The situation of the Ming on the northern border was quickly consolidated.

A pattern was formed in which Zhu Han led the northern parallel capital to guard the east and Xu Da to guard the northwest.

The entire Mongol tribes in the Monan grassland all surrendered to the military might of the Ming Dynasty, and Wang Baobao, the last pillar of the Mengyuan court, was powerless against the strong defense of the Ming army.

Only the leader of Moxi Mongolia did not spend it, and he did not know what the real combat effectiveness of the Ming army was.

He also wanted to find an opportunity to try the strength of the Ming army.

However, it was precisely because of the large-scale attack of the Ming army on the Monan grassland that Wang Baobao did not dare to easily leave the Mengyuan center on the bank of the Troubled River.

The Moxi Mongols, led by Wara, also had no way to sneak attack the Mengyuan court.

A peaceful silence was formed on the steppe that surprised everyone.

And the person who broke this peaceful situation was none other than the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, which had just formed an alliance with the Ming Dynasty.

The fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, March.

Turuhi Timur, the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, led an army of 20,000 to attack the Mongol and Yuan forces in Turpan.

After capturing Turpan, he continued to attack the Tien Shan region occupied by Warat to the north.

On the vast sea, the fleet led by Hu Dahai finally saw a piece of land when it was exhausted.

"There is land!"

"Look! There is land! ”

Several crew members who were watching from the mast let out a shuddering cheer!

Many of the Ming crew had already fallen asleep on the splint due to hunger and thirst, and they were also very slow to respond to these cheers.

Hu Dahai and they drifted for more than a month, once encountered an island, where a short rest, they have lost their way, do not know where they should go, in order to save strength, Hu Dahai immediately decided to continue to drive east with the waves.

Because according to what Zhu Han told him before, the theory that heaven and earth are all spherical.

As long as you can keep moving forward, you will always return to the original starting point.

"Quick, get ready to go ashore!" Hu Dahai ordered excitedly.

These people have been adrift at sea for a long time, and their bodies have long reached their limits.

At this moment, they saw a flat beach, and even if they used it, they would collapse to the ground halfway.

Seeing this situation, Hu Dahai shook his head helplessly and said: "Brothers, we must land quickly now, if we delay here for too long, I am afraid that we will be swept away by the waves of retreat!" ”

Hearing Hu Dahai's words, many people stood up again.

After everyone went ashore, Hu Dahai and the others found a place where the water was frantically filled.

At this time, Hu Dahai and others began to observe this strange land.

Unlike the Central Plains, nor like Wajima, many wild grasses, birds and beasts on the ground are also very unfamiliar.

"Is it a new continent?" Hu Dahai couldn't help but get excited.

Although Hu Dahai has also considered this issue, he has never really confirmed it, after all, this place is really far away from Daming.

"Boss, what are we going to do next?" A man in military uniform asked.

This man's name is Wang Hu, and he is an officer under Hu Dahai.

"Wang Hu, you take fifty people and be responsible for searching the surrounding situation, and the rest of the people will all follow me to look for food, we haven't eaten for a long time." Hu Dahai said.

"Yes!"

This Wang Hu is obviously good at fighting, and after hearing Hu Dahai's orders, he immediately arranged for his subordinates to carry out the task.

Hu Dahai led more than 300 people to search the neighborhood and caught a few big fish next to a small stream.

"Damn, I'm starving, I can finally eat something hot!"

"yes, there's nothing here, not even farmland!"

......

As soon as they caught the fish, they sat down by the brook and roasted them on the fire.

"Let's figure out this place, what the hell is it." Hu Dahai said.

"Well, what your lord said makes sense, this place looks very evil, we have to figure it out."

"yes!"

Hu Dahai nodded, then took the dagger and cut the cooked fish and took a bite of it.

After some exploration, Hu Dahai and others found that although this place is close to the sea, it is not a small island, but a very vast land.

Hu Dahai and others found that there were many birds and beasts on this land, and many places were flat, which should have been fertile land, and they would definitely be able to reap a bumper harvest if they planted food, but there were no traces of human beings.

Apparently this is a very inhospitable land!

After two or three days of inspection, Hu Dahai and the others found a very strong herd of cattle on the other side of the hill, these wild cattle herd in size in hundreds, all of them were unusually tall, like walking mountains of meat, grazing leisurely on the grass.

These bison are short-tempered and not afraid of people at all, and after seeing Hu Dahai and them appear, they rushed towards Hu Dahai and them.

At the beginning, Hu Dahai and the others were frightened by these bison and fled, but when they figured out the habits of these bison, they set traps around them, captured dozens of fat bison in one fell swoop, and since then they have achieved beef freedom.

Hu Dahai: They used these beef to quickly replenish their strength.

Later, some large trees were cut down on land and the ships were repaired.

This is a vast and desolate strange continent.

After Hu Dahai and the others discussed, they decided to continue their exploration to the inland area, and after leaving more than 100 people to guard the ship, the rest of the people all went to explore in three different directions.

They used wolf smoke to communicate with each other, and there were a few surviving horses on board, so that they would not have to rely on only two pairs of legs when they explored.

Hu Dahai, Hu Guanzhu and Wang Hu set off in different directions with three teams.

Hu Dahai led hundreds of his men along the wilderness, and the more they went, the more amazed they became, because it was full of fertile land and strong herds of bison.

"It's a pity that there isn't one of such a good piece of land?" Hu Dahai and the others walked for two days, except for seeing some bison herds.

There were a few other strange-looking beasts, but not a single figure was seen.

Hu Dahai rode a horse from Liaodong and galloped forward along the vast grassland, still without the slightest sign of human habitation.

Together with his men, he prepared to return to the place where the ship was moored.

Although the land of this continent is fertile.

But there is no one in the wilderness, not even a ghost shadow, and if you go any further, it will only be the same desolation.

When Hu Dahai led his men to return along the same road.

Suddenly, they saw a puff of green smoke in the distance, suddenly rising over the wilderness.

Hu Dahai and the others were immediately surprised.

At first, they thought it was Hu Guanzhu or Wang Hu and their people.

But after getting closer, he saw that it was a few wild men wearing wild animal skins who were making a fire to barbecue their prey, not Hu Guanzhu and Wang Hu.

In this vast and desolate continent, there is such a group of savages.

Hu Dahai and the others immediately became alert.

After quietly approaching, Hu Dahai took out the sword on his body and prepared for battle with a group of men.

But when they saw the weapons in the hands of the savages, their vigilance was greatly relaxed.

Because those savages don't have any decent weapons in their hands.

It was nothing more than a few thick wooden sticks, with some sharp stones inlaid on them.

is such a rudimentary weapon, let alone dealing with Hu Dahai and his elite generals, even the old peasants of the Central Plains may not be able to defeat them.

After all, when the peasants revolted, there were still a few people who still had a dung fork in their hands, which could stab their enemies to death.

This group of savages also discovered Hu Dahai and them at this time with the alertness of their hunters.

There were about seven or eight wild men, and when they saw that there were hundreds of Hu Dahai, they were immediately shocked when they approached them, and their mouths began to scream.

After seeing Hu Dahai and them approaching him, these wild men immediately raised the wooden sticks in their hands and made a desperate posture with Hu Dahai and them, and there was a wild man behind them, secretly walking backwards, obviously wanting to report to their own people.

How could Hu Dahai let this wild man go back to report the news, he immediately flew on his horse himself, galloped towards the fleeing wild man, just a breath of effort, the horse under the crotch caught up with the galloping wild man, Hu Dahai grabbed the wild man with one hand and grabbed the wild man on the horse's back.

The wild men did not seem to have seen horses, and when they saw the galloping horses, they were all so frightened that some of them threw away their sticks and knelt on the ground and prayed to the horses.

In the face of Hu Dahai and others approaching, these savages completely gave up resistance and crawled on the ground one by one.

It was as if he had met a god in the sky, and he was scared and pious.

At this time, Hu Dahai realized that the wild man he caught on horseback was a child, no more than ten years old, thin and weak, like a little monkey.

After Hu Dahai saw the face of this savage child clearly, he was even more surprised in his heart, because he found that the appearance of these savages was eight or nine points similar to those of them, or in addition to the difference in clothing, in appearance. There is not much difference at all.

Hu Dahai was suddenly surprised in his heart, could it be that he had come to an island in Haidong?

After all, these savages look very similar to those Jurchen tribes.

It's just that it's a little more backward than the Jurchens.

North Parallel Division.

Zhu Han was holding a military meeting with a group of generals such as Zhou Dexing, Guo Ying, Qi Xiang, and Luo Guanzhong, and the main content was the progress of arranging forts on the Monan grassland.

Luo Guanzhong has carried out a unified combing of the Mongolian tribes on the Monan steppe, and almost every tribe needs to set up one or two new fortresses, each of which is equipped with two to three hundred people, as well as about ten small artillery.

This scale is simply not worth mentioning for the finance of the Ming Dynasty, after all, now the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue has been increasing steadily, and the commercial taxes of a few municipal divisions alone can support all the military expenditures of a northern parallel capital division.

"Your Highness, although there is no financial problem in the construction of this fortress, the shortage of personnel is still insufficient, and a lot of reserve soldiers and military households have been replenished from Huaixi and Henan, but it is still seriously insufficient! Many military households heard that these forts set up by the Northern Parallel Capital Division did not allocate land, and they were reluctant to come here, and it was almost difficult for people to come for follow-up recruitment! Guo Ying said to Zhu Han.

As a typical example of courage and resourcefulness among the Huaixi generals, Guo Ying is now the deputy commander of the Northern Parallel Capital Division, mainly assisting Zhu Han in the construction of a new type of fortress on the Monan grassland.

"I remember that there are many military families in the Huaixi Henan area, all of whom have many children, except for the eldest son, the rest cannot inherit the status of military households, why are they reluctant to come to the North Parallel Division, is it because there is no land?" Zhu Han asked with some incomprehension.

In fact, in this matter, Zhu Han still underestimated the people's hot feelings for the land.

Those military households can fight desperately on the battlefield without the need for officers to be restrained by military law, because these military households have at least 100 acres of land.

This 100 acres of land can make this military family worry about food and clothing, and it can be passed on to future generations.

Once they surrender or are punished on the battlefield, they are very likely to be fined or confiscated outright.

The military households are very afraid of these punishments, which is why they have such high morale.

This shows the importance of land to the morale of military households.

Therefore, Zhu Han set up these new fortresses in the Northern Parallel Capital Division, and even though he offered a high salary of thirty silver dollars per month, he still did not recruit enough soldiers.

The military households of the generation in Henan and Huaixi all wanted land.

I am not too interested in coming to the Monan grassland to serve as a soldier and lead the army, but I can't allocate land.

In the entire Huaixi Henan area, only about 10,000 soldiers have been recruited, and there is still a gap of 10,000 for the fortress tactics on the Monan grassland.

The shortage of such a large number of personnel is a big problem for consolidating the Monan grassland.

If you can't perfect the fortress tactics on the Monan steppe, then you can't fully control the Mongol tribes on the Monan steppe, and it will leave a security risk for Beiping.

The top priority now is to recruit enough troops to complete the layout of the fortress on the Monan grassland.

"Now that the imperial court is recuperating, many people are no longer willing to be soldiers to fight, they may still have some interest in being a military household, but they are not interested in coming to the grassland to be a soldier and garrison the fortress." Zhou Dexing also said next to him.

Several people were at a loss as to how to replenish the shortage of soldiers in the Northern Parallel Division.

After all, there is no arable land on the grassland, and it is impossible to divide the grassland for the soldiers.

However, this is not difficult for Zhu Han.

After thinking for a while, Zhu Han said.

"Since the people of the Central Plains are unwilling to come to the grassland, it means that the living conditions of the people of the Central Plains are relatively good, and they are not willing to give up their happy days and come here to endure hardships.

Zhu Han's words immediately gave Zhou Dexing, Guo Ying and others an inspiration.

They thought about it for a while, and they all thought that it was a good idea, but where to recruit soldiers was indeed a question worth considering.

"Actually, I don't have to think about this question so much, I have a ready-made good idea, which guarantees that I can recruit a large number of good soldiers," Zhu Han said when they were puzzled.

Hearing Zhu Han's words, Guo Ying, Zhou Dexing and others all cast inquiring eyes.

The place Zhu Han was talking about was the Liaodong region that had just been captured by the Ming Dynasty.

There are many Jurchen tribes in Liaodong, they live in the deep mountains and old forests of the white mountains and black waters, and the living conditions can be described as very difficult, and because of the war, the Jurchens have already developed the habit of bearing hardships and standing hard work, so if they go to the Monan grassland to garrison the city to guard against the Mongols, there must be no problem.