In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the second day of the third month, in the early morning.

Tower Hill Castle, East Gate Tower.

In March in the northeast, it is still cold and windy, and the sea surface of the Bohai Sea, ten miles southeast of Tashan City, is only completely thawed during the day when the sun is shining. In the middle of the night, when it is the coldest, a thin layer of ice will still be re-formed.

A Ming general wearing cold iron armor dragged his heavy steps and patrolled the city, bringing with him the sonorous friction of the armor leaves with every step.

This person is Li Fuming, the deputy chief soldier of Daming Shanxi, half a year ago, together with the other commanders of the seven towns, followed Hong Chengchou to participate in the Battle of Songjin, and after the fiasco, he fled here.

Among the eight general soldiers, Wang Pu and Ma Ke were the first to flee and were also held accountable by the imperial court. Bai Guangen, Tang Tong, and Wu Sangui were defeated in turn, and their culpability was also reduced in turn.

He, Li Fuming, can be regarded as having escaped, otherwise he would not have been surrounded in this relatively rear Tower Mountain.

But in comparison, he can still smile at Tang Tong and Wu Sangui in fifty steps and a hundred steps-

We also escaped, but we didn't escape completely, only escaped for sixty miles, gained a firm foothold, and then turned into a fortification, and then we were trapped again. Wu Sangui and the others fled for 300 miles as soon as they fled.

Among the eight general soldiers, only Yang Guozhu and Cao Bianjiao are left with more backbone than Li Fuming. Yang Guozhu had been killed in battle a few months ago, and Cao Bianjiao insisted on not escaping when he was defeated, and now he is still surrounded in Xingshan.

Compared with Cao Bianjiao, he Li Fuming is a little coward after all, after all, he escaped for sixty miles.

Now, Tashan has been attacked and besieged by enemy troops for five months, and Li Fuming certainly can't go on a night patrol without sleeping every day. He just couldn't sleep, got up a little early, and woke up at the beginning of every day, and went up to the wall to check the situation.

After a long time, people will always become numb. Even if you are facing life and death, you will be numb.

Every morning on the wall, Li Fuming would look at the northeast for a while.

Although it was impossible for him to see Tashan Castle, which was sixty miles to the northeast, and Songshan Mountain, which was ninety miles north-northeast. But he knew that Inspector Hong, Qiu Futai and Cao Junmen were still holding on there.

If those places have fallen, the main force of the Tartars will be freed up, and the siege on this side of Tashan will definitely become tighter.

"Look, general, there is a fire in the east and south! I'm afraid it's ten miles, right? ”

Li Fuming looked around and was pondering, when suddenly one of his subordinates, Li Tongtai, the garrison in charge of the defense of Dongcheng, shouted, interrupting Li Fuming's thoughts and making his heart suddenly turbulent.

Now in this Tashan City, there are only three battalions of men and horses. They were all remnants of the defeat, and they were not reorganized, and the garrison of one of the battalions was still dead.

At the beginning, Chongzhen dispatched the elite of the nine sides for Hong Chengchou to go on the expedition, and the general soldiers, deputy generals, and staff generals of the Shanxi Army were all matched. Now that the general soldier is dead, he, the deputy general, has taken over as the general soldier, and the officers below have also died.

Li Fuming picked up the female wall buttress and looked in the direction that Li Tongtai pointed, and the light of the torch in the dark could not be accurately measured, but it was faintly like a bean. He squinted his eyes for a moment, and the fire quickly faded away.

He touched his beard, his mood gradually sank, and he laughed at himself: "Although I don't know the specific distance, it is estimated that there must be ten miles." Ten miles away in that direction, there was already the sea.

Could it be that the Tartars are now careful enough to send sampans to cooperate in monitoring and besieging our army? That Azig really looks up to Wu Sangui too much. If Wu Sangui had come to the rescue by Kenhai Road, he would have come a long time ago, so how could he wait until now. ”

Li Tongtai, who was next to him, was a little puzzled when he heard this, so he asked, "Why did the general conclude that it was a tartar sampan?" Could it be that Wu Junmen of Shanhaiguan is investigating the battle situation in front of the sentry? ”

Li Fuming shook his head, hated that iron is not steel, and nodded Li Tongtai: "You Shanxi soldiers should also understand some common sense of sailors and learn water nature." Shanhaiguan is two hundred and sixty miles here, and the sea is unpredictable, how can a small sampan get here?

And the sea with the fire just now is obviously the Huluwan shoal closest to the city in the southeast, and the water depth in this area is extremely shallow, and the big sea ships can't be relied on, so the fire that appears there must be on the sampan, and only the sampan of the tartar can reach so close.

If Wu Sangui sent someone here, it would be impossible for him to go to Huluwan for the sake of being close, he would only go to Beacon Mountain due east. Although Bijia Mountain is more than ten miles away from the city, it is deep in the Bohai Sea, and there is a deep-water anchorage on the shore, which can be used for sea ships to berth directly. We still left the dock at the beginning, but I don't know if it has been burned by the Tartars now. ”

Although Li Fuming served as the chief soldier of Shanxi, he was a native of Liaodong, and he also grew up by the sea, and his water nature was also good.

Li Tongtai is a native of Shanxi, and he grew up in the Taihang Mountains all his life, and the same is true after joining the army. This time, Hong Chengchou transferred the Shanxi army to the expedition, and he only left his hometown, so he was a landlubber who didn't know anything about water and navigation.

After listening to the introduction of the general soldier, he was able to eat a trench and grow wise, and at the same time became alert, and hurriedly ordered the city head to prepare, the bow and crossbow were wound, and the fire gun was charged, only hating that there was no heavy artillery in the city, and the defeat and retreat to this point, the army only had some old-fashioned small Franc machines weighing less than 300 catties at most.

Ten miles of road said that it was not far away, but it was not near, and the head of the city was on guard for a quarter of an hour, during which there was a noise of fighting, and even the sound of firecrackers and firelight, followed by the horses' hooves from far and near.

The number of people doesn't seem to be much, only more than ten rides. The head of the city thought that it was a Tartar deception, and they were ready to go to war.

"Should the city be the people of Li Junmen in Shanxi? I am the Shanhaiguan Wu Junmen under the command of the guerrilla attack on Zhang Guozhu, my military gate this time the Nanjing Household Department of the Department of Carriers, the Haidao raised Zheng Chenggong assistance, with the sea ship to rescue Yinger, etc.! Quickly open the door and let me go into the city to discuss! ”

"Zheng Chenggong? I haven't heard of it, Wu Sangui is suddenly willing to make this bloody investment? Li Fuming was in the city, he couldn't believe it at all, and immediately asked Li Tongtai to interrogate the details sternly.

Zhang Guozhu also answered some questions, but he was quite impatient, and emphasized: "You have been here for a long time, and you also know that the Tartar scouts will have to travel for more than half an hour at most, how can there be time to delay, on the way we just came, we set up an ambush and killed a team of thirty Tartar scouts!" Hurry up and open the door, it's too late! ”

The head fox of the city was suspicious for a moment, and asked them to hang the heads of the sealed letters and the Tartar scouts in a hanging basket first, and after confirming that they were correct, they would use the hanging basket to hang the people again.

But at this moment, the sky has not completely brightened, and I can't see whether there are ambushes in the distance, so I definitely don't dare to open the door.

Zhang Guozhu was a little anxious and scolded: "I waited for the knife to lick the blood and came all the way to save it, but I still have to be so suspicious?" When will the hanging baskets be hung one by one! Sooner or later, the Tartars will find out! And how our horses are hoisted up to the city! ”

Just when the two sides were arguing, there was a young man next to Zhang Guozhu who was quite bold and took the initiative to propose:

"In this way, this Tashan city gate, although there is no urn city, there is always a gate, right? Let's go to the city gate first, you put down the gate, and then open the inner gate, if we make a rash move, you can just block us in the gate, right?

Also, you don't believe that Wu Sangui is willing to make this blood, and you haven't heard of me Zheng, it doesn't matter. But you should always believe in the Shen family of Nanjing, right? Since the beginning of the previous year, the Shen family has been responsible for shipping Liaodong military rations, so can the imperial court deduct a grain of grain from you? Has the household department eaten your empty salary in terms of military rations?! Zheng came here this time by the order of Shen Shilang of Nanjing's household department! ”

Tashan such a small city, of course, there will be no urn city, but the Ming Dynasty military fortress generally still has two gates, because the city wall has a thickness, often a few zhang thick, the depth of the door hole is also the same as the thickness of the city wall, it is completely possible to install the main city gate on the innermost side of the door hole, and install the gate on the outermost side of the door hole.

If it is a Tartar of the deceitful city, of course, he will not dare to smash himself to the ground and wait for death under the hole between the gate and the inner gate.

When Li Fuming heard this, he believed it for seven or eight points.

And not to mention, after Zheng Chenggong mentioned Shen Tingyang and Shen Shuren's father and son, it was actually better than mentioning Wu Sangui.

All veterans and officers here who have fought in Liaodong for more than a year can personally experience that since the beginning of the previous year, the military rations allocated to them by the imperial court have been heard to be no longer deducted by the household department.

This is the first time in the world, I heard that it is because it is directly transported from the tax and grain land in the south of the Yangtze River to Liaodong, and there is no middleman to deduct the difference.

As soon as it was said that the Shen family was anxious for justice and righteousness, and took the sea route to lend a hand, Li Fuming immediately believed a few more percent.

Tartars can't know in such detail!

Li Fuming gritted his teeth and told Li Tongtai to open the door.

After a long time, the cumbersome security procedures were finally completed, and Li Fuming also went down to the city tower in person, with a large group of guards, and went to the entrance of the door to greet the visitors.

Zhang Guozhu took the lead in arching his hand towards him, Li Fuming had seen the main generals under Wu Sangui, and pulled him to the firelight to identify him, and vaguely remembered that it was Zhang Guozhu, so he was completely relieved.

"Wu Junmen still thinks about accepting our brothers who are waiting to die, but I underestimate him, if I can go back alive, I will definitely thank him for his great kindness. This is Zheng Tiju?

Fortunately, although it is the first time I met, but you are a subordinate of Shen Shilang and Shen Daotai, you must be a righteous person, we are rough people, don't blame you if you don't know the number of etiquette! ”

Li Fuming repeatedly confessed to Zhang Guozhu and Zheng Chenggong.

With Zhang Guozhu's position, of course, he should have said good things for Wu Sangui, but he is also a person who wants to face, and with his conscience, he feels that all this today is mainly due to Shen Shuren and Zheng Chenggong's righteousness, and Wu Sangui is just leading the way.

On the other hand, Zheng Chenggong treated him very kindly all the way, and the Tashan defenders in front of him also heard Shen Daotai's banner, and their trust immediately skyrocketed.

Therefore, Zhang Guozhu also sent the gods to follow their words: "Li Junmen smiled, my family's military gate also coincided with its meeting and participated in the grand event, if it wasn't for the Shen family to send a sea ship and sailor to respond, we would just be powerless." ”

Li Fuming nodded, turned to Zheng Chenggong, and asked in surprise: "Just now at the head of the city, I did hear the sound of firearms on the way half an hour ago, and you really annihilated a team of Tartar scouts that you encountered in secret?"

I didn't expect your combat strength to be so brave, not superior in numbers, and able to kill the Tartar cavalry. Also, this gourd bay is all shallows, and you guys sneaked to the shore on a sampan, right? From Shanhaiguan to here, how can the sampan arrive? ”

These questions were asked by Zheng Chenggong's professional counterpart, and at the moment he boasted proudly:

"Our big boats, some have their own sampan ferry, our family has been running the sea for generations, learned the habit of Hongyi people's big sea boats with lifeboats, and combined with our fortune boats, sand boat shapes, Chinese and Western combinations.

As for the encounter and sneak attack in the dark just now to annihilate the Tartar scout team, it was because we had a burst of fire immediately, and Li Junmen should be regarded as a three-eyed gun. ”

It turned out that it had been three months since Shen Shuren confessed to Song Yingxing in Daye last year to tinker with the revolver and carbine used on horseback in Daye.

Song Yingxing has not yet achieved mass production, but he has also made more than a dozen samples of various trial production stages, which are regularly sent to Nanjing for Shen Shuren to see and accept.

These things are still very imperfect, and there is no guarantee that they will achieve fatal injuries within twenty or thirty steps, so Shen Shuren has not officially equipped the troops.

But this time Zheng Chenggong was going to come out on a special mission, so Shen Shuren gave him a few to pay attention to secrecy and test it by the way.

If it was a long-distance cavalry engagement in the daytime, it was estimated that the ten samples brought by Zheng Chenggong would not have a chance to fire, and they might be covered by the Manchurian cavalry with cavalry shooting seventy or eighty steps away, and they could only rely on the heavy armor of the Ming army to close the distance and fight again.

But at this moment, it is true that the battle before dawn is dark, and the distance between the two sides is greatly compressed, and it is basically ten steps away to see people clearly.

So just now, Zheng Chenggong and the others saw the black shadow of the enemy in front of them, and they raised their hands to pass over. The short-barreled gun can fire with one hand on horseback, and the revolt can continue to fire a single shot without a manual turn of the wheel. The special combat environment, with the blessing of the right time and place, allowed Zheng Chenggong to easily destroy a team of Tartar scouts.

Li Fuming heard that it was only a three-eyed gun, and it was estimated that it was an improved three-eyed gun at most, so he didn't spy much, knowing that there were some things that the other party didn't want to say, and it was useless to ask himself.

Shen Daotai's people, those are all righteous and thin clouds to save people, and they can't lose their share and be ungrateful to their life-saving benefactors.