"Stop!" Wang Yongji, the governor of Ping Liao, shouted sullenly, "With a powerful enemy at hand, how can you make trouble here? If the court and His Majesty hear about this, I'm afraid everyone present will be severely punished."

Wu Sangui and Gao Yigong glared at each other and sat back down.

Seeing this, others also took their seats.

"Everyone," Wang Yongji sighed, "I am very sad that Commander He died on the battlefield, but the battlefield is a place of life and death, and there is no time for us to remember our comrades. The most urgent task is to stabilize the situation and find a way to capture Guangning to avenge Commander He and give an explanation to the court. What do you think, is that right?"

Wang Yongji did not intend to investigate the reasons for He Jin's defeat.

First of all, the facts are clear, and there are confessions from the wounded and defeated soldiers.

Secondly, even if you check, you won’t find anything.

Instead of wasting energy on this, it is better to focus on the war as soon as possible.

"Yes, the Governor is right."

"agree."

Gao Yigong wanted to say something, but the atmosphere at the scene did not allow him to continue the previous topic, so he could only perfunctorily say: "I have no objection either."

Seeing everyone's opinions, Wang Yongji let out a long sigh: "In that case, let's follow the rules. First, bury Commander He's body on the spot, and then I will send someone to deliver the news to the capital overnight to inform the court. In addition, we will dispatch troops to the front line to continue to attack Guangning."

"We are willing to obey the Governor's orders!" the generals echoed again in unison.

"Well, send a message to Gao Di. Order him to lead 5,000 soldiers out of Dalinghe Fort to support the front line."

On the fifth day of April, Gao Di, who received the news, began to gather troops and leave Dalingh Fort.

He marched very quickly and joined up with Wang Yongji's main force in just one day.

After arriving at the front line, Wang Yongji arranged him at the edge of the right wing, the position before He Jin.

When the high ground reached the front line, Li Dingguo and his troops arrived in Tongzhou.

The governor of Tongzhou had already arranged for the military and civilians to set up tents outside the city, cook porridge, and prepare soybean meal and bundles of grass for the war horses.

The reason for being so active is mainly that these expenses can be reimbursed by the Ministry of War.

It’s no secret that expense reimbursements are a great opportunity to make some extra money.

Although the imperial court's regulations set an upper limit on the daily food and fodder for marching soldiers and war horses.

However, this standard is rarely followed in practice, especially among elite troops, who basically only care about being full.

For local governments, since they have already exceeded the standard, they might as well report a little more when filing reimbursements to subsidize the government offices.

Even if the Ministry of War knew, they wouldn't say much.

After all, only by ensuring that the soldiers are well fed can they work hard for the court.

At noon, Li Dingguo personally led 10,000 cavalrymen to the outside of Tongzhou City.

The governor of Tongzhou had been waiting outside the city. After some greetings, he took out a piece of paper and said, "General Li, today's lunch consumed 13,000 kilograms of rice. Don't count the firewood and other things. They were all brought from home by the soldiers and civilians in the city."

"Besides that, there is fodder for the war horses, including fifteen thousand bushels of rice and beans and four thousand five hundred bundles of grass."

"If that's ok, please sign and stamp here."

The Ming Dynasty feed standard for a warhorse was three liters of feed and one bundle of grass per day. Of the 10,000 cavalrymen under Li Dingguo, 5,000 were newly recruited, and each of them had only one horse.

The remaining 5,000 elite soldiers can each ride two horses.

The ultimate goal is to have three horses for each person, but due to the limited financial resources of the court, it cannot be achieved in a short period of time.

Li Dingguo quickly counted the number of people and signed and stamped his name after confirming that the actual number was not much different from the number provided by the other party.

The governor of Tongzhou carefully kept the certificate and prepared to claim reimbursement from the Ministry of War later.

"General Li, if you don't mind, please come with me to the city. I have prepared a banquet in the city." The Governor of Tongzhou invited him warmly.

"No need. Marching is more important. Just having a bowl of porridge outside the city will be enough." Li Dingguo declined.

The war in Liaodong was so intense that he didn't dare drink while marching.

Otherwise, once the news leaked out, impeachment petitions against him would fly to the emperor's desk like snowflakes.

Just as the Tongzhou governor was about to persuade him again, several riders came running over from a distance.

Seeing their brightly colored clothes, the Tongzhou governor's expression immediately changed. "It's the Jinyiwei."

As they were talking, four Jinyiwei in casual clothes came up to Li Dingguo and asked, "Are you Li Dingguo, the commander-in-chief of Huguang militia?"

"It's me," Li Dingguo replied calmly.

"Please come with us. His Majesty wants to see you."

"See me?" Li Dingguo was stunned for a moment, then relieved.

The process of summoning him to surrender was long and complicated.

As the commander-in-chief of the surrender, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty must have recognized him very much, and it was only natural for him to meet him.

What's more, he was a minister of the Ming Dynasty and was very curious about what the emperor of the Ming Dynasty looked like.

"Please wait a moment, I will make the arrangements."

Li Dingguo asked Gao Wengui to rush to Liaodong as planned after dinner.

He and dozens of his personal soldiers each left three or five horses, preparing to catch up with the main force after leaving Beijing.

After settling down, Li Dingguo hurried to the capital with the Jinyiwei without even having a meal.

Tongzhou was the transit point for transporting materials from Jiangnan to the capital. The official road from Tongzhou to the capital was lined with merchants and was very prosperous.

Along the way, he and his accompanying soldiers were attracted by the prosperity.

As soon as Li Dingguo arrived in the capital and entered the city gate, seven or eight young children stood side by side to stop his horse.

One of the older kids asked loudly, "Soldier, would you like to buy a newspaper?"

"Go away," Li Dingguo waved his hand to drive them away, "I'm not going to be taken advantage of."

The Jinyiwei following behind Li Dingguo also stepped forward in time and drove away the group of newspaper boys.

The story of Liu Zhaoji spending fifty cents to buy a newspaper when he came to Beijing had long spread throughout the Ming Dynasty.

Influenced by this incident, both civil and military officials became wary of children selling newspapers when they came to Beijing.

However, this was only spread among officials, and the public knew very little about it, so it only affected Xiao Haige's income, and did not cut off this way of making money.

The group soon arrived at the imperial city.

Wang Chengen personally came to the city gate to greet him.

After handing over to the Jinyiwei, Wang Chengen said to Li Dingguo: "General Li, please follow me. His Majesty is waiting in the Qianqing Palace."