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

Chapter 345: Order of Attack

Lindan Khan and Bu Shitu had a falling out. In fact, they had fallen out a long time ago. From the moment Lindan Khan inherited the throne, the two were destined to be different people.

In terms of blood, they were cousins ​​and members of the Golden Family. In terms of status, they had enough potential to compete for the position before Lindan Khan ascended to the throne. Unfortunately, the Khanship eventually fell to Lindan Khan, and Bu Shitu could only grit his teeth and watch the throne fall to someone else, but he was powerless to do anything.

After Lindan Khan became the Great Khan, the Mongolian headquarters moved from Tumed to Chahar, which caused the status of Tumed grassland, which had always been an important place for Mongolia, to decline. Then, a few years later, as Lindan Khan gradually grew from a teenager to a young man, his ambition began to expand as his Khanship became more stable.

In order to restore the glory of the Mongol Empire, Lin Dan Khan had the idea of ​​unifying Mongolia again. He was unwilling to be a nominal leader of Mongolia, but wanted to become a real ruler of Mongolia like his ancestor Genghis Khan. To this end, Lin Dan Khan adopted the method of conquering and annexing all directions, attempting to unify Mongolia by force.

Over the years, Lindan Khan led the Chahar headquarters to fight against various tribes, and provoked wars among the Inner Khalkha, Outer Khalkha, and Khorchin tribes, and even the Tumed. Even though the Tumed grassland had always been the sphere of influence of the Mongolian Khan's headquarters, Lindan Khan did not let it go.

Before, two wars broke out between Ligdan Khan and Bushitu. Bushitu joined forces with Kharchin and Yongshebu to fight against Ligdan Khan, but unfortunately they were all defeated by Ligdan Khan, especially the second war, because Bushitu escaped so miserably that even his golden seal fell into Ligdan Khan's hands. Tens of thousands of his troops were dispersed, and nearly half of them were incorporated by Ligdan Khan. The losses were extremely heavy.

After the two defeats, Bu Shitu became much more honest, at least on the surface he bowed to Ligdan Khan and acknowledged his status as the Khan and his rule over the Tumote grassland. However, in his heart, Bu Shitu never really submitted to Ligdan Khan. His gesture was just a compromise under the circumstances of being stronger than him.

Now Lindan Khan suddenly wanted to "teach Bu Shitu a lesson", and he publicized the matter at the first opportunity and even sent envoys to the Tenger tribe. This approach is very intriguing.

Considering what happened to Elbegji Taiji before, it was very clear what Lindan Khan's intention was. He planned to use the conflicts among the Tumed tribes to provoke a war, so as to completely resolve the hidden danger of Bushitu and then annex the entire Tumed tribe.

Since Altan Khan, the Twelve Tumed Tribes were no longer worthy of their name. Internal divisions led to numerous conflicts among the tribes, and even a fierce civil war broke out later.

Although after Sanniangzi took charge of the Tumed tribe, she used her wisdom and status to mediate and ease the conflicts among the tribes, allowing the twelve Tumed tribes to restore their previous peace, and this peace lasted for decades, but with the death of Sanniangzi, the conflicts hidden under the illusion of peace still broke out.

Just like the Tenger tribe and Bushitu, the Ashitemur tribe, as the predecessor of the Tenger tribe, has always stood on the side of Ligdan Khan. Ashitemur and his son followed Ligdan Khan in his conquests.

There was an internal strife in Ashitemur's tribe. After Tenger became the taiji of the tribe, considering the stability of the tribe, Zhu Shenzui and Tana discussed and expressed their submission to Ligdan Khan in order to gain his support and enthronement.

There are many advantages to doing this. First, the tribe originally supports Lin Dan Khan, and continuing this attitude can stabilize the hearts of the people in the tribe. Second, Tenger's ascension to the position of Taiji is actually a bit reluctant. Without Lin Dan Khan's recognition, he may not be able to convince the people. As for the third, it is to use the name of Lin Dan Khan to suppress other Tumed tribes, so that they will be afraid and not interfere with the change of the position of Taiji of Tenger tribe.

In addition to these, Zhu Shencui also extended an olive branch to the Ming Dynasty to gain its support. This was a good move, and subsequent facts proved that Zhu Shencui was right. Under Zhu Shencui's plan, he took a two-pronged approach and used force to deter the tribes that were ready to move. After officially receiving the title from the Ming Dynasty and Ligdan Khan, the Tengger tribe completely resolved the crisis, and Tengger became a legitimate tribal taiji.

But by doing so, the Tenger tribe directly offended Bu Shitu. Bu Shitu was even more dissatisfied because Zhu Shenzui had used Ligdan Khan's name as an excuse to attack Delibor Taiji and defeated Delibor Taiji's tribe in one fell swoop.

Today, the tribe of Dilibor Taiji is in name only. Dilibor Taiji himself had already fled westward in a panic. Nearly half of his followers were annexed by the Tengger tribe, and the remaining ones were split into several small tribes under the manipulation of Zhu Shenzhui.

This incident had a great impact on the Tumed tribes and eliminated the external hidden dangers for the Tenger tribe. But because of this, Bu Shitu, who was originally dissatisfied with the Tenger tribe's surrender to Ligdan Khan, bore a grudge against the Tenger tribe. This led to the Elbegji Taiji tribe's attack on Zhenlubao, which triggered the subsequent changes.

Under pressure from both the Ming Dynasty and Ligdan Khan, Bu Shitu, in order to avoid the fire from burning himself, solved the problem of Elbegji Taiji's tribe one step ahead of time and sent Elbegji Taiji's head to Zhu Shenzhui. From this point of view, Bu Shitu seemed to have given in and made his attitude clear, but no matter who it was, everyone knew that the feud between the two sides was completely settled. Once there was a change in the future, Bu Shitu would never miss the opportunity to strike the Tenger tribe.

Lin Danhan also understood this truth. Although Lin Danhan was a reckless man, he would not have been the Great Khan for so long if he did not have some scheming and ability. The incident of the Elbegji Taiji tribe happened last year. Afterwards, Lin Danhan clearly expressed his support for the Tenger tribe and held Bu Shitu accountable in the name of the Great Khan.

Although this incident seemed to end with the death of Elbegji Taiji and the division and annexation of the tribe, Lindan Khan also saw the opportunity and possibility of taking over the Tumed grassland. It was for this reason that Lindan Khan suddenly expressed his attitude at the beginning of spring this year when all things on the grassland revived. He directly announced the ten crimes of Bu Shitu and sent envoys to the Tumed tribes to contact the Tenger tribe and other tribes to prepare to attack Bu Shitu.

Lin Danhan's move directly disrupted Zhu Shenzhui's plan and pushed the entire Tengger tribe into an extremely embarrassing situation.

After listening to Tana's story and reading the edict sent by Lindan Khan's envoy, Zhu Shenzui immediately understood what Lindan Khan wanted to do.

Unifying the grasslands has always been Lin Dan Khan's dream, and he has been doing so for many years. Unfortunately, Lin Dan Khan, who was ambitious but incompetent, was aggressive and aggressive, and although he achieved some results, he also offended almost all the Mongolian tribes.

Now the three strongest forces on the grassland, Inner and Outer Khalkha and Khorchin, were incompatible with Lin Dan Khan, but Lin Dan Khan had no way to deal with them. In several wars, he was either defeated by the other side or returned empty-handed. In addition, Lin Dan Khan's endless use of troops greatly consumed the strength of the Chahar tribe. Due to religious reasons, people from the Mongolian tribe kept leaving Lin Dan Khan and defecting to other tribes, which made Lin Dan Khan extremely angry.

Lin Danhan was eager to change this situation, but he was not sure if he could continue to send troops to Inner and Outer Khalkha and Khorchin, so he set his sights on the Tumed tribes that originally belonged to the Mongolian headquarters, and Bu Shitu, the most powerful and nominal leader of the Tumed tribe, became his target.

Once Bu Shitu is dealt with, the Tumed grassland will be directly incorporated into the Mongolian headquarters, relying on the power of Tumed and merging it with Chahar. In this way, Ligdan Khan's strength will inevitably increase greatly, and he will be able to stabilize the already somewhat unstable internal situation and at the same time shock the entire grassland.

What's more, Bu Shitu and Ligdan Khan were enemies, so it would be a good idea to target him. In addition, the incident with Elbegji Taiji's tribe had happened before, which also gave Ligdan Khan sufficient reasons.

In addition, the Tenger tribe had been doing a booming trade with the Ming Dynasty over the past year. Taking advantage of the trade, the Tenger tribe's strength increased greatly, which also made Lin Danhan jealous. As one of the tribes supporting Lin Danhan, he took this opportunity to let the Tenger tribe take the lead and fight against Bu Shitu. After the two sides fought and both were defeated, Lin Danhan would lead his army to the battlefield, thus killing two birds with one stone by once and for all.

In this way, not only can the Tumed tribes be recovered, but also the losses in the war can be reduced, and the strength of the Tenger tribe can be weakened. If the trade between the Tenger tribe and the Ming Dynasty is included after the war, so that the Tenger tribe can directly obtain a large amount of supplies from the Ming Dynasty, it will be even more beneficial for Lin Danhan.

It's funny to say that as early as the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty adopted the strategy of forming an alliance with Ligdan Khan in order to deal with the Jiannu in Liaodong, and opened up border trade. In theory, this was the best opportunity for Ligdan Khan to take advantage of the opportunity to strengthen himself and develop.

However, after a series of operations by Ligdan Khan, not only did the Ming Dynasty fail to gain much benefit, but because of Ligdan Khan's repeated inconsistencies, the Ming Dynasty was extremely disappointed with him. Especially after the border trade between the Ming Dynasty and the Tengger tribe was launched, the amount of trade in the west increased sharply, and in just a few months it replaced the original position of the border trade between the Ming Dynasty and Ligdan Khan, which made Ligdan Khan extremely dissatisfied.

At the same time as being dissatisfied, Lindan Khan also set his eyes on the wealth and resources that the Tengger tribe obtained through border trade. This time, under the pretext of attacking Bushitu, he attempted to let the Tengger tribe take the lead. Regardless of the final outcome, the Tengger tribe would inevitably suffer losses. Once Bushitu was resolved and the Tumed grassland was taken over, Lindan Khan would be able to directly control the border trade of the Tengger tribe in his own hands in the name of the common leader and replace it.

It has to be admitted that Lin Danhan's calculations were good, but Lin Danhan did not expect that his calculations were seen through by Zhu Shenzhui at a glance. But the problem is, even if it is seen through, what can it do? The Tenger tribe has few choices. Whether it is to refuse or to be Lin Danhan's pawn, it is not a good thing for the Tenger tribe.

(End of this chapter)