Travel back in time and become Chongzhen, watch me turn the tide

"Li Chengdong, are you going to betray the Marshal?" Xing said, her eyes wide open, looking at Li Chengdong viciously. Her eyes were filled with anger and resentment, as if she wanted to eat Li Chengdong alive.

"Madam, what the Marshal has done is irreversible. To avoid internal strife, I have no choice but to resort to this last resort!" Li Chengdong bowed respectfully. A trace of helplessness and guilt etched across his face, his voice low and sincere. "And Lord Shi has already promised me that the Marshal, Madam, and Young Master will not have to worry about their lives, and will be guaranteed food and clothing..."

"Li Chengdong, we didn't expect that the Marshal would raise such an ungrateful person like you. We are so blind!" Li Benshen and Hu Maozhen were extremely angry and said with gritted teeth.

Their eyes were filled with disappointment and anger, and they felt extremely sad about Li Chengdong's betrayal.

"Hmph! You two didn't bother to advise the Marshal, yet now you're blaming me?" Li Chengdong raised his head slightly, a hint of stubbornness flashing in his eyes. "The Marshal's ambush on his colleagues was a grave mistake. I did this for the greater good, to avoid further bloodshed."

"Alright, we'll detain everyone here for now, and we'll make our final decision later," Shi Kefa said calmly, his voice calm and resolute. "Right and wrong will be determined by public opinion!"

The war caused by Gao Jie's ambush on Huang Degong was quickly ended with the cooperation of Li Chengdong. Li Chengdong was finally moved by Chongzhen and chose to be loyal to him.

Just when Xing and others were overjoyed thinking that reinforcements had arrived, they never expected that Li Chengdong, in cooperation with Shi Kefa and Huang Degong, would have captured all the generals under Gao Jie!

With the group leaderless, Li Chengdong successfully took over Gao Jie's subordinates. Except for some of Gao Jie's diehards who fought desperately during the arrest process, the others all obediently accepted the reorganization.

In order not to attract too much attention, it was simply announced to the outside world that Xingping Earl Gao Jie had suddenly fallen seriously ill and was unable to handle military and political affairs. Li Chengdong replaced Gao Jie to govern Xuzhou and Sizhou areas and was stationed in Yangzhou.

By now, two of the four towns in Jiangbei have been under the actual control of Chongzhen. In addition to the overt adjustments, Chongzhen has also made adjustments to the army in secret.

Chongzhen expanded his personal guard camp to 200 people, with Gao Wencai still in charge, and Zhu Tie and Zhao Meng serving as deputies.

As a person of later generations, Chongzhen naturally attached great importance to intelligence work. The intelligence department, which was managed by Li Ruolian and specifically by Zhu Ge, was expanded to one hundred people this time. The intelligence department needed not only combat personnel, but also a variety of personnel to join. During this period, Chongzhen had communicated with Zhu Ge many times about the concept of his own intelligence department. Although Chongzhen had never done intelligence work, as a person of later generations, he could still more or less talk about his own understanding of intelligence work. Coupled with the training of Li Ruolian, the commander of the Jinyiwei, this kid's progress can be said to be rapid.

Zhu Ge was naturally gifted at this, and now Chongzhen's intelligence work was quickly getting on track. The name for this agency was finally decided. Jinyiwei, Dongchang, and Xichang were already outdated names, so Chongzhen named it the Anwei according to his own preferences.

The number of troops under Li Laiheng increased to 3,000, including 800 cavalrymen; the number of troops under Yan Yingyuan increased to 2,000, all of whom were cavalrymen.

These two troops were elite troops drawn from the command of Huang Fei, Huang Degong and Li Chengdong. They were nominally under the command of Shi Kefa, but in fact they were directly under the command of Chongzhen.

After all the troops were reorganized, Chongzhen took the two armies and went to Yangzhou with Shi Kefa. Although he had captured the two towns of Huang Degong and Gao Jie, Chongzhen did not dare to relax and continued to make further plans. Before the Qing army went south, he not only had to capture Nanjing and control the court, but also had to consolidate the defense line of the Southern Ming.

Chongzhen knew that this period of time was a blank period in history and was also the last bit of precious time left for him.

After the Battle of Shanhaiguan, the Qing court, under the guidance of Wu Sangui, easily captured Beijing and its surrounding areas. This was an unexpected event, so when they first entered Beijing, they were undecided about their overall strategy. Some Manchu nobles even wanted to slaughter and plunder the people and leave troops to garrison.

Dorgon only disagreed with stopping there because Huang Taiji had said, "If we take Beijing, we should immediately move the capital to pursue further expansion." However, Dorgon was still unsure about the extent of his expansion by moving the capital to Beijing.

Therefore, the Qing court's aggressiveness at this time was still relatively conservative. They limited the areas that the Qing army was going to take over to Hebei, Henan, and Jianghuai, that is, north of the Yangtze River. They even hinted that the Han officials and gentry in the south who "did not forget the Ming Dynasty" could "assist in establishing a virtuous vassal" to jointly protect the Jiangzuo area.

Of course, the main reason for making this policy was that when the Qing army first entered the pass, its military strength was limited, especially the Manchu population was sparse, and it was not easy to replenish the troops.

Regardless of whether it was the areas controlled by the Dashun or the Southern Ming, they were vast, populous, and strong. A rash attack would result in an unpredictable outcome.

Therefore, for a long time, in addition to maintaining military suppression on the Dashun, the Qing army adopted a nonchalant attitude towards the Southern Ming. In the early days, they even had the intention of colluding with the Southern Ming to suppress the bandits.

However, this window of opportunity was short-lived. Historically, the Southern Ming court had been huddled south of the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, with its hundreds of thousands of troops only daring to prey on the local civilians. They even failed to send troops to recapture the southern part of the capital, Shandong, Henan, and other areas whose ownership remained uncertain after the Dashun Army retreated westward. This made the Qing court realize the weakness of the Southern Ming Hongguang court, and also made Dorgon see the Hongguang court's strength clearly. Ultimately, they decided to send troops south, replacing the Ming with the Qing, and unifying the country.

In fact, it was the Hongguang court itself that really caused the downfall of the Southern Ming Dynasty in history. You must know that after getting rid of the big burden of the north, with the economy and output of the Southern Ming Dynasty, even if it could not recover the north, it would have no problem maintaining half of the country like the Southern Song Dynasty.

The phrase "Nongzhuo Nongdai" refers to the Hongguang court of the Southern Ming Dynasty.

From the perspective of later generations, Emperor Hongguang Zhu Yousong could engage in large-scale construction, indulge in sensual pleasures, and drink to pleasure, but Chongzhen did not dare to do so. He wanted to make good use of this rare time and do a good job of defending this half of the country before the arrival of the Qing army.

After taking control of Yangzhou, Chongzhen's next task was to continue his efforts to capture Liu Liangzuo and Liu Zeqing, and then use the power of the army to push himself back to the supreme throne.

Three days later, the commander-in-chief Shi Kefa issued an order, summoning the four towns to Yangzhou for discussions.

In Linhuai, in Liu Liangzuo's camp, after hearing that the commander-in-chief Shi Kefa had summoned the four towns to Yangzhou for a meeting, all the generals looked at each other in surprise.

"General, the commander-in-chief suddenly summoned us to discuss matters at this time. Does he have any ulterior motives?" General Zhang Yi was Liu Liangzuo's confidant. He frowned and thought for a while before saying.

"Yes, that's what I'm afraid of," Liu Liangzuo sighed, a look of worry on his face, his eyes filled with doubt. "Earlier, Gao Jie's ambush on Huang Degong failed, and Xing's mother and son asked Shi Kefa to seek justice for her. But who would have thought that Shi Kefa would replace Gao Jie with that Li Chengdong? What a clever trick!"

"And Huang Degong just stood there and watched, letting Gao Jie go so easily, allowing Li Chengdong to reap the benefits?" Chen Shouting, another general, said. A puzzled look crossed his face, as if he was puzzled by Huang Degong's reaction.

"What can we do if we don't watch?" Liu Liangzuo said, "But I think Huang Degong must have gained a lot of benefits in secret! Shi Kefa may not have any other abilities, but he is a master at smoothing things over."

"Should we go this time?" Zhang Yi frowned and asked, "Will Shi Kefa deal with us?"

"How is that possible?" Chen Shouting said with a smile, his face showing confidence, as if he had his own judgment of the situation. "This time, it was Gao Jie who instigated the incident. This way, everyone is happy. Shi Kefa just wants stability... What benefit does he get from dealing with us?"

"Shou Ting is right," Liu Liangzuo said after a long pause. "I command a large army. What can Shi Kefa do to me? But to prevent a disaster like Huang Degong, select a thousand cavalrymen and follow me!"

"Yes!" Chen Shouting accepted the order happily.