"Your Majesty, when this letter is written, I can't help myself with excitement, and I desperately want to see the Ming Emperor appear in the Ming army camp opposite, and command the Ming army to fight against the Samarkand army commanded by Timur. Even if in the end something unfavorable to the kingdom happened: the defeat of Timur. ”

"Even Timur himself, after learning of this, although he was worried that the morale of the Ming army would be greatly boosted by the arrival of his emperor, he also said: 'I hope that Zhu Yunxi will come to Hami as soon as possible and command the Ming army to engage the army under my command. The only thing I regret is that this emperor is not Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Kingdom. ’”

"May the Lord bless you, my majesty."

……

The 13th day of the seventh month of the Ming calendar, the 30th day of the first month of the Hijri calendar, and the 30th day of July in the Western calendar.

Yun Xi couldn't have imagined that the first thing he heard about after coming to the military camp in the Yiwu Basin was this.

"You say that the Xilu have a very strange army recently?" Yun Xi sat on the main seat and asked in a deep voice.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Xu Huizu sat in the second position of his right hand at this time, and said respectfully: "Your Majesty, every night these days, there are sentries sent out to die inexplicably, and the death is very strange, not like being killed by someone or being shot by arrows, but like being bitten to death by a fierce beast. ”

"The minister was very surprised, so he ordered the soldiers to fight with the soldiers of the Western Capture during the day, and interrogated and learned that the reinforcements of the Western Prisoners brought an army of fierce beasts, a total of hundreds of beast keepers, raising more than a thousand wild beasts."

"This beast is very large, it can reach three feet on all fours, and weighs nearly two hundred pounds, and it looks a little like a lion, but it is smaller than a lion."

"It is said that this beast has the most sensitive nose and is good at fighting, and those sentries must have been bitten to death by this beast."

"What the hell is this beast?" Yoon-hee asked. At the same time, he thought to himself: 'It looks like a lion, but the weight of 200 catties is much smaller than that of a lion, and the adult male lion can reach more than 500 catties, and the female lion can also have 300 catties, and it is impossible to bring cubs. What other animals resemble lions in the West? I haven't heard of it, but it is the afterlife that has perished? ’

"Your Majesty, the soldiers of the Western captives who were captured alive do not know either. Some say it's a special lion, others say it's a special bear, and some say it's a dog. Xu Huizu said.

"It's nonsense to say it's a dog." Ji Xi, who was sitting in the first position on his left hand, said with a smile: "Official, if there are one or two dogs of this size in the world, it may not be impossible, but how can there be more than a thousand dogs of such a big size?" ”

Yun Xi didn't expect what kind of animal this was, so he put the matter aside for the time being and asked, "Xu Qing, is this beast very bad for the army?" ”

"Your Majesty." Xu Huizu replied: "After the minister heard about this, he sent additional sentries at night and strengthened the camp, and in the past few days, I have heard that the sentries have been attacked at night There are many fewer things, it should be that the Xilu is unwilling to send this kind of beast to attack the sentry under the condition that he is not sure, and it is indeed an obstacle to the night guard, but the impact is not great." ”

Xu Huizu's words are half-truths and half-truths. To say that this beast attacked the sentry in the middle of the night, the actual damage caused was indeed not large, but it had a great impact on the people who were to be sent as sentries at night.

Since all the people who had been attacked by the beasts had died so far, the sentinels were terrified, except for a slight relief standing on the arrow tower. These sentries were able to accept being killed by enemy raids, but it was still difficult to accept being bitten to death by wild beasts, and many of them showed obvious resistance when they were sent as sentinels, although there was no such thing as public disobedience, but if things continued like this, it was not guaranteed.

For this reason, Xu Huizu already had a plan to withdraw his troops and return to Yiwu City. Thoroughly dragged down with Timur. Fortunately, the enemy forces reduced their activity.

Yun Xi didn't know what he said half-truthfully, and when he heard this, he said: "In this case, it is okay to be more vigilant at night." How's the battle going? ”

"Your Majesty, the war is now at a stalemate. Timur did not miss any flaws, and only sent troops to fight with the soldiers sent by his ministers every day, and they suffered mutual damage. The minister didn't dare to be greedy for merit, so he could only confront him like this. ”

"Didn't you come up with any good strategies to break the enemy?" Yoon-hee asked.

"Your Majesty, the ministers and others failed to plan and did not come up with it. Please punish Your Majesty. Xu Huizu replied.

"What's there to blame for this?" Yun Xi smiled: "Stalemate is also stronger than being defeated by rash advances. Besides, as I have just heard, our army still has a slight advantage in terms of the number of soldiers lost in the current battle. It was Timur who was in a hurry. If you can't think of a good plan, it's better to just stalemate. ”

Of course, Yunxi didn't want so many elite soldiers to die in the war of attrition with Xilu, but it was true that Timur should be more anxious. If most of the Ming soldiers here were killed in the northwest, although it was not a good thing, Yun Xi would still be able to maintain his rule; But Timur's elite are all dead, the country is full of smoke, and the huge khanate will collapse in an instant.

"The only thing to worry about is that if Timur finds out that such a war is not good for him in the next few days, what can he do if he hangs up the exemption card?" Yun Xi was worried. If Timur had not accompanied him to play like this, he would not have dared to order a strong attack, and the war would have become a pure consumption of logistics. He didn't know how much food he had, what if Daming couldn't consume him?

"Your Majesty, don't worry, it is impossible for Timur not to fight, even if there are few people sent, he will not not be warn." Xu Huizu said.

"Why?"

……

……

"Great Khan, you can't fight like this anymore." In Timur's tent, Jesbu stood below and said in a loud voice: "Although there are not many soldiers killed and wounded every day these days, there are also two or three thousand, or seventy or eighty thousand a month, and the whole army will be exhausted in a few months." Although most of the people who died these days were auxiliaries and surrendered people, they all died, and only the elite main force of the Great Khan could not defeat the Ming army. ”

"Then you say, can you not fight now?" Timur sat on the bed, raised his head and glanced at him.

Jesbou was dumbfounded. Of course, he knew that he couldn't afford not to fight. Timur's reputation in the past was so high that he had been held high, and although the generals and soldiers knew that their Great Khan would use intrigue every time they fought before, they never flinched when provoked head-on, and if they retreated now, it would break the morale of the soldiers. Such an outcome is absolutely unbearable.

"We can only reduce the number and number of soldiers who fight each day." Jesbu finally said.

"That's all there is to it. In addition, doctors were collected from the captured Khitans, and it was heard that the country had sent military doctors to each guard station, and although there were not many military doctors in the border areas, there would be at least two or three people in each guard station. Although the medicine of the East is Shinto, it is always medicine, whether the theory is right or not, it can definitely cure the disease, find it out and treat the wounds of our soldiers. Timur added.

The two of them spoke a few more words, and Jesbu bowed and withdrew.

When he was gone, Timur got up in annoyance and circled around the tent. He was even more anxious than Yesbu in his heart, and wanted to come up with a way to defeat the Ming army. Even if the number of battles and the number of soldiers are reduced, thousands of casualties per day are inevitable, 30,000 a month, and 300,000 in 10 months. No, the total number of soldiers that don't have to be consumed reaches so much, and the soldiers will feel bad before that, and the morale of the army will fluctuate. Although the Ming army on the opposite side will also have such a thing, he can't always pin his hope on the Ming army to collapse first.

"What the hell is to do?" Timur thought to himself.