On the 15th day of the first lunar month, it is the time when the family gathers together to eat dumplings, enjoy the moon, and watch the lanterns. However, on the 15th day of the fifth year of Chongzheng, there is such a group of people who are far away from their hometowns and relatives. In the cold north, they are watching the enemy's every move and ready to sacrifice for the country at any time.

They were the Ming Dynasty defenders from Zunhua to the capital. Since the Manchu and Mongolian coalition forces on the northern grasslands had never dispersed, they had to keep guarding the city wall to prevent the enemy from attacking. Not to mention the Lantern Festival, they all spent the New Year on the city wall.

That morning, just as the soldiers on the city wall were shaking in the cold wind, buckets of hot dumplings were quietly lifted up to the city wall by the soldiers who had changed their guards. The generals of each department, the generals of the flags and the captains of each department followed the thousand generals with a basin of clean rice bowls, and the generals of the generals, or generals behind them came to the city wall. There were also teams of Jinyiwei next to them, and they were also holding things in their hands, but not the basins of the bowls but heavy wooden boxes.

Although the cities and the leaders are different, they all do the same thing: they walk up to each soldier and greet with kind words: "Thank you for your hard work." Then each sent a bulging envelope, then delivered the bowl to their hands, and personally scooped them a full bowl of dumplings.

Many soldiers were inexplicably moved and shed tears with the dumplings. Some soldiers curiously opened the envelope and saw what was inside. The people who opened the envelope were shocked. It turned out to be silver ingots, a total of five taels of silver ingots!

What's going on? It's only fifteenth, and it's not time to pay the salary!

At that time, most of the soldiers were illiterate, so most people didn't read the words printed on the envelope, but there were always a few special ones that could recognize some words. Lu Renjia's family had a private school. He had studied them for a few years when he was a child. When he saw the words on the envelope, he was excited and speechless: "This, this, this..."

The comrades next to him looked at him curiously. Everyone knew that he was literate. One comrades couldn't help asking, "Brother Jia, what is written on this envelope? Let's read it for everyone."

Everyone looked at other people's envelopes. Hum, it was the same. It should have been written and carved a wooden mold and rubbed it. So everyone looked up at Lu Renjia and urged him to read it quickly.

Lu Renjia trembledly holding the envelope and said excitedly: "Thank you for your hard work, soldiers, I thank you on behalf of the people of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu..."

When Lu Renjia read this, he stopped and disappeared. A fool asked foolishly: "What's Zhu? Why don't you read it?"

A veteran next to him gave him a thundering sound, and then warned in a low voice: "That's the emperor's name, you kid want to die!"

The second idle touched his head and said excitedly: "Master? Do you think this silver is rewarded by the emperor?"

Everyone ignored him and just shook the envelope flattened and put it in their arms carefully. This was the emperor's calligraphy. Although it was a rubbing, it was quite rare. Taking it back to your hometown will definitely attract the attention of the villages!

Of course, Zhu Cijing didn't know that his handwriting, like a chicken claw, would be collected by others. He just based on the principle of leaving a name for doing good deeds. In order to make all soldiers remember his goodness, he wrote an envelope for Cao Huachun to rub it.

The more than 400,000 army gathered in Shuntian Prefecture, and the more than 200,000 army that stood firm in the snow and ice in Liaodong, each of which was five taels of silver. As a subsidy for the New Year, this was planned by Zhu Cijing before the New Year and part of his plan to win people's hearts. Liaodong has not yet been thawed and the silver cannot be transported, so he can only send it to Shuntian Prefecture first. Although no one would complain about him if he didn't give a penny of subsidy, they would definitely touch them inexplicably. Although they spent more than 2 million taels, they could make more than 500,000 soldiers remember his goodness. The money was worth it!

Today he still has to go to Zunhua, so even though there is no morning court today, he got up early. He was wearing a grand dress under Qin Mingyue's service. Zheng Chenggong ran over again. He circled around Zhu Cijiong and praised hypocritically: "Tsk tsk, the emperor is so majestic to wear this dress!"

Liu Rushi behind him quickly covered his mouth and did not dare to laugh out loud, but Qin Mingyue chuckled without any scruples.

Zhu Cijiu rolled his eyes and said angrily: "You have nothing to do, you are either traitor or thief. Tell me, what do you want to do?"

Zheng Chenggong rubbed his hands and said, "I heard that the emperor is going to Zunhua to inspect the new army. Can you bring me with me?"

Zhu Cijing stared at him and looked up and down, thinking, "This kid is growing up, it's time to take him around. He can't keep people in the palace all day long and don't take him out for a walk. How can he know how powerful he is? Well, it's better to take him to see my army and worship idols. That's what you have to be cultivated since childhood."

Zheng Chenggong was sweating when he was staring at him. He stood there nervously and didn't dare to move, just like a prisoner waiting for a sentence.

Finally, Zhu Cijing said slowly: "It's okay to take you there, but you don't have to speak without my permission, otherwise I will never take you out again next time."

Zheng Chenggong jumped up excitedly and was about to cheer, when Zhu Cijiu raised his eyes and glared. He quickly covered his mouth and looked around nervously, as cute as he looked.

As soon as Chen Hours arrived, the army gathered outside Andingmen began to set off and headed north in a mighty manner. In front were 20,000 elite Beijing camps, with steel guns as like a forest, majestic; in the middle were 20,000 Jinyiwei, protecting the emperor's dragon chariot, flags like the sea, covering the sky and the sun; behind were 30,000 elite Beijing camps, densely packed, and nowhere could be seen.

The whole team was so spectacular, but someone was very strange. He saw his tall nose and big mouth, his whole face showed a sickly bright red, wearing a weird open-clad button outfit, and wearing an inappropriate hat, which was inconsistent no matter how you look at it.

This is naturally the Portuguese envoy Schvira. Zhu Cijiu originally prepared an eight-carriage sedan for him, but he insisted on riding a horse, saying that he should enjoy the scenery along the way. Zhu Cijiu had to go with him. You are not afraid of being watched by monsters. I am afraid of nothing!

Zhu Cijing's dragon chariot was surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside. He was surrounded by Jinyiwei masters. He could not get close at all, so he had to follow Zheng Chenggong's sedan chair and curry favor with the prince. Schvira had never strolled around on the land of the Ming Dynasty on a tall horse, and he felt novel in everything he saw; Zheng Chenggong was not much better. Except on the beach of Hirado, the one he had played with was the Forbidden City, and he rarely had the opportunity to wander around. These two people had a lot of common language.

Zheng Chenggong lay on Liu Rushi's shoulder, stretched his head out of the sedan chair, looking around, chatting with Shivera very happily. Liu Rushi also wanted to see the scenery outside, but the foreigner outside the sedan window was so scary that she didn't dare to look out, so she could only turn her back to the sedan window and prick up her ears to listen to Zheng Chenggong's description.

When the capital was heading to Zunhua, the first city in the middle was Tongzhou. This was the defense area of ​​Hou Shilu, the general of Xuanfu. Hou Shilu also got up early in the morning. He didn't want to accompany the emperor to Zunhua, but the emperor didn't even react when he passed by your defense area. Wouldn't he think he was too big and his life was too long? So he got up early to prepare. First, he chose a team of 100 people standing guard as the emperor wanted, and personally distributed the subsidized silver to each soldier. Then he gathered all the soldiers who were not standing guard, lined up neatly next to the official road outside Tongzhou City, waiting quietly.

After about an hour, a small dark dot finally appeared in the direction of the capital. When they walked in, they saw a sun, moon, dragon flags lined up high in front of the line, and behind them were a cloud-like flag. It was indeed the elite of the First Corps of the Imperial Guards, and it was indeed the team that the emperor was on patrol.

Hou Shilu quickly turned over and dismounted, shouting: "Hello." Then he knelt on one knee first, and more than 5,000 soldiers behind him also knelt on one knee. Then, Hou Shilu took the lead and shouted: "Long live my emperor."

The soldiers behind him shouted at the mountain, and slowly the soldiers on the city walls in the distance also shouted at the mountain, and the sound became more and more neat and louder.

Listening to such a loud voice from the mountain and looking at the soldiers kneeling all over the ground in the distance, Schweila thought he had arrived at the ground, and he said to Zheng Chenggong: "This voice is so loud. This is the first time I have heard so many people shouting together. Is this Zunhua?"

Zheng Chenggong said awesomely: "It's still early, this is just a small town you pass by. It would be nice if Shen Shi can get to Zunhua."

When Shivera heard this, she opened her mouth wide and gasped. This was just a small town. I was afraid that there would be 40,000 to 50,000 people stationed at this sound! In fact, he misunderstood. These soldiers had just received the subsidy from Zhu Cijiu. They were very grateful to the emperor, so they naturally howled desperately, so ten thousand people howled out of the effect of 40,000 to 50,000. This was not that Zhu Cijiu was intentionally cheating, and he did not expect that the soldiers below would have such a big reaction.

After passing Tongzhou, Sanhe and Jizhou, he walked along the way, and the sound of shouting long live on the mountain became louder and louder. Shivera mistakenly thought that at least more than 100,000 people were stationed in the three cities he passed by. There were more than 100,000 people in Jinling, more than 100,000 people in the capital, and more than 100,000 people in the sea. This was more than 100,000 people. The army he saw with his own eyes was no less than 500,000. He had admired the power of the Ming Dynasty to an unparalleled level.

As Zheng Chenggong said, the army marched for more than four hours before Shen Shi arrived in Zunhua. The welcome scene was so scared that Shi Weila almost fell off the horse's back. He wiped his eyes and looked at both sides in horror. He was really right. There were countless people gathered on both sides of the official road, and there was no head to see horizontally or vertically!

When the vanguard of the Imperial Guard was about one mile away from the welcome team, a muffled "boom" suddenly came from the front, and the whole earth trembled. This was the sound of more than 200,000 people kneeling down at the same time. Then the sound of the mountain crying loudly came in front: "Long live my emperor."

The sound became louder and louder, like a thunder in the mountains and thunder, like a world-destroying thunder, the whole earth was trembling, and the whole sky was shaking!

Schvira was so shocked that he could not speak. At this moment, he had only one thought: "This Ming Empire is too powerful, too powerful, too powerful!"
Chapter completed!