After discussing with the cabinet ministers issues such as preparing war expenses, evacuating the people in the war zone, imposing wartime control on the area north of the Gyeonggi region, and controlling prices in the North Zhili area.

Zhu Youzhen looked at the ministers who still had some six gods and no masters, and said: "From today on, the first task facing the imperial court is to drive the Houjin army out of the customs and restore peace and stability in the Beizhili region.

All the work of the Cabinet must be carried out around this goal, and any work that contradicts this goal will be suspended or postponed.

I will also focus entirely on the work of fighting Houjin in a short period of time, and other daily affairs will be handled by the cabinet without the need for me to discuss.

In addition, in order to ensure social stability in the Beizhili region, all news and remarks about the war should be subject to the reports published by the Daming Times, and anyone who dares to spread rumors should be arrested and interrogated on the charge of collaborating with the enemy.

If the court officials and local clans are involved, they will be severely punished. Do you have any comments? ”

Huang Liji almost immediately agreed with the emperor's proposal to control public opinion, and as the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, he could already expect someone to attack him in the war of the Later Jin invasion.

Rather than allowing these people to disturb the attention of the imperial court in the absence of a clear war situation, it is better to suppress speech until the end of this war.

Although Jizhou Town, which is now blocking the Houjin army, underwent army training under the auspices of Wang Zaijin last year, Huang Liji has no confidence in whether Jizhou Town can block the Houjin army.

Jizhou Town, under the leadership of Qi Jiguang, was the first male soldier in the Nine Sides, but decades have passed, and this army, like the Ming Army in Liaodong, has completely decayed. What worries him even more is that the Ming army in Liaodong has finally been able to hold the city after several failures, but Jizhou Town, which has not experienced a war for more than ten years, has no bottom in everyone's hearts.

Once the Houjin army breaks through and enters and hits the city of Beijing, then he, the first assistant, will be considered to have done his job. What is most worrying is that the water conservancy and industrial construction that has been invested tens of millions of yuan in the past two years from Gyeonggi to Tianjin will be completely destroyed by Houjin before it has brought into full play its benefits.

With the current economic situation of Daming, once this investment is lost, Huang Liji doesn't know what he should do. Most of the construction funds come from the issuance of public bonds to the private sector.

If he can't get the benefits, he really can't think of what the cabinet will have to pay the principal and interest. Most of the buyers of these public bonds are the gentry and common people of Beizhili, and once they cannot pay these public debts, the imperial court will immediately lose the hearts of the people of Beizhili.

Once this worst situation happens, he, the head of the cabinet, will obviously have to shoulder all the responsibility. Huang Liji only thought for a moment and realized that if he could survive until the end of the war and recover a little loss, he would at least be able to maintain a little reputation.

But if he is impeached and removed from office before the end of the war, then he will not only lose all prestige, but will also become the most responsible person for this war. How to choose between a bad outcome and a very bad outcome, Huang Liji seems to be very decisive.

With the support of Shoufu Huang Liji at the first time, Chongzhen's proposal was immediately accepted by the cabinet. At this critical moment, this group of scholars and doctors who have no opinions are easily attracted to those who have opinions.

The smaller size of the cabinet also allows them to reach a compromise more quickly than at the court meeting. After all, in such a small circle, everyone has much less scruples.

After getting the support he wanted, Zhu Youzhen decided to appease these restless cabinet ministers, and he said in a calmer tone: "Gentlemen, don't be too nervous, this detour invasion of Houjin is not all bad in my opinion.

At least we can confirm two things, the first is that the Guanning defense line is still effective, at least the Houjin army had to avoid the Guanning defense line and make a detour to attack the Guannai area.

The second is to prove that the political situation in the country of Houjin is obviously not optimistic, otherwise Huang Taiji, the new Great Khan, would not have led troops to attack continuously.

Last year, Huang Taiji personally led the army to sweep away the remaining tribes of Chahar, and this year he personally led the troops to make a detour to attack our Daming. It can be seen that he is not sitting firmly in the position of Great Khan, otherwise he would not have to be in such a hurry to prove himself with military exploits.

Therefore, as long as we can thwart this attack of Houjin, some changes will inevitably occur in Houjin's domestic area in our favor, which is a good thing for us, so you don't need to worry too much about the outcome of the war now. ”

Although the cabinet ministers did not believe Chongzhen's words, they regained their composure one after another. These important officials of the court were obviously unwilling to show their weak side in front of the young emperor.

After casually saying a few polite words, Zhu Youzhen withdrew from the cabinet meeting ahead of schedule, which was the first time in two years. However, Huang Liji and the others did not object, obviously they knew what the emperor was going to do after he left here.

When Zhu Youzhen rushed to the Wuying Hall with a few chamberlains, Sun Chengzong and other officials of the General Staff and several commanders of Jinyiwei were already waiting here.

Zhu Youzhen, who came in a hurry, nodded to the officials who were standing outside the hall to greet him, and then walked into the conference room in the main hall of the Wuying Palace.

Sun Chengzong and other officials of the General Staff, as well as several commanders of Jinyiwei, a total of more than 20 people, were then summoned into the conference room to take their seats.

Before everyone sat down, Zhu Youzhen had already spoken: "Zhang Shijie, you first tell you about the information collected by Jinyiwei about the Houjin army this time, and then everyone will start to discuss the plan to deal with it." ”

Zhang Shijie, who was acting for Jinyiwei's affairs, immediately stood up after Chongzhen's roll call and retold the information collected by Jinyiwei one by one. Most of the General Staff officers present here had already read it before, and the information transmitted by Jin Yiwei seemed a little trivial under the intermittent situation.

Now Jin Yiwei sorted out all the information at hand, and then reported it all at once, which gave them a clearer impression of Hou Jin's plan to send troops.

However, after all, it is inconvenient to communicate between Shenyang and Beijing, and it is very difficult for Jinyiwei to collect intelligence in Shenyang, so the content of this information is still relatively vague.

After listening to this, everyone can only know that Huang Taiji took nearly 20,000 horses from Shenyang in the name of going to the Mongolian Chahar Department at the beginning of the month.

Then 3 days ago, he suddenly appeared in Qingcheng, Karaqin Department, not only nearly 10,000 more people, but also changed the goal of the expedition to my Daming. According to the distance from Qingcheng in the Karaqin Department to the Great Wall passes in the Xifengkou area, that is, we will attack all the passes of the Great Wall in the next two or three days.

As soon as Zhang Shijie's words stopped, someone said in disbelief: "The 36th Department of the Closed Gate was still asking for help from my Daming because of the disaster last year, how dare they collude with Jiannu?"

Huang Taiji sent 30,000 troops, how could the 36 departments of the closed gate afford the food and grass of such an army? Could it be that they even brought grain and grass from Liaodong? ”

Wednesday Wei immediately retorted: "It is impossible for them to transport so much grain and grass from Liaodong, the distance from Shenyang to Xifengkou is more than 1,300 or 400 miles, and most of the mountain roads in the middle are difficult to travel, and if you want to transport a stone of grain from Shenyang to Xifengkou, you need to spend 1-2 stone of freight."

When going to war, the soldiers will receive eight and three spoons of rations per day, 8 liters of horses and 1 bunch of grass (15 catties) per day. Based on 30,000 horses, it is 2,649 stones of grain and 30,000 bundles of grass every day. The march in one month was more than 79,000 stones, grain and 900,000 bundles of grass.

Even if this grass can be harvested on the march every day, this is nearly 80,000 stone of grain per month, not including freight, so how can Houjin afford it?

Because the Chahar tribe moved westward, a large number of Mongols in Liaodong defected to Houjin, and now they are not even short of domestic food? Unless someone buys food from the Guannai for Houjin to finance the enemy. ”

Wednesday's words shocked his colleagues at first, but they soon felt that only this inference made the most sense. After all, Jiannu is not an immortal, and he can't carry hundreds of thousands of stones of grain and grass over out of thin air.

Moreover, transporting grain from Liaodong is not only costly, but also quite delayed in time. After all, no matter what the country's army is, it can't do it now, and the speed of baggage transportation is average to the speed of the same army.

If this army only had food and grass to carry with them, then they should not have much to provide for now. Even now, it will be quite difficult to go back to Liaodong.

However, if someone is an enemy and buys a batch of grain reserves for Houjin outside the customs, it can be a good explanation why Huang Taiji dared to take the risk of detouring through the Great Wall on the first line of Xifengkou and breaking through.

Correspondingly, the General Staff could not simply consider that the Houjin Army wanted to retreat after plundering in the Zunhua area. A Houjin army with enough military rations will have great autonomy in strategic choices.

If they were allowed to open Zunhua City, it would be equivalent to letting Houjin find a way south to bypass Shanhaiguan. This is obviously not something that the Ming generals sitting here can accept.

Wednesday Wei and other staff officers immediately proposed that the first task at present is to find this possible channel for transporting grain to Houjin. After all, since these people could provide food to Houjin, they could also reveal the truth about the interior to Houjin, so as to point out a way for Houjin to attack southward.

Zhu Youzhen nodded and accepted the speculation of these staff officers, and replied: "I have ordered Jinyiwei to investigate the mouths of the Great Wall last year, and according to Jinyiwei's investigation, the areas most likely to transport grain out of the border to the enemy are the Guangning border wall in western Liaoning, and the other is Zhangjiakou in Xuanfu.

Other areas are either too small to be transported or too far away to meet the maximum benefits that traders are looking for in selling food.

Now that the problem of the Houjin invasion has arisen, the problem of smuggling grain to the enemy at the border will be solved in time..."