Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Hong Xiucheng, the commander of the personal guards of the Grand Marshal, hid among the crowd, grinning, concealing his achievements and fame.

"Ahem, what are you looking at? It's time to attack the city!"

After saying this, Zhang Shikang quickly returned to the central military tent.

Even though Zhang Shikang was very thick-skinned, he still felt it was inappropriate to take advantage of someone else's daughter in front of her father.

Ma Lingqi finally reacted and her face turned red. Seeing that everyone was looking at her, she covered her face and ran after Zhang Shikang.

"Congratulations to General Qin and Envoy Ma!" Huaining Marquis Sun Weifan bowed and congratulated Qin Liangyu and Ma Xianglin.

The other generals around also congratulated her one after another. Qin Liangyu was fine, after all, she was old and prudent, so she just bowed and smiled and passed by.

Of course, Ma Xianglin understood what everyone meant. If his youngest daughter really married the Marshal, his Ma family would be honored.

But for some reason, Ma Xianglin felt a little complicated.

However, this was not the time to talk about this. After the young eunuch read out the imperial edict to Qin Liangyu, he took out another imperial edict.

This imperial edict, with the title "Zhi Yue" as its introduction, was a reward to other people who had made contributions in the Battle of Yongchuan, including silver rewards and pensions. Two generals among the White Spear Soldiers were conferred the title of Earl.

After the imperial edict was read out, the young eunuch and the accompanying factory guards took their leave to go look for Zhang Shikang.

Qin Liangyu regained her serious expression. The war was still going on and no one could be careless at this time.

Tongchuan Prefecture, as the capital of Tongchuan Prefecture, has city walls that are much stronger than those of Yongchuan County.

Qin Liangyu originally planned to use conventional methods and have the army's craftsmen build ladders and siege vehicles to attack the city.

But in the end, he followed Zhang Shikang's advice and chose to bombard the city wall with artillery.

Although bombarding the city walls with artillery may take more time, it does not require the use of human lives to fill the walls.

Zhang Shikang always advocated that quality is more important than quantity of soldiers. In order to achieve this quality, Zhang Shikang invested huge amounts of money in the Imperial Guards.

He was reluctant to let the guards climb the city walls. No matter how good their skills were, they could not avoid the rolling logs, thunder stones and gold juice falling from the sky.

Another reason is that this time the campaign against the bandits is not like the previous wars where all the situations were urgent.

Now, except for Sichuan, the interior of the country is peaceful. He did not send out too many troops this time, and the logistical pressure on the court was not great.

So, just take it slow and build up slowly.

The one who should be anxious is Zhang Xianzhong, not the imperial court.

Qin Liangyu chose the southern wall of Tongchuan City as the target of her artillery attack. Of course, the primary target was still the artillery on the wall and the city gate tower.

There were not many cannons on the Tongchuan city wall. Half of them had been withdrawn in order to prevent the imperial court from crossing the river.

The remaining half was nothing more than a decoration for the imperial army with large caliber and ultra-long range.

A quarter of an hour later, the shelling began.

After only three rounds of bombardment, the seven or eight cannons on the Tongchuan city wall were blown to pieces, and the city gate tower was shaky and lost its lookout and defensive functions.

So Qin Liangyu ordered Qi Dazhu to aim at a section of the southern city wall and bombard it continuously.

On the other side, Zhang Shikang, who had returned to the central military tent, was still walking around excitedly.

I suddenly became a father, but I haven’t even chosen a name yet!

Ma Lingqi was wearing silver armor and waiting obediently in the big tent. At this moment, she totally didn't understand why Zhang Shikang, who had just become a father, was so excited.

But she was not unhappy because Zhang Shikang had another woman. She even felt fortunate that since someone else was having the baby, she wouldn't have to give birth to it anymore. She heard it was very painful.

This way she can focus on fighting.

Ma Lingqi giggled as she imagined that in the future she would be armed to the teeth and fight on the battlefield like her grandmother.

"Lingqi, what do you think I should name my daughter?"

Zhang Shikang pondered for a while and asked Ma Lingqi.

"Ah? What's your name? Oh, my grandma gave me this name."

Ma Lingqi's fantasy was interrupted and she replied in a daze.

Well, this girl can definitely not be relied upon.

So Zhang Shikang began to pace around in the big tent again. There was artillery fire outside. As a general of the army, he was actually worrying about what to name his child. This was something he had never seen before.

The eunuch in the palace who was responsible for conveying the imperial edict, as well as the factory guards, waited outside very respectfully, awaiting Zhang Shikang's reply.

Generally speaking, when someone from the palace came to a place, no matter if they were a high-ranking official or someone of any other status, they would serve the people from the palace with fear and trepidation, fearing that something might befall them.

But Zhang Shikang was not an ordinary person. He didn't care about these things at all, and the eunuch standing outside the tent didn't dare to show his dissatisfaction at all.

You must be kidding. Even if he went into the palace and said bad things, he would be the one to die.

Half a quarter of an hour later, Zhang Shikang suddenly had an idea.

"Got it! Let's call her Zhang Qiyue!"

At that time, the concept of seniority was very important, and it was reflected in the names.

For example, in the Zhu family, because it was difficult to clearly identify the order of generations, Zhu Yuanzhang gave all his sons twenty characters, one character for one generation, as a symbol of seniority in the middle of their names.

For example, Zhu Youjian, the elder brother of Chongzhen today, is from the lineage of Prince of Yan. Starting from Zhu Di’s sons, Gaozhan is Qi Jianyou, Houzai is Yi Changyou, Cihe is Yi Bozhong, and Jian Jingdi is Xianyou.

Zhu Yuanzhang not only set the second character of his offspring's name, but also set a limit on the third character, stipulating that the third character should have one of the five elements as radicals, in the order of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth.

For example, my brother’s full name is Zhu Youjian, which is the generation name You, and the Jian has the attribute of wood. This is because his father’s name is Zhu Changluo, Luo means water, and water gives birth to wood.

The Crown Prince Zhu Cilang’s generation name is Ci, and Lang means fire, and wood gives birth to fire.

Zhu Yuanzhang's brain is definitely powerful enough to come up with so many weird things.

But he never dreamed that his descendants would be so fertile, that one prince could give birth to more than a hundred children.

So much so that later on, the third character became so difficult to choose that the princes and heirs simply started to create their own characters in order to comply with this rule.

Of course, the lineage of the Duke of England was not so troublesome. Zhang Zhiji was the head of the Zhang family and had the power to name his eldest son. He gave his eldest son the name "shi", and his peers in other clans all used "shi" as their generational name.

Similarly, Zhang Shize named his son Zhang Qixian. Zhang Shize was the heir of the Duke of Yingzhou's lineage. Other descendants of the same clan and generation must also use Qi as their generation name.

In other words, Zhang Shikang did not have many choices and he only had the power to choose the last word.

Fortunately, they are not as perverted as the Zhu family. As a father, he can only decide half a character when naming his son. It is really outrageous.

After thinking of a name, Zhang Shikang picked up his pen and quickly wrote a reply letter to his brother Chongzhen. He also wrote another letter with his own name and asked the father-in-law outside to pass it on to him.

After finishing all these, Zhang Shikang strolled to the front line to take a look. But before he reached the front line, a centurion of the Jinyiwei suddenly ran over.

"Commander-in-chief, urgent report, the bandit has arrived at Liubianyi with his army!"

……