Ming Empire

Chapter 163 Cao Yue's Means

The next day, Cao Yue visited Shi Kefa, Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing.

Cao Yue, a famous historical figure, admired him very much, and he was also the person he hoped to get help after he arrived in Nanjing.

Cao Yue had just arrived in Nanjing, and he came to visit him in person the next day. Shi Kefa was still a little surprised, he was guessing Cao Yue's purpose.

After the two met, Shi Kefa asked Cao Yue straight to the point: "I don't know if the son-in-law is here today, what do you want to tell me?"

"I've heard about Master Shi's reputation for a long time, and I admire him very much, so I'm here today to chatter about you. If you want to disturb your peace, please also ask Haihan." Cao Yue looked at Shi Kefa with neither humble nor overbearing, with a faint smile on his face, "My admiral, Nanjing Military Affairs, In the future, I will work with Master Shi for a long time. Master Shi presides over the affairs of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, which are military and political matters such as recruiting and training, and I will often trouble Master Shi."

"My son-in-law is too polite," Shi Kefa replied to Cao Yue indifferently: "This is my job, what my son-in-law needs me to do, I will perform my duty with all my responsibilities."

"Master Shi said so, so I'm not too polite. I came to visit Master Shi today, just to discuss some matters with Master Shi about recruiting soldiers and follow-up training!" Shi Kefa said, Cao Yue was very happy, he What I am most afraid of is dealing with those people who are eccentric and full of scheming. "I really hope that my lord can help me with some things. Now that the country is in dire straits, the elite of the Ming government army has almost been lost. There is an urgent need to train a few new troops with combat effectiveness, otherwise there is no way to resist the attacks of slaves and bandits. Invasion. I hope that the new army can be recruited as soon as possible and the training can start early."

"My son-in-law, but it's okay, as long as it's not embarrassing, as long as it's not something shameful, I will help my son-in-law!" Emperor Chongzhen had a separate secret decree for Shi Kefa, and Shi Kefa had a good impression of Cao Yue, so today He didn't show any hypocrisy, and directly expressed his meaning. "I heard about the fact that the son-in-law was training a new army in Datong. It was the Datong army you trained. He defeated the Jiannu several times in the city of Datong. Jiannu suffered heavy losses. The bandits who came to invade were also defeated by your hands. .I really want to see how the son-in-law trains soldiers and how he trains a team of elite soldiers."

"I'm young, and I don't have any special way to train soldiers. I just do things with enthusiasm," Cao Yue said, taking out a copy of the recruitment and training plan he drew up on the way to Beijing, and some After Shi Kefa took over his plan, he said again: "Master Shi, these are some plans I wrote below, please take a look first."

"Okay!" Shi Kefa took the manuscript presented by Cao Yue and read it seriously.

Shi Kefa was still quite interested when he saw the previous military training plan, and was very touched in his heart. He felt that Cao Yue really had a way in military training, but after seeing the cost required later, his brows were furrowed again.

Cao Yue's military training in this way cost a lot. To equip the new army with muskets, it needs to be supported by money and food that Cao Yue's court can't afford.Although Shi Kefa didn't care about money and food, he knew that Cao Yue wanted to get the money and food he needed, which can be described as unbelievable.

Shi Kefa supported Cao Yue's new army training plan from the bottom of his heart, but he knew that this plan was impossible to realize.If the imperial court had so much money and food, it would not be impossible to pay the military salaries, and the silver rewards given to the soldiers could not be fulfilled.He also expressed his worries very seriously, and said that Gao Hongtu, the minister of the household department in charge of Nanjing's grain struggle, was not a good person to get along with. Even if the Nanjing household department had money, Cao Yue would not be able to get it.

Cao Yue was very grateful for Shi Kefa's reminder, but he didn't pay much attention to Shi Kefa's reminder. He had already considered these factors, and he had plenty of ways to make Gao Hongtu at his mercy.

Regarding the recruitment of new troops and subsequent training, Cao Yue and Shi Kefa discussed for a while, but Shi Kefa was not very confident about this. He believed that Cao Yue's plan could not be realized.Cao Yue plans to recruit at least [-] new troops, and open several firearms workshops in Nanjing to produce artillery, muskets and ammunition.Such a grand plan, of course Shi Kefa thought it was Cao Yue's wishful thinking.

Seeing Shi Kefa's attitude, he didn't seriously discuss the recruitment and training with him, Cao Yue didn't force it, and turned to talk about other things.Shi Kefa was very interested in Cao Yue's surprise attack on Shengjing last time, and the subsequent two defeats of Jiannu in the city of Datong, and easily defeated the bandits, so he turned the topic to this aspect early on.

Cao Yue also told Shi Kefa the history of these few battles, and Shi Kefa was dumbfounded and amazed repeatedly.

At the end, he once again expressed his sincere admiration to Cao Yue, saying that Cao Yue is the reincarnation of the military god and the hope of Ming Dynasty in the future, and wished Cao Yue could realize his dream of a prosperous country and a strong army as soon as possible.

With Shi Kefa's statement, Cao Yue was very satisfied.

Of course, when he came to Nanjing, it was not enough to rely on the support of Shi Kefa, and other officials had to win over.

In order to gain the support of these officials, Cao Yue made careful preparations. People like Jin Yiwei, including Chang Yanling, Guo Peimin, Zhang Shize and Cao Chao, were Cao Yue's greatest reliance on subduing these officials.

Being an official in Nanjing is of course inferior to officials in Beijing in terms of power, but officials in Nanjing are no worse than officials in Beijing in terms of wealth. Except for Shi Kefa, who is relatively clean, other officials have some dirty property.

They also did a lot of shady things, and it was not too difficult for Jin Yiwei to inquire about these things.

Before coming to Nanjing, Cao Yue wrote to his second brother Cao Chao, Chang Yanling and others, asking them to help him find out the situation.If people don't want to know, unless they have done nothing, Jin Yiwei has a lot of black materials in a few months.

These black materials have become Cao Yue's most powerful weapon to lure and intimidate Nanjing officials.

In the next few days, Cao Yue successively visited He Xiongxiang, Minister of the Ministry of Officials and Minister of Rites of Nanjing, Gao Hongtu, Minister of the Ministry of Households, as well as the most powerful officials in Nanjing, including Zhu Tonghao, King An, Xu Hongji, Duke of Wei, Zhao Zhilong, Bo Xincheng, and Liu Kongzhao, the Boss of Chengyi. Powerful people.

The result of the visit did not come as a surprise to Cao Yue. These officials, from their disdain and unwillingness to cooperate with Cao Yue at the beginning, turned into frightened flattery in the end, saying that they would strongly support Cao Yue's military training plan. what to stumble.

In particular, Gao Hongtu, the Minister of the Household Department, was willing to donate part of his family property to Cao Yue for military training.

The other officials are similar, and have repeatedly expressed their full support for Cao Yue's military training plan, and are willing to donate part of their family property for military supplies.

Through these coercion and temptation, Cao Yue not only obtained several 10 taels of silver, some grain and other military supplies from the Nanjing household department, but also collected at least several million taels of silver from the dignitaries in Nanjing.

Cao Yue was very satisfied with this. Although the methods were a bit unsophisticated, Cao Yue did not have any psychological burden to deal with these officials who were best at intrigue, often did some shady things, and had very rich family fortunes.But he also knew that these officials in Nanjing definitely hated him to the bone, and they might give him a few bad times in the future, so he had to take adequate precautions against this.

(End of this chapter)