I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 409 Sweeping the Hetao
Zhu Houxuan's move to abolish the Ming Baochao did not cause much opposition, as everyone was tired of this crudely made and low-credit paper money.
So the Ming Baochao withdrew from the stage of history.
In the following days of the 12th year of Zhengde, Zhu Houxuan did not make any major moves in the court, and he was at peace with the court officials. He began to devote himself to the governance of the imperial court.
The people of the 24 counties of Shuntian Prefecture suddenly found that their lives had suddenly become much better this year. There were more opportunities to make money, less money and grain was plundered and handed over, and they had a lot of surplus in their hands. This made the consumption capacity of the people of Shuntian Prefecture suddenly increase a lot.
This made the people of Shuntian Prefecture grateful to Zhu Houxuan, and they also became more accepting of the silver dollar notes promoted by Zhu Houxuan.

This phenomenon even caused the silver dollar notes circulating in Shuntian Prefecture to overflow and began to circulate in the counties surrounding Shuntian Prefecture.
In the autumn, good news finally came from the Steam Locomotive Research Institute, including a series of breakthroughs in the use of Eucommia ulmoides gum, which finally gave birth to the first mass-produced steam locomotive in the Ming Dynasty!

This mass-produced steam locomotive was named Zhengde Type 50 steam locomotive. It could pull twelve carriages at a time, carry 160 tons of cargo, or carry 10 people. When fully loaded, it could reach a speed of 20 kilometers per hour, and when empty, it could reach kilometers per hour.

This performance has completely crushed Marx.
The yield rate, failure rate and performance of this steam locomotive have reached the standards for commercial operation.

It took Zhu Houxuan almost nine years to finally put the last piece of the puzzle of the First Industrial Revolution together.

Although this type of steam locomotive was relatively primitive and its performance was extremely poor from the perspective of later generations, it was extremely important to the Ming Dynasty at that time.

The emergence of this steam locomotive will further reduce the logistics costs of the Ming Dynasty and make the flow of personnel and materials in the Ming Dynasty faster.

The reduction in logistics costs will reduce the cost of operating the entire society and the cost of living for ordinary people.

With the existence of steam locomotives, the coal-iron cycle in the coal-iron complex will be faster.

Using steam power instead of animal power also made it possible to build railways in places that were previously not possible due to power constraints, further expanding the scope of railway traffic.

Moreover, breakthroughs in steam locomotive technology can also be applied to other types of steam engines. Take the breakthrough in the use of eucommia gum as an example. This technology makes the sealing work of all types of steam engines simpler, lower cost, better sealing, reduces energy consumption, and increases horsepower.

It will greatly improve the performance of the steam engines of the entire Royal Group.

In addition, steam locomotives of this horsepower can already be used on ships. Zhu Houxuan has been promoting the development of the ship-mounted version of the Zhengde Type XII steam car, and its application in ships will be very broad.

In short, the emergence of mass-produced steam locomotives made the entire Royal Group run faster.

However, the biggest problem now is the insufficient production capacity of this type of steam locomotive. Only about 10 can be produced per month. Although the production capacity has been expanded, it will take a long time to fully meet the needs of the Royal Group.
As for Zhu Houzhao, he never returned to the capital, not even for the Emperor's birthday or the Spring Festival. Apart from sending orders for food and military supplies, he basically did not ask about other matters.
Zhu Houzhao really liked the border towns. He was so bored with the military training in Xuanfu that he even started to inspect the border towns and even went close to observe the Hetao area.
"From Xuanfu to the western frontier, the emperor traveled thousands of miles back and forth. He rode a horse, carried a bow and arrows, braved the wind and snow, and prepared for dangers. The officials prepared a sedan chair for him, but he did not drive it. The eunuchs who followed him were mostly sick and exhausted, but the emperor did not consider it a burden."

This is a record of Zhu Houzhao's deeds during this period by his entourage. (The above paragraph is the original text of the History of Ming Dynasty, but it is about the 14th year of Zhengde, when Zhu Houzhao was still in good health.)
Zhu Houxuan also knew that Zhu Houzhao was holding back his energy and wanted to win another great victory. Zhu Houxuan did not persuade him, but quietly sent him the intelligence on Hetao collected by Shanxi merchants, and also sent several Mongolian captives from the Ordos and Tumed tribes who were well-reformed and familiar with the situation in Hetao, and asked these Mongolian captives to act as guides to attack the Mongolian tribes in the Hetao area.

Sufficient food and military supplies were also sent to Zhu Houzhao.

The twelfth year of Zhengde passed like this.

On the 2th day of the first lunar month in the 3th year of the Zhengde reign, the ice and snow on the grassland had not yet melted, but Zhu Houzhao suddenly led cavalrymen in two groups. One group of men attacked the Ordos tribe on the south bank of the Yellow River from Yulin Town, and the other group of men attacked the Tumed tribe on the north bank of the Yellow River from Datong.

Faced with such a sudden attack, the Mongols were completely unprepared and completely stunned. They couldn't understand how the Ming army could sneak up to the gate of their tribe so quietly.
The guides played a big role in this process.
Faced with the Ming cavalry who had been gathering strength for a whole winter, they felt extremely powerless.

Although these Ming cavalrymen lacked combat experience and their riding skills were not good enough, the horses under their crotches were still fat and strong, their morale was high, and their will to fight was firm.

This time, the 50,000 Ming cavalry were all light cavalry, each armed with two flintlock pistols. The Mongols really had no patience facing this kind of pistol cavalry.

The Mongolian horses had become weak after a winter, and they could neither fight nor escape.

Therefore, morale collapsed quickly. Even at home, they could not muster the will to fight and collapsed at the first blow.
Although the success of the war exceeded Zhu Houzhao's expectations, the General Staff also made corresponding plans before the war.

In this surprise attack, the Ming army killed more than 2,000 people with very few casualties and captured more than 40,000 Mongols, most of whom were the elderly, the weak, women and children.
However, Zhu Houzhao was still not satisfied with the victory. He divided another 10,000 troops and asked Jiang Bin to lead them to sweep the wintering grounds of the Mongols in the southern foothills of Yinshan Mountain.
Again, more than 300 people were killed in battle and more than 10,000 Mongols were captured.

It was not that they did not want to achieve more victories, but the young and strong Mongolians who were capable of fighting would run away or surrender when they saw the Ming army, and the large number of captured Mongolian women and children also hindered the Ming army's efforts to continue to expand its victories.

Many people may wonder, since there are only 50,000 or 60,000 Mongolian prisoners, why can't 30,000 or 40,000 Mongolian cavalry be sent to guard the prisoners, and 10,000 people be allocated to expand the results of the battle?

Because in addition to capturing these Mongols, the Ming army also captured more than four million cattle and sheep.
(End of this chapter)