Everything in the world is difficult at the beginning, once the beginning is good, as long as you keep persevering, there will be a day when you will receive results.

At the beginning, Emperor Chongzhen asked the Ministry of War to mobilize people and craftsmen to make the topographic sand table of the two capitals and thirteen provinces in the Huangming Domain, and now after more than two years of continuous efforts, it has been largely completed.

However, after completing the topographical sand table of the two capitals and thirteen provinces, Emperor Chongzhen had no intention of stopping.

Not only did the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry continue to send personnel to various places to preside over the exploration and survey of the topography of the Shanchuan City Post Road, but also continued to increase the number of plates with less terrain in the Wuying Palace.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also asked the Hanlin Academy and Guozijian in the north and south of Beijing to mobilize the young Hanlin and prison students, or let them consult the classics and documents, or assign them tasks to participate in this cause.

Although the Huangming Geographical Society has only issued 10 issues in the past two years, the name of Xu Hongzu, the editor-in-chief, has been widely known among the Shilin in the south and north of the Yangtze River.

For this character who has tried and failed many times but has been favored by the emperor by traveling all over the world, he has attracted a large number of followers.

Among them, there are not only Zhang Weicheng (that is, Zhang Dai) and Yang Wencong, who have repeatedly given up their careers and placed their love on the study of mountains and rivers, but also young talents like Fang Yizhi.

Now these people are following Xu Hongzu, under the banner of the Huangming Geographical Society, running around the mountains and forests in Yunnan and Burma.

In this life, Xu Hongzu has the banner of the Ming Royal Geographical Society, the funds allocated to the society by Emperor Chongzhen every year, and the survey token of the Ministry of War.

Therefore, when the production of the topographic sand table in the Wuying Hall came to an end, Xu Hongzu asked for a will, and took these characters who were absorbed by him into the Huangming Geographical Society to the southwest.

Regarding Xu Hongzu's practice of taking a bunch of friends to Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and other places to survey the terrain and geography, Emperor Chongzhen of course agreed with it very much.

Figures like Zhang Weicheng and Yang Wencong did not pass the Jinshi examination in their original history, but their influence in Jiangnan Shilin was much greater than the so-called Four Sons later.

Characters like Zhang Weicheng (Zhang Dai) and Yang Wencong are all from generations of official eunuch families, and they are also very talented, and they are very famous in Shilin Wenyuan.

Such characters, if they don't find something full of difficulties and dangers, and at the same time full of all kinds of excitement to do, they will be like in the original history, today to set up a poetry club, tomorrow to hold a literary meeting, and constantly create trouble for the imperial court.

Instead of letting them fool around in the people, it is better to give them a name, so that they feel that they can also get ahead one day with this.

Therefore, if it is said that Emperor Chongzhen's restoration and reuse of Xu Guangqi is equivalent to planting a plane tree that attracts Western scholars in the Ming Dynasty in this era, then Xu Hongzu, a strange person in Jiangyin who has not even obtained the fame of Xiucai, was pulled out of the people and let him become famous all over the world with the help of the Huangming Geographical Society and its "Geography of the World" magazine, in order to attract the available characters in the scholars, especially among the hermits.

Now, two or three years have passed, and finally a little effect has been seen, at least in the list of members of the Huangming Geographical Society, Emperor Chongzhen has seen the names of Zhang Weicheng, Yang Wencong and Fang Yizhi.

Now, these people went to the southwest with Xu Hongzu, on the one hand, they went over the mountains and mountains to find secluded and secluded places, satisfied their life interests, and on the other hand, they recorded the magnificent scenery of mountains and rivers, exotic flowers and grasses and customs along the way, and sent them back to Beijing one after another, so that the colleagues who stayed in Beijing sorted them out and published them in "Geography of the World".

The articles of these people's geographical expeditions or landscapes and other articles, published by the magazine "Tianxia Geography", not only earned them fame, but also formed a small trend in the Shilin circle of Jiangnan, Jiangbei and even Beijing.

Emperor Chongzhen also took this opportunity to pay out of his own pocket to let the Guozijian in the north and south of Beijing respectively edit and engrave the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", as well as the "Notes on the Book of Water" by Li Daoyuan during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the "Chronicles of the Land" by King Gu Yewang and other classic books and maps of traditional Chinese geography.

For Emperor Chongzhen, this is just a small matter, but if one day in the future, because of these small things, it really set off a wave of geographical exploration and investigation in the Ming Dynasty today, it will be a great merit.

Of course, Xu Hongzu's wonderful records about the mountains, rivers, geography, roads, walled cities, and customs of the southwest not only aroused the enthusiasm of some Shilin scholars to follow suit, but also became something urgently needed by the Ministry of War, and was used to make a more detailed and refined topographic sand table in the southwest region.

It is precisely because there is such a group of characters who are constantly supplementing and correcting the knowledge of the Ministry of War's staff on the topography and landform of mountains, rivers, roads, and landforms, so that the topographic sand table of the Emperor's territory in the Wuying Palace can become more and more accurate and refined day by day.

An accurate map of mountains and rivers is so important for strategically commanding a war, and in this era, I am afraid that no one can know better than the current Emperor Chongzhen.

It is precisely because of the improvement of the topographical sand table of the emperor's territory that Emperor Chongzhen, the minister of military aircraft, Ningcheng Bosun Chengzong, and the military department Shangshu Nanjuyi, can confidently be in the distant Forbidden City of Beijing and remotely command the war that takes place in the northwest borderland.

Moreover, Li Banghua summoned the generals of all walks of life in Jingning Prefecture, conveyed the latest edict of Emperor Chongzhen, and deployed the combat tasks and objectives of all the soldiers and horses in all directions, and then the generals of all walks of life immediately rushed back to their respective stations to rectify the troops and horses, and prepared for a new round of march to the west.

After Mu Suman crossed the Yellow River and fled westward, whether it was Emperor Chongzhen who was far away in Beijing, or Li Banghua and Yuan Chonghuan in the northwest, they did not have the original kind of rat trap and fear.

Especially in the overall situation is very good, but in the middle of the sudden encounter with the defeat of the Gan army and the defeat of Lanzhou City, from Li Banghua to Yuan Chonghuan, as well as all the generals and soldiers, are full of energy, to entrench in the Longxi area of the thieves are all exhausted.

On October 27, the third year of Chongzhen, Zhou Yuji, the new commander-in-chief of Gansu Town, took the main force of the original capture town, namely Wang Shihu's department, Yao Jinzhong's department, and Huang Tingbi's department, from Jingning to the west, and once again stationed in Huining County, which took over Gongchang Prefecture.

After the defeat of the Gan army, more than 2,000 people under Luo Junjie, a town in Gansu who retreated to Huining, were immediately incorporated into Zhou Yuji's command, and the Gansu town under Zhou Yuji's command once again exceeded 10,000 people.

At the same time, Shi Gongsheng, the new deputy envoy of the trilateral regimental training, was also ordered to collect the trilateral regimental training team that was scattered after Mao Yujian's death, such as Tang Zhongheng, Yan Ce, Qin Qi and other troops, about 4,000 people, and returned to Guyuan City for reorganization.

The Fourth Town of the Guards, which had been reorganized and trained for nearly three months in accordance with the instructions of the Governor's Office of Zhuanglangshui, had long been unable to endure the fighting temperament of the various departments.

After the courtiers of King Wu Anbo returned from Jingning Zhou City, the 12,000 men and horses of the Fourth Town of the Guards immediately advanced all the way in the direction of Anding City.

In addition, the troops of Dong Zhiyi and Pan Yunteng, the official army of Hanzhong, were also ordered to continue westward from Luozhou to seize Taozhou soon after;

Wang Chengen, the commander-in-chief of the Shaanxi army, personally led the army from Tianshui City in Qinzhou to Gongchang Fucheng, and launched an attack on Lintao together with the Weixian Department of the official Shaanxi army that had previously led the advance of the Shaanxi army to seize this place.

The Shaanxi army Yang Shien's subordinate obeyed Wu Anbo's moderation, went west from Tongwei Fort, cooperated with the soldiers and horses of the fourth town of the Guards Army and Gansu Town, and waited for an opportunity to seize Anding City, the gateway to Hezhou and Lanzhou.

And the leader of the Jesuits in China, that is, the Dutch missionary Condenius, had just come to Jingning to meet with Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of the three sides, with a group of hard-recruited Hongmaofan and Catholics, and heard the news that the city of Lanzhou had fallen.