Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 115 Do you want a wife?

After Zhu Changgan sent Wang Chengen out, he stood still, concentrating his attention.

"Main quest: Save the Ming Dynasty Completion: 1179/10000"

"The Ming Dynasty's national fortune value: -1024, (the people are still living in dire straits, the national fortune is negative, and natural and man-made disasters continue)"

"The Ming Dynasty has lasted for 600 days"

「Modern lifespan bonus: 600 days」

「Funding reward: 16438356 yuan」

"Good, very good!" Zhu Changgan said excitedly. Victory was indeed the best catalyst. The defeat of the Tartars in one battle directly increased the country's fortune value by three thousand.

The country's life span also increased by more than 400 days.

The financial rewards also reached eight figures.

Zhu Changgan took a few deep breaths and said, "National fortune value, national fortune value. Now everything is moving in a good direction, but the problem of national fortune value must be solved."

The country’s fortunes are bad and the people are living in dire straits… Zhu Changgan felt suddenly heavy in his heart as he thought about these words.

"Wang Chengen, follow me to the Agricultural Department."

If there is anything that can best save the people from dire straits, it is naturally food and clothing.

The most important thing is food and clothing. Ensuring that people have enough food to eat and enough clothes to wear is the key.

……

It is called the Agricultural Affairs Bureau, but in fact it is just a few tents temporarily built in the Beijing camp.

At this moment, a large number of people are busy.

The sweet potato seedlings were ready to be planted. There were people everywhere, some carrying water and some planting the seedlings. Wang Chengen searched for a long time but couldn't find Song Yingxing. He only found Chen Zhenlong's grandson Chen Shanqing.

"Your Majesty...Long live His Majesty, long, long live His Majesty!" Chen Shanqing hurriedly returned the greeting when he saw that it was the emperor who had arrived.

"Where's Song Yingxing?"

"Your Majesty, Song Sizheng took his men to the fields ten miles away to plant seedlings personally today."

“How many sweet potatoes have been planted now?”

"Your Majesty, we just started planting today."

“How many sweet potato seedlings have you propagated?”

"Your Majesty, the Jinyiwei have been sending people to transport sweet potato seedlings from Fujian to Kyoto these days. It is estimated that 8000 acres can be planted by the end of the month." Chen Shanqing said with sweat on his forehead.

Zhu Changgan pondered for a moment, then asked, "How many seedlings can be grown from one sweet potato?"

"Your Majesty, the weight of the mother block of sweet potatoes is generally 1 to 2 taels, and it can produce more than 10 seedlings..."

According to Chen Qingshan, even if as much sweet potato seedlings as possible are transported from Fujian this year, considering seasonal factors, at most 8,000 acres can be planted.

But next year, hundreds of thousands of acres of seedlings can be grown.

Another year, and it will be tens of millions of acres...

Zhu Changgan personally got off the carriage and took a look at the sweet potato seedlings that had been planted.

Since Song Yingxing was not there, Zhu Changgan decided to return.

"Wang Chengen!"

"Your Majesty, I am here."

"Pass on my decree. Anyone who participates in sweet potato cultivation and whose three clans enter the capital, and anyone who leaks sweet potatoes to Jianzhou, will have their three clans exterminated!" Zhu Changgan's eyes flickered as he issued the decree.

It is impossible to completely prevent sweet potatoes from entering Jianzhou. All we can do is delay it as much as possible.

……

After returning from the Beijing camp, Zhu Changgan did not return to the Qianqing Palace, but came to the Grand Council.

The person on duty today was Sun Chengzong, along with several other ministers. When they saw the emperor coming, they quickly stood up and saluted, saying, "Your Majesty!"

The atmosphere in the Grand Council seemed to be quite lively due to the victory.

Zhu Changgan asked everyone to stand up, "Lord Sun, I want to ask, how many soldiers are there in the northern military garrison of the Ming Dynasty?"

"This……"

This sentence confused Sun Chengzong.

The number of troops in the Ming Dynasty is also a confusing topic.

During the heyday of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty nominally had an army of 300 million. However, after the Wanli period, the army nominally only had 80 to 90 troops, and during the Chongzhen period, the army nominally had only more than 60 troops.

But this is only the nominal number of troops and is very unreliable.

Taking the Ming Liao Army as an example, most official reports during the Wanli era stated that the Liao Army had 7 to 8 troops, but in reality there were only about 4.

Even during the period when Sun Chengzong was in charge of the Liao army, there was a scandal of ghost soldiers. There were several arguments in the court over whether the Guanning Army had 5 or 11 troops, but in the end no convincing and definite conclusion was reached.

The Ming army was divided into "combat troops" and "defending troops". The defending troops were weak troops that could only defend the city. The combat troops were divided into infantry and cavalry, and were the real combat-capable field troops of the Ming army.

The most capable fighters among the soldiers were the so-called generals' retainers (or inner servants).

Sun Chengzong thought for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, according to the statistics of the Ministry of War, the Liao army has a total of 80,000 troops, including 30,000 combat soldiers."

"The Shanxi general reported that the entire Shanxi town should have 1 soldiers, the Datong military town should have 7000 soldiers, and the Xuanfu town should have 1 soldiers. The Xuanda governor's standard-bearing soldiers have 7000 people..."

According to the records of the Ministry of War, the Ming court had a total of about 8 combat troops in Liaodong, Jizhou, Xuanfu, Datong, Shanxi, Shandong and other places, including probably about to cavalry.

Zuo Liangyu had 50,000 troops... Hong Chengchou's so-called "Governor of the Three Frontiers" nominally had 130,000 troops, including 40,000 cavalry...

What he said were all paper data, because no one except the general on duty knew the exact number. Zhu Changgan nodded, "In that case, there are actually quite a few people."

"Your Majesty, why are you asking this?"

"Nothing special. I want to ask all the major military towns to transfer 1,000 people to the capital." Zhu Changgan said calmly: "Hold an exercise."

"exercise?"

Zhu Changgan looked at Sun Chengzong's puzzled expression and explained, "It's what you call martial arts performance."

Take this opportunity to invite the generals of each military town to come here.

His deeper purpose was to take advantage of this opportunity to shock them and readjust the war zone.

……

Xinyang Prefecture,
Hongniangzi was wearing a red battle robe and riding on a warhorse, looking heroic. She was already a martial arts expert, and with this military uniform and years of killing, she had a bit more pressure and murderous aura.

Because of his injury, Li Yan was unable to ride a horse and could only be pulled in a carriage.

And this carriage was the one that Zhu Yiming and Chongzhen had ridden in. In order to prevent being recognized as royal relatives, they specially found an extremely ordinary carriage. Unexpectedly, it was also brought back by the copycats.

Now they had been traveling all night and finally stopped to take a short rest and cook a meal.

"Is Zhu Yonggan still here?" Li Yan couldn't help but ask.

"Still there, at the back of the team."

"This person is quite talented, and his temperament and demeanor are also impressive. He will become a great man in the future."

Lady Hong looked at Li Yan, "Why do you think so highly of him?"

"Manifestoes are something that very few people can write. Even I can't write to such a level in a short time. But he managed to write one. What does this mean?" Li Yan continued without leaving any room for suspense: "This shows that his talent is far greater than I realize."

"The Ming court is now corrupt, surrounded by the Jiannu and Mongolians, and the situation is changing rapidly. It is impossible to go far by relying solely on the peasant uprising army. We must absorb such capable people. If we want to overthrow the Ming Dynasty in the future, we must rely on such people to govern the country."

"Why do you have to think so far?"

"Only if we have lofty ambitions from the beginning can we go further. If we don't have a better plan ourselves, how can we accomplish anything?" Li Yan said, and suddenly started coughing.

This is actually the real reason why he has never wanted to join the peasant uprising army.

On the one hand, being a juren is the threshold to becoming an official through the imperial examination.

However, if you want to become an official, you have to wait in a long queue, and the starting point is low and promotion is difficult. For example, during the Jiajing period, Hai Rui, who was born as a juren, was able to become a first-rank official, which is an unrepeatable miracle. The best way is to take the imperial examination and become a jinshi.

On the other hand, he looked through all the history books and found that among the six peasant uprisings, only Zhu Yuanzhang's was successful.

The success rate is less than 20%.

That was why he escaped from the mountain stronghold. Now he was rescued by Hong Niangzi again. It would certainly be impossible for him to go back and be Mr. Li.

The only thing that can be done is to improve the strategies and political ideas of the peasant army and raise the level of the rebel army as much as possible.

"Since you value him so much, I will let the third in command keep a closer eye on him." Hong Niang frowned, but was eventually persuaded by Li Yan.

Li Yan had a blank expression on his face. After a moment, he pulled up the quilt and said, "I'm a little tired. Let me take a rest for a while."

"Okay, you take a rest. My people have already contacted King Chuang."

She has complicated feelings towards Li Yan.

As a woman who makes a living by performing, she travels around the world and has had enough of the ups and downs of life. In this year of cannibalism, the master raises his arms and gathers some people who can't survive to form an army of volunteers. They rob the rich and help the poor, and are enemies of the government.

Later they came to Qi County, and the master heard the most about the chivalrous stories of Master Li, so he decided to tie this man up the mountain and make him his husband.

She has always had a forthright character, except for the matter of marriage, she was indecisive. Having grown up without parents, she naturally had to listen to her master, who took care of everything for her, and she was ready to marry him, but she did not expect that the other party ran away before the wedding night.

The story was widely spread among the people, "Hong Niangzi, a prostitute, rebelled, kidnapped Xin, and forced her to give herself to him."

Hongniangzi did not explain either. There were reasons due to her master, but also her own reasons.

At this moment, she suddenly saw someone coming over, "Master Zhu, Li Yan just took a break, you..."

But then I heard a voice behind me, "Brother Zhu? I just want to chat with you."

Hongniang was stunned for a moment, bit her lip, and walked aside with her face suddenly turning pale.

It was precisely because of her change in mentality that she noticed that Chongzhen's hands and feet were shaking at this moment.

Chongzhen stared at Hongniang with burning eyes as she walked away, his Adam's apple rolling, and one hand slowly reached behind him, because there was a sharp knife hidden there.

"Brother Zhu, please forgive me for the inconvenience!"

"Brother Li, you are too polite. How are you feeling?" Chongzhen couldn't help but move closer and asked.

He had seen the scene that Zhu Changgan sent to him.

It was because Li Zicheng attacked the capital that he hanged himself on the crooked tree.

Zhu Changgan also said that Li Yan was extremely important to Li Zicheng, and it was under this man's advice that Li Zicheng rose to power... Chongzhen finally decided that he must get rid of Li Yan before leaving.

This time he had only come to scout the area, and he and King Xiang had already chosen the escape route.

Now that he saw Hongniang leaving, Chongzhen suddenly realized that this was a great opportunity. He looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to this side.

"Brother Zhu, do you want a wife?"

"Ah?" Chongzhen almost dropped the knife he had just held after hearing this sudden question.

"As long as you open your mouth, I will help you find a marriage."

……

There will be another chapter in a moment.

(End of this chapter)