Since he went to Kunming, Deng Ming has memorized every rì, in which he has recorded in detail all kinds of information he has, as well as judgments and decisions. Since it was entirely a military issue and there was no other content, Deng Ming regarded this rì as a military rì note, and every time he finished writing a military rì note, Deng Ming would read the content to the guards. Under the influence of Deng Ming, Li Xinghan and several others also tried to write their own military rì after learning to write.

"On the 22nd day of September in the 14th year of Yongli, the troops of Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Huangyan have broken up with us, and I think they will return to Zhoushan without any danger...... Li Laiheng and I will do our best to stay away from Nanjing. I think the Nanjing side will decide the winner in a few days, and the winner will not be able to make any more deals with me...... In order to ensure that the Qing army in Nanking would be under heavy fire, I told them before I left that I would return in five days and ask them for one million taels of silver. This proposal was made for the following reasons: if the Qing army knew that I had withdrawn and would not return, they would not be in a hurry to start an internal strife, and in the end it was likely that the victory would be decided without force, which would be the solution with the least loss to the Qing court; And if they think that I will return in five days, they will do their best to solve the internal worries and use force to solve the opponent before I return, and this kind of force solution will hurt the Qing court even more...... I think Lang Tingzuo and Liang Huafeng have a better chance of winning, and these two will be the final winners...... Lang Tingzuo had the experience of being captured, and Liang Huafeng suddenly rose to a high position, and they may not pose any threat to Zhang Huangyan in the near future. ”

The day after leaving Nanjing, Deng Ming, as usual, read the military rì he had just written to his subordinates and asked for their opinions: "What do you think? ”

Everyone and Deng Ming have similar opinions, most people think that Lang Tingzuo and Liang Huafeng have a higher chance of winning, and some people can't make up their minds, and after listening to Deng Ming's reasons, they also believe that Lang Tingzuo will win.

"Well, it seems that I should have let you say it first, and then read it later." Deng Ming smiled and closed the rì notebook. Now after camping every day, Deng Ming continued to exercise the reading and writing skills of the guards, but Ren Tang obviously did not need this kind of training, and he probably knew more words than Deng Ming.

Therefore, Deng Ming planned to start the second step of the plan in advance, and began to carry out the literacy activities of the officers - originally Deng Ming planned to start the literacy of the officers after the establishment of the base area, and then with the troops directly under him, but now there is extra time anyway, and after more than half a year of training, the guards have learned an average of hundreds of common words, and letting them do some teaching work will also help them consolidate their knowledge.

Ren Tang was intrigued by Deng Mingji's method, but was a little hesitant about the literacy program. In the hundreds of years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, such large-scale reading and writing training has not been carried out in the army. Since there had never been such a training content, Ren Tang was worried that there would be any hidden worries, and the guide had given up such a job.

"It is necessary to teach officers to learn to read and write," Deng Ming immediately took matters into his own hands after hearing Ren Tang's concerns, explaining: "In the past, the army could rely on hiring staff to solve the problem of reading and writing, but now we don't have so many scholars, and most of them have defected to the Tartars; In addition, in the past, when the army was in the hands of the magistrates, if the imperial court issued any orders, the magistrates could understand and understand them, but now we don't have so many magistrates, and those who can read and write have all participated in the imperial examinations of the Tartars, and all the military and political work in our localities must be undertaken by the general manager and the general manager. Therefore, officers must not only be able to fight, but also read and write. In the future, I would like to arrange for them to learn arithmetic, so that they can at least calculate the baggage that the army needs and carry the vehicles and ships that the baggage needs. ”

Ren Tang was not very satisfied with Deng Ming's explanation, and felt that the other party seemed to take it for granted. In the past, when the Ming Dynasty was able to recruit talents from all over the country through the imperial examination, officers also needed to engage in some military government affairs, but the Ming Dynasty still never encouraged officers to learn cultural knowledge. However, Ren Tang couldn't think of any reason to oppose Deng Ming's idea, after all, the various needs put forward by the other party were all in front of him.

After convincing Ren Tang, Deng Ming discussed this matter with Li Laiheng again. Li Laiheng has no objection to allowing officers to read and write, but he is worried that such cultural training will crowd out the time of military training, and he is also worried about the problem of teaching teachers. Deng Ming pointed out that there was no problem at all with the timing, and that in general, due to the low level of the army's rations and the lack of meat in the food, the Ming army could not do every training; Even if they could feed their stomachs with food every day, the training intensity of the Ming army would be maintained at about three times a time. Deng Ming pointed out that cultural learning can be arranged in a rìzi that does not practice cāo. For example, now that the Ming army is on the march, then it is possible to organize a study class for officers after camping every day; As for the teacher problem that Li Laiheng was worried about, Deng Ming could provide a group of guards for free to serve as teachers temporarily, and they would first learn from Deng Ming every day, and then each of them would teach a few officers who broke into the camp.

Li Laiheng thought about it and felt that this method was good, even if Deng Ming's guards each brought ten students, they could help the two hundred officers who broke into the camp to read and write. Even if you can't read the newspaper for the time being, it's good to be able to read a simple warrant. However, Deng Ming was not able to help Li Laiheng train 200 officers, and after they arrived in Anqing, Ren Tang proposed to help the officers of the Zhejiang army to read and write, so Deng Ming's guard was divided into two halves to train the officers of the camp and the Zhejiang army.

Of course, Ren Tang went to serve the Zhejiang army, he originally felt that one person with ten students was too much, and pointed out to Deng Ming that under the normal circumstances of a private school professor, a teacher would only bring less than five students, and if there were too many students, the quality of teaching would decline. However, Deng Ming quickly dispelled Ren Tang's doubts: "We are not cultivating children and talents, but teaching officers to read simple warrants." There was no need for so much knowledge taught in private schools, and there was no place for officers to take the imperial examination unless they were familiar with the Four Books and the Five Classics, unless they went to take the examination on the Tatar side. ”

Ren Tang admits that there is some truth in this statement, according to the traditional private school education method, Li Xinghan, Zhou Kaihuang and others have obviously not finished reading the books of the enlightenment stage. In line with the principle of more work for those who are capable, Ren Tang took a large class of more than 20 Zhejiang army officers in one breath, and taught them to read and write after camping every day.

Before in Anqing City, the young general of the Zhejiang army, Youming, once asked the Anqing prefect to sue Hu Laoxiao, and now he is in Rentang's class. Although Yu Youming is young, he claims to be the queen of the general, so everyone usually calls him General Yu Xiao. Yu Youming and Ren Tang are about the same age, and the two of them quickly became acquainted, and they also talked about their respective ancestors.

"Father Shizhong," Yu Youming said that his father was an officer in Jiangbei, a hereditary martial artist, who fought with Zuo Liangyu's department that year, and retreated to Huguang after defeat, and died of illness in Longwu year. Yu Youming said: "My father loved soldiers like sons and won the hearts of the army. When the left thief counterattacked the southern capital, the ancestor was outnumbered and repelled by the left thief; However, the defeat was not chaotic, and after retreating to Hunan, there were many soldiers, and there were no crimes along the way, and the people all supported them. ”

"It's really the wind of a general." Ren Tang sighed in admiration. The untimely death of Yu Youming's father also made Ren Tang sigh, such a general who won the hearts of the army and loved the people, it would be good if his life was longer, and he could also make greater contributions to the Ming Dynasty.

Yu Youming finished talking about his family history, and Ren Tang also talked about his father: "First test Botong, Chongzhen served as the Tongzhi of Henan Guide Mansion for fifteen years, and he did not break into thieves for a long time after taking office." First of all, he was familiar with military books and was quite familiar with military affairs, but unfortunately the prefect was stubborn and self-serving, and did not listen to the good words of the first test, and was broken by thieves in less than a month after holding the mansion. Although he escaped, he was also dismissed from his official position because of this. It's a pity, if the first exam was to return to the prefect of Germany, it would definitely be able to let the thieves return, at least for a year or two is not a problem. ”

…… The Ming army marched all the way west, and when it passed through Jiujiang, the whole army was on guard in case the Qing army in Jiangxi came out to disturb it.

At this time, Deng Ming had already learned the result of the battle of Nanjing, and heard that Liang Huafeng desperately boasted that he had repelled the Ming army - now the Qing army in Nanjing had confirmed that the Ming army was moving away and would not return to Nanjing for the time being, so Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng both attributed themselves to themselves, claiming that they had dealt a heavy blow to the Ming army's forward, so that the Ming army clearly realized that since Nanjing was guarded by Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng, it was by no means something that the Ming army could capture, so they had to retreat with regret.

Regarding the boasting of the Qing army in Nanjing, Deng Ming had no intention of refutating it.

In fact, Liang Huafeng's boasting was quite restrained, and the report to the nearby provinces only said that he had sabotaged Deng Ming's plan, beheaded Lang Tingzuo, who had defected to the enemy and treason, and thwarted the attack of the Ming army's vanguard general, but never mentioned defeating Deng Ming himself.

Such restrained propaganda is extremely rare. Since the other party is so cautious, then Deng Ming has no good way to refute it - if the Ming army's forwards have not suffered any setbacks, then why did the Ming army retreat? The propaganda of the "victors" of the Battle of Nanjing, Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng, was so restrained that most of the Qing officials also understood that their actual results must have been more limited, and most of them had no record except for killing Lang Tingzuo.

As for Lang Tingzuo, many officials think that it is mostly a military temptation by Deng Ming, after all, the city wall built by Zhu Hongwu is too strong, and Nanjing City is the best if it can be defeated, and there is no loss if it cannot be defeated; After Lang Tingzuo, who led the way, and Guan Xiaozhong, the inner battalion, were killed, Deng Ming realized that there was no other way but to attack, so he withdrew his troops on his own - Liang Huafeng called this the vanguard and attack attempt of the Ming army, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Shut down

Jiangxi's understanding of the First Battle of Nanjing was basically the same, the main force of Jīng Rui and Shuiying in Jiangxi Province had already been sent to Nanjing, and was annihilated by Deng Ming, and some of the prisoners who had been released earlier magnified the combat effectiveness of the Ming army. Seeing that the strength of the Ming army was not lost, the Jiangxi side had no intention of provoking the Ming army, and after most of the Ming army passed through Guò, Jiujiang sent a team of 150 cavalry, intending to see if there was any advantage to be taken.

This group of Qing cavalry encountered nearly 100 Li Laiheng's broken cavalry, and after being killed 40 people, they fled in a hurry, and only two people were killed in the camp.

Before leaving Jiangxi, another group of Qing cavalry sent from Nanchang followed behind the Ming army, and it seemed that there was also an attempt to attack the Ming soldiers who had fallen behind. Li Laiheng sent the cavalry force of 100 people, and in the blink of an eye, the Qing army was defeated again and fled, leaving about a third of the corpses like the Qing cavalry in Jiujiang, and the losses of the camp were still in single digits.

When the cavalry of the 100 battalions carried the heads of the Qing soldiers and returned to the army with great force, their heroic behavior aroused a large number of cheers, and even the officers and soldiers of Zhejiang were in admiration.

"Sure enough, it is a strong general, and there are no weak soldiers under him." Deng Ming congratulated Li Laiheng and said that when he ambushed the Qing army of the Yangtze River before, Li Laiheng had not dispatched this horse team, and Deng Ming was not in the rear of the team when the Jiujiang River was broken, so he had no chance to see the demeanor of this horse team, and today was the first time he had seen these knights.

However, as soon as he saw it today, Deng Ming realized that this cavalry was quite sharp, and it seemed that everyone was good at riding, and the cooperation between them was also very tacit, so that the Qing cavalry on the opposite side had no power to fight back. It is not easy to train such a cavalry unit, and it is estimated that the cost is also very large, Deng Ming guessed that Li Laiheng had cultivated the pride of the army with all his financial resources.

After hearing Deng Ming's praise, Li Laiheng, who had always had no joy on his face, showed a wry smile: "The Admiral is falsely praised, this is not a man I can train, alas, these people are all losing one and missing one." ”

Looking at these campers up close, Deng Ming found that these people were all close to middle age, at least they all looked much older than Li Laiheng, and some of them had gray hair.

Li Laiheng hesitated for a moment, and finally said bluntly to Deng Ming: "This is the three walls of the camp in the past, and now there are only these ninety-two people left, oh, no, there are only eighty-nine people left after today." ”

Deng Ming didn't know much about the history of breaking into the three walls of the camp, so he asked a few more questions, Li Laiheng observed for a while, felt that Deng Ming had no other meaning, and slowly began to tell the history of this army.

In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, Li Zicheng, who came out of Shangluo Mountain, was determined to build a real army, and selected a thousand horsemen from the rebel armies in Henan, Shaanxi, and Huguang, and gave each of them two horses to serve as the backbone of the battlefield. In many battles, this horse formation was hard to block the impact of the Ming army, and every time it was not chaotic, so it was named Three Walls. During the period of Sankaifeng, the three walls reached their peak, and the number of people was said to be four or five thousand, all of whom were brave riders collected by Li Zicheng from all over the country, each with two or even three horses. Before and after breaking into the camp, the Qin army, known as the Ming Dynasty, was defeated four times, and the three walls played a great role. When the flood was opened, half of the three walls were swept away by the flood. Later, although Li Zicheng tried his best to recover, until he entered Běijīng, although the number of this horse team had recovered to the level of its heyday, its combat effectiveness was still much worse.

“…… It seems that in the first year of Hongguang, my uncle launched a counterattack against the Tartars in Huaiqing, and at that time the three walls had already lost a lot, and there were only less than 2,000 people left, but they still defeated the Manchurian Eight Banners cavalry with more people than them in the field. Li Laiheng said with a sigh. The Manchu army, which had already moved south, turned west after the battle and attacked Li Zicheng with all its might. The Nanming Hongguang regime thus won a year. However, the Hongguang regime did not take advantage of this rare opportunity, but mistakenly believed that their policy of "joint capture and suppression" had received a positive response from Dolgon, and in the cheers of the Manchu Dynasty, Shi Kefa pointed out that the next Southern Ming strategy should be to dispatch a large army, directly to the Qin Pass, cooperate with the Manchu Qing to fight, and flank Li Zicheng.

"Although both my father and General Gao wanted to rebuild the three walls, there was a lack of money and food at that time, and the army could not make ends meet, so where was the strength to train riders?" Many of the riders Li Zicheng selected for the Three Walls were between the ages of eighteen and twenty, and they were brave young men with strong blood, and now the youngest of these riders is more than thirty-five years old. Li Laiheng watched this group of cavalry pass in front of him, and his heart was also full of regret: "More than ten years ago, there were thousands of riders on the three walls, and even during the Battle of Huaiqing, they could still charge the cavalry of the five thousand Manchurian Eight Banners and repel them. But now, the three walls can only fight with the hundreds of local green battalion cavalry. ”

After listening to this story, Deng Ming was also full of emotion. He looked at the cavalry who broke into the camp with the enemy's head on the tip of the gun, and a question rose in his heart: "With hundreds of thousands of Qin troops repeatedly fighting and killing, and having experienced the three walls of Shanhaiguan, Tongguan, Huaiqing and other battles, will you really take the capture of these Jiangxi green battalions very seriously?" Or are they just trying to boost the morale of our army, or are they nostalgic for the old days? Will they imagine the Zhejiang army cheering for them as the army that broke into the camp more than ten years ago, recalling the glory and victory of their youth? ”

"This time, Tiger Shuai has seized a lot, have you ever thought about rebuilding it...... No, expand the three walls? Deng Ming asked.

Li Laiheng turned his head sideways, looked at Deng Ming carefully, and shook his head after a moment: "No." ”

"Don't get me wrong, Tiger Shuai, I do think that the three walls can be expanded, they ......" Deng Ming raised his chin at the older cavalrymen and whispered, "They will be happy." ”

"Yes, the Admiral is open-minded, and the Admiral is very impressed." Since Li Guo accepted the official title of Ming Dynasty, the name "Three Walls" was no longer used in the camp, after all, the name of this cavalry was won from the battle with the Qin army of the Ming court. Although Li Laiheng was sure that Deng Ming had no intention of tempting, he still felt that it was inappropriate to use this name, even if Deng Ming didn't think much about it now, he might have a pimple in his heart in the future.

Besides, Li Laiheng has other reasons: "I did capture a lot this time, and I also want to train the horse team of the Xingshan Army, they are the ...... Well, they're the three walls. ”

Deng Ming understood, Li Laiheng thought that this cavalry team that broke into the camp had no inheritance, and because there was no new blood for too long, these old riders might not be easy to accept the successor, and they were unwilling to allow newcomers to enter their circle. Therefore, when these old riders are all gone, the three walls will naturally cease to exist.

A few days later, Deng Ming came to Li Laiheng's camp with two flags.

"What is this?" Li Laiheng asked curiously.

"My gift to Hu Shuai. But I didn't make a pennant, I think the rectangular flag looks better. Deng Ming spread out the first flag, on which was painted a colorful tiger - this flag Deng Ming had been drawing for a long time, and wanted to take it out later, but changed his mind a few days ago: "It was given to Hu Shuai." ”

"Thank you, Admiral." Li Laiheng was surprised and delighted when he saw this beautiful flag, and took it with a smile on his face and looked at it again and again.

"There is another side, which I just painted, and I plan to give it to an army under the command of Tiger Shuai." Deng Ming handed over the second, also rectangular flag.

Li Laiheng unfolded the second flag, and the pattern of this flag is relatively simple, that is, three rows in front and back...... Well, it seems to be three brick walls.

"This is," Li Laiheng showed an expression of disbelief and turned his head to look at Deng Ming.

"What does Hu Shuai think?" Deng Ming asked with a smile.

"Three walls?" Li Laiheng asked softly.

"Exactly," Deng Ming nodded: "I hope that this military flag can be passed on forever, always fluttering on the battlefield, and never falling into the hands of the enemy." ”

Li Laiheng put both flags on the table and watched quietly. Li Laiheng remembered that his name "Tiger Shuai" was actually from his father's "a tiger", that is, the generals of Kuidong's camp loved to call themselves "little tigers", and the more orthodox Ming courtiers never used this title. For example, Zhang Huangyan, Wen Anzhi and others, they can use "Linguo Gong" or "General Li", but they have never used the word "Hushuai" to call Li Laiheng.

"It's the Admiral......" Li Laiheng thought to himself, and looked at the tiger flag again and again. The tiger on it is painted colorfully, the two eyes are majestic, and the tiger whiskers and fluff are also very clear and delicate, and it can be seen that Deng Ming has put a lot of thought into it: "The Admiral has never had the slightest prejudice, and he never dodges when he talks about breaking into the camp, and he is always above board." ”

Li Laiheng made up his mind, raised his head and thanked the riders of the three walls: "Since it is the intention of the Admiral, then we might as well obey our orders as respectful." However, this flag is not for me to give to the riders of the three walls, and I think that since it was drawn by the Admiral himself, it is better for the Admiral to hand over this flag to them. ”

"It's not proper, it's not proper, of course this flag is to be handed over to them by Hu Shuai," Deng Ming immediately shook his head and said: "I'm not the top boss of the three walls, so it's not my turn to hand over the flag to them." But Hu Shuai is right, since I drew this flag, then of course I can watch the ceremony from the side. ”

After the march was over the next day, Li Laiheng summoned all the remaining riders of the three walls, and solemnly handed over the brick wall pattern military flag painted by Deng Ming to the leading riders in front of the camp and the soldiers of the Zhejiang army, so that they could replace their existing military flags with this rectangular banner from now on.

Li Laiheng announced that this flag was painted by Deng Ming, the governor of Jiangnan, and took advantage of the situation to announce Deng Ming's expectations: "The admiral hopes that you can pass on this flag well, so you must select excellent young riders and give them all their skills, so that they can protect this military flag on the battlefield." ”

"Yes." The rider who received the military flag bowed solemnly to Li Laiheng, and then turned to face Deng Ming on the side, and bowed deeply again: "I am hereby ordered." ”