Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 122 Fire in the Backyard
"Your Highness, Li Yuchun asked the minister to bring the silver, hoping to give him a receipt."

Zhu Yihai didn't expect Li Yuchun to be so active in repaying the loan, "This Li thief is very good at making money, it seems that he has searched for land a lot."

"Seeing that Boluo is going to be a teacher, he is afraid that His Highness will have side effects at this juncture. His life is in His Highness's hands, so he sent the money ahead of time. He still has a lot of money. Do you want more, Your Highness?" My father Yan is very clear about Li Yuchun's family background.

"Li Thief also gave me a lot, and I brought them all together."

"Gu's soldiers and horses have been expanding rapidly recently, and they are really short of money. Yan Qing is sending charcoal in the snow, and it is a great achievement."

The Northern Expeditionary Army has now expanded to 52 battalions. Although one battalion has only 3 soldiers and [-] husbands, the total is more than [-], and there are many horses and mules. It costs a lot for this man to eat horses and chew, and Zhu Yihai The lone army went deep into the enemy's rear, and wanted to pay heavily to maintain military discipline and enhance combat effectiveness.

Now a battalion head needs almost 3000 taels of silver per month. Even if half salary is paid, it will cost 500 taels a month. For 52 battalion heads, that is more than 7 taels, not counting the military rations and salt in the army. Dishes and horse feed, as well as military uniforms, flags, tents and so on.

It is said that if you are not in charge of the family, you do not know how expensive firewood is, and if you are not in charge of the army, you also do not know that military expenses are huge.

Zhu Yihai also gave the soldiers An Jiayin before, and last time he started to marry the soldiers, and took the bride price and gave it as a dowry. After each battle, the pension for the casualties of the soldiers was even larger.

Now the monthly military expenditure is more than [-] taels of silver.

When he just crossed the sea, there were still few soldiers and a lot of money in his hands, so there was no problem. Now that the money is being spent every day, he has to keep his promise. It must be fair according to the market price.

The benefits of doing this are immediate. Although the Northern Expeditionary Army has expanded rapidly, its morale has always been high. Military discipline has also been maintained well, and it is getting better and better. There are very few incidents of harassment of the people.

Zhu Yihai's Northern Expeditionary Army was in various places in Jiaxing, and was also supported by the gentry and common people. Now everyone is no longer afraid of these soldiers, and they even come to contact them on their own initiative. They get married, and there are poor families who bring their daughters over to pick a son-in-law.

Although Jiangnan is rich these days, there are also many poor people. In the event of floods and droughts, wars and chaos, pawning wives and selling daughters is also a matter of choice. Admiral Zhu's soldier is a wife, not only can she find a way out for her daughter, but she can also get a sum of money for emergency, which is always good.

The Ming Jiangnan admiral Zhu Wu and his Northern Expeditionary Army became more and more famous, but this huge military expenditure has indeed been on the head.

Yu Dafu, who is in charge of the Liangtai, has grown a lot of white hair now. The Liangtai is responsible for the logistics of the food, equipment and logistics of tens of thousands of troops, and the pressure is huge. Although Zhu Yihai keeps recruiting scholars, scribes, etc. to enrich the Liangtai. For business, the lijin bureau was established in Jiaxing again, and the old tax system was replaced by lijin, but it was difficult to quench the thirst for a while.

The Shaoxing line has sent three batches of money and food across the sea to help the army, but it was squeezed out by tightening the belt. After all, there are only a few prefectures in eastern Zhejiang, and now the front line of the Qiantang River has counted from the Eighteenth Route Rebel Army to the present. The ten-way volunteer army, together with the regular army of Wang Zhiren, Fang Guoan, etc., has a total of 10,000+ soldiers and horses.

Zhang Guowei, Yu Ying, etc. are having a headache now, they can't meet the same standard of food and pay as Zhu Yihai's soldiers and horses, they can only barely divide the land and pay.

Soldiers and horses from all walks of life were allocated a piece of land under the jurisdiction of the defense area, and then they ate food on the spot, and the money and food needed were directly collected from that area.

Overall, it's rather confusing.

However, Fang Guoan took away all taxes, money and food from Yanzhou, and did not give them to other volunteers. He led troops to garrison in the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, and allocated the area to other battalions of volunteers. The money and food were taken away, and there was an incident of fighting for land and wages between the regular soldiers and the rebels, and even a lot of conflicts.

Zhang Guowei, Zhu Dadian, Yu Ying and others tried their best to reconcile, but the effect was not great.

The Taizhou line can't provide the money and food for these 10,000+ people at all, so they can only let them figure out their own way, and the so-called land distribution and payment plan, in the end, each depends on its strength. , The volunteer camp with weak strength can only be bullied, and they can't even eat.

Over there, more than a dozen rebels disbanded and went home because they couldn't eat enough.

Fang Guoan has now become the strongest force in Qiantang's defense line. Wang Zhiren, who Zhu Yihai had placed high hopes on, had to mobilize the troops from Ningbo and Taizhou to take precautions because Huang Binqing in Zhoushan's strength had increased recently. Huang Binqing's small-scale battle did not take into account the Qiantang River side at all.

The lijin established by Zhu Yihai was not implemented very smoothly in Shaoxing. Fortunately, the chief assistant Song Zhipu reported to Zhu Yihai, saying that the governor of Huguang, He Tengjiao, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Ding Kuichu, and the governor of Fujian, Zheng Zhilong, have all submitted their petitions to support the establishment of Lu Jianguo in Shaoxing. And sent the local army north to King Qin, and also escorted the first batch of money and food.

King Qin's army and money and food may not be much, but the ministers left behind are very excited, because this represents the court of Lu Jianguo, and now it has basically won the support of the ministers of Ming Dynasty.

And He Tengjiao successfully recruited the [-]th Battalion of the original intruders, which made the situation more clear.

Even under Fang Guoan's persuasion, the left-behind cabinet was considering whether to launch a counterattack against Hangzhou and regain Hangzhou in one fell swoop.

When this idea came to Zhu Yihai, he was very angry. In front of Shen Chenquan and Xu Shiqi, two accompanying scholars, he scolded the left-behind cabinet, and even said that Zhang Guowei, the supervisor, failed to restrain Fang Guoan. Could either be affected?

Zhu Yihai asked Shen Chenquan to draw up an order for him to stay with the cabinet and Zhang Guowei, asking them to transfer Fang Guoan back to Yanzhou to garrison, prohibit him from staying on the Qiantang River defense line in Shaoxing, and prevent him from interfering indiscriminately in the Jiang defense.

At the same time, the cabinet and the two supervisors Zhang Guowei and Zhu Dadian were required to reprimand Fang Guoan and stop collecting grain and salary without authorization. Fang Guoan's department must report the list of soldiers within a time limit. In the future, their food and salary will be in charge of the supervisor Zhu Dadian, and another grain platform will be sent to take charge of it.

This move is to cut off Fang Guoan’s way of collecting grain and taxation by himself, and it also paves the way for the official lijin method in eastern Zhejiang. Fang Guoan is not allowed to collect money and grain by himself, and the grain and salary will be provided by the imperial court, so that the imperial court can gradually control Fang Guoan’s subordinates Soldiers and horses are no longer completely out of control, and at the same time, it can reduce Fang Guoan's actions that disturb and harm the people.

Zhu Yihai's decision was persuaded by many courtiers, saying that Fang Guoan's army is now the strongest army in eastern Zhejiang except Wang Zhiren. Compared with other rebels, his army is the regular army of the imperial court after all, and Fang Guoan is also a general of the imperial court. .

But the more this happened, the more Zhu Yihai felt that it was time for Fang Guoan to take the lead, or if he was allowed to develop, he might kidnap the left-behind cabinet, or even take over the various military powers on the Qiantang River defense line.

This is a very dangerous thing, so knowing that such a change may cause Fang Guoan's dissatisfaction, or even worse things will happen, but Zhu Yihai can't just sit back and watch.

If another Zuo Liangyu was raised, Zhu Yihai went to Sanwu to open up the second battlefield, but his backyard caught fire. Wouldn't he be homeless then?

Wu and Yue were originally dependent on each other, Zhedong was the base camp, and Sanwu was an important battlefield to restrain the Qing army from going south. The two depended on each other and were indispensable.

Because of what Fang Guoan did now, Zhu Yihai finally decided to attack Huang Binqing.

He issued an order to Wang Zhiren to gather Dinghai, Shipu, Haimen, Ningbo and other battalions to launch a general attack on the Zhoushan Islands. He gave Huang Binqing a chance, showed his favor several times, and even gave Feng Earl the title of Admiral of the Navy, but Huang Binqing did not agree He, the supervisor of the country, ignored it, and even sent troops to harass the coast of Ningbo several times.

Zhu Yihai also ran out of patience.

He must solve this hidden danger as soon as possible. Only by solving Huang Binqing can Wang Zhiren, a confidant general, be free to lead his troops to the Qiantang River front line in Shaoxing, take over the important task of the former enemy general, and assist the supervisor Zhang Guowei in defending against the possible southward movement of the Tartars.

After Wang Zhiren passed by, he could still act as a deterrent to the domineering Fang Guoan.

To deal with these domineering warriors, it is not enough to just show kindness and rewards. The richer the rewards, the less these people don't know the power of heaven and earth, and the more difficult it is to control them. As long as they can truly feel that they have the ability to deal with him, he may listen make.

Zhu Yihai also thought about going back to the eastern part of Zhejiang Province, first join Wang Zhiren to destroy Huang Binqing, take back the Zhoushan Islands, build an arsenal and other logistics bases here, and then go to the Qiantang River defense line to tidy up the domineering Fang Guoan.

But after careful consideration, Zhu Yihai still gave up the idea of ​​returning to the teacher.

After all, it is an established fact that the main force of the Qing army in Hangzhou will return to the north. The Qing army is unlikely to go south at this stage. Their main task in the next stage is to eliminate the resistance forces in the Jiangnan area and sweep the Huguang and Jiangxi areas in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Before these two areas are eliminated, they will not easily go south to eastern Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi.

Therefore, Zhu Yihai led the Northern Expeditionary Army to the south and missed a precious opportunity. After the Tartars really wiped out the south of the Yangtze River, there will be no Wudi Rebel Army in eastern Zhejiang to help contain the Qing army, and it will be dangerous.At that time, Zhu Yihai may have to be forced to fight a river defense battle with the Tartars on the Qiantang River.

And history has long proved that this kind of thinking is completely wrong, and the Qiantang River cannot be prevented at all.

We must take advantage of the opportunity and take the initiative to go north to Wu, before the Qing army destroys the resistance forces in Wu, not only to rescue them, but also to develop and strengthen them.

As for the Zheng family from Fujian, He Tengjiao from Huguang, Zhongzhenying, and Ding Kuichu from Guangdong and Guangxi, Zhu Yihai doesn't have much hope now. Zheng Zhilong is a group of pirates who want to take advantage of the chaos and turn Fujian into their own independent kingdom.

Although He Tengjiao is the governor of the Ming Dynasty, he has a very poor evaluation in the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty. He is a very selfish person. Disaster.

As for Ding Kuichu, it is said that he was already planning to proclaim King Gui as emperor, but Zhu Yihai took the lead. Because of the current situation, he did not dare to openly establish another court, but his support is definitely not so Sincerely and half-heartedly, he might get stabbed in the back at any time.

Whether it's Huang Binqing, who is constantly at odds, or Fang Guoan, who is domineering, or Zheng Zhilong, He Tengjiao, Ding Kuichu, etc. who are half-hearted, they all make Zhu Yihai understand a truth. Too much hope, relying on others is not as good as relying on yourself.

In particular, you must have an army that truly belongs to you, so that you may not be betrayed by these people.

(End of this chapter)