the world is at stake

The Xinhua expedition team from Jiangnan felt nothing when they found these two flags, while Zhou Qingfeng and Wang Xin sighed slightly.On the contrary, the local young men in the naturalization camp ran up, stomped and chopped, and cried loudly.

The Jiannu army went south and slaughtered the surrounding areas of Kuandian.Countless victims were lost, hundreds of villages were reduced to ruins, and tragedies were staged day and night.

If it hadn't been for the emergence of the Xinhua forces, the massacre would not have stopped.

When the "wild boar skin" takes over the entire Liaodong, the "grainless people" will be killed, and millions of Han people will be massacred because they are deprived of their food.

The liberated naturalized people were cheering, celebrating the defeat of the Jurchen barbarians.

Wang Xin said in a low voice: "In later generations, there will still be Han people advocating for the 'wild boar's skin', wanting national unity at every turn, and blowing up a barbarian leader as a hero who resisted the tyranny of the Ming Dynasty. What is this?"

"Why do you think so much? Materialists admit the reality. A population of more than a billion people will always come up with something new and different. If you see it, you will kill it, and your troubles will be gone."

Zhou Qingfeng didn't run into the mountains to chase the Huangtai class again, he just asked people to pick up the two flags that had been chopped into rags, and then led the team to Kuandian to join forces with Chen Ding.

Seeing that the two flags of "Zhenglan" and "Zhengbai" were about to lose their true colors, the non-Jianzhou Ministry members who surrendered on the battlefield were really relieved. They came out one by one to meet the commander-in-chief of the Xinhua Expedition and made an oath. allegiance.

Disbanding on the spot is not acceptable for these superficial follies, and the recruitment of troops will conflict with the Liaodong naturalization camp.Xiao Jinlang came up with a bad idea - Xinhua provided logistics and transported the Jurchens to North Korea on a small steamer.

As for the life and death of North Korea, it's none of my business.

The Jurchen ministries are very active in fighting against North Korea. Anyway, persimmons always have to be soft, and North Korea is the best one to pinch.

The expedition team has been fighting continuously for almost two months, rested in Kuandian for a week, and transported two infantry battalions from Songjiang, plus [-] artillery and other auxiliary troops for logistical engineering.

So far, the [-] main forces and the [-] auxiliary soldiers of the early army building concept have all been trained and have arrived at the Liaodong battlefield.In addition to these regular troops, about [-] naturalized battalions were also recruited to assist in combat and rear security.

The rest was over, and the cold winter of November came, and Liaodong fell into the ice and snow again.

'At the beginning' during the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the Volunteers were able to encounter extremely low temperatures of minus [-] degrees in North Korea.Now the Little Ice Age is happening, and winters are extraordinarily cold.

Because of the cold, the Pushi River and the Ai River were frozen, and even the Yalu River was frozen, making it impossible for boats to move.The logistics can only be turned into a horse-drawn sleigh.

But the survivors in Liaodong lived more comfortably this winter than in previous years, with sufficient supplies of food and cotton clothes, hollow earth walls and heated kangs, and the inside and outside of the house were also warm.

There is no need to worry about the Ming army and the Jurchens coming to plunder, and life is extremely happy.

Zhou Qingfeng set up his front-line headquarters in Aiyang Fort, rebuilt the fort, and at the same time engaged in large-scale military training in winter - it is impossible to fight in this kind of weather, but the training could not be better.

The regular troops had to adapt to the climate of Liaodong, and the naturalization battalions had to emphasize discipline.

Far away in Songjiang, the gun project team decided to build an [-]mm rifled iron gun after improving production capacity and technology.Lighter, more powerful, and more precise.

In November, Zhou Qingfeng also received ten wooden boxes sent by Nurhachi.When I opened it, I found that it was full of human heads embalmed with lime.

The wooden box also came with Nurhachi's own letter, stating that the two sides' war was purely provoked by the villain of the Ming Dynasty, and it was a complete misunderstanding.Now Ying Ming Khan has seen through the tricks of the villain, and has killed the secret agent sent by the Ming Kingdom.

The head in the wooden box is proof of that.

The lime-treated head is shriveled and dehydrated, making it difficult to discern its original shape.There were men and women among them, some had grim faces before death, some laughed madly, and some howled in grief.

Nurhachi also said that he already knew that Xinhua was oppressed by the Ming court, and he was willing to become brothers with Xinhua to deal with the Ming court together.As for Liaodong, I hope that the two sides will have Kuandian as the boundary and communicate with each other.

In order to reflect the democracy within the group, Zhou Qingfeng specially sent a telegram to Xiao Jinlang to inform the standing committee members of the team.As a result, like a chat group in the telegram, the mechanical team staying in Songjiang was the first to complain.

"We worked so hard to get so many old antiques out, not for the sake of 'wild boar skin'. If your military team can't move anymore, don't stand in the latrine and don't shit. Let our mechanical team work and keep it safe. .”

The military team immediately fried the pot... "'Wild boar skin' is already the meat in the pot, and it will be destroyed in the beginning of spring. The mechanical team should make good guns and cannons, and don't always think about doing extra work."

The medical team asked curiously: "What does the 'wild boar skin' look like? We have been tossing for two years, but we don't know what kind of virtue a tartar is? You cut off his head and let us see? Even if only the skull is left, we Facial restoration can be done."

The Ming history expert also spoke weakly, "Don't keep shouting and killing. Can you capture the 'wild boar skin' alive and bring it back to Songjiang? I want to have a good chat with him about the details of Daikin's early development.

Such as the mystery of the 'Seven Great Hate'.This point is highly debated in academic circles.Personal interviews with the parties involved in the 'Seven Great Hatreds' should be able to conclude this debate.

You can't catch 'wild boar skin', but you can catch Huangtai grade.I want to chat with him about the reform of the 'Eight Banners', and whether the concubine Abahai really seduced him? "

Hey... When it comes to Abahai, there are more discussions.Many members of 'Holy Light' want to know if this so-called beautiful concubine is really beautiful, can they be captured for everyone to see?

Someone asked Nurhachi's Fujin what is the quality?Is it because the history books boast too much, but they are like concubines in the harem in the late Qing Dynasty, all of them are hunched over, crooked, mouths and teeth, so ugly that they can make people contraceptive.

It is normal for group chats to develop in the direction of pornography.

Zhou Qingfeng burned all ten heads, and then said to the Jianzhou courier who came to deliver the letter: "Let the wild boar skin eat and drink well. I will kill his whole family when the spring begins."

Chapter 48 Approaching

At the beginning of November 1617, Mangurtai and Huangtai class avoided Zhou Qingfeng, crossed mountains and ridges, bypassed Aiyang Fort, and returned to Hetuala bitterly along the line of Fucha and Abdaligang.

Half of the nearly thousand Jurchen elites who accompanied them were separated, some fled, and some died of starvation in the mountains.

The two Lord Belle returned to the capital of the Kingdom of Jin, and found that the whole city was preparing for war in the winter.The inside and outside of Hetuala are extremely guarded, and no one is allowed to enter.

When they arrived at the Khan Palace in the inner city, Hu Erhan, the Khan's personal bodyguard and now the first-class minister, personally guarded it.

"What's wrong with Father Khan?" Huangtai class is the most favored among the scholars, and asked eagerly in the "Khan's courtyard": "Xinhua is coming from the north?"

Hu Erhan shook his head, and led the two Baylors into Nurhachi's bedroom. Before entering, he specially told them not to get too close to the bed.The second son knelt down a few meters away and kowtowed, and when he looked up, he saw that 'wild boar skin' was sickly, mentally weak, and said nothing.

After knocking on the door, Hu Erhan revealed the inside story.

"Last month when I learned that Kuandian was trapped, the Great Khan decided to send troops to rescue him. But before the Eight Banners army assembled, he learned that the direction of Kuandian had been routed, so he had to give up.

In addition, Da Khan also arrested a group of spies from the Ming Dynasty and deliberately provoked the relationship between Dajin and Xinhua, which caused this dispute.

Khan sent the spy's head to show that he had no intention of continuing the fight with Xinhua.But that group of Han people were so rude, they didn't intend to stop there.

After much deliberation, Khan decided to fight Fushun first next year, so as to rob enough money, food and population before continuing to fight with Xinhua.Now only the front line of Abdali Gang is blocked to prevent the Han people from the south from coming.

It's just that those Ming spies are really hateful, they actually spread the disease in our capital.A bunch of bottles and jars with the words 'anthrax', 'smallpox' and 'typhoid' were found among his belongings.

The servants at the bottom didn't understand, thinking that the spy had a treasure, they opened all the glass jars, and smashed the jars when they couldn't find anything.It didn't take long for the whole city to start to have plague, and even the sweat was inexplicably affected. "

what……? !

The Huangtai class climbed the mountains for half a month, thinking that returning to Hetuala was going home, and finally he could breathe a sigh of relief.But from what it means now, the whole city has a plague?

If I had known this, I might as well not come back.

Mang Gurtai quickly asked, "How is Father Khan doing now?"

"Fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and poisonous gangrene on the back, which has already festered. The city has searched for famous doctors, some doctors have come to see them, and after dialectics, they quarreled over how to prescribe prescriptions; some doctors learned that there was a plague in the city, and fled overnight. .

A few days ago, the concubine invited the most effective witch god in Haixi to exorcise evil spirits.As a result, the witch god practiced it twice, and he fell ill instead. He also said that the plague ghost was too strong and he couldn't catch it. "

Hu Erhan shook his head, sighed and sighed.

"Now the inner and outer cities of Hetuala have been isolated, but more than [-]% of the sick people in the city have no cure. Those who are seriously ill can only be thrown outside the city and left to die.

If I had known this before, I shouldn't have executed the spies of the Ming Dynasty so quickly. At least I asked about the origin of the disease and how to treat it.Now we can only wait for people to die. "

Huang Taiji was shocked when he heard this, and then he realized why the city was heavily guarded. It turned out that there was no other way.

Hu Erhan continued: "Before the Great Khan fell ill, he ordered Dabeile Daishan to temporarily take the throne of Khan, and told Dabeile not to show his strength, but to stick to the Abu Dali post, first to fight Fushun to recover, and then to compete with the Xinhua Han people. .”

'Wild boar skin' sealed the four Baylors, among them, Amin with the blue flag accidentally bumped into Zhou Qingfeng in Phoenix City, and was shot in the head.The whole army of Manggurtai and Huangtai class was defeated in Kuandian, and they only returned with their bodies.

The rest is Big Baylor Daishan.

Hearing this arrangement, the Huangtai class felt something was wrong in their hearts, and asked urgently: "Since Father Khan ordered Fushun to be fought again early next year, why did he start preparing for the battle this winter? Can't do anything."

Hu Erhan was even more helpless about this issue, "Because Kuandian's defeat was so miserable, the Xinhua Han people sent spies to lobby everywhere, saying that the Aixinjueluo family was immoral and unworthy of being called Khan.

The spies rumored that they wanted the Jurchen ministries to draw boundaries with our Jianzhou tribe, and they were clamoring that only Dajin should be destroyed and others should not be punished.They ran around, promising money and food to those who were willing to defect to Xinhua, and moved to live in North Korea.

It is said that North Korea is weak and the land is open, which is much better than being in the poor valley in Liaodong.In just half a month, many idiots believed it and secretly sent someone to contact Nanmian. "

Hearing this, the Huang Tai class could be said to empathize with him, and yelled fiercely: "The Han people are cunning and like to use time. They did the same thing in Kuandian. The spies killed me endlessly, causing my fifth brother and I to collapse without a fight." .”

Who said no!

Mang Gurtai also hated it very much, stomping his feet and said: "If we fight with real swords and guns, I will lose if I am defeated. I will never be afraid. But the Han people are so despicable. They rely on their own money and food. Play some dirty shit."

Hu Erhan also said: "The day before yesterday, I caught a Han spy. Before he died, he taunted him wildly, saying that even a small soldier in the south has better food and clothing than a profuse sweat. He called us poor people in the mountains and had never seen the world. I used five horses to kill him. Torn."

This remark enraged Mangurtai and Huangtai class, but they had fought against the Xinhua Han people, and they really had to admit that the other party had a lot of money and food.

Ordinary soldiers not only had flushed faces and plump cheeks, but also wore general-level armor, and the boots on their feet were made of exquisite sheepskin material, which was very warm.

Having said all this, Hu Erhan came to the main point, "The current situation is unstable, and Daishan feels that he cannot follow Dahan's wishes. He said that if the situation cannot be stabilized this winter, all the ministries of the Daikin will fall apart before the warmer next spring. .”

To put it bluntly, it is a dilemma.Nurhachi fell ill, and a new master has not yet been established.The ministries of the Daikin will disband if they lose their allegiance.Daishan wants to fight a battle to restore his prestige.

"Even if we want to fight now, we must fight against Fushun in the Ming Dynasty. We must not cross the Abdali Hill." Huangtai said firmly, and Mang Gurtai nodded in agreement.

Hu Erhan said that Daishan also meant the same thing, but he was only worried that Dajin would attack Fushun, and if the Xinhua Han people took advantage of the situation to attack, Hetuala would be an empty city.

Regarding this problem, Huangtai and Manggurtai also looked at each other in blank dismay, unable to solve it.

At the same time, a plague broke out in Aiyang Castle.

Guo Hai once came here to deliver pigs and cattle, and released anthrax bacteria to Zhenshuo Pass.This is a skin and breath-borne germ that spreads quickly in a small area.

But the Xinhua Expeditionary Team responded very quickly.

In the isolation ward of Aiyangbao, medical staff wearing cotton masks took care of hundreds of patients.Half of them were cutaneous anthrax and half were pulmonary anthrax.

The 'Holy Light' medical team all came by boat to control the epidemic.In addition to controlling the source of the disease and blocking infection, the specific drug is small-scale mass-produced penicillin.

In Phoenix, penicillin became the life-saving miracle drug.More than a dozen young women deliberately infected by Guo Hai just showed symptoms of syphilis and were immediately brought under control.

Academician Li came from Songjiang wearing crystal protective goggles and a mask. After confirming the work of Aiyangbao Isolation Hospital, he asked Zhou Qingfeng with a smile, "When are you going to fight Hetuala?"

"If everything goes well, it will be next spring; if not, it can be done now. According to our information, Hetuala is also having a plague. It is likely that the 'Federation' group is dying."

Academician Li also read the memorandum on the enemy's plague disease, "It should be pulmonary anthrax, which is exactly the same as the epidemic situation here. But the Jurchen's sanitary conditions are poor, and the scale of infection will be much larger."

This was verified by the end of November.

The engineers of the Xinhua Expeditionary Team are building the mountain road from Aiyang Fort to Abdaligang. In the battle of Saerhu in that year, the Eastern Route Army Liu Zhen delayed his fighter because of this damn road, which caused the death knell of the Ming Empire to be sounded.

The second platoon of Cui Xiao from the first battalion of the expedition team was ordered to go forward to build a sentry tower to guard against possible harassment by Jiannu and protect the construction troops.The sentry tower position also specially installed pull-fire mines around it, for fear of the enemy flooding in.

But it wasn't the enemy who really came, but a group of seven or eight refugees—all with braids shaved, eyes numb, and kneeling and kowtowing when they saw Han Chinese with guns.

These refugees have to cross a straight line of two hundred miles in the winter.When they appeared in front of the Xinhua infantry, they looked like starving ghosts, wearing tattered animal skins, skinny and skinny, with green eyes.

When the vigilant sentry found this group of guys, they were so scared that they almost pulled a landmine.After confirming that the other party is not carrying any weapons, one or two are allowed to come over for questioning.

The situation is simple, in order to control the epidemic, Hetuala is completely closed.It is rumored that Nurhachi has died of illness, and Dabeile Daishan is now in power.

The first few batches of refugees were peace envoys sent by Daishan.But after they came, they refused to go back. No matter how the Xinhua Expeditionary Army responded, they would die in the south anyway if they refused to leave.

These envoys were often the domestic slaves of the Jurchen nobles, but the family and the country were not guaranteed, and the domestic slaves were also abandoned.They told the Han people all of Dabeile's plan, saying that Daishan planned to take the risk of attacking Fushun in December to rob the grain and population for the winter.

In order to win, Daishan gathered all Niulu's armored soldiers and banner troops in the Eight Banners in Hetuala, ready to fight.The Han slaves at the bottom and even some Jurchens gave up all, and did not give any food for the winter.

In the cold winter, disease and lack of food, the population of Dajin Kingdom is plummeting.The slaves had to flee if they didn't want to die, and very few could reach the vicinity of Aiyang Castle, and most of them died on the way.

"The road is full of frozen corpses, hard and dark, and they will not rot until the next spring. There are a large number of villages around Hetuala, and many of them are now extinct.

No one cleaned up the corpses, and the living only fled desperately, but those who fled and fled fell on the road.Now if you go to the capital of Dajin, you don't need a guide, just follow the corpses everywhere. "

The Jurchens who fled to Aiyang Castle cried and cried. After drinking a few mouthfuls of hot porridge, they had the strength to rub their whole body to warm up and walked into the room that was burning on the kang.

Don't look at the desolate appearance of this group of people, but they were all around the master in Hetuala.Those who are really at the bottom have no ability to escape and are already dead.

Zhou Qingfeng met several so-called 'messengers' and asked, "How is the epidemic in Hetuala?"

"It seems to be all right." The 'messenger' with a face like a skeleton regained some strength, knelt on the ground and replied, "After all, the masters are so cruel, and those who are infected will die.

At least half of the population in the city has been lost. If the population, money and food cannot be obtained this winter, the various cattle records in the Dajin Kingdom will inevitably be separated in the spring of next year.Daishan must send troops at the end of the year, otherwise he would not be able to survive.

The only slaves with rations were craftsmen who could make weapons.But now Daikin does not use swords and axes, and makes every effort to build firecrackers.

It is said that there can be five or six hundred guns a month, plus the two or three thousand guns sent by the spies of the Ming Dynasty before, and a firearms camp was built.It's just that the newly built firearms battalion is not well trained, and it is definitely not as good as the old men's firearms infantry. "

Zhou Qingfeng expressed his astonishment that the Tartars had two or three thousand firecrackers, while 'Xinhua' had hydraulically driven drilling machines, and only four or five thousand were built in a few months.

"It was given by the Ming army. It is said that it was rolled and made by craftsmen in Shenyang." The inside story said by the 'messenger' seemed too reasonable.The rolling process is simple, but many blacksmiths can do it with money.

Wait until December, and the mountain road leading to Abdali Hill will be repaired in the snow.The expeditionary team sent out seven Fulin infantry battalions plus five auxiliary battalions.

Mang Gurtai led two thousand Jianzhou troops to guard the hill, standing on the high wall of the pass frozen by the cold wind, staring blankly at the Han army appearing on the opposite mountain road.

The Zhenglan Banner and the Xianglan Banner merged, and all the elite were on this wall.Mang Gurtai also moved the "Invincible General Cannon" bought from the Ming army to the closed wall fort more than ten meters high.

It is said that this thing is a bronze breech-loading cannon made by Qi Jiguang when he was the general of Jizhen.

In fact, it is the Fran machine gun, a wonderful work among the early breech-loading guns.

But with the four invincible general cannons, the morale of the Jianzhou Department finally improved.According to the results of the test firing, this cannon can hit two miles at the farthest, which is a waste of one side!

The Huangtai class followed Mang Gurtai, let the cold wind cut his face, and held up the bronze binoculars to stare at the looming Han Chinese scouts in the distance.Those elite soldiers climbed up to the heights of the hill and observed the wall with small binoculars.

There are towering peaks, overlapping mountains and overgrown forests, and there is only one narrow road to pass through.Huangtai class shouted viciously: "Fifth brother, if the Han people dare to line up this time, let them taste the taste of bombardment."

Mangurtai grasped the newly built wall with both hands, his fingers turned white.He recalled countless times the experience of being bombarded by the Han Chinese in Kuandian, and he confirmed that the range of the light artillery was limited, definitely less than two miles.