"First, Yunnan is too remote, located outside the center of the Ming Dynasty, the Han population is too small, and the entire Chengxuan envoys add up, which is similar to a mansion in Beiping, the king of Yan."

"Second, there is too little arable land, not much fertile land, although my Ming Dynasty has been moving the people in recent years, transferring troops into the garrison, and developing millions of acres of fertile land, but the output is limited, so the war potential is not high, and at most it can mobilize and raise about 50,000 or 60,000 soldiers and horses."

"Third, there is a lack of war horses, and there needs to be a horse farm, I see that the king of Han is very good at using cavalry, and he should know the benefits of cavalry."

"If our army is all cavalry, even if we are defeated once or twice, we will be able to retreat with our whole body and will not break our muscles and bones."

"In the Jing Disaster, the Yan army suffered many defeats, but it was able to preserve its strength, which is the reason."

"If there are not enough cavalry, once defeated, there may be no chance to turn over."

It can be seen that Ping An is very attentive and very serious about helping Zhu Gaoxu find problems.

He himself liked to use cavalry, and he understood the pain of the Battle of Jingyan even more.

During the entire Jingjing period, the cavalry under the command of Ping An was at most 20,000 or 30,000 at a time.

The southern army was limited by too few cavalry, and every time it was defeated, it had to lose more than 100,000 people.

But the Southern Army has the entire Ming Empire as the backing, and can continuously replenish the troops, while Zhu Gaoxu alone in Yunnan is impossible to have so many supplements, once the infantry is defeated, there may be no day to turn over.

Therefore, Ping An hopes that on Zhu Gaoxu's side, the cavalry will be as many as possible.

After hearing this, Sheng Yong immediately said: "On the side of King Han, there should be one or two thousand horsemen." ”

When Zhu Gaoxu's three guards came, everyone had horses, plus the horses and other things transported, there were more than 10,000 cavalry.

"Not enough, at least 50,000 riders." Ping'an said: "The king of Han is to have 50,000 cavalry and 100,000 foot battalions, and he will be able to sweep the world and defeat the king of Yan." ”

Sheng Yong nodded, and estimated that there should be at least this number.

The two of them are also extremely bold, this will Zhu Di's side can mobilize the whole country's soldiers and horses, and the two of them are confident that 150,000 soldiers and horses can sweep the world.

Of course, fighting a war is not a great deal for whoever has more people, and it is impossible for Zhu Di to concentrate an army of one million to fight together.

As long as he wins a few times, he will be able to roll more and more of his soldiers and horses like Zhu Di.

Zhu Gaoxu said with a smile: "There are not many Han people here, but there are a lot of local natives, and the natives are not easy to mess with. ”

In history, the Ming Dynasty did not completely conquer the Tusi in Yunnan, Yongle before the Hongwu era to fight Luchuan was to end in peace talks, after Yongle, the Ming Dynasty and three expeditions to Luchuan in vain, and finally to the alliance to negotiate and find a step down.

Therefore, in addition to the dangers of the mountains and rivers in Luchuan, the Tusi soldiers and horses here are also very strong.

Ping'an and Sheng Yong did not participate in the Hongwu period to fight Luchuan, and they didn't believe it when they heard the words, the local natives they saw in the past few days were black and thin, and they were small, how could they fight.

Zhu Gaoxu said again: "It's not that the two countries are at war now, if there are so many soldiers and horses, as long as they can win the battle, the soldiers and horses can roll more and more, and that's not how Zhu Di started." ”

Everyone is a Ming army, who is helping to fight a war or not? Zhu Gaoxu, who watched the whole process of King Yan's army, learned everything.

"As long as there are 50,000 elite soldiers, I will dare to raise troops, and then I will inevitably fight more and more, and when I hit the Beijing Division, Lao Tzu can also have 200,000 soldiers and horses." Zhu Gaoxu said confidently.

When everyone heard this, it seemed that the same was the case.

"Take two days off, I'll take you to another place." Zhu Gaoxu's last mysterious and mysterious way.

Sheng Yong and Ping'an also have a look of hope, the longer they stay with Zhu Gaoxu, the more they feel that Zhu Gaoxu is more powerful than King Yan, he seems to have a plan, and he seems to be more confident than King Yan.

Mid-January of the second year of Yongle.

Zhu Gaoxu, Sheng Yong, and Ping An came to Xinping County.

Zhu Gaoxu planted grain and made sugarcane in the tuntian fields of Guangnan Prefecture, Xinping County, and Yunzhou, and Hong Zheng was in charge of Guangnan Prefecture.

In Xinping County, Yang Pingzan is in charge of the commanding officer.

Yang Pingzan was born in Hanwangzhai, and was also responsible for farming in the village when he was in Hanwangzhai, so he is very experienced in farming.

This is also a good place, which was carefully selected by Zhu Gaoxu after consulting Yang Wu.

Yang Wu is the son of Yang Pingzan, Yang Lishan and Yang Pingzan are brothers, so Yang Wu and Yang He are cousins, Yang Wu married the daughter of Sheng Jian, a general under Zhu Gaoxu, and followed Yang Lishan to do business in the south all the year round.

Zhu Gaochu married his subordinates, using perfect fire, more powerful than Zhu Di, now carefully calculated, almost all the generals under him are related to each other, so once Zhu Gaochu is unlucky, none of his subordinates can escape.

At the age of sixteen, Yang Wu went to the south with Yang Lishan, traveled all over Yunnan, and finally chose these three places for Zhu Gaoxu.

Xinping County is the Lishe River in the west, the Pingdian River in the east, and the Yuanjiang River in the south, which can be described as a treasure land of mountains and rivers.

But the Ming army did not manage it well, mainly because it was very close to the Tusi territory, south of the Yuanjiang River, and now it is all Tusi territory, which belongs to the fetters area, and the Ming court can't manage it here.

Last year, Yang Pingzan brought more than 3,000 tenants here, accompanied by 1,000 elite guards of the Han Dynasty, and then, like Guangnan Mansion, built a fort for every 100 households, and began to tuntian along the river.

As soon as Ping An and Sheng Yong arrived here, they found that the terrain here was very good, and there were patches of pastures to see.

"Can you keep horses here?" Ping An was shocked.

"Hahaha, why else would you choose this place?" Zhu Gaoxu said proudly: "However, there are only a limited number of horses here, one or two thousand at most, and our goal is south of the Yuanjiang River, and the pasture is big." ”

The generals were noncommittal, because they all knew that the opposite side was the Tusi territory.

"Someone." Zhu Gaoxu waved his hand at this time, and a young man came in, who looked to be about twenty years old, and it was Yang Pingzan's son Yang Wu.

"Meet the generals." Yang Wu visited everyone one by one.

The generals' faces did not change, and they should know that Zhu Gaoxu had something to say.

Sure enough, Zhu Gaoxu asked Yang Wu to give everyone a science popularization of the situation here.

Yang Wu followed his uncle Yang Lishan to this side at the beginning of Jingnan, and he has been here all the year round, so he already knows everything about this place.

After the Yuanjiang River, it entered the territory of Luchuan at its peak (no longer anymore), and in the early and middle Ming Dynasty, several times the Luchuan army was used, and the losses were countless, and it was not effectively ruled.

Sheng Yong and Ping'an are really interested, if it is He Fu, who has used soldiers here, he may know a little, but he really doesn't know anything, so he is very interested.

Yang Wudao: "The Luchuan Kingdom originated from Luchuan Road, and at that time it belonged to the Marshal Mansion of the Golden Tooth Capital of the Yuan Dynasty. In the third year of the reign (1310), Luchuan Tusi established himself as the king and changed his name to "Sihanfa", which means "the supreme tiger king", and the Chinese history books call it Sikefa (or death can be warned). After Sikefa became king, he clashed with the Yuan army many times, and the two sides confronted each other for more than 40 years, and neither could help the other. In the fifteenth year of Emperor Shun of Yuan (1355), the two sides finally ceased their troops, and Sikefa accepted the canonization of the Yuan Dynasty, called the hereditary consolation envoy of the Ping-Burma Xuanfu Division. ”

Yang Wu's first words moved the two.

Luchuan alone, and the Yuan Dynasty fought for more than 40 years, you must know that the territory of Luchuan in its heyday was about half of Yunnan.

Thinking about it this way, King Han said that the natives here are not easy to mess with, and it's true.

When the Ming army recovered Yunnan, Si Kefa had already died, and the consolation envoy at this time was the second son Si Lunfa (some people believe that Si Lunfa was Si Kefa's nephew). Si Lun was intimidated by the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, and sent an envoy to the court in August of the 17th year of Hongwu. So Zhu Yuanzhang ordered to change the Ping-Burma Propaganda Envoy to Luchuan Ping-Burma Propaganda Envoy, and still took Si Lunfa as the consolation envoy.

At that time, in fact, everyone was dissatisfied with each other, but they were afraid of each other.

The Ming army knew that Luchuan was very strong, but they had just gained the world, so they had to slowly accumulate strength, and after understanding Luchuan, they decided to move troops.

Luchuan also knew that the Ming army would attack sooner or later, so he also delayed the time.

At this time, Luchuan was at its peak, and its sphere of influence was in addition to Longchuan (Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan Province), Mengmao (Mengmao Triangle, Ruili City, Yunnan Province), and Shafang (located in the southwest of Mangshi, Yunnan Province, bordering Myanmar), and there were Ganya, Zhanda, Nandian, Tengchong, Lujiang, Mangshi, Husa, and Lasa in the west of the Nujiang River, Mengding, Gengma, Menglian, Dahou, Wandian, and Zhenkang in the west of the Lancang River in the east of the Lujiang River, and Weiyuan, Zhenyuan, and Zhele in the east of the Lancang River. Even Mu State (which covers the northeastern part of present-day Shan State in Burma) and Mon Yang (in present-day Kachin State in northwestern Myanmar) occupy most of Yunnan in terms of total area.

Of course, the Ming court was unwilling to let Luchuan become independent like this, and Lao Zhu quickly used means to first assign the two mansions of Yuangan and Weiyuan to Chuxiong, and then built a separate mansion for Zhenkang in Luchuan.

So in the eighteenth year of Hongwu, Si Lunfa was angry and raised 100,000 troops, which opened the prelude to the Ming army's expedition to Luchuan.

At that time, the Ming army transferred more than 50,000 soldiers and horses from Huguang, more than 50,000 from Shaanxi and Shanxi, plus 50,000 or 60,000 local soldiers from Sichuan and Shaanxi in Yunnan, and requisitioned 50,000 Tusi soldiers and horses from the Ming court, totaling more than 200,000, and started a big war with 100,000 native soldiers of Silunfa.

Yang Wu said at this time: "At that time, Yang Dayong went to Yunnan as the emperor's envoy, mediated back and forth between the Tusi in various places, and raised 50,000 native soldiers for the imperial court to help, and these native soldiers also played a great role in the war. ”

When Sheng Yong and Ping'an heard this, their eyes lit up and they were thoughtful.

It is said that in the end, when Silunfa received the news of the Ming army's large-scale conscription, he also mobilized almost all the soldiers and horses that could fight, reaching 300,000 people.

Yang Wudao: "Almost everyone in Luchuan Tusi can become a soldier, so the mobilization potential is huge. ”

This is the foundation laid by the predecessor Si Hanfa, when in the Yuan Dynasty, Si Hanfa paid tribute to the Yuan Dynasty on the one hand, and sought the post of "the head of the military and civilian administration of the Luchuan Road", which won a good environment for development, and actively planned the great cause of unification, using the identity of the "military and civilian administration of the Luchuan Road" to conclude an alliance of "non-military conquest" strategy, annexed the nearby roads, and soon established a strong army.

(End of chapter)