"Are you really willing to support me as the new King of Hami?" Ankh Timur has been waiting for this moment for too long, as the younger brother of Nahuri, the king of Hami, he has made great contributions to the founding of Hami, in terms of qualifications and merits, there is absolutely no one in the entire Hami country who can compare with him.

Nahuri, the king of Hami, also said many times that he would pass on the throne to him after his death, but when the political situation stabilized, he never mentioned it, and began to secretly cultivate the strength of his son, Timur of Tokhan, and a discerning person knew what he wanted to do at a glance.

This incident made Anker Timur very angry, he felt that he had been tricked, he was not a good person, he would not be sold and help the money, since you didn't give it to me, then I had to rob it myself. He has endured it for so many years, and this time he finally has a chance, Hami is finished, and he can only be an insignificant petty official at most with Zhu Ao, and maybe he will go to see the granary like the king of Shazhou, Alu Geli, this kind of insult He Anke Timur will never bear, and immediately decided to let go and show off his cards to his henchmen.

"Of course, Lord Anker is definitely the wise lord of Hami, and we are willing to swear allegiance to the death, if we have two hearts, the heavens and the earth will be destroyed!"

"That's right! If there are two hearts, heaven and earth will be destroyed! A group of Hami officers sitting around Ankh Timur's tent roared, each of whom put his right hand on his chest and hammered it three times as a way to show his loyalty to Ankh Timur.

Seeing that everyone was supportive, Ankh Timur was no longer hypocritical at this time, glanced at the generals, his face was gloomy, and he lowered his voice and said viciously: "When things are in danger, you should be bold!" You have also seen the sinister intentions of that Zhu Ao child, if we follow him, there will definitely be no good fruit to eat. In my opinion, we still defected to the Uighurs. The Uighurs were at war with the Su, and they were at a stalemate, and if we went over at this time, they would definitely give us a good position, and we would use this as our capital and wait for the opportunity to make a comeback. ”

"Okay, let's listen to Mr. Anker." The generals of the Hami army in the tent also felt that this method was good, and they now went to defect, for the Uighurs, it was tantamount to sending carbon in the snow, and the other party would definitely give themselves a good price, and when they were relieved, they could use this to find a good way out, which was better than staying here and being cannon fodder for Zhu Ao.

"Generals, let's go back and get ready, and we'll meet here in half an hour. This king will also take this opportunity to do something. Ankh Timur began to call himself the king, he had waited for this title for decades, and today he can finally call himself that, but what he never expected was that he only used this title for one night.

"The last general obeys!" All the generals of the Hami army stood up in unison and saluted with their fists. Then he quietly walked out of the tent, disappeared into the night, and went his separate ways.

These people were the most loyal old subordinates of Anker Timur, so he was not worried that they would become traitors, and at this time he had to do a very important thing - to kill his brother and nephew, not only to fight for the throne, but also to show off the evil spirit in his heart for many years.

Ankh Timur walked straight into the big tent of King Nahuri of Hami, who had not yet slept, and was still spitting bitterness at his son Timur for his great loss today, scolding Zhu Ao for fucking up, and not even leaving him a coffin.

Seeing Anker Timur coming in, King Nahuli of Hami was stunned for a moment, and then said with a puzzled face: "Anke, why are you here?" Why didn't you let the guards report before you came in, have you forgotten the rules of our country? ”

"My country? Does our Hami country still exist? My beloved brother, since the day you surrendered to Zhu Hao, he has perished, and you are the king of the kingdom of Hami. Ankh Timur said with a hint of anger and sarcasm as he walked slowly towards the father and son of Hamina Huri.

"What do you mean by that? As long as this king is still alive for one day, I, Hami, will not die. Zhu Ao has already promised me to be the lord of Hami City, although I can't be called the king at that time, I still have the final say in this Hami City. Nahuri, the king of Hami, seemed to sense something, and immediately straightened his face and reprimanded him with the appearance of a great king, in an attempt to deter Ankh Timur, who was approaching step by step.

"Hahaha." Ankh Timur burst into a low burst of wild laughter, the laughter was so contemptuous, and then he looked at the king of Hami like a fool and said: "You also believe this kind of deception of a three-year-old child, and you are really going back more and more as a king." I'm here today to tell you that I've decided to go to the Uighurs, but before I go, I'd like to borrow something from your brother. We brothers, you won't give it to me. ”

Hami King Nahuli has been mixed all his life, and he can be regarded as a half-human essence, how can he not be aware at this time? He felt a strong sense of crisis, which he had never felt in his life, and his fear suddenly burst out from his heart, surging all over his body, shaking his hairs and saying, "What do you want to do?" ”

"What are you not doing? I borrowed the heads of your father and son, and with them, I could get a better position on the Uighur side. Ankh Timur said as he slowly approached Nahuri, the king of Hami, with a ghostly smile on his lips, which made people shudder.

At that moment, several dead men dressed in night clothes suddenly rushed into the tent, followed by Ankh Timur, and slowly walked towards Nakhuri, king of Hami, looking at him like a lamb to the slaughter. Each of them had blood dripping from their knives.

"Someone! Come on! Chief Guard! The king of Hami roared hoarsely, and although he knew that the chief of the guard was afraid of bad luck at this scene, he still cried out loudly with the last chance of luck, hoping that some brave soldier would come to his tent in the middle of the night to pee, and accidentally heard his cry for help—the hope was really slim.

"Don't waste your efforts, I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and today God finally let me get my wish. Above! Ankh Timur turned his head and ordered viciously at the dead man behind him.

More than a dozen dead men swarmed up, and very skillfully cut off the heads of the father and son of Nahuri, the king of Hami, and then packed them and took them away, and followed Ankh Timur back to his big tent.

Ankh Timur's cronies were almost ready, and they gathered one after another, and they took advantage of the cover of night to consciously bypass the patrols of the Ming army and grope their way towards the Uighur camp.

But with so many people acting together, it is impossible that there is no movement at all, and the Ming army is a key precaution against them, and soon a soldier on night patrol discovered the abnormality and shouted loudly: "What person? Hold it! Password! ”

"Success or failure in one fell swoop, kill it!" Anker Timur decisively ordered. At this time, it is useless to play any conspiracy and tricks, if the other party is deceived by your words, Daming will die a long time ago.

"Whoosh!" There was a sound on the ground, it was the sound of crossbow arrows breaking through the air, and the crossbowmen of King Hami, who had been prepared long ago, immediately shot an arrow through the throat of the Ming army who had just shouted after Ankh Timur gave an order.

"There is an alarm! There is an alarm! Get ready for battle! The nine soldiers who were patrolling the night with the Ming army immediately shouted at the top of their voices, took out their hard bows, found cover on the spot and began to shoot at the rebels in Hami. A Ming soldier lit the torch he carried with him and drew three circles towards the observation post not far away. However, before the third circle was finished, he was shot dead by the crossbowmen of the Hami rebels.

At this moment, the nearby Ming army knew that something had happened in this area, and immediately shouted a warning while quickly rushing over to this area.

"Get out! The front is glory and wealth, kill! Ankh Timur shouted loudly, drew his sword, and rushed over in the lead, since he has embarked on this road, there is no way to turn back, success or failure is in this move, at this time there is only a sacrifice of life.

How could the Hami army under his command not understand this truth, they had long been prepared to become benevolent if they did not succeed, and they drew their weapons one after another, shouted loudly, and rushed towards the Ming army on the opposite side.

The other party attacked suddenly, and it was a battle against the water, and for a while, the Ming army even lost the upper hand.

"Your Highness!" The guards outside the tent hurriedly ran in again, knelt down in front of Zhu Ao, and reported loudly: "Your Highness, the Hami army has mutinied. ”

"What?" Zhu Ao was shocked when he heard this, although the number of Hami troops was small and the combat effectiveness was limited, but at this time, the mutiny was indeed a very demoralizing act, a grunt got up, and hurriedly said to the guard: "Go and get the armor and weapons of this king." ”

The Ming army camp outside the tent was in chaos, many people were shocked by this sudden change, tonight the dark clouds closed the moon, and the surroundings were pitch black, it was difficult to see what was going on with a few weak torches, so the Ming army was a little caught off guard, and was rushed out by this group of Hami soldiers.

"Quick! Rush to the other side of the trench, and the other party will come to meet us. Ankh Timur shouted loudly and commanded the army to charge, it turned out that he had colluded with the Uighur army and made an agreement to surrender, but he never had a chance.

The Hami army, which followed Ankh Timur, rushed to the opposite side of the trench like crazy, one step forward is heaven, one step back is hell, and anyone will fight hard.

Just as they were about to rush to the edge of the trench, a group of men and horses suddenly flashed out of the dark night to block their way, and a heroic young man led by him shouted in the air: "Traitor! How could this king treat you and others so that you want to betray me? ”

It was Su Wang Zhu Ao who spoke.

"Humph! From today onwards, we will be Uighur people, and we will meet on the battlefield in Japan, and I hope that the king of Su will forgive me for being rude. Anker Timur replied with great disdain, and it was impossible to see his expression in the darkness, but it could be heard from his tone that he was very dissatisfied.

"There is no need to come to Japan, this king will see you today!" Zhu Ao was furious, except for Lao Zhu, no one in this world dared to challenge his authority like this, he simply regarded him, the king of Su, as nothing, and immediately took off the hard bow and shot blindly in the direction from which the voice came.

"Ahh There was a scream on the ground, and there was the sound of a person falling to the ground immediately, I have to say that Zhu Ao's arrow technique is really not covered, and the person who fell to the ground with an arrow was the leader of the rebellion - Anke Timur.

"Master Anker!" The Hami rebels never expected that their leader would be shot to death by the other party at once, and they were so frightened that many people threw away their weapons and surrendered, and the rest of the people had no chance of winning if they wanted to resist stubbornly, and were strangled by the Ming army.

Zhu Ao was wearing heavy armor, with firm steps, and walked to the body of Anke Timur with a team of guards, and saw that the two bloody cloth bags rolled down from his horse were wrapped in the heads of the father and son of Nahuri, the king of Hami, and it was determined that the mastermind of the mutiny was this guy named Anke Timur, who had sent someone to assassinate himself and Nazha, during this time, for the sake of the overall situation, Zhu Ao had endured it, but he didn't expect that today he jumped out to oppose himself.

Zhu Ao took a deep breath, calmed the anger in his heart, and suddenly shot a scorching flame in his eyes, and said viciously: "Divide the five horses of Anke Timur, and behead all those who participated in the mutiny!" ”

Then, he squinted at the head of the Hami King Nahuri, and there was a slight hint of unbearability in his heart, although the Hami King always had trouble with himself, but there was no deep hatred between them, just a different position, frankly speaking, if he was in his position, he would definitely do the same, who is willing to give up the territory that he has worked hard to fight all his life?

Zhu Ao deeply understood what this Hami king had done, and besides, he was also the father of Di Linazha, and this favor was always to be remembered, so he sighed slightly, and ordered: "Sew up the bodies of the father and son of the king of Hami and transport them to Hami, and bury them with royal rites." ”

"Obey the order!" A thousand households standing beside Zhu Ao made a gesture to Zhu Ao and replied generously. An official of his level usually doesn't see the prince, but now he finally has the opportunity to behave well in front of the prince, how can he not be active?

This mutiny was completely quelled, and a total of thousands of Hami soldiers who made trouble were killed, and blood was shed all over the place, but Zhu Ao was still a little glad about this, thanks to Anke Timur, a fool who killed the king of Hami, otherwise he would not know how to place him in the future, although it was a lie to him to let him be the lord of Hami, but after all, this matter was promised by himself, and it was still very uncomfortable to go back on his word and beat his mouth.

The dark clouds in the sky gathered more and more, and even began to thunder, and it seemed that a heavy downpour was inevitable. When Zhu Ao walked back to the big tent, a herald came over on horseback, and when he saw Zhu Ao, he got off his horse, knelt on one knee, and saluted: "King Qiyu, General Changsun has repelled the attack of the Uighur army. ”

Zhu Ao nodded lightly, and said a faint "um", this matter had long been expected by him, so he was not surprised, waved his hand very casually, signaled the herald to retreat, and then went straight back to his big tent, untied his clothes, and fell asleep at the end.

The next day, it rained heavily, pouring down on the camps of both sides.

Zhu Ao's Chinese army tent was built on higher ground, and the construction skills were also very particular to ensure that he, the prince, could live comfortably on sunny or rainy days.

Now Zhu Ao is most worried about his own residence, although after crossing into the prince, he has become a lot more delicate, but he can still endure hardships in his bones, otherwise he would not personally lead the army to fight. At this time, he was most worried about the gunpowder of the firearms battalion, the waterproof performance of firearms in the early years of the Ming Dynasty was very poor, the gunpowder was not packed in a metal container, but scattered into the barrel or gunpowder tube, if the firearm was wet, the gunpowder would fail.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, when Sun Chuanting went out to aid Kaifeng and Li Zicheng in the last battle, he encountered heavy rain for several days and failed, and the continuous heavy rain not only blocked the grain route of the Ming army, but also made the Ming army can only eat persimmons that are not ripe to satisfy hunger, and the physical strength of the soldiers can not keep up, but also makes the power of the train battalion carefully built by Sun Chuanting greatly reduced, and did not break Li Zicheng's cavalry formation, and was counterattacked by Li Zicheng.

In fact, until the Opium War, the firearms of the British army did not solve the problem of waterproofing, let alone those of the Ming Dynasty.

Historians often attribute Sun Chuanting's final defeat to Chongzhen's eagerness and forced him to go out to fight against Li Zicheng, which is actually a complete ignorance of the situation at that time, not from the actual situation at that time, but from the historical materials compiled by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In fact, Chongzhen didn't have a choice at that time. Kaifeng City has been surrounded by Li Zicheng three times, the grain and grass are cut off, the danger is tired, people have begun to eat people, no one knows how long they can hold on, and Kaifeng is the south gate of the capital, as long as you take it down Kaifeng, you can go north along the ancient canal to the capital. At that time, Xu Da's Northern Expedition was mostly taken by this route. Xu Da can do this, why can't Li Zicheng do this? Why go around to Shaanxi? Do you have to detour to Shaanxi from Kaifeng to Beijing by car? Isn't this full of food? Although Sun Chuanting in Shaanxi has a certain strength, the terrain of Shaanxi is too distinctive, as long as Tongguan is blocked, people outside don't want to come in, and of course people inside don't want to come out. When Zhu Yuanzhang sent Xu Dachang to meet the Northern Expedition in the spring, in order to prevent the support of Li Siqi in Shaanxi, he first sent Deng Yu to capture Tongguan and lock his army in Shaanxi, but Li Siqi's army could not play any role. During the Jingkang Revolution in the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jin army also sent troops to capture Tongguan first, so that the ace army of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Qin, Jin, and Western Army, could not come out of Shaanxi, and then calmly broke through Kaifeng. The predecessors are in front of Zhuyu, why can't Li Zicheng follow suit? If he captures Kaifeng and sends a force to capture Tongguan, then Sun Chuanting's 100,000 troops will be locked in it, useless, and the so-called sentence of strangling the upper reaches of the Beijing division will become an empty word, and this sentence may also be a pretext from Sun Chuanting, because it is very unleveled and does not meet his IQ.

In fact, everyone is not wrong in this matter, the fault is that the Ming Dynasty should die, and the gas is exhausted. Sun Chuanting was thinking about tactical issues - "the new recruits are unusable", and it is indeed not big to bring a group of untrained new troops to defeat Li Zicheng. And Chongzhen is thinking about strategic issues, if Li Zicheng breaks Kaifeng, he can go straight to the capital to end the emperor's lair, and then even if you train an army that is enough to sweep the world, what is the use? Chongzhen is not Emperor Yuan Shun, he can't run to the north, according to his temperament, it will definitely be a way to martyrdom at that time. Therefore, Chongzhen can't be blamed for being anxious about this matter, because he has no choice.

Chongzhen only had three cards left in his hand at that time, the first card was Zuo Liangyu who nested in Wuhan, although Zuo Liangyu had a certain strength, but he was already afraid of Li Zicheng, and he didn't dare to fight him, and Zuo Liangyu was arrogant and domineering, and he didn't listen to the dispatch much at this time, so this card was useless.

The second one is Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan, needless to say, he also has to guard against the southward movement of the Manchu Dynasty, which is inseparable, Ningyuan is a strategic place, and he must not give up until the last resort. Some people in later generations who thought they were great gods questioned the role of the Guanning defense line all day long, which was really a self-righteous view. Their reason is that the Qing army bypassed the Guanning defense line several times and ran to the hinterland of the Ming Dynasty to enter the Kou, the defense line is dead, and the people are alive, so the Guanning defense line, like the Maginot defense line in later generations, is an image project, and it is useless.

Why don't people who hold this view think about how much manpower and material resources were spent on building the Guanning defense line, and almost all the financial revenues in the late Ming Dynasty were smashed to it. Are the emperors of the Ming Dynasty and those who have been admitted to Jinshi, Bangyan, and Champion and have been mixed in the officialdom for decades to reach the pinnacle of power? Why didn't they bother so much?

Those who compare the Guanning Line to the Maginot Line ignore the most important point - the terrain, you can open the Baidu map to see, the train from Beijing to the Northeast is only one way, that is, along the Guanning Line to Shenyang. This is because from Shenyang to Jinzhou and then to Shanhaiguan is a flat road, even under the ancient traffic conditions, more than 100,000 people brushed the ground and passed. And if you take a detour from Mongolia, not only is it far, but the road is also very difficult to walk, it is narrow and steep, and tens of thousands of troops have to go around for half a day, which is very inconvenient.

The Qing army was able to successfully enter the Ming Dynasty several times because the Ming Dynasty was weak at that time, coupled with the internal chaos, and was unable to stop it. It is precisely because of the blockage of the defense line in Guanning that the Qing army could only enter the Kou several times before, and they had to run away after grabbing, or they would be in danger of being dumplings if they did not wait for the reinforcements of the Ming Dynasty to gather.

In fact, the Qing army has always wanted to capture the territory of the Ming Dynasty, who would think that their territory is big? It's just that the situation doesn't allow it.

When Zhang Zuolin was about to retreat from Beijing to the northeast, there was intelligence that the Japanese had made an unusual move at the Huanggutun railway station, and his chief of staff, Yang Yuting, persuaded him to take a car and take a detour from Gubeikou back to the northeast.