As we all know, the Great Wall can only stop the pace of large-scale troops, after all, the army carries a large number of strategic materials, horse-drawn trucks, and it is impossible to climb over the mountains and mountains and secretly climb over the Great Wall from remote passes. Therefore, if the army wants to pass through the Great Wall, it has to choose places that can be used for traffic, but these places are military fortresses. For example, the Ming army built a large number of strong fortresses here and sent heavy troops to defend it, and it was difficult for the enemy to pass through, at least at least to pay a heavy price.

However, if it is a small force, or a straggler, the Great Wall will be powerless, after all, the Great Wall is so long, it is impossible for the Ming army to send troops to guard every section. Because of this, there are always small stocks of Tartars who can run to the territory of Daming to fight grass valleys unconsciously, and similarly, some unscrupulous merchants in Daming can always smuggle goods out of the country and sell them to Tartars for huge profits.

At this moment, Xie Sangun and Pi Shiyi were near a remote Great Wall, and they were tracking the horse thief from Heitai Mountain to this place, and at this time, the horse thief had already led the horse and climbed out of a collapsed gap in the Great Wall.

Pi Shiyi put away the monocular and said depressedly: "That guy has crossed the Great Wall, Fourth Brother Xie, can we still chase it?" ”

Xie Sangun was also quite depressed at the moment, tracking for more than ten miles, and he was naturally extremely unwilling to give up halfway at this time, but if he continued to chase, the mountain road was extremely difficult to walk, so it was better to return to the foot of Heitai Mountain and wait for the next target to save trouble.

Xie Sangun weighed for a moment, and finally decided to continue the tracking, completely out of curiosity, he wanted to know what the horse thief from Heitai Mountain was trying to sneak out of.

It is said that this third lady of Heitai Mountain was ruthless in killing the Tartars, and was regarded as a protector by the people of nearby villages and towns, and should not have colluded with the Tatars. However, as the saying goes, seeing is believing, hearing is false, and now that he has seen the people of Heitai Mountain sneaking out of the Great Wall, Xie Sangun naturally wants to figure it out.

At that moment, Xie Sangun and Pi Shiyi led the horses, climbed the mountain with one foot deep and one foot shallow, and came to the gap in the collapsed Great Wall, and then it took a lot of effort to successfully cross the past.

Xie Sangun stood on a high place, took out his binoculars and searched quickly for a while, and finally let him find the Heitai Mountain horse thief. This guy is obviously very familiar with the road, leading the horse through the narrow and rugged mountains and mountains without hindrance, if Xie Sangun is not in a high place at the moment, it is really difficult to find him.

"Over there, chase!" Xie Sangun snorted, and Pi Shiyi led the horse to chase after him, but unfortunately this mountain road is dangerous, and he can't get up fast at all, let alone lead the horse, even if he walks empty-handed, he will fall into the steep cliff and deep pit if he is not careful, and those deep pits are covered with three-pointed octagonal stones, if he falls down, he will not die and be disabled.

Xie Sangun and the two had to be patient, leading the horse to move forward cautiously, and they were worried that they would be discovered by the other party, and they didn't dare to follow too closely, after all, this kind of terrain, as long as the other party just finds a place to hide, and then wants to find out, it is undoubtedly equivalent to looking for a needle in a haystack.

So although they were very aggrieved, Xie Sangun and Pi Shiyi could only endure it, but fortunately, they walked for about two hours, and when it was almost dark, they finally crossed the mountains and came to the flat land.

Pi Eleven crawled on the ground like a dog and observed for a moment, then jumped on his horse and chased Xie Sangun in the northeast direction.

…………

Liaodong Town, Jizhou Town, Xuanfu Town, Datong Town, Taiyuan Town, Yulin Town, Guyuan Town, Ningxia Town, and Gansu Town are known as the important towns of the Nine Sides.

In order to resist the invasion of nomads in the north, the Ming Dynasty set up the above nine military towns along the Great Wall, each town was stationed with heavy guards, and the highest military governor of the town was called the general army, and sometimes the general system (governor) was set up in several towns to control the soldiers and horses of several towns, for example, Yang Yiqing served as the trilateral general system twice, controlling Gansu, Ningxia, and Yansui.

Since the dust settled on the personnel changes in the court, on 20 July, Xu Jin, Marquis of Jinghai, was ordered to patrol the borders, and the destinations of the inspections were Xuanfu and Datong, the two important cities of the nine borders.

Emperor Jiajing sent Xu Jin to patrol the border because the Tatars had frequently gone south to Koubian recently, especially the two towns of Xuanfu and Datong, which had been harassed to varying degrees, so he sent Xu Jin to inspect the two places and rectify the defense of the two towns to prevent the Tatars from invading the border on a large scale.

Xu Jin went out to inspect the two towns of Xuanfu and Datong this time, in addition to the 200 Jinyi guards who served as the honor guard of the Qincha, he also pulled out the entire battalion of 5,000 people of the Shenji Battalion.

In fact, Xu Jin went out to inspect Xuanfu and Datong this time, ostensibly to inspect the border defense, but the real purpose was to plan to attack Fengzhou Sichuan and capture and kill Zhao Quan, Li Zixin and others. However, in order to avoid leaking the news, only Emperor Jiajing and Xu Jin knew the real strategic intention of this trip for the time being, and even the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty were kept in the dark.

Let's say that Xu Jin led his troops out of Beijing on July 20, and the first stop was Xuanfu. Xuanfu is now the area of Xuanhua, Hebei, only more than 300 miles away from the capital, and the Shenji battalion is a full cavalry, so it set off in the morning and arrived at Xuanfu in the afternoon.

Jing Dachu, the chief soldier of Xuanfu who received the notice in advance, led his generals to greet him outside the city of Xuanfu early in the morning, and the commanders of each guard came from the station to meet Xu Jin, the Qincha, but they were severely reprimanded by Xu Daqin as soon as they met, and then all returned to their respective stations in a gloomy manner.

It's not that Xu Jin is hypocritical, deliberately giving these border generals a dismount, it is really the gateway to the capital that Xuanfu and Datong are the gateways to the capital, and the cavalry can kill at the foot of the capital in one day, so the defense of the two places is extremely important, and the guards everywhere leave their posts without permission in order to welcome the Qin Mission, it really shouldn't be, if the Tartar army just goes south to commit the border, and the guards of the passes everywhere are there, then the fun will be great!

However, although Xu Jin did not deliberately establish his authority, after this incident, the generals of the Xuanfu led by the general soldier Jing Dachu all knew that although this Marquis of Jinghai was young, he couldn't rub sand in his eyes, so they all carefully cooperated with Xu Jin to inspect the border defense, and did not dare to have the slightest perfunctory.

Although he came with a secret mission this time, Xu Jin still inspected the defense of all parts of Xuanfu meticulously, and solved the problems that could be solved on the spot, and the problems that could not be solved for a while were carefully recorded, and sent back to the capital in a notebook, so that Zhu Houxi's kid could find a way to solve them.

In this way, Xu Jin inspected the Xuanfu for ten days, and on the second day of the eighth month, he set off for the next stop, Datong.

Datong Mansion belongs to Shanxi Chengxuan Political Envoy Division, bordering Xuanfu, about 600 miles away from the capital, fast horse can reach in one day, of course, from Xuanfu to Datong only half a day.

On the morning of the second day of the eighth month of the fourth year of Emperor Jiajing, Xu Jin led 5,000 Shenji battalions into the territory of Datong Mansion.

It is said that there are more than a dozen kinds of Franc machine guns designed by He Zhier, which are specifically divided into five types: super large, large, medium, small, and individual soldiers, and the fifty Franc machine guns carried by the god machine are the newly cast small sample Franc machine guns, weighing less than 50 catties, suitable for carrying on war horses, and can quickly maneuver in combat.

Such an army armed to the teeth appeared on the official road, which instantly attracted the attention of the people working in the fields on both sides of the official road, and they stopped their work one by one and stared at it strangely, after all, it was the first time they had encountered such a spirited "border army".

As the so-called autumn is high and cool, it has now entered the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, completely bidding farewell to the scorching heat of midsummer, and the autumn breeze blowing in the face is dry and pleasant. Under the blue sky, the wheat has become golden, and when the autumn wind blows, it suddenly sets off a wave of wheat, a gratifying scene of a bumper harvest.

Xu Jin rode on horseback, the harvest scene in front of him made him feel quite good, when passing by a sweet potato field, seeing a farmer digging sweet potatoes, Xu Jin couldn't help jumping off the horse and stepped forward, smiling and shouting loudly: "Fellow, harvest sweet potatoes!" ”

The person digging sweet potatoes in the field should be a family of six, and when the two female relatives saw Xu Jin approaching, they immediately hid on the other side of the field with a red face.

The farmer at the head of the group, who was about fifty years old, threw down his farm tools and walked over, and replied with sincere fear: "Yes, do you want to taste it?" This thing can be eaten raw. ”

Xu Jin was not polite, and after thanking him, he picked up a sweet potato the size of a child's fist, washed it with the water in the water bladder, and gnawed the skin. The old farmer couldn't help but smile brightly when he saw this, such a down-to-earth official is really rare, tsk, look at this formation, it should still be a big official!

Xu Jin ate sweet potatoes with relish while chatting with the old farmer.

"Fellow, the sweet potato harvest is the best before and after the cold dew, and now it is still a month away from the cold dew, why is it harvested so early?"

The old farmer's eyes lit up, and he gave a thumbs up and said: "Lord Dare is a knowledgeable person, if the harvest is delayed, these potatoes can at least grow up again, but recently the Tartars have made a lot of trouble, and they have been harvested in advance, and they have to harvest wheat when they turn back, and they can't take care of these sweet potatoes, so they can be harvested in advance while they have time now." ”

Xu Jin couldn't help frowning and said, "Then these tartars are really harmful!" ”

The old peasant suddenly said angrily: "No, these Tartars who kill a thousand knives come to loot every once in a while, especially in the autumn harvest season. We're better here, if the area around Zuoyun County and Youyu County will suffer. ”

"Oh, what is the yield of sweet potatoes per mu here?" Xu Jin changed the subject.

"About seven hundred and eight catties, if it is delayed for a few months, it is estimated that there will be a thousand catties and an acre, but it's a pity!" The old farmer's flesh is painful.

Xu Jin sighed lightly, sweet potatoes are not a problem with a yield of 2,000 catties per mu in the Jiangnan region, and it seems that the fertility of the land here in Datong is still a little worse.