Chongzhen, who has always been very punctual, appeared in front of the Wenhua Hall after ten minutes of delay today, and Huang Liji and other cabinet ministers carefully looked at the emperor's expression, but did not find any clues.

After Zhu You checked out the door of the Wenhua Palace, he walked to the throne placed on the white marble steps and sat down. After he sat down, he raised his hand and made a gesture, and Wang Chengen, who was behind him, understood and asked the eunuch standing on the side to announce that today's national meeting had officially begun.

Although Zhu Youzhen's people were sitting here, their minds were not focused on the state meeting. Before setting off from the Qianqing Palace, the information from Shenyang that came from Tianjin was finally put in front of him.

Since the establishment of Yingkou, the connection between Liaodong and Tianjin has been much easier and more frequent than in the past. However, Yingkou was a newly built port for trade after all, and there were not many residents in the city, and there were almost no Jurchens. Therefore, if you want to inquire about Houjin's intelligence in Yingkou, you can hardly get useful and timely information.

After several efforts, the Social Investigation Bureau finally cooperated with Amin's cronies and slaves to open a restaurant in Shenyang in March this year to inquire about various internal information in Houjin.

Since Nurhachi's rebellion, there has been a significant decline in agriculture in Liaodong, although the Jianzhou Jurchens relied on the materials plundered by force from the Han people in Liaodong to feed the entire Jurchen clan.

However, with the stabilization of the Guanning defense line, the materials that the Later Jin were able to loot from the Ming Dynasty were far less than in the past, and the policy of befriending the Mongols and plundering the wild Jurchen population to enrich the Jianzhou Jurchen population from the Nurhachi era made the materials consumed by the Later Jin every year show an expanding trend.

When Huang Taiji ascended the throne, he still adhered to the national policy formulated by Nurhachi, but the already backward agriculture in Liaodong and natural disasters made the grain price of Houjin once reach a sky-high price of 8 taels of silver per bucket. In order to maintain the economy of the Later Jin Dynasty from collapsing, when Huang Taiji ascended the throne, he changed Nurhachi's high-pressure policy towards the Han people and changed it to Huairou Han people to restore the economic production of Liaodong.

In addition, Huang Taiji also took this opportunity to order the Han people to live separately from Manchuria. First, the thirteen strong men of the Han people were used as a village, and they were slaved to the Manchu officials. Soon, it became that there were eight people left for each imperial guard, and the rest were organized into civilian households and punished with other tuns, thus eliminating the hidden danger of the continuous expansion of the main power of the Eight Banners.

In terms of commerce, Huang Taiji has strengthened the supervision of foreign trade, on the one hand, to crack down on the smuggling trade in Houjin, and on the other hand, to better control prices. And the grain trade is one of the most strictly regulated industries in the Houjin, and without the permission of the four major Baylors, even if it is a private brewing of wine by the relatives and nobles of Manmeng, it is a very serious crime.

Liaodong was originally a bitter cold place, and seven or eight out of ten Liao people were fond of spirits, and after Houjin ordered a ban on moonshine, the business of restaurants in Shenyang City has been very good. Even Amin was very greedy for the profits, but because he had no source of food and no supply channels for Mingguo's wine, he could only think about it.

After Sihai Trading Company proposed to him that the two sides should cooperate to open a restaurant in Shenyang, Amin agreed without much hesitation. Compared to the high-priced liquor transported from Tianjin to Yingkou by sea boat, it is obviously much cheaper to transport the liquor from Tianjin to Yingkou by sea.

The restaurant has been open for less than 3 months, and all the investment costs have been recouped, and Amin is also very satisfied with the dividends he has received. And the Social Investigation Bureau did hear a lot of news from the restaurant, such as the debate in the Jin Dynasty after June about sending troops to attack Ming or crusading against Lin Dan Khan.

However, the people who went to the restaurant to drink were all middle- and low-level officials among the Jurchens, and although their conversations at the banquet had a lot of valuable information, there were also a lot of false news that they bragged about when they were drunk.

The officials of the Investigation Bureau, who were in charge of intelligence gathering in Shenyang, did not have a headache about how to collect intelligence, but how to draw a correct conclusion from a bunch of different information.

On the other hand, it was inconvenient to travel between Shenyang and Yingkou, and Houjin was still in the rising period of national strength at this time, so the efficiency and ability of officials were higher than those of Ming officials. Nurhachi and Huang Taiji are both accustomed to using secret agents to find out the news of the Ming Dynasty and win over the generals of the Ming army, so they are still quite strict in monitoring the city of Shenyang.

For merchants from the Ming Kingdom, such as the Four Seas Commercial Bank, although they have the idea of wooing, the monitoring of these merchants has never been relaxed. The convoy of liquor from Yingkou to Shenyang every month in the restaurant run by the Social Investigation Bureau has always been under the strictest search.

If it weren't for the fact that the Social Investigation Bureau had always insisted on it, did not take the initiative to hand over the Houjin officials, inquired about the news from the Houjin Dynasty from the side, and used secret language in the transmission of intelligence between Shenyang and Yingkou, I am afraid that this restaurant would have been closed by the Houjin Institute a long time ago.

In the belated intelligence this morning, it was reported that Huang Taiji led a large army out of Shenyang on the first day of October, and it is said that he was going to crusade against the Chahar tribe that had moved westward. After Huang Taiji's army left the city, Shenyang City was blocked for 5 days to prevent the Mongols from leaking news, and it was only because of this information transmission that it would lag behind.

According to the chatter heard by the personnel of the Investigation Bureau in the restaurant, Huang Taiji only selected 20 soldiers or 15 soldiers from each of the Eight Banners Niu Lu this time, and did not carry the Han generals who surrendered to Jin. And with Huang Taiji, in addition to the big Bel Dai Shan and the four Bel Mang Gurtai, there are also Yue Tuo, Zilharang, Haorge and other small Baylor.

Erbel Amin sat in the country, the main force of the Houjin Eight Banners was still there, and the Han army of Jin had not moved after the surrender, so although Huang Taiji sent men and horses to conquer Chahar, the domestic defense was still stable and unshakable, and it was not an object that could be easily attacked.

Since the peace with the Later Jin, the Ming and the Later Jin began to have preliminary contact, and the Ming Dynasty, which was originally ignorant of the Later Jin military system and the domestic situation, finally began to have a vague concept of this savage tribe that rose in Liaodong.

After fighting with the Jurchens for nearly ten years, the Ming monarchs and ministers only knew about the Houjin and a few terms such as Nurhachi and the Eight Banners Army. After the peace with Houjin, after only a year of trade exchanges, the General Staff and cabinet ministers received more information about Houjin than in the past ten years combined. They finally knew that now in addition to a Great Khan in the Houjin country, there are also four major bailes to discuss the government, and the strange system of Shigushan Baylor to govern.

As for the officials of the General Staff and the Ministry of War, they finally don't have to bother to estimate Houjin's military strength from the battle reports of the front-line generals, and those generals' reports have repelled more than 100,000 long-armored soldiers and more than 100,000 short-armored soldiers at every turn, and they are about to describe the Jurchens as demons who scatter beans into soldiers.

According to the report of the Social Investigation Bureau, since Nurhachi created the Eight Banners system, there were 200 cattle records under the name of the Eight Banners, and the total number has reached about 246 today.

Niu Lu was originally a temporary leader set up when the Jurchens sent troops to hunt in Jianzhou, and the Jurchens elected a leader for every ten people to command the Niu Lu to fight or hunt, and the leader of Niu Lu was also called the arrow master.

Nurhachi absorbed the traditional custom of the Jurchens in Jianzhou, and formulated the Eight Banners system of serving as soldiers when leaving and serving as people. He not only expanded the scale of Niulu, but also fixed the position of the leader of Niulu, thus stabilizing the militarized organization of the Jianzhou Jurchens.

And Niu Lu has become the most basic social unit of the Houjin, reclaiming the fields, levying Ding and wearing armor, and paying for service, all of which are calculated by Niu Lu, and the essence of the Eight Banners system is to set up a Niu Lu for every 300 people, five Niu Lu to set up a Jia La, and five Jia La to set up a solid mountain Ezhen. Gushan is the largest unit of Jurchen household registration and military establishment, and the Chinese language is the flag, so it is also called the Eight Banners system.

This kind of strict form of social organization is obviously easier to mobilize human and material resources than the emperor-official-gentry-commoner hierarchy of the Ming Dynasty. In Chongzhen's eyes, if the slavery in the Eight Banners system and the personal vassal relationship between superiors and subordinates are removed, then this is almost the same as the organizational degree of the People's Commune.

The Ming army, whose population was 100 times larger than that of the Later Jin, but was repeatedly defeated by the Jurchens, was not unjustly defeated. Putting aside the command art of the military commanders of the two sides and the comparison of the equipment of the two armies, only in terms of the organization of the army, the Ming army has already lost several streets to the Jurchens. Nurhachi can effectively control every Niu Lu Ezhen of the Eight Banners, but the commander of the Ming army, except for his own family members and cronies, is not in command of non-descendant troops.

In Nurhachi's vision, each Niu Lu was set at 300 people, and when they went into battle, they were organized into a Niu Lu armored soldier according to the ratio of one person drawn from three dings or one person drawn from five dings, led by Niu Lu Ezhen.

However, in the perennial campaign, because of the relationship between the battle damage and the replenishment of Dingkou, the population of Niulu did not approach this perfect state. Moreover, after all, the Jianzhou Jurchen is still in the form of a slave society, and the owner of the Eight Banners is essentially the slave owner of the Eight Banners, and Nurhachi is the largest slave owner.

Since he is a slave owner, he naturally can't give the people and property he has plundered to others to enjoy, even Nurhachi himself has different attitudes towards the Eight Banners. Therefore, the two yellow banners led by Nurhachi are naturally strong and strong, and they are often able to give priority to the distribution of population and wealth, and the size of the cattle under his name often exceeds the standard of 300 people.

As for the two blue flags that are estranged and the two white flags that were established later, not only the population of Niulu often fails to meet the standard, but even the number of Niulu is less than that of each flag.

After Huang Taiji ascended the throne, although he quickly controlled the two white flags, and exchanged them with the original two yellow flags, they became the new two yellow flags. However, the powerful new two white flags soon rallied around the Dorgon brothers to prevent Huang Taiji from continuing to weaken them.

Huang Taiji had to settle for the next best thing, reducing the basic number of Niu Lu to 200 people, and stipulating that each Niu Lu should send 60 soldiers, of which more or less, it was necessary to choose one of the three. Even if he has more than enough armor, he is not allowed to make up for the shortage.

This provision is obviously aimed at the two white flags and the positive red flag, after all, the Houjin has always relied on looting to make a living, and the number of troops sent directly affects the distribution of the spoils of war. If the spoils of war obtained by other flags are the same every time they send troops, then those Eight Banner generals will inevitably be complained by their bannermen.

According to this information, Huang Taiji will not dispatch more than 5,000 armor soldiers from the Eight Banners, and according to the calculation that each armor soldier is equipped with two non-armor soldiers, it is 15,000 people. Most of these unarmored soldiers were slaves or nephews carried by the Jurchens, who were responsible for logistics and miscellaneous work during the war, and were also responsible for transporting the spoils of war to the rear after the war.

In addition to these Eight Banner generals, they are the pro-soldiers and generals around the Jurchen relatives and nobles below Huang Taiji and below, so the strength of the Jurchens' expedition to Chahar, not counting the strength of the Mongol vassal tribes, should be between 15,000 and 20,000.

It stands to reason that it is enough to attack the Chahar Department with such a force, but it is obviously insufficient to attack the Ming Dynasty, which has the defense line of the Great Wall. But Chongzhen still couldn't let go of his heart, as long as Huang Taiji's army did not fight with the Chahars for a day, he always felt that this matter was not over.