A few days later, Murad was assigned to study at the Naval Academy, and promised him that after he graduated from the military academy, he could serve in the Ming Navy, and as long as he performed well enough, he would be willing to support him to return to the Ottoman Empire and compete with his brother Suleiman.

In fact, Zhou Zhong did not have much hope for Murad, after all, few people in the Ottoman Empire knew Murad's identity, and it can be said that Murad did not have any foundation in the Ottoman Empire, plus Suleiman was known as the most outstanding emperor in the history of the Ottoman Empire, how could such a person be so easy to defeat?

However, even if he knew that Murad had little hope of regaining the position of sultan, Zhou Zhong still decided to cultivate him wholeheartedly, after all, the Ottoman Empire, as the only country in the world that could compete with the Ming Dynasty, if it could use Murad to find some chaos for the other party, then it would only be beneficial and harmless to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty would only pay some insignificant small price for this.

Just when Zhou Zhong had just finished arranging Murad's affairs, the results of the battle between Zhengde and the little prince of Tatar finally came from the fishing sea of Liaodong, when the little prince of Tatar arrived with 40,000 cavalry, Zhengde had already taken 60,000 fire dragon cavalry to wait for him, and the two sides launched a duel between cavalry and cavalry on the grassland.

The Ming side has an advantage in numbers and equipment, and more than half of the cavalry of the entire fire dragon cavalry are Mongols, so in the early days of the battle, the Ming Dynasty has the upper hand, especially the application of grenades, although the direct lethality is limited, but it can have the effect of frightening the opponent's war horse, thereby disrupting the opponent's charging formation. For cavalry. When the charge is disrupted. The power of the cavalry will be reduced by half.

Occupying such a big advantage, the Ming army pressed the cavalry of the little prince of Tatar from the beginning, and Zhengde was determined to consume the strength of the Tatars, so he was ready to fight hard with the Tatars from the beginning, anyway, the Ming Dynasty has a strong national strength and a large population, although the fire dragon cavalry is not easy to form, but even if it is consumed this time. As long as there is enough money and food, it will not be long before it can be formed again, but if the Tatar cavalry is exhausted, it will definitely be a great disaster for the steppe people.

It is precisely because of this that the little prince of Tatar fell into passivity from the beginning, even if he had an advantage at the beginning of the war, but he could not withstand such attrition with the Ming Dynasty, not to mention that they were pressed down from the beginning, and there was no possibility of turning over.

Faced with this situation. The little Tatar prince was also very helpless, and finally had to choose to retreat. Originally, he also hoped that the Ming Emperor on the opposite side could lead his troops to chase, so that he could take advantage of his familiarity with the grassland to wipe out the Ming army's army on the grassland, and even directly capture the young Ming Emperor, just like when they captured Ming Yingzong.

But it's a pity that Zhengde has no intention of pursuing at all, after all, he also knows the weakness of his side, when he stops at the close logistics in the rear, they can use the advantage of weapons to defeat the other party, but if they go deep into the grassland alone, it is simply to hand over their lives to others, although Zhengde is confident, but not yet to the point of arrogance.

After the defeat of the little prince of Tatar, he did not give up, after waiting for a month, he once again organized a large army to send troops to Xuanfu, but this time he still returned in vain, but after the last war, the fire dragon rider suffered a lot of damage, and the little prince of Tatar also guarded against the Ming Dynasty from the direction of the fishing sea to attack his lair, so although Zhengde made an attack, but in the end he did not dare to really send troops.

In addition, the cement road between Xuanfu and Yuerhai is also extending unhurriedly, Haidang cement road advances, Daming's trade route will also expand forward, the goods on the grassland are transported from the cement to the Ming Dynasty, and the goods of the Ming Dynasty are transported to the grassland along the cement road, and even many grassland tribes take the initiative to move the tribe to both sides of the cement road in order to trade with the Ming Dynasty, and there are many grassland herdsmen for the Ming Dynasty to give compensation, Personally join the team that built the concrete road.

For this slow encroachment of the Ming Dynasty, the little prince of Tatar is also helpless, he has twice sent troops to destroy this kind of action of the Ming Dynasty, but instead of having any effect, he has also lost a lot of troops, what is even more terrible is that these two defeats plus several defeats of the Ming Dynasty before have dealt a great blow to his prestige, and many tribes have begun to doubt his ability, which also makes the little prince of Tatar dare not send troops easily, otherwise if he is defeated again, I am afraid that his position as Great Khan will be taken away by someone else.

The little prince of Tatar did not dare to act rashly, the encroachment of the Ming on the grassland was even more unscrupulous, countless caravans of the Ming began to pour into the grassland, wool, horse sideburns, all kinds of leather are their favorite commodities, in recent years, the Ming Dynasty's industry and commerce have developed rapidly, and the demand for raw materials is great, so even if it is to buy more raw materials, there is no need to worry about sales.

In addition, at the same time of purchasing raw materials, the merchants of the Ming Dynasty are also slowly transforming the pastoral structure of the grassland people, for example, the textile industry of the Ming Dynasty is now very developed, and the demand for wool is great, so these merchants enter the grassland trade, the priority is the purchase of wool, and even the sheepskin that used to be used as a common commodity, is now somewhat unsalable, because with the development of the textile industry, the first choice of the people is naturally cheap textiles, and they also like to wear cotton jackets instead of leather clothes in winter, so that the demand for leather naturally declinesOf course, this decline is the lowest-end sheepskin, if it is cowhide, wolf skin, these high-end fur, it has always been how much to have.

The merchants of the Ming Dynasty liked wool the most, and the tribes on the grassland were naturally not stupid, they quickly adjusted the types of animals they graze, such as increasing the proportion of sheep, and then reducing the number of cattle and horses, among which the number of cattle is less, and the cowhide will also decrease, and the cowhide is the main reason for the grassland people to make armor, not to mention the horses, the grassland people who lack horses are like cripples without legs, and there is no threat at all.

Of course, the adjustment of this pastoral structure on the grassland is very slow, and with the knowledge of the grassland people, they can not detect the impact of this change on themselves, and even many "smart" tribes have consciously changed their grazing sheep breeds, in the past, they raised sheep mainly to drink goat milk and eat mutton, and the sheep can be said to be their main source of food, and now because the Ming merchants like wool the most, so they began to raise those varieties with large wool production and relatively slender wool, As for milk production and meat production, they only rely on selling wool, they can exchange enough food from the hands of the Ming merchants, and even in exchange for fine wine and silk, so they don't have to bother raising those sheep that produce milk and meat.

Although the adjustment of our animal husbandry structure is slow, it spreads like a virus throughout the Mongolian steppe, after all, the life of the herdsmen on the grassland is too hard, and even the basic life guarantee is not available, maybe a white plague in the winter can make a medium-sized tribe disappear, and by trading with the Ming merchants, they can exchange for more convenient storage of food, and even warm clothes, with these, even if there is a famine in a certain year, they can carry it, instead of waiting to starve to death like before.

It's just that with the adjustment of this structure, slowly the grassland people will find that they will become more and more dependent on the Ming Dynasty, such as wool, which is now in short supply, but if the shepherds on the entire grassland raise sheep, coupled with the saturation of the wool textile market, there will always be a day of overproduction in the future, and then it will not be the Ming merchants begging them to sell, but they are begging the Ming merchants to buy.

What's even more terrifying is that when the wool production is overproduced, the grassland people will also find that their food, clothing, housing and transportation have been completely in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty does not buy their wool, then they will have no food, salt, tea, clothes, iron pots, etc., and even when they want to resist, they will find that they will even become very scarce war horses, and they can no longer count horses as before, and they can run thousands of miles in a day.

In addition, there is the most critical, that is, the cement road built from the two places of Xuanfu and Yuerhai, this hardened road will have a strong fortress every hundred miles, each fortress will be stationed with a hundred people, and when the two cement roads cross on the grassland, a cross-shaped iron chain will be formed, the entire grassland will be firmly locked, and there will be any change in the future, it is difficult to escape the eyes of the Ming Dynasty, and with the help of convenient transportation, the Ming Dynasty can mobilize the army at the fastest speed, Strangled the movement on the grassland in the cradle.

Seeing that the situation in the grassland is improving day by day, the grassland people with tribes as a unit have also begun to slowly move closer to the Ming Dynasty, under the growth of one another, the power of the Tatars is even weaker, and even many of the Tatar tribal leaders have begun to secretly send to the Ming for the sake of the survival of their tribes, hoping to ask for some benefits from the Ming Dynasty, and then give their tribes to the Ming Dynasty, after all, they are not stupid, knowing that if they continue like this, they will perish with the Tatars, in this case, It's better to take advantage of the present to give yourself some benefits, and by the way, you can also let the tribe survive better.

The decline of the Tatars, finally made the Ming Dynasty breathe a sigh of relief, especially Zhou Zhong and the cabinet, but also felt that there was a big burden missing, for this plan to encroach on the grassland, the Ming Dynasty has invested countless manpower and material resources, if it can't succeed, it will be a big loss.

However, when the border troubles in the northern grasslands slowly disappeared, Zhou Chong also discussed with the cabinet how to bring Zhengde back, after all, it is not good for an emperor to lead troops outside all the year round, but at this time, one thing that Zhou Chong had been worried about suddenly broke out. (To be continued......)