Lin Yi led the 01 Cavalry Brigade to chase the cattle and sheep all the way, and launched a sweeping sweep of the Horqin Department, and the cavalry brigade was not short of supplies at all.

There is no need to worry about grain and grass at all, as long as you chase the Mongols' cattle and sheep.

Gunpowder brought a lot of it, why did the cavalry artillery regiment have 4,000 people? That's because the soldiers of the mounted artillery regiment also played the role of a baggage unit.

When they came out, they were full of gunpowder and shells, and when they were used up, the freed up transportation capacity was used up to transport the supplies they had stolen, and the cattle, sheep and horses that had been grabbed before were first brought back to the logistics station in western Liaoning.

There is a shortage of livestock in Liaodong, and now a large number of immigrants have begun to migrate in Liaodong, and the territory of Liaodong is so vast that some areas can be grazed.

Of course, Liaodong is not used to develop animal husbandry, but is a place suitable for the development of planting and aquaculture, but that is only in terms of the degree of land use.

The sweep of the Horqin tribe lasted for about five days, Lin Yi cut down tens of thousands of Mongols of the Horqin tribe, Lin Yi divided the cavalry battalion into battalion-level units in the sweep, and the fourteen battalions were scattered and swept separately.

Lin Yi, who fought with the Horqin Division, found that the Mongols were not only not high in combat effectiveness, but also very weak, plus they were hiding everywhere, and the entire cavalry brigade was obviously exhausted when they went out together.

After being dispersed into battalion-level units, the efficiency was greatly improved.

When you encounter a small group of Mongols, kill them directly. When encountering a large number of Mongols, contact other cavalry battalions and then exterminate them.

The routines used to deal with the Mongols are also becoming more and more proficient.

Suppress them with artillery to ensure the identity of their pursuers, and then use the range of muskets to kill them. If the Mongols were on guard, they would still be able to dodge.

But most of the Mongols were not familiar with this routine of the Shandong cavalry, and even if it was a run of some people, those cattle and sheep could not run.

Without cattle and sheep, without food, the population growth of the Mongols is a huge problem.

While Lin Yi was sweeping through the Horqin Division, the other four cavalry brigades also encountered other Mongol tribes, and the tactics of each brigade were all the same, with almost no difference.

In just over 10 days, the brigades made frequent successes and swept through Mengdong like a violent wind. The Korqin Division, the Inner Khalkha Division, the Taiji Wukeshan, the Manzhu Xili and other eastern Mongolian tribes were all swept away by the four cavalry brigades of the First Division.

Some Mongolian tribes did not intend to resist the Shandong soldiers and horses, today's Mongolia is no longer the existence of the past, the Shandong army in Liaodong fought the Manchu Qing Dynasty lost their armor, and was exterminated by the Shandong army, the Mongols all know.

As soon as they heard that the Shandong cavalry had entered the grassland, and detected that the Ming army was moving north from Datong on a large scale, all the Mongolian tribes realized that something was wrong and ran to ask the Shandong army to surrender.

However, the Shandong army ignored everything, these foreign tribes have always been like this, they will be attached when their strength is weak, and once they are strong, they will show their hideous fangs.

What the Shandong army wants this time is to sweep up!

A sweeping sweep.

Liu Heng commanded five infantry battalions, as well as Lu Xiangsheng's 50,000 soldiers and horses, to form a vertical line in the north of Datong, and then advanced all the way to the east, flanking the four cavalry brigades to the west.

The momentum of the infantry brigade is much greater than that of the cavalry brigade, and there are 50,000 Xuanda soldiers and horses of Lu Xiangsheng to cooperate, but the killing efficiency is not so high.

After all, it is infantry, and it can't catch up with those crazy Mongols, but each brigade can piece together 3,000 cavalry, and there are still manpower to chase and kill the Mongols. But the sweep was not slow at all, after all, the infantry brigade was also equipped with horses, and it was enough to keep up with the herd of cattle and sheep.

The Mongols could run, but the cattle and sheep couldn't.

Without cattle and sheep, they would have no food and their population would not be able to grow.

As soon as the scouts spot a herd of cattle and sheep, the infantry brigade will immediately split into a battalion or regiment to mop up.

At this time, it is the end of spring, the cattle and sheep are happily eating the grass everywhere, and the birds are also chirping and jumping on the grassland, everything looks so beautiful, but the uninvited guest appears so suddenly.

In the eastern part of Monan, more than 100,000 Ming troops swept all the way, and it was easy for the Shandong army, equipped with artillery and advanced muskets, to sweep away the Mongols.

The Mongols had very little armor, their forces were very scattered, and their tactics were outdated, and the current Mongols were outdated.

Often a battalion of more than 600 people can sweep away a small tribe, although it is impossible to wipe it out, but it is very easy to snatch the cattle and sheep of the Mongols.

Although it was difficult for the infantry to completely annihilate the Mongols, it was characterized by steady, professional baggage troops that could escort captured women, cattle and sheep to the rear, and those escaped Mongols could not pose any threat even if they were scurrying around in the rear.

Although the combat effectiveness of the soldiers was not very high, it was more than enough to deal with the Mongols, and in the terrain with a wide field of vision such as the steppe, the Mongols could detect it early when they appeared in the distance.

Most of the Mongols who were scurrying in the rear were scattered, and their strength was not strong, and they did not pose any threat to the logistics of the Shandong army.

The baggage troops and engineer units were in the rear, fighting all the way in front, and they built forts and pillboxes all the way in the rear, and the construction site of the forts was selected in the Hohhot area in the northwest of Shanxi.

The western part is the Hetao Plain, which is occupied by Tumut, and the Shandong Army has not yet fought westward for the time being, but first cleared the east, which is the eastern region of Inner Mongolia in later generations.

The eastern part of Inner Mongolia is close to the ocean, the air is more humid and there is more precipitation, so there are almost no desert areas in the east, at most there are some small sand dunes with more vegetation on them.

For example, the Horqin Sandy Land in later generations has not yet appeared in this era.

The Horqin Sandy Land of the Liao Dynasty was still a fertile land and abundant water area. The Liao Dynasty made full use of this land to set up some prefectures and counties, and for the first time on the Horqin Sandy Land, there was a scene of farmland covering the wilderness, roads crisscrossing and cities facing each other. With the continuous increase of the development area of the sandy area, the phenomenon of large-scale desertification also began to appear, and in the late Liao Dynasty, the desertification area of the Horqin sandy land was expanded.

In 1089 A.D., Su Zhe made Liao Shi once described the Horqin sandy land as follows: Xi Tian can be cultivated, Liao soil is straight desert, thorns do not come back, what is the reason for the dry, Zishan is also shafu, and the bushes are thin. For more than 200 years in the Liao Dynasty, it was the period of the greatest change in the Horqin Sandy Land, and the ecological environment degraded from the natural landscape of forest-steppe, sparse forest steppe and meadow steppe to the natural landscape of sparse forest steppe and meadow steppe, and quicksand appeared in some areas. In the Jin Dynasty, the Horqin Sandy Land was unrecognizable compared with the Tang Dynasty, showing the phenomenon of vegetation destruction, quicksand flooding, wind and sand, difficult roads, and people scattering, and the ecological environment appeared a natural landscape of sparse forest grassland and dry desert grassland. The Jin Dynasty can be said to be the most serious period of desertification in the history of the Horqin Sandy Land.

After the 13th century, with the establishment of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the ruling center moved southward, and the Horqin Sandy Land basically became the activity area of the Mongolian people, and its economic activities were mainly nomadic, which greatly reduced the pressure on the Horqin Sandy Land and restored the natural vegetation. At the beginning of the 17th century, it was once again a fine pasture suitable for grazing.

In later generations, the western part of Ordos was generally called a desert, while the eastern part was a grassland, and the desertified area was called sandy land, and there was basically no sandy land in the eastern part of Ordos in this era.

The eastern part is a more suitable area for grazing, so let's take it first.

Clashes continued every day, and whether it was a cavalry brigade advancing west or an infantry brigade advancing eastward, one Mongol tribe after another broke through, and many Mongols fled.

However, to the east, you can encounter the cavalry brigade of the Shandong Army, and to the west, you can encounter the infantry brigade of the Shandong Army.

Of course, the Shandong Army's two-sided attack is only a strategic act, and it is simply impossible to surround both sides tactically, as long as the Mongols are smart and don't get bitten, it is still easy to jump out of the bag.

But if they migrated with cattle and sheep, they would not have escaped their fate.

The Mongol goal in the Eve was too obvious and slow.

The Mongols found that the Ming army did not pay attention to their surrender and was bitten during the migration, and they could not abandon their tribes and livestock, and often at this time, it was a big battle.

The efficiency of the infantry brigade is also very high, with an average of hundreds of miles per day, and the whole army operates like a machine.

Twenty days after the start of the battle, the cavalry brigade and infantry brigade converged 500 miles west of the Yinshan Mountains, and about 310,000 Mongols had been annihilated and captured on both fronts, and about one-third of the Mongols had escaped.

More than 100,000 Mongols have become lost dogs, roaming around on horseback. And some tribes ran to Mobei entirely, and these people ran earlier, so they escaped.

Some went to Mobei, and some went to Moxi. Some were reluctant to leave and wanted to fight guerrilla harassment behind the Shandong army. The Mongol tribes in the entire eastern region of Mongolia have been basically eradicated.

In the Hohhot area, 6 million head of sheep, more than 1.6 million head of cattle, and more than 300,000 horses have been gathered. In western Liaoning, there are more than 4 million sheep, more than 1 million cattle, and more than 400,000 horses.

This batch of captures is worth twenty or thirty million taels of silver, to say the least.

It turns out that you can also make a fortune by fighting Mongolia. When Zhao Yan received the good news in Zhaojiabao, he couldn't help laughing, what made him happiest was the captured horses.

Combined, these horses are 700,000.

The Mongols couldn't just have a few horses, but horses were a good thing to take away, so most of the Mongol tribes who fled took a lot of horses with them.

The number of horses captured by the Shandong army in battle could not have been as easily captured as a herd of cattle and sheep. And the cavalry brigades of the Eastern Front had a higher mobile surname and therefore more horses captured than on the Western Front.

Zhao Yan hurriedly asked people to call Tang Zhengze, Tang Zhengze looked at the good news, Zhao Yan said: "With these horses, the horse farm will expand rapidly, and immediately transfer people from the Ministry of Agriculture to set up the 'Saibei Animal Husbandry Bureau', and select pastures for these livestock to be stocked." ”

"My lord, the war in Mongolia is still unsettled, and it is easy to be harassed by opening pastures outside the Saiwai." Tang Zhengze said.

"This doesn't matter, the newly formed 05 Infantry Brigade was transferred to Mongolia, and we first opened pastures in the Hetao and the east, and the 05 Infantry Brigade was responsible for the clean-up task. In addition, pastures were set up in the pastures around the Great Khing'an Mountains and the Yinshan Mountains, where the Nuergandu Division was responsible for the clearing task. Zhao Yan said.

Now Shandong only has the strength of the 06 and 07 infantry brigades of the Second Division and the American Infantry Brigade left, of which the three infantry brigades that have just been expanded will take more than a month to put into the battlefield, but the Hetao area has not been defeated yet, and the Hetao and the eastern region were responsible for the first division in the early stage.

When the first division was about to move the battlefield, it was necessary to send troops over again.

"With the cooperation of the troops, the opening of pastoral areas is not a problem." Tang Zhengze said.

Zhao Yan suddenly thought of a problem, that is, the environmental problems in the north, the sand and dust of later generations hit the city every year, and the desert in the northern region is expanding every year.

Much of this is due to farming and overgrazing.

So he said to Tang Zhengze: "In addition to the establishment of the 'Saibei Animal Husbandry Bureau', we should also set up a 'Saibei Sand Prevention Bureau' to specifically manage the sandy land in Mongolia. I'll write a plan later. ”

"Yes."

After Tang Zhengze left, Zhao Yan immediately began to write a plan, which would not be clear for a while about sand prevention and forest protection and grassland protection, but it was still clearly written and handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture.

First of all, Zhao Yan banned agricultural cultivation in Mongolia's development plan.

The bearing capacity of the ecosystem in the north is not strong, and the pressure on the land of agricultural planting is relatively large, even if the Mongolian region can carry out agricultural planting, the production capacity is not as strong as in the south, which is originally a region used to develop animal husbandry, there is so much land in the south that can be used to develop agriculture, and the saturation of the territory of the Ming Dynasty can be pushed to the Indochina Peninsula and the South Seas, why should agriculture be developed in Mongolia?

The ban on agriculture is accompanied by monitoring of pastures and the implementation of a rotational system, which requires all grazing to be stopped if the soil and water are degraded.

Protected areas and areas of governance should also be identified.

Those areas with fragile ecological conditions should be sealed off so that no one can graze there, and those sandy lands and deserts should be managed, at least to prevent the spread of deserts.

Once the desert spreads, it is terrifying, like a contagion, the sand will slowly flood the surrounding area, and then assimilate the flooded area into a desert.

The means of governance, that is, planting grass and trees.

Later generations are also governing, but many of them are planted in front of them, and then let the TV station shoot them, and no one cares about them below, and the local farmers will even pull out the trees and carry the pots home.

There have also been times in the history of the United States, where the result of overgrazing in the central prairies has been treated more or less well.

Through governance, it is possible to defeat the wind and sand, and it is more able to curb the spread of the desert. But this is a long-term project.

After Zhao Yan wrote the plan, he immediately sent it to the Ministry of Agriculture.

The scope of implementation of this program includes not only Mongolia, but also northern Shanxi. The northern part of Shanxi is also an area that is not suitable for the development of agricultural cultivation.

…… On the Shandong side, under the command of Zhao Yan, the immigration work soon began.

The way of immigration is relatively simple, and it is carried out by recruitment.

All grasslands in Mongolia will become state-owned pastoral areas, and the entire Mongolia will be built into pastoral areas in Shandong in the early stage, and this pastoral area will be managed by professional personnel.

Immigrants in the past, on the other hand, worked as employees in pastoral areas and were paid monthly wages. And Inner Mongolia will be built into a huge horse production area.

It doesn't matter if it's a waste of resources, after all, Mongolia's ecology is not very good.

Grain or something, except for some cattle and sheep in the pastoral area, the rest will be transported from other provinces, and when the Mongols are completely solved, the pasture will be slowly sold.

In order to let people pass, Zhao Yan set the salary of the pastoral area relatively high, giving 2 taels of silver every month, but before going over, he had to go through training.

At the very least, you must know how to raise horses and sheep.

The pastoral areas will be militarized, and a large number of bunkers will be built in the surrounding water sources to guard them, and if the Mongols are detected, the army will immediately go to clear them.

Due to the immigration, the construction of raw material factories such as cement plants in Shaanxi and western Liaoning is also planned.

On the road, plans are also beginning to be made.

…… Just when the 1st Division and Lu Xiangsheng's Xuanda soldiers and horses solved the Mongol tribes in the eastern Mongolian region, the Mongol tribes in the Moxi, Mobei Mongolia and Hetao regions also began to allied.

Moxi Mongolia is dominated by the five tribes of the Han Division, the Dzungaria, the Dulbert, the Heshute and the Tuerhut, the Hetao area is mainly the Tumut tribe, the Karaqin and other tribes, and the Mobei is the Bahrain, Zhalut, Alu Korqin, and Wengniute tribes.

Due to the defeat of the Manchu Qing in Guannei, the Mongol tribes in Moxi and Mobei did not grab anything, so they adopted a wait-and-see attitude on whether to get on the Chariot of the Manchu Dynasty.

Their wait-and-see is both right and wrong.

Rightly, they retained their vitality, unlike the tribes of Mengdong. But the mistake is that the Shandong army does not want to let them go, and has now withdrawn its hand to deal with them.

The tribes were shocked by the sudden invasion of Mongolia by the Ming army, and at the same time sent troops to sue for peace and the Ming army ignored them, so the tribes quickly allied in the Ordos region to resist the aggressive offensive of the Ming army.

There are more and more Mongolian tribes in the alliance, and the number of its warriors has quickly soared to more than 100,000, and there are constantly tribes rushing to the alliance.

After the scouts of the Shandong Army detected the situation in the Ordos area, Liu Heng immediately ordered the 1st Division to move westward. The pace of the westward advance was very fast, the cavalry brigade marched at a speed of nearly three hundred miles a day, and the speed of the infantry brigade was also raised to the level of one hundred and fifty miles.

The march of the Xuanda soldiers and horses led by Lu Xiangsheng was also very fast, and so many horses were captured, and everyone was equipped with horses to travel.

Lu Xiangsheng, who participated in this battle, once again saw the great changes in the Shandong army.

When he saw the Shandong Army a few years ago, the firearms of the Shandong Army were far less sharp than they are now, especially the power of the muskets had increased to the point where he felt incredible.

The number of artillery pieces is even more staggering, especially the heavy artillery of the infantry brigade, which is even more shocking, each of which is dragged by seven or eight horses or even a dozen horses. Although these heavy cannons were of little use to shoot down along the way, the power was stunning.

At the same time, the establishment of the Shandong Army has also changed.

In the past, there were only battalion-level units, but this time there are regimental and brigade-level establishments, and the arms have become more complete, and the entire system can only be described as strict.

What made Lu Xiangsheng feel even more incredible was the logistics of the Shandong Army, the logistics supply of the Shandong Army was simply endless, although there was no shortage of food and grass, but the baggage soldiers still continued to transport soybeans and ammunition to the front line, some soldiers complained that the night was too cold, and the baggage soldiers sent blankets within a few days.

Liu Heng explained to him that it was the general who believed that soldiers should enjoy the normal standard of living in Shandong when they were fighting.

(To be continued)