national surname chiming

Chapter 311 Zhang Xianzhong died at the foot of this mountain
Zhu Shuren blamed Li Dingguo for flogging his stick, and to put it bluntly, he was also protecting Li Dingguo.

After all, one crime will not be punished, and the current situation is special. In order to better appease Zhang Xianzhong's surrender, after the expedited trial of Li Dingguo, if there are no other changes in the future, it is not easy for others to turn over old scores.

After Li Dingguo was punished, he was imprisoned for a month or two in name, but he was actually recovering from his injuries. Anyway, he had to recover from his injuries when he was released, so he couldn't do much for the time being.

Locked in prison, he was not abused in life, and he was not short of medical care. Li Dingguo quickly stabilized his emotions, and he sincerely began to repent and re-understand the world.

It has to be said that most peasant generals in this era have a very limited understanding of the world, and the most likely limitation is because of geographical differences——

Many generals who were born in Shaanxi and Henan have never seen the common people suffer in their entire lives. They feel that Daming is really heinous, and the people are living in poverty. In the end, they even developed to the point of "being abused by the government in this way, why don't you follow us to resist and kill?" If you are an official, then you deserve to die for helping the evildoers!” thinking.

But in fact, there were indeed several provinces in the south at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the people could barely get by. These people also couldn't understand why the northerners hated the court so much.

This is why in history, after the Qing army entered the customs, some provinces in the south persisted in resistance for 20 years.People in these places have not suffered much from Ming Dynasty, so why should they support the rule of the Tartars?
Those who could no longer survive under the rule of Ming Dynasty would be eager to smash everything up and start over like rain after a long drought.

It can only be said that the land of China is too vast, and the wind and customs are different for hundreds of miles, and the specific conditions of each region can be very different.

In the era of blocked information traffic, it is too difficult to expect people from different regions to understand each other spontaneously.

Historically, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and others gradually realized this problem after one or two years in Sichuan, and gradually discovered that many people in the south really wanted Daming, so they felt that "Daming may really be exhausted", Gradually reconcile with the court.

Now, Zhu Shuren doesn't have so much time left for him, so he can only retreat in prison for a month or two, trying to face the wall and reflect more efficiently than outside, and in a month or two, he will spend a year or two outside to understand the problem Just figured it out, that would be the best.

This article applies not only to Li Dingguo, but also to Feng Shuangli and Bai Wenxuan.

Zhu Shuren also specially kept these captured generals in a prison. They were usually placed in different single cells, but they were allowed to gather in one place to undergo ideological reform together when they were released every day.

Zhu Shuren also specially arranged for Gu Yanwu, the staff with the highest level of political philosophy theory around him, to personally explain to these senior generals that "there are those who subjugate the country, and there are those who subjugate the world. Those who protect the country are those whose rulers and ministers eat meat; those who protect the world The truth is that there is nothing between the lowliness of an ordinary man and the responsibility."

This job is what Gu Yanwu is best at, but since he finished writing "The Continuation of the Thieves" last year, he hasn't had the opportunity to display his talents in this area for more than a year.

……

It will take a month or two to transform the surrendered generals and restore the ruling order around Chengdu.

The historical Chengdu City was massacred by Zhang Xianzhong three times before and after, and finally became almost completely empty city.

Today, because of Zhu Shuren’s butterfly effect, Chengdu has only been slaughtered once, but this time it lasted longer. Calculated, the number of killings has been reduced by about half compared with the same period in history, and the city barely survived with a population of more than 20.

Zhang Xianzhong just basically killed all the rich and scholars, leaving behind a group of destitute people who he regarded as potential sources of soldiers.

Objectively speaking, this massacre by Zhang Xianzhong has greatly alleviated the contradictions of land annexation accumulated in the Sichuan area for more than 200 years.

Zhu Shuren can also copy the model in western Hunan last year, just like the three prefectures of Changde, Changsha and Hengzhou.For those who are inconvenient to confirm the rights, they will be collected as official villages first, and the refugees and the old and the weak will be allocated for reclamation.

There is nothing to repeat about the details of the recovery of agricultural production. Zhu Shuren just asked about it and inspected it for a few days. Naturally, the follow-up work will be handed over to Fang Kongzhang, the authentic governor of Sichuan.

Now Sichuan has a Sichuan governor directly appointed by Chongzhen, and Zhu Shuren should not be involved in civil affairs in theory.Fang Kongzheng listened to his suggestion, it was out of love, and it was his duty not to listen to him.

Zhu Shuren finally negotiated with Fang Kongxuan because Sichuan's agricultural production has been severely damaged this year, and spring plowing in many places has been delayed for a while. Even if they immediately put all their efforts into production, at least half of the season's grain will be lost.

Resuming production now can only ensure that summer grain is planted on time and autumn grain can be harvested in full.It is necessary to pay close attention to the security of the people and confirm the rights, distribute the seeds, and promote the areas suitable for the promotion of new crops as soon as possible.

Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to completely exempt the whole province from taxes this year. When Chongzhen appointed Fang Kongxuan, he actually anticipated this situation, and verbally agreed to deal with it in order to suppress the thieves.

As for next year, after Zhu Shuren and Fang Kongzhang made a total calculation, Fang Kongzhang drew up the scope, Chengdu, Chongqing, Luzhou, and Tongchuan, the four prefectures that were seriously affected by Zhang Xianzhong's war, will be exempted from poll tax and land tax for another year.
Considering that except for Chengdu and Chongqing, other prefectures in Sichuan are relatively poor and have a relatively small population. This has basically exempted two-thirds of Sichuan's agricultural tax next year.

As for the commercial tax, except for grain transportation, other commercial taxes will not be reduced or exempted. The imperial court has been experimenting with lijin in Huguang and Nanzhili for more than two years, and the Sichuan area will also be fully collected from then on.

All in all, this year's Sichuan region's governance, Zhu Shuren is definitely paying attention to it. It will be good to have a flat income next year. At least until the next year, the Sichuan region will be able to export money and food to support the country's great cause of the war of resistance. .

Of course, even this year and next year, if you don’t need external support in terms of money and food, but just recruit some people for military service to join the army and go out to fight against the Tartars, then it can still be done. There is only a shortage of money and food, not a shortage of people.

In the end, when Zhu Shuren captured Li Dingguo, he also captured most of the gold and silver brocades that Zhang Xianzhong had obtained from looting Sichuan and western Hunan.

This amount of money is no more ruthless than the income that has been collected in Sichuan for several years. Since Chongzhen 12 years ago, the sum of the three salaries of the whole country every year is less than 2000 million taels.

After Zhang Xianzhong robbed the money that Zhu Shuren recovered, it was roughly equivalent to the income of the country's three salaries for one year and two to three months.

Taking advantage of the fact that all the local bureaucrats and gentry in Sichuan were killed in disarray this time, and all the vassal kings were killed, and they were all killed in the style of extermination. There was not even a fish that slipped through the net who could inherit the status of the prince and inherit the title.

Zhu Shuren and Fang Kongxuan wanted to carry out reforms in Sichuan, and the resistance was much smaller. No one could resist at all, basically whatever the government said.

……

While counting the money and seizing it, taking prisoners of war, and reassuring the people and confirming the land and resuming production, Zhu Shuren did not relax in the military. The final pursuit of Zhang Xianzhong himself was of course the top priority.

Therefore, after April and a half, Zhu Shuren quickly continued to march into Mianzhu, Jiangyou and other places.

Along the way, Zhang Xianzhong's remnants were leaderless, because Zhang Xianzhong himself had been missing for quite a long time, and these remnants of defeated soldiers could only listen to Liu Wenxiu's orders and had no fighting spirit.

Zhu Shuren also tried to get Li Dingguo to write a letter to persuade Liu Wenxiu to surrender directly.But Liu Wenxiu was obviously hesitant because he didn't know the life and death of his adoptive father, but he also knew that Zhang Xianzhong's army was gone, so he didn't dare to be rude to the envoy, he just sent it back respectfully.

Since he refused to surrender directly, Zhu Shuren would not be polite and continued to attack sharply.On April [-]th, the government army regained Mianzhu, almost without bloodshed.Deyang was restored on the [-]th, and Mianzhou was restored on the [-]th (today's Mianyang. Mianzhu and Mianyang are two places, don't confuse them)
After regaining Mianzhou, there will be a fork in the next step. Either continue to the north to Jiangyou, or go to the northeast to attack Zitong first, and then advance from Zitong to Jianmenguan.

The generals under his command still had some differences on where to fight first. Many people thought that they should go straight to Zitong, or even bypass Zitong to block the Jianmen Pass first.

But Zhu Shuren had other ideas. He knew that even if Zhang Xianzhong fled to Jianmen Pass, he would still die in the end, because Hanzhong had already blocked the northern exit of Jinniu Road, so there was no need to rush to block this road. die.

In contrast, there are other dangerous roads that may directly escape from the Sichuan area, which are more worth blocking.

So Zhu Shuren attacked Zitong openly and pretended to take down Jianmen Pass. In fact, he secretly divided his troops and headed towards Jiangyou. Set up an ambush at the dangerous and important road in the North Mountain.

This kind of ambush is of course a bit risky, and it is very likely that squatting for a long time will yield nothing.

And since they wanted to deceive Liu Wenxiu's army stationed in Jiangyou City, the troops they sent out should not be many, and their armor should not be too bright, and they even had to put on the clothes of the exiles as a disguise.

There is no way to guarantee the logistics of the army's rations. They can only rely on the carry-on food they carry for ten and a half months.

Fortunately, Zhu Shuren's army has a natural advantage in terms of the portability of food and grass. When Zhu Shuren was in Huguang, he had already done some research on the issue of "food shelf life", and developed products including honey condensed milk, canned green beans, Energy-dense foods like cooked ground meat (similar to luncheon meat) canned.

Even in the hot and humid climate at the end of April, between early summer and midsummer, the shelf life of these foods can be eaten for at least a few months, and they are lighter to carry than fried rice noodles.

So carry it together with dried and cooked rice noodles, and add some self-made wind oil essence that Shen Jiajun borrowed from Fujian Zheng’s sailing insect repellent formula, and you can lie in ambush for a long time in the humid and hot environment of the mountains and forests.

These things were beyond the imagination and prediction of Zhang Xianzhong's soldiers.

……

Zhang Xianzhong stayed in Qingcheng Mountain day and night, fled to the north, and naturally he was not happy. In the first ten days and a half months, no one knew exactly where he would flee.

But Zhu Shuren is willing to believe that Zhang Xianzhong will definitely follow Li Dingguo's confession, and finally aims to join Liu Wenxiu, so it is definitely not wrong to withdraw in the general direction of Jiangyou, Zitong, and Jianmenguan.

If Zhang Xianzhong made a wrong bet and went all the way west from Qingcheng Mountain to Daliang Mountain or even the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it can only be said that Zhu Shuren was unlucky and passed by Jiaguan Jinjue.But from the perspective of the nation, even if this wave of gambling is wrong, it is actually no big deal.

If Zhang Xianzhong went to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, he would no longer be able to harm the areas ruled by the Han people in the Central Plains, and he would just linger on for a few more years.As long as he shows up in the future, he will be killed by Zhu Shuren sooner or later.

Zhu Shuren can also get an extra year and a half of the excuse window period, so that he can listen to Chongzhen more confidently and not listen to the announcement, so Zhu Shuren's mentality is very good.

Perhaps God's will also favors people with a good mentality. Throughout the second half of April, the officers and soldiers did not catch Zhang Xianzhong.

Until the ninth day of May, Liu Wenxiu's garrison in Jiangyou City suddenly opened the north gate of Jiangyou City, and quietly ran northward with more than a thousand riders in light clothes, along the steep Fu River valley.

Until that day, the officers and soldiers hadn't completely encircled Jiangyou City, but set up a siege camp from the south of the city, preparing to attack Liu Wenxiu's stronghold.Therefore, the bandit army attacked from the north of the city, and it was completely possible to avoid the eyes and ears of the officers and soldiers.

Even the rogue defenders in the city didn't know that Liu Wenxiu had personally led a thousand riders to break out of the city and abandoned the remaining soldiers in the city.

And the reason why Liu Wenxiu chose this point to go was precisely because two days ago, Zhang Xianzhong took a very difficult and treacherous path across mountains and ridges, detoured from Qingcheng Mountain, bypassed Wenchuan and Maoxian counties, arrived in Jiangyou, and joined Liu Wenxiu nod.

Liu Wenxiu saw that his adoptive father was still alive, and he didn't have the courage to directly betray his father, so he finally obeyed and asked him to withdraw, so he brought some confidant guards to withdraw together.

In fact, the high-level leaders of the thieves already knew very well that the team trapped in the Sichuan Basin, even the old brothers among them, would probably not be able to escape from the Sichuan Basin. To break through, only a small group of hundreds or even thousands of people, learning from Deng Ai and Fu Youde crossed mountains and ridges like that.

However, Zhang Xianzhong obviously underestimated Zhu Shuren's level.

When Liu Chan was recruited back then, it was unprecedented, and he was not on guard.At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Sheng, the young master of the Ming Xia regime, was recruited, and he was also young and inexperienced.

Zhu Shuren is familiar with "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", as well as the life of the general Fu Youde in the early Ming Dynasty in "History of Ming Dynasty".

Jiange and Jinniu Road lead to Hanzhong. When Hanzhong is blocked, it is meaningless to take that road.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong is of course very likely to smuggle directly from Jiangyou to Yinping in reverse, trying to go directly to Longnan, Lintao, and Didao to Longxi from here, and then go back to Guanzhong.

Using the common sense of geography that future generations can understand, that is, the road from Sichuan to Shaanxi is blocked by Hanzhong, so let’s make a little detour, first from Sichuan to Gansu from Longnan, and then from Gansu to Shaanxi—— And Zhang Xianzhong's plan was to bet that Li Zicheng might defeat Sun Chuanting and re-enter Guanzhong.

On the evening of the ninth day of May, Zhang Xianzhong and Liu Wenxiu trekked for a whole day in the mountains north of Jiangyou. They worked tirelessly and escaped for more than a hundred miles, and they were already close to Qingchuan Station.

The Qingchuan Institute is the later Qingchuan County. Today, there is only a nominal guard in the local area, and there is no government responsible for civil affairs.Even the Weisuo has long existed in name only, leaving only a hundred village households, theoretically military households since the early Ming Dynasty.Going north after passing Qingchuan County, you will find Motianling, the most precipitous mountain on the Yinping Ancient Road.

Zhang Xianzhong was exhausted from walking, seeing that Motianling on the left was extremely steep and extremely difficult to cross, so he had no choice but to rest his horse first.

But not long after Zhang Xianzhong stopped, there was a sudden clamor and musket fire on Motian Ridge, and a group of officers and soldiers stood condescendingly, guarding against danger, and launched a final attack on Zhang Xianzhong's guards.

"Zhang Xianzhong is a thief! My governor sent us to wait for many days under Motianling!"

"Grandma, if it weren't for the canned food and insect repellent oil, I would have been bitten to death by mosquitoes these days! Brothers, I have to make up for all the hardships I have suffered these days from the dog thief!"

Zhang Xianzhong was shocked, he didn't expect that he would be intercepted by the officers and soldiers who had already come to ambush him after wading through mountains and rivers to escape to Motianling.

The cavalry next to him lost all energy and could no longer resist.And Liu Wenxiu was also full of despair, thinking back to his second brother Li Dingguo's persuasion letter, saying that Zhang Ni's energy was exhausted and Da Ming's destiny was still there, and his heart was ashamed.

There was no way, although Liu Wenxiu really wanted to insist on not betraying his father's integrity, but at this point, there were not many remaining integrity.

Zhang Xianzhong ordered a charge to break through, but he suddenly slammed his adoptive father's helmet with the back of his knife and ordered his soldiers to tie up Zhang Xianzhong and hand him over to the soldiers of Qin Liangyu's army who came here to set up an ambush—Zhu Shuren really wanted to use his own troops to fight against him. Fortified, but his troops were really not adapted to the environment of the high mountains and dense forests in Sichuan, so he had to give Qin Liangyu's department some good things such as essential oils and canned food, and also gave Qin Liangyu's department a little credit.

Qin Liangyu also knew that the governor was supporting their old Ma's family, so she asked her son Ma Xianglin to bring people to block Zhang Xianzhong, and squatted under Motianling for many days.

It didn't take long for Ma Xianglin to charge, and the opponent threw all his shots, which made him quite unsatisfied.

Since Liu Wenxiu had knocked out Zhang Xianzhong and tied him up, he couldn't kill Liu Wenxiu again, so he was tied up and sent back to Chengdu.

……

From Jiangyou to Chengdu, but three hundred miles.Including the more than 100 miles from Qingchuan back to Jiangyou, after three nights and two days, on the morning of May [-]th, Zhang Xianzhong and Liu Wenxiu and his party were finally escorted to Chengdu.

Liu Wenxiu was quickly thrown into prison, and was first detained together with Li Dingguo, Feng Shuangli, Bai Wenxuan, etc., waiting for his merits and demerits to be determined before being dealt with.

Considering that he tied Zhang Xianzhong at the last moment, his survival should be no problem.But this kind of "investment due to poor potential", it is impossible to directly get official rewards.

Ma Xianglin was full of energy and offered prisoners to Zhu Shuren. Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong was finally bound, Zhu Shuren was also overjoyed.

Finally, a piece of heart disease was settled.

(End of this chapter)