On the afternoon of June 10 in the fourth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, when the Qing Emperor Amadolgon waved his army to pursue Jiang Xuan, and was about to win a complete victory and severely damage Jiang Huang's department, Zhao Tingchen, a good servant of the Han army with a yellow flag, and Fan Chengmo, the son of Fan Wencheng, were standing in the north gate tower of Jiezhou City, looking at the scene in front of him with a dry throat.

In the north of the city of Jiezhou Prefecture, where the salt field of Jiechi is located, people shout and neigh, a boiling, the official road is full of people, spears are like a forest, and the dense Ming officers and soldiers are advancing rapidly along the official road, like a mountain torrent rolling all the way from Luliang Mountain, which is unstoppable. The vanguard of this large army, about 2,000 cavalry, arrived in Changle Town yesterday. There was an internal response of the Ming army in Changle Town, and they took advantage of the chaos to open the city gate and let the Ming army rush in. After the capture of Changle Town, the connection between the state city of Jiezhou and Siyan City, which was in charge of Yantian affairs, was in jeopardy, and Changle Town was located between the two castles.

Therefore, Fan Chengmo, the Shanxi Salt Patrol Imperial Shi stationed in Siyancheng, immediately withdrew to Zhizhou with Yanding and a battalion (Niu Lu) of the Zhenglu Banner soldiers, and reconciled with Zhao Tingchen, the governor of Xizhou.

Zhao Tingchen was born in the Han army with a yellow flag - he was a "traitor of the second generation", so he was elected to the gold plate of the national prince, and not long ago he was appointed as the governor of Jiezhou.

By the way, now there is no imperial examination for ordinary Han scholars in the Qing Dynasty! If Han people want to enter the ranks, they must first cast the flag.

It is not necessary to vote for the old eight flags, and the green flag is also a flag. When Dolgon set up the Zhenglu Banner, all the Han officials who were neither in the banner nor in the west (under the Pingxi Wangmen) after defecting to the Qing Dynasty were incorporated into the Zhenglu Banner.

So there are no officials in the Qing Dynasty who are not in the flag now!

If you want to be an official, you must first enter the flag, and only after entering the flag can you be qualified to be a soldier and make meritorious contributions, before you can be promoted to the national superintendent, and you can go to the yamen of various ministries to be a writer...... And entering the flag, even if it is a slave to the old Eight Banners (the green flag does not have a coated minion, and entering the flag is Zhengding), it is becoming more and more difficult now. Because after surrendering to the flag as a slave, he no longer paid food to the imperial court, and the imperial court certainly did not want ordinary Han people to surrender to the flag.

If the Han people all voted for the flag, the Qing Dynasty would fall apart - if all the population and land were divided into ten flags, wouldn't the country be divided into ten?

And the sign that the flag is not yet in the flag is the money rat braid, which is not something that can be kept casually!

Of course, there is no decree to stay in the law without keeping your head, but there is a "crime of shaving your hair without permission", shaving your head and leaving a braided with a money rat tail is the symbol of the Lord of the Nine Banners, how can ordinary fart people shave their hair and braid? Do you want to pretend to be your uncle to smuggle and sell smuggling pit and be abducted?

Therefore, "shaving your hair privately" is to chop off your head in today's Qing Dynasty!

The people who are not qualified to shave their hair and braids, whether they were scholars or poor middle peasants, are now all counted as oral fields, and honestly farm and pay taxes and serve as conscripts...... No exceptions!

In the city of Jiezhou on the afternoon of June 10, the fourth year of Shunzhi in the Great Qing Dynasty, there were only a few men with a money rat tail hanging on the back of their heads...... Fan Chengmo and Zhao Tingchen can rely on this person.

Although the Qing Dynasty also engaged in the dictation of land in Jiezhou, the people of Jiezhou needed to bear the burden of paying grain and going to the salt fields of Jiechi to serve in the conscription, and they did not need to undertake military service, and there was no landlord arm.

Relying on the garrison of Yanchi and Jiezhou City (1,000 in total) and some officials who did not shave their hair, the bandits in the area of Jiezhou did not dare to make a mistake, but now they are the soldiers of the third prince of Luliang Mountain, and there are very many of them!

Throughout the afternoon of 10 June, troops arrived one after another, numbering no less than 30,000!

They were no ordinary rabble, but well-trained, well-equipped, and of decent quality. Who are the people who go to Luliang Mountain? They are all landlords, rich peasants, and profiteers in Shanxi, and their children have become the main source of officers and soldiers of the Ming Army (also known as the Three Princes' Army) in Luliang Mountain - they have no place to take the imperial examination now, so what can they be if they are not soldiers?

Therefore, the literacy rate of the officers and men of Luliang Mountain Ming is the absolute number one today!

Looking at the neat and tidy Ming army, under the command of the officer, it was orderly unfolded, and camped by the female salt pond outside the city of Jiezhou.

Zhao Tingchen, who was standing beside Fan Chengmo, even became short of breath: "Brother Jin, why is this Ming army so strict?" Did they really come down from Luliang Mountain? ”

"Probably right?"

Fan Chengmo swallowed his saliva, although he was born as a royal guard, he had never led troops, nor had he fought against the Ming army, but he had heard Fan Wencheng and other fathers say how the Ming army was sparse. But today I saw the Ming army coming down from Luliang Mountain...... It's not quite right! Is this sloppy?

The Eight Flags is nothing more than that, right?

"That'...... So what do we do? I can't hold it! ”

"Don't panic, brother Jun, after dark, I will break out of the city and go to Tongguan to ask Dorobelenikan for help." Fan Chengmo said, "You are a minister, and you have the responsibility to defend the land, so let's defend Jiezhou!" ”

"What?" Zhao Tingchen almost jumped up, "I'm only 1,000 people, how can I hold it?" ”

"How about 1,000 people?" Fan Chengmo was a little surprised, "There is only one battalion of Green Flag soldiers stationed in Jiezhou, only 500 people!" ”

Yes, there are 500 people brought by Fan Chengmo from Siyan City - their responsibility is to protect the imperial history of salt patrol and crack down on illegal salt.

This third prince on Luliang Mountain is not selling illicit salt, so he is not among the crackdowns......

Just when Fan Chengmo and Zhao Tingchen were discussing how to defend the city and how to call for help, a group of cavalry had already surrounded Zhu Cijiong, the "loan king" of the Ming Dynasty, to a high slope on the east bank of the female salt pond less than three miles away from Jiezhou City.

Zhu Cijiong was followed by Luo Xiushen, the general of the palace guard, he would not have been able to fight, but in the past three years, he has followed Wang Yongji, Gao Di and others to fight around, and he has also broken a lot of walled cities, and he has also experienced it, and now just by looking at it from a distance, he knows that Jiezhou City is not difficult to fight.

"Lord Wang, the fruit of Jiezhou is empty, the army will rest for one night, build equipment tomorrow morning, and break the city in the afternoon."

Zhu Cijiong nodded, "A hundred miles away is Fengling Pass, where the Tartars have stationed soldiers?" If it goes big, will we be able to handle it? ”

Luo Xiushen said: "There are four or five thousand Qing soldiers stationed on Fengling Pass and Tongguan on the other side of the Yellow River, led by Nikan, the general of the Tartars, and it is used to block Zhang Xianzhong. If the whole group comes, Tongguan will be empty. If there is only one, our soldiers and horses are ten times outnumbered, and it will not be difficult to win. ”

"Good!" Although Zhu Cijiong is young, he has been in the army for three or four years, and all he has heard and witnessed is the affairs of the soldiers, and he is not a layman between marches and battles, so he made a decision at the moment, "Then we will meet Nikan in Jiezhou!" If he dares to come with his whole gang, Zhang Xianzhong's thief will definitely take the opportunity to enter Luoyang eastward, and the world will be in chaos, and then we will be able to breathe a sigh of relief in Luliangshan.

But if he does not come, the king will be able to plunder away...... We can always loot millions of goods on this trip, which is enough to eat for a year. ”

It turned out that Zhu Cijiong went south to Jiezhou not only to understand the wealth of the state's salt pond, but also to seduce Zhang Xianzhong to the east!

Zhang Xianzhong arrived in Guanzhong last year, but the two major roads from Guandong to the east - Tongguan Road and Shangluo Road were blocked by the Qing soldiers and the Ming army.

Blocking the Tongguan Road was the four or five thousand nine banner brigades commanded by Nikan, although the number was not large, but it repelled several attacks by Zhang Xianzhong's troops one after another.

At the same time, Nanming also deployed a whole division of heavy troops in Xikipkou and Neixiang County of Nanyang Prefecture, which also blocked Zhang Xianzhong tightly.

Therefore, although Zhang Xianzhong is so hot that Guanzhong is better than the world, he can't move as usual, and he doesn't dare to turn his face with Li Zicheng, who is pretending to be alive, and can only honestly call himself the king of Dashun West, not to mention how aggrieved he is.

If Nikan's main force really left Tongguan and went north to Jiezhou, Zhang Xianzhong would not let go of this opportunity to go east no matter what.

And once Zhang Xianzhong, the scourge, enters Luoyang in the east, the situation in the Central Plains will inevitably be chaotic, and the Qing Emperor Amadorgon will not have the energy to deal with the third prince on Luliang Mountain for the time being.