I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 161 Sprouted Potatoes Are Not Edible
Chapter 160

On October [-]th of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Cheng Shijie landed in Haizhou Port in southern Liaoning. Sun Zhichen was stunned when he officially set foot on the land of southern Liaoning.

He was really shocked. The whole Haizhou was not tensely preparing for the war, but a construction scene in full swing. He couldn't believe it. Is this still the sparsely populated Liaodong?
When Sun Chengzong was in charge of Liaodong Economic Strategy, Sun Zhiyi, who had just been crowned, had followed Sun Chengzong to Liaodong, and followed Sun Chengzong to inspect many places in Liaodong. Southern Liaoning had fallen at that time. Arrived at the beach, but in the northwest direction of Haizhou.

However, the current Haizhou is different from the former Haizhou. The official road from Haizhou Port to Haizhou City has already been built with a width of about seven or eight feet, but now it is being widened. The official road is almost half of it, three or four feet wide.

The carts going back and forth were driving on the original official road. On the official road to the north, countless civilians were busy constructing. Wooden hammers and round stone rollers worked alternately to pave the road paved with loess. Smooth as a mirror.

Sun Zhichen is a person who has seen the world, and he secretly clicked his tongue in his heart. Whether it is the Shuntian Mansion around Beijing, or Baoding Mansion, or Hejian Mansion, even the imperial roads in Beijing may not have this level. .

Along the road under construction, Cheng Shijie's convoy moved forward slowly. After walking for about thirty miles, there was a post station for changing horses.Different from ordinary post stations, this post station is divided into four parts, with the wide official road in the middle, and the post station castle on the left and right. However, the post station is divided into civilian and military areas, and these two functional areas are clearly separated.

Cheng Shijie's natural military passage can also give priority to entering the post station. This post station is different from the general post stations covering an area of ​​several acres or tens of acres. This post station covers an area of ​​more than a thousand acres of land, just like a small city.

In fact, post stations in southern Liaoning are divided into three types: A, B, and C. Class C post stations are determined according to the passenger flow or the flow of people, covering an area of ​​about [-] to [-] mu. and other important post stations, covering an area of ​​between [-] and [-] mu.

Class A is the highest grade, with properties ranging from [-] to [-] acres.The post stations near ports and important military towns are all first-class post stations.Sun Zhichen didn't know about this, but he found that the neat houses in the post station had very strange textures, which were different from the thatched houses and adobe houses in the mainland. The walls were blue-gray and felt hard to the touch. cool.

This is indeed different from the mainland. It is made of reinforced concrete. The post station in an important military town can become a temporary shelter at any time to protect the nearby people and business travelers.

Cheng Shijie's convoy did not stop at the station, and passed directly through the station, not even passing through Haizhou City. Cheng Shijie went directly to the front line.

The next day, Sun Zhichen was woken up by a pungent gas. It was not until he had eaten and left the station that he realized that there was also a huge construction site not far from the roadside. All kinds of clothes.On the chest of the clothes and the back of the kimono, there is a patch made of white hemp, and the words "Tianji Kitchen Knife" are embroidered on the patch.

To talk about Tianji kitchen knives, I have to mention that this is Wang Mazi, a time-honored brand in China. There is a blacksmith named Tian Laowan in Qingzhou, Shandong. Nine generations of his ancestors have made iron forging. Excellent, very easy to use.People often praise that as long as it is handled by Tian Laowan, even if it is a shovel, the shoveling mud will not stick at all.Therefore, Tian Lao Wan Da blacksmith is well-known in the local area and is well-known.

Tian Laowan had no children, only one daughter named Tian Qing. After Tian Laowan died, Tian Qing married a Shanxi merchant surnamed Wang.Although her husband, shopkeeper Wang, is ugly and pockmarked, he is honest, kind, shrewd and capable, and good at management.Tian Qing passed on the iron forging skills handed down from her father and several generations of word of mouth to her husband, shopkeeper Wang, and thus the brand Wang Mazi was established.

Now Tian Ji's shopkeeper is still Tian Laowan. Lao Wan is not Tian You's real name. He is called Lao Wan because his family is really rich.Tian Ji paid for [-] sets of clothes and gave them to hundreds of road construction workers for free. Even Cheng Shijie praised this way of advertising.

Cong Tianji pioneered this advertising model and got good publicity. In the field of kitchen knives and scissors, Tianji has almost become the leading blacksmith company in southern Liaoning. Along with Tianji kitchen knives, there are also brands like "Daiji Nilv" ", "Liu Ji Baozi", "Cao Ji Sesame Oil", and even "Liaodong Bank".

Cheng Shijie is very supportive of this business model of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation between advertising and benefiting the people, and it has become a must for immigrants. Shoulder bags, bowls and chopsticks, bed sheets, shoes, as well as the exterior walls of post stations, have all become places for advertisements.

Conscience of heaven and earth, this is not Cheng Shijie's idea, but the merchant's own idea in the late Ming Dynasty.All kinds of advertising items also save the management funds of the management committee.

Of course, this is not the most important thing. The important thing is that a tall iron roller device was built on the side of the road, and the pungent smell is emitted from here.The huge roller is connected to a turntable through a strange mechanism. Two mules pull the turntable to rotate continuously, and the roller also rotates accordingly.

There was a sound of metal rubbing against the inner wall of the drum. The rotating shaft of the iron drum is a key part wrapped with iron sheets and iron rods. When the drum rotates, this shaft does not rotate with it.

There is firewood piled under the iron barrel, and a fire is lit, but the heat can be seen rising upwards with the naked eye.

Sun Zhichen looked at it for a while, and saw that one side of the drum was suddenly opened, and the young peasants rushed forward to use wooden shovels to shovel a kind of thing from the drum, which was gray and black and sticky. When you look closely, it seems that there are smiling particles mixed in it, and the contents of the barrel have been scooped up by the peasants in an instant.

The chassis was re-sealed, and two peasants came over with a bucket full of sand in the distance, and then a young man in blue miscellaneous clothes took it immediately, and poured the sand into a wooden cylindrical container. There are many vertical and horizontal ink lines drawn, and some symbols that no one can understand...

After that, Sun Zhichen didn't have the heart to watch anymore, and Cheng Shijie's motorcade set off again. In his impression, the roads in the world seemed to have not been repaired since he was born.

Since the 46th year of Wanli, the imperial court and local governments have been extremely deficient in finances, whether it is drought or flood, or locusts, disaster relief is required every year, soldiers are raised every year, Liao’s salary is collected, and taxes are getting heavier and heavier. There are more and more places where money is used, and there is still money to repair roads, even in Shuntian Mansion, let alone places.

Therefore, when he entered southern Liaoning and saw such a bustling road construction scene, Sun Zhilian couldn't help but feel quite novel.In addition, the impression left by the villages and towns in Liaonan County can be summed up in two words as "vigor".

Sitting in the carriage, Sun Zhichen was thinking about more things. There is actually no tension in Haizhou now. It would be a lie to say that there is no tension. What they are nervous about is rushing to work overtime to build roads, or Ditch the ditches and build houses.

Winter in Liaodong came very early. It had already started snowing at this time last year. Although it hasn't snowed yet, it feels obviously cold.

But the problem is that Cheng Shijie actually spent a lot of manpower, material and financial resources on road construction, which explains the problem.

First of all, in Sun Zhichen's view, Cheng Shijie has absolute certainty to build roads, build houses, and dredge ditches. If there is no absolute certainty of victory, everything Cheng Shijie does is to make a wedding dress for Huang Taiji.

Secondly, the second point is that the people here did not flee in panic. This shows that the people in southern Liaoning have strong enough confidence in Cheng Shijie and Ning Haijun.

Just like in later generations, with the war between Da Mao and Er Mao, more than one-third of the Er Mao and nearly half of the population fled abroad, most of which are young and strong backbones.

In the south of Liaonan, we will never see the hungry people who died on the roadside. Just on the road in the northeast of Haizhou, there are checkpoints set up to gather and register refugees. For traffic and order, there are temporary refugee camps built with adobe and thatch on the side of the road, and there are endless streams of carriages with the flags of various merchants on the road.

When approaching the front line of Haizhou, Sun Zhichen was even more surprised by the remaining road of about [-] miles. Almost all of this road was paved with stones, but it was actually cement.From the southern end of these two roads, the two-wheeled carriages that are commonly used in the world are no longer seen. Instead, large four-wheeled carriages gallop past. The carriages are wide, the body is long, and the horses are strong. Seeing that Sun Zhichen was drooling.

The war horses that Hu Erqi grabbed were not directly assigned to the cavalry capital, but were distributed to the supply troops. The supply troops were usually managed by Zhou Yandong.It can be said that the current left and right capital divisions, together with the supply troops, have more than [-] people under their jurisdiction.

"Meet the Master!"

Approaching the front line, Ning Haijun has more soldiers. The infantry patrolling on the checkpoints and on the road occasionally gallop past the guard. The cavalry on the ground are all strong and sharp, whether it is the spear in their hand or the saber on their body. They are all made of high-quality materials, and most of these soldiers do not speak, even if they pass by, they don't even glance at Sun Zhihang, they come and go in a hurry, full of energy.

"The handsome is back, great!"

Although Cheng Shijie didn't give an order, and didn't even show up in front of the soldiers of the army, he just arrived at the front line in his carriage, and the number of soldiers in the army suddenly skyrocketed.

Sun Zhichen has seen the best army of this era, but even so, he has to admit that the quality and mental state of the soldiers in front of him are outstanding.They are fulfilling their responsibilities all the time, rather than being perfunctory.

Sun Zhichen secretly calculated in his heart that if the quality of the entire army of the Ning Navy was the same, then even if Cheng Shijie had only 1 troops, it would still be comparable to some Guan Ning troops who claimed to have [-] armored troops. .

Cheng Shijie's frontline headquarters is located in Baliwan Town on the left bank of the Taizi River, but it is two places that are completely different from the later Bali Town.

The original temporary military camp has been built into a city, especially with docks, warehouses, school grounds, factories, and living quarters.

Coming to Cheng Shijie's festival hall, Zhou Ning hurriedly introduced the recent results to Cheng Shijie: "These days, Jiannu has made thirteen tentative attacks on our defense line, but it's just a bit regretful!"

"What regrets?"

Zhou Ning said with a wry smile: "These Jiannu, Mongolian, and Han troops have suffered more than two to three thousand casualties, but they were either killed by flying thunder cannons or landmines. Most of them have been completely changed beyond recognition. I recognized that such heads are not counted, so after a round of screening, we only got about 3000 Jiannu heads, more than 150 Mongolian heads, and more than 300 Han army heads!"

The heads of the Han army are worthless to the Ming army. If all the Jiannu who were killed were beheaded, a few of them could create some small landlords for the soldiers of the Ning navy.

"Already good!"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Marinate the head with lime and send it to Tianjin by fast boat to report victory."

"Yes!"

Cheng Shijie listened to Zhou Ning's report. During this period of time, Jiannu has used many methods to destroy the barbed wire tactics of the trenches. In fact, this tactic has no solution and can only be filled with human life.

Unless Jiannu has an engineer with fine demining technology, he can use the night to cut the barbed wire with pliers and remove the mines without Ning Haijun not finding it.

"In the days when the commander-in-chief is not in Liaonan, it seems that everyone is doing well!"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "The commander-in-chief ordered that the whole army have extra meals and half a catty of meat!"

"Thank you, Master!"

At this time, Cheng Shijie is no longer the poor ghost he used to be. At least he wants to invite the whole army to eat meat. It is no longer difficult. Many pastures in southern Liaoning are raised in captivity. Enclosed with barbed wire, under the condition of reducing exercise, cattle and sheep grow fat quickly, especially thanks to Hu Erqi, let Cheng Shijie have hundreds of thousands of sheep, let alone eat a meal of meat, even if it is an army soldier, each of them pays a few cents. All the sheep are still rich.

Sun Zhichen was once again shocked by Cheng Shijie's arrogance. In Taizihe's camp, the total strength of Ning's navy officers and soldiers was small, only more than 1, more than half of which were auxiliary soldiers and non-combatants.

Following Cheng Shijie's order, the logistics department immediately brought in baskets of juicy green onions, garlic, and cabbage, as well as several baskets of bright red tomatoes. Finally, a team of breeders drove thousands of sheep to the camp. .

"Don't waste it, let the recruits see the blood!"

Under Cheng Shijie's order, the recruits of the Imperial Guard Division, in units of sitting divisions, lined up with long spears and held dog-leg knives, and rushed towards the flock of sheep. With the flash of the knife, the sheep were stabbed to death one by one.

The training effect is not bad, but the problem is that the logistics officer yells: "They are all prodigal sons. Wherever this knife was stabbed, this sheepskin has been stabbed into a sieve!"

"No problem. You can't make a sheepskin jacket, but you can make sheepskin boots. Anyway, it won't be wasted!"

Skilled cooking soldiers stepped forward to peel the skin, remove the internal organs, deboned and cut the meat, washed and cut vegetables with quick hands and feet, and some people peeled a lot of potatoes and put them in the pot with the mutton to stew...

Seeing them cooking this and that non-stop, the grandson's Adam's apple kept moving, and he kept swallowing...

Even in a family like Sun Chengzong, it is impossible for him to eat meat often and get hungry.

When the dining horn sounded, Sun Zhichen also went to eat with Ning Haijun soldiers. Of course, his identity was placed there, and he was definitely not dining with the chief soldier. He was an officer who went with Wu Sheng, the personal soldier. canteen.

In fact, the officers' canteen and the soldiers' canteen are made of the same pot, but the soldiers have long tables, each team has a table, while the officers have four tables.

Finger-wide lasagna, mutton and cabbage soup, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, mutton stewed with potatoes...

After eating delicious food, Sun Zhichen was a little surprised, where did Cheng Shijie get his money?

Ning Navy soldiers ate mutton and devoured it...

The morale of General Ning Haijun was so high that it couldn't be improved, and they all screamed: "If I can have this kind of food every day, I will be happy to fight this battle for the rest of my life!"

The officers and men of Ning Haijun were happy, but the army of Jiannu was not happy, very unhappy.

This time, Huang Taiji came out in full force and mobilized the Jurchen Eight Banners, the Mongolian Left and Right Battalions, and the Han Army Banner, which counted as [-] troops. He originally wanted to press down on Haizhou with the momentum of Mount Tai, and his purpose was to make a quick battle.

But the problem is that the tenacity of the Ning Navy completely defeated their intention of a quick battle. The bloody barbed wire, minefields and trenches made them helpless. Let alone attacking southern Liaoning, they even wanted to see Haizhou City. The walls are very difficult.

Five or six attacks on the barbed wire did not achieve any effect. Instead, hundreds of heads were sent to Ning Haijun. Seeing the continuous barbed wire and cobweb-like trenches, the soldiers who built slaves felt in their hearts. A sense of powerlessness.

Since Nurhachi unified the Jurchen tribes and then rebelled, they have been fighting. The bloodthirsty and protracted battles have created their bloodthirsty instincts and inhuman physiques. They are not afraid of any powerful opponents, and they are not afraid of any Xiongguan fortress.

But this time, facing this line of defense that can only be described as shabby, they felt like a dog biting a turtle with no place to bite their teeth.No matter how powerful the opponent is, they can also find flaws in the battle, involve them, isolate them, divide them, surround them, and finally annihilate them; no matter how dangerous the fortress of Xiongguan is, they can also buy spies, dig tunnels, long-term siege, and heavy artillery. Attack them with a series of means such as bombardment. If they are really unable to attack, they can retreat calmly. What are they afraid of?
But this bloody barbed wire keeps cutting, cannons can't move, it's not afraid of fire or flooding, it seems very weak, but there are almost no effective ways to destroy it!
And the hellish trenches, the Ming army collectively learned from the mice, and hid in the trenches without thinking, let your cannons bombard you, at most just let them listen to it, the soldiers who built slaves hated it so much , but there is no way!
Mang Gurtai stared at the hideous barbed wire, gritted his teeth and said: "Which bastard came up with such a bad move? Let me catch him, and let him eat all the barbed wire!"

Huang Taiji was in a very upset mood. He was forced to send troops this time because he had no food to buy, and the grass had been burned for hundreds of miles. This winter was very difficult.

He waved his hand and said, "Don't say these things are useless, let's quickly think of a way to see how to destroy this wooden fence and the trenches of the Ming army!"

They have already figured out the characteristics of the barbed wire. It is not too thick, but it is very tough. It is full of barbs and cutting edges. If it is hung lightly, the skin will be torn apart.The most disgusting thing is that even when there is no wind, this thing will shake slightly. The knife has nowhere to hit it, and it can't be cut at all. The only way to destroy it is to cut off the wooden pile.

But the problem is that those wooden stakes are not so easy to cut, they are thick and hard, and it takes a lot of effort to use a machete. It takes enough time for a Ming army crossbowman or musketeer to kill them ten times. Eight times!

With this thing in front of them, they can't get through at all, but the crossbowmen of the Ming army can easily shoot them to death. This kind of situation is simply maddening!Even if they cut down one or two wooden stakes, the barbed wire fence would not fall down. If you want to knock down the barbed wire fence, you have to cut down a lot of wooden stakes at the same time. Mission impossible!

Yue Tuo said: "King Khan, it is really impossible, we can only go around!"

"Detour?"

"The barbed wire fences of the Ming army were deployed along the Taizi River to the Qianshan Mountains. There is no way to go in the mountains. Now we can only go west and go down the Liaohe River. They did not deploy a defense line on the Liaohe River!"

Huang Taiji shook his head and said, "It's only a matter of time before they deploy this barbed wire fence on the banks of the Liaohe River. If we move like this, they will move too!"

"That's just the old fabric of doubt!"

"Just do it!"

Huang Taiji selected elite soldiers from various banners, gathered 2000 troops, took advantage of the darkness, and ran north for dozens of miles before heading west.

This time the general who led the troops was Abate.

Just when Huang Taiji's partial division had just moved, it was located outside the Baliwan camp of Prince Ning Haijun, Qin Buhui once again begged to see Cheng Shijie.

"What did you say? Another surprise soldier from Jiannu is going to attack our army?"

"The humble job is just a letter. This letter should be a message from the nobleman who built slaves. Depending on the situation, it should be the enemy of Huang Taiji. I hope he suffers a big loss!"

Qin Buhui didn't hide it, and his secret stronghold in Shenyang was taken away. Even his wife, children, and children became the other party's hostages. As an intelligence officer, in fact, Qin Buhui once suspected whether this was a trap.

"Yongyan, what do you think?"

"Uncle, from Yongyan's point of view, this information may actually be true!"

Sun Zhichen participated in the Battle of Daling River with Sun Chengzong, and he was very disappointed with what the Ming army did. At that time, someone in the Ming army also reported to Huang Taiji. Only under such circumstances, could Huang Taiji accurately obtain Knowing where Zhang Chun's gunpowder is stored, you need to know that the [-]-strong army's supply unit stretches for more than ten miles, with a total of two to three thousand carts, and the carts containing gunpowder are less than one-tenth of them.

However, in the first wave of attacks, Jiannu destroyed more than half of Zhang Chun's gunpowder.

It is not surprising that someone in Jiannu has tipped off Cheng Shijie.

Cheng Shijie waved his hand and said, "Go down and rest first, I know!"

Cheng Shijie asked Qin Buhui to leave, but he didn't say anything.

Seeing Cheng Shijie as motionless as a mountain, Sun Zhichen became a little anxious: "Marshal, hurry up and send troops there!"

"unnecessary!"

"Why don't you need it?"

Sun Zhichen was even more strange.

At this moment, Song Xiance, who had been sitting upright, stroked his beard and said with a smile, "They dare to go, and they hit the commander's plan!"

The place where this line of defense is really difficult to fight is not in the undefended Liaohe River and coastal areas, not even in Haizhou City, nor in Fuzhou City. Whether it is Haizhou City or Fuzhou City, it is determined by the General Staff trap.

Just wait for Jiannu to crash in. As for the mere two thousand cavalry who want to attack Liaonan in a detour, it can just send warmth to the navy.

On the east bank of the Liaohe River, the Liaohe River was already frozen at this time, but the ice surface was not enough for the horses to cross directly. In order to be able to cross the river, Abate had people prepare straw mats in advance and spread the straw mats on the ice. Since then, the horses can cross the river smoothly.

More than two thousand riders slowly crossed the river in the dark, Abate's heart was hanging, fearing that the Ming army would have an ambush.

Fortunately, there was no danger, and their two thousand riders successfully bypassed the barbed wire fence of the Ning Navy from the Liaohe River.

There are two roads ahead of Abatai, one is to go east all the way, go out from the back of the Ming army, and assist Huang Taiji to break through the barbed wire defense line of the Ming army, and the other is to directly attack Haizhou City.

Abatai is also ambitious, he decided to raid Haizhou directly, if he succeeds in taking Haizhou, then he will be the first.

"Let's go to Haizhou!"

More than two thousand riders began to march towards Haizhou.

The cavalry ran for less than an hour, and it was dawn.

"Master, we found a food transport team from the Ming army ahead of us. They haven't spotted us yet and are cooking."

"Don't be polite to them, kill them!"

"Yes!"

More than two thousand horses accelerated, and the sound of horseshoes was like thunder, shaking heaven and earth.

There were still three or four miles away from this grain transport team, and the military households transporting grain saw the Jiannu cavalry appearing in front of them, and yelled frantically: "Jiannu is here, run!"

"Run!"

As these military households put large carts of grain on the side of the road, the military households soon disappeared without a trace. Abatai successfully snatched more than 300 carts of grain without firing an arrow.

Abate glanced at the grain on the cart, but found that these grains were actually potatoes, but he didn't know that they were potatoes, so he asked suspiciously: "What is this?"

"I don't know, it should be food!"

A Jian slave pointed to the big pots hung by the military households by the roadside, and potatoes were still boiled in the big pots. These potatoes were peeled and boiled in large pieces with some salt.

A daring jian slave reached up and grabbed a piece of potato, popping it into his mouth.

"Can I eat it?"

"delicious!"

Soon the breakfast of more than 300 military households went into the stomachs of these Jiannu, but the problem was that the breakfast of more than 300 military households could only be fed to more than 2000 Jiannu.So they opened the sacks on the cart, took out the potatoes, washed off the mud on the spot, and boiled them in a pot.

It's just that these Jiannu didn't realize that these potatoes, without exception, were all covered with green shoots.

However, these Jiannu didn't know that sprouted potatoes were not edible, so tragedy inevitably happened.

What happens if you eat sprouted potatoes?
It is easy to cause food poisoning, weakness in limbs, numbness in the corners of the mouth, nausea and vomiting. When these Jian slaves vomited and vented, densely packed Ning navy soldiers appeared in front of them.

A Ning Navy officer laughed all over his face: "If you get rich, if you get rich, tie them up for me!"

(End of this chapter)