Chongzhen did not tell Chang Wanchun what exactly he was going to do, and he was sent out by Chongzhen after Chang Wanchun said that he would desperately fulfill the emperor's orders in exchange for a pardon.

Before being summoned by the emperor, Chang Wanchun looked a little stiff although he was smiling, and when he walked out of the room where the emperor was, even his steps were much lighter. As he was about to step out of the gate, the guards who led him out of the door stopped him and told him to pack his bags when he returned, and then prepare to follow the emperor tomorrow.

Chang Wanchun hurriedly nodded and agreed, and the guard didn't wait for him to reply, so he turned around and returned to the mansion. Chang Wanchun was still pinching the red envelope in his sleeve pocket with one hand and before he could take it out, he saw that the side door he had just walked through had been closed heavily.

The people of the entourage, who had been waiting in the alley outside the gate, hurriedly greeted them. Although it has not snowed heavily, the night in Jizhou has been very cold, and these people are all frozen and their faces are a little blue, but even so, no one dares to leave, and they have been next to each other in the alley.

After seeing Chang Wanchun come out safely, they hurriedly greeted him, and stuffed a very delicate stove into Chang Wanchun's hand by the way, and the others illuminated the ground with lanterns, or stepped forward to support him, surrounded him and turned around and walked towards the warm sedan car parked in the alley.

A little away from the gate for a distance, someone couldn't wait to ask Chang Wanchun: "Old man, what did the emperor say?" Can we pass this level? ”

As someone asked, the others also opened their mouths, and they stared at Chang Wanchun's face tightly, hoping to hear some good news from him.

Although there was a lantern shining ahead, the upper half of Chang Wanchun's face was still hidden in the shadows, and the people around him could not see the old man's expression clearly under the dim light.

Chang Wanchun stopped, and when the people around him were quiet, he replied unhurriedly: "Now that this level has passed, you can all send a message back and tell everyone not to act rashly now, so as not to let people with intentions take advantage of it." Today, the crisis of our families does not lie in the capital, but in the township parties around us.

They know everything about our families, and if they use some means to frame us and involve everyone in the case of collaborating with the enemy, even if the emperor has no intention of pursuing it, he can't say that he wants to make an example of everyone and take everyone's heads as an example..."

Early the next morning, Chongzhen first summoned the civil and military officials on duty in Jizhou City, and after comforting some officials who worked hard, he checked the existing armed forces in Jizhou City.

He visited several units to check their morale, and then decided to let the volunteers who had just arrived in Jizhou and were composed of young men and women from communes in several areas of Shunyi, and the Second Artillery Regiment, which had arrived late due to the change of vehicles, plus a small half of the field hospital in the city, be incorporated into his accompanying troops.

In the afternoon of the same day, after dividing the team into two parts, Zhu Youzhen set off with the front army, which was all cavalry. On the evening of the 24th, Chongzhen arrived in Yutian and arrived at Fengrun on the afternoon of the 25th.

On the way to Fengrun, the news of the defeat of the Ming army on the East Road led by Man Gui finally reached Chongzhen. Chongzhen, who got the news, sat in the carriage and pondered for a long time, and after arriving in Fengrun, he ordered to wait for the arrival of the rear army here, and no longer rushed to Qian'an for the time being.

On the night of arriving in Fengrun, Chongzhen summoned Yang Shaoji, the general soldier of Shandong, and Song Buyun, the deputy general of the coastal defense battalion, who were stationed in Fengrun.

When Zhu Youzhen received the two men as usual and informed them that they would review their troops tomorrow, the two generals finally regained their composure after leaving the emperor's residence.

It was also on this night that Zhu Youzhen asked Lian Shanxiang to select personnel to go to Qian'an as envoys to find out the real situation of the Ming army on the East Road, and to find out whether the generals such as Man Gui and Zhang Chun had withdrawn safely.

On the 26th, Chongzhen inspected the various units of the Ming army stationed in Fengrun outside the city of Fengrun, and announced in public that the Ming army on the east road had suffered a small setback, but he himself would soon go to Qian'an to rectify the military affairs of the Ming army on the east road and resume the offensive situation.

With the large amount of cash Chang Wanchun brought with them, the local merchants and landlords of Fengrun soon sold a large number of grain and livestock. The reward and the guarantee made by the emperor himself quickly restored a lot of morale to the Ming army in Fengrun, and also made many people really think that the Ming army on the East Road had only encountered a small setback, and the Qian'an and Fengrun areas were still very safe.

On the afternoon of the 26th, Jiang Dejing, commander of the Second War Zone, and Tian Ergeng, the supervising judge, also rushed over from Tangshan. After meeting and discussing with the two for more than an hour, Chongzhen convened a small military meeting, at which he made some slight adjustments to the strength of the Second Theater of Operations.

A battalion was transferred to the Fifth Division of the Second Theater, and the Second Battalion and the First Battalion of Shandong soldiers were transferred, and together with the imperial battalion and the rear army that had not yet arrived in Fengrun, it was reorganized into a division, and with the addition of the artillery regiment, it became a large establishment of more than 8,000 people in four regiments.

After naming this division the First Guards Division and appointing Wu Huai as the commander of the Guards Division, Zhu Youzhen left Wu Huai to integrate the Guards Division in Fengrun, while he himself went to Tangshan with Jiang Dejing to inspect the operation of the iron works.

Although Chongzhen asked him to draw a panorama of the iron factory half a year ago, so that he could have a glimpse of the actual situation of the construction of the iron factory, the scene on the picture was still not as shocking as it seemed at the scene.

The blast furnace and various iron processing workshops that stretch for nearly five miles along the river make the place where the iron factory is located seem to be a different world out of the times, but unfortunately because of the arrival of winter, the water level of the river not only gradually drops, but also begins to freeze, so that the work of relying on the waterwheel to push the blast has to be stopped, so the efficiency of the blast furnace smelting is less than one-fifth of that of summer.

Although he could not see the scene of the iron factory being fully operational, the appearance of thousands of workers busy working in the iron factory already gave Zhu Youzhen a sense of accomplishment. After inspecting the iron factory, Zhu Youzhen was about to return, only to find that a strange-shaped appliance had appeared on the edge of an artificial waterway dug along the river.

He couldn't help but ask the steward of the iron factory behind him, "What is the thing erected on the edge of the waterway over there?" ”

The manager of the iron factory standing in the middle of the team squeezed out of the crowd sweating profusely, and said to Chongzhen: "Back to Your Majesty, it is a tool used by several craftsmen from the capital to test.

The most important thing in this blast furnace ironmaking is to supply air, and it is good to use a waterwheel to drive a blower, but the amount of water in this river is often affected by the weather. So we plan to dig an artificial waterway and dig two pools upstream and downstream, so that we can recycle the water regardless of the weather.

However, it is easy to go from the upper pool to the lower pool, but it is a bit troublesome to transport the water from the lower pool back to the upper pool. We've tried to pick up trucks before, but it's too expensive.

Several craftsmen from the capital said that they could use the power of the vacuum to automatically carry the water in the pool below to the pool above, so the villain agreed to give them a try to see how to make this vacuum and automatically suck the water back from the pool below. ”

Zhu Youzhen suddenly changed direction, walked over to the strange-shaped instrument, and asked quite eagerly: "So did they succeed?" ”

The steward of the iron factory gasped and replied while keeping up with Chongzhen's pace: "It should be regarded as a failure, the things they have made can indeed absorb water to a higher level, but they have never been able to lead it back to the pool above, and the coal consumed is great. As a result, the villains have aborted their experiments, ready to dismantle it when they are free. ”

Zhu Youzhen circled around this strange instrument several times and observed it very carefully. Then several craftsmen who were urgently summoned stood beside him and explained to him how the instrument works and what it consists of. Chongzhen's seriousness was even more serious than when he had just listened to the production report of the iron factory, which made the steward in charge of the iron factory a little uneasy, wondering if he had made a mistake in interrupting the experiment.

For Zhu Youzhen, the water-lifting utensils that several craftsmen wanted to make was, as he guessed, an extremely primitive steam engine. However, the design and construction of the steam engine was too rudimentary, so it was inefficient, and the distance to extract water was too long, so they ultimately failed.

Zhu Youzhen did not think much of this kind of failure, and without countless failures, it was obviously impossible to make a practical steam engine. Moreover, these craftsmen only rely on passion and practice to make a new thing that does not exist in the world at all, and they do not understand what a machine called a steam engine is.

Although Chongzhen did not understand the production of steam engines, he was more familiar with the theory of the operation of steam engines than these craftsmen. At least a steam engine must have a piston and a valve he knows, by heating the water to form water vapor, using water vapor to discharge the air, so as to create an environment similar to vacuum, the next is to use atmospheric pressure to push the piston to do work, so as to create a complete pumping cycle work.

The reason why Chongzhen didn't find someone to make this kind of steam engine before was because he felt that those craftsmen didn't know anything about vacuum and steam machinery, and he, a half-knowledged person, was a fool of the world, and it was difficult for these craftsmen to understand the operation principle of the steam engine. This is also the reason why soon after he dared to ascend the throne, he demanded the education of craftsmen in physics and mathematics, and actively promoted compulsory education.

And now that these craftsmen already have a vague impression of the steam engine in their minds, Zhu Youzhen naturally began to instill in them what the real appearance of the steam engine was. So a group of officials who followed the emperor on patrol watched Chongzhen and several craftsmen discuss the failed machine for nearly two hours, and they couldn't even say a word.

Since Chongzhen did not make a mistake in the decision he made in this meeting, even some officials did not dare to raise doubts even if they felt that it was unseemly for the emperor to talk so warmly with several craftsmen. As for Jiang Dejing and other officials who already knew the news of the defeat of the Ming army on the Eastern Road, they still thought that the emperor was doing this to stabilize people's minds and eliminate the impact of the news of the defeat on the workers of the iron factory.

When he left the ironworks and returned to Fengrun, Zhu Youzhen asked Xia Yunyi to stay behind to assist Jiang Dejing in managing the operation of the ironworks, and was mainly responsible for the research and development of steam engines. The interrupted development of the steam engine was resumed, and Chongzhen also asked that the parts of the steam engine be drawn into drawings and handed over to the Wensi Academy, so that the Wensi Academy and the Royal Academy of Sciences could also participate in the research and development of the steam engine.