stubborn thief

Chapter 554
Ningxia Town, Huamachi.

This is a new city built in the Tianshun period. Because it is close to Yanchi, it is also called Yanchi City. The governor must be stationed in Huamachi.

The wind and sand caught the hooves of the horses, and the grain transportation team from the east was struggling. On the Drum Tower in the middle of the city, under the shadow of the huge three-story cornice, Hong Chengchou, the governor of the three sides, looked at the letter in his hand with worry in his eyes. Sighing, he murmured: "The governors of the three sides..."

The three-sided governor in this era, oh no, it is now the two-sided governor.

It is too difficult for the governors on both sides in this era.

For two months into the spring he had heard no good news from any direction.

Instead, bad news piled into his ears.

Although he ran from Gansu to Ningxia last year, according to his arrangement of staying in Liangzhou before he left, the soldiers and civilians of Liangzhou were able to stop Liu Chengzong's army from Liangzhou.

Originally, according to the plan, the marshal's army should collapse due to lack of food. In the spring of this year, the Ming army in the direction of Ningxia can gather heavy troops, easily invade Gansu, wipe out the remnants, and recover the entire Gansu.

Until he left Liangzhou, Hong Chengchou believed that his plan was foolproof. No matter how he calculated, the military rations of the Marshal's Mansion were not enough to support the winter consumption after the population of the guards was accommodated; no matter how he thought about it, he did not believe that Ningxia would not be able to mobilize a heavy army this year.

But the development of things is always beyond his imagination.

Liangzhou has indeed lasted until this year, but the Marshal's Mansion's army in Gansu, let alone mutiny, did not even run out of food. The Oala Tartars transported [-] sheep from Jiayuguan!

Before this became a reality, if someone told Hong Chengchou that there was someone in the world who could let the Tartars transport [-] sheep to replenish their military supplies, he would laugh with tears.

What kind of genius could concoct such a comical story?

Hong Chengchou has been an official in Shaanxi for several years, and he is very familiar with the Mongolians outside the mouth. Livestock are more important than lives to people living outside the mouth.

The lack of materials outside the mouth has decided that as long as they can provide money and food, or even only have a hope of grabbing money and food, anyone can drive a Mongolian army to fight for them, as small as a tribe, as large as the former Lin Dan Khan, each has its own price.

This is not an ability, the Ming army or the peasant army can do it.

But no, no one has ever been able to pick grain out of their mouths.

Yes, he knew that Liu Chengzong called Han Khan good at fighting outside his mouth.

This is not a matter of sweating or not. There is a lot of sweat on the grassland, even if the genuine Lin Dan Hudun rabbit is still alive, can it do this?

Asking the Mongols to supplement his army with livestock, and [-] livestock, is this any different from monks asking beggars for alms?
So until now, Hong Chengchou has doubted the authenticity of this information.

But regardless of whether the information is true or false, things have already happened. The result is that Liu Chengzong's army in Gansu not only did not run out of food in winter, but also ate a lot of oil.

It is indeed full of oil. Hong Chengchou met. When Jin retreated from Xuanyun border after last year, the Ningxia frontier army had been in contact with the Mongolian army entrenched in Ordos. The information they spied was the army sent by the Marshal's Office to Monan They all brought a lot of meat oil.

The source of the meat oil is the lambs transported to Jiayuguan by the Wala Tartars. Those sheep are different from the sheep in the Central Plains. They have fat buttocks and are all meat oil.

It was this incident that made Hong Chengchou realize that the court had very little real information about the Marshal's Mansion, and had very limited understanding of what Liu Chengzong had done in Qinghai in the past few years.

Without intelligence, the basis of his strategy as the trilateral governor is wrong. How can he win this battle?

Hong Chengchou realized that relying on the traditional means of the Ming court to spy on intelligence, he could not see the true face of the Marshal's Mansion at all.

It's just that throughout the winter, he didn't care about the Marshal's Mansion, and the locust plague that spread to Ningxia, Yansui, Guyuan and other places tortured him to death.

What tortured him was not the locust plague, and the locust plague could not torture him. On the one hand, his official position was the governor, whose full name was governor military affairs and food and payment, and the locust plague was civil affairs.

On the other hand, although the work of exterminating locusts is indeed very complicated, it is really not a big deal for the local officials and military officers in Shaanxi in this era. It is just that they are the easiest to solve among all the problems in their lives. one of.

At least there are examples to follow for this matter, as long as you treat it as a matter and follow the successful examples of handling it in the past, it can really be done-there are no such easy-to-solve problems these days.

What tortured Hong Chengchou was the secondary problem brought about by the locust plague. He had to pay for the food, but when the locust plague crossed the border, where was the food and salary?
In fact, it is not only the peasant army who are desperate at this time, Hong Chengchou and other Ming officials are also desperate, but the place of despair is different.

In front of Hong Chengchou is a smashed Shaanxi. There are less than half of the officials in the counties and prefectures, and once the official dies, or is promoted or relegated, it will be difficult to find a successor. The prefect of Xi'an , Shaanxi Duliangdao, these are real vacancies that are more powerful than the sky, and they can be empty for a year or two without anyone to make up.

How desperate is it?
Hong Chengchou used to have a colleague named Liu Jiayu.

When he was an official in Shaanxi, he was in charge of food administration, and Liu Jiayu was in charge of the postal service. They inevitably had to deal with each other.

Liu Jiayu is from Qiu County. He is talented, talented, unlucky, hard-nosed and has a bad temper.

This person is very capricious. He offended the imperial envoy when he first became magistrate; he offended Wei Zhongxian when he entered the military department; body.

It happened that this person offended Wei Zhongxian because Wei Zhongxian admired his talents and promoted him twice; he was promoted four times as an official, and the court asked him to recommend officials, and he recommended three out of twenty people.

Locust plagues and accumulated cases were handled easily; Shanhaiguan military supplies and Tianjin guard ships were not a problem at all;

Wherever you become an official, you can make meritorious service wherever you go, but if you lose your temper, you may join the cabinet early.

How is such a person now?
died.

The one who died the year before last was exhausted to death while serving as the Huailong military preparation officer in the Xuanfu.

Because after years of wars, the imperial machinery has been unable to function properly. If the local officials are not so talented and upright, they have a bit of a foolish mentality when they are in office, and they only do what they can do, and only care about what they can manage. A little Buddhist.

If you don't encounter major events such as the invasion of the late gold, the plunder of thieves, and the peasant uprising, it is not difficult to serve a full term.

It's a bit of a back when you meet it.

It is impossible for everyone to have the intention to turn the tide, and even if they have such an intention, it is impossible for everyone to have such ability and talent.

But if we are serious and want to be a good official, even if the backlog of problems is exhausting, we can't finish it.

Hong Chengchou is facing the same situation now. Ningxia and Guyuan are empty to the limit.

Needless to say, the emptiness of the military town of Guyuan is the place where the dream of the Shaanxi Great Uprising began.

In the following eight years, fate was even more ill-fated. Liu Chengzong robbed it empty, and the military generals who were born in Guyuan were the backbone of the Marshal's Mansion. Yang Qi, Li Hongsi and other generals drew troops from there one by one. counterinsurgency.

Now the entire Guyuan Town can't be said to be fortified, otherwise Jingning Prefecture, which is separated by a mountain, would not fall directly to the Marshal's Mansion.

In comparison, the situation in Ningxia Town is much better. It has been self-sufficient before, and its military strength, armor, and city defense fortifications can be described as leaders in three aspects.

Until last year, more than 6 people from Jianbiqingye in Liangzhou relocated to Zhongwei. The intense resettlement work made Ningxia feel stretched. Then a locust plague destroyed a crop of grain, and the situation was different.

The soldiers were not able to supply the soldiers with enough food, the ratio of war horses falling down and equipment lost was getting higher and higher, and more and more soldiers were asking for leave for military exercises. More than once, a military officer reported to Hong Chengchou that the army would not be able to bring them without food and salary. Those professional warriors who have been in the army for generations all put up a name in the camp and ran out to find their own way out.

The most frightening thing among them is that Ningxia Town, which has not mutinied since the end of the Wanli Dynasty's Ningxia War, is showing signs of mutiny.

Fortunately, the military attache in Ningxia Town had a strong control over the army, and they worked together to guide the anger of the soldiers to the outside of the border wall. After the Jin army announced its retreat, the pursuit of the border army caused friction with the Marshal's Monan army. At the same time, the army of Ningxia Town also cooperated to attack the Mobei Mongolian army entrenched in Ordos.

The responsibility does not lie entirely with the Ningxia frontier army. The Mobei army entrenched in Ordos also has the idea of ​​​​stirring disputes, which is a two-way rush.

In the post-Jin Koubian battle that took place last year, none of the five parties participating in the war achieved their wishes beautifully, in other words, none of them won.

Later Jin consolidated its control over Hara Shenbu, and Shenyang successfully survived the terrible flood, but many corpses were left on the battlefield. In the end, all the looted people and goods were returned in the pursuit, and they returned without success. Shen Shikui also beat up his hometown, but the results were not great, so he was shocked.

Daming succeeded in defending Xuanyun at a small cost. This battle went more smoothly than ever before, but more than half of the Xuanfu's Zhongquan battalion was lost. At the same time, only part of the looted population and property was recovered, and most of the shares were lost by Yang Qi. If they are robbed, they will have to face a more complex external environment in the future.

Tumed was liberated from the threat of Houjin, but it can't be said to be independent—in fact, Tumed can't be said to be a completely independent force since I Da Tonggong, it can only be said that it is against Ombu. It's not a bad thing to say.

Of course, the Marshal's Mansion is not considered a winner. Although this lone army successfully took root in Monan, it is hard to say that it spread the influence of the Marshal's Mansion here. Placement issues.

Speaking of which, only Mobei Mongolia earns more money, not many people died, the natural disasters in the hometown in the north have also been avoided, and an agreement has been reached with the Marshal's Mansion to station herds in Monan, but the Ming court will not open them. In the market, the amount of rewards in the imperial edict was not given enough, which led to continuous border conflicts.

To be honest, Chongzhen really didn't intend to renege on his promise after the incident with Jin Kou was over, and he really planned to give enough of the 49 taels of market reward.

The problem is that this market reward is not about giving money directly, but refers to the trade volume of mutual exchange.

Now both sides want food. In some areas of Shaanxi under the control of the Ming court, they apportion collections and purchase dried noodles in the name of city rewards. Take it out and sell it?Sell ​​them the satin iron pot.

Aristocrats from Mobei strolled around the moon market, staring at the high-quality Lu silk priced with horses: I’m starving to death, so why don’t you just sell me this and let me cook silk in an iron pot?

The soldiers on both sides wanted to eat each other.

But soon there was no more Lusi in the market, because there was a plague in Xingxian County, Kelan Prefecture, Shanxi. Hong Chengchou didn't know what it was, but he heard that it was not smallpox, which was common in the past, but a sudden and urgent disease. The severe plague, which was fast and swollen in the neck, killed a whole family as soon as they died. The people of Xing County fled in all directions, and the whole city was almost empty.

Hong Chengchou's reaction was extremely quick, and the first time he heard the news, he asked the entire Yellow River in Shaanxi, Fugu, Jiazhou, Wubao, Yanshuiguan, and Hancheng to block communication with Shanxi—he returned after hearing the Hehuang War The soldiers said that Liu Chengzong is the marshal of the plague, who can lead the army to advance and retreat freely in the plague.

Hong Chengchou was not that stupid to believe such nonsense about the plague god descending to earth. He just knew that Liu Chengzong had a good way of dealing with the plague. If the plague spread in Shaanxi and the marshal army took the opportunity to march eastward, the consequences would be disastrous.

In fact, he is now paying attention to another matter: Zuo Liangyu, who was stationed in Qinzhou, wrote to him, mentioning that Liu Chengzong transported Liangzhou military supplies to Ningyuan County, thinking that Gansu was empty at this time, and it was a good time to recover.

Hong Chengchou knew that Gansu was empty, and he came here from Gansu. He couldn't be more clear about the situation there. Before Gansu got food this autumn, the troops stationed there by the Marshal's Mansion must be transferred to other places. There is not enough food to eat.

But to what extent is the emptiness, he is not sure, what if there is an army composed of Oirat Tartars two thousand miles away, moving towards Gansu?
He had to figure out the territory of the Marshal's Mansion first, whether this Gansu was considered the rear or the front line.

Therefore, he turned his attention to looking beyond the Great Wall, and inquired about the information of the Marshal's Mansion from the Mongols in Ordos, the three tribes of Mobei who went south, and even the Monan Governor's Mansion of the Marshal's Mansion.

Before making this decision, he told himself that no matter what outrageous news he inquired about, he would accept it as it was ordered and believe it all—because the strength and power shown by the Marshal's Mansion in the Battle of Gansu had surpassed those of his opponents. The common sense of the peasant army and even the rebels.

Information that seems outrageous may be true, and it may not even be comprehensive.

"Military sect, I am fortunate that my humble position does not disgrace my life."

At this moment, Ding Qirui, the deputy envoy of military preparations, took a few scrolls and hurried up the Drum Tower: "Liu Thief claimed that Khan sent a notice to all ministries, and he got it!"

As he said that, a set of pictures marked with mountains, rivers, and nobles unfolded in front of Hong Chengchou, just like opening the door to a new world, and the curtain was lifted along the tip of the iceberg.

A Marshal's Mansion that was completely different from the perception of the Central Plains court slowly unfolded before Hong Chengchou's eyes.

　good afternoon!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)