March of the first year of Jingtai.

Shi Heng, the governor of the right capital, Cao Jixiang, the eunuch of the Si Si, and Xu Youzhen, the superintendent of the imperial history, secretly contacted more than 30 courtiers and played Emperor Jingtai together, advocating that they should not make a strong counterattack against the harassment of Warat, and at the same time allow the Great Khan of Warat to get rid of the unspent tribute request as soon as possible.

According to Xu Youzhen, the superintendent of the imperial history, this move can stabilize Warat, give the dynasty time to recover its strength, and at the same time ensure the reputation of the emperor.

However, Yu Qian, the secretary of the military department, and other courtiers immediately counterattacked, and jointly signed Emperor Jingtai, advocating that they should immediately counterattack the Wara Taishi in the area of Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, and at the same time sent an envoy to reprimand Warat Khan for not spending money and refusing his tribute request.

"Wara broke through the pass and went south and kidnapped the emperor, this is a great shame for my Ming Dynasty! Now that I have invaded the place again, I still haven't surrendered, how can I stop the army! War! Fight until the Tartars are soft and surrender! ”

Yu Qian's impassioned voice echoed above the hall, and all the courtiers were enthusiastic when they heard it, and Emperor Jingtai also nodded constantly, and immediately said: "What Yu Shangshu said is very agreeable!" The Tartars have repeatedly violated the border, how can they stop here! ”

Therefore, Emperor Jingtai ordered Yu Qian, the secretary of the military department, to mobilize troops and horses to launch a counterattack in the vicinity of Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, and at the same time prepared to send an envoy north to Wara to reprimand Warat Khan for taking off and not spending money to commit rebellion.

In this regard, Shi Heng, the governor of the right capital, Cao Jixiang, the eunuch of the division, and Xu Youzhen, the supervisor of the imperial history, all had bad faces, and the three of them all held a grudge against Yu Qian, the secretary of the military department.

More than ten days later, Yu Qian, the secretary of the military department, requisitioned a total of 60,000 soldiers and horses from Gyeonggi Town, Datong Town, and Xuanfu Town in the name of the military department, formed a defensive line in the area of Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, and immediately launched an attack with the Warat Taishi.

Datong Town.

Outside the city of Datong, 30,000 garrisons have been attacking with the main force of 40,000 in Wara for more than a month, at this time dozens of miles around Datong City are the scope of fierce battles between the two sides, the entire Datong City has been under martial law for a month, and the people in the city are miserable.

At the same time, the same is true of the cities around Datong City, the soldiers of the Ming army strictly defended on the one hand, and on the other hand, they sent a small number of iron cavalry to the north to counterattack, constantly harassing the soldiers and horses of Wara, setting fire to the grasslands everywhere, and sneaking up on the small groups of soldiers and horses of Wara.

The Ming army's tight defense made the 50,000 Warat army have achieved nothing for more than a month, except for the increasing casualties, nothing has been left behind!

Therefore, he also continued to send iron cavalry to loot and set fire to various villages and towns in Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, as well as Tunbao, so that the Ming soldiers could not defend everywhere for a while, which was considered to have some gains.

However, these gains of the Warat army are a drop in the bucket compared to the battle losses.

Seeing this, he first changed his strategy again and began to concentrate his forces to completely blockade Datong City, and even completely blocked Datong City for a time, cutting off the connection between the defenders of Datong City and the outside world.

In order to avoid being surrounded by the Warat Iron Cavalry, the Ming army could only temporarily give up the rescue of Datong City, after all, there were a lot of troops in Datong City, a lot of money and food, and the city was deep and deep, and the Wara army would definitely not be able to capture the city in a short period of time.

However, at this time, the Ming army and the 50,000 troops under the first division of Wara Yexian formed a stalemate situation, and no one on either side was having a good time.

In this regard, Yu Qian, the secretary of the Ministry of War, was also depressed, and Shi Heng, Cao Jixiang, Xu Youzhen and others also continued to fan the flames when they saw this.

For a while, there was another storm in the court, but fortunately, Emperor Jingtai trusted Qian very much and didn't say anything, and the turmoil disappeared after a long time.

At the same time, according to Liu Juntao's unified deployment, the military department, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Investigation Department, and the Zanhua Department of Yushan Town have all moved to the Yanzhou capital city, and all of them have been transformed into the shogunate under the command of the Yanzhou General Military Officer.

As for the military department, Liu Juntao also made some personnel adjustments, and promoted Hu Dexing, the director of the recruit department, to the head of the military department, with full responsibility for all matters of the military department.

The affairs of the Recruit Department of the Military Department were handed over to Wu Lei, Hu Dexing's deputy when he was appointed as the Recruit Division, and Wu Lei was appointed as the new Secretary of the Recruit Department of the Military Department.

Since then, Liu Juntao's military and political center has been transferred from Yushan Town to Yanzhou Prefecture, and Yushan Town has completely become a large rear area and a logistics, military equipment, and money and grain base.

Even Guo Muying, who had just given birth to Liu Juntao's second son, was recuperating in Yanzhou Mansion, and even lived with Liu Juntao's eldest son by Liu Juntao's side, obviously taking Yanzhou Mansion as his base camp.

During this period, Liu Juntao did not always concentrate on his internal affairs, and was also very concerned about the war between the imperial court and Warat.

The Investigation Department continued to relay the news of the war in the north, and the Zan Painting Department was also adjusting and analyzing the various policies of the imperial court towards Warat at any time.

Liu Juntao has already understood all the battles in Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, and he is also worried.

"It's been three months!"

Liu Juntao sighed, and Liu Zi'an and Lan Siqi, who were sitting on the left and right, also sighed slightly.

Now the war between the imperial court and Warat has reached a stalemate, although it is not possible to get benefits first, and some soldiers and horses have been lost, but the imperial court is even more difficult, and the military money and food have been spent like flowing water, and it has also affected the political instability in the DPRK and China, which is a very large consumption of the national strength of the Ming Dynasty!

"Now among the soldiers and horses of the imperial court in Datong Town and Xuanfu Town, there are very few iron cavalry and firearms soldiers and horses, such a battle is not easy to fight! In order to inflict heavy damage on the Tartars, there must be a certain number of fast horses and firearms in the army, so as to offset the Tartars' advantage in arched horses! ”

After listening to Liu Juntao's words, Liu Zi'an and Lan Siqi both agreed, and the two also discussed one after another, feeling that the combat power of the soldiers and horses mobilized by the imperial court this time was indeed insufficient.

Liu Juntao said in a deep voice: "Now we have a strong enemy outside the Ming Dynasty, and there are villains such as Shi Heng, Cao Jixiang, and Xu Youzhen inside, which is really difficult both internally and externally!" It's a pity that I'm only a local chief military officer, and I can't enter the court, otherwise I would definitely be at odds with such a villain! ”

Liu Zi'an and Lan Siqi glanced at each other, and the two of them were also a little worried, although Liu Juntao has military power and a lot of power, but compared with those bigwigs in the court, he is still at a disadvantage, is it really good to put those bigwigs in the court and the central government on the opposite side of him now?

However, Liu Zi'an and Lan Siqi both knew that Liu Juntao was jealous and hateful, and even if he admonished, it would have no effect, so they both sighed slightly and did not dissuade anything.

Liu Zi'an said instead: "General Town, yesterday Tang Yu, Minister of Commerce, sent back the news: those bigwigs in Nanzhili are very difficult, and now the two sides are negotiating repeatedly, and it is estimated that it will take some time to reach an agreement." ”

As he spoke, Liu Zi'an handed a letter to Liu Juntao.

It turned out that those bigwigs in Nanzhili did not approve of the production license system proposed by Liu Juntao, but were only willing to pay a one-time compensation of silver to Yushan Town, and then they had to get the production skills of related goods.

At the same time, those bigwigs also delusionally imagined that in the future, similar goods produced in Yushan Town and various parts of Shandong would not be allowed to enter Jiangnan for sale, while similar goods produced in various parts of Jiangnan would be unimpeded.

After reading it, Liu Juntao sneered and said, "Greed is not enough to swallow elephants!" These bigwigs in Nanzhili probably haven't suffered losses, and they think that the whole world is! ”

Hearing Liu Juntao's foul language, Liu Zi'an and Lan Siqi were also dumbfounded, but they were very relieved in their hearts.

Then, Liu Juntao said to Liu Zi'an: "Send a letter to Tang Yu and tell Tang Yu that if you can talk, you will talk, and if you can't talk, you will come back immediately, we don't have to cooperate with those big guys!" This time, I agreed to talk about it, but it was just to save face for Yan Shenggong. ”

Liu Zi'an nodded, then echoed and said: "Even if we really don't talk about it, let's send a letter to Yan Shenggong to explain the original situation, so as not to have any misunderstanding between the two of us." ”

Liu Juntao also agreed.

Suddenly, the guards outside the door knocked on the door and came in, clasped their fists and said: "Qiqi General Town, let the city guard command make the Lord send someone to the door, saying that the commander is about to be transferred to Guangxi, please go to the town to talk about it!" ”