Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 368 Zuo Liangyu Goes East

In the season of fireworks in March, a scholar is full of desire for power, but his ambitions have failed repeatedly, and he is extremely sad and indignant. He resolutely embarks on a small boat heading west to Wuchang.

No matter how you look at this move, there is a sense of tragedy, and there is quite a determination to turn the world around.

Yang Chao wouldn't notice the fate of a failed candidate. He was worrying about the affairs inside and outside the court right now.

Partisanship, partisanship again.

Yang Chao carefully maintained it, but who knew that this small court in Pian'an would lead into the bottomless abyss of party struggle.

Shi Kefa, who was strongly supported by Yang Chao, fell.

Yang Chao doesn't know why the emperor seems to dislike him recently. He thinks that he has never offended the emperor. It is indeed difficult for the emperor to feel at ease with a general who holds a hundred thousand troops.

But Shi Kefa is too disappointing, or too ineffective.

During the Chongzhen period, he served as the governor of water transportation in Jiangnan for many years, and later became the minister of the Ministry of War. When Chongzhen died, he was the most senior among the civil servants in Jiangnan. .

But he still failed.

The current chief assistant of the cabinet has become Ma Shiying, the minister of the Ministry of war.

During Shi Kefa's tenure as the chief assistant of the cabinet, he tried his best to promote his strategy of uniting the captives and suppressing the invaders, and made every effort for this. I wrote letters to Wu Sangui, academicians Feng Quan, Xie Bi, etc., but unfortunately these people have already followed the new master with all their hearts, and they never saw the envoys of their homeland.

However, Shi Kefa also wrote a letter to Dorgon. The content of the letter was extremely humble, and the purpose was nothing more than the two countries collaborating to destroy Li Zicheng.

As a result, Dorgon also wrote back to Shi Kefa. This letter aroused Chaoyi. In his heart, Dorgon not only did not recognize the Nanming monarchs and ministers, but also reprimanded them for having no king and no father.

At the same time, in the letter, he urged Shi Kefa to recognize the general trend and join the Qing Dynasty as soon as possible, and said that Shi Kefa's younger brother, Shi Kecheng, had already surrendered to Zhengshuo. one piece.

It was this letter that gave Shi Kefa a heavy blow.

Chen Hongfan did not give the letter directly to Shi Kefa, but quietly announced it, which immediately aroused the impeachment of many people.

Ma Shiying even impeached Shi Kefa for betraying the country. The evidence was that Shi Kefa's younger brother had surrendered. Shi Kefa had been advocating alliance with the captives.

Naturally, Shi Kefa could not be a traitor. He did write a letter to Dorgon in history, and Dorgon also replied with the same content. King Fu was at odds, so the civil servants were in a group, but now the emperor is Zhu Cihong, and the civil servants were not under pressure, so intrigues were born instead. Ma Shiying's impeachment of Shi Kefa, not only few people spoke for him, but some even supported him and questioned him.

Shi Kefa was very discouraged. He didn't want to get involved in party disputes at all. In fact, he was not a person who liked to fight. He even thought that the government was bad. Going to Jiangbei to supervise the army was not because Shi Kefa wanted to control the military power. He didn't have such a mind. His reason was that Ma Shiying entered the cabinet and had no one to supervise the army, so he wanted to go. Speaking of which, he really wanted to do something for the Ming Dynasty.

Yang Chao resolutely opposed this measure, guaranteeing that Shi Kefa would never have a second heart, but the emperor made a decision, and Shi Kefa was removed from the position of chief assistant, and still went to Jiangbei to supervise with the title of a bachelor.

If it weren't for the emperor's alienation from Yang Chao, Ma Shiying would never have dared to stand against Yang Chao to impeach Shi Kefa. If it wasn't for Shi Kefa's own desire to retire, he wouldn't be able to lose his position as chief assistant. If it wasn't for the emperor's self-destruction of the Great Wall, he wouldn't have allowed Shi Kefa to leave. .

It's a pity that the few honest officials in the court left in the end.

Yang Chao was so disappointed that he began to leave the court again to concentrate on military affairs.

The military situation during this period of time really made Yang Chao feel a little grim.

The Qing army finally defeated Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng's Dashun army was indeed stronger than the Ming army, and they fought a few tough battles, and occasionally won small victories.

But at the end of last year, the decisive battle of Tongguan started. Tongguan is the gateway to Shaanxi. Often whoever occupies here means occupying Guanzhong. Li Zicheng defeated Sun Chuanting here and occupied Shaanxi. After thirteen days, Li Zicheng was finally defeated, and Duoduo led his troops into the pass, and soon occupied Xi'an.

Li Zicheng made too many strategic mistakes.

It shouldn't have failed so quickly and so easily, but it's a pity that its prosperity was flourishing and its death was also rapid.

Lost in politics.

In the Eastern Expedition, it was too easy to take down Shanxi and Henan. Li Zicheng was too careless and let too many Ming Dynasty officers stay in office. He didn't send anyone to watch over them, and he didn't remove the military power of those officers. Li Zicheng came and surrendered, and the Qing army came and surrendered again, causing Li Zicheng to go all the way west, and his pursuers chased him all the way. The Ming army who surrendered to him could not do anything to stop him.

Not to mention the surrender of the Ming army in Shanxi and Henan, even the surrender of Li Zicheng's hometown in Shaanxi is not reliable. Once the Duoduo army entered Shaanxi, these people also surrendered.

Li Zicheng was too aggressive. After occupying Shaanxi, he did not integrate internal forces. After still appointing the Ming army, he rushed eastward to occupy Beijing. As a result, Beijing was occupied, but he couldn't hold it, and the foundation was unstable. No matter how much territory is occupied, it is in vain.

After Yang Chao saw a series of battle reports, he was overwhelmed with embarrassment, and he became more firm in his policy of operating steadily in the south of the Yangtze River.

On the other hand, the Qing army, without occupying a place, immediately appointed civil servants to manage it, and at the same time sent those officers who surrendered to Beijing with flags, or sent their family members to Beijing as hostages, and immediately rectified military discipline, etc., this is not to mention the efficiency of governance. Li Zicheng, even Ming Ting can't match him.

Speaking of Li Zicheng, after the failure of the Tongguan battle with the Qing army, Li Zicheng gave up his plan to concentrate his forces to encircle Xi'an, and decided to use the way he used to deal with the Ming Dynasty to conduct a swimming battle, abandoning Guanzhong, and taking Dashun with his vitality The main force of the army entered the western part of Henan from Shangluo, and then went south into Xiangyang.

Li Zicheng began to establish a political power and stabilize his business in the Xiangyang area. At this time, Xiangyang and the four surrounding prefectures were still under the control of officials appointed by him, and he also had tens of thousands of troops stationed here.

However, Li Zicheng did not stay in Xiangyang, which has been in operation for the longest time and is the most stable. Instead, he took away the soldiers left behind in Xiangyang and marched eastward, intending to rob Nanjing, another capital of the Ming court. Nanjing.

The first obstacle in front of him is the biggest warlord of Ming Dynasty stationed in Wuchang: Zuo Liangyu!

For more than a year, Li Zicheng went north, Zhang Xianzhong marched west, and the whole Jiangnan actually recovered severely.

Zuo Liangyu guarded Wuchang, and the Ming court regained Hubei to the south of the Yangtze River. Hunan as a whole still occupies more than half of China, especially the population and economy account for more than half. , but the comprehensive national strength has always been used to bluff people, it is useless.

After Li Zicheng went south, Zuo Liangyu's army, backed by the strongest comprehensive national strength, dared not fight him.

"General Zuo, let's go east! The bandit Li stationed in Jiangbei has already declared that he wants to go east to Nanjing. If Bandit Li invades and occupies Nanjing first, the general will be ashamed of his late emperor's kindness."

Zuo Liangyu didn't want to fight Li Zicheng, but someone persuaded him to give up Huguang Shuangjiang and go down.

This person is Huang Shu, the censor of the Huguang Xunyan. He has been a Huguang Xunyan for a long time. I want to go further into the sixth part, but I can't do it.

When it was reported in Nanjing that Ma Shiying defeated Shi Kefa and became the new Chief Assistant, he felt even more hopeless because he had old grievances with Ma Shiying. When Ma Shiying was an official in Shanxi, someone impeached him because of corruption. One of them, so he knew that after Ma Shiying became the first assistant, he felt that he had no chance to enter the six departments, let alone the cabinet.

So he made up his mind and began to encourage Zuo Liangyu to advance eastward, hoping to use Zuo Liangyu's military strength as a backing to realize his ideal of coming to power. Relying on the soldiers in his hands, help King Fu supervise the country? Isn't Shi Kefa able to be the chief assistant because of Yang Chao's support?

Therefore, Huang Shu decided that as long as he brought Zuo Liangyu's army into the south of the Yangtze River, it would be easy for him to join the cabinet.

Although he was suspected of intimidating the court, he couldn't care less about joining the cabinet.

It just so happened that Zuo Liangyu didn't want to fight Li Zicheng at this time, so he just gave him a reason.

And Huang Shu has allies.

"That's right, if General Zuo doesn't go east at this time, I'm afraid he will lose his good opportunity! That bandit Yang held a heavy army and threatened the emperor, making Jiangnan miserable. Squeezed out! I also hope that General Zuo will enter the Qing Dynasty's side as soon as possible!"

On the side of the Qing monarch, a very heavy banner, but it has always been a lace decoration engraved by the rebels.

The seven kings of the Han Dynasty fought against the banner of the Qing emperor, and Zhu Di used the banner of the Qing emperor to seize the throne of his nephew.

The Seven Kings succeeded, and Chao Cuo, who planned to cut down the vassal, was killed, and Zhu Di succeeded, and he became the emperor.

This flag is so beautiful that it has become an excuse for generation after generation of heroes to rebel.

Huang Shu and others made this golden flag for Zuo Liangyu at this time. They valued that Zuo Liangyu didn't want to resist Li Zicheng's loss of troops, so they simply induced him to go east to Nanjing and become their pawn in their struggle for power.

"Mr. Hou came from Nanjing. He knows the situation in Nanjing best. General Zuo, don't hesitate to miss this opportunity!"

Huang Shu continued to persuade.

That's right, his ally is Hou Fangyu, one of the four sons.

The fourth son has been showing off his aura for several years. Hou Fangyu changed his embarrassment of failing to be a scholar. Like the other three sons, he obtained the status of Juren through other means. Unfortunately, he still failed in this year's general examination and failed to pass the Jinshi exam. , So lonely and angry, he came to Wuchang, hoping to use Zuo Liangyu's troops to gain power through other means.

And soon he found the like-minded Huang Shu, and the two worked hand in hand to persuade Zuo Liangyu.

Zuo Liangyu thought about it for a while, and finally became ruthless. Instead of fighting Li Zicheng and losing troops in this troubled world, he might as well go to Nanjing to earn a high position for himself. He, Zuo Liangyu, had fought all his life to get the status, he was really not reconciled to it, wasn't it because those people had tens of thousands of soldiers in the south of the Yangtze River.

In all fairness, Zuo Liangyu looked down on these people who were originally far inferior to him. Those people were not worthy of Zuo Liangyu's shoes, and now they are all named Marquis and Boss. Why?
"Okay, this general will raise his troops immediately, and send them to Nanjing, on the side of the Qing emperor!"

At the end of March, before Li Zicheng entered Wuchang, Zuo Liangyu raised his army and went down the river. In order to prevent Li Zicheng from seizing Wuchang and using Wuchang's manpower and material resources to rest and pursue him, he slaughtered all the people in Wuchang, grabbed all the food and grass, and set fire to it. city.

(End of this chapter)