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

Chapter 811 Vigilance
After Zhang Xianzhong left, Zhu Shenzui also stood up and went straight back to Wenhua Hall.

When we arrived at the side hall where the office was located, Zhou Anmin was already waiting there.

"Regent, there's an urgent letter from the grassland." Zhu Shenzhui stepped in and Zhou Anmin quickly stood up.

Zhou Anmin said: "The Mongolian leader Ketu Taiji of the northern desert suddenly led his troops south a few days ago and has destroyed one of the remaining tribes of Ligdan Khan. Ligdan Khan's widow Naren and her son were captured, and their grasslands were occupied. The remaining tribes rose up to resist and asked for help from Guihua City and the tribes in the western desert. The Khoshut leader Gushri Khan, the Junggar leader Batur Hong Taiji and other tribes have sent troops to rescue them. The tribes are fighting in the western desert, and the situation does not seem optimistic."

"When did it happen?" Zhu Shenzhui asked hurriedly. How could he not be anxious when such a big thing happened on the grassland? He was especially concerned about Tumed's situation, because Tana and the children were in Guihua City.

But at the same time, Zhu Shenzui also felt strange. He was quite familiar with the situation of the various tribes on the grassland. Tumed was in a very good position now. After taking Guihua City, the Tengger tribe had basically unified the Tumed grassland and became the master of Tumed.

To the east of Tumed was Chahar. The Chahar tribes had long been beaten into submission by himself, Wang Jinwu, Wang Hai and others. Ever since the Dorgon brothers led the tribes to invade the west and were defeated, Chahar was no longer a threat. Moreover, in the Battle of the Great Wall and the Siege of Jinzhou which just ended, Tumed had sent troops to the Chahar tribes many times to put pressure on Liaodong, which made the Chahar tribes feel suffocated.

As for the west, it is the Qinghai and Western Mongolia regions, which now belong to the territory of the remnants of Ligdan Khan.

After Lindan Khan left for the west, he occupied Qinghai. After his death, his subordinates began to split. Several of Lindan Khan's wives fought for control of the tribe for their own interests, but no one could truly swallow up Lindan Khan's legacy. Finally, with the intervention of Zhu Shenzhui, his tribe was divided, and Lindan Khan's remaining tribe was transformed from a large tribe into several medium-sized tribes, each controlling a piece of grassland. The matter was settled.

Zhu Shenzhui did this for various reasons, the main one being that he thought it would be better to keep the remaining tribe of Lin Dan Khan as a barrier to the west. Moreover, Lin Dan Khan was dead, his wives had no long-term vision, and his sons were too young to be a threat. These people only focused on the practical interests at hand, and the best outcome was that the entire tribe would be split into several medium-sized tribes. This would no longer pose a threat from all aspects, and in this case there was no need to forcibly annex them, because even if you annexed them, you might not be able to digest them, and it would bring hidden dangers.

In addition, there are tribes such as Gushri Khan, the lord of the Khoshut Khan, and Batur Hongtaiji, the lord of the Dzungar Khan, in the west of the desert. If the remnants of Ligdan Khan are annexed, they will inevitably border them. In this way, there will be no buffer between the two sides. Once there is any contradiction, it will inevitably lead to conflict. This is completely meaningless for Zhu Shenzui.

As for the south of Tumed, it is the Ming Dynasty. Now the Ming Dynasty is under their control. In fact, Tumed has become one family with the Ming Dynasty. In addition, with the opening and prosperity of border trade, the connection between Tumed and the Ming Dynasty has become closer and closer.

The north of Tumote is a natural barrier with a large desert area. It is very difficult to go directly through the desert area to enter the northern Mongolia. This is why every time the southern and northern Mongolians fight, they often either go around from the east or fight from the west. Although the straight distance is the shortest, once you get lost in the desert, even tens of thousands of troops cannot get out.

This was also the main reason why Zhu Shenzui had never paid attention to the Mongolians in the northern desert when he was in the grassland. In his opinion, the Mongolians in the northern desert were just a group of poor people compared to the Mongolians in the southern desert, and there were barriers on three sides. If they couldn't get through, there was no need for him to go over. Although the territory of the northern desert was large, the water and grass were far less abundant than those in the southern desert, not to mention that the Tumed could trade with the Ming Dynasty at any time. There was no point in taking over the northern desert, at least there was no plan to do so at this stage.

But he never expected that Tumed did not send troops, but Mobei sent troops first. Zhu Shenzhu knew Chao Ketu Taiji. Although he had never met him, he had heard of his name a long time ago. It is said that this person is quite talented in literature, a rare cultural person among the Mongols, and can also write poems. He has good political and military abilities. After the defeat in the previous war with Ligdan Khan, he has been hiding in Mobei. After annexing several tribes in Mobei in recent years, his strength has greatly increased. But he suddenly sent troops to Qinghai and Moxi, which was very surprising.

It stands to reason that Chao Ketu Taiji is not capable of this, so why did he suddenly lead his troops south? And from Zhou Anmin's words, it can be heard that Chao Ketu Taiji's southward situation is very bad for Western Mongolia. Could it be that he can't win with the remaining troops of Lin Danhan plus the reinforcements of other tribes? This shouldn't be possible!
He took the letter, opened it and read it carefully. This letter was jointly written to him by Tana and Wang Hai, and was sent to him by express horse through the Jinyiwei channel in Guihua City.

When Zhu Shenzhui finished reading the contents of the letter, he frowned immediately. Only then did he understand why Chao Ketu Taiji had the courage to go south. After all this fuss, this guy actually had foreign aid. Not only did he get a large amount of war supplies such as weapons and armor from the foreign aid to arm his subordinates, but this foreign aid also directly sent troops to assist Chao Ketu Taiji in going south.

"Rakshasa..." With the appearance of this term, Zhu Shenzhui became alert. He never thought that Tsarist Russia had already extended its tentacles to the East at this time and got involved in the war between the Mongols and the Mongols. However, it is normal to think about it carefully. According to the trajectory of history, the Battle of Yaksa during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty took place in the 1685th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, that is, in 1632. Before that, Tsarist Russia's power had gradually moved eastward. In the fifth year of Chongzhen (), the other side expanded to the Lena River Basin in eastern Siberia and established the city of Yakutsk to prepare for the conquest of the Far East.

In the following fifty years, Tsarist Russia took advantage of the chaos in the Central Plains and the Qing Dynasty's lack of time to take care of the north, and gradually encroached on the east. It eventually built a city and established a stronghold in Yaksa, which led to the subsequent war.

Although the current situation in the Ming Dynasty has changed because of Zhu Shencui, the situation in the north remains the same. After the establishment of Yakutsk a few years ago, Tsarist Russia continued to move eastward and directly confronted the Dzungar tribe in the west of the desert, and war broke out between the two sides.

Due to the strong strength of the Junggar tribe, the Tsarist Russia did not gain any advantage in several wars, and had no choice but to find another way. Perhaps for this reason, the Tsarist Russia changed its eastward direction, from directly heading southeast to developing northeast, and promised some benefits to hook up with Chao Ketu Taiji in Mobei, and the two sides hit it off and formed an alliance. Under the instigation and inducement of the Tsarist Russia, Chao Ketu Taiji led his troops southward, intending to take Qinghai and open up Tibet.

The Russians have been ambitious and have been expanding since the birth of Tsarist Russia. In just over a hundred years, Tsarist Russia has grown from the Grand Duchy of Moscow to the most powerful and most extensive empire in Eastern Europe, and its pace of expansion has not stopped. When its westward expansion was blocked, it turned eastward until it reached its current size.

Zhu Shenzhui knew better than anyone about Tsarist Russia's greed for land, and he understood even better the harm caused by these Russians. If he sat back and watched, allowing the Russians to join forces with the Mongols in the northern desert to launch a war, then even if he repelled the attack this time, the Russians would not retreat obediently. Instead, they would find ways to nibble away and advance eastward bit by bit.

Tana and Wang Hai's letters said that after Moxi asked for help, Guihua City sent reinforcements. They originally thought that they could easily repel the enemy, but they didn't expect that the Rakshasa army appeared in the battle with the Mobei army. Although the enemy was not large in scale, their combat effectiveness was extremely strong, and they had a large number of firearms, which caused the Mongolian cavalry that reinforced Moxi to suffer a lot.

Among them, the Khoshut leader Gushri Khan suffered the greatest loss, while the Dzungar and Burigude were better off.

The Dzungars and the Russians had fought before and knew how powerful the other side's firearms were. Burigude, because of his new army, was also aware of the horror of an army equipped only with firearms. So although there were some losses, they were not large. The two sides were currently in a stalemate. Taking into account the Russians' tactics and the power of their firearms, Burigude had asked for help from Guihua City. After discussing with Tana, Wang Hai decided to lead the new army from Guihua City to reinforce Moxi and defeat the enemy with firearms against firearms.

Judging from the current situation, the situation in Moxi has not reached the point where it is out of control. After all, after the arrival of reinforcements from various units, they have fought the army of Mobei to a draw. Even with the help of the Russians, the enemy was barely able to hold off and prevent the enemy's strategic intentions from being realized.

Moreover, once Wang Hai's reinforcements arrive, the Rakshasa army will no longer be a threat. Although the new army led by Wang Hai is not actually a real new army, because when Zhu Shenzhui mobilized the new army to go south to attack the capital, only a small part of the new army in Guihua City was left, just to serve as guards for Tana and Tenger mother and son.

After that, Zhu Shenzhui took over the capital, controlled the government, and was promoted to regent. He did not send the main force of the new army back to Hua, but kept it in the capital. Except for the use of some new troops in the Battle of the Great Wall and the Crossing the Sea, most of the new troops and the supplementary training new troops were all controlled by Wang Jinwu and stationed in the capital.

After Wang Hai returned to Guihua, he expanded the small part of the new army that remained in Guihua, adding a lot of Mongolians and Ming people who were stranded on the grasslands to the army, and then trained them in the training method of the new army. Although the army formed looked no different from the new army on the surface, it was actually somewhat inferior. The most important point was that the training and ferocity of the new army were not the same as the real new army. However, because Wang Hai used the original veterans as the skeleton to expand, at least it could maintain a certain combat effectiveness. Even if it was not as good as the real new army, it was still a strong army.

Although such a force is small in number, it can still play an important role. And judging from the situation in Moxi, the number of Luosha people on the battlefield is also small. With a similar number or more of this new army to reinforce the battle, even if it cannot completely annihilate the Luosha army, it will not be a problem to repel the enemy with the advantage of cavalry.

(End of this chapter)