The Ming Dynasty's Spokesperson

On the seventh day of the eleventh month of the twentieth year of the Wanli reign, it was exactly one month since Lin Tianshuai led his troops into Korea.

Li Rusong, the commander of the first corps on the western front, heard in Kaesong, 150 miles away from the capital Seoul, that the Japanese soldiers were going to withdraw from the capital Seoul, so he decisively continued to march south.

After leaving Kaesong and marching along the road to the southeast direction of Seoul, after only a dozen miles, Li Rusong suddenly felt something in his heart and asked the guide of the Korean country, "Where is ahead?"

The guide of the Korean country replied through the translator, "One or two miles ahead is Dachengdong."

The most basic village-level unit in the Korean country is either a dong or a li, and the highest-level administrative district is a dao, and General Li has gradually become accustomed to this.

As for the prefectures, states, counties, and counties between the dao and the village, General Li has not yet fully understood it.

What is even more unclear is that the Korean country is so large, how can such complex administrative districts as dao, prefectures, states, counties, and counties exist at the same time? It is said that there are also several large protectorates and protectorates.

Whenever I think of the words that Lin Jiuyuan often said, "The smaller the temple, the stronger the evil spirits; the shallower the water, the more turtles there are," it feels more and more appropriate.

The guards on the left and right looked at Li Rusong and asked inexplicably, "What's wrong?"

General Li showed a bit of confusion on his face, pointing to the land under his feet and said, "When I was chatting with Lin Jiuyuan before, he said that he must build a house here and name it Panmunjom."

Many close people know that Lin Jiuyuan often says some inexplicable words, like riddles, which are very difficult to understand.

Li Rusong racked his brains but couldn't figure out what Lin Jiuyuan specifically mentioned about "Panmunjom".

Continuing forward, while chatting with the guards on the left and right on the road, someone speculated, "I heard that the general can see the secrets of heaven. Could it be that the place is the pulse of the Korean nation, so they want to build a Panmunjom to suppress it?"

After everyone guessed, there was really only this possibility.

Li Rusong's second brother Li Rubai, who followed Li Rusong's central army, advised: "Brother, stop talking about it. This is very ominous!

I read in novels and stories that whenever the commander always cares about or talks about a place name during the march, he will definitely suffer later!"

Li Rusong: ""

This is really a brother! Can't we hope for something good, such as entering Seoul without bloodshed and recovering the royal capital?

That day, General Li led his army to Paju, which is only 80 miles away from the royal capital Seoul, and can be reached in an hour by galloping.

Here we got clear news that the Japanese soldiers had withdrawn from the royal capital Seoul in large numbers.

The next day, Li Rusong continued to use Cha Dashou as the vanguard, himself and Li Rubai in the middle, and Yang Yuan as the rear guard, with a total of 7,000 cavalrymen quickly marching towards Seoul.

Because the supply of food and grass was slightly better than in history, General Li also dispatched 2,000 more troops this time than in history.

Regarding Li Rusong's thoughts at this time, first, he thought that he could seize the royal capital Seoul when the Japanese soldiers retreated to see if Seoul had any food and grass, which was what he had done all the way here.

Second, he was confident that with 7,000 elite soldiers, he could fight even if he met tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers head-on.

Third, he felt that even if the intelligence was wrong and the Japanese soldiers did not withdraw from Seoul, he could still take the initiative with his strong mobility.

In Li Rusong's eyes, the Japanese soldiers had low combat effectiveness and were vulnerable in field battles, so they would only shrink and defend or retreat.

But what Li Rusong did not expect was that this time the Japanese soldiers did not retreat to the south, nor did they defend the city to the death.

Instead, after the military meeting, they gathered 40,000 Japanese soldiers and took the initiative to attack northward, seeking an opportunity to annihilate the Ming official army in field battles.

The Japanese soldiers' withdrawal from Seoul mentioned in the intelligence was not the escape to the south as General Li thought.

No matter how much Lin Tailai urged him, he could not change General Li's mood of underestimating the enemy.

That night, Li Rusong was stationed in Biti Pavilion. In the early morning, the vanguard Cha Dashou was attacked by Japanese soldiers, so Li Rusong led his troops to rescue him.

Not only did the Japanese soldiers not retreat, but they also dared to fight with our Tianbing in the field! General Li probably had this mentality at this time.

But it snowed today, and the ground was slippery, which limited the mobility of the cavalry.

Under this circumstance, Li Rusong and thousands of soldiers were surrounded by 40,000 well-prepared Japanese soldiers. It was difficult to break through quickly for a while, and they could only defend and kill the enemy desperately on the spot.

Although the Japanese soldiers gathered eight times the strength and completed the encirclement, they still failed to achieve the intention of encircling and annihilating the Ming official army, and the battle loss ratio was not advantageous.

This proves from the side that it seems that it is not unreasonable for the Japanese soldiers to be despised by Li Rusong.

During this period, the Japanese soldiers organized elites several times and launched attacks on Li Rusong's central army, but they were all repelled. In the most recent one, the Japanese soldiers killed only 200 steps away from Li Rusong, and the situation was a little dangerous.

The two sides fought bloody battles until the evening. The two thousand soldiers of Yang Yuan's column, who were originally the rear guard, fought hard to open a passage from the periphery to help Li Rusong escape from the encirclement.

The exhausted Japanese soldiers did not dare to pursue anymore and retreated back to Seoul.

This battle was like a fisherman setting a net to catch fish, and the big fish had been caught, but in the end the big fish broke through the net with its strength and escaped.

Li Rusong retreated directly to Kaesong. He checked the soldiers and found that the loss of one thousand guards and servants was heavy, and more than half of them were injured or killed.

For this reason, General Li was heartbroken, these servants were all private property of the Li family!

He couldn't help but shed tears of regret, and sighed to his second brother Li Rubai: "I regret not listening to General Lin's words!"

In addition to the guards and servants, the Ming official army lost more than a thousand people, which was the largest loss since entering the court.

In addition, Li Rusong's spirit was frustrated, so the western front stopped advancing and maintained the front line in Kaesong.

On the eastern front, because there was only fifteen days of food and grass in hand, Lin Tailai did not take more time to recuperate, and set out again to the north on November 5.

However, he partially rotated the troops, and asked Dong Yiyuan's Third Corps to rush from Yongxing with some food and grass to join the main force.

At the same time, he asked Yang Dengshan, who was injured in the attack, to lead the troops of the column to garrison in Hamhung, and transferred 5,000 troops from Ma Gui's Corps back to Yongxing for defense.

In this way, the troops who set out to Jizhou to conquer Kato Kiyomasa's troops were 6,000 people from the Third Battalion of Jinglüe, 10,000 people from part of Ma Gui's Second Corps, and 10,000 people from Dong Yiyuan's Third Corps, with a total of 26,000 people.

At this time, Jizhou was 300 miles away from Hamhung. On the march, the scenery along the way was extremely dilapidated. Most of the villages had become ruins, and there were few living people. This scene was completely different from what was seen in Pyeongan Province on the western front.

Although the villages in Pyeongan Province were also poor and dilapidated, they could barely maintain the lowest level of living environment.

Even when marching in the 400-li mountainous area, we can see villages that are functioning normally, which is much better than in Hamgyong Province.

This shows that the corruption of Kato Kiyomasa's military discipline led to this situation of "no cockcrows for a hundred miles".

It is also said that Kato Kiyomasa's troops slaughtered civilians at will, probably to intimidate the people of Korea not to resist. This brutal brain circuit is exactly the same as the devils three hundred and several decades later.

It is said that until hundreds of years later, "Kato Kiyomasa" was still used to refer to dogs on the peninsula. When killing dogs and eating meat, people said that Kato Kiyomasa was killed, which shows the hatred of Kato Kiyomasa on the peninsula.

A few days later, the closer to Jizhou, the more tragic the situation.

Wherever the army went, it had almost been scorched earth in advance, without even the ruins left.

The ruins of the village, which was mainly made of bamboo and wood, could still be dismantled to produce some firewood, but if it became scorched earth, it would be of no use to the army.

Even Cui Wukui, the military interpreter, couldn't stand it anymore and couldn't help cursing, "This Kato is a beast!"

Lin Jinglue burned the city or demolished the house to reduce casualties during the battle or for other reasons. He would not kill civilians and burn houses when he had nothing to do. This beast Kato has no humanity at all.

Lin Tailai looked at the scene of the red land in his field of vision and said a strange riddle: "Four hundred years ago, it really echoed each other."

This made the more educated followers on the left and right rack their brains to see if they could solve the riddle.

When was four hundred years ago? Southern Song Dynasty? It was called Goryeo during the Southern Song Dynasty, right? What is the relationship now? What situation echoes with the present?

No one could have imagined that the "four hundred years" that Lin Jinglue lamented was not four hundred years ago, but more than four hundred years later.

In Lin Tailai's previous life, Jizhou was the place where the North Koreans in the peninsula conducted nuclear weapons tests.

Thinking of this, and seeing the red land in front of him, Lin Tailai couldn't help but want to complain a few words.

However, after the entertaining complaints, he was left with only worry, and couldn't help but frowned and sighed: "It seems that we are going to encounter a difficult situation."

The large area of ​​red land in front of him proved that Kato Kiyomasa implemented the "fortified walls and cleared the fields" strategy, turning the periphery of Jizhou into a scorched earth, leaving the Ming Dynasty's official army unable to get any help.

At the same time, Kato Kiyomasa is expected to besiege the city again, relying on the city wall to resolutely defend to the end. This is the situation that Lin Tailai hates to encounter the most.

At this time, the army was approaching Jizhou, choosing the terrain to start camping, and all these were done by professional generals.

And Lin Jinglue, who was probably the first to land, didn't worry about setting up camp, and took his guards to survey outside Jizhou City.

Jizhou can be called a "state", which is second only to "prefecture" in the Korean Kingdom, which is not too low.

Among the big cities conquered by Lin Tailai, Pyongyang Prefecture is one of the three capitals, and Hamhung Prefecture is the place where the Li Dynasty rose and the core town in the northeast, so the city is still decent.

But with the national strength of Korea, it is naturally impossible for all cities to be so well-prepared.

After circling Jizhou for half a circle, Lin Jinglue felt that this was just a slightly larger earthen wall. However, even a large earthen wall can cause great trouble to the Ming Dynasty's official army.

For the Japanese soldiers who are sharp in light firearms and are most afraid of cavalry, there are two concepts with or without fortifications. Large earthen walls are also fortifications that can be relied on by the Japanese soldiers.

Not to mention that Kato Kiyomasa is a confidant and direct descendant of the Toyotomi clan of Japan, and even a direct descendant of the direct descendant, and his troops are also considered elite in the Japanese army.

Take the number of fire guns (iron cannons) for example. The number of fire guns (iron cannons) equipped by Kato Kiyomasa's troops is much higher than that of other Japanese troops, and the proportion of fire gunners (iron cannon foot soldiers) may be as high as 30%.

On the other hand, the Ming Dynasty's official army is slightly tight on food and grass. Previously, in order to march in the mountainous areas, they did not carry many heavy artillery and siege equipment.

Faced with such a situation, even if the enemy army relied on a large earthen wall, it would give Lin Tailai a headache.

Of course, it doesn't mean that he can't fight. If he really can't fight, he won't come. The main reason is that Lin Jinglue doesn't want too many casualties on his side and is unwilling to conquer the city at the cost of a large number of casualties.

This place is far away from the mainland of the Ming Dynasty. It is not easy to replenish troops. It is very important to preserve the living force. Therefore, Lin Jinglue has always adhered to the principle of reducing casualties as much as possible, and he does not hesitate to bear some infamy for this.

At the same time, because the military rations are limited, the city must be broken within ten days, and there is still pressure of time limit.

After seeing the situation in Jizhou City and settling the camp, Lin Tailai returned to the camp to eat, and then listened to the reports of the commanders of each corps and column.

As for too useful suggestions, I haven't heard them yet. After all, other generals don't know as much about Kato Kiyomasa as Lin Tailai himself.

Then Lin Tailai summoned the biggest traitor at hand, Ju Jingren, who was captured in Xianxing, and asked: "You are the only one here who has come into contact with Kato Kiyomasa. What kind of person do you think he is?"

Ju Jingren thought for a while and replied: "This person is a contradictory person, his behavior is very cruel, but he also likes to put on airs.

He has a very high self-esteem, loves to talk big, and likes to intimidate his opponents to solve problems.

Although his own strength is outstanding, he also has certain leadership abilities, and he is also good at pretending, so he has a high prestige among the Japanese soldiers. "

Lin Tailai said thoughtfully: "It sounds like Kato Kiyomasa is very pretentious in his dealings with others? Does he like to show off?"

Ju Jingren silently digested the new words "very pretentious" and "pretentious", and gradually he could understand the meaning.

"Jinglue Gong summarized it brilliantly. Kato Kiyomasa just likes to pretend." Ju Jingren then gave another example, "Previously in Huining City, the villain tied up the two princes Linhai Jun and Shunhe Jun and presented them to Kato Kiyomasa.

Logically speaking, he should be rewarded, but Kato Kiyomasa gave the villain a severe reprimand first, scolding him for being unfaithful and unjust.

The key is that while he scolded the villain for being unfaithful and unjust, he also continued to slaughter civilians to steal food. He burned, killed, raped and looted wherever he went. He also asked the villain to help search and plunder in Xianjing Road, so the strategy is fair to you. Are you saying he is pretending? "

Lin Tailai did not find it strange, and commented: "This is the behavior of Japanese pirates. Although they look human in appearance, they are still beasts in nature.

Just like jackals, tigers and leopards, they don't think it's wrong to eat humans. The same is true for Japanese people like Kato Kiyomasa. Their love of showing off is just an external manifestation of his bestiality. "

Ju Jingren could only echo and said: "Jing Lue has a great opinion."

Lin Tailai asked again: "The Linhai Lord you kidnapped and presented to Kato is the eldest son of the current King of Joseon, right? I also heard that the King of Joseon did not have a legitimate son?"

Ju Jingren replied: "Yes, but the king prefers his second son, Lord Guanghai, and will definitely make Lord Guanghai his crown prince."

The whole country of Korea probably knows that when he was fleeing for his life, the king of Joseon kept his second son Gwanghae-gun with him, but sent his eldest son Linhae-gun to Hamgyong Province in the northeast. As a result, Linhae-gun was captured by Kato Kiyomasa.

"Is Lord Linhai still alive?" Lin Tailai asked again.

Ju Jingren said with great certainty: "Kato Kiyomasa has kept important prisoners alive, and the two princes are imprisoned in the army."

Lin Tailai said righteously and sternly: "Linhaijun is the eldest son and Guanghaijun is the second son. The relationship between the elders and younger ones is always orderly.

When it comes to the issue of succession to the throne, how can we abolish the elder and establish the younger? This is unethical!

Wait for me to rescue Lord Linhai first, and then negotiate carefully with the king of your country. "

Ju Jingren was speechless. Mr. Jinglue, you are looking for excuses to interfere in our internal affairs of North Korea. It is really obvious.

After talking about other things, Lin Jinglue said to Ju Jingren: "Also, our headquarters wants to send you to the city to persuade Kato Kiyomasa to surrender. How about that?"

Ju Jingren: ""

Can I choose to refuse?