Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 67 The Bizarre Story of Chengchou's Deceitful Deeds (Part 1)

While Wei Zhongxian was taking over Tongzhou City, the eldest son of Zhou Kui, the emperor's father-in-law, got married.

The capital was in complete chaos, with all sorts of strange and unusual things happening.

Leaving aside Wei Zhongxian's forceful takeover of an entire city, the home of Zhou Kui, the emperor's father-in-law, was unexpectedly graced with crystal-clear royal glass windows and a silver palace mirror that was even more effective than a bronze mirror.

These two rare items are truly rare.

The emperor's father-in-law, Zhou Kui, was quite the smooth talker. He touted the royal glass windows and palace silver mirrors as symbols of status and prestige, as if not buying them would be a huge loss of face.

This guy sold out his stock of several thousand pieces of glass and hundreds of mirrors the very next day, and there are still countless people waiting to buy them.

Zhu Jue was incredibly excited when he earned his first pot of gold.

That wasn't the end of it. Just as Zhou Kui, the emperor's father-in-law, sold out his stock of glass and mirrors, the first steelmaking furnace at the steel mill was built right away.

Zhu Jue was so excited that around 9 a.m. that day, after finishing processing the memorials, he led Song Yingsheng, Lu Xiangsheng, Wang Chengen, Fang Zhenghua and others on horseback straight to the steel plant.

At this time, there were no more than 10,000 craftsmen working in the steel plant. There were even fewer craftsmen to be seen outside, because the exterior of the steel furnace had already been built, and many craftsmen were busy inside the furnace.

The structure inside a steelmaking furnace is not very complicated. It mainly consists of three layers to separate the coal, pig iron, and limestone used for smelting impurities.

However, load-bearing capacity is a major problem. There are no special materials available at the moment, and it would be quite difficult to support tens of thousands of kilograms of coal or iron ore using only stone and clay structures.

Zhu Jue came to the blast furnace that was emitting light smoke and couldn't help but ask, "Yuan Jiu, is the load-bearing capacity okay? Don't let it collapse when we put in tens of thousands of pounds of pig iron. Otherwise, all our work will have been for nothing."

Song Yingsheng said confidently, "Your Majesty, please rest assured. The load-bearing walls inside are at least ten feet thick, and we have been burning them with a fierce fire for almost a day and a night. The clay inside has long since hardened into a solid crucible, harder than ordinary stone. It cannot be crushed by tens of thousands of pounds of pig iron."

This blast furnace is truly enormous; its base is more than an acre in diameter, and its top is at least an acre in diameter as well.

However, the opening for putting in iron ingots was only about ten feet in diameter, because iron itself is very heavy. One cubic meter of iron weighs more than ten thousand kilograms, so putting in a few cubic meters of iron ingots would weigh tens of thousands of kilograms.

Therefore, the opening for inserting the iron ingot does not need to be too large; a diameter of about ten feet is sufficient.

From above, the steel furnace looked like a huge platform covering an area of ​​about one acre, except that there were three openings on the platform that resembled deep wells, and rainproof chimney covers were built over the openings. The platform was also surrounded by ramparts, making it look like a huge fortress.

The reason he ordered the construction of a ring of arrow stalks was to make outsiders think that the steel furnace was a huge fortress.

Zhu Jue looked up and examined it carefully, then decisively waved his hand and said, "Then let's add more ingredients and try making one batch first."

Upon hearing this, Song Yingsheng immediately waved his hand, ordering the craftsmen who were already prepared to carry coal, iron ingots, and limestone up to the surface.

The steps leading up are just like the steps leading up a city wall, only several meters wide, and there are railings on both sides, so it's no problem to go up or down simultaneously from either side.

Song Yingsheng gathered over a thousand strong craftsmen, and each craftsman could carry a load up the mountain, so the material delivery speed was quite fast.

However, feeding is a bit slow because although the crucible is hard, it is not resistant to being smashed. If a heavy iron ingot, coal block, or lime block weighing tens of kilograms is thrown in directly, it will definitely smash the crucible that has formed a hard shell inside. Therefore, the feed inlet is designed as a chute so that the iron ingot, coal, and limestone can slide down one piece at a time.

It took over a thousand craftsmen nearly an hour to finally load all the materials in.

Seeing that all the craftsmen had come down, Zhu Jue waved his hand and said, "Light the fire."

Upon hearing this, Song Yingsheng immediately ordered the craftsmen to stuff the large firewood burning around the furnace into the four openings below. Then, he closed the furnace door, and four strong men started to blow air into the furnace using a huge blower.

Soon after, thick smoke began to billow from the top of the steelmaking furnace.

Steelmaking is not the same as ironmaking. It's not as simple as lighting the coal inside and burning it for an hour or two. Steelmaking requires burning for at least two days.

In addition, we need to keep blowing air inside these two days to ensure that there is enough oxygen to fuse and refine the carbon elements in the pig iron.

This manual blower is incredibly tiring. It blows air non-stop for twelve hours a day, and each blower requires at least six strong men to take turns pushing and pulling it.

Upon seeing this, Zhu Jue shook his head slightly and said, "This blower needs to be changed in the future. Once the boiler is built, I will have Chang Geng build some blowers and use steam engines to drive the blades to blow air."

Fan?

What's this new thing? Just as Song Yingsheng was about to ask, a fast rider suddenly came galloping from the direction of the inner city.

A moment later, Fang Zhenghua came quickly with a memorial in his hand, bowed and said, "Your Majesty, this is an urgent report from Shanxi."

How could an urgent report delivered over 800 li (approximately 400 kilometers) have come from the inner city?

The fast riders from the post stations generally don't go into the city, because once they do, they have to avoid pedestrians and can't run fast at all. Besides, that fast rider just now didn't seem to be a post station rider, and I don't know where he came from.

Zhu Jue glanced in the direction of the inner city before taking the memorial and opening it to read.

It turns out there was also a draft document attached by the Cabinet, so it seems this urgent report was sent to the Cabinet first.

The three provincial authorities of Shanxi reported that the bandit leader Wang Jiayin had led tens of thousands of troops to advance on Baode Prefecture, and requested the imperial court to send a large army to suppress him.

The cabinet proposed: to promote Hong Chengchou, the left vice minister of Shaanxi, to the governor of Shanxi, and to mobilize the border troops of Pianguan, Datong and Xuanfu to suppress the rebels.

This seems to imply that since you, as the emperor, are ignoring the rebels, we should find someone capable to handle it, okay?
Zhu Jue frowned when he saw Hong Chengchou's name.

Hong Chengchou was no good person.

This fellow was also a major traitor, and his position in the Qing court was comparable to that of Feng Quan.

Although Feng Quan was not a good person either, at least he didn't kill too many people. Hong Chengchou, on the other hand, led a large army to fight for the Qing Dynasty and conquered most of the country. Countless Ming soldiers and civilians died at his hands.

This fellow was also the deputy chief editor of the History of Ming Dynasty. He completely distorted everything that had happened in the Ming Dynasty, making many things in the Chongzhen era seem quite bizarre. Anything related to him was extremely strange.

For example, the death of Cao Wenzhao, the most valued general of the late Ming Dynasty by Emperor Chongzhen.

This guy altered the history of Ming Dynasty, saying that Cao Wenzhao led a light cavalry charge, was surrounded, and committed suicide after his defeat.

Historically, Cao Wenzhao did not disobey his military orders. He ordered Cao Wenzhao to lead 3,000 men as the vanguard to pursue the more than 200,000 peasant army. He also lied to Cao Wenzhao, saying that he would lead tens of thousands of main forces to follow and suppress them.

As a result, he didn't lead the main force forward at all, and Cao Wenzhao was tricked into being surrounded and died fighting to the death!

There was also the Battle of Songjin. Emperor Chongzhen mobilized eight generals and more than 100,000 elite border troops for him, ordering him to quickly lead the army to relieve the siege of Jinzhou. However, he dragged his feet and called it "steady and cautious"!

At that time, Jinzhou City had been besieged for nearly a year, and the city was already out of food and in dire straits. Yet he still played the cautious and steady game, which was extremely strange!
As a result, Huang Taiji mobilized the Eight Banners army to Jinzhou upon hearing the news, and his more than 100,000 troops collapsed without a fight!

The Battle of Songshan that followed was even more bizarre.

He rallied his defeated troops at Songshan, seemingly intending to launch a counterattack, but was suddenly surrounded by Huang Taiji's large army.

At the time, many generals wanted to fight to the death, and he seemed to agree with that.

As a result, Cao Bianjiao led 800 men in a night raid on the Eight Banners camp, directly attacking Huang Taiji's tent and throwing the Eight Banners army into chaos.

The biography of Wuxun Wang Yangguli records that when Cao Bianjiao, a Ming general, led his troops to raid the imperial camp at night, Wuxun Wang's son, Tazhan, was unable to defend against it and was demoted to a first-class duke. Zhangguli, the captain of the imperial guards, died in battle.

If Hong Chengchou had led his troops to attack, he would most likely have turned the tide of the battle. However, Hong Chengchou simply watched Cao Bianjiao fight a bitter battle all night without leading his troops to attack!
In the end, Cao Bianjiao returned wounded, Songshan fell, and Cao Bianjiao and hundreds of civil and military officials refused to surrender and were all beheaded, except for Hong Chengchou and Zu Dale.

The situation of the Battle of Songjin was actually quite simple. Zu Dashou led 10,000 troops to defend Jinzhou for nearly a year without it falling. Hong Chengchou led 130,000 elite border troops to its rescue, deliberately dragging his feet on the way.

As a result, Hong Chengchou's 130,000 troops were inexplicably wiped out before Jinzhou City even fell!

The Qing army spared Zu Dale's life in order to persuade Zu Dashou to surrender.

As for why the commander-in-chief Hong Chengchou was spared, it's natural not to kill one's own people.

Hong Chengchou even fabricated a story that he refused to surrender even after starving himself, but after surrendering, he led a large army to conquer most of the country for the Qing Dynasty!
Is this because they don't want to lower the price?

Those who wanted to surrender weren't as ruthless as him!

(End of this chapter)