Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1658 Cutting Yuan (Twelve) Before the Emperor
For a regime, the biggest troubles are nothing more than two types, one is the invasion of foreign enemies, and the other is internal corrosion.Gao Pragmatic's hard work over the past twenty years has resulted in a significant increase in Ming's economic and military strength compared to the original historical level, and the worry about foreign invasion has dropped significantly.

However, due to the strict restrictions of the ancestral system on the internal structure of the Ming Dynasty, and the fact that Gao Yushi's age restricted him from entering the top echelons of the imperial court in a legitimate sense, his reform of the political system obviously lagged far behind his economic and military reforms. reform.

This means that the internal corruption problem of the Ming court is almost the same so far. Party struggle is just the most obvious problem. Under the party dispute, there are some deeper troubles, that is, the infinite expansion of personal interests can even affect the entire party. .

Just as the Gao Dang, Xu Guo, and Shen Li alliance led by Gao Yushi formed within the Practical School, the internal problems of the Mind School also gradually surfaced with the Cao Army riot that Shu Yinglong secretly promoted.

In essence, the internal structure of the School of Mind itself is looser than that of the School of Reality, and they don't even pay as much attention to many specific affairs as the School of Reality.

What they pay attention to is a kind of theory—that is, the promotion and dissemination of Xinxue, hoping that the imperial court will operate according to the thinking of Xinxue through the unification of thoughts at the top of the court.

From this point of view, the school of mind, as a school of "practical morality", its fundamental purpose is to achieve the "government of gentlemen", that is, everyone in the court is a gentleman, and to promote society runs.

This kind of idea may be very beautiful, but from the perspective of high pragmatism, it is like trying to achieve communism in the feudal era with extremely low social productivity. The idea looks very beautiful, but it is actually impossible to achieve.

The relationship of production must conform to the level of productivity. This is what Gao Yushi heard when he was in elementary school. He basically formed a solid thinking in middle school and clarified the principles in college. There is no need to have any doubts about whether this theory is correct or not.

Therefore, high pragmatism does not engage in mental learning, but honestly promotes practical learning, and diligently promotes social productivity.

The Heart School obviously does not recognize these things, and they still compete with the Real School according to their own interests.However, in the face of all kinds of high-level and practical political effects, the days of the Xin School in the court can be regarded as Wang Xiaoer's new year, and every year is not as good as one year.

Seeing that Gao Wu is going to form a strong impact of joining the cabinet after the victory of the war against Yuan, the political balance between the two schools of practice and mind is very likely to be broken. He began to break away from the control of the two big bosses, Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue, and began to put his own interests above the interests of the party.

Just like Shu Yinglong's "Operation Yellow Bird" this time, he ostensibly supported Wang Xijue's plan to cause riots in the Cao army, but deliberately "excessive force" turned the riots in the Cao army into riots.

Wang Xijue hopes to control the scale and create a riot of more than a thousand people, arouse the vigilance of the court, examine the excessive investment in cutting yuan, and then use formal means of party struggle to force the court to reduce the resources in the hands of high pragmatists, such as military and financial resources.Its ultimate purpose is to make it impossible for Gao Yushi to carry out a thorough sweep of Remnant Yuan, bring the situation back to "regularity", and continue the previous political confrontation.As for other matters, we have to take one step at a time and wait until later.

If everything went according to Wang Xijue's idea, the Ming court certainly wasted a lot of energy, money and time, but failed to complete the planned strategy, but from the perspective of the School of Mind, it at least stabilized the political balance in the court, which was a good deal for them. Risks are also controllable.

As for the bankruptcy of the imperial court's grand strategy, although it is a pity, there is no need to pay too much attention to it-it doesn't matter if Gao Yushi didn't make it this time, we will naturally solve it when we have a chance in the future!
However, just as the Practical School now has the "radicals" headed by Gao Pragmatism and the "Conservatives" headed by Xu Guo and Shen Li, the Heart School, which had a relatively loose organizational system, has also formed under the political pressure brought by Gao Pragmatism. Similar factions.

Shen Shixing, who is well-rounded and tolerant when things happen, is of course a typical "conservative", while Wang Xijue, who is relatively more ruthless and decisive, is regarded as a "radical" by the officials below.However, for some people below, Wang Xijue's "radicality" is not enough, and someone needs to add fire to him.

Shu Yinglong's move is of course adding fire to Wang Xijue.More than that, Shu Yinglong himself has to get enough benefits from it—Your Wang Ge Lao can be the initiator of this operation, but I, Shu Yinglong, must be the direct person in charge, and take greater responsibilities in it, for the future. Lay a solid political foundation.

Therefore, Shu Yinglong acted quietly to aggravate and expand the situation, turning the riots of more than a thousand Cao troops into tens of thousands of Cao troops, and turning the dangerous and controllable Zhenjiang and Yangzhou Cao army riots into Nanjing Cao army riots.

Under the "two-capital system", Nanjing was attacked by tens of thousands of rioting Cao troops, and the political risk in this would be ten times that of Wang Xijue's plan.This forced the imperial court to act immediately, and under the circumstances that Gao Yushi could not fly to Nanjing immediately, Shu Yinglong, the governor of water transport, was given the task of quelling the riot.

This is internal corruption, that is, personal interests override party interests, and even override national interests.

And this also means that under the strong pressure of the Real School, the School of Mind also experienced a split in its internal thinking and formed new changes.At the same time, Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue, as mature and prudent old-school politicians, had to tolerate this split, hoping to bridge the internal discord, and strive to stabilize the current situation first, and then liquidate or purge in the future.

However, Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue may have underestimated Zhu Yijun's courage and courage at this moment.After receiving the news that Nanjing was attacked by the rioting Cao army, Emperor Wanli's first reaction was not panic, but pure anger.

All the elders of the cabinet and Minister of the Ministry of War Zhou Yong were immediately summoned to the Wenhua Palace to face the saint. Zhu Yijun simply asked about the cause of the riot and whether Nanjing was currently occupied by the rioting Cao army, and then directly asked Wu Dui, Liang Menglong and Zhou Yongsan How to fight the counter-insurgency war.

These three have either been in charge of the Ministry of War or are currently in charge of the Ministry of War. Although the information they have received so far is not very detailed, at least it can be made clear that the city of Nanjing is still in the hands of the imperial court.

Wu Dui was the elder who was in charge of the Ministry of War in the past. After Liang Menglong entered the cabinet, he could still intervene in the affairs of the Ministry of War in name, but in fact he mainly spoke for the highly pragmatic household department; Liang Menglong was directly in charge of the affairs of the Ministry of War, but mostly At the strategic level, the tactical level mainly has to be done by Da Sima himself.

Therefore, Zhou Yong had to stand up and prepare to answer the emperor's question.However, this situation was not what Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue wanted to see. It was just that Wang Xijue, as a group assistant, had nothing to do with the emperor's command, so it was not convenient to interrupt directly, so Shen Yuanfu had to stand up.

Shen Shixing, as the chief assistant, of course has the right to speak about everything, so before Zhou Yong could answer "how to fight", he said: "Your Majesty, I think it is not appropriate to discuss how to pacify by force at this moment, or even rashly This incident is defined as a riot."

These words conflict with Zhu Yijun's point of view, but the traditional power of Ming Dynasty is strong enough, even the emperor can't help but give the dignified chief assistant a chance to speak, so he can only be patient, nod his head respectfully and say: "How tall is Mr. Shen?" About teaching me?"

Shen Shixing looked solemn, saluted and said: "Don't dare, I think that the accident of the Cao army is in the final analysis due to the harassment of the Japanese pirates, who burned and burned a large number of tank ships, causing the Cao army to think that they have to bear [-]% of the loss.

Therefore, there are two most critical points at the moment: one is why the Japanese invaders were able to drive straight into Nanjing, and what happened to Susong Coastal Defense?The second is that although Cao Jun’s losses are huge this time, because the incident happened suddenly, no one in the world can predict it. If the court can reduce or exempt Cao Jun’s compensation for losses at its own discretion, this commotion may be eliminated invisible, and there is no need to use force to suppress it. .

Your Majesty, the Cao army is not a wolf-hearted man who is actively plotting to rebel. Easy suppression will only cause pain to relatives and happiness to enemies. Moreover, there have been no wars in Nanjing and its surrounding areas for a long time, and the guards are not prepared for war. A rash war may not be a good opportunity, but will only make the situation worse. Intensified, the harm is very serious, I ask the emperor to think twice. "

Zhu Yijun was silent for a while, and asked: "Then, where did this group of Japanese pirates come from, and how did they escape the surveillance of the coastal defense and enter the Yangtze River, and even killed them outside Nanjing?"

This is also a matter of the Ministry of War, Zhou Yong still has to come out to answer.When Gao Wu was in Beijing, the big Sima seldom had the opportunity to perform, but now it is rare to have such an opportunity, but it is all bad things, and it is unlucky enough.

Zhou Yong subconsciously cleared his throat, and saluted, "Return to the emperor, Tang Wenfang, the Liujiahe guerrilla stationed in Chongming County, has already reported about the Japanese pirates entering the Yangtze River.

According to what he said, at that time seven Japanese pirate ships entered the Yangtze River Estuary from the south of the island. A ship was sent to notify Benwei (Zhenhaiwei, stationed in Taicang Prefecture, Suzhou Prefecture), and the Susong Anti-smuggling Fleet of the Tax Police Corps of the Customs Department immediately dispatched a warship (that is, the armed transport ship) in Hong Kong at that time to follow and pursue.

The Japanese pirate ships were small, and if they sailed on the sea, they would have been slower than the warships of the anti-smuggling fleet. However, because the sea winds entering the Yangtze River had dropped sharply, the large ships of the anti-smuggling fleet were slower than the Japanese pirate ships, so the pursuit effect was inevitably poor.

After Zhenhaiwei learned the news, he could only send two small warships from the Fushan Inspection Department to join the anti-smuggling fleet warships to pursue them together. Therefore, the three official warships could only follow, and the distance from the pirate ship was getting farther and farther away.

Fortunately, God bless the thief, and soon there was a strong wind, and the speed of the large ships of the anti-smuggling fleet increased. Finally, Japanese pirates attacked the Cao army on the Qinhuai River, but within half an hour, they were attacked by three warships of the government army who overtook them. If you don't give up and continue to plunder, burn ships and other evil deeds, and take the road to escape..."

Zhu Yijun reached out his hand to stop him from continuing, but asked: "I want to ask two things: First, Chongming County is in the center of the Yangtze River estuary. Da Sima said that those Japanese ships sailed from the south of the island. Does it mean that they came from Suzhou? Song or Zhejiang direction?
Second, the Japanese pirates have always been doing things for the purpose of making money. I heard that the prosperity of Shanghai Port is no less than that of Nanjing. Why did the Japanese pirates go to Nanjing instead of Shanghai Port?It should be known that Nanjing not only has a strong city defense, but also the Cao army gathered at that time, there were as many as [-] to [-], and the number of Japanese pirates was less than the Cao army's eleven. Why are they so bold? "

Zhou Yong replied: "I have heard from Da Situ that the Japanese pirates have to take advantage of the wind and ocean currents when they come to our Ming Dynasty. Therefore, when they come from the Japanese country, they will mostly drift to the front line of Zhejiang. It is not surprising that they appeared in the south of Chongming Island this time.

I don’t need to elaborate on the strength of my Ming’s coastal defense, but the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang has not been attacked by Japanese pirates for many years, and there is a fixed time for patrolling the sea.But there is indeed a doubtful point here, that is, in addition to our naval patrols along the coast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, there are countless merchant ships passing by. This time, none of the ships found the thief and reported it.

As for why the Japanese pirates never harassed Shanghai Port but went to Nanjing...why they went to Nanjing is not clear yet, but it makes sense for the Japanese pirates to harass Shanghai Port.Your Majesty, Shanghai Port is a private port of Jinghua, and the port defense force is quite strong. There are twelve Haiphong No. [-] guns and more than [-] No. [-] guns.There are also a large number of seagoing ships berthed in the port all year round. Among them, there are many Jinghua armed transport ships with guns. The Japanese pirate ships are small and the chance of success in harassing Shanghai is extremely low. Not only is it unprofitable, but they are even severely attacked.

As for Nanjing, this time the Cao army gathered, there were hundreds of water boats, countless cargoes on board, and the benefits were huge, enough to envy the Japanese pirates and make them salivate.However, the Cao army is not good at fighting. It was looted by the Japanese pirates many times at a very small price decades ago, so the Japanese pirates are not afraid of the Cao army.

I believe that the immediate problem is not why the Japanese pirates dared to go to Nanjing, but how the Japanese pirates knew that there were a large number of warships docking in Nanjing at that time. Order. "

Zhu Yijun focused his gaze: "Did Sima suspect Shu Yinglong?" As soon as he said this, Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue couldn't help frowning, thinking how to deal with such doubts.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yong's performance this time was very "fair", he did not admit this statement, but instead said: "The emperor misunderstood, what I mean is that there is someone close to Shu Yinglong or inside the Cao army to inform."

In fact, it's not that Zhou Yong doesn't doubt Shu Yinglong, but that he thinks that his words are not practical and effective, and he is not a speech officer, so he can't "talk about things" without factual basis, so he can't speak deadly.

For him, the key to whether Shu Yinglong has a problem is whether he can check it. As long as there may be Japanese pirates around him, he can go back and check it. At this time, it is not surprising to check Shu Yinglong himself.
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(End of this chapter)