Zhu Youzhen, the king of letters, still has an important task in his body, which is actually just beating rabbits with grass.

There were more than 100,000 troops in the two armies, and Zhu Youzhen and Ma Xiangling led tens of thousands of troops respectively to surround Zhangjiakou and Datong Town, which had jurisdiction over Bawei, Qisuo, and 583 forts, without warning.

Rampant smuggling is inseparable from the collusion between officials and businessmen, and the Datong border army has been corrupted by the Jin merchants from the roots, and too many generals in the army have also degenerated into merchants or simply the sons and nephews of those traitorous businessmen.

"Zhu Ming" fattened the Jin merchants, "Huang Ming" was ready to kill pigs for the New Year, and hundreds of thousands of troops came to Zhangjiakou and Datong to play and raid the house.

The participants in this military operation were all the soldiers of the "God of War" and the Sichuan army, and there was no possibility of leaking secrets, even so, before surrounding Zhangjiakou, Zhu Youzhen did not disclose the specific target of the attack.

Zhu Youzhen has long known that the Jin merchants have betrayed the country, but they can detect any disturbances in the imperial court with their hands and eyes, and they are intertwined with the border army.

This time, he was able to personally lead tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to settle accounts with Jin Shang after the autumn, and Zhu Youzhen felt extremely happy.

The besieged Zhangjiakou was in good order, and the border troops honestly disarmed and went to the concentration camp outside the city to defend themselves, and only after passing the screening could the border troops get the opportunity to re-take up their posts.

Due to the suddenness of the action, the "Eight Great Manchu Dynasty Merchants" in later generations, Shanxi businessmen Fan Yongdou, Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Guest, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, and Huang Yunfa were all blocked in Zhangjiakou, Datong, or their hometowns.

How can they fight against the state apparatus? In the face of one case after another of smuggling and collaborators with conclusive evidence, there were no hard bones, and one by one they wept bitterly and begged for mercy.

In the end, the Ming state had an extra 30 million taels of silver, and Siberia had 5,000 more immigrants.

Zhu Youzhen didn't expect that these businessmen were so rich that they could rival the country, thinking that he had been the emperor for 17 years, he was worried about food and salary all the time, and these black-hearted businessmen were so rich!

He was originally murderous and wanted to exterminate all these profiteers.

However, God has the virtue of a good life, and the Emperor Zhongxing is merciful enough to ask for money and not to die, but he exiled the three Jin merchants to Siberia to reclaim and graze, of course, they are willing to start from scratch to do deerskin, timber and other businesses, and can get low-interest loan support from "Huaxia Qianzhuang".

Although he was not able to wield a butcher's knife to kill those profiteers, Zhu Youzhen also felt hearty, he finally knew how important it was to have an army like an arm, and he thought about taking the "God of War" soldiers to Jiangnan again.

After getting rid of the traitors and Jin merchants, not only did the state have more silver, but also a lot of real estate and land, and the silver of the border army and the displaced people was naturally very rich.

Seven days after the army was revised, Ma Xiangling selected a part of the border army and the Sichuan army to form twelve battalions, and the soldiers were divided into three routes to clean the prairie when the autumn weather was cool, and cooperated with Zu Kuan and Li Dingguo, who had already begun to attack.

The tactical task was to weaken the Tartar tribes, and the strategic purpose was to drive the Mongols all the way to the west. There are too many Mongols, you can't and can't kill them, drive them into Europe as much as possible to grab territory with Lao Maozi.

Historically, the Han Chinese had driven the powerful Xiongnu to Europe to embrace the declining Roman Empire, and the Mongols who rose up later completely conquered Russia under the leadership of Batu, and Moscow was the only time in history that it was broken by the enemy and completely occupied.

Is it true that no one dares to mess with the so-called "fighting nation" Russia?

The answer is no, the Mongols once completely conquered them. Batu established the "Golden Horde" with the Volga River as the center, and enslaved the "fighting peoples" for 250 years.

Huang Sheng was very curious about whether the likes of Haoge and Azig, who had received a large number of cavalry, would defeat the "fighting nation" and organize them into the Yellow Hair Army of the Eight Banners? Isn't it cool to have a shaved head and a thin yellow braid behind the back of your head?

In order to achieve this effect, the Han Chinese had to drive the Mongols, Uighurs, Turks, and Cossacks westward as much as possible, and let these homeless wandering peoples kiss the "fighting peoples."

After Jiannu ran away, he was not chased by the "God of War" soldiers, and Haoge had already conquered the Turks in one fell swoop with the children of the Eight Banners at this time, and his strength had tripled.

The 30,000 Turgots of the Turgots turned the Volga valley into a hunting ground with the cooperation of the Jiannu Iron Cavalry, and too many old hairy people were shaved off and turned into Aha.

Having occupied the vast Siberia, the task of generals such as Zu Kuan and Li Dingguo was to digest the territories they had already taken, annihilate the steppe peoples who did not submit to the king, or drive them all the way to the west.

The steppe peoples who chose to submit to them divided and ruled them in a simple and effective way, similar to the Tui En Decree, which overthrew the customary system of the steppe peoples with the strong as the tribal leader.

Divide large tribes into small and medium-sized tribes of no more than 200 men, with the leader of the "God of War" military support as the tribal chief.

Only when the tribal chieftain was canonized by the Emperor Zhongxing could he exercise his power and avoid being attacked by the Ming army.

The chiefs of foreign nationalities recognized by the Ming court are of course Sinicization activists, and they are the benchmark figures of the king's service, and the chiefs who cannot speak Chinese and write Chinese characters will be included in the list of those who are about to be eliminated or expelled.

Sending troops to attack the tribes that refuse to be sinicized is, of course, the "God of War" soldiers led the Mongolian tribes loyal to the Ming Dynasty to complete, a group of harmonious aliens is not conducive to the Ming rulers, and it is quite necessary to let wars break out between the foreign tribes from time to time.

The war in the interior of the Ming Dynasty came to an end, and the battlefield of the Japanese Kingdom was about to usher in an offensive and defensive war that exterminated humanity.

The chief general, Shi Changjin, the deputy general, Yan Yingyuan, and the zanhua brainstormed and devised a tactic to induce the shogunate army to concentrate their forces to hold the siege of Edo and annihilate it.

Tokugawa Iemitsu was naturally unwilling to be defeated, and he reinstated the castle walls day and night, believing that Edo Castle had become impregnable.

At the same time, Tokugawa Iemitsu had been sending troops, and he was reluctant to use these troops to attack the Ming army, and he knew that such a tactic was a refueling tactic and would consume his troops in vain.

Seeing the arrival of many foreign feudal armies loyal to him, he believed that there should be no enemy in this world who could defeat tens of thousands of samurai and take Edo Castle.

Tokugawa Iemitsu's plan was to concentrate all his forces to defend Edo Castle, tempt the Ming army to fight a tough battle and consume the vital forces, and when the veterans of the Ming army were tired, he would go all out to launch a counterattack and strive for the success of the first battle.

The generals of both sides have their own evil intentions, and the only way to end up is to concentrate their forces under Edo Castle.

The Ming army that Tokugawa Iemitsu was waiting for arrived as scheduled in early August of the 17th year of Chongzhen, but the expected Ming army did not carry out a large-scale siege of the city.

Less than 20 days had passed since the Ming army came to the city, and Tokugawa Iemitsu felt that his head was as big as a fight, because the Ming army seemed to coincide with him, and they built strange fortifications outside the river, as if they were waiting for the shogunate army to attack.

The shogunate army scouts continued to report the layout of the Ming army camp, and Tokugawa Iemitsu and many major generals also used a clairvoyant mirror to look at the Ming army camp from afar.

The modern three-dimensional fortifications of the inner and outer three layers of trenches and barbed wire could not be understood by these Japanese people, but they felt the solemnity of the strong barriers, and they were afraid before fighting.

Tokugawa Iemitsu thought that there was no good strategy for attacking the camp of the Ming army, and when he gathered the generals, he publicly announced that the tactics of the shogunate army were to defend instead of attack, with the purpose of preserving strength and exchanging time for space.

He ordered the generals not to attack the camp of the Ming army without authorization, it was obvious that it was a trap for the Ming army, and the main general of the Ming army tried in vain to consume the defensive force of Edo with fortifications.

The commander-in-chief strictly ordered that no attack should be made, and of course the shogunate army was able to retreat to Edo and garrison it, so the two armies fell into a confrontation, and the battle situation seemed to have entered a strategic stalemate.

The civilian and military generals of the shogunate army all thought that this time should be compared to the endurance and material reserves of the main generals of both sides, and the shogunate army did not panic, and the local war originally had the right time, place and people.

Moreover, the Wa Kingdom was not attacked by surprise, they had long been determined to live and die with Edo Castle, so they also made reserves early, and it was not a problem for materials and food to support them for a year.

Autumn is crisp and dry, and more than 90% of Edo Castle's wooden buildings are built.

The Ming army knew that the established tactic was a fire attack, and of course they would prevent the burning of the company camp, and the trenches besieging Edo Castle had been dug, and not only that, but they were also flooded to form a separation zone.

By the beginning of September, the Ming army, which had completed the construction of the encirclement, was looking forward to it every day. The generals of the Ming army were all looking at the Edo Castle defense with high-powered telescopes from steel lookout posts in different positions, and they were all counting the days in anticipation of the general attack.