Follow Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the country

Chapter 239 The first battle is the decisive battle, and the outcome will be decided in one battle!

Zhang Shicheng finally adopted Zhang Shixin's suggestion and held his nose to invent a positive theory that recognized the idea of ​​Datong as a way to enrich the country and stabilize the people. For this reason, he allowed and encouraged the scholars of the Dazhou Dynasty to promote the idea of ​​Datong.

Besides.

Zhang Shicheng also issued a decree to allow merchants under the rule of Datong Society to do business in the Zhou Dynasty to show the good intentions of both parties.

As for the counties occupied by Datong Society, Zhang Shicheng also allowed the local people to decide their own path.

In addition, Zhang Shicheng also agreed with Zhu Yuanzhang to send directors to Gaoyou.

Zhang Shicheng agreed to do this, naturally because he was not as powerful as Zhu Yuanzhang's Datong Society.

But what Zhang Shicheng did was very difficult for the hawkish officials like Mei Sizu and Wang who advocated tough treatment of Datong Society to accept it.

Mei Sizu, the right minister of the Secretariat of the Great Zhou Dynasty, even took the initiative to send Zhu Ying to Zhang Shide to discuss how to restore sovereignty.

Zhang Shide sighed because of this: "From this point of view, my brother's move is really a loss of power and humiliation to the country! And I, the Great Zhou Dynasty, have reached the point where I have to change the law."

"Mei Gong also thinks so, but unfortunately His Highness has no intention of reform."

Zhu Ying replied at this time.

Zhang Shide said: "When I write a letter to persuade my brother, if I, Da Zhou, do not change my ways to strengthen myself, sooner or later I will be wiped out by Zhu Yuanzhang's Datong Society."

then.

Zhang Shide then wrote a letter to Zhang Shicheng, urging Zhang Shicheng to make up his mind to clear the land, divide the land among the people, expand tax sources, improve the treatment of craftsmen, limit cotton planting, and strengthen his own strength. He said that Zhu Yuanzhang was ambitious and would not give up just because he compromised for a moment. Annexing the Great Zhou Dynasty will only intensify the efforts to seize the Great Zhou Dynasty's foundation.

Zhang Shicheng also sighed after receiving Zhang Shide's letter:

"Oh, how could my second brother know Gu's difficulties?"

"It is okay for me, the Great Zhou, to encourage people to open up wasteland and reduce taxes, but to clear out the land and divide the land among the people, isn't this just roasting the land on the fire, causing me, the Great Zhou, to die at the hands of the local wealthy family before Zhu Yuanzhang can annex it?"

"How can Gu still protect the Great Zhou Sheji?!"

Therefore, Mei Sizu had to go out and report in person: "But Your Highness, our great Zhou Dynasty is now at the point of life and death. If we don't change our ways and strengthen ourselves, I'm afraid the country will be destroyed!"

"There is no need to talk about this matter anymore!"

"It's not that bad yet."

"Datong Society has shown no signs of wanting to annex Dazhou. When he really intends to annex Dazhou, it will not be too late to discuss it."

Zhang Shicheng directly rejected Mei Sizu's proposal.

Mei Sizu had no choice but to say yes.

For Zhang Shicheng, he knew it.

If he changes his ways to strengthen himself and offends the wealthy family, he will definitely die.

After all, it is very easy to be jealous of the interests of powerful aristocrats.

He does not have the courage of Zhu Yuanzhang, and if he does not change the law and strengthens himself, he will not have to offend the powerful and powerful families. At most, he will only be looked down upon by some reformist bureaucrats who care about the dignity of the country.

Because Zhang Shicheng chose to give in rather than reform and treat Datong Society toughly, Datong Society did not annex Zhang Shicheng for the time being and only dumped a large amount of industrial products to Zhang Shicheng's Great Zhou Kingdom.

The Datong Society only temporarily sent troops to Fujian and Jiangxi.

Militarily, it is impossible for Datong Society to stop.

After all, the output of the military industry is so huge. If there is no war, many military factories will have serious surpluses, and many workers and common people will have reduced incomes. More importantly, the upper-class dignitaries of the Datong Society will also have reduced incomes.

Coincidentally.

Unlike Zhang Shicheng, Chen Youliang had a very tough attitude towards Datong Society and threatened to destroy Datong Society more than once.

As a result, Datong Society turned its military target to Chen Youliang.

In order to better exert his power, Chen Youliang chose to usurp the throne and kill Xu Shouhui in advance before raising troops to Datong Society, compared with the original history, and established the Han Dynasty regime.

After Chen Youliang established the Han Dynasty, he basically followed the Yuan system, but what was different from the Yuan system was that he increased the intensity of conscription and tax collection, and implemented the method of drawing one out of three to strengthen his own strength.

All of a sudden, Chen Youliang had nearly one million troops.

At the same time, Chen Youliang assigned corvee labor on a large scale and forced the craftsmen to build weapons and ships at a high load, thus achieving self-sufficiency in weapons.

It can be said that he is more cruel than Yuan Ting in treating the people!
In addition, Chen Youliang also took the initiative to issue an order to cut off trade with the Datong Society. He also issued an order to strictly prohibit the promotion of the Datong concept and the cultivation of cotton.

This also made many bureaucrats and gentry under Chen Youliang very dissatisfied.

Because if they do not trade with Datong Society, they will undoubtedly suffer serious losses in profits.

But when Chen Youliang relied on his strong military power and slaughtered several bureaucrats and gentry, no one dared to openly oppose Chen Youliang.

"He Zhu Yuanzhang has more soldiers and horses, and more warships. Now I have more soldiers and horses than his Datong Society, and my warships will definitely surpass his Zhu Yuanzhang! At that time, all he needs to do is go straight to the south of the Yangtze River and completely destroy his Datong foundation. !”

Because of this, Chen Youliang even spoke confidently and arrogantly about his vision for the future to his Grand Master Zou Pusheng and Prime Minister Zhang Bixian at the court meeting. Regarding Chen Youliang's actions, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but say in front of Zhang Cheng and others: "This Chen Youliang is simply a gambler. He regards the officials, gentry and people as stupid dogs. If he doesn't win quickly, he will lose quickly!"

"Then let's trade space for time."

"This Chen Youliang, to put it bluntly, is no different from Hu Yuan. He is aggressive internally and does not know how to manipulate externally. He only hopes to accomplish his achievements in one battle. He can be said to be strong externally but capable internally."

"So, it is easy for us to destroy him, but for us, the most important thing is not to destroy him, but to do our best to prevent the people under Chen Youliang's current rule from being greatly reduced due to his tyranny."

"If the number of people under his rule decreases due to tyranny, it will cause great difficulties for us to solve the problem of excess industrial products in the future!"

"What's more, our Datong Society's belief is to live and enrich the people! So, we can't just sit back and watch a large number of people die in large numbers because of the war?"

Zhang Cheng also started talking at this time.

Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou nodded in agreement.

Therefore, the Datong Society first declared war on Chen Youliang, on the grounds that Chen Youliang abused the people too much and violated the Datong concept.

Then, Zhu Yuanzhang, Guo Tianxu and other major officials of the Privy Council discussed and decided that, except for the three industrial and school concentrated areas of Chuzhou, Taiping, and Jiqing, where heavy troops were stationed in the must-defend areas, the rest of the main forces were all deployed to the outside to attack Chen Youliang's territory.

Chen Youliang is basically training troops and building ships in Jiangzhou to prepare for war. He never thought that Zhu Yuanzhang would take the initiative to attack.

As Zhu Yuanzhang himself said, Chen Youliang was like a gambler. His plan was to concentrate all his forces and go down the river in one go, capture Taiping, and then capture Jiqing.

In his mind, as long as Jiqing is captured, Datong Society will fall apart.

This cannot be blamed on Chen Youliang.

Because many people have this kind of military mentality and only regard cities as targets for military capture, ignoring both the vast rural areas and the vast majority of the people.

It should be noted that this idea was still a military idea advocated by many people even in the twentieth century.

And Chen Youliang didn't think there was anything wrong with thinking this way.

For him, as long as he takes Jiqing and Taiping, he can take possession of the industrial resources and surrounding agricultural resources and population resources of these cities.

And people like Zhu Yuanzhang from Datong Society will only become losers.

The lost dog is naturally nothing to worry about.

Therefore, when Zhu Yuanzhang sent Zhu Wenzheng, Xu Da, Deng Yu, Hu Dahai, Hua Yun, Shao Cheng, Guo Tianlu, etc. to lead troops independently into Chen Youliang's territory to seize the city and save the people, Chen Youliang was very surprised.

"How dare he, Zhu Yuanzhang! Doesn't he know that I have 600,000 troops who are about to go south to attack him?!"

Chen Youliang was shocked and furious. He looked at Zou Pusheng, Zhang Bixian and others with blood-red eyes.

Zou Pusheng held up his hands and said: "Your Majesty, we can only dispatch troops and horses to guard the cities first to prevent Jiangzhou, Hanyang and other places from being lost."

"No dispatch!"

"Deployment means losing the opportunity to capture Jiangnan."

"Because the people can be forced to conscript once, but it is impossible to conscript them a second time!"

Chen Youliang knew the wretchedness of the bureaucracy. This time he forced people to serve in the military, which would inevitably lead to many people going bankrupt and even fleeing into the mountains. If he recruited people again, it would only trigger a large number of popular uprisings, and he would not be able to recruit people like this. Many soldiers.

As the so-called one-shot, and then decline, three and exhausted.

Therefore, Chen Youliang had no intention of calling back his troops because of this, but rejected Zou Pusheng's proposal.

Prime Minister Zhang Bixian felt that Chen Youliang's approach was too risky, so he took the initiative and said: "But Your Majesty, if you make mistakes in doing this, you will be completely defeated! Instead of doing this, it is better to call back the troops, rest with the people, reform the common government, and learn from the great masters." Tongshe clears the land, divides the land among the people, and reforms to strengthen himself!"

"If I do this, wouldn't it be in vain for me to kill Xu Shouhui and become the emperor in vain?!"

"I just don't want to see that the so-called Datong Society, which represents the common people of the world, has the final say in this world, instead of the emperor, so I rebelled against Xu Shouhui."

"Now that you want me to reform and strengthen myself, why not kill me now! Take my head to ask Zhu Yuanzhang for credit!"

Chen Youliang asked Zhang Bi to come first.

Like Zhang Shicheng, Chen Youliang was unwilling to reform, nor was he willing to give up his own interests for the people, nor was he willing to stop recognizing the "divine right of kings" for the sake of the people.

Because Chen Youliang also only wanted to be the emperor of his family and a real master, and he could kill people as he wanted and enslave people as he wanted.

"Your Majesty said so."

"I am ignorant and made mistakes in my words. Please forgive me, Your Majesty!"

Zhang Bixian handed back a few words.

Chen Youliang stood up with a serious face and said: "Since he, Zhu Yuanzhang, has taken the initiative to attack, I can only raise troops in advance and convey my will. There is no need to rebuild the unfinished warships, nor the weapons." Let’s build it again, go directly to Jiangnan and seize Taiping first!”

"In addition, tell the soldiers that this time, the first battle is the decisive battle, and the outcome will be decided in one battle!"

"As long as we conquer Jiangnan and destroy the Datong Society, I will give them twice as much land and slaves!"

(End of this chapter)