national surname chiming

Chapter 198 The arrow is on the string
Shen Shuren inspected every day, rectified the internal affairs, and made great efforts.

The last period of April passed quickly in a busy way.There are also a lot of newly discovered problems. They are all encountering problems, solving them, and dismantling them one by one to come up with solutions.

The governor personally assigned the task of suppression, and the people below did not dare to neglect. Several good governance reform measures were initially implemented in just half a month.

The production of twin-tube breech-loading nozzles and rotary nozzle pistols continues at full speed after further running-in and optimization.

At the same time, at the Daye Iron Works, a group of training guns, which look similar to the rear-mounted double-barreled guns, but are still front-loaded, were also assigned to the manpower. There are not many training guns, about dozens of them, enough for training. That's it.

Anyway, the utilization rate of musket weapons was relatively low during training. For [-] soldiers using new muskets, even if there were only [-] training guns and [-] people shared one, it would not be a big problem.Anyway, hundreds of shots are fired on average every day, and it is enough for each person to share dozens of shots.

The Shen family army originally had a certain number of cavalry troops, and when they wiped out the bandits from the Fifth Gezuo Battalion, at least a few hundred horses were captured for each family destroyed.In addition, there are also a small number of cavalry horses left in the troops withdrawn from Liaodong this time, so there is no pressure for Shen Shuren to reorganize a pure cavalry force of 2000 people.

There can also be about a thousand more horses for scouts and officers at all levels.

So after the inspection that day, as soon as the training guns were in hand, hundreds of people took turns to hunt in the wild to practice waist shooting every day. In combat, there is also a certain degree of advance adaptation.

And because of the increase in live ammunition training, the supply of steel at Daye Camp is still sufficient. After all, Daye Iron Mountain has been expanding its production in the past few months, and it is operating very well under the management of Shen Shuren and Song's nephew. The consumption of ammunition and iron sand is nothing at all, and even the slag waste can't be used up.

However, the supply of gunpowder was a bit tight. Shen Shuren had steadily expanded the production capacity of the black powder workshop in the past two years, but the supply of raw materials has always been the old method and old channel, and Shen Shuren has not personally supervised and optimized it.

This time, he finally found the shortcoming of the gap, and Shen Shuren had no choice but to ask it himself, and everyone worked together to think about it.

In the end, it was agreed that high-end refined gunpowder production capacity should still be completely in the hands of the government.However, with the increase in the demand and output of gunpowder, and the addition of low-end gunpowder, thieves and tartars can actually make it now.

After all, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, gunpowder was still a bit of a secret in the Southern Song Dynasty or the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, all forces would actually make it, and there was no technical secrecy at all.

Therefore, with a swipe of a pen, Shen Shuren allowed the private operation of low-end gunpowder, but he had to accept the control of the government and obtain the authorization license from the governor's office, and then the businessman could contract and organize the production by himself. Safe production environment, no cutting corners and unsafe production.

In this way, the ship is small, flexible and easy to turn around, and the production link without confidentiality and monopoly is released to private capital, and the production efficiency will definitely increase.

At the same time, among the main raw materials that gunpowder needs to use, charcoal is impossible to control. It is available everywhere, let alone charcoal cannot be controlled. Even the coke used in Song Yingxing's new blast furnace ironmaking cannot be monopolized. There are too many sources up.

So the materials that can be controlled are saltpeter and sulfur.

The supply of saltpeter was tight at one time, and Shen Shuren remembered the method of scraping the toilet dirt that other traversers often used, that is, to scrape off the white and long-haired crystals that often appear on the dirt toilet wall. Contains a considerable proportion of nitrates.

Sulfur is the easiest to control. At that time, the largest source of sulfur supply in East Asia was Japan.

Now Shen Shuren has pulled Zheng Chenggong under him to be the prefect of Jiujiang. Of course, he must let the Zheng family bleed a little, and please the elder brother and immediate superior of the eldest son.

So Shen Shuren just approved a note, and Zheng Chenggong obediently offered Japanese sulfur with the volume of hundreds of sea ships every year at a fair price.Only the purchase price from Japan, plus the basic freight cost, that is, the consumption of supplies and sailors’ money, is not included in the profit, and even the depreciation fee of the sea-going ship is not confiscated. In fact, the Zheng family still loses a little money, but Not much, bearable.

In addition to military training, production and supply of equipment and consumables, the Shen family army is not idle in other logistics construction.

All kinds of new military rations that have just been developed, after further optimization and testing, have also selected a few key items to step up production and hoarding.So that when fighting in the upcoming mountainous areas, you can carry more military rations with the army, reduce the pressure on the logistics and food roads, and facilitate long-distance surprise attacks and running raids.

After all, Zhang Xianzhong's current territories are all sparsely populated places, and the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River are nearly a thousand miles long. "Among the colorful clouds of Emperor Ci Baidi, thousands of miles of rivers and tombs will be returned in one day." If the transportation of military supplies is slow, the rapid sneak attack of large troops will not be realized.

……

The time soon came to the first ten days of May, and the propaganda war and smoke bombs that Shen Shuren had arranged before finally came to the time when Kuaishouwang took effect.

Around the beginning of May, Fang Ziling and Bian Yujing’s fan works based on Shen Shuren’s "The Continuation of the Thieves" had already infiltrated into the Henan area, and began to perform among the people. Behind them were Huguang forces secretly subsidizing money. At least it is free to distribute the album.

After another ten days of fermentation, around the tenth day of May, these discordant voices finally reached Li Zicheng's ears.

And it has to be said that the wisdom of the masses is infinite.

Especially in the process of spreading rumors and jokes, there will naturally be the most deformed and most tenacious version, which will win in the natural selection of natural laws.

After all, the more thrilling and novelty a joke is, the easier it is for the listener to remember and impress it, and then cause it to be reposted. This phenomenon of shocking the Ministry has been unavoidable since ancient times.

So, when it reached Li Zicheng's ears, he was instantly outraged.

"The reason why Li Zicheng was able to kill Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying at the beginning was because he was inspired after reading Governor Shen's "On Traitors", and he shamelessly confided in Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying's subordinates, telling them that he was a genius. Eunuch eunuchs cannot give birth to sons.

In order to prove this point, Li Zicheng also took the initiative to disclose that the reason why his wife Xing followed Gao Jie to join He Renlong six years ago was because he couldn't do it!His wife has been a widow for half her life!
So he can only accept adopted sons!In the future, if you win the world, you will pass it on to your adopted son!If anyone brings Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying's main force to join him today, he will accept them as his adopted sons, and whoever makes more contributions in the future will pass on all the status to him!That's why the Luo and Ma trilogy rebelled!Li Zicheng is copying the answers and punishing dissidents according to Governor Shen's "On Traitors"! "

Of course, these words could not be expressed in the form of declarative sentences at first, but they were all displayed as plots in operas, at least in the form of folk storytelling, which is very lifelike.

In addition to these "the inside story of Li Zicheng's killing of his comrades", the other two most popular recent plays are "Old Yang Ge is eager to go north for reinforcements and seek Li Zicheng's decisive battle. Governor Shen strategizes and dissuades Elder Yang from rushing."

The image of Shen Shuren in the play directly copied Zhuge Liang's appearance, feather fan and scarf. When Yang Sichang hurriedly urged Zuo Liangyu and Liu Guoneng to go north for a decisive battle, Shen Shuren was very sure that Zhizhu was holding the ground to advise:
"Ge Lao don't need to worry too much, the intruder seems to have multiplied his army, but in fact there are many conflicts among the internal factions, he just relies on Tianxie to attract more people to work hard, and the newly attached people have different ideas, although they are numerous, there is nothing to be afraid of.

With the current strength of the intruders, as many as they will continue to roam around, looting and maintaining, they will never dare to storm the fortress of the official army!The situation that is most beneficial to our army is that he is arrogant, arrogant and has no self-knowledge. Whether he is attacking Tongguan in the west or Kaifeng in the east, he will inevitably be defeated in the end.

We can completely wait for the intruders to attack for half a year and three months, and the veterans are exhausted, and then support the attacked fortified city, and then we will definitely be able to severely injure the intruders under the city! "

After the first and second jokes of humiliating and despising Li Zicheng were widely circulated, he was almost outraged.

At that time, Li Zicheng was stationed in Zhengzhou County in Kaifeng Prefecture, and he immediately ordered to arrest and kill all those who wrote such books and acted in such plays in several counties around Zhengzhou——

In fact, no one in Zhengzhou County dared to act like this at that time. After all, this was Li Zicheng's own residence.Therefore, the news in Zhengzhou County was passed on by word of mouth among the people and came from other places.

Li Zicheng searched and killed, but he didn't find a storyteller or singer that day. In the end, he only found a few gossiping soldiers who didn't know the door, tied them up and chopped them down.In the next few days, they searched and killed several other counties in the occupied area of ​​​​Kaifeng Prefecture, and finally caught a few typical ones and chopped them down.

After killing Luo and Ma, Li Zicheng was still angry. Originally, he was still busy integrating the team for more than a month after killing Luo and Ma in March. He had no immediate plan to attack the fortifications. Murder and robbery.

After being so humiliated, of course he wanted to prove himself, so he immediately called his brother-in-law Gao Yigong and nephew Li Guo, and told them: "Immediately rectify the army and horses, gather the whole army in Kaifeng, and surround the city to death, day and night onslaught!
Shen Shu is too deceitful!How dare you despise me so much, saying that I can't break through Kaifeng?I'll break it and show him!When the time comes to kill King Zhou's family, say that Shen Shuren provoked me to kill him!Let Chongzhen chop off the head of the Shuren! "

Both Gao Yigong and Li Guo felt that it is not impossible to storm Kaifeng now, but since the integration of the three armies, the supply of troops has actually become more and more difficult in the past few months——

Because Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Ma Shouying used to roam in a relatively wide area, each of them fled in their own way, and the looted resources of each prefecture only needed to support a few tens of thousands of people.

Recently, the troops have been concentrated, and they only rely on robbing the people of Kaifeng Mansion to supply the army food. Except for Kaifeng City, almost all other places in Kaifeng Mansion have been robbed. There are no people for hundreds of miles, and even the people are killed for the army eat human.

Gao Yigong tactfully persuaded: "Your Majesty...it is right to attack Kaifeng, but 30 troops must not be stationed in one place for a long time to besiege, otherwise what will be done with the army supplies? It is necessary to send troops to various prefectures to plunder the official warehouses. "

Li Zicheng took the case: "There is a lot of military rations in Kaifeng! Last year when Luoyang was destroyed, just by dissipating all the property of Prince Fu's Mansion, it was enough to feed the army until the end of the year! Now that King Zhou is killed, the entire army can be fed for several months! You don't want to promote the army ambition!

The current stockpile is enough to last for a month!Dig some wild vegetables and eat some people, and last for another half a month. After a month and a half of day and night onslaught, still can't win Kaifeng?We will slaughter Kaifeng to stand up! "

Gao Yigong has nothing to say, he can still eat for a few days now, he is not good at persuading him, if the attack does not go well, and the food is really not enough, then find a way to persuade him slowly.

King Chuang was in a fit of anger. If the food supply was not about to run out immediately, he would never listen to persuasion.

After Gao Yigong flinched, Li Guo thought of another problem. Although he didn't read books, he was still a little clever in understanding the world, so he persuaded:
"Father, it is right to attack Kaifeng, but Father hopes to break Kaifeng's aggressive method of blaming Shen Shuren after killing King Zhou, and let Chongzhen kill him. I am afraid it will be difficult.

This Shen Shuren also has no duty to assist in the defense of Henan. He is just a governor under Yang Sichang's command, helping to guard against bandits around the Dabie Mountains and Wuchang and Jiujiang. It is nothing to do if Kaifeng is slaughtered.

As for these rumors... There is no evidence to say that this is what Shen Shuren did. It must be a mess to make a fuss in the court of the capital. It may be difficult to kill him with this trick. "

Li Zicheng was taken aback for a moment, then thought about it.If these provocative words were written in the main text of "The Continuation of the Thieves", if he was provoked and really went to slaughter Kaifeng and the King of Zhou, it could still be said that Shen Shuren was self-defeating.

But these folk jokes, storytelling, and dramas are related to Shen Shu's personal affairs?Couldn't grab him at all.

"It doesn't matter! Let's attack at all costs! Let's kill Kaifeng first! Can we take the opportunity to kill Shen Shuren and then discuss it later! The big deal is to kill Kaifeng and go south with the victory, looking for an opportunity to force the battle! If Yang Sichang Shen Shuren came to help during the siege, then Even better! I have an army of 30, and I am not afraid of casualties at all!"

What Li Zicheng is most afraid of now is the dead, because soldiers still have to be given food while they are alive, so it is better to use it as consumables. Anyway, as long as there is food, any man who is alive can be a soldier.

Under Li Zicheng's arbitrariness, Chuangjun's war machine quickly started to operate step by step.After just two days of preparation, the troops continued to march eastward from Zhengzhou County, arrived in Kaifeng on May [-], and began to besiege the city.

And Gao Mingheng, the governor of Henan in the Ming Dynasty, did not back down at all. According to the successful experience of last year's victory in the defense, he once again organized troops to guard against the defense, while begging Yang Sichang for help.

At the same time, the king of Zhou in the city, who escaped catastrophe by distributing his wealth last year, did not dare to be stingy with his property, and once again gave away half of his wealth to reward the Ming army in the city. up.

In all parts of the world, except for Shen Shuren, no one dared to underestimate Li Zicheng's offensive this time, and no one dared to be sure that Kaifeng would be able to hold it.

(End of this chapter)