New Shun 1730

The place chosen by the emperor for "Zhi Gan Qi Wu" was a Russian castle near Hulunbuir grassland, between the Ergun River and the Hailar River.

The place Liu Yu wanted to lead people to investigate was a bit far away. Considering that the Luosha people were unlikely to have field troops, he only brought more than 80 people.

Hulunbuir grassland is an excellent grassland, but the area near the Ergun River is now almost uninhabited.

Too many things happened in the late Ming and early Shun years.

The eastward expansion of Russian Empire, the eastward invasion of Junggar, and the capture of Daur and Solon people by the Later Jin to supplement the troops resulted in few people on this fertile grassland.

Either they fled south to avoid Russian Empire; or they went east to the Nenjiang and Songhua River basins; or they were captured by the Later Jin to supplement the Eight Banners and died on the battlefield inside the pass.

Dashun also tried to station some people here in the early days, but the Little Ice Age had not passed at that time, and it was really impossible to harvest the crops.

The frost-free period was too short, and often there was a frost before the crops grew.

Li Guo was probably misled by some books in his previous life. He was possessed by Khrushchev and thought that corn was a divine grain that could be planted anywhere. He followed his legacy and didn't even get half a corn cob.

The Daur people are a small number of ethnic groups that grow grain in the Heilongjiang River Basin and the Outer Northeast. Dashun also tried to station troops here using the modified Fubing system in the Songhua River Basin.

But for several years, the people sent to station there were united, cooked the grain seeds and planted them in the fields, and reported a total crop failure every year.

They were not stupid, and they didn't want to guard the border in such a bitter and cold place at all. If they had a total crop failure for years, the court would have asked them to go to a warmer place earlier.

It wasn't until someone reported it later that the court knew about the boiled seeds.

But it was only dealt with slightly, and no one was killed. This incident also made the court clear that people's hearts were unreliable. If they had to force them to station here, something would happen sooner or later.

Later, they tried it. Even if they didn't cook the seeds, they often planted one and harvested two. At that time, there was still war in the country, so they finally gave up.

In recent years, the weather has gradually warmed up, and the country has been recuperating for a long time. The court finally has money and people. In addition, Russian rye has been introduced here, and potatoes can be grown here. Finally, they can try to control this place.

It is okay to roam on this grassland, but without border troops stationed here, the court is not at ease with those Mongolian tribes.

Taking advantage of the eastward expansion of Tsarist Russia, some tribes moved south and east. If they can control the Hulunbuir grassland at this time, on the one hand, they can imitate the feudal system in the south of the desert and change nomadism to settled pasture; on the other hand, they can also settle and divide some Mongolian tribes in this grassland. Such a good grassland will be distributed to whoever is obedient.

Of course, the premise is that there must be a garrison here.

Even if it still cannot grow enough food, even if it has to transport food from the Songhua River and the Nen River every year, the court has made up its mind to station troops.

Spending less money here may cost more in the future. After the previous dynasty shrank its borders, even cities like Datong might be harassed and massacred, which is still a loss. The lessons of the previous dynasty must be learned.

We must learn from the lessons of our dynasty. We cannot send Daur people and local people as the main force. We must recruit soldiers from the inland to guard the border, so that they are unfamiliar with the place and have nowhere to run.

Although the people who came with Liu Yu were not from the inland, it was the first time for them to see such a prairie. Once they passed the Xing'an Mountains, they were all dumbfounded.

The phrase "the wind blows the grass low and the cattle and sheep are seen" that almost everyone can recite almost instantly flooded into everyone's mind. There was really no other phrase that could better describe everything they saw.

The white clouds seemed to be dyed by the blue sky, and they could squeeze out blue water. The half-human-high grassland stretched to the horizon, and the river was like a painting pasted on the grassland, which felt like it could be wiped off with a touch of the hand.

"This place has good horses."

Du Feng and other frontier army soldiers couldn't help but praise it, and ran to the river to let the horses' hooves step out waves of ripples, destroying a static painting.

These young frontier soldiers, whose hometowns are Shandong, Henan, Jingzhou, or southern Hunan, have never left the picturesque Nurgandusi since they were born.

Even the most beautiful paintings are boring. Occasionally, when they hear their families talking about their hometowns, they feel as if they are thousands of miles away.

The Celestial Empire is huge, with different landscapes, but in the eyes of these people, they are all unimaginable scenes.

It's like hearing people talk about white and black, square and round jars, and cold snow that makes people sweat... I have never seen it, so how can I imagine it?

Liu Yu rode his horse to the middle of the group of people. While drinking water, he asked with a smile: "You have never seen such a grassland, have you?"

Du Feng smiled and sighed: "Don't be afraid of adults laughing at you. There are many things I haven't seen."

"The temple fairs in the capital, the dragon boats in the south of the Yangtze River, the Yangguan Pass in the northwest, the gardens in the southeast... I have never seen these things I have heard of in books. When I was a child, I read poems about plum blossoms, and I wondered what plum blossoms look like?"

"My friends argued about it. Some said it looked like hawthorn flowers, and some said it looked like cherry flowers. Some said that plum blossoms and plums are the same thing. The green plums in the "green plum wine discussion about heroes" are actually the fruits of plum blossoms..."

Speaking of this, the others also asked some strange questions.

"Sir, I've heard that oranges grown in the south of the Huai River are called oranges. What do oranges look like?"

"Sir, do bamboo shoots taste similar to radishes?"

"Have you ever seen lotus flowers and lotus roots?"

"Have you ever seen green plums?"

"Have you ever seen bamboo?"

"Have you ever eaten peaches? Are peaches as delicious as mountain reds?"

"Does the lotus pod look like a reed club?"

These sad-sounding questions caused Liu Yu to laugh deliberately.

He flicked the whip, drawing a ripple of water, and said with a smile: "Want to see? Easy. Perform well and make great contributions."

"After the battle, I will not only take you to see the Dragon Boat Garden Temple Fair in Yangguan, cook a bowl of green plums, eat two kilograms of peaches... maybe, I will also take you to see the Fusang sacred tree that is as tall as a pine tree, without leaves and covered with thorns; to see the emu in the Classic of Mountains and Seas; to touch the snow in places further south than Guangdong; to see the Colosseum built by Westerners with stones."

He pulled the reins, letting the horse kick up a pile of water to wash these people's faces, and turned around to the group of soldiers who seemed to be dumbfounded and said: "You asked me so many questions, so I will ask you a question too. We raised the uprising army to protect the world. Everyone says the world, the world, what is the world? What is the world to protect?"

In the silence and hesitation of a group of people, Jiao Laobutu thought of something and tentatively replied.

"Even if you have never seen an orange, you know that oranges grow in Huainan; even if you can't imagine what plums look like, you will be so heroic that you will think of brewing wine with green plums; even if you think that lotus flowers look like reed mallets, you will still think of the lotus-picking girls singing fishermen's songs and shuttling through the lotus fields at night. Where there are people who think like this, there is no world?"

"Hahaha..." Liu Yu laughed loudly, pulled up the reins, crossed the stream, and shouted: "Peaches are delicious, green plums are not plum fruits, and lotus pods don't look like mallets."

"In this situation, I want to recite a poem and sing to express my feelings."

On Hainan Island, flowers are already in full bloom;

On both sides of the Yangtze River, willow branches have just sprouted;

In Daxing'anling, snowflakes are still flying;

Ah, it's so fucking big, but it's not big enough!

A group of people laughed and shouted: "Sir, you should just focus on fighting. You call this poetry?"

"Let's go, follow you to do meritorious deeds. In the future, we will eat peaches and see emus..."

The horses' hooves flew, crossing the stream, whips raised, a group of people stepped on the grass and ran towards the northwest.

…………

Near the Luosha Fortress on the Ergun River, Du Feng led a few people on horseback, showing off his horsemanship outside the maximum range of the Luosha Castle's muskets, and shouting a sentence of Russian that Liu Yu taught them to the city.

"Sukabulie!"

A Russian translator who came with Liu Yu shouted into the room: "Your female tsar is a Polish soldier chicken. When your tsar saw her, she was already pregnant, but your Peter likes pregnant women..."

The Cossacks in the city laughed and didn't care at all. Someone shouted: "Tell me more details!"

"Tell me some details!"

"Louder! I can't hear you! You still want to tell a story in such a low voice?"

"The voice of the woman selling eggs in Cherkassk is louder than yours!"

Despite such insults, the Cossacks in the city did not come out. The officers maintained order in the city and asked those Cossacks who wanted to hear the story to shut up quickly, but there were still Cossacks standing on the low wall with their ears pricked up.

There were not many people outside the city, but the officers had already known some things that happened in the east and strictly restrained these Cossacks from attacking outside the city.

The surrounding wheat fields had been harvested. Although they were not fully mature, they could still be used as horse feed. The nearby wooden houses were also burned down, and the shooting range had been cleared.

The Cossacks in the city knew that they might have to fight a hard battle, but they still found joy in the hardship.

They were ordered to hold on. Reinforcements might come or not. If they didn't come, they would surrender. Killing more people would earn them the qualification to surrender decently and hand over their weapons with conditions.

It was difficult for Liu Yu to judge how many people were in the city, so he could only roughly draw the outline of the outer city.

He asked someone to dig a few shovels of soil, tested the soil quality here, and used a telescope to observe the outer defense of Luosha Castle.

The soil here is relatively easy to dig. There is a layer of grass roots that are difficult to dig on it, and under the grass roots is thick soil.

Perhaps to guard against Mongolian riders, the city was built a little higher, which was wrong in the gunpowder era, but for the Mongolian tribes that were short of gunpowder and had no cannons at all, it was effective to adapt to local conditions.

There were several cannons hidden in the bastion in the distance, but it was impossible to tell. We could only wait for the army to arrive in a few days and use a hot air balloon to observe from a high altitude.

After circling twice and drawing the outer structure of this simple bastion, Liu Yu laughed and said, "It's just this broken thing, isn't it easy to capture it? It can only bully the nearby tribes that don't even have a thousand-jin cannon."

"You said that it has only been a few years since the Onon River Alliance? Now that the Onon River has been lost, it's really... the era of grassland nomads is really over."

Jiao Laobutu also agreed with this, pointing to the grassland in the distance and said, "In the future, as long as the country builds some such forts along the line, not too many, the Mongolian tribes should not dare to have any dissent, right?"

"Well, about the same. It depends on whether the court is willing to spend money. In the final analysis, it depends on how this battle goes. If it goes well, the Khalkha Mongols will be impressed by the military power, and they will help with the repairs. It is not expensive to spend some money to bribe the upper echelons. Military power is not a long-term solution. I don't know how the court will deal with it."

Unfolding the map "given" by Bering, Liu Yu said with a sigh: "Right now, it's just a few boring sieges. If this city is taken down, there will be no big battles later."

Jiao Laobutu was puzzled and asked: "Will Luosha send reinforcements?"

"Where to send? Duke Qi is leading his people to negotiate with Luosha. If this fort is easy to attack, Luosha people are afraid that Duke Qi will capture the fort near Lake Baikal. In order to show the power of the country, Duke Qi brought the guards to the border for negotiations. It is hard to say whether they can fight or not, but at least they look energetic. Since the attack here is strong, they dare not send troops here. If there are too few people, it is useless; if there are too many people, they are afraid of Duke Qi's sneak attack. Luosha can only gather 3,000 mobile troops here, right? The court built post stations, grain ships, and stored grain five years in advance for today's battle. They can't win in a field battle even if they are deliberate or unintentional."

"If they can't win in a field battle, they can only disperse to defend the city... Just think about the old things in Liaodong."