When the bigwigs in Beijing were arguing about what Yang Hongzhang had done, Yang Hongzhang himself was not idle in Datong, because there was information that sent him back to Datong as soon as possible, so he asked Xia Dongwei to send the elite to cut off the heads of 3,000 Mongolian cavalrymen overnight and send them to the capital.

is similar to what Yang Hongzhang expected, and the merits and demerits are offset. The Yang family army lost 1,500 elites, but harvested millions of war materials, especially the mountains of grain, which also gave Yang Hongzhang confidence, and immediately began to recruit new soldiers in Datong, the conditions were similar to the first time in Yanggao, but this time the household registration was more relaxed, as long as the Han people were local people or those who fled here, they could join the new army.

There is no shortage of people in the Ming Dynasty, Yang Hongzhang is not short of food, and now the biggest shortage in the Yang family army is weapons. Although there is a large amount of pig iron in the materials detained at the checkpoint, and the coal mines in Hunyuan Prefecture have also begun production, it is not an overnight effort to turn these into spears and flintlock pistols, and the spears used by pikemen are better, and basically a capable blacksmith can be mass-produced in a few days under the guidance of the master, but the flintlock pistol, except for Ma Han and a few others, that is, the twenty people that Yang Hongzhang asked from Chen Xinjia are still a little bit of real ability, but even so, each person produces five or six qualified flintlock pistols every month. In a month, it was only about 120 troops, which was indeed too small for a new army of nearly 30,000 people.

It turned out that the blacksmiths recruited in Tianjin were finally able to complete the production of flintlock pistols independently after nearly two years of hands-on professors by Ma Han and others, but the total number of people was only about twenty. And the production of artillery is even worse, basically it is only two artillery pieces a month when all the people are in battle, and as of today, the general military office of Datong Town has a total of less than ten artillery pieces.

Even if he works overtime and produces day and night, before winter comes, Yang Hongzhang can still arm up to 500 cavalry and an artillery battalion. The last time the Mongols only dispatched 10,000 cavalry, Datong lost 1,500 elites, not including the wounded, although Yang Hongzhang has implemented a military medical system in the Yang army, and used plaster to treat the knife and arrow injuries of the hands and feet or chest and back, but there are no anti-inflammatory drugs in this era, and it is estimated that at least thirty percent of the seriously injured on the battlefield in this era will die one after another, and at least thirty percent may leave sequelae.

So in order to buy time for himself, he was ready to take the initiative to attack and gather all the cavalry of the Yang family army together for a surprise attack, the people of several tribes of the Mongols looked scary when they gathered together, but in ordinary times, there was friction between their tribes, as long as they moved quickly, they would definitely be able to break them one by one.

However, before that, Yang Hongzhang needed to solve the problem of dry food for the cavalry, and it was impossible to carry grain and grass for a thousand-mile attack. This auxiliary barracks finally became the protagonist, because as the jade wheat and sweet potatoes that had been planted on the hillside matured, it was also harvest season. A large amount of jade wheat was transported to Datong City to be sold in exchange for silver taels. And those sweet potatoes that were not taken seriously were gathered together, under the personal training of Yang Hongzhang, they began to make sweet potato candy, when the seemingly black sweet potato soup was finally boiled out, the soldiers of the auxiliary battalion were very excited, and boldly tasted it, and found that it was indeed more delicious, and then concluded that if the sweet potato sugar was transported to Jiangnan, it must be better than the silk tea in Jiangnan.

However, Yang Hongzhang shook his head, he was not interested in selling sweet potato candy, but prepared dry food for the cavalry. The next step, of course, is to make popcorn.

When the popcorn and sweet potato sugar were mixed together and then pressed into boxy popcorn candy cubes in a template mold while they were hot, everyone was dumbfounded, because the taste was so good, and according to Yang Hongzhang, as long as this thing was not damp and stored for a few months, it was no problem, and then this was not over, because Yang Hongzhang asked to cut the originally two-foot square sugar cubes into pieces of sugar that were finger thick and guaranteed to be the size of the sugar cube, everyone understood that in this way, the cavalry each had dozens of wounds on their bodies, and it was enough to eat a few pieces a day.

And then the auxiliary battalion spent half a month rushing to make this strange popcorn.

About a month later, Yang Hongzhang finally decided to set off, this time except for a part of the cavalry left for each infantry battalion, all the cavalry gathered in Yanggao, but before setting off, Xia Dongwei and Yang Sheng became mouthy.

"Dashuai, you are in the three armies, let me go for this kind of trivial matter." An opening by Xia Dongwei.

"Yes, young master, this kind of trivial matter, it is enough for me to take someone there, and I promise to kill him a chicken and dog!" Yang Sheng also persuaded him.

Hearing that Yang Hongzhang hadn't spoken yet, Xia Dongwei glared at him: "Yang Sheng, what are you doing, you are the commander of the marshal's personal army, of course, you are honestly staying here to sneak attack the Mongolian tribe, I will go to the rescue." ”

"Why are you going alone, if you want to go, I will go, don't think that you are a cavalry battalion officer, in fact, I said young master, you also look down on them, I will take the pro-military camp to go." Yang Sheng looked unconvinced.

"Haha, you said that you are a pig's brain, who did you say that the pro-military camp took away to defend the marshal?"

Seeing that the two were arguing, Yang Hongzhang waved his hand and smiled: "If you make any more noise, you two don't have to go, I'll go by myself." ”

Sure enough, when Yang Hongzhang said this, both of them were honest, and they stopped talking when they stood next to Yang Hongzhang.

Batu, the Khan of the Ao Han Department, never dreamed that he would finally survive until his father died, and then became the Khan of this small tribe, but the first joint operation with the other three tribes of Monan was a fiasco, and only half of the more than 2,000 tribal warriors came back from the expedition, and more of them were forced to be forced by the infantry of those Ming people under Yanggao City, and he actually fell off his horse and almost died on the spot.

Although his life was saved, he lost his troops and lost nothing, and coupled with his personal poor performance, his prestige in the tribe has now plummeted. And what made him even more desperate was that less than two months passed peacefully, just when the tribe was preparing to move to meet the winter, they encountered a surprise attack, and the raid on them was not a hostile tribe from Mobei, nor other tribes from Monan, nor a younger brother who was eyeing his khan, but the Ming army!

When Batu was woken up, he didn't believe it was a surprise attack by the Ming army, but the sound of muskets was easy to recognize, and the best Mongol warriors were armed with bows and arrows or swords.

If the two sides meet on the grassland, they will set up a formation to attack, and believe that with thousands of warriors under him, they will definitely not be afraid of the Ming army.

But the Ming army did not give him such an opportunity, when the scouts found the Ming army, nearly 5,000 people of the Ming army had already rushed to the gathering place of the tribe, and then lit fire on three sides, one musket volley, basically the Mongolian cavalry came out and shot one was killed.

And when he finally gathered his men and the warriors were about to rush out, his men came to report that his brother Battle had left the tribe with his people!

The hatred in Batu's heart, when will it not work to seize power and cause a split, but he chose this time.

Then Batu took a closer look at the number of tribal warriors who were still following him, and there were less than three thousand.

After fighting, Batu did not hesitate and rushed out with the team to meet Yang Hongzhang's Ming army.

As in the past, the Yang family army did not give them a chance to charge, and two hundred steps away it was a salvo!

The Yang family army broke the front of three hundred cavalry and fired a salvo in five rows! And then whatever Batu led his team to charge in that Russian direction, he was greeted with several rounds of volleys,

After trying a few times, Batu no longer dared to be reckless, jumped off the horse directly, raised his hands, his subordinates were also frightened for a long time, in the past, they went south to fight the grass valley, and now the Ming army actually hit their own lair, now everyone remembers those hard-won information, and now the general of the Yang family army in front of him is Yang Hongzhang, who relied on thousands of people to make the headlines of Dolgon's tens of thousands of people.

Neither Batu nor his men thought that their fighting power was superior to that of Dorgon's Qing cavalry.

I have to say that Batu's decision is wise, after offering the tribe's precious mare's milk and the gold, silver and jewelry looted from the south over the years, Yang Hongzhang really let them go, and offered to help stabilize his position in the tribe and deal with Battle, although Batu was a little unbearable, but thinking of his brother running away with his men at the critical moment, Batu ruthlessly told Yang Hongzhang where Battle might be hiding.

For Batu's approach, Yang Sheng is very no

, but Yang Hongzhang's next words made him feel a little better, Yang Hongzhang held Batu's hand warmly and said: "Ben Shuai doesn't care how your tribe in Monan surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty before, you will continue to follow the Great Invitation on the surface in the future, but if you dare to continue to harass the people on the border of the Ming Dynasty for no reason, don't blame me for exterminating your tribe." ”

"No, no, in the future, our Ao Han Department will be the first to be the handsome. It's just that there are more than a dozen other tribes in this Monan, among which the three tribes such as the Chaha Department are more powerful than my Ao Han Department, I don't know what the big marshal plans to do? ”

"Don't worry, Ben Shuai will visit them after leaving you."

Hearing that Batu was overjoyed, although Yang Hongzhang said lightly that it was a visit, just like today, when such a soldier suddenly killed, no one would like such a visit.

After leaving from the Ao Han Division, Xia Dongwei and Yang Sheng both asked in confusion: "Dashuai, why should the youngest of the Ao Han Department be wiped out, so as to prevent future troubles?" ”

"Do we now have the military power to rule this vast Mongolian steppe? Even if we slaughter the entire Mongol tribe in Monan, there will soon be tribes from other places to fill the gap, but if we want to take down all the tribes in Monan, we basically have to take all the infantry and cavalry. ”