stubborn thief

It was the third day since Liu Chengzong moved his troops to the border of Miyun.

The two camps of Yulin and Huben were stationed in Kaiping Wei, within the Yuanshangdu city.

In the felt tent, Liu Shizi was teasing the little baldy, while the head of the guards Liu Tichun was leading Zhang Yong and other Yulin Lang to pack up the maps.

It was only after raising this little thing in the camp that Liu Chengzong realized that vultures actually have hair when they are young.

But for some reason, the heads of adult vultures are often bald.

The more he amused himself, the more he felt that he was very similar to this thing during this expedition.

The habit of vultures is to watch others hunting, and when others succeed in hunting, they will drive the predators away and then stretch out their big wings and hop over to eat.

He is going to do the same thing this time.

The maps sent back from the front were all small, some of which were drawn by the tribes south of the desert, and they varied in size.

Therefore, the Yulin Lang had to use arrowheads to poke them together on wooden boards, and then the painter Xue Heshang from the Huben Camp would paint it before the picture could be completed.

For the past three days, Liu Shizi has been busy deploying flooding sites for his battalions. He has just finished half of the work and cannot do the remaining half.

The troops that moved with him were fine. The three camps of Yulin, Huben and Zongren were stationed inside and outside the Shangdu city.

Gao Yingdeng's First Brigade took Shangdu as the northernmost point and stationed camps to the south.

At the southernmost end was the guerrilla commander of the First Tourist Barracks, Zuo Guangxian, who led his troops to station at Hushiha, 250 miles outside the border. This allowed him to exchange intelligence with the Ming army while capturing Jin army spies and messengers near the border wall.

The name of that place was given in the Yuan Dynasty, meaning black chestnut, and it does produce chestnuts. The soldiers reported that there were chestnut trees all over the mountains, but it was not the season yet, so they could not enjoy a savory feast.

But the troops of the Mo Nan Military Governor's Office were hard to find.

There were nearly 30,000 troops, mainly distributed from Rehe outside the border of Zunhua in the south to Keshiketeng, 500 miles away in the north, occupying the area west of the Greater Khingan Range.

Among these people, the only one Liu Chengzong could contact was the more than 10,000 soldiers led by He Huchen who were besieging the Bordered Blue Banner.

The others were either running around in the mountains or having fun on the grasslands.

From He Huchen to Liu Chengzong, they only knew their approximate location. They couldn't get in touch with them or find them. They could only wait for them to pass the message to the rear.

For example, yesterday, Tang Jisi, the Wanhu of the Sunite Wanhu tribe in southern Mobei, sent someone to bring back a verbal message.

He led 400 of his men to the south bank of the Kherlen River, close to the Hochit tribe that was affiliated with Chechen Khan Shuolei, and was promoting the virtues of the Grand Marshal to their leader Borot.

Earlier today, Shakza, the cousin of Ordos Wanhu Elinchen and Qianhu Shakza, ran back to the central army.

This Shazak is a foolish and bold guy.

He led 200 horsemen across the Greater Khingan Range and entered the Khorchin pastureland to draw maps.

He was nearly captured by the enemy, but thanks to good luck he managed to escape with a bunch of weird symbols that only he could understand.

They were running rampant in the eastern part of the southern desert because He Huchen's offensive against the Bordered Blue Banner in Rehe was at a stalemate.

Originally, you were running away and I was chasing you, and the fight was going smoothly. He Huchen once thought that we would be driven directly into the heartland of the Later Jin Dynasty on the eastern foothills of the Greater Khingan Range.

As a result, Fei Yanggu of the Bordered Blue Banner suddenly stopped running when he arrived in Rehe. He turned back and fought, causing He Huchen to mistakenly believe that reinforcements from the Later Jin Dynasty had arrived, so he quickly reined in his troops and set up a defense line.

As a result, that night, Fei Yanggu fortified his city and set fire to the mountain.

The fire scared He Huchen enough, but the next day a northwest wind blew and there was no problem in the west. The wind helped the fire to spread to the branches and even crossed the Wulie River, burning for dozens of miles to the east.

Up to now, the fire has been burning for more than ten days, and the hundreds of miles of forest from the Yison River to the Laoniu River are still a sea of ​​fire. And judging from the situation, it will burn for another month or so.

Now it is not a hot river, it is a boiling river.

The biggest trouble caused by the wildfire was that the entire area was unable to provide food and fodder for the army. The cavalry south of the desert could only run northward in groups, out of the mountains, looking for a place to graze their horses.

As for where the Bordered Blue Banner fled to the east, it was not until the day before Liu Chengzong moved his troops that He Huchen's troops took a detour from the border of Zunhua and found out that the Banner had retreated hundreds of miles to the east. At present, they were building trenches and fortifications at the former site of Huizhou Guard at the pass of Xing'an Mountains, and seemed to be planning to hold on.

There is no need to analyze this. Just looking at the posture, you can tell that they are waiting for reinforcements.

As for Liu Chengzong...he was planning to confer the title of nobility on Fei Yanggu.

His act of setting fire to the mountain made him look more like a traitor within the Later Jin Dynasty rather than an enemy.

First, once the fire broke out here, even if Ajige inside the Great Wall plundered the capital and broke out from Miyun, Zunhua and other places in the east, what was waiting for him would be a sea of ​​fire and ruins.

Secondly, there were originally two routes for the Later Jin Dynasty to advance westward in the direction of Shenyang. The northern route was the pass where the Keshiketeng tribe was located, and the southern route was the mountain road in Rehe.

The mountain road is now blocked.

Even if Huang Taiji wanted to send reinforcements, it would be difficult for him to bypass Liu Chengzong and provide support to Ajige.

This provided an excellent window period for the Marshal's Army led by Liu Chengzong to familiarize themselves with the terrain near the Greater Khingan Range, while also further clearing the rear food routes and military stations along the way, and allocating food, armor and weapons for subsequent battles.

On the fourth day, Zuo Guangxian, who was stationed in Hushiha, sent someone to report that the mobile battalion had captured and killed three Houjin soldiers outside the border and intercepted a secret report.

The secret report was sent to the central army and after translation, it was mainly Ajige explaining to Huang Taiji that he had not sent back the harvest on time, and reported the battle results of the 21 banners that had entered the border in Xuanfu and Yanqing.

Each flag had no name, only the name of Gushan Ezhen. Since entering the border, they have reaped a rich harvest, looting more than 20,000 people, horses, cattle, donkeys, mules and sheep.

As for gold, silver and other valuables, Ajige's secret report did not mention them, but Liu Chengzong guessed that there would be quite a lot.

It is obvious that the Later Jin Kingdom attached more importance to people and livestock, which is why they regarded this as the most important achievement of the war.

A secret report contains a lot of important information, such as the name of the Gushan Ezhen of each banner, his battle results and achievements, which can be analyzed to roughly see the strengths and weaknesses of each banner.

However, the Marshal's Office currently lacks sufficient intelligence and is unable to connect the various banners with Gushan Ezhen.

After reading the letter, Liu Chengzong handed it to Zhang Xianzhong and others in the central army for circulation.

He even specially asked someone to call Zuo Liangyu over.

This Marshal Zuo is also quite interesting.

His current official position is Xima in the Marshal's Office.

The "Zhan" in "Zhanshifu" originally meant trivial, and when used with "shi", it had the meaning of "geishi" or "zhishi". In fact, it was a government office that did miscellaneous work for the royal family.

The earliest official in charge was the Empress, the Crown Prince and the eunuchs in the palace. The earliest official name of Xima was Xianma, and he was the attendant of the Crown Prince when he went out.

In the Jin Dynasty, he was changed to the manager of books and maps. In the Tang Dynasty, he was in charge of publishing, editing and storing the four treasuries of the Eastern Palace.

By the Ming Dynasty, other officials were responsible for giving lectures in the Eastern Palace, and Xima became a promotion step for Hanlin officials.

This was also the source of the rumor among the officers and soldiers of the Huben Camp that Zuo Liangyu was about to enter the cabinet.

But Zuo Liangyu said, this is pure bullshit!

This official position of his was just made up by Liu Chengzong because he didn't know where to put him.

The Marshal's Office had no Crown Prince, no Chancellery, no Hanlin Academy, no Siku Library of Classics, History, and Mir 4, and no Cabinet.

Since he got this official position, he has been doing the work of Bimawen every day, which literally means washing horses. He spends the whole day in the camp bathing the green lions and white elephants and scraping their sweat.

But this is actually a misunderstanding.

Zuo Liangyu was very important in Liu Chengzong's heart. At least before the Marshal's Army absorbed the two battalions of veterans of Xu Yong and Wang Yuncheng, his importance was no less than that of Zhang Xianzhong.

It was impossible for him to be given a powerful official position just for his achievements. The key point was that their battle was too close to the capital. If they really gave Zuo Liangyu a high-ranking position, what would happen if he defected to the enemy?
For example, for an official like Zhang Xianzhong, how embarrassing it would be if the news got out that he, the Minister of Rites, defected to the enemy?

So we need to win them over, but at the same time we cannot feed them too much at once.

Liu Chengzong gave you this official position because he thought that since you were already working in the Zhanshi Mansion before the crown prince even appeared, didn't you look like an old minister of the Eastern Palace?

At the same time, he also told people not to restrict Zuo Liangyu, as long as he didn't run away, he could do whatever he wanted. So when Zuo Liangyu heard that his official position was horse washing and tried to get close to Liu Chengzong's mount, Zhang Yong, who was guarding the horse, did not stop him, but reported the matter to Liu Chengzong.

Liu Chengzong thought Zuo Liangyu liked his horse, so he didn't stop him.

He thought that it was a blow to his self-esteem that the surrendered general was stopped as soon as he approached his horse, as if he was being stopped from escaping.

Anyway, he has nowhere to run, so let him watch if he wants to. Watch as much as he wants.

Liu Shizi even felt complacent, thinking that his horse had been bewitched by Zuo Liangyu.

If he likes horses, it’s easy. Just wait until Chu Huer comes back at the end of the year to celebrate the New Year and then extort two good horses from him as gifts for Zuo Liangyu.

Later, when he entered Ordos, he simply stopped riding the two horses and let Zuo Liangyu play with them.

Because he subconsciously felt that Zuo Liangyu had worked as a wine-serving officer at Hou Xun's banquets and knew many officials, and would not think that the horse-washer was just a horse-keeper.

I didn't think about that at all.

What's more, even if you don't understand, you can ask others. Zhang Xianzhong once asked Liu Chengzong what the job of a horse washer was.

But he overlooked that although Lao Zhang and Lao Zuo were both uneducated, Zhang Xianzhong was truly ignorant. Since he joined Liu Chengzong, his horizons had been greatly broadened, and it was normal for him to feel embarrassed himself.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Therefore, asking Liu Chengzong questions would not make him feel more embarrassed, but would be a way to avoid being embarrassed in the future.

Only those who have some knowledge and feel that they are not ashamed in normal times will feel embarrassed when asking others questions.

Zuo Liangyu was a student of Hou Xun, and it was at that stage.

At that time, he had actually seen the horse groom in the Zhanshi Mansion, but he didn't have the courage to ask what this official position meant.

Precisely because he had seen him before, he really thought that he was a groom for the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace.

When he approached the blue lion and white elephant, Liu Chengzong's Yu Lin Lang did not draw his sword to attack him, and even ignored him. Zuo Liangyu felt that this was his job.

Therefore, he would take the opportunity to wipe the sweat off the blue lion and the white elephant every day to steal their fried beans, and whisper to them, saying bad things about Liu Chengzong.

"He won't ride your good horse, and he won't use my good horse. So the three of us should be united!"

The blue lion hummed, bared his teeth, and stretched his legs, enjoying the sweat he was sweating on. The white elephant on the side ignored him. She was a female, so who would be friendly with him?
He was then summoned into the general's tent by Yulin Lang.

As soon as he entered, Zhang Xianzhong handed him a secret report from the Jin Kingdom. Then he heard Liu Chengzong say, "The most interesting thing here is that Ajige lied. He exaggerated the results of the battle against Li Guoliang's army in Xuanfu."

They knew it through Fu Renxi.

Li Guoliang's battle report was that he led an army of 2,000 to pursue the Jin army, won a victory, beheaded several people, and recovered 130 livestock.

Fu Renxi's understanding of this battle was that Li Guoliang did not tell the whole story and was actually concealing a defeat and turning it into a victory.

Ajige set an ambush and used cavalry to cut him in two. Even the general and the commander were seriously injured and died. More than 200 people died. It was only because of the desperate fighting of the servants that the enemy was driven away, and only some livestock were rescued.

However, in the secret report that Ajige sent to Huang Taiji, it was said that he encountered the 5,000 troops of General Li of Xuanfu, defeated them, killed 426 of them, and seized 100 horses.

Even the battle reports from both sides are not credible.

In fact, even this conclusion was reached by Liu Chengzong's Tiger Guard officers after they studied it for a long time. They did not find anything in the battle report to confuse them, so they believed it was a battle report.

At first, they suspected that the messenger had been captured on purpose and that it was a trick played by the enemy.

Liu Shizi smiled and said, "In that case, is the captured messenger still alive?"

Liu Tichun stepped forward and said, "General, once someone is captured, there is no way to save him. The three-barreled gun has a lot of iron bullets on his face."

Liu Chengzong nodded: "Catch more and keep them alive."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Zhang Xianzhong and said, "Draft a document. Leave this letter intact and write another one. Xuanzhen Li Guoliang only had 2,000 soldiers, 200 of whom were killed in battle, and 13 horses and 130 oxen and mules were captured."

"When we catch them alive, send them to Huang Taiji to let him know that his brother is dishonest and only tells lies."

Zhang Xianzhong's eyes lit up: "Yes, I will go back and write a letter right away!"

I saw the Grand Marshal doing some tricks again.

What is this called, a strategy of sowing discord!
However, Liu Chengzong's expression was not so relaxed.

Because he didn't understand and didn't figure out why Ajige lied.

Li Guoliang concealed his defeat and turned it into victory in the battle report because he was afraid of being punished.

Ajige was different. His mission was not to enter Xuanbian and defeat the Ming army, but to plunder people, livestock and property. As for the victory or defeat of the war, it had nothing to do with him.

So why lie?
Liu Chengzong estimated that this was the propaganda tactic of the Later Jin Dynasty.

Ajige should have thought that this letter would be intercepted by the Ming army or the Marshal's Office.

Therefore, he systematically falsified war reports, intelligence and other work, and the benefits were obvious.

The Eight Banners of the Later Jin Dynasty were originally small in number, so if this news was sent back to Shenyang, it would increase the confidence of their own soldiers and generals; if it was intercepted on the way, it would not only undermine the enemy's will, but also sow discord between General Li and the court.

This will increase internal friction within the Ming Dynasty's rigid political machine.

This is a very interesting point about the Ming Dynasty. It was rotten, indeed rotten. There were indeed phenomena such as killing innocent people to claim credit, and concealing defeat as victory.

But everyone is really working very hard.

Military generals have the habit of concealing defeat and calling it victory, and some will even kill innocent people to take credit for it, but when they really see the enemy, they will pounce on him and fight.

Moreover, after the fight, there will be civil officials who will work hard to find out the truth of the matter. Otherwise, how will others know that he killed innocent people and took credit for it?

There will be someone dedicated to investigate every matter thoroughly.

I fought hard but couldn't win; I worked hard but it was meaningless.

Liu Chengzong wrote a letter to Huang Taiji, telling him that he already knew all his tricks.

This will add a little psychological pressure to the other party.

The main reason was that this job was simple. Anyway, his gang had to catch spies outside the border, so he just had to write a letter and have the caught spy take it back.

If it was not a systematic fraud, then it was telling on others and alienating the relationship between Ajige and Huang Taiji; if it was a systematic fraud, then it was to mess with Huang Taiji's mentality.

In short, he didn't lose out.

However, the spy who delivered the letter to him had not been caught yet, and He Huchen, who was changing guard to Keshiketeng's tribe, sent someone to deliver four urgent letters.

He Huchen intercepted a private letter from Fei Yanggu of the Later Jin Dynasty to Yang Qi, Elinchen and Omubu, in which Yang Qi was severely scolded.

As for E'linchen and O'mubu, the former was mentioned in vague terms about the alliance, while the latter was thanked for his leniency, assistance in arson, and allowing the Bordered Blue Banner to retreat eastward.

The last letter was from He Huchen, asking whether to withdraw the Mongolian troops from the south of the desert and transfer the troops from the rear to the front.

Liu Chengzong walked out of the tent with the urgent letter in his hand. He pondered for a moment in the open space outside the tent, looked at the majestic Greater Khingan Range in the east, raised his hand to release the vulture, and said, "No retreat."

"Tell General He that the four general camps in the southern part of the desert should withdraw a hundred miles from the Keshiketeng Pass and set up camp to prepare for battle. Send 230,000 cavalrymen to penetrate the pass and find out the enemy's situation. Do not rush into battle and send a report on the military situation as soon as possible."

When he turned around, Zhang Xianzhong, who had followed him out of the tent, only saw him grinning, but there was no smile in his slightly staring eyes, but rather a bit of madness.

Then Liu Chengzong put He Huchen's urgent letter in his hand.

Zhang Xianzhong stared blankly at the letter in his hands, and exchanged glances with Liu Tichun, Zuo Liangyu and others.

Then he heard Liu Chengzong stuffing a handful of fried noodles into his mouth and chewing them with big mouthfuls, his speech unclear.

"The evil emperor is here!" (End of this chapter)