The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 354 What is that?
Dongsheng City.

Half a month has passed since Wang Qiong built the city. The steel city designed by Zhongshan Hou Tang Hao himself has gradually demonstrated its unparalleled advancement, an advancement that is beyond common sense!
On the foundation of the original Yulin City, the craftsmen only needed to flatten the buildings above, lay hollow cement bricks to strengthen the foundation, and then began the construction of the steel city wall.

There is no need to say much about cement, and hollow bricks have many advantages. First, it can save materials. Second, it can speed up the brick-making process. Third, it has high strength and good thermal insulation and sound insulation properties.

In addition to these two things, there is also the high-quality steel that is continuously shipped from the Ming Dynasty’s No. 1 iron smelter in Jizhou, northern Zhili!

All major ironworks in the Ming Dynasty were reformed according to the model of Laiwu Ironworks. Not only did the iron smelting capacity increase significantly, but the quality of the steel produced was also intoxicating.

The design drawings of Dongsheng City were provided by Zhongshan Hou Tang Hao himself.

The reason is that the previous border wall castles were too fragile.

The Mongols were a nomadic people who lived wherever there was water and grass. They often fought over lush pastures and developed a warlike and tyrannical character. They made a living by looting and regarded it as a glory for warriors.

But precisely because of this, successive dynasties in the Central Plains had never conquered the grasslands, and had never completely wiped out the barbarians on the northern grasslands.

If you win, they will ride away on horseback and dive into the vast grassland, making it impossible to find or catch them. Or, if other tribes come to occupy the grassland soon, what should you do? Keep fighting.

However, the people of the Central Plains mainly rely on farming, and the grassland pastures cannot grow any food except raising cattle and horses, so they are of no other use to the Central Plains dynasty!

If we lose the war, it will be a catastrophic disaster for the Chinese people, like the tragedies of the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China and the Migration of the Chinese to the South!

The clothes and hats turned into dogs and sheep, and the country fell into the hands of the barbarians!
In short, when these grassland peoples became strong, they would launch large-scale invasions; when they became weak, they would flee thousands of miles away.

Even if the young and strong men of their tribe were killed, they would develop again after a few decades, just like the Tatar tribe led by Dayan Khan now, with a tenacious and terrifying vitality that is terrifying!

In those days, Emperor Yongle led the army to fight the Tatars five times, known as the "Six Flights and Five Crossings". He defeated the Tatars and the Oirat, who took advantage of the situation to rise. He then led a large army to fight the Oirat, who suffered heavy losses. The Tatars rose again, and Emperor Yongle sent troops to fight the Tatars again. As a result, Zhu Di fought for his entire life, but still failed to permanently pacify the grasslands.

The first was in the eighth year of Yongle, when the Ming army defeated 50,000 Mongolian cavalry in the Feiyun Mountain Battle, and the Tatars in the Mongolian headquarters paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty; the second was in the twelfth year of Yongle, when the Ming army defeated the Oirat leader Mahamu who was defending the dangerous place in Hulanhushiwen (now southeast of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) and chased him to the Tula River, but Mahamu escaped. The defeat of the Oirat was announced to the world by Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty.

The third time was in the 20th year of Yongle, when Chengzu led his army from Beijing to personally attack the Mongolian Arutai army. The Ming army marched northeast through Kaiping and discovered a large amount of baggage of Arutai's army in Kuoluanhai North Road. They sent troops to burn it and collected their livestock before returning.

The fourth time was in the 21st year of Yongle, when Chengzu again personally led an expedition against Arutai. Upon hearing that Arutai was defeated by the Oirat, the army stayed put and did not advance.

The fifth time was in the 22nd year of Yongle, when the Tatars invaded the border and Zhu Di organized the fifth Northern Expedition.

The Ming Dynasty paid a huge price for this, consuming countless manpower, material resources and financial resources, which led to financial difficulties and the decline of people's livelihood. The people have suffered from war for a long time.

However, after Yongle, Renzong and Xuanzong did not pursue long-term strategies, and the Oirat Mongols rose to power, until the "Tumu Disaster" broke out.

After all, it is impossible to completely wipe out the barbarians on the grassland.

Moreover, these grassland tribes would take turns to rest and recuperate, and then invade the south, causing great headaches for the Central Plains regime.

The external threat from the northern border has always been an extremely difficult problem for the Central Plains regime!

Unless, the living space of the barbarians on the grassland can be compressed.

Wang Qiong also looked at the scene in astonishment.

In the crazy forging city, hundreds of thousands of craftsmen and laborers took turns, and the dense fires in the furnaces did not go out all night. These simple and lovely craftsmen used the hammers in their hands to forge a miracle one hammer at a time!
"Lord Jinglu, isn't this too...extravagant?"

Wang Qiong looked at An Guo and couldn't help but ask.

Just for the sake of Hetao, the imperial court spent so much manpower, material resources and financial resources to build Dongsheng City into a steel city. This was really difficult to understand for Wang Qiong, who was born as a civil official.

An Guo shook his head seriously.

“Nothing is wasted.”

"This steel city will become a solid fortress for our army, and it is the basis for our army to continue to advance into the depths of the grassland!"

"As long as our army stands firm in Hetao, and then builds concrete bastions one by one according to the plan, and advances step by step in an orderly manner, these concrete bastions will play an important role in resisting foreign enemies!"

"A steel city, coupled with densely packed concrete bastions, is constantly squeezing the living space of these barbarians in the Hetao Plain until they are completely driven out of the Hetao Plain!"

"Lord Wang, do you think that the military expenditure for the Nine Frontiers is more expensive, or the cost of building these steel cities and concrete bastions is more expensive?"

This principle is actually easy to understand.

What Tang Hao and An Guo are doing now is a permanent solution!

As long as the Hetao Plain is occupied by the barbarians of the grassland, they can use it as a springboard to plunder the nine border military towns of the Ming Dynasty at will. The Ming Dynasty will have to pay a heavy price for this and pay high military expenses for the nine borders every year to ensure that the military and civilians of the nine borders can guard the country's borders!

However, the problem is that these military expenditures are not static, but are increasing year by year!

A country's strength will always be exhausted. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, a full 80% of the court's fiscal revenue was used for military expenditures. You can imagine what a terrible number this is!

For a dynasty as big as this, there is more to it than guarding the border. How can people's livelihood be improved?

How to resettle the disaster victims?

Without money and food, all this is just empty talk and the court is powerless.

The final result, of course, was a surge in refugees, mobs gathering to riot, and uprisings...and the collapse of the dynasty!
In order to avoid this hopeless consequence, the Ming Dynasty has no choice but to reduce military spending, or reduce the occurrence of wars. Therefore, it must take advantage of the current Mongolian civil war to recapture strategic locations such as Daning and Hetao and rebuild the northern border defense line!
Wang Qiong figured this out and couldn't help but sigh.

"Marquis Tang and Your Majesty are truly far-sighted!"

"Stop sighing, we have a 'guest'!"

An Guo chuckled, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

I saw a group of cavalry appearing on the plain not far away.

When the 5,000 cavalry led by Grieg Luo and his sons and grandsons arrived, everyone stared at the scene in front of them in a daze and fell into shock for a long time!

Tens of thousands of Ming people are building an extremely ferocious steel behemoth like densely packed ants. What makes them most desperate is that the steel wall in front of Dongsheng City is actually three meters high and is full of sharp weapons flashing with sharp light!
"This is impossible!"

Gregory reined in his horse and cried out in surprise, suddenly feeling a strange feeling in his heart that he had not experienced in many years.

This feeling is called fear!
With a sinister look on his face, he rode his horse to the side of the eagle trainer, whipped him to the ground with a whip, and shouted at him: "Asshole! Didn't you say they just started building the city ten days ago?"

The eagle tamer was filled with grief and indignation, and shouted angrily: "That's right! They really only started building the city three days ago!"

"Then tell me, where did this city come from?!"

It took ten days to build the city, including the travel time, which was only about half a month. Yet, a steel city was completed. How the hell is this possible?

He raised the whip to hit his grandson, but Griekala grabbed the whip.

In the puzzled eyes of his children and grandchildren, Glehao Luo frowned and shook his head, explaining: "The hunting eagle will not lie, and there is no need for him to deceive us!"

"We should be thankful that they only built the northern wall. The east and west sides are still blank!"

Upon hearing this, the children and grandchildren's eyes flashed with cruelty and they nodded heavily!

Duoyan warriors never fear fighting!

No matter how powerful the enemy is, they will be torn to pieces!
Because they are the favorites of Changshengtian!
They are blessed by Eternal Heaven!

What’s more, we must never let the Ming people succeed in building the city!
They are not stupid!
If this giant steel beast before their eyes spreads across the entire Hetao Ranch, or even the entire grassland, that would be the end of their grassland cavalry!

Apart from surrender, there is only one way to go, and that is death!

Glehalaluo turned his horse and led 5,000 cavalrymen straight to the east of the city.

Because there is a blank space there!
Because that will be the breakthrough point for them to enter the city and massacre!

Even if there might be defenders, the weak two-legged sheep could only flee like sheep in front of their sharp scimitars and be slaughtered!

Seeing the actions of the three guards of Duoyan, the smile on An Guo's face instantly disappeared, and he said with a ferocious and sinister smile: "Since you are here, don't even think about leaving!"

"These five thousand elite cavalry should be the elite force of the three Wuliangha guards. We have long wanted to kill these traitors, but we didn't expect them to come to us on their own initiative!"

To be honest, no Ming people liked the Three Guards of Doyan for their rebellious and despicable behavior, and everyone hated them.

The Ming Dynasty even distributed food aid to the Wuliangha tribe when they were looted and massacred by the Tatars, but these bastards turned around and became friends with the Oirat Mongols, repaying their kindness with enmity.

When the Oirat Grand Master Yesen broke into the Great Wall, these bastards were his guides. It was because of their ability to spy on the strength of the Ming Dynasty's border defenses that Yesen was able to break into the Great Wall so smoothly and deal a fatal blow to the Ming Dynasty!
Moreover, over the years, the three Wuliangha guards have frequently looted and harassed the nine border military towns of the Ming Dynasty and massacred the people of the Ming Dynasty. They have committed numerous crimes.

"You still have to be careful."

Wang Qiong said in a deep voice: "The Tatars will definitely not sit idly by, but we haven't found them yet, so we can't reveal all our cards!"

"We must win this battle, but it will be a hard victory. It will be a long and fierce battle. Give the Tatars enough time!"

What time?
It’s time for nature to strike!

However, Zhongshan Hou gave the task, which was to try to contact Yibula on the right wing of Mongolia, and then support him to continue fighting with Dayan Khan.

A Mongolia mired in endless civil war would be most beneficial to the Ming Dynasty.

Because the Ming Dynasty also needs time now, Marquis Zhongshan is managing Liaodong and planning for Daning!
What the two of them have to do is to plan slowly and steadily for the Hetao area!

(End of this chapter)