The battle situation in Shandong once again fell into a stalemate, the Ming army was unable to counterattack, the Qing army was difficult to attack, and neither side could make much breakthrough in the short term.

The intelligence of the Shandong war situation was sent back to Nanjing City by the people of the intelligence department, and now all of Zhu Jie's energy has been invested in the Shandong war situation, which is too critical, Sun Chuanting's army has just entered the territory of Shaanxi, and it is impossible to complete the strategic encirclement of the Qing army in less than a month, and now the most important step of the Ming army has not yet taken action, sending sailors to attack Manchuria from the sea and break the nest of the Manchurian Eight Banners, which is the most critical part of it, but now the 50,000 Beijing battalion has just completed recruitment, The combat power of the Beijing camp is too weak, and there is no obvious improvement, and it is difficult to establish a strong advantage in Manchuria.

Since it is difficult to improve quickly in terms of combat power, the only way now is to improve the combat power of the Beijing camp through weapons - equipped with firearms, but now the firearms produced by the Firearms Bureau are simply not enough, not enough at all, the speed is too slow, Tianwei Army and the four towns of Nanjing, together with ten towns, each town is equipped with more than 1,000 muskets, the number of scrapped muskets brought by each battle alone is a huge number, and the production process is not too hard, not only produces a large number of waste products, It also greatly shortens the service life of the musket.

After nearly a year of training, the output of the Firearms Bureau has increased a lot, but it is still difficult to meet the needs of the battlefield, and the number of 2,000 muskets per month is still not enough, after all, after equipping the Tianwei Army and the four towns of Nanjing, it is necessary to equip the Beijing Battalion with 50,000 muskets, and just equipping it with 5,000 muskets is a huge number, which is enough for the Firearms Bureau to produce for two or three months.

There is no way, production can't keep up, Zhu Jie can only buy it from foreigners temporarily, whatever, as long as he can survive this period of time, annihilate all the Manchurian Tartars, no matter how big the price is, it's worth it, isn't it guns and ammunition? Buy!

As early as before, when Tang Ruowang proposed to him to buy the foreigners' warship artillery, he had already made up his mind to order a batch of arquebuses from the foreigners.

Zhu Jie sent John Tang to Nanyang in person, ordering muskets from the Dutch and the Spaniards, 30 taels of silver for each musket, 10,000 in one go, in addition to muskets, there are also ammunition, 3,000 boxes of ammunition, all down, fully consumed 600,000 taels of silver, 600,000 taels, is not a small amount, the foreigners will naturally take this opportunity to open their mouths.

Unexpectedly, Tang Ruowang didn't even blink his eyes, so he agreed, 600,000 taels is 600,000 taels, and he bought it!

Foreigners who have got a satisfactory price are eager to sell all their guns and ammunition to the Ming Empire, a musket is thirty taels of silver, this is a blushing price, in the West, an arquebus, the most expensive is only a dozen taels of silver, but unfortunately, there is only one chance, otherwise, immediately purchase from the West, and then sell to the Ming Empire, no more, get tens of thousands of muskets to sell, that is millions of taels of silver!

The Spaniards and the Dutch made up the numbers together, and the inventory was not enough, so they took out some of them from the local garrison first, and anyway, a piece of silver was sent over, and the domestic muskets were sent in a steady stream!

Now the musket purchased by John Tang has left Batavia in Nanyang and is on the way back, how can it take half a month to arrive in Nanjing, even if it is in hand, it will take a period of training before it can let the Beijing camp go out, that is to say, how can it be a month and a half later, a month and a half later, almost, Sun Chuanting's army is in place, and now the problem is that the Tianwei army in Jining City must hold on for a month and a half to give the imperial court time to counterattack.

Zhu Jie quietly looked at the map around him, Jining, Caozhou!

The two key points, now Caozhou has been recaptured by Qin Mufeng, leading five or six thousand steps to ride nailed to the main road to Henan, as long as the main army of Azig does not advance westward, Qin Mufeng will be able to keep Caozhou City and keep the Qing army out.

Now the Tartars are besieging Jining City under the command of Azig, and the current Jining City is the most dangerous, 70,000 or 80,000 Qing troops, Song Jiaxing's troops are only a little more than 20,000, it is too difficult to hold Jining City, it is too difficult, it has been defended for more than 20 days, and it has to be held for a month and a half, can it be done?

Even Zhu Jie didn't have much confidence in his heart, after all, Jining City was not a Jincheng soup pool, just a state city, far from being comparable to the original Zhending Mansion or Kaifeng Mansion.

"Your Majesty, otherwise, order Song Jiaxing to withdraw his troops south first......"

Li Yan on the side said in a low voice.

"Withdrawal?"

Zhu Jie turned his head suddenly, stared at Li Yan and asked, "Why do you want to withdraw the troops?" Once the army is withdrawn, the Tartars will break into the territory of Nanzhili, and if Azig pursues the victory, we want to stop Azig, but it will be too difficult......"

Li Yan said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, can't we lure the enemy deeper?" Luring Azig's army into Nanzhili, it is the distance between Azig and Duoduo getting farther and farther away, once the battlefield changes, even if Azig wants to return to the army quickly, it is impossible, and when the time comes, the crisis will become a living chess......"

Zhu Jie's eyes lit up, what Li Yan said was not unreasonable, he had been thinking about how to complete his work in one battle and completely encircle and annihilate the main force of the Qing army, which undoubtedly increased the difficulty for himself, after all, there were more than 100,000 troops in the Eight Banners of Manchuria, and no one knew how many green battalion soldiers Dolgon had recruited in the Gyeonggi area, anyway, the recruitment order had already been issued, and there were definitely not a few, and it was not so easy to encircle and annihilate the main force of the Qing army.

If the main force of Azig is really attracted to the territory of Nanzhili, and even let them cross Xuzhou, or even cross the Huai River, then Azig will really become a lone army to go deeper, and at that time, whether he is dealing with Azig or Duoduo, he will have more directions to choose from, which is really a good idea!

It's just that the risks are also obvious, you must know that Azig is tens of thousands of troops, even if there are some of the Shanhaiguan infantry and Guanning iron cavalry, not all of them are Manchurian elite cavalry, their combat power is not to be underestimated, let them cross the Huai River, there is no doubt that Nanzhili and Jiangnan, who have just calmed down, will be shocked again......

(End of chapter)