"Privy secret, there is another war report in Yangzhou!" In Yangzhou 100 miles away from the Gaoyou city outside the camp more than ten miles, the felt tent is like a cloud, the flag covers the sun, a messenger Pegasus broke into the Chinese army gate and fell off the horse, the gate guard will be in a hurry to take off the letter bag on his body, order the soldiers to help him to the side of the tent to wrap up the wounds and rest, and he hurriedly entered the big tent to report.

"Batu is stupid, Ma Shao is incompetent!" Yuxi Timur took the letter bag, took it out, and his face changed suddenly, and he scolded with his hand. And the generals in the tent saw that they did not know what to do, and they looked at each other, not knowing how to answer.

"Cardinal, has there been a change in Yangzhou?" A few days ago, the commander of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion of the Mongolian Army in Hebei Province, Shandong Province, was ordered to gather all the 10,000 households under his command from Huai'an to rush to the outside of Gaoyou City to prepare to relieve the siege of Yangzhou, but after arriving, he was reluctant to move his troops. And he was very anxious, Yangzhou is not only his own jurisdiction, the three thousand households besieged in the city are also his soldiers and horses, seeing that Yuxi Timur's face was not good after receiving the report, his mouth was foul, and he was shocked and asked.

"Hmph, see for yourself!" Yuxi Timur threw the letter to him and snorted coldly.

"Ah, Yangzhou is defeated!" Sesana quickly picked it up and read it carefully, he didn't know much, but he could barely understand it, and the more he looked at it, the more frightened he became, and his face became darker and darker.

"Yangzhou defeat?!" The generals in the tent were full of disbelief when they heard this, thinking that although the southern army concentrated 60,000 troops, the defenders of Yangzhou City plus the reinforcements also had the strength of 30,000 households, plus the mobilizable Ding Zhuang, the strength was not inferior to the Southern Dynasty. And they are holding on to the city, and they occupy a favorable position, and the war has only been going on for more than ten days, how can they be defeated? And according to past experience, one's cavalry army of 10,000 people can defeat several times the army of the southern army, but it is completely unreasonable to be defeated when the strength is equal!

"Yesterday, 20,000 elite cavalry of the Yangzhou army and 3,000 infantry troops went out of the city to break through the camp of the southern army, but the attack was blocked by the enemy's artillery again and again, and the decisive battle was attacked by the enemy's artillery and suffered heavy losses. When the army retreated, it was rushed by the defeated soldiers, and the head and tail could not care about each other, and they were covered up and killed by the southern army, and the army was defeated, and the soldiers and horses who retreated into the city were barely half left, and more than 10,000 soldiers were lost, and there were countless losses of weapons, horses, and armor. The southern army took advantage of the victory to seize the old site of Yangzhou Baoyou City, and the army moved to the city four miles in front of the city, surrounded the city, and was cutting down trees, building equipment, and preparing to attack the city. Yuxi Timur said hatefully.

"The city of Yangzhou is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and there are a lot of grain, grass, and weapons hoarded in the city, as long as it holds on for a while, the southern army will not be able to attack for a long time, and under the threat of our army, it will retreat without a fight. But his rash attack not only damaged the troops, but also disrupted the deployment of the commander and made the situation in Huaibei even more dangerous! ”

"What the cardinal commander said was very true, Batu was reckless, and he fought a decisive battle with the enemy without authorization, causing a great defeat. But he also wanted to break the enemy's siege as soon as possible and drive them back to Jiangnan, and the southern army had always been cowardly, but now it has become so brave that it is unexpected, although it is negligent, there is also something forgivable. And now is the time to employ people, and ask the cardinal to calm his anger and let him make meritorious contributions. Seeing that his anger was unabated, Sesana seemed to have the intention of taking the capital to establish power, and that he would inevitably be implicated, so he hurriedly interceded on his behalf.

"Huh, a bunch of stupid pigs!" Yuxi Timur sneered and scolded, "What kind of person is the right prime minister Boyan, whose leaders crisscrossed the north and south, and presided over the attack on the south of the Yangtze River. But why did he give up the southern expedition again after several battles with the puppet emperor of the Southern Dynasty, and instead rebuilt the city and built a fortress along the river, that is, he had already realized that the Southern Dynasty was no longer what it used to be, and our army's iron cavalry was difficult to defeat the Southern Army's sharp weapons, so as to avoid a frontal attack with it. And Batu is still willful, so that he is defeated, and you still don't understand the deep meaning, and are still excusing it, isn't it stupid? ”

"What the cardinal commander taught is that if it weren't for the right minister, he would have seen through the situation and rebuilt Yangzhou City, I am afraid that the southern army would have gone north along the canal and penetrated deep into the belly!" Ma Hemu, who returned to the water army, said with a smile, his Wanhu suffered heavy losses in last year's war, and almost the entire army was wiped out, and he also existed in name only.

"The same stupidity!" Yuxi Timur still didn't give him a good face, but his face softened slightly, "What do I need most at the moment?" It's food, the loss of Jiangnan has put the imperial court into a crisis, and if we lose the two Huai, we will lose the foundation of the country, so we not only have to defend the two Huai, but also retake Jiangnan! ”

"The cardinal is a bit serious! Our dynasty is fundamentally in Mobei and Monan, there is no food, and there are cattle and sheep to live, how can it hurt the country! Sesana thought that the 30,000 households he belonged to had suffered a lot of losses, but he didn't want to actively rescue, but he insulted everyone, and he sneered at each other angrily.

"The Great Khan was able to inherit the throne of the Khan back then, and was able to unify the Central Plains and appease the kings, relying not only on the elite soldiers, but also on the grain and grass of the Central Plains, but you have forgotten the hardships of the Great Khan back then!" Yuxi Timur asked, snorting his drink.

Seeing that everyone was divided and still didn't know why, Yuxi Timur was no longer able to reprimand, and he had been in front of the Great Khan Kublai Khan for many years, and had served in the northwest to suppress the rebel emperor for many years, and understood many things under the influence of his ears and eyes. He knew that when Kublai Khan and his brother Ali Buge were competing for the position of Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, the former did not have an absolute advantage.

Ali Buge was the leader elected by the Mongols, and because of his status as the youngest son of Tulei, he was loyal to most of the Mongol military families under Tulei's name. During the four-year war between Kublai Khan and Ali Buge, Kublai Khan relied on the support of soldiers from Jingzhao, Henan and other territories. The war between him and Ali Buge was essentially a conflict between the two governing concepts of the Mongols: "steppe standard" and "receiving and integrating".

Kublai Khan's concept of governing the country that accepted Sinicization did not gain wide acceptance among the Mongols at the time. In the course of the war, there was even a phenomenon that the troops under Kublai Khan were unwilling to fight to the death with Ali Buge, and Kublai Khan had to recruit Han troops to fight. In the end, Kublai Khan was able to defeat Ali Buge and inherit the throne of Khan, but it was grain that helped Kublai Khan win the war.

At that time, the population of the Mongolian steppe multiplied rapidly, and the food from the various conquered regions fed the population far beyond the nomadic economy of the steppe. Horin, the capital of the Mongol Empire, needed thousands of carts to deliver grain every day. The area controlled by Kublai Khan at that time was precisely the key point of food supply in Mongolian steppe cities such as Holin. Kublai Khan decisively imposed a grain embargo on the Mongolian steppes.

At the same time, there were also serious natural disasters in the Mongolian steppe, and the survival of the Mongolian tribes was extremely difficult. Ali Buge had no choice but to urge the khanates, such as Chagatai, who were nominally loyal to him, to supply food to the Mongol headquarters, which exacerbated the contradictions between himself and his allies, and finally even reached the point of fighting each other. Just as Ali Buge and his allies were fighting, Kublai Khan's army slaughtered Horin.

In desperation, Ali Buge ordered his defenders to surrender on the spot, but it was important to remember who was the real Great Khan of the Mongols. Ali Buge confidently believes that his subordinates will always be loyal to him, forgetting that the basis of power is the common good. As a result, his subordinates all defected to Kublai Khan, because Kublai Khan could make the life of the children of the steppe better.

Kublai Khan was familiar with Han culture, especially the Central Plains Dynasty's tuntian policy, attached great importance to agriculture and the role of tuntian, and knew that the fragility of the monolithic economic structure of the nomadic people in the past made them unable to withstand serious natural disasters, and in the event of natural and man-made disasters, they were prone to lose everything. Therefore, he actively promoted the policy of tuntian, and also let his core Su guards in various places to large-scale tuntian.

Kublai Khan even made preparations for Tuntian in the plan of two expeditions to Japan, and the first expedition to Japan used the Tuntian army. The deployment of the second expedition to Japan was as follows: the Eastern Route Army led 20,000 Mongols, Jurchen and Khitan soldiers led by Xindu and Hongchaqiu, 10,000 Goryeo troops under the command of Jin Fangqing, 900 warships, plus 7,000 Goryeo sailors, and 100,000 stone of military rations, set out from Goryeo; The Southern Song Dynasty army led by Fan Wenhu, Li Ting and others surrendered 100,000 people, took 3,500 warships, and set off from Qingyuan and Dinghai; The two armies agreed to meet in June, with the Eastern Route Army in charge of operations and the Jiangnan Army in the occupied area to produce rice and grain as a long-term solution. It was only because of the defeat that it could not be implemented.

Kublai Khan's success made Timur realize that the Mongols had become a dual economy of agriculture and nomadism, which had sufficient centripetal force and a relatively stable social structure. With the grain that could be stored, the nomads had a material basis for long-term confrontation with other dynasties, so that there would be no 'Great Khan' everywhere.

With a stable production of food, they were able to not only have food and clothing for themselves but also help their allies when confronting hostile forces, which also distinguished the dynasty from the previous nomadic regimes. The income from tuntian also became a major source of income for the Mongolian military aristocracy. In the case of losing the situation of looting to obtain wealth, it played a role in stabilizing the country's finances and calming people's hearts, and also to fight against the rebellious kings in the northwest, and to win over the kings who were inclined to themselves.

At present, there is a lot of internal turmoil in the dynasty, and there is a rebellion of the king outside, in the view of Yuxi Timur, it is precisely because of the loss of Jiangnan that the imperial court has financial difficulties, and it has lost an important source of food. The shortage of money and food made the imperial court unable to launch a large-scale war to recapture Jiangnan, and there was no way to continue to appease the Zongwang in the northwest, to conquer the rebellious Haidu, and repair the two-faced and three-sworded Zongguo.

Therefore, Yuxi Timur felt that Zhenjin sent himself to sit in Lianghuai, not only to hold Lianghuai and consolidate Jiangbei, but also to recapture Jiangnan. But these guys in front of them really only care about their own gains and losses, and can't see the overall situation clearly, and they are still thinking about the gains and losses in Yangzhou, how can they not be angry......