In November of the fourth year of the liberation, the city of Cullen.

This famous city is a passage connecting China and Russia. After the signing of the Treaty of Nebuchu between China and Russia during the Kangxi period, the two countries began to trade with each other in the trading city of northern Khalkha Mongolia, which also made Kulen, the ruling center of Khalkha Mongolia not far from the trading city, prosperous. Merchants from Shanxi opened countless businesses in Kulun. Mongolian livestock, tea bricks, ironware, and salt from the Central Plains, Russian furs, and foreign goods all gather here.

As Yi Xin and some of the Eight Banners moved from Manchuria, the whole city became crowded and noisy, with people of various nationalities staggering. Fleets of camels, caravans of horses and chariots kept passing through the city. The wooden wheels wrapped in iron rings crushed the sparks on the stone slabs of the streets. The children of the Eight Banners have long since lost the sense of superiority and leisurely life unique to the people of their ancestors, and although they are still wearing shabby robes and horse coats, they have already done the work that only coolies in short shirts do. Carrying sedan chairs, driving big cars, carrying big bags, slaughtering cattle and sheep, building houses, in short, the hardest and most tiring work in Kulun City has been taken over by the children of the Eight Banners, and many of them are yellow and red belts! There are even some sturdy flag women doing this kind of hard work!

Of course, not every child of the Eight Banners has the strength to sell, so the city now has two more "specialties", one is the beggars, wearing the most tattered clothes, wearing the streets and alleys, some are still missing arms and legs, and some are too old to do the strength work; The second is prostitutes, although there are such women who live by selling their skin and flesh in every city in the Ming Dynasty, but the cheapest price for selling their bodies is probably only Kulun - this is a matter of course, because the ratio of men and women in Kulun City is out of balance. There are several times more young women than men. And in addition to the merchants who come and go. No one has spare money in his pocket to prostitute. So these once delicate and expensive Eight Banner ladies. What I want to hear most now is a sour Shanxi dialect, because only these Shanxi businessmen who run out of their mouths to buy and sell will spend a few big copper yuan on them to have fun.

In addition to coolies, beggars, and prostitutes, another major occupation of the bannermen in Kulen was to be soldiers. Bohai Gong Yixin used almost all his financial resources to maintain the army, and the Eight Banners in tattered coats filled almost every corner of the city, carrying foreign guns without bullets, lazily patrolling.

The whole city, at the same time is full of decadence and energy.

There were several red-robed officials standing at the east gate of the city, and they were all from the Bohai Prison Mansion of the Ming Dynasty. The Bohai Prison State Government set up yamen in Changchun, Ningguta, and Kulun. Before Zeng Guofan left Changchun, he sent a fast horse to report to the officials of the Kulun Yamen. The officials of the Kulun Yamen knew that the Great Eunuch of the Dao Dao was supposed to arrive in a few days, so they sent people to wait for the Eunuch at the East Gate of Kulun every day.

Several officials were looking out with their hands probed their heads, and suddenly one of them shouted loudly: "Look, it's Lord Zeng's convoy here!" ”

A shout beckoned the surrounding beggars and Eight Banner soldiers to surround them, and sure enough, a team of carriages and horses meandered outside the east gate. The sun and moon of the Ming Dynasty and the Hui flag and a Zeng character flag were played at the same time. Walking in front were several cavalrymen, not the kind of heavy cavalrymen in cuirass, carrying pikes, but with cheap smoothbore guns on their backs. "Dragoons" with sabers on their shoulders and on dwarf Mongolian horses. The Ming army called them "chasers".

These cavalrymen are all military households in Liaodong Town, most of them moved from Lianghuai and Shandong, their families farmed in the south of Liaodong Town, and they were soldiers in Liaodong Town, but they could ask for leave to go back to help farmers when they were busy farming. Such soldiers, of course, could not be compared with the soldiers of the front-line field army, but they were extremely numerous, and now there were 150,000 military households under Liaodong Town, so there were 150,000 garrison troops—and the same as the immigrants from the collective farms, these military households were also highly organized; The difference is that they have to leave their families for many years to serve, so they cannot be placed close to the frontier.

The collective farm, on the other hand, is a fortress that combines farming and warfare, and relying on the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners Brigade, it is impossible to defeat a Zhuangzi with 200 foreign guns without dispatching an army of two or three thousand people.

There are also no less than 150,000 collective farm immigrants who have settled in Liaodong Town, close to the frontier, and each family is equipped with foreign guns. Therefore, as long as Liaodong Town gives an order, there will be 300,000 foreign guns that can be put into battle!

Moreover, under the Bohai Prison Mansion, there are nearly 100,000 armed soldiers Ding Zhuang, and there are 100,000 field troops under the Liaodong Army. In other words, now the Ming Dynasty's armed forces in the Northeast have reached 500,000 people!

It is precisely because of such military support that Zeng Guofan dared to come to Kulun without fear. If Yi Xin really dared to act rashly, without Emperor Zhu transferring troops from the south, only 500,000 "gunmen" in the northeast would be able to level the Mongolian steppe.

The people at the gate of the city gathered more and more, and watched the chariots and horses gradually approach. Several Eight Banner soldiers cursed in their mouths.

"What a great traitor, the Qing Dynasty is bad for a traitor like him......"

"If he dares to come to Kulun, he is not afraid that Tiande Ye will give him an order to kill him?"

"Let's say a few words, now the Han people are strong and strong, and there are 500,000 troops in Manchuria alone, how many of our Eight Banners are left? Is it really going to be extinct? ”

Just when these Eight Banners were scolding, several Mongols who seemed to be hanging out at the east gate of Kulun spread their children at the same time and ran to several magnificent Khan palaces and temples in the city.

Zeng Guofan was sitting in his carriage, leaning in front of the window, quietly looking at a few pages in the sunlight. A white-faced scholar in a fur robe and a scarf sat across from him, half-squinting as if dozing off. The carriage came to a sudden stop, and the scholar sitting in the carriage was pushed forward by inertia and woke up.

The scholar wiped the moisture from the car window, looked out, and then said to Zeng Guofan: "Di Weng, Cullen has arrived." ”

"Wat Ting, do you want to enter the city now?" Zeng Guofan put away the few pages in his hand—it was a letter of greeting from the Khan King of the Khalkha Mongol Khanate to Zeng Guofan, which was delivered to Zeng Guofan's convoy by the Mongols' fast horse yesterday.

"Diweng, wait a minute, someone will come out to greet you." The man named "Wat Ting" said quite confidently. He is a staff member of Zeng Guofan, and the official worships the commercial supervisor of the Bohai Supervisor, named Li Yuandu, and is naturally also a native of Hunan. The so-called commercial supervision is similar to the later director of the Bureau of Industry and Commerce, but Li Yuandu's main job is not to manage industry and commerce, but to liaise with the four Khalkha Mongolian khanates. I ran on the Mongolian steppe for almost a year, and I met with the nobles of Khalkha Mongolia.

Zeng Guofan looked at Li Yuandu: "This is a problem for Gong Lao Liu, it's not kind." ”

Li Yuandu smiled, and hurriedly said: "Gong Liu should set up his own position, so that he can protect himself and hundreds of thousands of Eight Banner people." ”

"Oh? If Gong Liu doesn't come, how can I step down? ”

"If Gong Lao Liu does not come, Tushetu Khan Chelin Dorji will come, Chechen Khan Artashda will come, Saiyin Noyan Khan's son Demutsui will come, Zasaktu Khan Chelin Duandob will also come, and the guru of Jebtsundamba will also come. They had already received the news that Dion was going to Kulen, and now they must have been waiting in Kulen for a long time with gifts and the most beautiful woman among their Khans. ”

"Wat Ting, do you really think that the four Khalkha Mongolian khans are so?"

"Do you need to ask? Di Weng Qing Court has been an official for many years, so he won't even know this, right? ”

"Ming repairs the wall, Qing repairs the temple...... The Manchu Qing Dynasty was not good at strengthening the country, but was good at the weak people, and even the Mongols who were once dominant were turned into pigs by them. ”

"It's called lifting a stone and shooting it on the surface of your own feet." Li Yuandu said with a smile, "But it's okay like this, Gong Lao Liu can recognize the general trend earlier, and it will save the lives of Mobei." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the noise had already been heard, and Zeng Guofan looked out the car window and saw a tidal stream of people pouring out of the Kulen gate, all Mongolians in costumes, and some lamas with high hats. But I didn't see the high-ranking officials of the Bohai State who stubbornly wore a flower feather on the top and refused to change into the official uniform of the Ming Dynasty. Yi Xin himself. (To be continued......)