There has always been a saying in Hou Dagui's army that "if you don't decide to ask Lao Mu", this statement is likely to come from Hou Dagui's mouth, but it has gradually become the consensus of the army officers and soldiers. At the moment when Mu Gongchun spoke, the officers who had always been arrogant and rude were silent, and they all listened carefully.

Mu Gongchun was respected and satisfied, and then spoke eloquently. He advocated that there are four most important things that must be done first in order to ensure the stability of the whole army to the greatest extent.

The first major event is to elect a commander to temporarily coordinate the whole army on behalf of Hou Dagui. Previously, Hou Dagui's troops were divided into two routes, and the front road to the front line of Xuanfu was controlled by Hou Dagui himself, but the thousands of soldiers and horses on the back road did not have the role of controlling the overall situation and making a final decision when everyone was different. Nowadays, each battalion and each unit is not only shouldering the simple duty of marching to the front line, but also the burden of life and death in order to survive in a dangerous situation.

Mu Gongchun repeatedly stressed that the matter of electing the interim coach was the most important and must be resolved immediately, otherwise there would be no follow-up to talk about anything, and first proposed that Han Gon should be in charge. In terms of qualifications, Han Gon was the first to take refuge in Zhao Ying, and he has always been a general of the humerus; In terms of ability, Han Gon's level of leading the army to fight is obvious to all, and his achievements are outstanding; In terms of prestige, Han Gon is fierce but not arrogant, humble and keeping, and can convince the public. No matter how you look at it, they are the most suitable candidates.

In addition to the extremely unqualified He people present, there were also three commanders: Ma Guangchun, Zhou Yuji and Lu Yue. It stands to reason that Zhou Yuji was born in the Ming Army's Beijing camp guerrilla, has a good reputation, and has always been in the position of a front-line general after defecting to Zhao Ying.

Zhou Yuji has a heroic and open-minded personality, although he has a large resume in the Ming army, and many Zhao Ying generals who were born in mud legs are high, but he never takes this seriously. On the contrary, he knew very well that fate dictated that it would be difficult for him to become the core descendant of Zhao Ying after all. Mu Gongchun preemptively recommended Han Gon, ordinary people may not think of so much, but a front-line general like Zhou Yuji, who has been wandering around the periphery of Zhao Ying's inner circle for a long time, can feel his potential meaning. In addition, because of the long-term suppression by Hou Dagui, the real power of the Wuqi battalion is not in Bai Wang, but in the hands of Zhang Xianbi, a Chinese officer who is also a later follower, so for the current army of Zhenyuwei, the timely determination of the new commander is not only related to the safety of the soldiers, but also to the leadership of Zhao Ying's lineage over the army. If Zhao Ying's line loses the leadership of the army, then it is difficult to guarantee that the army will not deteriorate because of this, and the commander will become another Wu Sangui or Tang Tong. If he didn't know what to do, he would stand up and rashly fight for the command of the whole army, and it was hard to imagine what kind of backhand Mu Gongchun, who had always been full of scheming, would suppress and persecute him.

In the delicate season, just a few words contain countless killing opportunities, and some people will die in the whirlpool, but Zhou Yuji can climb to today's position, relying on more than just a body of martial arts. He thought very clearly, since he couldn't become a descendant general of Zhao Ying, then honestly being a first-line general of the Hongguang Imperial Court was also a good destination.

Following Zhou Yuji, Ma Guangchun, Lu Yue and others also expressed their support for Han Gon. At the critical moment, someone has to come forward, even though he knows that the task is arduous, but Han Gon did not shirk it, resolutely got up and arched his hand around: "Thanks to your trust, Han swears here, with me Han in one day, I will not let thousands of brothers die in vain." "From the temporary position of governor, the title of governor.

Mu Gongchun shook his feather fan and nodded secretly at Yan Licheng, and then said to everyone: "The top priority has been decided, and it will be easy to talk about it in the future." This second thing is to quickly find out the situation on the front line, including the situation of General Hou and Sun Chuanting, as well as the number of Tartars deployed. ”

Han Gon said to He Renji: "Old He, you can handle this matter, be careful." ”

He Renji stood up and said: "Don't worry, the chief steward must find out the situation of the chief manager and the Tartar troops." Since he was separated from Kong Quanbin's battalion, he has been marching and fighting quite hard, and anyone who cares can see that he wants to take advantage of this opportunity to accumulate military exploits, in order to one day completely break away from Kong Quanbin and become the commander of a battalion. Now that the wind is here in Han Gon, he naturally only looks to Han Gon, hoping to leave a good impression on Han Gon and climb a real big tree.

Mu Gongchun continued: "The front line has been arranged, and there is still the rear. The rear three and four o'clock said together, one must stabilize Jiang Xuan, and the other must ask for support. As he spoke, he turned to Han Gon and said, "Chief, what do you think?" ”

Han Gon nodded and said, "It's a pertinent statement. But it's good to ask for support, the army of King Song has already entered Shanxi, and it is enough to send someone to spread the news, but stabilize Jiang Xuan...... What's the way to stabilize it? ”

Before Mu Gongchun could answer, Wu Mingfeng, the left sentry officer of the Wuqi Battalion who was in charge of guarding the eastern city, hurriedly ran over and said: "Urgent military report, there is a group of Tartars coming in the direction of the Acropolis, and they are already fifteen miles away!" ”

"Azig is here?" The officers present looked at each other.

Immediately afterwards, several pond horses scattered outside rushed in, reporting the situation of the approaching Qing army one after another. It turned out that this Qing army was another part of the Huai'an Acropolis Branch not long ago, and looking at the banner, it was not Azig, but the source of the Qing army's Zhenghuang Banner Manchuria Gushan Ezhen Tan Tai and the Yellow Banner Han Army Gushan Ezhen Liu Zhiyuan.

"The Acropolis of Huai'an is weak, and the siege of the Tartar army is within a snap." Mu Gongchun analyzed, "But this time Azig himself did not come, only sent Tan Tai, there is only one possibility." ”

Ma Guangchun said: "Yes, Azig wants to go north first, solve the problem of Chief Hou and Sun Chuanting, and then invade Datong Mansion in a big way." Tan Tai and Liu Zhiyuan were sent here first, the purpose was to contain the army of Datong Mansion and avoid worries. ”

The truth is indeed as they guessed.

Azig brought a total of 30,000 Manchurian, Mongolian and Han Eight Banner soldiers from Beijing this time, 10,000 remained in Xuanfu Town, and 20,000 were brought to cut off the Huai'anwei passage. After Hou Dagui left the Huai'an Acropolis, the defenders in the city were only hundreds of old, weak, sick and disabled, who could withstand the onslaught of the Qing army, and fell in less than half an hour. To the north of Azig, there are still two Ming armies of Hou Dagui and Sun Chuanting, which are not conducive to the advance of the army, so he led more than 10,000 people north to Chaigou Fort to annihilate the Ming army, and sent Tan Tai and others to Datong Mansion to contain the Ming army that might take advantage of the gap.

The Zhenghuang Banner led by Tan Tai was formerly known as the Zhengbai Flag of the Nurhachi period, which was personally led by Huang Taiji. After Huang Taiji succeeded to the throne, under the influence of the etiquette system of "the yellow flag is the color of the lord of the country", the two white flags and the two yellow flags were reversed, and the original positive white flag was changed to a positive yellow flag. Later, Huang Taiji took advantage of the fact that the fifth brother Mang Gurtai and the tenth brother Dege of the two banner owners of the Zhenglan Banner died one after another, and the Zhenglan Banner had no flag owner for the time being, so he took the opportunity to confiscate the Zhenglan Banner, and through the means of splitting and reorganizing the Zhenghuang Banner, the Inlaid Yellow Flag and the Zhenglan Banner, he held the three flags tightly in his hands and consolidated his strength.

In the end, the Yellow Banner played a pivotal role in the Eight Banners, and the biggest resistance to Dorgon's government at the beginning came from the two Yellow Banners that supported the two Yellow Banners of Haoge, the son of Huang Taiji, until the last Dai Shan who had two red flags expressed his stance and the representative of the two blue flags, Zilharang, compromised, and Dolgon, who was supported by the two white flags, forced the two yellow flags and Huang Taiji's remnants to retreat with absolute strength, so as to successfully ascend to the throne. Therefore, even if Dorgon finally took power, he would win over the Yellow Banner and not slack off in the slightest.

Although Tan Tai was born in the East China Sea Jurchen, the Jianzhou Jurchen tried his best to win over the East China Sea Jurchen in order to be enemies with the Haixi Jurchen and others, and the relationship was very close. His brother Yangguli, like Fei Yingdong and Eyidu, was attached to him at the end of Nurhachi's reign and was the founding general of the Later Jin Dynasty, so Tan Tai's status among the Eight Banners magnates was also high. In his early years, he was known for his bravery, and made many military exploits in the war of breaking the border and attacking the Ming Dynasty and conquering Korea.

Azig sent troops, and Tan Tai was his right-hand man, and took the initiative to ask Ying to attack the town and capture the guards. His subordinates were Manchurian soldiers and horses of the Zhenghuang Banner, and a total of 20 cattle were brought from Beijing. The Qing army military system, each Manchurian cattle recorded 200 armored soldiers, of which 50 Ma soldiers were the most courageous, respectively, Ge Bush Xianchaoha, Bayala Camp and Aliha Chaoha. In proportion, each Niu Lu Ge Bush Xianchaoha is the two most warlike among the Baijia Bayala, the Bayala battalion is eight Baijia Bayala, and the Aliha Chaoha is forty in the armored horse army. In addition to Aliha Chaoha, Gebush Xianchaoha and Bayala Camp were both drawn from each banner to build separate camps during the Huangtaiji period, with Gebush Xiangalayi Angbang and Baya Lajangjing as the main officials under the command of the chief.

For example, this time with Tan Tai as an assistant, there is Baya Laqizhang Jing Aobai, who was given the name "Baturu" because of his brilliant achievements in the Battle of Phi Dao, which means "warrior" in Chinese. Tan Tai's headquarters were under the Yellow Banner Manchurian horse infantry and armor soldiers, and there were about 3,800 people. In addition, there are 1,000 Han army infantry troops inlaid with the red flag of the Han army Gushan Ezhen Liu Zhiyuan.

The Eight Banners of Manchuria, Mongolia and Han had different formations, Manchuria recorded 200 mixed horse infantry per ox, Mongolia recorded only 50 horse troops per ox, and Han army recorded 100 infantry troops per ox. In this battle, it is common to match two Manchurian Niulu with one Han Army Niulu to fill the vacancy of the 200 infantry troops required for the Manchurian Niulu in addition to the 50 horse troops.

Therefore, Tan Tai brought 3,800 soldiers from the Yellow Banner Manchurian Army, 1,000 soldiers from the Bayala Battalion and 1,000 Han soldiers with Red Banners. In addition, there are still nearly 2,000 Baoyi and Aha following. Baoyi and Aha are often called Baoyi Aha, but the status of the two is very different, Baoyi comes from the main household of the Eight Banners household registration, even if it is a slave of the Manchurian magnates, but the identity is slightly the same as the retainers, belonging to the family, and the Jurchen, Korean, Mongolian, and Han ethnic groups are all there. Aha was a pure slave, most of them were registered in the household and other places, some even belonged to Baoyi, and most of them were Han Chinese, also known as "Ahanikan" - "Nikan" is the Manchu language of the Han people - and below Aha there are still more lowly Han people called Sula.

Counting all parts of Baoyi Aha, the total strength of Tan Tai's army was nearly 7,000 people, which was on a par with the Ming army in the Zhenwei guard.

The Qing army was approaching, and the atmosphere in the Acropolis Festival suddenly became tense. Han Gon commanded left and right: "Old Ma, Old Zhou, Old Lu, prepare for battle." He also said, "Bai Wang, Zhang Xianbi and others who were defending the city hurriedly arranged a front outside the city to resist the enemy. ”

After a series of orders, Mu Gongchun shook his head and said: "It's not enough, the Tartar is in a hurry, and I didn't have time to say it before to stabilize Jiang Jiu and do it quickly." And said, "Otherwise, if Jiang Jiu learns the news of the arrival of the Tartars, there will be variables." ”

Han Gon nodded and said, "What Mr. said is extremely true, but now that the enemy is present, how can we use two things at once?" It's better to concentrate on repelling the Tartar first, and then deal with Jiang Jiu. ”

"It's too late." Mu Gongchun's feather fan shook more rapidly than ever, "These two things must be done at the same time, otherwise, if either side goes wrong, our army will inevitably be destroyed." ”

When everyone heard this, they were all shocked, and Han Gon's face was as tight as a railway: "What are the prejudices of Mr.?" ”

Mu Gongchun immediately explained his thoughts and thoughts, and the original fragmented discussion in the festival hall was completely eliminated, and there was silence.

"Which general wants to make this trip?" Mu Gongchun looked around and asked in a loud voice.

No one answered, and Han Gon sighed: "Survive in danger, this trip is full of difficulties." If you go through, it will be the road, and if you can't go through...... It's all gone......"

"For the lives of thousands of brethren, which general will ......"

Mu Gongchun asked again, Zhou Yuji, Ma Guangchun, Lu Yue and the others looked at each other, and got up almost at the same time, but in front of them, a figure flashed to the center, facing Han Gon and Mu Gongchun and said loudly: "I am willing to go!" ”

Everyone saw it, it was Yang Zhaofeng, the counselor of the Feijie Left Battalion, the overseer of the army, and the officer of the Central Army.