H2> In July of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Ping'an was ready to send troops to Tongguan. After Wang Pin met the emperor and paid homage to Wang Chengen, he did not stay long, and had already left Beijing to return to Dengzhou. Yang Tinglin, as a fellow governor of Dengzhou, will follow Zhu Ping'an to enter Shanxi to fight. The suburbs of Beijing were already stationed with 3,000 soldiers and horses from Shandong. After receiving the edict from the imperial court, Zhu Ping'an sent people back to Shandong and mobilized 7,000 men and horses to march towards Tongguan, including Zhang Dingbian's 2,000 cavalry and some men and horses of Zhang Yaoxian, the first brigade of the new army, who were expected to join Zhu Ping'an at the end of August.

The military department's action this time was extraordinarily fast, and it was ready to transfer troops to Kanhe early in the morning, and without waiting for Zhu Ping'an to come to pick it up, he specially sent someone to the house. Early in the morning, a family member came to report that an official from the Ministry of War had come to deliver the transfer of troops.

Zhu Ping'an is a little strange, today's military department is not as good as in the past, Chen Xinjia is the original Yang Sichang lineage, but now he is deeply trusted by Emperor Chongzhen. The position of the secretary of the military department is not easy to do, but Chen Xinjia is conscientious, and in this regard, he is not far behind Yang Sichang at the beginning. Although the battle on the front line of Ningjin has returned to the state of confrontation, but in the previous stage, it has won several battles, and more than a dozen of the Manchu generals have died under the city of Jinzhou, so Hong Chengchou and Chen Xinjia have won the trust of Emperor Chongzhen.

Although Chen Xinjia has not yet entered the cabinet, looking at this shape, as long as Jinzhou can maintain the current shape, forcing the Qing army to retreat, when the time comes, Chen Xinjia will enter the cabinet with these merits. However, Chen Xinjia and Zhu Ping'an really can't be called harmonious, when Zhou Yanru and Yang Sichang fought, Zhu Ping'an and Chen Xinjia formed a lot of grudges. Even after Yang Sichang's death, Chen Xinjia was in charge of the military department, and he was still extremely hostile to Zhu Ping'an.

originally thought that if he went to the military department this time, he would always suffer some white eyes and difficulties, but he never expected that the military department would actually send someone to send the transfer of troops to Zhu Ping'an's mansion.

With great surprise, Zhu Ping'an changed into his official uniform and came to the front hall, and when he saw the appearance of the visitor, he couldn't help laughing, and even Yang Tinglin couldn't help but laugh.

The person who came was none other than Sun Chuanting's nephew Sun Shikang, who had a relationship with Zhu Ping'an when he followed Lu Xiangsheng to meet Sun Chuanting in the suburbs of Beijing. Yang Tinglin was born in the military department and is even more familiar with Sun Shikang.

"Brother Lin Chengxian, which fragrant wind blew you here?" Yang Tinglin smiled and bowed his hand.

Sun Shikang is in his twenties, with a red face and a burly figure, but he is more similar to Sun Chuanting's eldest son Sun Shirui. Dressed in a half-worn purple robe official uniform, the two palms exposed are also extremely thick, and he looks like a son of a martial artist.

Sun Shikang smiled bitterly, "Brother Boxiang made fun of him, the younger brother is just a member of the staff department, dealing with maps and other things all day long, and even the gate of the military department is difficult to get out, I am confused today, why was he sent such an envoy early in the morning!" ”

The three of them saluted each other, and as soon as they spoke, they made the ins and outs of it clear. The meaning is just that Chen Xinjia couldn't get used to Zhu Ping'an, and he didn't plan to meet him, but this time the Shandong soldiers and horses rushed to Tongguan, and the military department ordered to prepare grain and military salaries, but Chen Xinjia didn't plan to give a piece of silver. When he came, he also specially instructed Sun Shikang to bring a sentence, "I have heard for a long time that Shandong has been rich in recent years, and General Zhu has a way to make money, but now the court is in distress, and the military department has to support the consumption of the Shaanxi army and the army outside the Guanwai." Therefore, if he owes the Shandong Army expenses first, General Zhu may wish to record them first, and our military department will naturally issue a list of documents, and when next year's tax and silver are put into the treasury, it will naturally be written off for General Zhu Army. ”

As he spoke, Sun Shikang took out the transfer of troops from his arms, and there was a military letterhead stamped with Chen Xinjia's private seal, his face was indeed a little embarrassed, and he presented it to Zhu Ping'an with both hands.

Zhu Ping'an was stunned by Chen Xinjia's play, "Why did you have this white slip during the Chongzhen period?" I didn't want to meet me! ”

The straight-tempered Yang Tinglin naturally couldn't stand this kind of idleness, and even jumped up from the chair, "How can you play this kind of trick with no food and no pay, so how can the soldiers use their lives?" ”

Sun Shikang's face turned red. On weekdays, he is buried in maps and surveys, where has he ever encountered such an errand, and no one wants to be such a wicked person, so he sent him, an honest man who only knows how to do things. knew that the military department's move was inappropriate, but he had no way to explain it, so he had to listen to Yang Tinglin's shouting with a red face.

Looking at Sun Shikang's embarrassed appearance, although Zhu Ping'an was not happy in his heart, he also knew that he should not be blamed for this matter, so he hurriedly dissuaded Yang Tinglin at the moment.

Although Chen Xinjia's hand is a little vicious, it is useless to find him to make trouble now. The current financial situation of the Ming Dynasty is full of holes, and no one knows between the government and the opposition. The 500,000 taels of silver that Wang Pin escorted into Beijing were not hot in Chongzhen's arms, and they were jointly supported by the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Households. finally barely supported the army of Hong Chengchou outside the gate. Even so, the daily requests for silver and food outside the customs still flew like snowflakes.

Hong Chengchou's strategy was to advance step by step, steadily and steadily, advance layer by layer, compress the space for the activities of the Qing army step by step, and take advantage of the superiority in numbers to encroach on the living force of the Qing army little by little. Emperor Chongzhen also thought so.

However, the current financial situation is simply not capable of supporting such a strategy. Chen Xinjia had already made a fuss in the court several times, and strongly asked the emperor to issue an edict ordering Hong Chengchou to fight quickly. The actions of Li Dingguo and the North Korean side of Phi Dao gave him an excuse, saying that the Franc machine harassed the flank of the Qing army, and the North Korea also made it clear that it wanted to return to the embrace of the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing army had to transfer 20,000 troops from the British Ordai to garrison Yizhou, and the pressure on the Ningjin front line was far less than it was at the beginning.

This point was not expected by Zhu Ping'an, originally Li Dingguo continued to invade the east side of the Qing army, just for the war of Ning Jin, but he didn't expect that now it has become an excuse for Chen Xinjia to urge Hong Chengchou to enter the army.

It seems that the trend of Ning Jin's war has not gotten rid of the entanglement of history, once Hong Chengchou can't bear the pressure and decides on the decisive battle of the Qing army, the odds of victory will fall to the bottom in an instant. From this point of view, what can be done now is to consume the military strength of the Qing army as much as possible, or to save the besieged Ming army as much as possible.

Now in this situation, Zhu Ping'an can only go to Zhou Yanru to complain and try to raise some military rations and silver. Although the current Shandong army is completely self-sufficient, it is better not to let others notice this situation.

After persuading for a while, Yang Tinglin finally calmed down his anger, and even took Sun Shikang with a sigh of relief. Although he has only met once, Zhu Ping'an has not seen Sun Shikang until Sun Shikang is an honest scholar, and although his words are indifferent, he is really a sincere gentleman.

After the imperial examination high school, because of the unsatisfactory ranking, he did not directly enter the Hanlin Academy, but served in the military department, and stayed in the post for eight years. The scarcity of salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty is obvious to all, and many officials who served in the Qingshui Yamen did have a very difficult life.

Although Sun Shikang served in the Ministry of War, he was in charge of the survey and drawing of maps that no one cared about in the Ministry of Staff. In the last years of the Apocalypse Dynasty, the eunuchs were in chaos, and Chongzhen had to have a bloody storm when he succeeded to the throne, and the map of the Ministry of Justice was also burned in the chaos. Therefore, in the early years of Chongzhen, he began to consciously redraw and compile these maps. It is precisely for this reason that in the past eight years, Sun Shikang has traveled all over the country and devoted himself to this errand. So much so that now he is about to reach the age of his establishment, but he is still not married, and he is alone. It made Sun Chuanting also have a headache.

Speaking of this, Zhu Ping'an came to the spirit. As we all know, the most sophisticated maps of the provinces of the Ming Dynasty are all in the Ministry of War, if you can have a complete set of such maps, then the future march of the army can be like divine help. So Zhu Ping'an knocked on the side to test Sun Shikang to see if he could copy it with him like this.

However, Sun Shikang was very embarrassed, and only when the war was about to break out, the commander of the army asked the cabinet, and the celebrant supervisor approved the red, so that the map of the military department could be transferred for use, and after the use was completed, it had to be returned. After all, it is still an era of closure, and a set of fine and complete maps requires a lot of manpower and material resources to research, measure and draw, and Sun Shikang alone has spent eight years doing it. This shows the military value of the map. In the past, the maps of provinces, provinces, and capitals could not be compared with them at all.

Zhu Ping'an also made a difficulty, this time into the Shanxi, Henan battle, completely blindfolded, the specific terrain and landform are not very clear, if you want to fight without a map, it is equivalent to blindfolding yourself, in this way, the efficiency can be imagined.

Sun Shikang thought for a moment, "If General Zhu doesn't dislike it, the students have a set of shelved maps, which are not hidden by the Ministry of War, but drawn by the seniors in the Ministry of War, and are also adapted from the maps of the previous dynasty, but they are more practical than the existing maps." This set of maps can be lent to General Zhu first. ”

When Zhu Ping'an heard this, he was immediately overjoyed, and immediately stood up and waved towards Sun Shikang. Sun Shikang also hurriedly stood up and kept waving his hand, "Mr. Zhu misunderstood, this set of maps was made by his predecessors, and from the perspective of students, its value is far more than the maps drawn by the previous dynasties of this dynasty. The students also mentioned it to the officials, but the successive officials did not care about it, so they put it on the shelf, and it has been going on for many years. Now that General Zhu is on the emperor's order, he has set out to suppress the thieves, and it is also the time when these maps will see the light of day again! ”

Sun Shikang's remark aroused Zhu Ping'an's interest even more. Sun Shikang was not ambiguous, even if he asked Zhu Ping'an to send someone to his house to get this set of maps.

Zhu Ping'an's personal guard took Sun Shikang's handwritten letter and went out in a hurry. Zhu Ping'an remembered another thing. "Dare to ask Brother Lincong, has the military department ever sent secret agents outside the Guan?" R1152