New Shun 1730

On the border near the Selenge River, there were waves of melodious whistles, and Liu Yu hummed a song, stepping on the first snow of the year.

"Like every young man, you will also meet a girl. She will go with you all the way, bravely crossing the wind and waves. Listen, the wind and snow are noisy; look, the shooting stars are flying. My heart calls to me, go to the turbulent distance……"

If winter begins with the first snow, winter in the Mongolian Plateau has already arrived.

Yesterday the burdock flowers were still blooming purple, but this morning they were covered with a layer of white snow, and the crescents left by the horses' hooves stretched to the end of the horizon.

At the border line, a ninth-grade official wearing quail patches embroidered with quail patches came over with a few prospecting officers.

They did not recognize Liu Yu, but they recognized the clothes Liu Yu was wearing.

To the north of the invisible border, there were a few young Russians who seemed to be discussing the demarcation of the border with some petty officials from Dashun.

The petty official led the petty officials and ran over to salute, "I have met you, sir!"

The ninth-grade quail looked sideways at the team following Liu Yu, thinking that the guns carried by these people were the same as the self-made fire of the Rakshasa Guards.

Liu Yu jumped off his horse, took the map from the hand of the clerk next to him, glanced at it twice, and asked, "How far is it from the camp of Qi Guogong?"

"It's still half a day's journey back to you, sir."

"That's good. Thank you for your hard work. Just keep working."

When he turned over and was about to mount his horse, the young Russians from the north suddenly asked in Russian.

"Hello, Chinese officials. Are you from the battlefield in the east?"

Liu Yu had a basic foundation in Latin in this life. Although he couldn't learn the outrageous vibrato of Russian, after wandering in the east for more than a year, he also learned a basic level of Russian, and he can still understand it now.

"Yes. Young man, is something wrong?"

The young Russian man opposite looked at the flintlock rifle strapped to the horseback of Liu Yu's guard, which was obviously produced by the Tula Arsenal, and hesitated for a moment and asked: "Have you seen a young man named Mikhail? He is about the same age as me, with brown hair and blue eyes. He is a man who set out with Bering’s expedition.”

It seems that news of Bering's expedition being captured has reached here.

Otherwise, Liu Yu would have forgotten that he had killed such a person. At this mention, I immediately remembered that I had borrowed the young man's head and asked, "Who are you to him?"

"He's my brother. Have you met him?"

"Hmm... I haven't seen him. Maybe he was captured? I'm here to negotiate. The prisoners of war will be released after the negotiation. I wish you and your brother can meet each other soon."

"Thank you, you are such a good person."

The young man took off his hat and bowed to Liu Yu. Perhaps he smelled the smell of cigarettes accumulated on Liu Yu's body along the way, and took out the cigarette pouch from his pocket and handed it over.

"Please have a taste, Virginia tobacco, my family brought it back from France. It's as sweet and smooth as butter when you swallow it..."

The pusher refused, jumped on his horse and drove away.

After walking far away, Liu Yu quietly looked back. You can kill people in any way you want on the battlefield, just click on one randomly and shoot him like a red flower. This is indeed a bit unethical.

"Third Master, what did the Rakshasa ghost say?"

"It's nothing, hahaha, just torture and torture my conscience."

Mantou, who had gotten rid of his status as a slave and had become a flying knight, still addressed Liu Yu as before.

He also looked back and asked curiously: "Third Master, you said there is still a war in the east, why is it so quiet in the west? If we don't fight, they won't fight either?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know." Mantou shook his head, finding it difficult to understand.

"Think about it slowly. When you figure it out, tell me." He smiled at the steamed bun and turned around and shouted: "Follow up, speed up, get there before dark, and have a good sleep!"

Late afternoon.

Tian Suo, the Duke of Qi, was having dinner. The red-hot charcoal fire was boiling in the small copper stove. A few slices of white and tender mutton were rolling up and down. The two slices of red pepper in the soup could drive away the chill outside.

The tent was suddenly opened, and a gust of cold wind made Tian Suo shiver, and he was about to curse.

"Guo Gong! The third son of Yi Guo Gong's family is here."

"Ouch! It's finally here!"

When he heard this, the anger he had felt just now disappeared immediately.

Throwing down his chopsticks, he jumped up, opened the tent and rushed out without putting on his cloak.

Liu Yu had just dismounted and was slapping his numb knees, grinning and cursing the terrible weather here.

Seeing the Duke of Qi coming from a distance, he was about to salute when he was supported by the Duke of Qi.

"Okay, we're away on an expedition, so don't be so polite. Haven't you eaten yet? Just in time, come on, come on... But I've been looking forward to having you here, and I really don't know what to do if you don't come."

"Come here, let's make arrangements to come together. Let's have something to eat first."

He waved for someone to come over. He was already prepared, but he didn't expect Liu Yu to come so quickly.

After entering the tent, Liu Yu stood down first and did not sit down directly.

He toasted his hands and waited until Qi Guogong signaled him to sit down, then he sat aside.

The entourage brought wine and bowls and chopsticks, and the Duke of Qi asked the entourage to go out and leave no one outside.

On the table is a small copper stove that is boiling hot soup. On the table are fresh mutton and simple chive sauce.

"When I was away on an expedition, there was nothing delicious. Emperor Taizong loved to eat this. It is said that he even wanted to get some chili peppers before he became seriously ill. Taizong's way of eating did not use chive sauce, but now that I am here, I really taste it. ”

Liu Yu smiled and looked at the chili peppers and peppercorns in the copper furnace. He didn't know what he was thinking about.

He half stood up and poured a glass of wine for the Duke of Qi. The Duke of Qi praised him: "Boy, you did a good job in the east. I heard about it. If you fight well in the east, the Russians in the west will not dare to move. They dare not go to the east, nor dare to take the initiative to fight me. Instead, they sit with me in the tent every day, from spring to winter."

As he said, he raised the wine glass, and Liu Yu hurriedly lowered it to touch it. After picking up two pieces of mutton, his body finally warmed up.

"I wonder what the Duke of Qi talked about with the Russians?"

"Nothing serious. Before the fight, as you said, they talked about the emperor and Caesar, Basilius, etiquette, and the Mongols of the Wala tribe on the Volga River. No matter what they talked about, as long as I brought it up, they would take the initiative to argue with me."

At that time, listening to those Russians blushing with blushing faces was much more interesting than sitting quietly every day now. During the previous negotiations, he also learned about things in more distant places.

He learned that the Torghut tribe of the Oirat Mongols had been recruited by the Russians to participate in the Great Northern War a few years ago. The Russians believed that the Torghuts were their subjects.

When talking about the Oirat Mongols on the Volga River, the Russians' faces were no better than when talking about Caesar or the emperor. When Stepan Razin revolted, many Torghuts followed him to attack Astrakhan.

Thinking of the Russians' angry and nagging appearance before, the Duke of Qi couldn't help laughing.

After laughing, his expression gradually became serious.

He held Liu Yu, who was about to add more wine to him, and shook his head, saying, "Don't drink the wine yet. This battle was actually very dangerous. Now that I think about it, I am still a little scared."

There was no one else around, so the Duke of Qi did not hide anything and said directly, "Your Majesty is still too impatient after all. According to the previous idea of ​​the court, first the west and then the east, it should be roughly correct. But if you hadn't done a great job in the east and revitalized the situation, this battle would not be a good one."

"Shou Chang, you did a good job. My old eyes have not misjudged you."

Listening to the Duke of Qi praising himself Seeing this, Liu Yu hurriedly said, "Your Excellency is too serious."

"Is it too serious? I think it's too light! If we fight the siege battle like the one in Mulijiwei two more times, the Russians will understand our strength. The court miscalculated this time and completely underestimated the Russians. It is said that before you consider victory, you should consider defeat first. In the battle against the Russians, it was clear that they were completely based on what they thought would be easy to win, and they didn't consider what to do if they didn't fight well."

At this time, it seemed that the overall situation was decided. The Duke of Qi looked at the entire battle situation from the perspective of a wise man after the event, and couldn't help sweating.

The tragic siege of Muliji seemed to have only killed a thousand people, but in fact, it was the elite of the country that was drawn out, and in the end, the veterans who were the pillars of combat effectiveness at the grassroots level were directly filled in.

If Liu Yu hadn't fought easily in the east and hadn't submitted a new siege method in advance to make the emperor equivalent to changing generals before the battle, Dashun would have had to adopt a siege after the siege of Mulijiwei.

Because if they fought two more battles and attacked two more cities, the army would be afraid of fighting and the commander would kneel down and beg the emperor to switch to siege.

In that case, the whole situation would be completely different.

Before the court sent troops, they underestimated the fighting power of the Russians: it was obvious that the emperor personally led the army to conquer seven fortresses in the Heilongjiang River Basin, the Shilka River, and the Nenjiang River.

The army would be withdrawn before spring because it was impossible to fight in the spring in the northeast. In the spring in the permafrost zone, even marching was like swimming in thawing mud.

Excluding the marching time, the east and west were advancing at the same time, and it was obviously calculated based on the speed of conquering a fortress in twenty days. No one thought about what to do if they could not conquer one in twenty days on average?

Based on their experience of the Southwest Tusi and the war in the late Ming Dynasty, when the army went out, the number of Russians in each fortress was only a few hundred, and they could conquer one in twenty days.

It was because Liu Yu unexpectedly captured two forts in the east, and the subsequent siege on the Ergun River was really qualified, that the Luosha people's judgment was biased.

So much so that they were afraid that Dashun would launch an offensive on the Mongolian border on the western front, and with the help of Mongolian cavalry and Dashun's artillery, they would besiege the fortress on Lake Baikal.

This is why this strange scene appeared. The war on the eastern front has not ended yet, but the western front is negotiating and sitting quietly, and both sides are restrained on the western front.

Speaking of this, Duke Qi is still sweating.

"Soon after the war started, after the Mulukhan Mountain Acropolis and the Murji Acropolis were broken, the Russians asked me to negotiate. To be honest, I was also afraid at the time. I was afraid that the Russians would capture me and detain me."

"But there was no way. If I didn't go at the time, it would be like showing cowardice. The Russians didn't go to support the eastern front, but they could go south on the western front. I had no choice but to go there. After I went there, I didn't say a word and asked people to continue surveying and mapping the border."

"The Russians didn't expect that the two castles would be captured so quickly. They were extremely panicked about our siege methods. They were worried that if the war was expanded, the fortresses near Lake Baikal would also be in danger. So they had a tacit understanding with me. They didn't say a word during the negotiation, but they continued to send people to cooperate in surveying and mapping at the border in private."

Speaking of this, he pointed outside and whispered: "This is not a thousand-mile uninhabited place like the Northeast. After all, there are many Mongolian tribes, and the nobles of each tribe can also pull out a team of several thousand people. Although they can't fight and will collapse at the first touch, the Russians are afraid that we will send a small number of artillery and infantry to support them. They really have the ability to attack the fort in the east. The 3,000 people I brought may not be able to fight, but standing there to fill the scene still scared the Russians."

"The Russians don't want to fight a big battle, and we don't want to fight a big battle either. But if the battle in the east doesn't go well, it won't be like this now. The Russians still know the combat power of the Khalkha Mongolian cavalry. In my opinion, it's not too much to be awarded a baron for your merits. But if you don't get the title, it's also a good thing."