stubborn thief

Yang Qi spared no effort to win over others.

In a few days, Dorgon's garrison, routes, military supplies, and strength, including the water, mountain and river terrain map of Fengzhou Beach, were all delivered to Datong City by cavalry.

He didn't care about leaking secrets at all. The Tumut Ministry was known as the Ming Dynasty during the Anda Khan era. Everything in the Ming Dynasty archives is not a secret. As long as you look carefully, you can always find it.

What's more important is that Yang Qi is not afraid of taking risks.

He's always taking risks and taking risks with ease.

In other words, every one of the men wandering on the cusp of the storm in this era is a great adventurer.

From the establishment of the Monan Governor's Mansion to Yang Qi's entry into Monan, this series of events was a big adventure in itself.

It doesn't matter who is the enemy or who is the friend.

Yang Qi just wants to muddy the water. The more troops there are in Monan, the better. It’s best to beat them to pieces and bury them all here. No one can go home!

For this reason, he simply sent people to send all the information needed by Mingting to prepare for war into the border wall, so as to minimize Mingting's worries about going to the border.

However, whether he, Yang Sichang, the chief of Shanxi and Xuanda in the Ming Dynasty, or Ye Tinggui, the supervisor of Datong Town, they all knew that when the Ming Dynasty went out to fight, these things were not what was needed most at this time.

But a proof.

It proves that Yang Qi and Dorgon are not colluding, and there is no guarantee to set up an ambush to lure the Ming army out of the fortress.

But Yang Qi couldn't give him the most needed proof.

First, during the Chongzhen period, the tentacles of the Ming Dynasty only reached outside the Great Wall at most, and they often had to rely on hearsay from escaped prisoners and surrendered people for matters outside. It was impossible to ascertain the truth and falsehood of things between different camps.

Secondly, Yang Qi knew that his credibility in the Ming Dynasty was very low. The first time Yang Sichang saw his letter asking for help, he would realize that he had been tricked.

This guy was a white wolf with nothing. He used the food given by Yang Sichang to raise his own soldiers and carry out the work for Liu Chengzong.

This was also the reason why Yang Sichang equated "Yang Qi" with "dog thing" in his heart: after receiving the letter asking for help, he knew that the Monan Governor's Mansion did not have 100,000 Mongolian cavalry to feed.

It doesn't even need 100,000. As long as there are 30,000 Mongolian soldiers eating food, the 20,000 Jin army can be buried in Monan.

But this kind of food-eating Mongolian cavalry, to put it bluntly, even when Lin Dan Khan was young, the famous king of the captives who claimed to control 400,000 strings could not get 40,000.

Tumut's Anda Khan was still about the same in his heyday. Forty thousand cavalry brought him a powerful nomadic kingdom: the Ming Dynasty Jin Kingdom, which controlled the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the south, plundered Suiye City in the west, and dominated the Mongolian Plateau in the east.

In terms of intelligence on the strength of the Hou Jin army, the Ming court knew more than Yang Qi. Yang Qi still estimated the strength of the Hou Jin army between 20,000 and 50,000.

Yang Sichang knew very clearly that the Hou Jin army that entered Monan was a partial division with 20,000 soldiers and horses.

After all, the Ming Dynasty border defense pier, walking west from Zhangjiakou to Mudorgun, can be clearly seen along the way. It is almost 20,000 people, and 50,000 is completely nonsense.

If Yang Qifan really had 100,000 Mongolian troops to serve, he would have buried Dorgon's army in Monan, and would not have cowered like a rat and hid in Guihua City.

On this basis, the impression of Governor Yang of Monan in the Ming Dynasty was that he was full of lies and stood out as an indifferent person, and his credibility was even lower than that of Lin Danhan in the past.

Leaving him to deal with each other in vain and submissively is just a matter of no choice.

But this matter... was quite tempting to Yang Sichang.

Sometimes, there are some things, and Yang Sichang clearly knows that what Yang Qi said, "annihilating the Jin army at Fengzhou Beach, calling Shenyang an unprepared winter army this year" is nonsense.

But there is no way.

The temptation is great.

Not to mention other things, there are only 10,000 soldiers belonging to the Eight Banners in the Jin army after 20,000. If they are annihilated here, it will be equivalent to directly destroying the Manchurian banner.

What's more, even if they are just dragged here, the direction of Jinzhou this winter will be impregnable. Houjin will not be able to launch a large-scale attack, and Shen Shikui, the commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town in Pidao, will have an opportunity to take advantage of.

But going abroad to fight is a big deal, and it cannot be decided by Yang Sichang alone.

Yang Sichang readily packaged all the letters and information sent by Yang Qi and sent people to rush along the Great Wall to deliver them to Beijing.

The temperature in the Forbidden City in July is hot.

The previous two months were supposed to be the rainy season, but the rain this year was very strange. The weather in Beizhili was smooth, but a line was drawn from Marco Polo Bridge to Tianjin Wei.

The weather in the southwest of Beizhili is smooth, but across the line between the Lugou River and the Haihe River, there is no rain in the summer, and the crops in Tongzhou and other places are withered by the sun, and even the air is filled with hot air.

However, the capital is the capital after all. The residences of dignitaries can receive ice cubes issued by the palace, and private ice cellars also have good sales, making this city with a large population a bit cooler than other places.

Cutting ice cubes in winter, building ice cellars, and retrieving ice when needed are ancient traditions in this land, which can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty.

There are eight political affairs in the Zhou Dynasty, namely food, goods, sacrifice, Sikong, Situ, Sikou, guest, and teacher.

As the saying goes, food is the heaven and the first of the eight political affairs. In the Zhou Dynasty, there was a huge official system, among which there was an official position under Jiuzheng, called Ling Ren.

The word "Ling" originally meant the person who holds ice, responsible for collecting and storing ice.

This is a huge project. Since ancient times, there has been a saying of "Ling Qisan", which means that the ice cubes collected and stored are three times the amount used.

But that was the technology of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In this era, there are more ways to seal ice cellars, but the amount of ice harvested is still three times, so in theory, more ice cubes can be obtained by hiding ice.

But now more and more people use ice, so ice cubes are still a relatively luxurious item.

Unfortunately, in this hot July, no matter how much ice there is in the wall, it cannot suppress the restlessness of the Forbidden City, and even makes the coming autumn wind even more chilling.

All because at this time, the situation in the country was very bad.

In the Qianqing Palace, Emperor Chongzhen, dressed in Tsing Yi, leaned slumped on the dragon chair.

There were several memorials scattered on the dragon table in front of the emperor. The top one was from Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Huguang stationed in Xiangfan.

This was Lu Xiangsheng's second report within ten days. The first report earlier reported that the general Li Zicheng led his army to attack Yunyang and surrounded the new Yunyang governor Song Zushun in the city, covering all directions.

Song Zushun was the successor of Lu Xiangsheng. He was a Jinshi in the 44th year of Wanli Dynasty. The reason why the court appointed him as the governor of Yunyang was because he knew the military.

In the second year of Chongzhen, when Ji Si became King Qin, Zushun of Song Dynasty served as a political officer and guarded Liangzhou Road. That year, King Qin's army in Gansu mutinied on the way, killed the generals, divided up the 6,000 taels of grain and returned to the northwest, and surrounded the governor in Lanzhou. Crossing the river to the west, the momentum was very bad.

The governor who was besieged in Lanzhou City ordered people to write on flying horses and send a message to Liangzhou Road to guard and defend to the death. The gentry in the city also firmly stood on the side of the court and made plans to defend to the death. After all, the gentry in Gansu were composed of retired hereditary military attachés, so they were not afraid of trouble. The two sides were at odds with each other, and a war was ready to start on Liangzhou Road in eastern Gansu.

But Song Zushun did something magical.

He argued against all opinions and told others that if the rebels were not allowed to enter the city and defended to the death, things would definitely go bad if they refused. He believed that there was still room for recovery, so he decided to communicate with the rebels and let them enter the city later. With a view to disbanding it.

They did a great job. Not only did they disband the mutinous army, but they even asked them to hand over the unspent five thousand taels of grain into the treasury before disbanding. They also took back their swords, guns and firearms.

San Cun Ton disbanded the rebels, he is indeed a powerful person.

It's a pity that this time, Song Zushun also had to face Li Zicheng, and he did not have the support of the Gansu army behind him... There were no soldiers in Yunyang Mansion, so he could only defend behind closed doors, watching the people under his rule were brutally killed and plundered.

Chongzhen originally thought that Lu Xiangsheng sent another report in just ten days, which must mean that things in Yunyang Mansion had turned around.

Unexpectedly, not only did Yunyang's situation not turn around, but the situation even got worse.

Lu Xiangsheng's second report was to tell the emperor that he had fought against Li Zicheng's bandits with inferior troops.

In ten days, he fought thousands of miles, won three battles and won three victories, and cut off 3,600 heads. However, more and more enemies were attacked. Bandits and bandits from the Yunyangfu mountainous area joined the battlefield, and the common people south of the Han River who had no food to eat were also incited.

In Huguang Province, the military strength is insufficient, and the pacesetters are guerrillas everywhere. It is like boiling water to stop boiling, and reinforcements are imminent to join the battlefield.

But this is not the focus of Lu Xiangsheng's second memorial. His focus is that he learned through interrogation of the prisoners that there was also a giant bandit named Zhang Yichuan who followed Li Zicheng in breaking through Wuguan and entering Huguang.

In fact, Lu Xiangsheng didn't know who Zhang Yichuan was, and he had never heard of Zhang Yichuan's name in the past, but his official title as Chief Military Officer of the Marshal's Office in Henan was enough to identify him as a giant bandit.

At this time, Zhang Yichuan did not cross the Han River with Li Zicheng, but instead raided Nanyang Mansion north of the Han River.

Lu Xiangsheng meant to remind the court to be careful of Henan and not to let this fake official enter Henan. It would be best to launch a north-south coordinated campaign to suppress this trend and the Liaoyuan rebellion.

Lu Xiangsheng knew Henan well. He used to be a magistrate and military officer in Daming. He was close to Henan and had heard about the situation there.

Therefore, he did not think that Zhang Yichuan would be able to become rampant after entering Henan.

Because in the Ming Dynasty, two capitals and thirteen provinces covered nine sides, and Henan's military tradition ranked among the top three. The key word for this province is one word: many.

There are many people, many fields, many clans, many garrisons, and many militiamen.

Needless to say, Zhongzhou has a population and land.

In terms of royal families, Henan is dotted with royal palaces, including King Zhou of Kaifeng, King Tang of Nanyang, King Fu of Luoyang, King Zhao of Zhangde, King Zheng of Huaiqing, King Chong of Runing, King Hui of Yuzhou, and King Wei Huilu. These vassal states almost control Henan. Filled up.

Each prince's palace has its own ceremonial guards and even bodyguards. Although the feudal king's guard army is increasingly short of strength, the armed force of thousands of people cannot be underestimated.

The reason for the large number of troops stationed in Henan is that there are many guard posts set up in Henan, which is also related to the large number of people.

The militia is a characteristic of Henan. Because it is adjacent to the Yunyang Special Zone, there has been a serious refugee problem since the early Ming Dynasty.

The local gentry built forts to defend themselves, and officials recruited militiamen to protect the local area. Later, after the Tumu forts, it became a major export province of militia. They guarded the border, filled the capital's camp guards, and were incorporated into the local guards. All Henan militiamen were present.

There were even many occasions when the militia battalion of 3,000 people was used as a unit and converted into a regular battalion.

Due to the special historical environment and tradition, Henan, which does not border the border, has a very large reserve of soldiers among the people, and a lot of vassal states that extract oil like drilling machines... This place cannot cause big troubles at all.

Thieves from out of town can be stopped by local guards and forts; when local civil armed forces cause chaos, their influence cannot spread even to villages ten miles away.

It's just that every good thing has its shortcomings. Henan's stability is very high.

This means that the most important link in the Ming Dynasty's military system is missing in Henan, that is, the general military officer.

The commander-in-chief of the army was appointed for the sake of business. He became a permanent officer in all places in the world because there was always something going on in those places.

Henan is fine, there is no general soldier.

If the armies in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu and other places in the north of the Ming Dynasty had poor command during the war, the problem often came from the low maintenance cost of the army.

The custom in each town is to use fewer people to eat less food, and form a policy of elite troops. Once the total military strength exceeds the upper limit of three to five thousand, troops must be mobilized everywhere, so that the top and bottom cannot work together and constrain each other, resulting in what looks like Stragglers.

So the army in Henan is really a straggler.

Lu Xiangsheng's memorial is to give China and North Korea a shot in the arm. Henan's troops cannot go directly, they have to be deployed uniformly, and it takes time to mobilize to form combat effectiveness.

But when this letter was sent to the court, this was not the case in Chongzhen's eyes.

Henan in the eighth year of Chongzhen and Henan in the second year of Chongzhen when Lu Xiangsheng was a daimyo were not only six years apart, but also separated by earth-shaking changes.

This matter has to start three years ago. That year, the peasant army led by Gao Yingxiang penetrated Shanxi and entered Beizhili through the Taihang Mountains. People united to suppress him and beat him back to Shanxi.

Just as the Yellow River was freezing, a large number of peasant troops crossed the Yellow River into Henan, and then into Shaanxi, until they hid next to Liu Chengzong's Marshal's Mansion as neighbors.

During this process, all the counties in Henan were invaded, and when the bandits and the officers and soldiers all crossed the border and went west, peace was not restored in Henan, which was left in a state of chicken feathers.

The gentry built forts to defend themselves, and the local bandits set up strongholds to gather people. Fortresses sprung up in the hinterland of the Central Plains. They attacked and killed each other, making the situation even more chaotic.

Henan's special environment is characterized by drought, locust plagues, and military disasters. The situation is even more tragic than that of Shaanxi in the previous two years.

The problem in Shaanxi is very simple. There is no food to eat. If you follow the leader, you will be robbed by rich households, and you will be beaten by the army.

Henan is more difficult to deal with. All the fortresses here are fighting each other because there is food in Henan.

The root cause of the unrest in Henan is not drought.

Due to the rich river irrigation resources, the large area of ​​cultivated land in the plains and the large amount of agricultural grain production, it is difficult for drought alone to cause a major chaos that affects the entire province, not to mention... From the year of Tianqi to the present, Henan has only experienced a slight drought in the seventh year of Chongzhen. Son.

Compared with Shanxi and Shaanxi, this is even smooth.

In fact, the floods caused by two heavy rains that affected the entire Central Plains in the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen were the source of the unrest in Henan.

Of course, the fact that fortresses everywhere were attacking each other was not the reason for Chongzhen's decline.

The real reason that made him depressed was a small incident that happened this summer: the rats in Jiezhou, Shanxi Province went crazy, biting their tails and forming a chain, crossing the Yellow River all the way south and rushing into Lingbao County in Henan Province.

The plague also followed them into Tongguan. (End of chapter)