"Ready...... Put! ”

"Ready...... Put! ”

With a sound of orders, the soldiers raised their muskets and aimed straight ahead, and each time the small flag was lowered, the muskets fired a volley, and a puff of white smoke rose from the position.

After two consecutive shots, the soldiers in this column retreated to the sixth row in the rear, and the soldiers who followed closely followed the shielders took five steps forward, directly over the smoking position, and continued to shoot.

Since they were all double-barreled muskets, the three-stage hit became a six-stage shot, and the fire was stronger and more concentrated.

Although the oncoming enemy soldiers were only separated by a short distance of more than 100 meters, this distance was like a moat, and it became a nightmare for the last Timurid cavalry.

They were originally sacrificed, in order to stay in the rear to contain the Ming soldiers, so that the retreating people could retain more vitality.

But when the walls of Samarkand were destroyed, the 30,000 cavalry left behind became turtles in the urn, and they did not even have a chance to break out of the encirclement.

When the gunfire stopped, the thick fog on the battlefield quickly dispersed with the strong wind. All that remained on the battlefield was the screams and the groans of the surviving horses.

Even more frightening than these 30,000 cavalry were the representatives of the various departments of the Western Regions, who originally thought that the Ming would use them as cannon fodder and fight the Timurid people.

But this time, they just followed the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty to clean up the battlefield, and never went to the front line of the battlefield at all.

The firearms of the Ming Dynasty made them all understand, and the future wars would no longer be familiar to them, and the advantage of cavalry was not even comparable to that of infantry without horses.

No matter how brave you are, you are not afraid of death, but you are killed without even having a chance to get close to the other party, the more brave you are, the faster you will die.

In the future, it will be the world of muskets, without muskets, it is impossible for any tribe to block the attack of the Ming Dynasty.

But can they make muskets?

At least not now.

A war involving hundreds of thousands of people, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty lost thousands of them even if they had muskets.

The dead soldiers died, and some muskets were also scattered. Almost every tribe, or every nation, has a private collection of Ming muskets.

Many of them had seen the muskets of the Ming Dynasty with their own eyes, and no one could make the barrel with no traces of splicing.

They simply could not imagine how such a barrel could be made.

At best, they can craft a spliced barrel, but that barrel simply doesn't last long, and it's more likely to explode than to injure an enemy.

At this time, every tribe was considering that before they could make a qualified barrel, they could only obediently obey the words of the Ming Dynasty.

The disobedient country of Timur, even if it is fertile for thousands of miles and rides millions, can only end up with the death of the lord of the country, leaving only one prince to flee westward in a hurry.

Shaharu, Ulugh Beg, father and son, are all a generation of heroes, and no one in the Western Regions is dissatisfied, but now?

Samarkand is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, with records dating back to the 5th century BC, when the Sogdians, who were good at business, built Samarkand as a beautiful capital.

In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great of the Macedonian Empire captured the city, and it became the farthest frontier city in the West and in the East.

Later, due to the rise of the Silk Road, the city did not decline, but gradually prospered.

During the Mongol and Yuan expeditions, Samarkand was the new capital and cultural center of the Khorezm Empire, and after being captured by Genghis Khan's Mongol and Yuan Empire, it suffered a catastrophe and the entire city was destroyed.

However, due to its special geographical location, the city was quickly renovated, and for two hundred years, successive Great Khans of the Western Chakhatai Khanate used it as their capital, bringing it back to life.

With the rise of the Timurid Empire, his armies swept through Persia, India, the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, and Mongolia.

He vowed to make Samarkand the capital of Asia, so he piled up treasures looted from all over Asia, brought the most ingenious craftsmen of each city to Samarkand, and built the most splendid palaces and mosques in the city.

After his death, both Shahru and Ulugh Beg were the leaders of a generation who valued culture and developed Samarkand into one of the most prosperous cities in the world today.

After half a month of purging, the city has completely fallen into the hands of the Ming Dynasty. The opposition forces in the city were all arrested and killed, and the corpses killed stained the river north of the city red, and also let the people of all ethnic groups in the Western Regions see Zhu Di's ruthlessness with their own eyes.

When Zhu Di personally set foot in this glorious city, there were no more than 100,000 people in the city, and most of them were women and young children.

The leaders and representatives of countless tribes prostrated in front of Zhu Di, allowing Zhu Di to truly enjoy the glory of being admired by all the people.

He was born in 1360, and when he was a teenager, Zhu Yuanzhang had already established the Ming Dynasty in Yingtianfu.

However, he did not go to the battlefield, and after he took up the Beiping domain, he participated in many military operations against the Northern Yuan, and twice went on expeditions as the commander.

Twice led his division to the north, he recruited the Mongolian Naier Buhua, and once captured the Northern Yuan general Solin Timur, and also left a great reputation in the north.

Even as emperor, he went on two expeditions, torn apart the remnants of the Northern Yuan, and now subdued most of the Warat and Tatars.

However, he never thought that he could uproot a powerful country that had tried to invade the Ming Dynasty thousands of miles away.

He can make countless tribes thousands of miles away submit to his feet.

This is something that Zhu Yuanzhang was not able to do at the beginning.

At this point, he felt that he had no regrets in his life.

An emperor through the ages, nothing more than that!

occupied Samarkand, the first thing Zhu Di did was to give a big reward, although he had not yet returned to the Ming Dynasty, all the soldiers who participated in the Western Expedition were rewarded.

The countries of the Western Regions paid tribute to a large number of goods and women, all of which were given by Zhu Di as rewards.

Not only the goods, but also the title was given without money, and the Duke of Guo alone was sealed two, namely Zheng Heng, the chief soldier of the Northern Route Army, and Zhang Chang, the commander of the Jingwei of the Chinese Army.

What made Zhang Xin a little disappointed was that because he had never made great contributions on the frontal battlefield this time, his merits were not enough to be crowned.

This also made him stop fighting now, slightly lacking, and he was bent on continuing to advance westward and exterminate the remnants of the Ulugh Beg.

There are many people who think the same way as him, especially the tribes of the Western Regions, who have been bullied by the Ulughber before, and now that the Ulugh Beg's power has been greatly damaged, of course they want to take revenge back.

But at this time, Zhu Di did not have the heart to go west, and he had the heart to return to the dynasty.

This expedition, although he drove all the way, did not suffer the slightest hardship. But after all, he was sixty-two years old, and his legs and feet were still deformed by rheumatism, and the pain was unbearable.

Previously, he had always cherished the idea of establishing immortality, holding on to his breath, and after he occupied Samarkand, he especially missed the imperial palace of Yingtianfu.

In the face of Zhang Xin's initiative to ask for battle, he did not refuse, but just responded: "I want to return to the court in September, and now there are still 100 days, and these 100 days are also your last chance." Regardless of the outcome of the battle, you will return to Samarkand by September. ”

There were only 100 days, which was not enough for Zhang Xin and the others, because the Ulugh Beg and their men had now fled to the eastern part of the Caspian Sea, and they might not be able to catch up with each other in March.

However, most of the Ming army is cavalry, as long as the tactics are appropriate, it is not difficult to gain something.

Zhang Xin and the others also quickly determined the direction of their pursuit, and they would pursue to the southwest, targeting the Shirkania region of Timur's country.

Located south of the Caspian Sea, it has large farmlands and was once the capital of Persia. There, there was a long culture of the Timurid state, and the Ulugh Beg served as a fortress in the rear.

Moreover, the pursuit to the south can be delayed for some time, as long as it can meet Zhu Di on the return journey in October and November.

With the experience of leading 10,000 cavalry and harassing Timur for more than half a year, Zhu Di was also very relieved of Zhang Xin this time, and allocated 30,000 cavalry under his command, as well as 30,000 Indian auxiliaries.

As for the grain and grass, Zhang Xin's army did not carry much, and they fought all the way for the purpose of feeding the war with war.

After Zhang Xin and the others left, Zhu Di turned his energy back to civil affairs.

After the chaos was Dazhi, Zheng Heng was used as the commander-in-chief of the Northern Route Army, and he took a fancy to Zheng Heng's strengths of being good at entrapping others.

After receiving the news from Zhu Zhanji, Zhu Di also believed that the establishment of a Samarkand governor's palace in Samarkand would be conducive to the rule of the Ming Dynasty in the Western Regions.

Moreover, unlike Nuergandusi, there are only a few small tribes there, facing the sea on one side, and there are no foreign enemies. Therefore, it is enough to set up a metropolitan division somewhere.

In the Western Regions, there are many tribes, many nationalities, many countries, and many beliefs. Setting up a capital division here can't show the strong position of the Ming Dynasty at all.

Set up a governor's palace with 100,000 cavalry under its jurisdiction in order to effectively deter countries and maintain the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

So Zhu Di has actually been hiding here, and handed over all the affairs to Zheng Heng, and watched coldly.

He also had the heart to test Zheng Heng to see if he could be a good governor.

Zheng Heng came to the Western Regions as early as October last year and has been in close contact with various ministries. He is now entrusted with a heavy task by Zhu Di, but he is not panicked.

With the assistance of Changshi Zhou Xu, he actively pacified the ministries and signed a large number of trade agreements with them, and at the same time sent a cavalry of 10,000 people to the north to assist Tanglin City in attacking the various ministries of the White Horde.

This way of holding a knife in one hand and sugar in the other is the best way to deal with these scattered semi-nomadic people.

It was in this way that the Tatars and Warats were conquered, and the Western Regions could not hold out for long.

More importantly, Zheng Heng promised to expose the water textile technology to all tribes in the Western Regions, so that the cotton in the Western Regions would not have to be transported to the Ming Dynasty to be sold as in the past, which was time-consuming and laborious.

They can weave cloth directly in the local area, and then these fabrics can be transported to Daming, and even sold directly to the West.

Cloth is cheap in the Ming Dynasty, but it is extremely expensive in the West, you must know that in the West at this time, most people can only wear linen clothes except silk, and the price of cotton cloth is amazingly high.

Zheng Heng's move is tantamount to giving the various ministries in the Western Regions a big way to make money.

Of course, all this was only with Zhu Zhanji's permission that he dared to agree.

For Zhu Zhanji, the profit of cotton cloth is not what Daming really values, what Daming really values is how to maintain a long-term rule here.

Cotton cloth is only the first step, in the future, there will be many technologies that can be passed on by the Ming Dynasty, through the Western Regions, to all parts of the world, so that the Western Regions can not get out of the control of the Ming Dynasty.

The rule maintained by the military cannot be sustained, but the rule maintained by economic control can be long-lasting.

Zheng Heng knew very well what was most important to him, and although Zhu Di gave him great power, he did not dare to be arrogant. came to the palace where Zhu Di stayed on time every day, reported work, and never focused on affairs.

The letter that Zheng Neng wrote to him also arrived in his hands in May, along with the envoys sent by Zhu Zhanji.

Today, Zheng Neng is still assisting Zhu Zhanji in training the sons of Xun Gui in Beijing, and as long as he is appointed governor, Zheng Neng can also come to the Western Regions to join him.

Zheng Heng did a good job, and Zhu Di put his mind at ease, in addition to having fun with beauties every day, he was thinking about what kind of management organization to establish in the Western Regions.

Thousands of miles from Hurumus to Samarkand, there is no large power here, and the fall of the Timurid kingdom made most of the tribes submit to the Ming Dynasty.

It is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to regard these alien races as their own people, and even if they maintain their rule here, it is only for the sake of interests and the long-term peace and stability of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Daming will not interfere in the civil administration here, it will only be thankless.

Like the Tang Dynasty, it is enough to establish a military government and maintain deterrence.

As for whether this government will break away from the control of Daming in the future, it is not Zhu Di's concern.

What's more, with the means of his own grandson, there must be a better way.

After living leisurely in Samarkand for more than three months, on the first day of the ninth month, Zhu Di officially issued a decree to establish the Governor's Mansion in Samarkand.

With Zheng Heng as the governor and Mu Xin as the deputy governor, he has jurisdiction over 100,000 cavalry and all the departments in the Western Regions.

There are two areas under the direct administration of the Governor's Palace, one is Samarkand and the other is Broken Leaf City, and the two cities will also become the trade centers of the Western Regions.

The commercial taxes of the two cities were military expenses, and the land directly managed provided military rations for the army, and the families of the 100,000 cavalrymen would be paid and contributed by the imperial court within two years to migrate here.

Both cities are surrounded by a large amount of fertile land, not to mention feeding hundreds of thousands of people, but even millions of people.

Within three years, the various ministries of the Western Regions paid 10,000 to 100,000 taels of silver to the Ming Dynasty every year according to the size of the tribe. These taxes can be offset in kind, regardless of cotton, horses, cattle and sheep, and the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty will support the ministries to grow cotton locally, develop textiles, and trade with the Ming Dynasty.

The most important thing is that as long as you pay taxes to the Ming Dynasty, you can enjoy the protection of the Ming Dynasty from the invasion of other tribes.

As for the affairs of the tribes, the Ming will not interfere, and the tribes will still determine themselves.

Such an arrangement does not harm the interests of the tribes, and ten thousand taels of silver per year, or even one hundred thousand silver, is a staggering amount for one person, but it is not worth mentioning for a country.

Most of the countries in the Western Regions produce gold, and 10,000 taels of silver is only a thousand taels of gold, which is not a burden for them.

Just by being able to trade with Daming, they can make a profit far more than that.

Just when Zhu Di was about to leave Samarkand, Lin San, Tang Sai'er and his wife, who had come all the way from the north, were summoned by Zhu Di.

Zhu Di didn't know Lin San, Tang Sai'er and his wife before, and it wasn't until Samarkand that he knew that his grandson had already played a secret chess game in the north.

This was a surprise for Zhu Di, if the Ming wanted to gain a foothold in the river, he needed to appoint a cavalry force of 100,000 people to deter the troops.

For this arrangement, Daming needs to spend millions of dollars to complete this goal.

But now, Zhu Zhanji only spent a few thousand horses and ordnance, and he was able to make tens of thousands of people spontaneously come to the extreme west to expand the territory for the Ming Dynasty, which far exceeded Zhu Di's expectations.

However, based on this alone, Zhu Di may not necessarily see Lin San and Tang Sai'er and his wife, one of them is the emperor, and the other is just ordinary people.

Even if Lin San and his wife are here to show their loyalty to Zhu Di now, it would be good to arrange a minister to receive them.

The reason why Zhu Di saw them was also because he knew that Lin San was the Holy Son of the White Lotus Sect, and Tang Sai'er was even more respected as the Holy Mother.

Zhu Zhanji's plan to kill two birds with one stone not only allowed Daming to have a group of loyal and righteous people, but also reduced the source of the White Lotus Sect's troubles in Daming, which can be said to make Zhu Di very happy.

That's why I'm interested in meeting the couple.

But after seeing it, Zhu Di couldn't help but be a little disappointed.

This White Lotus Sect is just some folk fools fooling people, and this ordinary village husband and village woman was actually chosen as the Holy Son and the Holy Mother.

He didn't know that if it weren't for his grandson being one step ahead, last year, Daming would cause a big chaos because of them.

Lin San and his wife saw Zhu Di only secondarily, and the main purpose was to meet Zheng Heng, the governor of Hezhong.

Tang Sai'er and Zheng Heng are old acquaintances, in March last year, Tang Sai'er went to Beimingshan to receive ordnance, and he had met Zheng Heng at the beginning.

Zheng Heng also knew the beginning and end of the construction of Tanglin City, and knew that Zhu Zhanji not only wanted to maintain deterrence in the Hezhong region, but also wanted to put all the ownerless wastelands in the far north under the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, although Tang Lincheng is weak now, it is also worthy of attention.

He, the governor, can't always be on top, and he can't do without the support of trusted compatriots like Tang Lincheng.

He supported Lin San and his wife with a batch of gunpowder, but as for the muskets, he didn't dare to give them because he didn't get Zhu Zhanji's consent. However, he also promised that in the future, he would send a team of 10,000 horsemen to the north to help Tanglin City defend.

However, when Tang Lincheng set out for the army, he also had the obligation to assist the army in raising food and grass.

Of course, Tang Lincheng can't do it now, they only have a total of 4,000 people, and in addition to digging gold mines, they can't even shoot people for farming.

But it will be good in autumn and winter, the family members from Shandong will be able to arrive in Tanglin City before this winter, and next year, the power of Tanglin City will be greatly enhanced.

When Zhu Di's class returned to the court, all tribes sent a large number of envoys to send them off.

They were to send Zhu Di all the way to Kurumus, and they would bring their own grain and grass.

At this time, Zhang Xin, who had been fighting abroad for more than three months, was contented to wait for Zhu Di's holy drive in the Persian holy city of Mashhad.

Since his expedition in May, Zhang Xin has clearly targeted the southwest, and he has been given two tasks by Zhu Di in this campaign.

One is to kill and injure the living forces of Timur's state, and the other is to plunder wealth.

For Zhu Di, the land here was not valuable, and the conquest of Timur was for wealth and peace.

Therefore, the more Timur people killed, the safer the Ming Dynasty was, and the more wealth they robbed.

And Zhang Xin completed these two tasks well this time.

He pursued them along the route of their retreat, killing more than 100,000 rebellious warriors and civilians in Ashgabat alone.

The sniper force left behind by the Timurids was almost wiped out, most of the tribes fled in a hurry, and the forces loyal to the Ulugh Beg were pursued by Zhang Xin, killing more than 200,000 people at the Terek Pass in the southern part of the Caspian Sea.

And this battle also completely crushed the resistance of the Timurid people, who took the initiative to offer their wealth and surrender to the Ming Dynasty.

The remaining people, who were not willing to be defeated, could only flee all the way along the Caspian Sea, from the southern side of the Caspian Sea to the west and all the way to the north.

Zhang Xin pursued the Safavid tribe (later Azerbaijan) until he was stopped by a steep mountain.

The Ulugh Beg, who by this time had less than half a million people, fled to the territory of the Golden Horde and marched on Batu Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde.

However, the Golden Horde was already in charge of the White Horde at this time, and they did not recognize Ulugh Beg as a dissident, and did not want to offend the Ming Dynasty for Ulugh Beg.

However, their resistance could not stop the Timurid people, who were already in despair, and in a great battle, the Ulugh Beg occupied the area along the river not far from Batu Sarai.

At this time, Ulugh Beg did not have the strength to attack the capital of the Golden Horde and make peace with the other party.

The Golden Horde had no choice but to allow the Timurids to go north along the Volga River and gave a large area west of the river to the Ulugh Beg. (The land between Volgograd and Ukraine in later generations)

This gave Ulugh Beg a respite, but although he settled here for a while, he also knew that this was not a place to stay for long.

This land was populated by large tribes in the east, west, north and south, and if the Timurs wanted to develop, they had to continue to the west, or to the south.

At this time, Ulugh's friend, Hajiglai, who had been marginalized in the Golden Horde, sent him an invitation to lead his tribe to the Black Sea coast in the south.

This is exactly what Ulugh Beg wants, if a tribe wants to develop, it cannot be located in the land of a hundred battles. Gain a foothold on the shores of the Black Sea, and there are no worries.

Therefore, before the arrival of winter, Ulugh Beg led his people all the way south, and chose a corner on the shore of the Black Sea to build a city.

Hajiglay provided the Ulugh with a large amount of food, and the two men decided to establish the Crimean Khanate there.

Thanks to the 500,000 Ulugh Beg, Hajiglai, the founder of the Crimean Khanate, was able to establish the kingdom twenty years ahead of schedule.

Today's Timurid country has disappeared, and although the Ming Dynasty has made a lot of profits, it is not the biggest profiteer.

The biggest beneficiary was not the Kurumus who followed the Ming Dynasty, but the Black Sheep Dynasty located in the valley of the two rivers.

They had been at a disadvantage in their struggle against the Timurid state, but now that Timur had been destroyed, they were able to develop rapidly.

Even if Khrumus wanted to occupy a large area of land, they didn't have that many people!

Faced with this situation, Zhu Di, who received a letter from Zhu Zhanji again, announced that on the first day of the 20th year of Yongle, Hurumus would convene a meeting of Persian tribes to announce the division of local forces.

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