Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 264 Basics
Hadan Bater suffered a disastrous defeat in Mobei. Not only did he lose his life in Mobei, but even the tribe's elite cavalry suffered huge losses.

The rebellion of Galiba later made the situation of the tribe even worse. Although Galiba was dead, the tribe was also seriously damaged. Now the entire tribe can mobilize less than three thousand cavalrymen, some of whom are old and weak. According to Zhu Shenzui's idea, after eliminating these old and weak people and some of Galiba's original subordinates, the remaining number might be less than two thousand.

Now the strength of the entire tribe has been greatly weakened. Compared to when Astemur was here, the tribe's military strength is less than half of what it was before.

As a large tribe of tens of thousands of people, this situation is very dangerous. The grassland has always been a place where the strong prey on the weak, and the wars and conflicts between tribes have never stopped since ancient times. If a large tribe intends to attack them at this time, it will be difficult for the tribe to resist with its current strength.

Considering these, Zhu Shencui had only two options. One was to reorganize the tribe's military strength as soon as possible and restore the tribe's combat effectiveness in the shortest possible time. However, this was not an easy task, because the war in Mobei and Galiba's perverse actions had caused a lot of loss of strong men in the tribe, and more than 500 Mongols died at the hands of Zhu Shencui alone.

While eliminating the old and weak, young and strong people must be drawn from the tribe to supplement the tribe's military strength. Therefore, the small number of new troops in Zhu Shenzui's hands cannot be withdrawn to the Ming Dynasty for the time being. For a long time in the future, this army will remain on the grassland as a trump card in Zhu Shenzui's hand to ensure the safety of the tribe and his wife.

As for the second method, it is to obtain the recognition of Ligdan Khan as soon as possible. Although Tenger has inherited the position of Taiji now, this is only an inheritance within the tribe and is not legal. The real inheritance must be agreed and conferred by Ligdan Khan.

As the leader of Mongolia, Lindan Khan is the Khan of the entire Mongolia. All tribes are nominally the subjects of the Khan. The change of tribal leaders must be approved by the Khan to be legitimate. If there is no approval from the Khan, then the tribal leader will not be recognized by other tribes, and other tribes will have every reason to send troops to directly attack and annex each other.

This principle is the same as the vassal states and dependent states of the Ming Dynasty needed to obtain the recognition and enthronement of the Ming Emperor when the old and new powers changed. Without the imperial edict of the Ming Emperor, your inheritance would be illegal. Since it is illegal, no one would recognize your identity and status.

This is the current situation. If he can get the approval of Ligdan Khan as quickly as possible and get his will, then Tenger will be able to secure his position as Taiji. Not only that, Tenger can also inherit the title of Jinong and the position of Right Wing Wanhu that originally belonged to Ashi Timur. With these two identities, other Mongolian tribes will have to think twice before taking action. Once they send troops to attack the tribe, it means that they do not take the Khan's will seriously and are violating the Khan's will.

Although Lin Danhan has been declining in recent years, especially since last year, he has been deserted by his friends and relatives, and suffered a disastrous defeat in the northern desert. But a lean camel is bigger than a horse. As the leader of the Mongols, Lin Danhan still has a strong military force. In addition to his title as the Great Khan, the tens of thousands of cavalry in his hands may be a little difficult to deal with the Inner and Outer Khalkha, Khorchin and even the Later Jin, but dealing with ordinary Mongolian tribes is as easy as crushing a bug.

On the day Tenger became the tribal taiji, Tana sent an envoy to Ligdan Khan's headquarters in Chahar.

In order to gain the support of Ligdan Khan, Tana specially selected the most eloquent Mongolian elders from the two tribes, gave them the title of envoys, and personally wrote a memorial with deep emotion. It not only recounted in detail the loyalty of Ashi Temur's tribe to Ligdan Khan for so many years, but also mentioned the deeds of her brother Hadan Bater who died in the northern desert to cover the Khan's retreat. She begged the Khan to allow Tenger to inherit the position of tribal taiji and take over Ashi Temur's status as Jinong and right wing Wanhu, in view of the tribe's loyalty to the Khan.

In her memorial, Tana also promised that her tribe would always support Ligdan Khan, take Ligdan Khan as their leader, and follow the Khan to create the glory of the Mongol Empire again. Her words were so sincere that people could feel them. In addition, Tana did not hide the internal strife of the tribe, and told Ligdan Khan everything that Galiba had done to show her sincerity.

In addition to submitting the memorial, Tana also had people send a lot of gifts to Ligdan Khan and his close ministers. In addition to the tribe's savings of gold and silver, these gifts also included some of the goods that Zhu Shenzui brought from the Ming Dynasty this time, such as fine silk, porcelain, tea, etc.

With these things, it is not difficult to convince Ligdan Khan. The next step is to wait patiently. After all, it takes at least two months to travel from the tribe to the Khan's Golden Tent and back, and the journey is not short.

After arranging these, Zhu Shenzui breathed a sigh of relief. At least the major issues had been settled. The next step was to slowly and completely control the tribe and make continuous adjustments within the tribe.

Then, Zhu Shenzhui asked Ma Shizhou and Hu Lin to take people back to Daming first, and took letters to his family including Kang Youfu, Zhou Anmin, Wang Rong, Zhang Xijun and others. At present, he had to stay in the grassland for the time being, and he could not return to Daming until the grassland issue was completely resolved. This stay would take at least half a year, and it was impossible not to inform his family about this situation. In addition, Tenger became the taiji of the tribe, and the future cooperation between the tribe and the grassland would be completely different from before. In the future, both trade and other matters would have to be adjusted, and Daming must also cooperate with these.

Ma Shizhou and Hu Lin were naturally aware of this, so when Zhu Shenzhui handed the letter to them and explained it, the two of them quickly led their people away from the tribe. After they left, Zhu Shenzhui's new army continued to stay. This army will continue to stay on the grassland, still led by Lao Jin himself, with Wang Jinwu and others as assistants, to ensure the safety of Zhu Shenzhui and others while training on the grassland.

After two battles, this new army is different from the past. War is indeed the best way to temper an army. According to Lao Jin, although this army can only barely compare with the Qi Family Army during the Battle of Hunhe, or even slightly inferior, it can be called elite. However, there is still a big gap compared with the Qi Family Army in its heyday, and the number of new troops is also less.

Taking this into consideration, Zhu Shencui had explained to Zhou Anmin, Wang Rong and others in the letter he brought back that if nothing unexpected happened, when the next caravan returned to the grassland, there would be newly recruited soldiers following, and these soldiers would be the supplement of the new army. After these people arrived, Zhu Shencui would reorganize the new army in a one-to-one manner, increasing the number of people from one sentry to two sentries, so as to enhance his own strength.

Regarding the increase of the new army, Lao Jin proposed to Zhu Shenzhu that it was possible to recruit suitable people from the Mongols to join the new army. Of course, it was not so easy to select candidates from the Mongols, because the customs and personalities of the Mongols were different from those of the Ming people. In addition, the Mongols were always good at riding and shooting but not good at fighting on foot. Many Mongols loved to show their bravery in battle, so it was not easy to train them like the Ming people.

However, there is a solution. Lao Jin suggested selecting the young Mongolians from the tribe and training them according to the Qi Family Army selection method. Although there will be some problems, it is at least much more convenient than using young and strong men for training.

In addition, there are many people in the tribe, and even if you pick one out of a hundred, you can still pick out dozens of them. With the addition of these Mongolian boys, the new army's source of manpower can be supplemented, and the burden on the Ming Dynasty can be reduced in the future.

This suggestion was approved by Zhu Shencui. Not only that, Zhu Shencui also planned to retrain the tribe's cavalry.

Because of the loss of Hadan Bater's 2,000 elite cavalry, there are not many elite soldiers left in the tribe. In addition, the Mongols have always been soldiers on horseback and civilians on foot. Except for the guards, the Mongolian army is composed of ordinary herdsmen. These people have never been professional soldiers and will only be mobilized together to go out to fight when there are conscriptions. Although most of them have good personal martial arts and are skilled in archery and horsemanship, they are far behind in terms of tactics and coordination.

Except for the garrison soldiers, all the soldiers in the Ming army were professional soldiers. Even though the Ming army has gone through more than 200 years, corruption is serious and its combat effectiveness has plummeted, but the generals in charge of the border troops are still accompanied by a group of well-equipped and strictly trained retainers.

This group of retainers is their real confidence and the decisive force in battle. Zhu Shenzhui has already trained an elite cavalry in the tribe in the form of retainers. This cavalry will be a professional soldier in the future, with the best equipment and treatment, and will be directly under his command. With this cavalry, whether it is controlling the tribe or fighting foreign wars, it will always be a decisive force.

However, it is not easy to build this cavalry. Mongolian grassland cavalry is not rare, and the main horses of cavalry are everywhere in Mongolia, which is an advantage that the Ming Dynasty does not have. But the cost of manpower, horse munitions, weapons and equipment, and strict training is huge. Zhu Shenzhu calculated that with the ability of the tribe, at most, he could only get a few hundred elite cavalrymen. He was not sure how much he could expand on this basis in the future.

This cavalry would nominally be directly under the name of Tenger, that is, the Taiji's guard cavalry, but the one who would truly control it would be Zhu Shenzhui. In daily life, the leader of the cavalry would be the centurion Wang Hai, and another Mongol from the early Garu caravan would serve as Wang Hai's deputy.

While training this elite cavalry, Zhu Shenzhu also required the new army to conduct proper cavalry training. The infantry tactics of Qi's army were unrivaled in the world, which was also proven in these two battles, but Qi's army was not without any weaknesses, and the lack of cavalry tactics training was one of them. Just like this time when they disguised themselves and sneaked into the camp, many soldiers of the new army could not even ride horses well. If it weren't for the enemy's carelessness and the dark sky, they might have been discovered.

(End of this chapter)