In June 1687, spring was full of spring outside Hanzhong City, and the fragrance of flowers was overflowing. Visitors stroll along the forest paths, appreciating the beauty and grace of nature, and there is no tension in the air.

The people of Hanzhong had reason to do so, because in the south, in northern Sichuan, the Qing State still had some strongholds, and stationed a large number of troops, and had been at war with the Shun State for several years, but the scale was not large, and the intensity was not very high, and both sides seemed to feel a little exhausted.

The subsidence of the war in northern Sichuan naturally made the Hanzhong Mansion breathe a sigh of relief, and the heavy burden on their heads seemed to have some hope of being lightened. You must know that the tens of thousands of troops in northern Sichuan consume a lot of money every day, especially in modern army operations, not only to transport grain and grass, but also to transport gunpowder, projectiles and heavier cannons - because of the backward technology of the Qing State, artillery of the same power generally has to be cast thicker - these are all to be transported by the master along the way, especially in Shaanxi, which is on the front line of the war, is even more exhausted.

Therefore, the reduction in the intensity of the war in the past two years has really given the people of Shaanxi and Gansu an extremely rare opportunity to breathe. In this way, you can see that at the turn of spring and summer, there will be so many tourists outside Zheng County in the south of Hanzhong Prefecture, which is a sign that life tends to be calm, and it is also a sign that the social economy has been recuperated.

Of course, the people who are playing outside may not know that their good days will soon be over. After two or three years of development, Shaanxi's local economy will be burdened with a heavy burden, the burden of war!

In the past year, there has been an increasing number of Mughal and Warat people in Suzhou, Ganzhou (under Gansu Province), Lintao and other places in the west, causing very serious border troubles. Not only was the daily life of the local farmers and herdsmen greatly affected, but even the troops transporting supplies were attacked to varying degrees, and some of the personnel and military supplies were lost, which made the Beijing court very angry.

The people of Qindi are known to dare to fight, even if they are young people in the countryside, they dare to go into battle with spears, and they will not retreat between life and death. This kind of brave and fierce folk customs has always been the peace of the northwest border, and it has also been the most important guarantee for the peace of the Central Plains Dynasty. However, in the face of the Dzungar Mongol army, which came and went like the wind and was armed with many muskets and cannons than them, they were a little at a loss. They are not as well-equipped as others, their firearms are not as advanced as others, their movement is slower than others, and their only advantage is that they have relatively more troops, but it is a shame that you can't catch others. Unless those Mughal and Warat people are bolder, and suddenly the interior of Gansu is surrounded and intercepted by the army gathered from many parties, so that it is possible to be annihilated, otherwise there is no recruitment.

Yue Le, the governor of Shaanxi, and Wang Fuchen, the governor of Gansu, discussed the left and the right, but there was still no good way, and in the end they could only go to the imperial court and recruit troops from the province to go to the border for reinforcements. Emperor Kangxi partially approved their request, and successively transferred troops from Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places to the west several times, but the total number of people added up to only more than 50,000 people, which is not a lot, and can only be said to be enough.

The reason for such a "slamming the door" is mainly because Kangxi considered that the situation on the Mongolian border was a little tense and a big war might break out, so he did not plan to transfer too many troops to the northwest border. What he is most worried about is that there will be changes in the Mongolian world, and he will be bitten off a large piece of meat by the hungry wolf Galdan, so where will his face as the Great Khan of the Mongolian world remain? Therefore, he was determined to hold the most elite troops in his hands and wait for the most dangerous situation before entering the battle, especially those elite cavalry units that were urgently needed in the northwest region, and they could not move lightly, but concentrated in front and behind Yanshan, ready to enter the Mongolian battlefield at any time.

Kangxi is convinced that the current situation in Khalkha Mongolia is not very stable, and Galdan, a guy with a keen sense of smell, will not let go of this God-given opportunity, and will definitely find a way to enter Outer Mongolia, and this is what he is extremely nervous about. Although the Khalkha Mongol Tushetu Khan, Zasak Khan and Chechen Khan had a close relationship with the Qing court and never made a mistake in the annual tribute request, Kangxi was not very sure what their Mobei Mongol branch would think when they met the Galdan of Moxi Mongolia.

Mongols are Mongols, and they have their own culture and values. After all, Bogd Khan is an outsider, although he took refuge in Bogd Khan back then, but he couldn't beat it, Lin Dan Khan was driven like a dog, what can they do? Kangxi suspects that once "I Daqing" shows its decline in the eyes of the Mongolian princes and nobles, then they will not hesitate to abandon themselves and take refuge in Galdan, the powerful man in the Mongolian world, which is undoubtedly a thing.

Therefore, for every provocation of Galdan in the Mongolian world, Kangxi must be scolded! We must be tough and hard, and we must not show any weakness, otherwise the position of the Mongolian Great Khan is not guaranteed! In that case, the foundation of his Manchu and Mongolian dualist empire would be completely dismantled, and how could he control tens of millions of Han Chinese in the future? Could it be that the Han Chinese were recruited into the ruling class to seize real power? Is that still a country full of people? Therefore, controlling the Mongol tribes to maintain the foundation of the imperial dualism is the first priority that the Qing emperors of all dynasties have clearly understood, which is why they feel so nervous and even panicked about the rise of the Mongol Dzungar tribe in Moxi, they really can't afford to lose Mongolia!

On the other hand, the great monks of the snow-capped mountains in Tibet have a close relationship with Galdan, almost wearing a pair of pants. This kind of intimate relationship was manifested as early as a few years ago when the Yarkand Khanate established by the Mughal people was destroyed, and it was like a poisonous snake that gnawed Kangxi's heart at any time, making him very jealous: I cover most of China, and I am rich in the world, is it better to pay more attention to it than a steppe barbarian, what kind of system is this! Kangxi is now worried that with the huge influence of Tibetan Buddhism in the Mongolian world, there may be people in Khalkha Mongolia who may be persuaded by the lamas to take refuge in Kaldan at any time, and no one can guarantee this!

Taking another 10,000 steps back, even if the three Mobei Mongol tribes are full of loyalty, their strength is limited, and against the well-equipped, advanced tactics and extremely rich combat experience of the Moxi Mongol coalition army, once they encounter a crushing defeat (which is very likely), most of them will be fluctuating internally. At that point, I'm afraid things will be tricky!

Therefore, Kangxi ordered a large number of Manchu and Han soldiers and horses to be stationed in the Yanshan area, ready to gallop to the desert at any time to stabilize the situation there. Many of these troops have been tempered by long-term wars on the southern front, and their combat experience and will to fight are commendable. In particular, the firearms armies trained by the English, Germans, Portuguese, and French who carried the flag (there were now as many as five or six hundred foreigners, and they were organized into two assistants) were not inferior to the musket corps that Galdan was proud of, and perhaps even surpassed, and the number was even larger, which was incomparable with Kaldan.

After all, although his steppe empire was vast - after subduing the Kazakhs, his power had penetrated deep into Central Asia, and it was basically a combination of the original Mughulstan (Chagatai Khanate) and the Oirat Mongol lands - but the products and people were inferior to the Qing Dynasty, and the resources were poor, and it was unable to trade with advanced Western countries such as the East Coast Republic and the Kingdom of England, so the war stamina should be inferior to that of the Qing Dynasty.

Based on this line of thinking, after Kangxi and his ministers discussed, they decided to deploy elite troops on the front line of the Great Wall of Hebei, ready to go north to the desert at any time to block the three-plate axe of the Dzungar Mongols. As long as this ferocious three-plate axe is caught, then the next "I Daqing" can use its relatively strong national strength to consume Dzungar Mongolia and stabilize Bogd Khan's position in the Mongolian world.

Under this national policy or grand strategy, the tranquility of the Shaanxi and Gansu regions was naturally neglected, and only relatively limited support was received from the inland provinces, many of which were even transferred within the province, such as the troops withdrawn from Hanzhong Province to Gansu. The commander of this army is Zhao Liangdong, a veteran general in Hexi, the military chief of the Qing State in northern Sichuan and southern Shaanxi, and Liu Zhonggui's troops of the Dashun Left Battalion are mortal enemies.

Zhao Liangdong directly led the elite new army, that is, the firearms army. He has led this army for many years, and now it can be said that he is like an arm, and he is the backbone of tens of thousands of Qing troops nearby. I still remember that when Tuhai was not dead, he once inspected the Shaanxi provinces, it was the middle of winter, the north wind was howling, the snow was heavy, and no one in Tuhai was notified of the raid camp, and all the departments made some mistakes, including many Manchurian and Mongolian generals, who were severely reprimanded by Tuhai. Only when inspecting Zhao Liangdong's department, thousands of people in the whole army were armed with armor and weapons under the sound of war drums, and they lined up out of the battalion and stood still in the wind and snow. Tuhai made people roll call according to the book, but there was no omission, so he was greatly appreciated, and at the same time secretly frightened, this Han army general is not as fast as before, and the progress can be described as fast, which makes people very worried.

Well, let's not talk about these hidden worries within the Qing Kingdom, which are still in the embryonic state. All in all, many Qing troops in the Hanzhong Prefecture area are now going to be transferred north, including the troops directly under the veteran Zhao Liangdong. They will follow the ancient road north to the young province of Gansu to help defend the local garrison against desert bandits from the old lands of the Turpan Khanate. The erratic whereabouts of those people, and their combat effectiveness is not bad, has always been a big headache for the Gansu side, and I hope that after the number of troops going there one after another increases, this unfavorable situation can be somewhat contained.

After the Qing troops in Hanzhong Province were transferred in large numbers (just as the Qing troops in other directions were transferred north), they could no longer maintain effective coercion over Shunguo. Like the suffocating pressure of the 300,000 troops of the Xiangyang battalion directly on the top of the head, it should be removed now, and the armistice agreement signed by Shun and Qing can only be seen at this time that it can really be implemented - Shunguo transferred the army to the south, and the troops were divided into two ways to attack the Ming, and the Qing army transferred troops to the north to guard against Dzungar Mongolia, and the two sides tacitly reduced the strength of the front line at the same time, and each took care of other directions, in preparation for a more brutal war that may break out in the future.

Such a situation must have been a bit embarrassing for the people on the East Coast, as this seemed to be the moment when they were at their least on the mainland. Their attitude was undoubtedly contradictory, because they did not want the Qing to defeat or annex the various southern forces, including Shun, so they hoped for a truce between the two countries; But at the same time, he also felt a sense of loss because he was snubbed to a certain extent after the armistice, and he was even more angry that Shunguo did not listen to dissuasion and insisted on going south to conquer Ming, in short, he was very unhappy.

But what can be done? These two countries are large countries with large populations and vast territories in the world, and the long-term war has given birth to their absorption and development of foreign military technology, and now the combat effectiveness of the army has also been greatly improved, and the gap between them and the people on the east coast has narrowed rapidly, except for those regular army troops equipped with rifled guns, but their number is undoubtedly too scarce.

So, it seems that the time has come for the local executive committee to adjust its Far Eastern policy once again. If they do not loosen the policy of the four Far Eastern feudatories and give them greater autonomy, the future outcome will not be too optimistic. Chinese mainland is no longer the time when they first came to have low military technology (at that time it was even less familiar with firearms tactics than the armies of Southeast Asian countries), and now they have absorbed a large number of Western military technology, ideas and even talents, and have made long-term progress, and the level of war is increasing day by day. Now, if they want to do that, they need a large number of modernly trained troops, perhaps tens of thousands, like the new ones they have in Denglai and Ningbo, and nothing else.

This is fully reflected in the inability of the people on the east coast to restrain Dashun in the sudden battle of the Shun army. Although Liu Houfei, captain of the Southern Pioneer Team, and Lu Xiaofeng, captain of the Denglai Pioneer Team and captain of the Manmeng Pioneer Team, generally sat on the side of the mainland, they all unanimously confirmed that "the four clans of the Far East need to arm themselves better", otherwise they may "lose themselves" in the chaotic situation in Chinese mainland in the future. Chinese mainland is huge, and they are now slowly becoming powerless to control, and the body of the Far Eastern San Francisco needs to inject more energy, which is something that everyone is slowly understanding now.

In short, the series of events triggered by the killing of Sun Kewang looks set to profoundly change the situation in Chinese mainland and have a profound impact on the perceptions of all parties involved. Chinese mainland, it is clear that it is about to enter a new stage!