I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 634 After the War
The sun sets in the west, and the setting sun is like blood.

Zhu Houxuan was surrounded by people and came to the watchtower. The surrounding Southern Army had been cleared out and there was nothing that could threaten his safety.
Zhu Houxuan looked up at the watchtower and saw a fat man in eunuch clothing hanging outside the watchtower, already dead.
"It's Huang Jin, the eunuch who was the study companion of Prince Xing." An attendant hurriedly whispered in Zhu Houxuan's ear.

Zhu Houxuan nodded, then climbed up the stairs and soon reached the top of the watchtower, where he saw the lifeless Zhu Houxuan.
He slowly walked to the front of Zhu Houcong's body and observed his appearance.
There was a trace of pain in Zhu Houcong's brow, but his overall expression was quite peaceful. Someone must have tidied up his appearance after his death.
Zhu Houxuan looked at Zhu Houcong's familiar appearance, feeling a little dazed. He had met Zhu Houcong twice, once in Qizhou in the eighth year of Zhengde, and the last time was now.
When he first met Zhu Houcong, he was just a child of six or seven years old. At that time, he was quite afraid of Zhu Houcong, but he did not expect that the second meeting would be under such circumstances.
This made Zhu Houcong feel a little sad, but this feeling only lasted for a short time. He had seen many life and death situations over the years, and his heart had become harder. Moreover, all this was Zhu Houcong's own choice.
"You still have some backbone." Zhu Houxuan said softly.

"Take good care of Zhu Houcong's body and bury him with commoner's rites! Bury him in Fengyang." Zhu Houcong said to the attendants accompanying him.

"promise!"

Zhu Houxuan looked at Huang Jin who was hanging himself and said, "This is a loyal servant. Please bury his body properly near Zhu Houxuan."

"promise!"

"There is only one eunuch with a disabled body who is willing to die with Zhu Houcong. What about the others?" Zhu Houcong continued to ask.

"The cavalry captured a civil official named Yan Song nearby. He disguised himself as an ordinary soldier but was identified by the Southern Army soldiers. He is the Grand Secretary of the pseudo-Nanjing Cabinet and one of the most trusted ministers of Prince Xing. Does Your Highness want to see him?" said an attendant.

"No! Let's judge them all together in the end," Zhu Houxuan said lightly.

"We also captured quite a few other ministers from Nanjing. Among them, Duke of Wei Xu Pengju surrendered to our army, and Marquis of Wuding Guo Xun was recognized by deserters from the Southern Army when he was escaping, and was hacked to death."

"Guo Xun," Zhu Houxuan said thoughtfully, "Another old acquaintance has left. I know very well what he has done in the past six months. The Southern Army has deep resentment towards him, and he deserves this fate. Where is my uncle, the Prince of Ning?"

"Prince Ning escaped very quickly. The two cavalry brigades under the Third Cavalry Division are chasing him closely. I believe that good news will come soon."

"Yes," Zhu Houxuan nodded and said, "Send a message to the soldiers who are pursuing. It doesn't matter whether Prince Ning lives or dies. Don't increase the casualties of the soldiers just to capture Prince Ning alive. He is not worth it."

"No!" The attendant took the order and left.

Zhu Houxuan held the railing of the watchtower and looked far to the south, only to see a vast expanse of land.
"The war is over, but the harvest has just begun." Zhu Houxuan said softly.

The results of the Three Kings' Battle spread very quickly, and the southern part of the Ming Dynasty fell into chaos.
Fortunately, after the battle, the South had completely lost its will to resist, and the Union Army was able to advance straight into the country.
Countless families in the south began to hang up the red flags embroidered overnight, and presented a petition to Zhu Houxuan, praising him as the greatest sage in ancient and modern times, and humbly stated that they were only coerced by the traitors before, but in fact they supported Zhu Houxuan and the Beijing government in their hearts, and the republican emperor was the orthodox of the Ming Dynasty.
They wanted to save their families. The princes in the south were also deeply involved in the rebellion and humbly submitted petitions to Zhu Houxuan.
Many families knew that Zhu Houxuan would not let them go, so they used various methods to escape abroad. The sea route was completely controlled by the Northern Navy, so they fled to Myanmar through the southwest. I will not go into details about these.
Even in this situation, the various gentry families in the south are constantly making various small moves.
The gentry were much more informed than the common people. From the moment the Northern Army landed in the South, some gentry felt that the wind was not blowing in the right direction, and they began to prepare for defeat.
What they did in unison was to use various means to buy up the silver yuan notes that had previously become waste paper from the public.
Silver dollar notes in the South were previously worthless paper, but they were no longer worthless after the victory of the Northern Army. Almost all the gentry families realized this, and silver dollar notes were easy to hide and carry. Collecting more of them might be the capital for their comeback in the future.
Compared with the gentry, the common people were not as well-informed and aware. Even if some people realized this, the social order in the south had not collapsed. The gentry still had considerable power in the local area and were able to use various means to purchase from the common people.
Memorials flew to Zhu Houxun's desk like snowflakes, but Zhu Houxun didn't even look at them. He had already made up his mind on how to deal with these feudal forces in the south, and these memorials would not change his decision.
On April 20, the second year of the Republic of China, the Nanjing defenders surrendered to the Northern Army without firing a single shot. The city of Nanjing changed hands again without a single shot of war.
In early May of the second year of the Republic of China, Zhu Houxuan, the regent of the Ming Dynasty, arrived in Nanjing City under the escort of a naval warship, and countless people went to greet him.
Wei Dahe was also among the welcoming crowd. He was very happy that the war was over. He had lost all his property - 40 acres of land - in less than a year. Before the war, he was tempted to buy half of his land with silver yuan coupons. Later, when the silver yuan coupons became waste paper, the Nanjing government imposed various taxes and corvée labor, and also collected gold yuan coupons, which forced him to sell all his land.
Even the silver notes in his hand that had become worthless were exchanged for a stone of rice. He didn't want to exchange them at the time, but his family was really struggling to make ends meet. If he didn't exchange them, someone in his family would starve to death.
Facing the tide of the times, ordinary people still have too few chips in their hands, and they have no ability to keep the chips in their hands.
When Zhu Houxuan arrived in Nanjing, the first thing he did was to go to Xiaoling Mausoleum, where he held a grand sacrificial ceremony and burned sacrificial texts to inform Zhu Yuanzhang of the crimes of treason in this war.
At the same time, the Northern Army of nearly two million troops all went south. Except for the hundreds of thousands of troops with military missions, the rest of the troops were divided into small groups and penetrated deep into the four provinces of Huguang, Jiangxi, Nanzhili and Zhejiang, and controlled all the gentry in these four provinces.
(End of this chapter)