Chapter 33                                                                                                                             �

Zhou Mengchen grabbed a handful of weeds from the top of the city and said, "No need to say, I know."

His eyes swept over the surrounding area of ​​the Khahukou, and the mountains on both sides of the Khahukou were connected. However, this is the remnant of Yinshan Mountain. The mountain is not tall, and it is definitely not a kind of mountain that is difficult to cross. Zhou Mengchen looked at the slope, so it should not be too difficult to climb the mountain, so the Great Wall was built along the mountain.

Be with the mountains, it becomes a line of defense.

It is useless to just guard the killing of Hukou. The Tartars only need to send elite troops to cross the mountains to surround the killing of Hukou.

Instead of doing this, it’s better to send someone to inspect.

But Zhou Mengchen was really unwilling to give up. He looked at the winding road outside the Khahukou and was rushed out by Rabbit Maochuan. The outside of the pass was not a big grassland, but a continuous mountain. This road was more like a passage to split the mountains.

Zhou Mengchen asked, "This is the Yellow River?"

Ma Jin said: "Walking along here, not far away is the old city of Yulinwei, then the old city of Zhenluwei, and then the Yellow River."

Zhou Mengchen said: "Yulinwei Old City?"

Ma Jin said: "At that time, Taizu built acropolis outside the border, but later he could not support it. It seemed that during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, they moved to the pass, so the Yulin Guard was in the same city as the Datong Right Guard, and the Zhenlu Guard was in the same city as the Tiancheng Guard."

Zhou Mengchen suddenly said to Yin Zhengmao: "Brother Yin, I understand what Mr. Xu said."

Yin Zhengmao said, "What do you mean?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "A country like our Ming Dynasty has always had internal affairs that are more important than foreign affairs. Because the affairs of the court have always been done by our own people to attract foreign enemies."

Zhou Mengchen only looked at it a little bit and could confirm it. Although the Great Wall defense system has not been repaired for many years, overall, in terms of grasping key points and overall control, it also shows the military attainments of the original builders. You must know that the Datong Town defense system was created by Xu Da and Li Wenzhong, and later added by countless famous generals.

I dare not say it is indestructible.

However, with Zhou Mengchen's shallow military knowledge, he could not see anything wrong.

As long as the court had enough troops to fill the entire defense system, the Tartars would never go south easily. But now, the Great Wall of Thousand Miles is empty. I don’t know how many generals worked hard at that time, but every autumn I sent people to guard one or two symbolically.

What's the point?

Zhou Mengchen thought to himself: "We must expand our army. If Datong Town wants to be as stable as Mount Tai, we must fill the Great Wall with people. There are people everywhere."

As for how many people are needed, it is about 80,000 or 90,000. There are 14 Datong wards and the quota is more than 70,000 people. It is definitely not determined in vain, but is determined in combination with the areas guarded by each guard. This number was determined by the beginning of the country. However, now it is different from the beginning of the country. Many places cannot be said to be changing, but there are also many changes. The court later added many castles, which also require people to guard them.

In this way, the pressure is quite great for a small hundred thousand to stay.

Zhou Mengchen's eyes were from the road along the Tumao River outside the Kill Hukou. After all, there were two abandoned cities from here to the Yellow River. I don't know what the situation was, and if it could be used? If it could be used, it would save a lot of effort. It was one step closer to Fengzhou Beach.

Moreover, in the mountains, the advantages of the Tartar cavalry may not be able to be exerted.

However, this idea was only recorded in Zhou Mengchen's notes. After all, now Datong can be said to be thin and long. How can I have the intention to get in? At least I will recover my energy first.

So, Zhou Mengchen and his party headed east along the Great Wall.

The Great Wall is not only a defense system, but also a transportation system. In the mountains, moving along the Great Wall saves the effort of crossing mountains and ridges. However, the Great Wall has been disrepaired for many years, and there are problems in many places. Some simply collapsed one piece and became a pile of gravel.

Some of them were dug up in the middle. It seemed that the Tartars broke into the pass through the dig.

Zhou Mengchen wrote down all of them, knowing that the Great Wall also needs a major renovation. Since the construction of the building is underway, Datong also needs a cement factory.

Along the way, I passed several castles from Zhou Mengchen, which were not far south of the Great Wall. I could leave a large group of people to stay, saving the trouble of camping in the wild. But overall, these castles also have a feeling of withering.

The number of soldiers in each castle is not enough. It is good if there are 2000 people who should be stationed in a thousand households, and it is good if there are 2000 people who should be stationed in a hundred households. And it is good if there are 200 people who should be stationed in a hundred households. And it is good if there are old, weak, sick and disabled. It is okay to guard the city, but there is no need to think about anything else.

On the one hand, this is because it is like this, and on the other hand, Zhou Mengchen drew all the elite soldiers and generals below into his hands, giving him a heavy army group that can fight in one battle, making the lower side even more desolate. Even if Zhou Mengchen trained a large number of militias, he was still around Datong, not here.

Zhou Mengchen's series of new policies were actually limited to the vicinity of Datong and did not go deep into various parts of Datong.

This is why the area around Datong has formed a clear response to it.

This made Zhou Mengchen feel that he had a long way to go.

Soon Zhou Mengchen's mind was no longer on this, because he had to face the main direction of the Tartar invasion, that is, an area north of Datong.

The Great Wall was built due to the terrain. The mountains that Zhou Mengchen had walked before were considered as the remnants of Yinshan Mountain. But this is the division point between the remnants of Yinshan Mountain and Yanshan Mountain.

The most important river on the east side of Datong, the Yuhe River, flows from outside the Great Wall to Datong. So to the north of Datong, the Yuhe River is a distance from the west bank of the Yuhe River, and to Yanghekou in the east. Within a distance of nearly a hundred miles, there cannot be said to be no mountains. But the mountains are very short.

There are even several gaps.

Therefore, the Great Wall has no geographical advantage, it is just a city wall. In addition, the defense gap on the Great Wall is serious, and the troops are all old, weak, sick and disabled. They cannot defend at all. The Tartars easily crossed the border wall from here and broke into the city of Datong.

Zhou Mengchen even felt that the reason why the city of Datong is here may not be without the intention of being a lack of two mountains.

In this area, there are various castles. They were built by the former general generals of Datong. After Zhou Mengchen carefully examined the terrain here, he also had the urge to build a few cities here to block this direction.

But he knew very well.

No matter how many cities are built, it is useless. The most fundamental thing is people.

Zhou Mengchen went east further, Yanghewei. Here, Zhou Mengchen found the iron ore. Zhou Mengchen went to the mine in person and took a look. The difficulty of mining was not too high. As for coal, the entire Datong has never lacked coal mines. Zhou Mengchen didn't have to go, there was a coal mine near Datong.

But Zhou Mengchen did not find that huge open-pit coal mine.

"How is it?" Yin Zhengmao said: "Let's just be here. The iron ore here is of good quality and there are coal mines around. There is no shortage of other ingredients. I called people over and could produce the first furnace of iron in less than a month."

Zhou Mengchen looked at the iron ore. After a moment of silence, he shook his head slightly and said, "No, it is too close to the Great Wall. If the military weapon supervision is built here, the risk is too great. Another reason is that if the military weapon supervision is here, all raw materials transportation will be subject to a carriage. This burden is too great."

The first reason is security factors. If the military weapon supervision reaches here, it means that heavy troops will be guarded. Otherwise, if the Tartars snatch it away, it will be more serious than capturing one or two cities. After all, this is the top metallurgical technical team in the Ming Dynasty.

The second reason is economic reasons.

As we all know, coal washing, coking, and metallurgy all require a lot of water. There is not a river here, but a river flows into Xuanfu. Because if you go east, Zhenluwei is Xuanfu. It has nothing to do with the Sanggan River Basin in Datong.

If the iron ore and coal mines in Xuanfu are integrated, this coal mine may not be unavailable. However, from the perspective of Datong, there has been some accumulation.

Yin Zhengmao said: "So, it's not usable here?"
Chapter completed!