On the New Year's Day of the 18th year of Chongzhen, there were really some people who were happy and worried.

The people in the Harun District even saved the lantern decorations. In order to support the Tianjin Battle, the Ming Dynasty was diligent and frugal, and the government did not allow the government to hold luxurious lantern display activities. The wealthy families also pretended to be shabby because of the fact that they did not show their wealth.

"I hope to restore Beijing before the Birthday Day and celebrate the birthday of the emperor." Xiao Donglou inspected the city walls of Tianjin, intentionally or unintentionally raised the topic of attacking Beijing.

The Qing army besieged Tianjin had retreated, but Zhu Cixuan did not release new combat missions, but only allowed the First Division to consolidate Baoding and the Second Division to consolidate Tianjin. The sudden quiet made Xiao Donglou very uncomfortable, and because of his mistakes before, he did not dare to ask for the task of recapturing Shanhaiguan.

Xiao Donglou was not the first to restore Beijing to celebrate his birthday before the Wanbao Festival. Many people say so. As a major festival that is parallel to the Winter Solstice and New Year's Day, the Wanbao Festival of the Chongzhen Dynasty was on the beginning of spring, and it lost its limelight and was only lively in the palace.

Zhu Cixuan opposed the sayings of offering gifts and birthday celebrations. In his opinion, nothing can be made for a certain commemorative date. The only way to make a decision on time is to the point where the situation itself reaches a point of ripening or having to do it. If you launch a rash attack to celebrate the birthday of the emperor and let the soldiers fight under immature conditions, this is enough to be called "tyranny".

What's more, the crown prince had already made a strategy with Wu Da and was unwilling to force the Qing Dynasty to a hurry.

If you plan slowly, you will definitely get the fruit you have. There is no need to pay a greater price to hurry up.

In addition to the robbery from the capital, Ajige, a generation of civilians in Datong, Shanxi, suddenly escaped from the customs and fled into Mongolia. This news surprised Zhu Cilang and shocked Dorgon even more. No one expected Ajige to have such a "eye". But the more likely situation was that he simply felt that he could not fight anymore, and wanted to steal the population, property, and return to Shengjing to live his own life.

Jiang Yan did not cherish the conditions offered by the Ming court, and rode on the wall and suddenly found that the wall had collapsed. Because Ajige took away the elite Manchus, Datong's defense was empty. Therefore, he hurriedly sent an envoy, hoping to revolt. However, Tan Ning was unwilling to become the second Luo Yukun himself, and he did not see the envoy, so he launched a large army to attack Datong.

The Datong guards had long been dissatisfied with being regarded as turtles under the green flag, and they were even more unwilling to work hard for Jiang Yan. They turned against each other in the battle. There were many camps in the uprising. In addition to fighting a disproportionate crushing battle outside Datong City, the Third Division successfully occupied the entire Datong, wielding its troops eastward, and aiming at Juyong Pass.

...

"Brother Chen. It seems that the situation has changed." A strong man approached Chen Yiyuan, whispered, and glanced around, looking very alert.

Chen Yiyuan returned from Tianjin after saving his life, but was still incorporated into the Green Camp, and inexplicably became a garrison. However, when they retreated in Tianjin, they did not return to Beijing, but were assigned to Funing County to guard the army. The Manchus believed that there were no Han soldiers, and there must be Eight Banners in the Green Camp. The former was used to do cool labor and dirty work, while the latter was responsible for monitoring.

As for Manchuria, life and death are at stake, Shanhaiguan. More and more Eight Banners soldiers are stationed there, which is almost equal to the Green Camp soldiers.

"There have been more and more people these days. I heard that Datong has also been liberated." The strong man whispered: "I'm afraid the Tartars can't hold on for long."

"You can see." Chen Yiyuan stood at the top of the city and watched the people pass through the city gates. From the crying sounds coming from the people's team, we can know that these people were all robbed by the Eastern Captains. The young and strong team used ropes to string people together, and there was no rope in the team of the elderly, weak, women and children. Several Manchu real men rode horses and waved their whips, and drove people to Shanhaiguan like driving animals.

Shanhaiguan is located at the throat of the Liao capital. It is a mountain to the north and a sea to the south. There is not so much land to accommodate the people. Every day, so many people are driven over, so we can tell that they are all captured and taken to Liaodong by the Tartars.

The strong man saw that his grimace was about to break, and his back teeth couldn't help but bite them tightly, saying, "It's so embarrassing that so many people were driven away by several Tartars! It's better to kill him suddenly!"

"I have a knife." Chen Yiyuan sighed.

The strong man said, "Even if he was standing and let the Tartars cut, he would not be able to cut so many people even if he had his knife rolled up."

"Are you the first to stand out?" Chen Yiyuan glanced at his partner: "You Zhang Hanmin is a hero, why are you standing here with the green flag?"

Zhang Hanmin's face turned red: "We can't force ourselves, who knows that we're just sold out like this? Brother Chen, how can we have a good life in the future? Could it be that we really go to Liaodong to live a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood?"

"Hmph, you think beautifully." Chen Yiyuan pointed to the people under the city and said, "Look at them, if they can eat raw meat and drink blood, it will be considered God's kindness. The Tartars don't regard us as human beings, and there will be some more things to do then."

Zhang Hanmin whispered: "Brother Chen, I haven't inherited the incense for my family yet. I don't want to go to Liaodong."

"Tell them." The Manchu soldiers under Chen Yiyuanchao's city pointed: "What's the point of telling me?"

"I can't let my son be born as a slave." Zhang Hanmin seemed not to hear Chen Yiyuan's answer, and squeezed a sentence from his throat. Seeing that Chen Yiyuan's face changed slightly, he said again: "I abandoned Daming and Dashun when I followed my brother to seek peace. Later, I abandoned Dashun and followed the Qing Dynasty, and thought that it would be better to live without a good death. But now my head is shaved, and people are still rushing to do cattle and horses outside the pass, so I don't even leave a way out for us!"

Seeing that Chen Yiyuan didn't say anything, Zhang Hanmin said again: "Brother Chen, the common people don't have a knife, we have one! Why not be the opposite!"

Chen Yiyuan's heart moved and immediately gave up this crazy idea. His subordinates said that there was a battalion, but in fact there were only more than 500 people, and the main force was only more than 100. The Qing Dynasty did not arrange heavy troops in Funing, but only one team of 100 people came, which was clearly monitoring the green camp.

"It's easy to talk about Funing County." Chen Yiyuan said in a deep voice: "But the Tartars in Yongping Mansion also had thousands or tens of thousands of people. To the west is Lu Long and Changli, and to the east is Shanhaiguan. Where can we find a way out?"

Zhang Hanmin thought for a while and said, "I heard that the Tartars are running out of the pass now, and there are no heavy troops in Shanhaiguan. Otherwise, we can seize Shanhaiguan and present it to the court, so we can also find a way out."

Chen Yiyuan really made several bends in his heart and finally nodded. With the head general of him, Zhang Hanmin was naturally very excited. The two of them did it as soon as they said they could, and they went to contact the ministries to identify reliable confidants. The first step was of course to clarify the way to Shanhaiguan.

These two people listened to the name of Shanhaiguan every day, but never went there. When they learned that Shanhaiguan was not only a city, they were also quite surprised. They had more than a hundred strong men, dozens of knives, guns, and ten pairs of armor. They could try stealing the gate, but after stealing the gate, they were completely surrounded by the east and west Luocheng and the north and south wing cities. Not to mention defending the city, they could not even defend the city gate.

This is not a rebellion, it is clearly a death.

No matter how awesome Zhang Hanmin was, he could only retreat from the idea of ​​occupying Shanhaiguan at this time.

But every day, as the people wailed eastward, Chen Yiyuan and Zhang Hanmin were both nervous, and they were really sad and sad. Thinking about it, I would soon follow the footsteps and go to sleep and eat all day long.

After leaving Shanhaiguan, it is the Liaoxi Corridor and the East Territory is familiar with land. Each banner wants to send people and property back home. These people have to pass through the 370-mile corridor and enter the Liaohe Plain before they can stop. After the three or four hundred miles of driving, it is cold and there is no food or clothing. It is purely difficult for half of the people to survive. As for returning to their hometown again, it is even more difficult to reach the blue sky.

However, these living lives are just data for the high-ranking decision-making level.

The difference lies in the degree of detail of the numbers.

The accuracy of the Eight Banners plundering population obtained by Dorgon was at the level of "10,000". The figures obtained by Zhu Cixuan were accurate to "100". In order to facilitate the formulation of combat plans in the future, Zhu Cixuan also asked Song Hongye to propose that Dorgon organize Qimin in Liaodong to determine the number of people in each banner and the maximum possible combat effectiveness.

When Song Hongye and Dorgon said that the focus was on understanding the number of other banners. Dorgon was very selfish and held his own Niulu and two white flags, while also staring at his brothers and nephews greedily, so he naturally praised this.

The population was difficult to count in the past, but the newly plundered population was very convenient to calculate. Anyway, they had to count it when they came out of seclusion to avoid the public security and refused to submit it to the public according to the proportion.

Song Hongye finally reached the highest level of intelligence personnel: influencing decision-making.

To this end, Zhu Cilang had to increase the weight of Song Hongye in front of Manchu nobles, especially Dorgon. From Dorgon's perspective, he analyzed what he needed most at present.

Are you a good warrior?

No, the Manchus would not admit that the Zhushen Warriors would be defeated.

Is it a general who can command the army and defeat the enemy?

Perhaps, but he was powerless to do anything about this. Song Hongye's origin as a Han Chinese decided that he would not be granted military power.

Are you smart and clear-eyed?

Yes! This is what Dorgon hopes to get the most.

During the era of Nurhaci and Huangtaiji, all the movements of the Ming army were staring in the eyes of the Jianzhou people. Especially in the late Huangtaiji period, all the military deployment and mobilization of the Ming army's nine-sided important towns could not escape his eyes. Therefore, the Manchu Iron Cavalry could attack him unexpectedly and defeat the Ming army with just the right advantage.

How were these advantages established? It was precisely through the loyal Shanxi merchants' contribution to intelligence!

However, because of the hasty entry into the pass, the Shanxi merchants did not have time to collect military and civilian information from Luonan. Although Song Hongye was ordered to collect information from the Ming court, the time was too short and he could not see the gains, so he fell into a state of deafness and blindness, and was controlled everywhere.

With such a painful experience, if Song Hongye can prove his irreplaceable position in intelligence work, he will be able to provide more and better intelligence in the future and have a greater impact on Donglu's decision-making. (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!