Chapter 24 Chapter Three

Shen Weijing finally regained his freedom. Ever since he was captured by Li Rusong in Liaodong, he has been in constant panic, struggling every day on the boundary between life and death.Shen Weijing knew that the reason why he was still alive was only because he still had surplus value to use.As long as he is proven worthless, he will be mercilessly abandoned by Da Ming, and no one will protect him. Therefore, the victory in the Battle of Pyongyang is definitely bad news for him. Since the Ming army can defeat the Japanese army on the frontal battlefield, there is no need to negotiate with the Japanese army; since there is no need to negotiate with the Japanese army, then Shen Weijing is useless; Useful, then...

Fortunately, this kind of thing didn't happen. After the battle of Bichiguan, the Ming army and the Japanese army entered a confrontation stage.Shen Weijing, who was trapped in the cage, was delighted to find that the dawn of peace talks and the hope of his life were slowly coming. Ming Dynasty had a very prominent feature in its foreign wars: it never negotiated peace.No matter whether the emperor was captured by Oala, or the Jurchens were forced into Beijing, Daming never groveled and begged for peace, but carried it to the end. But Imjin War is a bit different. This was not a war that took place within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, but a military operation to assist a small vassal state.If you lose, you will lose the territory of the Koreans; if you win, you will consolidate the rule of the Koreans.For a war of this nature, Ming didn't need to be too serious. If the enemy could withdraw from the Korean peninsula through peaceful means, it would certainly be more cost-effective than going to war—the blood of Ming soldiers should not be shed for other countries needlessly.

After the Battle of Bichiguan, Li Rusong's Liaodong Army and Song Yingchang's Southern Army had frequent conflicts and conflicts.Song Yingchang, Yuan Huang and others accused the Northern Army of taking meritorious service and killing innocent people indiscriminately, and even joined the court.In turn, Li Rusong accused Song Yingchang of not even entering North Korea, but instead sent people to ask for the head and defraud him of credit. During the Battle of Pyongyang, an unlucky Japanese monk had his head chopped off and was mistaken for Jingche Xuansu.In order to snatch the head of this big shot, Li Rusong and Song Yingchang went to court many times, until it was confirmed that Xuansu was still alive, the two of them gave up angrily.

Luo Shangzhi and others in Pyongyang also kept in secret contact with Song Yingchang and others. From time to time, they told the North Koreans strange things about Admiral Li, clamoring that they must either retreat or attack, and it is not a problem to stay in Pyongyang. As for the Liaodong Group Army, which was on the front line, a large number of war horses died of illness at the moment. They had a meal but did not finish their meals. The artillery and ammunition were not complete, and their combat effectiveness dropped significantly.Under such a situation of domestic and foreign difficulties, especially after the big victory, Li Rusong was discouraged and didn't want to fight anymore because of the huge pressure from home.Under the persuasion of Zheng Wenbin and Zhao Rumei, his staff, he began to ask for a substitute, and asked the court to replace him—I stopped playing.

Song Yingchang also had a headache at this time.Although the great victory in Pyongyang was sent to Beijing by him with drums and gongs and won a lot of applause, the war was too expensive.In order to support the Korean battlefield, he has almost exhausted the reserves in northern China.If it continues, we will have to mobilize the supplies along the coast to prepare for the Japanese.The anti-war faction in the imperial court has begun to raise its head again, and officials have already written to discuss, asking whether it is necessary to spend so much money and kill so many people for a foreign country.

Faced with this pressure, Shi Xing, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, asked Song Yingchang how to deal with it.Song Yingchang believes that the Japanese pirates must be guarded against, but it is advisable to have a peaceful negotiation first, which is naturally the best; if the negotiation fails, it can be delayed for a while.Now the life of the Ming army stationed in the court is too hard, and the supplies cannot be transported at all. It will not be too late to fight until the soldiers' salaries, food, and reinforcements arrive in Pyongyang. At this time, the five thousand naval divisions of the Ming army have already arrived at Huanghai Road; , Chen Lin's second batch of new Ming army is also on the way.The rotation and deployment of these forces takes time.

Song Yingchang thought it was possible to talk, but Li Rusong didn't want to fight, so the southern and northern armies, who had always been hostile, stood together for the first time and worked hard for a common goal. But a slap can't be slapped, and such a matter of peace talks must be consensual.Daming has dignity. Song Yingchang and Li Rusong don’t want to fight any more, and they will never be the first to propose peace talks. This kind of thing is just like falling in love. Then push the boat along the way and agree on the spot. What do the Japanese think?They were so good-natured that they soon offered to ask for peace.

Because the Japanese troops stationed in North Korea can hardly hold on now. At this time, the main force of the Japanese army was concentrated near Seoul, with a total of more than 60,000 people. All the troops in it were sent to the front line to retreat or retreat, and they had all experienced defeats—the defeats in Pyongyang and Xingshan and the fierce battle at the Byeokjeon. Morale Very depressed.The supply situation of the Japanese army was not very good after the Longshan warehouse was burned, and the situation began to be embarrassing.In addition, before the arrival of the Ming army, they carried out a round of massacres in Seoul, resulting in corpses everywhere in Seoul, the stench was suffocating, and the plague was rampant. The Japanese at this meeting didn't even bother to clean it up.

This downturn has caused the entire Japanese army to fall into a pessimistic mood.At that time, Yoshimitsu Mogami, a Japanese daimyo from the Eastern Kingdom, was participating in the battle at Hizen Nagoya. He witnessed many disabled soldiers and deserters withdrawing to Japan, and wrote in a letter with infinite bitterness in his heart: "The Japanese have long been discouraged by Seoul. , as long as you can go home alive and drink a sip of water from your hometown, even if you are a monk, you are willing." Even a daimyo is so pessimistic, let alone other low-level samurai and ordinary soldiers.After retreating to Seoul, the escape rate of the Japanese army was astonishingly high, and mutiny occurred frequently. The Japanese troops stationed in North Korea ran to Tsushima Island, those on Tsushima Island ran to Kyushu, and the Japanese troops from Kyushu ran to Honshu, forming a spectacular escape. torrent.If you really can't escape, just surrender to the Ming army and the Korean army.

Almost every daimyo has some degree of exile under his command.In order to intercept these deserters, the Japanese army set up "renliuban stations" all over Japan to hunt down the fugitive Japanese soldiers. In the whole of Japan, Taiko is probably the only one who is still happily insisting on going to war. Pyongyang's gain and loss made Hideyoshi really angry for a while.But he didn't think it was a strategic mistake, but a small tactical setback. As long as he went into battle himself, he could easily defeat the Ming army. For this reason, Hideyoshi formulated an ambitious plan. He would personally go into battle across the sea, and lead an army of 200,000 people with Tokugawa Ieyasu, Kamo's hometown, Asano Nagasaki, Maeda Toshiie and his confidants. North Korea wiped out all the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea like a thunderbolt.

With this order, there was an uproar in Japan. Hideyoshi didn't understand at all that Japan's problem in North Korea was not a lack of troops, but a lack of supplies.Now that 100,000 people have nothing to eat or drink, and another 200,000 Japanese troops are sent to North Korea, what will be added to the fully loaded camel of the Korean War will not be the last straw, but a ton of steel. The news of the increase in troops reached Seoul, and all the generals—whether it was Ishida Mitsunari of the prudent faction or Takakage Kobayakawa and Kato Kiyomasa of the main combat faction—unanimously opposed it, believing that the increase in troops at this time would only accelerate the collapse of the Japanese army. But everyone knows Hideyoshi's temper, the donkey, the more he opposes him, the more violent he will be.He had to find a way to smooth his hair and suppress this matter. In the end, it was Kuroda Nagashi who had studied political science and gave the Ukita Hide family an idea, asking him to write a letter of victory on behalf of the generals of the Japanese army.In the book of Zoujie, the battle of Bichiguan was boasted a lot, indicating that the Ming army was already timid and did not dare to take half a step forward.Our army has already gained the upper hand, but it is very cold and difficult to maintain. It is better to retreat to Busan and negotiate peace with the enemy. When North Korea has food in autumn, it will not be too late to fight. These words were quite ingenious, hiding the difficulties of the Japanese army in one good news after another, not only taking Hideyoshi's face into account, but also expressing the actual situation tactfully.Changzheng knew that it would never work if he directly told Taiko that we should propose peace talks first, so he played with spring and autumn brushwork, implying that Mr. Taiko was not that we were going to make peace with the enemy, but that the enemy couldn't hold on and came to find him. We beg for peace. Anyway, Hideyoshi was not in North Korea, so he had no idea who started the peace talks first. Sure enough, as Nagamasa expected, Hideyoshi read this letter, and his vanity was greatly satisfied. In addition, a group of big men in the country also tried their best to persuade him. The envoys came - Nagamasa's Spring and Autumn writing style directly contributed to the peace talks between China and Japan, but it also caused a small deviation in Hideyoshi's assessment of the situation, which later deeply affected the trend of the war. Now that Hideyoshi has agreed to peace talks, don't delay, let's talk quickly. Ukita Hideka chose President Konishi as the negotiator.He had been in charge of diplomatic work at Hideyoshi's house before, and he also had experience in negotiating with the Ming Dynasty, so he was the most suitable candidate. But President Xiaonishi lost his reputation in the previous battle of Pyongyang, Xiujia feared that he would be looked down upon by the people of the Ming side, and thoughtfully assigned him a deputy, and hoped that they could cooperate sincerely and work together for the grand plan of the Taige effort. This deputy is Kato Kiyomasa... I really don't know what the Xiu family thinks, they tied these two enemies together. The negotiator has been selected, and the next step is how to let the other party know that we have peace talks. Just at this time, a North Korean envoy came to Seoul.This emissary was called Li Jinzhong, and he was a subordinate of Jin Qianyi, the leader of the famous rebel army. After Jin Qianyi became an official army, he also became a member of the court. The purpose of Li Jinzhong's trip to Seoul was to confirm the safety of the two princes as entrusted by the king of North Korea, Li Yan.The Japanese knew that this was an important bargaining chip in the negotiation, so they agreed to his request.Li Jinzhong saw the two captured princes and an accompanying minister Huang Tingyu in Seoul, and they cried bitterly when they saw each other.After crying, Li Jinzhong asked them if they had any letters to pass on to Li Yan. Huang Tingyu took out two letters from his pocket at this moment. One letter was written by him at the behest of the Japanese, and the words and sentences in it were all based on the Japanese position, such as "Lord Taige", "King of Korea", etc., with a wicked face.In this letter, President Xiaoxi revealed the intention of peace talks, but his tone was very arrogant. There is another letter secretly written by Huang Tingyu himself, deliberately using Hangeul, which is the phonetic notation for Chinese characters we mentioned before, which is the current Korean language, and it talks about major military affairs in Seoul and the deployment of troops. What. Li Jinzhong left Seoul with these two letters and handed them to Jin Qianyi.Jin Qianyi immediately forwarded it to his superiors, but something went wrong halfway, only the fake letter was delivered to Liu Chenglong, but the real letter was nowhere to be found.Liu Chenglong picked up the false letter and read it, he was angry and surprised, he was angry that Huang Tingyu took the initiative to seek refuge with the Japanese as a traitor, and he was surprised that the Japanese planned to negotiate peace.He didn't dare to be negligent, and quickly forwarded it to Zha Dashou, asking him to submit it to Li Rusong. After Li Rusong saw this letter, he didn't react and continued to stand still.From Li Rusong's point of view, the Japanese can no longer hold back and speak first, and if we respond too quickly at this time, it will appear that we can't hold our breath, so we can catch their appetite again. To make a digression, later Liu Chenglong read this false letter to the court ministers, which made them furious, and they all denounced Huang Tingyu as traitorous and seeking glory.This unfortunate attendant was inexplicably blamed, and was severely criticized after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. President Xiaoxi waited in Seoul for a long time, and found that there was no movement from the Ming army, so he was a little anxious.He sent people to meet with the North Korean navy near Longshan, and sent the Japanese army's peace request for the second time. This time Li Rusong agreed.He reported this situation to Song Yingchang, and when Song Yingchang heard it, he was overjoyed. This is just the pillow when he fell asleep, and he swiped his pen: talk! Who should I send to talk to? Li Rusong and Song Yingchang thought of Shen Weijing at the same time.After all, this rascal is the only person who has handed over to the Japanese pirates, so it is still valuable.Although peace talks with Japan are unavoidable, no matter who goes to the peace talks, they will have to be splashed with dirty water when they return home, so it's better to let this guy continue to take the blame. Shen Weijing himself agreed to this task without hesitation.He has realized that his destiny is closely related to the Japanese, and that without the Japanese, he will die. So, based on pressure of one kind or another, tomorrow and Japan hit it off and started to negotiate a peace. The only people who are not happy about this result are the North Koreans. It is said that North Korea is the real master of the peninsula, and they should participate in the peace talks.However, both Japan and Ming Dynasty ignored North Korea intentionally or unintentionally.The North Koreans were very panicked, fearing that they would be used as a bargaining chip by Da Ming in the negotiations to exchange benefits with Japan. The North Koreans asked Li Rusong first, but Li Rusong pushed 256, saying that I am a bad soldier, and you have to talk to Song Yingchang about this peace talk.The Koreans sent another envoy, Cui Xingyuan, to ask Song Yingchang. Song Yingchang first criticized Li Chao’s memorials to the court for many faults, and then accused them of poor food transportation. Softly relieved, telling them that the peace talks are just a stopgap move, and it will not be too late to start the war when the reinforcements from the Ming army arrive. Cui Xingyuan still wanted to insist, Song Yingchang patted him on the shoulder and asked, do you know who is the representative of this peace talk?It's Shen Weijing guerrilla.When Cui Xingyuan heard the name, he immediately smiled and left happily. Cui Xingyuan's reaction was not because the North Koreans trusted Shen Weijing, but because they distrusted Shen Weijing too much.Cui Xingyuan wrote a report to the imperial court that night, saying: "Song Shilang wanted peace talks, and Admiral Li seemed to agree. But they actually sent Shen Weijing to the peace talks. The Japanese were betrayed by Shen Weijing at the beginning. Go, this negotiation will definitely not come to an end, and there will definitely be a fight. After hearing this, the king was relieved, and instructed not to protest with the Ming army for the time being, but to wait and see what happened. On March 4th, the 21st year of Wanli, Shen Weijing arrived in Pyongyang and officially started his peace negotiation journey. The life of captivity for more than two months not only did not wear away Shen Weijing's mouth, but made his mouth bigger.As soon as he saw Li Dexin, he opened his mouth and said: "At first I planned to lure the enemy out of Pyongyang City, and then attack according to the situation. Unfortunately, Li Rusong refused to listen to me. As a result, you can see that the main force of the enemy fled, and the Ming army suffered heavy casualties. I am very sorry." My heart aches. If Li Rusong listened to me this time, Seoul would be recovered in a few days." Li Dexin heard that what he said was too unreliable, so she couldn't help interjecting: "The Japanese pirates are too cunning, how can they be recovered by talking?" Shen Weijing replied: "There are ever-changing techniques in the chest, how can military affairs be generalized .” The life of captivity for more than two months not only did not wear away Shen Weijing's mouth, but made his mouth bigger.As soon as he saw Li Dexin, he opened his mouth and said: "At first I planned to lure the enemy out of Pyongyang City, and then attack according to the situation. Unfortunately, Li Rusong refused to listen to me. As a result, you can see that the main force of the enemy fled, and the Ming army suffered heavy casualties. I am very sorry." My heart aches. If Li Rusong listened to me this time, Seoul would be recovered in a few days." Li Dexin heard that what he said was too unreliable, so she couldn't help interjecting: "The Japanese pirates are too cunning, how can they be recovered by talking?" Shen Weijing replied: "There are ever-changing techniques in the chest, how can military affairs be generalized .” The North Koreans dismissed Shen Weijing, but the Ming army in Pyongyang was extremely happy.If it was normal, Shen Weijing would have been stomped on the head with a knife for criticizing Li Rusong so openly.But this time, Shen Weijing received an unprecedented warm welcome.According to the sour description of the Koreans, before they arrived in Pyongyang, everyone in the Ming army in Pyongyang was already smiling, even Li Rusong was so overjoyed that he couldn't close his mouth. There is no other reason, only because Shen Weijing is the envoy of the peace talks, and his appearance means that the bitter days of the Ming army in North Korea will come to an end.The North Koreans also deduced pessimistically from the reaction of the Ming army: Li Rusong really didn't want to fight anymore. Shen Weijing didn't stay long in Pyongyang, took a short rest, and headed for Seoul with two followers, Hu Ze and Shen Sixian. Both Hu Ze and Shen Sixian are from Yuyao, they belong to the same hometown of Zhejiang as Shen Weijing from Jiaxing.Song Yingchang asked them to follow Shen Weijing, one is to monitor this old rascal, and the other is to help him figure out if it involves land ceding and indemnity during the negotiation. Shen Weijing's negotiating team went to the Linjin River and sent people to report to the Japanese soldiers patrolling the river.The little leader of the Japanese side didn't know the depth, and asked stupidly: "Who are you?" Shen Weijing sneered, and said that the uncle is here to make you Taige an official!The little boss was bluffed, so he hurriedly told Kato Kiyomasa. What kind of general, what kind of soldiers.After hearing the report, Kato Kiyomasa rushed to the Linjin River, opened his mouth and said, "Who are you?" Shen Weijing was bragging, he never had to write drafts, he just opened his mouth and blew: "Master is Shen Weijing, one of the three famous generals of the Ming Dynasty." Son, replied with a text: "If you want to fight, then fight. If you want to make peace, then come and make peace." Seeing that Wen was furious, Shen Weijing immediately jumped up and cursed, and waved his hands after cursing: "Let's go, let's not talk about it." Kato saw that the situation was not good, he quickly gave in, and apologized with a smile: "Brother, I don't know how to read, it's all written by someone else. It is inevitable that the words do not convey the meaning, please don’t get me wrong.” Shen Weijing calmed down, and the two live treasures agreed to officially start the meeting in Longshancang on March 8th, International Women’s Day. On March 8th, Shen Weijing arrived in Longshan and met his old friend Xiaonishi Xingchang. The two of them pretended to greet each other a few words, feeling a lot of life's impermanence, until the boss Kato became impatient, and then officially sat down. The second negotiation between China and Japan began here.