The ice and snow in Liaodong in March melted, and after the winter of the Xiaoice River, spring came again. But for Houjin, who has been peaceful for a winter, it is a mixed blessing, the joy is that spring ploughing can be done, and the spring wheat harvest in September can be expected, and the worry is that Dengzhou Town is here again. The Ming troops around Liaodong left their garrisons one after another and marched in the direction of Liaozhong. In addition to Gaizhou, in other directions of Liaodong, the news of the disembarkation of the Dongjiang Army found continued to reach Shenyang.

Huang Taiji sat alone in the vast hall, there is only one Ao Bai below, Ao Bai is the nephew of Fei Yingdong, one of the five ministers of the founding of the Later Jin Dynasty, the first Baturu of Manchuria who is well known in later generations because of Lord Wei, at this time is just a Niu Lu Zhangjing, but its combat bravery, especially outstanding in Xuanda Biaoxiàn, has won the weight of Huang Taiji, and often serves by Huang Taiji's side.

Huang Taiji gently rubbed his nose with his left hand, while looking at the report in his hand, and after reading it, he slowly put the report on his lap and looked up at the empty hall in front of him. This hall was built after he took office, usually he does not come here, usually only when the political assembly is held, but today he received the news that the Ming army came again, and suddenly wanted to come here to sit.

The top of this hall changed from the Eight Kings to the Four Great Baylors to sit together, and then cut off Amin, died Mang Gurtai, forced back Daishan, and finally became a place for him alone, and the following also changed from [***] ministers to thirty-two ministers, the Great Palace has witnessed all the achievements since he took the throne of Khan, of course, it has not yet reached the ideal state in his heart, in his original plan, he will officially be the emperor here, not a Great Khan, but obviously there is far from hope now.

Coming here today, the feeling of emptiness and loneliness he had never felt in the Great Palace, which made his heart very quiet, and he sat here and read all the recitals.

The direction in which the Ming army appeared was still similar to that of last autumn, but Huang Taiji understood that Houjin was constrained by materials and manpower, and if this offensive could not be successfully thwarted, then Dongjiang Town and Dengzhou Town would gain a firm foothold in Xiuyan, Phoenix, Kuandian and other places. These places are located in the mountains and dangerous passes, Dongjiang Town was unable to hold on to it before, but now Dengzhou Town has joined, their supplies are sufficient, and they can form a strong defense line in the short term, Houjin will not be able to expel them, if they are allowed to gather troops and materials here, then the next time they wait until autumn, the departure area of the Ming army will be nearly two or three hundred miles than this time, and it can have a longer continuous combat capability.

The power of Dengzhou Town in southern Liaoning has been growing, and Houjin is weakening, last year's sudden food shortage, so that Houjin has been weak to the point that it can not besiege Fuzhou for a long time, Huang Taiji can foresee, if there is no quick victory in the spring, then the autumn attack will be a disaster for Houjin. And he actually saw the bad shape of this year as early as the end of last year, so he insisted on training a Han army, as far as he saw last time, although the army was successful, it did not have the momentum of Dengzhou Town.

He glanced at the stack of newspapers in his hand, sighed lightly, and suddenly asked Ao Bai at the bottom of the head: "Ao Bai, what is that Chen Xin in Dengzhou afraid of?" ”

Ao Bai was big eared and burly, but his eyes were quite smart, and compared with those ordinary white-armored soldiers, he also looked more polite, and he replied respectfully: "I should be the most afraid of the Great Khan." ”

"He's most afraid of me?" Huang Taiji smiled bitterly, "If he is the most afraid of me, he will not stay in Dengzhou well, and try to come to southern Liaoning, a place where birds don't, and he won't take a break if he doesn't fight with me a few times a year, don't learn from those Han officials, I want to listen to the truth in your heart." ”

Ao Bai hesitated and said, "It should be his master, the emperor of the Ming Kingdom." ”

Huang Taiji closed his eyes and lay down for a while, then suddenly smiled: "I can only think of this person, although I know that it may not be like that at all." ”

Ao Bai looked at Huang Taiji with some astonishment, I don't know what Huang Taiji means, Huang Taiji has stood up, Fa Fu's body is round and rolling, and he has long since lost the burly and vigorous that he was young and slashing across the battlefield.

"Has the striker of the East Road set off?"

"The two roads have set off, and Bai Jia, who is most familiar with the terrain in that area, has also set off."

Huang Taiji said softly: "Let's go too." ”

Ao Bai immediately went to open the gate, Huang Taiji walked to the gate and stopped, and said to Ao Bai: "You take 50 people from Zhenghuang Banner Bayala this time to the Han army in Sakhalian to supervise the formation, and all those who retreat will be killed, and there must be no omission, even if all the Han troops in the department retreat, you will be killed." ”

Ao Bai simply replied: "Huh! ”

Huang Taiji looked back at the roof of the Dazheng Hall again, his lips moved slightly, and he turned around and strode away......

Liaodong Fengyan everywhere, Houjin's spring ploughing was affected again, and the banner soldiers set off with whatever they wanted at home and not much food, completely without the eagerness to try when they went out on the expedition in previous years. What is more terrible than the attack on Dengzhou Town is that their prices have been high, and Liaodong suffered a severe drought and a poor harvest in the autumn last year, but the flag tax is getting heavier and heavier, and many families have been transferred to join the Han army.

After several times of consumption in Dengzhou Town and the baptism of soaring grain prices before the harvest last autumn, a large number of Han people at the bottom of the society died, and in September last year, Shenyang carried corpses out of the city as many as hundreds of ox carts, and also caused a small range of epidemics, and the Houjin controlled the grassroots very strictly, and the population flow of each Niu Lu needed to be led by the above Shiku, and Huang Taiji also issued a special decree stipulating that the nobles could not visit immediately when they were sick, and they must be made very clear every few days, so that the epidemic did not spread in Shenyang. This is already the case in Shenyang, the situation in the countryside of Liaodong is even stricter, the death toll has long been impossible to count, and it is commonplace to eat coated human flesh, as if it has returned to the time of the great famine in the seventh year of the Apocalypse.

After such a famine, there are not many ordinary bannermen with more than one coat, most of them have only one coat, and the system of non-professional soldiers makes the burden of the armor soldiers heavier and heavier, many people have to plough the land and serve labor, and when they send out the troops, they have to bring their own food, weapons, horses, tents, and almost no gains in fighting with the Dengzhou soldiers, and every time they fight, they are aggravating the burden of the bannermen. Many ordinary bannermen are to harvest the autumn grain to borrow money from the officials of all sizes in the banner to buy high-priced grain to live, in terms of the hardship of life, in fact, there is no difference from the people in the late Ming Dynasty, the only difference is that they still have combat skills.

The biggest threat direction is still the most convenient to project troops in Gaizhou, Dengzhou's sentinels first appeared near Yulinpu, the sentinels on both sides traveled between the two places, Jiannu's scouts found Dengzhou infantry along the line from Fuzhou to Gaizhou, because there was the cover of the military fort post station along the way and the Dengzhou sentinel interception, Jiannu's reconnaissance could not be too detailed, and in the report to Huang Taiji and Yue Tuo, the number of Dengzhou troops near Fuzhou ranged from 10,000 to 30,000. At the same time, the ships of the Dengzhou Naval Division also appeared in the northwest sea of Gaizhou, and the Houjin sent rangers and Baoyi to guard along the coast, and the Dengzhou Naval Division used small boats to transport infantry to attack several times at night, making the wind around Gaizhou everywhere.

In the direction of Phoenix, the number of the Dongjiang Army exceeded Shang Kegming's estimate, and many old men and women also followed Shen Zhixiang's men to go ashore, with a total number of more than 5,000, and the number of people with combat capability was about 2,000, about three Chengren had different types of armor, and other soldiers also had regular weapons such as knives and guns. Although this chaotic but large number of Dongjiang soldiers was poorly trained, they still retained the blood courage of the Liao people's revenge, and the small number of scouts in Phoenix City of Houjin were difficult to be the front of the soldiers, and slowly retreated to Tongyuan Fort.

Huang Long, the commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town, went to the direction of Kuandian, preparing to attack Hetuala, the hometown of Houjin, with about 1,000 people fighting along the way, and about 2,000 people who followed, providing baggage along the way and digging ginseng everywhere.

At this time, Tang Wei was walking in the middle of the spring offensive, and Xiuyan Fort was in front of him, which did not match Xiuyan's important position in southern Liaoning, although Xiuyan City was large, but it was very dilapidated (Note 1). Xiuyan belongs to Gaizhou Wei, the original city has been destroyed several times, can no longer be used as a suitable place to garrison, the original history, Jierharang in the seventh year of Tiancong newly built Xiuyan City, the city circumference is two miles and three hundred and four steps, mainly for military purposes, control the road to the north along the coast of Dongjiang Town.

Dengzhou town suddenly rose, the power of Houjin was pinned down in southern Liaoning, after the loss of Jinzhou, Dengzhou town continued to give assistance to the Dongjiang army of Guanglu and Shicheng, Xiuyan's strategic shape shì changed sharply, Xiuyan was lonely in the mountains, Gaizhou and Phoenix City were difficult to rescue quickly, Lianshanguan to Xiuyan reached more than 300 miles, Jierharang naturally failed to go to construction again, after the battle of Lushun was abandoned by the Houjin army, only one was left to destroy the Xiuyan Fort of Yanzhòng, leaving a small number of Houjin white armor soldiers as outposts in winter, these Houjin hunters held on for a winter, A few days ago, after the Shang Kexi outpost and the Dengzhou special service approached, the Houjin army completely withdrew.

There are many sections of the road from Huanggudao Fort to Xiuyan that are very muddy, and among the three pairs of cotton shoes that Tang Wei brought, two pairs of cotton shoes are so dirty that he doesn't dare to wear the third pair, and now he is wearing a pair full of mud spots. This muddy road delayed Zhong's plan by a day.

The winding marching army column marched like a long snake, and a Tang horse ran along the queue, and gave orders to the company commanders in turn, and the company commanders gave orders one level at a time, and finally Yuan Guzi said to the soldiers under the squad: "Camp along the west wall of the fort city." ”

Tang Wei twisted the collar and pulled the position of his neck a little, and the muscles in his neck relaxed for a while. He was wearing a standard military uniform, and he was wearing a chain mail inside, and the hem of the chain mail was dragged all the way to his thighs, revealing the outside of the military uniform, and his appearance was quite funny.

Dengzhou Town itself is also in the alternation of hot and cold, all types of troops are available, chain mail is most suitable for light troops with cold weapons, and it is very versatile, but for the new type of musketeers, their ammunition, bayonets, and flint bags are hung on the belt, and the spare ammunition and flint are in the pockets of the waist, and the shuttle armor will affect the soldier to get the spare ammunition, so it can only be worn in the military uniform. Although wearing armor affects the power of infantry machines, in the face of a cold weapon opponent like Hou Jin, armor can still greatly reduce the damage of bows and arrows, so no matter how ugly it is, you still have to wear it.

Fortunately, the helmet can be hung on the back of the backpack when marching, otherwise the neck will be more tired. After Tang Wei waved his neck, he glanced forward, Yuan Guzi's bright helmet was still on his head, and the red pennant shaking on it was very eye-catching, so he didn't have the treatment of carrying the helmet on his back, Tang Wei couldn't help but feel that being an official was not a good thing in his heart.

Outside the west wall of the camp, the team finally stopped, and after the whole team waited for the routine, Liu Liu said "rest", Tang Wei hurriedly put down his backpack, took out a coconut scoop from the outermost pocket, and poured water into his mouth.

Liu Liu hoarsely said loudly: "Everyone has been walking for the past few days, and they always say that the road in Liaodong is not easy to walk, and Lao Tzu thinks it is easy to walk......

Tang Wei flattened his mouth, this Liu Liu was born in Lushun Dongjiang Bing, he has been to Xiuyan many times, of course he feels that it is better to go. Liu Liu continued: "We didn't finish it when we arrived in Xiuyan, we arrived a day late, and the rest of Ming Yu was canceled, Lord Zhong will order, let's go to Haizhou in the direction of Ming until we meet the Jiannu Sentinel Cavalry." ”

Note 1: Xiuyan's Ming Dynasty city did not find a clear record, according to the "Xiuyan Chronicles Volume II", the new Xiuyan City was built by Jierharang in the seventh year of Tiancong, the city is more than two miles around, there is a broken earth city in the north of the city, the city is about eight miles around, the scale is much larger than the new city, only the north wall is left in the Qianlong period, and it can only be guessed that the Xiuyan City of the Ming Dynasty is located.

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