Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 564
At the end of March, with the approach of summer, the severe drought that spread to the south of the Great Wall and north of the Yellow River began to take full advantage. Except for the Liaodong and Hexi Corridors, which were not affected, other provinces and regions were affected one after another.

For a while, food prices soared again.

On March 28, the price of rice in Beijing was five Wen per catty, in Guangdong it was four Wen per catty, in Shaanxi it was four to six Wen, and in Henan, Shanxi, Shandong, and Nanzhili it was five to seven Wen.

Under such circumstances, the imperial stores and Changping warehouses in various parts of the Ming court began to cooperate.

On the tenth day of April, when the Xizhimen Huangdian in the capital opened its glass doors and began to open for business, many people outside the door were eagerly preparing to grab food.

However, before they could grab the grain, the Huangdian employees carried out the bags of rice and poured a bag of rice into a large wooden bucket.

After dumping the rice in the bucket to the top of the pile, a worker inserted a wooden sign into the pile of rice, turned around and shouted to hundreds of people:

"Today's rice price in Huangdian... four cents per catty!"

"Siwen?!"

"Food prices have dropped!"

"The imperial court took action to stabilize food prices!"

"That's great, I really can't afford the five cents a catty of rice."

"Buy more, it's only summer now, who knows if food prices will increase in autumn and winter."

"Yes, yes, buy more! Buy more!"

The people at the gate of the Huangdian were discussing a lot. Although the Huangdian and the imperial court had taken measures to stabilize food prices, the severe drought for so many years brought the people's sense of crisis.

They didn't think that the price of grain could always be kept at five cents a catty, so they rushed to buy it.

Such scenes not only happened in the capital city, but also happened in the imperial stores in various provinces and prefectures and counties.

Many people took advantage of the stabilization of grain prices and snapped up enough grain to feed their families for a year.

Their behavior is understandable, but in this way, the food approved by Zhu Youjian will be quickly robbed.

So on the fifth day of April, copies of the memorials flew to the palace like snowflakes, and then sent to Hexi by Zhu Youxiao's order.

It's not that Zhu Youxiao is lazy, but that in economics, Zhu Youxiao is really not very good at playing, so he can only rely on Zhu Youjian.

When these memorials were sent to Suzhou, it was already April [-]th, and it took a lot of time to come and go.

Zhu Youjian, who was flipping through the content with these memorials, was lying on the rocking chair. He seemed to be on vacation, with some cut fruits beside him.

Facing these memorials, he flipped through them while eating fruit.

In front of him, the officials sent by the household department were fidgeting and waiting for his reply.

"From March [-]th to now, how much food has been released in total?"

Zhu Youjian asked the former official, and this person quickly bowed and responded: "3000 million stones have stabilized the grain, and more than [-] million stones have been released."

"One thousand two hundred..." Zhu Youjian murmured after listening to the string of numbers, and then said:

"An additional 1000 million shi was invested to stabilize grain, and the price of grain in the north of the Yellow River was reduced to around [-] Wen per catty. At the same time, officials were sent to buy grain from Old Port, Jiaozhi, Luchuan, and Siam in the south."

"The profits made from stabilizing the grain are all bought new grain and go north, and it must be transported to the north after autumn."

Zhu Youjian closed the memorial and handed it to Lu Yuangao who was next to him, and Lu Yuangao passed it on to the officials of the household department.

"Your Majesty understands, thank you for your guidance."

The officials of the household department got the answers they needed, and slowly exited the other garden while holding the memorandum and bowing in return.

The villa where Zhu Youjian lives is not large, less than three acres, and even the six hundred brocade guards who accompanied him could not live there, let alone the thousand soldiers who went straight up.

Therefore, the officials of the household department quickly walked out of the other garden.

When he left, Lu Yuangao also bowed and said:
"Your Highness, is this flat price too low?"

"It's not low, there are already a lot of profits, and private merchants will not let go of this profit." Zhu Youjian smiled and took a bite of the pear on the table, leaning on the chair at the same time, holding a copy of "Guan Zi" I flipped through it.

He stayed in Suzhou for more than a month, and the four little ones met many folk playmates, so they stopped pestering Zhu Youjian.

There is no need to bring children, which makes Zhu Youjian's life easier and more comfortable.

This vacation has only been three and a half months, and he has gained a lot of weight visible to the naked eye, which shows how comfortable life is.

But always resting like this, Zhu Youjian is still a little anxious.

Perhaps because he is used to being busy day after day, he always feels a little uncomfortable after such a free time, so reading and going out hunting have become his daily pastimes.

No, when the hottest time passed at noon, Zhu Youjian also went back to his room and changed into a military uniform, and then rode out of Suzhou City with Lu Yuangao and more than a hundred Jinyi Weiti.

They rushed to the grassland in the north. Since Daming established Juyan County in the Juyan Sea area, the Xitao area was relatively safe.

Here you can hunt some antelopes, birds, and encounter some prairie wolves from time to time.

Zhu Youjian has been playing this kind of playful day for more than a month, and he can't help but feel a bit of "Zhu Youxiao's happiness".

When the safari arrived around Shenshi, Zhu Youjian looked at the carload of prey and couldn't help laughing:
"At the beginning, I said that Wansui was a bit of a loser on a safari in Yanshan, but now it seems that I am not much less than Wansui."

"Your Highness is a normal Muxiu, why do you say that you are playing with things and lose your ambition?" Lu Yuangao who was following on the left and right shook his head, and did not agree with Zhu Youjian's words.

He had always thought that the reason why Zhu Youjian dealt with the government so desperately was to hold power tightly in his hands.

However, after several months of contact, Lu Yuangao discovered that Zhu Youjian was not greedy for power, and his life was extremely simple.

Although in Zhu Youjian's words, he has already enjoyed what should be enjoyed, and there is nothing wrong with simple tea and light meals.

It's just that for Lu Yuangao, who is used to the corrupt lives of many officials, Zhu Youjian's life is extremely inconsistent with his identity.

In Lu Yuangao's view, Zhu Youjian worked hard for Daming and the common people.

This kind of hard work has lasted for many years, and finally I can rest for a while. No matter how I play, I can't talk about playing with things and losing my mind.

If Zhu Youjian's life can be called playing with things and losing his ambition, then many princes and generals throughout the ages will be ashamed to death.

"The prey is almost ready, let's go back to the city."

Zhu Youjian's voice brought Lu Yuangao back to reality, and he rode his horse to follow Zhu Youjian's back.

At the same time they returned to Suzhou City, a group of uninvited guests came to Siberia thousands of miles away...

"boom--"

Accompanied by a muffled gunshot in the northern coniferous forest of Central Siberia, many birds were frightened and flew into the air.

"Hey! Ikalov, the gunshots sounded, I think it's time for us to prepare lunch at noon!"

In the southern part of Central Siberia in April, outside the Kilensk Fortress, when Pushkin, the military chief of Kilensk, greeted his adjutant Ikarov, Ikarov, who was squatting by the Lena River, also washed his hands with a smile :

"Understood, but we still have to see what kind of prey those guys brought back."

"It's out of my control. I just hope that I can eat fresh venison today!" Pushkin smiled, then turned and walked towards Killenssk Castle on the north bank of the Lena River.

Killiansk Fort, a bastion built by the Romanov eastward expedition at the confluence of the lower Lena River and the Kiranga River, has been around for six years.

The reason why they built a bastion here instead of going to Lake Baikal in the south is that there is a tribe of the Buriya Tin people living in the northern part of Lake Baikal.

With the strength of the original expedition team, it was not enough to drive out the local tribes.

However, as time went by, more and more expeditions came to the Far East. Pushkin believed that within a few years, they would be able to drive out the Tatars in the south and build a new bastion belonging to the Romanov dynasty in the northern part of the great lake. .

Thinking of this, Pushkin also leisurely walked into the narrow Kilenssk Castle.

Compared to his leisurely manner, Ikarov, who washed his hands by the river, waited for a long time.

Now that gunshots sounded in the forest, the boys who wanted to go hunting should be back soon.

However, this waiting lasted for more than ten minutes, and Ikarov felt something was wrong.

He didn't choose to wait, but got on his horse and retreated towards Kilenssk Fort not far away.

Since the distance was less than a hundred meters, he entered Killenssk Castle within a dozen breaths.

The inside of the small Killiansk Castle is not even considered a village, and it is not even as big as some stilted buildings in the south of Ming Dynasty.

"Ikarov, why are you back? Ivan and the others didn't catch any prey?"

When Pushkin in the bastion saw Ikarov come back, he smiled and came over to make fun of him.

"Pushkin, something seems wrong"

Ikarov got off his horse and explained that the hunting team did not return.

Hearing the words, Pushkin also immediately became serious. After all, Kilenske Fort is close to the territory of the Baliatins, and the two sides often attack each other, so Pushkin and the others are very vigilant.

"Close the city gate first, and go to the city wall to have a look."

Pushkin confessed, and then went up to the city wall with Ikarov.

There are 230 seven defenders of Killiansk Fort, but half of them are private expeditions and businessmen, and there are less than 140 soldiers who really serve the Romanov dynasty.

On the city wall, Pushkin began to use his very cherished monocular to look out of the city, at the coniferous forest on the banks of the Lena River.

"Something's wrong..."

Seeing the flock of birds circling over the coniferous forest, Pushkin realized something was wrong, so he immediately turned his head and shouted:
"Close the city gate and prepare to defend!"

"Assemble the whole army!" Seeing this scene, Ikarov also turned around and shouted into the castle.

His roar made the soldiers, merchants, and explorers in the fort put down the debris in their hands, and they closed the city gate in an orderly manner, and boarded the city wall.

"Rumble..."

"What sound? The sound of hooves?"

As soon as they climbed the wall, Pushkin and Ikarov heard a dull voice coming from the taiga.

Pushkin swallowed, and Ikarov was a little uncertain.

'you……'

Pushkin wanted Ikarov to send someone out of the city to check the situation, but before he could open his mouth, a banner with the words "大朙" emerged from the coniferous forest.

Following the appearance of the banner, a cavalryman wearing a cloth face armor of the Ming army also walked out of the coniferous forest with the banner in his hand.

He was not alone. After he walked out, countless horse infantry in cloth face armor poured out of the coniferous forest, like an ant colony, crowded and boundless.

"Damn! What's the situation? When did the Tatars have so many troops?!"

Looking at the cavalry with thousands of people outside the city, Pushkin's forehead broke out in cold sweat.

Although he is an aristocrat, he doesn't understand Daming, nor does he know what its armor and banners look like, so he regards the Ming army as the army of the Buliyaxi people in the south.

"The number of people is more than five times that of ours, and we haven't seen any artillery for the time being!" Ikalov reported what he saw through the telescope.

"Damn Tatar!" Pushkin's face was extremely gloomy and ugly.

Faced with a nearly five-fold difference in numbers, he was already thinking about how long the city would have enough food, how long the bastion would last, and how long it would take for reinforcements to arrive.

Of course, when Pushkin was thinking about his own situation, Wu Sangui, the Lingbei commander of the Ming army, also rode out of the coniferous forest on a Hequ horse.

He took the army to look at Killensk Fort two miles away from Killensk Fort, and took out his binoculars.

The same is true for the lieutenant next to him, but the lieutenant is much more relaxed than his vigilance.

After seeing the scale of Killiansk Fort, the lieutenant immediately smiled and said:

"General soldier, judging from the strength of the Raksha people in Yakutsk before, only 50 people are needed to surround them..."

"Don't underestimate the enemy... leave 100 people behind."

Wu Sangui had no idea of ​​a strong attack, his idea was to encircle according to what King Qi said, and the number of people encircled was only a mere 100 people.

From March [-]th, after Zhu Youjian transferred Wu Sangui to be the commander-in-chief of Lingbei, Wu Sangui couldn't wait to start preparing supplies and preparing to make a big splash in this Lingbei land.

On the 20th day of April, when the first batch of materials from Beishan arrived at Changshan Fort, Wu Sangui did not follow the schedule for dispatching troops in May, but chose to dispatch troops [-] days in advance.

The snow in Siberia in early April has begun to melt, and the roads have become muddy, but this is exactly what Wu Sangui wants.

Before arriving at Kiliansk Fort, he had taken advantage of the muddy roads and inconvenient information transmission to surround three Rakshasa bastions including Zhigansk and Yakutsk Orek Minsk in one go.

After leaving the corresponding encircling forces, he continued to lead the cavalry to raid the bastions of Tsarist Russia in various places.

Not only the bastion of Tsarist Russia, but he also boldly divided his troops, sending a thousand horse infantry southward to attack more than 3 people in Buriyaxi.

"How come there are so many people...Damn..."

Seeing the Ming army cavalry pouring out of the coniferous forest, Pushkin, who still thought they were Tatar cavalry, broke out in cold sweat, and Ikalov, who went to check the food and water sources, also ran to the top of the city.

"Pushkin, we only have enough food for a month."

"Damn..."

Hearing Ikalov's report, Pushkin could only hope that the military and political officers of other bastions would find out that something was wrong with them and come to support them.

He gave up fighting outside the city, after all, this Tatar army didn't look easy to mess with.

"Leave 100 people, and the rest and I continue to go to other Raksha Wood Forts!"

Wu Sangui didn't take Pushkin and the others seriously. After giving simple instructions, he led the cavalry westward along the road opened by the Tsarist Russian army.

"They withdrew!"

"No, they left some people behind!"

Watching thousands of cavalry leave along the trail in Bratsk, Ikarov and Pushkin could only pray for the more than 100 people in Bratsk Castle in the south.

"It should be 100 people." Pushkin couldn't help feeling a little itchy when he looked at the Ming army who were staying behind and preparing to set up camp.

"We have two two-pounders here, and a hundred muskets, you say..."

Pushkin tentatively asked Ikarov, after all, going out of the city to face such a thing, he can't say it alone.

Fortunately, Ikarov was clear-headed. In front of Pushkin, he vetoed mercilessly: "They all have flintlocks, and we are not opponents."

Ikalov didn't know about percussion guns, but he had seen flintlock guns. After all, Europe was now mainly researching this kind of guns under the influence of Ming Dynasty.

The percussion gun is somewhat similar to the flintlock gun from some angles. Ikarov knew Ming Dynasty, but he didn’t know that he was facing the Ming army. He only regarded it as a Tatar who had learned the Ming army’s flintlock gun people.

After the initial reform of the Tsarist Russian army in [-], their establishment became a regiment system.

A regiment has eight companies, each with 120 arquebusiers and eighty spearmen.

Pushkin and the others are just an incomplete company. It is obviously a dream to contend with a hundred cavalry with flintlock guns.

"Well, what you said makes sense, we have to wait for rescue"

Seeing that Ikarov said so, Pushkin could only shrug his shoulders, and then waited for rescue.

However, if they think about waiting for rescue, then this idea is doomed to fail...

On the second day, Wu Sangui left a hundred cavalry in Bratsk to surround Bratsk, and then rushed to Yenisesk.

On April [-]th, Wu Sangui surrounded Yeniseisk and drank horses from the Yenisei River.

On April [-]th, the Northern Route Army of the Beihai Battalion arrived at Tulu Hanks and surrounded Tulu Hanks. So far, the seven strongholds of Tsarist Russia east of the Yenisei River were all surrounded by Ming cavalry.

"Are they crazy!!!"

On April 29, when there was a sound of fists being smashed on a wooden table in a hut in the city of Ob, Golovin, then governor of Siberia of the Romanov dynasty, was furious like an angry lion.

He was angry not because he was angry, but because he was afraid.

When the news of the bastions lost, he, the Siberian governor and his officers, did not know until the Ming army drank the Yenisei River that it was not the Tatars in the south who attacked them this time, but the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at the pieces of information sent in front of him on his desk, Golovin still can't believe that Da Ming is actually going to war with them!

Damn it!What will he use to resist Daming's army?
Golovin didn't know how to describe his mood now. He never thought that he would provoke Da Ming, let alone that Da Ming would directly send an army of no less than [-] to attack him.

damn it!Now he lost contact with the seven bastions east of the Yenisei River and lost more than 600 troops.

With the three companies and more than 800 expedition members in his hands, let alone a battle with the Ming army, even if he retreats, it depends on whether the Ming army, horses and infantry will give them a chance.

Thinking that the cavalry of the Ming army had already drunk the Yenisei River, Golovin felt a little restless.

Although there is still a month's journey from the Yenisei River to the city of Ob, the speed of the Ming cavalry is not a joke.

What makes Golovin uncertain is whether this Ming army is already the entire strength of Ming's army against the north, or are they just the vanguard?
If it's the former...Damn it!Even if it's the former, he can't stop it!
Thinking of this, Golovin immediately wrote a letter to Tsar Mikhail I who was far away in Moscow.

The content of the letter is very simple and exaggerated.

Golovin exaggerated the strength of the Ming army. He described Wu Sangui as a general commanding tens of thousands of cavalry, and these cavalry were on the way to attack Ob City with hundreds of artillery.

As the governor of Siberia, he heroically led more than 200 troops from West Siberia to stop the Ming army on the Yenisei River, but the defense line was in jeopardy and might be broken soon.

At the end of the letter, he hoped that the Tsar would send reinforcements or issue clearer combat orders.

Golovin didn't dare to run away directly, so he could only describe himself as heroic.

However, such letters are full of loopholes, and to make up for the loopholes, he has to take the army to the front line for a circle.

If he doesn't want to fight the Ming army, he just needs to go around for a while, which means that he is not waiting to die in the city.

With this in mind, Golovin ordered a company in the city of Ob, and he led the 200 people towards the Yenisei River in the east, and began to gather the bastion troops west of the Yenisei River.

It's just that compared to Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses, the 400-man troops of his two companies look extremely shabby.

While he was frightened and rushed to the Yenisei River, Wu Sangui's mind was no longer in Siberia.

On the first day of May, the day Zhu Youjian stipulated to dispatch troops, Wu Sangui had already acquired Central Siberia.

There are no twists and turns and waves, everything is flowing.

Wu Sangui not only took Central Siberia into his pocket, but also greedily tried to grab the Buriya tin belonging to the Northern Army.

However, it should have been Cao Wenzhao's mission to attack Buli Yaxi...

　I have been on a business trip for the past few days, and the update is not stable, sorry sorry.

　　I'm not sure if there is Chapter 2 today. If there is, it should be written around ten or eleven o'clock in the evening.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)