I was living at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and I dealt a brutal blow to the Eight Banners!

When Xu Fuzou was young, he held the position of deputy commander-in-chief. Although he is now a commoner, he would not bow down and pledge allegiance to Zhang Jingchuan, a supervisor in his twenties.

Zhang Jingchuan himself wasn't so bureaucratic as to insist that the old man give him a slogan like "Your subordinate is willing to die for your lord."

If I agree to lend you a hand, that would be a good start.

The next morning,

Zhang Jingchuan led Li Daniu and others to inspect the defenses of Donghai Fort.

In fact, Donghai Fort has no real city defenses. After the outer walls were demolished, only the low inner walls covered in moss remained. As for the armory inside the fort, there wasn't a single decent weapon.

There were only a few rusty knives and broken wooden shields, covered with a thick layer of dust, indicating that no one had entered this place for a long time.

Originally, Zhang Jingchuan had planned to place the Hongyi Cannon and the Mielu Cannon on the fort wall, but in the end, he gave up because the inner wall was relatively narrow. Putting the Hongyi Cannon on it would not affect the normal passage of the soldiers.

Just imagine placing those three to five thousand catties of Hongyi cannons there, could the inner wall withstand it? It would be ridiculous if the inner wall collapsed.

The only way to defend Donghai Fort in a short time is to rely on artillery, but the prerequisite for using artillery to defend the city is to have a city wall that can be used to mount artillery.

To Zhang Jingchuan's surprise, on the outskirts of Donghai Fort, he saw Xu Fuzou and a dozen craftsmen measuring something with a measuring rope. The craftsmen were holding blueprints and listening to Xu Fuzou's suggestions for modification.

Upon seeing Zhang Jingchuan and Li Daniu approaching, Xu Fuzou first apologized to the craftsmen and then went to Zhang Jingchuan.

"Sir, did you just come from the armory?"

Zhang Jingchuan nodded, then asked:

"Did you hire them?"

"Reporting to my lord, these are all craftsmen from within the fortress."

Those who can be called craftsmen, in modern terms, are equivalent to foremen and designers.

How could Zhang Jingchuan not be surprised that a military fort with only a few dozen households had more than a dozen craftsmen?

Seeing Zhang Jingchuan's surprised expression, Xu Fuzou smiled and said, "Back then, when we followed Governor Yuan to build the Guan-Ning defense line, we transferred a lot of craftsmen and artisans from within the pass. Later, many of the craftsmen stayed."

"And what about them?" Zhang Jingchuan looked at the dozen or so craftsmen.

"Back then, they were responsible for building the outer walls of Donghai Fort. A few years ago, when the Qing army came, they were also responsible for leading people to demolish them. They were careful to preserve the foundation when they demolished them, so it will be quick to rebuild the outer walls."

"How fast can it be?"

"If we can spare two hundred men from the army, the repairs can be completed within a month!" Xu Fuzou said confidently.

"So fast?" Zhang Jingchuan looked at the ruins and asked doubtfully, "A month isn't even enough time to quarry the stones, is it?"

"Don't worry, sir," Xu Fuzou grinned and said, "When the outer city wall was demolished back then, the remaining stones and other materials were piled up on the riverbank to the south. We can just haul them over by cart. If we don't have enough, we'll figure something out."

"When will construction begin?" Zhang Jingchuan asked excitedly.

"I was just discussing the details of the blueprints with the craftsmen. If there are no major changes, we can start construction tomorrow," Xu Fuzou replied.

Building the outer city wall of a fortress, especially a large fortress like Donghai Fortress, comes at an extraordinary cost.

Fortunately, when the outer city wall was demolished, Xu Fuzou and the craftsmen were careful; otherwise, it would have taken at least a year and a half to rebuild it.

Building such an outer city wall, the most time-consuming parts are quarrying stones and laying foundations. Nowadays, the stones and foundations are readily available, and all that is needed is to build them up step by step.

Yesterday we captured seventy or eighty Qing soldiers. We might as well use these free slaves.

By transferring another 150 armored soldiers from his command, the labor problem was solved.

of course,

If we want to properly manage Donghai Fort as our base, simply building outer walls is far from enough.

Judging from the current situation of Donghai Fort,

What we lack most is people!

Before the enemy invaded the south, fortresses like Donghai Fort had at least several hundred households and their own ports, and their commerce was quite prosperous. There were many taverns and inns in the fortress, and even two red tents were open.

Zhang Jingchuan didn't dare to think about making Donghai Fort as prosperous as before; at the very least, he had to replenish the population.

Only with a sufficient population can there be soldiers and labor.

Moreover, the system's task for me is to earn 100,000 taels of silver, which is no small amount. In peacetime, it would be difficult to earn that much silver, let alone in wartime.

The area surrounding Donghai Fort was within the Qing army's sphere of influence. To replenish the population and earn money, the only option was to utilize the port.

Before joining the army in the garrison, Li Daniu had been involved in the smuggling of salt with his uncle, and had sold a lot of smuggled salt from within the Great Wall to Liaodong, so he was naturally quite familiar with the sea routes.

The next few days.

Besides the ongoing construction of the outer walls of the fortress, Li Daniu led more than thirty people on a boat to Gaizhouwei to contact old friends there.

Although Gaizhou Guard was under the rule of the Qing army, the local officials were all Han Chinese, and they did not prohibit smuggling and especially liked to do business with Ming Dynasty merchants.

at the same time,

Zhang Jingchuan, leading more than thirty riders and pulling four carts, headed towards Songshan City under the cover of night.

There are two purposes for this trip.

First, he told Wu Sangui that he had captured Donghai Fort from the Qing army, but that the firearms and ammunition had been consumed in large quantities, and hoped that he could bring back some gunpowder and cannonballs when he returned to Donghai Fort.

Then he expressed his idea of ​​repairing the defenses of Donghai Fort. He said that if some craftsmen, stone materials and other materials could be brought over, it would solve a lot of problems. After all, Donghai Fort was about to become a transit point for the Ming army's sea supply route, and it couldn't be without even a basic defense system.

Secondly, he wanted to curry favor with Wu Sangui, since he had annihilated an entire Niru of the Bordered Yellow Banner, and even Aobai, the Manchu First Baturu bestowed with the title by Huang Taiji, had become his defeated opponent and fled in disarray.

With such achievements, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to change the rank from supervisor to battalion commander.

According to the regulations, Zhang Jingchuan, as the supervisor, should not have left his post without authorization; he only needed to send someone to deliver the report to Wu Sangui.

But Zhang Jingchuan was still worried.

Given his understanding of Wu Sangui and Song Ben's resentment towards him, he would inevitably try to sabotage the situation.

He went there in person, hoping to use his persuasive skills to get something out of Wu Sangui. Even if he only achieved one of his two goals, it would still be good.

In addition, he also plans to visit Ma Shaoyu.

He learned from Xu Fuzou that although Ma Shaoyu was only a deputy general under Hong Chengchou, the person behind him was Chen Xinjia, the Minister of War.

If he could get close to the Minister of War, he would have connections in the capital.

……