Spring to winter, the construction of Tianjin New City is proceeding rapidly, the development of the city is also very hot, and in order to settle those who are unemployed or have nowhere to make a living, Yang Hongzhang after the New Year in addition to expanding the construction team recruited 5,000 soldiers again, divided into three infantry battalions. The training intensity of the officers and men of the previous battalions has gradually increased, including 10 kilometers of weight-bearing cross-country travel.

According to Yang Hongzhang's prediction, as long as the food continues, the construction of Tianjin New City will be completed in half a year, and when the city wall around 30 miles, plus four urn cities and countless pillboxes in the moat and Hu moat, and then install the cannons to defend the city in the future, Yang Hongzhang can proudly boast that the city is stronger than Shanhaiguan!

Of course, the most gratifying thing is that because of the large amount of wasteland near Tianjin Wei and the continuous replenishment of grain from Cangzhou, the permanent population of Tianjin New City has reached 60,000 except for the army! This is second to none in the entire Zhili.

Just when Yang Hongzhang was full of ambition, the imperial court's order arrived, and it was not Yang Hongzhang's acquaintance Gao Keng who came to Tianjin to announce the decree, but Gao Shimin, and the content of the decree also surprised everyone, including Yang Hongzhang, because Yang Hongzhang had meritorious contributions in building the city, trained the troops well, and General Zhaowu led the Datong army!

Although it is still a positive three products, Datong is one of the important towns on the nine sides, and its importance is second only to Liaodong. Compared with the Tianjin General Army, Datong is always better than a real border town! Yang Hongzhang didn't think that Zhu Youzhen would have to transfer himself to Datong so soon, because he was doing well in Tianjin at present, and Tianjin also needed himself. And those cabinet ministers in Beijing City also want Yang Hongzhang to stay in the position of Tianjin General Army for the rest of his life and get a promotion, so the problem comes. What is the reason for the master?

Yang Hongzhang searched his stomach for memories of Datong, the Ming Dynasty city built in a fierce battle with the Mongol nobles of the Northern Yuan Dynasty. That is to say, Jin Ge Iron Horse and thousands of miles of beacon smoke gave birth to Datong Mansion City in the Ming Dynasty. It is closely associated with war, with both a brilliant and splendid side, as well as a side of blood and fire; It is not only poured into the strategy and wisdom of the sages, but also full of the compulsion and helplessness of the broad masses of the people; It is a product of the needs of the situation and the inevitability of historical development.

The Italian traveler Marco Polo was ordered by Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, to send an envoy to the countries of the South Seas, passing through Datong. In his Travels of Marco Polo, he praised Datong as "a magnificent and beautiful city" where "commerce was quite developed, and all kinds of goods could be manufactured, especially weapons and other munitions." At that time, the Datong Consular Records Division, Hongzhou, Hunyuan, Ying, Shuo, Wu, Feng, Dongsheng (Tuoketuo County, Inner Mongolia), Yunnei (southwest of Hohshi) eight prefectures, and Datong, Baidung, Xuanning, Pingdi (now Jiningnan), Huairen five counties.

Dade was established in Huanghualing in Xijing for four years. In six years, Wanhu Mansion was established, and it belonged to Shanyin, Yanmen, Mayi, Shanyang, Hongji, Jincheng and Ningwu, a total of seven tuns. Ming inherited the province and changed its name to the political envoy department. Datong Road was changed to Datong Mansion in the second year of Hongwu (1369), and belonged to the Shanxi Chengxuan Political Envoy Division. Datong Prefecture has jurisdiction over Hunyuan, Ying, Shuo, Wei four prefectures and Datong (Xuanning County merged into Datong County), Huairen, Mayi, Shanyin, Guangling, Lingqiu, Guangchang (Laiyuan County, Hebei) seven counties. Datong Town is one of the important towns on the nine sides, and the command of the Shanxi line in the five years of Hongwu is located in Datong.

In the seventh year of Yongle, the chief military officer of the town guard was set up, and he was the supreme commander of the town. In the tenth year of Chenghua (1474), a governor was established; In the eighth year of Zhengde (1513), the general system was established. The jurisdiction of Datong front, rear guard (two guards to govern Datong), Datong left guard, Yunchuan Wei (two guards to govern Zuoyun County), Datong right guard, Yulin Wei (two guards to govern the right Yu County), Yang and Wei, Gao Shan Wei (two guards to govern Yanggao County), Tiancheng Wei, Zhenyu Wei (two guards to govern Tianzhen County), Pingyu Wei (to govern Pinglu County), Wei Yuanwei (to govern the right Yu County south), Jingping Qianhu (now Pinglu County Jingping Town) and other 13 guards, 823 forts, 307 piers. Its place is south of the Great Wall outside Shanxi, east from the border of Hebei and Jin provinces, west to the northwest of Datong, and is the northwest barrier of Beijing.

In the fifth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Xu Da still rebuilt Datong City, and it can be said that Xu Da is like Yang Hongzhang as Tianjin as the current Datong City.

Whether it is the area under its jurisdiction or the number of health stations and the medium pressure type of geographical location, Datong Town is incomparable to Tianjin, it can be said that if Yang Hongzhang goes smoothly, he will enter the ranks of the top military generals of the Ming Dynasty, and become a day not far away from Lu Xiangsheng, Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting and others.

It is precisely because of this that Yang Hongzhang's soldiers were excited, but Yang Hongzhang was extremely calm, and after the cumbersome procedures for receiving orders, he pulled Gao Shimin to his study, first offered a generous gift, and then said with a smile: "Gao Gong, what happened in the capital and even Datong?" ”

Gao Shimin was divided at first, but for the sake of Yang Hongzhang's silver, he still said, it turned out that all parts of Shanxi were affected by the plague last year, including Datong, more than half of the people were killed and injured, and Datong Town had just lost most of the elite because of the Qing army's siege of the capital the year before.

Then the summer drought not only affected Zhili and Shanxi, but also affected the Mongolian steppe, because the withering of the grassland caused the size of the Ao Kocha Ha and Ao Han tribes to fall and so on were also seriously affected. For the nomads in the north, the first thing that came to their minds was to pass on the impact of the disaster to the wealthy Han people in the south. So tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry began to destroy the wall and break through the pass to the south during the Spring Festival, the result made them overjoyed, the Ming army that was said to be difficult to deal with seemed to be weak overnight, in just one month, the Mongolian cavalry hooves trampled all over the four prefectures and seven counties of Datong Prefecture as if into a no-man's land. The thirteen guards of Datong Town were all impacted without exception, and in the end, even Datong City fell. Tens of thousands of Mongols rushed into the city, plundered and confided, and then fled.

Yang Hongzhang couldn't believe such news, after all, Datong City was high and deep, and the combat effectiveness of the Mongolian soldiers was far inferior to that of the Qing army. At the beginning, Wang Fu was almost wiped out by Dolgon's regiment, it was because of thousands of miles of help, and the infantry in the field was raided by more than his own number of cavalry, and now he is sitting in Datong and will lose Datong, which is really a big joke in the world, but it is useless not to believe it, this is a fact, otherwise it would not be his turn to be only twenty-two years old, and he has just served as the chief soldier of Tianjin to replace Wang Fu.

Yang Hongzhang is actually wrong to blame the king, the Ming army in Datong Town is not without resistance but the number is too small, and the people in the city are also affected by the epidemic and drought one after another, and there is no determination to unite to resist the Mongolian characters at all. The Mongol cavalry was still far away in Yanggao, and the big families in the city began to flee with their families. Then the next garrison of the border army combat effectiveness is low and repeatedly defeated, the guards are even more useless, most of them are fleeing from the wind, so that the Xuanfu sat in the Xuanda general Hong Chengchou had to send reinforcements to Datong, the cunning Mongols were not willing to fight hard with Hong Chengchou's Shaanxi soldiers, so the soldiers divided into two roads, all the way to continue to the south to contain Hong Chengchou, all the way to bypass Yanggao County, Tiancheng County and go straight to Juyong Pass, Hong Chengchou had no choice but to return to Juyong Pass while asking for help from the imperial court.

The number of Shaanxi soldiers in Xuanfu is not large, and it also lost three or four percent in the epidemic last year, so it is overstretched in the face of the defense of Xuanda's Outer Great Wall with more than 1,000 forces and more than a dozen guards in two prefectures and prefectures and counties. Often by concentrating their forces to defend the city, the Mongols would attack nearby villages and towns, and the scattered garrisons would be broken one by one.

The erosion of the war made Zhu Youzhen, who was originally tormented by the epidemic and drought, very annoyed, and at the critical moment he could only hope for his beloved fierce general Yang Hongzhang! Hopefully, he will be able to lead his troops to clean up the mess. This time, several cabinet ministers almost passed by the second. Thinking about it, they don't have any suitable candidates, so it's cheaper than Yang Hongzhang.

After listening to the cause and effect, Yang Hongzhang couldn't help but smile bitterly, if he was given another two or three years, he would definitely be able to build Tianjin City into a super fortress second only to Beijing City, and it would completely solve the eastern defense of Beijing City after Shanhaiguan. It will also provide a steady stream of tax revenue to the imperial court. However, people are not as good as heaven!

The emperor's decree is to immediately order the soldiers and horses of Tianjin to rush to Datong! Gao Shimin walked with the supervisor of Datong Town. Yang Hongzhang could understand the thoughts of Zhu Youzhen and the ministers of the DPRK and China, and now tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry were plundering between the inner and outer Great Wall, and if they were not stopped, the Mongol troops would continue to wreak havoc on Xuanfu and even go south to Taiyuan or east to Gyeonggi. This is not the point, the point is that if this gap is not plugged in time, once the Qing army gets the news to follow, it will be another catastrophe.

Whether it was to save the people of Datong from fire and water, or the hearts of Emperor An and the courtiers, Yang Hongzhang had no choice but to reply to the court and say that he would immediately gather all the people and set off.

After discussing with Song Yingxing, Yang Hongzhang took into account the security needs of Tianjin City, temporarily did not use the city management team, picket team, fire brigade, etc., but only transferred 2,000 newly recruited 5,000 people to form an auxiliary battalion with the engineer battalion, and Zhang Linfeng was responsible for transporting the baggage and other palaces, and he set off first with nearly 10,000 people. Leaving 3,000 recruits to Song Yingxing can be regarded as dealing with the new residents of this new city.

More than a dozen Western monks were required to follow the auxiliary battalion, and some of them were skilled craftsmen. This is also Yang Hongzhang's selfishness, originally he planned to build an arsenal in Tianjin, expand the production of flintlock pistols and artillery, and now he wants to go to Datong, facing a ruined Datong town and tens of thousands of fierce Mongolian cavalry, he does not intend to let these hard-trained soldiers kill the enemy with their bare hands. Moreover, the advantage of Tianjin is that there are high-quality coal mines. Therefore, most of the excellent blacksmiths and craftsmen in Yang Hongzhang's plan will be taken away by him and follow the auxiliary soldiers. 777