Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 131 Are you following the routine?

According to the plan set by Zhu Cilang, the main area of ​​this operation should be the Suzhou and Songjiang areas.

After all, Ke Duoduo is a living person who can breathe. Once he learns about the situation there, he will definitely react violently.

Therefore, it is necessary to make some preparations in advance.

In his opinion, there are only three possible reactions: support, retreat, and attack.

This retreat is probably impossible.

Unless forced to do so, no one would give up the big piece of fat meat, Susong, so easily.

This aid means sending more troops to Susong.

If the number of Qing troops in each city could be sufficient to hold out for three or two days when attacked, then the Ming army would either return empty-handed or be surrounded.

However, there are so many counties in Suzhou and Songjiang that even if 5,000 soldiers were stationed in each city, it would still require tens of thousands of troops. With the current strength of the Qing army, it simply cannot muster so many troops unless it gives up the siege of Yingtian or Hangzhou.

Therefore, this aid is probably unlikely.

All that remains is to attack.

As long as the Ming army's strongholds in Suzhou and Songjiang can be eliminated, the Qing army will naturally be able to rest assured.

It can even be said that after gaining a rear area that is not too chaotic, the Qing army will be able to regain the initiative strategically. Unless there are any changes, the ownership of the Jiangnan area will no longer be in suspense.

As for where the Qing army will choose to attack.
According to the current situation, if the soldiers come from Suzhou, it is very likely that they are from Songjiang where Wu Zhikui is located. If the soldiers come from Hangzhou, it is naturally Jinshanwei where Hou Chengzu is stationed.

Of course, it is possible that troops will be sent from both sides at the same time.

Therefore, Zhu Cilang needed to collude with various forces in Hangzhou City so that he could respond in time when the Tartars outside Hangzhou City took any action.

After another round of polite greetings and seat assignments, Zhu Cilang finally met the officials in Hangzhou after appeasing Empress Dowager Zou and several vassal kings.

According to the original history, most of the officials who came to meet Zhu Cilang this time died for their country in the next few years. However, he did not take it lightly because of this. Instead, he was much more vigilant than before.

Why?

Don’t be fooled by the fact that each of these great men died for their country in a more tragic and heroic manner than the other. Even Ma Shiying, who had tried repeatedly to make peace with the Qing Dynasty, ran to the Taihu Lake area after being ostracized and continued to fight against the Qing Dynasty together with Wu Yi until he was defeated and captured and executed a hero.

But before that, it was still the same group of adults who did not show any mercy when they tried to trip up "their own people".

This made Zhu Cilang wonder whether in the minds of these adults, resisting the Qing Dynasty or party struggle was more important.

This was not his groundless speculation. The intensity of party struggles in the late Ming Dynasty was unprecedented, not to mention the Chongzhen and Hongguang periods. There was a shadow of party struggles behind everything.

Even when the Ming Dynasty was completely destroyed and the Qing Dynasty unified the world, the remnants of the Donglin Party and the Eunuch Party continued to fight fiercely under the banner of the Qing Dynasty.

In such a situation, it would not be considered as Zhu Cilang being too suspicious if he was a little more careful.

He only thought about the fight, but he didn't think about how the fight would unfold.

This way.
"Your Highness, I think that we should defend Hangzhou carefully at this time and not engage in a reckless battle."

After he gave a general account of his strategy, Huang Daozhou was the first to raise objections.

In his impression, Huang Daozhou was a war advocate who was as determined as ever.

After the remnants of the Ming Dynasty retreated to Fujian, he even resolutely led more than a thousand new soldiers out of Fujian to support the Jiangnan rebel army because of the Zheng family's passivity.

So when Huang Daozhou raised his objection, Zhu Cilang was so shocked that he was speechless for a long time.

Too reckless.

This was Zhu Cilang’s first reaction after he came to his senses.

Whenever he discussed matters with his ministers, he would start with "What do you think?" and only reveal his own inclination after everyone had expressed their opinions.

But at this time in Hangzhou City, Ma Shiying's party, who advocated peace, was keeping a low profile, while in his impression, the rest could be called "war advocates."

Therefore, when making preparations, he focused his main energy on how to get the ministers with complicated relationships to work together, forgetting the most important rule of being a monarch, and ultimately losing his advantage as a judge.

"Your Highness, most of the Qing troops are from the north. If we wait another two months until the temperature in the south of the Yangtze River gradually increases, the Qing troops will surely withdraw the northerners. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to implement this plan then?"

How could I forget this?

When Huang Daozhou finished speaking, Zhu Cilang was shocked again.

In later generations, both the north and the south had strategies for controlling temperature, and since it was only June, this body from Beijing did not react much.

Therefore, when he considered the "weather", he focused on rain and whether it was sunny or cloudy, but did not think about the temperature, which is an extremely critical factor.

You have to know that in this era, people from the south might not freeze to death if they went north, but people from the north could really die of heat if they went south.

The Qing Dynasty only had so many combat-capable soldiers. How could Dorgon allow every one of these extremely precious Eight Banner soldiers to die of heatstroke in the south of the Yangtze River?
Thinking in this way, even if the war in Jiangnan is really tense, Duoduo may just retreat regardless.

Then
Is the plan going to change?
At this time, Zhu Cilang's expression kept changing due to his inner calculations. As the focus of the entire audience, his reactions naturally caught the attention of all the ministers present.

"Your Highness, I think Mr. Shi Zhai's words are unreliable. We should fight quickly."

Ok?
Zhu Cilang's thoughts were interrupted by this decisive sentence. When he looked carefully, he saw Zhu Dadian looking at him with a serious expression.

His mind turned slightly, and the homework he had done in advance came to his mind, and then he began to look forward to what he was going to say.

This old man Zhu served in the government for more than 30 years. During this period, he was dismissed many times for various crimes. But what is amazing is that he was able to be reinstated every time because of the war and promoted because of his military achievements.

If you carefully count the battles he has fought, you will find that this old man defeated the Red Hairs in Fujian, annihilated the rebels in Qingzhou, eliminated the rioters in Zhejiang, and drove out the bandits in Fengyang.

If he had not been defeated by the Tartars in Jinhua because the situation was hopeless, he could have been said to be invincible.

Zhu Cilang naturally had to pay enough attention to the opinions of such people.

"Sir, please speak."

"Your Highness, thanks to your efforts to turn the tide, our Ming Dynasty has been able to stabilize its position. If we follow Mr. Shizhai's advice, we can keep Jiangnan safe for a while, but..."

Zhu Dadian drew out a long tone after "yes", and after glancing at Huang Daozhou, whose face was as gloomy as water, he continued, "When the Tartars come again after the cool autumn, will we retreat back to Yingtian Hangzhou?"

"you!"

I don't know what Huang Daozhou was thinking of. He just uttered the word "you" loudly and swallowed the rest of the words. Then he calmed down his anger a little and said in a deep voice.

"If the Tartars dare to come again, we will have the newly trained army to resist them."

"I have never heard of a strong army that was built solely through training." "When the Tartars retreat, they will definitely leave rebels to defend Jiangnan. By then, the new army will be able to use them as a whetstone."

He seemed to be extremely disdainful of Huang Daozhou's words. Without even a word of response, he directly said to Zhu Cilang: "Your Highness, the Tartars are now scattered all over Jiangnan because of your plan. As long as we act properly, we will be able to defeat them one by one with the advantage of the navy. However, if we wait for them to gather again, it will be hard to predict the outcome."

"Traitor! Previously, you and Ma Shiying tried to make peace with the Tartars. Now you are trying to deceive His Highness with these words again?!"

"You all keep calling me traitors and slanderers, but you don't know what bandits and thieves you, a loyal minister, have destroyed for the court!"

What is supposed to come will come.

Looking at two old men in their sixties and seventies arguing with each other in front of him, Zhu Cilang felt angry but helpless.

This is where the harm of party strife lies.

They were originally discussing the plan, but in a moment it turned into personal attacks.

If you think more deeply about it, after such an incident, no matter which side's opinion is adopted, the other side will definitely ruin the matter at all costs.

Afterwards, there were traitors and slanderers, and the losing party was crushed to the dust, while the winning party drew their swords and looked around.

In this situation, even if Taizu were to be resurrected, he would not be able to defy fate.

We still have to find a way to get rid of these old people.

As soon as the thought came to his mind, Zhu Cilang felt even more helpless.

Do these people think they can just ignore it?

The original Yingtian is completely different from the current Hangzhou.

At that time, there were only a few ministers in Yingtian City except for the nobles who had no soldiers and no power. Moreover, the inside and the outside were isolated at that time. After he gained military power by relying on coolies and yamen runners, he was able to gain an almost overwhelming advantage over others.

Under such circumstances, didn't he still have to go through a lot of trouble to get rid of Liang Yungou?
But now, apart from the title of Prince Regent, he only has 2,800 people. Who among the people appointed in the hall does not have considerable power? How can he act like Yingtian?

After all, it's because of lack of strength.

Zhu Cilang suppressed his irritability and said calmly, "It's only the anniversary of our father's death for the country."

Although the quarrel between the two old ministers attracted a lot of attention from other ministers, none of them stopped paying attention to him, so when this voice was spoken, the hall immediately became quiet.

"It has only been a month since Emperor Hongguang was captured."

The so-called party struggle may seem at first glance to be a struggle over right and wrong, but hidden behind it is a struggle over power. But if you look deeper, it is actually a struggle over interests.

For example, when it came to the question of whether to lift the maritime ban, southern officials were firmly opposed, while northern officials were staunch supporters of lifting the maritime ban.

In the general impression of people, the areas that suffered the most from the maritime ban were the coastal areas. First, the people were not allowed to make a living by fishing. Second, the ports were closed and foreigners were not allowed to land for trade, which suppressed the development of the local economy.

Under such circumstances, it stands to reason that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, after the Japanese pirates were almost pacified, the southern officials in the court should have advocated lifting the maritime ban.

But the irony is that the main opponents of Longqing's opening of the sea were officials from coastal areas, while the officials who strongly advocated opening the sea were officials from inland areas.

Why would coastal officials oppose opening the sea?

From the opening of the port during the Longqing reign to the fall of Beijing, the total amount of silver that flowed into the Ming Dynasty from overseas was approximately 3 million taels, equivalent to one-third of the total silver produced in the world at that time.

Under the maritime ban policy, the coastal clans could smuggle goods to Japan, Luzon and other places at will and seize huge wealth. Officials from the coastal clans would naturally become staunch supporters of the maritime ban policy.

As a result, the struggle between coastal officials and inland officials naturally took on a sense of never-ending struggle and passed down from generation to generation, and this struggle would naturally spread to every conceivable corner.

As to whether the later party struggles during the Tianqi and Chongzhen periods were a continuation of this struggle, Zhu Cilang was not sure, but he knew that no matter what the origin was, after half a century, the current party struggles had developed into unreasonable and deadly fights purely for the sake of opposition.

Therefore, he did not expect that he could bridge the differences with just a few words and make these people work together to fight against the Tartars.

But their current behavior was really too much. They turned into personal attacks before they could even say a few words about the serious matter, as if God was blind if the other party was not struck to death by lightning on the spot.

In this situation, if Zhu Cilang wants to temporarily suppress this struggle, in addition to using other means, it is also necessary to completely shatter his sense of moral superiority.

So the question is, in this era, is there anything more lethal than causing the death of one's king or father or being captured?

"Most of you have been officials since the Wanli period. Haven't you ever thought that the responsibility for the successive national disasters lies entirely with the emperor and Hongguang?"

"Chen Wan is dead!"

"Chen Wan is dead!"

"Chen Wan is dead!"

"Chen Wan is dead!"

After an indiscriminate attack, all the ministers in the hall knelt down immediately.

Under normal circumstances, Zhu Cilang would have rushed forward to support him, but at this moment he seemed unaware of this and stared blankly for a long while before speaking again.

"All the ministers said that Yingtian was able to be defended only because of my persistence and the dedication of my soldiers. But if you ignore the overall situation and only fight to death those who disagree with you, then even if I have a million strong army, how can I resist the Tartars?"

"Death penalty!"

"Death penalty!"

Huang Daozhou and Zhu Datian apologized again, but Zhu Cilang still ignored them and continued talking to himself.

"Many capable officials died because of factional strife. Even Mr. Huang and Mr. Zhu suffered greatly from it. Haven't you suffered enough from factional strife?"

Huang Daozhou nearly lost his life because of his seriousness. Later, he proposed the concept of "the party of gentlemen" and "the party of villains" on the basis of insisting that "a gentleman does not form a party".

Zhu Datian was even falsely accused of "allowing his son to join forces with the enemy" because of factional disputes. Later, because of factional disputes, he joined forces with Ruan Dacheng, whom he hated very much.

In Zhu Cilang's view, as victims, the two should have hated party struggles, but when the opportunity to fight was presented to them, they were still able to put aside the facts and simply deal a fatal blow to their opponents in terms of morality and past.

This made Zhu Cilang want to cry out: Is it the distortion of human nature or the decline of morality?
Having said that, how come the ministers still don’t understand what Your Highness means?

But how could something that has been going on for so many years change because of his few words?
Zhu Cilang was naturally clear about this. He also knew that as a manifestation of the total outbreak of social contradictions in the last years of the dynasty, if the interests could not be expanded, then the party struggles would inevitably continue, and even intensify.

But a penny can make a hero fail, so how can you make more profits just by saying it?

In the current situation, he can only suppress it temporarily and find other ways when the situation improves.

"From now on, we can only discuss the matter at hand. If you continue to talk about irrelevant things, don't blame me for being ruthless. Let's disperse."

(End of this chapter)