Huang Yi knew the location of the Seleng tribe's winter camp, and now he also knew that he led the main force to attack the Hedanbaat'er tribe.

There may be less than five or six hundred young and middle-aged knights left behind in the tribe. How long will it take if we don't go to Se Leng's lair now?

The tribe was wiped out, severe winter was approaching, and they lost their cattle, sheep, and food. If the soldiers and horses did not surrender and fled far away to join other tribes, they might freeze to death or starve to death.

There were already a lot of horses in the base area, but Liting swept the caves of more than a dozen Mongolian tribes and seized several thousand more.

Among the newly accepted refugees, more than half of the young adults basically cannot ride a horse. The rest of the young adults can ride long distances, and all the auxiliary soldiers and militiamen can ride horses.

We were about to face a major war, and the auxiliary and militia leaders Zhao Yong, Li Wanquan, Chang Yongliang, Kang Jing, etc. all took the initiative to ask for battle.

Considering the need to have troops to guard the capture and capture, Huang Yi decided to bring along five hundred auxiliary musketeers and spearmen who could not fight on horseback but could gallop on horseback.

There is no need to worry about the defense of the base area, the city walls have been surrounded on all sides, and the Tatar cavalry raid will not be effective.

Food has been put into storage, frost is coming, and there has been a light snowfall. Most people will spend the winter in the city. Outside the city, there are only mining areas, and lime kilns, brick kilns, and cement factories in the suburbs to keep people engaged in production.

Including those sent by Geng Zhanghua and those just rescued by Huang Yi, there are already over 30,000 Han people under Huang Yi's command, excluding the Mongolian population.

If the base city is attacked by anyone, auxiliaries, militiamen, craftsmen, miners, and young and middle-aged men alone can organize five to six thousand people. Adding in healthy women and teenagers, the number of people who can participate in the defense of the city will definitely exceed fifteen thousand.

The collectivist thinking of the people in the base area has been formed, and they can definitely unite as one in the face of foreign enemies. The Tatars and slaves will have to look at the city with 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers and sigh.

This is not blind confidence!

The knowledge of defending the city is great!

Last winter and this spring, the Hou Jin army plundered the capital, breaking through cities and dozens of fortresses. Zunhua, Yongping, Luanzhou and other major cities were not defended for a day.

However, the small town of Changli, under the command of the county magistrate Zuo Yingxuan, withstood the fierce attack of the Hou Jin army, and that was under the circumstances of Huang Taiji personally supervising the battle.

The city suffered heavy casualties after failing to attack the city. Huang Taiji, who had no choice but to give up the attack on the small town of Changli, also issued an order that the Jin army should not attack the city whenever it encountered fierce resistance.

This shows that the city can better defend against Jiannu and Tatars who mainly use cold weapons.

But no matter how strong a city is, it is in vain if it is not guarded by people with firm hearts.

No matter how talented the county magistrates of the Ming Dynasty were, they could not have the organizational structure established by Huang Yi. Every resident and farmer had an organization and a responsible person.

Part of the people in the base area were Han slaves rescued from the Tatars, and part of them were Han people who had been plundered from the slaves.

More often than not, the Jin army burned, killed, and looted Liao people and war refugees whose homes had been destroyed...

After arriving in the base area, these people were not discriminated against, got jobs, had enough food and clothing, and lived with dignity.

In addition, Huang Yi personally educated and guided everyone not to accept their fate, dare to revolution, and unite to resolutely resist oppression.

Therefore, Huang Yi firmly believed that even if only the militia were left to patrol and garrison the beacon pier, the base city would still be impregnable.

At noon the next day, Huang Yi set out. Together with Geng Zhanghua's 400 cavalry, a total of 2,700 cavalry were dispatched, all carrying spare horses carrying armor and a seven-day share of food and grass.

Not having to worry about horses is one of the benefits of being based on the prairie. If you are used to horse plowing, it is equivalent to an average young man in a base area being able to handle two large animals, and cultivating fields will get twice the result with half the effort.

Gubin

Of course, when winter comes, the work of reclaiming wasteland has long stopped. The main work now is to dig irrigation wells in fields far away from the river.

With one irrigation well being used to meet the needs of 20 acres of farmland and ensuring a harvest despite droughts and floods, a labor force of 6,000 men and women will be put in to work for 100 days from this winter to the beginning of next spring.

It is planned to dig 12,000 irrigation wells to ensure that all acres reclaimed in the base area are irrigated.

Last winter, hundreds of people were organized to dig irrigation wells. This year, they experienced the benefits of irrigating the fields, and the wheat yield per mu reached one stone and two buckets.

We have accepted a lot of refugees, refugees, and Liao residents this year. In the middle of winter, how can there be too many jobs?

Therefore, more than 3,000 laborers can be organized to transport materials, and 6,000 men and women can be arranged to dig wells in several basins. This is still the model of indoor work in building yurts.

Each well-drilling team carries briquette stoves unique to the base area, and there are women doing laundry and cooking.

Although it is a field operation, you can eat hot batter, millet porridge, and sleep in a warm yurt, which makes the workload much less stressful.

Huang Yi mobilized 5,000 to 6,000 war horses to carry the pack horses for the expedition, which did not affect the production and transportation of the base area at all, and also saved a lot of stored hay and feed.

The plan was to march slowly at a speed of fifty miles a day, waiting for the cavalry from the outer tribes to come to join them, and also to wait for Geng Qi who was eager to join the battle.

It is important to feed war with war. Huang Yi believes that bringing seven days' worth of supplies is enough.

Because all Mongolian tribes must store enough food for most of the year before winter begins.

Just by destroying a small tribe, the cattle, sheep, and grain seized would be enough to feed and drink four to five thousand men and horses for a month, so why bother adding too much supplies?

The wind blew snow on the prairie, because the first snowfall was not heavy. Only in the leeward places could there be snow piled up by the wind, and withered and yellow pastures could still be seen in the open areas.

The herdsmen are still seizing the last moment to let the cattle and sheep eat more forage, and the whole family is harvesting the forage reserves.

Huang Dayong, Huang Dazhi, Zhang Dong, etc. are the best at shielding the battlefield. Huang Yi has long no longer needed to hold the telescope in person to arrange it. They all cooperate with each other tacitly.

Any herdsmen found on the march route were unable to escape. Tribes found with more than fifty yurts were temporarily let go and detoured.

Realizing that Huang Yi was not marching in the direction of Hedanbaat'er's tribe with his troops, Karitu was very anxious. Unfortunately, his Chinese language skills were too poor to communicate with Huang Yi in detail.

Huang Yi simply asked Kaletu to take his seven subordinates to follow Zhang Dong to kill sentinels, explorers, and rangers.

Zhang Dong has the strongest language talent and is eloquent. He will explain to Ka Le Tu how to surround Wei and rescue Zhao. He avoids the truth and turns to lies. I believe Ka Le Tu will understand it soon.

Huang Yi's men and horses were increasing every day. On the fourth day, Geng Qi arrived with one hundred cavalry. Not counting the families of herders who were holding him hostage, the total force was more than 4,500.

The location is less than 200 miles away from Selengbu.

There are seven small and medium-sized Karaqin tribes within these two hundred miles. If we still adopt the method of shielding the battlefield and bypassing the camps of small and medium-sized tribes, the marching speed will be too slow.

Huang Yi decided not to hide and sneak, but to take a straight line and kill all the small and medium-sized tribes on the marching route.
Chapter completed!