Gao Yimin did mention it, not only mentioning the issue of sending troops to recover Xicheng as soon as possible, but also informing Cao Yan of Ye He's plan to send a Gege to Gao Shishi.

In fact, this kind of thing can't be hidden, as long as Ye He's Gagong team sets off, all the people in it must report their identities, how could Cao Yan not know? Rather than being found out at that time, it is better to tell him directly.

Ye He's actions were not completely unexpected by Cao Yan, but Cao Yan was still somewhat surprised by the matter of "sending Gege". Ye He's doing this is understandable, but Gao Shishi is unwilling to accept this kindness, and Cao Yan is a little skeptical.

To tell the truth, if he Cao has a beautiful girl of the right age, he is willing to let her be a concubine for Gao Pragmatic, but unfortunately Cao Dashuai has worked hard for most of his life and only has a son, and there is nothing in the "little padded jacket", so he can only give up. As for the question of whether it would be a little embarrassing for the daughter of a famous general to be a concubine, Cao Yan could only roll his eyes when he heard it.

If he asked his daughter to be a concubine for his fellow generals, he would naturally refuse to kill him, but what kind of family is Gao Situ, how can his daughter humiliate him as a concubine? He Cao Dashuai wrote a letter to Gao Pragmatic himself, and he had to call people "Entang" and call himself "Cao Mou, a lackey under Mu Enmen".

What's so strange about what even he is happy with, Yeh is willing?

But Cao Yan always felt that it was really doubtful that Gao Situ cherished his wings so much that he was willing to accept Ye He's "service" in this way. However, this has nothing to do with him, and he will not stop Ye He because of this.

No matter whether Ye He's throwing efficiency is successful or not, even if he succeeds, they are still Jurchens, judging from Gao Situ's past performance, he will not regard Ye He as more important than his descendants in the Ming army.

And from Cao Yan's personal point of view, it is not impossible to support Ye He, after all, the North Pass controlled by Ye He and the South Pass controlled by Hada are the top priorities of the border cities in eastern Liaodong, and it is feasible and the most efficient for the Ming Dynasty to support any of the two of them.

On the contrary, if you want to support the establishment of the state, you have to develop Fushun Pass, but although Fushun Pass is also okay, the location is still not as good as the North and South Pass. At the very least, if Fushun Pass was used as the center of trade, the goods of the savage Jurchens would have to take a long detour to the south, and it would be even more difficult for the left-wing Mongol tribes to take care of them.

Only the north and south passes of Kaiyuan are the intersection of the three parties, and it is also the most suitable as a trade center.

A suitable trading center is beneficial to the entire Liaodong, and it is also profitable for the family generals who have a lot of trade privileges.

Originally, the Ming Dynasty was to support the Nanguan Hada Department, but the Hada Department had begun to show an obvious decline trend in the late Wan Khan period, and now with the death of Wan Khan, this decline has not only not improved, but has become more and more serious.

The three families were divided into three Hada, and Da Ming originally didn't plan to interfere, because he felt that it was not without benefit that the leader of Hada was weak, at least it would be easier to control. However, Da Ming did not want Hada's internal friction to be too serious, so that it could not form an advantage over the other surrounding departments at all.

You must know that when it can't form an advantage over the surrounding ministries, it can't suppress the ministries on behalf of the Ming Dynasty, and once something happens, the Ming Dynasty has to come out in person to solve it.

In that case, what do I want you to do?

Eagle dogs can't be hunted, am I raising you just to look good?

Therefore, judging from Mengebulu's recent performance, he is not worthy of being a dog for Daming, and now Daming must choose a new hunting dog, which must not only be obedient, but also have the strength to deter the tribes - at least with the support of Daming.

Judging from the current situation, Yehe and Jianzhou can become options. Yehe's overall strength is stronger, while Nurhachi's troops seem to be more combative.

As for "obedient"...... Cao Yan felt that they were only half a catty and eight taels, they were all barbarians who were afraid of power but not virtuous, and they could lift their tails to the sky with some ability, and they all needed to be beaten from time to time.

The beating of Ye He was Gao Pragmatic who sent Qing Jia Tong and Yang Ji Tong to the West Heaven; The beating of Nurhachi was a little lighter for the time being, and Gao Pragmatic only used a letter to withdraw him from Fushun Pass.

Of course, this is not that Gao Pragmatic hated Ye He, but that Hada was unstable at that time, Ye He had the intention of annexing Hada, and it was likely that he had such strength, but this was intolerable to the Ming Dynasty - the two passes of the north and south were so important, how could I let your family cover the sky with one hand? So Qing Jia Tong and Yang Ji Tong were sacrificed to the flag.

Nurhachi, on the other hand, was slightly different, firstly, he was highly pragmatic and lacked skills at that time; Second, at that time, there were many things in the court, and Gao Pragmatic did not want to make a big move in Liaodong; Thirdly, Nurhachi himself is not strong in troops and has a thin foundation, so he is not a major threat for the time being, so he will not be killed quickly; In the end, it was because once Nurhachi was destroyed, then Yehe would become a dominant family again.

Balance is not all good work, just as Prussia can only dance on three eggs when Bismarck is in office, there are so many Jurchens in Liaodong, and there are actually only three really strong ones: Hada, Yehe, and Jianzhou.

The common feature of these three is one, that is, they are close to Mingjing, and each has a closed market. Therefore, in terms of the general means of balancing, the key is to maintain the balance between the three of them, allowing them to be strong and weak, but never allowing them to have a dominant family.

As for the rest of the Jurchen tribes, they mostly remained independent, and sometimes they would obey a certain strong chieftain without listening to the announcement, and the Ming paid a little attention to this, but generally did not pay special attention to it.

Compared with Nurhachi, Yehe Erbeile does not show particularly big ambitions, at least for now, and if they are willing to be pragmatic, Cao Yan feels that it is not impossible to make them the number one Jurchen minister. After all, Beiguan is in a critical position, and in addition to the need for them in the Kaiyuan Horse Market, they can also become a barrier for the Ming Dynasty to resist the expansion of the Tumen - just like this time.

In this case, it makes sense to send troops a little earlier to help them recover Xicheng.

So Cao Yan sent someone to inform Narimbulu and Buzhai that the army would repair in the eastern city for two days, and on the third day they would set off to help Yehe recover the western city.

Of course, the recovery of Xicheng, Cao Yan did not intend to let the Ming army fight, he asked Ye He to send troops at the same time as him, in addition to retaining part of the defending forces to prevent Dongcheng from being accidentally attacked by the Tumen and losing its nest, the remaining forces must be invested in the recovery of Xicheng.

Buzhai naturally has no objection to this, and it is not clear whether Nalin Bulu has other ideas, but he thought about it for a while and agreed, and did not show a very embarrassed appearance during the period, as if he was just thinking about how much strength to leave to defend the city.

Cao Yan himself asked the military secretary to draft a note that night, in addition to reporting the victory to scare away the Tumen and rescue Dongcheng, the main thing was to mention that Ye He took the initiative to ask for tribute.

Naturally, he fully agrees with this approach, although so far these tributes, supplementary tributes, and tributes have been basically lost by the Ming Dynasty (the value of the reward is always higher), but this time Yehe's tribute has an obvious intention of submission, and the adults of the court have always liked this tune, and he believes that this proposal will not be rejected.

Ye He's work efficiency was also unprecedentedly high this time, even if the imperial court's reply was fast, it was estimated that it would take ten days and half a month, but Ye He still prepared the team of Gagong early the next morning, and slowly marched all the way south.

They planned to stop and wait for the imperial court's reply when they arrived in Liaoyang or only needed to go to Shenyang, and then take advantage of the fact that the Liaohe River and the Hunhe River had not been completely frozen and sailed south to Yingkou Xingang. If the river has been frozen, take the land route south, in short, do not go to Shanhaiguan and go to Tianjin by sea.

Originally, in the early years, the Ming Dynasty did not allow this kind of "changing the road" behavior, but later because there were too many Jingshi nobles and even Wenchen involved in Tianjin Port, this rule gradually became an empty letter. Except for those landlubbers who dare not get on the boat and go to sea, many people will choose to take the sea route as long as the sea route is convenient.

Shenyang and Liaoyang are all covered by high-pragmatism forces, but Liaoyang has an "outsider" called Governor Li Song, and Ye He now vaguely knows this, so they prefer to stay in Shenyang and wait.

But this is none of Cao Yan's business, he set off with the army at the appointed time and went west to recover Xicheng. They were accompanied by 3,700 cavalry from Buzhai and 4,200 cavalry from Narimbulu, and the infantry under their command all stayed in Dongcheng to watch their homes.

This can also be seen that Ye He's original strength is indeed not weak, and in the current situation, there are still almost 8,000 people in the cavalry of their two Belle divisions.

Eight thousand people, in Mongolia, can be regarded as a small leader power, but in the divided Jurchen, it is naturally even more powerful. What's more, Yehe's 8,000 cavalry is not all their strength, they still have infantry no less than cavalry, and even if it is cavalry, this is not their complete family base.

As mentioned before, Yehe's trade is characterized by a large number of resale transactions, and Yehe's caravans regularly go to receive goods in areas such as Huifa, Ula, Changbai Mountain, and Savage Jurchen Tribes. Obviously, these caravans could not rely on two legs to make acquisitions, they always had to have some ox carts and carriages, and at the same time they needed to be protected by their own horse teams.

Although these people and Ma are usually scattered, if Ye He himself had prepared early, he would still be able to gather together. This is also the reason why Gao Shishi judged that Ye He could make up nearly 20,000 cavalry at most when he killed Qing Jiatong and Yang Jiyan.

But having said that, Ye He focuses on commerce and trade, and the horse team under his command is often used as a transport team, which also leads to their lack of combat professionalism. After all, in the wars that Yehe lost several times, if in terms of military strength alone, most of the people who were actually at a disadvantage were Nurhachi.

20,000 Ming troops, 8,000 Yehe cavalry, and nearly 30,000 troops went west, and the elite Mongolian exploration horses of Tumen naturally discovered the traces early. However, according to Yehe's scout report, Tumen did not make much action, but only "closed the city and defended it".

Hearing the news, Cao Yan snorted coldly: "Shut the city and defend it? Ben Shuai saw that he was really going to 'die' in Xicheng. ”

Zhang Wanbang laughed even more, glanced at Ma Chengxun, and said, "Shen Rong, a few days ago, you just replenished a batch of new guns, I remember that there must be a total of seventy or eighty No. 3 guns now, right?" ”

Ma Chengxun is a general of the Ma family, one of the pragmatic henchmen of the generals, and he is responsible for guarding such an important place as Kaiyuan, so it is natural to change the gun. However, he hurriedly waved his hand at Zhang Wanbang's joke and said: "There are more than 70 cannons, but you also know that these No. 3 cannons are not used to attack the city, if you want to blast open the city gate or even the city wall, at least a batch of larger ones must be come, such as the No. 2 cannon, but we didn't bring it this time." ”

In the territory of the Jurchens, the roads are really not well built, and it should even be said that the roads that have been built are not considered at all, but can only be said to be at the level of "the more people walk, the more they become the roads". In such road conditions, being able to carry so many No. 3 guns was already a level that could only be reached by relying on the convenience of new gun trucks, and if you brought heavy artillery, you would be able to walk several miles a day.

Zhang Wanbang shook his head when he heard this: "That's not the case, I have carefully looked at Yehe Dongcheng this time, if the city defense level of Xicheng is similar to that of Dongcheng, then there is no need to use the No. 2 cannon at all, as long as the No. 3 cannon can be used intensively, it can definitely be blasted open...... It's just a matter of time. ”

Who knows that Ma Chengxun still disagreed, and shook his head: "You only talked about the firepower, and there is another point that you haven't thought about: If you want to make a breakthrough in the No. 3 artillery bombardment of the city defense, you need a large number of shells to slowly destroy the city gate or city wall at the breakthrough until it finally collapses, but how many shells are needed in this way?"

It doesn't matter if the shell can be picked up, it can always be used several times (if you use it too much, it may deform and damage the gun), but what about gunpowder? The gunpowder we brought this time is not very large, and if we insist on using the No. 3 gun, then we will have to send an order to Kaiyuan to send supplies. ”

Zhang Wanbang really felt distressed when he heard this, and couldn't help but glance at Nalin Bulu and Buzhai, and said angrily: "You are usually idle, but you don't know how to repair the road?" ”

The two Baylors did not dare to contradict this young general, who was rumored to be a high-level and pragmatic general, so they had to laugh stupidly. But they were unimpressed with this in their hearts: Our road is sufficient for trade, so what is the use of building it better? If you need a more spacious and neat road, then you Mingjun family, I have repaired it so that you will see that I am not happy to beat me one day?

Seeing this, Cao Yan waved his hand to stop Zhang Wanbang's complaints, and everyone began to discuss the siege method again. Qi Jinzheng put forward an idea, thinking that since Xicheng had been blown up by Buri Hatu before, most of the construction capabilities of the Yitu department during this time could not be repaired, or even if they were repaired, they could not reach the original strength, so it was better for us to draw a scoop and find a way to blow up that gap and make a breakthrough.

Cao Yan also felt that there was some truth, and was about to speak, but who knew that Gao Yimin, who had not spoken, suddenly said: "General Rong, generals, I think that it is a bit abnormal for Tumen to 'close the city and defend it'...... I'm afraid there is fraud in this matter. ”

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