Early in the morning of the sixth day of the first month of June, on the three-meter-high Tucheng city wall, Zhu Di held a well-built telescope and looked north.

After a long time, he put down the binoculars and asked, "Does Ki'er have any experience of this situation?" ”

Zhu Zhanji, who was heavily armed, said loudly: "My grandson thinks that the Ming Dynasty will win this battle!" ”

Zhu Di, who was also wearing a military uniform, waved his hand and said: "I don't want you to say these nice things to coax me, I just ask you, why didn't Wara run away and only fight against our army when he knew that the morale of my Ming army was high?" ”

"It's just the general trend! Hulan and hypothermia all the way to Helin, which is located between the Nan River and the Onen River, with lush water and grass, is the most important pasture for the Warat people. If they keep fleeing, regardless of the lives of the herders, then the Tatar herders who have just taken refuge in them will turn to Arutai. They have to fight us to prove their quality. ”

Zhu Di nodded and said: "The real war has begun since the invasion of the Tatar pastures in Dongwara, although my Ming army only had one encounter with the other party, and the casualties are negligible, but in fact, the Warat people have been seriously injured." We occupy their pastures, and their herders can't graze when the water and grass are abundant, and in the autumn and winter, their days can't go on. Therefore, our northern expedition is not about killing how many of them are, but more importantly, about leaving them with no way out. ”

Zhu Zhanji looked around and said in a low voice: "But Sun Er thinks that this is killing a thousand enemies and injuring eight hundred." If we fail to deal a fatal blow to the other side, our strategic objectives will not be achieved, and the gains will outweigh the losses. ”

Zhu Di shook his head and said, "I don't know. However, the Yuan people are born by water and grass, everyone is good at riding and shooting, if they really turn around and run, my Ming army will not be able to catch up at all. ”

"Sun Er thinks that he can make a posture of attacking and Lin and forcing the Warats to duel with us."

"The army is short of food and grass!"

Nearly a million troops marched thousands of miles, and in this era of relying on horse-drawn people to push and transported by wooden carts, logistics supplies were indeed stretched.

If the Ming army does not dare to divide its troops, it will not be able to catch up with the Warat people, and if it divides its troops, it is possible to be broken by each one.

At this moment, Zhu Zhanji longed for everyone in the Ming army to hold a musket in their hands, at that time, no matter how powerful the riding skills of the Wara people were, no matter how sharp the scimitar was, it was not to be feared.

He didn't know that this war would be a rare positional battle between the Ming army and the Northern Yuan tribes. I don't know, this is the most brilliant victory of the Ming Dynasty against the Northern Yuan.

Because of this war, the Northern Yuan tribes no longer dared to confront the Ming Dynasty head-on, and Zhu Di's later northern expeditions, whether they were Tatar or Wara, had been playing guerrilla warfare with the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Zhanji knelt down on one knee and said: "The grandson is not talented, but he is also willing to share the worries and solve problems for the imperial grandfather, and I hope that the imperial grandfather will allow the grandson to fight!" ”

Zhu Di laughed and said: "It's a good thing not to be afraid of fighting, but at this time, there are hundreds of generals in the army, where is the need for you to fight in person!" ”

Zhu Zhanji said again: "If the emperor's grandfather goes into battle in person, his grandson is willing to be the emperor's grandfather's right-hand man." ”

He remembered where he saw it, saying that Zhu Di, a war maniac, liked to go into battle in person, and personally went into battle to slash and kill during the Northern Expedition.

The last time he went on a northern expedition, he won without going into battle in person, chasing Benjamin to the North Sea, and did not catch the other party.

This time, maybe Zhu Di will go into battle in person, so he has to ask for battle first. Otherwise, he, the imperial grandson, would not have had the opportunity to go to the battlefield at all.

Zhu Di laughed and said, "Yes!" ”

Although he was worried about Zhu Zhanji's safety, he did not think that Zhu Zhanji, who was in the middle army and was protected by hundreds of guards, would be harmed.

And his grandson loves the battlefield as much as he does, which makes him very happy.

He didn't need Zhu Zhanji to become a brave general, but he wanted Zhu Zhanji to have sufficient wisdom and be able to see clearly the root cause behind the war.

And in this regard, Zhu Zhanji did even better than he thought.

Hundreds of thousands of troops were stationed on the bank of the river beach more than ten miles wide, and when they looked up, they could not see the edge at a glance, and all the tents erected by the army were in sight.

The weather was already hot, and the Warats rode in groups of two, carrying corpses in rags and discarding them on the outskirts of the camp.

These corpses were the children of the Warat people who had died of smallpox, and they used these corpses to inflate the old and sick with smallpox, and used them specifically against the Ming army.

Smallpox was an extremely common and deadly disease in this era, and there was no cure. This is also the most brutal biochemical warfare of this era.

However, these corpses are not as dangerous as the Warats, who are stronger than the Warats in terms of human genes and medical measures.

But no one dared to be negligent, often the Warat people left the corpse, and the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would send auxiliaries to dig a pit on the spot and bury the corpse.

The outer guards were on standby, but in the inner ring by the river, the gang leaders were still as always, setting up tens of thousands of cauldrons and starting to cook.

Now that the two armies have come into contact, the war is about to break out, and the food is much better, at least everyone is fed, and no one is allowed to be a starving ghost.

When the sun was fully rising, the breakfast of the Ming army was ready.

Seeing that the Ming army was waiting for work, the right army of the Warat people carried out a tentative attack, leaving dozens of corpses on each side.

The dead soldiers of the Ming army were rescued, and the corpses of the Warats were stripped naked by the Ming and hung high on specially erected wooden poles.

Seeing that they could not take advantage of it, they went around to the upper reaches of the army and left dozens of dead bodies in the river, trying to destroy the water source of the Ming Dynasty.

However, the Ming army was also prepared, and when they set up camp, they had already dug hundreds of reservoirs on the river beach. At this time, the army did not take water directly from the river for cooking and drinking water, but filtered water from the cistern.

On the afternoon of the sixth day of the first lunar month, Liu Jiang, the governor of the capital who had already killed the mouth of the three rivers, got the information of the base camp and knew that the army of the Warat people had appeared in Hulan and lost temperature, so he began to return to the east.

At this time, the Warat people must act, because if the Ming army is allowed to attack from both sides, their total army of only 30,000 people is not enough for the Ming army to make dumplings.

On the side of the Ming Dynasty, through the scouts, it was only found that Ma Hamu led more than a dozen of his sons and subordinates, led about 30,000 to 50,000 cavalry, and 150,000 military horses to fight.

Because one person has three horses or even four horses, it is difficult to determine the exact number of the Warats, but it is certain that there are no less than 30,000 people, but no more than 50,000.

With such a small number of people, if it is hard to fight in a closed environment, it is only enough to stuff the teeth of the Ming army.

But they are more mobile, the steppe is vast, and they have the right time and place. It is not an easy thing for the Ming army to want a big victory.

Warat could not afford not to fight, and both sides knew this.

What's more, today's Warat has no sense of fear for the Ming Dynasty, and they who advocate personal force unanimously believe that the Han people can only rely on the strength of the people to bully them.

In the tent of the Chinese military camp, more than a dozen torches are lit up by a large tent of nearly 100 square meters.

Dozens of generals gathered around a sketchy sand table, each expressing their opinions, using their rich experience to perfect various plans for the upcoming war.

At this time, Zhu Zhanji really understood that it was not an easy thing to be a general in ancient times, and everyone here knew astronomy and geography, customs and customs, and everyone still had a set of personalized management experience.

Without a bit of real material, it is impossible to emerge in this era.

Moreover, this kind of expression of opinions is not one person's opinion, but a plan around the battle, and everyone to perfect.

This is a little bit of the role of the General Staff of later generations.

At this time, even Zhu Di would not be arbitrary, because in this big battle, the soldiers dispatched were tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, and if they wanted to give full play to the maximum combat effectiveness of each combat group, it was not at all something that one person could completely control.

This time, Daming dispatched hundreds of military guards, and the time of each military guard, the task they undertook, and how to coordinate when there was any accident on the battlefield, all of which needed to be coordinated by each military guard.

Otherwise, when the war is together, the soldiers don't know what they are going to do, and it will be a joke.

Although the current mode of war is very backward, there is also a complete set of rules that belong to this era.

Zhu Zhanji's future combat experience is simply not applicable in this era, and he is not familiar with the war model of this era. Therefore, he did not have any complacency, but always observed carefully, and learned the tactical essentials of this era from their arrangements.

"Report, young army, news from the scout battalion of the left guard of Yulin."

Zheng Heng, the commander of the Chinese army, raised his head, looked at Zhu Di, and then at Zhu Zhanji. "Read!"

"The reserve force of the Wara army of about 30,000 people assembled at the southern foot of Hangai Mountain and Lin, and divided into two armies, one south and one north, marching eastward. At the same time, a large number of Warat herdsmen have also been identified, and now about 200,000 herders are hidden in the Hangai Mountains, and about 800,000 herders have moved to the Seleng River valley in Lingbeixing Province on the southern side of the Beihai Sea to graze. About 400,000 other herders were scattered in the western part of the Beihai, while the rest fled westward to the Yili and other areas. There are less than 100,000 old, weak, sick and disabled people left in the southern part of Warat, waiting to die here. There were less than 10,000 cavalry left in Helin, stationed in the area of the Orkhon Gorge. ”

The main task of the scout battalion of the Young Army and the Yulin Left Guard this time is to find out the distribution of personnel in Warat, and if you want to pursue, you must also have a clear direction.

Therefore, after they entered the grassland, they marched all the way north and west, and only sent back two messages through the communication network of the army.

The people in the big tent all looked at Zhu Zhanji with some surprise, it was not difficult for the scout battalion to send back information, but if they wanted to find out these situations, it meant that their scope of activity was far beyond the sphere of influence of this army.

Zhu Di and they didn't expect that Zhu Zhanji would send people so far!

(Thank you for your blessings, and I wish you all a happy family and good health.) ）