Huang Taiji Zhenghu wondered what Chongzhen had come up with such a clumsy counter-plot that could be seen through at a glance. For Chongzhen, everything he does doesn't have a clear purpose.

Whether Huang Taiji will have doubts about Du Du or not, whether he suppressed this matter in order to maintain internal unity, or simply took this opportunity to directly dispose of Du Du, it makes no difference to Zhu Youzhen.

He just wanted to take this opportunity to try to shake Huang Taiji's trust in the other three Baylors, and since Nurhachi raised an army to unify the Jurchen tribes, three fierce infighting broke out within the Jurchens.

The first was the struggle between Nurhachi and his younger brother Shulhaqi, the second was between Nurhachi and his eldest son Chu Ying, and the third was between Nurhachi and the five founding ministers. Of course, there was also an infighting that did not break out, which ended with Dai Shan's retreat.

However, no matter how fierce these struggles were, Nurhachi firmly controlled the scope of the struggle, confined the struggle to the upper echelons of the Jurchens, and did not allow the middle and lower classes of soldiers to intervene.

Because of this, each internal struggle of the Later Jin not only did not excessively weaken the strength of the Jurchens, but because of the further concentration of power after the end of the struggle, the control of the Later Jin Center over the Eight Banners was enhanced.

This limited mode of internal struggle makes the power struggle of Houjin bloody, but after the struggle is over, the victor knows how to stop and restore order in a timely manner, and the loser can admit defeat and resubmit to the new power system.

For the Jurchens, such a power struggle is naturally a good thing, but for the Ming Dynasty, such a struggle is obviously too warm.

The reason why Nurhachi was able to suppress the power struggle and not expand it was because of the Eight Banners he established and the great prestige erected by the unified Jurchen tribes.

However, Huang Taiji did not have absolute control over the Eight Banners troops, nor did he establish the authority to say everything to the Jurchen tribes.

The reason why he was able to suppress dissent within the Later Jin Dynasty and thus maintain the balance within the Later Jin Dynasty was mainly because these Jurchen relatives and nobles had not yet realized that the strongman who had once overwhelmed the Jurchen tribes was no longer there.

Regardless of whether it is Dai Shan or Mang Gurtai, they still follow the old habit of power struggle to think about problems, limit the power struggle to the support of the upper Jurchen relatives and nobles, and do not regard the solution by force as the first means.

Dai Shan, Mang Gurtai, and Amin did not use force with Huang Taiji, but played political struggle with Huang Taiji, which was obviously a short blow to the long. According to the history known to Zhu Youzhen, these three major Baylors, who were prominent for a time and were on an equal footing with Huang Taiji, were easily defeated by Huang Taiji in the form of political struggle within a few years, and they did not even splash a splash.

Now that he knows the outcome of history, Zhu Youzhen hopes to break the mutual trust between Huang Taiji and the other three big Baylors one step ahead of time, and see if there will be any difference in the development of things.

After having Du Du's signature forged on the letter written by Bao Chengxian, and then asking Bao Chengxian to bring it back, whether the letter was handed over to Mang Gurtai in accordance with the instructions or handed over to Huang Taiji in violation of the instructions, it made no difference to Zhu Youzhen.

As for whether Bao Chengxian would secretly destroy this letter, Zhu Youzhen felt that as long as this person was not too stupid, he would not do such a thing as covering his ears and stealing the bell, because he asked Bao Chengxian to write a total of four copies, and even if he destroyed this one, there were still three letters that were not under his control.

If he hadn't handed it over to Mang Gurtai or handed it over to Huang Taiji immediately, if another such letter came out, then both Mang Gurtai and Huang Taiji would have taken him seriously, and it would have become evidence of his crime of spreading rumors about the brotherhood of the Great Baylor.

A smart person like Bao Chengxian, who cares about his own life, will definitely not let himself fall into the worst situation. Either he completely defected to the Ming Dynasty and handed over the letter to Mang Gurtai, and since then he has become the secret spy of the Ming Dynasty in Houjin. Either he handed over the letter to Huang Taiji as soon as possible, so as to gain Huang Taiji's trust in him.

In Zhu Youzhen's opinion, the probability of Bao Chengxian choosing the latter is even higher, after all, a smart person like him, although he is easily driven by power, he also has a very high sense of smell for the comparison of strength.

Compared with the current Ming Dynasty and Houjin, in addition to the larger places, more resources, and more prosperous population, the proportion of resources that can be called is not as good as that of Houjin. Looking at the border army, which is known as the strongest in the Ming Dynasty, is so vulnerable in front of the Houjin army, which ship will smart people choose.

As for Dudu, Nurhachi's eldest grandson is still loyal to the Houjin Kingdom. Although his father died at the hands of his grandfather, and their family was suppressed by other Jurchen relatives for more than ten years, he did not consider taking refuge in the Ming Dynasty.

However, Du Du, who was able to grow up in that environment, although it was because of Nurhachi's protection, his own forbearance skills were still good. Although he is loyal to the Houjin Kingdom, it does not mean that he does not want to live.

He doesn't want to live because he cherishes his life too much, but he seems to be unwilling to die early before his work is done. In front of Jinyiwei, who is good at interrogation, his careful thinking is naturally nothing to hide.

wanted to live, but was unwilling to betray the Houjin State, which made Du Du look very deferential in front of Zhu Youzhen, but he didn't say anything to take refuge in the Ming Dynasty. Because of this, Zhu Youzhen simply used Du Du as a bait and threw it out.

Just after sending Du Du and the other four away, Zhu Youzhen asked people to send another letter to Shenyang, preparing to hand it over to Amin through Song Xiance.

In addition, Zhu Youzhen still has some careful thoughts that are not enough for outsiders. That is, he still wants to see how much energy Huang Taiji can devote to things other than combat.

People's energy is limited, and the more energy they put into one thing, the less energy they put into other things. Even if it's a computer, there's a limit to how much memory you can have.

If Huang Taiji distracted his energy into the infighting with the three major Baylors, then how much energy could he still pay attention to the war with the Ming Dynasty.

After the news of the Battle of Shimen reached Jizhou, whether it was Mao Yuanyi, Cui Chengxiu, who was presiding over the defense of Jizhou, or other civil and military officials in Jizhou City, they were all dumbfounded.

Before this, Chongzhen swore to the officials of the headquarters that this time he was just going to Mashenqiao to take a turn, inspect the defense line in front, and see if there was a chance to enter Shimen eastward.

No one understands how a simple inspection turned into a battle with the garrison of Houjinshimenzhai. It is said that the emperor also went into battle in person, although Zhu Youzhen only sat in the back camp and did not really appear on the battlefield.

But this unexpected battle quickly changed the minds of the civil and military officials of the Command, whether it was Mao Yuanyi, Cui Ningxiu and others, they had to put down the construction task of Jizhou's defense and began to build the railway between Jizhou and Mashenqiao in accordance with the emperor's instructions.

The original idea of using Jizhou City as the front line for the next battle against Houjin was quickly shelved. Although the headquarters and the officials in Jizhou City, most of them still supported this idea.

However, because Chongzhen led the army to defeat the vanguard of Houjin, recaptured Shimen Village, and stationed in Shimen Village. No matter who it was, they didn't dare to mention the idea of letting the emperor withdraw at this moment, stay in Jizhou City, and wait for the Houjin army to withdraw from the Great Wall by itself.

For ordinary soldiers and civilians, this victory dispelled their original panic and anxiety. The hearts of the people in Jizhou City finally settled down, and no one fled in groups.

And the people in the Gyeonggi area are also relieved, they feel that since the emperor has won another victory in his personal conquest, then no matter how ferocious those Houjin Tartars are, they should not be able to enter the Gyeonggi region this time, and they, the little people, can celebrate the New Year at home in peace.

Mao Yuanyi and Cui Chengxiu quickly rushed to Shimen Village with a reinforcement and a large amount of baggage. Relying on the issuance of war bonds, the preparation of war materials proceeded quite smoothly.

The rapid development of shipping and the implementation of water conservancy projects in North China have made the stockpiling of supplies in Tianjin and Tongzhou far exceed the best years in the region. Even Tianjin, which was the most prosperous in the early years of Wanli, was less than one-third of the area of Tianjin at this moment.

After Chongzhen ascended the throne, as the largest port in the north actively supported by the Inner Government, Tianjin is not only an export port for the emerging industries in North China to Japan, Korea, Ryukyu and other places, but also an import port for the above areas plus the ports of South China to import raw materials and native products to North China.

The funds raised by the government from various banks, except for the iron and steel and coal mining industry, were basically invested in Tianjin. Under this massive amount of capital investment, Tianjin is changing almost every day.

And once a huge amount of capital starts to be invested in a region, the effect of capital agglomeration will soon appear. To put it simply, the more money you have, the more capital people are willing to invest.

The growing volume of sea freight is directly proportional to the declining sea freight rates. The more abundant supplies are in Tianjin, the cheaper the prices will be, and the number of urban population gatherings will skyrocket.

In turn, the abundant population has led to the continuous decline of human resource costs, making it easier for various industries in the city to obtain low-cost labor resources, which is also a complementary relationship.

Of course, this kind of urban development beyond the usual speed is also affected by the low transportation constraints and the relatively scattered, closed and narrow markets in various places in the agricultural era. To put it simply, a large number of newly built workshops in Tianjin have the problem that the production speed exceeds the sales speed, and it is difficult to recover the funds.

However, the Jin invasion two years after Chongzhen led the imperial court to issue 5 million yuan of war bonds to support the war. Most of these public bonds flowed into Tianjin, providing liquidity for those newly built workshops and solving the problem of insufficient funds for these workshops.

In a sense, the crisis of the Houjin invasion allowed Daming to eliminate a potential economic crisis event.

And with Mao Yuanyi and Cui Chengxiu, there are some more special characters, such as Xia Yunyi and Zheng Zhihu. Xia Yunyi and the others were packing their luggage, so they couldn't catch up with Chongzhen's army, and when they arrived in Jizhou, they knew that the emperor had gone to the front line, and Xia Yunyi rushed up.

Zheng Zhihu had been arranged to transport a batch of supplies to Lushun, and when he returned to Tianjin, he heard the news of the emperor's personal conquest, so he immediately hurried to Jizhou with a group of subordinates.