Zunhua, the spring and autumn period has no end to the country, and the Beiping County of Yan is also. Nearly 2,000 years ago, this place was already a thriving place, and in the Ming Dynasty, it was called "the first city in the east of Ji".

The north side of Zunhua City is surrounded by the remaining veins of Yanshan Mountain, and the south side is the Shahe River formed by the convergence of several rivers flowing out of Yanshan, which is a typical mountain city near water. Mountains, hills, and plains in the whole Zunhua territory each account for one-third, and it is known that the three mountains are not at the end, and the river flows to the west.

Zhao Shujiao, the chief military officer of Jizhou Town, stood on the north gate tower and looked at the Great Wall in the north, although because the distance was too far, the Great Wall was only a faint white line in his eyes, but several pillars of smoke burned above this white line had already told Zhao Shujiao what happened in those places.

Since the eleventh year of Hongwu, the guard general Zhou Bao nearly doubled the west and north sides of Zunhua City, and built large bricks outside the original earthen wall, Zunhua City became the largest city in the east of Ji. After Meng Chun, the governor of Jiajing in the first year, and Qi Jiguang, the chief military officer of Jizhen in the ninth year of Wanli, repaired Zunhua City twice, this city became a fortress-type city with a circumference of more than 6 miles, a wall base width of about 3 zhang, a city wall height of 36 zhang, and four city gates in the southeast, northwest, and northwest all have the fortress type city of the moon city.

In addition to the majestic city wall, there is a moat outside Zunhua City that is 3 zhang wide, 2 zhang deep, and has a circumference of 1,500 zhang. This moat not only draws the water of the Sand River outside the city, but also the living water from the Wulong Spring in the northeast corner of the city, even if the enemy forces cut off the water of the Sand River, the water of the moat cannot be exhausted.

With this moat, it not only made it more difficult for the besieging side, but also eliminated the possibility of siege in the cave. However, although Zunhua City is known as "the first city in eastern Jidong", the population in the city plus the garrison is only 350,000, and the residents living outside the city are more than double the population in the city.

When Qi Jiguang built Zunhua City more than 30 years ago, he must not have considered that after a long period of peace, this military-based fortress city would become the most prosperous city in eastern Jidong. At this time, Zunhua City, the population living inside and outside the city wall was close to 100,000, the number of civilians was nearly seventy, and the rest were the families of the army of Jizhou Town and the soldiers of Jizhou Town.

Due to the lack of land for construction in the city, the relocated people built their own houses in the open space outside Zunhua City. These densely packed dwellings outside the city not only destroyed the plan set by Qi Jiguang to defend the city, but also provided the invading Houjin army with the materials needed to attack the city.

When Zhao Shujiao was transferred from Liaoxi Town to Jizhou Town, he saw that the city wall of Zunhua City was dilapidated, and the houses under the city were built under the city wall, and the roof was almost equal to the height of the city wall.

This is still a military fortress on the frontier, and it is completely an ordinary civilian city in the interior, and this kind of city defense may not be able to resist Jiannu or robbers.

The first thing Zhao led the sect to arrive in Zunhua City was to write to the imperial court to request that the city be repaired and the army should be reorganized. As the chief soldier of Jizhou Town, his garrison should actually be in Santun Camp instead of Zunhua City. There are not only governors but also soldiers in Zunhua City, and he, the chief soldier of Jizhou Town, was originally speechless about Zunhua's affairs.

It's just that the transfer of Zhao to lead the sect to enter the customs, guard Zunhua City, and rectify the defense of the Great Wall in Jizhou Town was personally suggested by Chongzhen. Therefore, for Zhao Shujiao's request, the civilian officials in Zunhua City, led by the governor, could only pinch their noses and admit it.

Zhao Shujiao was born in Liaoxi Jiangmen, and as soon as he came to Zunhua, he took away a lot of power from Jizhou Town for Zunhua, Santun Camp and the Great Wall garrison, and Zhu Guoyan, the original commander of Santun Battalion, was transferred to Changping, so a general from Jizhou Town was not convinced by the arrival of Zhao Shujiao.

The repair of the city wall of Zunhua City, the demolition of the moat and the houses on both sides of the city wall, and the restoration of various defensive measures formulated by Qi Jiguang back then also made the governor and local county magistrates and other civilian officials very angry. Zhao Shujiao's actions aroused the dissatisfaction of the gentry in the city, and eventually oppressed these civil officials, and they could not reap the benefits from them, so the impeachment of Zhao Shujiao has not stopped for a year.

If it weren't for the fact that the imperial court had directly removed the deputy envoy of Zunhua Bingbeidao, who had called the most advantageous one, and instead of removing this person from his position, he would have revoked the position of Zunhua Bingbeidao, so that the officials in Zunhua City would have been restrained, and Zhao Shujiao felt that he really couldn't do it.

There are more than 10 large and small yamen in Zunhua City, including the Metropolitan Procuratorate Office, the Shuntian Governor's Office, the General Town Administration, the Deputy General Town Administration, the Surveillance Administration, the Zunhua Provincial Administration, the Military Garrison Road Administration, the Guerrilla Office, the Transportation and Salary Judgment Office, the Supervision and Remuneration Office, the Left Camp Office, the Right Camp Office, the Baggage Camp Office, the Garrison Office Office, Zunhua Station, Wuxue, etc.

It's really a small sparrow, but it has all kinds of organs. However, the military strength in the city was not much before, and the permanent military strength was 1 general soldier, 1 deputy marshal, 2 generals, 1 guerrilla officer, 2 garrisons, 1 capital division, 2 thousand generals, 2 generals, 100 horsemen, and 1,342 infantry.

For Zunhua City, which has not been in battle for many years, this number of troops is enough. But for Zhao Shujiao, who retreated from the battlefield in Liaodong, this was obviously far from enough.

Although Zhao Shujiao, who is over 60 years old, is a native of Hebei, he has spent the first half of his life dealing with the Mongols on the northwest border. After Nurhachi raised his troops, he was transferred to the Liaodong Army. After less than ten years of fighting with the Later Jin, he had already realized that the greatest enemy of the Ming army was no longer the Mongols, but these Liaodong Jiannu.

As the rear of Liaoxi Town, Jizhou Town has not encountered the war, so it has preserved the strength of the army. However, in Zhao Shujiao's view, the Ming Kingdom and Houjin fought for almost 10 years, but these soldiers in Jizhou Town had no sense of crisis at all, and still felt that their peaceful life could go on forever.

The generals of Jizhou Town are either good at making big statements, or they are greedy for money, blindly deducting military salaries, and driving the sergeants under their command to work for their own agricultural benefits. The generals of Liaoxi withheld their military salaries, and at least they knew how to raise some family members to protect their own lives.

However, these generals of Jizhou Town were greedy for money, but they either bought properties or bribed those civil officials, wanting to seek a lucrative official position. If one day, Houjin appeared outside the defense line of Jizhou Town, Zhao Shujiao felt that he could not count on these officers and soldiers of Jizhou Town at all.

Later, Jin sent troops from Liaodong to break through the pass, in addition to taking the coastal road in western Liaoning, it may not be impossible to take a detour from the west of the Great Wall in western Liaoning. Even in order to save his own life, Zhao Shujiao felt that he could not go down with the officials of Zunhua City and Jizhou Town.

What's more, the geographical location of Zunhua City is dangerous, more than 250 miles to the west is Beijing, about 150 miles to the south is Tangshan, 350 miles to the southwest can reach Tianjin, and 300 miles to the southeast is Qinhuangdao. If they occupy this place, Houjin will be equivalent to grasping the initiative on the battlefield, and no matter which direction Houjin attacks, it will make the Ming army uncomfortable.

Beijing is the imperial capital must not be lost, and even the approach of the Jin soldiers to Beijing is an extremely serious political event. And Qinhuangdao is now a transshipment port for supplies to Liaoxi Town, and then cut off the supply of Liaoxi Town, it is difficult to guarantee that there will not be a bad situation in which Houjin North and South will attack Liaoxi Town.

Tangshan is now the largest coal and iron smelting center in the north of Daming, with a daily output of more than 300 tons of iron and nearly 1 and a half tons of crucible steel. If Houjin is allowed to capture Tangshan, not only will tens of millions of investments be wiped out, but the entire economy of Beizhili will also suffer a heavy setback. However, there are rivers and mountains separated from Zunhua to the south, and it is difficult for the brigade to pass, and Tangshan has just emerged after all, and Houjin may not know about this area.

As for Tongzhou and Tianjin, they are the storage places of the capital, and once the Houjin breaks through these two areas, then basically the essence of Beizhili will be destroyed.

Therefore, if the Great Wall is the first line of defense in Gyeonggi, then Zunhwa City is the second line of defense in Gyeonggi, and it is still the most important line of defense.

Because of the emperor's strong support, Zhao Shujiao was finally able to rely on the people and horses he brought from Liaoxi to reorganize more than 15,000 troops. In addition to repairing the walls of Zunhua City and restoring the fortifications of Zunhua, he also built three Western-style fortresses in the east, northeast and west of the city as the outer barrier of Zunhua City and used to garrison the army.

However, when the news of the Houjin invasion came, these three Western-style fortresses were only enough to complete 2, and the other only laid a foundation. And the two bastions that have been completed are only one-third of the artillery that should be equipped.

However, what made Zhao Shujiao feel fortunate was that at least in the relatively open east of Zunhua City, there were two fortresses that supported each other, and according to his estimation of Jiannu's siege technology, it would not take 2 or 3 months, and Houjin would not be able to take these two fortresses.

There were 3,000 people stationed in the two fortresses outside the city, and nearly 4,000 people were stationed in the city, and there were nearly 3,000 people in the Jizhou army that he drove to the Santun camp, and more than 1,000 people in the Qian'an city, and the rest of the troops were scattered in the various passes along the Great Wall and the various fortresses near the passes.

In fact, when he received the news of the invasion of the border by the Houjin army sent back by Jinyiwei, Zhao Shujiao strongly advocated that the people and baggage on the front line should be withdrawn to Zunhua City first, and if the Great Wall defense line could not be held, then the troops in front should be withdrawn to Zunhua and Santunying, and then rely on the city to hold on.

The Houjin army will inevitably not be able to fight a protracted war if it is attacked from a long distance, and once the army is short of food, it will inevitably have to retreat. At that time, the Ming army will naturally be able to easily regain the lost territory. However, the governor of Zunhua and several generals of Jizhou Town opposed his suggestion, believing that he was afraid of the enemy like a tiger and wanted to give up the country without a battle.

But now looking at the several pillars of smoke burning on the Great Wall, Zhao Shujiao finally felt regretful, he should have held on a little longer, with these 3,000 mobile troops in his hands, Zunhua City would be more stable. Scattering them to the various passes of the Great Wall now won't be of much use at all.