Four days after the initial negotiation, Zheng Chenggong took Zhu Shuren's negotiation strategy of remote control micro-manipulation, found Wu Sangui again, and taught Wu Sangui how to make new conditions to Dolgon.

However, in the past four days, Wu Sangui has not been idle, and other forces have not been idle.

Although large-scale direct battles have not broken out in an all-round way, small-scale attempts at probing and forced landings have never stopped.

So when Zheng Chenggong found Wu Sangui again, the situation changed a lot. Wu Sangui's side has just gained more chips, which has strengthened his confidence in continuing to stay in Shanhaiguan and reluctant to withdraw all.

This key bargaining chip was a former friendly army sent by Li Zicheng to deter the forced landing of Wu Sangui, and the Tang Tong Department of the Ming Army originally stationed in Miyun.

The last time Zheng Chenggong persuaded Wu Sangui to go south, it was the eighteenth day of the first month, and this time he came to persuade again, it was the twenty-second day of the first month. And Tang Tong's troops arrived at Shanhaiguan on the twentieth day of the first lunar month, and they happened to be stuck between these two points in time.

Officials who know a little bit about the history of the late Ming Dynasty will actually notice a fact - in history, when Wu Sangui and Li Zicheng fought a stone battle, Wu Sangui's side used more than 50,000 troops, mainly composed of three parts.

The main main force, of course, is the Guan Ning army of Wu Sangui's lineage, about 20,000 people.

Secondly, the second part is the army of Tang Tong, the general soldier of Miyun, with about 8,000 people.

In the end, there are about 20,000 local recruits in western Liaoning. This part of the combat effectiveness is much weaker, and it cannot be compared with the nine-sided elite of the first two parts.

And the reason why Tang Tong's troops cheapened Wu Sangui before the Armageddon was also related to Li Zicheng's arrogance and overestimating his own deterrent.

Tang Tong was also one of the eight general soldiers under Hong Chengchou, and Li Zicheng, who surrendered at the Miyun garrison when Beijing was besieged, was less than a month after the surrender of thieves.

When Li Zicheng persuaded Wu Sangui to surrender, he sent Tang Tong as the vanguard, wanting to take advantage of Tang Tong's good personal relationship with Wu Sangui to settle Wu Sangui peacefully.

Even if the persuasion fails, Li Zicheng plans to let Tang Tong's old troops take the lead in the attack on Wu Sangui, and let the two original Ming armies kill each other, so as to reduce the death of the descendants of the Dashun army.

However, people are not as good as heaven. Li Zicheng's confidence was too overwhelming, and he felt that even if Wu Sangui was unwilling to surrender immediately, at most, he would have good wine and meat to stabilize Tang Tong and delay time, and he would never dare to tear his face directly.

However, Wu Sangui was determined not to surrender Li Zicheng, and took advantage of Tang Tong to come to the door, and actually dared to directly detain Tang Tong, and then moved out of the righteous name of loyalty to the first emperor, and directly persuaded Tang Tong's generals and soldiers to surrender, and easily recruited the old Ming army of the 8,000 Miyun General Army to Wu Sangui himself.

(Note: It is said that Wu Sangui used the name of righteousness to influence the old department of Tang Tong, which is the statement in the "History of the Ming Dynasty".) But in fact, the author of the Ming history also knew the result of this matter itself, and the process and motive were obviously guessed.

In fact, I estimate that the rhetoric of righteousness and loyalty to the first emperor should be useless to the veteran soldiers, in fact, they still have to rely on the first money and food, and then promise everyone glory and wealth, telling them that they have no future with Li Zicheng, and sooner or later they will be killed by the pinch...... Anyway, everyone who understands understands, and there is no silver to talk about a bird. ）

Li Zicheng gave Wu Sangui 8,000 elite soldiers for nothing, and under the advantages of the other, the strength of the two sides was further tilted, making Wu Sangui look more powerful in a battle.

If things only go so far, then it's manageable. After all, Wu Sangui was able to do it so well in history, and he didn't need any hanging.

But now, obviously, because the Ming army in Shanhaiguan has the support of the sea route, the sea retreat and the grain route, all the butterfly effect has led to the possibility of further deterioration of Li Zicheng's situation-

Historically, the Ming army sent by Li Zicheng to confront Wu Sangui was not the only one Tang Tong! In the northern region of Beizhili, the Ming army that had to temporarily surrender to the thieves was not only Tang Tong!

In addition to Tang Tong, the general soldier of Miyun, there is also the general soldier of Jimen, Ma Ke, when he surrendered, the station was relatively close to Shanhaiguan, and he also belonged to the category of "the defense area is north of Beijing, originally responsible for the defense of the nine borders of the Great Wall, and surrendered after Beijing was surrounded".

And in history, Li Zicheng finally sent Ma Ke to participate in the Battle of a Stone, but Ma Ke himself was not sent to persuade Wu Sangui to surrender, and Wu Sangui had no chance to capture the thief and capture the king first, and then recruit his subordinates.

In addition to Ma Ke, among the original Ming troops who had just surrendered to Li Zicheng, there was also Bai Wenxuan, who was stationed in Zhangjiakou and Xuanfu, and now there was a change because of the butterfly effect of the sea route retreat route provided by Zhu Shuren:

Bai Wenxuan himself is already disheartened and surrendered to the thief, but Gao Jie, one of Bai Wenxuan's subordinate generals, has a hatred for taking his wife from Li Zicheng, and Li Zicheng's early Xing is the Ming army that surrendered after being abducted by Gao Jie with Gao Jie.

Therefore, everyone in the world dares to vote for Li Zicheng, but Gao Jie will never dare, he knows that as long as he votes for Li Zicheng, he is destined to die because of the hatred of taking his wife.

Historically, Gao Jie finally took advantage of the period before and after the destruction of Beijing, and the lone army broke through to the south and arrived in Huaibei. When encountering a city that supports the invasion of the army, it will play the banner of the invasion of the army", this kind of indiscriminate trick can be regarded as fooling

(Because Gao Jie surrendered to the Ming army from Li Zicheng's men, he had been in the army for many years, knew the style of the army, and also knew how to buy armor and flags to camouflage back to the army, and he was very good at it, so he didn't show any flaws all the way and successfully broke through)

Now, Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong have been making trouble in Dagukou, Tianjin Wei, Xianghe County and other places. The troops in the northern region of Beizhili basically knew about their existence, and through various information channels, they also learned the news that "the country's surname Ye You sent reinforcements by sea to meet the northern official army."

Therefore, whether it is Gao Jie, or some other potential Ming army along the Great Wall of Hebei who had to break through because the road to the south was cut off, will more or less have some different intentions. However, Li Zicheng is not easy to judge who has different intentions, which further aggravates the instability within the thieves.

……

It was in this external environment that Zheng Chenggong conducted a new round of negotiations with Wu Sangui.

Both sides have more leverage, but so far there is no conflict of interests, and the goals of the two sides can be considered the same, but there is a slight difference in the means to achieve the common goal.

Zheng Chenggong got straight to the point, and first had a showdown with Wu Sangui about Zhu Shuren's proposal:

"General Wu, you are unwilling to give up Shanhaiguan, and I have no right to force you. However, in this land of Liaoji, Governor Wang still has the final say, Governor Wang wants to leave, and he wants to take away part of his troops to retreat south, and you have no right to obstruct this, I hope you think clearly.

After all, we are still friendly troops, and Guo Ye and Zhang Junmen, as well as me, do not want to go to an unpleasant step. ”

Wu Sangui also knew that Zheng Chenggong was assisting Wang Yongji in digging the foot of the wall in the past few days, but Wang Yongji was a Shangguan, and he might not be able to dig up Guan Ningjun, but he would definitely be able to dig up the Ming army on the periphery, and Wu Sangui really couldn't tear his face, so he first pushed the boat down the river and made a personal favor:

"What Brother Zheng Xiandi said is not unreasonable, Governor Wang wants to retreat south, and of course the town will not stop him."

After the two sides reached a tacit understanding, Zheng Chenggong struck while the iron was hot and continued: "Although General Wu, you don't plan to give up Shanhaiguan, but the surname of the country thinks that you should not give up this option as a bargaining chip to negotiate the asking price with Dolgon. The more ways to retreat, the more confidence there is, so that Dolgon will not have the courage to arbitrarily lower prices.

The so-called seeking the top and getting the middle, seeking the middle and getting the bottom. If General Wu wants to win, how can he win the bid at the beginning? Since General Wu keeps saying that he is an expedient measure, he has no choice but to lose his will and be loyal to the Ming Dynasty, so he should strive to betray the interests of the Ming Dynasty to the minimum! ”

Wu Sangui thought for a while: "When negotiating with Dolgon, empty words ask for a high price, this kind of thing is not costly, of course this town will do it." But Dolgon is not stupid, whether it can be negotiated or not depends on whether the support of our army is firm.

If Dolgon can see that there is no shortage of food rations for our Guanning army, the military pay is sufficient, and the morale is high. Seeing that after His Majesty's martyrdom, the southern provinces are still willing to supply our army, he will really believe that I can follow your army south at any time and hold out until the last moment when the army enters the city. In that way, he would really worry about Shanhaiguan falling into the hands of thieves! ”

Speaking of which, Zheng Chenggong basically understood that Wu Sangui was negotiating conditions in terms of food and rewards, as long as the local finances in the south still supported him, then he could cooperate with acting, and at the same time, he would not sell too many benefits to Dolgon, and he could also turn a blind eye and watch Zheng Chenggong and them use Wang Yongji's name to pull away some troops.

And the reason why Wu Sangui suddenly became so greedy for money and lack of money and food at this juncture, and even greedy for money to the extent that "as long as you give enough money, you can tolerate some parts of the trilogy being poached", Zheng Chenggong didn't understand it at first, but he soon figured it out:

It was precisely because he had just forced down Tang Tong's troops the day before yesterday that this incident made Wu Sangui realize how short of money he was right now!

Because Wu Sangui wants to make a forced landing on the other nine-sided Ming troops to re-do it, the most direct bargaining chip is to immediately throw a large amount of money, pay in full, and issue additional rewards, so as to quickly win over people's hearts!

In the three sides of Hebei on the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty, there are tens of thousands of Ming army border troops, who were at a juncture that had to surrender before, and now they are hesitant and wavering.

At this time, whoever can win the hearts of the people will be able to quickly expand their power. Even if Zheng Chenggong pulls away some second-line troops near Shanhaiguan, as long as he gives Wu Sangui enough money, Wu Sangui can quickly find more from other directions!

Even to put it mildly, Wu Sangui took the Tang Tong tribe that had just been persuaded to surrender, and indiscriminately stuffed Wang Yongji with him to go south, and sent the nominal governor above his head, which is not against the laws of the imperial court in legal terms!

Even if he gave Wang Yongji 10,000 soldiers, as long as the silver given to him by Zhu Shuren could allow him to attract 20,000 soldiers from the shaken Ma Ke, Bai Wenxuan, and Gao Jie, then he Wu Sangui could still earn a difference of 10,000 yuan! The east loses money and the west earns, and what you earn back is more than what you lose!

As long as he, Wu Sangui, holds the Shanhaiguan Pass and the last port of sea in the Liaoji region to retreat south, there will be a steady stream of Hebei Ming troops who want to flee south to contact him!

With such a situation, for his own selfish interests and the expansion of his personal power, Wu Sangui was even more reluctant to give up Shanhaiguan and flee south! As long as he keeps this nail, he can not only keep the territory run by his family for generations, but also continue to suck blood and suck himself into the real first warlord of Liaoji.

Wealth and danger are sought!

After understanding these Taoist ideals, Zheng Chenggong also knew that at this juncture, Wu Sangui himself was destined not to leave.

The conditions he prescribed, if someone else implemented them, would indeed be harsh - Wu Sangui wanted too much money to buy friendly troops for this matter.

But fortunately, the surname of the country seems to have been prepared, and he just mentioned it in the letter to Zheng Chenggong through Shen Lian, if Wu Sangui's request can be done with silver, then he will agree to it.

For the Shen family, if it can be solved with money, it is not a problem.

In fact, even if the Shen family doesn't come up with the money immediately, Zheng Chenggong, as the manager, can still provide this financing turnover, as long as the Shen family agrees to settle it afterwards. Zheng Chenggong is also not inferior to Zhu Shuren's rich and rival country.

Wu Sangui's collusion has colluded with the two richest people on the planet today, and it can only be said that they hit it off.

Zheng Chenggong is also very responsible, and he helped the big brother with the surname of the country to complete the negotiation of the specific bargain. If it's a different person, I really don't have such confidence-

After all, if an ordinary wage earner got the orders of the boss, in an environment where there was no good communication and request conditions, he had full authority to negotiate the price, and finally negotiated tens of millions of taels, and he didn't worry about being dismantled by the boss when he went back?

During the alliance of the Yuanyuan, Cao Yu cut the Song Dynasty coins from one million taels to 300,000 taels at the psychological price of Song Zhenzong ("If you have to, one million is fine"), so as to escape Kou Zhun's severe punishment, how can ordinary people afford the diplomatic responsibility of paying more or less compensation of 700,000 taels every year.

Zheng Chenggong himself is not bad for money, he can let go, he can lift his weight if he talks more and less, and he can't do it with someone else.

After some games, Wu Sangui did not stop Zheng Chenggong from poaching people, but just made a price for everyone who poached.

Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Mingzhen dug up Zhang Guozhu, a general in the army under Wu Sangui's lineage, plus thousands of other people in the Guanning army who were not Wu Sangui's lineage went south. Then he gave enough money and military rations to Wu Sangui's people, and if he was temporarily insufficient, he promised to urgently raise funds from the south within half a month.

Anyway, the Shen family has monopolized the Yellow Sea and sea trade for three generations, and Shen Tingyang also has Tunyin in Denglai and other places, which can be transferred quickly. And Wu Sangui also knew that the other party's business of "trafficking in military populations" was not a one-shot deal, and naturally he was not afraid that the other party would repay his debts, at most he would only pay a sum of money on credit.

When the next delivery is made, if the other party does not make up the last payment, Wu Sangui will deduct the next batch of goods and not send them, so that he will lose a payment for the goods at most.

Considering the Shen family's good credit for grain transportation in the past four years, Wu Sangui is certainly willing to take this risk.