More than ten miles northwest of Yizhou City, there is a fortress on a high post across the Daling River from Yizhou City. The main function of this fort is, first, to monitor the surrounding Han villages; The second is to monitor the movement in the direction of the west side wall.

Although the border wall of eastern Liaodong is also called the Great Wall, it is completely different from the Great Wall separating the inside and outside of the pass, but it is just a low earth and stone wall. The purpose of the Ming people to build this border wall was to prevent the Mongol tribes on the steppe from directly attacking the plains of Liaodong.

But after the gold, there is no such manpower and funds for such fortifications; Second, the ethnic minorities themselves were on the rise, and the Later Jin were in a strategic offensive against the Mongol tribes on the steppe, and the Mongol tribes outside the border wall either submitted to the Later Jin or tried to run away from the Houjin, so naturally there was no need to maintain the defense line of the eastern Liaodong border wall.

Therefore, most of the border walls in the Yizhou area were abandoned, and such forts were set up near the border walls to monitor the movements of the Mongolian tribes outside the border walls and prevent the Han Chinese from fleeing from the surrounding villages. In the past, most of the people stationed in such forts were the Ming troops of Jin after surrender.

However, because Du Du led the men and horses to invade Yizhou, in addition to the 30 or so Han soldiers, there are now 15 Jurchen soldiers stationed in this fortress to ensure that when Du Du's men and horses appear, this fortress can send back the news as soon as possible, so that the defenders of Yizhou can be prepared, rather than scattering in a hurry.

The leader Zhang Jialeta got up early in the morning and inspected the city, and saw that the fields were still as quiet as yesterday, so he went down with peace of mind and went to enjoy his breakfast. The Jurchens under him also began to complain daily routinely at this moment. It's not that the room is dilapidated and the bedding is not warm enough; is to reprimand those Han soldiers are not diligent enough, and the warm kang burned at night has cooled down early; Or they disliked that the food in the past few days was too coarse, and ordered these Han soldiers to go to the surrounding villages to get some meat, etc.

Raita turned a deaf ear to the noise in the courtyard, and just drank the boiled rice and bean porridge slowly. He knew that these subordinates were full of grievances, not all because of the harsh conditions here, but also because they were unwilling to meet the old master. In addition, this time he came to patrol the fortress, not assigned by Shangguan, but the Ezhen of Ben Niu Lu wanted to curry favor with Haoge, so he took the initiative to take it.

In such weather, leaving the comfort of Yiju and coming to this dilapidated fortress to be frozen, naturally it is also a real criticism of their own cattle records, but they don't dare to directly pick it out. In the past few days, Laita has become accustomed to their way of complaining, knowing that these subordinates will calm down after venting their anger on the Han soldiers, and he will naturally not stop anything.

For Raita, as long as she survives this period of time, waiting for the old master to retreat by himself will be considered a complete merit. He didn't have any idea of going against the old master to curry favor with the new one. Although the name of the yellow flag has been changed, there are still many old people in the flag who have great feelings for Guangluo Baylor. These people may not dare to oppose Haugbele, but there is no problem in embarrassing his little leader.

Sometimes, however, the more you try to avoid trouble, the more trouble will come to you. Just as Laita reached for the sauerkraut dish on the table, it suddenly caught in the air. He paused, only to realize that the sauerkraut plate on the table was moving, and Reta was still wondering how the dish could slide, but he felt the whole ground tremble.

He subconsciously reacted, and a large cavalry was coming towards the fortress. Before he could put down the dishes and chopsticks, the noise in the courtyard had disappeared, and the Jurchens, who were reprimanding the Han soldiers, quickly turned into a state of imminent battle, and scolded the Han soldiers for going up to the wall of the fortress. By the time Raita stepped out of her room, the entire fort's defenses were in order.

But before Raita could climb the wall, one of the veterans put down his bow and arrow with a strange expression, turned to him and shouted, "Leader, come up and have a look, as if the other party is not here to attack us." ”

Raita climbed the wall in three steps and two steps, and as the veteran said, the cavalry unit outside the fortress stopped more than a hundred meters away, and did not make a gesture of attacking the city. Looking at the size of this cavalry, it will probably not be less than five hundred people, and none of them look like recruits.

Raita only measured the situation slightly, and knew that if the other side did attack, the low fortress walls and these defenders would not be able to stop the attack.

"Bastard, what are you doing, stop me..."Before Laita could figure out how to deal with the situation, there was a sudden scolding from behind him, and he turned his head to look. I happened to see a Jurchen soldier snatching a torch from a Han soldier, and looking at the Han soldier's movements, it was obvious that he wanted to light the wolf smoke to warn Yizhou.

Raita silently turned her head as if she hadn't seen the movement behind her. Before the other party showed malicious intent, Laita was not willing to make any moves to provoke the other party, although everyone's lives were worthless in the eyes of nobles, there was no need to kill themselves.

As soon as Laita turned around, he saw a man running from the cavalry team that had stopped outside, and this man ran unsuspectingly to the bottom of the city wall, and then stopped and shouted to the wall: "Which ox is stationed here with a yellow flag?" ”

A veteran with a yellow flag on the wall actually recognized the person, and subconsciously said to him: "If you go back to Lord Solo, it is from the Zakh Danbayan family." ”

The knight under the wall glanced at the veteran soldier before he said with a smile: "It turned out to be Kulecha, and it was the cub of the Zakdanbayan family who took you?" ”

It was only then that the veteran remembered who was in charge here, and turned his gaze to Raita. Raita hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and leaned out of the wall and said, "Zhangjia Raita has seen Lord Solo. ”

Solo nodded at him and said, "The master has almost finished playing in Yizhou, and now he plans to go back to the grassland." Passing by you here, I want to rest my feet before leaving, so open the gate of the fort and come out to serve the master. ”

Raita's scalp tightened, not knowing how to answer. Seeing that Ritalen was there, Solo flicked his horsewhip dissatisfiedly and scolded: "Why, if you have a new master, you don't recognize the old master?" Do you have to have a whip from your grandfather before you can come to your senses? ”

Laita subconsciously looked left and right, and found that whether it was his subordinates or those Han soldiers, they all put down their weapons and looked at themselves, obviously everyone had no intention of fighting this battle. He gritted his teeth and shouted to the subordinates beside him: "Why don't you open the gate of the fort, do you want to be a target for arrows?" ”

When Du Du arrived in front of the fort, the defenders in the fort had all knelt on both sides of the road, and Du Du, who was on his horse, looked at Raita kneeling on the side of the road with an expressionless face, nodded at him and said, "Your name is Raita, I remember you." You remember who your master is, and that's much better than everyone else. I will not embarrass you, just rest and go with you.

This white flag is my father's inheritance to me, and even the first khan did not take it away. Huang Taiji took over as King Khan by himself, bullied others, and took away my property, which is really shameless. But after all, this is a family matter that I love the Xinjueluo family, so don't mix it up blindly if you are slaves.

Now let your men pick up some sheep and get them clean..."

Du Du did not break his promise, he rested in the fort for a while, and then led his men and horses upstream to the Daling River, and when he left, he left dozens of sheep to the defenders in the fort.

After Du Du left, Laita locked himself in his room and thought about it for a long time, and finally rode his horse to Uiju City before dusk. Several soldiers of the Ming army who had been monitoring the fort in the mountains and forests in the distance finally breathed a sigh of relief after watching the figure of Laita leaving the fort. A small banner instructed his subordinates: "Xiao Chen, you go and inform Commander Yan and Dong Ningbo, just say that the plan is going well, and we will continue to monitor the movements of the defenders of Yizhou here..."

Du Du, who was heading towards the upper reaches of the Daling River, was also full of expectation and nervousness at the moment. The reason why he worked so hard was that he really wanted to lure the yellow flag out of the customs. After he defected to the Ming Kingdom, although he received preferential treatment from the emperor, it did not give him much security.

For Du Du, who grew up cautiously in malice, he never expected to survive on the kindness of others. For him, what can make him feel safe is the strength in his hands. With the current scale of the Eight Banners of Loyalty, it is really difficult for him to gain a sense of security, not to mention that the Eight Banners of Loyalty and Righteousness do not completely listen to him.

At this time, the yellow flag suddenly appeared in his field of vision. Haoge alone led the Yellow Banner to guard Beizhen and Yizhou, away from Shenyang and the other Eight Banners, what better opportunity to give him a chance to regain what he had lost.

It's a pity that when he ventured into Yizhou, he found that these minions who had been loyal to him had been shaken by Huang Taiji. Although the soldiers with the yellow flag were not very willing to fight against him in terms of the old feelings, they were also unwilling to abandon their current lives and defect to his banner.

Du Du risked his life to circle with Hauge in Yiju, and he couldn't make those soldiers with yellow flags change their minds, which made him a little disheartened. However, after listening to Yan Yingyuan's plan to lure the enemy into an ambush, he suddenly had some expectations. Since you can't induce your old subordinates to abandon the darkness and turn to the light, it is the same to force them to obey you after taking them prisoner. Didn't the first khan conquer the Jurchen tribes by force and force those enemies to become the soldiers of the Eight Banners who worked for him.

Just when Du Du led people to retreat to the upper reaches of the Daling River, Daishan and Haoge in Yiju City also learned about Du Du's movements from the surrounding forts and outposts. Du Du had only more than 1,000 men and horses, and he was divided into several divisions, swaggering to drive the Han and Mongolian tribes living near Yizhou to the outside of the pass, which completely regarded the defenders in Yizhou City as dead people.

Haoge, who had been teased by Du Du for several days, was certainly the main pursuer, and even Dai Shan could not let Du Du capture the population near Yiju. Soon he was going to conscript these Han people as labor to transport military rations for the Jinzhou front, how could he let Du Du take people away like this.

Therefore, after getting the report of Laita and others, Daishan decided to send troops to chase Dudu. Unlike Hauge, Daishan only wanted to recapture the stolen population of Uiju, and had little interest in capturing Du Du himself. Therefore, although he ordered the expedition, he agreed with Hauge that he would only pursue him to the side wall, and whether he wanted to cross the side wall to pursue him would need to be discussed after he himself arrived at the side wall.

On December 26 of the third year of Chongzhen, Haoge led 20 Niu Lu with yellow flags to pursue Du Du's army from the left bank of the Daling River, and Dai Shan led 22 Niu Lu to pursue from the right bank of the Daling River. There are also 7 cattle records with yellow flags, and 3 cattle records of red flags are left in Yizhou.