The fifteenth year of Chongzhen was a thrilling start for the Ming Dynasty.

Central Plains Battlefield, Henan, Kaifeng.

Last year was just after the first month, just gnawed down Luoyang City Li Zicheng immediately rushed to Kaifeng, this year is just after the New Year, the peasant army gift package was sent to the door, or increase the amount without increasing the price, last year only 100,000 people, tens of thousands of elite soldiers raided, now besieging Kaifeng City of the invasion of the army is not less than 500,000, there is a trend of increase, the four gates look down, the dense military camp is like adding another city on the plain.

Fortunately, unlike King Fu who died and asked for money, the Zhou royal family in Kaifeng was willing to spend money to save his life, and this morning, the hot pot of porridge was boiled under the city wall, which is called real porridge! Sticky and hot, groups of Kaifeng strong men lined up under the city wall with a broken bowl, their stomachs were hot, and then they patrolled the city with great momentum.

There are also the soldiers of the Zhou Palace, clanging and shouting gongs.

"His Royal Highness the King of Zhou has an order, those who kill the thief will be rewarded with ten taels of silver, and those who cut the thief will be rewarded with forty taels of silver, and it will be settled on the same day! Anyone who wants to get rich needs his life! ”

At the intersection of Zhongzhou, there are three sects and nine streams, and there is really no shortage of martial arts masters.

But even so, Chen Yongfu, the general soldier of Henan, who was looking down with a telescope, and Li Xianfeng, the governor of Henan, were still gloomy.

500,000 troops! Yang Wenyue, the governor of nearby Baoding, only had 30,000 horses on hand, Hou Xun was taken down by Chongzhen again because of the military salary within two months of taking office, and the successor Ding Qirui could not move Zuo Liangyu and other military leaders, and the soldiers and horses in his hands were not as many as Yang Wenyue, only more than 10,000 people, and Wang Qiaonian, the governor of the three sides, was simply destroyed by Li Zicheng in Xiangyang.

The Central Plains peasant army has become a climate, and it has completely become a major problem for the Ming Dynasty.

On the other end, Zhang Xianzhong is no longer in charge! Fortunately, he was unwilling to be subordinate, and he was far away from Li Zicheng and went to Sichuan, otherwise the military pressure in the Central Plains would be even more devastating.

…………

Putting down the binoculars, Li Xianfeng took a breath of cold winter air in fear, and shouted gloomily to the soldiers around him.

"Flying pigeon spreads the book, ask for help from Jingshi!"

…………

Just when the two top military and political chiefs in Henan were worried, Yuan Chonghuan, who also hadn't felt the warmth of the Ming Dynasty, hurriedly dragged his burden on the road.

Dongjiang for so many years, Lao Yuan is a pragmatic, even if Emperor Chongzhen's eager eyes are red, and he still asks for 500,000 taels of silver, but Hou Xun didn't ask for 500,000 taels of military salary, and he Yuan Inspector doesn't have such a big face, hearing 500,000 taels of military salary, Emperor Chongzhen was shocked and dumbfounded.

In the end, out of the Beijing Division, Yuan Chonghuan still took the 100,000 taels of military salary given to him by Mao Jue, and the 100,000 taels of silver almost let the passing eunuchs and a few guys from the household department pluck the feathers and deduct 30,000 taels, even if he knew that he should not conflict with the eunuch group, for this silver, Yuan Chonghuan was still furious and angry in the court.

Dongjiang School teaches not the Four Books and Five Classics, in Dongjiang, every silver circulation, and even every loss, must be strictly recorded in the account book, Dongjiang account book is also particularly surprising, are tabular formal, not allowed to be written in Chinese one by one, the number of compilation and distribution at a glance, every three months Tieshan Governor's Mansion dozens of account rooms have to be accounted for, too accustomed to this kind of fund transparency, the Ming Dynasty's example card Yuan Chonghuan is really unbearable.

And what shocked him even more was the poverty of the empire, in the Dongjiang River, it was too common for Mao Jue to take out hundreds of thousands of taels or millions of taels to give bonuses, and 500,000 taels of silver made Chongzhen embarrassed to do this.

There are also 50,000 troops that are missing zero, and the troops selected in the Beijing camp, even if they are the big ones among the short, Yuan Chonghuan only picked out 4,000 people, 300,000 Beijing camps, and 1340,000 empty salaries, and the children of rich families are scoundrels in the market to defraud military salaries in the name of a person, in fact, there are tens of thousands of people who are not available, and they can't get rid of the old and weak, and then they can't be extracted, Yuan Chonghuan reluctantly pieced together these 4,000 people.

The only fortunate thing is that he really can't come up with the silver, so Chongzhen can only give the policy, and in the holy decree to Yuan Chonghuan, the new governor of the three sides, Yuan Chonghuan is allowed to act cheaply.

The strange weather at the end of the Ming Dynasty, even if it is more than a month, there is still not much snowfall, the shallow snow layer only reaches the soles of the shoes, but the weather is cold and freezes to death, even if these Beijing camp troops have not been paid for a long time, and the sergeants who came out of the Beijing division with Yuan Chonghuan are frozen one by one, and they can't stop huffing their hands in their mouths, and the spear of the ash pole is crooked on their shoulders.

Riding a horse to urge his own troops to advance, Yuan Chonghuan's heart was full of anxiety, but he couldn't do anything, it was also in the Dongjiang River in the past few years, Mao Jue taught him the experience, what the world's righteousness is false, there is no sufficient food and wages, even if you shout the court out of the sky, these sergeants will not give you a real life, in the words of Confucianism, it is called Cang Liao is enough to know etiquette, at this time Yuan Chonghuan is unable to do anything to improve the treatment of these sergeants, while walking, he can only shout from time to time.

"Brothers, do your best! You are my Yuan's personal soldiers! When you arrive in Shaanxi, one person will first be given three months' salary, and then recruited to your tuntian, before the war, Lao Yuan must let the brothers eat enough and dress warmly!"

Dongjiang is really an outlier, in this era when soldiers are generals, empty salaries to support their own soldiers, generals are still playing prestige at every turn, abusing soldiers, Yuan Chonghuan is too rare to supervise teachers like this, his words are too warm, with shouting, hungry and cold team, the pace of march seems to be a little faster.

This made Yuan Chonghuan have some hope in his heart, and Mao Jue asserted that he would die when he returned to the Central Plains! He himself knows how hard it is to turn the tide! But the Great Ming Shi was born! He also once had the great trust of the emperor, as long as there was the slightest stage to show him, for the sake of the world, he Yuan had to try it anyway.

Fortunately, although there is little hope, it is not nothing, when he arrived in Shaanxi, he was in a solid tuntian, and he learned from Mao Jue to dredge trade routes, earn military salaries, and build firearms, without five years of Pingliao, and in three years, Yuan Chonghuan was still confident that he would build a force of at least 100,000 troops, which was enough to compete with the Central Plains peasant army.

But just when Yuan Chonghuan was distracted, in the direction of the official road of the Jingshi behind him, the horse's hooves trampled on the snow foam in the sky, and more than a dozen horsemen wearing red cloaks actually chased after him in a hurry.

Seeing them, Yuan Chonghuan was a little nervous, his brows trembled violently a few times, and then he took his own soldiers and welcomed them back.

"Ahead, is the squire of the military department, the governor of the trilateral military affairs Lord Yuan?"

"It's Yuan!"

Fortunately, they didn't come to arrest people again, and a few brocade guards breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly took out the bright yellow official document of the military department from their arms.

"Lord Yuan, there is an order from the Ministry of War, and I order Lord Yuan to immediately join the border soldiers in Shaanxi, gallop to Kaifeng, and quickly relieve the siege of Kaifeng!"

"!! Now"

Yuan Chonghuan was so shocked that he almost jumped up from his warhorse, he saw the capriciousness of Emperor Chongzhen again, when the platform asked for advice, he wanted to tuntian, trade, measure the land, and raise the Qin army with Qin Land Chongzhen's plan was to win every one! Now he hasn't even arrived in Shaanxi, so let him take these 4,000 men and horses to fight to the death with hundreds of thousands of troops? Learn from Wang Qiaonian, Fu Zonglong went to send people to the head like that?

Looking at a few riders, Yuan Chonghuan felt for a while that he was pressed on his back, extremely heavy!!

…………

Kaifeng City, which is surrounded by hundreds of thousands of troops, is still lucky, at least there is a relative of Emperor Chongzhen in the city, King Zhou, who does not want to be infamous for treating the clan harshly, Chongzhen is still desperate to find a way to break the siege, but Songshan City outside the gate is completely when the water is exhausted, and it has completely become an outcast.

The whistling northwest knife wind swept past the wall, and the Ming battle flag, which had been burned by the war, was weakly wrapped around the flagpole, and it was already frozen in a large piece, and the wall winding on the mountain was like a no-man's land, there was no sound at all, and the scrawny Ming soldiers were wrapped in broken straw mats, looking at the left and right with nervous expressions, and tried their best to keep their eyes open.

Close your eyes and rest for a while, and then you will be dragged away, and then turn into a pot of sticky broth is no longer possible, but too frequent! The city was cut off for half a year, and the Ming army, which was in a hurry, had already given up the bottom line of being a human being under the pressure of hunger, and those who refused to eat people starved to death, and they had all turned into a little energy in the stomachs of others.

At the north city gate, the thousand general officers guarding the gate were also weakly holding the knife and leaning on the doorway, just when he was tired and drooping his head and closing his eyes and pretending to sleep, a rush of footsteps suddenly came, and suddenly a spirit jumped up, and then the thousand general screamed in amazement.

"Vice General Xia, what are you doing here?"

Sou~

There was no nonsense at all, the deputy general Xia Chengde directly pulled the bow and arrow, and with a bang, the arrow pierced the head of the Qianzong, and with unwillingness, this Hong Chengchou's cronies fell to the ground.

"Xia Chengde is reversed! It's the other way around!"

A weak shout sounded outside the city gate, looking at those hungry and half-dead comrades, the former Ming army officer smiled extremely coldly, and immediately waved his hand violently.

"Kill!"

In less than a few minutes, the corpses were displayed everywhere, dragging bloody white flags, Xia Chengde strode all the way to the Qing army stationed at the foot of the mountain, shouting as he ran.

"I'm waiting for you to surrender! Surrender! Matsuyama Castle has fallen!"

The attack had stopped as early as the beginning of the harsh winter, and in this shout, the Qing army, which had been quiet for several months, also boiled.

(End of chapter)