Seeing Wu Laoliu's anxious face, Zhou Hou knew that there must be a major military matter.
After a slight hesitation, she stood up and said goodbye to Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded, and after Empress Zhou left, he looked at Wu Mengming and said, "Wu Qing, do you understand what we just said?"
Wu Mengming said respectfully: "General, I understand, I will deal with it now."
Zhu Yuanzhang muttered: "Okay, you can persuade them to leave first. If they insist on leaving, use the imperial staff to warn them!"
"As for the people who have gathered, let Meng Zhaoxiang handle it. Tell him that it is our will. We will arrest a few of the leaders and kill them directly. Let us suppress this unhealthy trend!"
"Besides, you must hurry up and capture Li Zushu. We suspect that he is responsible for all this!"
After Wu Mengming agreed, he hurried out again.
Shen Zhanran was about to resign, but Zhu Yuanzhang stayed on.
Then he looked at Wu Laoliu who was a little anxious and said, "How many times have we told you not to panic when something happens? Why can't you remember it?"
Wu Laoliu said with some embarrassment: "Your Majesty, it's not that the general didn't remember, but something big happened in Shandong."
Zhu Yuanzhang was shocked when he heard this and looked at him in surprise: "What happened?"
When Wu Laoliu asked, he hurriedly reported: "Your Majesty, Master Shi Kefa's attack on Shandong was frustrated."
"Not only has Ma Chongxi made peace with Guo Sheng, but Ren Qi and Zhang Qi in Fan County have also launched an attack on Liaocheng. The previous encirclement has collapsed..."
Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and said: "Didn't I say the day before yesterday that Shi Kefa, Lu Zhenfei, and Shen Tingyang had divided Shandong into three parts and would conquer Shandong in a few days? How come there has been such a big change in just two days?"
Wu Laoliu said helplessly: "It was indeed like this the day before yesterday. It was just that Ma Chongxi suddenly broke into Shandong and the defeat of Lu Jiude, Xie Sheng and others caused the situation to be reversed."
"And the news we were supposed to deliver yesterday was delayed and arrived together with today's news, so we feel that the situation has changed significantly."
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard that the news was delayed again, he couldn't help but feel helpless.
Although he had urged Wu Mengming to step up the reconstruction of Jinyiwei's contact point, because the time was too short and he had too many areas to focus on, it was impossible to meet his request for the time being.
In desperation, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed secretly, calmed down, and said to Wu Laoliu as calmly as possible: "Tell me what the specific situation is."
Seeing Zhu Yuanzhang's angry look, Wu Laoliu hurriedly said: "According to our information, this defeat was mainly due to Lu Jiude's greed for credit and his rash advancement..."
It turned out that after Shi Kefa received Zhu Yuanzhang's instructions to conquer Shandong that day, after some planning, he felt that although the rebel Guo Sheng's troops were not large, Ren Qi and others in Puzhou and Fan County were quite troublesome.
Because although they did not seek refuge with Guo Sheng, they had contacts with each other, and there were quite a few of them.
In order to avoid misunderstanding Ren Qi when attacking Guo Sheng, Shi Kefa decided to divide his troops into three groups to attack Guo Sheng and drive him out of Shandong.
The first route, commanded by Lu Zhenfei, led two thousand people on a bird boat to the Huai'an front line, and gathered troops and horses to go north as Huaiyang patrol.
Since the rebels were weak in the south, Lu Zhenfei's main purpose was to go north along Huai'an and Linyi to build a food transportation channel as soon as possible.
The second group, led by Shen Tingyang and Lu Jiude, led 20,000 people to land in Dengzhou, control the east of Dengzhou, and then advance westward.
The third army, Shi Kefa, personally commanded, led the remaining 30,000 people to land at Dongying Port, occupied Dongying, Binzhou and other places, and then advanced towards Jinan.
In addition, Shi Kefa wanted to prevent Guo Sheng from fleeing to the west and causing trouble to Shanxi and the capital.
He also specially sent people to contact Xie Sheng, the former Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and a bachelor of Wuyingdian, and asked him to start an uprising in Dezhou to prevent Guo Sheng from escaping to the west and causing harm to the people.
At the beginning, the war was indeed going very smoothly.
After Shen Tingyang and Lu Jiude landed in Dengzhou, they made great progress. It took only one day to conquer the towns east of Dengzhou and advance towards Weifang.
Lu Zhenfei's speed was slower due to gathering troops and horses, but he summoned nearly 20,000 people and arrived in Linyi on time to advance to Jinan.
Although Shi Kefa's task was arduous, he successfully conquered Dongying and Binzhou and marched towards Jinan.
Xie Sheng of Dezhou asked his brother Xie Bi to join forces with the censors Lu Shique and Zhao Jiding, the chief minister Cheng Xianzhen, the official Li Zanming and others to use the excuse of watching a play to lure the rebels out of the city to watch the play and take the opportunity to capture Dezhou. Then they went south to capture Liaocheng. .
At this point, Shi Kefa has basically formed an encirclement of Guo Sheng in Jinan.
Seeing this situation, Guo Sheng was ready to flee southwest and enter Henan to join Yuan Zongdi.
Unexpectedly, Lu Jiude wrote a private letter to Xie Sheng at this time, asking Xie Sheng to send people to Yanggu County, and at the same time asked his subordinate Zhu Ji to lead 10,000 people to Tai'an to prepare to annihilate Guo Sheng's troops.
Unexpectedly, this move made Ren Qi and others suspicious, thinking that they were going to encircle and suppress them, so they teamed up with Guo Sheng to defeat Xie Sheng's troops.
Then they sent their troops south to attack Zhu Ji. Fortunately, Lu Zhenfei arrived in time and Zhu Ji survived.
Although the encirclement had failed at this time, Shi Kefa still had the advantage and still had the strength to drive Guo Sheng out of Shandong.
Unexpectedly, Ma Chongxi led the remaining troops to attack Dezhou again, but Xie Sheng actually fled without fighting, causing Ma and Guo to join forces and launch a counterattack against Shi Kefa...
After Zhu Yuanzhang listened to Wu Laoliu's story, he said in a deep voice: "Where is Huang Degong? We remember that we had issued an order before, asking him to hunt down the remnants of Ma Chongxi's army. Where is he?"
Wu Laoliu shook his head and said: "We don't know where Uncle Jingnan is yet, but I have heard that Uncle Ningnan Zuo Liangyu has sent his troops to Taiyuan. It is very likely that Uncle Jingnan is with Uncle Ningnan."
Zhu Yuanzhang was silent for a while, then looked at Shen Zhanran and said, "Shen Qing, what do you think of this matter?"
Shen Zhanran bowed and said: "Your Majesty, the information is limited at the moment, so I can't see any problem at the moment."
"However, the top priority at this time is to open up the grain road, so Wei Chen thinks that Lord Shi and others can stick to the front line of Linyi, Zibo, and Binzhou, and then push westward after stabilization."
"As for Ren Qi and others in the Fan County area, I feel that I should ignore them for the time being. Because most of them are poor people. The uprising has been going on for several years, but they have been lingering in the Fan County area. This shows that they have no ambition."
"As long as His Majesty's policy of reassuring the people is implemented, I believe it will not be difficult to conquer them..."
After hearing Shen Zhanran's suggestion, Zhu Yuanzhang did not express his position. Instead, he was silent for a while and then said to Wu Laoliu: "Go and investigate the situation in Shandong again."
"Especially Xie Sheng and Lu Jiude, let us investigate carefully, including what they have done these days and who they have met. We must find out clearly!"
Wu Laoliu saw that although Zhu Yuanzhang was not angry, his tone was very powerful, as if thunder exploded in his heart.
He suppressed his fear and after respectfully responded, he hurried out of Dongnuan Pavilion.
At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Shen Zhanran again and said: "Shen Qing, go and try Xu Yunzhen yourself!"
"Tell him that as long as he is willing to reveal the person behind the scenes, for the sake of his ancestor Xu Da, we can spare his life."
"If he persists, we will make him regret coming into this world!"
When Shen Zhanran heard this, a flash of panic flashed in his eyes, and then he bowed and responded.
Just as he was about to turn around and leave, he heard Zhu Yuanzhang's voice again: "Shen Qing, you..."
