Thanks to these tireless and traitorous Jin merchants, the immortality of the Ming Dynasty is intolerable.

Fang Yuan sighed secretly, and asked again, "What is the price of buying war horses, and how many war horses does our army have now?" ”

Chigutai was insensitive to these numbers, so he found an officer in the army who kept accounts and asked him to deal with Fang Yuan's problem.

The petty officer opened the account book and replied, "In recent years, the price of Mongolian horses has plummeted because the imperial court has cut off the trade of horses into the customs. The cost of buying a medium war horse from Mongolia is twelve taels of silver, and the price of a war horse is twenty taels of silver after the Jin merchants increase the price of five taels of silver, and then the price of a war horse is twenty taels of silver after the army of Chuang. ”

"In the past year, we have successively purchased 35,000 war horses, and the cost is 500,000 taels of silver. The number of horses in our army was 27,600 before, plus the 45,000 horses purchased, and after deducting the losses of wounds and diseases, the total number was 61,000. ”

"The cavalry battalion trains cavalry warriors according to the standard of one cavalry and two horses, and now it has trained 30,000 cavalry warriors and 15,000 reserve cavalry warriors who can go to battle. ”

The cavalry battalion, plus the reserve soldiers with slightly inferior combat effectiveness, has not yet reached 50,000 cavalry, and in terms of the quality and quantity of cavalry, there is still a certain gap compared with Li Zicheng and the Manchu iron cavalry.

Fang Yuan was not very satisfied with the training results of the cavalry battalion this year, but the training of the cavalry was by no means a success overnight, and Chigutai and Zhao Quanzhong should have done their best.

Fang Yuan allocated another 100,000 taels of silver to the cavalry battalion, which was regarded as a reward for the cavalry battalion.

Jing Jie continued to report, "In the direction of the capital, it is rumored that the imperial court has abandoned Ningyuan City outside the Guan, and Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan, has led 30,000 Guanning troops to be stationed at Shanhaiguan. ”

Fang Yuan was shocked when he heard this, the imperial court abandoned Ningyuan City, which meant giving up the territory outside the Guan, and giving all the territory of Liaodong and Liaoxi to the Manchu Qing.

He hurriedly asked, "Is there any movement in the direction of the Manchu Dynasty?" ”

Jing Jie said, "There was no movement at all, according to the merchants who came to Jiangnan from Liaodong to do business, Dolgon had been stabilizing the internal power of the Manchu Qing Dynasty for the past two years, and had only exerted external pressure on Korea and Mongolia, and there was no military action to invade the Ming Dynasty. ”

Fang Yuan sighed deeply, and the imperial court withdrew Ningyuan City and gave up Guanwai; The Manchus also did not invade the Ming Dynasty, but instead encroached on the territory of the Koreans and the Mongols. Two seemingly unrelated things, but with a clear signal, the Ming court has reached a considerable degree of tacit understanding with the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty gave away the territory outside the Guan, in exchange for the Manchu Qing not to invade the Guannai.

There is another most important reason why Dolgon did not invade the pass, and that is the fear of the other party. The Ming Dynasty has now lost the land endowment and commercial taxes in the south of the Yangtze River, and it has long been crumbling. It all relied on the promotion of high-yield sweet potatoes, the levy of the Grand Canal's customs tax, the five or six million taels of silver obtained from the previous robbery of Yangzhou Mansion, and the financial support of Shanxi Jin merchants.

If the Manchu Qing pushed it in the back again, the Ming court would inevitably collapse immediately. Once the Ming court collapsed, Fang Yuan, who was entrenched in the south of the Yangtze River, just took the opportunity to go north to take over the power vacuum after the collapse of the imperial court. With Fang Yuan's tough nature, if he really defeated the Ming court, he would inevitably use troops against the Manchus outside the Guan.

Dolgon had a good calculation, rather than the Manchu Qing Dynasty personally coming forward to fight Fang Yuan, it was better to choose to leave a breath for the Ming court, and the Ming court would contain Fang Yuan's northward advance. The Manchu Qing took the opportunity to annex the territory of Liaoxi, and encroached on Mongolia and Korea one by one to cultivate internal strength.

As for the reasons why Shanxi Jin merchants supported the Ming court.

Fang Yuan slaughtered the eight Jin merchants before, and the Shanxi Jin merchants are already on the same footing, if Fang Yuan unifies the world, where will there be a good life for these Jin merchants? Therefore, the Jin merchants fully supported the Ming court and were willing to fill the financial deficit of the capital court with interest-free loans.

The mortgage provided by the Ming court to the Jin merchants was the official field in Shanxi, and when the world was calm, they would slowly repay the loans of the Shanxi Jin merchants. In order to win over the Shanxi Jin merchants, the Beijing court actually allowed the Shanxi Jin merchants to monitor the financial system of the Ming Dynasty, and made a civil official supported by the Jin merchants serve as the head of the household.

Today's Ming court, under the powerful threat of Fang Yuan, through the mediation of Hong Chengchou and Shanxi Jin merchants, has already reached a tacit understanding of mutual non-aggression with the Manchu Qing outside the Guan.

After forming a tacit understanding with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Ming court has also stepped up the training of the new Ming army in the past two years. Sun Chuanting in Shandong has trained 200,000 elite Ming troops, including 80,000 new-style Ming troops. Zhou Yuji of Shanxi also formed a joint force with the Qin king of Shaanxi, and continued to recruit Qin people into the army, expanding the number of Ming troops in Shanxi to 150,000.

Jing Jie said with a solemn expression, "It is rumored that Zheng Sen's remnant sailors are also stationed in Weihaiwei, Dengzhou Prefecture, Shandong. Due to the financial support of the imperial court, he is frantically building warships to enrich the military strength of the Daming Naval Division. ”

When Fang Yuan crusaded against Guangdong and unified Jiangnan, the Ming Dynasty finally formed a tacit understanding with Zheng Senye, and both the land and water armies were wantonly rioting, which showed that the big battle with Fang Yuan was imminent.

With 200,000 Ming troops in Sun Chuanting in Shandong, 150,000 Ming troops in Zhouyuji in Shanxi, 50,000 Ming troops in Gyeonggi, and 50,000 Guan Ning troops in Gyeonggi, plus Wu Sangui's 50,000 Guan Ning troops, the military strength of the entire Ming court has been revived, reaching an astonishing 450,000.

In terms of commanders, Sun Chuanting, Zhou Yuji, Wu Sangui, and Zheng Sen were all famous generals in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the think tank had a great talent, Hong Chengchou. This lineup can be said to be the most luxurious lineup that the Ming court can make up after Lu Xiangsheng's death.

The battle with the Ming Dynasty is absolutely impossible to avoid, but before the decisive battle, Fang Yuan must also solve a worry, that is, Zuo Liangyu in Jiangxi.

Fang Yuan looked at Gan Hui, who was the commander of the pacification of Jiangxi, and asked, "Commander Gan, has our army ever fought head-on with the Left Army in the past two years?" ”

Gan Hui said, "In accordance with Governor Fang's explanation, our army has carried out uninterrupted harassment of the important towns along the Yangtze River of the Left Army, especially Jin Shenghuan stationed in Anqing and Luzhou in Jiangbei, and suffered heavy losses. Jin Shenghuan had led the main force to evacuate Anqing and Luzhou half a year ago, and now there are less than 30,000 left troops stationed in Anqing and Luzhou, and they are not the main force with strong combat strength. If the governor of the non-Fang was far away in Guangdong and Taiwan, and failed to report and ask for war in time, our army could have gone to take over the two prefectures of Anqing and Luzhou. ”

Fang Yuan said in a deep voice, "Commander Gan, the so-called generals are not subject to the orders of the foreign monarchs, since I have full authority to appoint you to preside over the military affairs of the attack on Jiangxi, you can act at the opportunity, instead of delaying the fighter." ”

Gan Hui was reprimanded by him lukewarmly, and hurriedly knelt on the ground, asking Fang Yuan for battle, "Governor Fang, I request to go to war immediately, capture Anqing and Luzhou, and drive all the forces of the left army back to Jiangxi!" ”

The capture of Anqing and Luzhou can not only compress the living space of the left army, cut off the land connection between the left army and the Ming court, but also put pressure on the left army that is cowering in a corner of Jiangxi.

Under the two-pronged approach, sending envoys to force the left army to surrender would be twice the result with half the effort.

Fang Yuan immediately gave Gan Hui a military order, and led the 50,000 Xuanjia troops of Chizhou Mansion to cross the river to attack Anqing and Luzhou.

In order to prevent Li Zicheng from participating in this battle against Zuo Liangyu, Fang Yuan still decided to fulfill the verbal covenant reached with Li Zicheng first, and gave Shi Lang an order to lead the fleet of the naval division to go up the Yangtze River, one is to attack the left army's important towns along the river, cut off the left army's waterway support, and the other is to support Li Zicheng's attack on Zhang Xianzhong's battle in Sichuan.