Nanjing is cold, but it can't be compared with Shaanxi.

After mid-November, the Yellow River surrounding the Hetao grassland was frozen as solid as land, and the Chahar and Tumut tribes migrated into the Hetao in batches.

There is no better wintering ground in the grasslands than in the Hetao. Cattle, horses, and livestock enjoy the water and grass in the north and south of the Yangtze River.

Hundreds of tents landed at the bottom of the southern slope of a large raised mound.

The gray-and-white tents are hidden in the wider snowfield, and the nearby flowers, red, black, and other cattle and horses show that there are Mongol tribes here.

The weather was gloomy and there was no snow, but it looked like it could snow at any moment.

A procession appears in the southern snowfield, as if moving on a monotonous ink painting.

The herdsmen waited for a long time before the group walked to the periphery of the yurt.

Nowadays, the two parts of the Monan grassland are integrated, and there are many impoverished small tribes in the north of the desert who continue to go south to seek refuge in the Mongolian Great Khan Ezhe. The Chahar scouts had been closely monitoring the movements of the Monan steppe, and the Mongols in the Hetao did not have to worry about a sneak attack by the enemy.

The team walked to the yurt by the exhausted horses. Walking in front were more than 200 cavalrymen, and behind were more than 100 horses with goods on both sides and bulging skins.

The herdsmen cheered around, and there was no need to bring drinking water in this kind of place and in this season. Water will only turn into a lump of ice if it is placed in the skin, so it will only contain one thing.

More than twenty knights rushed out of the tents on the southern slope to meet them.

The men in the procession beckoned the nearby herders to unload their pack horses from the distant mountain roads and snowfields, and the tired pack horses looked a little difficult to stand.

When the man saw the approaching knight, he shouted happily, "Tokbo, I have brought you good things and we have arrived before the snow falls."

Tokbo, who came down the hillside, dismounted on the periphery of the herdsmen, and stepped forward with a look of surprise that said, "Geriletu, you have really made money recently."

Gřiltu laughed: "Of course, we Tumuts can't be in vain."

He grabbed a leather bag in each hand, weighed it in his hand, and beckoned, "Go, taste the burning knife I brought." ”

The two handed over their horses to their retinue and walked side by side to the largest yurt on the sunny side of the southern slope.

They went through the Tumut tribe from strength to decline. There are only two of them left in the Great Khan, the princess, and the leaders of the major tribes of Tumut, and the nearly 100,000 Hannu that the Tumut tribe once owned are now only a few thousand.

Without the help of external forces, they themselves knew that it would be impossible to restore Fù Tumert's former position. Now, they still have a glimmer of hope, because the Tumuts have a princess.

The Tokbo family has a long heritage, unlike the Geriletu family, which has risen completely in the past ten years. Although the two of them could sit together, Tokbo could not compare himself to Geriltu in his heart......

The burning knife poured out of the skin was a little muddy, and Tokbo couldn't care about it anymore, so he couldn't wait to take the wine bowl and pour it into his throat, and after the swallowing sound of "coo" ended, there was a long sigh of comfort.

"It's really good wine."

He put down the wine bowl, with unfinished satisfaction on his face, and said, "Ten years ago, I could sit in a tent and wait for the Han merchants to be brought to the tent by this wine, and twenty years ago, someone in my tribe could brew this fine wine on their own. “

Geriletu retracted his smile and said: "Shaanxi's life is not easy, Shaanxi Admiral Zuo Ruo is not easy to speak, that is, we Tumut only got so much wine, Amur got less than me, and he was so angry that his beard was messy." ”

Toquebo, who didn't seem to hear what Gerriletu was saying, reached out and took the leather bag, filling the bowl in front of him again.

The crisp aroma of hops filled the tent.

Geriletu said: "Kaichun, you are also going to enter the customs"

"Me?" Tuokebo stretched out his right hand, which was covered with countless cracks, "We can help the Han people, but we must not lose too many troops in Shaanxi." ”

He was a loyal Tumut, so he was the only one left who had been tied for the three tribal chiefs of Guluge, Hanggao and Tokbo.

Ge Riletu said cautiously: "Of course, but if Zuo, the governor of Shaanxi, is a shrewd person, he must have decided the strategy of the Ming Dynasty against the Mongols." ”

The cold wine poured into his chest and turned into a fire, and Tokbo burped and asked, "Will he still choose to support Chahar?" Where is the identity of the princess?

Geriltu sat on a fluffy blanket, he had not been drinking, and it seemed that Tokbo did not understand the shape of the Ming Dynasty.

"The princess is very important, but you must know that the princess is only the concubine of the regent of the Ming Dynasty, not the wife of the regent. The Tumut Ministry needs a princess, but it is also on its own. With Chaharbi, we are at a disadvantage, only Ezhe can unite the Mongol tribes to threaten the Manchus, we can't do it"

Ge Ri Letu touched the wine bag in his hand and said: "Now that old thing in Amur is more skilled in getting along with the Han people than we Tumuts, and Ezhe sold 5,000 horses to the Ming Dynasty last year, and if Zuo Ruo can treat us preferentially, he will already take special care of us." ”

There was a sound of footsteps at the door, and the two guards came in with a leg of mutton each, placed it on the table between them, and then bowed down and walked out.

Tokbo took off the scimitar from his waist and slowly cut off a small piece of mutton and put it in his mouth to chew.

After a day's journey, hungry, he moved his butt and sat down at the desk.

For a while, both of them were busy eating and stopped talking.

In the past six months, Geriletu has spent half of his time in the pass, but not a single soldier from the Tokbo Department has entered Yulinwei. He has always been reluctant to lead his army into the customs to assist the Ming in the war

The weather is cold, and they have to eat faster, otherwise the piece of meat may be frozen into ice lumps before they finish eating.

A quarter of an hour later.

Tokbo used the tip of his knife to remove the last bit of shredded meat, leaving only a shiny white bone on the table.

"We can feed ourselves in the grassland. In the past ten years, since the time of Chahar's westward migration, Tumut has suffered heavy losses every time he joined the dispute. We have attached ourselves to the Ming Dynasty, taken refuge in Chahar, and finally followed the Manchu Qing, but the tribe is getting weaker and weaker. The Great Khan is in Shengjing, and we have raised troops in Naturalization, and we have put the Great Khan to death. ……”

The chatter in his ears was tiresome, and there was no mention of the point, and Geriletu put down the small scimitar, raised his head and asked coldly: "Do you regret it?" ”

"No," Tokbo shook his head, "I've never given Tumut an idea, and I'm not qualified to do so. But if I want to lead my tribe into the territory of the Ming Dynasty to assist the Ming army in the battle, either there is an order from the Great Khan or an order from the princess. Otherwise, they will only wait for the tribe to survive. ”

He didn't dare to say that he regretted it. In the fall, Geriltu colluded with Chahar to assassinate Hang Gao and open the gates of the Naturalization City, and he had no choice but to obey

Gřiletu said while picking the meat: "Okay, I will bring you the order of the princess" There were still many months before the Spring War began, and he had enough time to get in touch with the regent of the Ming Dynasty.

The Chahar tribes are scattered in the Tuoketo and Hetao grasslands west of naturalization.

The more than 3,000 cavalry of the Geriletu tribe have been in the pass for half a year, and his tribe has been nomadic in the Hetao steppe nearby. After meeting with Tokbo, he returned to his tribe that day.

Tumut now has only seven or eight thousand cavalry, and he still needs to leave some young men outside the fortress, and if Tokbo does not cooperate, he will not be able to meet Zuo Ruo's request.

After twenty days in the grassland, on Chinese New Year's Eve, Gezhiletu returned to Sene.

The Yellow River froze, and the Mongol cavalry could freely enter and exit the Hetao, and the Jurchen cavalry could freely travel back and forth to Shanxi. In the ice and snow, the war in Shaanxi has never stopped.

The people on the border of the Yellow River were evacuated to the depths of Shaanxi, and the county seat and the prefecture were full of people. In the cold winter, dead bodies are less susceptible to decay and are not so easily devoured by wild animals.

The Ming army and the rebel army from Nanjing to the north were mixed and managed the city defense in each county town.

Zuo Ruo is in Yan'an Mansion, which is between Xi'an and Yulinwei, and the terrain is not suitable for cavalry combat, so he can coordinate the overall battlefield of Shaanxi if he stays here.

With the Mongol scouts, he could keep abreast of the movements of the Qing troops.

Amur led the Mongol coalition army to camp near Yulinwei, allowing the Qing troops to break through three county towns in a month, without attacking once. There were Mongol cavalry in Yulinwei to deter, and the Qing captives in Shanxi did not dare to mobilize a large army to carry out a deep attack without supplies.

The Qing Dynasty had actually taken control of the Yellow River.

Due to the importance of the city of Xi'an, seventy percent of the Ming army and half of the righteous army were used to garrison Xi'an. Azig stormed Xi'an City for two months, and had to be distracted to deal with Wu Sangui behind him, and the offensive was not so fierce. The battlefield on the Eastern Front is the key to Shaanxi.

On the Eastern Front, he could only rely on ragged rebels and the less reliable Mongols.

Before the first snowfall, only half-harvested crop stubble remained on the barren land east of Yan'an Province. In order to prevent the Qing cavalry from using the old method of warfare to obtain supplies again, Zuo Ruo forcibly implemented the clearing of the walls in these places.

This is not a disaster year, and people are reluctant to leave their homes.

The Ming army and the righteous army first lost everyone's braids, and then intimidated the Han people, saying that the Qing prisoners saw that the people who did not have braids did not leave their mouths alive, and even coaxed and deceived them, so they moved the people from Qingjian and other places to the west of Yan'an.

The further west Shaanxi goes, the poorer it becomes, and the farther west it goes, the colder it becomes. So, this winter, a lot of people died in Shaanxi. If there is no grain from Longxi in the spring of next year, more people will die.

Zuo Ruo hadn't shown a smile for a long time, his resolute face was like a frozen rock, and his two faces were covered with rough skin. After staying in Jiangnan for ten years, he has become a little unaccustomed to the cold weather in Shaanxi, and those soldiers in the army in eastern Zhejiang are even worse.

After Ge Riletu returned to Yulinwei, he immediately came to Yan'an with Amur to meet Zuo Ruo. He brought back more than 2,000 furs from the steppe, which Zuo Ruo borrowed from the Mongols on credit in the name of the governor of Shaanxi.

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