Chapter 308 Consecrating Zhu Yousong as Emperor
It is absolutely impossible to rule by dividing the river. If Zhang Gaoping and others really choose this, it can only be wishful thinking, because the Emperor Chongzhen in Beijing is not a master who is willing to divide the world equally with others.
However, the battle of Jingnan was about to be won when the commander-in-chief Fu Wang died. If a solution was not found as soon as possible, the hundreds of thousands of troops in the Northern Expedition would quickly fall apart.
This is also the reason Zhang Gaoping knows very well. After King Fu dies, if the Battle of Jingnan is abolished, not to mention him, but everyone in Sun Dewen's series will suffer. The eunuch himself has no descendants, but he still has relatives who will be wiped out. That is an ironclad fact for the Nine Clans, and they absolutely cannot escape.
"Now we can only support the crown prince to succeed to the throne to calm the morale of the army."
Sun Dewen spoke from experience, but Zhang Gaoping had other ideas: "The prince is the crown prince, but he has no prestige. Now that Chen Cao is seizing Taipingmen, if he does not get his support, the battle of Jingnan may not be able to continue." , In addition, this general learned that Yang He, the governor of the three sides arranged by the Northern Dynasty, trapped the rebellious refugees in Xi'an, and received orders from the imperial court to go to Luoyang."
The imperial court had already planned to seize King Fu's old road in Luoyang and then encircle him. So now Zhang Gaoping and others are faced with a huge choice. They should support Zhu Yousong as King Fu and then continue to suppress the emperor. But the prerequisite is that they must With Chen Cao's support, the second step is to attack Nanjing and then defend Nanjing, allocating territory to Chen Cao and asking him to help defend it.
No matter which one of these two paths is taken, it must have Chen Cao's support, otherwise it will not succeed at all.
Sun Dewen asked: "Do we need Chen Cao's support?"
Zhang Gaoping was not willing, but the facts were before his eyes. The reason why they were able to attack Ande Gate and Fengtai Gate several times was because of the hundreds of artillery pieces supported by Chen Cao, and the various materials, weapons, food and grass that Chen Cao transported in the early stages of the war. , even now, half of the hundreds of thousands of people in the Jingnan Army are supplied by Chen Cao.
If they really hold on to Nanjing on their own, Zhang Gaoping has reason to believe that the northern court will trap them to death. What's more, hundreds of thousands of Northern troops have already rushed to Nanjing under the leadership of Cheng Guogong, and there are still many troops in Yangzhou. We have to rely on Chen Cao's troops to hold on.
In the big tent, Zhu Yousong's figure was even worse than that of his father. Under the garb of linen and filial piety, he looked extremely hateful.
Of course, this is just Chen Cao's opinion.
Today's meeting was very unique. Zhang Gaoping, King Fu's confidant, rarely put Chen Cao, the Commander-in-Chief of the Jingnan Camp, in the first place. After learning the reason from Sun Dewen, Chen Cao frowned, making everyone think that he was going to back down.
I saw Chen Cao handing over to Zhu Yousong: "Your Majesty, the old King Fu has passed away. I think that in order to stabilize the morale of the hundreds of thousands of troops and to fulfill the wish of the old King Fu, I ask the prince to go to the mausoleum of Emperor Taizu immediately to worship his ancestors. Zhao Tell the world that he will be crowned Emperor of Ming Dynasty."
Zhang Gaoping and Sun Dewen never expected that Chen Cao would be so interested, because they all knew that Chen Cao, who was stuck in Songjiang, had long planned to become emperor, but he had never acted on it. They did not expect that Chen Cao would actually be willing to serve Zhu. Song became the emperor.
With such a strong arm strength, even Zhu Yousong, a silly little fat man, could understand the current situation, so he said excitedly: "Seriously, Duke Liang is willing to help me become the emperor?"
Chen Cao stood up with a righteous look on his face and knelt down on one knee towards Zhu Yousong: "I ask the prince to immediately set out to worship his ancestors, who will take the throne of the Ming Emperor."
With Chen Cao taking the lead, Zhang Gaoping and other generals and counselors stood up and knelt down towards Zhu Yousong: "Please take the throne as the emperor..."
"In this case, I will comply with your requests and ascend the throne."
"Report, the defenders in the city are launching a massive attack on Taipingmen."
Chen Cao immediately stood up and said: "Your Majesty, without further ado, please go to Taizu's Mausoleum quickly and leave the Taiping Gate to me alone."
"good..."
.
On December 20, the second year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yousong, the crown prince of the Fu clan, proclaimed himself emperor after worshiping his ancestors in Nanjing. He was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, with the title of Chongde...
This fat man, who was a cousin of Emperor Chongzhen, eventually became the emperor after his father died.
On the same day, Chen Cao, Duke of Liang, led the Dingwu Army to defeat Qin Liangyu's Shizhu Tusi soldiers and tens of thousands of city defenders at Taipingmen. After the Longwu Army entered the city from Taipingmen, they followed the Dingwu Army who entered the city and fought all the way to the outside of Xihua Gate on Taiping Street. .
On December 21, Chen Cao's troops once again defeated Qin Liangyu's troops outside the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion on Taiping South Street, killing more than 20,000 enemies. The inner city defenders collapsed, and countless people fled from Huaimen.
On another day, nearly 100,000 defenders surrendered to the Dingwu Army and Longwu Army that had entered the city. Seeing that the situation was over, many honorable ministers who had stayed behind in Nanjing led their troops to surrender;
Sun Chengzong, Qin Liangyu and others withdrew from Qingliangmen with nearly 100,000 horses and crossed the river north.
Of course, they can withdraw without Chen Cao's nod.
On the first day of the first lunar month of the third year of Chongzhen, Zhu Yousong officially held a coronation ceremony in the Nanjing Palace and issued a document to announce it to the world.
On the same day, Chen Cao, the Duke of Liang, was renamed as King of Songjiang County and the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion; Zhang Gaoping was appointed as An Guogong, the Left Commander of the Five Army Commander-in-Chief's Mansion; Li Wanchang was granted the title of Duke of Chang, and the Right Commander of the Five Army Commander-in-Chief's Mansion;
It turns out that all the other close generals of King Fu were rewarded, and the counselors were appointed as officials of the five governments and six ministries.
The city of Nanjing fell into the hands of the Chongde Dynasty.
When Emperor Chongzhen learned that Nanjing had fallen and Zhu Yousong ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, he fell into a coma and vomited blood at the court, and did not wake up until two days later. Of course, this is another story.
Cheng Guogong Zhu Chunchen marched to Shandong with 100,000 Beijing troops and 50,000 border troops. When he was recruiting soldiers on the spot according to the order, Chen Cao's father-in-law, Cao Gang helper Weng Shijie and Dahewei commander Weng Linzhi suddenly launched an attack. In the past two days, The Hundred Thousand Cao Gang rebelled and attacked Zhu Chunchen's camp together with the Dahe Guards. The two sides fought a battle outside Gaoyou City. Zhu Chunchen was defeated and retreated to Gaoyou to garrison.
Weng Shijie and Weng Linzhi led more than 200,000 people to besiege Gaoyou for three days, but could not break the city, so they headed for Yangzhou with hundreds of thousands of Caobang family members.
When Yangzhou Guard Commander Pang Zhihuan was defending Yangzhou, he joined forces with Weng Lin Zhili who arrived and opened the city of Yangzhou. After sweeping through the city, hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Yangtze River and arrived outside the city of Nanjing.
Due to the rebellion of Caobang and Liangwei in the northern part of Nanzhili, water transportation was interrupted, and food from the south could no longer be transported to the north.
Food prices across the north skyrocketed within a few days. For a time, food prices were as expensive as silver. Shandong, which is connected to Zhili in the south, suffered.
Returning to Nanjing, Chen Cao was filled with emotion. There were too many familiar places and memories in Nanjing, especially on both sides of the Qinhuai River. In order to realize his wish, he even rebuilt a 'Qinhuai River' in Shanghai. Named 'Night Shanghai'.
Although Chen Cao became the king of Songjiang, he actually had no power in Zhu Yousong's court. As the first person with a foreign surname to be granted the title of king while alive, all the princes of the Ming Dynasty were granted posthumous titles. This was also to avoid having foreign surnames. The main reason why power dominates politics.
However, Chen Cao didn't bother to have any specific power at all. Even though he held the fictitious position of being the Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion, his focus was still on managing his own territory.
And Chen Cao is still stationed at Xiaolingwei with his hundreds of thousands of troops. He is not worried at all that Zhang Gaoping will attack him, because his hundreds of thousands of troops are all elite warriors. , and there are still two rifle divisions. He does not think that Zhang Gaoping and others are capable of annihilating his hundreds of thousands of people.
"Brother Pu, you are fine..."
Chen Cao picked up the wine glass and toasted Pu Xiang a glass of wine himself: "If you can understand the situation clearly, I thought you wouldn't agree to my request."
Pu Xiang still can't forget the two guys who climbed up from the Qinhuai River. They were purple with cold, but they still climbed over the wall into his house and handed Chen Cao's secret message to himself.
It was this letter of persuasion to surrender that made Pu Xiang choose to follow Chen Cao, but what he never expected was that Mu Qilin from the Duke of Guizhou's residence would also be involved.
"If Brother Mu hadn't arrived urgently that day, I might have been killed in the corner tower by Feng Kelie's men, and the county prince wouldn't have been able to see me."
Mu Qilin picked up his wine glass and drank with Pu Xiang without saying a word.
The conditions Chen Cao gave him were very tempting. If he rebelled with him, it would be easy to succeed, but once he was defeated, he would be dead. If Zhang Gaoping's army hadn't broken through Yuejiangmen, Chen Cao would have captured him. Xu Hongji and Mu Qilin will never choose to completely follow Chen Cao's boat.
The ship of Lili leads to the underworld, but if the captain's ability reaches the sky, it also leads to the underworld of wealth.
Therefore, Mu Qilin chose the latter and cooperated with Chen Cao. Naturally, Chen Cao's condition for him was that after the matter was completed, the title of Duke of Guizhou would be given to Mu Qilin.
The three of them drank, and Chen Cao sent them out of the camp. At this time, Huang Chunyao entered the tent: "Your Majesty, according to the plan, one hundred thousand of the two hundred thousand prisoners have been given to Zhang Gaoping, and the remaining one hundred thousand All the people were escorted back to Songjiang to build roads."
"Yunsheng, sit down." After the two sat opposite each other, Chen Cao picked up a leg of lamb and said, "When do you think the time is right?"
"Now the food route to the north has been completely interrupted. The Chongzhen court can only obtain food from Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi and other places. However, the capital has a population of millions, and the food is only a drop in the bucket..."
Huang Chunyao laughed secretly when he saw Chen Cao chewing on the leg of lamb, and suddenly woke up: "Your Majesty, could it be that you..."
"Haha..." Chen Cao put down the leg of lamb and said with a smile: "That's right, now we don't have to worry about the soldiers' expenses for our food hoarding. We even have old food from three years ago stored in Shanghai. I have decided to wait until the beginning of spring in places like Jiaozhi. After the new grain is shipped, all this batch of grain will be sold to merchants in the north, so that huge profits can be obtained."
"Gold and silver?"
"No, now we make our own coins. Gold and silver are no longer important. What I want is coal from Shanxi..."
