choke element

Chapter 986: Hitting the Shore (Part )

Almost every soldier and general of the Great Zhou Dynasty, from the bottom up, had experienced the threat of powerful enemies from the north for more than ten years. Most of them gathered together after suffering the disasters of war, reorganized the army with the unique tenacity of the Han people in the Central Plains, and fought desperately with the Mongols.

Their wounds may take many years to heal, and the pain from the wounds reminds them all the time to prepare for a fight with the Mongols. The most important work of the warriors who go in and out of the Marshal's Mansion is to constantly infer the route of the Mongols' southward march and estimate the various scenarios of the fight between the two families.

Wang Shixian had dozens of plans in mind for military response to the Mongolian army. After Guo Ning said this, Wang Shixian knew what strategy the emperor planned to adopt in the northeast.

Wang Shixian turned to look at Li Yun who was standing in the outer circle. Li Yun bowed slightly to the emperor.

In the years since the establishment of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the foreign military leaders in the Northeast have been very tolerant and provided a lot of financial and material support. However, after taking so many benefits from the court, there must be a time to return. At present, the first move of the Mongols is to threaten the Northeast with considerable force, and the emperor just needs the military leaders in the Northeast to help hold back the Mongols. The two ideas just happened to collide with each other.

Wang Shixian's mind immediately turned and he pointed to a point on the map: "Your Majesty, the Mongolian army launched this time, bringing with them countless defeated soldiers from the Western Regions, so it must have been very powerful at the beginning, causing wars everywhere in the northern border. However, Genghis Khan is a man who knows military affairs, and he knows his own weaknesses and urgent needs. Therefore, the second point under threat is Xuande Prefecture... Well, to be more precise, it is Tiancheng, Huaian and other places in the deep mountains and valleys west of Xuande Prefecture."

"Are the Mongols trying to incite the bandits hiding in these places? Then they have to use their elite cavalry to march long distances and continuously cross multiple outposts and garrisons."

"I think the Mongols have enough courage, and they have enough warriors who dare to risk their lives to charge forward... This is also what they are good at."

"Are these bandits in the mountains worth the Mongols doing this?"

"Most of the bandits are veterans, and they have had conflicts with our army before. Although the battle was small in scope and scale, it was very fierce. A while ago, a general underestimated the enemy and went forward, but was ambushed and killed in battle. The Mongols need to create momentum everywhere and understand our defense system in the shortest possible time. They are the best partners."

"How many bandits are there?" Guo Ning asked.

This type of information is imported every month, but it is hard to imagine it being so accurate. Wang Shixian pointed to a document on a wooden shelf against the wall behind him and said, "Let me take it and have a look."

Just as he was about to take a step, Jing'an Min stepped out and reported, "In the mountains east of Datong Prefecture, there are six large bandits and more than thirty small bandits, totaling four to five thousand bandits, spread over seven counties. They themselves have long lost the courage to fight against us, but if they raise flags to lead the way and cheer us on, they can still be of some use."

"Old Jing, didn't I remember saying at the beginning of the year that we were clearing out the area?"

"The bandits have always been very reckless. They fled as soon as they saw our troops. Since the beginning of the year, I have led people to divide the mountainous area into blocks, gradually reducing their range of activities, and also made great efforts to persuade them to surrender. In this way, we forced them into seven counties, discontinuous mountainous areas. The original intention was to suppress their access to food and force them to surrender in winter."

Compared with the time when the Jin Dynasty governed the border, no tribe dared to openly oppose the Great Zhou Dynasty on the long border of the grassland. Many bandits who had been entrenched in the complex and dangerous terrain for decades were either recruited to move down the mountain to become civilians or beaten by the Zhou army.

But the destruction of the Central Plains by the Mongols was too terrible. That kind of organized destruction, with the purpose of exterminating all products of civilization and turning the land into grassland, was much more cruel than any military disaster recorded in the history books of the Han Dynasty. After the establishment of the Great Zhou, faced with millions of people whose homes were destroyed, it was inevitable that there were times when they were not able to handle them in time or inappropriately. Many of them were full of resentment and became a new destabilizing factor on the border.

Moreover, the Great Zhou rose rapidly, and mainly started from the core of the Jin Dynasty. Some of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers originally deployed on the border of the Jin Dynasty were incorporated, but it was inevitable that some of them were combined with brave and aggressive border residents and ambitious bandits.

This group of people gradually gathered many Mongolian slaves who had escaped from the grasslands, and they still refuse to obey the management of the Great Zhou.

The Great Zhou had a lot of experience in dealing with these mountain bandits. Jing Anmin, Miao Daorun, Zhang Rou and others who held high positions in the Great Zhou army were originally powerful people between civilians and bandits, and were the ancestors of mountain bandits everywhere. No matter how violent the bandits were, they could not affect the deployment of the Zhou army on the border.

Jing Anmin and his men had many veterans who were familiar with the geography. They gathered the garrison troops who were on leave in the rear, formed several small-scale temporary teams, and then divided the mountainous area into sections and fought against the bandits separately.

Only a few particularly fierce bandits dared to fight against Zhou's army. However, Zhou's small army continued to control their own area, and the punishment of bandits became more and more severe. Several bandit leaders who resisted stubbornly were tied with ropes and dragged around the mountain by war horses, and were dragged to death.

These people dared not resist the enemy anymore, nor could they gain a foothold, so they kept retreating to the mountainous areas in the north. On the one hand, they plundered on the border areas as a way of survival; on the other hand, they vacillated between the north and the south, trying to become a buffer between the powerful forces.

But when the Mongols launched the offensive, the so-called buffer zone was no longer necessary.

In Guo Ning's opinion, these mountain bandits were naturally not important. It was only because the warriors of the Great Zhou Dynasty were of similar origin that they received extra attention. When the Jurchens were in power, these people would be traitors who followed their horses and served as human shields. No one would care about them at all.

However, it would be a good idea to take advantage of the Mongolian invasion to squeeze the abscesses on the edge of the Great Zhou territory. This process is bound to be cruel, and the result is even more ruthless. Those who want to serve the Mongols will naturally be treated with axes and halberds. As long as the rest of the people still have a heart, they should make the right choice.

While the rulers, ministers and generals of the Great Zhou were talking about these bandits, dozens of children and women were shivering in a cellar in an abandoned castle deep in the mountains, between the two areas controlled by the northwest and southwest Recruiting Offices of the Great Zhou.

This ancient castle was one of the nine garrisons left over from the Tang Dynasty. After several ups and downs, it was completely abandoned when it came under the control of the Liao people during the Later Tang Dynasty. Now only a watchtower that guards the strategic location barely maintains its brick and stone structure and has never collapsed. Behind the watchtower, there are ruins all over the place.

When the Mongols invaded a few years ago, the bandits discovered this fortress hidden under the mountains and repaired it slightly as a retreat in troubled times. However, in the past two years, trade between China and Mongolia did not stop because of military hostility, and the bandits went down the mountains several times to rob merchants and travelers, thus revealing their tracks.

A large group of soldiers and horses had followed them the day before and began to attack the fortress. The families of the bandits were hidden in a hidden cave behind the fortress and did not dare to move for ten hours, fearing that they would be discovered by the outside world.

Although they dared not move or speak, it did not prevent many people present from staring at one person with contempt through the faint light that came through the cracks in the rocks.

Wu Xian, who was dressed in tattered robes and dressed like a Taoist priest, glared back fiercely and cursed in a low voice: "What are you looking at! The fighting outside is fierce, only a fool would go there to die!"

(End of this chapter)