Gao Yigong's 30,000 cavalry have indeed arrived in the suburbs of Beijing.
However, Gao Yigong did not intend to launch a forceful attack on Beijing, because the cavalry was good at field battles and incompetent at attacking cities. Using cavalry to attack the city was tantamount to suicide. Gao Yigong had two and only two purposes for his trip.
The first is to pose a threat to Beijing and force Chongzhen to issue an edict to King Qin.
In this way, the crisis of the Great Western Army will naturally be relieved. This kind of thing has not happened before.
On several occasions, whenever the rebel army was in crisis, Jiannu would invade the pass, and then Chongzhen could only issue an edict to King Qin, and then the main force of the Ming army that besieged the rebel army was transferred back to Beijing.
Then the crisis of the rebel army will naturally be resolved.
Of course, the rebels did not know this situation at the time.
It was only after the city of Beijing was captured that they found out.
Because of this, Chuang Wang took it for granted that he could get along well with the Jiannu. However, he made a big mistake. One hundred thousand Zhongquan pro-army troops were beaten to near total annihilation, and Beijing was finally lost.
The second purpose is to raise food and wages. To put it bluntly, it is to grab money, food and women.
To be honest, the current situation of Dashun Army is really bad. Not only the military pay is low, but sometimes they even go hungry. There are also few young women in Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces.
Well, actually there are a lot of young women in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.
Unfortunately, the number of princes, princes and princes conferred by Li Zicheng was actually quite large. The least noble of these clans had to marry dozens of wives, concubines or maids, and the larger ones had hundreds or even thousands.
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With so many young women being occupied by nobles, it was naturally difficult for ordinary Dashun soldiers to find wives.
So this time, Gao Yigong just happened to find women for his soldiers in the rear camp. The more the better.
However, what made Gao Bian extremely disappointed was that after entering Zhili from Zijingguan to Beijing, he did not encounter a single inhabited village or town, and there was no one in the county seat.
There is no one in Yizhou, no one in Laishui, no one in Zhuozhou, Fangshan and Liangxiang.
Along the way, I saw only abandoned villages and empty cities.
Gao Yigong didn't believe in evil, so he sent troops to the city to look for him, but he couldn't find a single dog.
In fact, there are really no people in Hebei. When the slaves were established, almost all the people in Hebei were concentrated in the capital. This was also a routine operation for establishing slaves. Villages were removed and villages were settled.
After Lao Nu conquered Liaodong, except for a small area around Shenyang, most of Liaodong became almost a white land, and the people in Liaodong who were unwilling to merge and settle were basically killed.
As a result, agricultural production in Liaodong was severely damaged.
The Jian slaves guarded more than 20 million acres of fertile black land in Liaodong, and had hundreds of thousands of livestock-like coats at their disposal, but they could not feed a mere 200,000 people. They had to buy them from Mongolia through the eight major Shanxi merchants.
Food, once the food supply to Shanxi merchants is cut off, a food shortage will immediately break out in Liaodong. Can you believe it?
During the reign of Lao Nu, people without grain were massacred many times due to food shortages.
After Dorgon entered the Pass, in order to facilitate his rule, he repeated his old tricks in Beijing.
Then after the Ming army regained the capital, the officials Jinshen, Lvying, Lianyong and their servants concentrated in Beijing and several counties in the capital were all captured to build the railway.
There are more than one million migrant workers on the construction site of the Beijing-Beijing Railway.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to build the railway to Xuzhou within half a year.
You must know that this is the seventeenth century, and railway construction basically relies on manpower.
After arriving in Gyeonggi, we finally saw the human population, and there were even large green wheat fields outside the city.
It's a pity that it's only June, and it's still very early when the wheat is ripe. Gao Yigong can only let the cavalry trample the wheat fields, and what the Dashun army can't get can never be left to the Ming army.
Dashun's army trampled the wheat fields all the way to Bali Bridge.
Gao Yigong wanted to see with his own eyes the battlefield that determined life and death during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
"Hey, what is this?" The steel bridge and the two railway tracks laid across the steel bridge suddenly came into view, which immediately attracted Gao Yigong's attention.
The generals behind Gao Yigong looked at each other in confusion.
No one can answer it, and I’ve never seen it. I’m shocked.
"Let's go up and have a look." Gao Yigong immediately came forward with his soldiers.
As we got closer, we could see more clearly that the bridge across the Tonghui River looked like a sentry tower lying sideways, and the two objects extending from the bridge looked like two fences that had fallen down.
A general casually drew his sword and slashed twice at the fence on the ground.
Then there were two bangs, and the general was startled and exclaimed: "Is this made of iron?"
Because the steel bridge and rails have been treated with blackening, if they don't make sounds without being struck, people who have never seen them would not be able to tell that they are made of steel.
"What? Made of iron?"
Gao Yigong didn't believe it, so he took out his waist knife and struck him twice. He was shocked.
The result was another two clanging sounds, and even the blade was shattered.
"It's really iron!" Now Gao Yigong couldn't help but not believe it.
"God, how much iron will be used?" A general exclaimed, "Our country of Dashun mobilized so many craftsmen to mine and smelt iron in Nanshan. The iron smelted was not enough to make cannons, but these bright dogs actually took iron.
The materials are spread on the ground.”
"Is Ming Gou stupid?" Another general said blankly, "What are you doing by spreading iron materials on the ground?"
"Pave the road?" Another general said, "But that's not right. There are roads one by one. How to walk? If you are not careful, you will be beaten to death. Even if you break your head, it will be easy."
Just when the Dashun generals didn't know what to say, the scout cavalry sent out turned back.
"Brother, there is good news!" The captain of the scout cavalry is Gao Ligong, Gao Yigong's brother. "A large section of the wall on the left side of Chaoyang Gate was demolished by Ming Gou. The cavalry can rush directly into the city!"
"Really?" Gao Yigong was immediately overjoyed.
Although I have never thought about attacking Beijing, if we can directly rush into Beijing city, that is another matter.
All the generals in the rear camp were overjoyed when they heard this. They all thought of rushing into Beijing to steal money, food, and women. They should be able to make a fortune this time.
Just when everyone was eager to try it, there was a sudden loud sound.
"What the hell is this noise?" Gao Yigong was startled. When he turned his head to look, he saw a large gray-black snake-like monster crawling towards him from the direction of Tongzhou.
"What the hell is this?"
"God, is it so big?"
"Afraid it's as big as a house?"
"The key is that it's still so long, at least fifty or sixty feet."
"Fifty feet? What's that look in your eyes? It's more than a hundred feet at least."
"Look, look, there's still black smoke coming out of its head. Look, it's smoking again."
The officers and soldiers of the Dashun Army had never seen such a monster before, and they were all amazed. Even the main cavalry force that had been staying far away came over.
…
On the train.
Zhu Cijiong said to Weng Zhili: "Master Weng, stop the car quickly."
"What, are you stopping at this time?" Weng Zhili said in shock, "Wouldn't it mean that we would be surrounded by hypocritical cavalry?"
"Yes, this is the result I want." Zhu Cijiong said with a smile, "It is good to be surrounded. Only by being surrounded can we kill a large number of pseudo-submissive cavalry."
But Weng Zhili was still worried: "Prince Ding, why don't we just rush over?"
As long as we rush over and return to the locomotive factory, there will be guards guarding the place, and safety will be guaranteed. But if we stop in this wilderness, anything can happen.
Zhu Cijiong was impatient: "Stop the car quickly!"
Weng Zhili had no choice but to ask the engineer to stop the car.
…
Under the gazes of Gao Yigong, Gao Ligong and the 30,000 Dashun cavalry, the black monster began to slow down, its crawling speed became slower and slower, and finally stopped completely with a long exhalation sound.
It was only then that the Dashun cavalry officers discovered that the monster was crawling along one of the two iron fences.
It was also at this time that the Dashun cavalry officers discovered that the Ming army built these two long steel fences just to allow this black monster to crawl.
"Look, look at the grain bag!"
"There are so many food bags on top of the monster!"
A Dashun cavalryman suddenly shouted. He was shocked.
Gao Yigong looked up quickly and saw that the monster had many sacks on top of the base.
One of the sacks was cracked, and the golden millet poured down like water. What a waste.
"I understand!" A general reacted first and shouted excitedly, "This is a carriage. This is Ming Gou's new grain carriage. The ground is covered with carriage ruts."
"That's nonsense. You said this is a carriage. Where is the horse?"
"Besides, have you ever seen a carriage over a hundred feet long?"
The general who spoke first was at a loss for words, as if there really wasn't such a long carriage.
"Grab the food!" Several Dashun cavalry suddenly roared and immediately rushed towards the monster on horseback.
As soon as they started, someone immediately followed, and in an instant there were hundreds of Dashun cavalry rushing forward.
"Come back, don't rob!" Gao Yigong was not afraid of danger, but felt sorry for the large amount of grain. If the cavalry below were allowed to snatch it randomly, he didn't know how much millet would be poured into the fields.
But the scene was too chaotic and Gao Yigong's shouts could no longer be heard.
After a while, the fastest Dashun cavalry rushed in front of the monster.
One of the Dashun cavalry even raised his saber and struck the monster with a knife.
Then there was another crisp sound, which was clearly the sound of metal hitting.
"The traitor is also made of iron!" The Dashun cavalryman immediately screamed. He was shocked.
More Dashun cavalry rushed forward, raised their sabers and slashed at the monster randomly.
In the next moment, Bali Bridge head immediately sounded the metal impact of "Ding Ding Dang".
The movement was so loud that it looked like hundreds of blacksmiths were forging iron at the head of Bali Bridge.
Then soon, the Dashun cavalry found that they could not cut through the monster's iron shell with a carriage, because there would only be a shallow mark when the knife went down, so some Dashun cavalry tried to climb on the monster's back.
It turned out that the monster's body was so smooth that it couldn't find anything to use it for.
And the monster is very tall, as much as one foot tall.
