New Empire at the End of Ming Dynasty

Capital

After the total annihilation of Lu Xiangsheng, the prestige of the imperial court has declined to an unprecedented level.

When the Liu family started a rebellion, the imperial court did not hesitate to suppress it angrily. Who knows that they tried to suppress each other, but made it stronger instead of subduing each other.

The Tianxiong army, one of the four elite of the imperial court, was completely destroyed, the good general Lu Xiangsheng died, and Hong Chengshou's army fled, which made their encirclement and suppression a complete failure.

Even worse, after the loss of Hejian Prefecture, they also lost the forward position of going south to Shandong, and let the Liu family take this as a bridgehead, so that they can directly attack beizhili and attack the capital at any time.

This caused the greatest shock to the capital. They did not destroy the rebels, but let the rebels hit the door of their home, which was never seen by the Ming court in more than 200 years.

The ministers in the imperial court talked and asked Hong Chengchou to send troops immediately to recapture Hejian mansion. Because the loss of Hejian mansion put the imperial court in a great strategic passivity. In the words of emperor Chongzhen, "I am afraid day and night and dare not sleep."

The emperor's opinion, even the ministers, required Hong Chengchou to recapture Hejian mansion at all costs and guard the road of Liu thieves attacking beizhili.

Hong Chengchou was really angry with such a decree. He was so angry that his front foot let me back and his back foot let me take it back. This is a fool.

In this matter, Hong Chengchou was also responsible. He made proper arrangements and ordered Liu Guotai to lead tens of thousands of people to defend here, which is foolproof.

Liu Guotai has so many troops to defend here, which is enough. In case Liu's army sieges here, he can also defend with the tall city wall. Even if the enemy's attack is too fierce, Hong Chengchou will personally lead the army to support him. Maybe he can cooperate inside and outside to defeat Liu's army who came to attack the city in one fell swoop.

But Liu Guotai was too soft and rubbish. Unexpectedly, the other party surrendered without any good conditions and offered all Hejian mansion. What's more nonsense is that Liu Guotai was thrown away when he was used up.

What's more, Liu Guotai fled aimlessly in the wild. He actually lost his way and fell into the hands of Hong Chengchou's army of spies. These spies were like a treasure. They captured Liu Guotai alive and gave it to Hong Chengchou.

For such a thing, Hong Chengchou wanted to tear him apart, but he decided to temporarily stop his anger and send Liu Guotai to the capital for the imperial court to deal with.

I believe Liu Guotai suffered the most from the imperial court, and the most serious was a thousand cuts.

But the court forced Hong Chengchou to counter attack Hejian mansion, which embarrassed him.

He learned from Liu Guotai that all the tens of thousands of soldiers under Liu Guotai had taken refuge in Liu Jiajun. With the tens of thousands of troops Liu Jiajun came to support, there were more than 20000 people on the other side. He was not sure that Hong Chengchou would attack the city held by 20000 people on the other side.

Especially in winter, it's very cold. It's difficult for him to send troops again to attack other people's hard cities at this time.

With the example of Lu Xiangsheng, Hong Chengshou is even more reluctant to do it. The generals under him are all mutual prevarication, mutual postponement and dare not go.

Because his men didn't dare to go, Hong Chengshou couldn't help it, so he could only write to the imperial court and ask for a postponement of sending troops. If he went, he would die.

Now the imperial court reluctantly saw Liu Jiajun's intention. Liu Jiajun was not able to attack the capital at all. They went out of Dongchang mansion mainly to defend Shandong. They sent two partial divisions out of Cangzhou to attack Baoding and Tianjin. They all fired a false shot without actual action, and finally retreated.

Although the other party only fired a false shot, it also frightened the capital, completely disrupted the deployment of the imperial court, and made them want to cry without tears.

Now the imperial court has lost too many troops. Although he has transferred reinforcements from the nine border towns, which is known as the best guanning iron cavalry in the nine border towns of the Ming Dynasty, they have also sent troops, but at the moment, their troops are no longer afraid to move forward. They either enter the capital, enter Tianjin or Baoding, and can't go south.

At present, the most embarrassing thing for the imperial court is the lack of food. These troops don't say that you just want people to fight. At least, you want people to eat enough. The huge military expenditure makes hundreds of thousands of people eat horses. How much food does it cost to make the imperial court unsustainable.

They do not launch a large-scale military attack and consume so much. If they leave the heavily fortified city to attack the enemy's heavily fortified city, it will consume even more. Hong Chengchou is also an army against the imperial court. Unless the imperial court brings 300000 stones of food, they will definitely not send troops.

The imperial court received a memorial from Wu Zhongda, the governor of Jiangnan, saying that there would be a fleet of grain of 500000 stones in the near future. Once the grain of 500000 stones arrived, it could be a temporary crisis.

Hearing these news, the imperial court was very pleased, and Emperor Chongzhen was also very pleased. He believed in Wu Zongda in vain. He is worthy of being an old-fashioned Garrison and can actually have this skill.

If he can transport the grain to Tianjin Wei by sea, it can indeed alleviate the food crisis of the imperial court, and it can also break Liu Jun's blockade of the imperial court. Liu Jun thinks that if he controls the Beijing Hangzhou Grand Canal, he can blockade the imperial court and kill the imperial court? It's impossible.

They have now made a perfect counterattack. If the court can adopt the way of sea transportation, it can greatly change the plight of the court and will not be stuck by the Liu family.

The biggest breakthrough in Wu Zongda's sea transportation volume is not that the imperial court has brought so much food, but that the imperial court has restored the supply. If the sea transportation is feasible, the imperial court can order the south to bring food by sea, breaking Liu thief's blockade.

Wu Zongda did this, but his prestige increased greatly. This is the old style of the cabinet, but it also attracted the resentment of Wen Tiren, the head of the cabinet.

Daming has made great achievements in this regard. His first auxiliary is obtained through internal struggle. When he becomes the first auxiliary and commands the officials, the first thing is to deal with the second auxiliary.

In the past, Wu Zongda was cleaned up by Wen Ti Ren like a grandson. He was very obedient. However, as soon as he went out, he was free to let birds fly in the vast sea and sky. He would never bird Wen Ti Ren again. Looking at his momentum, he had the idea of driving him away after making meritorious contributions.

Wen Tiren's reputation is getting worse and worse. Originally, his reputation is not good. In addition, he has advised the emperor many times to ask the emperor to collect taxes from the nobles, which makes his reputation even worse. The officials don't want to collect money from the mud legs, but they still want to collect money from the officials, which makes the officials hard to live and everyone can't live, so everyone hates him, That's much more.

At this stage, Wen Tiren didn't think about how to calm Liu thief, but wanted to deal with Wu Zongda. If the other party succeeded in transporting grain, he would enter the cabinet with great merit and rob his position.

To know that he is really not capable of anything. He is living in this mouth. He eats with his mouth and keeps on deceived the emperor. But now the emperors are not good enough to coax him. He can't deceive him. He can't get the real thing. The emperor will take his knife. According to his eyes in the palace, the emperor is very dissatisfied with him. With the idea of a new chief assistant.

This frightened Wen Tiren.

If the emperor wants to change him, he will have no place to settle down. As the chief assistant of the cabinet, how should he deal with himself? He has been an official for several years. He is called the first auxiliary of plague. Many people offend him. Without the first auxiliary position and this protective skin, we don't know how many people have fallen on him. Therefore, Wen Ti Ren has been sad these days and doesn't think about food and tea.

He had an idea to collect taxes from these nobles. The emperor kicked the ball back to him and asked him to take charge of the collection. As a result, his subordinates hated him. Moreover, these nobles are not easy to provoke and you can't bully easily. Even if the imperial court's edict is to take a bite of meat from them, it is very difficult, After working for a few days, he didn't receive the money, but he was coquettish. Even his dignified chief and assistant of the cabinet went to the imperial city with full guards of honor. Unexpectedly, he was scolded by a group of distinguished officials in the street.

He was Wen Ti Ren, the chief assistant of the cabinet of the great Ming Empire, and a gentle man. He couldn't swear in the street like a shrew with these dignitaries, so he had to let his men leave in embarrassment.

Falling into today's situation also made Wen Tiren feel embarrassed. He felt like a mouse entering the bellows, and both ends were angry.

If someone else did it, he would have quit and stopped serving, but he knew that he had offended so many people. If he quit and was picked up by the other party, it would be miserable.

However, Wen Tiren was not afraid to worry for a few days, because soon there was a news that shocked the imperial court, that is, Wu Zhongda's grain fleet met Liu thief's navy at sea, and all the grain was robbed. When the news came, the imperial court was like a dead father and mother, and many people cried and were extremely sad.

Only Wen Tiren was overjoyed. Although he howled like his dead parents like others, he was still happy inside. After all, the Liu family army was not bad, and it was reliable to help him at the critical time.

Others can transport grain successfully, but Wu Zongda does not allow it. If he transports grain successfully, there will be nothing for Wen Ti Ren. The first thing Wen Ti Ren should do is to ensure his position, and then solve other problems.

Hearing such a news, Wen Tiren was in high spirits and immediately began to give advice to deal with the aftermath of future events.

The sea grain transport fleet was robbed, which means that the sea grain transport is not good. Just having a little hope, it was extinguished again.