to make a contribution.

Han Fu's personal achievements would have earned him the title of nobility and appointment as prime minister long ago, but unfortunately he was never granted the title due to the suppression of civil officials and gentry!
After the Liaodong campaign ended, Han Fu would at least be awarded the title of earl.

"In addition, during the battle just now, scouts discovered that there were a large number of Mongolian cavalry scouts around the battlefield!"

"After you clean up the battlefield and exterminate the Jianzhou Jurchen tribe, send a message to all the Mongolian tribes in Liaodong to send troops to assist the Ming Dynasty in exterminating the Jurchens. Any tribe that dares to harbor the Jurchens will be exterminated by the Ming Dynasty with thunder and lightning!"

"After killing the chicken to scare the monkey this time, these Mongolian tribes will be more obedient. After we get rid of the Haixi Jurchens and the Wild Jurchens, we will turn around and come back to deal with them!"

Han Fu felt his scalp tingling and his back chilled when he heard this.

This Marquis Zhongshan of the Ming Dynasty really had a strong murderous intention towards the Jurchens. It was obvious that he wanted to completely wipe out the Jurchen tribe from the land of Liaodong and kill them all!

But Han Fu could also understand it, after all, this was a good thing that would solve the problem once and for all.

If we don't take advantage of the time when the Ming Dynasty still has strength to kill all these barbarians, after a few decades, these barbarians will recover some of their strength and Liaodong will be in turmoil again!

The Chenghua Li Ting Campaign is the best proof of this. Both times, the Jianzhou Jurchens were dealt a heavy blow, but the success was not achieved completely. As a result, since the Chenghua Campaign, Han Fu, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, has been guarding Liaodong for more than 20 years with great difficulty!
"Don't worry, Lord Tang. This time, we will definitely eradicate the problem completely!"

Hearing this, Tang Hao smiled and patted Han Fu on the shoulder, then turned his gaze towards the Hetao direction.

That is the battlefield that truly determines the fate of the Ming Dynasty!

The importance of the Hetao Plain is self-evident. If the Central Plains Dynasty occupied the Hetao Plain, it would not only have access to excellent horse farms and an agricultural base for "Jiangnan on the Great Wall", but also be able to proactively threaten the Mongolian grasslands. On the contrary, if the nomadic peoples occupied the Hetao Plain, they would have access to an excellent pasture and an outpost to threaten the Guanzhong region of the Central Plains Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty originally controlled the Hetao area. The founding generals Xu Da and Li Wenzhong eliminated the forces of Toluibe and Kong Xing who occupied the Hetao area, and drove Kuyuk Timur (Wang Baobao) to the Northern Yuan Dynasty's base camp, Karakorum, and successfully captured the Hetao Plain. Later, the imperial court set up Dongsheng Guard here to connect the guards in Ningxia and Shanxi.

After Emperor Yongle Zhu Di ascended the throne, he made a lot of adjustments to the Hongwu border defenses in order to weaken the vassal kings. The Dongsheng Guard was relocated to other areas. However, the Yongle court still maintained control over the Hetao region.

The problem arose during the reigns of Hongxi and Xuande. Adhering to the idea of ​​living a comfortable life behind closed doors, these two emperors stopped expanding the territory to the north, the northern defense line continued to shrink, and the frequency of invasions from the Mongolian tribes to the south increased significantly.

Then there was Zhu Qizhen, the "Ming Dynasty God of War", who wiped out the Ming Dynasty's elite troops in one battle and completely destroyed the Ming Dynasty's northern border defense line.

Although the defense of the capital was a victory, the severe situation on the northern border was not alleviated.

After the Oirat Grand Master Yesen was killed due to internal struggles, the Oirat fell into division and had to withdraw from the southern part of the desert. The Tatar forces took the opportunity to revive. The leader Bo called himself the Grand Master and appointed Makgurjisi, the son of the former Golden Family Khan Toghtobuha, as the little prince. It was also from then on that the Ming Dynasty began to call the Tatar Khan "little prince". At this time, the Ming Dynasty was in internal and external troubles. Zhu Qizhen also launched a "coup of seizing the gate". There was no time to take care of the Hetao. The Mongols continued to move south to invade Ningxia and Yansui. More and more tribes ran to the unattended Hetao Plain. This area with abundant water and grass undoubtedly became their new home.

After Zhu Qizhen's restoration, he was still as incompetent and stupid. The three major leaders of the Tatar tribe, Maolihai, Alochu and Boluohu, rushed into the Hetao Plain during this period and threatened the Shaanxi region. This was the first time that the Ming Dynasty lost control of the Hetao region.

Until Emperor Chenghua Zhu Jianshen ascended the throne, the most praised achievement of this rare and heroic ruler was that he took back the Hetao Plain from the Mongols.

From the beginning of the Chenghua period, the Tatar leader Maolihai repeatedly invaded Guyuan, Datong and other places through the Hetao Plain, and requested tribute from the Ming court. The Chenghua court believed that Maolihai was cunning and untrustworthy, and refused his tribute. As a result, Maolihai became angry and increased his invasion to the south, attacking Guyuan, Anding, Weizhou and other places. Because they did not capture cities and land, but robbed people and livestock and left, they were also called "Taokou" by the Ming court.

During the Chenghua period, both the emperor and his ministers advocated the implementation of the "suppression of Hetao" policy, which meant that after finding out the distribution and activities of the Mongolian tribes that had entered Hetao, they would select elite soldiers and generals to attack quickly and wipe them out completely.

Zhu Jianshen was a staunch hawkish emperor and he immediately agreed to implement the strategy of "suppressing the Mongols". He ordered the Right Deputy Censor-in-Chief Wang Yue to send troops to "suppress the Mongols". Wang Yue led two armies to attack, and although they gained a lot, the Ming army was not large enough to completely drive the Mongols out of Hetao.

In the next two or three years, people with a long-term vision kept proposing to organize an army of more than 100,000 people to "suppress the rebellion." However, due to the obstruction of civil officials and gentry, this could not be implemented.

Until the ninth year of Chenghua, the Tatar leaders Mandulu, Boluohu and Qijiasilan set out from Hetao and invaded Ningxia, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places. Wang Yue seized the opportunity to raid the Red Salt Pond where the Mongols were entrenched. He destroyed the enemy's nest and beheaded more than 300 people, winning the "Red Salt Pond Victory". Seeing the explosion of the base, several Tatar leaders quickly retreated northward and left the Hetao area. The Ming army successfully recovered the Hetao Plain. Later, the Ming army won a series of victories against the Tatars, such as the "Weininghai Victory", which severely damaged the power of the Mongolian tribes and finally controlled the Hetao again.

However, after Chenghua came the "Zhu Zhongxing". Dayan Khan revived Mongolia, but Zhu Zhongxing failed to revive the Ming Dynasty. The little prince Dayan Khan unified the area south of the desert and became a new threat to the northern border of the Ming Dynasty. His looting and raiding on the northern border of the Ming Dynasty was even more intense than during the Maolihai period.

The leader of the Mongol Restoration led his people to re-occupy the Hetao region, plundered hundreds of thousands of livestock and countless people in Gansu, and killed and looted many soldiers and border residents.

Zhu Zhongxing could no longer tolerate this, and in July of the eleventh year of the Hongzhi reign, he launched a large-scale "suppression" campaign. The funny thing was that under the control of the civil officials and gentry, the military generals and military merits were suppressed to the point that only a few were left. Zhu Zhongxing had to use the 70-year-old veteran Wang Yue, but Wang Yue was unable to achieve any results because the Ming border army had been completely useless at this moment.

What followed was Zhu Zhongxing's several "suppression" operations which were all talk and no action. His own army had no combat effectiveness at all, let alone driving the Mongols, who were at their peak, out of Hetao. The beheading of forty people was even portrayed as Zhu Zhongxing's military achievement under the whitewashing of civil officials and gentry. One can imagine how outrageous the Hongzhi court was.

Under Zhu Zhongxing, the Ming Dynasty once again lost Hetao. This is also the most obvious difference between the two great leaders of the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia. The ironclad facts are in front of us and there is nothing to argue about.

Fortunately, Mongolia is not a monolithic entity, and the risk of division has now emerged.

If An Guo can follow Tang Hao's strategy and successfully delay Dayan Khan's efforts to unify Mongolia, then the Ming Dynasty can seize the opportunity to retake Daning and Hetao and build a northern border defense line!

Tang Hao looked deeply at the direction of Hetao.

"An Guo, Wang Qiong, please don't let me down!"

At this moment, at the former site of Hongwu Dongshengwei, An Guo and Wang Qiong had already arrived here with 30,000 Beijing troops and began the city-building plan without stopping.

"quick!"

"You must act quickly!"

An Guo kept urging in a harsh voice.

Wang Qiong came to him and spoke with concern.

"General An Guo, the order from the Marquis of Zhongshan asked us to start building a 1,500-li border wall from Dingbianying (Dingbian, Shaanxi) in the west to Huangfuchuan (northeast of Fugu) in the east. The old site of Dongshengwei is not included in it!"

An Guo glanced at him coldly and said in a deep voice: "Dongshengwei's strategic location is very important. It plays an important role in connecting the Shanxi and Ningxia guards and controlling the Hetao area!"

"I, An Guo, have no say in why His Majesty the Yongle Emperor had to disband the Dongsheng Guards. But now that I, An Guo, have come here, I must restore this fortress!"

"You have only one mission, which is to lead the Japanese to cooperate with me in repairing the Dongshengwei Castle. After the castle is repaired, you will build the border wall that the Marquis mentioned!"

"General Anguo!" Wang Qiong was angry, "I have no obligation to obey your orders..."

"Only when Dongshengwei recovers and shows signs of marching into Hetao, will Yibula and Mandulai feel the pressure!"

An Guo spoke in a calm tone, giving Wang Qiong a reason that he couldn't refuse.

Finally, Wang Qiong stamped his feet angrily and roared: "Then let the soldiers repair the city together!"

Hearing this, An Guo laughed uncontrollably.

This Wang Qiong is really as the Marquis said, although he has no morals, he has great talent!
(End of this chapter)