Beijing city.
Hong Chengchou entered the palace wearing court clothes and headed towards Qianqing Palace.
After several days of court discussions, the civil and military officials did not reach a conclusion, and the position of Shandong Governor was still vacant.
In the morning meeting this morning, Hong Chengchou was determined that there must be a result. This matter must not be delayed any longer, otherwise there will be chaos. If not, Li Zicheng from Shandong will be dragged out, and the Ming Dynasty will really never have peace!
In the main hall of Qianqing Palace, the court meeting had just begun, and the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty began to quarrel. A group of cabinet ministers were tit for tat, all standing on the moral high ground and blaming each other. However, regarding the Shandong war, they could not come up with any "good news", just to refute. As for the rebuttal, there is nothing practical about what he said.
Emperor Chongzhen listened for a long time and couldn't bear it anymore. He immediately slapped the table and said loudly: "The post of governor of Shandong will be temporarily filled by Hong Chengchou, the chief minister of the cabinet. Botang Tong's troops in northern Beijing will be under his command. We will send troops to Shandong within ten days. !”
The ministers suddenly became quiet and looked at Hong Chengchou.
Regarding the war in Shandong, Hong Chengchou did not want to go at all. Now Li Zicheng was killing all parties in Henan. As the chief minister of the cabinet, he must not leave the capital easily. He must stay in command to avoid being taken advantage of by Chen Xinjia.
So Hong Chengchou said: "Your Majesty's proposal is inappropriate. I believe that the most serious threat to the imperial court right now is the comeback of Li Zicheng's tribe. As the chief minister of the cabinet, I should coordinate in the middle and coordinate all parties to encircle and suppress it."
"I, together with Mr. Chen, Secretary of the Ministry of War, have ordered Sun Chuanting to succeed as the governor of Shaanxi, reorganize the Shaanxi-Gansu army, and attack Li Zicheng's tribe as soon as possible. Therefore, I cannot leave the capital for the time being and go to Shandong. Your Majesty, please think twice.
. "
Emperor Chongzhen said with a cold face: "In that case, who does Mr. Ge think can be the governor of Shandong? Does Mr. Ge still want to nominate Liu Yan?"
Hong Chengchou did not answer immediately, but took out Yan Jizu's request for help. After presenting it to Wang Chengen, he said: "Your Majesty, this is the memorial that Yan Jizu, the governor of Shandong, just sent today. It mentions that the Shandong bandits are mobilizing artillery and preparing to capture it in one go. In Jinan Fucheng, King De's family was in danger. If the court could not confirm the candidate for the governor of Shandong as soon as possible, I thought it would be better to let Liu Yan, the Dingluo, temporarily take charge. After the war was over, Liu Yan could continue to serve as the commander-in-chief of Qinglai Town. "
Everyone suddenly started talking, and Emperor Chongzhen's face became increasingly ugly.
When the person is needed, he will be given an official position temporarily, and when the matter is over, the official will be reinstated. No matter how mean Emperor Chongzhen is, he will not be able to do such a thing.
"Mr. Ge, you are forcing me!"
"I don't dare."
Hong Chengchou said without changing his expression: "I'm just worried that the city of Jinan is in danger and time waits for no one. At the moment, the court has no time to discuss slowly and no talents to choose from. If it continues like this, we can only sit back and watch the death of King De and his family. The whole territory of Jinan Prefecture and Dongchang Prefecture fell into the hands of bandits."
"And I have another worry. If the imperial court fails to annihilate the Shandong bandits as soon as possible and let them mature, there is no guarantee that a bandit leader like Li Zicheng will appear in Shandong. By then, there will be two groups of bandits, one in the east and one in the west, and our Ming Dynasty will no longer be able to turn around. room!"
Although Emperor Chongzhen was stubborn, he was by no means a dim-witted person. Even though he was angry at Hong Chengchou's suggestion, he still knew that what Hong Chengchou meant was
What he said is all true. This matter really shouldn’t be delayed any longer.
"Chen Aiqing, what do you mean?"
Chen Xinjia looked at Hong Chengchou and knew that Hong Chengchou was determined to help Liu Yan rise to power. There was no point in trying to stop him. Instead, he would offend both Hong Chengchou and Liu Yan. Emperor Chongzhen did not have a suitable candidate to provide, so he had to hand over his hand and said: "Your Majesty, the old words of Hongge are reasonable, and I second my opinion!"
With Chen Xinjia at the beginning, most of the ministers in the DPRK and the Central Government stood up to second the proposal. Li Daiwen, the Minister of Household Affairs, even said: "It is best to mobilize troops from Qinglai Town. The court can greatly save money and food consumption, which will benefit the country and the people!"
These remarks immediately attracted the glare of Emperor Chongzhen. Li Daiwen was stunned for a while, then realized that he had said the wrong thing, and hurriedly lowered his head and stopped talking.
Emperor Chongzhen saw that the ministers had basically reached a consensus, and it was useless to be unwilling anymore, so he had to say: "Then make a decree to promote Liu Yan to the governor of Shandong, and lead the new army to go north immediately to encircle and suppress the Shandong bandits."
"Another decree is drawn up: Qinglai Town will be abolished, and the new army in Qinglai Town will be reorganized into the Supervisory Biao Battalion, with its strength reduced to 30% of the existing strength!"
As soon as these words came out, everyone was in an uproar.
Hong Chengchou said hurriedly: "Your Majesty, think twice. These are troubled times. The new army in Qinglai Town is the strongest army in the world. We must not reduce it and abolish our martial arts! This move may also easily trigger a mutiny!"
Emperor Chongzhen asked: "There are so many governors in the world, which governor camp has tens of thousands of troops?"
Hong Chengchou never expected that Emperor Chongzhen would take this opportunity to suppress Liu Yan, so he retorted: "Your Majesty, Liu Yan is the governor of Shandong's military affairs, even if your Majesty orders the dismantling of the new army.
, Liu Yan can also organize the extra troops into garrison troops and divide them to station in various places in Shandong. In this way, Liu Yan's military strength will not be small at all, but the court and His Majesty are jealous of Liu Yan, and he also hurts the hearts of the new army officers and men. The gain outweighs the loss! "
Emperor Chongzhen's face changed from gloomy to bright, and after a long time he said coldly: "Since the elder does not agree, let's stop the disarmament matter."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, Your Majesty is wise!"
Emperor Chongzhen stared at Hong Chengchou for a long time. Ever since Liu Yan competed with himself outside Deshengmen, he had always wanted to punish Liu Yan. He must not let such an arrogant general have no rules.
If Liu Yan was a military minister with a civilian background like Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng, Emperor Chongzhen would have been able to do it with a direct edict. However, Liu Yan was born as a military man, and he was promoted step by step from the chief flag officer of the guard station. Shandong is deeply rooted.
Emperor Chongzhen knew very well that even if he issued an edict to remove Liu Yan from his official position and sent the Jin Yiwei to fetch people, this edict would not have much effect. The Jin Yiwei could not even enter the new army camp!
So this was what annoyed Emperor Chongzhen the most. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty could not control the chief military officer of the district. This was unimaginable in the Ming Dynasty.
"Is it really true that the Ming Dynasty is already in sunset?"
Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help but feel pain in his heart, then waved his hand and said: "I'm tired!"
Wang Chengen hurriedly stepped forward and screamed: "Retreat!"
When Hong Chengchou left the hall, a stone finally fell to the ground in his heart. He then rushed to the Cabinet Office and watched with his own eyes as the edict was drawn up and sealed. Then Hong Chengchou directly approved it and handed it over to Chen Xinjia, who was waiting here.
"My soldiers, hurry up and send Pegasus to Qingzhou Fucheng.
Ask Liu Yan to send troops immediately, and be sure to protect Jinan Fucheng and Dongchang Prefecture! "
It is more than 900 miles from Beijing to Qingzhou Fucheng. According to the speed of a normal horse, it will take at least 13 or 4 days. However, Chen Xinjia was also anxious, so he rushed the horse with 800 miles to deliver the edict. When they went to Qingzhou Fucheng, they didn't even follow the eunuchs who issued the imperial edict, but sent a team of troops from the Tang Dynasty to the south.
This team of pond horses traveled day and night. When crossing the boundary of Jinan Prefecture, they were almost stopped by thieves and soldiers several times. In the end, it took less than nine days to run away three fast horses to death, and even a postman was killed alive. Only on the way to exhaustion did he deliver this edict to Liu Yan.
"Instruct the cavalry battalion, right battalion, and middle battalion to march north immediately. The town's personal guard battalion will follow suit and go straight to Jinan Fucheng!"
By the afternoon of the next day, the cavalry battalion, right battalion, and middle battalion had received orders from Liu Yan and were advancing northward.
Xu Ming led the cavalry battalion officers to rush into Dongchang Prefecture, defeated two groups of bandits, beheaded more than 3,000 people, captured 852 people, and successively recovered three county towns.
The bandits in Dongchang Prefecture gathered together to protect themselves. More than 10,000 people were entrenched in Linqing Prefecture. Xu Ming immediately led his troops to the city and asked the shogunate's military department for siege equipment, preparing to encircle and annihilate the last bandit bandits in Dongchang Prefecture. Soldiers and horses.
At the same time, Wang Bo led the right battalion all the way north, sweeping through Tai'an Prefecture, Feicheng, Zhangqiu, Zouping, Xincheng and other places, winning four battles and four victories, beheading more than 5,900 people, and capturing 20,000 people in the court, most of whom were kidnapped. common people.
After Liu Yan received the battle report, he ordered Xu Ming to surround the bandits in Dongchang Mansion and not let the bandits escape. He ordered Wang Bo to follow
Continue to sweep away the bandits in Jinan Prefecture and complete the task of annihilating the enemy!
And Shen Tuo led the middle battalion to approach Jinan Fucheng. The tens of thousands of bandits stationed outside Jinan Fucheng were immediately mobilized. In addition, news came one after another that tens of thousands of Qinglai Town's new troops were marching north, allowing these tens of thousands of bandits to move forward. Not daring to fight, he broke camp and retreated north, retreating to Jiyang City to defend it.
Two days later, Shen Tuo led his troops to Jinan Fucheng. Governor Yan Jizu and De Wang Zhu Youjue were ecstatic. They both felt like they had been reborn. At this time, they did not care about being reserved. Together they took hundreds of officials in the city with them. Welcome the new army into the city.
"General Shen Shen worked hard and drove back the bandit army. This is a great contribution to saving the vassal king! I will definitely write to the court to applaud the prisoners and the new army officers and soldiers!"
Shen Tuo smiled faintly and said, "Thank you, Master Futai. This is a matter of the general's duty."
Then Shen Tuo saluted Yan Jizu and De Wang Zhu Youli, and they all entered the city together and came to the governor's Yamen to discuss matters.
"Haha, now that Dinglupo has been promoted to the governor of Shandong, I am very happy and congratulatory. I, the people of Shandong, are blessed now!"
Yan Jizu smiled and spoke, and King Zhu Youjue of De also followed suit and said: "Dinglupo is the optimist of the imperial court. With Dinglupo here, I, the king, will have no worries, and the people of Shandong will have no worries!"
Shen Tuo said: "My lord's promotion to the governor of Shandong this time can be regarded as a fluke. I heard that there was a lot of discussion in the court, and many people expressed this opinion."
Zhu Youjue, the king of virtue, immediately said angrily: "There are traitors in the court who dare to sit back and watch the vassal king being trapped and the people suffering. They only talk and talk. They should be killed! I will write a memorial today to impeach your majesty for the opposition in the court." man of!"
Yan Jizu is natural
It can be heard that King De Zhu Youli is talking about those Donglin Party members. In fact, Yan Jizu can be regarded as a member of the Donglin Party from his birth, so at this time he had to apologize and said: "Haha, Your Highness, calm down, the affairs of the court , we'd better get involved less, as long as Dinglupp wins the position of governor, we have nothing else to ask for."
Seeing Yan Jizu bring up a ladder, King De Zhu Youjue slid down directly and said: "Huh! Now that Yan Futai has spoken, let's forget it this time. From now on, if those bastards in the court dare to stir up trouble, it depends on me." How will the king punish me!"
"Your Highness understands the righteousness, I admire you!"
"Yan Futai has a broad mind, and I admire him!"
The two complimented each other for a while, and then Yan Jizu said to Shen Tuo: "By the way, I don't know when Lupp will arrive in Jinan Fucheng, so I can make preparations in advance and clean up the Governor's Mansion."
Shen Tuo said: "Reporting to Futai, the general received the order on the way north. Dinglubo has led the new army's guard camp northward, and will reach Jinan Fucheng in up to four days."
