Chapter 371 370 Lost and Lost

Chapter 371 370 Lost and Lost

"Hua Hua Hua"

Amidst the intensive sound of horse hooves, a group of red-robed cavalry drove their horses and galloped on the grassland in the afterglow of the setting sun.

Not long after, as it was getting dark, a high raised mound appeared in front of them on the grassland.

It's not accurate to say it's a mound of earth. It sounds more like an earth wall.

Choose a place with severe collapse and ride across the earth wall. Behind it is a vast and flat grassland.

"This place must have been a side wall before."

The cavalrymen climbed onto the mound, and one of them, a dark-skinned man, reined in his reins and asked his companions.

Their clothes were obviously different from those around them. They did not have red battle clothes, but each wore a white mountain armor.

"I don't know which dynasty it was built in. It has collapsed long ago."

The man next to him answered, then looked up at the sky and continued: "No, I can't make it in time today. There are still about ten miles to go. If I continue on my way, I'm afraid of encountering wolves in the dark."

Then he raised his hand and pointed at the bottom of the mound with his riding crop and said: "We will camp here tonight and go over to survey the terrain early tomorrow morning."

They were naturally Liu Han and Yu Dayou, the chief military officers of Datong Town. After arranging the team, they left the group and rushed to Anyin Castle in advance.

The distance of more than ten miles is actually not that far for cavalry like them, but as Liu Han said, it will definitely be dark if we get there, and the wolves on the grassland are very powerful.

Even though they have dozens of fully armed Ming troops here, if they encounter a larger pack of wolves, it will be difficult to deal with them.

Yu Dayou nodded slightly, agreeing with Liu Han's statement and not in a hurry.

While Yu Dayou was watching the soldiers building the camp, there were many people standing in the main hall of Yongshou Palace in Xiyuan, Beijing, but everyone lowered their heads and lowered their hands, not daring to breathe.

After Emperor Jiajing learned about what happened in Datong, his joy lasted only for a moment, and was extinguished after seeing the note written by Yang Bo.

Immediately, not only officials from the Ministry of War, but also other members of the Sixth Ministry, and all officials with experience in commanding troops in combat were summoned to Xiyuan.

The purpose of finding these people is also very clear, to analyze the war situation in the north and study countermeasures.

Based on the information currently available, this battle may trigger a series of changes due to the reckless actions of the Datong Army, and these changes have not been conducive to the court so far. It can be said that the future of this battle is unpredictable.

Perhaps many officials did not think that the loss of mobile troops in the three towns was a big deal, but for those who were summoned to Xiyuan, most of them had stayed in the border towns, but they knew the actual situation very well.

The so-called mobile force is actually the main combat force of each town, or the real elite.

In the nine-border town, each town has more than 100,000 troops, ranging from tens of thousands to tens of thousands. It looks like a lot, but the actual situation is that each Ming army guard post has its own defense area, and each town has only a small number of guerrilla generals. The troops are available for deployment.

When the imperial court issued an order to mobilize troops, young and strong men were often drawn from various guard posts, leaving a bunch of old and weak men to brutally guard the defense area.

If you look at the figures on paper, the combat effectiveness of each guard will remain objective after being transferred. However, the actual situation is that the withdrawal of these young and strong people will reduce the defense power of the entire defense area to the lowest point, and the entire defense area will be smashed like a sieve. break.

Although the main hall was full of people, the atmosphere was extremely depressing, and you could hear a pin drop.

Emperor Jiajing frowned and sat on the throne. He had been sitting here almost all afternoon, watching officials from the Ministry of War come to analyze the battle situation and give a frustrating answer. However, when Emperor Jiajing asked for a solution, they all silence.

Then, officials were constantly called in. Some of them already knew what happened when they came. After learning the details, they made a depressing analysis similar to that of the Ministry of War, and they did not propose a response to the current situation.

Those officials who did not understand the situation arrived, and the joyful mood of entering the palace after knowing the reason disappeared instantly, and then they repeated the performance of the previous officials.

Now, the main hall of Yongshou Palace is almost filled with people.

"Is there nothing we can do? Does the court just do nothing?"

Looking at the courtiers below, Emperor Jiajing knew that this incident was sudden and completely disrupted the court's deployment, but he had to deal with it. He could not just pretend to be an ostrich and get through it.

As for delivering messages to people quickly, or urgently mobilizing troops and horses for support, just go to bed, there is no time at all.

"The Ministry of War, immediately start deploying the response, and formulate a response strategy based on the fact that Datong, Yansui and Ningxia Town were captured by the Tatars. No matter what happens, the Ministry of Revenue must ensure the food and grass needs of the Ministry of War, whether you borrow or rob them."

When Emperor Jiajing said this, his face was sinister, and he was obviously trying hard to suppress the anger in his heart.

Datong, Datong.

The war situation was originally going well, and it was all under the control of the imperial court.

However, their reckless attack may shake the entire front.

The most irritating thing is that if Datong defeated Bansheng City in this battle, it would be inappropriate for the court to punish them after the war, at least not too severely.

Now we can only consider mobilizing the inland garrison to strengthen the border defense, to prevent our troops from continuing southward to plunder after breaking through the three towns, causing harm to more places, and to prevent our troops from advancing into Beijing again after breaking through Datong.

The emperor above was angry, the ministers below were naturally silent, and a young official in his twenties at the end of the ministers' queue was standing there with a serious face, but no one knew that at this moment he was already heartbroken.

The liver and gallbladder are split apart, not because of anger, but because of fear.

Wei Guangde was the official who was summoned to Yongshou Palace relatively early. After all, he had commanded the battle with Ada Khan.

Just after entering here and learning the detailed information about the north, Wei Guangde was at a loss as to what to do.

Datong's actions really disrupted his plan, and the time was tight. There was no way to deal with it.

The most critical thing is that their advance will undoubtedly cause the Anta army to move westward in advance, thus putting the Ming army attacking the Hetao area into a dangerous situation.

However, this is not what worries Wei Guangde the most. He is actually worried about his future.

If this battle is ultimately defeated, it seems to be due to the reckless military actions of the Datong Army, but after all, the entire plan was roughly proposed by him. In any case, it was a defeat, and he must bear the responsibility.

If you lose, you lose, and quibbles will bring nothing.

At this moment, Wei Guangde has even thought that after this war is over, he is afraid that he will be released and will miss his position in the cabinet for the rest of his life.

This is the price to pay for defeat.

If you do more, you will be wrong; if you do not, it will be good.

Wei Guangde couldn't help but think to himself that maybe in the original time and space, without his appearance, the Datong Army might have suffered the same fate at this time.

However, according to the initial thinking of the court, the cavalry soldiers from Yansui and Ningxia towns were on their way to Xuanfu to assist in the battle at this time. Perhaps after the Datong army was defeated by the Anda tribe, this army took advantage of the opportunity to supplement Datong's defense. In the end, Maybe this battle can be turned into a blessing.

From this point of view, maybe he really became the sinner of the imperial court.

If I had not asked them to attack Hetao but asked him to continue marching eastward to support Xuanfu.

Not long after Wei Guangde entered the Yongshou Palace, he noticed that the two adults from the Ministry of War looked at him in the wrong way. Perhaps they had already thought of this, but did not say it out loud on this occasion.

Speaking of which, Wei Guangde only made a suggestion, but in the end he got their support, and in the end it was the one in the palace who made the decision.

But this does not mean that Wei Guangde has no responsibility. On the contrary, the responsibility belongs to the subordinates, and the superiors cannot be at fault.

No matter how you calculate it, it seems that you are the best candidate for this scapegoat.

Wei Guangde is so regretful that his intestines are green now.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde couldn't help but turn his head and glance at the huge map of border towns hanging on the side of the palace. It contained detailed information on the important military towns, rivers, mountains and other areas in the northern part of the empire.

If you were Anda Khan, what choice would you make after defeating the Datong Army outside the Great Wall of Datong, and at the same time receiving news that the Hetao area was attacked by the Ming Army?

In fact, Wei Guangde scorned what Emperor Jiajing said in the palace before about mobilizing mainland officers and soldiers to prevent our troops from going south to plunder. Even if he went south to break the Zijin Pass, break through the Inner Great Wall again, and fight back to sweep the entire territory of Northern Zhili, Wei Guangde also felt that Very unlikely.

An Dabu was unable to break through the walls of the capital. Wei Guangde still holds this view, but he cannot explain the reason.

And if you want to plunder, there is no place in the world that is richer than the Gyeonggi region.

Yes, that is in the south of the Yangtze River. No matter how powerful the war horses of the Anda tribe are, they cannot cross the northern border of the Ming Empire and run to the south of the Yangtze River.

So what is he worried about?

Continue to advance westward, eliminate the soldiers and horses of Yansui Ningxia Town, then return to Datong to break the border wall, and then enter the rear of the Xuanfu army along the Sanggan River Valley, attack the Ming army from both sides, and defeat the Xuanfu defenders in one fell swoop.

Yes, breaking the defenses of Datong and Xuanfu and annihilating the Ming army in both places would be a result that the Ming court would completely unacceptable.

If the barrier to the northwest of Beijing is broken, not only will the capital be constantly threatened by the Mongolian grasslands, but most importantly, it may involve the loss of the empire's territory.

The defense scope of Datong and Xuanfu was the Great Wall. The main force of the Ming army was wiped out, and the Anda tribe could completely occupy this place. The final result was that the imperial court lost two pieces of land and gave up the hard work of several generations and invested huge manpower and material resources. The recently completed outer Great Wall defense line.

Maybe, it's possible that he might be beheaded.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde became even more frightened. There could be no greater crime than losing his troops and losing his land. Perhaps there was no one other than treason.

Thinking of what I had just learned from Gao Gong a few days ago, the final plan determined by the Ministry of War was to mobilize guards from Shandong and other places to support the capital and gather more than 100,000 troops. If together with the soldiers and horses from Ji Town and the capital camp, tens of thousands of people could be pieced together. There should be two hundred thousand men and horses.

Can so many people be put into the Xuanfu battle?

There should be about 100,000 soldiers and horses in Xuanfu and Shanxi together. If another 200,000 troops leave the Juyongguan Great Wall and enter Xuanfu, can the 300,000 troops defeat the 100,000 troops in Anda?

Faced with the possible tragic consequences, even though Wei Guangde was not optimistic about the prospects of this battle at all, he still wanted to take a gamble.

If you do nothing now, you may gradually be pushed out of the court after the war, or you may even find a reason to be blamed many years later.

If he did it, he would bet on it. If he won, he might have a moment of glory. At the very least, he would not be able to enter the cabinet, but he could reserve the position of Minister of War.

Just once you lose.

If we were bolder and strengthened the defense of the Inner Great Wall, we would not give our troops a chance to break through the inner Great Wall, and our troops would have no choice but to continue marching south to plunder.

Trade space for time, give our troops enough territory to disperse their forces, and then mobilize the Huguang and Jiangxi Guards in the south, including the main force of Hu Zongxian to fight against Japanese pirates, as well as the new army newly trained by Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang from the south. What about the northern attack?

At that time, 200,000 troops will leave Juyongguan to block the northward escape route of the Anda tribe, and completely eliminate the main force of the Anda tribe within the pass. Is such a plan feasible?

When he foresaw that he might have a tragic future, Wei Guangde began to have countless ideas popping up in his mind, which were wild and unreasonable and increasingly unreliable. He inexplicably came up with the battle to overthrow the country.

Well, Wei Guangde was also forced to panic.

Because he quickly thought that with the current combat power of the Ming army, it was almost impossible to maintain such a huge combat plan. Perhaps those armies in the early Ming Dynasty could barely complete it.

It may seem like a perfect plan, but in fact every point is a loophole. Our department only needs to identify one point to make a breakthrough, and the so-called combat plan that consumes countless resources can be wasted.

Shaking his head, Wei Guangde wanted to get rid of the unrealistic things from his head.

Talking on paper is not enough.

Liu Han and that guy named Li Wenjin caused great harm to labor and management.

Wei Guangde could only curse these two people in his head at the moment. He was very unfamiliar with them before, but Li Wenjin had heard about them and mentioned them in Yu Dayou's letter.

Thinking of Yang Bo's previous analysis of the two of them, he said that these two people should neither have thought of nor dared to do such a big thing. There was something strange in this, and Wei Guangde felt shuddered again.

Looking back on this battle, it is unlikely that the Ming army fell completely into the trap of the Anda tribe.

The feigned attack on Xuanfu gave Datong a reason to send troops. They used Bansheng City as bait to attract the Datong army to fight and then annihilated them all. They took advantage of the situation and broke through the border from Datong. In this way, there were White Lotus cult bandits at the top of Datong Town. achieve such a goal.

At this time, Wei Guangde couldn't help but think of the scene of Infernal Affairs staged in Datong Town. White Lotus Sect spies infiltrated Datong's senior officials and defrauded Li Wenjin and Liu Han's trust.

"Retreat from the court."

When Wei Guangde was thinking about this, Huang Jin's high-pitched voice suddenly came from his ears.

Like a conditioned reflex, Wei Guangde and others saluted Emperor Jiajing on the throne, and then everyone slowly exited the hall.

Not daring to look at the current appearance of the man above him, the dejected Wei Guangde hurriedly left Yongshou Palace and Xiyuan like a bereaved dog.

At this time, Yu Dayou and Liu Han, who had just finished setting up camp, were naturally unaware of the development of the situation. Although they were about to fight the Anda tribe, they were not under much pressure. They were both old people who had fought in battles.

At this time, the two of them were watching their soldiers roast a leg of lamb, which was tonight's dinner.

On the prairie, the autumn breeze is refreshing, the endless starry sky is above your head, and you start a picnic with your feet on the vast land.