I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 355 A reminder to Emperor Chongzhen
Chapter 355

Over the years, Cheng Shijie did not ask for a penny from Emperor Chongzhen, nor did he ask for a state or a city. Liaodong was originally lost in the first year of Tianqi, but Cheng Shijie led Ning Haijun to capture it.

Cheng Shijie captured the four states in southern Liaoning, used the land in southern Liaoning, immigrated to farmland, built factories, raised his own military expenses, and became stronger and stronger as he fought. But once Cheng Shijie fell, who could hold on to southern Liaoning?
At that time, Sun Chengzong was guarding Liaodong. He personally established the Guanning Army. Yuan Chonghuan replaced Sun Chengzong. The situation in Liaodong took a turn for the worse. Not to mention the Liao Dynasty was pacified in five years. In just the second year of the establishment of slaves, troops came to the capital.

Does Cheng Shijie really have a physical problem now?I'm afraid that's not entirely true. It should be a psychological blow. He can't fall down now. Once he falls down, the consequences will be disastrous.

No, Cheng Shijie must not fall. Even if he falls, his New Deal cannot fall. Emperor Chongzhen does not want to live the miserable life where there is smoke and fire everywhere and the treasury can starve rats to death!
Emperor Chongzhen made up his mind and threw all the memorials impeaching Cheng Shijie into the trash can, and directly rejected the memorials of Cheng Shijie's resignation due to illness. At the same time, he asked Wang Chengen to send the most skilled imperial doctor in the palace to Yanqing to treat Cheng Shijie. At the same time, According to the decree, everything in Liaodong will remain as usual, and personnel appointments and dismissals will be decided by the Yamen of the Governor-General's Office in Liaodong. At the same time, Cheng Jialong, son of Cheng Shijie, will be granted the title of Prince of Haiguo Gong and General of Dingguo, hereditary.

Emperor Chongzhen wanted to learn from Zhu Yuanzhang when he used hereditary substitution. When Mu Ying guarded Yunnan for ten years, he promoted farming, encouraged teachers to teach farmers and mulberry trees, established schools with courtesy and respect, spread the culture of the Central Plains, and stabilized the frontiers.After Mu Ying's death, Mu's descendants guarded Yunnan for generations.

The third generation Marquis of Xiping and the thirteenth generation Duke of Qian, descendants of the Mu family, control the Yunnan army. Although Yunnan does not belong to the nine-sided system, due to the rebellion of the chieftains, Yunnan still has nearly 20 troops, including the establishment of the Sixteenth Guards (the Malong Guards were abolished) and two Ten Thousand Household Offices (including the Heqing Thousand Household Office was abolished).

As for the army controlled by the Mu family, according to the War Department's battle register, there are 280 guards and [-] households, with a total of [-] and a total of [-] people. Did the Mu family rely on hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses to separate themselves in Yunnan?

In fact, no, the Mu family is still quite loyal to Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Chongzhen thought of placing the Cheng family in Liaodong. Shizhen Liaodong should be pretty good. In fact, the current Liaodong has certain similarities with the original Mu family. Mu Ying's son Mu Xin is the prince-in-law and is married to Chengzu's daughter. Princess Chang Ning is his wife, and Mu Ying's daughter is married to Xu Zengshou, Duke of Dingguo.

Emperor Chongzhen decided to let Princess Kunxing marry Cheng Shijie's son Cheng Jialong in the future. As for Cheng Shijie's daughter Cheng Jiayue, she could not marry the prince Zhu Cihong. Once Zhu Cihong ascended the throne and became emperor in the future, Cheng Jiayue would be able to easily sideline the prince with the help of her natal family. .

The change in Emperor Chongzhen's attitude made the ministers feel what it means to accompany the emperor like a tiger. At the same time, the ministers were also thinking about what Emperor Chongzhen meant.

Emperor Chongzhen's decree was unanimously resisted by the ministers. A group of veteran ministers sought death and survival. They burst into tears and talked about the ancestral system.

Chongzhen issued imperial edicts three times in a row, and was rebuffed three times by the cabinet. The cabinet's attitude was very clear. Now Cheng Shijie has taken the initiative to resign. If you don't want to take the opportunity to seize the Liaodong area and let everyone make a windfall, forget it. You still want to seal that It is impossible for Cheng Shijie's son to be the general of Dingguo and the prince of Haiguo!
But what if Cheng Shijie's son is more powerful than Cheng Shijie?You must know that although Cheng Jialong has not done much, he started to make troubles at a young age. In the future, when Cheng Jialong grows up, will we still be alive?Absolutely not!

Facing the tough ministers, Emperor Chongzhen was also very troubled. The attitude of the ministers was very clear. They and Cheng Shijie could only choose one or the other. Choose yourself!

After careful consideration, he had to find a pen and paper and wrote a very sincere letter to Cheng Shijie, explaining his difficulties. Finally, he said helplessly: "Cheng Qing, all the ministers are collectively opposed. This is related to the safety of the country." , I can never give in, I can only wrong you for a few years!"

When this letter arrived in Cheng Shijie's hands, he had just arrived in Tongzhou. In fact, Cheng Shijie didn't want to wade into this muddy water. After seeing that Meng En and Ning admirals wanted to benefit themselves, and the ministers also wanted to benefit themselves, Huge changes have taken place. What would have happened if I hadn't existed as a butterfly from another world?
Now is the ninth year of Chongzhen. There are still eight years left before the 17th year of Chongzhen. The Ming Dynasty can still struggle for another eight years. So Cheng Shijie directly took a pen and wrote a reply to Emperor Chongzhen: "The humble minister has few talents and little knowledge, and his shy face occupies the high position of Prime Minister of the Nine Borders." , working conscientiously, walking on thin ice, for fear of making any mistakes, already exhausted physically and mentally! All the ministers are amazingly talented, no one can match them. With all the ministers here, the Ming Dynasty will have peace of mind! As long as the ministers can be protected, it does not matter if the ministers suffer some grievances! "

When he saw Cheng Shijie's reply, Chongzhen was so moved that he was speechless.

Finally, after repeated back and forth, Emperor Chongzhen finally gave in and dismissed Nine-Border Prime Minister Cheng Shijie for corruption and dereliction of duty. However, Cheng Shijie continued to serve as governor of Liaodong and was not allowed to enter Beijing without an edict.Zhang Fengyi, the Minister of the Ministry of War, took over as Prime Minister of Jiubian, and Yang Sichang, the son of Yang He, took over as the Minister of the Ministry of War.

Politics is a matter of mutual compromise. Emperor Chongzhen made such a big concession, and the ministers naturally could not be too aggressive. Therefore, the decree to seal Cheng Jialong, the son of Cheng Shijie, as the general of Dingguo and the crown prince of Haiguo was successfully issued. Cheng Shijie continued to serve as the governor of Liaodong. The people in the area immediately calmed down.

Emperor Chongzhen, who breathed a sigh of relief, did not know that the moment he ordered the dismissal of Cheng Shijie, the Prime Minister of the Nine Borders, the countdown to his destruction had begun.

Emperor Chongzhen didn't know that although politics is the art of compromise, it is more like drowning in a boat. If you don't advance, you will retreat. Emperor Chongzhen thought that aggrieving Cheng Shijie would calm the ministers for a few days, but his wishful thinking failed. The situation did not ease with Cheng Shijie's dismissal of the post of Prime Minister of Jiubian. On the contrary, it became more tense.

During Cheng Shijie's tenure as Prime Minister of the Nine Borders, in order to prevent the Nine Borders army from falling into mutiny due to lack of food, Ning Haijun sent 600 million tons of grain to Gyeonggi Province. Grain merchants who originally wanted to hoard rare goods suffered heavy losses. Gyeonggi Province alone had More than 100 grain merchants committed suicide because of bankruptcy.

Just when Cheng Shijie no longer served as the Prime Minister of Jiubian, Ning Haijun, an organization that lost money to donate blood to the Ming Dynasty, was completely chilled and completely angered the Ning Haijun Group.

Damn it, we worked so hard to transport grain and various goods at a loss, and we all treated it like feeding the dogs. The grain sales channels and stores controlled by Ning Haijun were transferred one after another. The listed grains were sold out, closed down, and lost. Ning Haijun's source of food was that grain merchants in the north had already sold it at a low price.

Governments from all over the country came forward one after another and began to deal with Ning Haijun's grain merchants. However, Ning Haijun's Commerce Department was very determined to retreat. The stores were sold at half price or even [-]% off. When the civilian group wanted to take action, Ning Haijun's Commerce Department had already withdrawn. .If it is a store that cannot be sold, it can be demolished or smashed, leaving nothing but land that cannot be moved.

During the confrontation with the civil servant group, Xie Jinglin also knew that these ordinary people did not dare to eat the property left by Ning Haijun, but some people dared to eat it, that is, the vassal kings and Buddhists of the Ming Dynasty. The bones they threw out made them dog-eat-dog. go.

The channels for obtaining grain from Liaodong were almost completely cut off, and the market fell into panic. Grain merchants hoarded food frantically and drove up grain prices. Many wealthy businessmen flocked to Liaodong and spent their entire wealth to buy grain. Countless people became rich overnight.

Echoing the evil smiles of the businessmen are the screams of the common people. The price of food has risen too much. Even if they lose everything, they can't afford a stone of rice!Many officials came to Beijing to complain and asked the court for disaster relief.

Chongzhen just felt incredible. There was no natural disaster in the capital, but he came to the court to ask for relief. Are you fucking kidding me?

Officials said that Gyeonggi has completely relied on the supply of food from Huguang and Shandong. Now that the canal is blocked, it is impossible to get through if there is food. They all say that there is not enough food in stock and refuse to sell it. We have no food to eat. Who are we to look for if not you?

In desperation, Chongzhen allocated [-] shi of rice to provide disaster relief. As you can imagine, the [-] shi of rice was divided up as soon as it came out of the granary, and then was bought by merchants at a higher price and hoarded. The people in Gyeonggi Province did not eat a single grain.

However, on this issue, "Liaodong Times" took advantage of Jinyiwei's intelligence system and reported the detailed transaction data. Now it was a lot of fun! "Liaodong Times" made a special report on this. The flow of the grain, the names of the people handling it, and the amount of the transaction were all detailed. Once it was published, it immediately caused an uproar!
Although Chongzhen was so angry that he almost overturned the throne, the people in the Gyeonggi area were also extremely angry. Wherever those wealthy businessmen went, they no longer received the envious eyes of the common people, but angry curses: "Let these moths die, The lives of us poor people also matter!”

This incident greatly damaged the prestige of the gentry in the capital. Of course, they didn't care. In their eyes, a relationship between father and mother is not as good as a relationship between money. Who takes the lives of those poor people seriously?
What annoys them is the "Liaodong Times". This newspaper, which has an increasing circulation and growing influence, always makes trouble for them. Whatever scandals they have done, the newspaper immediately publishes them, which makes them confused. Quite embarrassed.The Donglin Party asked Chongzhen to seal "Liaodong Times" more than once.

It's just a pity that the government can ban the voices of the people. Besides, the world is in turmoil, and the people who read newspapers are their scholars. They like to read, of course, not the current affairs content of Liaodong Times, but also many short stories.

Compared with the novelists of the Ming Dynasty, the online novels of later generations, especially those in the romance section, with erotic descriptions, are a downgrade attack.

……

When Chen Guodong found Cheng Shijie, Cheng Shijie had already arrived at Tianjin Wei.

"Big guy!"

Chen Guodong didn't come empty-handed. When he came to find Cheng Shijie, he had already asked the people from the Military Supervision Department to tie up Meng En, Zhou Ning, and Li Xin, the three culprits.

Of course, Cheng Shijie never authorized Chen Guodong's trial. Otherwise, what Cheng Shijie would see would be three heads.You must know that Ning Haijun's Supervisory Military Road Department is similar to the official committee system. Within Ning Haijun, the military chief is a person who has no right to interfere with the Supervisory Military Road Department system.

On the contrary, they accepted Chen Guodong's order. At first, they did think that asking Cheng Shijie to die was a normal behavior. However, under Chen Guodong's explanation, they realized that this was actually a mutiny in disguise, especially since Cheng Shijie was killed. After the anger was gone, these supervisors, directors, governors and supervisors took action and arrested Meng En, Zhou Ning and others without any effort.

Cheng Shijie saw the three people in front of him clearly and was slightly startled: "Chen Guodong, what are you doing?"

"Commander, they dare to cheat and betray the commander, I..."

Cheng Shijie stepped forward and untied the ropes of Meng En, Li Xin and Zhou Ning: "They betrayed me? When did they betray me? If I am not willing, how could they betray me?"

Chen Guodong was slightly startled by Cheng Shijie's words.

In fact, Cheng Shijie's words are not wrong. He not only supervises the Military Road Administration and established two management systems for Ning Haijun, but also controls Ning Haijun's military pay and logistics.As long as Cheng Shijie declares that a certain Ning navy is a rebel and directly freezes their military pay and deposits in the bank, this army will not be able to survive for three days.

"Big guy!"

When Zhou Ning faced Cheng Shijie, he actually regretted it now.

"Now Gyeonggi Province is in chaos. Is this the result you want to see?"

Cheng Shijie said calmly: "You want to use the hands of slave builders to kill all the officials in Gyeonggi, but the problem is, even if Wu Zongda dies, Wen Zhenmeng will take over his vacancy. Has the problem changed?"

Cheng Shijie knew very well that the Chongzhen Dynasty changed more than 50 cabinet ministers. He executed two ministers of the Ministry of War, committed one suicide, 17 ministers of the Ministry of Punishments, and executed 17 governors. The average tenure of all cabinet ministers was less than six months. Such a cabinet It's weird to be able to do anything.

Zhou Ning smiled bitterly and said: "Commander, the capital is in chaos now, and the south of the Yangtze River is also in chaos. Grain merchants are causing trouble everywhere, and people are resentful. What should we do now?"

"Wait!" "Wait?"

A few were a little confused.

Li Xin seemed to understand what Cheng Shijie meant: "The commander-in-chief means, can we wait for the sea to thaw?"

"The ice in the Bohai Sea used to thaw in early February. Now it's less than half a month. Ice boats are no longer passable. As long as the river water is cleared, our navy can transport supplies on river boats. Let them do it first, and wait for them to toss people's hearts. Light up, clean up the mess!"

Cheng Shijie is actually not worried about Jiannu going south now, because during this period, the news of Ning Haijun's attack on Shenyang has already reached Huang Taiji. Huang Taiji did not lead Jiannu to kill Shenyang, and he had no intention of retaking Shenyang. Huang Taiji had already It was expected that Cheng Shijie would take action.

Cheng Shijie said: "I'm afraid you haven't thought about it, have you? Shenyang is actually an open space. The families of the nobles of the Eight Banners of Jiannu are not in Shenyang. In December last year, they went north to Kaiyuan, and then braved the wind and snow to migrate to Horqin and Changyu. Bringing soldiers and horses to attack Horqin will probably not lead to any results. In this case, he does not have the courage to fight desperately. He must have fled to Mobei. We do not have the strength to expedition to Mobei now!"

This heavy snowfall also caused huge losses to the Ning Navy in Liaodong. In addition, in order to support the Gyeonggi region and the nine-border defense line, Liaodong consumed too much military supplies. What's more, this time the Ning Navy The navy lost more than [-] horses alone.

Chen Guodong told Cheng Shijie the information sent by Li Kangfei.

When Cheng Shijie heard that Li Guofu was discussing provoking a fight between Zhou Yandong and Cheng Shijie, Zhou Ning's face instantly became embarrassed.

He secretly prayed in his heart that his father Zhou Yandong would never be stupid.

Even within Liaodong, almost everyone thinks that the first family of Ning Haijun in Liaodong is Cheng Shijie, the second family is Zhou Yandong, and the third family is Xie Zongze.

But in fact, that's not the case at all.

Xie Jinglin, who controls the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Xie Zongze, who controls the Ministry of Education, can be replaced by Cheng Shijie with just one sentence without causing any ripples.

But the same is true for the Zhou Yandong family. As the chief of staff of the Ning Navy, he can usually give orders for Cheng Shijie. However, Chen Guodong just gave an order. He went to bed at night, woke up, and left Yanqing County in a carriage without any resistance. ability.

On the surface, the Military Supervision Bureau only has members of the Military Law Corps and Division Supervisors, Directors, and Supervisors. However, their internal Supervisory Army members are secretive and only accept the leadership and command of the Supervisory Army at all levels.

Li Xin was highly skilled and alert, and the four supervisors responsible for capturing him were injured by him. However, when faced with more than a dozen revolvers, and the words "On the order of Supervisor Chen, arrest the traitor Li Xin!"

Li Xin's bodyguards totaled 300 people, but they were indifferent. All the Ning navy officers knew one thing. Without Marshal Cheng, they would not be where they are today. They were unable to tell who the traitor was. They could only identify it. Chen Guodong ordered, Li Xin I only wish for good fortune.

Cheng Shijie said: "One of our supervisors has died in Ning Haijun. It wouldn't be surprising if another one dies, right?"

Chen Guodong understood.

Whether it is the officials sent by the imperial court to Liaodong, or the supervising army sent to Ning Haijun, whoever Cheng Shijie asks to die must die.

……

Li Guofu was faster than Cheng Shijie. He had already arrived in the south of the Yangtze River. His purpose was very clear. Even if he wanted to win over Zhou Yandong and the generals of Ning Haijun, he would still need real money.But he had no money in his hands, and neither did Emperor Chongzhen.

Li Guofu could only get the money from the inspection department at Wusongkou before heading to Liaodong.When arriving at the Inspection Department, Li Guofu looked at the account books. Although the Wusongkou Inspection Department only had more than 56 people and [-] or [-] ships, it was making money very quickly. In just over a month, Earned more than [-] taels of silver.

I just got the Di newspaper and saw that Emperor Chongzhen only dismissed Cheng Shijie from the post of Prime Minister of Nine Borders, but retained Cheng Shijie from the post of Governor of Liaodong. In Li Guofu's opinion, Emperor Chongzhen was really wise.

Only in this case can Cheng Shijie relax his vigilance and at the same time send a signal to the outside world that there is a rift between Cheng Shijie and Emperor Chongzhen.

Li Guofu took the supervisor's letter and withdrew 56 taels of silver from the Wusongkou Inspection Department, and took Gao Qiqian's original boat, a [-]-material Sea Shark-class warship, which Gao Qiqian had customized from his own pocket. The battleship is equipped with sixteen three-inch guns and eight-inch guns, and its combat effectiveness cannot be underestimated.

At first, this battleship was severely damaged in the Battle of Manila. Gao Qiqian spent 4 taels of silver to buy it from the shipyard to serve as his own ship.Originally the ship was named Shaoxing, but the Shaoxing was renamed Jinling by Li Guofu. The Jinling was escorted by more than a dozen gunboats and headed for Liaodong.

Just as we arrived on the river at Wusongkou, we suddenly heard the sound of a cannon in the distance.

"boom!"

This one was nearly lost. The shell landed on the starboard bow of the Jinling. The shell exploded on the river, causing waves more than ten meters high.

Li Guofu's expression changed drastically: "What's going on? Where was the cannon fired?"

A young eunuch pointed at the Wusongkou fort and said, "It's a fort!"

"You bastards, who asked them to fire!"

As soon as Li Guofu finished speaking, more than a dozen artillery shells were fired again.This was not a false alarm, but two four-inch shells, which directly opened two large holes with a diameter of five or six meters in the Jinling's body. The explosion shock wave swept over, and the sails and sailors flew into the air together.

Seeing this, other sailors and Jin Yiwei hurriedly jumped into the sea.

A large amount of seawater poured in, and the Jinling only persisted on the river at Wusongkou for less than a quarter of an hour before breaking into two pieces and sinking to the bottom of the river.

Wu Sheng, the commander-in-chief of Wusongkou, reported to the imperial court: "On the eighth day of February in the ninth year of Chongzhen, when the Wusongkou Fort was undergoing routine shelling training, Li Guofu, the supervisor of the Ning Navy, and Li Gonggong, sailed directly into the river without reporting. The training shell accidentally hit the Jinling, and the Jinling sank after being hit by two shots. I tried my best to rescue the sailors who fell into the water, and searched for Li Gonggong. However, a total of 29 people were missing, 35 people were rescued, and 38 people were unfortunately killed. Seriously, please punish me, Your Majesty!"

Wu Sheng finished writing the memorial and dried the ink: "Send it to the capital!"

"Wu Shuai, are you afraid of writing like this..."

"Afraid of a bird!"

Wu Sheng said disapprovingly: "I dared to miss Li Guofu this time. Who can guarantee where the shell will hit next time?"

Cheng Shijie could have killed Li Guofu without anyone noticing, but the problem was that killing Li Guofu was not Cheng Shijie's real goal. His goal was to give Emperor Chongzhen a warning.

Cheng Shijie is unhappy now.

Cheng Shijie has been spoiling Emperor Chongzhen recently, making Emperor Chongzhen a little arrogant.I don’t know what the seriousness is, but now I just want to give Emperor Chongzhen a heads up.

Just as Cheng Shijie expected, after Wu Sheng's memorial was sent to the capital, the cabinet ministers cheered. They knew that the rift between Cheng Shijie and Emperor Chongzhen was irreparable.

When Emperor Chongzhen saw this memorial, he was so angry that he smashed his favorite inkstone. Unfortunately, it hit Wang Chengen's head, causing Wang Chengen's head to bleed.

However, this is just impotent rage and will not help.

What can Emperor Chongzhen do?Kill Wu Sheng, the commander-in-chief of Wusongkou?

A general soldier had already died in Wusongkou. Besides, if he wanted to kill him, Wu Sheng might not be willing to die.

I have no choice but to admit this.

(End of this chapter)