Strings of bright red firecrackers are crackling and crackling, and the flames are shining brightly. The handover ceremony of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is completed in an instant, and the festive activities in the world will continue for a long time... Emperor Wanli wore a brand-new yellow dragon robe, on which eight auspicious dragons in a circle were embroidered with gold thread, and he himself happened to be nine dragons, which symbolized the "Ninth Five-Year Plan". The crown on the head is made of gold, and the patterns of auspicious clouds and flying dragons are carefully carved. Of course, the degree of delicacy and luxury is unparalleled in the world; , each one is carefully selected, round and flawless, and the same size, adorned on the crown like two curtains, which are both decoration and barrier - in order to show dignity, the emperor's head is of course to be separated from the world. isolated.

However, it feels very uncomfortable to wear such gorgeous and noble clothes on the head and body; although jewels and gold are high-value items, they are not the best materials for clothing-his crown weighs ten After putting on the head, the neck cannot be turned freely; once the dragon robe is put on the body, the limbs are very inflexible, and the whole body can only maintain a puppet-like posture-of course, this posture looks like a puppet from a distance. , is very dignified and noble, and he has no choice but to accept congratulations from civil and military officials in the Huangji Hall in this posture.

All the red tape is carried out in accordance with the etiquette system passed down from generation to generation in this dynasty, from the emperor's ascension to the palace, drums and bells, playing music, and ritual officials singing various praises-to all officials kneeling down, shouting long live three times, and even the completion of the ceremony. It took several hours; his head and neck were sore from the pressure of the extremely luxurious crown to gradually stiff, and his body sat in the heavy and hard brand new dragon robe, maintaining a posture that did not move for several hours, and his limbs were not moving. From soreness to numbness...

"I meet Zhengdan, Sanyang is prosperous, and all things are fresh..." There was a burst of cadence, that is, the acting orator knelt in the altar, and recited loudly: "I respect the emperor, I am going to Nahu, and I will serve the sky forever. ..." After this long section of praise was finished, the foreign praise officer sang the ceremony speech again, so tens of thousands of officials from the Manchu Dynasty knelt down outside the hall together, their movements were in unison, and the scene was huge and spectacular. However, none of the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty, or even the 100 million people in the whole country, can imagine the feeling in the heart of Emperor Wanli at this moment...

There was a faint voice in his heart struggling: "God, why is it not over yet? How long will it last? Why not end sooner? I still have to endure—when will it end? Why not hurry up?" For him, this lengthy Zhengdan Chaohe Yi is a kind of torture. The whole person is wearing a heavy and uncomfortable crown dress, and he can't move like a puppet. He looks straight ahead and looks at the years The same scene, the same ceremony every year, the same old traditions that have remained unchanged for two hundred years... He hated this kind of boring thing in his heart. This kind of fixed ceremony, which is only a formality, has no meaning other than the tradition that an ancient empire attaches great importance to tedious etiquette and cannot ignore even the slightest details. Substantial meaning; however, as the emperor, he couldn't escape from this ceremony of congratulations at all. He could only barely restrain the boredom in his heart, endured it, and sat upright like a wooden man. In the resplendent and resplendent hall, let the limbs gradually become stiff and numb in the noble clothes - that can only be recovered after a long soak in the hot bath after the ceremony.

Compared with Emperor Wanli who felt impatience and emptiness in the face of tens of thousands of people, Nurhachi's mental state is completely different-at this moment, he is facing himself alone, but his heart is full. A surging vitality brought him the courage to fight endlessly. From the end of the ancestor worship ceremony on New Year's Eve, he left the lively atmosphere of keeping watch and sitting around the stove for everyone in the family to enjoy, while he walked alone into the empty house where the coffins of his grandfather and father were parked. He stared at the two coffins silently. After a long time, his emotions gradually returned from agitation to calmness, and his mind gradually entered into clear thinking from the tranquility; he first carefully reviewed and reflected on everything that happened in the past year, His own actions, and even the current strength of Jianzhou Zuowei.

As a result of several victories, the strength of Jianzhou Zuowei has indeed expanded a lot, not only because of the addition of people, animals and property captured by the victors-now, some people have begun to automatically join Jianzhou Zuowei; even, Some of his fellow clansmen who had turned their backs on him in the past also began to look back. He has experienced the ups and downs of the world, and he has long been aware of all kinds of human nature. He has long been familiar with the phenomenon of "when you laugh, the whole world laughs with you; when you cry, you cry alone." When he raised his army with thirteen armors, others saw that he had no chance of winning, so of course he refused to take the risk to support him. Now that he has won several battles, in the eyes of those people, the "weight" is of course different. up!However, he doesn't want to care about the past with these people; even if the people who wanted to kill him in the past want to turn around and serve him now, he still welcomes them with open arms—since "humanity is cold and warm" is Inevitable phenomenon, why bother so much?

"Don't blame others for treating me coldly. At that time, it was my own meager strength that made others look down on me. If others want to look at me warmly, I must first strengthen myself. If I succeed in my career, others will naturally respect me. Respect me, even if you are thousands of miles away, you will come to work!" He thought over and over again, and said to himself carefully: "The people are the foundation of a state-of course, the more people the better, the more people, the larger the state; The bigger it gets—the current number of left guards in Jianzhou is only a few hundred, and more people are about to be recruited. If someone volunteers to work, even if there are shortcomings, they should be tolerated—who has no shortcomings? As long as he has one side's strengths If it can be used, don’t worry about some minor shortcomings—didn’t the Han people say that? If the water is too clear, there won’t be many fish—ah, yes, as a leader, I want to To be able to 'know people and be good at their tasks', understand this person's expertise, let him do this, and make full use of his strengths. As for his shortcomings, don't worry too much; after all, there is no perfect person in this world..."

After figuring this out, he further established his principles of employing people and dealing with affairs, and the method of expanding the strength of Jianzhou Left Guard; then, he once again thought about the long-term, mid-term, and short-term plans that he had been brewing in his heart for a long time. various plans. The short-term plan is very specific: attack Zhaojia City and hunt down Nikanwailan; the medium-term plan is to build Jianzhou Zuowei into a place with a large population, excellent army, rich economy, and a strong city; the long-term plan is to lead the Leading all the Jurchens to the Kangzhuang Avenue...

"I was born to bring chaos to Anbang..." The sense of mission that had been deeply implanted in his heart since he was a child once again filled his chest, arousing the blood in his whole body to be hot and surging; that may have been just a child's dream and hallucination many years ago, but as an adult Later, when he personally experienced the suffering and killing of the Jurchens again and again, and deeply realized the fate of the Jurchens again and again, this sense of mission was no longer just an illusion and dream, but a real feeling. , Concrete cognition, he clearly understands that the work that he must complete in this life is his own responsibility, and he cannot escape even if there are great difficulties.

Facing the coffins of his grandfather and father, he felt a surge of power in his heart; he clearly felt that the lives of his grandfather and father had been extended to him, and that his own mission was innate, so, also Passed by his grandfather and father, and even his grandfather and father reminded him to accept the mission with death... "All my life, I will do my best for the mission I have undertaken, and I will never regret it until I die..." When the first ray of dawn on New Year's Day pierced the sky, he stepped out of the house, fearless of the severe cold of the wind and snow, facing the dawn and the light of the sky, and uttered the solemn oath in his heart; When Emperor Wanli, down to 100 million Li people, were still celebrating and carnivaling for the upcoming Lantern Festival, he had already prepared everything and personally led the troops to attack Zhaojia City. However, this time the troop dispatch was not smooth at the beginning; the main reason was that the location of Zhaojia City was on a dangerous high mountain, the mountain road was rugged and steep, coupled with the severe weather of heavy snow, it was very difficult to march , A team stopped and went, and the people and horses suffered a lot. As a result, some people began to retreat in their hearts—several "uncles and brothers" of his clan, relying on their relationship with him, mustered up the courage to put forward their opinions to him: "The wind and snow, the bad weather, and the difficulty of marching , Why don’t you retreat first, and make plans when the weather is warmer!” "When a man works, how can he change his plan because of the bad weather?" Of course, Nurhachi would not accept the proposal to withdraw troops. He immediately darkened his face and taught those people mercilessly: "If you encounter difficulties, you should try to solve them. How can you hold back? If even such a small difficulty is over If you don’t dare to face it, can you still expect you to make a big career in the future?” As he said that, he said bitterly: "Li Dai, the owner of Zhaojia City, is a cousin with the same surname and family as mine, but he actually served as a guide for Hada soldiers to rob our city; this kind of behavior of colluding with outsiders and bullying our own family How about not giving him some punishment? From now on, everyone will learn from him to do this kind of thing! I must take down Zhaojia City, this little difficulty is nothing..." In the end, An Fei Yanggu came up with a solution. Instead of climbing the steep mountain road against the wind and snow, they cut out steps on the mountain road. The horses were tied with ropes and hoisted up by manpower; in this way, after all the hard work, they finally arrived at Zhaojia City, which is located in the high mountains. However, after the brigade arrived in Zhaojia City, they discovered that new and more serious problems lay before their eyes... It turned out that Long Dun had already sent someone to inform Li Dai of the detailed itinerary of Nurhachi's dispatch of troops; therefore, Li Dai had already prepared, and at this time Zhaojia City had already taken defensive measures; a large number of defenders Gathered on the city, when the horn sounded, everyone was waiting in full force with their knives out of their sheaths and their bows strung up. Li Dai himself went up to the tower, holding a long knife in his hand. In addition, Zhaojia City is built according to the terrain, and it is located on a high ground. Looking up from the bottom of the city, you can feel that the city is tall and crowded, and it is not easy to attack. Then someone retreated and came to Nurhachi and said: "Zhaojia City has learned the news in advance and is already prepared; it seems that it will be difficult to capture, so we should retreat first and come another day when they are not prepared! " Hearing this, Nurhachi was very angry. He sneered and scolded: "Of course I know they are prepared—others are prepared, should we retreat without fighting? Cowards!" The person he was able to speak out blushed and retreated, but he was ready to charge himself; he ordered three brothers, Shuerhazi, Murhazi and Yalhazi, to surround him with a hundred people. Arriving at Zhaojia City, he shot arrows at the top of the city to cover it; himself, E Yidu, and An Fei Yanggu each led dozens of soldiers to charge and attack the city; A large tree was carried by several people to break open the city gate, and some people brought axes and chopped down the city gate from the bottom of the city wall; he himself took the lead and charged into the city with a spear... When the city gate was knocked open by a big tree trunk, all the defenders of Zhaojia City saw with their own eyes that Nurhachi, who was wearing iron armor and riding a tall horse, swept past like the wind, and the spear in his hand danced like thunder and lightning. , No one dared to step forward to fight. Zhaojia City was quickly captured, and most of the defenders abandoned their armor and surrendered. Li Dai had no choice but to drop his weapon in front of Nurhachi and knelt down to surrender. Nurhachi's original intention of attacking Zhaojia City was only to punish him, and had no intention of killing him; therefore, seeing him kneeling down and begging to surrender, he forgave him, not only did not kill him, but also ordered him to be kind to him: Then, when he was done, After everything happened in Zhaojia City, the group returned to Jianzhou Zuowei. This victory, of course, is of great help to the expansion of the strength of Jianzhou Zuowei, and the substantial population and material gains are also a lot; however, Nurhachi has some feelings in his heart, and he returned to Jianzhou After the left guard, he said to E Yidu and An Feiyangu: "Our army's training is not enough-just because when we attacked Zhaojia City, we were shaken by a little difficulty, the morale and will of our army Strength, confidence, and patience are all insufficient, and from now on, we must strengthen training in these areas!" He also listened to it, scratched his ears and said: "When you are in trouble, you want to retreat, you are greedy for life and afraid of death, aren't these all human nature? Can you train them all to get rid of them? In my opinion, our troops will win every battle, It's already amazing!" Nurhachi shook his head and said: "Otherwise: I have heard about the deeds of General Qi Jiguang in the Ming Dynasty who ruled the army. It is said that when he was transferred to the north, he brought 3,000 soldiers to Ji Town, and 3,000 people went to the suburbs. It rained heavily that day, but this Three thousand soldiers stood upright in the rain from morning to night, and no one moved..." Before he finished speaking, E Yidu had already stuck out his tongue and interrupted him: "There is such a thing? Is that really amazing?" Nurhachi nodded and said: "Only when you can train soldiers to this level can you be called a 'general'; we should learn more from him!" The forehead was also surprised: "You want to invite him to come to our place?" Nurhachi smiled unconsciously and said: "No - he is a general of the Ming Dynasty, how could he invite us here? I mean, he once wrote two books on military training. I used to read them in Li Chengliang's residence. I have been here; now, I have to find Han people to buy!" E Yidu said: "That's easy. There are many Han Chinese compradors in the horse market. If you want to tell me something, they are very capable. They can even exchange fresh lychees produced in the Great South for ginseng!" Nurhachi nodded slightly and said, "I've ordered you to do this, let's do it right away!" The foreheads also responded with a "yes", and passed the order; however, before the two books were bought back, a major bad news spread to Jianzhou Zuowei first... Ha Sihu was assassinated on the way out! After receiving this report, Nurhachi didn't even have time to put on his armor, so he grabbed his knife, bow and arrow, mounted his horse and galloped away; at that time, An Feiyangu took his men to hunt, and Edu was training the soldiers' combat skills. Shuerhaqi was supervising the knight's equestrian training. Hearing this, he saw Nurhachi rushing out. The two immediately dropped their work, jumped on the horse, and chased after Nurhachi. the scene. The corpses of Ha Sihu and the horse were lying on the ground. His death was very tragic. Several long arrows shot into him from behind. He shot several long arrows and fell dead on the ground; from the situation at the scene, it seems that someone fired arrows from behind him and attacked him. He fell off the horse after being hit by the arrow, and the enemy assassinated him from the front... Nurhachi got off the horse when she arrived at the scene; Ni Chuhe had also arrived after hearing the news. She almost rolled off the horse, and as soon as she fell to the ground, she immediately rushed over and hugged Ha Sihu's body, crying so hard that her eyes almost closed. Bleeding. Looking at Ni Chuhe, and then looking at Ha Sihu's body, Nurhachi was angry and sad at the same time. He wanted to comfort Ni Chuhe, but he opened his mouth wide but couldn't speak; However, he screamed in his heart: "Who did this? Who killed Ha Sihu? I'm going to tear him into pieces!" He was so angry that he wished he could get on his horse and look for the murderer immediately, but he didn't dare to leave Ni Chuhe and left, so he could barely hold back; but seeing Ni Chuhe crying to death, he couldn't help at all, he The anger in his heart deepened; when E Yidu and Shuerhaqi arrived, he gritted his teeth and shouted: "I'm going to tear the murderer into pieces..." Er Yidu was more impulsive than him, jumped on the horse as soon as he dismounted, and shouted: "Who did it? I will kill him eight times..." However, Nurhachi's sanity was still there, and he took E Yidu's rein and said, "Nichuhe needs someone to take care of her, let's take her back first!" Ni Chuhe had already fainted from crying, and Ha Sihu's former servant who accompanied her had already supported her, but Nurhachi was worried, so he picked her up with his own hands, put her on his horse's back, and took off her again. He took off his coat, wrapped Ha Sihu's body, and put it on the back of E Yidu's horse. Then, he led the two horses by himself, and took heavy and sad steps with his head down, step by step. Walking back to Jianzhou Zuowei, the others led their horses and walked behind him on foot; in the snow, every step of the group of people left a deep footprint, stretching into a long road. The firecracker-like graphics are like endless sorrows leaving scars in people's hearts.

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