The Ming Dynasty at the end of May 1644 was in disarray. First of all, Li Zicheng's 60,000 Shun army and more than 50,000 Guanning troops fought in Shanhaiguan, when victory was in sight, the Qing army's 20,000 cavalry suddenly killed from the right side, and 60,000 infantry troops followed, and the Shun army was caught off guard. At that time, the Shun army had been fighting hard for a day and night, exhausted, coupled with the sudden rise of strong winds, flying sand and stones, they suddenly could not support the battle against the wind, and the general Liu Zongmin was wounded by an arrow falling from his horse. Li Zi set up Ma Xiaogangfu, and seeing that it was difficult to recover the defeat, he ordered a retreat, and Wu Sangui and the Qing army pursued and killed for twenty miles.

The next day (May 28), Li Zicheng went to Yongping, killed Wu Sangui's father in Fanjiazhuang, and collected tens of thousands of defeated soldiers. In fact, it can be seen from this that the combat effectiveness of the tens of thousands of Shun troops led by Li Zicheng is still very strong, excluding more than 10,000 troops from Tang Tong and Bai Guangen's Ming Army, Li Zicheng's troops who participated in the Battle of One Stone had more than 40,000 people when the Qing army appeared, and these more than 40,000 people defeated Wu Sangui more than 40,000 and Gao 10,000 soldiers and horses were defeated, so that when the Qing army needed to pursue and expand the results of the battle after the defeat of the Shun army, Wu Sangui only had more than 10,000 people who could fight.

When the Qing army's 80,000 troops raided, the Shun army insisted on fighting for half a day under the unfavorable situation that the general was injured by an arrow and withstood the strong wind, and successfully retreated after the last day, and collected nearly 30,000 defeated troops in Yongping. In the case of twice the surprise attack of the Qing army, it can still retreat with its whole body, and there is no annihilation of the whole army, which is replaced by which Ming army can do it. Moreover, in this battle, Wu Sangui Guanning's army lost more than half, and the general soldier He Jinzhong was killed; The Qing army suffered "more than 1,000 casualties", and the deputy commander of the Red Banner, Sasuka, and others were killed by artillery, and the leader of the Yellow Banner, Alamu, and others were killed.

At this time in the Denglai area, the news of Li Zicheng's defeat at Shanhaiguan had not yet come, and Guo Sheng, the general appointed by Dashun, was still counting the treasury silver in Jining and distributing donations to the landlords and gentry in various places through the Salary Urging Division. At the same time, these gentlemen, literati, and clans who often hold hundreds of thousands of acres or hundreds of thousands of acres of land will find a reason to kill them. The land was then distributed to the poor peasants. His behavior undoubtedly provoked a strong backlash from these gentlemen and literati. For this reason, Guo Sheng has been taking his 3,000-step cavalry to quell the rebellion everywhere recently, and he is tired of running for his life, but he has also relaxed his encroachment on the Jiaodong region for a while.

And Zeng Hualong, who was guarding himself in Dengzhou, was also relieved to see this, he hadn't thought about how he would deal with Guo Sheng if he led the army to come, whether to fight or quietly surrender? If you fight up, I'm afraid that the soldiers in the city will not be willing, and if you submit to the "thieves", you won't be able to pass this level in your heart, how can this be good? Fortunately, he didn't need to make a decision so quickly now, because the thieves Yao Yingfeng and Zhao Yingyuan only brought more than 500 people to Qingzhou. Such a few people are not enough to collect Deng, Lai, and Qingfu, so they can only go around in circles around Qingzhou City, and almost all of them are enemies outside the four fields.

Of course, although the Shun army only controlled a small part of Qingzhou, it did not mean that they had no idea about the neighboring states of Deng and Lai. They wantonly incorporated the local armed forces in the two places, as long as they were bandits, bandits, regimental training, and township leaders who were slightly famous, they all received a letter of appointment from Guo Sheng, the envoy of Dashun Shandong. For example, Qin Shangxing, Guo Jiangpai, Zhai Wu monks and other "righteous soldiers" who had "borrowed" the banner of Dashun in the Zonghengdeng, Lai, and Qing regions, and these people also accepted the appointment of the Shun army. The most strange thing is that these Shunjun didn't know where they heard the news, and they actually sent people to Yantai Fortress to send a letter of appointment to the leader of Mo Ming and Mo. The official title is called "Dashun Ninghai Defense Envoy".

What's even more strange is that Li Zhengang, the new county commander of Fushan County, the capital of Dashun Dengzhou, who sent this letter of appointment, also came to Yantai Fortress together. repeatedly called himself a "subordinate official" to Mo Ming, which made Mo Ming, who was holding the letter of appointment, cry and laugh.

Mo Ming hesitated, but he didn't know that Li Zhengang was also worried about this product at this time. He saw that the famous leader of Mo Da was turning upside down with the letter of appointment, and he sighed in his heart: Could it be that this great leader Mo is illiterate? Or is he unwilling to accept Dashun's official position?

Thinking of this, he felt that it was time to add a fire, so he said: "Master Mo, Dashun is the world, Guo Jieshuai obeyed the order of the generalissimo (Li Zicheng) of Fengtian initiative to take Shandong, and there are dozens of generals under his command and tens of thousands of soldiers who have been fighting for many years. Since arriving in Shandong, the people of the six provinces have all eaten pot pulp to welcome the king. Now, Dezhou, Jinan, Jining, Linqing, Qingzhou have all fallen, and Yanzhou has also come down overnight. It's a pity that Zeng Hualong read a belly of books in vain, and he didn't know the luck of the revolution and the change of dynasty. The general is a brave general of Denglai, and during the more than a year of boating, he pacified the bandits, broke the inferior gentry, and won dozens of battles of all sizes, and the name of the brave spread all over Dengzhou. If the general voted for Guo Jieshuai and sent troops to capture the Dengzhou City that had been defended by Hualong, why did Guo Jieshuai hesitate to promote a general to the adult? I hope adults will think twice! ”

Mo Ming pondered for a long time and did not speak, while Xiao Xi, Mao Desheng, Li Wenchang and other officers who were sitting next to him looked at Li Zhengang with relaxed and playful expressions, and whispered from time to time; Liu Zhong and Kurhan looked serious and did not speak.

It's the first time I've encountered this kind of thing through the public, and someone actually came to your door to do it, this thing is troublesome! Although Mo Ming is the leader of the Blackwater Pioneer Team appointed by the state with full powers, this kind of acceptance of official positions by foreign governments seems to be beyond his authority. Accepting the official position appointed by Dashun is quite sensitive, and if one is not careful, it will attract local criticism, and even if there is the support of several countries and the outgoing elders, he Mo Ming is afraid that he will be quite embarrassed. Moreover, look at the three people sitting at the bottom, Xiao, Mao, and Li, they also wrote work reports to the local people independently, who knows what they will say in the letter? Although he has a good relationship with them and is their nominal boss, that's all. Born in the intelligence system, he has nothing to do with this group of military officials, maybe they wish they could leave so that they can get into the position.

Be cautious in this matter! But it is not appropriate to refuse unmistakably, Mo Ming thought about it, and decided to put it off for a while, discuss it with his own people first, and come up with a unified opinion, so that the decision made collectively can also share some political risks for himself. So, he began to talk to him left and right: "Li County Order, I am very happy to hear that you will go to Fushan to take office." It's just that the town of Fushan was originally a former Ming Dayi, which was just conquered by my army a few days ago, and now the people of the city have been moved to Yantai by me, and the city wall has also been blown up. If Li Xianling goes to work at this time, I am afraid that there will be many inconveniences. ”

Li Zhengang had already seen the tragic situation in Fushan before he came to Yantai, and when he heard the words, he immediately said: "What is wrong with the general pulling out the county seat guarded by the former Ming dog officials?" It's just that the subordinate officials are duty, and they have to ask Master Mo if they can return some of the people and grain to the lower officials, and the lower officials can organize them to cultivate the fields. It is now mid-April, and if we don't sow in spring, I am afraid that we will miss the agricultural time. In this matter, I hope that the general will approve it. ”

Mo Ming, who has already eaten the meat in his stomach, is willing to spit it out again! Moreover, the 9,000 residents who had moved from Fukuyama Prefecture had now been dispersed to the vicinity of Omarari Port, Rishiri Island, and Yantai Fortress to sow seeds. A few days ago, Yantai Port evacuated two groups of 6,000 refugees to Heishui Port and Rishiri Island, bringing the total number of residents in these two places to more than 11,000, a record high. After sending so many people away, the Ming people in the Zhifu Island area, which are now gathered behind the Yantai Fortress, still exceed 20,000 people, and the refugee resettlement camp, which has a capacity of only more than 10,000, has also begun to be overwhelmed.

As a last resort, Mo Ming began to build a temporary resettlement camp on Kongtong Island in Zhifu Bay, and transported nearly 6,000 people to the island. While building wooden houses, docks, coastal defense batteries, navigation lighthouses and other facilities on the island, they also opened up nitrate fields to collect nitrate, and at the same time, the people on the east coast also set up a small gunpowder workshop on the island to prepare gunpowder from sulfur purchased from Japan, so as to achieve self-sufficiency as soon as possible.

At present, the total number of people on the east coast has reached more than 30,000, and there are still more than 1,200 tons of various types of grain (nearly 500 tons of potatoes were consumed for spring sowing), although this grain is not enough for the people on the east coast to support the first grain harvest until the end of August, but if they catch some fish, hunt some moose on Sakhalin Island, buy a batch of rice from the Matsumae domain, and then go to Korea to "borrow" a handful of grain, they will almost be fooled - provided that the number of displaced people in the Yantai fortress does not increase on a large scale. At present, there are still a large number of cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock in the fortress, and it is really impossible to slaughter them all to get dozens or hundreds of tons of meat, which is equivalent to the calories of hundreds of tons of grain.

Since there is a way to plug the food shortage, why should we push the population out of the hand? Therefore, after thinking about it, Mo Ming said: "Now that these people have been naturalized in Yantai, farming and living in peace and contentment, they must be unwilling to return to Fushan to suffer." In this way, Li County Order, you might as well go back and report to Guo Jieshuai, just say that the old county of Fushan has been destroyed, and it is not easy to recover. Now you want to come to Yantai to do this county order, how about it? ”

Li Zhengang frowned and thought for a long time, whether he wanted to lose the county order position that he had won with great difficulty, so he sighed and deliberately said in a compassionate tone: "It is also human nature for the people to relocate to their land. The general organized the people to reclaim the wasteland, which is very good, and when I return to Guo Shuai in Jinan, Guo Shuai is also a farmer, and he will definitely praise the adults. It's just that this capture of Dengju City ......"

"There's no rush to this." Mo Ming waved his hand, and then said to the logistical soldier beside him, "Is the meal ready?" Let's go eat first. (To be continued......)