July 10th.

Zhu Gaoxu rode on the edge of a low and dilapidated ancient city wall, which was the location of Shan Yu City more than a thousand years ago, and once controlled the 100,000 Yue clan pastures on the grassland.

The once Shan Yu City, now has become a barren, but around the Shan Yu City, the land is fertile, the grass is lush, very suitable for nomadism, it will not be long before there will be new steppe tribes to occupy here, until the end of the Apocalypse, Lin Dan Khan's army arrived here, swallowing up the nomadic herds here, and the last does not lose the descendants of the Ta Litai Jibu.

There were cavalry of the Ming army all around, and everyone was resting, letting the war horses eat ready-made grass, waiting for the front sentry to come back.

Now they are getting closer and closer to Fort Huhu, and they are moving forward very carefully to avoid detection.

Zhu Gaoxu, Zhou Hu and the others looked at the sergeants as they walked.

The Ming army around them was in good spirits, they were all talking and laughing, and there was no tension before the big war, which was exactly what Zhu Gaoxu wanted to see.

Most of the Ming troops recruited this time were the main force of the rebel army in the rebellion war, and all of them were Zhu Gaoxu's old troops.

After the Jing martyrdom and the rebellion to the present, these elites have followed Zhu Gaoxu to fight in the south and the north for nearly ten years, not only loyal, but they are extremely ejaculation, and it is no exaggeration to say that the combat power on horseback is not worse than that of the peak Mongolia, and the foot combat of dismounting will not be worse than that of Houjin.

The oldest of them was not more than forty years old, and the youngest was in his twenties, all in the prime of life.

If Shaharu had come ten years late, and ten years later, a large number of elites would have been retired, and the combat effectiveness of the Ming army would probably be a little weaker.

"Look at the mental outlook of everyone?" Zhu Gaoxu pointed proudly at his brothers at this time: "If we can break the Shaharu million with 25,000 horses, we will definitely go down in history books in the future." ”

Zhou Hu immediately said: "Your Majesty is invincible, and it will inevitably be made in a battle." ”

"Tui, less sycophancy." Zhu Gaoxu scolded with a smile.

Zhou Hu laughed dryly, and then stared at Zhu Gaoxu's war horse: "Your Majesty's horse has changed?" Chen just found out. ”

The emperor's maxima is old, and he has been replaced by a good horse that was paid tribute by Goryeo.

"This is a tribute from Goryeo, raised on Jeju Island, and Teniang." Zhu Gaoxu said: "Wait for Sheng Yong to finish fighting Dongben and go back and occupy Jeju Island directly." ”

"False Dao Felling?" Gu Xingguo's mouth twitched.

The Ming army was using Jeju Island in Goryeo as a supply place to attack Dongben, and according to the emperor's wishes, they would take Jeju when they turned back.

Zhu Gaoxu was serious: "I can't say that, Jeju Island has been my country's territory since ancient times, and it is an inseparable part of my Ming Dynasty, and I just took it back." ”

Theoretically, after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, Jeju Island belonged to the Ming Dynasty, but Lao Zhu didn't want it.

Zhou Hu immediately shouted: "The Yuan people raised tens of thousands of war horses on Jeju Island, and when they reached the hands of the Koreans, they became thousands, which was wasted, let's take them, and we can produce at least 10,000 fine war horses every year." ”

Gu Xingguo looked down at his horse, and immediately said, "The horse on Jeju Island is really good." ”

At this time, both now and later, the horses of Jeju Island are better than the war horses of the grassland.

Because of the special climate and environment, Jeju horses do not experience severe cold, and there are fewer illnesses and severe cold during the whole process of horse breeding, and they are strong and tall, and their limbs are strong, which is incomparable to grassland horses.

Horses are raised on the grassland, and every winter is cold, the horses are prone to illness and freezing, and they grow very slowly in winter, and they eat grass harvested in advance, and in the words of later generations, the nutrition is not enough.

"Jeju horse breeding is secondary." Zhu Gaoxu said in a deep voice at this time: "If you go north, you can attack Goryeo, and if you go east, you can threaten Dongben." ”

"As long as you immigrate to it, build a shipyard and a cannon factory, it won't be long before you can become an important maritime giant ship of the Ming Dynasty."

In Zhu Gaoxu's words, as long as Jeju is occupied, Dongben and Goryeo will tremble, and they can't be honest.

Zhou Hu and Gu Xingguo thought so, you see that the eastern country is far away from us now, and that Ashikaga Yoshinori is not honest, and he dares to stop trading with Daming.

Just as a few people were talking, a sentry rode in the distance.

The sentinels reported that they went as far as the Tumaochuan River, nearly a hundred miles away from here, and after careful inspection, they found that there were Shaharu's sentinels on the other side of the river, but the people of Shaharu obviously did not think that the Ming army might appear in the north, and they did not cross the river, which means that on the north bank of the Momaochuan River, the Ming army was a very secret existence.

"Bring me the map." Zhu Gaoxu immediately called for someone to bring the map.

Judging from the map, from the Tumaochuan River to the Zhuhu Fort, there are also nearly 100 miles.

"Shaharu is also very careful, and the sentinels are sent out a hundred miles." Zhu Gaoxu said with a smile: "However, a large number of his sentinels must be heading east, and he may not have thought that we could come from the north." ”

"Let's go, go to the Tumaochuan River tonight, and beat them tomorrow." Zhu Gaoxu gave an order, and the whole army set off.

That night, the Ming army rode 25,000 to the north bank of the Tumaochuan River, found a place to hide, and then sent a sentry to hide by the river to watch.

It was not until it was dark at night, for two hours, that I saw the Shaharu sentry three times.

This means that the Shaharu Sentinel does not pay much attention to this side and is in a state of casual loitering.

Shaharu was bent on fighting inside the Ming Kingdom, and if he wanted to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the Ming Kingdom, he must not have imagined that Zhu Gaoxu would take more than 20,000 horsemen around hundreds of miles and go around behind his fart.

At this time, the distance from Fort Zhuhu was only about a hundred miles, and if the cavalry ran quickly, they could reach it in an hour.

As soon as it was dark, Zhu Gaoxu ordered the whole army to rest and sleep.

In the middle of the night, about one o'clock in the future, the whole army got up and rehydrated for breakfast.

At this time, each Ming army still had about three days of food to carry.

But it doesn't matter, because there is an army of Shahru ahead.

"Let's go." Zhu Gaoxu gave an order, and the Ming army crossed the river at the place where the town was guarded.

As Zhu Gaoxu said, this side used to be the territory of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and the Ming army knew this place very well.

Zhenyuwei is set up in the 26th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1393) on the side of the Tumaochuan River, as one of the two main roads to cross the river, it is an important town outside the Guan.

But in the third year of Yongle (1403), he was moved back by Zhu Di and gave up.

History until more than 20 years later, the first year of Xuande (1426) and stationed back, but it did not take long, to the fourteenth year of orthodoxy (1449) again abandoned, so far, the Ming army completely abandoned all the acropolis outside the pass, all rely on the Great Wall to defend.

When Zhu Gaoxu came now, it was after Zhu Di was abandoned.

When the army came to Zhenwei, the acropolis was empty, but fortunately, it was not so dilapidated that it was ugly.

Zhu Gaoxu stood by the bridge, watched the Ming army passing by, and said in a deep voice: "The king of Ming has given up the town guards, and when Shaharu is repulsed, we have to take it back." ”

"You can't just rely on the Great Wall, the grassland, it's also a good strategic space."

Zhou Hu and Gu Xingguo nodded one after another.

Half an hour later, the Ming army came to the Qingshui River.

The Ming army did not go directly to the direction of Fort Hu, but went more than ten miles to the west.

After coming to the Qingshui River by moonlight, you can already see that the other side of the river is densely packed with all kinds of yurts and tents.

At this time, the whole army of the Ming army dismounted and led the horses and hid in the dark.

Zhu Gaoxu, Zhou Hu and others came to the river with a team of sentry horses, and could faintly see that the bonfire in the yurt opposite was still burning.

"I'm sleeping, it's cool." Zhou Hu squeaked his teeth.

He likes to follow the emperor to fight this kind of insidious battle.

Zhu Gaoxu took a few looks: "This is overwhelming, dense, I don't know how many miles it stretches, it is estimated that there are still hundreds of thousands of people outside the Fort Hu, and they have not entered the customs. ”

Gu Xingguo said happily: "He has a million soldiers and horses, and he has to add a lot of baggage, just by blocking Fort Hu, he can't enter it in half a month and a month." ”

"Those who are in the first pass are all elites, and there must be many servant troops who stay outside." Zhu Gaoxu grinned: "Just take them first." ”

"Your Majesty, where are you going to fight?"

"Go west, the west is the direction they came from, let's fight from the west and the north, he definitely didn't think that we would run to the west of them."

Zhu Gaoxu decided to divide his troops into three routes.

He led 9,000 horsemen, Zhou Hu 8,000, and Gu Xingguo 8,000.

First go west and then ten miles.

Then the three cavalry were spaced five miles apart, and at the same time they killed Shahru's men and horses, and then formed a vertical and went east together.

Zhu Gaoxu used a tree branch to draw a simple picture on the ground.

"Beware of any pits in their camp, and if the situation is not right, take a detour."

"Try to let them blow up the camp."

"In case of large-scale resistance, we will use our own way of playing, and pull it out first."

Zhu Gaoxu commanded tactics while drawing, and in addition to Zhou Hu and Gu Xingguo, there were many commanding and envoy-level generals around him, all of whom were listening carefully.

After finishing speaking, he threw away the branch and clapped his hands: "Tell the brothers, teach this Hu people a good lesson, don't be polite and merciful." ”

"Whoa."

The generals replied in unison.

"Get on the horse." With a shout, the whole army mounted their horses in turn, and soon divided into three groups and headed west.

The people who followed Zhu Gaoxu were replaced by two commanders.

Two quarters of an hour later, Zhu Gaoxu arrived at the predetermined position, he looked up at the sky, it was still relatively dark, and it was about four o'clock in the afterlife.

"Ma Ke, you followed me at the beginning of Jing Nan, did you marry your mother-in-law?"

"Back to Your Majesty, the minister married two, two, hehe." Ma Ke was born in the Gaoyang County Palace, in fact, he followed Zhu Gaoxu before the Jing disaster.

Now he is only twenty-eight years old, and he married his mother-in-law early, Zhu Gaoxu deliberately looked for words, and suddenly shortened the distance between the two.

"Zhong Zhenguo, you seem to be fat." Zhu Gaoxu is an old routine again.

"Back to Your Majesty, the ministers will pay attention, and you can't eat and drink nonsense in the future." Zhong Zhenguo had a bitter face, because he was indeed fat.

"Special mother, can you still fight?"

"Back to Your Majesty, you will definitely be able to fight, and the ministers will teach them a good lesson."

"Tell my brothers that I actually want to recuperate in the country, but Shaharu relied on his strong soldiers and horses to invade my Ming Dynasty without authorization."

"In this battle, the people of the Ming Dynasty will definitely suffer a lot of disasters."

"Whoever kills my people, I will slay them."

"Those who offend me will be punished even if they are far away."

"Brothers, friends come with good wine, and enemies come with long knives."

"Whoever is above the horse's back, kill—"

"Kill" With the shouts of the generals, the mighty cavalry rushed towards the sleeping Hu Cai.

(End of chapter)