Fifty miles east of Ningwu Pass, Hongchikou.

Qin Chuan was stationed on the mountain beam next to the mouth of the red pond in Ma, frowning at the sparse crowd coming from the valley to the east.

"That's it?" After looking at it for a moment, he couldn't help but ask.

Lao Huang on the side nodded and sighed: "I have a good talk with a group of brothers, the people there just don't believe us, they just don't believe that Jiannu can hit Dun County, and the people of a few small villages are willing to take refuge with us, and the total number of people is less than five hundred." ”

Qin Chuan didn't ask any further, only furrowed his brows deeper.

After occupying Ningwu Pass, he sent people out of Shuozhou and Shanyin counties in the north and Dun County and Daizhou in the east to persuade the people to take refuge in his territory, or to hide in Datong Town, Xinzhou City, Daizhou City and other big cities as soon as possible.

There were quite a few people who were willing to take refuge in the big city, and there were also many people in Shuozhou and Shanyin counties who were willing to take refuge in his territory, and there were seven or eight thousand people before and after, mainly because he had a very good reputation among the poor people.

Among the Ming soldiers who served him, some of their families were in the Shuozhou area, and these people basically took over, a total of more than 13,000 people, and Li Dingliang and Feng Yilong led troops to escort them in batches.

However, the people in Dunxian and Daizhou are willing to take refuge, but very few are willing to take refuge.

The reason for this is what Lao Huang said, the people there don't believe that Jiannu can hit them.

After all, Xuanda is heavily armed, and there are Hengshan Tianwei and the Inner Great Wall in the north of Daizhou, and the import and export are only Ningwu Pass, Yanmen Pass, Dashikou and Pingxing Pass, and it is difficult for Jiannu to cross these passes.

Another reason should be that those people are reluctant to leave their family property and land property behind.

Daizhou, Dunxian and Xinzhou are a long basin, both sides and north are mountains, there are many streams on the mountain, and finally they all converge into this basin, and there is the Hutuo River running through it, so that the fields in the basin are not short of water, it is very fertile, and there are many people who have fields, even if they are gentry and strong tenants, they can also rely on the tenant fields to support their families.

In this case, the people of that land were reluctant to abandon their fields and run over the mountains and mountains to the territory of Qinchuan.

Lao Huang led hundreds of Guan Emperor's troops to work for a month, and less than a thousand people came.

After watching the mountain beam for a while, Qin Chuan beat his horse and went down the mountain, not wanting to bother with those people anymore.

He's done enough, and there's more and more important things to do.

Now, Wang Jizong and Wen Cheng are also busy, running around for more than a month, relocating the people, establishing a civil affairs system, etc.

The number of officials in each department is not large, mainly because of the lack of scholars in Qinchuan's territory.

After the occupation of the northwest of Shanxi, there were many court officials, scholars, talents from all walks of life, and all kinds of craftsmen who were assigned to fill the army on the border.

In addition to arranging defense, Qin Chuan has also been busy with civil affairs, and after finally sorting it out, he finally had time to come to Hongchikou.

Hongchikou is located in the hinterland of Yunzhong Mountain, on a mountain road between Ningwuguan and Dunxian.

Therefore, a small military fort is being built here, the circumference of the whole military fort is only one hundred steps, four zhang high, the whole building is a square city wall, but also a circle of three-story buildings, a total of ninety rooms, can be stationed five hundred troops, the open space in the middle of the military fort is used as a school field.

After the military fort was built, an army of Emperor Guan should be stationed here to prevent Jiannu from raiding the mountain road.

Twenty-five miles south of Hongchikou, there is also a mountain road leading from Xinzhou to Ningwuguan, and Yangwukou, the most dangerous terrain, is also building a pier platform with a height of four zhang, and it is planned to garrison fifty troops after completion, and it is not a problem to resist one or two thousand enemies with the help of terrain.

After the construction of the military fort and piers here is completed, the construction team will also go south along the Yunzhong Mountain, and build two more piers and a small military fort on the three mountain roads leading to Xinzhou and Yangqu in the area of Jingle County, so as to completely control the passage of the outside world into Jingle County.

Although it is not easy to transport building materials inside, Qinchuan has no shortage of labor, and if he wants to build his own territory as solid as gold, he must be willing to pay the capital.

This is also an opportunity to train the more than 1,000 workers of those construction teams, so that they can accumulate more experience and accumulate skills for next year's Hetao strategy.

……

After inspecting the Hongchikou and Yangwukou projects, Qin Chuan returned to Ningwuguan on horseback, and just arrived at Guancheng, he saw a small group of cavalry coming from the north.

"My lord, Ulaanbari, they are back."

At the head of the city, Batu, who was holding a telescope, shouted loudly to the city.

"Oh?"

Qin Chuan's face was overjoyed, and he looked at the cavalry expectantly.

When Qin Chuan went out of the pass to attack and kill Jiannu the year before last, the hundreds of Chahar remnants who were taken in had already settled in Lou Fu, among which nearly 100 young men joined the Guan Emperor Army, Qin Chuan promoted several officers from it, and also let Batu serve as the general of the tiger and leopard battalion, and most of the other Mongolian soldiers were scattered and divided into other battalions.

Moreover, Qin Chuan also selected some Mongolian people with clever brains and strong archery skills, and trained Zhao Wu to stay overnight.

Not long ago, Qin Chuan asked him to lead his subordinates to collect the night, pretending to be a sentry horse from Karaqin, and went out to catch a few Jiannu prisoners and came back, wanting to understand the march and troop distribution of the Houjin army, so as to decide when to send troops.

Now that he's back, he's sure to have caught a captive.

Sure enough, Qin Chuan soon saw the captives behind Ulan Bari, carried by several war horses.

"Your Excellency, Ulaanbari has taken six prisoners in accordance with your lordship's orders."

When he got closer, Ulan Bari turned over and dismounted, knelt down on one knee according to the etiquette of the Ming army, and saluted with fists.

"Okay, you've worked hard for you and your brothers."

Qin Chuan helped him up with his own hands, patted him on the shoulder, and then walked to the back, where a large number of the six captives were tied up like zongzi.

Six bare heads, the skin color of the scalp is exactly the same as the skin color of the face and neck, and it can be seen at a glance that they are real slaves.

"Bring it in for trial."

Qin Chuan shouted, then turned on his horse and took the lead in entering Ningwu Pass.

The six Jiannu were hunched in and escorted to an empty room under Qin Chuan's instructions.

Qin Chuan asked people to move a stool, sat in the room, and called Li Dingliang, Feng Yilong, Zhao Wu, Liao Sangun, Batu and Ulan Bari.

After everyone arrived, Qin Chuan spoke: "Zhao Wu, ask them which flag they belong to, what is their name." ”

Zhao Wu lowered his head slightly: "My lord, many of Jiannu's Tanma will speak our words. ”

"Oh?"

Qin Chuan turned his head, looked at the leader of Jiannu who was kneeling in the middle of the room, and asked, "Which flag are you from?" ”

"Phew! Nikan, don't want to ask a word from my mouth, master. Na Jiannu replied in a slightly stiff northern official dialect.

"Hmmm......"

Qin Chuan could see that this was a hard bone, so he turned his gaze to the next one and asked the same question.

As a result, the Jiannu chattered, Qin Chuan didn't know what he was talking about at all, but judging from the expressions of Batu and Ulan Bari on the side, he should be scolding himself.

Qin Chuan didn't want to waste time talking nonsense with him, so he moved on to the next one.

It didn't take long for the six Jiannu to be interrogated, four of them scolded when they opened their mouths, and the other two were confined and didn't say a word.

Qin Chuan rubbed his chin with an increasingly thick beard, and said lightly: "Torture." ”

"Pull out the nails first, and if you don't say anything, cut a few wounds, smear some honey, and then get some ants to come over and bite the wounds, and if you can't do it, start peeling the skin, remember, don't let them sleep."

With that, Qin Chuan got up and walked out.

He suddenly realized that he seemed to have the potential to be a tyrant......

……

That night, a few Jiannu were recruited.

They are the Tanma of the Zhenghong Banner, under the command of Houjin Dabeile Daishan, and they came out this time to find out the deployment of the Ming army in Shanyin, Mayi and Shuozhou.

Daishan's army has a total of 30,000 troops, and the troops have been divided into three routes, of which Daishan led 10,000 main forces of the Red Flag towards Shanyin County.

Yue Zhi led a total of 10,000 troops from the Red Banner and the Tumut Department to Maying Fort adjacent to Heng Mountain.

A total of 10,000 troops from the Red Flag and the Ordos Department led the Red Banner and the Ordos Department to come along the Hongtao Mountain towards Daiyue Town.

Among them, Ye Chen's advance speed will be relatively fast along the way, because he has never encountered a fortified city that is difficult to attack along the way, and Daiyue Town only has a wall and some houses to block, with the efficiency of Jiannu, it can be defeated in half a day.

In contrast, Daishan had to face San'in County, which was heavily defended and had sufficient troops and artillery, and the speed of advance would definitely be greatly slowed down.

The distance of Yue Zhi's troops and horses was a little farther, and he had to face the same walled and heavily defended horse camp fort, so the speed of advance would definitely slow down.

According to the speculation of several captives, Ye Chen's soldiers and horses along the way may be about two days faster than Dai Shan and Yue Zhen.

And Ye Chen's goal is to rush to Shuozhou City first, block the road, and prevent the transfer of people, money and food in the city.

Yue Zhi wants to fight Shuozhou City.

After listening to the confessions of all the captives, Qin Chuan immediately made a decision, immediately mobilized his troops, and left Ningwu Pass before dawn the next morning, and went straight to Shuozhou.

This time, he brought Li Dingliang's trapped camp, Feng Yilong's Feng Shan battalion, and Liao Sangun's tiger and leopard battalion, a total of 8,000 men.

The defense of Ningwuguan let Liu Youzhu lead 2,000 Wudang battalions to take over, and the remaining 2,000 Wudang battalions were still stationed at Shenchikou and Limin Fort.

At the same time, he also ordered Luo Ba and Luo Daniu to lead 2,000 troops respectively, out of the inner Great Wall, borrow Jingping from the area of Guanshui Mountain, and detour to the northwest of Shuozhou to respond.

This expedition had a total of 12,000 troops.

Without heavy artillery, only the easy-to-carry tiger squat cannon, as well as a large number of flintlock guns and rifled guns, they were bound to defeat the enemy troops on Ye Chen's side.

After defeating Ye Chen, if he has the opportunity, he can take advantage of the situation to give Dai Shan a hard blow.

If there is no opportunity, they will immediately retreat to the line of Ningwu Pass and the Inner Great Wall, and wait for the arrival of the main force of Jiannu.