In the 13th year of Chongzhen, Huangtaiji sent Jirgalang and Duoduo led their troops to build cities and farms in Yizhou. ←,

Yizhou is located on the banks of the Daling River between Guangning and Jinzhou. It has a wide terrain and fertile land. It is actually a forefront for attacking Jin. At the same time, once the besiege of Jinzhou begins, it will immediately become an excellent logistics supply base.

The Qing army's move to camp in Yizhou clearly exposed their strategic intentions in the next stage, which was to siege Jinzhou. The one who stationed in Jinzhou was Zu Dashou, the general of Jinzhou who was sealed by the Ming Dynasty's vanguard general. The first general in western Liaoning and the head of the Zu family. He once surrendered to the Qing army once, and later took the opportunity to return to Jinzhou and immediately began to fight against the Qing army. However, many people in the Zu family had surrendered to the Qing army and served the Qing army.

Faced with the Qing army's garrison in Yizhou, Zu Dashou kept asking for help from the governor of Ji Liao, Hong Chengchou, and said that the Jianlu stationed in Yizhou was in Ningjin. However, the qi of Ningjin was interrupted, and the three cities of Song, Xing and Jin were already in full swing, and the court was not even over the evening. Zu Dashou asked Hong Chengchou and the court to send troops to help, to remove the nail that was inserted into Jinzhou's eyes and to protect the safety of Jinzhou.

The Ningjin defense line had already become a rather embarrassing existence at this time, because since Lin Danhan left the west, the Mongols in the north of Yanshan Mountain had changed from the Allied forces of the Ming army in the early days of Tianqi and Chongzhen to the vanguard of the Qing army. Western Liaoning became a lonely and weak protruding point, a narrow corridor that penetrated hundreds of miles deep into the enemy's territory.

From a strategic perspective, Ning Jin's role in the barrier within the pass was extremely small. Before that, the Qing army had bypassed the Guanning Jin defense line in western Liaoning several times, and broke through the Great Wall Pass from Jizhen in the north of Yanshan to attack the pass.

The defending Ningjin defense line not only did not play the role of the original barrier to the capital, but also greatly increased the supply of the Ming army. In addition, the Ming army, the most expensive elite troops, were stationed far away from the capital. Every time the Qing army invaded, the Ningjin army could not defend the enemy from outside, nor could it reinforce the capital in time.

Although Ningjin can defend Shanhaiguan, in fact, the unique terrain of Shanhaiguan makes it extremely dangerous. Shanhaiguan has also been breached in history, but it was captured from the inner gate and has not been breached from the front outside the gate. The Ming army could have withdrawn Ningjin's defenders to the gate.

Unfortunately, the civil servants were not flexible and did not understand strategies, and the interests of the Liaoxi generals in western Liaoning made the court still guard the Ningjin line.

Especially now, when the Qing army was about to launch the siege of Jinzhou, the court did not choose the most correct way to withdraw Shanhaiguan and firmly guard the mountain and sea line of Jizhen. It also did not defend Jinzhou while sending troops to harass the city of Yizhou.

The generals of the imperial court and Ji Liao chose the best response strategy and drew a large army from the Central Plains to Jinzhou to destroy the city of Yizhou. This inevitably led to the decisive battle of the Qing Dynasty, and they didn't care at all.

Leading the main force to four hundred miles outside the pass to engage in a strategic decisive battle with the enemy, Liu Jun couldn't understand what the dynasty and the generals of Ji Liao were thinking? Their heads were all clamped? Or was it because the court wiped out the bandits and their unprecedented confidence increased greatly and they all expanded?

Even if the Ming Dynasty wanted to fight the Qing army to a decisive battle, where could it not be carried out and when could it not be carried out, would it have to choose such a passive time and place?

Especially in Liu Jun's view, it would be better if the Jinzhou defenders only defended the city and sent a mobile force to raid and destroy the Qing army's military farms and supply routes in Yizhou. However, gathering a large number of troops to Jinzhou is a way to accelerate suicide. The more soldiers, the greater the consumption, and the greater the supply pressure. The Ming army has a supply line of more than 400 miles, and the supply is completely transported within the pass. This is extremely dangerous.

You won’t die if you don’t do it.

Liu Jun sighed, there was no other way. Even Mei Zhihuan could not persuade Chongzhen, so don’t mention him. Fortunately, Chongzhen did not accept Mei Zhihuan’s memorial in the end and ordered him to Jinzhou. Otherwise, Liu Jun would not know how to respond.

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

Among the people who were seeing each other off by the river, a businessman looked at the fleet from afar and drove along the river, slowly squeezed past the people who were still excited to talk and praise the mighty people. He returned to the city all the way.

He walked into a northern goods shop on Chengdong Street.

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

Qiao Gui asked loudly. When the shopkeeper behind the counter in the shop heard it, he hurriedly looked up at him, then walked out from behind, called the guy who had already come forward to greet him, and went forward to receive it himself. This was a thin and dry old man from Shanxi, with a wrinkle face and a melon-skin hat.

"Customer, I have the best old ginseng here. Do you want one hundred years or two hundred years?"

"Is it the authentic Liaodong Laoshan ginseng? Is there any Korean ginseng that has been around for a hundred years?"

The inn shopkeeper showed a smile and said, "You are here to the right place. Our Guangfu Train is the most famous northern goods store. There are a lot of goods outside the pass, authentic and affordable. Not only are there Liaodong old ginseng and Korean Korean ginseng, one hundred years old, there are!"

Hearing the inn owner say this, a light flashed in Qiao Gui's eyes and soon disappeared again. He asked slowly, "How much does a century-old Liaodong ginseng cost, and how much does a century-old Korean ginseng cost?"

"A hundred taels are one, and there is no deception in the old man, and there is no second price!"

"Yeah." Qiao Gui subconsciously looked around and found that there were only two of them in the shop, and the guy had already gone to the backyard. One thing was that he took out the silver notes from his sleeve, "I'll use the silver notes from Sihai Bank, can I pay?"

The boss smiled and said no problem.

Qiao Gui handed over the silver notes, the shop owner took them, put two old ginsengs in a wooden box, and handed them to Qiao Gui. After the money and goods were handed over, their eyes were intertwined, and they nodded intently.

Qiao Gui walked out of the shop with the box. Then he went 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, then placed the ginseng box on the table, and opened it carefully. He took out the two old ginseng inside, then found the interlayer in the box, opened it, and there was a letter inside. However, the words on it were not even in a sentence. Qiao Gui took a book from the bookshelf and began to turn it over and over, writing on another piece of paper with a pen.

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

Qiao Gui is a Shanxi native who works in charge in a business run by a Shanxi boss in Huangzhou.

He came from Huangzhou, which he only came from Shanxi at the end of last year. The paper he burned just now was filled with the Shanxi main store of the business bank asking him to collect information about Jiutou. In fact, when he came from Shanxi to Huangzhou, he was just a name in charge of business in the business bank. In fact, he used this identity to collect information about Jiutou.

He just went to the Beijing Goods Store and bought a silver note. He had a piece of paper in it, which wrote more than 30 pieces of information about the garrison of the Jiutou Bird Army, the establishment of troops, the list of generals, the date and number of dispatches. It was quite detailed. Although it was not considered confidential information, it was indeed very comprehensive.

And he got the task requirements from the Beijing Goods Store and then collected them as required.

In fact, he was indeed just a Shanxi business manager, not a Jinyiwei or an Dongchang, nor a detailed work of the Qing Dynasty. However, in some respects, he was actually a detailed work. Many merchants in Shanxi secretly smuggled and traded with the Qing people. In addition to transporting grain, iron and cloth and other materials to the Qing army, and exchanged them for gold, silver, pearls, ginseng and marten, etc., they also sold intelligence to the Qing army, which was basically the request of the Qing army to collect various information from the Ming Dynasty.

Last year, the Qing army directly proposed to Qiao Gui's business bank to collect information about Jiutou and offered a high price. The business bank sent Qiao Gui and many others to the south and set up several business banks in various parts of Huguang.

Because Shanxi merchants were close to Zhangjiakou, a major trade route leading to the grassland, they had always had close relationships with the Hu people outside the mouth. After the Qing army conquered the Mongolians outside the mouth, Shanxi merchants also began to cooperate with the Qing people.

All kinds of materials are smuggled and sold, and as long as they can make money, they have no scruples.

The secret message translated by Qiao Guigang was the latest task sent to him by the business bank, which made him try every means to get the cannon power that Jiutou got from the Red Yi. In addition, he also asked him to find a way to collect Jiutou's flintlock musket information, preferably one or two of this new muskets and secretly send them back to the Shanxi headquarters.

After a merchant ship thawed in the Liaohai Sea, it sailed through the wind and waves to Lushunkou.

At the bow of the boat was a middle-aged man dressed in a businessman, and behind him were several young men in escort costumes standing. They were standing on the boat and looking at the port carefully.

Lushunkou is an excellent port. Even though it is very cold in winters these years, the freezing time of Lushunkou is very short. It is even said that when the weather was not so cold in the early years, the port of Lushunkou even did not freeze all year round.

In addition, it is hidden and dangerous here, and it is a natural port. Lushunkou, Miaodao Island, and Penglai Corner of Shandong Peninsula share the Bohai Strait, forming a natural barrier between the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coast. For the Ming Dynasty, which established its capital in Beijing, this place has always been an extremely important place.

Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty has been missing such an important place for several years.

In the second year of Chongzhen, after Mao Wenlong, the general of Dongjiang was killed by Yuan Chonghuan, internal conflicts in Dongjiang Town became increasingly intensified, and his old subordinates successively invaded rebellions in Pidao and Dengzhou. Although the court successively quelled the rebellions in Dongjiang and Dengzhou, as Kong Youde surrendered to the Qing army, with his assistance, the Qing army sent troops to attack Lushun in the sixth year of Chongzhen. Although the Ming army stationed in the Ming army bravely resisted, they were eventually outnumbered and defeated, and Lushun was lost.

After the loss of Lushun, the Ming army quickly lost the sea islands such as Guanglu. In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Shen Shikui, the last general of Dongjiang Town, was defeated by Pi Island and was defeated by Shicheng Island. He was finally captured and died. The Ming Dynasty completely lost control of the Liaohai and the islands.

"It's just Lushunkou!" The middle-aged businessman standing at the bow of the boat sighed.
Chapter completed!