national surname chiming

Chapter 323 Invasion of the capital
After Shangqiu City was breached, the officials of Guide Mansion fled south, were detained by Ma Shiying, and attracted Xiaofu Wang Zhu Yousong to mediate the guarantor. These operations had nothing to do with Liu Fangliang's Shun Army, and they didn't pay attention at all. to the existence of these details.

The 10,000+ Shun army in the Henan battlefield only took a short rest for about ten days after taking Shangqiu. By the way, they completely slaughtered Shangqiu and robbed the city of food, and then turned north to cross the Yellow River and advance towards Shandong.

To make a digression, Li Zicheng’s Northern Expedition to Chongzhen was launched about three months earlier than the same period in history. The timing was actually quite unfavorable, because it was forced to use troops in winter. Many suffer from frostbite and frostbite.

In history, Li Zicheng did not attack with all his strength until the 17th year of Chongzhen, after the twelfth lunar month had passed.

But everything has advantages and disadvantages. Although sending troops in September will soon face severe cold, it is much easier to raise food. When Li Zicheng sent troops, most of the autumn grains in various places had already begun to be harvested. When Li Zicheng sent troops to Shanxi and Henan provinces , Hebei and Shandong have completed the "winter storage" of grain storage.

Therefore, as long as you take down a city that refuses to surrender and slaughter the population, you can rob the local people of all the rations they have prepared for the winter.
It is equivalent to the fact that the people have worked so hard to plant food for a year, and after the harvest, they were supposed to eat it until the spring famine, but they were slaughtered by Li Zicheng just after harvesting for a month, so there is no need to let the dead people "waste" two or three more It's a month's ration.

After all, if according to the original development of history, if Li Zicheng came three months later, these people would also die, but if they ate three months more food before they died, wouldn't Li Zicheng be at a loss?He was about to die, so why wasted three more months of King Chuang's rations?Can't they die immediately after harvesting?

Of course, although it sounds cruel to say this, in fact, it actually saved Li Zicheng's troops from killing a lot of people and slaughtering a few cities——

The reason is also very simple. Originally, when troops were sent out in the first month, killing a commoner could only grab the rations needed for the common people to live for three months as military rations, but now killing a common man can grab the equivalent of the common people's living needs for six months. rations.

The absolute amount of food saved for each person killed is doubled, and the number of people slaughtered to meet the needs of military rations is naturally reduced by half.

This is mathematics at the level of the second grade of elementary school, and it requires a certain understanding of the law of energy conservation, so it must not be wrong.Li Zicheng is not Hong Xiuquan, nor can mana from heaven change energy into food,
He wanted to mobilize so many soldiers, and he had no food, so it was clear at a glance how many people he needed to kill.

Originally, in history, it was considered that he killed three civilians to ensure one soldier, but now he only needs to kill a little five civilians to support one soldier. (If cannibalism is allowed, the number of massacres can be significantly reduced, but I will not make unfounded deduction. The algorithm here does not count cannibalism.)
Zhu Shuren's macro-control and Li Zicheng's action in advance also allowed Li Zicheng's 40 army to kill 60 people less, which is also a merit.

……

Liu Fangliang's army took Kaifeng in September, Shangqiu in early October, and went north again in mid-October, and soon arrived in Shandong.
Liu Fangliang did not touch Jining, an important town in southwestern Shandong, because although Jining is rich and prosperous, if he continues northward from there, he will pass through a section of Mount Tai.For the convenience of marching, Liu Fangliang of course chose to go straight north on the Luxi Plain all the way.

As for not going to Jining, it will shorten the mileage of the troops marching along the waterway of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and take more land routes. Liu Fangliang doesn't care.
Anyway, he didn't need to carry a lot of logistics, so he could eat wherever he went. The grain he had obtained from slaughtering Shangqiu before had to be carried by each person for a month's ration, and the rest was loaded into a truck and transported away.

And just because Shangqiu has plundered a lot, when they first entered the Shandong border, the Shun army temporarily became innocent-because the transportation is inconvenient now, and they can't carry it any more. It's better to wait until they march to Linqing, near the Grand Canal. Then start killing and grabbing.

The killing and looting before reaching the banks of the canal is a pure waste of resources.

Cao County, Yuncheng, Juancheng, Fan County, and Yanggu in Yanzhou Prefecture of Shandong escaped disaster one after another. The people in Shandong don’t know the details of the Shun Army. For the people, there are more thieves at a time.

Liu Fangliang easily broke through Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion without bloodshed, occupied Liaocheng, and finally cut off the Grand Canal when he arrived at Linqing.

During the battle in the three prefectures at the junction of Shandong and North Zhili, Liu Fangliang also discovered some phenomena, that is, the plague in Hebei this year is extremely serious, and Shandong has also been affected. The number of victories, the official army of the Ming Dynasty was also severely reduced in combat effectiveness under the blow of the plague.

With Liu Fangliang's level of education, of course he would not know that this plague is actually plague.

And this plague in the late Ming Dynasty actually appeared in some areas as early as the 14th year of Chongzhen——

As mentioned earlier, the only intermission between disasters at the end of the Ming Dynasty was the 13th year of Chongzhen. That year was also when Zhu Shuren first became an official in Huangzhou, Suizhou, Wuchang and other places. I have to feel that Zhu Shuren chose a good year. , At the beginning of his official career, when he was the weakest and most unstable, he laid the foundation.

Since the 14th year of Chongzhen, the world has actually entered a terrifying state of intensive four-year plague and five-year continuous drought, which can be regarded as pushing the intensity of natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty to an extreme peak.

Otherwise, in history, Chongzhen would not be completely unable to withstand the collapse just in this wave.

There is nothing to say about the drought. Five years of continuous drought will definitely devastate the northern provinces for thousands of miles. The southern provinces have more water resources and more artificial irrigation and water conservancy to overcome it, but it also severely reduces production.

In this life, the drought-resistant crops such as corn brought by Zhu Shuren will further reduce the disaster situation, because the amount of irrigation water required to produce a unit weight of grain by corn is only [-]% of that of wheat.Therefore, during successive years of drought, corn relief is particularly effective. The same amount of irrigation water and [-] times the grain output can save more people.

In fact, even in Henan and Shandong, two provinces that Zhu Shuren had never ruled, because of the success of planting corn in Huguang and Hanzhong in the south, and the huge profits, some enlightened gentry and knowledgeable homeowners in Henan and Shandong are also trying to find a way Spontaneously grow corn.

It’s just that this kind of innovation made by the people themselves is definitely different from the force of the government’s forceful push. Moreover, the enlightened squires in Henan and Shandong know the news that the corn planting in the vast area of ​​the lake is good. It is at least 15 years since Chongzhen, so even if the Henan people want to imitate , this year is the first year to start imitating,
When Li Zicheng called, the first season of corn had just been harvested, and it would not change much the strength of the country and the people.

And what is more terrifying than the drought in the past two years is the plague.The rat plague, which lasted four years in history, first appeared in Shanxi in the 14th year of Chongzhen.

Because of the inconvenient transportation in ancient times and the geographical isolation of Shanxi, there was no business travel demand for large-scale trade with the mainland at that time. Therefore, throughout the 14 years of Chongzhen, the plague only spread in Shanxi, which also made the population of Shanxi in that year. A lot has been lost over the years.

At that time, the only one that traded more frequently with Shanxi was the Tazi tribe in the Horqin Grassland. With the support of Huang Taiji, they traded with the eight major locust merchants of Shanxi merchants, helping to smuggle and sell Shanxi's ironware, salt and other traitorous materials. to the Tartars.

But it is a pity that the spread of such things as plague is said to be more restrained by horses. It is said that plague rats and plague fleas will resist places with strong horse smells such as horse urine and horse manure, and horse lice will crowd out the ecological niche of plague fleas.Therefore, there is no way for the plague to spread to the nomads on a large scale, and it is difficult for all cavalry troops to quickly lose their combat effectiveness.

Fifteen years after Chongzhen, the plague in Shanxi was finally brought to Henan and Shaanxi with the Chuangjun's campaign. In Henan, especially after Kaifeng was flooded, the plague broke out on a large scale.

However, the two provinces of Northern Zhili and Shandong, because they are farther apart, did not break out until this year, that is, the 16th year of Chongzhen. Historically, the plague finally spread to Beijing in the second half of the 16th year of Chongzhen.

This year, Shanxi people have been carrying the plague for the third year, and those with weak resistance died, and those who survived were more or less immune.
Therefore, the troops killed from the mountains and Shaanxi will not be as vulnerable as the soldiers and civilians in Shandong and Hebei who have just spread the plague on a large scale.

Liu Fangliang didn't know the reason. He just felt that the more he fought, the easier it was. At the beginning, he resisted a little in Henan, but when he reached the border of Shandong and Hebei, he felt like he was in a land without people.

When passing through the Shandong area, he would originally pass through the defense areas of two Ming armies, namely Liu Zeqing, the general soldier of Shandong, and Liu Liangzuo, the general soldier of Fengyang (when Liu Fangliang set off from Shangqiu, he passed by the section of Bozhou, theoretically it was Liu Liangzuo's defense area, but left soon)
As a result, Liu Zeqing, of course, retreated to Jining and other places, and let Liu Fangliang pass through the border under the pretext of securing key points. Liu Fangliang fought in Linqing to cut off the Grand Canal, but Liu Zeqing still did not send troops. Can't attack.

Even a general like Liu Zeqing, whose two prefectures have been penetrated by thieves, can resist fighting. Of course, a counselor like Liu Liangzuo, who has only a few counties affected, is even more unwilling to work hard.

Even when the Shun Army passed through Bozhou, Huang Degong led troops northward from Hefei to help Liu Liangzuo who was near Fengyang repel them.In addition, Liu Liangzuo was also stationed in Fengyang, and he communicated with Governor Ma Shiying every day. Later, when Ma Shiying hooked up with Fu Wang Zhu Yousong, Liu Liangzuo was also the first to be dragged into the water, and he had a close relationship with Ma Shiying and Zhu Yousong.

As for whether Liu Liangzuo ever thought "If something happens to His Majesty in the future, can we be the first military general to stand up from the dragon", outsiders don't know.

The military towns in Shandong and Huaibei used the excuse of the plague to hide from the Dashun army's invasion, so that Liu Fangliang's troops successfully penetrated Shandong in October, crossed the Yellow River smoothly in early November, entered the Hebei Plain, and officially entered the North Zhili territory.

Moreover, considering that the borders of Beizhili and Shandong are intertwined.For example, Daming Mansion in Northern Zhili is actually the same latitude as Yanzhou Mansion and Dongchang Mansion in Shandong.

So when Liu Fangliang passed through Dongchang Mansion, he actually bypassed Daming, Handan and other places in the southernmost part of Beizhili at the same time, and arrived directly near Zhending Mansion.

Even those who don’t know the place name Zhending Mansion must know that Zhao Yun is a “Changshan Zhending Man”, and later generations were nicknamed “Shijiazhuang Zhao Zilong”, which shows that he is very close to Beijing.

Conquer the Zhending Mansion, and then go north to lay down the Baoding Mansion. In front is the Shuntian Mansion where Beijing is located. Liu Fangliang is far away from the capital, leaving only the last three mansions.

……

The story is divided into two parts, and the timeline goes back to the city of Beijing two months ago.

On the Shaanxi side, the great victory at the Dasan Pass was achieved at the end of the first ten days of August. The prince who passed the decree was on the twelfth day of the eighth month. Hanzhong, via Yunyang, arrived in Xiangyang on August [-]th, and then went north to return to Beijing.

Wang Gonggong couldn't bear the 200-mile rush, so he only traveled more than [-] miles a day, so he didn't return to the capital until the end of August.

At this time, Li Zicheng had not invaded Taiyuan on the northern route, and the eastern route had not yet been opened, so when Chongzhen received Zhu Shuren's good news and request for instructions, the atmosphere in Beijing was still very calm.

Although the plague that was introduced into Hebei from Shanxi via Henan and arrived in Beijing at about the same time, the number of deaths from the disease was not large at the beginning, and it would take a month or two to slowly spread and erupt.

Therefore, Chongzhen in the deep palace was still unaware of the plague in the capital, and those high-ranking officials and nobles hadn't seen anyone dying of the plague around them.From the end of August to the first half of September, the plague patients in Beijing were still concentrated among the poor who had the dirtiest living conditions.

The news of the great victory at Dasan Pass was quickly passed on to Zhang Guowei, Minister of the Ministry of War, and Zhou Yanru, Chief Assistant of the Cabinet, according to the normal process. The two of them had a rare victory after several months, and of course it was sent to Chongzhen immediately.

"Cao Bianjiao smashed tens of thousands of intruders Yuan Zongdi in Dasanguan and Baoji County? Beheaded more than ten thousand? God bless me, it seems that the intruders will not get any benefits under Zhu Aiqing's hands!
Originally, I only hated Zhu Aiqing's inability to separate herself and not be able to deal with the intruder Zhang Ni at the same time!It seems that the most difficult years for the country will soon be over! "

After Chongzhen sighed, Zhang Guowei asked for instructions as a matter of routine: "Your Majesty, then Cao Bianjiao has made such military achievements this time, can he be rewarded as usual? Choose one of the commanders of the five armies to increase the title. In addition, there are other related meritorious personnel in this battle..."

Chongzhen thought for a while, then looked at Zhou Yanru who didn't dare to express his opinion, and then took the initiative to make a decision: "Cao Bianjiao can be rewarded as he should, and the Ministry of War can follow the established rules.

Zhu Shuren, after all, Cao Bianjiao just went to Hanzhong, and he was only helping to raise food and deliver military equipment, and the battle was not fought by his soldiers, so let’s avoid it this time—the envoy who came back this time was originally sent more than three months ago. He went out and sealed him as Kruhou, and when he returned to his command, he brought good news again.

If Zhu Shuren was rewarded every time there was a good news, how could the imperial court still have so many official titles to give.Besides, it was just defeating Yuan Zongdi once. One day, when he captures Sun Kewang, or defeats Li Zicheng himself, he can be promoted to noble! "

Neither Zhang Guowei nor Zhou Yanru questioned, and followed this order.This matter spread later, but they also shook their heads and sighed at many officials in Beijing, thinking that the emperor was really stingy with rewards, mean and ungrateful.

Although Chongzhen really had no other choice, Zhu Shuren was too young and promoted too quickly.

In the following month, the first 20 days, everything went as usual. After all, Taiyuan hadn’t been lost at that time. Although Kaifeng had just been lost, the local government had already collapsed, and it was difficult to spread real and conclusive news immediately. Only when it is breached will the urgent report alert Beijing.

During these 20 days, the only change was that the plague was spreading further, and it finally spread from the dirtiest slums to the wealthy business districts.Shuntian Mansion also began to receive urgent reports one after another, and began to ask Yousi to deal with it.

On September 26, the eve of the destruction of Shangqiu and Taiyuan, Chongzhen in the capital received another local report. This time it was not brought back by an angel sent by the imperial court to Sichuan, but Zhu Shuren sent someone to report on his own initiative.

Zhu Shuren mentioned in his memorial that there were signs of plague among the soldiers and civilians in the Hanzhong area.

It is suspected that it was brought by the Cao Bianjiao tribe who was transferred from Shanxi to Hanzhong. The local people in northern Sichuan lacked resistance to the plague, so that since August, the local civilians who provided logistical services to the Shanxi guest army had taken the lead in showing symptoms.

Zhu Shuren said that he was interrupted by this unexpected situation and had to temporarily delay the military action against Sun Kewang and Li Zicheng, and deal with internal affairs first to prevent soldiers and civilian husbands from becoming ill and losing their combat effectiveness and labor ability.

Zhu Shuren also briefly mentioned some of his management measures in Hanzhong, mainly the old methods of paying attention to hygiene, in addition to thoroughly cooking food and water, trying to get rid of insects and exterminating Shu, and producing more insect repellents for external application Plaster oil, as for whether it can prevent mice, I don't care.

Finally, Zhu Shuren also mentioned something that he thought was very important. He acted urgently in Hanzhong and other prefectures in northern Sichuan, announcing that soldiers and civilians who died due to sudden illness or accident must be completely cremated and not directly buried.

Of course, this approach would cause serious backlash in the era of feudal superstition. Zhu Shuren's actions even sparked civil uprisings in some counties in Hanzhong.Fortunately, he had absolute military power, and finally used force to suppress those superstitious people who resisted cremation disinfection, and even killed a group of extremely superstitious diehards in a hurry.

But this kind of practice is also obviously against the law of the Ming Dynasty and the law of the ancestors. Zhu Shuren can only ask for instructions, hoping that the emperor will also issue an order to authorize it, officially stipulating that the government can forcibly burn and disinfect the plague victims and those whose causes of death are unknown.

This memorial really delayed Zhu Shuren enough time. His troops were all infected with the plague spread by the Shanxi people. How can they fight in a short time?

And Chongzhen has only just noticed the unexplained plague that has begun to appear in Beijing in the past few days. After reading the report, of course, he immediately summoned officials from the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry and other relevant departments, including the chief assistant Zhou Yanru , asked about the relevant situation severely.

"Zhu Aiqing said that his men and horses in Hanzhong were all infected with the plague brought by the Shanxi army. Now the unknown plague in Shuntian Prefecture and other prefectures in Zhili is the Shanxi plague? Has the Ministry of Households seen the burning of corpses to kill insects? Are rats useful?"

Officials of the household department don't understand these scientific principles, of course they don't know what to ask.As for Zhu Shuren's categorical request for the imperial court to officially implement cremation and burning, those well-educated Confucians are of course all kinds of attacks.

"Your Majesty, no! As the saying goes, the dead are the greatest. I have never heard that the plague will be spread through the dead. It is against filial piety to humiliate the dead casually! I rule the world with filial piety..."

(End of this chapter)