"Lin Quan, the matter of the Eastern Crusade is related to the fortune of the country. Pen %Fun %Pavilion www.biquge.info there must be no mistakes. Those who come to have civil affairs must have armaments, and the affairs of armament shall be handled by the Marquis of Ru. I have a few edicts, you write them down and do them immediately. It will be done completely tonight, and my decree will be issued quickly and without delay. ”

"Yes!"

Li Yan saw Li Zicheng's solemn and comprehensive arrangement, and he was also happy in his heart. Originally, I thought that Li Zicheng was confused by the prosperity of the soft red after entering Beijing, but now it seems that the Yongchang Emperor in front of him is still very thoughtful and resolute.

Because today is on the march, not a battlefield, so in addition to the imperial throne in the main hall of Li Zicheng's residence, the imperial officials placed pen inkstones on another table, ready to use Li Yan walked to the table of the pen and inkstone, opened the ink cartridge, licked the ink, spread out a piece of notepaper, looked back at Li Zicheng and said, "Please Your Majesty instruct." ”

Li Zicheng said: "You remember clearly, the first thing is to send a message to Liu Fangliang in Baoding, immediately mobilize 20,000 elite soldiers, led by Jiaogu Kecheng, rush to Yanjing, obey Mr. Niu's dispatch, and implement a curfew immediately after entering the city. If anyone makes any changes, I will grant him the right to cut the officials below the third rank in the city, and there must be no delay! ”

Li Yan quickly wrote down Li Zicheng's original words, repeated them, and then stopped writing and waited.

Li Zicheng continued: "Tell Yuan Zongdi, the general stationed in Jingzhou, that if Zuo Liangyu has no movement in Jiujiang, he will immediately hand over all the affairs of the military and people in Huguang to Bai Wang for disposal, and Yuan Zongdi himself will quickly mobilize 50,000 elite soldiers to rush to Henan in the starry night, stabilize the place, suppress the rebellion, and wait for his death in Henan. ”

Li Yan felt relieved in his heart while writing down the edict. He knew very well that Yuan Zongdi was a tiger general, and he returned to Henan with an army of 50,000 troops, not only would the situation in Henan not be corroded, but also the war north of the Yellow River could be rescued at any time. He read the dictatorship again, and once again stopped writing.

Li Zicheng instructed again: "This will is from the Tianyou Pavilion University scholar Niu Jinxing and the household government servant Wu Xing. Spread the edict and urge Wu Xing to quickly return the gold, silver and jewelry obtained by the Beijing master to Chang'an as soon as possible, if it has not been exhausted, it must all set off and be properly transported. It's a big deal. There is also a second thing, the gates of Yanjing are strictly forbidden to enter and exit, and officials are not allowed to flee. The above decrees must be issued today, and they must be sent to all places with expedited 800 miles. ”

"These wills are issued, Lin Quan, you draft a letter for me, and you also order someone to rush eight hundred miles to Gao Yigong's office in Tianjin, and ask him to transfer it to Jinan Li Dagongzi."

"Your Majesty, how do you phrase your letter?" The document to Li Huayu is not a will, but a letter, which is what it means to be treated as an equal in private. Immediately made Li Yan more vigilant.

"I'm going to talk about my plan, Lin Quan, you see how to phrase it well. First, the loan of 30 million yuan that his envoy negotiated with Gao Yigong was inappropriate. The Central Plains has been exhausted for a long time, and 30 million yuan is not enough to restore agriculture and build water conservancy. I plan to borrow 40 million to 50 million yuan, and ask Mr. Li if he is willing to help? Second, now that the great war is about to break out in Shanhaiguan and Tianjin, he asked him to send an order to the Nanzhong merchants in Tianjin to temporarily evacuate Tianjin and return after the war has calmed down. I have already thought about dividing the entire Tianjin Wei into a business zone. When the soldiers and civilians of Nanzhong in Tianjin were evacuated, they could hand over all kinds of goods, weapons, gunpowder, and grain to Dashun. Dashun is willing to buy at a price. Third, I ordered General Yuan Zongdi in Jingzhou not to prepare for war against the Nanzhong Naval Division. Please let the Nanyue Army Navy go to Jingzhou and other places with confidence. All the rivers in our Dashun are open to the naval division of the Southern Guangdong Army. ”

When Li Zicheng sent an edict to Liu Fangliang, Yuan Zongdi and others to ask them to rectify the soldiers and horses to go north, Li Yan couldn't help but be a little apprehensive in his heart, once these two soldiers and horses moved, if there was a change in Zuo Liangyu and Shandong soldiers and horses that they were responsible for monitoring, how should Dashun deal with it. Now it seems that Li Zicheng already has a plan.

Although this seems to be a big loss for Dashun, in the eyes of Li Yan, Song Xiance and others, it is just a copy of Li Shimin's Weishui Alliance and Zhu Yuanzhang's submission to the Yuan Dynasty, all of which are concessions taken in order to gain time and space for development. As long as the first army of Yuan Zong, which was originally used to defend Jingzhou and the Hanshui Valley, can be turned into a mobile force, it is to learn from Zhu Yuanzhang to pay tribute to the Yuan court, and what about proclaiming to the Li family?

What's more, if you make such a concession, you can also get a large amount of strategic necessities such as military salaries, ordnance, food and grass, and if Li Yan is the head of Dashun's family, he will not hesitate to do so.

Make some concessions when the situation is not in your favor, just as the Boss signed the Treaty of Brest with Germany after the October Revolution, promising to cede land and pay reparations. As soon as you breathe a sigh of relief, the treaty will immediately be turned into a papyrus that has been wiped off your ass. How can we be as trustworthy and trustworthy as our national government, and care about our international image? When everyone else hit the doorstep, they were still thinking about paying compensation and transporting the Daye iron ore ore as stipulated in the treaty.

Song Xiance watched Li Yan write a letter by the table, which not only explained the situation, but also did not break Li Zicheng's identity as the emperor, and couldn't help but praise from the bottom of his heart and said: "Lin Quan is really a civil and military all-rounder, and the pen is hard to come!" In this way, our army's soldiers and horses are well paid, and there is no need to worry about something happening in the back, Your Majesty is really wise! ”

"Ah, if it weren't for the military advisor mentioning the back road, there was another major event that I almost forgot."

"Your Majesty, please."

"Tell the general Zehou Tian Jianxiu, who stayed in Chang'an: Zhang Xianzhong has established the Daxi pseudo-number in Chengdu, Sichuan, sent heavy troops to Guangyuan, and sent a force to invade Hanzhong. Tian Jianxiu must quickly send capable generals to exterminate Zhang Xianzhong's scattered rebels who invaded the Hanzhong area, seize Guangyuan, and make preparations. ”

Li Yan recounted the recorded wills, and then presented the letter to Li Huayu to Li Zicheng for him to see, and then asked, "Your Majesty, do you have any other instructions?" ”

Li Zicheng said: "There is no other urgent matter. When you and the two military advisors go back, they will immediately gather the people of the Prime Minister's Mansion and the Military Division's Mansion to complete these edicts and send them after dinner. ”

Song Xiance and Li Yan got up and retired, returned to their respective subordinate offices, and after a little consideration of the words, they finalized the general framework. Immediately dismissed the idlers, only called the two confidential secretaries to the front, took out the emperor's top-secret dictation records from his arms, and ordered the two confidential secretaries to prepare the draft of the edict respectively. Li Yan carefully read the manuscript and changed a few words to make it more in line with the emperor's usual tone. Then he ordered a clerk who often had frequent contacts with the emperor to hurry to the palace and ask the emperor to read it in person.

After Li Zicheng killed Luo Rucai and He Yilong, and merged the two of them, he changed Xiangyang to Xiangjing, established the Xinshun regime, proclaimed himself the king of Xinshun, and initially set up the central and local powers. Since then, the military and political affairs have become more and more complicated, and all kinds of notices and orders issued in the name of King Xinshun have been drafted by Wenchen, and after he has seen it, he will use a red pen to write a cursive "line" character at the back of the manuscript, commonly known as "painting line", and this document can be copied by Wenchen in charge in regular script, and then ask the seal officer to stamp the seal and send it out. When he arrived in Xi'an, the Dashun Dynasty was established, and the system was stricter, and Li Zicheng's "painting line" had become a habit. This system is the same as the current circle reading system.

Because it had already been recognized by Li Zicheng, and it was Li Yan and Song Xiance, two Wenchen whom he trusted very much, who had drafted the draft, more than a dozen healthy horses galloped in the direction of Beijing that night.

"These wills and letters to Li Huayu and Li Dagongzi are delivered, and my Dashun can be invincible on the battlefield with Liao thieves, Wu thieves, sacrifice thieves and others!"

Standing at the door of the tent, looking at the night sky in the west, although he couldn't see a single brick and tile of Beijing, Li Yan seemed to see the city wall of Beijing. He knew that with Li Huayu's style of acting, as long as he saw this letter written to him by Li Zicheng in his own name, he would inevitably agree immediately.

As a result, the Nanzhong merchants in Tianjin withdrew, and a large number of supplies were purchased by the Dashun army. Even if Jiannu and Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses attacked the city of Tianjin, Dashun's hand would make Jiannu and Wu Sangui's more than 200,000 people have nowhere to eat in a short period of time.

And opening up all the rivers in the area controlled by the Dashun army, such as the Han River and the Yangtze River, is a ruthless move. In addition to allowing tens of thousands of strong troops under Yuan Zongdi's headquarters in the Huguang area to quickly go north to Henan and stabilize the Central Plains. It is also possible to use the power of the Nanyue Army and Navy Division to contain Zuo Liangyu in disguise, and at the same time, it will be more conducive to Dashun to purchase grain and weapons and implement the loan agreement between the two Shunnan families.

When Li Yan was sending the 800-mile expedited horse to Beijing to deliver the decree, Liu Zongmin was summoning the Zhenshan battalion and the artillery battalion, and the generals above General Guo Yi of Li Guo's department gave a lecture to make pre-war deployment and mobilization: "Benhou is ordered by the emperor to tell you the essentials of fighting with Wu Sangui the morning after tomorrow, and you must pay attention to it. ”

"Tomorrow the fourth watch will be eaten, and the fifth watch will be set off before the fifth watch. The cavalry and firearms battalions were in front, and camped on the west bank of the Shihe River before dusk, and if the enemy blocked or harassed them in a small way, they would be severely attacked, so as to ensure that the army camped three miles away from the west bank of the Shihe River, rested for a night, and fought a fierce battle the morning after tomorrow to attack Shanhai City. Our army is a lone expedition, the emperor came by royal car, can not stay for a long time, must fight the day after tomorrow, Wu Sangui's men and horses are defeated, forced to surrender. ”

After finishing speaking, as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy on the battlefield, Liu Zongmin glanced at Liu Tichun, who was sitting next to Li Guo: "Erhu, you are responsible for exploring the horses and telling everyone the geographical situation of Shanhaiwei and Wu Sangui's troops." ”

Although the Imperial Council had already formulated a countermeasure strategy of feints, deception, and luring the enemy into depth, it was a highly secret that only a small core member knew. Only Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, Zhang Nai, and Luo Hu were aware of the people present. For most generals, what they still have to do is to prepare for the first battle and take Shanhaiguan.

The same is true for Liu Tichun. As the general in charge of the horse sentinel, he immediately explained the geographical situation of Shanhaiwei, and especially said: "Shanhaiwei is in the Great Wall, and its east gate is Shanhaiguan. Shanhaiguan is the best pass in the world, it is not easy to break, and it is not on our side. Our army is attacking Shanhai City from the west, and if we break through Shanhai City, we will be able to capture Shanhaiguan from the inside. The Guan Ning soldiers of the Wu thieves claimed to have 100,000 people, but it is estimated that there will be no more than 60,000 people. As long as we defeat him on the west bank of the Stone River, destroy its main forces, force it to surrender, and make it too late for him to collude with the Eastern Captives, we will be considered a great victory in this battle. If you can take the opportunity to attack Xiluo City first, and then attack Shanhai City, this battle will be a complete victory. It is rumored that the Liaodong slaves and thieves are about to go south, and whether they have already left is not confirmed. According to the practice of previous years, Liaodong slaves and thieves are from Jizhou, Miyun area into the Great Wall, if still from this area to the south, not only to the west to threaten Beijing, but also to cut off the back of our Eastern Expeditionary Army, so that our army belly and back to the enemy, so His Majesty has issued a decree, ordered the **** general to lead 20,000 elite soldiers to Yongping to defend the city, taking into account the east and west. In short, our eastern expeditionary army, around dusk tomorrow, will rush to the west bank of the Shihe River in the western suburbs of Shanhaiwei in accordance with the marching sequence, rest for the night, and fight hard with Wu Sangui's Guanning soldiers the morning after tomorrow, so as to win the battle and force Wu Sangui to surrender. If Wu Sangui can be defeated miserably, the Dashun army will take advantage of the victory to break through Xiluo City, and then use cloud ladders and overnight tunnels to break through Shanhai City. ”

The atmosphere at the venue suddenly became solemn, Li Guo stood up, paused slightly, and said: "All the generals are the heroes who have followed Your Majesty for many years, experienced a hundred battles, and contributed to the founding of our Dashun Dynasty. The battle on the west bank of the Shihe River the day after tomorrow is of great importance, and I hope that all the generals will take the lead, advance without retreating, and then build miraculous feats to live up to Your Majesty's high expectations! ”

The next day, the brigade of the Dashun army began to set up camp on the bank of the Shihe River in Shanhaiwei, preparing to launch a siege battle against the Acropolis of Shanhaiguan.

Li Zicheng's imperial camp was stationed at the foot of a high post about three miles northwest of Hongwadian on the west bank of the Shihe River. The people of the small village had fled, there were not enough houses to live in, and many military tents had been erected. The people of the small village have fled. Since he could not see a single citizen, Li Zicheng could not ask for any news in Shanhai City, let alone the news of the Qing soldiers that worried him the most. He could only see from afar that there were many lanterns on Shanhaiwei Xiluo City, and farther away, there were also many lanterns on the head of Shanhaiguan City, and the majestic Xiao Xiao Ma Ming often came out of Xiluo City.

Behind the small village, at the foot of a small earthen ridge, there is a dilapidated mountain temple. Li Zicheng's military tent is set up next to the mountain temple, there are hills behind it to block the wind, and you can stand on a high place to watch the battle and command the army during the battle, so according to local folklore, this is where Xu Da built the Shanhaiguan when the soldiers were platooned, and this high post was called the point general. The reason why this ridge was chosen as the place to watch the battle was because there was a rare geographical condition: the side leading to the main battlefield of Hongwadian in the southeast was full of shallow hills and wilderness, which was convenient for Li Zicheng to issue orders or send reinforcements at any time, but there was a cliff about two zhang high on the Shihe beach directly opposite, and under the cliff was a small pool of clear water. On a dry day, there is only a trickle of water on the rocky river beach, but the water in this small pool is still dark blue. If it rains heavily, the water comes down from Beishan (i.e., Yanshan), and the wide stone river beach is confused, and there will be stormy waves crashing against the cliff in this quiet pool. Although it is a dry day now, this blue pool of water has also played a protective role in Li Zicheng's Dianjiangtai and the location of the imperial camp.

Taking advantage of the dusk, he took Song Xiance, Liu Zongmin, Li Guo and Luo Hu Zhang Nai, several important generals, to ride on the bank of the Shihe River to observe the battlefield situation tomorrow.

When Li Zicheng inspected the battlefield on the west bank of the Shihe River, Wu Sangui took Fang Guangchen and several other capable generals and cronies to look at the west city of Shanhaiwei. He saw that the west bank of the Shihe River was ten miles from north to south, several miles from east to west, and everywhere was the light of the fire of burying pots and making rice, and there were figures flickering on the bank of the Shihe River from time to time, and there were bursts of human voices, accompanied by the roar of the river.

The large number of auxiliary soldiers kept going back and forth between the camp and the riverbed, which made Wu Sangui and the others very nervous. From the number of these auxiliaries, the number of enemy troops can be roughly deduced. They knew that Li Zicheng's Dashun army from the east was indeed far more numerous than their Guanning soldiers, and the battle on the west bank of the Shihe River tomorrow would be full of corpses and blood.

"Thief, tomorrow, let the corpses and blood of your subordinate thieves pile up on the bank of this stone river!"

"Thief Wu, tomorrow, let the blood and corpses of your minions stain this stone river red!"

The two commanders looked at each other's camps and cities, and greeted each other viciously with almost the same words, the difference was that one was Wu Sangui and the other was Liu Zongmin.

"Little Huzi, have you seen the terrain here? Although the Stone River is said to be a river, there is not much water and the river is very narrow. The riverbed is wide, but there are puddles of water everywhere. Cavalry is not easy to cast. Tomorrow's battle, it seems that the protagonist will have to be your subordinate firecrackers and the artillery of the little mantle! ”

After observing the terrain, Liu Zongmin touched his beard like a steel needle on his cheeks, half encouraging and half joking, talking to Zhang Nai, the two young generals, and Luo Hu.

"Master Liu, don't worry! It's so close to Cilo City, it's within artillery range! As long as the soldiers and horses of the Wu thieves leave the city, I can bombard them with artillery to block their way back to the city! Kill them in large numbers with artillery fire! ”

Zhang Nai, who had just been married by Li Zicheng and Mrs. Gao before the Eastern Expedition, observed the general outline of Xiluo City in the night with the telescope in his hand, and the dark red lights on the head of the city became his best assistant for observing and measuring distances.

"Brother Naizi used artillery to block their retreat, and I used the fire gun soldiers to advance slowly, replacing the shooting at different levels, definitely to let Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses corpses fill this Shihe riverbed!"

Dashun's idea, although it will be a feint tomorrow, still wants to make Wu Sangui feel the pressure, and kill and wound a large number of his troops, so that he believes that his own soldiers and horses have repelled the Dashun army after paying a great price. (To be continued.) )