Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 578
"Wen Anzhi played very well in Hanzhong this time, and should be rewarded."

Zhu Yihai was very happy, smiling all over his face.

"The decree is to confer the title of Duke of Chu in Wen'an, to be hereditary, to give iron certificates, and to be the first class in the world. There are [-] households in the city, [-] households are sealed, [-] acres of Yongye farmland are granted, and Mangyu gold medals are specially bestowed. .”

For Wen Anzhi, an old master, Zhu Yihai really admired him very much, he gave himself too many surprises.

At the beginning, he specially ordered Fu Wen'an to go to Yunyang as an inspector. This old master traveled hundreds of miles of enemy-occupied areas alone to take office, and he made great achievements in winning Jing and restoring Xiang.Later, he was promoted to the governor of Pianyuan, and he was even more outstanding in suppressing the rebellion.And he built teeth in Fengjie, began to explore the five provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi, opened up the situation step by step, and his performance was even more remarkable.

Ping Sichuan, received Hanzhong.

Completely worthy of the title of duke of a country.

Nowadays, the titles of the Shaotian Dynasty are not as precious as before, but the hereditary dukes still represent extremely high honors.

The president, Qin Liangyu, is already the Duke of Shu, and Zhu Yihai also made a special decree to confer the title of world lord, giving iron coupons, rewarding silver and granting land.

Zhu Pengfei and Zhang Shipeng, the two battalion admirals, were granted the title of hereditary real county duke by virtue of their military exploits.

Qin Yiming, Ran Tianlin, Ma Wannian, and Liu Jinzhong, the admirals and soldiers, also added officials and promoted them to ranks, and gave them silver and land.

Fight well, there are rewards, and there are heavy rewards.

Zhu Yihai wanted to tell everyone that they would be rewarded for meritorious service, and military merit would be rewarded heavily.

"The Ministry of War must immediately evaluate the meritorious service of the soldiers, and the rewards must be distributed in a timely manner."

There are more than 6000 levels of beheadings reported, and the rewards for beheadings, beheadings, etc. add up to 10,000+ taels, but Zhu Yihai doesn't feel bad at all. Compared with the war expenses, the silver rewards for the first level are really not that much.

Even if the tallest Manchurian Eight Banners beheaded 30 taels, 1 people would only be rewarded with 30 taels of silver. If the reward for assisting in the beheading was added, it would not exceed 50 taels.

The threat of a Manchurian Eight Banners with [-] people is huge. Whether it is offensive or defensive, it will cost a lot. If they are wiped out, it is a one-time expense and it is cost-effective.

"I will draw an additional 20 yuan of silver from the internal treasury to reward the soldiers who fought in Hanzhong."

Zhu Dadian, Minister of the Ministry of War, asked the emperor, "Now there are more than [-] remnants of the Tartars, Li Guohan retreated to Baocheng Town, and Oboi led thousands of troops to station at Jitouguan, intending to defend stubbornly. How should we fight next? "

Li Guohan lost Yangping Pass and Nanzheng, and it can even be said that he almost lost the entire Hanzhong Plain.

Now guarding Baocheng Town and Jitouguan is just to guard the Baoxie Plank Road and the Shaanxi-Han Passage, especially when Qishan Road and Chencang Road are lost.

This is unwilling to lose Hanzhong, and wants to wait for reinforcements to regain it.

Zhu Yihai asked someone to fetch a map, and looked at the Baoxie Road in Hanzhong.

Baocheng Town is under the jurisdiction of Mian County, and it happens to be at the mouth of Baogu, which controls the exit. Among them, Jitouguan is built on the mountainside on the east side of Liancheng in Baocheng Town, facing Baohe Canyon in the east.

This is the only way to pass through the Shu Road. The terrain is narrow and easy to defend but difficult to attack. It is known as the first danger of Beizhan.

There is even a saying in Hanzhong that when you leave Jitouguan, you must not shed your tears, but when you enter Jitouguan, you will naturally feel relieved.

With this pass as the boundary, there are hundreds of miles of treacherous plank roads to the north, and the flat Hanzhong Basin plain to the south.

Li Guohan was guarding Baocheng Town, and Aobai was guarding Jitou Pass.

"Continuing the siege, the imperial court can send artillery craftsmen to Hanzhong to cast Krupp cannons, Shenwei invincible red general cannons, etc. directly outside Baocheng Town. You can keep it."

After the Battle of Nanzheng, the Ming army now has the upper hand in Hanzhong.

It not only solved the hidden danger of Zhang Xianzhong, but also almost drove the Qing army out of Hanzhong.

This means that the Ming army had a stable Sichuan-Han base camp, and could resume production and cultivate the fields with peace of mind.

According to the Qinling Mountains, blocking Baogu, and then controlling the Chencang, Qishan, and Ziwu passages into Shaanxi, it is relatively easy to block the Qing army to the north of the Qinling Mountains.

It will be easy to defend.

Although Jitouguan is very dangerous and easy to defend, the Ming army could also build bastions here, and even collect or transport copper and iron directly from Hanzhong to make cannons, instead of transporting cannons from the south of the Yangtze River.

Once you have enough cannons, no matter how dangerous your mountain castle is, you can't resist it.

Even if Wu Sangui quelled the rebellion in Guanzhong, he could still find food and grass to supply him with troops to Hanzhong, but it would be difficult for him to do anything if the exit was blocked.

After taking Hanzhong, the Ming army is now encircling Guanzhong in Shaanxi and Gansu.

With Meng Qiaofang and Wu Sangui's current strength, it is also difficult to defend the pass. Would he dare to leave lightly?
If his main force goes south to Hanzhong, then He Hongqi, Wang Yongzhen, Mi Layin and others can attack Ningxia, Pingliang, Fengxiang and other places and copy his lair.

"Baochengcheng and Jitouguan are surrounded and beaten slowly,"

"The loyalty of Xing'an Prefecture, the loyalty of Yunyang Prefecture, and the loyalty of Yiling Prefecture can take this opportunity to attack Yunyang."

After Wang Guangen's rebellion in Yunyang, and after the Battle of Xing'an, his strength was also greatly reduced. Yunyang Prefecture only had one city in his hands, but Wang Guangen still controlled Xiangyang, so he still had some strength.

Of course, right now is a good opportunity.

"Previously there was a report from Huguang that they planned to encircle Jingzhou and fight Wuchang again. I thought it was better to hold off on attacking Dacheng, and to chew on the hard bones one by one. We can't be greedy for everything. This time we are on the western front, we will encircle Baocheng Town and Yunyang City. , These two cities are now surrounded by our army, and they must be fought if conditions permit.

But for the cities of Jing, Xiang, and Wuchang, don't worry for now. "

Surrounding Zhang Xianzhong and Hanzhong, the Ming army deployed and prepared for more than a year, and finally it came to fruition. They wiped out more than [-] Tartars in Hanzhong, plus the few thousand killed by the Western Army, adding up to more than [-] captives.

However, there are still more than ten thousand Tartars, and these soldiers are still strong. The one who won the Hanzhong battle was the Tartars who underestimated the enemy. The Qing army is high, and it is impossible to defeat them with far fewer casualties than them.

This still took advantage of the coincidence that the Qing army had no time to rest after the war against the Western army, so it took advantage of the vacancy.

But this kind of opportunity does not come every time. Now that the Tartars are retreating to the castle, if they fight hard, they will change their offensive and defensive positions. If they are not careful, they may lose instead, so they would rather be cautious.

If Jingzhou does not fight first, it is better to provide some money, food and weapons from Huguang to support the two armies, and concentrate their efforts to fight the siege of the city.

"Our armies in Hunan, Jiangxi, and Huaixi can just sweep the outskirts of Tartar's strong cities in small groups."

It is already August, and Zhu Yihai is preparing for a long-term siege. Even if Baocheng and Yunyang are besieged until the end of the year, or even the beginning of next year, the siege is more likely to win than a direct storm, with fewer casualties, but it requires logistical supplies. higher.

"This summer and autumn, there were locust plagues successively in Henan, especially in the spring and summer when there was a big fire in Henan, which led to serious disasters. Fortunately, various places took active precautions, and the locust plague did not spread too much. However, Shandong, Huainan and other places also experienced a lot of food production. The imperial court must provide timely relief!"

Now that the battle has been fought, in fact, both the Qing army and the Ming army are somewhat unable to fight.

However, for the Ming army, the situation is getting better and better, but it has to bear the burden of Huainan, Henan, Shandong and other places, and has to fill in holes continuously, consuming a lot of war potential.

But this hole cannot be filled. If the hole in the Central Plains is not filled, the Ming army will not be able to cross the Central Plains and march north of the Yellow River.

The Tartars are worse than the Ming army. They are in decline. Their strategic mistakes in the early stage, coupled with the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty, have led to more and more rebellions in various places. The countermeasures of the Tartars are massacres and deterrence. Looting, these policies make the Tartars unpopular now.

The Tartars put out fires everywhere, killed people everywhere, and levied violent taxes to maintain them, but everyone knew that although the Tartar Eight Banners were still very powerful in fighting, they could no longer save them.

From Hexi to Liaodong, from the north to Henan, the Tartars did not have an inch of stable land.

Their war resources are getting less and less, even the Eight Banners can't support it.

In one Hanzhong, they killed more than 1 people, and the compensation fee plus burning and burial money alone cost tens of millions of taels, not to mention the loss of such an important land in Hanzhong.

Last year, the Tartars completely lost Longyou, Hexi, Hanzhong, and Yunyang. Henan only had one Nanyang and one Runing left, plus half of Shandong, half of Liaodong was lost, and Liaoxi was not stable.

In the current situation, in fact, Zhu Yihai doesn't need to be anxious, as long as he maintains the current situation, he has a stable rear, can resume production, accumulate strength, and become stronger day by day.

But the Tartars were so exhausted that they couldn't even pay the food for the Eight Banners and the salaries of the officials.

Zhu Yihai picked up the pond newspaper again, "This pond newspaper was dispatched from Hanzhong at the end of July, and it was expedited for [-] miles. It took more than ten days for the person to transfer by land and water along the way, which was a bit slow."

Song Zhipu explained, "Tangbao came from Hanzhong, first went down the Han River to Yunyang, then went south to Yiling, then passed the Yangtze River to Nanjing, then went to sea and took a boat to the north to Qingdao, and then along the Jiaolai Canal to Laizhou and then to Fengtian. , It is indeed a long way around, mainly Yunyang, Xiangyang, and Wuchang are still in the hands of the Tatars, otherwise it will be much faster to go down the river directly along the Han River to Hankou to enter the Yangtze River, and then to Nanjing.”

Zhu Yihai nodded.

"Since the abolition of many post stations in the world during the reign of Chongzhen, the post delivery area has indeed been destroyed, so I think it is time to rebuild the post delivery network."

The emperor's words made it difficult for the ministers to respond for a while.

Someone once summed up the three major maladministrations of the Ming Dynasty, the Weisuo, the suzerain vassal and the post station.

Needless to say, the money and food spent by the vassals and guards of the Ming Dynasty was huge, but the post station can be compared with it, but it is not easy.

Chongzhen abolished post stations on a large scale, and postman Li Zicheng lost his job, then rebelled, and finally broke into Beijing.

Daming's post station is beyond words.

The common people in the localities are tired of post stations, and they have to serve and share food and money, and the imperial court also suffers from the huge burden of post stations.

This is indeed a tiankeng. It was reformed during the Wanli period, but it was still very serious during the Chongzhen period. The incident of post delivery in the imperial history was the most harmful to the people. Only two-tenths are used for official business, and eight-tenths are used for private affairs.

In the end, Chongzhen decreed to streamline, saving 68 taels a year, and ended up saving the Chongzhen Dynasty.

The post station has provoked such anti-kings as Li Zicheng, but it is indeed one of the three tiankengs. Now the situation is getting better, and the emperor said that he wants to restore the post station.

(End of this chapter)