Taking advantage of Yue Tuo's opportunity to return to Liaodong, Li Guodong asked Wang Quan and Zhao Feng to take the caravan to the three divisions of Khalkha in the northern part of the desert again, transporting a batch of grain, salt, cotton, tea, coal stoves and other goods, and exchanged them for a large number of cattle, sheep, gold and silver. After this trip, he also earned more than 60,000 taels of silver.

Spring plowing has begun. Just like last year, planting sweet potatoes, corn and other crops. Li Guodong is also grinding them to make sweet potato flour and corn flour.

In April, Li Guodong received news from the Western Regions: Lin Dankhan and Tubo soldiers invaded the border! Lin Dankhan, who had fled to the West Sea, had already reached the point of being able to eat people because his tribe lacked food, so he joined forces with the Tubo people and went to Gansu and Shaanxi to rob. However, Gansu and Shaanxi were so poor that Lin Dankhan did not grab anything. After Hong Chengchou sent troops, Lin Dankhan withdrew his troops and returned to the West Sea.

"Lin Danhan is unable to protect himself, so he still comes to the border?" Han Dashan sneered after hearing the news.

"He had no food anymore, so he had to come and grab it. But there was no food for him to rob. If he asked him to go east, he would not dare to meet Jiannu. However, Lin Danhan would have lived for a few days. When he died, his son would definitely return to the east. Then we would take them over and form an alliance with Mongolia and Tumote in the northern part of the Mo River." Li Guodong gestured on the map.

While talking, someone came to report: "Report to the general, the envoy Yang of the Ming Dynasty is here again."

"Let him come in."

Yang Xiong came to Li Guodong's Shabeigou Village again. When he saw Li Guodong, he first read out the imperial edict, saying that the court sent Li Guodong another reward, and gave Li Guodong an additional reward of 8,000 taels of silver. Emperor Chongzhen also gave Li Guodong a golden belt.

Li Guodong set up an incense table and received the imperial edict.

After Yang Xiong read out the imperial edict, he handed over the golden belt and imperial edict to Li Guodong. Then he saw that the incense case was removed, and he followed Li Guodong to the study.

"General Li, Yang Duxian asked you when you can go to the three divisions of Khalkha again? This time, I came here with the emperor's edict, and I needed to send the edict to the three divisions of Khalkha. The officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty in Senei were not familiar with the grassland and dared not go deeper. I needed General Li's men and horses to escort him." Yang Xiong asked.

Li Guodong frowned and pretended to be worried and said, "Enter Yang, you don't know. It's too late to go to Khalkha for the time being! Jiannu is about to arrive in Guihua City soon and force the Tumotes to prepare for the invasion of Xuanda! If you and I set off for Mobei immediately, I'm afraid they will be intercepted by the Jiannu army halfway and will not be able to come back at all!"

According to the historical process, Yue Tuo will enter the naturalization in May, and the Later Jin army will control the entire desert grassland. It is already April, and it is too late to go back and forth for a month, and then it will just fall into the trap.

Yang Xiong was shocked and asked hurriedly: "How did General Li learn that Jiannu will attack the border again?"

"I have a detailed work in naturalization. I have learned the news about Jiannu. In May, the Jiannu army will come to Naturalization to collect food and grass, and in July, invade Xuanda! It will invade and plunder for five months, and return to Liaodong for food! Just like the last Jisi Incident, it will mainly plunder! Jiannu plunders the Ming Dynasty to solve their own food and population problems!"

"This is such a big event, I must return to the court to report!" Yang Xiong hurriedly said goodbye.

After returning to the west entrance, Yang Xiong sent 800 miles to expedite, and reported to Yang Sichang to the invasion.

When Yang Sichang learned about this, he immediately went to the palace to report to Emperor Chongzhen. Both Yang Sichang and Chongzhen already knew about such major military affairs. If they had discussed it in the morning court, the Later Jin would probably know about the deployment of the Ming army soon, so they discussed it in advance and ordered all armies to secretly dispatch it. Before the Later Jin was about to invade, they would hold the morning court and write down the imperial edict and hand it over to the cabinet to draw a bill.

"Jiannu is about to invade our Ming Dynasty again. How to defeat the enemy?" Chongzhen asked.

Yang Sichang suggested: "We should order the people to transfer in advance to avoid being plundered by Jiannu, strengthen the cities of Xuanda, dispatch troops to various cities, and transfer the people who have moved into the city to form auxiliary soldiers to help defend the city. If Jiannu cannot capture it for a long time, he will inevitably withdraw his troops."

"It's just that the grain is about to mature in July. If Jiannu comes, Xuanda will not be harvested this year!" Chongzhen pressed his temple. He felt an extremely headache about this matter. He could let the people hide in the city. However, Jiannu came just right, just before the grain harvest! Now there is no Ming army that dares to fight with Jiannu, and transfers the people to the city. He can only watch Jiannu trample on farmland outside the city and collect grain. When Jiannu left, Xuanda and even the capital area would be harvested without grain.

Chongzhen's inner treasury was already poor, and the Ministry of Revenue was also poor. They all rely on the harvest after the autumn, and farmers paid taxes and silver to maintain it. They were harassed by the Later Jin Dynasty. I don't know how large the impact was. At that time, not only would there be no grain in this area, but there would also be food in other places to help the disaster. This would make it worse for Chongzhen, who was short of money and grain.

Yang Sichang hurriedly saluted: "Your Majesty, I almost forgot about this. Jiannu strife and sluts the capital of Xuanda. Wherever he passes, there will be no grain of food. Our army still needs an army to be able to fight with Jiannu. If Cao Wenzhao general can stop the enemy, he will then let General Li Guodong outside the Great Wall restrain him behind Jiannu, so that the farmers can seize the opportunity to harvest food."

"Then let's arrange it like this!" Chongzhen nodded.

Li Guodong was also in full swing to deal with the Later Jin invasion. The copper smelting furnace had been made, and the bronze craftsmen had also found them. They first cast the cannon mold with iron, and then put the copper coins, copper ingots, tin, lead, etc. into the furnace in a certain proportion. They made a fire and melted it into a mixed copper liquid, and then poured it into the mold. After cooling, they opened the mold and cast the bronze cannon.

The first six-pound field gun that was cast was placed on a simple cannon stand, and Li Guodong, craftsmen and gunners tried the cannon together.

The barrel of this bronze cannon weighs 490 kilograms. According to the weight of the iron cannon, it is considered a medium-sized cannon. It is only about 200 kilograms heavier than the three-pound iron light cannon, but its power has increased by nearly three times.

The gunners stuffed the fixed charge pack and solid shells into the barrel, took full charge, ignited the cannon, and fired it. The shells flew nearly two miles before landing on the ground, smashing a pile of lumps of soil and broken grass leaves.

Then they experimented with shrapnel and socks, and everyone was very satisfied with the power of this cannon.

Next, the first twelve-pound howitzer was cast, because the tube of the howitzer was short and the weight of the twelve-pound howitzer weighed less than half of the six-pound field cannon, and it weighed only 230 pounds!

"This kind of gun can fire shells as heavy as the Red Barbarian cannon, but the barrel is too short, right?" Looking at the short cannon with a large caliber and a barrel of only four feet long, He Xing, Zhang Wei and others were surprised, not knowing how powerful this cannon is.
Chapter completed!