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

Chapter 86: Money is the only difficulty
Zhu Houzhao suddenly grabbed Zhu Houxun and said anxiously: "What's the solution? Tell me quickly!"

The names Wei Qing and Huo Qubing are so well-known that he admires them both very much as he is determined to defeat the Mongolian prince.

"Royal brother, don't be anxious. Let me tell you slowly." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

"Zhu Ning, quickly move a chair over for your uncle, then make a cup of tea and give me one too." Zhu Houzhao ordered hurriedly.

Qian Ning's face turned even darker, but he didn't dare to be negligent.

"In fact, the method I mentioned is not a secret. You just didn't think of it at the moment." Zhu Houxuan looked at everyone.

"Can anyone tell me when the Mongols are at their strongest?"

"Autumn! The Mongols go south to plunder every year in autumn!" Zhu Houzhao answered quickly.

"Yes, autumn! The nomadic peoples are most effective in autumn and early winter, because at this time the livestock are fat and strong after gaining weight in spring, water and autumn, the sheep are fat, the cattle are strong and the horses are energetic. The whole grassland is very cold and there is nothing to do. Staying at home to eat cattle and sheep is a waste of money. At this time, the Hu chiefs will summon their tribesmen to the south to plunder. It is extremely easy to mobilize at this time, and the morale of the Hu people is extremely high, because they can only survive the winter if they can grab enough things. If they cannot grab enough things, someone in the tribe will starve to death. In addition, autumn is the time when the people of my Ming Dynasty harvest, and it is also the richest time." Zhu Houxuan said in a deep voice.

Everyone was listening attentively. Although everyone knew what was being said, hearing it summarized all at once gave them a refreshing feeling.

And judging from what happened to Qian Ning just now, this King of Jing still has something up his sleeve, so they didn't want to jump out to refute so quickly.

"My Great Ming has been on the defensive against Mongolia for decades. Most of the time, we faced the Mongols who came south in the autumn. At this time, the Mongols came and went like the wind. It was difficult for my Great Ming border troops to catch them, and it was difficult to gain anything."

"So it will be very ineffective to attack the Mongols in their strongest season. If we want to fight, we should attack them when they are at their weakest. When is the weakest time of the year for the Mongols?" Zhu Houxun glanced at everyone again.

"Early spring!" Zhu Houzhao answered again.

"Yes! It's early spring! The greatest wealth of the Mongolians in the north is their livestock. In the spring, the sheep will give birth to lambs, and they will be very busy. They will be very tired from receiving lambs and dividing the flocks. Moreover, after a winter of consumption, the fat accumulated last autumn has been consumed, and the livestock will be very weak. It will be very difficult to mobilize them at this time. This is the best time to attack them!"

"There are two great advantages to attacking the Hu Lu in spring. First, cattle and sheep in the lambing period cannot withstand such torture. Even if the Hu Lu flee from the army, a large number of female animals will have miscarriages and a large number of livestock will die, just like setting a fire in farmers' fields in summer, which will cause them to have no harvest for the year. It can even be said that after a winter of doing nothing, many Mongolian women will become pregnant. After such torture," Zhu Houxuan drew out his voice.

Is this method vicious? It is very vicious! But this is the life-and-death struggle between the two nations.

Everyone was silent, immersed in the situation described by Zhu Houxuan.

"Secondly, the horses of the Hu people can no longer keep up. After a winter of baptism, the horses on the grassland are thin and have long hair. At this time, the war horses are slow and have poor endurance. The Han cavalry can quickly catch up with the Hu people."

"Wait!" Qian Ning suddenly interrupted, and everyone looked at him. His eyes flashed with excitement, thinking he had found a loophole in Zhu Houxuan's words. "In early spring, the Han army's horses were also weak. The grass they ate in winter was the same! Everyone's horsepower was the same!"

"So the Han army would feed food to the war horses in winter to prevent them from losing fat!" Zhu Houxun said lightly.

"Feeding food?"

The silence in the room was suddenly broken, and everyone began to discuss. Why were they so shocked by this answer? Because at that time, an ordinary soldier in the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty could barely get enough to eat, and when they encountered natural disasters or man-made disasters, they would even starve to death or flee in droves.

There are now more than 40 soldiers in the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty, and most of them are living in this state. People are not even full, but they are using food to feed horses?

Moreover, horses are creatures with relatively low heat conversion efficiency, and they eat a lot. A horse eats three times as much as a human. If we use food to feed horses, I am afraid that many soldiers will mutiny when they hear the news.

"In the early spring of the second year of Yuanshuo during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, Wei Qing returned from Yunzhong to Longxi and attacked Loufan of the Hu people and Prince Baiyang of Henan. He captured thousands of Hu captives and more than one million sheep!" Zhu Houxuan's voice was still ringing.

"So I said at the beginning that this method is not a secret, because during the time of Taizu and Taizong (Taizong is Zhu Di's temple name, because Jiajing had not yet come to power, Zhu Di's temple name would not have been changed to Chengzu), the army's northern expedition was always launched in early spring."

Zhu Houxuan said it was not a secret, so is it not a secret? From a modern perspective, it is not a secret, but for ancient times, for the military officers sitting in this room, it is indeed a secret.

We live in an information society and naturally do not feel the barriers of information. In ancient times, the barriers of information were very high. Although the military officers present here vaguely know these things, this is the first time they have heard such a systematic and comprehensive discussion of this matter.

In fact, things like this are all written in family military books. Without family military books, you can only look at the records in "Records of the Grand Historian" about the Han army's attacks on the Huns in early spring without thinking too deeply about them.

And there was really no one present who came from a noble family. Even Qian Ning, his father was just a captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and he had no family background at all.

"It's a good idea! But it costs too much money." Qian Ning sighed.

"Then think of a way to defeat the Mongols without spending money or food!" Zhu Houzhao immediately retorted.

Qian Ning didn't dare to speak.

"It seems that if we want to defeat the Mongols, we must first improve the treatment of the border troops, and then we can use this method to attack Mongolia." Zhu Houzhao continued.

"Yes, there is only one stone of grain a month, and it is often not distributed in full. Why bother risking our lives?" Zhu Houxun quickly added.

Zhu Houzhao remained silent. The blow was a bit too harsh.

"So we can't be hasty in the war against Mongolia. If we send heavy troops to harass them in early spring for more than ten years, the Mongols will collapse on their own," Zhu Houxuan continued.

"More than ten years is too long!" Zhu Houzhao said somewhat dissatisfiedly.

"More than a decade is still too little. Emperor Wu of Han did not start the war against the Xiongnu until 18 years after he ascended the throne. My brother, you should save more money and food!"

"The only difficulty is money!" There was a strange light flashing in Zhu Houxuan's eyes. He finally brought the topic to money with great effort.

(End of this chapter)