scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 420 Internal Problems
When the Fat Man Army on the southern front led by Li Tianzhi was fighting in full swing on the Fujian-Guangdong battlefield, the Fat Man Army on other fronts were not idle either. Either to kill the remnants of the enemy, or to deter potential opponents, or to support the most intense Fujian-Guangdong battlefield from the side.

On the Northeast battlefield, in order to completely exterminate the most evil enemy, the Qing court, but this mortal enemy had a chance to breathe. The Fatty Liaodong Army led by Jie had already launched an attack on the remnants of the Qing army occupying Jinzhou. At the same time, Gao Dejie resolutely carried out the vicious plan that Fatty Lu personally formulated to consume the strength of the Qing Dynasty. He was not in a hurry to break through it with superior artillery Jinzhou, just surrounded Jinzhou and engaged in garrisoning fields, and engaged in horse herding in the adjacent Daling River Ranch, assuming a resolute posture of besieging more than 1 remnants of the Qing army in Jinzhou City.

The importance of Jinzhou, which is located in the throat of Liaodong, is self-evident. If Jinzhou falls, Shengjing, the new and old nest of the Qing court, will be exposed directly to the fat man's saber. Letters came from both ends of the day asking for help. The old hag Xiaozhuang, who is politically talented but lacking in military affairs, really fell for it. First, she borrowed an army from Horqin's family in Mongolia and rushed to Jinzhou for reinforcements, but was defeated by Gao Dejie; the old hag Xiaozhuang refused Reluctant to give up, more than 3 Qing troops were assembled from Mongolia's natal family, Tungus' hometown, Liaodong local area, and Korean vassal states, and handed over to General Ningguta Bahai, who once again went south to rescue Jinzhou.

In view of the fact that Bahai had fought against the Russian musketeers and hadn't lost—nor had he won, Gao Dejie, the number one general of the Fat Man Army, didn't dare to underestimate this opponent. Knowing the details of the Bahai army, and finding out the weaknesses of the Bahai army's mixed camps and complex composition, they formulated countermeasures according to local conditions, assigned 500 troops to their deputy Gao Qi, and asked Gao Qi to divide the [-] troops. Twenty teams, each with [-] people, ambushed in Yiwu Mountain, north of the east bank of the Daling River. Gao Dejie himself led the main force to garrison on the west bank of the Daling River, and built more pontoon bridges to cross the river.

When the Bahai Navy arrived at the Daling River, just as Gao Dejie expected, seeing the main force of the fat man stationed on the west bank, Bahai did not dare to cross the river immediately, and chose to camp on the east bank of the Daling River to rest. As a result, as soon as it got dark, Gao Qi The ambush soldiers led by them rushed out from Yiwu Mountain, and the soldiers were divided into twenty groups to attack the Qing army's camp from all directions. In the dark night, the Qing army did not know how many enemies came. Disturb your own camp.Gao Dejie took the opportunity to drive the main force across the river from the pontoon bridge, and stormed the Qing army's camp head-on. The more than 3 Qing troops that the old hag Zhuang spent countless efforts to put together were wiped out, and more than half of them surrendered.

When the news came back to Shengjing, the old hag of Xiaozhuang vomited blood and almost kicked her legs on the spot. Gao Dejie, who was expected to be unable to reinforce the Qing army, calmly returned to the army and launched a battle to attack the city of Jinzhou. Hundreds of artillery bombarded day and night, The Jinzhou defenders suffered heavy casualties. The mite soldiers who were not evil slaves of the four surnames escaped from the city of Jinzhou and surrendered to the Fat Army. Just like Zhang Tai, the army pardoned himself, the unlucky child of Tong Jia's family.Gao Dejie not only flatly refused, but also escorted Tong Guowei's envoys to Jinzhou City, and announced Tong Guowei's surrender conditions to the evil slaves of the four surnames in Jinzhou City.

Hearing that Tong Guowei planned to kill all the evil slaves of the four surnames in Jinzhou City in exchange for their lives, the more than a thousand evil slave soldiers of the four surnames who resisted the most resolutely in Jinzhou City were of course furious. They launched a mutiny and beheaded the traitor Tong Guowei. The soldiers of the other surnames and the traitors took the opportunity to escape from the city and surrender to the Fatty Army, and also sacrificed the east gate of Jinzhou to the Fatty Army. The Fatty Army sent troops into the city. The evil slaves of the four surnames killed all of them, and won Jinzhou, the bridgehead for attacking Shengjing.

Originally, Gao Dejie wanted to take advantage of the momentum to attack Shengjing, but the weather is not good. This year's climate is cold. The time has just entered the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and the land in Liaodong has already dropped severely. Gao Dejie, who was born in Liaodong, predicts that this year Liaodong will inevitably have winter It was extremely cold, which was not conducive to the battle of the Fatty Army, which had a large number of soldiers in the south, so we had to temporarily stop advancing troops. At the same time, we wrote to Fatty Lu to explain the reason, and asked to postpone the plan to attack Shengjing. Attack Shengjing again.Fatty Lu, who was also worried about the unfavorable weather for fighting, of course gave his permission, and the Qing court finally won another winter's lingering time at dusk and Xishan.

The northern Jiangxi battlefield is the only battlefield where the Fatty Army is on the defensive. In order to hold back the expansion of the Fatty Army and encircle Wei and rescue Zhao to support the Fujian-Guangdong battlefield, the Honghua Imperial Army launched an active attack on the Jiujiang and Nanchang defense lines of the Fatty Army. Li Xiongfei, the defender of the Fatty Army Jiujiang Worried that Honghua's army was too powerful to resist, they sent envoys to ask for help from Li Maozhu in the rear. Li Maozhu, who was sitting in Anqing with a heavy throat, dared not leave lightly, and asked Fatty Lu for instructions on how to deal with it.After losing Jiujiang and Anqing, Li Xiongfei and Li Mao came to see each other!
Not everyone is as incomprehensible as Fatty Lu. Wang Xu, the deputy head of the Fatty Army's Direct Legion, objected to Lu Fatty's refusal to reinforce the battlefield in northern Jiangxi. The northern battlefield can not only ensure the safety of Jiangnan's financial and taxation center, but also take the opportunity to weaken Honghua's army, so Wang Xu took the initiative to ask for orders, hoping that Fatty Lu would allow him to lead an army to reinforce the northern Jiangxi battlefield.

"There is no need for reinforcements, and there will be no problems in the northern Jiangxi battlefield." Fatty Lu rejected Wang Xu's request with a smile, and explained: "Guo Zhuangtu and Xia Guoxiang sent troops to attack Jiujiang, but they wanted to hold back our expansion momentum, encircle Wei and save Zhao. Share the pressure on the Fujian-Guangdong battlefield, and have no guts or strength to attack Jiangnan, because there happens to be Wu Guogui at the junction of the two armies of Guo Zhuangtu and Xia Guoxiang. If Xia Guoxiang's army dares to go deep into Jiangnan, Wu Guogui can cut him off from Guo Zhuangtu at any time He would cut off his supply of firearms and turn Xia Guoxiang into a solitary army, Xia Guoxiang did not dare to take this risk."

"Although the prince's words are reasonable, the general is still worried." Wang Xu refused to give up, and said, "Brother Li Xiongfei only has more than 5000 troops, and more than half of them are recruits. They have to guard the two important towns of Jiujiang and Nanchang at the same time. , The pressure is really a bit heavy. We will not send reinforcements, if something happens, I will be too sorry for Brother Li Xiongfei."

"Did you forget about Li Jiyang? He is stationed in Poyang Lake next to him. If Li Xiongfei is in danger, can he die?" Fatty Lu smiled. Getting involved, having suffered a lot in his hands, hating him to the bone, taking advantage of the geographical advantage to fight Xia Guoxiang, will not let Xia Guoxiang win smoothly."

Seeing that Fatty Lu insisted on not sending reinforcements, Wang Xu had no choice but to keep his mouth shut. Fatty Lu saw his thoughts, and patted him on the shoulder again and said, "I know your intentions are good, and I am afraid that the friendly army will be in danger. , I also know that you can't be idle anymore and want to make contributions. But I left the Zhili Army in Zhili and kept you on hold. In fact, it was for the sake of our friendly troops on other battlefields. We still have many enemies, so I left your army behind. The most elite reserve team can act as a deterrent to them, letting them understand that we haven't exerted our full strength and can launch a larger-scale attack at any time, so they dare not force our army too much. Small."

Observing his words, he found that Wang Xu still didn't quite understand what he said, so Fatty Lu could only make an analogy: "It's like a musket, right? What kind of musket is the scariest? It wasn't the firing pin musket I invented, nor was it Dai Zi's water-fired gun." The musket or the long-range musket of the Raksha people, the most terrible musket is the musket that is full of ammunition and fires at any time but does not fire! You are the musket that is full of ammunition and does not fire. As long as our enemies do not Stupid, you must hope that others will block your guns, not yourself to stand up and block your guns! So as long as you don’t move, we still have power, and our enemies will not dare to come out to block your guns !"

Speaking of this, Fatty Lu paused, then lowered his voice and added: "In the same way, as long as you don't shoot, we don't dare to expose the hidden dangers that may exist inside us, and this king can also fight to eliminate the hidden dangers in the invisible." time. Do you understand this truth?"

After the enlightened Wang Xu happily bid farewell and left, another piece of good news came to the Hall of Martial Arts in the Forbidden City. After more than four months of hard fighting, the Wang Pingfan Department of the Wu Army and the Fat Army Xie Chang Department, who were loyal to the old traitor of Wu, joined forces and finally broke through the famous Xiongguan. In Tongguan City, the defenders in Guanzhong were completely wiped out. Tong Huinian of the Qing army committed suicide by throwing himself into a well but failed to be captured by Wang Pingfan's army. To discuss the details of Wang Pingfan's army being merged into the Fat Man's Army.

Wang Pingfan, the famous general of the Wu Army, voted sincerely. Fatty Lu was of course very happy. Immediately, Fatty Lu promulgated the imperial decree, conferring Wang Pingfan the title of first-class Marquis of Suning, governor of Henan, and conferring Wu Zhen the title of Uncle Jingbian and Admiral of Shaanxi. Political means tried their best to appease Wang Pingfan's good-for-nothing army, and then looked for opportunities to reorganize and digest it.At the same time, Fatty Lu ordered Han Daren's main force to move to Huaiqing to fill the gap left by Xie Chang's westward advance, and to stockpile grass and grain in the Mengjin area, the westernmost point where the Yellow River's grain, grass and water transportation can reach, in order to prepare for the westward expedition to Shaanxi and Gansu or the southward expedition to Huguang. .

When the military affairs and government affairs were busy together, Shang Wanyi finally returned to Fatty Lu. Hearing that his wife had returned, Fatty Lu led all the civil and military officials to Tongzhou Wharf to welcome him. The husband and wife finally reunited after more than five years. Of course It's rare to cry, and Fatty Lu's lackeys, big and small, are all weeping too.Only Fatty Lu's other two wives, Xiaojiao and Lan Yu'er, were in a different mood. After carefully observing Shang Wanyi's appearance, Xiaojiao breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that it might not be too big for her to take away Fatty Lu's special favor. Yu'er hugged her two-year-old son and secretly sneered, convinced that she was the last victor in the harem struggle.

Line Yuer's small calculation is actually just a microcosm of the internal problems of the Fatty Army. With the growing territory of the Fatty Army, its comprehensive strength is getting stronger, and the number of troops and bureaucrats is rapidly expanding, the hope of unifying the world is growing. Naturally, there are more and more internal power struggles and clique formations in the Fatty Army, and three major factions have naturally formed. Pai, who was the first to follow Fatty Lu's direct descendants.

There are also civil and military officials from all over the country who later surrendered. They did not dare to form cliques under the noses of Fatty Lu and the three major factions. They either chose to be neutral, or joined the three major factions according to region, blood relationship and close relationship. , causing the three major factions to become stronger and stronger, and indirectly led to more and more intense fighting between the three major factions - Fatty Lu has long been aware of this, but he can't stop it at all. He can only let the three major factions check and balance each other , I acted as a referee, using the contradictions of the three major factions to consolidate my position, and also using the three major factions' mentality of striving for success to clean up the enemy.

Among the three major factions, the most powerful is of course the Old Wu Army faction with a solid background and a steady stream of newcomers joining. At the same time, it forms an overwhelming advantage over the Guangxi faction and the descendant faction. More than the other two factions. First of all, the two leaders of the Old Wu Army faction, Gao Dejie and Han Daren, would never urinate in the same pot. They canceled out a lot of each other's strength and could not threaten Lu Fatty's position as the boss.At the same time, in order to overwhelm each other, the two factions of Gao and Han had to win the support of the other two factions. The exchange of interests to win allies naturally increased the complexity of the power struggle within the fat army.

Fatty Lu's harem is also the epitome of the three factions fighting for power. Wu Xiaotu, who is far away in Jingzhou, is the official wife appointed to Fatty Lu by Wu's old traitor. She has the most popular and upright roots and deserves the full support of the old Wu Junpai, but because Wu Guogui hates Fatty Lu Supporting the self-respect of the soldiers, in fact, they left the Pingxi Palace and refused to send Wu Xiaotu back. As a result, Wu Xiaotu has no son so far. Therefore, for the benefit of future generations, the old Wu Junpai in the fat man's army can only turn their attention to Shang Wan who already has a son Yi and Yan Yuer each choose their supporters based on their close relationship. In this way, the conflict between Shang Wanyi and Yan Yuer, who already have their own supporters, cannot be reconciled.

Shang Wanyi's supporters are of course the Fat Army's direct lineage headed by Li Tianzhi and Wang Shaobo. At the same time, because Shang Wanyi's son Lu Bangjing is the eldest son, Shang Wanyi naturally won the support of the traditional defenders of the Fat Army, civil and military officials. , and Gao Dejie chose to support Shang Wanyi's mother and son because her daughter Gao Zilian was assigned to Fatty Lu early on.But because Lu Bangjing is still detained in Yunnan, even though Shang Wanyi's mother and son have the support of Gao Dejie, the most powerful member of the old Wu army faction, they can't immediately establish the victory, and there is no way to draw the neutral to beat Ling Yu'er. Climb down—the neutral faction in the fat army is not stupid. If Lu Bangjing can't come back and Lu Bangning succeeds him, what will happen to him who is on the wrong team?

Line Yuer's supporters are of course the Guangxi faction, and there are some realists who believe that Lu Bangjing will not come back. Han Daren is of course on the side of Line Yuer's mother and son because his daughter promised to be with Line Yuer's son. It's a pity that Han Daren was not very popular because of his personality, so he was crushed to death by Gao Dejie in the old Wu Jun faction. There is no way to form an absolute advantage, and they can only pray that Guo Zhuangtu will kill Lu Bangjing earlier, while patiently waiting for the turning point.

As for the two Mongolian concubines of Little Pepper and Fatty Lu, there is no need to mention them. Fatty Lu’s inheritance rights, unless Fatty Lu learned from Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang and killed the heroes after unifying the world, even if Fatty Lu is demented and passes the power to their sons, their sons will not be able to sit still—one of the three major factions of the Fatty Army One slap can kill their son.

Factional issues have been unavoidable since ancient times, and the issue of heirs is also the future. Fatty Lu is only 35 years old, and it is too early to worry about this problem. The biggest problem that plagues the Fatty Army is still the issue of Fatty Lu's proclaiming himself emperor. , if this problem is not solved earlier, even if the Fatty Army unites the whole world, it will face an extremely embarrassing problem-how to deal with the honorary emperor Wu Shifan?
However, when things have come to this point, even Ma Bao and Wang Shirong, who have newly joined the fat man's army, have to admit in private that no one can stop Fatty Lu from proclaiming himself emperor, even if Fatty Lu doesn't want to be The emperor, the fat man's military dignitaries, and those with vested interests in the team will not agree. In order to preserve their power and vested interests, even if Lu Fatty does not become emperor, they will definitely put the dragon robe on Lu Fatty—otherwise In other words, once Wu Shifan becomes their emperor, they will not say that their power and interests cannot be preserved, and their heads will be in danger!
It is also because of this that as the foothold in the north gradually stabilizes, the advantage of the Fat Army is getting bigger and bigger, and the voices of the Fat Army in support of Lu Fatty's proclaiming the emperor are also getting louder. , asking Fatty Lu to change his name and name, and become the emperor. Even Wang Xu, who has always been honest and honest, couldn't help but write a letter of persuasion, asking Fatty Lu to make a living for the people of the world, and serve the people of Li as a cow and a horse as an emperor.As for private and local speculators, the letter of persuasion asking Fatty Lu to become emperor is even more overwhelming.

It's a pity that our Prince Lu is a rare loyal minister and filial son, with cultivation, ideals, and qualities. The powerful will not be flattered, the powerful will not be attached to the powerful, the alluring will not be respected, the ugly will not be shy, and the strong Don't be afraid of them, don't bully the weak, be friends with the good, abandon them if you like the bad, respect them when they are older, shelter them when they are young, live in peace for the people, perform their duties if they are officials, do not lose their righteousness when they are poor, and never deviate from the Dao , Bearing the weight of the old traitor Wu's support, and being deeply loved by the old traitor Wu, how could he do the thing of usurping the descendants of the traitor Wu?So no matter how others tried to persuade him, Lord Lu's answer was always the same, "No! This king can't do anything to offend Taizu Emperor Gao!"

Fatty Lu wants face and reputation and refuses to usurp the throne, but the rich and powerful and vested interests in the Fatty Army don't care so much. For their own interests, they will not be deprived in the future. One day, when all the civil and military officials of Fatty's army went to Wuying Hall to congratulate Fatty Lu on the new year, a major event that shocked the world happened...

"What are you doing? What do you want to do?!"

Fatty Lu was terrified like a young girl surrounded by hundreds of perverts, staring at the dragon robes held in the hands of the officials and yelling. Smiling grimly, he held a bright yellow dragon robe in front of Fatty Lu, kowtowed and said in unison: "The king of Yue Debu is everywhere, benevolence reaches all things, surpasses the past and surpasses the present, ascends the throne and proclaims himself emperor, conforms to the heart of heaven above, and conforms to the will of the people below. What a blessing to the living beings! What a blessing to the ministers! The ministers respectfully invite the prince, who is the emperor, to take the throne!"

"Qing and others want to become unfaithful and unrighteous people?" Fatty Lu shouted out the sentences he had memorized long ago.

"No!" Mu Tianyan kowtowed and said, "Wu Shifan was born to a sinful woman of the mite chieftain, and it is God's grace to live his life. How can he steal the throne again? The king of Yue is an orthodox descendant of Huaxia, and it is reasonable to inherit the throne!"

"Although this king is a descendant of China, he has no virtue to spread to the people. Now, once he establishes himself as emperor, how is it different from usurping?" Fatty Lu still firmly refused.

"My lord, if you don't ascend to the throne, I will die in front of you!" Jin Zhen, who had already been appointed as the official of Yue Wangfu Cao Yuanwai, took the lead, jumping up to commit suicide by bumping into the palace pillar, and several sycophants followed suit, all standing up and charging Going to the side of the palace pillar, he threatened that if Fatty Lu did not ascend to the throne for the happiness of the common people in the world, they would all die in front of Fatty Lu.There were also countless civil and military officials wailing loudly, desperately grabbing land with their heads, begging Fatty Lu to be the emperor of the common people.

The attitude of the ministers was so firm, in fact, Fatty Lu, who was really caught off guard, had no choice but to say: "My dear family, it's not that this king will live up to your expectations, it's just that this king has been well received by Emperor Taizu Gao. It's really too heartless to usurp Zhou's self-reliance because of the kindness and the importance of the orphan - so, please give me another year and a half from the Qing family. In the Hall of Martial Arts, I will give you a satisfactory answer."

"Why do you have to wait for a year and a half?" Fatty's army, civil and military officials looked at each other, wondering what kind of medicine was sold in Fatty Lu's gourd?At that moment, another Fatty Army official spoke up, asking Fatty Lu not to delay, to take the throne immediately.

"I've made up my mind, you don't need to persuade me any more." Fatty Lu replied resolutely, "I'll wait and see for another year and a half. If within a year and a half, Emperor Honghua still doesn't cultivate morality and become unpopular, No one has the blessing of the king, so that the four directions continue to be chaotic! Then I have my own plan! If Emperor Honghua can rein in the precipice and change his past mistakes, he will be kind to the world and benefit the people. I will welcome the long live back with all my strength, please Emperor Honghua All in the capital!"

"What exactly is the prince planning to do? Do you still want to use the will to appease the Wu clan's team? Killing those people should be less dangerous than recruiting them? Besides, if those people could be recruited, they would have recruited them long ago? " Fatty's army, civil and military officials were even more puzzled, but seeing Fatty Lu's resolute attitude, they had no choice but to kowtow and agree.

"One and a half years later, what method will be used to plant the spoils?" Fatty Lu pondered, "Is it okay to entrust the dream? It should be possible. The old man Wu raped the entrusted dream to me, and then put the shit basin on Wu Shifan's head. Totally speechless."

(End of this chapter)