Smuggling Daming

For the great victory in Yingzhou, Zhengde personally wrote the document to report the victory, and sent it to the capital quickly through the post station, and because it was the emperor's autographed memorial, it could only be handed over to Zhou Zhong in the end, and only he, King Zhao Jiajian States are qualified to review this document.

As soon as Zhou Zhong opened the victory letter, he immediately concluded that it must not be written by Zhengde, because Zhengde's handwriting is not so beautiful, and his handwriting can't even compare with Zhou Zhong, let alone such regular lower case letters. .However, after reading the two sentences, I found that they were all in the tone of Zhengde's speech. I guess this was dictated by Zhengde, and then someone else wrote it, and all of them were in spoken language. I guess this was also strongly requested by Zhengde.

This document is very long, Zhou Zhong roughly read it, and found that Zhengde personally described the entire process of the Battle of Yingzhou, and later reported the results of the battle, and finally attached a list of meritorious soldiers, and nothing else , but the results in the middle are very watery. Zhengde said that after several days and nights of chaos, they finally repelled the attack of the little Tatar prince. After statistics, they found that they killed more than 5 enemies. This number can be seen at a glance It's a lie. After all, the grassland people generally don't exceed [-] people going south. If Zhengde and the others killed [-] enemies, wouldn't they have wiped out the troops of the little Tatar prince?

In addition to the official victory report, Zhengde also sent a private letter to Zhou Zhong, which was written by him himself. In the letter, he not only showed off his military exploits to his younger brother, but also described him in a large amount of space. The Mongolian officer who beheaded with his own hands finally ordered Zhou Zhong to give him a title, and he had already chosen his name.It's called Zhen Guogong.

For Zhengde's request for a title.Zhou Zhong was also dumbfounded.Before that, Zhengde had already asked the Ministry of War for the appointment of a general officer, but now he wanted to confer a title on himself, but no matter how high the title was, would it be more honorable than his emperor?

Although Zhou Zhong also felt that what Zhengde did was absurd, he could also understand that Zhengde was a very conceited person, in his opinion.His own throne was inherited from his father, which is not considered a skill. In contrast, he has made military achievements now, which is his own skill, so naturally he wants a title to show off, but with his standing With that little military merit, he actually wanted the title of a duke, obviously some lions opened their mouths.

Regarding Zhengde's victory report document, Zhou Zhong did not assert himself.Instead, they got the cabinet to ask Yang Ting to discuss with them, but when these people saw the sentence of killing the enemy fifty thousand.Everyone shook their heads and smiled wryly. The people who could sit in their positions were all good people. Naturally, they knew that there were only fifty thousand grassland cavalry at most. How could they kill them all? Seven or eight thousand at most would be good.

Fortunately, Zhengde still had a sense of propriety, he did not dare to go to the battlefield in person, and wrote the matter of killing a Mongolian officer in the victory report, just showing off in the letter to Zhou Zhong, otherwise if the cabinet knew that he went to the battlefield , I am afraid that the cabinet and other ministers will immediately go to the Xuanfu, and then desperately bring Zhengde back to the capital.

After everyone finished reading it, Zhou Zhong discussed with them again. Naturally, they dared not hide Zhengde's military exploits, and even if they wanted to hide it, they couldn't hide it because Zhou Zhong was still in charge in the capital, but for that The imaginary number of beheading [-] people cannot be ignored. After all, the trend of falsely reporting military achievements can no longer be encouraged, so in the end, Wang Qiong, the Minister of the Ministry of War, has to go to Datong to review military achievements in person. patterns.

Datong is not very far from the capital, and Wang Qiong is also a very talented person, so he quickly verified the real results of the battle. In the Battle of Yingzhou, Datong, Xuanfu and Liaodong fought together, and finally killed eight of the enemies. There are more than [-] people. The reason why there is no exact number is because the application of artillery and landmines has caused the corpses of some enemies to be bombed and incomplete. It is impossible to count the exact number.

Other generals who falsely reported military exploits would naturally be severely punished, but this time it was Zhengde who took the lead. No one dared to mention the punishment, but the rewards to the army were all based on actual military exploits. As a result, Zhou Zhong spent a lot of effort to let the cabinet relax, so Zhengde finally got his wish and was rewarded by the Duke of Zhen. At the same time, he asked the court to allocate funds to build a town in Xuanfu The Duke's Mansion, it seems, intends to live in the Xuan Mansion for a long time.

Just finished the matter of rewarding the army, Zhou Zhong thought that Zhengde would not make any more troubles in a short time, the little prince of Tatar was beaten so badly this time, it is estimated that he will not dare to come again next year, or even the year after After all, more than 1 people died. With the recovery speed of the grassland people, it is estimated that they will not recover in a few years.

However, Zhou Zhong obviously underestimated Zhengde. Just after the reward for the frontier army was delivered, Zhengde gave a very formal memorial to the court. The contents of the memorial made Zhou Zhong even more headache, because Zhengde wanted to establish Then use this cavalry to actively attack the grassland people, just like Tang Taizong and Ming Chengzu did in history, directly directing the military disaster to the grassland, so as to prevent Ming from spending huge military expenses every year to maintain a huge frontier army.

For Zhengde's idea, Zhou Zhong appreciated it very much, and he even thought that this was what an emperor should have.But appreciation is appreciation. Zhou Zhong is also firmly opposed to this idea that doesn't work at first glance.

Let's not talk about whether it is possible to establish a cavalry force on the grassland now, even if it can be established, but who can guarantee that it will beat the current little Tatar prince? After all, the current grassland is no longer the grassland of the past. Not to mention, the time is too long, there is no comparison. The reason why Ming Chengzu Zhu Di was able to beat the grassland people crying father and mother was not only because of his own strong military force, but also because the Yuan Dynasty had just been kicked out. The army has a natural fear, and the remaining Yuan and Mongolian forces are split and intriguing with each other. Facing the Ming Dynasty's suppression, they cannot form an effective command at all, so they will be defeated again and again in the end.

However, even in the period of Ming Chengzu, they did not always suppress the grassland people, and they were defeated by the grassland people several times. After all, the Ming army was not used to the grassland, and it was normal to lose battles. The use of troops also exhausted Ming's treasury, and it took many years to recover.

Now Zhengde wants to build an elite cavalry and transfer the war to the grassland. Although this idea is good, it is not realistic. First of all, the current situation in the grassland is no longer divided as it was before, but has been unified by the little Tatar prince. The power of the entire grassland is condensed into one rope, even if Zhengde can train an elite cavalry, it may not be able to take advantage of it.

In addition, Zhou Zhong is also worried that if this cavalry is established, Zhengde personally leads the cavalry into the grassland on a whim. With Zhengde's temper, he will definitely do it. Like Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, they ate directly on the grassland. At that time, His Majesty the emperor of Ming Dynasty led the army to be robbers on the grassland, killing people and arson.

Thinking of the terrible consequences of the establishment of the cavalry, Zhou Zhong couldn't help shaking his head in fear. In addition, if Zhengde really led the cavalry into the grassland in person, no one can guarantee the safety of Zhengde in such a dangerous environment. If there is any accident, then Zhou Zhong is likely to take over the throne of Zhengde, after all his sons are still too young.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, it may be more convenient for Zhou Zhong to sit on the throne to reform Daming, but he himself knows very clearly that if he sits on the throne himself, it will be more convenient than being a supervisor of the country now. He is still a courtier of Ming Dynasty, and he is barely in the same ranks as Yang Tinghe and others. If he wants to carry out reforms, he can use more moderate methods. His absurdity is well known in the world, and the ministers have already lost their temper because of him.

However, if Zhou Zhong sits on the throne, he will become the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Although the emperor is the ruler of the Ming Empire in name, his power is actually restricted by the ministers. Especially at this time in the Ming Dynasty, the emperor and the ministers are naturally Being in a position of confrontation, if Zhou Zhong wants to implement reforms at that time, I am afraid that no matter whether this reform is right or wrong, it will attract opposition from a large number of courtiers.So for Zhou Zhong, Zhengde is the shield for him to carry out reforms. If he is not around, then Zhou Zhong will directly face the criticism of his courtiers.

It is precisely because of this that Zhou Zhongbi does not want Zhengde to take risks. At least until his own reforms have achieved initial results, Zhengde must not have any accidents. Therefore, after receiving Zhengde's memorial to establish an elite cavalry, he immediately called the cabinet to discuss , but the inner space of the discussion is not whether to build this cavalry, but how to make Zhengde dispel this idea.

The cabinet is also unwilling to establish such a cavalry. They have opposed Zhengde's departure from the capital. If Zhengde is allowed to establish a cavalry, God knows when he will come back?Secondly, now that the national conditions of Ming Dynasty have just improved, although there is money in the national treasury, there are many places where money is needed in various places in Ming Dynasty. If all the money is invested in the frontier, what will happen in the country?

The cabinet agrees with Zhou Zhong, but how to make Zhengde give up the idea of ​​establishing an elite cavalry?But none of them have any good solution. With Zhengde's temper, as long as he has made up his mind, he will not change it easily. What's more, now that Zhengde has just won a battle, it is time to be full of ambition. If they resolutely oppose it at this time To put it bluntly, maybe Zhengde would really stay in Xuanfu and never come back if he got angry. (to be continued..)