("Brother Zhuge Liang" has been signed, this book has been accelerated, and there are 10,000 words in three changes today)

After 16 years of continuous natural disasters since the well-off Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty devoted its energy to recuperation, restoring people's livelihood, rectifying transportation infrastructure, and developing science, technology, culture and education.

This gesture gave Galdan an an illusion: that is, the warning that Daming gave him five years ago seemed to be just a mouth cannon that was strong on the outside and dry on the inside. Da Ming was actually completely self-conscious, and he didn't dare to move seriously against the Dzungar Department at all.

So, from the sixteenth year of the well-off to the twentieth year of the well-off, the Dzungar Ministry will not be idle, and the male lord of Galdan, of course, has made full use of the window period given to him by the Ming Dynasty, and has expanded rapidly, incomparably domineering, even more rapidly than the same period in history-

This is actually not surprising, because in history, Galdan faced Kangxi. And although Kangxi's strength is not good, he has a characteristic, that is, he is not as concerned about the life and death of the people as the Ming Emperor of this time and space, and at the same time, Kangxi is more iron-headed, even if he can't substantially defeat the other party, he will make a symbolic counterattack a few times at any cost.

Therefore, in the past five years in history, Galdan wanted to completely conquer Qinghai-Tibet, but in fact he was restrained by the Qing army, although the Qing army failed to achieve any substantial results, and its own consumption was also very large, and it was not a victory at all, but in any case, it also dragged the enemy back.

An additional important reason for the Qing army's hard fight in history is that the Qinghai-Tibet region has an extra special significance for the rule of the Qing Dynasty, which advocated the Mongols to believe in the Yellow Religion of Tibet.

And the Dzungars, who are also part of the Mongolian branch, if they control Qinghai-Tibet and control the right to speak in faith, the Manchu emperor will worry that the Mongolian tribes will be co-opted by the Dzungars and the people's hearts will be unstable, so they will have to fight immediately.

In contrast, the Ming Dynasty's restraint on Qinghai-Tibet, there is no belief consideration, after all, it is a barbarian land called "Wusizang" since the Yuan Dynasty, and several younger brothers who are bound to be ministers have been beaten up temporarily, and the priority of the Ming Dynasty is not so high.

So, in the past five years, in the first year, Galdan took advantage of the Ming Dynasty to kill Ozirtu Khan and swallow half of Qinghai's land.

Two years later, by 1680, he had wiped out the remaining corners of Qinghai and the main forces in Tibet, and even occupied Lhasa for a time.

Beginning in 1681, after completely solving the southern forces and being blocked by the Himalayas, Galdan returned north and launched a new westward expedition. In two years, Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara, Wakhan were captured......

Conquered the entire territory of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in later generations. Plus the eastern half of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, plus the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan.

Of the five stans of the five Central Asian countries in later generations, only Turkmenistan, the westernmost part, was not touched by Galdan, and the other two were all occupied, and two were half occupied. Galdan's power has also reached the peak of his history.

(Note: These achievements were originally achieved in the official history of Galdan, and they were not hung up on him.) It's just that there was a garrison of the Qing army in Qinghai in history, and he didn't achieve it so quickly)

After all this was achieved, Galdan already had more than 6 million Tatar and Mongol tribesmen, not the old and weak, only adult men and women. Together with the Central Asian countries and Qinghai-Tibet regions he conquered, the total population approached 20 million.

Therefore, don't underestimate Galdan, he was definitely one of the most powerful powers in Asia at that time. If the Ming Dynasty had not attacked Fusang, then the population of Fusang in East Asia would be more than that of Galdan in addition to the Ming Dynasty.

(Note: Historically, there were more than 25 million people in Fusang during this period, but now they have been beaten by the Ming Dynasty and cut Kyushu, which is less than 20 million, so it is lower than Galdan and ranks third in East Asia)

Historically, Kangxi's so-called three expeditions to Galdan, in fact, did not completely defeat the other party, the two sides tore for 20 years, and finally Galdan was assassinated and poisoned to death (it is also said that he died of excessive indulgence and died immediately), Galdan's nephew gave his body to Kangxi, nominally surrendered, and Kangxi, who was scared, was busy recognizing the other party's succession to the position of Dzungar Khan, which was regarded as regaining face.

However, in fact, the Dzungar Department continued to fight with the Qing Dynasty for a total of 80 years, and it was not until the 24th year of Qianlong and the Pingzungaria, Pingxiao and Zhuo Rebellions that the threat of the Dzungar Khanate was completely solved and the territory was occupied.

Can an existence that can fight with the Qing Dynasty in the so-called "Kangqian Prosperous Era" for 80 years, from the 20th year of Kangxi to the 24th year of Qianlong, can it be easy?

The current heyday of Galdan is even slightly stronger than the heyday of the same period in history, because he was not restrained and consumed by the Ming Dynasty in the process of unifying the Central Asian countries and Qinghai-Tibet, and was almost pushed down.

His more than 6 million Mongol and Tatar tribes can select more than 300,000 elite Mongolian cavalry.

Among them were 50,000 men of the latest Rakshasa musketeers, as well as camel artillery, and camel firearms arrays carrying crate armor.

If you count the tens of millions of non-Mongol servants he conquered, he could have requisitioned many more troops—but Galdan didn't think of using these aliens to fight.

He also knew very well that these alien races were conquered by him by bloody force, at most only seven or eight years, and the shortest was only conquered for one or two years.

For this population of 11 or 2 million, if it is also according to the proportion of the Mongol army, it is absolutely no problem to levy 700,000 troops. But these 700,000 people were sent to the battlefield, and it is estimated that there will be a situation in which the slaves of the Makino War will defect.

Therefore, strictly speaking, Galdan can be called "a million people", and then take out more than 300,000 Mongolian iron horsemen and 50,000 musket iron horsemen.

Such an inflated force finally made him lose his fear of Da Ming, who was also said to be very powerful.

And the fuse of the Mingmeng War was also ignited in this situation.

……

The fuse of the war finally occurred in the autumn of 1683, the twenty-first year of Xiaokang.

The reason was that Galdan had completely completed the conquest of both directions in the southwest, because the north was his ally of the Rakshasa Kingdom and could not expand, so he finally set his sights on the east.

stared at the central region of southern Mongolia north of the Hetao, that is, the area of Baotou and Hohhot in later generations.

There, by blood, lived the Khalkha Mongols, who, like Kaldan, belonged to the Oirat Tatars.

However, as we all know, as early as nearly 30 years ago, a few years after the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, the Khalkha Mongols, along with the Kachahar Mongols and the Horqin Mongols, were attached to the Ming Dynasty and became a vassal of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, if Galdan dares to fight for the sake of annexing Khalkha Mongolia, then it is appropriate to take the initiative to start a war with the Ming Dynasty.

However, in Galdan's heart, as a male lord who has dominated the world for more than ten years, he really can't bear the Khalkha people, who are also part of the Oirat Tatars, and actually chose to be a dog for Daming!

Don't these people have the dignity of being a golden family of Genghis Khan's descendants? Everyone is an Oirat Tatar, obviously of the same language and race as his Galdan, but he went to seek refuge in the Ming Kingdom of different languages and different species, what is this kind of behavior not "adultery"?

So, in the autumn of this year, when the autumn grass was abundant and the horses were fat, he didn't think about whether he wanted to completely turn his face with Daming.

But he decided to take a large number of Tatar cavalry to the grasslands around Baotou and Hohhot, showing off their might and grazing, looking for opportunities.

As a result, this "armed patrol" went out of sorts.

On September 24 of this year, Galdan personally led more than 100,000 Tatar iron cavalry soldiers to appear on the grassland more than 100 miles northwest of Guihua City (Hohhot), showing off his might and grazing and intimidating.

As a result, Khalkha Mongolia, of course, is not monolithic. Over the years, the Khalkha Mongolian high-level knows how powerful the Ming is and has completely surrendered to the Ming. But there are always small tribal chiefs who have a bad life at the bottom who are bitter and want to turn around and do something.

So early that morning, two small tribal chiefs who were not in agreement with the Khalkha Mongol lords suddenly camped out to join the enemy and took the initiative to defect to Galdan.

From Galdan's standpoint, he felt that he was now the most orthodox heir of Genghis Khan, the great hero of all the Mongol tribes except for the part of Mongolia in the east.

Now that the tribal chieftains of the Khalkha Mongols have finally recognized Zhengshuo and abandoned the Ming and turned to Mongolia, it is absolutely necessary to encourage and set up as a benchmark.

But from the standpoint of the Ming Dynasty, this kind of behavior of directly accepting the Ming tribe to take refuge and annexing the population, livestock, pastures and grasslands brought by it is of course an invasion of the Ming Dynasty!

The grasslands of these Dzungar tribes are, of course, part of the Ming Dynasty! Isn't this called aggression, what is aggression?

Therefore, the border generals of the Ming Dynasty and the officials of the relevant domains immediately reacted, warning Galdan within a few days and half a month that they were not allowed to contain the traitors of the Ming Dynasty, that all the traitors must be returned, and that they would spit out the grassland territory they had surrendered!

Truth be told, Galdan didn't care much about the population and the pastures at first. However, he regarded himself as the unifier and savior of all Mongolia, and his dignity and position did not allow him to do such an act of "returning the people who had come to serve him to the Ming Kingdom".

What's more, the two chiefs who came to him also said very nicely, saying, "Because he Galdan conquered Qinghai-Tibet, and we Mongolians have always believed in Tibetan traditions, we believe that the world has changed." You occupy Tibet, and you are the Zhengshuo of the Mongols in the world."

This special little brother said that he was the Zhengshuo of the Mongolians in the world, could he let go of the aura of Zhengshuo?

At this point, there is no solution at all, and you can only fight to the death.

Galdan said very strongly:

He is the co-master of the Mongols in the world, and I hope that the emperor of the Ming Kingdom will recognize the situation, recognize this reality, and not do things that are beyond his means.

Otherwise, he wouldn't mind another change in the Civil Fort. When the time comes, what he wants, he will go to Beijing City, or even Nanjing City to get it!

……

This kind of cruel talk has been put aside, so what else is there to say? Of course, Da Ming is going to declare war directly.

As a result, after three or four months of several rounds of back-and-forth, from October 21 to February of the following year, the two sides officially tried to meet each other.

The Ming Dynasty officially declared war on Dzungaria, and three months before the start of the war, it predicted that the situation would be difficult to improve, so it began to notify the Nine Sides in advance to mobilize troops and gather forces to deal with it.

Therefore, in fact, after the Lantern Festival in the 22nd year of Xiaokang at the latest, the border army of the Ming Dynasty had already received all the orders, and all units were ready to restart the war machine.

And Galdan was naturally not to be outdone, at first he only pulled 100,000 cavalry to show off his might and patrol, knowing that he had to fight, he only temporarily retreated for the winter, but in fact, he drew more main forces from the rear and pulled 300,000 iron cavalry over.

Spring of 1684, March. 300,000 Mongolian iron cavalry and a large number of elite Ming troops on the nine sides of the Ming army entered the vast battlefields around Baotou and Guihua City in later generations, and the war was about to break out.

This area is the traditional pastoral area of the Khalkha Mongols, and it is very dangerous for the army to come here to fight, because it is already outside the Great Wall.

However, who made the cause and point of contention of this war lie in "whether the Khalkha Mongols should be a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, or a vassal of other Oirat Mongols of the same species as him", so the Ming Dynasty cannot back down and must fight for this Khalkha Mongolian steppe.

Before the war officially broke out, some ministers in the Ming Dynasty who did not know soldiers were still quite flustered, and even felt that they could abandon some grasslands to avoid war, and there was no need to fight to the death with strong enemies for the grassland territory with low economic value.

For this kind of cowardly remarks, of course, it was attacked by Zhu Shuren, the minister of the cabinet, and Zhu Ciyu, the emperor, and those who should be demoted will be demoted.

And there are some people who don't say they shouldn't fight. But they feel that the Ming Dynasty has been peaceful for a long time, the old generals of the past have withered, and the troops on the nine sides of the north have not fought for at least twenty-five years.

The soldiers and personnel have been completely replaced, and none of today's soldiers have participated in the war of exterminating the Qing Dynasty more than 30 years ago, so how can they talk about combat experience and mental toughness?

These people don't have any bad intentions, they just belong to the "defeatist strategists", and some people come to Zhang Huangyan and others to admonish:

Cao Bianjiao and Li Fuming have been dead for more than 20 years, and Huang Degong, Liu Guoneng and Zhu Wenzhen have also died of illness for more than 10 years. The generals promoted by the DPRK and China in recent years are generally talents who fight in the south, or naval generals, and very few are good at fighting in the large cavalry corps of the steppe.

On the occasion of this autumn of national calamity, who should be in command when hundreds of thousands of Mongolian iron cavalry are suddenly to be used? Do you want to let Zhang Ge personally supervise the teacher? You're sixty-three years old, can you still stand the desert sand? Or let Zheng Ge old superintendent? He was also fifty-nine years old. ”

Faced with the difficulty of this talent cut-off, Zhang Huangyan had no better choice, so after he and Zhu Shuren summed up, he finally decided to send Li Dingguo from the south to the north to lead the troops in advance, while Zheng Chenggong was only in the Great Wall Pass as an assistant minister of the cabinet and in charge of the military department.

Li Dingguo was already sixty-three years old at this time, and it was all due to the Ming Dynasty's high level of medical treatment of tropical diseases.

However, he is a native of Shaanxi, and he has been accustomed to it in the north since he was a child, and he has participated in many land battles and cavalry battles in the Northern Expedition to destroy the Qing Dynasty, so there is no problem with barely dragging his aging body to take command.

Mainly other generals who grew up younger, many of them have no prestige, and the Ming Dynasty has not fought on the northern land in the past thirty years, and can only be old and low.

Fifty-nine-year-old Zheng Chenggong took sixty-three-year-old Li Dingguo and embarked on a journey to the north.

(End of chapter)