The spring frost is heavy, the dark earth is dotted with a little snow, the sun is rising high, but the ice edges on the treetops are not melting for a long time, and the wind blowing in from outside the Great Wall is cold and dry, adding a bit of coldness.

Zhao Liangdong, the general of the Han Kou Beizhonglang, rode a jujube-colored war horse, stood on the hill, and supervised his troops to march towards the hinterland of Shanxi. The border general of the Han army wore a standard general's uniform, rode a fiery war horse, and even the scabbard of the waist knife was painted with vermilion lacquer, and at this time, he stood in the most conspicuous high place, looking from a distance, like a bright red flame.

The war broke out on the sixth day of last month.

Like so many irritating things, the trigger for the war between the Han army and Jungger was a very small thing.

Since the Junggar Han Geldan led the army to "cut down the Qing", tens of thousands of elite Mongolian iron cavalry poured into the northwestern part of Shanxi like a tide, although from the beginning, the Han army has maintained a high degree of vigilance against this foreign army, but because of the political relationship, it has not openly expressed hostility, and the Fifth Army stationed in Datong Mansion even got the order of "not allowed to open the border provocation" in the second half of last year, so although the Mongolian steppe outside the Great Wall of Korqin, Tushetu and Zungar fought one after another with casualties, However, both the First Army of Xuanhua and the Fifth Army of Datong have always kept a low profile, shirking the Horqin envoys who have repeatedly asked for help, and trying their best to avoid direct participation in this tragic war.

Junggar should also have noticed this, last year's first large-scale invasion of Shanxi, a thousands of Junggar troops also drove to Baode Prefecture, Daizhou generation, but the Mongolian cavalry patrolling from afar carefully avoided the Han cavalry, behaved very politely, and the Han army was also very cooperative to open their marching route, both sides were cautious and very tacit, and the two sides remained in this very delicate state of peace.

But after the New Year, the cavalry of Western Mongolia is obviously more arrogant, according to the spy report, this year's Mongolian cavalry is personally commanded by the great Han Geerdan, from Baotou sworn to go out, the soldiers crossed the Great Wall to kill the hinterland of the Central Plains, the West Route Army went straight to Taiyuan, the Middle Route Army attacked Suide, and the East Route Army marched towards Baode and Daizhou, and the momentum was like a broken bamboo in dozens of days, and the defense of various states and counties was weak and vulnerable, or broken or surrendered, at the beginning of last month, it finally hit the actual control area of the Han Army, Shanxi Daizhou generation.

This time the East Route Army is obviously very different from last year, and the Han officers and soldiers are familiar with the Mongolian soldiers, unlike the Han officers and soldiers are familiar with the Mongolian soldiers, this time many of the Jungger soldiers are riding Hequ horses, and the attitude towards the original inhabitants is even more fierce and rude than the Mongolian soldiers, on the sixth day of the first month of last month, a group of Hui soldiers who do not know whether to patrol the sentry or to collect grain suddenly ransacked several villages under the control of the Han army, plundered Ding Zhuang women, forcibly robbed grain and timber, and almost killed half of the people in the village within half an hour. Finally, before leaving, he set a fire to the houses that the villagers relied on to escape the harsh winter.

The smoke and dust caused by the fire immediately attracted the attention of the Han garrison troops, and the cavalry units of the Fifth Army quickly dispatched to inspect and intercept the Dzungar soldiers who had returned with a full load - this kind of thing was not very unexpected by the Han army, the army was out on the expedition, and it was difficult to "solve" the problem of grain and straw on the spot, everyone turned a blind eye to this matter even if it was over, but the return soldiers of Jungger obviously did not understand the "good intentions" of the Han army, relying on the large number of people, immediately launched an attack on this Han cavalry company, and then a big battle, both sides had dozens of casualties, and the scattered cavalry entanglement continued until after dark, and then they had to retreat.

On the fifth day, the Han General Staff sent Lin Feng's edict, ordering Zhao Liangdong to hand over the defense of Datong to the militia group, and Zhao Guangyuan's troops of the Xuanhua First Army, reinforced by Pegasus, immediately reorganized the troops and stationed them in Daizhou, and "eliminated the current enemy."

As a result, the Han Dynasty went to war with the Western Mongolian Junggar Tribe.

It is reported that Zhao Liangdong's face enemy, that is, about 15,000 iron cavalry of the Junggar East Route Army, in addition, they also incorporated a lot of "new annex troops", most of these traitor troops are Ding Zhuang who was forcibly recruited from Shanxi, but there are also many local troops of the original Qing army, local bandits and surrendered peasant rebel army as the backbone, compared with the regular Junggar iron cavalry, this group of people is extremely weak in combat effectiveness, morale is very low, equipment is very poor, supplies are insufficient, and because of the need to "use Han to control Han" relationship, They are led by their respective leaders, the command is extremely unified, mutual suspicion and hatred, small groups are open, there is no cohesion at all, it can be described as an out-and-out "rabble", but the victory is in the large number, only Baodezhou, Daizhou generation, such a wall grass traitor army as many as 60,000 people, after the Mongol army invaded Shanxi, it is to rely on these traitor army to maintain local security, collect grain and straw, and consolidate the territory that has been defeated.

Therefore, if these troops are also added, the number of troops in Junggar will reach nearly 80,000, of which the elite main force is the Mongolian cavalry of about 15,000 people, and the vassals are surrounded by these huge miscellaneous soldiers, compared to the enemy army, Zhao Liangdong's military strength is quite weak, the fifth army of the Han army has three musket brigades, an artillery brigade and a cavalry brigade, and the total strength of the whole army is only more than 13,000 people, even if you add the militia that was later requisitioned to escort the baggage, the military strength does not exceed 30,000, So this battle is really hard to fight.

Zhao Liangdong looked at the marching army like a long dragon in a daze, and couldn't help but feel worried in his heart.

Since the surrender of the Han army, he seems to have handed in good luck, in fact, there are a lot of Qing army officers who surrendered with him in Tianjin, and there are many people in the rank and popularity higher than him, but he is the only one who can mix into a big man, Zhao Liangdong is born in the army, his temper is very bad, and he is not a man, his greatest ability is to train and fight, and he can not encroach on his military exploits and do not know how to praise his boss, and even the relationship with his colleagues is very bad, so he has not been very good in the army, can be mixed into today's situation, it is all because of the appreciation and promotion of King Han, although Zhao Liangdong is rude, but at this point he is still bright.

An enemy general, today is still fighting life and death and bloodshed, after being forced to surrender, he gave the military power to be appointed as a general at the first meeting, and the defending party trusts and relies on the pillar of the country - what kind of mind is this, what kind of heroic spirit is this, although Zhao Liangdong does not say it, and he never refuses to pat Lin Feng's ass, but he is really grateful to the extreme, and admires to the extreme.

Until today, he has not met with the lord more than ten times, and he has never said more than a hundred words, many foreign enemies and princes have doubted his loyalty, Henan Yang Qilong, grassland Horqin even secretly sent gold, war horses to test his attitude, but as soon as he showed his mouth, he was immediately cut off by Zhao Liangdong - it was really in the water, a general surrendered once is shameless enough, if he surrenders again, can he still be considered a person?!

As soon as the vanguard order came this time, he did not hesitate to assemble the troops and set out to fight, although the task was arduous but there was no hesitation - in the eyes of others, it was indeed a bit difficult for a strong man to attack the enemy with an army of 10,000 people, and to go deep into the enemy's hinterland alone, but Zhao Liangdong understood what Lin Feng meant: Ma Ying, Zhao Guangyuan, and Wang Dahai were all promoted to lieutenant generals, and whether he Zhao Guangyuan could change his shoulder this time depended on his own ability.

Regrettably, however, he didn't seem to have won a good fortune at the beginning of the war.

Now his troops have crossed the inner Great Wall, along the Wuniu Mountain all the way to the capital city, the road is winding and rugged, greatly affecting the speed of the troops' march, and also to the follow-up of the baggage troops caused great trouble, he chose this road was originally the result of the careful selection of the military staff of the show talents, these staff officers who graduated from the Mazhuang martial arts took a lot of effort to find this "good road", as far as the records in the books are concerned, this road was originally the Ming Dynasty in order to repair the Great Wall, the government spent a huge amount of money, It took decades to open up the official road, let it be called "military road", which means that it is specially used to allocate troops, transport supplies and use the military road for the construction team of the Great Wall, but now I know that it is ridiculously bad, in fact, although this road has been recorded, but because of the decline of the Ming Dynasty, no one has paid attention to it since the Wanli Dynasty, more than 100 years of ups and downs, every magistrate only takes it as a fart, so until now, many sections of the mountain and rock collapse block the road, and the ground is also muddy, What is even more outrageous is that many bridges in the mountain ditches have been destroyed by flash floods, and the army has not to stop and not rebuild the bridges.

This was a very serious military accident, and the six staff officers of the Fifth Army of the Han Dynasty lost their heads, and their chief of staff has been escorted back to Beijing at this moment, and it is estimated that their fate is also more auspicious.

According to the strategic plan drawn up by the General Staff of the Han Army before the war, Zhao Guangyuan's Fifth Army of the Han Infantry must suddenly appear in Daizhou as quickly as possible, without the preparation of the Jungar Army, seize all the strategic strongholds south of Yanmen Pass, create conditions to force the Dzungar East Route Army to fight a decisive battle in the area of Daizhou's capital city, and repel it, and at the same time lure and appease the traitor troops anyway, consolidate the existing front, and build this bridgehead for the follow-up army under the command of Lin Feng himself.

This order has changed again when it comes to Zhao Liangdong, Zhao Liangdong is an ambitious person, he plans to capture Daizhou with only the 12,000 well-trained and well-equipped soldiers in his hands, eliminate the 15,000 iron cavalry of the Jungger East Route Army, independently recruit the tens of thousands of traitor army, and create a military model for the Han to go deep, win more with less, attack the strong with the weak and win a big victory, so who dares to mutter behind his back that Zhao Liangdong is a "pseudo-Qing general"? Who would dare to doubt the "vision" of the lord?! I, Zhao Liangdong, have also raised my eyebrows since then, and I no longer hold my tail between my legs.

Zhao Liangdong's original plan was to enter Daizhou, regardless of the surrounding puppet army nuisance, desperate to go straight to the city, the lone army went straight to directly challenge the enemy's elite troops, the so-called death and then life, if the enemy dared to fight, it would be defeated with muskets and artillery, if the enemy did not dare to fight, they would occupy the city to surrender and rebel, and then order all parties to "anti-righteous people" to besiege the enemy.

He didn't take the so-called "Mongolian Iron Horse" to heart at all, Zhao Liangdong was born in Liangzhou, Gansu, and others didn't know about the Tartars' scattered hands, wouldn't I Zhao Liangdong still be unclear? - It's a pity that the chief of staff of the Fifth Army is a fool, Zhao Liangdong thought depressedly, he usually looks at this machine and is very flexible and elegant, why didn't he discover the true face of this idiot earlier?!

It was too late to say anything now, and Zhao Liangdong had no choice but to transfer a large number of militia from the rear army, and under the protection of the cavalry troops, he drove to the front to repair the road.

From the time of changing the plan, the Han army troops began to methodically clean up the major local cottages - the cottage is an economic organization with the characteristics of the times in the northern Jin region of this era, if you trace back from the origin, you can find the shadow in the late Ming Dynasty, at first it was some landlords, rich peasants in order to cope with the current situation and "cunning rabbit three holes", and then because of the rise of Li Zicheng and other peasant armies and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, decades of war, a large number of peasants also fled into the mountains, joined the various cottages, in the mountains to open up wasteland and sow seeds, self-production and self-foodFarming during farming, returning to the village during wartime, surrendering to the army when passing by, and resolutely resisting the nuisance of small-scale bandits and bandits, can be regarded as an effective way of survival. Most of these cottages are gathered in clans, basically a cottage has only one or two surnames, so most of the cottage names are "Zhangjiazhai", "Wangjiazhai" and the like, it sounds like the dirt is scum, in fact, there is no difference between the villages in the plains, but it looks more military.

Because the land is barren and the supply is not continued, the main force of the Mongolian army evacuated here immediately after conquering the local forces, at this time the vast majority of the cottages in Daizhou did not recognize the current dangerous political situation, and there was no firm position consciousness, when the invading army hit the hometown, the cottage naturally sent people to surrender in accordance with the convention, expressed their willingness to accept the convention to the Jungar troops, and sent people to send food and pigs and sheep to show their sincerity, fortunately the Mongolian army also smiled and accepted one by one, and praised this friendly behavior, so the guests and hosts were happy, the Jungar army symbolically delegated a few leaders and withdrew to the capital.

Now these cottages are about to be in big trouble.