Zhu Yuanzhang read the secret letter carefully again and murmured to himself: "Judging from the wolf soldier incident, Zhu Yousong is not only a puppet, but also a fool. It seems that the person behind the scenes is either a relatively distant vassal king or someone with real power." The unknown powerful minister.”
"Nowadays, most of the vassal kings in the south are guests. The only ones with this ability are Zhu Hengjia, King of Jingjiang in Guangxi, Zhu Zhishu, King of Shu in Chengdu, and Mu Tianbo, Duke of Guizhou in Yunnan."
"However, according to Jin Yiwei's news, although Zhang Xianzhong's march was not very fast after entering Sichuan, he was unstoppable along the way and is now attacking Chongqing."
"If Zhu Zhishu had this ability, he would not have allowed Zhang Xianzhong to be so rampant. It seems unlikely that he is the person behind the scenes."
"As for Zhu Hengjia and Mu Tianbo..."
As Zhu Yuanzhang spoke, the figures of Zhu Wenzheng and Mu Ying could not help but appear in his mind, and he looked a little confused for a moment.
He was silent for a while, then recovered, and said in deep thought: "Wolf soldiers are mostly from Guangxi. Logically speaking, Zhu Hengjia is the most suspicious, but wolf soldiers are very recognizable. If Zhu Hengjia wants to use wolf soldiers to act, he should also disguise himself." That's..."
"Yunnan borders Guizhou, and there are mostly chieftains in the territory. If Mu Tianbo relies on the power of chieftains, he can also mobilize Guizhou's wolf soldiers. However, the Mu family has lived in Yunnan for a long time and has little contact with the ministers in the court..."
Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head slightly, and then remembered that Zuo Xianmei had asked his cavalry to pretend to be wolf soldiers, and said to himself: "Although they are suspicious, it does not rule out that people from the south take the opportunity to confuse the public."
"But among the generals in the south, except for Zuo Liangyu who has gone north, only Liu Liangzuo, Liu Zeqing and Ma Shiying have strong troops in their hands. However, with their abilities, they should not be able to borrow or disguise wolf troops, unless Someone else is planning it."
"According to Jin Yiwei's information, although there are many nobles in Jiangnan nowadays, in terms of power and influence, they belong to Wei Guogong Xu Yunjue, Lingbi Marquis Tang Guozuo, and Xincheng Bo Zhao Zhilong."
"It's just that Xu Yunzhen was just a minion in Li Zushu's matter, and Xu Yunjue was also a softie with great ambitions and little talent. Even if he participated in the plan, he would not be the person in charge. And Tang Guozuo is said to have a similar temperament to Tang He, so he would not take the lead. .”
"The remaining Zhao Zhilong is in Nanjing garrison and has the power to control the Nanjing garrison. It seems that Han Zanzhou's recruitment of troops for Zhu Yousong was probably done through him. From this point of view, he is the most suspicious."
Thinking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang called Li Wu in again and asked him to send orders to the Jinyi Guards in Nanjing to secretly investigate Zhao Zhilong.
After Li Wu bowed in agreement, when he was about to leave, he was stopped by Zhu Yuanzhang again.
Zhu Yuanzhang was silent for a while and then said: "We suspect that Li Chengdong is not injured. You can bring a team of people to confirm this in person."
"If he is really injured, or unable to control the situation in Liaocheng, you will secretly kill Xie Bi, and then blame the matter on those wealthy households or civil servants with evil intentions, and confiscate his property and belongings at the same time."
"As for the silver collected, part of it was used for disaster relief and the rest was quietly transported to the capital..."
Li Wu heard the words and agreed without hesitation.
After Zhu Yuanzhang left, he thought that if there were wolf soldiers among Zhu Yousong's troops, then the armies of the vassal kings who were currently recruiting troops might not be clean either.
If these vassal kings were allowed to return to their fiefdoms, not only would it mess up his plan of reassuring the people, but if people lurking in the army suddenly acted righteously, the newly recovered lost territory would surely be at war again, and the variables would be huge.
But if they are not allowed to return to their fiefdoms, the gathering of so many vassal kings in Jiangnan will also be a destabilizing factor.
Especially since the people behind the scenes have not yet been found out, and those feudal kings have soldiers in their hands, it will be very troublesome if they are used by the people behind the scenes.
In addition, it was his personal order to allow the vassal kings to return to their fiefdoms to train troops, so it was inconvenient to change the order overnight.
Moreover, he also wanted to select some available people from the clan and entrust them with important tasks. If he gave up halfway, it would not be good for the overall situation.
He pondered for a while, then wrote a letter to He Zhen, asking He Zhen to set up ambushes at key locations. If he saw the vassal king returning to his fiefdom, he would lead an army to attack.
But it can only be intimidated, but not killed.
If they are timid and incompetent, they will be forced back to Jiangnan.
If they are really capable, let them pass...
After he finished writing the letter, he read it carefully again and stopped when he was about to seal it.
He pondered for a while, then destroyed the letter, and then wrote an identical letter, but the recipient became Li Ruolian.
After Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to deliver the letter, he picked up the top memorial.
He glanced at it for a few times, and a smile couldn't help but appear on his face.
But later on, his expression became very solemn.
It turns out that this memorial was jointly submitted by Zuo Maodi, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and Jiang Dejing, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. The memorial first reported on the recent measures to station troops and calm the people in the capital, and emphasized that the refugees in Shanxi had been properly resettled, and that sweet potatoes and other crops had been planted.
Then he changed his tone and claimed that the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Household Affairs had spent a lot of money to do these things well. The current amount of silver in the treasury was less than 500,000 yuan, which was no longer enough to pay for southern grain. He requested that the money allocated to Jin Yiwei be postponed.
Then he reported the appeasement of Henan, Shandong and other places, which was divided into two parts: personnel and money.
In terms of personnel arrangements, Zuo Maodi advocated retaining some of the officials who had lost their land, and at the same time, transferring some officials from Jiangnan to take charge.
Jiang Dejing, on the other hand, objected to the transfer of Jiangnan officials and suggested that supervisors or literati with innocent backgrounds should be used.
As for the money matter, they listed the required silver coins in detail, but did not talk about where the silver coins came from.
After Zhu Yuanzhang read it, he picked up the voting plan in the memorial and saw that the cabinet clearly supported Zuo Maodi's suggestion, but Zhu Cihong did not express his position.
When he saw this memorial, he knew that the Donglin Party had reared its head, and Zhu Cihong probably did not express his opinion because of Fan Jingwen and others.
Zhu Yuanzhang pondered for a while and wrote: "We have no objection to the origin of the officials you two said, but there is one thing. No matter who is the official, he must have the people in mind. If not, we will kill him." !”
"In addition, there is no plan in the memorial regarding the money matter, so we should make it up immediately, otherwise the words of peace for the people will be just empty words. We should take this as a warning in the future."
After he finished writing, he read it again and confirmed that there were no problems before picking up the next memorial.
This memorial was written by Wu Sangui, and it talks about the exchange of Tong Tulai.
Wu Sangui said in the memorial that the Jurchens were only willing to return the area south of Ningyuan and 50,000 Northern slaves. If the Ming court did not agree, they would let Jirhalang go east to attack Datong.
At the end of the memorial, Wu Sangui supplemented the story of Tong Tulai's origins, but it was also very brief.
It's just that Tong Tulai was the son of General Tong Yangzheng of the Later Jin Dynasty. He was affiliated with Xianghuang Banner and was awarded the title of Commander of Zhenglan Banner. He was promoted to the rank of first-class Qingqi Captain through meritorious service. It seems that Bumubutai valued him quite a lot.
After Zhu Yuanzhang looked at it, he couldn't help but feel a little suspicious.
He originally thought that Jierhalang's invasion of Shaanxi was just Li Zicheng's plan, but judging from the Jurchens' attitude, it seemed that Jierhalang had already established a foothold in Shaanxi.
If this is the case, then he can no longer sit back and watch.
Zhu Yuanzhang thought for a while, then picked up the ticket and looked at it. He found that the cabinet's opinions were even stronger. He strongly opposed the deal with the Jurchens and advocated the immediate execution of Tong Tulai.
Zhu Cixi believed that 50,000 Northern slaves were too few and suggested that at least 100,000 Northern slaves should be exchanged and the area south of Jinzhou must be returned.
Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and wrote: "You can give up all the land, but not one of the 300,000 Northern slaves should be left behind."
"The Jurchen must reply within three days, otherwise Tong Tulai will be taken to Datong and beheaded immediately."
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang reviewed more than a dozen memorials one after another, all of which were about money and food, which made him frown frequently.
But when he approved the penultimate memorial, his brows immediately relaxed.
Some people died, but not completely...
