The war began, when the Beijing camp had not yet arrived at Xuanfu, the haze of the war had shrouded the grassland on the dam between Xuanfu, Datong, Bansheng and Kaiping, and even the peach blossoms were thanked in late spring in the Guannei, but it was still the early spring when everything was renewed, and the spring of the grassland always came later.

The sun was not bright, but it sprinkled on the grass with dewdrops, and the sound of horses' hooves came from far and near, and the iron hooves crushed the dew and grass blades, leaving a little fragrance of grass, and the land raised bursts of dust.

Sou!

An arrow reflected the light of the morning sun and came towards the knight, and under the spring breeze, it seemed that the scream of the arrow could be heard breaking through the air, but the arrow failed to hit the knight, and slammed into the earth, kicking up a little dirt.

The chase continued, and the Marquis of Duntai heard the result of the big tent discussion, and then prepared to bring it back to Kaipingwei, but when he left, he was informed by Hu Lu, and a chase began on the vast grassland.

The whistle sounded suddenly, and the hunted Duntai Yuanhou was a little relaxed, but it was the chasing Beiyu, whether it was a horse or a person, the strength was in the long chase, descending rapidly, and the heavy breathing met the still cold air, turning into two air dragons, although there were many people in the Beiyu, but the people and horses were tired.

It is a shame that the dignified prairie people can't outrun the pier and the marquis, but that's the truth.

The northern captives grew up on horseback, and their horseback riding skills were much higher than those of the Central Plains, but the grassland, which had just experienced a harsh winter, was recovering, and no grassland people would feed the precious grain to the horses, because people were starving to death and freezing to death.

The third lady said to the emperor: There is no shortage of food after the heavy snowfall, because there are frozen livestock everywhere, and when people are still alive, the livestock can only rely on the fat accumulated in summer and autumn and some forage to survive the winter.

Hunger is a common feeling of people and horses.

After a harsh winter on the grassland, no matter how handsome the horses were, they would be as thin as people, and finally survived the severe cold and ushered in the scourge of war, which was unfortunate news for everyone.

The figure of the distant marquis of Duntai is getting farther and farther away, and the grassland people who belong to the cowardly Xue army of Bansheng finally slow down and stop chasing.

The war was started because of the emperor's holy decree, and the first contact was the intelligence war, the Ming Dynasty's Duntai Marquis and the scouts of the Beiyu launched a fight and competition on the grassland, Zhu Yijun did not contact the military affairs before, has always thought that the Ming and Altan Khan collected each other's information, are listened to by the past caravans, and the intelligence war is not mature in this era.

But Zhu Yijun was wrong, the Ming Dynasty's Duntai Yuanhou went deep into the camp, with an extremely perfect organizational structure and communication channels up and down, and the grassland was not far behind, many Han children who defected to the North Captives, in the name of visiting relatives, trading, fellow villagers, etc., went deep into the Ming Dynasty, searching for all the news that could be obtained, and what surprised Zhu Yijun was that Hu Lu often knew the intelligence of the Ming Dynasty very well, because there was 'someone in China' to deliver news for them.

After Zhu Yijun asked Zhang Juzheng and Qi Jiguang, he clearly knew that this Chinese person was not a poor coolie, at least a famous family, and even a high-ranking power, and only in this way could the news he get was accurate and timely.

This is an inevitable thing to happen, in some cases, Zhu Yijun met with the three ladies, Wang Chonggu and Beiyu talked about business, the concubine of the Honglu Temple Qing Chen Society was the sister of the three ladies, and so on, all of them can be regarded as someone in China.

The spy is myself.

There is nothing wrong with this kind of normal exchange, and the two countries are still at war, and communication is still very necessary when there is a war.

But from Zhang Juzheng's mouth, I learned that Altan Khan in the past few years, even the Ming Dynasty Beijing battalion personnel, arsenal armaments, border transfers, and the Great Wall defense information were clear, and that was the fatal thing.

Therefore, Wang Chonggu could not express his position on the matter of the Ming Dynasty's conquest of the Northern Captives, whether he supported it or not, he could only cooperate with His Majesty's actions in silence, because Wang Chonggu did not know whether there were such people in the Jin Party, who passed the news to the outside world for money, for profit, and even stupid enough to be for women, and for the so-called political opinions.

No matter what Wang Chonggu says, it is possible that a boomerang will lead to death.

Hu and Han live together, that is, you have me, I have you, the state affairs of the Ming Dynasty, the bad is that you have me, I have you, it is not so clear, the open fire insists on opening the posture, and the position is clear.

Although the circulation speed of Daming and Beiyu is not as unimpeded as the rushing river, they can't hide each other from any big move.

There are many forms of intelligence warfare between the Ming Dynasty and the Northern Captives, and it is not a single scout's reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, spying, blocking, sabotage, discord, assassination, intelligence transmission, deception, intelligence deterrence, internal inspection and liquidation, and so on.

Before the emperor's decree was issued, Datong, Xuanfu, Shaanxi and Gansu, Kaiping, and Yingchang had gradually closed the border gates, and carried out three personnel screenings in the territory, and closed the families of merchants, Tartar officials, and Hu people who were deeply involved in the trade of the Northern Captives, and screened their interpersonal contacts several times.

In these years, if you want to find these spies in the crowd, it is easy to ask the old man of MI6 at the head of the village, and you can find out the situation in the village, and even know who is stealing people, let alone a spy with a foreign accent.

Intelligence work is not only a matter of professional people's profession, the old man chatting under the locust tree, the short old woman in the family under the archway, the three aunts and six women walking the streets and alleys, the prostitutes who listen to all directions in the green building, the smart shopkeeper in the industry, etc., etc., carefully probe, there are always many unexpected gains.

This is just an internal inspection and liquidation, such as intelligence deterrence, which Qi Jiguang told Zhu Yijun, before the start of the war, the mobilization of the Ming army did not evade people's eyes and ears at all, it was a kind of deterrence, the 200,000 soldiers of the Ming army, according to the general practice, it is not too much to claim 500,000, but it is really told to the Beiyu, that is, 200,000 people.

200,000 is more deterrent than 500,000, because when you say 500,000, the enemy will only laugh at it, disapproving it, and even think that you may be weaker and bluffing.

But if you want to say 200,000, that's the real 200,000.

Sincerity is the greatest nirvana, and the truth is often a quick knife to kill people.

The Marquis of Duntai went deep into the camp and got the result of the big tent discussion, which was spying, and the cowardly Xue army pursued and killed, which was blocked, and the Marquis of Duntai brought the information back to Duntai, and then sent it to the general and His Majesty through the official post road, which was the transmission of information.

This is the most frequent and ordinary intelligence work of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yijun has some talent for intelligence work, and the talent is mainly reflected in intelligence screening, Zhu Yijun can always judge the truth of intelligence, thanks to the habitual deception of the Ming bureaucrats, Zhu Yijun can always find some details to infer information other than intelligence, and verify each other.

But he never gave direct orders to direct the troops in front of him to fight.

The intelligence war between the Ming Dynasty and the Northern Prisoners, the Ming Dynasty achieved an overwhelming advantage, which depends on the degree of organization of the Ming Dynasty that is much higher than that of the Northern Prisoners, and also thanks to the time of the spring, the Northern Prisoners are the weakest time at this time, whether it is a person or a horse, they have survived the long winter and encountered the scourge of war, which can be described as making matters worse.

And even if there is no victory in the battle this year, under the shadow of war, the grassland will be even weaker next year.

The Han and Tang dynasties and the early Ming Dynasty always liked to fight in the spring, which is also the reason, which is also part of the reduction of Ding.

With the arrival of the Ming Beijing camp in Xuanfu, the curtain of the war was officially opened, the Beijing camp as the main force, is still the front, middle and rear armies, Li Rusong broke away from the Chinese army camp, led the cavalry battalion to start the maneuver on the grassland.

In the twenty-third year of Jiajing, Ma Fang, who was still a thousand generals, went on a note and made a comprehensive summary of his understanding of the grassland people, the three major dependencies on the grassland, first, the grassland people are born knights because of their survival, which is incomparable to the Central Plains; second, it is that the northern captives rely on the fast horses and horses, come and go like the wind, and leave when they fight, and even go south without a clear goal, and they cannot be prevented; Third, the nomadic dwelling has no fixed place and lives by water, making it difficult for the army to enter and suppress it.

At that time, Ma Fang proposed a proposition against the northern captives, riding to control riding, and fast to control fast.

Only the cavalry responds to the mobility with the mobility, and responds to the rapid operation with rapid combat, and the marquis of Duntai has collected intelligence, and when the Daming Bu battalion arrives, the tribes of the northern captives have long been unable to know where to go, and only the cavalry can give full play to the value brought by these intelligence.

Emperor Jiajing felt that what this little Qianzong Ma Fang said was very reasonable!

But again, there is no money.

Dao Ye, he has the money to burn and repair, but he doesn't have the money to form cavalry? Yes, Dao Ye burned and repaired for more than 20 years, counting the repair of Yongshou Palace, he didn't spend two million silver, Zhu Yijun set up a cavalry camp, and there were still Mughal countries that sold and sent war horses to provide them, and burned two million silver in two years.

The cavalry of the Ming Dynasty and the cavalry of the grassland, the unit price is completely different, the price of the Ming Dynasty to obtain war horses and knights is too expensive, and the training cost is also extremely high.

Now, the Ming finally has cavalry.

Li Rusong did not wear armor, the armor hung on another horse, he carried a big yellow bow on his back, with ten people, twenty horsemen, galloping quickly on the grassland, and then reined in the horse, turned over and dismounted, squatted on the ground, and found a map from his arms.

"We are in Daqingshan, the mountain is from north to south, the south is gradually flattening, three miles is the Dongyang River, the upstream is the old place of Xinghe, and the re-line is twenty-seven miles, it is Jining Haizi, Chahannao garrison." Li Rusong used a clairvoyant mirror to look at the direction of the mountain and hydrology, and determined the location of the outpost, camp, and corner gate.

There are seven outposts, all of them are at a high place, and the camp is a total of three layers of horse traps sixty steps away, twenty steps per layer, a layer of rejection horses is placed between each layer, and on the last layer of rejection horses, there is a tiger squat cannon, the tiger squat cannon is no more than two feet long, a total of seven layers of iron hoops, the cannon body has two tiger claws erected, the cannon weighs thirty-six pounds, these two tiger claws, seven layers of iron hoops, and the Trojan horse used to build medicine, are Qi Jiguang's 'new method'.

Tiger squat cannon with gunpowder seven taels, each time firing five dollars of lead or stones, a total of 100, too much lead, too little gunpowder, resulting in lead out of the chamber, scattered powerless, as the Ming Dynasty logistics chief Zhu Yijun once did not like this thing very much, when this thing has no money, even use stones as shells, the effective killing distance is too close, less than 30 steps.

But the soldiers are very, very fond of this thing, the tiger squat cannon is mounted on the last layer of rejecting horses, that is, when the enemy is approaching, the effect is excellent, a row of tiger squat cannons are activated at the same time, that is the scene of flesh and blood.

Li Rusong, as the deputy commander-in-chief, did not have to come to explore the camp in person, but he was somewhat uneasy, mainly because the hydrological exploration of the Ming Dynasty was in the autumn of last year, especially the news of the water source, or the field exploration to be at ease, and the battle of Tumubao was the death of the Ming Dynasty.

He came, and he really noticed some changes.

Originally, there was a dense forest in Daqing Mountain, which was suitable for hiding, and when the engineers of the Daming Cavalry Battalion were camped left and right, the enemy could come out of the dense forest to sneak attack, but a mountain fire burned the dense forest at the foot of the mountain, so there was no such concern.

Li Rusong led 1,500 people to scatter around to investigate, while another 1,500 people began to camp at the foot of Daqing Mountain, by the Dongyang River.

A cavalry battalion has a total of 2,700 combatants, 300 miscellaneous people, a total of 3,000 people, a cavalry battalion has a battalion general, four thousand generals, respectively the left and right thousand generals, the middle thousand generals, and the firearms thousand generals, the firearms thousand generals do not lead the troops to be in charge of firearms, and the remaining two thousand generals, each has two generals, and the engineering bureau has one general, who specializes in fortifications.

Each of them is in charge of two hundred generals, a total of twenty-four hundred generals, each hundred is in charge of three flags, each flag is in charge of three teams, and each team is in charge of eleven sergeants.

2,376 soldiers, 216 team generals, 72 flag generals, 24 bureau generals, 6 general generals, 4 thousand generals, 1 battalion general, which constituted the warhead.

There are more than 300 people in a cavalry battalion, including secretaries, family members, companions, military prisons, kitchen servants, engineers, etc.

The elite of the Ming cavalry battalion is the elite here, these three hundred miscellaneous streams belonging to the Engineer Bureau, in fact, are also soldiers, and they can get on the hammer of horses and wheels, but the division of labor is different, and they are divided into miscellaneous currents, miscellaneous currents are miscellaneous things, not that they are weak and beaten as miscellaneous currents, on the contrary, they can enter miscellaneous currents are brave and all-powerful people, and they are sharp pawns of sharp pawns.

When the sun was setting in the west, Li Rusong, as the vanguard, commanded the various thousand generals and completed the arrangement of the camp, Li Rusong had already faded away from his past arrogance, and he would discuss and act with the battalion generals and thousands of generals in everything, rather than acting arbitrarily, unless it was an emergency military situation.

This is the art of conducting that Li Rusong learned from Qi Jiguang, one person is short in wisdom, three people are long in wisdom, and Li Rusong can't think of it, there will be thousands of total supplements.

"The northern captives will inevitably take advantage of our foothold in the green mountains to sneak attack our army, especially the outpost where we are located, and order to go down, do not take off your armor tonight, and wait for the night, to guard against the enemy's night attack." Li Rusong gathered the opinions of all parties and finally issued an order for tonight: "The order for the night patrol is: Don't eat dumplings." ”

The night patrol order is a code signal between the night patrol soldiers when they encounter each other, and being able to quickly say not to eat dumplings is the fastest way to respond to the identity of the other party.

In addition to the night patrol soldiers, the night soldiers are not allowed to go out of the camp, the army is the most sophisticated killing machine of human beings, here the military orders are like a mountain, especially during the war, so I am not afraid of accidental injury, do not obey the military orders, and die in vain, and make trouble in front of His Majesty, and it is also the side that occupies reason.

The four thousand commanders admired Li Rusong very much, he was already the deputy chief soldier, in fact, there was no need to come to the outpost in person, just sit in the cavalry camp of the Chinese army, but Li Rusong was always the vanguard, personally walking on the front line, on the front line of the conflict, and he also liked to be stubborn and stubborn, charging ahead.

"Governor, rest first, I'll wait for the night watch." A thousand general manager said.

Li Rusong shook his head and said, "Wait for a rest, I'll come to patrol the night." ”

Qi Jiguang regarded Li Rusong as a disciple and taught him, Li Rusong and the emperor are brothers and sisters, but they learn differently, Li Rusong learns battle formations, while Zhu Yijun learns personal force.

Qi Jiguang told Li Rusong that in this battle, when attacking, if the vanguard fights well, he will win seventy percent of the battle, and if the vanguard does not fight well, he will definitely lose this battle.

The vanguard has a good chance of winning, and if the pioneer does not play well, it is a complete loss, this truth Li Rusong deeply thinks, this is tested in practice, the art of war is cloudy, and the defeat is like a mountain, once the pioneer loses, even Xu Da, an unborn general, will fall into the sand.

Hongwu five years, the battle of Lingbei, the Ming Dynasty three road northern expedition, February 29, Xu Da Middle Route Army vanguard governor Lan Yu, in the Yema River victory Wang Baobao, March 20, the pioneer Lan Yu in the Tula River pressed Wang Baobao is another fat beating, after two big victories, the middle route army alone deep.

Wang Baobao, who was defeated twice, returned to Helin in embarrassment, Yuan Zhaozong not only did not blame, but gave Wang Baobao tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, Wang Baobao and the general He Zongzhe rendezvous, defeated Lan Yu, defeated Xu Da of the Middle Route Army, and then Wang Baobao and He Zongzhe were in the Laluhun River, surrounded Li Wenzhong's department, Li Wenzhong fought steadily, but it was quite a fight, but Zhu Yuanzhang's grand strategy of destroying the Yuan was shattered.

Lan Yu was lured by the enemy to go deeper, and he didn't expect that Wang Baobao would be defeated twice, and he could still be valued by Yuan Zhaozong, the vanguard was not played well, and the consequences of the lone army going deep, Da Ming could only swallow it alive.

Until the twenty-first year of Hongwu, Lan Yu was fishing in the sea and completely wiped out the Northern Yuan court.

Li Rusong has been in Beijing for nine years, and he is still brave and often charges ahead, but in this bravery, there is a lot more caution.

The moon is bright and the stars are scarce, the moonlight is sprinkled on the grassland, the grassland at night is not quiet, you can often hear the cry of jackals, tigers and leopards, as well as all kinds of insect songs, Li Rusong personally keeps vigil, at dawn, the whole grassland is pitch black, except for the fire of the torches of the camp night patrol soldiers, there is no light at all.

At such a moment, Li Rusong was also a little tired, yawning, and told himself that he couldn't sleep yet, but from Xuanfu to Daqingshan, after a long journey, he had not rested for two days, after all, he was a person, not iron, leaning on the gate and squinting his eyes.

He suddenly opened his eyes suddenly, his eyes flashed, his exhaustion was swept away, and his whole body was full of excitement!

He slammed to the ground, a cruel smile curled into his mouth, he straightened up, buckled his visor, and raised arrows from the seven outposts, the sharp whistle pierced the night, and the fireworks exploded in the air!

"Enemy attack!" When the night patrol saw the arrows, they immediately knew that the enemy was coming for a night attack, and they struck the gong in their hands and shouted loudly, and the enemy arrived as scheduled at dawn, the most relaxing moment of vigilance.

Fireworks, whistles, shouts, gongs and drums, and horns sounded in a ball, and the camp in Daqingshan seemed to wake up from its sleep, and the light of the torches quickly turned into a long queue from the stars.

According to Qi Jiguang's requirements, the outpost should be assembled within a quarter of an hour after the arrow was raised to prepare for the enemy, and the Ming cavalry camp was the elite of the elite, and it only took half an hour to assemble.

Then, under one military order after another, each hundred entered the direction that he needed to defend.

There were eight jars in the four corner gates, and eight in the jars were listening, and they poked their heads out of the jars and told the commander that the enemy was within a thousand paces.

The main attack of the night is a surprise, and when the enemy is on guard, it is not a sneak attack, but a strong attack.

One by one fireworks began to rise into the air, after exploding in the air, this is the Ming Dynasty's flare bomb, called the fire bomb canister, where the night attack, and the enemy steals the camp, first put the fireball (flare with fire cartridge) to go, you must see the trace, after the fire bomb explodes in the air, it will fall slowly, you can see the enemy's trace.

Li Rusong led a thousand men to turn over and mount their horses, ready to support the lost direction at any time.

As the fire bombs continued to rise into the air, the sound of the fire guns began to sound, but all the reflective and bright ones were the men in armor, and the leveling guns were responsible for solving them, and the gunpowder smoke spread on the battlefield, and the lead with a scream caused a burst of screams, and the shouts of killing kept coming, making people's blood surge.

Li Rusong has been waiting, waiting for the arrow for help, waiting for the report of the commander, the elite soldiers behind him, holding their masks and not saying a word, under the explosion of gunpowder, the horses are also motionless, the horses are stuffed with cotton in their ears, and their eyes are blindfolded, and only when they are fighting, they will take off their blindfolds.

Waited left and right, and waited until the sound of the fire was not so dense, Li Rusong did not wait for help.

Until the morning sun pierced the darkness and sprinkled the golden light on the ground, the elite cavalry led by Li Rusong still did not move, and after there was no sound of fire, Ma Gui appeared in front of Li Rusong.

Ma Gui was the battalion commander of this cavalry battalion, and he commanded the battle in front, and he said loudly: "Li Dudu! The enemy has retreated! ”

"Uh..." Li Rusong opened his visor and looked at Ma Gui frowning, he had been sitting on the horse for almost half an hour, and now Ma Gui told himself that the enemy had retreated?!

"Li Dudu, are you pursuing?" A thousand general manager asked eagerly.

"Dismount and rest." Li Rusong turned over and dismounted and got off the general, he was the vanguard governor, even if he could already attack, but he still chose to rest, and before, he had already rushed out to chase and kill, killing one did not lose, and killed two to make money.

Now, he chooses to be cautious.

Recently, there is always a voice in Beijing, saying that Qi Shuai has lost the blood and courage of the year, and has become cautious, many people say that Qi Shuai is old, he has become famous, and he has fought in a daze, and he has been fighting in a daze, slowly advancing little by little, without the spirit of fighting thousands of miles at the beginning, everyone said that Qi Shuai became a marquis, and some lost his enterprising spirit.

Now Li Rusong is like this, he obviously has an excellent opportunity to expand the results, but he is becoming more and more cautious, how can he still look like the world's number one warrior.

Some people summarize these voices as: Qi Jiguang is as timid as a mouse, and Li Rusong is greedy for life and afraid of death.

Qi Jiguang, Li Rusong and others never refute these words, these words of reading are their own, who is not greedy for life and afraid of death? !

In the past, there was no way, if you didn't work hard, you would lose, you would die, the people in your own defense area would die, your family would also die, you could only fight hard, now you can crush it with your strength, why do you want to be brave? Dignified, horizontal and hard, can push opponents flat, why take risks?

Besides, there is also a low-demand Majesty, every time he goes out on an expedition, His Majesty will say, Xu defeated, we will come again next year, Daming can lose many times, but the enemy can only lose once.

Before, there was really no chance of coming back.

In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing, the left and right wings of Altan Khan Tuman Khan joined forces, and the governor Wang Zhu commanded no way, which led to the collapse of the Ming army on the whole line, Xifengkou, Zunhua, and Yutian were lost one after another, and Wang Zhu, the governor of Jiliao, was greedy for life and afraid of death and fled.

Afterwards, Wang Zhu, as the governor, did not have any, but Ma Fang was stripped of his post as deputy commander-in-chief and demoted to command.

When there is no Zhenwu, how can the Ming army have the opportunity to slowly draw and crush it? After Qi Jiguang was successful in training, he won every battle, and he also made meritorious contributions several times, and rushed to kill with crimes.

can let you lead troops to fight, it is already a benevolent old man.

Li Rusong took off his armor, and before resting, he wrote the Tang Newspaper, and the whole Tang Newspaper was to tell the court about the war, and after he finished writing, he added another sentence: The strength of firearms is far beyond expectations.

This time against the enemy, there are only bird guns, flint guns, leveling guns, sub-mother guns, nine-pound guns and even tiger squat cannons, but just the fire guns are enough, which makes Li Rusong look at his huge biceps, a little stunned, with the continuous progress of firearms, I am afraid that personal bravery will become less and less important.

This is a good thing, and it is a good thing for Daming, who is more organized.

The Daming Naval Division has always been Yu Dayou's guiding guidance, big ships and cannons, and the Ming Dynasty's strategy and combat methods against the northern captives are now beginning to implement Ma Fang's guidance.

Ma Fang advocated: The way of the captives is to anticipate the enemy's first strike, and if the enemy wants to move, I will move first, and the method of victory is to use the length of our firearms to ride and shoot, the shortness of the enemy's bow and crossbow shooting, and the heavy damage to the enemy on the plug.

After the Ming Dynasty had a certain amount of mobility, every winter and spring, it sent elite cavalry to form a small detachment to carry out a counter-assault on the grassland, with the goal of plundering horses and burning grasslands, destroying the combat resources of the northern captives to the greatest extent, and greatly increasing the proportion of firearms.

According to Ma Fang's vision, the Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty, now the number of firearms has surged, and as a result, there are too many firearms and too strong, resulting in the well-prepared cavalry battalion cavalry, not the main attack, but the response and gallop assistance.

This made Li Rusong a little unexpected, and the precise tactics were not as good as queuing up to shoot after all.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, good news, good news from Daqingshan, Li Rusong, the vanguard governor and deputy commander-in-chief, resisted 12,000 enemies with 3,000 in Daqingshan, slashed more than 1,250 levels, and won Daqingshan! The Ming Front protrudes from the Great Wall to Daqing Mountain! "A small yellow door rolled in front of the door of the imperial study of Tonghe Palace.

Zhu Yijun put down the pen, stood up suddenly, walked to the little yellow door, picked up the Tang newspaper, opened it, and said happily: "Okay, good!" ”

Zhu Yijun didn't know the soldiers, he only knew that the vanguard had won.

According to Zhu Yijun's plan, this battle will be fought for another 25 years, and every winter and spring season, it will counterattack into the grassland.

Emperor Daming was somewhat lenient with the enemy.

(End of chapter)