After Sun Sifu agreed, he asked: "Some Shanxi people who were moved to Shaanxi by Li Zicheng want to go back to Shanxi, and they want us to return the family property confiscated by Li Zicheng." ”

Li Yan frowned, and said dissatisfiedly: "Do you still need to ask about this kind of thing?" Do it according to the rules! ”

"Although these people can't find the land deed, house deed and other things, there are several people from Qixian, Taigu and other places, and they have some relationship with the Jin merchants who cooperate with us." Sun Sifu reported helplessly.

Although they also organized a merchant gang here, after all, they had never been outside the border wall before, and the Jin merchants were still doing the bulk of the trade with Mongolia. Especially in the recent period, the Qing court forced the Mongolian tribes to control the border trade with the Han people, and the merchant gangs in Shanxi still exchanged war horses for him through their channels and influence, which is indeed a great credit.

"Something to do with it? What relationship? Got it figured out? Li Yan asked dissatisfiedly one after another.

Sun Sifu replied cautiously: "Some are the same clan who have not come out of the five suits, and some are in-laws who have beaten around the bush. Those who were removed were all local gentry who attempted to overthrow Li Zicheng's regime. Those businesses have eyes, and the immediate family members are not involved, so they are not affected. ”

"Someone's coming to say hello?" Li Yan immediately knew what the situation was. The clan relationship is very important to people, as long as it is not too dangerous, as long as people find them, they will not easily refuse. Otherwise, he will be gracious and unkind, and he will be blamed by his relatives and laughed at by the township.

Sun Sifu nodded: "The Fan family has been here." ”

Li Yan fell silent, this decision was not easy to make. If this opening is opened, I am afraid that it will be difficult to accept it in the future. But if he doesn't give the Fan family any face, won't the largest border trade chamber in Zhangjiakou make trouble for him?

After a long while, he ordered: "From now on, send more people to the Fan family and pay attention to their dynamics." In particular, contacts with the Qing side must be grasped in a timely manner. ”

"This," Sun Sifu said embarrassedly, "they are businessmen, and they are very good to their subordinates, and the shopkeeper and the main guys will have shares." And it takes five years for their guys to leave the school, and it is too difficult to send people inside. ”

Li Yan said coldly: "You can think of the way, I just want the result." When the Fan family fell to the Qing court, I wanted to know in time. Inform our caravan that the key direction in the future is Zhangjiakou, let them go as deep into the grassland as possible, and open up our own channels. In addition, the dock in Tianjin was notified to study the construction of a sand ship in Pingding, and the oars should also be added for cruising on the Yangtze River in the future. ”

"My subordinates have made a note of it." Sun Sifu could only grit his teeth and agree, and then retreated silently. He already knows Li Yan's attitude towards those who move forward in Shanxi, although he doesn't have any good ways to monitor the Fan family, but people will always have some weakness, greedy for money, lustful, affectionate, and righteous. As long as you find the right weakness, you will naturally make people obedient.

He is a poor boy from the countryside, and he really didn't know much about these shady things except fighting and killing before. After they captured Beijing, they learned a lot from the former Jinyi guards and files. Even now, there are many former Jinyi guards in his team. Of course, these people are more cautious, and they dare not reveal their bad habits in the previous dynasty, and they are all conscientious errands, so as to get an official and a half-position in the new dynasty.

And Li Yan was thinking about Zuo Mengeng's problem again at this time. Zuo Mengeng sent Jin Shengheng over to test it before, but there was no news after that. But after Zuo Mengeng suddenly crossed the river with his team, his general Xu Yong took his 4,000 men and horses to Huoshan County alone. But fortunately, he didn't go into the mountain, but sent someone to take the initiative to contact him, saying that he wanted to surrender.

Such a group of people came over, although he himself said that he wanted to surrender, but the garrisons in Shucheng, Qianshan, and the places around Taihu Lake were only a few hundred people. If Xu Yong suddenly attacked, Jiangbei, a large new area, was afraid that it would suffer from war again.

Therefore, Li Yan had to send some troops from Henan to the south to monitor Xu Yong's team. However, Henan is a fundamental place, and the remaining troops cannot be easily mobilized. He thought about it again and again, so he had to send out the troops that were going to be sent to southern Shaanxi and Sichuan.

Originally, he wanted to take Sichuan first, so as to block the possibility of various southern forces separating Sichuan. However, the successive changes made him passively change his concept, and he had to temporarily ignore Sichuan, and send the soldiers who were originally used to enter Sichuan to various places for emergency relief. But fortunately, Sichuan has also become a mess of porridge, even if he enters Sichuan later, there shouldn't be much trouble.

Although Li Yan made a decision in Henan, after all, it took time for the order to be transmitted. So on the second day after Nanjing was besieged, Huang Desheng and Chen Yongfu had not received the news, and Nanjing City had to hold on alone.

Thanks to the tall walls of Nanjing, Li Zicheng's fort built in the south was not completed until the afternoon. Of course, there was also the artillery attack at the head of the city, but the gunners of the Beijing battalion were too poor, just to hear a sound, or the soldiers brought by Ouyang Yun and other Guo Chengdong operated a few artillery pieces to cause some trouble for the soldiers who built the platform for Li Zicheng. However, they are not professional artillerymen after all, and the lethality of solid ammunition is limited after all, so Li Zicheng's fort was still built.

Boom, boom, the sound of artillery came from the fort several zhang high outside the city, bursts of white smoke came out, and one by one the projectiles roared towards the city wall of Nanjing. However, Li Zicheng's fort was still a few feet shorter than the Nanjing city wall after all, and the battlements at the head of the city were full of sandbags, although the cannonball projectiles could break the city bricks, but they did not have much lethality to the soldiers hiding behind the sandbags.

At the same time, the soldiers and people in the city at this time are no longer raw melons and eggs who have not seen blood yesterday. And last night, not only did they have a full meal, but they also finally got their bounty. Although the reward was not as much as they reported, it was almost half, which made the soldiers and the people very happy. And those soldiers and civilians who did not get the reward were full of envy in their hearts, and they also began to have the ** to fight.

Although the people at the head of the city were injured by the flying masonry from time to time, the others who were not injured were not affected.

Wang Sixi took advantage of the gap between the artillery and carefully looked at the situation outside the city. It was found that Li Zicheng's troops had rushed up with a long ladder, but because the artillery was too loud, they did not hear the enemy's charge.

"Prepare the bomb, watch the arquebus, listen to my orders!" Wang Sixi shouted loudly.

The craftsmen became more and more proficient, so the production of bombs increased considerably, and some of them had broken iron filings glued to the outside. So at this time, as long as you wait for the enemy to reach the city, you can inflict a lot of damage on the enemy with bombs.

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