Follow Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the country

Chapter 215 The big enemy is Zhu Yuanzhang, but we can’t mess with him
"I've thought about this too."

Zhang Shide replied solemnly at this time, then glanced at Zhang Shicheng and said:

"Brother Chen believes that it has a lot to do with Zhang Cheng."

"Ever since this person was conquered by Zhu Yuanzhang, he has been innovating skills and developing industry. Others are busy fighting for power and profit, and this person is only busy how to enlarge the profit."

"For example, after most people know that we occupy the Gaoyou lands, they think about how to wait until both us and the Yuan soldiers are defeated, so that they can reap the benefits. But in the end, what they think about is how to take advantage of this opportunity to make money and sell weapons from us. money."

"In short, this Zhang Cheng's thinking is different from ours."

"The way he eats is not that ugly, but the way he eats makes people want to stop. It's a slow-cutting style with sweetness on the surface. It makes people not only not repulsed but also easily addicted."

After Zhang Shide said this, Zhang Shicheng nodded in agreement: "My second brother is right. Although he knows that he has bad intentions in selling us these potatoes, he knows that we don't need to buy so many potatoes. We can also grow our own." , but when I think about there being so much land waiting for us to occupy, so many taxes waiting for us to collect, and so many people waiting for us to expand our military base, I feel that there is no need to rush to organize the army and the people to plant potatoes. "

"That's exactly the truth. Besides, they sell potatoes so cheaply."

Zhang Shixin also said something.

Zhang Cheng soon learned about this matter through the informant placed next to Zhang Shicheng by the Archguard Bureau, and therefore mentioned it to Zhu Yuanzhang who returned to Jiqing.

Zhang Shicheng looked at the two of them and continued to ask: "Who do you think we should regard as our biggest enemy right now?"

"Of course it's Zhu Yuanzhang."

Zhang Shide replied.

"Furthermore, Song Taizu said that there should be no room for others to sleep soundly on the side of the bed. He Liu Futong should not dominate in front of me, Zhang Shicheng!"

Because Zhang Shicheng has now made up his mind to suspend the Northern Expedition and to raise a large number of troops to conquer Liu Futong. He has no energy to spend manpower and financial resources on developing production, let alone organizing people to grow potatoes and just make his own weapons. He wants to put it aside for now.

"Although we should regard it as a formidable enemy, we really have no reason to encounter it in military force now, and it is not suitable for us to encounter it in military force at the moment. We should give in to it and buy weapons, food and cloth from it, and at the same time we should also accumulate strength. , allocate the unreceived private lands of Hu Yuan’s powerful officials to the common people to increase tax sources, so that they can not only strengthen their military but also recruit craftsmen to make their own firearms, and allow the common people to actively cultivate because of the decrease in land rent for allotment, and achieve Food self-sufficiency.”

"If we divide the fields, the soldiers will immediately defect to other forces."

Zhang Shicheng nodded: "Then what should we do?"

Zhang Shixin was surprised after hearing this: "Why, Zhu Yuanzhang hasn't become king yet. Even if he has Zhang Cheng next to him, Zhang Cheng did not instigate him to use troops against us. Instead, Liu Futong went to him after buying firearms. We used soldiers. If we hadn't also bought firearms, I'm afraid Hongxian and Suqian cities would have been taken away by him. "

Zhang Shicheng sent an envoy to contact Yuan Ting, naturally because he wanted to make secret peace with Yuan Ting and achieve the goal of mutual non-aggression. When he sent an envoy to see Zhu Yuanzhang, he wanted to increase his efforts to buy weapons and potatoes from Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhang Shide nodded: "From this point of view, we can only choose the weakest bully, both with Zhu Yuanzhang and Wei Snake, and with Yuan Tingxu and Wei Snake, and only step up to seize Liu Futong's territory! After all, among the forces around us at the moment, Zhu Yuanzhang and Yuan Ting are the strongest , the most difficult to offend, only Liu Futong is the weakest, we should seize its land and its wealth to support our people and build our weapons!"

After Zhang Shicheng said this, he ordered someone to take the initiative to send envoys to Yuan Ting and Zhu Yuanzhang.

After hearing this, Zhang Shicheng showed a look of embarrassment: "It's okay not to fight with Zhu Yuanzhang, but it is too difficult to divide private land among the people."

"Yes, we are not as lucky as Zhu Yuanzhang. When we meet a capable minister like Zhang Cheng, we can first make sophisticated weapons and then use the profits from selling the refined weapons to bribe the soldiers so that the soldiers will not object to dividing the land. "

Zhang Shixin also raised objections.

Zhang Shide took the opportunity to propose his own internal affairs reform plan.

Zhang Shide said: "Although Zhu Yuanzhang's tribe has not harmed us, as time goes by, his strength will definitely be unmatched and he will have the potential to annex the heroes, so he is the real enemy!"

Zhang Shicheng nodded: "This is a good idea. I haven't even proclaimed myself emperor yet, yet Liu Futong dares to let Han Lin'er proclaim himself emperor. Just thinking about it makes people dissatisfied."

"Zhang Shicheng's national consciousness is not high, and his ambitions are still very high. He would rather conquer Liu Futong, whose strength was severely damaged due to several battles with the Yuan soldiers, than continue the Northern Expedition, let alone reform internal affairs."

Zhang Cheng first expressed his opinion.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said: "This Liu Futong is not much better. He provoked Zhang Shicheng a long time ago. Now we are watching the tiger fight from a distance and let them fight for supremacy. It is important for us to unify the internal affairs quickly and swallow up the two Zhejiang provinces." "Having said that, I still need to persuade, make a show, and mediate. After all, the banner of our Datong Society is to expel the Tartars and restore China. Naturally, we do not want them to conquer each other. We hope that they will abandon their past grievances and conquer the North first to destroy the Yuan Dynasty. ”

As Zhang Cheng spoke, he reached out and grilled it on the stove.

Although it is the first month of the year, the temperature has not warmed up yet, and Datong Society is no longer short of charcoal, so Zhang Cheng and others are still warming themselves up.

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and sighed and said: "In fact, we don't want them to conquer each other. It would be better to go north to fight the Tatars as soon as possible, so as not to let the Tatars breathe and recover. Unfortunately, they are unwilling to reform internally. He just wanted to fight for power and profit, and he also just wanted to take advantage of the situation, occupy more territory, and solve the problem once and for all. As a result, Zhang Shicheng has lost his spirit. Not to mention, even Liu Futong, who was determined to do the Northern Expedition in the past, is gradually reduced to facing Yuan Bing at the same time after getting rid of Du Zundao. He and Zhang Shicheng are two great enemies."

"If you can stop it, try to stop it. After all, when they fight, we, the Han people, will also lose."

Zhang Cheng then said something more, and then said: "As the superior said, we should indeed capture the two Zhejiang provinces as soon as possible, gain access to the sea to the Japanese country, dump our goods to the Japanese country, and go to Iwami to mine silver. Mountain."

As he spoke, Zhang Cheng stared at Zhu Yuanzhang: "It's just that there are many big families in Zhejiang and Zhejiang who have contacts with Japanese chiefs. If we do this, we will take away their sea profits. I'm afraid they will be very dissatisfied."

"So what if you're dissatisfied?"

"Is it possible that our Datong Club still has to look at their faces?"

"You just need to expand the production of cotton, silk and satin, clocks and soaps, so that more people can live by these industries. Let us take care of their affairs!"

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhang Cheng with firm eyes and said.

Zhang Cheng nodded.

At present, the productivity under the name of Datong Society is indeed increasing rapidly. The large water-powered spinning wheel continuously sends a large amount of cotton yarn into Jiqing City, and the newly established Weaving Bureau shuttle loom quickly weaves a large amount of cotton cloth.

At the same time, the new iron frying method and converter steelmaking method everywhere also allowed a large amount of steel and iron materials to be continuously transported to Jiqing City through waterways, causing the sound of hammering and hammering in the workshops near Jiqing City day and night. .

Large amounts of potatoes are also being dug out continuously, and then transported by four-wheeled carriages to various counties, towns and communities. Local officials organize the people to plant spring potatoes.

Zhang Cheng was not satisfied with this. He also asked people to cultivate new potato seeds in agriculture, develop steam engines in industry, establish new systems and models in business, and develop new drugs in medicine.

Zhu Yuanzhang here purged the Third Army and the Fourth Army after purging the Second Army. Those who were unwilling to join the Datong Society were dealt with in the same way as in the Second Army.

Then, Zhu Yuanzhang also purged the troops of Chang Yuchun, Xie Zaixing, and Deng Yu, as well as the naval forces of Liao Yongan and Yu Tonghai.

Because the First Army, the Second Army, the Third Army, and the Fourth Army have all accepted the concept of Datong Society, no one dares to explicitly reject the concept of Datong Society, so Chang Yuchun, Xie Zaixing, Deng Yu and other new attached officers and generals under their command, as well as Liao The navy officers and generals under Yong'an and Yu Tonghai no longer dared to openly reject the concept of Datong.

Zhu Yuanzhang also took some other measures to appease these new converts. For example, because he saw that Xie Zaixing had two daughters who were both talented and beautiful, he made the decision to let Zhu Wenzheng marry his eldest daughter and Xu Da to marry his younger daughter. .

In any case, by this year, all soldiers and horses of the entire Chinese Army accepted the leadership of Datong Society.

Although many of them are accepted openly, they don’t accept it in their hearts, or they don’t take it seriously.

But at least no one dares to say openly that the Datong concept is wrong.

This is like the words of Confucian saints. Although many Confucian scholars themselves do not take this seriously, they dare not say that it is wrong.

Although many officers and generals did not dare to say that Datong Society's philosophy was wrong, they were still somewhat dissatisfied with Zhu Yuanzhang in their hearts because Zhu Yuanzhang's actions were tantamount to depriving them of absolute control over their own armies in disguise, preventing them from being able to act like slave owners. They dispose of their soldiers at will like slaves, allowing military power to belong to the Datong Society. The army belongs to a political organization and is no longer privatized.

Many gentry were also dissatisfied with Zhu Yuanzhang because Zhu Yuanzhang's behavior prevented them from pulling the entire Chinese army into the water by pulling the head of the army into the water.

Of course, the gentry are even more dissatisfied because Zhu Yuanzhang has not recruited them as officials yet, and has no intention of treating virtuous corporals.

Especially after potatoes were harvested in large quantities, private fields were distributed to the common people, and government and businessmen continued to expand, many gentry became completely desperate and simply gave up helping the common people, stopped actively paying taxes, and stopped responding to the policy of reducing rents and interest rates. He began to take the initiative to hide Yuan Ting's detailed work.

For a time, there were reports of bandits smashing and smashing local government offices set up by the Chinese Army. There were even alleged cases of the Chinese Army violating military discipline and robbing business travelers.

(End of this chapter)