Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 128 The influence is expanding

Zhu Changgan looked at Huang Daozhou, "Is this what you call not pursuing your own selfish desires?"

Yang Sichang stood up at this time: "Those who pursue profit only care about fame, fortune and positions. Everything they do is for their own sake."

"A righteous person takes the country and the world as his heart, and does everything for his family, country and the world. Dao Zhou submitted a memorial to exonerate Qian Qianyi and Zheng Yu, but said that he was not doing it for his own fame and honor. I do not believe it."

Previously, Huang Daozhou impeached Yang Sichang, saying that he "did not observe the mourning period to the end, took the wrong path, and took shortcuts" and was an unfaithful and unfilial person who coveted power and did not complete the mourning period.

Now that I have the opportunity, I will speak without any dignity.

At this moment, another person stood up and said, "The two words 'morality' and 'principles' must be made clear. The ruler is the guide for the ministers, the father is the guide for the sons, and the ruler and the minister are listed above the father and the son.

When I entered the capital, I heard that Huang Daozhou was highly respected for his conduct and academic achievements, and I thought that he must have some upright words, so I could return home to complete the period of mourning.

Unexpectedly, he claimed in his memorial that he was not as good as Zheng, which made me sigh with despair. People say that animals know their mothers but not their fathers. Zheng Deng beat his mother, which is worse than animals. Dao Zhou is not as good as Zheng, so what moral principles are there to talk about?

This person is none other than Xu Ci Fu, the Director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

He was referring to what Huang Daozhou had mentioned in a memorial declining the promotion to the position of You Yude last fall.

Huang Daozhou claimed that he had "three sins, four shames, and seven shortcomings", one of which was that "the spirit of his writing was rough and open, not as good as Qian Qianyi and Zheng Yu."

Now Huang Daozhou and Zheng Yu have both been labeled as disloyal and unfilial people, but Huang Daozhou said that he is not as good as Qian Qianyi and Zheng Yu. What does that mean?
Huang Daozhou was sweating profusely. "Kuang Zhang abandoned the country, but Mencius was polite to him. Confucius said: 'In resigning, I am not as good as Zai Yu. Your Majesty, I am not as good as Zheng Yu in writing.'"

Zhu Changgan looked at his ministers coldly.

As expected, Xu Cifu stood up and refuted: "Kuang Zhang is not loved by his father, how can he be compared with Zheng Zhangmu? You say he is not as good as Zheng, what else can this be but a clique?"

With his own people in the court, the pressure was suddenly much less, and the emperor did not have to personally step in to deal with the situation.

When the discussion below was almost over, Zhu Changgan coughed and said, "Some people say that in the current Ming Dynasty, in order to achieve their own selfish desires, they will make a fuss about the famous sayings of the code of conduct."

"Now it seems to be true, Huang Daozhou, as the great Neo-Confucian master of the Ming Dynasty, if you are like this, then aren't others even worse?"

Huang Daozhou's eyes were red with anger when he heard this. "Your Majesty, if I don't say everything today, I will be letting you down. However, my integrity as a civil official will not be taken lightly."

He pretended to crash into the pillar.

Several people around hurriedly pulled him back.

"Integrity? Frivolous?" Zhu Changgan slowly stood up and looked at him, "Let him go. I want to see what you call integrity."

"Come on, I have never seen a minister die by hitting his head against a pillar." Zhu Changgan's tone suddenly rose: "Come on, everyone, get out of the way, let him hit you, show me your determination, and fulfill your wish to be famous for eternity."

"Hit it... Use all your strength. It's better to step back a few steps. If you are too close and it doesn't run fast enough, then you won't be able to kill it. Doesn't that mean you have to hit it twice?"

When the emperor said this, all the ministers were stunned.

He stood there with his mouth open. The person who was holding Huang Daozhou let go and he didn't know what to do for a moment.

Huang Daozhou's face turned blue and purple. He clenched his fingers and looked at the pillar. His chest heaved, his face turned purple, and his arms were shaking.

Just when he made up his mind, he heard the emperor say, "Come here, take him away for the sake of his official position."

Two strong young eunuchs came in and dragged him away without saying a word. Now he couldn't rush in even if he wanted to.

"Anyone else? If you want to come and fight me, I will personally give you a state funeral."

"Who's coming?"

There was total silence in the hall, and no one responded.

Zhu Changgan got up and left. Taking action against Huang Daozhou was something he had planned in advance. After Qian Qianyi, Huang Daozhou had already become the leader of the Donglin Party.

A single call brings forth a mighty force.

Today he impeached Yang Sichang, and tomorrow he impeached Xu Cifu. Chongzhen scolded them for their lifetime of learning but only learned to be flatterers, but he could do nothing about it because their reputation among scholars across the country was too high.

Now, if we want to discipline these scholars and officials, we must start with their so-called reputation.

On the way back to the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Changgan sang in a low voice: "Why do you eat the flesh and blood of the people and yet sit on the high platform?
Why do you think you are so superior and dressed in white?

Why are the people in dire straits while you are left out of the storm?
You are such a bad person, you deserve to fall down..."

Wang Chengen followed behind and listened to the emperor's words. He couldn't help swallowing his saliva. He winked at several people around him and asked them to leave.

At this moment, Gao Yushun's figure caught Zhu Changgan's attention. "What's the matter?"

Gao Yushun came over trotting, "Your Majesty, there's news from Shanxi and Datong, everything is normal, and they are being escorted back to Beijing."

Zhu Changgan nodded and said, "Let the Ming Times publish this matter."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Gao Yushun said hesitantly, "There is one more thing. Under Your Majesty's instructions, all the personnel sent to Henan were secretly changed into plain clothes."

After Zhu Changgan learned that Chongzhen had sent a team to Henan, he communicated with Chongzhen as soon as possible and asked them to integrate a group of refugees to form a peasant army, and then enter Siwang Mountain to join the peasant army.

This is safer.

Afterwards, Zhu Changgan asked Gao Yushun about the distribution of food and wages that had been transported there.

The so-called distribution of food and wages refers to the fact that although the Manchus took tens of thousands of heads when they entered the country, they also looted a large number of people and livestock. However, because of their defeat in the war, they abandoned most of them, causing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.

However, the food and wages transferred from Tongzhou were sufficient, and the army decided not to transport back the uneaten ones, but to distribute them directly to the people who had left their homes, so that they could use them as dry food when they returned home.

The people suffered terribly from the repeated invasions by the Later Jin. Without the food, they might not be able to return to their hometowns. Once tens of thousands of people were coerced by people with ulterior motives, they would become a group of bandits, causing bloodshed again on hundreds of miles of Ming land.

……

Outside Jinzhou City, the armies of Dorgon and Yuetuo finally joined forces with Huang Taiji.

When Huang Taiji heard that Hauge was captured by the Ming army, his eyes suddenly became dull and he spat out a mouthful of blood after a while.

Hauge was his eldest son. When the Manchus changed the era name to emperor and formally established the Qing Dynasty, Hauge was named Prince Su and ranked among the four great princes.

He also commanded the Zhenglan Banner, and his power and status in the court over the Ministry of Revenue were extremely prominent.

Now it fell into the hands of the Ming court. This sudden blow was too much for Huang Taiji to accept.

“Your Majesty!” “Your Majesty…”

"Huang Ama!"

All the ministers of the Qing Dynasty were in a panic. Huang Taiji looked up to the sky and sighed: "This battle has brought our decades of efforts to nothing."

Huang Taiji, the eighth son of Nurhaci, was born in the 3th year of Wanli. Historical books of the time said that he was extremely intelligent when he was years old, and that he "would never forget what he heard and what he would recognize at the first sight." This is obviously an exaggeration.

But he started his military career when he was a teenager, and became a commander-in-chief of an army in his early 20s. Later, he became one of the four powerful beiles of the Later Jin Dynasty.
Since the first raid on Beijing in the second year of Chongzhen, the Qing Dynasty had grown rapidly in strength under the rule of Huang Taiji.

After a fierce competition between brothers, he inherited his father's rule and became the second Khan of the Later Jin Dynasty, calling himself "Shule Khan"

Also known as the "Smart Khan", he subsequently launched three campaigns against Mongolia and two campaigns against Korea, forcing the King of the Joseon Dynasty to sign a humiliating treaty. From then on, this vassal state, which had been loyal to the Ming Dynasty for generations, became a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty.

Later, in the ninth year of Chongzhen, which was last year, he gave up the traditional title of Great Khan and officially ascended the throne as the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty. He set up six ministries, the Censorate and other government offices similar to the Ming system.

Although the population of the Qing Dynasty outside Shanhaiguan today cannot be compared with that of the Ming Dynasty, the vastness of its territory is comparable to that of the Ming Dynasty, the combat effectiveness of its troops far exceeds that of the Ming Dynasty, and its system is roughly established and its national strength is strong. It is definitely a great power that can rival the Ming Dynasty.

"How could it be? How could a battle turn out like this?" Huang Taiji wiped the blood from his mouth and nose, pointed at Dorgon and Yuetuo, and said, "You said... don't hide any details."

However, before Dorgon and Yuetuo could report, someone suddenly ran over from outside and said, "Report, Zu Dashou's troops from Jinzhou City are attacking us."

"Zu Dashou!" Huang Taiji's face was extremely ugly, "Negative influence is coming."

Before this, Huang Taiji personally presented Zu Dashou with gifts and various valuable items, hoping to get this important general of Shanhaiguan to surrender.

But afterwards, Zu Dashou repeatedly declined, saying that he had too few confidants and it would be difficult to launch an uprising, or he gave other reasons and kept wavering.

However, Huang Taiji regarded Zu Dashou as his own. Even when the Qing army attacked Korea this year, he wrote a letter to Zu Dashou, informing him that the Qing army had captured Pi Island and asking about his plan to march west to the Ming Dynasty.

The purpose was to completely break down Zu Dashou's psychological defenses, but now... once defeated, the opponent completely sided with the Ming Dynasty and became his enemy.

At this time, someone came to report: "Your Majesty, Wu Sangui's troops from Guanning also sent troops to attack our southern troops, killing fifty people."

Huang Taiji closed his eyes. Wu Sangui was also the target of their lobbying. Now it is certain that the lobbying plan has failed and the two sides have become enemies.

"It's too late to regret!" Huang Taiji was furious. "The biggest impact of this entry into the pass is not in Shanhaiguan, but in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty and in the heartland of the Ming Dynasty. What Chongzhen has to do next is to eliminate the bandits."

"They are the scabies of the Ming Dynasty, and they are scabies growing in the hinterland. Once they are eliminated by the Ming Dynasty, they will be able to free up their hands to deal with us..."

Huang Taiji fainted before he could finish his words.

There was another chaos, some people pinched the philtrum, some pinched the soles of the feet...

……

Compared with Dorgon who walked hundreds of miles more, the troops from Jinzhou and Guanning set out later and returned to the base camp two days earlier.

Zu Dashou used the excuse of a welcoming ceremony to ask them about the situation on the battlefield.

The first few times Huang Taiji entered the pass, he had no more than 50,000 people, but he was able to defeat the Ming army.

But this time, out of the 80,000 troops, more than 40,000 were beheaded by the Ming army, and Hauge was also captured, which really scared Zu Dashou.

Especially when he learned from the returning personal soldiers that the Ming army's tactics and equipment this time were vastly different from before, with artillery that could be operated by two people and muskets with a range of 150 steps...all these refreshed Zu Dashou's cognition.

He once asked Deputy General Cai Shangqing seriously, "According to what you said, if we have the same number of people as the three major camps, we will definitely be defeated?"

"We will definitely lose. The advantage in equipment cannot be made up by combat power." Cai Shangqing shook his head, not wanting to win. "Even the Later Jin is like this, what about us?"

Afterwards, he asked several other generals who were on the trip and got the same answer, which was even more extreme.

When talking about the battles between the three camps and the Qing Dynasty, they couldn't help but laugh. "For the first time, we discovered that wars can be fought this way. After several battles, they suffered the least losses, but annihilated the most enemies. More than 30,000 people died at the hands of the three camps..."

"General, the Ming Dynasty has arrived."

"Oh, give it here." Since the establishment of the Ming Times, Zu Dashou has developed the habit of reading newspapers.

As a result, the headlines on the front page were: Wang Pu, the general of Datong, and Hu Dawei, the general of Shanxi, collaborated with the enemy and committed treason... their three clans were exterminated, their names were included in the book of traitors, and they were despised by people all over the world.

It was also written below that the ancestral tomb of Wang Pu of Datong was dug out and abandoned in the mountains, and the Wang family ancestral hall was also burned down.

Zu Dashou had always been hesitant and suspicious about surrendering to the Qing Dynasty. In addition, he did not want his reputation to be tarnished. Now, when he read these words, he felt as if a poisonous snake was crawling on his back.

Outside the city of Jinzhou, Zu Dashou led his men to charge towards the Qing army. He did not really want to fight to the death with Huang Taiji, but wanted to show his attitude.

He wanted to tell Huang Taiji that he and he were irreconcilable, and he wanted to show his loyalty to the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

……

The same scene happened to Wu Sangui.

Before this, he had many contacts with Huang Taiji.

Although the two sides are enemies, the more they are enemies, the more they understand each other.

In one of their battles, Wu Sangui was defeated by Huang Taiji, and it was also during this battle that he was completely subdued by Huang Taiji.

He once said in a drunken stupor, "The Ming Dynasty will inevitably fall into the hands of Huang Taiji."

In his view, the Ming Dynasty was too old to be a match for the Qing Dynasty, which was at its peak. Moreover, the longer it took, the worse the situation of the Ming Dynasty might become.

Of course, he had this intention but never expressed it to anyone. Even when Huang Taiji sent someone to him, he never gave in.

However, this battle to enter the Pass at the end of his term directly overturned his understanding of the current situation.

The Qing army was extremely brave, and even the Guanning army did not dare to engage in a head-on confrontation with the Qing army. The Ming army did not mobilize Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting and other troops to suppress bandits and come to the rescue, and they only relied on the three major camps and the small soldiers and generals drawn from the border towns to win the battle. How was this possible?

Even though he asked the soldiers who participated in the war, they still didn't believe it.

Could it be that the Qing army’s combat effectiveness does not live up to its reputation?
So he personally led two thousand cavalrymen to ambush one thousand Qing cavalrymen.

But the result of the battle was that the Guanning Army left behind more than a hundred bodies of soldiers and only killed more than fifty of the enemy.

(End of this chapter)