Chapter 6                                      

After more than ten days of long journey, Zhou Mengchen finally arrived outside Datong City.

Datong City is an ancient city, with two major expansions in history. One was the Northern Wei Dynasty to build a flat city, and the other was the beginning of the Ming Dynasty when Xu Da built a Datong City. In terms of city scale and city wall height, Datong City is naturally far inferior to Beijing City, especially the Beijing City after its expansion.

However, in terms of military ease of defense and difficulty in attack, Datong is even stronger than Beijing. Nothing else, Beijing City is too big. In terms of military lies, there are many unfavorable factors. Datong City is different, it is of the right size, and there are four passes outside the city to cover four gates, so that the enemy cannot directly attack the city. Just first remove the four small cities on the periphery.

These four small cities are even more small and firm. In addition, the city echoes. If you want to capture these four passes head-on, you must die thousands or tens of thousands.

It’s a pity that no matter how powerful a city is, people still need to guard it.

Before Zhou Mengchen could enter Datong from the east gate of Datong, Datong civil and military officials, led by Datong Governor Xu Ren and Datong General Ma Fang, had already left the city to welcome him.

Especially when Xu Ren saw Zhou Mengchen, his diligence seemed to meet his reborn parents. He wanted to kneel down and let Zhou Mengchen step on his back and take off his horse.

It’s nothing more. From the 29th year of Jiajing, Datong has changed two governors. One has been imprisoned. The other is Xu Ren, who is on the way to imprisonment. After all, in this mess, Datong is a high probability of accidents. Once something happens, someone will always be responsible.

Xu In is the one who is responsible.

After all, if you really have a background, it is impossible to transfer to Datong at this time.

Xu Ren also received a transfer order. It seemed that Beijing was not easy to resettle for a while, so he placed Xu Ren in Nanjing as an elderly care official in the Nanjing Ministry of War. But for Xu Ren, this was enough. Although most of the six ministries in Nanjing were elderly care, not no one could fight from Nanjing to Beijing. It was just sitting on the bench for a while. But if you stay in Datong, you might be asked to go to someone else.

So Xu Ren basically didn't say anything about handover. He finished it all in one day. Then he was like he was burning his butt, and he didn't sit in a sedan chair, rode his horse and followed him immediately towards Beijing. It seemed as if there was an evil ghost chasing him behind him.

Zhou Mengchen sighed. If he had not been in the capital for so many years, he could find supporters from the emperor, cabinet, military department, and even nobles. Zhou Mengchen would not dare to take on this mess. He simply did not want to die before he could succeed. But now, Zhou Mengchen thought he could give it a try.

Zhou Mengchen first met Ma Fang, and dozens of generals under Ma Fang, all of whom met. Xu Wei and the prefects and magistrates below all met. Then he looked at the stall left by the former governor carefully.

How many soldiers are there in Datong? The quota for the imperial court allocated about one million yuan. However, this quota is a statistics after all the food, grass and materials are discounted. Otherwise, based on the internal management level of the Ming Dynasty, I only need to list various annual regulations of Datong Town to complete this chapter.

How many soldiers can this million tael support?

Fifty thousand cavalrymen.

This is the Datong Iron Cavalry that Zhou Shangwen relied on to compete with Altan. Of course, he often dissatisfied the amount. On the one hand, the money allocated by the court may not be sufficient in the hands of Zhou Shangwen. Secondly, it is the loss of war. Zhou Shangwen did not know that Shang was not too bad than indiscriminate. So he often dissatisfied the amount. Of course, there are also the money that Zhou Shangwen intercepted. To be honest, Zhou Shangwen was not innocent. Otherwise, how could Zhou Shangwen raise the four hundred personal soldiers? How could he pay the pensions for many soldiers?

Many times, except Hai Rui, there are not many people who do things in the Datong rules and regulations, who are really honest officials. Even Zhou Mengchen may not be without stains.

But don’t think that Datong has no other force except these 50,000 cavalry. Then you underestimate it. Datong also has fourteen guards under its jurisdiction. One guard is calculated based on 5,600 people. This is as many as 78,000 people. Unfortunately, there are more waste in the Beijing camp, and the more waste in the garrisons in various places.

These people can only let them guard the city. Don’t count on others.

Don't even go to count how many people there are in the garage.

As for money and food, Zhou Mengchen turned over the account book and still had 500,000 stones of food. It seemed a lot, but it was military food. It was to pay the soldiers. Although Datong is now in short supply, there are still 10,000 or 20,000 people. According to the level, each soldier received one stone or several buckets per month. With this calculation, the army can still last for a period of time. But the question is, what should the people do?

If the people of Datong are really starved to death, Zhou Mengchen would not be able to sit idly by. Just talking about one thing, population is the foundation of everything.

Although Datong has been ravaged by the Tartars, several southern states have not suffered military attacks. There are generally some deaths and injuries among the people in various places. Zhou Mengchen did not go to read the yellow list, because the yellow list was useless at all. Many of the data were from the Yongle period. It was useless.

However, according to this number, Zhou Mengchen, four prefectures, six counties and 14 guards, combined with the large-scale population reduction events such as wars and chaos in history books, and combined with the natural population growth rate. The final conclusion was that the total number of men and women in Datong town was around one million.

Of course, Zhou Mengchen also knew that this number was not very accurate. It was just a rough estimate.

But this is probably enough.

Zhou Mengchen said intimately: "I don't believe it. Even if the Tartars are added, it is only hundreds of thousands more than this number. I can't defeat the Tartars with one country." Of course, Zhou Mengchen's idea cannot be declared now, so as not to others say he is arrogant. However, this idea has been deeply rooted in Zhou Mengchen's heart. After all, it is the era of great navigation. Spain and Portugal can become the world overlord with millions of their own population. How could Zhou Mengchen not suppress the Tartars by almost the same population as the Tartars?

It’s just that ideas are ideas. Things still have to be done step by step.

Zhou Mengchen passed the information and knew it. Then he summoned Xu Wei and Ma Fang.

Zhou Mengchen first asked Ma Fang and said, "Give me the truth. How many soldiers can be fought in Datong now? What I want is the kind of army that can have a head-on confrontation between the Tartars. It is not the people used to defend the city."

After all, Zhou Mengchen's innovation in firearms made the cannons more durable and greatly reduced the difficulty of defending the city. Even some people who had not trained in Datong, as long as they had enough firearms and gunpowder, they would be enough to defend the city. For Zhou Mengchen, it would be no difficulty to give up control of the wilderness of Datong and guard the city carefully.

This is not what he wants at all.

Ma Fang said, "Please forgive me, the Datong Army suffered heavy losses. I have used it for more than half a year, but I have regained five thousand old soldiers. Now there are five thousand new soldiers in training. There are about ten thousand elite cavalry to use this fall."

Zhou Mengchen said coldly: "If Xin Ai makes a big move south this year, how should you deal with it?"

When Zhou Mengchen asked, Ma Fang was anxious to sweat on his forehead. He could only kneel down and said, "The general can only bring his troops to entangle with the Tartars, and cannot confront each other head-on. He can entangle as long as he can."

Zhou Mengchen said, "You are also the old man brought out by General Zhou. If he is still here, what is your attitude when he hears you say this?"

Ma Fang's face turned red. If Zhou Mengchen scolded him, he wouldn't feel anything. But when Ma Fang heard Zhou Mengchen talk about Zhou Shangwen, he couldn't stand it anymore. Although Zhou Shangwen did not formally accept Ma Fang as his disciple, if it really comes to mention it, Ma Fang's martial arts may have been learned from the fight. However, how to fight was followed by Zhou Shangwen. He did not have the name of a master and a disciple, but it was the reality of a master and a disciple.

Ma Fang slapped himself twice, without any restraint. The slap made his cheeks swollen, and said, "Mo Jiang is incompetent. But Mo Jiang really has no choice." His voice trembled, and he seemed to have a little crying.

A man doesn’t cry easily, but he hasn’t reached the sad place.

Ma Fang is a native of Datong. He has endured the suffering of the Tartars and has been fighting on the front line of fighting against the Tartars. It can be said that no one hates the Tartars more than him, has more pain in his skin, and wants to defend Datong more.

Unfortunately, Ma Fang is an excellent general, but the current situation is indeed beyond Ma Fang's ability.
Chapter completed!