Whenever it comes to winter, especially in the winter of the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, whether it is the surface of the Yalu River or the Tumen River, after entering the late November, there will be a thick layer of ice. Ｘ

At its coldest, the ice can be four or five feet thick, and where there is a little less water, or where the river is a little shallower, it will freeze directly from the surface of the river to the bottom of the river.

Such a thick layer of ice, not to mention people and vehicles, even a huge cannon weighing three or four thousand catties, can be directly transported to the opposite bank through the river.

In the past, at this time of year, it was a critical period for people from all walks of life in Dongjiang Town to guard against the Jianyu Eight Banners army stepping on the ice and crossing the river to attack.

In previous years, the Eight Banners army of the Jin State after the capture of the country would indeed always take advantage of such an opportunity to launch an attack on the surrounding Ming army.

However, in the direction of the Korean Peninsula at the end of November of the third year of Chongzhen, when the Tumen River in the north and the Yalu River in the south were all frozen solid, the army with the blue flag in the country after the capture of Jin, which was responsible for guarding the Yalu River, and the army of the newly promoted Belebyan Dynasty who was responsible for guarding the Tumen River, no longer dared to act rashly.

On the contrary, whether it was the banner owner Zilharang with the blue flag, or the Beyleb Yandai of the Urut department, they all watched the river with fear, fearing that the Ming army on the opposite side would take advantage of the ice on the river and transport huge cannons across the river to the west to launch an attack.

The Ming army on the other side may not know the situation on the front line of Zhenjiang Fort, but Jierharang, the banner owner with the blue flag, knows.

As the Standing Army of the Eight Banners guarding the front line of the Yalu River in the Jin Dynasty after the establishment of the captivity, the various Niu Lu with blue flags have been holding on to the west bank of the Yalu River for a year and a half.

In the past year and a half, except for Huang Taiji, who led the army to Mongolia and the Ming Kingdom, he gave a certain amount of grain and grass supplements to the blue flag, and never gave any supplies.

The people and horses under the blue flag are not without their own accumulation.

However, after the early war and the persistence and consumption of the armor in the past year, all the bannermen and armor-clad people with blue flags gathered in the castle on the west bank of the Yalu River, only fighting, not producing, even if there is more accumulation, it is not enough for them to eat and chew.

Such a situation could have been resolved by war and plunder.

And in the past ten years, the children of the Eight Banners of the Jin Kingdom after the establishment of the captivity rarely worry about food and clothing.

First, in the homes of each bannerman and armor-clad people, there were a large number of robbed Han, Korean, or Mongol slaves who served as clothed slaves, cultivating land for them, grazing horses, cattle and sheep, and serving them.

Second, almost every army of the Eight Banners was able to grab what they needed from the surrounding Han, Mongol, and Korean people, as well as the wild Jurchen tribes in the north, through robbery and plunder, such as population, cattle and sheep, as well as Dongzhu, furs, ginseng, and other things.

Items such as Dongzhu, fur, and ginseng were either given as wealth to meritorious subordinates or armor-clad people, or they were used to trade with Shanxi merchants who went north to seek wealth or the businesses of some generals in Dongjiang and Liaodong, in exchange for other urgently needed things such as food and clothing.

However, all these previous ways to obtain money and food supplies are now impassable.

Some of the savage Jurchen tribes in the north and the Beishan Jurchen tribes paid tribute to the Dongzhu, skins and ginseng mushrooms in the Houjin country, but there was no sales in previous years.

Not only are there no trace of the Jin merchant caravans from the direction of Xuanda, but even those merchants in western Liaoning, as well as some caravans that traded to and from Dongjiang Town a few years ago, have also disappeared.

The difficulties brought about by this situation are not so prominent for the bannermen and armor-wearing people of the two yellow flags and two red flags in the areas of Shenyang, Tieling, and Fushun.

After all, in the summer, the Great Khan Huang Taiji divided the flag fields for each flag of the Eight Banners, and the top and bottom of each flag, from the most noble flag owner in the first banner to the lowest rank of Zhuangni Daci (similar to the small flag or even the chief in the Ming military system), all received a different number of fields.

Even the ordinary bannermen and armor-clad men who were not even a strong Nidazi were given a share of the new land.

Huang Taiji's approach certainly made the morale of Jin Guozhong, which had fallen to the extreme, rise after the establishment of the captivity, but also made his position stable to a certain extent and his prestige to be reversed.

Including the owner of the blue flag, Jierharang himself, also took this opportunity to occupy several new granges in the area of Kuandian and Olehui (Huanren) on the west bank of the Yalu River.

However, the morale raised by relying on painting cakes to satisfy hunger is not as good as real money, grain, cattle and sheep and other materials.

For the blue-inlaid banner owner Jierharang who is in Zhenjiang Fort, and the bannermen and armor-clad people who have been sticking to the front line of the Yalu River under his command, it is far from quenching their thirst.

No matter how much barren mountains and mountains Huang Taiji distributed to the bannermen and armor-clad people with blue flags as farm property, it could not solve the problem of food for the garrisons in Zhenjiang Fort (later Dandong, Liaoning), Kuandianbao (later Kuandian, Liaoning), Orhun City (later Huanren, Liaoning), Yalu Jiangcheng (later Ji'an, Jilin) and other places.

Among the Jurchen Eight Banners in the Later Jin Dynasty, there are also three, six, and nine categories, in addition to Zhuangni Daci (Shichang), Bashiku, Fende Bashiku, Niu Lu Ezhen, Jiala Ezhen, Meler Ezhen, Gushan Ezhen and the Minister in charge of the flag, etc., this kind of masters at all levels from low to high, even ordinary banner people, are also divided into two big types: flag ding and armor people.

The bannermen of each banner refer specifically to the Jurchens from the various Jurchen tribes of Jianzhou, as well as those Jurchens from the Jurchen tribes of Haixi who were conquered relatively early or who took the initiative to belong to the Jurchen tribes of Jianzhou.

As for the armor-clad people, they refer to those who were from the semi-civilized savage Jurchen and Beishan Jurchen tribes, as well as the semi-Jurchen Mongolian tribes who were placed on the old land of the Haixi Jurchens after they were integrated into the Eight Banners of the Later Jin State.

Of course, many of these so-called armor-clad people are not really Jurchens.

In later generations, the Oroqen, Evenki, Hezhe, Daur and other ethnic minorities in Northeast China were regarded as savage Jurchens or Beishan Jurchens by the Jianzhou Jurchens.

But as long as these tribes were defeated and conquered by the Jin State after the Jianju, the young and strong men in their tribes would be incorporated into the Jurchen Eight Banners, acting as the so-called armor people in the Eight Banners, and fighting specifically for the children of the Eight Banners who were born in the Jianzhou Jurchens.

Of course, there are also some North Koreans who were arrested in the early years.

However, there are only a few Koreans who can mix with the status of armor people, and most of the Koreans who were captured by the Jurchens across the river have the same status as the Han people in Liaodong, and have been given to the bannermen of the Eight Banners or the armor people with military merits as slaves, that is, clothed slaves.

And these bannermen and armor-clad people who belong to the master's level in front of the coated minions are usually not productive.

They only regard military conquest as their exclusive business.

Every time he went out to fight, he brought his own swords, guns, bows and arrows, and brought his own saddle horse rations to go to the army, and the food and property he grabbed were basically his own.

Of course, there was no problem with this method of warfare when the army was invincible in the past.

Every time I go out to fight, I return with a full load.

But since last winter, the series of battles on the east and west banks of the Yalu River have been very different from every previous battle.

Most of these bannermen and armorers who built and inlaid blue flags were not powerful.

Although they did not lose much, they did not win any battles either.

Several times he crossed the river to attack the city, but he returned without breaking any city in Dongjiang Town.

Therefore, since the war broke out last winter, these people with blue flags and armor who stuck to the west bank of the Yalu River have not been able to get the food, grass and property they need through the war.

And because the various cattle records with the blue flag have been confronting the Ming army guarding the mansion in Andong Town across the river, and they must be vigilant against the enemy's artillery bombardment and attack at any time, so these bannermen and armor-clad people have no time to disarm and return home, return home or return to their new grange, and go to supervise the cultivation of wasteland.

Therefore, when the second winter came, the poverty faced by the various cattle and armor men with blue flags can be imagined.

Compared with the two yellow flags and two red flags in the rear, the blue flags that confronted the Ming army in Dongjiang Town on the front line were in a much more severe situation of food shortage.

Especially at the end of November, even Zilharang, the owner of the blue flag, had to start ordering the slaughter of the pack horses in the Zhenjiang Fort to serve as food for the army garrisoned with the blue flag in the city.

In such a situation, not to mention taking the initiative to cross the river to launch an attack, even if the Ming army could hold Zhenjiang Fort for a long time when the Ming army attacked, the confidence in Jierharang's heart was a little insufficient.

This is also why, in previous years, every winter, Jianyu always waged war against the outside world.