Chapter 429 is insignificant

I understand Ma Tingluan's good intentions, the palace naturally has the image of the palace, the Great Song Dynasty is the Celestial Empire, of course, we must pay attention to our own image. However, although the image is important, when it comes to life and death, survival is more important than everything. I still kept a gentle tone and explained: "Ma Aiqing, I have calculated in detail about this matter, the majority of the expenses in the palace lie in the new construction, repair, and maintenance of various buildings in the palace, the salaries of the people in the palace and various rewards to the outside world, etc., I have notified that from now until the end of the war, no new buildings shall be built, no new logistics personnel shall be added, and the annual major changes will be made to simple maintenance, and at the same time reduce the salaries of the people in the harem, so that I estimate that half of the cost should not be a big problem." The battle between Song and Mongolia will only be five or six years at most, and it will be clear that Ma Aiqing, when the war is over, it will not be too late for me to build a large number of buildings. ”

"Your Majesty." Ma Tingluan thought for a while and praised, "Your Majesty, the minister has a book, and the matter of His Majesty's reduction of the expenses in the palace should be publicized and widely publicized through the newspapers of Lin'an City, so as to increase the cohesion of the people of our dynasty and the direction and direction that Your Majesty said." ”

"Master Ma, it's a centripetal force." Wen Tianxiang smiled and said, "Your Majesty takes the lead in frugality and leads by example, which is bound to make the people of my court feel the pragmatic spirit of the royal family, and the centripetal force will naturally increase." ”

"Oh, yes, it's centripetal force."

"Yes, this matter is accurate. Ladies and gentlemen, retreat from the court. ”

The hype about this kind of thing is a good thing, and it is good for the people, and I will naturally agree.

If you can do it or not, others have no way of knowing, you will say that you can't do it, sooner or later it will make the people feel unreliable, and only if you can do it and say it, can the people recognize it. Neither a simple high-profile nor a low-key approach is advisable, and a combination of both is the way of the emperor.

The next day, at dinner at the Shifeng Trading House, I asked Yuan Jiandao: "Sir, have you seen the battle between Lu Wenxin, the leader of my Black Tan Regiment, and the Mongolian Marshal Ashu, is there any similarity between this kind of battle before the battle and the contest between martial arts people?" ”

"Your Majesty, foot combat and horse strategy are different, foot combat focuses on skill and flexibility, and most of them are based on short weapons, while horse combat pays more attention to strength and speed, mostly with long weapons or heavy weapons, and it will also use the impact of war horses. If it is under the horse, with the current strength of our generals, no one will be the opponent of the minister, but once they compete on the horse, the advantage of the minister will not be so great. Your Majesty still remembers the battle of the Anfeng Army that day, if Shen Mo and the enemy's main general Hu Chi were both on horseback, it would be difficult for Shen Mo to succeed in the surprise attack. ”

I nodded and said with a smile: "The advantage that Mr. said is not big, but it should be no problem to win, right?" ”

Yuan Jian said: "Your Majesty, although the minister does not know the depth of Ah Shu and Lu Wenxin's martial arts, it must be not much different from Zhao Huai, Zhao Bao and others, and the minister is confident." ”

I know that Yuan Jian never spoke, and said: "Sir, Lu Wen's signal is called Dao Lu, and the Zhao family brothers are known as Gun Zhao, and their martial arts are all in between. ”

"The minister and Zhao Huai have discussed martial arts, and in a single-handedly battle, the minister can win, but when thousands of troops and horses are fighting, the murderous aura cultivated on the battlefield like Ah Shu and Lu Wenxin is essentially different from the minister, which is not as good as the minister."

Hearing this, Fang Ling interjected: "Brother, when the time comes, I will also go to the battlefield and compete with the Mongolian generalissimo Ashu, if I win, can I also be the generalissimo?" ”

"Haha, I'll see it, Generalissimo Fang."

"Hmph, brother, you're laughing."

"How dare you, when I get to the battlefield, I still have to rely on you to protect me."

Fang Ling smiled: "It's pretty much the same. ”

When I returned to the palace, I entered the war room next to the imperial study alone after finishing the recital, and pondered while looking at the three-dimensional terrain sand table in the Xiangyang area.

According to my guess, this exploratory attack of the Mongol Ashu was to understand the terrain around Xiangyang and the defensive situation of our army on the spot.

According to the original course of history, the Mongols would launch a large-scale attack in September 1268 after the construction of castles in Lumen Mountain, Baihe Castle, and Wanshan Fort outside Xiangyang Castle was completed. Judging from the current progress of the Mongols, it is undoubtedly that the construction of the fort has been accelerated, and by March and April next year, the fortress of Baihe City will be completed, so the large-scale battle of Xiangyang between Song and Mongolia is likely to be advanced.

The city of Xiangyang is strong, and with the ability of Ashu, he must also think that trapping Xiangyang is the best choice, as long as Kublai Khan takes Xiangyang as the main place to attack south, then it will not be possible to avoid a protracted battle of Xiangyang.

I am not worried about the castle in the field, the earthen fortress built in a hurry must not be able to withstand the bombardment of artillery and cluster throwing bombs, the Mongols are willing to build it, the greater the investment, the more attention will be paid to it, then I will sit back and enjoy the success, ten thousand cannons in unison, so that the Mongols worked so hard to build the castle become their burial place.

It's late at night.

"Report, official, the Military Affairs Yuan transferred the war report from the Guangnan Military Region." Xiao Qi entered the inner way.

"Where? Quang Nam? I exclaimed, "Is there a war in Quang Nam?" ”

"Official, it is indeed the Guangnan Military Region."

"Fan Wenhu got into trouble?" My first feeling tells me.

In memory, during the Great War of Song and Mongolia, the Mongols did not seem to attack from Yunnan.

Xiao Qi didn't know what was going on, and said, "The official family will know it when they see it." ”

At the end of August, the minister received a letter of help from Dali Relic, saying that his disciple Ji Mu and dozens of Yi friends were captured by the local garrison in Dongba Town, outside Jianshui Prefecture, Ji Mu was one of the three disciples of Relic, and knew all the things about Relic, and Relic himself could not go to the rescue because of other things, so I asked my Guangnan Military Region to help and be sure to rescue Ji Mu and others. After receiving the letter, he sent Tan Yuan, the commander of the 51st Army of the Guangnan Military Region, Li Wang, the deputy commander, and Zhou Sheng, the commander of the Ma Military Battalion, to lead the only battalion of cavalry in our military region, from the junction of Guangnan, Annam, and Dali to the west, and then through the territory of Dali to the north, with the help of the Yi patriarch of Jianshui Prefecture, our army successfully attacked Jianshuizhou, and there was no Mongolian army stationed in the state. Lu She, and rescued Ji Mu and his party of 37 people. In this battle, our army suffered 41 casualties, only two were killed, and the rest were slightly wounded. In mid-September, our army had successfully returned, and Yoshiki and others had also left north.

"Fan Wenhu is doing a good job." After reading it, I commented on the back of the war report, saying that in the battle of Jianshuizhou in the Guangnan Military Region, all the officers and men who participated in the battle were transferred to three ranks, and if there was a difference in the transfer of military schools, the Military Affairs Yuan and the Military Department would be rewarded for their meritorious deeds.

On 14 October, I again received a battle report from the Sichuan Military Region, in which Gao Dai, Zhang Jue, and Zan Wanshou said that our army had regained Kaizhou (present-day Kaixian County, Chongqing) at the beginning of October, and that the Sichuan Military Region had defeated all the Mongolian garrisons in Chongqing.

Although they were all insignificant victories, they also greatly boosted the morale of the people of our court and the officers and men of our army, and I immediately ordered that the Sichuan Commandery Division should be given money for one million labor troops.

On the same day, the commanders of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, Yin Yinglei and Li Beiyang, returned to Lin'an. After the meeting, I left it alone and listened to the process of the Eastern Expeditionary Army.

After the landing, the Eastern Expeditionary Army was overwhelmed, taking advantage of the contradictions in Goryeo, and soon captured its temporary capital, Ganghwa Island, and then, as Yin Yinglei said in his war report, the Goryeo army and the people were surprisingly united, and constantly harassed our army in a guerrilla way, and it seemed impossible to gain a firm foothold in a short period of time, which finally made Yin Yinglei and Li Beiyang give up their plan to continue to go north.

After Yin Yinglei and Li Beiyang finished their reports, they knelt down and said: "Your Majesty, the ministers are guilty of failing to recover the entire territory of Goryeo, please ask Your Majesty to surrender." ”

I waved my hand and said with a smile: "Taking Jeju Island, by the way, I learned about the national conditions of Goryeo, which can be regarded as a great achievement. Wake up, both of you. ”

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Li Aiqing, what is the situation of my sailor on this trip? Can it be adapted to long-distance sailing? ”

"Back to Your Majesty, the sailor's expedition has accumulated a lot of sailing experience, such as formation, flags, the use of the compass, dealing with the harsh environment at sea, etc., but unfortunately he did not actually use the artifact."

"There will be a chance, and before the end of the year, I will allocate another forty artillery pieces to your sailors."

Li Beiyang said happily: "Your Majesty, that's great." ”

"As for the Eastern Crusade, as long as we sum up the experience, I will sail further to the sailors in the future, maybe as far as Jerry. What about Polo's hometown? ”

"Venice?" Li Beiyang exclaimed, "There is a distance of 108,000 miles from our dynasty, and it has to be the Shenzhou." ”

I smiled and said, "The Shenzhou is not the end of the warship, if the steam engine can be successfully developed, it will not be difficult to build a larger ironclad steam warship than the Shenzhou." You all know that a few days ago, the generalissimo of the Mongol expedition to the south, Ashu, personally led a team to attack Xiangyang, right? ”

"The ministers have heard about it."

"Well, judging from all indications, the Mongols will indeed take Xiangyang as their main place of attack, the establishment of the surrounding field, the encirclement of reinforcements, and the opportunity to destroy the main military strength of our dynasty under the city of Xiangyang, although this wishful thinking is good, but I don't know that the soldiers of our dynasty are not ten years ago, and there is more advantage to firearms, Kublai Khan's plan will definitely fail."

"Your Majesty is wise."

"Yin Aiqing, Xiangyang is the main battlefield of the Song and Mongolian Wars, and at that time, the Lin'an Military Region, Luzhou, and Yangzhou Military Regions may all go to support, but the Xiangyang area is not the only battlefield, I remember discussing with you before, the matter of marching thousands of miles into Taihang Mountain, do you remember?"