Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 360 Do you want Chongqing?
Zhou Ding was a captain sent to Ningzhou by the imperial court. He was a minor figure.

If he had not been killed by Mu Tianbo for trying to stop him from escaping westward, his name would never have reached the ears of Your Majesty.

Therefore, some insiders thought that Mu Tianbo's death due to his injuries was just an excuse made up by His Majesty, and his real cause of death was the deterioration of the situation in Yunnan.

In the eyes of those people, when the Tartars marched south, the entire Ming Dynasty was in turmoil. The reason why Your Majesty did not punish the officials in Jiangnan and Central South as he did with Mu Tianbo was simply that the times had changed.

Your Majesty was just a clay Buddha at that time. There were powerful enemies outside and fierce ministers inside. He had to rely on the support of those people in all aspects to overcome the difficulties.

At this time, His Majesty has defeated all the powerful enemies and made them cry for their parents, and has also brought all the forces under control. His methods of doing things are no longer as cautious as before.

If he hadn't taken other ministers' faces into consideration, Mu Tianbo might have ended up being executed.

This logic is very complete, and similar things have happened more than once in history.

But they were wrong in the end.

Zhu Cilang knew very well that the Yunnan Rebellion was apparently caused by Mu Tianbo's mistaken trust in Sha Dingzhou, but in essence it was the decline of the Ming Dynasty that gave some interested people an opportunity, which was why chieftains rose up in rebellion one after another within a few months.

To put it bluntly, even if Mu Tianbo defeats Sha Dingzhou, there will be Shui Dingzhou and Tu Dingzhou behind him.

As long as the Ming court continues to be in turmoil, the chaos in Yunnan will continue until a force strong enough to suppress the Yunnan chieftains intervenes, and the place will only be temporarily peaceful.

Knowing all this, how could Zhu Cilang blame Mu Tianbo for the complete deterioration of the situation in Yunnan?
The reason why he let him die of his injuries when the situation in Yunnan had already been stabilized was because this person had already lost his bottom line.

Earlier, when the small court of Hongguang was established in Yingtian, it asked Mu Tianbo for financial support, but he did not respond and watched the small court of Yingtian struggle.

You should know that there were more than 250 large boxes weighing more than 100 kilograms and filled with treasures such as Buddha's skull stone, green arrowheads, cinnabar, fallen petals, amber, horse hooves, and red gold in the Duke of Qian's mansion. Together with other treasures, gold and silver, it took Sha Dingzhou several months just to transport these treasures to his old nest.

Of course, in the late Ming Dynasty, Mu Tianbo was not the only such person.

If it were just this, Zhu Cilang would not have concluded that this person had no bottom line at all.

However, after killing Zhou Ding who dissuaded him from continuing to flee westward, he showed no remorse, and even tried to tarnish Mei Chun's reputation when he was questioned.

If we don't kill people like this, how can we be fair to Zhou Ding and the soldiers who died in Ningzhou?
-
January 5

Kunming. Qianguo Mansion
"Your Majesty, Zhou Ding's son has arrived."

As Hu Yiqing's voice rang out, Zhu Cilang withdrew his gaze from the thick account book.

Seven or eight days ago, the Gengma chieftain who had rebelled with Sha Dingzhou was the first to be suppressed. At the same time as he ordered the transformation of chieftains into officials, he also sent the newly appointed Yunnan Colonization Envoy Yang Weizhi over there.

The Yunnan Colonization Envoy was a new position created by the imperial court, and his authority and responsibility was to manage the territories of those chieftains.

Why is there a need to set up such a special position?
Zhu Cilang staged a campaign to defeat the local tyrants and divide the land in Yunnan.

In the past, whenever a chieftain was deposed, his property would often be divided up by the surrounding dignitaries. But this time, the Ming Emperor nationalized all the land and then made the reclamation envoy responsible for dividing the land.

At this point, the reason why Zhu Cilang delayed in Chuxiong became clear.

Since the wise and brave Emperor of the Ming Dynasty and his invincible personal guards are still there, no matter how many people are jealous of these industries, I think they will be able to suppress these desires.

The development of the matter was not beyond Zhu Cilang's expectations. Although the matter of dividing the land was trivial, it progressed rapidly with the cooperation of loyal ministers from all parties.

By this time, the rest of the rebels had been suppressed one after another, and the original Jincang Bingbei Dao had also taken on the duties of the Colonization Office. After seeing that everything was going well, Zhu Cilang left the imperial guards in Chuxiong to hold the fort, and he himself returned to Kunming leisurely.

"Oh? Bring it in so I can see it."

"Yes."

As soon as he finished speaking, Hu Yiqing turned and left. However, a moment later, a group of young men about seventeen or eighteen years old appeared outside the hall under his leadership.

"I am Zhou Guan, the humble man! I pay my respects to Your Majesty! Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Long, long live the Emperor!"

"Get up and talk."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

It was obvious that the young man had learned some etiquette. After standing up, he did not look around, but instead looked down at the ground two steps in front of him, as if there was something important there that he needed to keep an eye on.

"Your father is a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty."

"Your Majesty!"

Facing this young man who behaved unruly in front of the king, Zhu Cilang did not feel any dissatisfaction.

He knew very well what Zhou Ding's death meant to the young man. Even though the murderer was already dead, it could not erase the sorrow in his heart.

However, Zhou Guan still remembered that he was still in front of the king, and after his emotions calmed down a little, he began to apologize again.

"Losing your father at a young age is a tragic thing in the world. It is understandable that you cannot help yourself. However, the dead are gone, and the living are like this. From now on, you should work hard so as not to bring shame to your father's reputation."

If it were someone else, saying such words to Zhou Guan would be a bit breathless, but coming from Zhu Cilang's mouth, these words were extremely convincing.

Afterwards, Zhou Guan thanked the emperor for his grace, and when he saw Zhu Cilang nodded slightly, he left.

It was common to select sons from the families of fallen generals to join the guards. In this year, there were at least a hundred personal guards like Zhou Guan among Zhu Cilang.

But among so many young men, he was the only one who was summoned as soon as he entered the guard.

Why?

To put it bluntly, Zhu Cilang could not execute Mu Tianbo openly for various reasons, but he could use the method of favoring Zhou Guan to make Zhou Ding's death come into the sight of those who were interested.

In this way, anyone with a little bit of common sense would be able to figure out why Mu Tianbo lost his life, and it can also be regarded as a silent deterrent to the officials of the Ming Dynasty.

"Your Majesty, I would like to take half a day off."

After Zhou Ding left, Hu Yiqing naturally did not leave, but usually he just stood quietly beside Zhu Cilang. But today, he hesitated for a while before bowing and saying something.

"Oh? Are you going back to visit your relatives? Half a day may not be enough." This time when they entered Yunnan, Zhao Yinxuan and Zhang An went to Wangnong, which was close to their hometown, while Hu Yiqing went to Kunming with the Guangxi soldiers.

In this way, Zhao Yinxuan, the fat man who was highly valued by the emperor, could return home in glory, but Hu Yiqing, who followed the emperor, had no chance yet.

But to Zhu Cilang's surprise, when he was preparing to give Hu Yiqing a few more days of vacation so that he could return home in glory, this guy actually came up with a ridiculous reason.

"There is no need to visit relatives, my cousin has already gone back. The main thing is that Jiao Lian is so arrogant, so I want to have a fight with him."

"."

This time, the Guangxi troops entering Yunnan were led by Jiao Lian. Zhu Cilang thought that these two powerful enemies would have some common language, so he let Hu Yiqing be his guide.

But judging from the current situation, the common language between these two people is probably limited to gestures.

"The attack was a bit heavy, no one should be hurt."

"Order!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Hu Yiqing turned around and left in a hurry, leaving Zhu Cilang alone and could only look back at the thick account book.

This account book was naturally sent from Wangnong.

It not only recorded in detail the silver, money and treasures confiscated from Wangnong, but also those transported from Kunming by Sha Dingzhou.

There was no need to say much about the rest. After all, Yunnan was a place rich in all kinds of treasures, and most of the accumulations of the two families were these things that were difficult to estimate. But the nearly four million taels of silver and seventy to eighty thousand taels of gold made Zhu Cilang's mind active.

He knew that the financial difficulties of the Ming court in the late Ming Dynasty were ostensibly due to the inability to collect taxes, but the root cause was the trade war unconsciously launched by Western countries. The specific channel in the middle was the loss of the right to mint coins due to the abolition of currency and the emphasis on silver.

Up to now, collecting some taxes is not a big problem, and there is some progress in reviving overseas trade, but he is still hesitant about taking back the right to mint coins.

At the root of it all, this matter is too professional and he really doesn't have any suitable candidate.

For things like steam engines, self-propelled guns, and cannons, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty had more than tens of millions of craftsmen at his disposal. As long as he expressed his specific ideas, there would be people who would work day and night to make them come true.

But this financial
If it really doesn't work, use silver as an anchor and let the money house run by Gu Yuanjing issue some silver bills on a small scale first.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cilang closed the thick account book and sat there for a while, his mind drifting to the north.

This time, the Qing and Western armies deployed more than 400,000 troops at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi. No matter how the two sides fight in the end, if Zhu Cilang wants to reap the benefits, he will have to deploy a considerable number of troops.

Therefore, while he was dealing with Yunnan, he asked Wang Yingxiong to lead his troops and Li Guo to enter Sichuan first, and then sent the imperial guards to prevent these two provincial governors from causing any trouble before he arrived.

At this point, some people may ask, Fan Yiheng and Wang Yingxiong are both second-rank officials, and they both lead a large number of troops. How can a general with relatively little experience like Xiang Rensheng play such a role?

But General Xiang Rensheng is still different from others.

On the one hand, he had followed Zhu Cilang since the Yingtian Military Prison, and on the other hand, he had fought several fierce battles with the Tartars while guarding the central army.

With these two factors combined, even though Fan and Wang were both powerful officials, they did not dare to have any conflict with Xiang Rensheng.

just
"In my opinion, sending troops to Chongqing at this time is not only against the emperor's order, but will also make Zhang Xianzhong suspicious of me, so that he can't focus on the Tartars. It is not a good idea."

A large group of military generals and ministers were gathered in the Zunyi Military and Civilian Government Office. After Fan Yiheng shared the military reports he had received earlier and his own views, Wang Yingxiong refuted him without hesitation.

Since the Ming army stopped attacking the Dashi Army under the control of Zhu Cilang, Zhang Xianzhong did not have to fight on two fronts as in history, and he brought tens of thousands more troops to the north.

But at the same time, as Duoduo's power in the Qing court was greatly reduced, Hauge was suppressed much less than in history. So after arriving in Shaanxi, he immediately found a reason to kill He Luohui who betrayed him and took his subordinates for himself.

As a result, although the military strength of the Qing Dynasty and the Dashi were several points stronger than in history, the situation was still quite similar to that in history.

Perhaps it was because the battle line was too wide, the consumption of manpower on both sides was extremely terrifying. By this time, the Dashi Army not only transferred all the troops confronting the Guizhou Ming Army, but also left the Chongqing area empty.

After receiving the news, Fan Yiheng immediately gathered all the people in Zunyi at the military and civil government office in order to send someone to take over the vacant Chongqing.

But who would have thought that after he finished speaking, Wang Yingxiong directly brought up the imperial order, which made him hold his breath so hard that he almost couldn't recover.

"Tai Wang, please forgive me for being so nosy. Your Majesty's original intention was to allow Zhang Xianzhong to focus on fighting the Tartars and not let him be distracted by us.

Now that he has withdrawn his troops from Chongqing, we should naturally recover the lost territory.

Moreover, your Majesty's decree only said not to clash with the Dashi Army, but did not say that the vacant cities could not be recaptured."

After all, Fan Yiheng had been in Sichuan and Guizhou for quite some time. There was no need to mention the troops in Guizhou. Even the generals he brought from Sichuan could speak a few words for him at this time.

"General Yang, are you okay?"

"There are questions about the labor system."

What the general said made a lot of sense, but after he stopped, Wang Yingxiong first greeted him in a friendly manner, and then the general's face turned slightly red.

The general's name was Yang Zhan, and he was a veteran general in Sichuan.

In his early years, he served in Yang Sichang's army, and later won the third place in the military examination.

When Zhang Xianzhong entered Sichuan, he first killed more than 20 enemies in the defense of Chengdu. After escaping by chance, he formed a group of troops and fought against the Dashi Army several times with the generals in Sichuan.

In the original history, he had defeated Zhang Xianzhong's troops in the Battle of Pengshan and the Battle of Leshan. However, there were many conflicts among the generals in Sichuan and Guizhou at that time, and this pillar of the Ming Dynasty who had made many military achievements died at the hands of his own people.

However, in this time and space, the Battle of Pengshan and the Battle of Leshan did not take place, and he was just a small guerrilla who had cooperated with Wang Yingxiong several times.

So when the commander-in-chief was not angry because of his collision, this simple-minded general could not help feeling a little embarrassed.

"General Yang's words have some truth, but this is a misunderstanding of your majesty's intention," Wang Yingxiong paused, nodded slightly to Yang Zhan, and then continued, "Your majesty is not concerned with the gains and losses of a city or a place, but the overall situation of the three parties. No matter why Zhang Xianzhong gave up Chongqing this time, our army must not easily send troops to occupy this city, otherwise if there are mistakes, the situation will return to chaos."

As soon as he finished speaking, everyone present turned their eyes to Xiang Rensheng.

(End of this chapter)