The Dule Temple near the west gate of Jizhou was built in the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, An Lushan rebelled against the Tang Dynasty and swore here, it is said that it got the name of the temple because of its "thinking alone and not enjoying with the people".

In the Song and Liao periods, this temple was greatly expanded, and became a huge temple covering an area of more than 20 acres and divided into three roads: east, middle and west. Hundreds of years later, in the Ming Dynasty, the buildings in various parts of the temple were dilapidated, and it was difficult for the monks in the temple to live and worship the Buddha. So in the 25th year of Wanli, the temple host said that he moved the Jinshi King Yu Majesty, who came to Jizhou to supervise the salary, and carried out a large-scale renovation of the Dule Temple.

More than 30 years later, the exterior of the temple building is somewhat faded, but it is still very strong. Jizhou City was originally a small city, and after the Jin Dynasty committed the border, most of the big families who fled from Zunhua and other places rested in Jizhou City. Therefore, when Mao Yuanyi, Zuo Liangyu and others arrived in Jizhou City, there was no place in the city for a while.

Mao Yuanyi ordered the requisition of the west courtyard of Dule Temple as the station of the wartime base camp. Originally, it was a place for monks and pilgrims to worship the Buddha, and the area was so large that it was suitable for settling down with the various institutions under the base camp.

The monks who used to live here, some pilgrims, and refugees can now only squeeze into the eastern courtyard. Although they were robbed of their homes, these people knew the seriousness and did not complain. After all, these military attaches from the capital live in the city, and this Jizhou City can be regarded as a guarantee.

Today, in the west side hall of the West Courtyard, an emergency meeting is being held. Jiang Dejing, the minister of water resources who supervised the construction of the Jizhou River Reservoir in Jizhou, saw that the Jizhou defense line was almost completed, so he asked for the transfer of an army and part of the newly formed Jizhou militia to Tangshan for defense.

The Jizhou gentry led by Cui Chengxiu and Cui Ningxiu categorically rejected this rude request, so Jiang Dejing found Mao Yuanyi, the person in charge of the wartime base camp in Jizhou, and asked him to directly transfer manpower to himself.

Jiang Dejing's reason is very sufficient, since the Jizhou defense line is about to be built, and the reinforcements of the capital have arrived, the army inside and outside Jizhou City has reached tens of thousands, and the number of temporarily formed militia groups is also close to tens of thousands, and Jizhou City can be regarded as worry-free.

Tangshan, as an emerging coal and iron smelting center, is now only defended by hundreds of guards. The combat effectiveness of the guards is estimated to be not as high as that of the Jizhou militia. The iron and steel mills built by the imperial court and local gentry with millions of yuan invested in Tangshan could not be easily destroyed by Jiannu.

Mao Yuanyi also felt that this reason was sufficient, and an army should be sent to help defend Tangshan. However, when he convened the Jizhou gentry to discuss, Cui Ningxiu, who led the Jizhou militia group, immediately singled out and objected: "Jiang Shangshu's words will be inappropriate in the end.

Tangshan belongs to Kaiping Zhongtunwei, according to my Ming military system, a guard has 5,600 soldiers, how can there be only a few hundred? Jiang Shangshu didn't want to be deceived by others and be coaxed to transfer the defenders of Jizhou City.

Now Jizhou City is the first to bear the brunt of Jiannu's westward advance, and now no matter how many soldiers and horses are not enough, how can it still be transferred out. And between Tangshan and Zunhua, there is still a Fengrun County in the way. According to the order of the imperial court, Fengrun, Qian'an, Yongping, and Funing should be assigned to Liaoxi Town to send troops for defense, even if Jiang Shangshu wants to transfer manpower, he should also transfer manpower from Liaoxi Town, how can he transfer my Jizhou people?

What's more, the Jizhou People's League was built to protect the countryside, so that these villagers can protect Jizhou. If they were to leave their hometowns, they would think that once they left the Jizhou area, these militia groups would flee and return home. Although Jiang Shangshu's idea is good, it is unrealistic. ”

Jiang Dejing immediately retorted: "According to my Ming military system, Yiwei has 5,600 soldiers, but how many actual soldiers are there, you also served as the deputy chief soldier of Jizhen, don't you still know the truth?" Is there really more than 10,000 actual soldiers in this city?

Liaoxi Town has to defend Fengrun, Qian'an, Yongping, and Funing, and also prepare to organize people and horses to rescue Santun Camp and Zunhua City, how can there still be so many troops to help defend Tangshan? The number demanded by this official is only 1,000 officers and soldiers, and 2,000 regiments are trained, how can it affect the overall situation of Jizhou's defense? ”

Cui Ningxiu said without any concessions: "The commanders of Yingzhou Wei and Jizhou Wei have no way to govern the army, which does not mean that the same is true for the commanders of Kaipingwei. Maybe the commander of Kaipingwei will make the public loyal to the country and not eat the empty salary of the army? Jiang Shangshu can't wronged a good person in vain. ”

"You!" Jiang Dejing finally couldn't help but slap on the coffee table next to him and knocked over a few tea cups. The sergeant who was waiting on the side hurriedly trotted over to clean up the overturned tea cup, and by the way, he made a cup of tea again for the speechless Jiang Shangshu who was squeezed out.

Cui Ningxiu didn't care about Jiang Dejing's anger, as soon as he came to Jizhou, it was their Cui family's home field, and if the imperial court wanted to fight a defensive war here, it would inevitably have the support of the Cui family; Second, the filial piety period of the elder brother from the family is also almost over, and the DPRK and the central government have no definite conclusion on the case of Gonggong Wei and his brother forming a party and disrupting the government. Therefore, the elder brother is not without a chance to recover, with his brother as the backing, he feels that he can carry this Jiang Shangshu, who originally didn't care about military affairs.

What's more, now the local gentry are afraid of Jiannu's westward advance, and they can't wait to transfer all the Ming army's troops to Jizhou, where will they agree with Jiang Dejing's idea of transferring soldiers and horses from Jizhou.

The most important thing is that when Jiang Dejing supervised the repair of the Zhou River Reservoir, he refused to double the compensation for the Cui family's submerged land in the plain of the upper valley of the Zhou River. This made the Cui brothers very dissatisfied with Jiang Dejing, and they were willing to sell face to him.

Mao Yuanyi is also very troubled by the current situation, although he agrees with Jiang Dejing's proposition, but now the wartime base camp needs the support of the Jizhou gentry, without the support of these local gentry, if you want to fully mobilize local manpower and material resources to prepare for war, it will definitely be half the effort.

What's more, although he is now the host of the wartime base camp in Jizhou City, he is not a civil official on the right path after all. Whether it was Jiang Dejing, who managed the affairs of the Ministry of Water Resources with the title of secretary of the Ministry of Industry, or Cui Chengxiu, the former secretary of the Ministry of War who guarded filial piety at home, he did not have enough confidence to pressure the two to back down.

Jiang Dejing, who was politically inclined to the Donglin Party, was not used to the Cui brothers, and vice versa. At this moment, Mao Yuanyi hoped that the emperor could arrive as soon as possible, and according to the time, the emperor should be about to arrive in Jizhou at this time.

When Mao Yuanyi was remembering Chongzhen, Zhu Youzhen had arrived about 2 miles west of Jizhou City with 150 imperial horse soldiers and 15 reserve non-commissioned officers.

After leaving Beijing on the morning of 5 November, after leaving the camp with the army, Zhu Youzhen selected a small group of men and horses to go on his own, and handed over the army to Wu Huai and Shi Hongmo to command.

After leaving Sifang City, Zhu Youzhen seemed to be a different person, and he was no longer as forward-looking and backward as he was in the capital, and he was careful every step of the way.

And in this army, the accompanying civil and military generals were all hand-picked up by Chongzhen, and important ministers of the court such as Sun Chengzong and Huang Liji did not carry any of them.

After leaving the capital, naturally no one in the army could restrain this great tomorrow. Wu Huai had the intention to leave the army behind and escort Chongzhen to Jizhou City, but he was no longer the partial general, but the chief general of a cavalry division, and he couldn't leave his own troops at all.

Therefore, Wu Huai and Shi Hongmo could only watch with anxiety as the emperor left the army with a small group of cavalry. But then they ordered the sergeants to speed up their march in an attempt to keep up with the emperor as quickly as possible.

From Beijing to Jizhou City, it is about 200 miles by the official road of Shunyi and Sanhe, and if it is a messenger who transmits military information, it can be reached within two days. According to the marching regulations of the General Staff, a daily march is 40 li a day, a wartime march is 60 li a day, and a rapid march is 80 li a day.

According to the original plan, this army would advance at a slightly slower pace than the wartime march, departing on November 5 and arriving at Jizhou City by November 9.

But now, Wu Huai and Shi Hongmo convened their subordinates to discuss, and decided to hand over the heavy baggage to the railway transportation, such as the artillery regiment's artillery and other equipment. After abandoning these cumbersome baggage, the army marched at a speed of 70 miles a day and arrived at Jizhou City one day ahead of schedule.

Chongzhen, who was separated from the team, didn't know this, and he was naturally much faster than the team of cavalry on the road.

However, Chongzhen stayed for a while in Shunyi and Sanhe counties, and during his stay in the two counties, he mainly inspected the local city defenses, talked with the local county officials, gentry and common people, and inspected the camps used to house fugitive refugees.

Mr. Zhu didn't know if such an action would have an effect, but he felt he should do it. In his own opinion, the main role of the Son of Heaven is to appease the people and motivate morale, after all, he is not an immediate emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang, and he is not familiar with the wars of this era.

Zhu Youzhen is very self-aware, if he talks on paper, with the experience of later generations, he may be able to overwhelm the most outstanding generals of this era. But if he really wants to go into battle, maybe he is not as old as a soldier in the army.

Since his main role was to appease the people and boost morale, it was natural that he should meet more soldiers and civilians along the way, so that they could rest assured and not rush around and run around, causing panic in the Gyeonggi area.

After seeing the tower of the west gate of Jizhou City, Zhu Youzhen asked Lian Shanxiang to order someone to raise the Yellow Dragon Banner on behalf of the Ming Emperor.

On the official road leading from Jizhou City to Sanhe, groups of people with children and girls walked in groups, carrying a little softness with them, trying to escape to the vicinity of the capital. In the simple thoughts of these ordinary people, they may feel that only the feet of the Son of Heaven will have a sense of security.

When Chongzhen's team of men and horses erected the Yellow Dragon Banner representing the Son of Heaven and slowly walked towards Jizhou City, these people's originally somewhat numb expressions finally changed a little.

Chongzhen did not send people to stop these people from turning back, nor did he expel them from the official road, but sent several knights to announce to these people that there were camps for refugees in Sanhe and Shunyi, and told them what department to turn to for help when they encountered difficulties.

These people were originally deeply wary of the army, and when they saw this group of cavalry advancing on the official road, they would subconsciously avoid a certain distance.

But after the Yellow Dragon Banner representing the emperor was erected and it was determined that the young man who was guarding the army was indeed the Ming Emperor, many people turned around and followed the emperor one after another, and returned to Jizhou City, where they wanted to flee.