Chapter 321

"The soldier has run away!"

Hearing this, Cheng Shijie's face was full of bitterness. If he had not become the commander of the Ning Navy in the past and in the later life, he would have believed that the soldiers would be afraid of the enemy and flee in embarrassment.

However, in this time and space, after four years as the commander of the Duoning Navy, Cheng Shijie knows very well that the border troops on the nine sides are all elite soldiers of the Ming Dynasty and have very rich combat experience. As a veteran, it is definitely possible to shine your back to the enemy, let alone a group of enemies on war horses.

If it is said that in the field situation, the Ming army may be crossed by the cavalry of Jiannu or the Mongols, but the problem is that this is in the strong Jing'an Fort, which has been held out for more than two months, the front feet of Jing'an Fort are still as hard as iron, and the back feet are crossed?

The old man is actually more sad and angry than Cheng Shijie, and there is a deep helplessness in the grief and indignation: "Jing'an Fort is often attacked by Mongolian Tatars, for many years, it is as solid as Mount Tai, the old man doesn't know how to cross it all at once, and the old man also doesn't know what those generals think, obviously he has so many men and horses, but he is unwilling to fight a good battle with the Tartars. ”

"What? What did you say? ”

Cheng Shijie was like a lightning strike: "Only a few hundred Tartars? ”

"Your Excellency, haven't you understood?"

The old man smiled sadly: "The defense line of Xuanfu has collapsed, and the Tartars have broken through Jing'an Fort!" ”

Jing'an Fort is also known as Jinghu Fort, built in the Ming Dynasty, because it guards the Baihe Gorge, commonly known as Baihe Fort, Jing'an Fort is not an independent fort city, along the Jing'an Ancient Road to the north more than a dozen, respectively set up several side castles, for the frontier of Jing'an Fort.

There is a garrison in the castle. The garrison was a high-ranking officer, built with a mansion, stationed here all year round, directing the defense of the area. There are many soldiers stationed in the city, there are "888 real officers and soldiers", soldiers need to rest in barracks, there are barracks in the city, and there are official mansions, the scale is not small.

Jing'an Fort belongs to the east road of Xuanzhen, which controls the "east when the estuary, west when the west estuary, north to the head of the pier, all the way to the extreme." Six or seven miles outside the border, Chaoquan Temple, Xujiachong" and other important passes, natural insurance can be relied upon.

According to the Yanqing Prefecture Chronicles, the castle has a south gate and a west gate, and it is a brick city. Most of the castles in this area are earthen castles, but this place is a brick city. The outer brick walls were expensive, but they were strong enough to withstand heavy attacks, which gave rise to their military status.

The crux of the matter is that Jing'an Fort is the gate of the capital, in the territory of Miyun. In ancient times, Miyun was the main road to the capital.

"Hundreds of Mongol Tatars, all the way to attack the city and plunder the land, as if into a no-man's land, so many fortified cities were not defended at all, and the enemy army surrendered as soon as it arrived......"

When the old man said this, his eyes almost burst into flames, and he let out a mournful roar at the gloomy sky: "God, open your eyes and see! This country is going to die, it's going to die......"

The mournful roar made Cheng Shijie's hands and feet cold, unable to speak, and there was only one thought left in his mind: "Why is this happening?" Why is this happening? ”

As early as when Cheng Shijie took over as the prime minister of the Nine Sides, he sent to convey the military order to the defenders of the Ninth Army, strictly guarding against death, as long as the soldiers died, he would replenish them, and he would make up for the loss of armor.

As long as he guards the border city and does not lose, every time he beheads the first level of Mongolian Tartar, he Cheng Shijie personally gives a reward of fifty taels of silver, and beheads him above the third level, he can obtain a household registration with military merits, move to Liaodong, and divide the fields and houses.

It can be said that Cheng Shijie is using a stick in one hand and a sweet jujube in the other hand to temporarily stabilize the morale of the army, in order to prevent the food from running out of grain in various parts of the nine sides, Cheng Shijie also tried every means to transfer grain from Liaodong into the customs, just because of the cold weather, the Bohai Sea is frozen, and it cannot be transported temporarily, although the Bohai Sea is frozen, the Liaodong Ordnance Bureau temporarily built an ice boat.

In order to prevent the ice from suddenly breaking on the surface of the sea, each ice boat uses a sheepskin raft as a pontoon, and in case of accidental overboard, the inflated sheepskin raft can provide buoyancy and not sink.

But the problem is that this kind of transportation volume and transportation speed is far less than that of large ships, but from the sea transportation, the way to go in a straight line, the distance saved, also saves time, however......

All this fell short because of the fall of Jing'an Fort.

In Miyun County in December, the atmosphere is pressing, and the cold wind is like a long knife, repeatedly sweeping all living creatures, and the world is vast. It's cold, it's so cold!

What is surprising is that even in this kind of living ghost season when water is splashed into ice, you can still see a large number of people dragging their families and mouths, withstanding the cold wind, and taking heavy steps towards Miyun County.

They were cold, hungry, and exhausted, and many of them collapsed because they had exhausted their last strength, and they never got up again. These are the people who have been evacuated from Xuanfu East Road, they have been living in Xuanfu for many years, who knows that the situation has changed suddenly, and the Mongolians are like crazy Xuanfu East Road rushing to fight with them.

As the people of Xuanfu, in fact, there are no more peasants in the pure sense, the brutal battle of the Jiajing Dynasty lasted until the Qiu Chongzhen Dynasty, the endless war forced every peasant into a warrior, they guarded the settlements with weapons, fought to the death, some settlements were breached, but most of the settlements were still in their hands.

The Mongols attacked again and again, and they all fought back. They firmly believed that as long as the imperial court could give them strong support, they could make the Mongols dry their blood on the Great Wall defense line on the Xuanfu East Road!

However, now everything has changed, many border troops suddenly turned their faces, and gave way to the defense line, and the Mongolian army was like a flood that was bursting the embankment, surging into the defense line, which was originally unbreakable, and the defense line of the Xuanfu East Road, which made the Mongols cry in despair, collapsed in this way, and the Ming soldiers distributed on the long border defense line were divided and surrounded, and the rear was made a mess by the Mongolian cavalry, and there was smoke and fire everywhere.

The Xuanfu army was no longer able to provide strong support to the people, and many settlements were overwhelmed by the surging Mongol cavalry......

The mood of the border soldiers who have been guarding this land for generations and shed too much blood can be imagined, they cover the retreating people, and the Mongolian cavalry has not only followed slowly, because the Mongols looked at the defense line of Xuanfu East Road, and opened it rashly, and they did not dare to go too deep, for fear that the Ming army would ambush them.

Fortunately, the Mongolian army has palpitations, otherwise these people would not have had a chance to withdraw to Miyun County, but the small Miyun County is already overcrowded, there is no food here, no winter clothes, and no charcoal fire to keep warm.

At the critical moment, a convoy appeared outside Miyun County, which was a very large convoy, with hundreds of carts, and a steward wearing a thick cotton coat stepped forward and shouted: "Listen, everyone, we need some people to come and help with the work!" ”

Everyone was stunned for a moment, the county town couldn't enter, and I didn't know when the Mongolian army would come to kill me outside the city, and I could survive if I had a stutter or a mouthful of hot soup.

Someone boldly asked, "We're willing to help, can we feed us?" ”

"Yes, the people who come to work each have two large bowls of soybean porridge, add oil and salt, and be full!"

Boom, a strong young man swarmed up, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled followed, as long as they could move, they all rushed to the convoy.

This convoy naturally came from Liaodong, and now with the rapid development of industry in Liaodong, coupled with the cessation of large-scale immigration, there is a problem of labor difficulties in Liaodong.

Now there are refugees on the Great Wall defense line, which can just solve the problem of lack of manpower in Liaodong, after receiving Cheng Shijie's invitation, Dongfang Firm, Huizhou Merchant Alliance, Changfeng Merchant and Jixian Firm, Liaodong can count the firms, all sent people directly to Liaodong to accept refugees.

These refugees need a certain amount of money to go to Liaodong, and according to this season, without ten taels of silver, these refugees will not want to arrive in Liaodong alive.

Relatively speaking, in order to solve the problem of difficult recruitment, the firm is naturally willing, and now unlike the later generations, the migrant workers of the later generations will automatically flock to the big cities to find jobs.

More than 60 miles northwest of Miyun, on the bank of the Baihe River, and more than 10 miles away from Jing'an Fort, a Mongolian cavalry roared in, and they were all chasing and killing a group of fleeing civilians.

However, just as they were recklessly slashing and slashing the fleeing civilians, the earth shook, the snow jumped, and the Mongol cavalry straightened up and looked south.

I saw a black line appear on the horizon, and the pitch-black cloak was hunting and rolling in the cold wind, and the murderous aura came to my face. Cheng Shijie led the cavalry forward of the Ning Navy to arrive here.

Cheng Shijie quietly looked at these Mongolian cavalry, each Mongolian cavalry horse had one or two bloody heads hanging on their necks, some adult men, some women, and children, the leader of the general was tall, with a rough face, not angry and arrogant, and was a fierce general Kyakhtu under the command of Tushetu Khan in Northern Mongolia.

Cheng Shijie waved his hand indignantly: "Cut down this group of brutes for Ben Shuai!" ”

Although it is said that the cavalry of the Ning Navy has always been the shortcomings of the Ning Navy, the problem is that the cavalry of the Ning Navy is weak, and it is relatively strong compared to the Jiannu cavalry, and they are not a little stronger than the Mongolian cavalry.

The cavalry of the Ning Navy roared and attacked the Mongolian cavalry, and the river surface of the Baihe River became the main battlefield.

When the distance between the two sides was still more than 500 meters, the Ning Navy cavalry was riding their horses and galloping while loading ammunition, and the Mongolian cavalry on the opposite side saw that the Ning Navy cavalry actually used muskets against them, and they immediately laughed.

They are no strangers to muskets, only thirty or fifty paces range, and more importantly, the accuracy is extremely poor, even if they stand still, at a distance of fifty paces, the musket's hit is less than thirty percent, and the accuracy rate within thirty steps can barely reach seventy percent, and if you want to accurately hit the target, you need to reach a range of about twenty steps.

However, the problem is that the rifle equipped by the cavalry of the Ning Navy is a Chongzhen eight-year-style bolt-action rifle, not to mention thirty steps, even if it is three hundred steps, it has a high eye rate, of course, this must be an elite shooter. After the cavalry of the Ning Navy was loaded, when it was about one hundred and fifty paces away from the opponent, it stopped advancing and steadily raised its guns to aim.

"Bang ......"

With a crackling gunshot, the Mongol cavalry on the opposite side fell in large pieces. These Mongolian cavalrymen who were shot and fell to the ground until they died, they did not understand why the cavalry guns of the Ning Navy could hit so far and so accurately.

Of course, the cavalry of the Ning Navy did not care about the reaction of the Mongolian cavalry, they finished shooting the first shot, put away their rifles, drew their sabers, clamped the belly of the horse, and rushed towards the Mongolian cavalry.

The fighting strength of the Ninghai cavalry was still strong, and soon the remnants of the Mongol soldiers fled into the distance.

Looking at the vigorous figure of the cavalry of the Ning Navy, these fleeing people, there is a sense of security in their hearts, these loyal and brave soldiers are still there, there is hope, there is still hope for the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty will definitely fight back, and they can go home.

Cheng Shijie did not pay attention to this battle, victory is inevitable, and defeat is a problem.

When Meng En entered the big tent of the Chinese army, Cheng Shijie was staring at the sand table, at a loss.

"Dashuai!"

"Have you found out what you are looking for?"

"Returning to the marshal, it has been found out, the Jing'an Fort garrison is called Qiao Zhaolin, it was Qiao Zhaolin who ordered the whole fort defenders to retreat, and Sun Wei, the deputy garrison of Jing'an Fort, was beheaded by Qiao Zhaolin because he was dissatisfied with the retreat......"

Cheng Shijie said: "Dig out Qiao Zhaolin for Ben Shuai, move to the East Factory and Jinyiwei, spend silver when you should spend money, now is not the time to save money!" ”

"Yes!"

Meng En asked again: "If you find Qiao Zhaolin......

"This commander wants Qiao Zhaolin to be within the three clans, and no one can let go."

Cheng Shijie was very angry, now it is basically certain that Qiao Zhaolin was co-opted, and the surviving soldiers of Jing'an Fort confessed that Jing'an Fort had a total of more than 2,300 stone of food, and it could hold out for at least another four months, there was no shortage of food and grass, no shortage of ammunition, and there were more than 800 troops, which was not a situation where it could not be held on at all.

The Mongolian army fought around Jing'an Fort for more than half a month, and the casualties in Jing'an Fort were no more than 100 people, and it was a joke to say that it could not be held, no matter how much price was paid, Cheng Shijie had to scrape Qiao Zhaolin alive.

There are many problems facing Cheng Shijie now, and I don't know how many people in the Nine-sided Army have been co-opted. The more than 10,000 people and horses of the Ning Navy are placed on the defense line of Xuanfu for more than 1,300 miles, and the average is less than ten people per li.

At the heart of mobile defense, is the message. The fundamental reason why the Desert Fox can take the mobile defense of the equipment troops is information, and at that time there were telegrams and telephones, and at any point the enemy situation was detected, Rommel could quickly respond to it.

Now Cheng Shijie does not have this condition, he decided whether to return to the afterlife and get a batch of high-power radios to come, but the problem is that the Great Wall defense line is undulating, and the signal is not like on the sea, the signal on the sea is the most ideal, and it spreads the farthest, but between the mountains, it is greatly discounted.

It is not to divide the troops, and it is even more impossible not to divide the troops, which makes Cheng Shijie very headache.

Suddenly, there was a cold wind outside the tent.

"Tell the marshal, Gao Gonggong asks to see!"

"Let him in!"

"Yes!"

Not long after, he entered the big tent with a complaining face: "General Cheng, why are you here?" ”

In Gao Qiqian's opinion, Cheng Shijie should not take over the mess of the Ninth Border Defense Line at all, this is simply a hot potato, whoever touches it is unlucky.

Now it's just Jing'anbao that has problems, of course, this is only the beginning, far from the end.

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "If Ben Shuai doesn't care, who cares about this?" If no one cares, can it be that hundreds of thousands of Mongolian troops can go south smoothly? Bloodshed? ”

Gao Qiqian patted his thigh and said, "General Cheng, you are in big trouble this time!" ”

Gao Qiqian didn't finish speaking, Cheng Shijie said: "The eunuch of Xuanfu Town Supervisor is called ......"

"Lu Weining is Lu Jiucheng's godson!"

"This person is unreliable or unreliable!"

"It's not easy to say, whether it's reliable or not depends on the situation!"

Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "Lu Baozhong, the chief soldier of the Xuanfu, Chen Xinjia, the governor, and Lu Weining, the superintendent of the army, these three people, please help me keep an eye on them!" ”

"Does it work to stare them to death?"

Gao Qiqian sighed and said: "There are a few clean butts of those officials, as long as they grab the handle, they are really dough, they can knead as much as they want!" ”

Cheng Shijie was just thinking about who was bought and co-opted at first, but under Gao Qiqian's reminder, Cheng Shijie realized that Qiao Zhaolin might not have been co-opted, but threatened.

In any case, this matter is not easy to solve.

Gao Qidive picked up the teacup and found that the water inside had already formed thin ice.

Cheng Shijie said: "Come on, go to the hot pot!" ”

He and Gao Qiqian were eating hot pot while thinking about countermeasures.

The news received by Cheng Shijie is not all bad news, at least there is news from Liaodong, Huang Taiji accepted Cheng Shijie's proposal, and has returned more than 200,000 Ming Dynasty military battles to Liaodong, but these more than 200,000 people survived and were sent in time, most of them are already hungry, and if this continues, they have only a dead end.

With the more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians sent to southern Liaoning for resettlement, the Ning Navy began to open a mutual market in Liaoyang to trade with the Jiannu, and the Jiannu skins, including frozen cattle and sheep, horses, camels, and the Ning Navy exchanged food, including some Mongol heads.

In fact, Cheng Shijie did not expect Huang Taiji to honestly act as a mercenary of the Ning Navy, kill these Mongolian armies for them, and most importantly, be able to stabilize millions of Jiannu with food, which is the biggest victory.

After all, it is enough for Cheng Shijie to deal with more than 400,000 Mobei Mongolian troops now, and if you add the millions of Jiannu troops, even if no one withdraws back, it will be difficult for Cheng Shijie to deal with so many Jiannu and Mongolian coalition troops.

As the weather gets colder and colder, Cheng Shijie's biggest difficulty is to rescue the people of the Ming Dynasty in the north, as well as the Mongolian army, in fact, in Cheng Shijie's view, these problems are the easiest to solve instead of the Mongolian army, followed by disaster relief refugees.

In this case, Cheng Shijie decided to divide the troops into two routes, on the one hand, the members of the Liaoning Management Committee were responsible for the relief of the disaster victims, and the follow-up reinforcements of the Ning Navy continued to support the defense line of the Great Wall.

Relatively speaking, Wu Zongda, who was sitting on the soft couch of the cabinet, was very happy, he drank the tea and soup easily, he turned a blind eye to the fact that the refugees flocked to Miyun and flocked to Changping, and turned a blind eye to the fact that since the second year of Chongzhen, the defense line of the Great Wall was broken by the Mongols again, and the Mongol army could come to the capital at any time.

Wu Zongda smiled faintly: "This is thanks to Your Majesty's wisdom in appointing that minister as the Prime Minister of the Nine Sides, otherwise it would be really difficult to deal with him!" ”

Cheng Shijie was originally only the governor of Liaodong, and the defense area was only Liaodong, but Cheng Shijie was afraid of Jiannu, no matter how they tried to win them over, Jiannu just didn't accept their request, and he didn't dare to attack Liaodong.

Now that the prime minister has 5,600,000 troops on the nine sides, there will always be generals who will be co-opted by them, and now Qiao Zhaolin, the garrison of Jing'an Fort, accepted his pull and withdrew more than 800 soldiers under his command from Jing'an Fort.

With the opening of Jing'anbao, a gap appeared in the defense line of Xuanfu East Road, and the Mongol army moved south along this pass. Now the trouble is all Cheng Shijie's, if Cheng Shijie can't expel the Mongols, recover the losses, and let the people of Gyeonggi suffer a massacre, then he can definitely be blamed.

If the problem is sinful, Cheng Shijie, who was given high hopes by Emperor Chongzhen, will naturally bear the brunt.

Wen Tiren said lightly: "Shangyu, and don't be too happy!" ”

"Too early? Is it possible for Cheng Shijie to turn around? ”

Wu Zongda said with a smile: "Now the heavens are on our side, now that the Bohai Sea is frozen, his naval division troops cannot transport troops down, and the heavy snow closes the road, can the Ning Navy in Liaodong still fly over?" ”

"That minister is crazy and can do anything!"

"No matter how mad you are, you still have to deal with it!"

Wu Zongda said indignantly: "Thanks to the surname Cheng, the original simple folk customs of Liaodong have long been corrupted, the etiquette and music have collapsed, everyone is proud of profit, ashamed of studying, and the most hateful thing is that the surname Cheng destroyed Lin Quan, built a factory, and how many beautiful places and monuments were destroyed by him!" Today's Liaodong, you can no longer see the beautiful scenery of spring flowers, as far as the eye can see, there are chimneys with thick smoke billowing out! If we don't stop him, I'm afraid that the splendid country of the Ming Dynasty will be destroyed in his hands, and what face will we have to face future generations! ”

"On the top, be cautious, you must know that there are many people here, and if it is exposed, it will be extremely unfavorable to us."

Wen Tiren gestured to the officials outside the door with his gaze.

Wu Zongda snorted and said disapprerovingly: "Now that he is a mud bodhisattva crossing the river, it is difficult to protect himself, and he dares to move me, I can't wait!" ”

"Be careful to travel a 10,000-year-old ship, it's better to be careful."

Wen Tiren said: "The top priority now is, isn't the minister about to preach his fallacies?" Wouldn't it be better for us to be patient for the time being, and when the time comes, to refute his fallacies to his face, and to expose his ugly features, than to speak quickly here? ”

Wu Zongda said with a smile: "Lord Shoufu is high, just do it!" Then I'll see how the thief gets off the stage! ”

I don't know how Cheng Shijie stepped down, but some people will definitely be unlucky, such as Qiao Zhaolin, who finally escaped to the capital, and he was placed by Wu Zongda in a three-entry house in Wanping County.

In fact, Qiao Zhaolin didn't dare to go out of the door, he was afraid that Cheng Shijie's people would come and kill him, however, he could hide from the first day of junior high school, but he couldn't hide from the fifteenth, and Jinyiwei wanted to check a person, which was much simpler than later generations.

Because the population mobility in this era is very small, sometimes, a county town, there are very few people who go out of the city or enter the city in one day, especially the people who are responsible for guarding the city gate, from the people who enter or leave the city to get some oil and water, this is one of their financial routes, of course, there is also an aspect, is to record the appearance and age of each person who enters the city, this is important information, and you can make a lot of money by selling it.

Cheng Shijie asked Huazi for Qiao Zhaolin's information for 1,000 taels of silver, 2,000 taels of silver for Qiao Zhaolin's corpse, and 3,000 taels of silver for his living person.

As the largest intelligence agency in the Ming Dynasty, if they wanted to check someone, and it was not a prince or noble, it would be very easy, and after only two days, they found information about Qiao Zhaolin.

"Bang Bang ......"

For three thousand taels of silver, Jinyiwei really dispatched one hundred households in Dongcheng, and more than a hundred members of Jinyiwei came to this inconspicuous house, in order to prevent Qiao Zhaolin from escaping, they blocked the front and back doors respectively.

Qiao Zhaolin didn't dare to open the door, Jinyi Wei Xiaoqi stepped forward and kicked the door open, and kicked the door open in just a dozen strokes.

Jin Yiwei took out Qiao Zhaolin under the bed: "Qiao Zhaolin, Lord Qiao"

"Yes, this officer!"

"Come with us!"

(End of chapter)