In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Huangtaiji sent Jierharang and Duoduo to lead the army to build a city in Yizhou.

Yiju is located on the bank of the Daling River between Quang Ninh and Jinzhou, the terrain is open, the land is fertile, and the city of Tuntian is built here, in fact, an outpost position for attacking Jin. At the same time, once the siege of Jinzhou begins, it will immediately become an excellent logistics supply base.

The Qing army's move to Tuntian Yizhou clearly exposed their strategic intention in the next stage, that is, to besiege Jinzhou. Garrisoned in Jinzhou City is the ancestor of the Jinzhou general who hung the seal of the forward general of the Ming Dynasty. The first general in western Liaoning, the head of the ancestral family. He once surrendered to the Qing army, and later took the opportunity to return to Jinzhou, and immediately began to fight against the Qing army, but many people in the ancestral family had surrendered to the Qing army and served the Qing army.

In the face of the Qing army's Yizhou garrison Tuntian, Zu Dashou kept asking for help from Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, saying that Jianyu Tun was stationed in Yizhou, which was intended to be in Ningjin. And the Ningjin qi vein is interrupted, and the three cities of Song, Xing, and Jin are already in a precarious situation, and the day will not be overdue. Zu Dashou asked Hong Chengchou and the imperial court to send troops to help, knock off the nail that was inserted in Jinzhou's eyes, and try to ensure the safety of Jinzhou.

The Ningjin defense line had already become a rather embarrassing existence at this time, because since Lin Dan Khan left the west, the Mongols in the north of Yanshan had changed from the early Ming allies of Tianqi and Chongzhen to the vanguard of the Qing army. Liaoxi became a lonely and weak protrusion, a long and narrow corridor, hundreds of miles deep into the enemy's territory.

In terms of strategic role, Ningjin has very little effect on the barrier in the pass, before that, the Qing army has bypassed the defense line of the Guanningjin in western Liaoning several times, and broke through the Great Wall pass from the Jizhen line in the north of Yanshan to attack the pass.

Sticking to the Ningjin defense line not only failed to play the role of the original barrier Beijing Division, but even greatly extended the supply money of the Ming army, and also allowed the Ming army, the elite soldiers and horses that spent the most, to be stationed far away from Gyeonggi. Every time the Qing army entered the army, Ning Jin's army could not defend itself against the enemy. It was also unable to reinforce the Beijing division in time.

Although Ningjin can defend Shanhaiguan, in fact, the unique terrain of Shanhaiguan makes it extremely dangerous here, and Shanhaiguan has also been broken in history, but it is all captured from within the pass. It has not yet been broken through from the front outside the pass, and the Ming army can completely withdraw the Ningjin defenders to the pass.

It's a pity that the civil officials don't know how to be flexible and don't understand strategy, coupled with the interests of the Liaoxi generals in Liaoxi, so that the imperial court has been guarding the Ningjin line.

Especially now, when the Qing army launched the siege of Jinzhou, the imperial court did not choose the most correct withdrawal to Shanhaiguan and firmly guard the front line of mountains and seas in Jizhen. Nor did they defend Jinzhou on the one hand, and on the other hand, they sent troops to attack the fortified Tuntian of Yiju City.

The generals of the imperial court and Jiliao chose the lowest countermeasure, and sent a large army from the Central Plains to Jinzhou to destroy the city of Yizhou. And this will inevitably lead to a decisive battle between the Ming and Qing dynasties, and they don't care about it.

Led the main force to 400 miles outside the pass to conduct a strategic decisive battle with the enemy, Liu Jun couldn't understand what the generals of the court and Jiliao thought? Got your head caught in the door? Or is it because the imperial court exterminated the bandits, and the unprecedented self-confidence has greatly increased, and all of them have swelled?

Even if the Ming wanted to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army. Where it can't be done and when it can't. Do you have to choose such a passive time and place?

Especially in Liu Jun's opinion, it would be better if only the defenders of Jinzhou held the city and sent a mobile force to attack and destroy the Qing army's tuntian and supply routes in the Yizhou area. And gathering a large number of soldiers and horses to Jinzhou is a practice that accelerates suicide. The more soldiers, the greater the cost. The greater the supply pressure. The Ming army had a supply line of more than 400 miles, and the supplies were all transported within the pass, which was extremely dangerous.

If you don't do it, you won't die.

Liu Jun sighed, but there was no other way. Even Mei Zhihuan couldn't persuade Chongzhen, let alone him. Fortunately, Chongzhen did not accept Mei Zhihuan's performance in the end. Transfer him to Jinzhou, otherwise Liu Jun doesn't know how to respond.

On the first day of the first month of May, the Beiyang Fleet carried more than 30,000 nine-headed birds and left Huangzhou and sailed to the east.

Among the people who saw off the riverside, a merchant watched the fleet sail down the river from afar, and slowly squeezed past the people who were still talking excitedly and praising the mightiness of the nine-headed bird, and returned all the way back to the city.

He walked into a North Shop on Chengdong Street.

"Do you have Liaodong ginseng here, a century-old mountain ginseng?"

Qiao Gui asked loudly, and the shopkeeper behind the counter in the shop heard this, and hurriedly looked up at him, and then walked out from behind, called the guy who had already stepped forward to greet him, and stepped forward to receive him personally. This is a thin and dry old man from Shanxi, not young with a wrinkled face, and his hair wears a melon skin hat.

"Guest officer, I have the best old ginseng here, do you want a hundred years or two hundred years?"

"Is it authentic Liaodong old mountain ginseng? Is there any Korean ginseng, 100 years old? ”

The innkeeper showed a smiling face, clasped his hands and said, "Guest officer, you have come to the right place, our Guangfu Bank is the most famous northern goods store, there are a lot of goods outside the customs, authentic and affordable, not only Liaodong old ginseng but also Korean ginseng, a hundred years, there is!" ”

Hearing the innkeeper say this, a light flashed in Qiao Gui's eyes, and soon disappeared, and he asked slowly, "How much is a hundred years of Liaodong ginseng, and how much is a hundred years of Korean ginseng?" ”

"One hundred taels and one piece, Tong Su is not bullied, and there is no two prices!"

"Hmm." When Qiao Gui heard the boss say this, he subconsciously looked around quietly and found that there were only two of them in the shop, and the guy had already arrived in the backyard. First, he took out the silver ticket from his sleeve, "I pay with the silver ticket of the Four Seas Bank, is it okay?" ”

The boss smiled and said no problem.

Qiao Gui handed over the silver ticket, and the shopkeeper took it, put the two old ginseng sticks in a wooden box, and handed them to Qiao Gui. The two exchanged money and goods, their eyes intertwined, and they nodded knowingly.

Qiao Gui walked out of the store with the box in his hand, and then he walked around several shops along the street, bought a piece of cloth, a folding fan, and a pair of shoes, and finally returned to his home.

When he got home, he went upstairs first, closed the doors and windows, and then put the ginseng box on the table and opened it carefully. I took out the two old ginseng sticks inside, and then found the mezzanine in the box, opened it, and there was a letter inside. However, the words on it could not be connected, Qiao Gui took another book from the bookshelf, and began to flip through the pairs, writing on another piece of paper with a pen in hand.

Finally, he put down the book, and the white page on the table was already full, and he picked up the paper and read it carefully several times, and he lit the oil lamp, and brought the freshly written paper close to the flame, and burned it.

Qiao Gui is a native of Shanxi who works as a steward in a business house run by a Shanxi boss in Huangzhou.

He came to Huangzhou from Shanxi at the end of last year, and the piece of paper he burned just now was told by the Shanxi head office of the trading house to collect information about the nine-headed bird.

When he went to the North Store just now, when he bought and handed over the silver ticket, there was a piece of paper in it, on which more than 30 pieces of information were written in secret language about the garrison of the Nine-headed Bird Army, the establishment of soldiers and horses, the list of generals, the date and number of troops, etc., which was quite detailed, although it was not classified information, but it was indeed very comprehensive.

And these are all from the North Store to get the task requirements, and then collect them according to the requirements.

In fact, he is indeed just a manager of a Shanxi commercial bank, not a Jinyiwei or an East Factory, let alone a Manchu Qing Dynasty. But in a way, he is actually a meticulous worker. In addition to transporting grain, iron, cloth and other materials to the Qing army in exchange for gold, silver, pearls, ginseng, mink, etc., they also sold intelligence to the Qing army, and collected all kinds of intelligence from the Qing army.

Last year, the Qing army directly proposed to Qiao Gui's firm to collect information on the nine-headed bird, and offered a high price, so the firm sent Qiao Gui and many others to the south, and also set up several firms in various parts of Huguang.

Because of their proximity to Zhangjiakou, the main trade route leading to the grassland, Shanxi merchants have always had a close relationship with the Hu people outside the mouth. After the Qing army conquered the Mongols outside the mouth, Shanxi merchants also began to cooperate with the Qing people.

All kinds of material smuggling, intelligence trafficking, as long as it can make money, they have no scruples.

The secret letter that Qiao Guigang translated was the latest mission sent to him by the trading house, asking him to find a way to get the cannon power that the nine-headed bird got from Hongyi. In addition, he was also asked to find a way to collect information on the flintlock firearms of the nine-headed bird, and it was best to get one or two of these new firecrackers and secretly send them back to the Shanxi headquarters.

After a merchant ship thawed in the Liaohai Sea, it rode the wind and waves to the Port of Arthur.

At the bow of the ship stood a middle-aged man dressed as a merchant, and behind him stood several young men dressed as guards, who were standing on the ship and carefully surveying the harbor.

Lushunkou, an excellent port, even if the winter is extremely cold in these years, the freezing time of Lushunkou is very short, and it is even said that when the weather is not so cold in the early years, the harbor of Lushunkou is not even frozen all year round.

In addition, it is a natural harbor. Lushunkou and Miaodao Islands and Penglaijiao on the Shandong Peninsula together choke the Bohai Strait, forming a natural barrier between Beijing, Tianjin and the Bohai Sea coast, and it has always been an extremely important place for the Ming Dynasty in Beijing.

It's a pity that such an important place has been lost for several years.

In the second year of Chongzhen, after Mao Wenlong, the chief soldier of Dongjiang was killed by Yuan Chonghuan, the internal contradictions of Dongjiang Town became increasingly intensified, and its old department successively made rebellion in Phidao and Dengzhou, although the imperial court successively pacified the rebellion of Dongjiang and Dengzhou, but with Kong Youde defected to the Qing army, with its assistance, the Qing army sent troops to attack Lushun in the sixth year of Chongzhen, although the Ming army resisted bravely, but finally outnumbered and defeated, and Lushun was lost.

After the loss of Lushun, the Ming army also soon lost Guanglu and other maritime islands. In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Shen Shikui, the last general soldier of Dongjiang Town, defeated Phi Island, defeated Shicheng Island, and was finally captured and died, and the Ming Dynasty completely lost control of Liaohai and the islands.

"It's Lushun!" The middle-aged merchant standing at the bow of the ship sighed.

"It's going to be our Lushun mouth soon." The young man behind him replied. (To be continued......)