Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 208: Old Zhu goes fishing, rebellion breaks out

At the end of February, in Nanjing City, Zhu Yuanzhang was reading memorials.

Governors and high-ranking officials from all over the south have already surrendered and are arresting people according to his requests.

But what Lao Zhu meant was very simple, that is, it is your business how you catch people, what I want is the result.

This is undoubtedly a test of their abilities.

The tactics of Zuo Guangxian, the governor of Zhejiang, were rather simple and crude. He first summoned the loyal ministers who had died for their country, and then announced his allegiance to Taizu.

After that, they immediately distributed the leaflets obtained from Nanjing and ordered the local government to start arresting people.

In this way, a high-profile campaign can be launched to prevent those people from getting the news and gathering to cause chaos. The people will also know the news, and with Taizu's benevolent rule, it is highly likely that they will not follow them in rebellion.

Secondly, in order to cut the Gordian knot, Zuo Guangxian believed that even officials who died for their country might have secretly informed their relatives and friends. The longer it was delayed, the more trouble would arise, so immediate action must be taken to catch them off guard.

In comparison, the strategy of Jiangxi Governor Kuang Zhao was not very good, or it was more idealistic.

He planned to lure the people he wanted to hunt down to Nanchang City first, and then capture them all in one fell swoop, and then make their crimes and the news of Taizu's coming public, so that he could complete the two tasks given to them by Zhu.

At this moment, Old Zhu was in the Qianqing Palace of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, looking at the solutions submitted by governors from various places, as well as official documents on how they planned to act, or the progress of their actions.

Zhu Yunfeng glanced at the side and said, "Ancestor, why do I feel weird?"

"hehe."

Lao Zhu smiled and asked, "What do you think is strange?"

"Unable to speak."

Zhu Yunfeng scratched his head and said, "I just feel that you should keep quiet first, organize a team of new soldiers, and let the governors of various places have certain military power before taking action?"

Ji He also thought of this problem and said, "Yes, ancestor, if you let the governors of various places do it, what great things can those yamen runners accomplish? Aren't you afraid that the news will leak out and cause unrest?"

"Tell me, is there a possibility that I did this on purpose?"

Old Zhu said indifferently.

Did you do this on purpose?

Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He looked at each other, and there was some confusion in Ji He's eyes.

Zhu Yunfeng suddenly felt a chill on the soles of his feet and his scalp went numb.

No wonder I always felt something was strange these days.

Why is Lao Zhu so confident?

You must know that the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty was very complicated and chaotic.

Although they do have a large list of officials, scholars, landlords and gentry who died for their country or surrendered and defected.

But if you just go up to them and start shouting, how could they be so stupid as to stick their heads out for you to chop off?

It is inevitable to resist.

What's more, those officials who died for their country and did not take up official positions after the fall of the Ming Dynasty are not necessarily all reliable. Even if they dared to die for their country, they might not be able to watch their relatives and friends die.

It would be hard to say what would happen if the information was leaked by then.

So in the past few days, Zhu Yunfeng felt that what Lao Zhu did seemed a little unreliable. Should he be more secretive? Should he recruit more troops before taking action?

But now it seems that Lao Zhu thinks about much more than he does.

I'm afraid he had already considered these things, and he might even have done it on purpose.

"Politics is actually a means to achieve one's own goals. Tell me, what is my goal?"

Lao Zhu asked calmly.

Zhu Yunfeng thought about it, nodded and said, "Grandfather, I understand."

"what?"

Ji He's eyes widened, his small eyes full of confusion, and he asked, "What do you understand?"

"Read more political books, or history books."

"So? Explain?"

"So they did this on purpose, just to expose a flaw to achieve their goal."

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes at him and said, "What our ancestors wanted was to restore the Ming Dynasty. Now the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty is like this, with natural disasters, man-made disasters, and constant land annexation. If we want to restore the country, we have to reshuffle the cards like in the last years of previous dynasties. It is not enough for you to just hunt down those traitorous officials and landlords, because the historical records are definitely limited, and many middle and lower-level surrendered officials are not included in them. You don't know who is loyal and who is treacherous, so it's better to throw a stone to test the water and blow up the fish. Do you understand now?"

"Forehead"

Ji He understood a little bit, and asked tentatively: "So the ancestors wanted to force the gentry in Jiangnan to rebel, so that they could kill them all, confiscate their land, and reshuffle the cards?"

"Yes."

Zhu Yunfeng nodded.

"Ah."

Old Zhu knocked on the table gently and said, "Remember Yunfeng said that the cake is only this small. If corrupt officials, landlords and gentry take one more bite, the people will have one less bite. If we want to reshuffle the cards, we have to kill more people, and kill all the millions of soldiers in Jiangnan. At the same time, we can also distinguish the ability and attitude of those officials who died for their country. If they leaked secrets for their relatives and friends, even if they died for their country later, what do I want them to do? Just send them to reunite with their relatives and friends."

"So that's it."

Ji He suddenly understood. If that was the case, then Old Zhu was making a big move.

"But to do this, we must have strong military support."

Old Zhu continued, "Back then, I relied on the hundreds of thousands of soldiers under my command. What I rely on now is naturally the thousands of AKs and hundreds of rapid-fire cannons and mortars around me. I have calculated that the supplies shipped from Changsha this time include millions of bullets, more than 10,000 AKs, and more than 20 tons of shells, which are enough to clean up the entire Jiangnan region. That's why I dare to do it so confidently and boldly. You don't have to worry. Even if they are fearless and brave, they can't stop bullets."

Zhu Yunfeng and Ji He looked at each other and shrugged. This was indeed the truth.

In ancient times, wars were fought with cold weapons. Although firearms were already available in the late Ming Dynasty, both the matchlock rifle and the red cannon could not compare with Zhu Yuanzhang's AK and rapid-fire cannon.

Young Zhu Di was able to defeat Li Zicheng's army of hundreds of thousands with only 800 people.

At present, there are a total of 5,800 soldiers brought by Zhu Di to the end of the Ming Dynasty, of which 800 are Zhu Di's personal guards, and the other 5,000 are Zhu Di's Jinyiwei imperial guards.

Xu Da, Tang He, and Feng Sheng were in Hunan, Sichuan, and Hubei respectively. Xu Da had 1,000 men in Changsha, while Tang He and Feng Sheng each left 500 men.

Later, the young Zhu Di brought another 700 people, plus his own 800 guards, a total of 1,500 people were chasing Li Zicheng. So now the old Zhu had only 2,300 people in total.

But after Ma Shiying arrived in Nanjing to meet the emperor, the total number of troops under his three towns was about 40,000, and now they have all been transferred to Fu Youde by Zhu. Therefore, Zhu's current military strength is actually more than 2,000 modern ordnance troops and 40,000 cold weapon troops.

Not to mention the 40,000 cold weapon troops, just the 2,000 modern armament troops, with so many automatic rifles, accelerated-fire guns and mortars, are enough to plow the land three feet deep in the south of the Yangtze River and cause rivers of blood.

Therefore, Lao Zhu did not feel any psychological pressure when fishing. He even thought in his heart that he hoped the turmoil would be as big as possible so that he could kill more people.

In this way, many problems can be completely solved.

The means were indeed a bit rough.

But many times, this crude method is simple and efficient.

However, after seeing Old Zhu's appearance, Zhu Yunfeng finally had an answer to his strange psychological problems over the past few days.

No wonder I felt something was wrong and thought that Lao Zhu wasn't doing things very rigorously. It turned out that all this was Lao Zhu's routine.

If you think about it, there are three benefits to doing this.

The first is to expand the scope of killing in order to kill more officials and landlords, release more land, and ease the increasingly acute social contradictions.

Second, the officials selected by Zhu Yuanzhang were mainly loyal, which was certainly very important, but he could not stay in the Ming Dynasty all year round, so he naturally had to find capable officials. This incident was a test.

Thirdly, the selected officials are a mixed bunch. Although these people died for their country or did not serve the Qing Dynasty, it does not mean that they have no selfish motives. This can also help to catch the traitors.

But even so, Zhu Yunfeng still felt a chill in his heart.

Because it's obviously a huge risk for the officials who go and deal with it.

If the officials and landlords they want to kill rebel, they will not have enough troops and there is a high possibility that they will die in the rebellion.

Basically, Lao Zhu is using their lives to expand the killing, test their abilities and catch the traitor.

My own ancestor.

The scheming is really deep.

But this may be the true face of Lao Zhu.

Having been with him for so many years, I thought he was just an old man in normal times and almost forgot that he was the Hongwu Emperor who killed people without blinking an eye in history.

A few days later, it was the end of February and the beginning of March in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen.

At this time, Emperor Chongzhen in Beijing did not know that Nanjing had been occupied by Zhu Yuanzhang. Because of the long journey and Li Zicheng's rebellion in Xuhuai, the news was cut off, so he did not know.

However, the Jiangnan region quickly fell into a huge turmoil because of Zhu's arrival.

A large number of loyal officials who died for their country in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places were called to Nanjing by Han Zanzhou, Shi Kefa and others to meet Zhuge Liang and were entrusted with important tasks by him.

With so many high-ranking officials loyal to him, they naturally had to obey Zhu's instructions. First, they had to arrest and kill traitorous officials and landlords; second, they had to spread the news that Zhu was coming to the end of the Ming Dynasty and reduce taxes to stabilize the people's hearts.

However, these senior officials obviously did not realize that they had been plotted against by Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang neither sent them troops nor gave them any advice. They had to rely on themselves to solve the problem.

To some extent, this really tests the ability of officials.

Zuo Guangxian was a man of great ability and was vigorous and resolute in his work. When he was the magistrate of Jianning County, he colluded with local tyrants and bandits on the surface, but in fact he made secret arrangements and eliminated more than 200 bandits overnight. This shows his ability.

However, the situation in Zhejiang was too complicated, so he used a two-pronged approach and indeed prevented a large number of corrupt officials from colluding with each other. He also quickly captured and killed many of the corrupt officials on the list.

However, due to the shortage of manpower and the quick reaction of some corrupt officials and landlords, they quickly called on the colluded pirates to go ashore and cause chaos, then forged weapons, declared that Zuo Guangxian was plotting treason and started a rebellion.

However, Zuo Guangxian responded very well, thanks to his two-pronged approach of reducing taxes and announcing the birth of Taizu, which won the hearts of the people in Zhejiang Province and few people followed the rebellious officials and landlords to rebel, and some even tipped off the government.

Under these circumstances, the scale of the Zhejiang rebellion was small. Although there were many outbreaks, the number of people involved was from one to two thousand to a few hundred. Even if we include the big merchants and landlords who colluded with pirates in the southeast coastal areas, the total number was no more than tens of thousands.

Zuo Guangxian immediately asked Nanjing for help while defeating the rebellions one by one, recruiting volunteers, and quickly suppressing those smaller ones. As for the larger rebellions, there was no solution for the time being.

In contrast, Jiangxi has run into a big trouble.

Chen Juqing quickly contacted a large number of people and learned that they were also invited to Nanchang. He then showed them Cao Gu's letter.

In an instant, those traitorous officials who should be arrested and killed were horrified.

After a brief connection, they immediately took action, each secretly preparing their own troops and planning to capture Nanchang City when the appointment came.

However, when there are too many people, things are not done carefully, and the news was discovered by Kuang Zhao. He immediately called Wu Linrui, the right governor of Jiangxi, and Qiu Shangyi, the general of southern Jiangxi, and asked them to lead troops to suppress the rebellion.

Seeing that Nanchang had dispatched troops, Chen Juqing and his men no longer concealed their intentions.

The clan concept is very strong in Jiangxi, and people believe that if one prospers, all prosper, and if one suffers, all suffer. Most of those who colluded with Chen Juqing were local wealthy families in Jiangxi.

For example, Wang Shaozu was one of the forty grandsons of the eunuch party. He had countless acres of land in his hometown of Anren. After the Jiannu came, he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and was listed as a target for hunting and killing. More than a thousand people were recruited from the clan.

In fact, most of the people who joined Chen Juqing in the rebellion were former eunuchs.

It’s not that all eunuchs were traitors to the country. It’s simply that there were too many eunuchs in the late Ming Dynasty, so many that the number of members could be described as thousands.

After Chongzhen came to power, he killed more than 200 members of the eunuch party.

However, there were still a large number of eunuch party members alive. After Wei Zhongxian's downfall, many of them scattered. Some were dismissed from office, resigned and returned home, some were exiled, and some continued to serve as officials.

Therefore, the eunuch party’s power among the people was actually very large. In addition, their moral standards were low and many of them surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, so they naturally became the main targets of suppression.

This time, Chen Juqing contacted more than 20 officials from Ma Guangyan's party in Jiangxi.

Together with the rest of the officials who were not eunuchs but had surrendered, there were about thirty people, including many large landlords and businessmen who supported them. They each recruited people and gathered in Jinxian County, Nanchang Prefecture, gathering tens of thousands of people, ready to join forces to attack Nanchang City.

The general who led their troops was Liu Yipeng, the lieutenant general of Ganzhou. Historically, when Jin Shengheng surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and attacked Jiangxi, he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and became Jin Shengheng's deputy general.

Because he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he was listed as one of the people to be hunted down. He was persuaded by Chen Juqing, Wang Shaozu and others to lead thousands of his troops to attack, claiming that there was a "fake emperor" in Nanjing who called himself Taizu, and they wanted to wipe out the fake emperor.

This reflects the correctness of Zuo Guangxian's strategy.

Zuo Guangxian not only made the news about Zhu Yuanzhang public, but also reduced taxes, winning the hearts of the people, so that the momentum of the rebellion in Zhejiang was much smaller.

In Jiangxi, Kuang Zhao wanted to act in secret, but the secret was leaked, and the news about Zhu Yuanzhang was not announced immediately, which led to many people being deceived. Chen Juqing and others offered a large amount of money and food, which made it easier to recruit people.

For a time, Jiangxi was in turmoil and the rebels quickly reached the outskirts of Nanchang.

(End of this chapter)