Timur's courtship party set out with a large amount of wealth, and they went to the powerful chieftains of the Mongol tribes in Mongolstan and Chagatai, Yir, and the Golden Horde for Timur's many grandsons, although Timur was powerful, but it was obviously not enough to rely on military deterrence, and he hoped to consolidate his ties with the Mongol tribes during his expedition through marriage.
The envoys sent to Tatar and Warat also set out, and they brought with them the oath of Timur: "How can the descendants of Timur be compared with the descendants of Genghis Khan, and after I live for a thousand years, I should choose the best among the descendants of Genghis Khan, and this expedition to the Ming Dynasty, once successful, will be splendid for all the Mongols, and in the future will be the direct descendants of Genghis Khan, not all of me Timur."
In late autumn, the cold is very cold, and early this morning, all the foreign missions in Samarkand, and even the foreign merchant groups in various places, received the order of Timur Khan: "All must leave Samarkand that day, and the next morning, but if there are those who have not yet left, they will be killed."
This is the tough measure taken by Timur the Great in order to prevent someone from spying on intelligence and finding out the truth of Samarkand.
Immediately, Timur called the Ming envoy to the tent.
This Ming envoy's surname is Ding, named Dingyong, and he is the nephew of Ding Baolu, the commander of Wu Changwei, because he is a Hui and believes in Islam, so he was designated by Zhu Di as a suitable candidate to visit the Timurid Empire.
Soon after the envoys of the Timur Empire, Gaisuyaddin and Aldushah left the Ming Dynasty, he set off on his way, but as soon as he arrived in Samarkand, he was controlled and not allowed to leave.
Because of the long distance, the return date is difficult to determine, and the Ming side does not know yet.
Ding Yong walked into the palace of Samarkand, only to see the Manchu Dynasty civil and military, crowded, only in the middle of the thick carpet, leaving a road for him, Ding Yong did not know what happened, his heart was worried, and he did not want to weaken the prestige of the Heavenly Empire, so he had to force his composure, stepped forward, and said to Timur with the etiquette of the country: "Great Khan, Ding Yong was ordered by the Ming Emperor to visit your country, in order to conclude close and friendly relations between the two countries, but also to urge the Great Khan to resume the tribute to my Ming Dynasty as soon as possible."
But the Great Khan detained his ministers and acted so rudely."
Before he could finish speaking, Emperor Timur, who was nearly seventy years old and still in extremely strong health, interrupted him in a loud voice: "I called you here today, Ben Khan wants to let you return to the country."
When Ding Yong heard the joy, his eyes lit up and said: "Seriously" Timur said loudly: "Listen, go back and tell your Khan, he betrayed his father and nephew, he is a big bastard, I Timur is a courtier of the Great Khan of Hongwu, I want to crusade against the traitor for the monarch's father, not to say that I will send troops, and the Ming Dynasty asked him to wash his neck, waiting to try my Timur's treasure knife" Ding Yong was shocked and angry when he heard this, and refuted with a stubble: "You dare to be so rude to Emperor Daming, once Your Majesty knows about it, you will definitely not be spared."
Timur sneered: "Timur is about to compete with him and blast him out" A few strong and powerful guards immediately pounced on the left and right, set up Dingyong and left.
Dingyong was set up out of the Khan's tent, fixed his mind, turned around and left.
In a short time, all the members of the Ming envoys got on their horses, all the heavy supplies were gone, and they rode away from Samarkand.
Dingyong is not an idiot, even all the changes that have happened in Samarkand, combined with Timur's words today, he knows that what Timur said must be true, and after he arrived in Samarkand, he also really understood Timur's military strength.
He knew that even if His Majesty the Emperor knew Timur's ambitions by now, it might not be too late to urgently deploy defenses.
What's more, Timur was about to send troops, so he pretended to be generous at this time, but then immediately followed behind his ass and sent troops, and when he sent the letter to Nanjing, Timur's army had already reached Shaanxi, which was not much different from not declaring war, so he could grab a moment is a moment, and the sooner he called Daming to be vigilant, the more he could fight for some opportunities for his country.
Having received orders from Timur Khan, the defenders of Samarkand did not embarrass them, and the soldiers and horses of the city mocked and mocked them, opened the gates of the city, and deliberately left most of the jerky meat, cheese, and drinking water they had with them in an extortion manner, and then let them go on their way.
On Timur's palace, after Dingyong and others were blown away, Timur walked to a huge veil facing the wall, stretched out his hand and pulled it hard, and the veil fell to the ground, revealing a huge map, on which a blood-red arrow, from west to east, like a sharp bent horse, straight to the end of the east, the end of the east, the first blood-red circle, circled with a place name: Khotan The first stop of Timur the Great's Far Eastern Holy War was here.
More than ten years of meticulous preparation had made him fully prepared in all aspects, and he had even calculated clearly that if his cavalry advanced at full speed from Khotan, the time to arrive at Nanjing would be one hundred and sixty-one days, and the time was accurate to the day From Turkestan to Gansu and Shaanxi, the biggest challenge is not the Ming army, but Tianwei, where there is a lack of water, even his invincible iron cavalry can't hold on without water, so this map marks the main offensive route and all the water sources on several preparation routes, all replaced by green symbols.
These water sources were counted by his scouts pretending to be merchants for more than ten years.
Even if the exact location of these water sources is known, it is still a serious problem for them to supply a large army with grain, grass and water, and once there is a problem with supply, the more troops, the heavier the burden, and the faster the defeat, which is the biggest taboo of the expeditionary force.
Therefore, Timur decided to set the number of elite cavalry vanguard led by himself at 200,000.
Considering that he had to pass through a long area with little arable land and sparsely populated, and that the looted grain and grass might not be able to supply the needs of the army, he drove a million cattle and sheep with him in the ratio of two cows and ten sheep to each person, and the number of shepherds accompanying him exceeded 600,000.
They stayed in the local area, and when they needed to increase the army in front, they could be transferred at any time, and after they were stationed in the tun area, they could continue to loot the grain and grass of the local people along the road to supply the military needs at the front.
At the same time, the road was kept open to ensure a steady flow of soldiers recruited from all of Central Asia to the East.
The number of troops was a problem for Timur, who used 800,000 troops in the Indian war, 300,000 in the Russian war, and more than 500,000 in the Turkish war.
What's more, "the Yuan Dynasty returned to the whole world", Muslims and Mongols in Xinjiang Province, Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and other places are his potential sources of soldiers, as long as his fire arrives, he can ignite the momentum of the prairie fire.
Timur had been preparing for so long, and when he said a military deployment, he only heard that all the generals were full of blood and blood.
Timur the Great's powerful language and confident demeanor had infected them, and they believed that under the leadership of the Khan, they would conquer the great empire of the East and multiply their wealth.
Timur's sonorous voice continued: "Our first step is to occupy the whole of Mongolia, and now, the eastern part of Mongolian stan belongs to the Ming court, the north belongs to Warat, and the west is our territory, and the other two sides have limited garrisons here, and we can easily take them."
If the Tatar, Warat, and Mongolistan tribes are willing to cooperate with us, and the Ming army is vulnerable, we will drive eastward along the Yellow River, cut off the Grand Canal, and take Yanjing with the Tatars and Warat.
The Yellow River valley has been decided, and then the Jianghuai River is drawn, because the rivers there are criss-crossed, which is not suitable for our elite cavalry movement, and we may encounter relatively strong resistance here.
At this time, we will have to adopt some other tactics to cooperate with our military operations, and we will find a Chinese young man to prove that he is the missing Emperor Jianwen, and make him the Chinese emperor to confront Zhu Di.
If we fail to take diplomatic measures against the Tatars, Warats, and the Western Regions, and the war is unfavorable, then turn the hasty strategy into a slow policy, first enter Hexi, seize Guanzhong, and first consolidate Shaanxi, Gannan, and Ningxia, the Ming army in these areas is mostly Mongols, Tibetans and Muslims, they are not loyal to the Ming court, on the contrary, they are very friendly to us, when our missions come and go, they often take the initiative to reveal information about the Ming court to us, so, It's easy for us to get them to turn against us and join us Let's talk about the deployment of the army, the Ming army is divided into armies by the command of the capital, namely Beiping, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Fujian, Huguang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Liaodong, Henan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Daning, Wanquan Division, the only front-line armed forces that can resist in time are the two corps of Shaanxi Dusi and Shaanxi Xingdusi.
The Shaanxi Dusi and the Shaanxi Xingdusi had a total of 27 guards and 5,000 households, and if their soldiers were full, there were about 155,000 people, stationed in various castles, and they could not be gathered together for a decisive battle with us, so although they had tall and strong cities, they were scattered and could not be concentrated, which was their greatest disadvantage The second-line forces of the Ming court were mainly concentrated in Shanxi, Henan, and Sichuan, with a total of 33 guards and 14 thousand households in these three places, with a total strength of about 200,000 people.
The rest of the army was too far away, and it was difficult to rush to the front line in Shaanxi and Gansu within half a year.
Unfortunately, we have learned that in each of their guards, there are wounded, sick, old and sick, and non-combatants who have completely turned into tunfu, so their actual strength in these places is greatly reduced."
When Timur said this, he dragged his lame leg around slightly, and in the most elegant posture he could make, he glanced at his generals with a smile: "Now, you are clear" The generals excitedly raised their arms and shouted: "The Great Khan will win, the Great Khan will win, the Great Khan will win" Timur raised his hands slightly and pressed down, and the sound of the mountains and seas immediately stopped abruptly, and Timur's voice was as cold as a steel knife out of the sheath: "Go right away" To be continued: