The deliberations of the monarch and the ministers were unhappily dispersed, and since the Son of Heaven was critically ill and the crown prince was in charge of the country, the harmonious atmosphere deliberately created disappeared. Recalling the eyes of Empress Zhou in the Warm Pavilion, Li Xin had been away from Donghua Gate for a long time, and he still felt shuddering, did this woman who had always been gentle and peaceful finally want to show his teeth?

On the evening of the same day, the forward cavalry of the Three Guards Army, which had landed from Tianjin, arrived in the suburbs of Beijing and killed 1,000 men and horses in the exchange of fire with the Tartars, but the Tartars' strength did not decrease but increased, and tens of thousands more people were added overnight.

The vanguard of the Three Guards did not enter the city, but returned to the southwest of Beijing and set up camp, apparently to cut off the Tartars' southward advance. Due to the surge of Tartar troops under the city of Beijing, Li Xin judged that the Qing army had pointed the main spearhead at the Ming Jing Division, so the plan to rush to Juyong Pass to help was shelved.

Soon, Li Xin met with the commander from the forward army of the Three Guards. This commander was an old pawn in Datong Mansion, and he still had a lot of impressions of this person, who was sixteen or seventeen years old at the time, and now has grown into a burly and strong man.

"The commander of the 11th Division of the New Army, Gu Quanyou, has seen the Marquis of Zhenyu!"

Since last year, the Third Guards Army has formed a total of 12 divisions, and due to the use of rifled flintlock pistols, the firing accuracy and firing range of individual weapons have been drastically improved, and the tactics of skirmishers have begun to be popularized in the army.

Twelve new army divisions, each with 8,000 men, for a total of 96,000 men. At the same time, the battle infantry still coexisted, and after the elimination and retention, the size of about 100,000 men was still retained. Most of the infantry who had been cut out were incorporated into the local security forces to serve as local guards and garrisons. And the old and new armies became real field troops.

Gu Quanyou personally led the vanguard cavalry to arrive at the city of Beijing one step ahead of the main force of infantry.

Li Xin encouraged the commander Gu Quanyou and asked how the reinforcement army was progressing.

Gu Quanyou responded with a new-style military salute, and then took out the wax-sealed letter from the military satchel he was carrying.

"This is Mi Jianjun's handwritten letter."

Li Xin slapped open the wax seal and took out three letterheads written densely covered with fly-headed letters from the envelope. Mi Yan was now in charge of the military and political affairs of Yiying in Korea, and in his letter he reported in detail all the affairs since he took office, and at the same time asked for instructions that the imperial court had sent an envoy to urge the new army stationed in Korea to attack the Manchus from the rear, and whether to prohibit the army in accordance with the imperial court's supervision.

Attacking the Manchus on both sides was originally Li Xin's fundamental plan at the beginning of his army in Korea. Korea was too important for China to send troops to the west and northeast to threaten the Manchu hinterland. To the east, you can cross the sea to contain the Japanese state. I didn't expect that the original layout had reached the point of blossoming so quickly.

At dawn the next day, nearly 20,000 men from the 11th Division of the New Army and four battle infantry regiments arrived in Beijing one after another. In terms of numbers, the strength of the Three Guards Army was comparable to that of the Qing army confronting outside Beijing, and it already had the ability to annihilate the Qing army.

Li Xin began to plan a large-scale siege and annihilation battle.

This time, the Tartars entered the Kou, and the Korean garrison of the Three Guards sent about 30,000 people, and more than 30,000 people set out from Nanjing one after another. The number of people going north has already accounted for one-third of the total number of the new army and the old army of the Three Guards.

In the Shuai Hall, a huge map of the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty stood on the wall, and Shunyi, Huairou and Miyun in the northeast of the Beijing Division were all in the hands of the Qing soldiers. The Guanning Army in Shanhaiguan has not sent a single soldier since the vanguard was completely annihilated. It can be said that the entire Great Wall defense line north of the Beijing Division in Beizhili has become useless. The Jiannu Qing soldiers can break through the customs from any place.

If the Juyong Pass is broken again, the Tartars can continue to flow and plunder to Datong Mansion like locusts. It will bring another war catastrophe to the border towns of the Northlands, and the gains that have been restored after years of work will be destroyed in one fell swoop.

Although the combat effectiveness of the Three Guards is strong, and the offensive and defensive battles against the inherent targets can be described as invincible, if they plan to pursue and annihilate in the field, the extremely mobile Eight Banners have no small difficulty.

The main purpose of the southern invasion of Jiannu was to plunder the people of goods and goods, and to transfer a large number of people and goods out, there were no more than five suitable passes around the Great Wall. Once these passes are in hand, the entire Great Wall will be like a noodle pocket, trapping hundreds of thousands of Jiannu troops south of the Great Wall. Then, the Three Guards could concentrate all their efforts on breaking through the Qing troops in each part and clearing them out.

However, it backfired, and as soon as Li Xin's plan took shape in his mind, a bad news was quickly sent back to Jingshi.

"Juyong Pass is lost, and King Shen's army is defeated!"

For the vast majority of the generals of the Three Guards, this news is a joy and a worry. Happily, before they resorted to the plan of borrowing knives to kill people, the Tartars struck first, and the worry was that as soon as the Juyong Pass was broken, the plan to block the road to the north of the Tartars would be stranded.

Several division and regiment commanders clenched their fists angrily, "King Shen is so incompetent, with this bit of strength, he still plans to send troops to seize the position, what a joke!" ”

No matter what happened in the hearts of a group of people, they never let go of this ambitious vassal king.

In the eyes of the generals of the Three Guards, it is not difficult to defeat these tens of thousands of Qing soldiers, but the difficulty is how to completely annihilate them after defeating them. After all, the Three Guards have always pursued a policy of elite soldiers, and the number of men and horses is not much more expensive, so it is true that it will reduce military expenditures and increase the combat capability of individual soldiers, but when fighting a war of encirclement and annihilation, it will seem a little inadequate.

Therefore, Li Xin did not seem to give the Qing soldiers a counterattack for the time being, but deliberately created an assumption that the strength of the Ming army was insufficient. Several old and new armies that came later were placed in Tongzhou, east of Beijing, and Xishan in the west, putting on a posture of assisting in the defense of Beijing.

……

Changping Prefecture, the camp of the Qing army, the emperor's uncle and the regent scolded several generals with blood, and only a few thousand Ming troops guarded a Juyong Pass, and there was no size for three days. Later, he transferred all the Hongyi cannons to Juyong Pass, and it should have been a heavy artillery bombardment of the gates of the city, and a large number of Qing troops swarmed in to occupy Juyong Pass.

From the mouth of the captive, Dolgon learned that this Ming army, which was extremely tenacious in combat, was actually the private soldier of a vassal king in the Ming Dynasty. Sensitive to royal battles, Dorgon immediately recognized the unusualness of this.

The combat effectiveness of the vassal king's men and horses is so strong, but under the bloody battle, the Ming Jingshi did not send a single soldier over, why is this? The reason is self-explanatory.

As a result, Dolgon immediately ordered the Qing army to stop the pursuit, and after a lot of looting, all of them withdrew from Juyong Pass.

The day after the Qing army went south, King Shen returned to Juyong Pass with his troops who had survived the fierce battle, and he couldn't help but feel full of flavors, and he couldn't imagine that the combat power of the Tartars was so strong, and it was far stronger than he imagined.

"Lord Wang, a lot of grain has been found in the city, and it is roughly estimated that there should be tens of thousands of stones. It should be the time for the Tartars to retreat, and they should not be in a hurry to take it away! ”

However, King Shen fell into deep thought, the Qing soldiers calmly advanced and retreated, how could they leave tens of thousands of stones of grain to support the enemy? What is the purpose? Now that there are only thousands of strikers around him, and tens of thousands of troops will take at least seven days to arrive, the Tartars will give up Juyong Pass again, is there a follow-up trick?

After thinking about it for a long time, King Shen suddenly seemed to be stunned, and a smile actually appeared on his face that had been tense. He waved his hand to summon his confidants and staff, and whispered a few words of advice to him. The staff member's face changed, and he asked in a trembling voice in a very low voice:

"Have you thought about it? Once the rumor leaks, the work of several years will be ruined! ”

King Shen's face is full of firmness and calmness, and the heroes of the green forest often put a sentence on their lips, seeking wealth and danger. Although this is not a means worth boasting about, it also illustrates a basic truth, some things seem to be doomed, and there seems to be no chance, but if the soldiers make dangerous moves, who will win or lose.

"This king has made up his mind, let's do it immediately!"

Only one day later, the Qing Emperor's uncle, the regent Dorgon, waited for the person he had been waiting for.

When he heard that the house slave asked for a meeting with King Shen's envoy, a confident smile appeared on his face again, he was not mistaken by King Shen, this person was indeed a rare smart person.

Sure enough, King Shen's envoy actually brought greetings to him, the commander of the army of the enemy country of the Ming Dynasty.

Dolgon had no intention of insulting King Shen's envoy, so he went straight to the point and asked him why he was like this. The envoy of King Shen asked rhetorically, why did the regent leave food to secretly help King Shen, so his subordinates showed mercy?

Dolgon laughed suddenly: "It's a good tooth, and I don't go around in circles, let's just say it, this king wants to help King Shen win the throne in the Forbidden City in Beijing, I don't know if your prince is willing?" ”

King Shen's envoy bowed his head and said, "I would like to hear the regent's advice!" But I don't know, what does the regent plan to get from King Shen? ”

Dolgon's eyes were aggressive, his big hand waved in the air, and he said word by word: "This king doesn't ask for much, as long as King Shen wins the throne, he must cede the northwest of the mountain to my Daqing!" ”

Hearing this, even though King Shen's envoy had already been mentally prepared, he couldn't help but tremble, he already regretted taking this errand a little. Whether this matter is successful or not, once it is revealed to the world in the future, he himself is afraid that he will be smeared with a stench in history.

But since King Shen saved his family, he could only come out and be ruined, and he had to fight for King Shen.

"It's a big deal! The foreign minister was no more than a mere aide and could not reply to the regent immediately. ”

Dolgon said with a smile, "Go back and ask King Shen, let him make a decision early, the situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, maybe in a few days, the Japanese prince will take Beijing City, and he will not need to trade with this king!" ”

When King Shen learned that Dolgon had opened his mouth wide and wanted to seize Beizhili and Shanxi, he couldn't help but scold this person for his tiger and wolf ambition and taking advantage of people's danger. But after scolding for a while, he finally thought about how to reply to Dorgon......