Early the next morning, Su Tiancheng, Sun Chengzong and others set off, and the team grew again.

Sun Chengzong was a little anxious, so he had already asked his family to make preparations, and after finding Lu Shanji in Dingxing County, he set off directly to Nanjing City. Those who stayed in Gaoyang County were Sun Chengzong's eldest son's family.

Before leaving, Sun Chengzong repeatedly told his eldest son to keep to himself, to guard this family well, and to cultivate the children of the Sun family well.

Gaoyang County is less than 200 miles away from Dingxing County, and both counties are under the jurisdiction of Baoding Prefecture, so it doesn't take long for Sun Chengzong to accompany Su Tiancheng to Dingxing County.

According to the requirements, Su Tiancheng and Sun Chengzong also had to go to the capital, and after meeting the emperor, they set off to Jiangning County, and Sun Chengzong received a holy decree that he must go to the capital to thank him.

The distance of less than 200 miles is three days.

Sun Chengzong is old, it is not suitable to ride a horse, and there are several carriages in the team.

But Sun Chengzong refused to accept the old man and insisted on riding a horse.

After a day, Su Tiancheng found that Sun Chengzong's health was indeed very good, although he was already seventy-one years old, he could do things vigorously, the key was to eat very well, and he could drink with him.

Horseback riding is not a problem, although it is said that there is no need to gallop on the horse, but the bumps on the horseback are still very physically demanding, look at Sun Chengzong's performance, I don't care at all.

Baoding Mansion is close to Shanxi, and the living habits here are different from those in the south. Manifested in the eating habits, the difference is very obvious, the staple food here is pasta, including pancakes, steamed buns, etc., there are not many noodles, ordinary people at home. Can't afford to eat noodles.

After more than a day, Su Tiancheng frowned a little, he couldn't imagine this kind of eating habit, it was like this hundreds of years ago, when he was in Pingyang Fucheng, Shanxi, he insisted on eating rice, because before the crossing, he was a southerner, such a eating habit. It has become a conditioned reflex, it is okay to eat pasta for breakfast, but at noon and evening, it is all pasta, and it is still not adaptable.

For the situation in the area of Baoding Prefecture, including Shanxi, Su Tiancheng is not very familiar.

After the initial crossing, most of the time. It's all about thinking about the way forward, although I'm also concerned about some local conditions. More often, he considers the general development direction and does not pay too much attention to details, so he is not very familiar with the folk customs of the north.

Along. Sun Chengzong continued to introduce the situation, although he was moving along the official road, he could see a lot of situations.

The situation he saw along the road made Su Tiancheng's mood more and more heavy.

The famine in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan is well known to the whole country. Because of the homeless people in these places, in desperation, they took refuge in the rebellion of the Liukou in order to survive, and in Shandong, the Ming army mutinied and conquered Dengzhou, which caused a great shock in the imperial court, so that Zhu Youzhen had to pay attention to the issue of military salaries.

These situations are all public, however, in everyone's impression, the situation in Beizhili is still good, after all, it is close to the capital, at least it can get special care from the imperial court.

But this is far from the case.

Baoding Mansion is only about 300 miles away from the capital, this distance is nothing, but after more than a day, the situation that Su Tiancheng saw can be described as devastating.

This is only October, less than three months after the autumn harvest, it is said that every household still has grain, the time of green and yellow is not available, it should be in the spring after the beginning of the year, but from Gaoyang County to Dingxing County, there are displaced people along the way.

In many villages, you can see the ruins, as if they have been plundered and wars have broken out.

The situation in the village is not good, and it is rare to see the so-called rich gentry, most of whom are poorly clothed peasants.

It's late October, the weather is starting to get cold, and the performance in the north is even more obvious, Su Tiancheng and his party have begun to wear cotton clothes, but the people and farmers they saw along the way are basically still shabby single clothes.

When Sun Chengzong introduced these situations, his tone revealed anger and helplessness.

The reason for this situation is directly related to the invasion of Houjin.

After the battle of the Daling River in Chongzhen for four years, the Ming Dynasty completely lost the initiative in Liaodong, and this war was also a classic battle of the Houjin thousands of miles to run, since then, the harassment of the Houjin has become more and more frequent, even near the capital, they are also swaggering over.

The combat effectiveness of the Houjin cavalry is very famous, that is, the later famous Eight Banner Army, each banner army, divided into three parts, the first part is the forward, the second part is the cavalry, the third part is the guard, the tasks of each part of the soldiers are also different, at the beginning of the fight, the forward sergeant is wearing firm leather armor, wrapped tightly, charging in the front, disrupting the opponent's formation, opening the breakthrough, the cavalry sergeant is wearing light armor, on the basis of the pioneer battalion to open the gap, closely behind, in a fast and flexible way, Rush into the opponent's camp, start a fight, give the opponent a strong blow, and once again crush the opponent's confidence, the protector is the eight banners of the army, the most powerful troops, they are elite, selected from the whole banner soldiers, their task is to completely defeat the opponent, they are the most relentless to launch a charge, the sergeant's hand, are holding a horizontal knife, like the autumn wind sweeping the leaves, giving the opponent a devastating blow.

It is no exaggeration to say that in the field of conquest, the Ming army could not compete with the sergeants of Houjin.

The army of the Later Jin also has its own weaknesses, that is, the siege is not good, the army of the Later Jin is mainly cavalry, and the cavalry is originally used to charge, not to siege the city, however, as time goes by, more and more Han people have joined the army of the Later Jin, so that the ability of the Houjin army to attack the city has been greatly enhanced.

The area of Baoding Mansion suffered from the invasion of the Houjin cavalry, many people here, their property was robbed, people were plundered by the soldiers of the Houjin, and the Houjin cavalry passed through, and there were ruins everywhere.

What is infuriating is that the army of the Ming Dynasty can only watch the arrogance of these Houjin cavalry, and they are helpless. In the field of warfare, when they met Houjin's cavalry, they basically went and never returned.

Su Tiancheng finally saw the legendary fire road pier, or side pier.

This kind of fire road pier is a special existence of border soldiers, which is generally built between villages and towns, and the distance between each fire road pier is not very far.

The direct leader of the fire road pier is the guard station located in Fuzhou.

Because of the invasion of the Later Jin, the Beizhili and Shanxi Datong areas have become the front line, and the Ming army has suffered repeated defeats in the confrontation with the Houjin sergeants, and it has reached the point of talking about the tiger's discoloration.

A large source of income for the border army relies on the military tun, if it can't be tuntian, the border soldiers can't support it, the matter of the imperial court's arrears is no longer news, it happens all the time, and now, even this tuntian can't feed many border soldiers, and the escape and mutiny of the sergeants are happening all the time.

Most of the land of the border army is distributed in villages and towns, so to a large extent, the construction of fire road piers is for the border soldiers to be able to farm well and feed themselves.

But imagination is not reality after all.

The fire road pier is built very firmly, the city wall generally has a height of more than ten meters, but unfortunately the fire road pier can only live inside, the land is still outside, you need to go out to cultivate, sometimes, when it comes to the harvest season, the small force of the Houjin cavalry, come to harass, the sergeant can only hide in the fire road pier, watching the arrogant Houjin cavalry, snatching food, wanton slaughter of the people, of course, they do not forget to light the beacon fire, remind the rest of the place, the Houjin cavalry came to harass.

The fire road pier was built in Baoding Mansion and brought it, which was indeed beyond Su Tiancheng's imagination.

"My lord, is there also a fire road pier in the area of Baoding Mansion, this is so close to the Beijing Division, if Houjin can come here to harass at will, wouldn't it be the Liaodong area, my Ming Dynasty's army, has completely lost its advantage."

"Master Su, the situation is even worse than you said, no wonder, you have always been in the south, even before, it was in Pingyang Mansion in Shanxi, which is also close to the south, if you stay in Datong for a while, you will know that this is not an uncommon thing."

Speaking of this, Sun Chengzong's face sank.

"The defeat of the Daling River, the old man has an unshirkable responsibility, if my Ming Dynasty army can stick to the area of the Daling River, the Guanningjin defense line will be more stable, because the Daling River is defeated, thousands of miles of fertile land in Liaodong, all lost, the barrier of the North Zhili, is not so strong, these years, the old man has been blaming himself, if he paid more attention to it, he would not have suffered such a big defeat."

"My lord, don't mention what has passed."

"You can't say that, the people and farmers in the area of Baoding Mansion are worried all day long, and the day is not safe, seeing these situations, the old man's heart is uncomfortable, and he can't go into battle to kill the enemy."

Su Tiancheng muttered in his heart, if it weren't for me Su Tiancheng crossing over, your boss Sun Chengzong would really have to donate his life, and he did so when Houjin attacked Gaoyang County, of course, it was the eleventh year of Chongzhen.

The situation around Baoding Mansion gave Su Tiancheng a sense of urgency, he couldn't imagine that the situation here had reached such a point, there was no security near the Beijing Division, no wonder Zhu Youzhen often had to transfer troops to King Qin.

This situation must be changed quickly.

This kind of change is not as simple as it says, it must be supported by silver, just say that the few "peasants" I saw, dressed in tatters, with a haggard face, if it weren't for Sun Chengzong's introduction, I don't believe it at all, these people are actually the border soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, such an army, can resist the strong Houjin cavalry, that is a big joke. (To be continued.) )