On the third day of November, Weihaiwei Yingzui Port.
There are more than 30 large-scale blessing ships parked quietly at the harbor pier. In the distance, on the Bohai Sea, ice floes are floating, and three or two solitary sails are hidden among the waves.
A bamboo whistle sounded on the pier, and seagulls looking for food screamed and flew away from the beach.
Groups of soldiers gathered at the port, with cavalry scattered far away on both sides to guard.
The seven-foot-long Liaodong General Army flag was flying high over the pier. Under the red flag with white characters, officials from Dengzhou Prefecture and Weihaiwei, surrounded by Governor Yuan Keli, rushed to the pier to help Ping Liaohou and others. practice.
Liu Zhaosun looked at the familiar faces in front of him and said goodbye to them one by one.
Yuan Keli, with gray beard and hair, stood on the pier with only two servants supporting him, looking old and helpless.
At the end of October, Zhang Tiqian, the military supervisor, sent a Tongbao to the capital, reporting what they saw and heard in Dengzhou to the Li Supervisor and the emperor.
The imperial court began to be suspicious of the governor of Dengzhou, and officials successively accused Yuan Keli of failing to defend the city, allowing the Wenxiang Cult to plunder Wendeng, and befriending military generals, showing his disobedience.
All he had to do was name Governor Yuan and Ping Liaohou for rebelling together.
If it weren't for the lack of peripheral talents in the court, this veteran of the four dynasties in the late Ming Dynasty would have been dismissed from office in the winter of the second year of Taichang.
Yuan Keli was dragged into the water by himself, and Liu Zhaosun felt that he had an obligation to protect him now.
Marquis Ping Liao wanted to recruit Yuan Keli into his army. Yuan Keli's talents were far superior to those of Kang Yingqian, Yuan Chonghuan and others. In the late Ming Dynasty, this was a great talent who could truly lead the overall situation.
For a veteran minister like Yuan Keli, the Confucian belief in loyalty and patriotism has already penetrated into his bones. It is obviously a fantasy for him to openly betray the imperial court.
Still need to wait for the opportunity.
Marquis Ping Liao ordered the members of the Intelligence Bureau who stayed in Dengzhou to strengthen the protection of Governor Yuan. If the imperial court sent Tiqi over, they could command the soldiers to kill him directly.
Liu Zhaosun concluded that Pei Dahu and the others must have been killed by Dongchang, otherwise they would not have returned to Wendeng for so long.
Although the Kaiyuan Army cannot rebel directly now, this kind of special service fighting still needs to be carried out.
If Dongchang dared to attack Pei Dahu, Liu Zhaosun would dare to kill Jinyiwei.
"Governor Yuan, take care and see you next year!"
Liu Zhaosun bid farewell to Yuan Keli and his party, walked across the sampan, and boarded the lucky boat.
Kang Yingqian, Qiao Yiqi, Shao Jiechun and others followed closely behind Ping Liaohou.
The cavalry pulled their horses and carefully boarded the fortune ship through the sampan.
The last batch of cavalry to leave Shandong totaled 800 cavalry.
Liu Zhaosun originally planned to take them across the Liaonan Isthmus, return to Liaodong by land, and also go to Tianjin to visit his father-in-law, whom he had not seen for more than a year.
Two days ago, Marquis Pingliao received a letter from his father-in-law from Tianjin Wei.
In the letter, Yang Hao introduced his son-in-law to his position as Tianjin Coast Guard. Reading between the lines, Liu Zhaosun could feel that his father-in-law was living a very prosperous life now, and he probably made a lot of money. The old father-in-law told Liu Zhaosun to learn to restrain his wings and not to show off too much. Lu Tongzhi in Tianjin has been looking for someone to impeach Liu Zhaosun. Finally, Yang Hao hopes that after next spring, Liu Zhaosun can take Yang Qing'er back to Ning and visit him in Tianjin. The old man has not seen his daughter for a long time.
Liu Zhaosun took the letter with him and went back to show it to Yang Qing'er.
He now began to worry about Yang Hao's life and safety. He was worried that the gangsters in Dongchang might jump over the wall and attack his father-in-law in order to make meritorious deeds.
At present, the contradiction between Kaiyuan and the capital is gradually emerging. Yang Hao is caught in the middle and is expected to become a hostage of the imperial court sooner or later.
When the Marquis of Ping Liao was about to lead his cavalry to Tianjin, Sun Chuanting sent someone to report that Kaiyuan had discovered the slave sentry and cavalry activities in northern Liaoning at night. It seemed that Huang Taiji was finally going to take action.
Kaiyuan did not have any intelligence force in Hetuala, and Liu Zhaosun knew almost nothing about the situation of establishing slaves for more than a year.
There were changes in northern Liaoning, and he did not dare to delay for a moment, so he had to give up going to Tianjin and immediately rushed back to Kaiyuan with his soldiers by boat.
~~~~
Thirty-two blessing ships were fully loaded with cargo and had a deep draft. With the help of the north wind, they quickly sailed out of Weihaiwei Port and headed towards the depths of the Bohai Sea.
The ballast stones on the bottom of the lucky ship were replaced with silver ingots and grain.
In the past two months or so, Liu Zhaosun has transported more than one million taels of silver from Wenxiang Sect and Confucius Mansion back to Liaodong one ship after another.
On November 8, Ping Liaohou led 3,000 troops and landed in Jinzhou. On the 13th, the army rushed to Fushun and rested for a day in Wengcheng.
Sun Chuanting was still guarding Kaiyuan and could not come back for the time being. Liu Zhaosun led people to inspect Fushun City and listened to the Fushun Civil Affairs Officer's report on the recruitment of refugees and military training during the three months.
In four months, 800 new soldiers were added to Fushun, and more than 1,000 households were accommodated. The total number of soldiers currently stationed in Fushun is approaching 4,000.
Considering that the population of Liaodong was sparse and far inferior to that of Shandong, Liu Zhaosun was quite satisfied with the speed of Fushun's troop explosion.
He appreciated Sun Chuanting's talents even more. After encouraging Fushun officials, he led his troops to continue northward to Tieling the next day.
On the same day, Yuan Chonghuan bid farewell to the Marquis of Ping Liao and led some troops from the 5000th headquarters to rush eastward from Fushun back to Kuandian.
Yuan Ducha had been away from Kuandian for nearly four months, and there was a lot of problems waiting for him to solve in Kuandian.
For example, Kuandian was responsible for supplying the food and grass needed by Wu Amin's ship in Pidao, but Yuandudu has been in arrears for several months...
On November 18, the army arrived at Tieling, and Tieling civil and military officials came out of the city to greet them.
After killing corrupt officials and replacing generals last year, the Tieling garrison did not have similar problems again.
Before going to Shandong, Tieling was under the jurisdiction of Shao Jiechun. His official position in Tieling was Tieling Military Preparation Road, and he also served as the commander of the guard post.
There was so little talent in Liaodong that Liu Zhaosun wished he could cut a man into half and use them. He thought that when he controlled the Weihaiwei Waterway in the future and a large number of people from the pass came in, he could recruit enough talents.
It's a pity that Shao Jiechun was better at military affairs than civil affairs. He governed Tieling for half a year, but Tieling made almost no achievements in civil affairs, business did not develop further, no forts were built, and five or six thousand soldiers were recruited.
Later, there was insufficient money and food, so he had to dismiss 3,000 people. Liu Zhaosun was very angry about this matter. He happened to catch up with the Wenxiang Cult riot and did not hold Shao Jiechun responsible.
As a hawk in the army, Shao Jiechun advocated starting a war with Liao Town immediately, seizing southern Liaoning, and then leading his army into the pass to capture the capital.
Marquis Pingliao placed him in Tieling, which is the closest to Kaiyuan, for the convenience of control.
If he had been placed in Fushun or Qinghe, he would have started fighting with Liao Town long ago.
Looking at the bleak business in the city, Liu Zhaosun secretly made up his mind to replace Shao Jiechun with a suitable civil affairs official to take up a post in Tieling in a few days. He would be responsible for Tieling's commercial and reclamation affairs and remove Shao Jiechun.
Since Shao Jiechun was keen on fighting, he arranged for him to be the commander-in-chief of the Thousand and concentrate on fighting. At the current rate of the explosion of troops, the sixth and seventh thousand headquarters will be built. It is easy to get a thousand troops but hard to find a general. The generals of the original army will be launched immediately. Not enough again.
Liu Zhaosun felt like a bad doctor, treating headaches and pains, and learned from the experience. He believed that the root cause was insufficient manpower.
“There are still too few people in the bitter cold land of Liaodong.”
~~~~
On November 20th, Marquis Pingliao led his army to leave Tieling and continue to march north, arriving in Kaiyuan the next day.
From July 30 to November 21, the second year of Taichang, I traveled for four months, from midsummer to midwinter, traveled thousands of miles, and finally returned home.
Mrs. Gaoming led the officials who stayed in Kaiyuan to greet Marquis Pingliao in Nancheng.
After four months of not seeing each other, Yang Qing'er has grown taller again. She is wearing a mother-of-pearl embroidered jacket, and her figure is tall and straight, making her look slim and graceful.
Yang Qing'er was full of affection, and just when she was about to speak, she was held in her arms by her husband.
Kang Yingqian, Qiao Yiqi and others were used to seeing Marquis Pingliao behave like this, so they all turned their heads to one side and pretended not to see it.
Liu Zhaosun took Yang Qing'er's slender hand and helped his wife get on the horse. They walked side by side and walked slowly along the moat.
Liu Zhaosun said to Yang Qing'er:
"My wife has been working hard in Kaiyuan these days. Mr. Sun said in the Tang newspaper that my wife worked part-time as a bookkeeper at the Chamber of Commerce, helping Nanhuo Store to check the accounts, and she also gave porridge on the streets every few days to save the lives of the homeless. Madam is truly my good wife.”
Yang Qing'er listened to her husband praising her, with a smile on her face. She knew that Liu Zhaosun loved Jin Yuji the most, and she had no intention of competing for her favor. She just saw that her husband was overworked, so she wanted to share some of the burden with him.
"The servants are idle when they are idle. Of course it is good to share some of the work."
Yang Qing'er smiled sweetly and looked around. Seeing that Jin Yuji was not there, she guessed that she was raising her baby in Wendeng. Now her husband was returning to Kaiyuan alone, so she could spend some time with him.
There have been some new changes in Kaiyuan. Nine new forts have been built around the city, and the recently recruited refugees live in the forts.
The streets in the city have become wider and cleaner, and the business in the city is more prosperous and lively than three months ago.
Liu Zhaosun held Yang Qing'er's little hand and walked all the way to the General Military Mansion surrounded by guards.
~~~
After a day's rest, Ping Liaohou ignored the fatigue of his saddle horses and personally led 500 elite cavalry to northern Liaoning to join Sun Chuanting and expel more and more Jiannu sentry horses that were appearing there.
On November 23, outside Jingan Fort in the northwest of Kaiyuan.
Liu Zhaosun led Sun Chuanting up a small slope, looked at the two sentries fighting in the distance, and said in confusion:
"What does Huang Taiji want to do? Doesn't he know that my officer has returned?"
Sun Chuanting wore an iron helmet on his head and two layers of iron armor on his body. He looked calm, pointed at the rising smoke and dust in the northwest, and said to Ping Liaohou:
"Master Liu, this is already the tenth day, and there are more and more sentry horses. Look, sir, their horses are weak and no better than us. They will leave if they can't win. Obviously they are not fighting a decisive battle with Kaiyuan. I don't know what Huang Taiji wants. What to do."
A hundred steps ahead, a dozen sentry horses with blue flags on their backs were being chased by less than half of the Kaiyuan cavalry.
Liu Zhaosun looked at the retreating figures of these old opponents, shook his head and sighed:
"It's a cavalry soldier with a blue flag. I didn't expect him to be so weak. I wonder if Jierhalang is dead?"
"Perhaps Xiaoglaihe is coming. Huang Taiji has lost a large area of cultivated land in Liaozhong, and it is difficult to survive."
Naturally, Sun Chuanting didn't know what Xiao Glacier was. He was silent for a moment and wanted to speak. At this time, the sound of sentry horses galloping came from behind.
The two of them turned around at the same time and saw a cavalry team rushing towards them. When they were twenty steps away from Marquis Pingliao, they were stopped by the guards of the Chinese army.
Liu Zhaosun knew this man and knew that he was a sentry horse under Burhanggu's command, so he asked the guards to get out of the way.
"Master Liu and Master Sun, She Chongming has rebelled! Mr. Qin Qian is back, saying that the rebels just massacred Chongqing."
Liu Zhaosun nodded slightly. He had just returned from Shandong to quell the chaos, and now the war is rising between the north and the south. It seems that this winter will be difficult.
Lewen
