A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 839 Contact
On the second day of December in the 16th year of Chongzhen.

It was very cold in the capital in the twelfth lunar month, and the wind howled all day long, making it extremely cold.

What was colder than the weather was the people's hearts. The news of Sun Chuanting's defeat had not yet cooled down, and soon the news of Kaifeng being flooded spread again.In addition to accusing the thieves of madness and inhumanity, there are also many people who are terrified.

Officers and soldiers were destroyed, states and counties were destroyed, is Daming really terminally ill?

It’s the twelfth lunar month, and the people in the capital should be preparing for the new year, preparing for the new year, celebrating the new year, celebrating the new year, Laba Festival, celebrating the new year, cleaning the house, grinding tofu, cutting meat, and posting New Year pictures.People should be very busy throughout the twelfth lunar month. They have to be busy buying new year's goods, making various preparations for the new year, and those who are out of town are also busy rushing home.

But at this time, the entire capital was not prepared for the celebration of the New Year. The weather was cold, dry and cold, and the plague that was raging some time ago finally passed away.This is due to the weather, as well as the reason why the Duhufu helped a large number of doctors, but there are still many victims flooding into the capital.

This year's weather is very strange. The severe drought is followed by severe floods. This combination of droughts and floods has caused a lot of refugees.A large number of refugees crowded near the capital, and it was difficult for the government to provide relief. In the cold weather, a large number of people died of freezing and starvation every day.

The situation is getting worse and worse, and in recent years, there have been many bad news, and all the bad news that shakes the whole country, even the most insensitive people have a feeling that the building is about to collapse and a catastrophe is imminent.

Inside the Dongnuan Pavilion, Emperor Chongzhen stared blankly at the memorial in his hand. He didn't move his eyes for a long time. Below him, Zhou Yanru, the chief assistant of the cabinet, and Chen Xinjia, Minister of the Ministry of War, also stood blankly. The oppressive atmosphere made people feel extremely depressed. disturbed.

Compared with the past, Emperor Chongzhen had more wrinkles and white hair on his face, and his face was terribly pale.

After a long, long time, he asked weakly: "Has Sun Chuanting's posthumous title been agreed?"

Zhou Yanru regained his composure and replied: "Return to Your Majesty, the Ministry of Rites has agreed to posthumously posthumously posthumously Sun Chuanting as 'Zhonglie', and his loyal servant Ma Weizhong bestows a crown with a general banner."

He spoke carefully. Last year, after he asked to weaken the power of the factory guards to arrest criminals, he was followed by Jin Yiwei, who kept spying on his private affairs, and then kept complaining in front of the emperor, which made the emperor's impression of him very bad. .

Although he is still holding the position of chief assistant of the cabinet, in the emperor's heart, he is not as grand and upright as before, and there is a tendency to lose his holy family, and he has become more careful in his usual words.

Emperor Chongzhen hummed, and he sat exhausted physically and mentally, with deep powerlessness in his eyes and a trace of imperceptible remorse at the same time.

He regretted that he should not have urged Sun Chuanting to go south, the situation was already very good at that time, he was too anxious, otherwise...

When the news of Sun Chuanting's defeat came, Emperor Chongzhen was very angry and vented all his anger on his head.But looking back now, he felt deep regret in his heart, but he would never say these words to his courtiers anyway.

At the same time, Kaifeng fell again. I was really afraid of something, but why did it come.

Up to now, he still can't believe it, he murmured: "Is Kaifeng really flooded?"

Zhou Yanru replied: "Your Majesty, the report by Tang Ma that Biancheng was irrigated is indeed true. The bandits drove tens of thousands of refugees to the Yellow River. The river flows from the north gate to the southeast gate. The sound of the water is like thunder. Mountains. Hundreds of thousands of scholars and civilians drowned, but less than [-] people escaped from Zhou Wang and his concubines, princes and inspectors. After several days and nights in Luqi City, the governor Hou Xun met the king with a boat and fled to the north bank of the Yellow River."

Emperor Chongzhen said in a low voice: "The population of the common people belongs to Bo Chen, and I have hundreds of thousands of people..."

There was an indescribable pain in his words, and there was silence in the pavilion, Zhou Yanru and Chen Xinjia wept together with Silence.

After a long time, Emperor Chongzhen lifted his spirits: "Fortunately, the uncle of the vassal king is still alive. This is a great fortune among misfortunes, and Hou Xun can pay off his merits."

He said: "Shaanxi must not be lost. Although the bandits have not entered Tongguan westward, they should not be taken lightly. Sun Chuanting is gone, and the governor-general of Hou Xun's military department will help Shaanxi. Chen Yongfu will go with him to protect King Zhou from going to Qin. Let him help and suppress Commander-in-Chief, hang the seal of General Bandit. The two must guard the pass with all their heart and try to redeem themselves, if they allow the bandits to enter Qin, they will be counted as guilty!"

Having said this, he emphasized his tone, and Zhou Yanru quickly responded respectfully.

After thinking for a while, Emperor Chongzhen said again: "Gao Mingheng lost the city and collapsed. His crime is unforgivable. Considering his hard work in defense, he is not deeply guilty. Dismiss Mingheng and let him go back to his hometown."

Zhou Yanru responded respectfully again.

Finally, Emperor Chongzhen picked up a memorial and said bitterly: "The thieves are going east again. They are aiming at Xuzhou, and they even cut off my water transportation!"

Chen Xinjia spoke at this time, his face full of worry: "Liu Liangzuo has more than ten thousand soldiers, but there are 10 bandits attacking, I'm afraid he won't be able to defend Xuzhou."

At the end of last year, Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo led [-] troops to surrender to Fengyang Governor Ma Shiying. Emperor Chongzhen was overjoyed when he heard the news. Now Sun Kewang is the commander-in-chief of Shouzhou, Li Dingguo is the deputy commander-in-chief, and Liu Liangzuo, the former commander-in-chief of Shouzhou, was transferred to Xuzhou. Ren Zongbing.

Although Liu Liangzuo was known as brave, he led the troops to fight against the bandits in Susong, Luzhou, and Lu'an all the year round, and was promoted to the commander-in-chief after his meritorious service.In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Mou Wenshou, the general soldier, defeated Luo Rucai's subordinates and shook the sky by more than [-] people.

He has rich experience in fighting the bandits, and he has accumulated a lot of meritorious service, but all the famous generals and important ministers were wiped out, and Liu Liangzuo can't be called a famous general. No one is sure whether he can hold Xuzhou.

Moreover, if Xuzhou goes down, it may threaten the water transportation.

Water transportation has always been a major consideration of the Ming Dynasty's military and state. All the goods from the south that the capital needs are transported by water ships from the south of the Yangtze River, and the goods from the south of the south of the Yangtze River are brought back by water ships.Every year, there are as many as [-] water boats passing through the north of the canal, transporting more than [-] million stones of water grain. The fate of the world is really tied to this.

As for the water transport in the Ming Dynasty, generally after the November of the lunar calendar and before March of the next year, the water ships must first arrive in Huai'an, and then the governor of the water transport will personally check, issue a sign, and enter the Huaihe River through the four gates near Qingjiangpu. yellow.

Every year in March and April, it is also the time when the water boats head north, until the beginning of June when the Huai'an Tongji Gate is dammed to block the Yellow River.This is to avoid the outbreak of submerged water and the backflow of yellow water, which will make the Lihe River silted up and make dredging inconvenient. Therefore, after June, the tank boats in Huai'an generally do not leave.

As for the canal to Nanwang and Linqing in Shandong, dams are also built on October [-]th every year to be used as large and small canals for the river, until the dams are opened on the first day of February of the following year.When there are tribute and Korean ships coming here, they have to find another way to move forward, and all other official and civilian ships can only suspend passage, waiting for the dam to be released.

Therefore, when officials of the Ming Dynasty went north to take office, they seldom took boats, and most of them took post roads.

Although it was not time for grain delivery at this time, many water ships had already gathered in Huai'an, waiting to go north in March and April next year.

Although in the 32nd year of Wanli, Li Hualong opened the Luo River to avoid the danger of the second flood in Xuzhou for more than 200 miles, the tank boats no longer passed Xu and Lv Erhong to transport grain northward, but left from Pizhou.

However, Xuzhou City is not far from the canal. Occupying Xuzhou City is equivalent to occupying the canal and cutting off grain.

Even if the thieves did not capture Xuzhou in the end, but most of them gathered and looted everywhere, the water ships could only berth in Huai'an, which would also delay the water transportation.

Emperor Chongzhen couldn't imagine what the capital would be like without the 400 million stone grains and rice shipped from the south in the coming year.

He said decisively: "Xuzhou must be rescued. I heard that the governor of Fengyang, Ma Shiying, has many powerful soldiers under the command of Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo. They have [-] horses and mules and [-] infantry. You can order them to rescue them. Huang Degong, the general soldier of Luzhou, is also called brave. And rescue. Governor Ma Shiying and Lu Jiude supervised the army. There is also Liu Zeqing from Shandong, and the Ministry of War told him to go south together."

Chen Xinjia hesitated and said, "I'm afraid it's another thieves' method of encircling the spot and fighting for aid."

Emperor Chongzhen sternly said: "Could it be that I just watched Xuzhou fall?"

Chen Xinjia remained silent, Zhou Yanru also looked at his shoe and remained silent.

Emperor Chongzhen thought about it, and worried that if the bandits ignored Xuzhou and went east to take the Dongdong Division in Shanxi, he said heavily: "The Ministry of War needs to inform the Jin, Yu, Bao, and Dongsi Fu, let them each organize their troops and horses, and go to the east to fight." Station at the river bank, work together to block the defense, don't allow a thief to spy on the crossing, otherwise it will be strictly controlled."

"Also, order the governor of Huaiyang and the governor of Caoyun Lu Zhenfei to guard the Erhe River, and not let the thieves go down the Yellow River and the canal and go straight to Huai'an!"

In July of this year, Shi Kefa was promoted to Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, and the imperial court promoted Lu Zhenfei to be the imperial envoy of Youqin Capital, the governor of water transportation, and stationed in Huai'an.

When Emperor Chongzhen summoned him, Lu Zhenfei confronted Chen about matters. At that time, Emperor Chongzhen felt that he was a serious official. Sure enough, as soon as Lu Zhenfei arrived in Huai'an, he wiped out the local bandit Cheng Jikong , Wang Daoshan, and Zhang Fangzao, it should be no problem to guard Huai'an.

After Chen Xinjia and Zhou Yanru left, Emperor Chongzhen sat powerlessly on his seat. He didn't understand why Daming went from bad to worse even though he worked so hard to achieve it.

……

Three days later, on the fifth day of December, Dorgon carefully looked at a piece of information from Manzi City, which recorded Sun Chuanting's defeat, Kaifeng being flooded, and Li Zicheng's eastward advance.

This "Barbarian City" was a place where spies were raised at all costs during the Nurhachi period. It specialized in reconnaissance of Ming intelligence, spreading rumors, and arranging spies.Later Jin Manqing was very willing to spend money in this regard. Only on the head of spy worker Wang Maofang who was arrested that year, the Ming court confiscated 530 taels of silver from each shop in Jidun.

However, after Jin Manqing trained spy workers and established a spy network, the gains were also very large. The fall of the cities in Liaodong, the Ming generals Zhang Pan, Zhu Guochang, and even the commander-in-chief Ma Shilong, who died in the trap, were all one of their achievements. .

At that time, Wang Zaijin said: "I don't know how many people are Liu Bao in Chang'an today, and those who arrest traitors are spies."

It's creepy to say.

Through the deployment of spies, Hou Jin Manqing had a good grasp of what was going on in Daming. Of course, except for Xuanfu Town and the Duhufu, the spies arranged would die one by one.And the death was horrible, either skinned, cut in half, and Ling Chi.

The prestige of Wen Daxing, the Minister of Intelligence, shocked the city of Barbarians.

At the beginning of November, the Manchus had already withdrawn their troops from Japan. Although Zheng Zhilong formed a joint fleet with European countries, although they were sharp, they could not do anything to the Manchus on land.Japan's castle towns and cities can be captured by the Qing army everywhere, but it is impossible to cut off their food and grass assistance, and the two sides are at a stalemate.

Moreover, the plague also broke out in Japan, and the shogunate was even more unwilling to continue the fight, and the two sides began peace talks.

In the end, the Qing government agreed to release some of the captured Nagasaki people, and was willing to start trade with the Zheng family and other countries. This is also a big market, enough to make up for the loss in Nagasaki, so those greedy Europeans gave up.

The shogunate also had a step down, and signed a peace agreement with the Qing Dynasty. The two sides called each other a brotherly state and would not invade each other.Before leaving, the Qing army took away the Japanese army of the Eight Banners. Some daimyos of the Southwest domain who felt that they would be liquidated even went to the Tokugawa shogunate for a heart attack, and the Japanese matter was over.

Although there was a small setback in the Japanese attack this time, it gained a population of 10,000+, a large amount of money and materials, and knew the size of the world, which was still a big gain for the Qing Dynasty.

But Dong Gu was no longer possible, so Dorgon turned his greedy eyes back to Daming.

The spies all over the country allowed the Qing Dynasty to obtain information faster than the Ming Dynasty, but because of the long distance, it would be a few days behind.Therefore, Dorgon soon learned that Sun Chuanting was defeated, Kaifeng City was flooded, and Li Zicheng's army rolled eastward to force Xuzhou City away.

He looked at the information in his hand, then at the map on the case, for a long, long time...

On the sixth day of December, after convening the Manchu and Han ministers for a discussion and a day of fierce quarrels, an envoy left Shengjing with a letter written by Dorgon. He will go to Xuzhou to contact the Chuangjun.

He wrote in the letter: "The emperor of the Qing Dynasty sent a letter to the commanders who occupied the Ming land in the south: I am writing a letter, hoping to cooperate with the princes and take the Central Plains. If you mix a district, you will share wealth and honor. I don’t know what respect means. It’s my sincerity and sincerity to tell you the letter quickly and with all my heart…”

(End of this chapter)