The thirteenth year of Chongzhen, September.

Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan Town, led an army of 20,000 to ambush 10,000 Qing troops outside Songshan City, and the Ningyuan army was completely defeated, with a total of 1,765 beheadings, including 653 levels of Jianyu Zhenyi and 1,112 Mongolian Tatars. Among them, there were fifty-seven levels above Bashiku, and Wu Sangui, the chief military officer of Ningyuan, personally killed seventeen captives, and cut off one of the left arms of the Tartar Zheng Prince Zierharang with a knife in the battle.

And to achieve such a brilliant victory, Ningyuan Town only killed more than 800 foot riders and injured more than 1,000 people.

When the good news came back to Ningyuan, Hong Chengchou was greatly shocked and quickly reported it to the director Gao Qiqian. Gao Qiqian personally rushed to Ningyuan to check the head of the Tartars, confirmed that the battle was true, and Gao Qiqian also sent spies to collect news from the Qing army, and reported that Prince Zheng Jierharang had indeed broken an arm.

In return, Gao Qiqian and Hong Chengchou personally drafted the good news and sent fast horses to gallop in Beijing.

The good news came to Beijing, Longyan was happy, and hundreds of officials in the DPRK and China also congratulated them, and the people in Beijing heard about the victory, and celebrated like the New Year.

All over the world rejoiced in it. Chongzhen ordered Wu Xiang, the former Liaodong general who had fled due to the defeat of the Battle of Linghe, to be awarded the title of governor. Wu Sangui was promoted to the governor of the right army and the left governor, and was given the title of governor of the military department, and was given the title of governor of Liaoxi, the commander-in-chief of the three towns of Guanning Jinsan, and the hereditary brocade guard of thousands of households.

People have praised Wu Sangui as a hero in the world, a famous general in the world, and once again mentioned him and Liu Jun together, everyone called Wu Sangui and Zhu Ciye two heroes of the Ming Dynasty and two empires. There are even many people in the court who are knighted by Wu Sangui.

In the first battle of Songshan, Wu Sangui gained fame and fortune.

Although in this battle, he ambushed the Qing army with 20,000 and 3,000 instead of 20,000. Among the 1,756 levels of heads he beheaded, there were also 635 levels of Mongolian people who had surrendered to the Qing Dynasty. However, for these, Gao Qiqian did not say. Hong Chengchou also did not say, in short, this victory was not only Wu Sangui's, but also the entire Guanning Army, and the merit of the entire 200,000 troops outside Guanwai.

When Liu Jun received the news of Songshan's victory, he had just returned to Zhenjiang from Japan.

At this time, it has entered October, and the weather in Liaodong is already very cold. Liu Jun is stepping up the shipping of grain purchased from North Korea and Japan to Zhenjiang, Yiju, and Lushun, Jinzhou. In previous years, the temperature of the Liaohai Sea will start to freeze by the beginning of November, and the ice will not melt until March and April next year.

For the nine-headed bird, this will bring a lot of trouble, first of all, the supply of food and materials, the Chu army in southern Liaoning, which relies on sea transportation and supply, must rush to transport and replenish all the materials in place before the ice freezes, and do a good job of reserves.

Meantime. Once frozen, the Ming army's most powerful fleet would not be able to come and go to support. Now the Ming army is in Liaodong, which is mainly divided into two major parts, one is the Jinzhou Peninsula and the surrounding islands such as Changsheng Island and Guanglu Island. The other is the area around the mouth of the Yalu River, with Zhenjiang Castle, Jiulian Castle, Yiju Fort, Tieshan Fort, and islands such as Phi Island, Minmi Island, and Seokseong Island.

Both areas are overseas, six or seven hundred miles apart, and one is winter. There was no longer any communication with each other, and the fleet could no longer be reinforced.

As for Tamna and Geoje, which were leased from North Korea. The islands of Hirado, Tsushima, and Goto, which were leased from Japan, were even more distant. For the time being, only a small number of warships and soldiers will be stationed in these places, mainly for commercial trade, and the Zheng family's men and horses are responsible for the operation, so Liu Jun doesn't have to worry too much about that side.

After leaving Japan, Liu Jun first returned to North Korea. After the Korean monarchs and ministers knew that Liu Jun had forced Japan to submit to the Ming Dynasty in just over a month, they became more and more respectful to Liu Jun. And Chongzhen also issued a special decree, Feng Liu Jun concurrently served as the ambassador of North Korea, responsible for supervising North Korean national affairs.

As a result, Liu Jun has more jurisdiction to interfere in North Korean affairs. It is beneficial for its garrison in the area of the Yalu River. With the identity of this ambassador, Liu Jun is not only the king's son-in-law in North Korea, but equivalent to the emperor of North Korea. However, Liu Jun also did not intend to interfere too much in the affairs of North Korea, as long as North Korea maintained the status quo, remained loyal to the Ming Dynasty, and opened trade to the Ming East India Company, it was enough.

After a short stay in North Korea, Liu Jun and Princess Jingshu got married in Seoul. Originally, Liu Jun planned to get engaged first and get married next year, but the king of North Korea, Li Jun, and the ministers were more urgent than Liu Jun, and they wanted to marry the princess immediately. Liu Jun also agreed to North Korea's request to hold a grand wedding in Daming Jingshi next year.

After the wedding in Seoul, Princess Jingshu Li Hui returned to Zhenjiang with Liu Jun.

Zhenjiang City has been completed to repair, or the reconstruction is more appropriate, now Zhenjiang City and Jinzhou have become a new fortress, the fortress is built next to Zhenjiang City, the fortress is mainly for military purposes, garrison soldiers, horses, grain and grass, with many forts. The original Zhenjiang Fort was repaired and expanded, and became a residential area for the people, as well as a commercial area, with a market, etc.

Within 100 miles of the Yalukou area, the Chu army has built a control area centered on the Zhenjiang Fortress, with Jiulian Fort in the north, Yizhou City in the east, Tieshan City and Phi Island in the south.

Between the area controlled by the Chu army and the area actually controlled by the Qing army, there is a fifty li of no-man's land, and the distance between Zhenjiang and Phoenix City is 100 li, most of which is no man's land. The city of Yizhou in the east is also more than 100 miles away from Changdian Fort controlled by the Qing army.

In this area controlled by the Ming army at the mouth of the Yalu River, a large number of people were concentrated, both Han and Korean, and the Chu army built a city and fort here, and after the garrison opened the market, the people flocked to it.

In just over half a year, it has become lively again. Many Korean businessmen also come here to sell their goods and buy goods. Many North Korean ginseng pickers also sell the ginseng they dig here, and those hunters also send their skins here to exchange.

The opening of the Zhenjiang market also attracted many merchants from the Ming Dynasty to carry goods.

"More than 200,000 people have gathered in Zhenjiang, Yizhou, Tieshan, and Phidao again, and we have even cultivated the fields around the cities again, and it will soon be time for the autumn grain harvest." Qu Shiyun, the supervisor of the army stationed here, reported to Liu Junyu.

"That's a good thing, but with such a large population, do we have enough food reserves from this winter to next spring?"

Qu Shiyun smiled, "That's enough." ”

"Is that enough?" Liu Jun said in surprise.

"We have grabbed a lot of grain in Liaodong this summer, and this year's summer grain has basically been collected by us in the area of nearly 100 miles along the coast from Jinzhou to Zhenjiang, plus the grain that Dashuai has transported from Korea and Japan. In addition, we will harvest this autumn, and we have more than 10,000 garrisons and more than 200,000 people with a year's worth of rations. ”

"Very good, food is the first important, don't panic when you have food in your hands. All the food must be protected and stored in the castles. We must not let the tartars be burned, and we must strictly guard against the tartars. In addition, the autumn harvest is imminent, and we must also send troops to be on guard, we have taken the summer grain of the Tartars, but we have to prevent the Tartars from taking our autumn grain. Liu Jun confessed.

"We are not short of grain now, but the key is that we lack many other commodities, such as cloth, needlework, oil, salt, etc., all of which have to be transported from North Korea or Shandong. It's about to freeze. For a long time, the merchants will not be able to come, and the materials in this area will have to be stored. ”

"It's not a problem, as long as it's profitable, the merchants will be farther than we think, as long as we raise the price appropriately, they will immediately compete to ship the goods we need."

Due to the order to move the sea to the Tartars, the situation on the side of Jinju and Uiju this year is very good, and there is no war between the two sides. It's just that the confrontation is deadlocked, and this situation is excellent for the Chu army. The Chu army was able to calmly control the two newly occupied areas. At the same time, the castle fort was safely built, and even relocated to attract a large number of people.

And the Tartars moved fifty miles to the sea, and this no-man's land set up also made these two places of the Ming army much safer.

Qu Shiyun and Liu Jun sat down in the military conference hall of Zhenjiang Fortress, and Qu Shiyun personally poured Liu Jun a cup of tea and served it. Then he poured himself a cup and sat down under Liu Jun.

"General Wu won a great victory in Songshan. It is really a great promotion of the country's prestige, and now the court is jubilant, defeating the Tartars, and recovering Liaodong is only afraid that it is not far away. ”

After Liu Jun returned to Zhenjiang, he also heard a lot of news about Wu Sangui's victory in Songshan. He had already learned the specific situation through Liu Qiao and Wang Zhixin's factory guards. Although there is a bit of water in the great victory, it must still be said that this battle is indeed a great victory, and the DPRK has not had such a great victory for many years.

Even if Liu Jun led the Chu army into Liao, he has fought many battles, but he has not fought hard with the three thousand eight banners once, and has achieved the record of beheading more than a thousand. I have to say that when he heard the news, Liu Jun was also very amazed by Ning Yuanjun's courage and daring to fight.

"General Wu is indeed famous, and this time the Tartars are only afraid that they will have to withdraw from the siege of Jinzhou." Liu Jun said with a smile. The Tartars suffered such a big loss, and even the Prince of Zheng, Jierharang, lost an arm, and lost more than a thousand fine horsemen, and the Tartars must have been greatly shaken. In the current situation, the Tartars could only withdraw from the siege of Jinzhou.

Surrounding Jinzhou again, then the Ming army, inspired by the victory of Songshan, may really rush to Jinzhou to fight a decisive battle with the Tartars. And now in this situation, Liu Jun thought that Huang Taiji would never want to fight a decisive battle.

But it is only to relieve the siege of Jinzhou, and if it is said that it will be possible to counterattack and restore Liao immediately, it is also an unrealistic situation. A safe choice is to continue to oppress and consume the Qing army, and now that North Korea has been resolved, if North Korea guards Ningjin on the one hand, and can pull the Mongolian tribes back to the court on the other hand, then the Tartars are alone.

If it takes a few years with the Tartars, the Qing army will definitely collapse.

However, Liu Jun felt that the victory in Songshan would make the imperial court misestimate the situation, and many people would definitely shout that they would counterattack and restore Liao.

Qu Shiyun said to Liu Jun, "I heard that the cabinet intends to re-establish an official office in Liaodong and send officials. Jinzhou and the surrounding islands were re-established as Lushun Prefecture, and Zhenjiang was newly established as Yalu Prefecture, and the prefect and county were sent to govern civil affairs. ”

"That's a good thing." Liu Jun smiled, not too concerned about this.

Qu Shiyun changed the topic and asked Liu Jun, "Now that the affairs of North Korea and Japan are settled, I wonder if the marshal has a new plan to send troops?" As a supervisor of the army, he saw Wu Sangui's great victory in Songshan, and heard that the court had recently intended to counterattack and restore Liao, so he also hoped that Liu Jun would be able to send troops again.

"Well, it's almost the autumn harvest, and the Tartars may be coming to wreak havoc. Defense is always invincible, and the best defense is offense. Now that the fortress has been built and the soldiers have rested, it is time to attack. I plan to come with an autumn offensive to sweep away the Qing fortresses in the two areas of Phoenix in the north and Kuandian in the east. ”

The main purpose of launching a new wave of attacks was not to occupy the area of Phoenix and Kuandian, but to strike at and deplete the strength of the Qing army around Zhenjiang, so as not to wait for them to attack and disturb them in autumn or even after winter.

However, before the start of the war, the Chu army had to complete a new round of rotation and rest, and also had to complete the distribution of winter clothes. Now the nine-headed bird is not short of silver, into the south of Liao, robbed nearly a thousand miles of coastline, robbed hundreds of castle bazaars, directly looted money and resold to those merchants to obtain money, add up to several million, because the robbery is too clean, the harvest of the Chu army is quite gratifying.

These gold, silver, and even copper coins of various colors, and jewelry, etc., were finally converted into silver, and then transferred to the bank, exchanged for silver dollars, and entered Liao for half a year, the nine-headed bird engaged in relocation business, in exchange for silver dollars of 10 million yuan silver tickets. The last part of this money was used for military salaries, part as rewards, and the other was for the replenishment of ordnance and ammunition, the casting of cannons and guns, the production of ammunition, and the production of soldiers' armor and uniforms, castle forts and docks, and so on.

10 million silver dollars is a lot, but for the Chu army, which now has 100,000 soldiers and horses, it is almost a year's worth of military and welfare expenses. Fortunately, the Chu army did not rely on siege and robbery to supply the army, and the income of this 10 million silver dollars was actually extra income.

Today, the Chu army has established a complete set of logistics supply system, from artillery guns to lead bullets and gunpowder, from cotton armor helmets to boots and gloves, from large battleships to small kettles, basically has its own workshop specializing in production, reliable quality, speed guarantee.

Now what the Chu army can't produce is military horses and food, as well as many basic materials.

It took a lot of money to establish this complete system, but it was worth it, and now this system can not only meet the equipment needs of the Chu army, but even begin to provide a steady stream of benefits for the Chu army. Even the workshops of this system have absorbed a large number of Chu Jun's family members to work in it and earn salaries.

Now the financial situation of the Chu army is very stable and sufficient, and the soldiers' basic allowance and various allowances and rewards are also rising. It is precisely because of the generous salary and good welfare benefits that although the nine-headed bird has now expanded to the scale of four towns, its combat effectiveness is still the same as before, and it remains good.

In particular, these soldiers are also full of gratitude to Liu Jun, the marshal, and this gratitude is also what Liu Jun has been pursuing, and gratitude can be transformed into loyalty. (To be continued.) )

PS: Thank you to the fourth young man of the Feng family, thank you brothers for your support!