On December 2, the 25th year of Wanli, more than 10,000 Mongolian cavalry arrived at Wutai Town, and found that the people here went to the empty city, and there was no sign of human life.

The Mongolian cavalry went all the way south, never encountered a strong resistance from the Ming army, not even a decent block, all the way south unimpeded, at most there were some basically useless rejection horses and obstacles, which were lightly solved by the Mongolian cavalry and continued to go south.

At this moment, Wang Shiyang has received an edict from the imperial court, adding another authority to control the troops of Yulin Town to his title of governor of Xuanda, making him the commander-in-chief who can take charge of the soldiers and horses of the four towns of Taiyuan, Yulin, Datong and Xuanfu, that is, the commander-in-chief of this battle.

The only soldiers and horses that were not controlled by him were more than 60,000 reinforcements from the Beijing camp of Li Chengliang's troops who arrived at Bauhinia Pass to fight against the Mongols, and Li Rusong's elite Liaodong Iron Cavalry was on a tense march.

According to expectations, as long as the battle situation does not continue to deteriorate and persists until the elite of Li Rusong's unit arrives, the situation can be reversed.

Wang Shiyang forcibly calmed down, and while setting up defensive lines in Dingxiang, Xinzhou, and Shiling Pass, he carried out the tactics of forcibly relocating people and clearing the wilderness around Taiyuan Town.

He knew that the Mongols went south this time because of the lack of food, and because of years of grudges, in order to plunder as soon as possible, and the main target of the plunder was the grain for the winter, and the things they went south to maintain their combat effectiveness were also the grain they plundered in Datong and Shanxi.

But now is different from the past, in the past two years the Ming Dynasty has also suffered serious disasters, and there is no food to eat, and the Mongols must have plundered very little, it is difficult to sustain them for a long time.

As long as they persist in resisting and clearing the wilderness, the longer the time drags on, the higher the victory rate of the Ming Dynasty, and the more the Mongols will be starved of food.

Wang Shiyang's idea was correct, he knew the Mongols' strategy of feeding war with war, and at the same time he was also puzzled.

Datong does not have enough food to allow 100,000 Mongolian iron horsemen to have enough food to eat, even if they plunder the local households and castles, the income will be very limited, almost equivalent to the natural wall and wilderness tactics, how can the Mongols have such a strong endurance?

Wang Shiyang began to suspect that the Mongols were using human flesh as military rations, and he knew that hungry people would choose other things to satisfy themselves when they did not have enough food to eat, and the history of human warfare was also a history of cannibalism in a sense.

If the Mongols persist in using human flesh as dry food, then they don't know how long they can hold on, they have no sense of morality and no humanity.

Cannibalism is definitely not an unacceptable thing for these barbarians, and Wang Shiyang is most worried about this, if this is the case, there will be grain all over the ground.

However, Wang Shiyang obviously did not think that these Mongolians did not eat 'two-legged sheep', but real food, and the Mongolians did not lack food at all.

They were replenished with adequate supplies in Datong, and it was these provisions that intensified the ambitions of the Mongols, prompting them to attack Yanmen Pass and Pingxing Pass.

Including those Jin merchants in Shanxi, they would never have imagined that it was the series of preparations they arranged in Datong that gave the Mongols the confidence to continue to conquer the city.

This story also starts from the first day of the Mongol Koubian.

The Jin merchants are not monolithic, from the beginning of the business bigger, there are also many differences within the Jin merchants, such as the bow business, horseshoe business, saddle business, arrow business and so on.

Many businesses are divided into categories, and many families are responsible for them separately, and they are responsible for it at the beginning, but in the actual operation later, there is always competition and annexation, and in the end, the largest family of Jin merchants is more than a dozen, and there are a series of vassal small and medium-sized families, living on leftovers.

But not all families are willing to succumb to more than a dozen big families, these families left Shanxi and ran to Datong, relying on the geographical location near the water and cheaper prices to play a price trade war with the big families, and won a lot of share.

This kind of thing makes everyone's clan quite annoyed, although they are also doing business in Datong, but this competition is a little powerless, the legitimate trade war can't be beaten, then you can only play yin, and unite the Mongols to go south to loot and clean up these families, which is a very ruthless routine.

Please ask the Mongols to destroy these families, and promise enough benefits to get a share of these businesses on the premise of killing people with a knife, so that they can make themselves a little fatter.

The Mongols went south and plundered grain, but they would not attack these cooperative families, but would deliberately protect them, and after the Ming army expelled the Mongols back, business would be done.

This time, what they value and want to harm is the Ma family and the Zhang family, as well as the dozen or so small families who support them, this group of people gathered in Datong, and gradually there is a tendency to compete with their own family, in the face of such a crisis, they must not let go.

The Mongols had not gone south for a long time and no longer knew the road, so they sent a few people who were familiar with the road to hide in the Mongols' ranks, pointing out the weak points and communication arteries of the Ming army's defense to the Mongols all the way, helping the Mongols to go south smoothly, and successfully wiped out the Ma family, the Zhang family and those small families.

This was done by a cavalry of several thousand men of the Tumut tribe under the leadership of Liu Xi, a member of the Liu clan, and this matter was a matter for them to negotiate with the Tumut tribe alone, and these benefits also belonged to the Tumut, not to the other tribes further north.

Looking at the raging fire and the miserable sound of the horn, Liu Xi's smile was very ruthless, the bastards of the Ma family and the Zhang family still dealt him a big blow, and regular means could not defeat them no matter what, and even made him almost lose his current position by the main family.

But now, what can they do?

The most hated eldest son of the Ma family was just beheaded, his wife was being ravaged by seven or eight Mongols, the men in the family were killed, and the women were all taken captive.

After an hour or two, when the sky was bright, the leader of the Mongols came to Liu Xi's side with a big smile, patted Liu Xi on the shoulder, laughed and said: "Hahahaha, yes, yes, now we have a lot of things, gold and silver treasures, and a lot of ironware, and more women, hahaha!" ”