Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Although Mian'en was afraid of the bomb falling from the sky, he also knew that Suiyuan's matter must not be delayed and must be resolved today.

And to do this, he felt that he had to go to Yongqing Temple anyway. Although the risk factor of being on the front line is very high, the current situation is such that there is no turning back.

At the end of the 18th century, Nanjing was a large city with more than 130,000 households and a population of nearly one million. The sudden martial law brought life in the entire city to a standstill. Thousands of shops were unable to open for business, and daily necessities from outside the city could not be transported in. If this situation only lasts for one day, we can deal with it, but if it lasts for several days, the whole city will fall into panic and even cause riots.

What's more, Mian'en has already appeared in front of the Jiangnan civil and military officials. He has been reprimanded and the military preparations have been made. If he can't deal with a helpless Yuan Mei and ten people from Beihai Town, his trip to the south of the Yangtze River will become a joke. When he returns to the capital, Jiaqing will definitely use this to suppress his prestige among the imperial army and the clan.

In fact, ever since he realized the intention behind the Jiaqing faction's move south, his inner dissatisfaction began to grow like weeds in spring. In the letter received from the capital two days ago, he learned that his trusted generals in the Hujun Camp, Firearms Camp and Jianrui Camp had been replaced one after another, and all the dissatisfaction turned into anger.

At this time, instead of thinking about how to boost the morale of the people and the military, eliminate the long-standing abuses within the Eight Banners, and save the country and the country, I actually focused on my own family!

It was from this moment on that Mian En had the idea of ​​"he can take his place" in his heart.

"We are all direct descendants of Taizu and Emperor Taizong. How come you, a mediocre person, can sit on the ninth throne, while I, who have great ambitions for civility, Taoism and martial arts, have to submit to others and be manipulated by you? Is it just because of the imperial grandfather's edict? No! You don't want to! It's not that he was worried about causing trouble to Xiao Qiang when he was still alive. If the "Jingnan Incident" happened again in the Ming Dynasty, it would never be your turn!"

"I have no intention of becoming a powerful person. I am willing to abide by the emperor's orders and assist with all my strength. But now you have started fighting among yourself. It is really too much to bully others!"

Since Kangxi, although there have been constant battles within the Aisin Gioro clan before the appointment of the crown prince, as long as the winner ascends the throne of the emperor, out of fear of the imperial power and the checks and balances of power, the loser will be considered No matter how unwilling you are, it's all in vain. How about the great general Wang Yinqi who had troops outside at that time? He didn't just do it when he said it, and he didn't even make waves.

Not to mention that Yongzheng and several brothers were fighting to the death, Qianlong also experienced an internal fight in the early days of his succession. As a result, Prince Hongxi was expelled from the royal title, his name was changed to "Forty-Six", and he was imprisoned in Jingshandong Orchard. He died inexplicably three years later.

Mian En is very worried that he will end up like Hong Xi, because the two have many similar situations.

First of all, he is the eldest son and second grandson of Qianlong. Since his brother Miande was not favored by Qianlong, he always regarded him as his eldest grandson. Secondly, when Jiaqing did not even have the title of Prince Baylor, he was already the king of Duoluo County. . This is the same as the situation of Hongxi. When Kangxi died, he only prepared a special prince for him, while Hongli was not named Prince Heshuobao until the eleventh year of Yongzheng.

After Qianlong succeeded to the throne, he always talked about how he was favored by Kangxi when he was a child. In fact, he made it up himself.

In the fifty-first year of Qianlong's reign, Mian De died of illness at the age of 40, and Mian En became the number one person in the generation with the word "Mian". The most important thing is that he still holds military power and poses a greater threat to Jiaqing than Hongxi did back then.

In the history of another time and space, Mian'en adopted a prudent and self-protective approach after Jiaqing succeeded to the throne. He never showed off in anything and pretended to be a reckless person in order to dispel the other party's wariness. No matter how fierce the Sichuan-Shaanxi White Lotus Sect was and Fukangan and Helin were both dead, he would never ask for orders to go on an expedition.

The problem is that with Zhao Xin and his friends in this time and space, everything is different.

The more than 20,000 Northern Navy troops stationed in Wuding Prefecture in western Liaoning and Shandong were like a giant plier stuck in the throat of the capital, forcing Jiaqing to bow his head and sue for peace, using the excuse of allowing Qianlong to be buried honorably to buy time.

After Qianlong's death, Mian'en heard some rumors that Jiaqing would sigh deeply every night. Sometimes he would go to the back hall of Fengxian Hall, kneel in front of the memorial tablets of his ancestors and burst into tears, staying awake all night.

Mian En was very dissatisfied with this. He felt that what the emperor needed at this time was perseverance and perseverance, like Nurhaci and Huang Taiji who were good at military service, brave and wise, and revived the bloody spirit and sturdiness of the Eight Banners. Even if they abandon the capital and retreat to the southwest, as long as they rely on the dangers of the mountains and rivers, they may not be unable to build a new business.

In his spare time in the past two days, he mentally screened all the important people in the clan, and finally thought that he was the only one who could carry the banner of reviving the Qing Dynasty.

Well, if you want to realize your ambition, you have to start with the little things in front of you. In order for the Jingkou Eight Banners to boost their morale, it is not enough to just talk the talk, they must have real things, and their own safety must also be guaranteed. Mian En doesn't want to end his life before his great cause is accomplished.

Thinking of this, he said to Fu Ning, the governor of Liangjiang who was sitting aside: "Fu Zhi Tai, you immediately transfer a hundred fire gun soldiers and four mountain-splitting cannons from the governor, and give them to Wu Ni, the captain of the king's bodyguard, to command them. Follow us later." This king is going to Yongqing Temple."

"This prince is a nobleman of Tianhuang. How can he be put in danger? If something goes wrong, I will not be able to escape the blame even if I die. I beg you."

"Dangerous place? Haha~" Mian En sneered and interrupted the other party's dissuasion, saying coldly: "The pirates in the North Sea can even drop thunder from the sky. Do you think this general office is not a dangerous place? Don't say more!"

"Hey! I will give you the order right now."

Compared to the Jiangning Garrison Eight Banners and the Green Camp City Guards Association, Funing's Supervisory Army was considered to be the most well-trained armed force in the entire Jiangning City.

Since Zhao Xin and Wang Yuanfang stormed Yangzhou Prefecture and robbed the prison, the succeeding Governor of Liangjiang, Funing, and the Governor of Jiangsu, Qi Feng'e, were worried that they would suffer the same fate one day, so they petitioned the court to install additional muskets in Dubiao and Fubiao. Soldiers, the reason is that bows and arrows are difficult to defeat the North Sea Pirates' quick guns. After careful consideration, Qianlong finally agreed to set up an additional musketry team of 200 people in Dubiao, Liangjiang, and 100 people in Fubiao stationed in Suzhou.

Because it was life-saving, Funing attached great importance to the training of the Musketeers after he took office. The firearms were carefully made and the pay was generous. After a few years, it can be regarded as an elite force.

With the guarantee of force, the next step is money. Mian'en then said to Jiangning Magistrate He Teng'e, who was sitting silently next to him, "Hefutai, Jiangning Weaving belongs to you as well. How much cash is there in the treasury now?"

"If I go back to my father, I will have more than 50,000 taels. But this money is reserved for ordering silk from silk households in the coming year."

In June last year, Ding You died of illness at Jiangning Weaving Tongde in Beijing. Funing, the governor of Liangjiang, was unable to take care of the affairs due to his busy schedule, so Qianlong asked the prefect of Jiangning and Teng'e to temporarily act as agents for Jiangning Weaving.

Mian En said indifferently: "I will borrow thirty thousand taels from you first, and then I will replenish it to you when the donations from the Yangzhou salt merchants arrive. The silver must be packed in boxes, and we will go with the king in a carriage."

He Teng'e was from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while Mian En was in charge of the three banners of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Now how dare he disobey his master's orders, he had no choice but to bow his head and make arrangements.

At the end of the afternoon, Mian En, who was wearing a bamboo hat and an oilcloth coat, led his personal bodyguards and was escorted by a hundred Superintendent's Bird Gun Team, riding horses to Mount Wutai on the southwest side of Yongqing Temple. Along with him, there were four artillery carriages and a dozen carriages filled with large oak boxes. The heavy wooden wheels made a grinding sound as they rolled over the bluestone road.

The Jingkou soldiers who had been notified in advance were already waiting on the hillside south of Yongqing Temple. In the old days, Wutai Mountain in Nanjing was called a mountain, but it was actually five undulating hills with gentle slopes and covered with bamboo forests and wild grasses. This place is definitely a good place to enjoy flowers and have an outing in spring, but now it is winter, the grass is dead and the leaves are falling, and it looks very desolate and empty.

In the fine snow, more than 500 armored soldiers stood scattered on the hillside, without any formation at all. Many people's eyes were fixed on the mountain behind Yongqing Temple from time to time. After the rout in the morning, a few good-looking soldiers were assigned to serve as observation posts there. Once a drone appeared, they would sound a warning gong and light a beacon fire.

Mian En, who came to the foot of the mountain, saw this scene and sighed imperceptibly.

Originally, whether it was fighting or hunting down thieves, there would always be casualties. A team of 600 people suffered dozens of casualties, which was nothing in the era of cold weapons.

The problem is that Cheng Ce didn’t tell his men before that there was a risk of death this time!

Before crossing the river, Cheng Ce told his counselors and assistants that Suiyuan was being raided and Yuan Mei's family was under house arrest on the orders of the imperial envoy, Prince He Shuoding. When the soldiers heard this, they all thought that they were catching a bastard in a small tank, and they could easily catch it.

But I didn't expect, I didn't expect, before I even saw anyone, I just touched the wall of Suiyuan, and there were forty-eight casualties, including one whose head was blown off. This is really unacceptable! The morale of the originally confident armored soldiers suddenly fell to the bottom, and some of the armored soldiers even hugged each other and cried bitterly. Those who knew it were defeated, but those who didn’t know thought that some old lady was going to be mourned after she died!

In fact, the Eight Banners garrisoned in the entire Jiangnan region, including the Eight Banners at Jingkou, began to evolve into useless people after the "San Francisco Rebellion". The three generations of emperors from Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong reprimanded them to no avail, and they were left helpless.

In the late Kangxi period, the Qing government mobilized large armies into Tibet to deal with the Junggar tribe. At that time, there were already many people stationed in the Eight Banners in the south of the Yangtze River who could only shoot on foot but not on horseback. At the end of the Yongzheng period, when troops were deployed in the northwest, the Jiangning Eight Banners who were mobilized even forgot how to march, resulting in a large number of deaths and injuries to horses and livestock. Because he was used to living comfortably in the south of the Yangtze River for a long time, he complained constantly in the face of the cold climate in Xinjiang and tried every means to be lazy, which Yong Zheng denounced as shameless in the memorial.

By the middle of Qianlong's reign, as the Han army and the Han people raised their banners one after another, the force of force stationed in the Eight Banners in Jiangnan became increasingly useless. At that time, the officers and soldiers of the Manchu camps in various places went through a major adjustment. In order to make up for the gap in the Han army that had sent out the flag, a group of armored soldiers were transferred from the capital. In the end, this group of guys was worse than the old garrison soldiers. In addition to drinking, gambling, going to amusement parks, teahouses and other comfort-oriented vices, private sales of weapons and equipment and horses were common.

Seven years ago, the Jiangning and Jingkou Eight Banners were recruited by the Qing government to Taiwan to suppress Lin Shuangwen's rebellion. Witnesses at that time said that everyone from generals to armors looked pale after hearing the news of being drafted. During the march, some soldiers even cried while walking, just like the execution ground. There was no trace of the joy that they had heard "rob the west" before entering the customs in the early years.

The most troublesome thing was that the Eight Banners were stationed in Zhapu. After arriving in Taiwan, because the mountain road was difficult to travel, they actually wanted to hire a group of soft sedan bearers. However, they were worried that the sedan bearers would escape on the way and leave themselves in the middle of the road, so they disobeyed the orders from above and sat in private. The boat goes to its destination. Fukangan almost went crazy when he found out.

Qianlong originally planned to mobilize the Eight Banners from the south of the Yangtze River to go north to deal with Beihai Town after Taiwan was pacified, but after learning the situation from Fukang'an's memorial, he gave up this idea.

By the way, during the First Opium War and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in another time and space, although Jiangning Mancheng and Zhenjiang Mancheng resisted tenaciously and almost all of them were destroyed, it was because they were pushed to the edge. The remaining blood in his bones exploded.

At this time, Mian'en, who was riding a horse, observed the terrain around the hillside and had some calculations in his mind. He raised his hand and pointed his whip at the woods outside the south wall of Yongqing Temple, and said to the guard captain Wu Ni: "Let the musketeers go and hide there. Stand by and prepare for firing. Transport the two cannons to the top of the back mountain."

The weight of the mountain-splitting cannon cast during the Qianlong period was not too heavy, only two to three hundred kilograms. Although it is said to be the top of the mountain, it is actually only over 40 meters high. It is also on a gentle slope, making it easy to transport up.

Wu Ni looked in the direction pointed by Mian En, and saw a patch of tall and straight pines and cypresses growing outside the south wall of Yongqing Temple on the hillside, with lush branches and elms, laurel trees, etc., hiding a One hundred and ten people have no problem.

"Slave, you obey!"

Wu Ni made a military salute with his right hand and then led the musketry team towards the woods. The gunners all wore raincoats and bamboo hats, and their muskets were wrapped in a layer of oilcloth.

When they arrived at the position, Wu Ni gave the order, and the gunmen charged the muskets step by step, put the primer in the primer pot, and finally took out the match rope, lit it, and clamped it to the gun. Hammer on the hook. Because the pine branches and leaves overhead blocked most of the falling snow, there was no need to worry about the match rope getting wet from the snow.

When all preparations were completed, Wu Ni came back to report, and Mian En then rode his horse, led the others and the carriage, and followed the road to the top of the mountain to a flat land on the hillside.

Looking at the armored soldiers gathering around him, Mian En took a deep breath, unbuttoned his oil coat, and threw back the two pieces of clothing, revealing an azure robe embroidered with five claws and nine pythons.

The armor soldiers present were stunned. It wasn't until they saw clearly the regiment-shaped dragon embroidered on Mian En's chest that they realized that the tall middle-aged man in front of them was Prince Heshuoding who was ordered to go south on imperial envoy.

"Subscribe (minion) to pay your respects to the prince!"

The armored soldiers knelt down and saluted one after another, like ripples on the water, spreading from near to far in front of Mian En's horse. Because they were all wearing foam-studded cotton armor, they could only kneel on the ground and perform a military salute with their right hands flat on their chests.

Mian En has served as the commander of the right wing forward since he was 22 years old. He has led soldiers for twenty-five years and is very familiar with that aspect of the military. At this moment, his face was ashen, and he scanned the hundreds of people on the snow slope. After half a pack of cigarettes, he suddenly asked loudly: "Is it cold?!"

"If you reply to the prince, it will be fine."

"No, not too cold."

"."

The flurry of answers made Mian En suddenly have the urge to whip someone. It turned out that it was true that he had heard in the capital that the Eight Banners of Jiangnan were in ruins.

"Look at you guys, you've just suffered a small loss, and you're all so dejected like a dead mother! Didn't you even have your fucking lunch? I can't hear you clearly!"

The lunch for this group of soldiers was boiled salted duck and Huangqiao sesame cakes sent by the Jiangning Prefecture. It is said that Nanjing salted duck has been used as military rations since the time of Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, and it was not until the Ming Dynasty that it evolved into a Jiangnan delicacy. The most convenient way to make this thing is to cut it into pieces and cook it over high heat. After it is cooked, it will be salty and fragrant, and the fat will be cooked into the soup. It is really a rare delicacy when paired with sesame cakes.

The armored soldiers shouted in unison: "Reply to the prince, the prince is not cold! We are not cold!"

"Okay! It seems that the ducks have eaten enough! Get up! Why are you standing so scattered? Come closer!"

After Mian'en finished speaking, he saw the hesitant look on the soldiers' faces, knowing that these people were still frightened, so he raised his hand and pointed at the musketry team in the forest and said, "Did you see that? I brought a hundred musketeers." , if that thing dares to come again, let it take a volley of bullets!"

After hearing this, the armored soldiers looked at the murderous Dubiao Musketeers again, and finally felt a little more at ease in their hearts. They gathered around and stood on three levels inside and outside.

Mian En jumped off the horse, waved his hand to signal the guards not to follow, and then walked among the armored soldiers, patting this shoulder and beating that chest, with a look on his face that hated iron for not being able to become steel, and said loudly: "Isn't it just a meal? It's a small loss, does a seven-foot-tall man become a coward?! Let me tell you, this is nothing! They are all upright Mongolian men, and many of your ancestors were heroes who entered the pass from the dragon! What? When you meet Are you giving up after such a little setback?!"

"When you return home in two days, your parents, relatives and neighbors will ask what the pirates look like? How will you tell them?! You'll know how to run away before you see them!"

"There are also those Han scholars and ordinary people who will laugh at you behind your back. You can't even catch an old bookworm buried in loess. They only know how to eat dry food all day long! Play horse games! Go to amusement parks and teahouses! You are only ten years old. A pirate from the North Sea, without even having to face each other, defeated the elite troops of the Six Hundred and Eight Banners! Isn’t it a shame?! Is it worthy of our ancestors?!”

To be honest, not all of the 600 Mongolian soldiers Cheng Ce selected were useless. Most of them were skilled in bows and arrows, and their personalities were much simpler than the Manchus. The reason why they are still in shock is mainly because they are frightened by the unheard-of thing like bombs falling from the sky. Now that they saw Mian En, a nobleman of Tianhuang, present in person and talking to them like brothers, many people blushed in shame and bowed their heads in silence.

"Isn't it just a few thunders that will explode from the sky? I am standing here with you now. If you have the ability, let him come again! Jilai sent troops, unleashed his horses, beheaded and bled, it was originally just a matter of putting his head on his waistband! Who? If you are even afraid of this, get out of here right away!"

How do you say something? Things in the world are just a matter of being afraid of talking about them, and we are often afraid of what will happen.

As soon as Mian En finished speaking, a gray-black smoke column rose from the top of the mountain behind Yongqing Temple, which was extremely eye-catching in the white snow. Immediately afterwards, the rapid sound of the gong also sounded.

The way the soldiers looked at Mian En changed at this time, thinking that this person is really a "gold-mouthed man"!