"Fire the cannon and kill them for me!"

Jierhalang gave an order, and dozens of large and small artillery pieces on the top of the city fired at the Ming cavalry who were chasing Jiannu below the city:

"Rumble..."

"Rumble..."

As the artillery fired from the top of the city, shells were fired one after another at the Ming cavalry formation. Dozens of cavalry were directly blown up by the shells...

"Stop the pursuit!"

Seeing the artillery bombardment on the top of the city, Yang Guodong was worried that the Ming army would suffer too many casualties if it entered the artillery range, so he immediately sent an order to retreat.

Until Jiannu was defeated and returned to the city, Shen Shikui still felt that all this seemed unreal. What they were facing was Jiannu with a blue flag!

"Grandma, it's so cool. I never thought it would be so easy to become a slave..."

Jin Riguan was also shocked, and it took him a moment to react:

"Are these the Manchu soldiers under the Jian Nu and the Blue Banner? How could they be so vulnerable? Are they getting weaker, or is my Ming army getting stronger?"

Yang Guodong rolled his eyes at the two of them and said:

"Of course my Ming army has become stronger. All this is because Emperor Shenwu of the Ming Dynasty came to this world..."

Speaking of Emperor Shenwu, the three people immediately bowed their hands in the direction of the capital:

"My emperor is wise, my emperor is mighty..."

Then the three of them looked at Gaizhou City, Jin Riguan said:

"What's the next step? Should we attack the city immediately?"

Shen Shikui's face was solemn. He raised his hand and touched his beard:

"With equal forces, it will be very difficult to break through the Gaizhou City defended by Jierhalang. Once the casualties are too large, even if Gaizhou is conquered, we will not be able to prevent Jierhalang from leaving."

Yang Guodong smiled slightly and said:

"Lord Lu said that in the battle at Rufeng Mountain, the Jiannu Eight Banners would definitely suffer heavy casualties. In order to prevent Jierhalang from leading reinforcements, we are asked to dig trenches to trap Jierhalang to death. There is no need to attack the city for the time being.

After Emperor Shenwu personally led an army to attack Shengjing, there was only an isolated city in Gaizhou left in Liaodong. At that time, he had no wings to fly, so he should carry out Lord Lu's orders!"

…

Rufeng Mountain

After the National Guard Army joined the fighting force, the Ming army's offensive on Rufeng Mountain was overwhelming. It was difficult for the slaves to rely on trenches and low walls to stop the Ming army's offensive.

The Jiannu who besieged Jinzhou have evacuated, and they returned urgently to support Rufeng Mountain.

Seeing Jiannu evacuating in a hurry, and hearing the recent rumbling of cannons on Rufeng Mountain, Zu Kuan felt that the Ming army was coming to help, and he immediately asked his troops to go out of the city to pursue them:

"Commander, Jiannu has withdrawn his troops. We can cooperate with the Ming army in Rufeng Mountain inside and outside..."

Zu Dashou shook his head:

"We have been trapped in Jinzhou for many days and have no knowledge of the outside situation. We must not easily send troops to pursue the slave establishment. I suspect that this is a conspiracy to establish the slaves. I immediately sent people out of the city to investigate and make a decision based on the situation..."

Zu Kuan was stunned:

"This... Commander, can you give me a group of troops? I will go after Jiannu. I must not let them go to Rufeng Mountain to support Huang Taiji..."

Zu Dashou stared:

"Don't forget your identity and execute the order!"

"Here!"

It was a pity that such a good opportunity was given up. Zu Kuan had no choice but to accept the order.

Zu Kuan was originally just the captain of Zu Dashou's servants, but he was very brave in fighting the bandits, and was eventually promoted from a thousand general to a general.

Historically, slaves entered the Pass to massacre Jinan, and King Lu was also killed after the city was broken. Chongzhen was furious and beheaded dozens of generals and dozens of civil officials. Zu Kuan was also beheaded this time.

However, due to Zhu Cihong's time travel, the slaves who entered the customs were repeatedly beaten and beaten, and Zu Kuan also survived indirectly.

In the eighth year of Chongzhen's reign, Jiannu entered the customs again, and Zu Kuan was ordered to serve the king. This time, the crown prince Zhu Cixiang came out of the blue and led the East Palace Guards to beat Jiannu violently.

Zu Kuan was lucky enough to have fought under the crown prince Zhu Cihong. After several wars that ended in establishing slaves, he admired the crown prince extremely.

Especially after Emperor Shenwu ascended the throne, Zu Kuan's desire to lead his troops to fight with the National Protector Army became even stronger, but Zu Dashou basically stood still and did not give him a chance at all.

Zu Dashou and Wu Xiang were the largest generals in Liaodong. They did not want the Ming Dynasty to regain Liaodong, nor did they want Jiannu to be too strong. Only in this way could the best interests of the family be maintained.

Once the Ming Dynasty liberates Liaodong and destroys the slaves, their status in the Ming Dynasty will drop significantly, and the millions of people from Liaoning every year will no longer exist.

In the Ming Dynasty, most of the border guards were criminals. They were charged with various serious crimes and sent to Liaodong to join the army.

Throughout the year, in addition to building cities and serving as guards, their main task was to farm fields.

They truly became serfs of local generals at all levels. Their allotments could be seized at will, and their harvests could be expropriated or confiscated at will.

Wu Xiang proudly claimed:

"These three thousand men are not soldiers. They are the sons of Chen Xiang and brothers of the ministers. Since I received the favor of the state, the food I eat is coarse, the three thousand men are fine wine and fat sheep, and the clothes I wear are brown cloth.

Everyone is a dandy, so I can gain the power of death."

Who are these people? Look at the people who followed Wu Sangui from a stone to the Sino-Burmese border and hanged the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty alive.

Then the people who followed him to rebel against Kang Mazi, such as Hu Guozhu, Xia Guoxiang, Guo Zhuangtu and others, did well.

The imperial court first allocated land to support the army, and then the land was divided up into private property by officers at all levels. After the soldiers became serfs of officers at all levels, the army became decadent.

When a war is about to begin, I find that the bulk of the soldiers cannot get their food and pay. Whether they are fighting Japanese pirates or dealing with the Mongols, or later dealing with Houjin, they have to receive extra military pay. The soldiers will scold their mothers if they cannot get sufficient food and pay.

At this time, bureaucrats at all levels and officers at all levels in the army acted as a two-faced man. On the one hand, the civilian officials incited the people to scold the emperor for exorbitant taxes, while on the other hand, they enriched their own pockets.

After the officers divided up all the land in the military camp, they scolded the emperor for not providing enough military pay, and at the same time withheld military pay to support their families.

Therefore, all these infamy was shouldered by the old Emperor of the Zhu family, so the old Emperor of the Zhu family looked at himself in the mirror - he was no longer a human being inside and out.

In this regard, the emperor of the old Zhu family had no temper at all. The eagle-claw grandsons in the six gates were controlled by bureaucrats at all levels. The factory security system was controlled by the emperor through eunuchs, but the eunuchs were also infiltrated.

Especially the factory guards of the Chongzhen period, Gao Qiqian and his ilk had colluded with the bureaucracy, and were directly attracted by the Liaoxi Jiangmen Group. Wu Sangui was Gao Qiqian's godson before he surrendered to the enemy.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The situation of the army is even worse. The Beijing camp, which the emperor absolutely trusted, has also been extremely corrupted by the bureaucracy, and the Beijing camp is in the hands of nobles.

Later, officials and eunuchs from the capital also came to take a share of the pie. Many officials and eunuchs' domestic staff occupied the capital's establishment and received civil servant salaries.

In the early Ming Dynasty, with the decay of the guard system, the large number of military households fleeing, and the degradation of successors over several generations, the strength of the generals was almost weakened. The only ones who could survive to the end were the Yunnan Mu family,

The generals and other military attachés and generals at all levels who guarded each border owned a lot of land. They did not farm themselves. They used the local defense troops as cheap labor and used them in large numbers to farm private fields for themselves.

This situation has long been common in the Liaodong region. In these places, local officials obtained huge amounts of wealth by using soldiers to do unpaid labor, and then used part of the funds to transfer into business, mining, fishing, logging and other industries.

Rapidly increase property.

Long before the Donglin Naval Group bankrupted the Ming Dynasty's finances, those governors, governors' fellow magistrates, governors' ministers, chief military officers, deputy chief military officers, commanders of the capital division, as well as those officers of Qianhu, Baihu and other levels had already

The land allocated by Lao Zhu's family to the army was divided up, and the army's most important source of food and salary was cut off.

Unknowingly, the emperor had become a mere commander, with no soldiers and only a few eunuchs. Therefore, the civil servants did not listen to him, the generals did not listen to him, and the nine-sided army became even more disobedient.

The emperor basically raised a private army of domestic servants of the generals. The majority of the soldiers could not even get enough to eat, and the officers used the withheld military pay to support their "domestic servants".

The so-called servants are the domestic slaves of an officer. If a domestic slave is good enough, he is recognized by the officer as his godson. The godson also supports the domestic slave and considers him his grandson...

Some even became the sons-in-law of military officers, and their godsons and godsons were married to each other. For example, Zu Dashou's sister married Wu Xiang, whose sons were already very old, and Guo Zhuangtu was the father-in-law of Wu Sangui's eldest grandson Wu Shifan.

They colluded together through nepotism and formed a deformed hybrid - the Jiangmen Group.

In other words, the country's food and salary are fattened by the domestic slaves and private armies of military officers at all levels. These people would have no psychological burden even if they killed the Ming emperor.

If Emperor Shenwu led the army to completely regain the land of Liaodong, how could they, the Liaodong warlords, still mess around?

The millions of taels of Liao's salary a year will definitely be gone, and maybe they will be divided among various places. Life will be sad in the future!

This was also the main reason why Zu Dashou was unwilling to pursue Xianghuang Banner. In the early stage of the attack on Rufeng Mountain, Wu Sangui had been unable to do his job and almost killed Li Fuming and Wang Tingchen.

…

"Your Majesty, Jiannu has withdrawn his troops from Jinzhou!"

After receiving the information that Jiannu had withdrawn his troops, Li Fang immediately reported to Emperor Shenwu.

Zhu Cixiang was looking at a map near Jinzhou. Hearing this, he slowly raised his head and said:

"Did Zu Dashou react?"

Li Fang hurriedly handed over her hands and replied:

"No, Xianghuangqi hurriedly retreated to Rufeng Mountain. There was no response in Jinzhou City..."

Zhu Cixi's face darkened:

"Zu Dashou actually gave up such a good opportunity? How unreasonable..."

Although Zhu Cixiang was young, his face darkened. Everyone around him felt as if the air had suddenly solidified, and no one dared to say a word.

After a moment, Zhu Cihong looked at Zhou Yuji, the commander of the Shenwu Army:

"Zhou Yuji, change the march route and take a detour directly to the bank of Daling River. This time we will not let Huang Taiji escape back to Shengjing!"
To be continued...