Gao Shishi's Ming army stayed in Iksibar for four full days, which seemed to be very inconsistent with the predetermined plan for a quick victory, but in Gao Shishi's view, it was a necessary move.

In just four days, Taigal Zzungen Hatun rushed here from Ijin Horo day and night, and under the "recommendation" of Gao Shishi, Tokhto, and Ilduqi, he announced that he would temporarily act as the regency of Boshok Tujinong in Ordos.

Of course, theoretically speaking, Gao Pragmatism and Tokhtun are actually not considered "promotions", and the most serious expression of this process should be that Yile Duqi preliminarily elected Taigal Zhungen Hatun to the envoy of the King of Shunyi to act as regent, and then Tokhtar recognized Hannaji on behalf of the King of Shunyi, and forwarded it to the Zuo Shilang of the Military Department on behalf of the Ming Dynasty and the Seven Towns Strategy, and the Governor of the Northwest Military Affairs Gao Pragmatic, and finally Gao Pragmatic expressed his approval and submitted it to the emperor for the emperor's final approval.

The emperor must have the final decision, there is no doubt about it, but Gao Pragmatic came here, and the holy decree clearly said that he had the right to act cheaply, so the Emperor himself was only a formality, and from the moment Gao Pragmatic agreed, Taigal Zhungen Hatun was a veritable regent of the Ordos Department Hatun - equivalent to the regent of the Empress Dowager on the side of the Ming Dynasty.

The Mongol regent Hatun (or queen) could lead his troops into battle, just as Dayan Khan's wife, Manduhai, who was twenty-five years older than him. At the beginning, due to Dayan Khan's young age, Manduhai even carried him in an quiver and carried it on his body to protect him when he set out on the expedition.

The record of Manduhai's first conquest of Oirat is recorded in the "Genealogy of the Mongol Borzigit" as follows: "Manduhai Saiyin Hatton personally commanded the cavalry, so that the Alaitong of the Keten tribe of the Keshi Keten tribe opened the way, and went to the land of Tesburdu, fought with Willert, won a great victory, and subdued him with 40,000 Willet." He ordered the Willert generals to say: After that, the house shall not be called a temple, the crown shall not be longer than four fingers, the dwelling shall not be allowed to kneel and not sit, and the flesh shall not be cut, and the name of "Usuk" (yogurt) shall be changed to "Zag". His subordinates knelt down with a knife to eat meat, and they were allowed, and Yu knew it now. Willert still practices it today. "Willert is Weytra.

It can be seen that the power of the regent Khatun and the Great Khan is no different, and it is completely reasonable to lead the troops into battle, and the Mongols are accustomed to this, and there is no rejection of it. In addition, Taigal Zhungen Hatun had served as regent for several years before Boshoketu's "pro-government", so this matter went smoothly, and Gao Shishi also negotiated with her the conditions of atonement for the Ordos Ministry.

Four days later, the army departed.

At this time, the Gao pragmatic army officially exceeded 100,000 people, but the headquarters of the Ming army was less than half of the total, and more were Mongolian cavalry. The plugged back road that Bibai painstakingly built has turned into a plugged corner.

Maybe it was because of the restoration of the Hetao, maybe it was to block Bibai, or maybe there were other reasons, in short, Gao Pragmatic still did not go south into the Yansui governor's jurisdiction, but tended to the west, first recovered the crucial Huamachi area, and regained control of Yanchi.

At this time, Gao Pragmatic received a report from Li Rusong, Li Rusong's headquarters was marching very fast, had already passed Qingyang two days ago, and was reinforcing Guyuan as planned. The main purpose of his report was to ask Gao Pragmatic what the combat mission of his army would be after it arrived in Guyuan.

Li Rusong also reported a rather shocking news by the way: the Jinghua Trading Company rescued Liang Wenmeng, the former governor of Ningxia, who was imprisoned by Bibai, from his subordinates in Ningxia City! At the same time, Zhou Zhe and his son, who had previously organized a resistance to the Bibai Rebellion in his hometown of Ningxia Zhongwei, also fled to Guyuan with the assistance of Jinghua Trading Company.

Li Rusong asked for instructions for this: first, how to treat Liang Wenmeng, and second, whether it is necessary to give Zhou's father and son a reward.

Normally, under the current situation, the most appropriate tactics for Li Rusong's division should be to cooperate with Gao Shi's headquarters to move west and north, and the two sides will attack separately and jointly to encircle Ningxia.

However, Gao pragmatic obviously had a greater appetite, and his reply to Li Rusong was to order the latter to show off his might around Guyuan for a day, and then leave the city at night and drive directly to Lanzhou to prepare for the next stage of combat missions.

At the same time, Gao Pragmatic also very generously assigned the 3,000 cavalry of Cao Gan's department, which had been transferred to Guyuan, to Li Rusong's command.

As for the matter of Liang Wenmeng and Zhou Zhe's father and son, the former was an unexpected joy - of course, it is difficult to say whether it is really "happy" for the time being, because although he did not defect to the enemy and maintained his loyalty as a civil servant, the charge of provoking the change in Ningxia is not easy to clear, and even Gao Shishi did not dare to characterize it, so he could only ask Li Rusong to temporarily "stay in Guyuan and raise Liang Wenmeng" on his behalf, which is actually house arrest first. And Gao Pragmatic himself immediately went up to the court and explained the matter to the imperial court, and at the same time slightly revealed his own tone.

The matter of Zhou Zhe's father and son is relatively simple, Gao Pragmatic asked for a reward for them without saying a word, and also proposed in the recital that the two of them could be left to serve in the army temporarily, and then they would make meritorious contributions after Ningxia was decided, "or they can be entrusted with the appointment of the prefecture and county."

Zhou Zhe himself is just a man, and his son Zhou Bang is just a student, but now he has the opportunity to serve as a prefect after the war, or at least a county magistrate, which is really an unexpected joy.

Gao Pragmatic's move was originally a continuation of Gao Gong's reform ideas in the Ministry of Officials in the past, that is, to reuse and lift people, and at the same time, more directly, to use this kind of gentry and celebrities in Ningxia to appease the locality, and lay a foundation for "harmony" to eliminate hidden dangers after the war.

After arranging the tasks of Li Rusong's department, Gao Pragmatic replied to the governor of Gansu and the general army who also sent a letter to ask about the action, so that they did not have to rush to counterattack, and they could guard the last passage of Zhuang Langwei with peace of mind.

On the day of repairing in Huamachi, the Ming army allocated a batch of grain and grass to distribute to the three-way Mongolian cavalry, and at the same time replenished a gunpowder projectile and other military resources, while the three-way Mongolian cavalry fed the horses in the Huamachi grassland for a day to recover their horsepower.

The next day, the armies were ready, no longer gathered in one place, and under the order of Gao Pragmatic, they attacked Ningxia by separate routes.

On the north road, Xiao Ruxun, the deputy chief soldier of Ningxia, was the main general, and Ma Kongying, the general of the Datong West Road sent by Ma Gui to assist him, was the deputy, and the 5,000 troops returned to Pingyu City. The regent of the Ordos Department, Taigal Zhungen Hatun, led 30,000 troops, as the countermeasures of Xiao Ruxun's department, and used it as planned to trap the Tuwenxiu Department and prevent it from having the opportunity to flee north to the grassland.

The south road is the headquarters of Gao Pragmatic, and the department has restored its previous state, with the Gao Jiading Guard, the first section of the Beijing camp and the Magui department, and the first route is west by Huamachi, approaching Ningxia. Since the Maguisuo Department was divided into 3,000 people, the main force of the Gao Shishi South Road Headquarters at this time was about 35,000. However, the Yansui guerrilla Jiang Xianmo, Yulin guerrilla Yu Shangde, and other Yansui town soldiers are already approaching the Gao Pragmatic Headquarters, and when the various armies converge, the Gao Pragmatic Headquarters can still exceed 40,000 troops, perhaps reaching 45,000.

The largest number of troops and the strongest mobility are the Tumut-Ordos coalition army composed of Tokh and Ildu, but although this army is strong, with 50,000 iron cavalry, it is not suitable for attacking Ningxia, so it is used by Gao Shi to attack the Huoluochi and Litu brothers who are attacking Zhuang Langwei.

Huamachi is already south of the Great Wall, so this combined cavalry does not have to make a detour, under the control given by Gao Shishi, they only need to gallop all the way to the southwest. At the same time, Gao Shishi also sent a messenger and ordered the yamen in various places to provide military food supplements along the way, but considering that the current Ming-Mongolian relations in the northwest are relatively tense and far from being comparable with Shanxi Xuanda, he also allowed all localities not to open the city gates, and only "labor troops" outside the city.

Since Gao Shishi sent troops to Datong, it has only been half a month so far, and the Ming court has already passed the chaos when the rebellion first broke out, and began to be fully involved in the counteroffensive.

In addition to the two reinforcements of Gao Pragmatic and Li Rusong, Li Yun, the general soldier of Guyuan, was ordered to guard Guyuan, but after Gao Pragmatic's headquarters approached Lingzhou from Ningxia Rear Guard (near Huamachi), he had to send troops north to Weizhou, if he could capture Weizhou, it would be best if he could capture Weizhou, even if he couldn't, he would make it impossible for the Weizhou rebels to return to Ningxia or Lingzhou.

In addition, there is a general soldier Liu Chengsi on the Gansu side, and Dong Yikui, a general soldier on the northern Sichuan side, etc., are actively deploying troops, either sticking to the passage of key places in Gansu, or going north out of Hetao to block the way back of the Huoluochi brothers, in short, all directions have taken action.

With Gao Shishi's current identity and prestige, he commanded the military affairs of the Northwest, and he also carried Shang Fang's sword, and no one dared to take his head seriously at all. After all, the gap between the status of the two sides and the saints is too big, to put it mildly, if Gao Shishi wants to kill them at this time, there is really not much difference between stepping on an ant to death.

If all these troops are included, the total number of troops participating in the battle in the northwest direction alone is estimated to be close to 200,000. The scale is enough, and the momentum is also sufficient, but the difficulties it faces are only clear to Gao Pragmatic himself.

In fact, the military salary has almost bottomed out, and Gao Shishi still has only about 50,000 taels of silver left in his hand, and the remaining part is either used to make up the military salary for the army, or used to buy grain and grass to distribute to the various departments, and some of it is similar to "opening the silver", which is given to the generals to cheer up the families.

And this is not all the cost, in fact, because of Gao Pragmatic's order, many areas that are still in the hands of the Ming army are mobilizing materials and silver, these materials and silver are all local, Gao Pragmatic almost purely relies on the majesty of Shangguan and the face within the Shixue School to mobilize them, not to mention whether it will be ripped off in the future, even if these things are enough, it is difficult to say.

After all, these money and materials are equivalent to local small coffers to a certain extent, and the amount of small coffers owned by various places is completely uncertain, some are a little more, some are a little less, and some are even so small that they are almost equal to nothing. There are also a lot of balancing tasks that need to be done by high pragmatism - for example, where there is a lot of money, it is definitely not satisfied, and high pragmatism needs to use various means to appease, and occasionally even force, of course, it is more of a combination of soft and hard.

War is never just about fighting, and the work behind it is often more important than how well the front line is fought. This is like Liu Bang has Xiao He behind him, so even if he loses so many times, he can always make a comeback, and after Xiang Yu has no father Fan Zeng behind him, he almost can't afford to lose at all.

Let's not talk about the rest first, and say that the main force of Gao Shishi's headquarters sent troops from Huamachi, and arrived at the periphery of Lingzhou three days later, eyeing this "South Gate of Ningxia".

The troops in Lingzhou City are not abundant, only 2,000 people, and the defender is Bi Chengen.

However, this is not abundant only compared to Gao Shishi's current army of more than 40,000 people, in fact, before the Ningxia Change, the defenders of Lingzhou City were less than 2,000, only about 1,500 or 600 people, and now it is the embodiment of Bibai strengthening the city defense.

Lingzhou has always been a battleground for soldiers throughout the ages, and there have been countless wars. However, when the time came to Daming, Lingzhou City itself was not very majestic, and the two thousand troops of Bi Chengen guarding Lingzhou were quite normal, so that they would not seem to be unrepaired.

However, all this is based on the past city defense situation, what was the past situation? The main task of Lingzhou was to defend against the Mongols, who were characterized by almost only cavalry and did not have much of a strong siege ability.

Now the situation is very different, the headquarters of Gao Shi is almost entirely infantry, although many of them came on horseback, but they are actually "horse infantry", and these people, whether defending or besieging the city, are undoubtedly far from being comparable to the Mongols.

What frightened Bi Chengen the most was that his horse detective told him that Gao Shishi's army not only "stretched for more than ten miles", but also carried "more than 100 generals" - this is not talking about more than 100 generals, but more than 100 large artillery. To be exact, it means that there are more than 100 guns in the first and second guns.

Of course, the words of these rebels are actually exaggerated, because Gao Pragmatic wants to fight quickly, they do not carry many heavy artillery, the No. 1 gun is actually not at all, and the No. 2 gun is actually only more than 30, but the No. 3 gun is quite a lot, as high as 84 guns.

However, because Gao Shiji's department had elite Majiada soldiers as scouts, the rebels did not dare to spy deeply, and could only take a look from afar, so they looked away and treated all the artillery as heavy artillery - at this time, most people's attitude towards artillery was not very scientific, and they thought that this thing was just as big as possible, and the level was similar to Yuan Chonghuan in the original history. As for the difficulty of transportation, whether it is suitable for use, etc., they generally do not consider it.

Bi Chengen, who got the wrong information, was also scared enough, he is also a Mongolian, but he grew up in Ningxia since he was a child, in his mind, the artillery is not easy to use in the field outside - the opponent is the Mongols, of course, people usually refuse to fight with the Ming army under the bombardment of artillery, they usually harass and fight slowly, bullying the Ming army's artillery and can't turn around.

But Bi Chengen knew that the artillery was a powerful siege of the city, although it was all solid bullets in these years, but because the city walls in the northwest were not tall and majestic bluestone brick walls, except for Ningxia City, most of them were made of rammed earth. Huge solid bullets smashed through, as long as two consecutive hits were made in a certain place, the wall around it had to crack, and then it continued to boom, and the city wall collapsed almost ironcladly, it was only a matter of time.

Gao Pragmatic has "more than 100 generals" on hand, according to Bi Chengen's understanding, as long as Gao Pragmatic is willing to pay, maybe he can collapse the city wall of Lingzhou City in one day, and then it will be 40,000 to 2,000......

How does this work?

----------

Thank you for the support of the book friend "Cao Mianzi", thank you!