Chapter 124                                                             

The desert is lonely smoke and the long river is setting sun. It is a scenery outside the northwest border. Especially outside Jiayuguan, Zhou Mengchen saw from the imperial palace that Gansu town had reported several times, but the yellow sand covered the pass, and the door was not opened, so he requested to move to Jiayuguan. However, the imperial court did not have that money, at least it has not been approved now.

Although there was an artificial barrier outside Datong Frontier, the Great Wall was an artificial barrier. In essence, the climate difference between the two sides was not too great. Especially near the line of the Great Wall. In the early Ming Dynasty, people often went out of the side wall to reclaim land.

At that time, the Ming cavalry burned the border almost every year, that is, burning the grassland north of the Great Wall for 300 miles. This is indeed the case that brought extremely serious disasters to the Mongols. After all, because of the dimension and the vast sea that exists across the desert south and north, the best grassland in the south of the desert is actually the grassland near the border wall.

There are actually some things to do in farming in these places. However, if used for grazing, it is a great place.

A fire burned out three hundred miles, leaving Hu Er nowhere to let his horse go. It was naturally extremely miserable. However, no matter how powerful the Mongolians were, they could not travel across the 300 miles of unmanned land and harass the border. After all, the mystery of the high-speed maneuver of the Tartar cavalry is actually based on the premise that Mongolian horses are easy to feed. Just let these Mongolian horses eat grass to solve most of the food and grass problems.

But no matter how powerful the Mongolian horse is, it is impossible to run for 300 miles without eating a single bite of grass.

At that time, for the soldiers of the border of the Ming Dynasty, what was the border wall? It was a trench. At that time, there was no construction of the city wall. It was just a few castles built at several key points, and a few hundred households or a thousand households were placed.

It’s just a pity that after Tumu Fort, these policies could not be maintained. Now the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty cannot protect the people of the Ming Dynasty.

If you go a little further north and at the northern foot of the Yinshan Mountains, it will be a different situation. However, now from the right guard of Datong to the old city of Yulin, you can still feel the climate change caused by the 400 mm rainfall line.

Zhou Mengchen marched along the north bank of Rabbit-Footed River.

This march made him feel a lot.

I have to admit that Zhou Mengchen could not feel what it was to open a road across mountains or build a bridge across water before. That was because most of the places where Zhou Mengchen used troops were in the territory. Some necessary basic measures were relatively complete. It is not that the transportation system of the Ming Dynasty was very perfect and did not require a little repair. Instead, the soldiers were all locals and were very familiar with the locals. Therefore, they could all choose the custom-made transportation lines around them to go. There was no need to spend so much effort.

But now it's different.

The Ming Dynasty had always had a small-scale outbound outing. Ma Fang had the experience of attacking over the side walls. But the problem was that Ma Fang's troops were cavalry, and the cavalry had strong passability. The requirements for roads were not too high. However, Zhou Mengchen brought 50,000 soldiers this time, only 3,000 of which were cavalry. Ma Jin, Ma Lu, and Zhou Dazhuang were responsible for each of them. Each of them led one thousand. Ma Jin and Ma Gui were in the front and the other was behind the back, and Zhou Dazhuang was responsible for guarding the central army. That is, Zhou Mengchen's headquarters.

The so-called one person gets the chicken and dog to ascend to heaven.

This is how Zhou Dazhuang is.

Although Zhou Dazhuang spoke slowly, he didn't look too smart. However, it seemed that after God took over his intellectual advantage, he compensated for his physical advantage. He grew up and had a big waist and round waist. He had excellent motor nerves. In Datong for more than a year, he rode and archery well and had also been on the formation to kill people. He became more and more silent and said little. He usually followed Zhou Mengchen like a pillar. Many people ignored him.

Of course, Zhou Mengchen also knew that Zhou Dazhuang's ability was definitely not capable of being a thousand households. He was at best a general. He could not cope with the situation of being the only one. However, Zhou Mengchen was very at ease to keep it by his side as a guard.

This is also a routine.

The personal soldiers and generals around the general are from their own families. They are either their own nephews or even their lives at critical moments. Even if they sacrifice their lives, they still have to protect the safety of the general. In today's Beijing camp, it is particularly obvious. Especially those generals with titles, their own soldiers, all of them are old soldiers in the mansion, who serve in the army and receive two portions of money, one is given by the mansion and the other is given by the court.

The rest are infantry.

Not only infantrymen, but also brought a large amount of baggage, 100,000 stones of grain, thousands of stones of cement, artillery, ammunition, etc.

There were more than 10,000 large carts alone. Among the infantry, except for the front and rear guards, they all went to transport the soldiers. So they did not carry the civilians. Of course, this is because the population of Datong is too thin, and there are not many civilians to carry.

The entire fleet lasted for miles.

This requires a relatively high level of road conditions. This place is actually the official road at the time, but it has been a road for more than a hundred years. It has long been absurd.

So I can't walk thirty miles a day while walking along the way. It seems that it takes three days to get from here to the old guard of Yulin.

So Zhou Mengchen was not in a hurry, and even did not send anyone to seize the old city of Yulin. He even hoped that the Tartars would really leave some of their troops to defend the city and fight an offensive and defensive battle with Zhou Mengchen.

Marching all the way. Zhou Mengchen adhered to Zeng Guofan's philosophy, which was to build strong villages and fight stupid wars.

Zhou Mengchen attached great importance to temporary camp sites on the road. He had to choose a place with a wide terrain and could guard the important areas. The camps built were also very strong. Even the soldiers started to build them in the afternoon. The specifications were very high. Zhou Mengchen prepared that after strengthening these two camp sites in the future, a thousand households would be placed in each place to guard the back road.

Moreover, although the river Tumaochuan is not big, after thousands of years of erosion, there are many river valleys that can be cultivated, especially in the areas adjacent to Tumaochuan. Zhou Mengchen thought that it could be transformed into a irrigated land. Although this valley is a little narrow due to the terrain, it is enough to let two thousand households farm. Not to mention, although this mountain is a remnant of Yinshan Mountain. However, the two words "remnant" actually point out the characteristics of these mountain trends. It is not really unattainable. There are even a few open valleys nearby that can accommodate the Tatar cavalry in and out.

After all, if this valley was really a perfect closed terrain, the Ming Dynasty would not have given up on this valley.

In these hillsides, wheat millet can only be produced in about three or four dou. But corn needs a little more. After all, corn has much better drought tolerance.

Zhou Mengchen has been planning for this land along the way. As long as he can truly occupy this land, it is a great thing for Datong, not to say how many thousands of hectares of land added. Instead, it becomes a new frontline. In the northwest corner of the Datong Basin, that is, the southeast direction of the Shahukou, the land will have no safety issues and can be completely reclaimed. Of course, this land is not as good as the geographical environment of the intersection of several waters around Datong, and perhaps many of them are dry fields.

But no matter what, it is all about fields. Although the food may be less, it is more.

Zhou Mengchen was planning this aspect, but he heard Xu Wei come in and say, "Sir, the striker Ma Jin is here to report."

Zhou Mengchen said, "Let him come in."

Ma Gui came in and bowed and said, "Sir, I will be in front of you and confront the Tartar Rangers several times. The Tartar Rangers have been peeping at the army. Please forgive me for being incompetent and unable to completely isolate the Tartars' sight."

Zhou Mengchen said, "It's okay. How can I not know how many horses you have in your hands? As long as they don't let them harass the march. If you really can't stand it, you have to preserve your strength. Just report it in advance."

Ma Gui said, "My general Xie forgives me. Mo Jiang was angry and took action himself and grabbed a tongue. He was outside."

Zhou Mengchen said, "Have you asked?"

Ma Gui said, "I've asked."

Zhou Mengchen asked, "What's the movement of the Tartars?"
Chapter completed!