Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 367 After finishing the meal, Chuanzhong came to take care of them.

The people in Changsha naturally didn't know that Zhu Cilang was in Sichuan, and this urgent letter had little to do with Hunan. The source of the letter was actually He Zhen and Sun Shoufa who were still in Xing'an.

Although Xing'an is located at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi, due to geographical factors, it is actually much easier for them to obtain news from Hubei than from Sichuan and Shaanxi.

Therefore, when they arrived near Xing'an, they soon learned about the battle of Ganzhou.

These two people are quite thoughtful.

After learning that the current war situation was quite favorable to the Ming Dynasty, they changed their previous plan of crossing the Yangtze River to the south and surrender to the court. Instead, they tried to contact the Ming army in Hunan, hoping to attack from both sides and recapture Xiangyang in one fell swoop.

You must know that Xiangyang is an important barrier of the Yangtze River defense line. From a military perspective alone, the Southern Song Dynasty was ultimately destroyed because of the loss of this city.

Of course, for the Ming Dynasty, which had an overwhelming advantage in water surface, the importance of this city was not as high as that of the Southern Song Dynasty, but it was also a good choice to take this strategic location when the Qing army had just been defeated and its morale was unstable.

However, Zhu Cilang had previously transferred Li Guo's troops from Hunan to Sichuan and Guizhou. He Tengjiao naturally understood that His Majesty was preparing to focus on the southwest region.

Therefore, after receiving the news from He Zhen and Sun Shoufa, he did not start military action immediately, but first forwarded the letter to Zunyi, and then the local officials presented it to His Majesty based on the location of the imperial carriage.

It has to be said that this was a rather prudent move, which fully demonstrated the ability and vision of Ming officials when they were not involved in party disputes.

Although Xing'an is not as important as Hanzhong, it is also located at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi.

If they sent out troops from that place at this time and then launched a surprise attack on an important city like Xiangyang, regardless of the final outcome, the Sichuan battlefield, which is currently in the midst of a fierce battle, would inevitably be greatly affected, and even the situation in which the fisherman benefits might be broken.

By then, Sichuan will become a three-way balance of power, with each side restraining the other, and it will be unknown how long it will take to take over Sichuan.

Under such circumstances, even if He Tengjiao really got the credit for capturing the important town, he might not be able to win any good words from the emperor.

This is He Tengjiao's ability and vision.

If it were someone else, they might just think that the opportunity to easily seize the important town of Xiangyang was right in front of them, but Sichuan was nothing compared to that.

After all, the example of the Southern Song Dynasty is recorded in history books, and only with the protection of this city can the Yangtze River defense line be kept safe.

As the saying goes, different times, different situations.

At that time, Jin and Mongolia were regimes with a high degree of sinicization, and there was no difference in surface power between the north and the south. When facing the northern Han people who were also good at surface warfare, the regime south of the Yangtze River had no advantage at all.

But the situation now is completely different from the past.

First, after being equipped with a large number of artillery, the Ming Dynasty had a generation gap with the Qing Dynasty in terms of surface power;
Second, the Qing Dynasty did not have a regime like the Jin Dynasty to absorb, and the process of inheriting the legacy of the northern regime was much slower.

With the two factors combined, Xiangyang's importance to the Ming Dynasty would be far lower than that of the Southern Song Dynasty, and it would not be to the point where a city could determine the survival of a country.

That was why Zhu Cilang dared to control Jin Shenghuan without any scruples when he came to surrender, and that was why he turned to the southwest after dealing with the enemies overseas.

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"Send a message to He Zhen and Sun Shoufa, and order them to send more scouts to Hanzhong. Forget it, tell them that the Tartars are the Ming Dynasty's strongest enemy, and we can do the rest as the situation dictates."

Zhu Cilang had many ideas about this group of people behind the Tatars, but after all, they were surrounded by enemy forces, and it was much more difficult for them to communicate.

So after hesitating for a while, he finally decided to trust these two generals who were able to escape from a group of tigers and wolves.

After this little episode, today's welcoming ceremony came to a successful conclusion.

In the following days, he continued to send scouts and scouts to northern Sichuan, while at the same time he had to pay some attention to the land reform in Yunnan.

Logically speaking, this kind of reclamation has been practiced several times in Jiangnan, Hunan and other places, so it seems that he does not need to pay attention to it anymore.

However, the reclamation of Jiangnan was carried out on the basis of confiscating the property of the wealthy families, and all the rules and methods were mature.

The personnel sent out only needed to let the tenants continue to farm according to the acreage registers, and they didn't need to worry about anything else.

To put it bluntly, the Jiangnan reclamation simply changed the landlords from individual households to reclamation groups, but there were not many other changes.

As for the reclamation in Hunan, although it was a bit more troublesome, those families and refugees had been with the rebel army for a long time, and had some military atmosphere among them.

So when the news came out that the emperor wanted them to settle and cultivate the unowned land, these families and refugees had already completed most of the preparations before the court officials came.

The reason why the reclamation in these two places was so successful was that thousands of years of farming life had made all conditions perfect, but the situation here in Yunnan was somewhat different.

The so-called chieftains were closer to slavery.

Within the territory, not only all means of production belong to the chieftain, but even the people in the territory are his private property.

He was very clear that this was not a change within the same production relations as occurred in Jiangnan and Hunan, but a violent transition from one production relation to another.

Such earth-shaking changes will naturally have some progressive subjects who will absolutely support it, but at the same time there will also be conservative subjects who will use various means to resist it.

Of course, the greatest resistance forces had been eliminated one by one in the process of suppressing the Shadingzhou Rebellion, and those that remained could not cause much waves.

But these are ultimately unstable factors, so he has to be more careful to avoid turning a good thing into a bad thing.

This was not something he thought too much. The army hundreds of years later did not expect such a situation to occur when they entered the western plateau, and they even suffered some not-so-big losses due to carelessness.

But then again, although the Ming army at this time no longer killed innocent people for credit and massacred civilians due to sufficient money and food and strict military law, they would not be as restrained as that army when they encountered some stubborn and unyielding people.

"Tsk."

Looking at the test paper sent from Yunnan, Zhu Cilang did not feel too much regret, but he still couldn't help smacking his teeth.

Just as he expected, the settlement in Yunnan finally encountered some minor troubles.

When Meng Lian was being reformed, an old slave and his family attacked the lone Ming army.

The reason was simple. The old slave felt that the court's actions had changed the way of heaven and that they would not be able to escape the punishment of their god, so he did such a big thing in order to gain forgiveness from heaven.

Faced with this kind of situation, Yang Weizhi's method of dealing with it was simple.

There is no escape from the word "kill" either way, the only difference is how to kill.

After these unstable factors were eliminated with thundering means, the reclamation issue did not fluctuate much, and when Yunnan reported these situations, the reclamation in various places had already entered the substantive stage, and the remaining things were the distribution of fields, forests, livestock, etc. Zhu Cilang could easily think that he did not have a strong cadre team, and various drawbacks would inevitably occur in this process, but the reality was like this, and he did not have much to do.

Anyway, the people of the reclamation group already know how wise and brave Your Majesty is and how much he loves the people like his own children. His hand has also reached the local area through the reclamation.

These two main goals have been achieved, but there is nothing we can do about the rest.

"Yang Weizhi has a strong murderous nature."

Muttering something, Zhu Cilang put the question book from Yunnan aside. Then he glanced at Fan Yiheng, who had a slightly curious look on his face, and began to explain.

Although various forces in central Sichuan have secretly sent people here these days, the war in the north has been in a stalemate, so high-ranking officials like Fan Yiheng have often been able to accompany Your Majesty when they have time.

On the surface, this task may seem boring, but it is undoubtedly a good opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the monarch and his subjects.

With this experience, Fan Yiheng has become different from ordinary feudal lords, and Zhu Cilang will also look at him differently.

In this way, the power of both parties will be consolidated, which can be regarded as a true mutual benefit.

"In troubled times, heavy punishments are used. He was forced into this situation."

After Fan Yiheng finished speaking, Zhu Cilang just nodded and turned his attention to the next question book, but when he saw the content clearly, he couldn't help but frowned.

This letter was sent by Gu Yuanjing. It first talked about the preparations for the Tonghai Trade Group, but at the end it spent a lot of space saying that the Dutch had sent a message through maritime merchants that they wanted to negotiate a trade agreement with the Ming Dynasty.

According to Gu Yuanjing's understanding, this trade agreement was probably just a tribute-like thing, so in the following pages, he was praising Zhu Cilang for his power over the world and his ability to subjugate the barbarians.

"Practice."

"Yes."

As soon as Zhu Cilang finished speaking, Fan Yiheng picked up the paper and pen in front of him, and then turned his gaze to Zhu Cilang who was organizing his words.

Normally, such matters were drafted by the Imperial Household Department, but Zhu Cilang, the emperor on horseback, never brought eunuchs with him when he led his troops into battle, so such important tasks were handled by the civil officials who followed him.

The rules are made by people, and such changes will not hurt the interests of a few people. Moreover, it is just the imperial edict without the seal of the cabinet. The vassals can listen to it if they want to, and ignore it if they don't want to. Therefore, no one has any say in this matter.

"I handed the Sea Trade Group over to you, and you don't even understand a trade agreement? Learn from the sea merchants and write a 5,000-word report."

Faced with His Majesty's decree composed entirely of plain language, Fan Yiheng was indeed somewhat embarrassed. But before he could decide whether to polish it or write it as it was, His Majesty's voice came again.

"As for that bank, you need to pay more attention to it. If you don't understand something, ask someone. I will make sure that the bank is set up before I report to you."

Having said that, Zhu Cilang felt that everything that needed to be settled had been settled. However, when he turned to look at Fan Yiheng, he saw that he had a confused look on his face, and it was obvious that he was a little overwhelmed by these plain words.

"Write it straight."

After he finished speaking, Fan Yiheng began to write furiously, but Zhu Cilang's thoughts drifted to the sea.

Originally, he wanted to wait until the Dutch made a move before going to Yunnan, but after waiting for a long time, the Dutch did not respond.

That's why he led his troops westward after assigning the matter of dealing with the Dutch revenge to Shen Tingyang and Zheng Sen.

He thought about having a good fight with the Dutch, and also thought that there would continue to be minor frictions at sea, but he never expected that the Dutch would do such a thing after being silent for such a long time.

Negotiate trade agreements.

To put it bluntly, it means that the Ming Dynasty has forgotten about Guangzhou, and the Dutch have forgotten about Taiwan, and from now on the two countries will put aside their past grudges and do business well.

For Zhu Cilang, this was undoubtedly great news.

Once the trade agreement was signed, he would only need to leave the necessary fleet in the south, and all other warships would go north to fight against the Qing Dynasty.

By then, through the water systems of Beijing and Tianjin, his fleet will be able to attack from all directions in the northern Zhili area.

Even if the old capital cannot be recaptured in a short time, it will definitely deal a heavy blow to the people's hearts and morale of the Qing court.

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The Dutch just took this loss from TW so easily?

To be honest, this situation was exactly what Zhu Cilang had expected at first.

After all, he sent Shen Tingyang to Manila in order to let the Dutch understand the current situation in the South China Sea.

But the other party's performance was too straightforward.

There was no provocation, no friction, and even no official debate. The Batavia Council went straight to the point of signing a trade agreement, as if they had never fought a war with the Ming Dynasty, as if this trade route was a long journey.
Oh, right, the trade route.

After thinking for several rounds, Zhu Cilang finally thought of this key point.

Because of this trade route, the Batavia Council was cautious, so they chose to ignore the TW war.

But this does not mean that the Dutch will give up their fight for the South China Sea trade route.

After all, the amount of goods exported by the Ming Dynasty every year is huge. If they monopolize the sea routes, they can put most of the profits from this trade into their own pockets.

This is just like in later generations. Before they realized that the East University had become uncontrollable, the Anglo-Saxon gangs did not choose to suppress it violently because they did not want to disrupt their model of sucking blood from the world.

The Dutch at this time were like the Anglo-Saxon bandits in the future. They could continue to suck blood from the global trade cycle just by controlling the waterways. That was why they chose to use courtesy before force because of the huge profits.

It is easy to imagine that in the process of negotiating a trade agreement, the Dutch would certainly use various methods to maintain their monopoly on the three ocean trade routes from the Ming Dynasty to the East, West and South.

If Ming Dynasty agrees, then the Taiwan issue will naturally be written off, but if Ming Dynasty disagrees, then a real war will break out immediately.

After figuring this out, Zhu Cilang did not feel much pressure, but instead felt relieved.

If he were not there, the trade agreement that Gu Yuanjing regarded as a tribute would most likely be signed in the way the Dutch wanted. But now
"Tell Gu Yuanjing to accept the Dutch's request and ask them to send people to Yingtian. I will deal with them after I have dealt with Sichuan."

(End of this chapter)