Zhu Ci was also worried about raising a tiger to cause trouble, not to mention that his original premise for cooperating with the Weilaite was that the Weilaite would help the Great Ming deal with the Khorchin Mongols.
Nowadays, it seems the Ordos Mongols have no time to deal with the Khorchin Mongols, so the basis for cooperation naturally no longer exists.
Zhu Ci watched for a long time before finally arranging for the people from the armed department to make contact with the envoy sent by Galdan.
Since the Weilaite cannot provide him with assistance, it would be best if they caused chaos for a while longer.
Now that the Khoshut Mongols, the Durbet Mongols, the Torghut Mongols all possess firearms sold by the Great Ming, Galdan must have suffered significant losses to choose to trade with the Great Ming.
In that case, it would be fine to sell some to Galdan; after all, no one knows if the other three tribes also have figures like him.
Galdan is an acquaintance, after all; if it were someone new, it might be difficult to handle.
Besides that, there was naturally no need to let him waste any more time and effort on Li Chuangwang.
Just as Zhu Ci was thinking this, Wu Xia rushed in, bowed, said, "Your Majesty, Lord Fu requests an audience."
Hmm?
Wasn't the court session just adjourned?
Could it be because of his sale of firearms to Galdan?
Because today was a grand assembly, he did not bring it up; of course, this was also related to his intention to deprive other court officials of the opportunity to interfere in military and political affairs.
Currently, the only civil officials capable of expressing opinions on military and political matters are the Grand Secretariat, though military officers will also join the Grand Secretariat in the future.
Zhu Ci thought about it while trying to guess Fu's purpose for coming.
Although Fu was as steady and composed as usual today, his pace was indeed a bit faster than normal.
His expression was relatively calm, but given Zhu Ci's understanding of him, Grand Secretary Fu must be in a fairly good mood at this moment.
Zhu Ci leaned forward slightly and asked, "Has my dear minister brought any good news?"
A smile appeared on Fu's face. "Your Majesty is wise. The Ministry of War has just received news that Chuangwang led his troops in a surprise attack against the Four Sons Tribe Flag, the Chahar of the Blue Banner, the Right Wing of Balin, achieving a great victory."
“Huh?” Zhu Ci was somewhat surprised. “He went to raid the Mongols?”
Fu nodded, presenting the victory report and Li Zicheng's memorial with both hands.
The victory reports were sent all the way to the capital to announce the news to the world, but the memorials were the proper documents intended for the Emperor's eyes.
Zhu Ci first glanced at the victory report, which briefly stated that the Great Ming had occupied the Right Wing of Balin.
After setting aside the victory report, the memorial provided more detailed explanations.
The memorial stated that Li Chuangwang led his men in a sudden raid to seize the Four Sons Tribe Flag, the Blue Banner of Chahar, the Balin Pasture. Among these, the pastures held by the Right Wing of Balin included Linxi Hot on the Xilamuren River, the Hot by the Chaganmou River, the Hot in southern Balin.
He captured one thousand Arat each from the Four Sons Tribe Flag, the Blue Banner of Chahar, the Balin Mongols, totaling three thousand people, along with six Zhaolin from each banner, totaling eighteen people, while the remaining Mongols fled in a northeasterly direction.
Because they are nomadic people, many Mongol tribes do not have fixed cities like those in the Central Plains; they only establish certain strongholds, these strongholds also migrate.
In Mongolian, "Hot" is a general term for a city or a settlement, these three Hot are basically relatively fixed locations.
The first was the pasture center of the Balin Mongols, the second was a supply depot, the third was the place where they traded with the Qing Court, which could also be called a border market.
Zhu Ci put down the memorial, a smile spreading across his face, asked, "Approximately how many people are in these tribes?"
Fu clearly had a thorough understanding of these tribes and said, "Each tribe has roughly between ten thousand and fifteen thousand people, with Arat making up about twenty percent of the total population."
Arat is the Mongol term for soldiers, accounting for twenty percent.. meaning one-fifth of the population are soldiers, a ratio that is already quite high.
Looking at it this way, Li Chuangwang's victory this time can indeed be called a great one. He captured one-third of the opposing population; out of twelve Zhaolin, six were captured, some others must have perished on the battlefield, so it is estimated that less than half of the Balin people managed to escape.
Zhu Ci put down the memorial, a look of wonder on his face: "Why would Chuangwang think of attacking the Mongols?"
Hadn't he been remotely commanding from behind the scenes all this time, sending the Tumet and other tribes to fight these tribes? Why was he taking the field himself? The distance from Datong to Balin was not short, yet he actually..
What else could it be?
Because those Tumet tribes are no good.
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Author's Note: Zhu Ci: Stop opening maps randomly! *Catty panics and slams the table. jpg*
Next update tomorrow morning at six o'clock~
Chapter 230
However, if they were capable, they wouldn't be bullied like this.
The Tumet population was originally not low; at its peak, it even reached over three hundred thousand people. Later, as Southern Mongolia was incorporated into the Later Jin as a whole, the Tumet were split into the West Tumet and the East Tumet.
The Tumet here in Guihua City is the West Tumet; its population has dwindled to just over ten thousand, including the surrounding small tribes, it is no more than thirty to fifty thousand.
The number of people did indeed look larger than that of the Balin Mongols, but the Balin Mongols were adjacent to the Khorchin, their relationship with the Qing Court was much closer.
Not to mention that the Qing Court had always maintained a sense of vigilance against the powerful Tumet, constantly finding ways to reduce the Tumet population, frequently conscripting many young and able-bodied men whenever mobilizing troops.
After several rounds, the strength of the Tumet had been severely diminished, naturally, they were no match for the Balin and other tribes.
After fighting back and forth with Dorgon for a long time, Li Chuangwang also felt somewhat stifled.
It was true that he possessed superior firearms, but if the opposition did not care about human life at all and used people as shields to charge forward like that, what could he do?
Anyway, the ones used for the charge were all Han people; Dorgon wouldn't care no matter how heavy the casualties were.
Of course, Li Zicheng didn't care much about those Han people, but he cared about the soldiers under his command.
On one hand, these troops were the capital upon which he relied for his livelihood; on the other hand, it was because of the Emperor.
Everyone had more or less figured out the Emperor's temperament by now; generally speaking, he wasn't a difficult emperor to deal with, provided you didn't touch his bottom line.
Human life is one of the Emperor's bottom lines. Although the Emperor has never explicitly said he wants to reduce casualties, everyone is well aware that if a victory is achieved by piling up human lives, even if he wins, he might be dealt with by the Emperor afterward.
Moreover, using human lives to fill the gaps in war against the Tartars might not even be effective. The current difficulty lies in the fact that the Tartars are constantly sending reinforcements to the front lines; they have not only the soldiers who surrendered and were taken by the Ming generals, but they also have allies.
Southern Mongolia had long been tied to the Qing Court's chariot; they had already become enemies with Great Ming, they would only have good days ahead if the Qing Court won.
Therefore, the Qing Court spared no effort in providing support. Under these circumstances, the Ming Army found it difficult to fight, but even so, they won more than they lost.
It was just that Li Chuangwang felt somewhat aggrieved; most importantly, summer was coming to an end, once the weather turned cold, a ceasefire would have to be called again.
The North is a thousand times colder than the South; if they fight in the dead of winter, the soldiers will likely freeze to death not long after heading out.
To provide adequate warmth, never mind whether the military expenses are sufficient; even if they were, the force would become extremely bloated. With such limited mobility, how could they fight a war?
Thus, Li Zicheng felt that since Dorgon was difficult to deal with, he would bypass him first.
Wasn't Southern Mongolia a key ally of the Qing Court? Then he could just attack them first, cripple them, then they wouldn't be able to provide large-scale support to the Qing Court, right?
However, there were too many tribes in Southern Mongolia, the most important ones, Khalak Chin and Khorchin, were located much further to the northeast.
Even Li Chuangwang would find it impossible to bypass so many tribes to attack these two families directly, so he could only push through them one by one.
He left his nephew Li Guo in Datong and then sent someone to contact the Tumet to borrow passage through Guihua City.
Although the Tumet were somewhat hesitant, at this stage, they had no other choice.
If they refused the Ming Kingdom, they would truly be caught between two enemies, not to mention that their current situation was no different from submitting to the Ming Kingdom.
Thus, the Tumet Mongols directly agreed to Li Zicheng's request. Li Zicheng was also quite considerate; he absolutely could not offend the Tumet Mongols while leading his troops to raid Southern Mongolia, otherwise he would be attacked from both sides.
Therefore, by using this route, Li Chuangwang not only avoided disturbing the local populace and touching anything belonging to the locals, but he even brought some grain and vegetables for the Tumet.
As the weather gradually turned cold, these two things became the most important things for the Tumet.
When winter arrived, they often faced the predicament of having no food, since cattle and sheep were assets, they could not be slaughtered easily.
The Tumet Mongols were deeply grateful to Li Zicheng, even sending a thousand Arat to accompany him on the raid.
These one thousand Arat might not be of much use, but there were several guides among them who were very familiar with the terrain of the grasslands.
This was a huge help to Li Zicheng; otherwise, he would have had to rely on crude maps and follow the river, hoping luck would lead him to the gathering places of these tribes.
Unfortunately, although these tribes are social creatures, because the pastures are also divided into different grades, their settlements are quite scattered.
Otherwise, Li Zicheng was confident he could capture even more.
After fighting all the way to Balin, Li Zicheng came to a temporary halt.
Because even further ahead, the Tumet guide was no longer very familiar with the terrain.
Moreover, by this point, they had already ventured too deep into enemy territory, Li Zicheng did not intend to advance any further.
He had no choice but to lead his troops in a direct retreat. There were no cities on the grasslands, due to the terrain, there were almost no defensible positions. Setting up camp in place would likely mean facing enemies from all sides.
Li Zicheng retreated all the way back to Guihua City and decided to station himself there for a while.
He believed that these tribes would likely be unwilling to part with their pastures; although the Khorchin Mongols were large, they did not have that many pastures to distribute to other tribes, unless the refugees from those tribes surrendered and integrated directly into the Khorchin.
Of course, Li Zicheng did not write many of the details in his memorial, but Zhu Ci could still guess them.
Victory is certainly a cause for joy, but it is somewhat regrettable that despite clearly occupying new territory, they cannot hold onto it.
It would be wonderful if a city could be built there. It's not as if that land is incapable of supporting a city; while it is true that the area is vast and sparsely populated, it is also true that transportation is inconvenient in those future times, it doesn't mean it's impossible.
Fu sat below watching the Little Emperor gradually fall into deep thought, waiting for a long time before finally speaking up to ask, "Does Your Majesty wish to completely occupy Southern Mongolia?"
Zhu Ci came to his senses and said with some regret, "It is just a thought. To occupy it completely would require a massive amount of manpower and resources; so far, it is not worth it."
Fu Lue breathed a sigh of relief: "Indeed, those are all nomadic peoples; even if we build cities there, they will not stay."
Hmm?
A sudden flash of inspiration struck Zhu Ci: "Wait.. nomadic people don't necessarily have to be nomadic."
"Hmm?" Fu looked at the Little Emperor.
Zhu Ci said thoughtfully, "In fact, human nature is the same everywhere; it is only the different places of birth that cause different civilizations. Southern Mongolia just has poor conditions for farming, not that it cannot be farmed."
In other words, who wouldn't like a more stable life and a steady place to shelter from the wind and rain?
For nomadic peoples, following the water and grass is something they must do to survive.
Of course, one cannot rule out that some people simply enjoy this kind of lifestyle, but based on Zhu Ci's observations before his transmigration, most people still prefer a more stable life.
Compared to nomadic civilizations, agricultural civilizations are more stable, even if both depend on the weather.
Moreover, who says that raising cattle and sheep means you can't have a fixed location? As long as there is enough fodder, cattle and sheep can be raised in enclosures just the same.
Zhu Ci immediately had someone bring over a map to see what was suitable for planting there. After circling an area and taking a look, he froze on the spot.