The bulwark originated in the continental region at the end of the fifteenth century. By the Chongzheng period of the Ming Dynasty, the bulwark had a history of more than a hundred years.

The emergence of gunpowder weapons turned the original horizontal and vertical cities into layers of bastions. The emergence of bastions also changed the main form of continental war from field battles to siege wars. Due to the strong defense of the bastion, European countries are keen on building bastions. The most famous of these is France. Building bastion fortresses on the border was a major feature of France in the next few centuries.

However, when it comes to the one who builds the most, or maximizes the bastion, it is Tsarist Russia.

When European countries built strong ships and guns and colonized the world, Tsarist Russia was quietly expanding eastward along the land. They successively destroyed the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Kazan Khanate, and the Siberian Khanate. The territory expanded rapidly, and the benefits they gained were no less than those of the continental powers that seized colonies all over the world.

In the battle against the nomadic peoples, they discovered a secret that was not a secret, that is, the bastion was the nemesis of the cavalry!

It should be said that ordinary cities are more restraining in cavalry. However, once the number of cavalry exceeds five times the city guards, they can still be captured if they attack hard. However, if it is a bastion, even if the number of cavalry exceeds ten times the guards, it will be difficult to conquer the bastion without gunpowder weapons that are more advanced than the defenders.

Naturally, nomadic tribes cannot have more advanced gunpowder weapons than Tsarist Russia. Therefore, Tsarist Russia simply won't be able to find the North with its bastions.

It is precisely because the castle is easy to defend and difficult to attack that the greatest advantage of nomadic tribes' strong mobility is suppressed. As long as the castle is built all the way and the important waterways are stuck, no matter how strong the cavalry's mobility is, it will be a dead end.

During the process of invading the major khanates, Tsarist Russia had already tasted the great sweetness of the bastion. If the Ming Dynasty did not come, their next target was the Kazakh Khanate. In historical records, the civil servant of the Tsarist Russian Senate Secretariat, who was responsible for formulating the plan to invade the Kazakh Khanate, once made a suggestion. His suggestion was very simple, which was to build 45 bastions between Orenburg and the Aral Sea just over a thousand miles away. Tsarist Russia's fanaticism with the bastion can be seen.

Of course, the Ming army is now in a big way, so they probably have no chance to invade the Kazakh Khanate.

However, the bastion they built when they invaded the Siberian Khanate was still there. Moreover, in order to resist the Ming army, Rozov also ordered Golovin and Franzbekov to build bastions in the Siberian Plain in a fierce cold. Therefore, when Sun Chuanting sent a detective cavalry to investigate, he found that the entire Siberian Plain was almost full of bastions!

Although it shows that the army is not a cavalry like nomadic tribes that hold cold weapons, and the Ming Dynasty's gunpowder weapons are much more advanced than those of Tsarist Russia, it is also a headache to face the bastion, because it is too difficult to attack.

The only record of the Ming Dynasty conquering a bastion head-on was that when Chongzheng recovered the Eastern Banner in the seventh year, he captured the Dutch castle of Geranzha, which was captured by the Dutch people. However, the siege was of no reference significance, because the Ming army used prisoners as flesh shields to tie the siege cars to scare the defenders, so they dared not fire the artillery, and then used a grenade to surprise and rush in. Moreover, at that time, the Dutch defenders in Geranzha Castle had only 500 people, and the Ming army had 150,000 troops alone, and super battleships cooperated. The strength difference between the two sides was too great, and the Dutch could not defend it at all.

This time it was different. The Ming army discovered nearly 500,000 Tsarist Russian defenders, and there could not be only a few hundred people in each bastion. Moreover, Tsarist Russia did not have only one bastion, but was full of bastions. If the Ming army attacked in full, it would be difficult for the absolute number of numbers to gain. If they were defeated, the enemy might support them at any time or attack them from behind. After all, they were much more familiar with the terrain than the Ming army.

Should we attack in full or defeat each one? Not only Sun Chuanting on the front line, Lu Xiangsheng and Cao Wenzhao fell into deep thought, but Zhu Cijing, who was far away in the capital, also fell into deep thought.

He specially sent people to check the battalion's offensive and defensive records, the most famous of which was the Metz offensive and defensive battle in 1552 AD.

In May 1552, five thousand French troops unexpectedly captured the city of Metz in the Lorraine area. Half a year later, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V led an army of 50,000 to siege Metz, attempting to retake it.

However, in the past six months, 5,000 French defenders had rebuilt a bastion behind the old walls of Metz. As a result, Charles V led an army of 50,000 to attack for more than a month but failed to capture Metz.

It’s not that the Holy Roman Empire was not strong enough. At that time, Charles V mobilized hundreds of cannons to bombard them. In the most days, more than 7,000 shells were fired, and the city walls collapsed hundreds of meters, but the bastion line behind was still intact.

Charles V organized countless strong attacks but failed to capture Metz. In the end, the Holy Roman Empire army suffered heavy casualties and had to withdraw its troops.

Five thousand and five thousand attacked for more than a month, and the attacking side suffered heavy casualties in the end, and had no choice but to retreat. This is the power of the bastion!

Based on the discovered bastion density, Tsarist Russia built at least hundreds of bastions on the Siberian plain. In other words, if the Ming army attacked in a full-scale attack, each bastion could send up to more than 10,000 people, which was simply a joke. Even if the Ming army's weapons were advanced, it would be impossible to attack. Therefore, the plan for the full-scale attack was quickly denied by Zhu Cijiu.

There is no way, you can only choose to defeat each one.

As the reconnaissance continued to return, more and more castles were discovered by the Ming army. In order to accurately convey the location information of the castles in the telegram, Zhu Cijiu specially compiled a set of longitude and latitude coordinates. This set of coordinates is very different from the coordinates of later generations, because the benchmark of this set of longitude and latitude lines is Daming Capital, that is, with Daming Capital as the center, a cross line is drawn, the east longitude on the left is the west longitude on the right, the north latitude on the top is the south latitude below, and every 100 miles is one degree.

Although this longitude and latitude system is a bit troublesome in time zone calculation, it is relatively simple and easy to understand, especially convenient for marking locations. Zhu Cijing can't control the time zone calculation. Whoever has time to calculate the circumference of the equator and the distance between the north and south poles, let's use the whole set first.

To put it bluntly, the coordinate system of longitude and latitude lines is to add basically equidistant horizontal and vertical lines to the map, which looks like a Go board. In the Ming Dynasty, anyone who has read some books has seen it, so there is nothing strange about it.

Soon, a layer of light-colored longitude and latitude lines were drawn on the map of the Ming army, crisscrossing, just like a Go board was drawn on the map, except that the longitude and latitude were marked on both ends of each line.

From then on, the Ming army would not have to send people to carry the map back and forth with the map or explain it through reference objects such as mountains and rivers in the telegram for a long time. Just report the coordinates in the telegram, which is absolutely accurate!
Chapter completed!