golden scales

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Festival, which is highly valued by the people. After this day, it is considered a new year, and the hard work of the year really begins. However, in the first month of the 17th year of Chongzhen, there was a murderous look, at least in the Qin and Jin provinces.

Li Zicheng focused on preparing to attack the food and grass of the soldiers in Shanxi, and the appointed local officials spent all day chasing stolen goods and asking for soldiers' pay.From the fact that he set up a grain platform in Longmen, we can see his strategic intentions. It must be to advance the soldiers to Taiyuan Mansion before the Yellow River thaws.

In Shanxi, taking advantage of the low temperature in winter, many icicles and ice walls as high as a person were built on the river, and fortifications were built along the river, and most of them were defended by freezing ice. The coal consumed for boiling water every day Unknowingly, a white water mist enveloped the Hejin area day by day.This is obviously just to deal with the current intruders who forcibly attack. When the spring warms and the ice melts, these fortifications will be useless.

The originally few people in Hejin City have been relocated to Pingyang Mansion for resettlement.The handicraftsmen in the city are fine, as long as the government is willing to arrange a residence or shop for them, they will be satisfied.The trouble is for those farmers, once they leave their own land, they will lose their foundation.However, since the population of Ming Dynasty has grown so far, any land that can grow grain has long been occupied.No matter how overbearing the government is, it cannot force the owner-peasants to become tenant farmers or even serfs.

Zhu Cihong had no choice but to expropriate some land, and issued a document to offset three times the land in Shandong. At the same time, he was exempted from grain for three years, and in the fourth year he only paid taxes at a rate of one ten taxes.Even so, these peasants seemed to have been whitewashed, crying and holding relief money, and followed the people from the Shanxi Chief Secretary Yamen all the way to Shandong.Cai Maode only thought that the crown prince had his own arrangements, and he generously used the name of the Chief Secretary to make his debut.But he didn't know that now the entire Shandong territory didn't know that the crown prince was after them.

"I'll let Xu Dun gather these people for the time being." Zhu Cihong explained a little irresponsibly, and then said: "Okay, now that Hejin City is also vacated, and we will have a real meeting with Li Zicheng tomorrow, everyone talk about preparations How is it?"

Wu Tong saw that there were both literary and military people present, and this was the last discussion before the war.Seeing Zhu Cihong looking at him, Wu Tong hurriedly said: "The 340 people in the attendant room have all evacuated." The expansion of the attendant room was still due to the two thousand students. In just ten days, hundreds of people were "domesticated" successfully, and then more Many people stood in the East Palace camp, and many people took the initiative to write letters to their families, expressing their desire to stay with the crown prince.

Zhu Cihong has orthodox righteousness, and he also has a psychological brainwashing weapon. Even robbers can do things that are not challenging for him.These people are all useful talents who can read and write, and they are just used to deal with documents and popularize cultural education in the army.But before they saw their peaches and plums bloom and bear fruit, they went to Pingyang first.

"Where's the engineer battalion? How's the progress?" Zhu Cihong asked.

"Some gunpowder is not enough, and some unimportant places only put hay." Chen De has too much work these days, he has lost a lot of weight, and the armor his father gave him is still a little wobbly.

Zhu Cihong smiled at the young man, as a recognition of his work effectiveness.The ice shoots that popped up overnight were written by Chen De, which made the intruders on the other side afraid to come, which is really a great achievement.

In contrast, Xiao Mo had nothing to report.The Youqian Headquarters of the Eastern Palace Guard Battalion has been conducting winter training, increasing the daily running distance and carrying weight, so that the soldiers are looking forward to fighting to end these boring training.

Xiao Donglou did not attend the meeting, and no one asked him, because he had a top-secret mission and had already set off with two elite bureaus, and no one in Zuoqian headquarters knew where these two bureaus went .

Zhu Cihong asked a few more questions, and said, "Mr. Wu, after the meeting with Sun Du, you withdrew to Pingyang with the team. Chen De."

"The last general is here." Chen De got up quickly and said.

"After it's done, you can take the engineering battalion and labor camp to Pingyang and wait for orders," Zhu Cihong said.

"Obey!" Chen De took the order neatly.

Zhu Cihong's eyes fell on Xiao Tugeng.

Xiao Tugeng was very nervous. He had never fought a battle since this expedition.All the tasks assigned were to defend the city, but when the intruders arrived at the city, the army had to retreat again.But fortunately, his people finally got back together, and they were once again under the jurisdiction of the Central Military Department.As a captain who participated in this important meeting, the excitement in Xiao Tugeng's heart is beyond words.

"Xiao Tugeng."

"The humble job is here!" Xiao Tugeng stood up immediately, gave a military salute, and finally calmed down a bit.

"The heavy responsibility of lighting the fire falls on you. Whether we can escape safely depends on you. What's the problem?" Zhu Cihong asked.

"No problem at all!" Xiao Tugeng said firmly, "Our bureau has already conducted ignition experiments under various conditions. Even if it rains heavily tomorrow, it is guaranteed that the ignition will be successful!"

"What about the ratio of gunpowder? The gunpowder here is more complicated." Zhu Cihong asked again.

In the era of black powder, formula is synonymous with power.A good formula can be made into gunpowder, and a bad formula can only be made into firecrackers. The power of the two is really far apart.The East Palace originally used gunpowder made by the Gunpowder Bureau, but this time it was temporarily collected from Pingyang. First of all, the formula is not as good as the gunpowder bureau's hundreds of years of improvement and accumulation.The second is the fineness of the gunpowder. Some of the gunpowder contains more sand than the active ingredients, apparently for the purpose of completing the mission.

"The screening has been completed." Xiao Tugeng said: "The important links are all gunpowder brought by our capital, there is absolutely no problem!" Fortunately, a few soldiers were recruited from the skilled workers of the gunpowder factory, otherwise it would be really difficult to do this job .

Only then did Zhu Cihong nod his head, motioning for him to sit down.

"Okay, since everyone is fine, let's go back and make preparations, and give Li Zicheng a New Year's gift tomorrow!" Zhu Cihong stood up, and everyone followed suit.Zhu Cihong said again: "Mr. Wu, Sun Du, you two should leave as soon as possible, don't delay."

Wu Tong and Sun Chuanting knew that this was Zhu Cihong's care, so they quickly bowed and saluted, expressing their obedience.

……

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the 17th year of Chongzhen, two troops lined up on both sides of the Yellow River.Under the banner of Huangming, the Donggong Guards Battalion, wearing big red fat jackets, only has a mere 1000 people. They are divided into three formations, with about [-] steps left and right for each formation, which is convenient for reinforcements and will not affect the retreat of the former army.

On the other side of the Yellow River, there were also flags fluttering, with the newly made Shunzi banner, and Li Zicheng's handsome banner, occasionally mixed with the flags of Liu, Li, Zhang and other generals.

Zhu Cilang looked at it with the binoculars for a while, and said: "Sure enough, there are tens of thousands of people, a sea of ​​people. You can't see the end at this glance."

Xiao Mo was a horse's head behind Zhu Cihong, and replied: "Your Highness, I'll go later."

Zhu Cihong didn't seem to hear it, he just said: "Here we come, there are about ten riders."

Sure enough, a dozen or so black spots appeared on the snow-white river, and the horse galloped across the solid ice, heading east.

"Bow and arrow! Pre-preparation!" Xiao Mo dragged the preparatory tone, and soon remembered more commands.There are no professional archers in the infantry battalion. Everyone except the rattan players must wear double thorns-bow thorns and arrow thorns. After the enemy enters the range, the first long-range strike is carried out.

The horsemen rushing towards them quickly noticed the movement of the guard battalion, and quickly stopped in the middle of the river, waving the apricot-yellow flag in their hands.

A group of cavalry soldiers were also sent out from the Donggong Guard Battalion soon, all of them were good riders selected from the Qin soldiers.They are also the cavalry seeds selected by Zhu Cihuang, so naturally they can't show their timidity.

The cavalry soldiers on both sides shouted a few words at a distance of five or six steps, and then turned around and returned to the formation.Soon, Li Zicheng's handsome banner moved slowly, moving forward under the package of Zhongquan's personal guards.

"Let's go in too." Zhu Cihong waved his hand.

On the contrary, Xiao Mo was more nervous than Zhu Cihong, and his voice trembled when he gave the order.He knew that Zhu Cihong would definitely not follow his suggestion, but he was even more afraid of seeing something wrong with the crown prince.The dead are dead, but the living will be better off than dead.

Li Zicheng looked at the Royal Golden Dragon Banner that was slowly moving forward, and still couldn't help but praise in his heart: There is still someone in the Zhu family who is not afraid of death, and he is much stronger than those vassal kings.

The two phalanxes of coaches quickly stepped onto the river surface, making a rattling sound as they stepped on the solid ice. (To be continued.)