Xue Xue, Luo Tangyuan and Zhang Hanwan's report on the situation in Mobei and the instructions for the disposal of the Mongolian tribes were sent back to the Commander-in-Chief around the Lantern Festival in the fifteenth year of the Holy Dao.

At this time, in the government hall, the two turned a deaf ear to this cry and were fighting.

Li Kezai, the eldest prince, who was nearly twelve years old, tilted his head, clasped his palms, and looked at Li Xiangyu with a pitiful look.

Li Xiangyu pursed her thin lips and said very resolutely: "Your Highness, unless you have His Majesty's warrant and Xiao Zhizheng's signature, even if Your Highness pretends to be a panda, I can't ...... Alas, even if you wear sunglasses, you don't look like a panda! ”

Li Kezai took off his sunglasses and said with a bitter face: "Can't you just read the abridgement?" It's about my homework. ”

Li Xiangyu shook her head: "If you have a grudge against Sister Xiangyu and want to force me to go to prison, continue to ask me." ”

Li Kezai slumped his shoulders and was intimidated by the genius of law in the middle school, and he, a little guy who had just graduated from elementary school, did not have the courage to continue to entangle.

"Let's wait, the newspapers will definitely tell you a lot of details."

Seeing the depressed face of the young man, Li Xiangyu couldn't bear to comfort him.

"Newspapers...... Yes, Uncle Ray must have seen it! Not sure Bai Laoshan is also clear! They are civilians, and they do not bear the responsibility of leaking military and state affairs, so it is not illegal to tell me. ”

Li Kezai was reminded and was very excited.

Little ghost, you know how to exploit loopholes at such an age!

Li Xiangyu scolded secretly in her stomach, but an innocent smile appeared on her face, indicating what are you going to do, the eldest prince. It has nothing to do with me.

Li Kezai hurried to the middle court, and he wanted to find Li Can, the political envoy, to help him contact these two important people in the press.

"Your Highness, although this battle is won, the matter of the North Court has just begun, why do you need to care so much? His Royal Highness will not only enter the military academy after the year, but also take literary courses. Take advantage of the Lantern Festival holiday. Just rest and rest. ”

In the middle court on the west side of the Wuya Palace, he met Chen Wance, a servant of the door. Hearing Li Kezai say that he wanted to see the Ji Luo of the Battle of Mobei and the disposal plan of the Mongolian tribes, Chen Wance persuaded him with great painstaking words.

Li Kezai cried and said with a sad face: "If I rest again, I won't have to rest in the future......"

Chen Wance asked curiously, but Li Kezai hesitated. Only then did he reluctantly say: "It's related to a bet between me and my father, if I lose, I have to learn a lot of things I don't like." ”

Hearing the reason, Chen Wance laughed, but also full of emotion, the emperor's teaching to the eldest prince is really like leading China. Well-intentioned.

This bet began last year. At that time, the fort had just been built. Public opinion is arguing whether it is cost-effective for the imperial court to use troops in Mobei, and whether it is too important to build roads and forts. Li Kezai took a cursory look at some information. So he summoned up his heart and said to his father, why bother dealing with the Mongols, and even against the Rakshasas further north? Send the Yulin army to the north, defeat the Mongols first, and then enter the North Sea, sweep the Far North Wasteland, and collect its land for Yinghua, it's as simple as that.

With the help of the Dzungar and Qinghai Mongols, we also have our own cavalry, and it is easy to deal with the Mongols, as for the Rakshasas further north, look at the account of the Battle of Yaxa, the Rakshasas are all over the extreme north, but there are only a few thousand, not to mention the Yulin army, any division can uproot them, of course, the army has to work the matter of cold protection and warmth.

Li Xi did not directly refute his son, but said with a smile: "You can study and study this matter, and see how many troops can be sent to the extreme north of Siberia, which the Rakshasas call it, in addition to driving away the Rakshasas, you can also defend that place." Of course, I'm not optimistic about that. ”

Li Kezai was not convinced, so he made a bet with his father. If he can come up with a feasible plan, then after joining the military academy, it is up to him to decide what literature courses he wants to make, if the plan is not feasible, then he has to obediently listen to his father's arrangement, what law, finance, he will have three circles of his head when he hears it. ..., Li Kezai, who graduated from primary school and is already a little talent in middle school, naturally will not take this matter as child's play. He often followed his father to inspect military affairs, and although he did not receive a systematic military education as a staff officer, he had a general idea of what it was like to make war plans. Talking on paper is not just talking, but it has to be studied and calculated according to the real situation.

With the right to access the basic documents of the Privy Council granted by his father, as well as a few idle staff officers of the General Staff Department, and a white cat from the Northern Department of the Military Intelligence Department who retired from the field due to injury, sat in the government office for retirement, and was familiar with Mobei and Rakshasa affairs, Li Kezai started to work in a hurry.

Li Kezai, who was not yet twelve years old, was dumbfounded......

"Your Highness, even if we assume that Xi'an is already in our hands and all the materials are shipped from Xi'an, the cost of maintaining three divisions in Juyanbao is equivalent to the cost of maintaining the garrison in the south of Taiwan, and the cost of garrisoning the entire Nanyang and the West is six times the cost of stationing three divisions in Jiangnan!"

"Why? Your Highness, the war is not only about guns, but also about the supply of food and grass. In ancient times, the army only needed to consider the food and horses chewing, plus the camp tents, arrows and other baggage, and most of the equipment used in siege and field warfare relied on the craftsmen of the army. And now that the army moves, not to mention the artillery, the ammunition spent by the guns and cannons will consume a lot of transportation, and there will be all kinds of miscellaneous items such as medicine and clothing, and the list is so long that it is dizzy to count. ”

"Our General Staff Department has long calculated that today's army of 10,000 people has three to four times more baggage supplies than the army of 10,000 people in ancient times, and if you count the artillery, it is more than ten times more. To maintain a battalion of garrisons, Juyanbao had to rely on thousands of mules and horses, and more than 10,000 people from Suzhou to ensure supplies. If it is the city of Erkou in Beihai, it is more than 2,000 miles away from Juyan Fort. From Xi'an to Erkou, the road is six or seven thousand miles away, to hold the Erkou City, the cost is probably ten times that of Juyanbao. ”

"It is not difficult to take the city of Erkou, or even send an army of 10,000 people into the far north to fight. But it is meaningless to just beat away the Rakshasa people, and if they can't occupy the ground. To maintain an army of 10,000 people in the far north is equivalent to maintaining an army of more than 100,000 or 200,000 in the country, which is of course a burden that cannot be borne by a country. ”

It was the first time that the "distance" thing was so heavy in Li Kezai's heart, and he was a little puzzled, there was even a distance of six or seven thousand miles from Huangpu to Malacca and Aceh, although there was a difference between sea and land. But it's not that big of a difference, is it? Our country, whether it is an army, a merchant, or even a civilian, is all over the South Seas, except for the Dutch in Java and the natives of the islands to the east of Boni. Nanyang is almost the backyard of Yinghua. Why doesn't distance make such a big difference?

"There is a fundamental difference between sea and land, Your Majesty. A few dozen people at sea can control a large ship of thousands of materials, six or seven hundred miles or even thousands of miles a day. If there is no navigable river on land, it will cost ten times as much to transport it by people and horses. However, the efficiency is only one-tenth of that of water transportation, and the difference between it comes and goes is a hundredfold ......"

"In fact, it can be seen from the South Seas that the characteristics of our Anglo-Chinese national situation are obvious. Wherever there is water transportation along the coast or along the river, we can easily control it. And if it is dewatered. Once the distance is more than a thousand miles. Nothing went smoothly. For example, Lanna, who was propped up by us. Recently, he did not listen to the call and secretly annexed the territory of Myanmar. It took us more than half a year to find out. ”

However, the staff of the Privy Council did not completely erase Li Kezai's "North Court Raiders", and the Anglo-Chinese country is indeed very familiar with projecting national power by water, and the land route is very problematic. However, from Xi'an to Guazhou, and even Juyan, the ancestors of the Han and Tang dynasties in China have accumulated a rich heritage on this route. Just the local Han people can support the trend of northward and even westward expansion, and whether it is Khalkha Mongolia or Dzungaria, they can also be used as bridges because of the righteousness of vassals in the Ming Dynasty. The question is just how far you can go and whether you can go on without retreating. …,

Li Kezai regained some confidence, and when the white cat from the Military Intelligence Department explained the situation of the Rakshasas in the Far North, he made a crucial discovery.

"The Rakshasas actually occupy the land further east outside the Guans!? I'm afraid it's thousands of miles away from their capital, why can the Rakshasas occupy such a distant place? ”

This discovery made him very excited, and he felt that by cracking the secret of the Rakshasas being able to occupy the Far North, he would be able to make a feasible plan himself.

"Hmm, this is a big topic, I can't say why, but I can tell His Highness how the Rakshasa people do it."

So the white cat, who had been deeply involved in the black cat activities of the Amubar merchant organization, told Li Kezai about the history of the Rakshasa people's expansion in the Far East.

"That has to start from more than a hundred years ago, it should be the Wanli period. The Rakshasa kingdom was still in Europa, and to the east of them was the Siberian Khanate, which had split from the Golden Horde......"

If the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch entered China from the sea for silk porcelain, Southeast Asia and the West Indies for spices, and South America for gold and silver, then the Rakshasas entered Siberia for fur.

The Rakshasa nobles Stroganov family, whose territory bordered the Siberian Khanate and regarded it as mortal enemies, played a major role in the development of Siberia. With the approval and impetus of Tsar Ivan IV, the Troganovs went all out eastward, and one of their ventures, the leader of the Cossacks, the repeat Yermak, joined the gang and was a great success. Yermak led an expedition to the Siberian Khanate with a force of 840 men, but the other side was unable to resist due to the infighting of the chiefs of the tribes and lost the capital.

After more than a decade of campaigning, the last king of the Siberian Khanate died in flight, the Khanate perished, and the gates of Siberia were wide open, and the Rakshasas crossed the Ural Mountains and tirelessly advanced eastward.

"More than a hundred years ago, in the era of Chongzhen in the former Ming Dynasty, the Rakshasas had reached the extreme of the northeast, and they called the sea there the Sea of Okhotsk, and the more easterly place was called Kamchatka."

"Why is it so fast and so smooth? Because the Siberian Khanate was the only country with law in the far north, after the destruction of this khanate. In the far north, there are scattered indigenous people, dozens of people and hundreds of people live together. His Highness felt that it was incomprehensible that Yermak would conquer a country with 840 men, but His Highness did not know that when the Rakshasas marched eastward, they also destroyed two small khanates, called the Emirate of Perem and the Emirate of Yepancha, and the number of troops used was two or three hundred. And the whole of Kamchatka, which is said to be thousands of miles long, was conquered by only fifty Cossack commanders, and only one hundred and twenty men under his command. ”

"In the battle of Yaksa between the Manchus and the Rakshasas, the Rakshasas had only a hundred troops at their peak, which was the largest manpower they could muster in Siberia, and there were even 600 people sent by the Rakshasas from Europa. Emperor Kangxi of the Manchu Qing Dynasty used enough strength to eat milk outside the pass, and only gathered more than 3,000 people, and I am afraid that I will not be able to hold it anymore. When the Rakshasa people begged for peace, Emperor Kangxi agreed without saying a word. It was also the Qing army besieging Yaksa to the point of running out of oil, so the far north was not a place for large armies to gallop at all. ”

Speaking of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Mr. White Cat shook his head disdainfully: "Guanwai is still the so-called Longxing land of their Manchus, but they don't care about the territory at all. At that time, there were only a few dozen Rakshasa defenders alive in Yaxa, and Kangxi even took out half of his efforts to fight against our Yinghua. Grit your teeth and stay up for a while. There is no Treaty of Nebuchu. ”

"If Kangxi really regards this country as his own. There is a little thought of expanding the territory in his mind, and if there are three thousand more people, not to mention the Yaxa, the Rakshasa people can't even keep Nebuchu. It's a pity...... Emperor of the Manchu Tartars. Single-mindedly guarding the Han people, he didn't know anything about the Rakshasa people, and he didn't want to understand it, and he didn't know that the Rakshasa people at that time had no power, and they were crushed. And now...... Such a vicious neighbor has steadily suppressed our northern part of China. The Manchu Qing Dynasty is already the food of our Yinghua Cup. It's up to us to take on this burden. ”…,

Mr. White Cat has been immersed in northern spy affairs for many years. Naturally, he regarded the Rakshasa people as the number one enemy in China, and he said to Li Kezai with a gleam in his eyes: "Although His Highness's plan is still immature. However, this intention has made the inferior level feel very deeply, so even if it is only on paper, the junior level is willing to do its best to help. ”

This is a cover-up, everyone knows that the eldest prince Li Kezai is likely to win the crown prince, if he can affect him when he is a teenager, then the future ...... Hmph, Rakshasa people, when you are listed as the number one enemy by the future Emperor Yinghua, don't complain that you are lying down and getting shot.

Li Kezai nodded while listening, he probably understood that the extreme north was extremely cold, and it was impossible to allow a large army to gallop, so the Rakshasa would take advantage of it.

But when curiosity came up, Li Kezai threw out a series of questions, and Mr. Rakshasa Tong White Cat was also a little overwhelmed.

"Why are the Rakshasas able to maintain their rule over such a vast territory?"

Very simply, the Rakshasas used the old colonial method of the Europa people to choose a suitable location to build a castle, and the Rakshasa people themselves lived in a city and reclaimed according to the castle. At the same time, on the one hand, it trades with the local natives, and on the other hand, infiltrates and controls the natives, and finally uses the natives for their own use. In addition to the goods, there was also the human heart, and let's not forget that the Portuguese Spaniards had Roman Catholic missionaries, and the Rakshasas also had Orthodox missionaries. The Rakshasas also advanced and advanced south in Eurobassia, and the Cossacks, who had been reduced to military slavery, became a reliable force for their conquest of Siberia.

"With such a long territory, if we cut it a little, will the whole line be broken? The father and emperor used troops to Mobei, the target should be in Beihai, if Beihai is occupied, is this purpose reached? ”

The white cat shook his head and explained to Li Kezai the route of the Rakshasa people's eastward advance. Contrary to popular understanding, the Rakshasas did not advance eastward by land from the south, but by a route further north. On this route, there are three river systems in turn: the Ob River, the Yenisei River and the Lena River, and in short, the Rakshasas also took advantage of the convenience of water transportation to overcome the obstacle of distance to a certain extent.

When the Rakshasas occupied the lower reaches of the three water systems, they began to advance towards the upper reaches of these water systems, that is, to the south of Siberia. If this were not the case, the Rakshasas would have been able to border China by land in the late Wanli era. And the strongholds including Erkou and Nebuchu are just branches off the main road of Siberia controlled by the Rakshasas.

"Occupy Erkou City and contain the North Sea, the role should only be to resist the pressure of the Rakshasas from the north to the south......"

Mr. White Cat began to feel that he was not discussing military strategy and state affairs with a twelve-year-old boy, although the other party's understanding was still very immature.

"I understand why, but I'm not convinced, I can't figure out another why. Why can the Rakshasas do it, but we can't!? ”

Li Kezai clenched his fists, indignant. If we don't set up a venue, the Rakshasa people can tirelessly move eastward and take land occupation as a fanatical cause, why can't we? So...... There will definitely be a workable solution, and the key is to understand why.

Why is this not something that the staff officer and Mr. White Cat can answer, everyone only says in a general and vague way, according to the point of view of Heavenly Daoism, this must be the real profit that the Rakshasa people can occupy from the land, but what kind of profit is it, just that little fur and the vast territory that satisfies people's vanity? It's hard to tell.

At Li Kezai's age at this time, he didn't know much about this issue, so he had to turn his mind to specific military affairs. And the good news of the battle between Ejina and Juyanbao came, and Xue Xue also led the Mobei Mongolian tribes to make a new alliance, Li Kezai wanted to see the details, hoping to find some clues that could be used.

Figured out Li Kezai's thoughts, Chen Wance stroked his beard and smiled slightly: "Your Highness, the minister just knows why this is ......."