Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 178

Taihu West, Huzhou.

Huzhou is adjacent to Taihu Lake in the north, hilly in the west, and plain in the east. It is also located at the intersection of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui. It is a famous city with a thousand-year history.

There are one prefecture and two counties in the prefectural city, Wucheng County on the left and Gui'an County on the right. Wen Tiren, the first prime minister of Chongzhen, is from Wucheng, Huzhou.

"My lord, Jin Gongyu and Bai Xiangfu are here, and they have also attracted the army of the Supervisor of Lu."

The history of Dian Zhong in the county rushed to report to Zhu Guofan, the magistrate.

Zhu Guofan calmly picked up his teacup and took two sips of the famous local purple bamboo shoot tea, "Kaicheng surrenders!"

"Surrender again?" Dian Shi couldn't help being stunned.

One word after another has already shown that it is not the first time they have surrendered. In fact, Zhu Guofan, a native of Ganzhou, Jiangxi, has been an official to Huzhou Tongzhi, and his previous achievements and official reputation were good.In the past, the Bailiang pro-democracy movement in Huzhou was very laborious and costly, and there were always corrupt officials, eunuchs and middle-ranking officials who took the opportunity to squeeze the people, causing public grievances to boil.

After Zhu Guofan took office, he just concluded that he was honest, bright, diligent and meticulous, all traitors were curbed, and old tiredness was eliminated forever.When he collected grain, he encountered the kind of extremely poor people who couldn't afford the grain, and they would find ways to borrow money to pay for it. Therefore, although he was only a common friend in Huzhou, he was praised by the people.

But such a good official lacks a bit of backbone.

The Qing army went south to attack Huzhou, the city fell, the prefect Wang Shiyu fled, and Chen Shangxun was sentenced to die in the water. The crowd surrendered.

The Qing army appointed pusher Feng Rujing and Tongzhi Zhu Guofan as the magistrate and Tongzhi respectively, and then made a gold attack to welcome the king of Tongcheng to fight against the Qing Dynasty, and gathered some defeated officers and soldiers of the Southern Ming Dynasty such as Huang Guangzhi, the deputy general Shen Guangsheng, etc., and joined forces with the local gentry Fei Hongji and others to counterattack Huzhou.

Huzhou lost, Zhu Guofan proposed to surrender again.

So Xiancheng, Jin Gongyu beheaded the prefect Feng Rujing and the leader Wang Yuanjue, but finally spared Zhu Guofan, who had a good official voice. After Fei Hongji was made the new prefect, he even appointed Zhu Guofan as the co-prefect.

Then Jin Gongyu led the troops back to his hometown to recover Changxing. As a result, the city's gentry Qiu Wenbo and Jiang Lichen surrendered to the Qing in secret, and they cooperated with each other inside and outside, leading the Qing army to break the city.

The prefect Fei Hongji and his brother were defeated and dived to die for the country. The general Huang Guangzhi and the deputy Shen Guangsheng all died in battle. The king of Tongcheng abandoned the city and fled, and then Zhu Guofan surrendered with the Huzhou officials.

The amazing thing is that after the Qing army broke the city, they actually accepted Zhu Guofan's surrender and massacred many officials and people who resisted the Qing Dynasty, but did not move Zhu Guofan and others.

He is still appointed as a co-prefect.

It's only been a few days, and now the Ming army has come back again.

And this time it was not only Jin Gongyu who killed his wife, but also led the army of Lu Jianguo.

But Zhu Guofan didn't panic at all, and directly said to surrender.

"My lord, think twice, we have surrendered several times, if we surrender again, I'm afraid there will be no good end." Dian Shi couldn't help persuading him.

One can be two, can it be repeated?
But Zhu Guofan didn't care at all.

"I was born as a Gongsheng, and I know civil servants together. All I can do is to persuade the farmers, educate the people, and make the people happy. As for the wars and wars, those are the responsibilities of the generals. The generals can't defend the country, can they? Do you want me to wait for civil servants to fight? But I wait for no soldiers and no pay, what do I use to fight? Do I lead these unarmed people to fight?"

"That's not called fighting, that's called death, how innocent are the people?"

"Yes..." the pawn could not refute.

"The common people have fulfilled their responsibilities by paying food and taxes, serving corvees, and doing military service. Do they have to give up their lives? I can't do it. If those generals and soldiers can't defend the soil defending country, then we, the local parents and officials, have to What we do is not how to encourage them to die, but to let them live."

"Can····"

"There is nothing wrong with it. I know that if I do this, I will be reviled by countless people, so let me bear the infamy. It's not bad to live a few more people. The world is like this, so it's fine if they all die, just for the sake of the whole world." In the name of loyalty?"

"Seal up the treasury money and food, organize the account books, and surrender with me."

Zhu Guofan surrendered again, this is the fourth time he has surrendered, he surrendered Qing twice, and then surrendered Ming twice, but the county officials and others all listened to him, when he said surrender, everyone followed him without saying a word Said to tidy up everything, and then Kaesong surrendered.

The gates of the city were opened, and the city was quiet.

Jin Gongyu was wearing armor and riding on a horse, looked at Huzhou City, saw Zhu Guofan standing in front of everyone, and felt the urge to go forward and shoot this dog official.

It's just that he came here this time, he was just a pioneer.

"Shen Dujian, that dog official was originally a Tongzhi in Huzhou. This is the fourth time he has surrendered. He surrendered twice to Qing and the other to Ming. Let the general go and kill this dog official. This capricious villain, There is no credit, so I can’t keep it.”

Shen Wenzhong looked at Huzhou City.

Huzhou can also be regarded as a famous Wuyue city, especially the location here is very important, and the geography is also very special. It is adjacent to Taihu Lake in the north, mountains and hills in the west, and water network plains in the east.

Previously, the Northern Expeditionary Army took advantage of Yan Wogong's favorable conditions to appease Zhejiang, and successfully penetrated into the territory of Huzhou, igniting the flames of restoring resistance to captives in many villages, but they did not penetrate deeply into the cities.

Shen Wenzhong had heard about this Zhu Guofan, and Yan Wogong also said that although this person is not a loyal person, he is considered a good official. This sounds a bit contradictory, but he is not greedy or harmful to the people, and he can calm the people. It's just not loyal enough to Daming, so it's really hard to comment.

At times like these, such people are worth winning over or using.

The Northern Expeditionary Army is now divided into several operations. Shen Wenzhong leads a part to the west of Taihu Lake, and then will operate in some areas such as Huzhou, Changzhou, and even Guangde and Yingtian on the west bank of the lake.Shen Wenzhong is playing forward, and Huzhou is the first stop.

"Jianguo once had a decree. We have only one enemy, and that is the Tartars. Officials like Zhu Guofan are not loyal ministers, but they are not traitors. Since he can protect the people and is willing to open the city to surrender, then accept it."

"Think twice, the supervisor. This kind of person is capricious and untrustworthy."

"Let me ask Zongbing Jin, although Zhu Guofan has repeated many times, did he indiscriminately kill innocent people and harm loyal soldiers and civilians?"

Jin Gongyu thought for a while, "That's not true. He repeated it for the first time. After we regained Huzhou, we killed several other false officials, but didn't kill him, because he really didn't do anything bad."

"Then when he descends to the Qing Dynasty later, can he harm the loyal soldiers and common people?"

"Neither."

"That's fine."

"But he surrendered to the Tartars, gave them food and money, and even helped Lazhuang Ding to dispatch slaves and so on."

"That's just the magistrate's job."

Shen Wenzhong stepped forward and accepted the surrender of Zhu Guofan and others.

Then Dai Zhong, a Huzhou Tuiguan from the original rebel army, was appointed as the prefect of Huzhou in public, and Zhu Guofan was still granted the same prefect.

After the announcement of the appointment, Zhu Guofan was also very surprised.

He thought that if he surrendered again this time, he might inevitably end up being killed in front of the city gate, but he didn't want to refuse the city to resist the Ming army because of this, and he didn't want to implicate the people.

He thought that even if he was killed, only one person would die, but unexpectedly, this young Shen Dujian not only refused to kill him, but still gave him the title of acquaintance.

"Zhu Tongzhi, I think you can take care of the people, so you won't be charged with the crime of surrendering captives. However, this matter can be done once or twice, so you should know for yourself."

Then Shen Wenzhong looked at Wang Shiyu, who was tied up by Zhu Guofan and was kneeling on the ground trembling and begging for mercy.This person is the former magistrate of Huzhou. When the Qing army came to attack, he abandoned the whole city and fled.Later, he ran back to join the Qing army. After Zhu Guofan surrendered to the Qing Dynasty for the second time, he was re-appointed as the prefect of Huzhou.

Then this time Zhu Guofan directly tied him to surrender.

"Captain, the next official is a Jinshi of the Tianqi Dynasty, the former magistrate of Huzhou." He saw that the capricious Zhu Guofan could be retained without being held accountable, and for a while he felt that he still had a chance.

After all, he had only surrendered once, and Zhu Guofan had repeated it four times.

Shen Wenzhong looked at Wang Shiyu and Zhu Guofan, Wang was born as a Jinshi, but Zhu was only born as a Gongsheng, but the performance of the two in this troubled world is completely different.

One had abandoned the city and fled, and later ran back to surrender captives on his own initiative, and even pursued and suppressed the rebels after becoming a pseudo-prefect. The other has been sticking to Huzhou and maintaining the stability of Huzhou.

"Come on, drag this false prefect down and chop it up." Shen Wenzhong waved his hand.

Wang Shiyu screamed in shock, but several Ming soldiers came up, pulled him aside, and chopped off his head with a knife in front of everyone.

"Enter the city!"

Zhu Guofan, who had repeatedly surrendered four times, was not only not killed, but was still taught as a fellow, but the prefect Wang Shiyu, who was born as a Jinshi, surrendered only once, but was beheaded in public, which shocked countless people.

(End of this chapter)