I want to be emperor

Chapter 246 Yang Sichang's Strategies (Subscribe for the third update)

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Yang Sichang boasted that he had found a way to protect the thieves, but it was difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. There was not enough money and food to talk about building guns and training new troops.

After all, what is lacking is not one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand taels, but an amount starting from one million taels, which is too small for three to five million taels...

But can the imperial court give him 500 million taels of silver?

It is impossible to think with your toes, because the court has no money.

But the imperial court can find a way without money!
Just like what he said in the letter to Chongzhen when he first resigned from the imperial decree of Duoqingqi recovery, the extermination must require money and food, but now that the warehouse of the household department can starve to death rats, it should be increased. .

He also said that now Jiliao spends so much money every year, but Dongyao will not be wiped out for a while, so it is better to negotiate peace with Dongyao first, so as to shrink the front line, free up money and food, and destroy the internal security thieves first.

Wait until the security thieves are wiped out, the flow thieves are calmed down, and after a while, they will send their troops east to destroy the east captives.

So much hope for ZTE!

In a series of strategic suggestions to Chongzhen, Yang Sichang covered all aspects, and even proposed a very complete strategic plan to Chongzhen.

Talk to the foreign captives first, and guard them. Anyway, the captives will not be able to enter the pass for a while.

Internally, the convective thieves are encircling and aggressively exterminating them, taking advantage of this opportunity to completely wipe out Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Zizhong, Li Zicheng and other big thieves.

As for the security thieves, a containment strategy was adopted to buy time, and the Yangtze River natural moat was firmly guarded in the south.

Stick to Xinyang in the east, and Yexian and Luyang in the north, blocking the bandit army from the Central Plains.

On the western front, you can continue to fight with the bandits in Guanzhong and Eastern Sichuan, and use the strong city to defend and counterattack and continue to wear down the elite guards.

At the same time as the siege, additional food and salaries were sent to train troops, in order to gather elite troops to counterattack Chubei, and finally wipe out the Bao bandits.

After destroying the Bao bandits, we will send our troops eastward to destroy the Dong captives.

But, as a minister, he is not the kind of cabinet minister who joins the cabinet. He is not even a minister, so he has no way to directly decide the strategic policy of the court.

Therefore, whether his series of suggestions can be implemented is beyond his control.

Anyway, as a courtier, he has already told him what he thinks is the best way to deal with it. As for what His Majesty and the cabinet ministers do, he cannot interfere.

The imperial court has not given too many answers yet, but followed some of Yang Sichang's previous suggestions, and carried out a high-pressure encirclement and suppression against the thieves, and blocked and defended the thieves.

But for the others, there is no answer yet!
Because the top officials of the imperial court are still arguing endlessly, especially the peace talks with Dongyao, and the increase in salary and other matters. There are too many disputes, and it is impossible to have any results in a short time.

There was no reply from the imperial court for the time being, and Chu Nan was already facing the bandit army crossing the south of the Yangtze River, and Wuchang was at stake.

Yang Sichang could only think of a way on his own. He contacted many other prefectures in southern Chu to collect money and food, and planned to build a batch of guns first, and then train thousands of new troops.

Anyway, let’s take care of the Dongting Lake area first, otherwise his hometown of Yang Sichang will be ruined first...

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Not mentioning Yang Sichang's actions, but saying that the westward detachment led by Colonel Jia Heyun severely damaged the Ming army in the eastern suburbs of Linxiang, and then killed the Linxiang city, but this time the westward detachment failed to conquer Linxiang.

The main reason is that the Westward Detachment lacked mortars for siege. They only brought two [-]-jin mortars with the army, and only a few two-and-a-half-jin field guns. ri provide too much cover for the troops.

In the westward detachment, the main force is just a main infantry battalion, and the remaining more than 2000 people are garrison troops.

Although the combat effectiveness of these garrison troops is much stronger than that of the Ming army on the opposite side, they are also limited in strength. At least they can't attack Linxiang when their strength is at a disadvantage.

Therefore, after Colonel Jia Heyun commanded the troops to launch a tentative attack to no avail, he resolutely gave up continuing to attack Linxiang, but chose to build fortifications and camps outside Linxiang City.

This can't take Linxiang down, so just block the land of Linxiang City outside Wuchang Mansion.

As long as the Ming army on the front line of Yuezhou Mansion can't get through, Colonel Jia Heyun's mission will be successfully completed.

He was ordered to lead the westward detachment to fight, and his task was not to say to conquer some place, nor to go to Yuezhou Mansion.

His most important strategic task is to stop the Ming army coming from the direction of Yuezhou Mansion, prevent the Ming army from this direction from reaching Wuchang Mansion, and interfere with the main force in the rear attacking Wuchang Mansion.

As for the others, it's best to have them, and it doesn't matter if they don't.

Anyway, he had led his army to defeat more than 1 Ming troops in succession, and captured 8000 to [-] prisoners of all kinds.

Now these captives are under the management of the Ministry of Military Affairs to select qualified and voluntary recruits to join the army. After the selection is completed, the Township Protection Army will be able to obtain at least about 3000 recruits who have surrendered.

These 20 surrendered soldiers plus the No. 5000 Third Garrison Regiment, then there are more than [-] people, which can basically set up the airs of the Eighth Garrison Division.

The new Commander of the Eighth Defense Division, Zhao Hongshu, has been ordered to come from Wuchang Prefecture, and he will arrive in Linxiang in a short time to formally take over the departments of the Eighth Defense Division.

At that time, Jia Heyun will be able to return to the main force of the Second Infantry Brigade, and he may be able to participate in the battle of Wuchang again and make another wave of credit.

With these credits in hand, there is hope for subsequent promotion to the commander of the infantry brigade.

Satisfied, Jia Heyun stopped marching westward, and began to concentrate on leading the army to build a defense line. The same thing happened in the eastward marching detachment.

The eastward detachment led by Colonel Kang Hongbao bypassed the Jiangxia County area of ​​Wuchang Prefecture all the way to Wuchang County, and successfully defeated the defenders composed of nearly a thousand local guard soldiers and county braves stationed there. Finally, it took two days to successfully conquer the the place.

It is worth mentioning that there were two places named Wuchang in Wuchang Mansion at this time, and the Wuchang City that people often said was the seat of Wuchang Mansion, that is, Jiangxia County.

At the same time, along the Yangtze River to the east of Wuchang Prefecture, that is, there is also Wuchang County in Ezhou in later generations.

And the Wuchang that Colonel Kang Hongbao led the army to conquer is this Wuchang County, Ezhou.

After Colonel Kang Hongbao led his army to capture Wuchang County, he continued to lead his army south and successfully captured Daye, an important iron smelting place.

This place is very important because it is a traditional iron and copper smelting center. It has rich iron and copper mines and a large number of corresponding practitioners. The iron and copper it produces are widely supplied to the entire Huguang and even the south of the Yangtze River.

In the past, most of the large amount of iron materials purchased by the Baoxiang Army came from Daye, and a considerable part of the copper materials also came from Daye.

It can even be said that the iron and copper produced in Daye supported most of the machinery and weapon manufacturing industries of the Township Protection Army.

Therefore, for the rural protection army, Wuchang City can not be attacked first, but Daye must be taken down immediately and actually controlled.

Because after the capture of this place, the Great Chu Empire will completely solve the supply problem of iron and copper materials, no longer need to worry about the supply of iron and copper materials being cut off, and it can also save a lot of money.

After all, when the Baoxiang Army purchased iron and copper materials before, the price they spent was often far from the supermarket price. Now that Daye is under the control of the Xiangbao Army itself, the price of this raw material can naturally be greatly reduced. Enough to save the rural army a lot of money.

Because of the importance of this place, as soon as the army led by Colonel Kang Hongbao conquered Daye City, the Daye County Yamen under the prefect's Yamen of Wuchang Prefecture had already entered the city and started working on the same day.

The origin of Sun Maode, the first magistrate of Daye County, is also very special, because this person is not a local official in the traditional sense. Procurement and supply of iron materials.

In order to ensure that the iron and copper materials in the Daye area can be produced stably, and that the production will not be reduced due to the war, the superiors directly sent Sun Maode to Daye County as the county magistrate.

Sun Maode was also very clear that he had only one purpose in coming to Daye County, which was to ensure the local production of iron and copper materials so as to continuously supply the various arsenals and machinery factories in the rear.

For this reason, Sun Maode, who had just entered the city, issued an administrative order requiring all iron and copper mines and iron and copper smelting workshops in Daye County, whether they are government-run, private, or sneaky mining and smelting workshops, the person in charge It is necessary to go to the county government for a meeting as soon as possible to ensure that the iron-copper mines and iron-copper workshops will not stop production, will not reduce production, and seek to increase production.

This made the managers of many iron and copper mines in Daye terrified, especially those private mines and workshops that were mined secretly. Many people thought that the security thieves were going to play liquidation, and many managers immediately ran away overnight. up.

In fact, they are simply worrying too much. Sun Maode doesn't care whether you were legal before or not. He only wants you to be legal now and keep production.

And after many government-run and private mine managers and owners have run away, the rural protection army will naturally not let these mines and workshops stop working.

The Ministry of Industry established the 'Daye Ironworks' early on, and entered Daye immediately, and began to accept government-run mine workshops and private mine workshops whose owners were foolishly running away.

At the same time, it also purchased private mining workshops at a high price!
Compared with allowing these private owners to mine and smelt in a small way, the Ministry of Industry of the Great Chu Empire is more willing to do large-scale mining and smelting by itself.

However, the Great Chu Empire has been established anyway. At the same time, compared with the traditional feudal dynasty that implemented salt and iron monopoly, the Great Chu Empire has not established an iron monopoly system for the time being, but only implemented a salt monopoly system.

In fact, I also planned to establish an iron monopoly system, but because the time is too short, and at the same time, the key point is that most of the iron materials of the Great Chu Empire need to be purchased from outside the control area, and this source has to be smuggled by those private firms. Woolen cloth.

At the same time, the Great Chu Empire has an extremely huge demand for iron materials, and they have tried every means to expand production. It doesn't matter whether you are private or government-run, as long as it is iron, the Great Chu Empire will always come.

Under such circumstances, the restrictive iron monopoly system will naturally not be implemented.

(End of this chapter)