Chapter 281: Defeat

The cavalry brought back the report of the battle that had taken Wuzhou by intimidation, as well as nearly 50,000 war horses, as well as countless grain, cattle, sheep and fodder for horses. （）

With the continuous reconquest of lost territory, the population figures under the command of the Song army continued to leap forward, and in this season of national ruin, nothing was more attractive than a stable job. At the same time, the Song army could not stop fighting, this small territory along the coast, compared with the entire world's thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, is still only a small part, and there are still more cities and people waiting to be rescued.

The Yunnan-Guizhou area has been attached to the Yuan Dynasty for many years, and the soldiers and horses stationed in the garrison and the Tusi big households appointed by Kublai Khan have their own strengths, but they are not worth mentioning compared with the Song army in Guangzhou, but because of the terrain, it is even more difficult to provide supplies and transportation for the march.

Therefore, Zhao Tianyou arranged for Liu Changhai and Ling Zhen to cooperate, and while growing himself, he gradually encroached on the important cities in the land of Yungui and restored the influence of the Song Dynasty among a few famous clans.

In the middle of the Yuan army, there are still heavy troops hoarded in the Xiangyang area, Tanzhou, Ezhou, the Yuan army is still stable, and several state capitals close to Jizhou may mutiny at any time, when the Yuan army is everywhere to take care of the fire, the entire south of the Yangtze River can be said to be a few stable places.

In some places, the Yuan army was strong and suppressed the local people very strongly, and in some places, the Han officials in charge were too ruthless to turn back to the Song Dynasty, and they also strictly guarded their subordinates and the people around them, for fear of making a mistake.

However, the defeat of the Yuan army began to appear, although it was not a complete rout, but the pressure on the generals in various places was already very great, from the deployment of materials to the distribution of military strength, it was very different from when it invaded the Song Dynasty in the south.

Mongolia, a nomadic ethnic minority, relied on ruthless killings and advanced cavalry tactics to lay down the largest territory in the world, what to rely on to hold it? Only by relying on those available can we hold this vast territory.

The grassland of northern Xinjiang has been divided into feudal states during the time of Genghis Khan, and the khanate established by three different tribes handles the affairs of the territory by itself, but it has to obey the orders of Yuan Dadu, which is actually a nominal vassal state.

After destroying the Liao and destroying the Jin Dynasty, the Mongols were fighting against the Song Dynasty Alliance, but the Yuan people turned their faces and denied the results of the battle, and took the large land occupied by the Song people by the Liao State as their own, and set up their capital in Zhongjing Dadu, and immediately began the war of invading the Song Dynasty in the south after gaining a firm foothold.

The Song Dynasty seemed to be about to collapse completely, and Kublai Khan, who had been building the capital with his heart in the Yuan Dynasty, was surprised, and began to wonder if he was wrong in employing people, and also wondered if Boyan had fallen into the evil art of the Han people.

It was not until the envoy reported back what he had seen with his own eyes that Kublai Khan realized the seriousness of the problem, and he immediately issued a summoning order to the three northern khanates and began to requisition the troops of the three khanates to participate in the war.

Kublai Khan has been stationed in the north with an army of 200,000, in fact, the purpose has always been to prevent these three khanates, after all, they are all the blood descendants of Kublai Khan, as long as the opportunity is right, every big tent can pull up the banner of orthodoxy to replace Kublai Khan.

But now it is the common fate of the entire Mongolian people, once the Song Dynasty turns around and uses the strength of tens of millions of people to deal with the Mongolian Yuan tribe of millions of people, the result can be imagined. The occupation of the Central Plains relied on ruthlessness and speed, as well as the weak military system of the Song Dynasty, as well as countless surrenders and generals, if there were no Han generals to surrender troops, the hundreds of thousands of cavalry sent by Meng Yuan would not even be able to make a splash on the land of the Central Plains.

The three khanates were extremely reluctant to send troops, and the strength of the three of them together was not weaker than that of Kublai Khan, but they were also worried that Kublai Khan would attack them, and once the troops and horses were transferred, they would take the opportunity to destroy them.

They didn't think too much about it, this idea came to them the moment Kublai Khan transferred troops to them, if everything went well, while completely occupying the Southern Song Dynasty, he would also unify the three khanates, and there would be only one orthodox descendant of Genghis Khan in the whole world.

Because of the problem of time, after the Yuan soldiers were defeated and retreated from Guangzhou, they have been on the defensive passively, and large areas such as Jiangxi, Hunan, and Fujian have been newly occupied by the Song army. In order to preserve their strength, they began to withdraw their troops in some small prefectures and counties, and gathered in some large military camps to stand by, so as to avoid being beheaded by the Han people at night.

The Yuan army was shrinking but the Song army was expanding, but in the process of expansion, Zhao Tianyou also faced a serious problem. With the continuous recovery of the territory and cities, the most critical weapon of the Song army was the cannon of the firearms battalion, which was not slow to cast, but it could not supply the hungry demand everywhere.

The first thing to do when the defender of the city took office was to ask the firearms battalion for assistance in the defense, even if only a few hundred people were sent to bring ten cannons into the station, they could also deter the nearby Yuan army and embolden the local military and civilians.

There is no problem with three or five cities according to the current expanded ranks of the firearms battalion, but the speed at which the Song army is recovering the lost territory is getting faster and faster, and all the large and small states and counties want artillery to be stationed, so how can it be satisfied.

At this time, some civil officials suggested that the technicians of the cannon casting workshops on Hong Kong Island should be moved to the shore, and the scale of apprentices should be expanded, and the production line should be increased to expand the production capacity, so as to strive to fill the walls of every state capital with cannons.

Zhao Tianyou is not very worried about this, the cannon casting process is just a hard work, and it doesn't matter if it is passed out. The 10,000-jin cannons cast by Boyan are quite standard, and they are stronger than the Hongyi cannons in terms of firmness, but the pig iron consumed by that weight is no longer strong.

The real core technology of the cannon lies in the production process of the flowering cannonballs, the production line and the technicians of the cannonballs, and Zhao Tianyou will never let them leave Hong Kong Island, and he will definitely not leak a little secret to the outside world.

This cross-era thing that can change the pattern of the world must be firmly controlled in his own hands, and must not be beyond his control, because Zhao Tianyou does not know what kind of disasters and changes it will bring.

After such a long period of explosive development, Hong Kong Island has formed a fairly large independent living area, for example, the production of coking iron is mainly concentrated in the Tai Po Pier area, and the Wan Chai Ferry Terminal is used as a commercial area to build shops and warehouses.

The most critical workshops for the production of gunpowder and flowering bombs are arranged in the area of Kowloon City, which is heavily garrisoned by the military, and according to its own needs, the surrounding population and living facilities are becoming more and more perfect, and more than 100,000 people live on the entire Hong Kong Island, forming a city around the steel and gunpowder military industries.

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