stubborn thief

Yulin City.

Generally speaking, the larger the city, the more defenders it needs, and the longer the defense line is, the easier it is to make mistakes.

But Yulin City does not need to follow this rule, because strictly speaking, Yulin is not a city.

Instead, it serves as an important defensive town for Shaanxi facing Mongolia, a group of fortresses similar to Tongguan and Shanhaiguan.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu period, it was not yet a border, but just a market spontaneously formed on the dividing line between farming and nomadic areas.

Later, when the Dongsheng Guard established in Ordos was lost, a village called Yulin Village was established in Yulin as a forward outpost to fight against the Mongols moving southward.

The Ming court established Yansui Town in Suide and expanded Yulinzhai into Yulin Fort.

It was not until the Chenghua period that a garrison was established in Yulin, and a northern city was built based on Yulin Fort as the Yulin Garrison. Over the next hundred years, as the Ming army became increasingly powerful on this battlefield, Yulin City was transformed from a frontier outpost into a logistics base, and continued to undergo massive expansion.

Surrounding a city, expanding to the north and then to the south, one circle of city wall surrounds another circle of city wall.

The western city wall was built to the Yulixi River, and the eastern city wall was extended to the foot of Tuofeng Mountain. Since the width could not be increased, the length was further increased. The southern city wall was built to the bank of the Yuyang River, and the northern city wall was extended to Hongshi Gorge.

Eventually, a fortress complex was formed from north to south, with three large cities: Zhenbeitai, Zhongcheng, and Lingxiao Tower.

But there are many cities that are easy to defend and difficult to attack. The main reason why Yulin City can withstand the siege of the Marshal's Army is not because the city has strategic advantages, but because the people in this city gathered the armed forces of the entire Shaanxi who were unwilling to surrender to Liu Chengzong.

The people of Gansu fled to Ningxia, and the soldiers of Ningxia fled to Yansui, and finally they all fled to the city of Yulin.

As for the original army of Yulin, those who wanted to escape or become bandits had already fled during the years of suppressing the rebellion, and only the diehards were left.

July 17th.

Yu Chongxiao, the general commander of Yansui Town, stood on the Zhenbei Tower and looked into the distance at the Zhenbei Terrace four miles away.

The north wall of Yulin had no gates, only towers. Originally, the north side did not need to be defended. However, the marshal's army outside the city, under the command of Ren Quaner, captured Zhenbeitai four miles away by artillery fire, so that the defenders had to deploy troops on the north wall.

Because Zhenbeitai is a solid four-story castle, it was originally an observation post of the Ming army to monitor Yima City and Kuangong City. It was built on the top of Hongshan Mountain and is more than nine feet high. It is the commanding height on the Yulin defense line.

If this city tower is captured, the defense deployment within a radius of more than ten miles, including the northern city of Yulin, will be visible.

Fortunately, there are many military generals in Yulin City, and there are still seven city gates, with one general officer left at each gate.

Now the three borders and five towns of Shaanxi have fallen into the hands of Liu Chengzong, leaving only Yulin City and Hancheng still belonging to the Ming Dynasty. Yu Chongxiao doesn't care that he is the real commander-in-chief and discusses everything with the idle general.

Because although the old generals were idle, they still had servants around them.

Yu Chongxiao was well aware that the mental state of the military and civilians in Yulin City was in chaos.

But this chaos does not mean that the Marshal's Army will surrender as soon as they receive a letter of surrender, but it is just the other way around. The chaos is so great that no one can persuade them to surrender.

Because now in Yulin, from the general to the soldiers and civilians, no one knows what they should do.

Take You Shilu as an example. As early as the Battle of Hehuang, he was already suffering from old age and illness, with coughing, diarrhea and bleeding from both ends. There was no point in surrendering. He couldn't even ride a horse. How could he gain military merit for Liu Chengzong if he surrendered?
What Yulin lacks the least is old military officers like You Shilu who are wounded in battle.

The same is true for their servants. The You family has a garden in the west of the city, and the servants also have land in the west of the city. What will happen if Liu Chengzong surrenders? They have already fought enough bad battles.

Therefore, facing the encirclement of the Marshal's Army, the morale of Yulin City was like being locked. They didn't want to live anymore. It didn't matter how they died, so it was better to fight to the death in the city and be more glorious.

Not only did they gather more than 12,000 defenders, including the elderly and the weak, they also gathered everyone in the town, including the sick and disabled, to form three battalions of field troops.

But at least there was some food.

By now, every household in Yulin city has run out of food reserves.

At this time, Yu Chongxiao saw several riders from Zhenbeitai running towards them from afar, holding up a white flag with the words "delivering a letter" inscribed on it. Near the city moat, a soldier holding a flag dismounted from his horse, climbed over two moats with great effort, stood by the moat, drew his bow to its full extent, and shot a large arrow at the sheep and horse wall on this side of the moat.

There was no gate in the northern city of Yulin. The soldiers lowered themselves down from the city tower, snatched the letter, and handed it to Yu Chongxiao on the city wall.

During this period, Ren Quaner wrote many letters to the defenders in the city.

Cutting off Ren Quaner's communication with the defenders in the city was almost the main job of Yu Chongxiao, You Shilu and other generals living in the city.

Because Yansui Town was where Liu Chengzong served as an army officer, and Yulin City was home to defeated soldiers from Gansu and Ningxia, no one could tell whether there were people here who had secret communications with people outside the city or had old ties with the enemy.

The key point is that Yu Chongxiao doesn’t know how good Ren Quaner is at fighting, but he is very good at being shameless.

As long as this guy could find out the name of the garrison commander and the defense position outside the city, even if he didn't know him, he would still write a letter to chat about family matters, saying a bunch of nonsense that had nothing to do with the war.

However, contrary to Yu Chongxiao's expectations, the letter shot to the city was not written by Ren Quaner.

Because Ren Quaner had a strange habit. When writing letters, he would call his peers "uncles" and his elders "grandfather".

For example, when Ren Quaner wrote a letter to Yu Chongxiao, the words on it would be "written by Master Yu himself".

Yu Chongxiao has always believed that Ren Quaner has a mental problem and has a distorted understanding of his own age and generation.

Even if he was called uncle, it didn't stop him from hitting people on the head.

There are such people in Yulin City who are disrespectful when they are close to them, such as the idle general Wang Shiqin, who is a brother of Wang Pu and his father is Wang Wei, a general with nine seals who has been stationed at the border for fifty years.

When he saw that Ren Quan'er wrote a letter addressing him as the Prince of the General Town, he felt flattered and wanted to persuade Ren Quan'er to surrender. He wrote a reply from the perspective of loyalty and promotion by the court. However, he was scolded by Ren Quan'er and almost suffocated. He led his troops out of the city to fight a battle with Ren Quan'er in the field.

The main reason was that Ren Quaner's reply was ridiculous. He actually said that his position as commander was given by Marshal Liu and had nothing to do with the court.

Doesn't this seem like bullshit to Wang Shiqin?

When you were the commander-in-chief, Liu Chengzong was still being chased by the government troops and there were bandit leaders running all over the place. How could he get you a high-ranking position like commander-in-chief?

It was Yu Chongxiao and others who persuaded him and finally stopped Wang Shiqin from going crazy.

The main reason was that Wang Shiqin had never been scolded in his life. If he hadn't been wounded in battle, he wouldn't have stayed in Yulin City.

As for the group of people outside the city, Yu Chongxiao and the others all knew them.

Liu Fangming and Ma Xiantu are from Ningxia Town, Xu Yong and Wang Yuncheng are from Zuo Liangyu's men, plus Ren Quaner, Ouyang Gun, Ma Ke and A Liu are from the Marshal's Office. For these old soldiers and generals in Yulin City, wouldn't it be courting death to fight a field battle with those young people?
It was not until Yu Chongxiao received the letter signed by Liu Chengzong, which read "Written personally by Brother Yu".

Yu Chongxiao finally understood that the generation that Ren Quaner addressed in the letter had nothing to do with him or the person being addressed. Ren Quaner addressed people according to Liu Chengzong's generation. No matter how Liu Chengzong addressed him, he was one generation younger than Liu Chengzong.

Liu Chengzong's letter was a new thing for Yu Chongxiao.

Ever since the defeat in Ningxia, Yu Chongxiao and Zhou Shifeng led their troops to flee eastward, dispersed Ding Guodong's troops in Yanqing on the way, and fled all the way back to Yansui Town. Since then, Yu Chongxiao has hardly heard any news about Liu Chengzong.

There was only one letter written by Liu Chengzong to Yulin persuading the enemy to surrender, and that letter had the opposite effect.

Because Liu Shizi said that among the three borders and five towns in Shaanxi, only Yulin City is left, and it cannot support the whole province alone, so you should surrender.

But these words are complete compliments to Yulin City, which is home to all the super reckless men in Shaanxi - they have all surrendered, but we won’t, we are really awesome!
It is even more impossible to surrender.

Later, Yu Chongxiao only knew that Liu Chengzong led his troops northward and entered the territory of the Ordos tribe. Later, Yulin City was surrounded by Ren Quaner, and its contact with the outside world was completely cut off, so naturally there was no way to obtain any intelligence.

But this letter was different.

Yu Chongxiao immediately went down to the city with the letter, gathered the generals in the city, and unfolded the letter for everyone to see.

When people see the letter, their first reaction is to gasp.

Wang Shiqin asked in disbelief: "Is this, is what is said in this letter true or false? Liu, Liu Chengzong actually burned down the capital of the Eastern Tartars and killed 18,000 Eastern soldiers in a field battle?"

You Shilu had fought against the Later Jin army during the Jisi Rebellion and knew more about that place. He corrected them, "It wasn't the capital. He just burned down Liaoyang."

Wang Shiqin glanced at him, his eyes widened as he said, "Of course I know. Liaoyang is also the capital. Isn't Nanjing the capital?"

He cursed, "If I had known he was going to burn the capital of the Eastern Tartars, I would have surrendered and gone with him before the war started. It's worth my life to be able to burn and plunder in the territory of the Eastern Tartars!"

"That's not Jiannu's territory, that's our Ming Dynasty's territory, and it was occupied by the Eastern Tartars!"

Seeing several generals arguing over trivial matters, Yu Chongxiao clapped his hands repeatedly to attract people's attention and said, "Everyone, everyone, whether the capital of the Eastern Tartars is the capital or not, whether the territory belongs to the Ming Dynasty or the Eastern Tartars, this is of no use to us right now!"

"It depends on whether you can accept Marshal Liu's suggestion for Yulin City. I invite all the seniors here just for this matter."

Yu Chongxiao had no temper at all towards these old generals.

Each of them is a military family with generations of military progeny, no matter if they walk with a limp, are missing an eye, or are like You Shilu who has bled too much and staggers when he walks.

But they did rely on their servants to keep a tight control over everything in this important border town.

In fact, whether Liu Chengzong could defeat the Eastern Tartar was not important to Yu Chongxiao... In his eyes, the Eight Banners were not as powerful as Liu Chengzong from the beginning.

Because he really beat Huang Taiji on the Guanning Defense Line, and he really couldn't fight Liu Chengzong.

When Yu Chongxiao received Liu Chengzong's letter, all he could think about was that there were more troops besieging the city, and with better and more field artillery support, Yulin City might not even be able to hold out.

Therefore, he also paid more attention to the suggestions mentioned in Liu Chengzong's letter.

In the letter, Liu Chengzong not only mentioned that he led his troops to break through the Liaodong border wall and plundered Shengjing and Liaoyang, but also defeated Huang Taiji's 60,000 troops in a field battle.

More importantly, he mentioned the future of Yulin City. He was determined to gain control of Yulin, but he didn't care about the veterans in the city.

To be precise, it’s not that I don’t care, but that I don’t want it.

Yu Chongxiao could see that Liu Chengzong seemed to be somewhat disgusted with the fact that there were too many surrendered soldiers under his command, so he only wanted cities and land, and had no desire for generals or soldiers.

He specifically mentioned in the letter that if anyone was willing to leave, he would allow them to bring their families, servants and domestic servants to go to the capital via Shanxi to continue serving the court.

But if they neither surrender nor leave, when he returns with his troops, Yulin City will probably be destroyed along with him.

Yu Chongxiao thought this condition was very good and was willing to facilitate it from the bottom of his heart.

Anyway, he is still young and not from a general family in Yulin. His hometown is Jingbian, which had long been occupied by the Marshal's Army.

On the contrary, old generals such as You Shilu and Wang Shiqin were all from Yulin, had a strong sense of local sentiment for Yulin, and also owned land in the local area.

So we have to see what these old people say about this matter.

But when it came to this, You Shilu and others stopped talking.

After a long while, You Shilu sighed and said, "It's easy to defend, but it's hard to survive. If you can leave, leave."

You Shilu is not that old, but his health is the worst among many veterans, and it is difficult for him to ride into the battlefield anymore.

Even if he went to Beijing, I'm afraid he would no longer be valued by the emperor.

For him, it would be more worthwhile to spend the rest of his life in Yulin, or even die in the battle to defend the city.

Because many descendants of the You family held military positions and served the Ming Dynasty in Shanxi, the capital, and Liaodong.

It is not only for the posthumous fame, but also for the future generations of the same clan.

Also in Yulin City was Hou Shilu, who was seriously injured by Ji Si's transformation.

When these people were young, they were all famous for their bravery. Each of them seemed invincible on the battlefield, but they suffered battle injuries and their military careers were ruined.

Hou Shilu said, "I won't leave either, but since it has come to this, whoever of you goes to the capital, you are all uncles, so just take care of Gongji."

As soon as Yu Chongxiao heard what these two old seniors said, he knew that something bad was going to happen.

Unexpectedly, just when everyone was frozen, You Shiwei, another veteran general of the You family, who had not spoken a word, looked around the hall and slapped the tea table and said, "Then open the city!"

"Although Liu Chengzong was born in the countryside, he still keeps his word. We old guys can die, but we can't let the young people die here too. Even if the young people die in Shanxi or in the capital, it is much better than being buried with us old guys in Yulin!"

"Then open the city gates and let the younger generations of the clan who have no official positions but are able to make contributions pack up their belongings, take their wives and children, cross the Yellow River, and enter the capital."

You Shiwei stood up and let out a long breath. He looked around at everyone in the hall, and finally fixed his gaze on Yu Chongxiao's face. He said, "Chongxiao, you should also leave the city. We have received the emperor's grace for generations, and the land outside the city is all owned by our families."

"It is we who should perform meritorious deeds, no one else deserves it; it is also ours who should die, no one else deserves it!" (End of this chapter)