First, under the leadership of Lu Tai, Chen Yue inspected the sea ships in the water village. I was disappointed to see the results.

The total number of ships is indeed 200, but most of them are dhows, and their displacement is only a few tens of tons, which is not much larger than fishing boats. There are only about 20 two-masted sailing ships, and they are all flat-bottomed sand boats that can only travel offshore.

Each of these ships could carry fifty or sixty to one hundred and ten men when fighting, but if they were to retreat from the sea, they would certainly not be able to carry much of it, and it would certainly be difficult to transport away the nearly 2,000 war horses and horses in their own army.

In the end, it is a sailor who is used to defend Dagukou, and he does not have the ability to go to the ocean at all. As far as most of these ships are concerned, they are okay in the calm Bohai Bay, but if they enter the sea and encounter real wind and waves, I don't know how many of these ships can survive the wind and waves!

It is definitely not possible to rely on these ships alone, but he has 5,000 troops, Chongzhen must have brought a lot of servants with him when he moved south, these ships are definitely not enough, if you want to implement this plan, you must get more big ships, at least 50 three-masted big ships, in order to fit your own 5,000 men and horses, but where to find so many big ships? I'm afraid it's only available in the southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions!

At this moment, Chen Yue had doubts about the plan to retreat from the sea. It will definitely be possible to withdraw Chongzhen only from the sea, but the problem is that he still has 5,000 troops!

Seeing the frowning brows on Chen Yue's face, Lu Tai was sincerely frightened, thinking that Chen Yue was dissatisfied with his work, and hurriedly explained.

"Lord Zhongcheng, half of these ships are owned by the original Dagu Koushui Village, and the remaining half are mobilized by Feng Zhongcheng from other places. The bows and crossbows on the ship are really not enough, and there is no way to do it without the generals. ”

The weapons and equipment on the ship are indeed very poor, not to mention the artillery, and there are very few naval weapons such as bows and crossbow rockets necessary on the ship, Lu Tai was afraid that Chen Yue would be dissatisfied, so he explained. However, Chen Yue was not worried about these, and it was not a naval battle with people, and he didn't care about the number of weapons.

"Well, these officials understand, and the court will allocate them in the future." Chen Yue nodded slightly.

It seems that these ships alone are not enough, but where to get more seagoing vessels? Chen Yue thought deeply.

Just when Chen Yue was inspecting the sea ships of the Haiphong Battalion at Dagukou, thousands of miles away in Shanxi, the Dashun army finally encountered a hard nail.

Since the eighth day of the first lunar month, when the army marched to Beijing, the Dashun army was like a bamboo, and rarely encountered resistance. The people of Shanxi looked at the Shun army like a great drought, eagerly waiting for the arrival of the Dashun army.

Cai Maode, the governor of Shanxi, personally went to Pingyang to deploy river defense, in a vain attempt to hold the Yellow River crossing. However, the defenders were short of soldiers and salaries, and Cai Maode asked the two county kings in Pingyang, Xihe King and Jiaocheng King, to take the lead in persuading the gentlemen and people to donate money, but none of them agreed to donate money. At this time, the king of Jin sent people to urge him to return to Taiyuan, and in desperation, Cai Maode could only abandon the Yellow River crossing.

The Dashun army was like a bamboo, the Ming army and civilians surrendered one after another, and on the sixth day of the first month of February, the Dashun army entered the city of Taiyuan.

Under the persuasion of Cai Maode, Zhu Qiugui, the king of Jin, took out 3,000 taels of silver and sent it to the city to recruit dead soldiers to kill the enemy. The morale of the defenders at the head of the city was extremely low.

On the morning of the eighth day of the first lunar month, Zhang Xiong, the general of the Governor Biao Battalion, opened the south gate and surrendered, and the Dashun army easily captured Taiyuan. The capital of a province and an important town in Shanxi Province insisted on two days before the city was broken.

After the city was broken, the governor Cai Maode committed suicide and martyrdom, since the Jin King Zhu Qiugui, the political envoy Zhao Jianji, looking for Ning Dao Bi Gongchen, Shouning Dao Mao Bingwen. Lin Gangzhong, the governor of the grain road, and Sun Kangzhou, the prefect of Taiyuan, were all executed.

Li Zicheng stayed in Taiyuan for eight days, rested his troops and horses, set up local officials, and arrested the Ming gentry to recover stolen goods. At this moment, Li Zicheng is no longer the rogue of the year, and he has already given birth to the ambition of taking one of the Ming Dynasty to dominate the world.

On 16 February, Li Zicheng led his army north to attack Ningwu Pass, where he met the only resistance to enter Shanxi.

Garrisoned at Ningwu Pass was Zhou Yuji, the chief soldier of Shanxi, with more than 3,000 soldiers in his hands. Zhou Yuji is one of the few generals in the Ming Dynasty who can fight and dare to fight, more than 20 years in the army, experienced countless bloody battles, and Houjin, thieves have experienced no war, just last year, Zhou Yuji intercepted the Manchu Tartar soldiers who returned from Shandong in Yang Liuqing, relying on his five hundred cavalry repeatedly sneak attack the retreating Manchu Tartar soldiers, and killed more than 100 Manchu Tartars in fierce battles for several days. Except for Chen Yue and Tang Tong Bai Guangen, he was the only general of the Ming army who dared to attack the retreating Manchu Tartars.

Ningwu Pass is located in the middle of Shanxi, is the traffic artery of Taiyuan to Datong in the north, built the Guancheng during the Jingtai period of the Ming Dynasty, and became one of the three passes in Shanxi to defend the Tatar cavalry together with the partial pass and Yanmen Pass, and the strategic position is extremely important. Originally, it was repaired to prevent the Tartars from attacking the provincial capital of Gongwei from the north, but now it is being used to deal with the Dashun army coming from the south.

Li Zicheng arrived at the foot of Ningwu Pass, looked at the majestic Xiongguan stuck in the mountain road, and suddenly made a worry, although this kind of pass is not big, but because of the terrain restrictions, it is impossible to show troops at all, and it is the most difficult to fight.

At this time, You Shilu, the former general soldier of the Ming Dynasty who surrendered to Dashun, relied on the fact that he had several friendships with Zhou Yuji, and he was eager to make meritorious contributions, and volunteered to persuade him to surrender.

In the face of You Shilu, who persuaded him to surrender, Zhou Yuji pretended to agree to surrender and ordered the city gate to be opened, but when the Shun army entered the city, he suddenly put down the jack gate and plunged the more than 2,000 Shun troops who entered the city into the urn city, and then the ambush soldiers in the city were killed, and the arrows and firebolts rained down on the top of the Shun army. More than 2,000 Shun troops were easily surrounded and wiped out. You Shilu entered the city late and barely escaped his life.

Since entering Shanxi, there had never been such a big loss, and Li Zicheng was furious and ordered the whole army to storm Ningwu. A fierce offensive and defensive battle was launched above and below the city, although Zhou Yuji had 3,000 soldiers, but only more than 400 elite soldiers were among them, and the others were ordinary soldiers with low combat effectiveness. However, the Shun army won one victory after another, the soldiers were well fed, and the morale was extremely high.

Although Zhou Yuji led the army to put up a heroic resistance, he still couldn't withstand the strong attack of the desperate Shun army. More than 100 artillery pieces of the Shun army were fired at the same time, the walls of the city continued to collapse, the defenders of the city could not stand at all, the casualties were heavy, three days later, the city was broken, Zhou Yuji died in the battle, the Shun army rushed into the city, and the defenders in the city carried out a massacre. Zhou Yuji's wife, Liu, has always been brave and strong, and led dozens of women to refuse to defend the public house, climbed on the roof and fired arrows at the Dashun army, and all of them were set on fire by the Dashun army.

After capturing Ningwu Pass, Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin led the army to continue northward and arrived at Datong on the first day of March. Datong is an important town on the nine sides, and there are still tens of thousands of defenders in the city, but looking at the fierce Shun army, Jiang Jiu, the general soldier of Datong, does not dare or want to resist at all. The current situation can be seen by anyone with a discerning eye, Daming is already the twilight of the West Mountain, and Dashun is like the rising sun in the east, rather than to die for the Ming Festival, it is better to defect to the new dynasty, but also to be a hero of the founding of the country, continue to enjoy the glory and wealth! Jiang Hao made the same choice as most Ming army generals.

Datong surrendered, Wang Jimo, the governor of Xuanda stationed in Yanghe, abandoned the city and left, and Yanghe soldiers prepared for ten miles in the suburbs of Chonghua to welcome Li Zicheng into the city, and the road to Beijing was smooth!