said that they would go to Xifengkou in a few days, but Wang Fulin and Xiaobei and his party set off with Qi Jiguang, but it was already the sixth day after arriving in Jizhen. After all, winter in the north is different from that in the south, and everything depends on the weather, and if the road is full of snow, then even the official road or the marching road will be extremely troublesome. Although a lot of materials can be directly sent to Xifengkou through a Luanhe River, but there are few boats to and fro, after all, this section of the Luanhe River is of course because of siltation, the river surface is open and flat, and water transportation is no problem, but the freezing time in winter is very long, and there is a flood in spring, which is not suitable for transporting people.

Now that the Luanhe River has been frozen, even the horse's hooves have stepped on the thick ice, leaving only a white mark at most. Wang Fulin even thought about whether he could use dog sleds or skis. It's just that there are more than 200 people in their group, and there are two veterans with great experience in observing clouds. It was precisely because they confirmed that the weather had been sunny for the past two days that the group had just set off, and it was certainly not convenient for him, a newcomer, to point fingers, after all, he was not familiar with the geography and weather. Sure enough, when he got on the road, this journey of less than eighty miles made him suffer a lot.

The others were well-trained, accustomed to the way of driving from the north, and even though he had learned to ride a horse, he had almost often used it as a means of transportation, but the whole man was so tightly wrapped that his eyes were almost exposed, and he galloped in the cold wind to catch up with the road for several hours, which could not be compared with any previous hurry. At the most thrilling moment, he even felt that his frozen feet could barely hang the stirrups! As for talking on the road, it was even more unlikely, and he even had the illusion that the words he said were directly frozen in the air.

Finally, Qi Jiguang still took care of him. Stopped twice on the way to rest. The second time I stopped to rest. Qi Jiguang also had a hard time saying a few words about the old things.

"When I went to Jizhen before, I transferred 5,000 Zhejiang troops to train together, but those elite soldiers and strong generals who never complained about being tired when they fought the Japanese invaders, even if they still had military discipline after arriving in Jizhen, their spirit was not as good as before. Even if I don't dare to say it in front of me, there are still people who complain privately that they can freeze into popsicles when they pee in this winter, and they can freeze with steel knives if they are not careful. Where do people live? ”

"However, in the past two years, Jizhen has really gotten colder and colder." Qi Jiguang sighed unintentionally, and then glanced at Xiaobei, who was also wrapped in a ball around Wang Fulin, but his eyes were still alertly sweeping around, and after a moment of distraction, he explained two more sentences, "The side wall of Jizhen has been repaired intermittently since I took office, and the area around Xifengkou has been completely completed because of the official tribute road, so my trip also has the intention of patrolling." After all. When Daning was still there, the location of Xifengkou was not so important. According to this, the Songting Pass dozens of miles away is the steep Xiongguan, the Xifeng Pass is because it is on the Great Wall, and the Wuliang Haduoyan Sanwei can pay tribute from here, except that both sides of the pass are quite open, and often open the tribute city, which is lively. ”

Xiaobei was seeing those soldiers passing the spirits, and they drank extremely comfortably one by one, but she was daunted, so she could only jump a few times in place to move her body, as for Qi Jiguang's explanation, she had already understood it well before she came, and it was not too unfamiliar. Hearing that Wang Fulin seemed to care about Qi Jiguang's words, and asked in a whisper what the situation of Gong City was usually and whether there would be businessmen smuggling, she couldn't help but move in her heart, so she gestured to Bizhu and the four entourages on her side, and several people scattered on the side and were faintly vigilant, for fear that outsiders would hear Wang Fulin's question.

Qi Jiguang obviously had no doubt that Wang Fulin was here to spy on some kind of smuggling in the army, and he just smiled at this question: "Smuggling in the army, none of the nine sides can really be extinct. Instead of relying on exchanging goods inside the customs and horses outside the customs to get what they need, relying on the money allocated by the imperial court, it is not enough to do anything, from generals to soldiers, they all have to tighten their pockets to live. As long as it's not too excessive, most turn a blind eye. However, after all, the Wuliang Haduoyan Sanwei was nominally subservient, and the tribute market at Xifengkou was often opened, which was much more lenient than the rest of the Zhubian. In the past two years, Dong Fox's gang was too restless, and Gong City naturally stopped. ”

"But the more restless you are, the longer Gong City will stop?"

"Not bad." Qi Jiguang nodded, but patiently explained, "But Gong City is different from Mutual Market. Every time Uliangha paid tribute, he accompanied the merchants who wanted to pay tribute, but more often than not, the tribal leaders and nobles who wanted to extract large sums of money from the imperial court. Therefore, in the so-called tribute market, the people who accompanied the transaction came with the tributary mission, and since the number of times the tributary mission could enter Beijing was limited, of course they could not come as soon as they wanted. As a result, the chiefs and nobles could not get the rewards they wanted, and those who wanted to get rich could not make a fortune through the tribute market, and the Uliangha people would raise troops again and again to invade the country, hoping to force the court to loosen their mouths and increase the frequency of the tribute market, which is actually the frequency of tribute. ”

Wang Fulin was once again deeply convinced that this kind of relationship was not as simple as the diplomatic relations between the two countries in later generations. When it was time to get on the horse and hurry up again, he rode the horse while thinking about whether there was anything extraneous in Qi Jiguang's words, and finally vaguely confirmed a point. He said that he was going to Liaodong, but he was afraid that Qi Jiguang would also guess a few points. Although he wanted to go and see it himself, Qi Jiguang would think that he either ran over there as Zhang Juzheng's eyes to take a look, or Wang Daokun's instructions, probably hoping that he would bring the words he heard back to Beijing and reopen Gong City at the appropriate time.

Of course, he was thinking in his heart, this was a problem that high-level people needed to grasp, and now he could only be responsible for passing on the word, and he didn't have the ability to influence this.

Set off early in the morning, hurried all the way, but because of the snow on the road, it was necessary to control the speed of the horse to avoid slipping and various accidents, so when the group arrived at Xifengkou, it was already evening. Because he received a report from the messenger who went one step ahead two hours ago, Shen Duan, the general of Xifengkou, waited out early with a general. At this time, there was no war, and it was freezing cold, and he was not wearing armor, and at this time, regardless of the ice and snow, knelt down on one knee and saluted, because he saw Qi Jiguang directly dragged him up with one hand, he hurriedly took two steps and followed the coach.

"It's almost the New Year. Although it is important that the side wall of Xifengkou is completed. But the marshal also came to inspect it. It's so conscientious, when the first messenger sent the letter from Santun Camp before, I couldn't believe it! But the soldiers below were all elated, especially the snow had been intermittently in the past two days, and many people were very annoyed, but they didn't expect the big marshal to come. ”

Qi Jiguang listened to these compliments noncommittally, and knew very well in his heart that he was transferred from outside after all. The people of Thistle Town are not as obedient to themselves as they seem. He was deeply valued by Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng in the court, and Tan Lun, Liu Yingjie, and Yang Zhao, the three governors of Jiliao, all let him, the chief soldier of Jizhen, train and use soldiers, so the thorns in the high-level generals have long been removed, but there are always many people in the middle and the small officers at the bottom who have various opinions about him, an outsider. After all, his Qi family's military lineage was only a few thousand people, and although he promoted hundreds of officers from them, it was impossible to promote every single one.

Moreover, when I was fighting the Japanese before. He can use the toughest military to rule the army, so as to build an iron army as quickly as possible. But when training troops in Jizhen, the military law of beheading and cutting off ears at every turn will be slightly discounted. After all, even if there are people above him, the imperial history of those Imperial Inspectorates is always eyeing him, and there will be such impeachments at any time. Therefore, among the original soldiers and horses in Jizhen, only the 30,000 people he trained at the beginning were the backbone. It was precisely with such a team that he was able to beat Dong Fox at that time, and let the Wuliangha people, who thought they were invincible, suffer the biggest defeat in the past ten years.

As for the 30,000 people, the soldiers and horses guarding the gates of the border walls of Jizhen are not completely like their fingers, whether they are officers or non-commissioned officers. Some of them had to approve of his exploits, some of them disagreed with him, and some of them hated his harsh style.

The general army of Jizhen has three assistant deputy commanders, seven sub-generals, and sixteen guerrilla generals of various colors, so Shen Duan, the general of Xifengkou, can be regarded as having entered the circle of high-level generals with one foot. However, after Xuande, it has long been a deep-rooted tradition of being noble and martial, don't look at him, he has already entered the third grade in the grade, but he still has to kneel in various ways to the military department, and once he goes out of Xifengkou to Santun Camp, his ranking has already been out of the top five. So, in his own general office, when Qi Jiguang said a few words briefly, he retired from those Xifengkou generals, and finally left Wang Fulin and introduced him a little bit, and he immediately smiled all over his face.

The nephew of the squire of the military department, this is already worth stuttering, not to mention that the squire of the military department, Wang Daokun, is also a close friend of Qi Jiguang, the chief soldier of Jizhen, and an old subordinate of Tan Lun, the former governor and current secretary of the military department! Moreover, Wang Fulin himself is still a jinshi, compared to himself who is proud of being born in a military family, there are several hereditary military positions in his direct lineage, and he is called a child of the eunuch family, which is really expensive!

Wang Fulin found that Shen Duan's eyes were hot, and he almost suspected that the other party had some bad habits because he had been in the army all the year round, and his scalp was a little numb. Fortunately, Qi Jiguang still had something to say to Shen Duan, and found an excuse to send him out first, so he was happy to run away.

When he got out of the house, the soldier who had instructed him how to enter the festival hall came again to lead him to his lodgings. Although the house is not as good as the General Military Mansion of Jizhen, it is warm enough, the ventilation is okay, and the most important thing is that Xiaobei has already placed a box on the table, which is the marinated products that were prepared in the morning, but it was so cold that they couldn't eat it along the way.

In the warm room, the braised pork and braised duck that had been frozen hard had melted. Wang Fulin tore two duck wings and served a cup of strong hot tea poured by Xiaobei, even if the taste of brick tea was not to his taste at all, but at this moment all he needed was hot water to warm his stomach and heart, and there was nothing else to ask for. Thinking about the distant building that he had just vaguely seen in the twilight, the majestic scene that could accommodate 10,000 people to enter the customs, he couldn't help but hiccup, and then looked at Xiaobei and asked: "The Ming Dynasty has been established for more than 200 years, and Mongolia has been fighting almost intermittently for more than 200 years. How long do you think this kind of battle will be fought? ”

"How long?" Where did Xiaobei think about such a far-reaching question, let alone why Wang Fulin suddenly asked this, his brows suddenly became a knot, "Those elders in the imperial court don't know, how can I know...... However, thinking about the confrontation between the Liao and Song dynasties, no one thought that the huge Liao State would be destroyed before the Song Dynasty, and if they thought like this, Mongolia would definitely destroy the country first. ”

Wang Fulin didn't expect Xiaobei to say that he didn't know, and then he actually compared the old things of the Liao and Song dynasties, and couldn't help laughing, and after laughing, he gave Xiaobei a thumbs up: "From this and there, the association is wonderful." You're right, from the time of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the two heroes competed for hegemony, but in the end they were taken advantage of by other countries to rise, and this situation is too much. Do you know why I put forward a condition to my uncle in the first place, after coming to Jizhen, I still have to go to Liaodong? It's very simple, the Jin Kingdom of the Jurchens was destroyed by the Mongols, twenty years in Hedong and twenty years in Hexi, who can say that in the near future, this situation will not be reversed? ”

Of course, in history, the Manchus in Liaodong did not destroy the Mongols, but directly tied a large part of the Mongols to the chariot and conquered the world. It is impossible for him to start from the court in a short period of time, so can he go to Liaodong to see for himself, and then choose another angle to start? This is the reason why he heard that he came to Jizhen before, and immediately decided to go to Liaodong for a walk.

Xiaobei didn't quite understand why Wang Fulin praised herself, and when she heard that Wang Fulin actually thought that the Jurchens in Liaodong would be able to defeat Mongolia in the future, her eyes widened. This kind of military strategy is somewhat beyond her understanding, so she didn't have an interface, just looked at Wang Fulin's side face thoughtfully, and a thought suddenly came to her heart.

Wang Fulin is already safe enough in Beijing, and he can't help but cause a lot of things. But this time he came out of Jingshi, but he seemed to have a heart of causing trouble, so would he turn some places upside down? Forget it, anyway, if he kills people and sets fires, he must have his reasons, she just helps hand the knife and pass the torch next to her! (To be continued......)