Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 92 The general raised his head!

"Wait a moment." Zhu Changgan stopped Song Yingxing, "There's no rush. We'll discuss what needs to be improved by your Arms Department later."

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing could only suppress the heat in his heart and sit back in his seat obediently.

The following is everyone’s summary of this battle and ways to improve it.

Li Banghua mentioned one point, "Your Majesty, the firearms are indeed very powerful, but their close combat capabilities are too poor. Once the Tartars get close to them, there will be a lot of casualties, so this problem needs to be solved urgently."

"The 32 casualties among the fire-gun soldiers were caused by the five Tartar horses that rushed in close and hacked them to death."

Zhu Changgan nodded, "Then let's talk about it, what good methods can be used to make up for the close combat disadvantage of the fire gun soldiers?"

With the previous atmosphere as a foundation, everyone dared to speak out.

Some say he carried a spear, some say he carried a knife, and some even say he tied the knife to a musket.

Zhu Changgan listened to everyone's discussion and could not help but nod. The direction was right. "I will also give you an idea. You can study it with Song Sihao."

bayonet.

An inch longer, an inch stronger. There is a reason why bayonets were widely used by the Japanese in later generations.

Compared to the anti-Japanese drama, the scene of the broadsword team beating the Japanese bayonet team is well-known, but the real situation is that the bayonet's performance far exceeds that of the broadsword.

In comparison, spears are more powerful, but musketeers need to maneuver quickly and reload ammunition. Carrying spears several meters high will actually drag down the combat effectiveness of hot weapons in terms of weight, length, and flexibility.

Moreover, the bayonet is a stabbing attack, which requires low technical skills, but is the attack action with the highest mortality rate.

To borrow a phrase from Li Yunlong, who wants to use a machete when there is a bayonet? I would rather have a machine gun for each person!
"In order to prevent the stabbing without killing, we can use a three-edged military bayonet." Zhu Changgan drew a diagram and discussed it with Song Yingxing.

Then he talked to the generals about the bayonet training method.

With the emperor's suggestion, the generals soon opened up and spoke out about the shortcomings of their weapons and equipment and tactics on the battlefield.

Others also analyzed the specific issues, and the atmosphere suddenly became heated.

"The war depends on you, and on me, but in the final analysis, it still depends on you." At this time, Zhu Changgan stood up and walked outside. All he could do was to give them a start.

Wang Chengen followed behind, looking at the emperor in front of him, his eyes as bright as torches, but he could not see through the emperor, and murmured: "Is your majesty really the same majesty as before?"

But when he thought of the emperor who had a seizure at night, he couldn't help but sigh, "Perhaps your majesty's seizure is not entirely a bad thing."

There was another person who had the same idea as Wang Chengen.

Sun Chengzong.

He looked at the emperor's departing figure and the group of generals discussing something, and said with a sigh, "The rise of generals is inevitable."

"Lord Sun, the rise of military generals may not be a good thing for us!" Yang Sichang said worriedly.

"Not necessarily."

"Master Sun, aren't you worried at all?" Yang Sichang asked tentatively again.

Sun Chengzong sighed, "History is repeating itself, but in fact it never repeats itself. The Shang Dynasty was founded on commerce, so they wanted to expand their territory. The army in the north was still expanding their territory, but in the end, they were stolen by the Zhou Dynasty."

"The Zhou Dynasty learned from the experience and lessons of the Shang Dynasty and set up vassal states. As a result, the vassal states rebelled and were destroyed by the Qin Dynasty."

"The Qin Dynasty absorbed the teachings of the Zhou Dynasty and adopted harsh measures, such as burning books and burying scholars alive, and forcing people to work. The second emperor of Qin trusted no one but the eunuchs. The eunuchs lost their power and could only rely on the imperial power. As a result, Zhao Gao, the eunuch, became the authoritarian. As a result, Cheng Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled, leading to the demise of the Qin Dynasty."

"When Emperor Gaozu of Han founded the Han Dynasty, he drew lessons from the experiences and lessons of all previous dynasties, forbade eunuchs to interfere in government affairs, and established vassal states, but they had to be members of the Liu family. He also said, "If anyone other than a Liu family member becomes king, the whole world will attack him." However, the power of foreign relatives was even worse than that of eunuchs."

"The Eastern Han Dynasty learned from the lessons of the Western Han Dynasty and did not use external relatives or eunuchs. As a result, external forces grew stronger and the emperor was held hostage to control the princes."

"Cao Cao gained the world, but it was stolen by the scholar-official Sima family."

"The Sui Dynasty was not easy to establish. It was destroyed by powerful families in just 37 years. The Tang Dynasty learned from all the previous lessons and used military generals to suppress the powerful families. As a result, the military generals had too much power, and the An-Shi Rebellion caused the entire Tang Dynasty to collapse."

"The Song Dynasty also absorbed all the teachings of the past and gave up military power with a simple toast, using civil officials to control the military. As a result, there were no eunuchs who monopolized power, no relatives who interfered in politics, no princes who rebelled, and the people rarely rebelled. However, they were destroyed by the foreign enemy Mongolia."

"In the early days of our Ming Dynasty, military generals dominated the government and the country, but after Emperor Chengzu, the princes were reduced to power, and after Emperor Xuande, military honors existed in name only. The court controlled the military with civil officials, and foreign enemies also surrounded us. Don't you think that the Ming Dynasty today is very similar to the Song Dynasty?"

"What the elder means is that Your Majesty saw the situation of the Song Dynasty, so he deliberately let the generals raise their heads..." Yang Sichang looked at Sun Chengzong steadily and did not speak for a long time.

"I just said it casually, and Minister Yang just took it casually." Sun Chengzong smiled and did not answer.

Compared with other civil servants, Sun Chengzong no longer had much desire to "compete for official position and advancement". At the age of 75, he was reinstated and became the prime minister. What else did he want?
If I were to ask for anything, I would only hope that the Ming Dynasty would prosper forever.

……

Tongzhou,

Dorgon led the Eight Banners Manchu and Mongolian cavalry and galloped forward like a storm, and the Ming army was defeated.

Along the way, they massacred more than a dozen villages and towns, killing or capturing thousands of civilians. This is why their speed was not as fast as Yue Tuo and his men when they came.

When they arrived in Tongzhou, they found out that Yue Tuo and his men had been defeated.

In such a short period of time, they lost 16,000 cavalrymen, including thousands of wounded, and the number of troops capable of fighting was only half of what it had before.

Yue Tuo's face looked extremely ugly. Beile Dudu had clearly told him that the Ming army's artillery was extremely powerful and their muskets had a long range, but he did not believe it and still sent Alan Chai and the others over.

As a result, another 3,000 cavalry were lost.

There were not many Eight Banners soldiers, and so many were killed or wounded all of a sudden.

In August last year, Yuetuo was sentenced to death by the beile and princes because he was accused of shielding Manggurtai who "drew his sword in front of the emperor" and Shuotuo who was guilty of defeating the army and murder, as well as alienating Jirgalang and Hauge.

In the end, Huang Taiji chose to forgive Yuetuo, but only demoted him to Duroberle and dismissed him from his post in the Ministry of War.

Two months ago, Yuetuo followed the army to repel the Korean soldiers from Jeolla Province, but after returning victoriously, he was found to have committed seven deadly crimes. He was sentenced to be stripped of his title, dismissed from office, and fined. Huang Taiji was very angry, but still chose to forgive him.

Yue Tuo knelt down and cried bitterly, saying: "I was resurrected because of the emperor's benevolence and grace. I can't repay him even if I give him a gift."

In the past, he participated in more than 20 wars against Ming, Korea and Mongolia, but he was not a soldier in any of them. Only this time he was promoted to the position of commander-in-chief of the right wing army.

I thought I finally had the chance to show my skills, but I didn't expect to be hit so hard in the first battle that I couldn't recover.

He even said that even tying a grass and holding a ring would not be enough to repay the emperor, so how could he repay the emperor like this? Yue Tuo could foresee that if he went back to see the emperor like this, he would probably die.

So now he can only place his hope on Dorgon, "Prince Rui, everything will be up to you from now on."

"With me as the leader? How can I be the leader? The emperor has divided the army into two wings, the left and right wings. You and I are both the commanders, there is no distinction between the leader and the subordinate."

"How could there not be? You are a prince and I am a beile. This is the order of priority. Prince Rui is the one who is in charge of everything." Yue Tuo said with a stiff upper lip. He thought about how he was also a prince in the past, but unfortunately he was no longer a prince.

The only way to save himself now is to win a few battles or take back the Ming Dynasty's artillery.

Compared with Yuetuo, Dorgon, as the fourteenth brother of Huang Taiji, was favored by the emperor.

At the beginning of the year, Huang Taiji discussed with Dorgon and asked him to build the Duerbi City in Liaoyang, named Pingcheng, and also planned to let him build a highway from Shengjing to Liaohe River.

However, after seeing the injuries of Yuetuo's soldiers, Dorgon frowned and looked surprised, "The Ming Dynasty actually has the artillery and muskets you mentioned? Wouldn't that greatly constrain us?"

"How many doors are there?"

"There are more than a hundred doors..."

"Then we can no longer stick to our previous marching route." Dorgon shook his head with a grim expression.

Originally, they planned to bypass the capital after meeting up in Tongzhou, split into eight groups in Zhuozhou, then plunder Shanxi, break into Shandong, and then plunder Tianjin and Qian'an in the north before returning from Qingshan Pass.

They swept thousands of miles back and forth, causing unrest in the vicinity of the entire capital of the Ming Dynasty and forcing the generals who were suppressing bandits in the central region to return to the capital to defend the king.

But now Dorgon smelled a hint of danger, his pupils suddenly widened, "We can't split our forces. Not only can we not split our forces. And we have to withdraw from the heartland of the Central Plains as soon as possible."

"Go back? You can't go back!" Yue Tuo's face turned green. If he went back like this, he would definitely die.

Dorgon cursed angrily: "If it's too late, we may not be able to withdraw."

At this moment, a messenger came riding over from a distance, "Report!"

"Six hundred miles urgent!"

Dorgon took Huang Taiji's letter from the messenger, and it was just as he thought, that the troops could not be divided, but it did not mean to let them withdraw to the interior.

Thinking of this, Dorgon did not allow him to have any time, and quickly wrote down his thoughts, "Hurry up and send it to the emperor."

……

Prince Xiang's Mansion,
The time for the provincial examination has arrived.

"My son, when you enter the examination room, do not argue with others. There are countless injustices in the world. Only when you have achieved fame will you have the right to speak out." Prince Xiang Zhu Yiming took Chongzhen to the outside of the Dragon Gate and earnestly admonished him.
"The kid knows."

"Once you're inside, be sure to take care of yourself."

"got it."

"Take another bamboo tube with you. Don't drink the raw water inside. The water in the Imperial Examination Hall is only used once every three years. Six people died of illness during the first exam."

"understood……"

Compared with the last time, Chongzhen was obviously more mature this time when facing Prince Xiang's teachings.

He didn't show any displeasure or annoyance, he just smiled and nodded continuously.

Chongzhen walked into the examination room, turned his head to look at Prince Xiang Zhu Yiming, and found that the other party was still waiting outside. When he saw him turn back, he hurriedly waved his hand. His eyes suddenly turned red, and he walked quickly inside.

He knew that only when he entered the examination room and no one was around would King Xiang leave.

After finding his own examination room, even though Chongzhen had taken the county examination before, he couldn't help but want to curse when he entered the prefectural examination hall again.

The room was dusty and full of cobwebs, even worse than last time in the county. I could only hold my nose and try to keep the desk clean and tidy to avoid tearing the test paper.

After finishing all this, the papers were distributed, the first one was eight-legged essay.

After thinking for a while, Chongzhen began to write furiously. However, as the sun rose, the May weather became unbearably hot, but he did not dare to let sweat drip on the test paper.

Because once the test paper is soiled, there will be no chance of being included in the list.

After the first day of the exam, Chongzhen took out his dry food to eat. Looking at the examinee next to him making a fire to cook, he couldn't help but shook his head, "Why bother so much? It's a waste of time."

But when he was eating the dry food, he found that the water in the bamboo tube he brought was only enough for one day, so he had to resist the urge to drink it.

at night,

The two exchanged as usual, and Zhu Changgan's face turned pale, "What the hell is this suffering again?"

Looking at the dim oil lamp, with his previous experience in mind, Zhu Changgan blew it out directly and put away the test papers first to prevent them from being damaged, thus wasting all Chongzhen's efforts.

As for the test questions, he didn't even look at them. He was tired after a day and just wanted to stretch his legs!

So I took out the number board and connected it with the board behind it to make a simple plank bed. Although it hurt my back to lie on it, after sitting on it for a whole day, I felt indescribably comfortable. "Taking the imperial examination is really not something that ordinary people can endure."

"Should I issue an order to have the various examination halls improve the environment for these students taking the imperial examinations?"

But after thinking about it, compared with the stubborn problems of the Ming Dynasty, issuing decrees to improve the environment in the examination halls in various places would only be scratching the surface and would not change the status quo.

At night, a thunderclap woke Zhu Changgan up. It was raining heavily. He quickly hid inside and heard an old man crying, "The test paper is damaged. How could this happen? Wasn't the moon bright just now? I just took a nap, why is it raining all of a sudden?"

howling.

Once the test paper is damaged, it is equivalent to being invalid and cannot be included in the register, and you have to wait another three years.

Zhu Changgan sighed, got up, took a nap, covered his nose and continued to sleep.

There is a toilet in the dormitory, and the candidates will relieve themselves here. If they need to defecate, they can apply to use the toilet in the dormitory, but the invigilator will put a stamp on the test paper, commonly known as a shit stamp.

It indicates that the candidate has gone to the toilet during the test, which is somewhat disrespectful to the teacher, so test papers with shit marks will basically be rejected. Therefore, even if the candidate wants to defecate, he has to hold it in. If he really can't hold it any longer, he will just do it in the toilet.

You can imagine how foul the smell in the examination room is. It is really an eyesore.

The candidates had no choice but to eat less and drink less water.

(End of this chapter)