"This..." Dorgon turned his attention to Manchen in front of Huangji Gate. The matter of his Gege marrying the Ming Dynasty Prince was not only a state matter, but also a family matter of Aixinjueluo. He had to listen to the opinions of the ministers, especially the princes.
"Old Fifteen," Dorgon first asked his full brother Dodo, "tell me first."
"Brother Fourteen," Duduo said, "Han people all talk about marriage. It shows that marriage can be discussed. You might as well talk to the prince of the Zhu family first. He also wants to be the emperor. It won't be humiliating if he can succeed. Dongguo.”
Dorgon nodded slightly. He has no son and only has a daughter, so he naturally hopes that she will marry well. Although Zhu Cixiang was a powerful enemy of the Qing Dynasty, from another perspective it also shows that he is very likely to retain half of the Ming Dynasty. He is naturally the king of a country, and of course he is worthy of Donggu Gege in Dorgon.
"Your Majesty!" At this moment, someone suddenly came out of the Han class. Dorgon saluted, "I think the marriage is inappropriate!"
Dorgon followed the news and saw a Han minister in his fifties, Jin Zhijun, the Minister of War.
"What's wrong?" Duduo asked.
"Nowadays, the weather is cold and dry, and the northwest, central plains, Hebei and other places have suffered from famines for many years. There is not much left, and they all rely on the support from the south of the Yangtze River. Since Li Chuang's disaster, rice from the southeast has not reached the capital, so the price of rice in the north has skyrocketed. If the imperial court If we can't get to the south of the Yangtze River, water transportation will be blocked, and the north will also be in chaos due to lack of food! Therefore, I implore the prince to plan for the people of the north and seek unification to quell Canming."
Dorgon frowned: "Zhu Cihong is the leader of Zhongxing. How can we talk about unification? But if you get an inch, you will get an inch, and if you get a ruler, you will get an ear."
"Your Majesty, even though the crown prince of the Zhu family is talented, the folk customs in the south of the Yangtze River are weak and vulnerable." Sun Zhixian said, "As soon as our Qing heavenly troops arrive, everything will fall apart!"
"Your Majesty, I also think that the Southeast is fragile. The crown prince of the Zhu family is suspected of being a treason, so it is difficult to win the support of the scholars. Our Qing army is invincible, and the Southeast can be defeated!"
"The heavenly soldiers of the Qing Dynasty are invincible, how can the southeast be vulnerable to a single blow?"
Sun Zhixian and Jin Zhijun took the lead, and a group of civil servants who had become three ministers finally started talking freely. Almost everyone had the same idea - Southeast Asia must be leveled and Can Ming destroyed!
But Dorgon would not believe them. They were a bunch of civil servants, and they were not as talented as Hong Chengchou. They knew nothing! You can't listen to them when it comes to war, otherwise the country will surely perish.
"King Pingxi!" Dorgon saw that King Pingxi Wu Sangui was still squinting, "You are a general of the former Ming Dynasty, please tell me."
Wu Sangui had already shaved his hair to make it easier for him to serve, so he stood among the crowd of ministers, feeling weak and sluggish just by looking at him.
He is now keeping a low profile and has sent all his troops back to his hometown in western Liaoning, asking them to take care of the fields that have been idle for a while. At the same time, he also followed the organizational methods of the Eight Banners soldiers to organize the 30,000 to 40,000 households under his command into a "Wu Banner" that was independent of the Eight Banners. As for himself, he recently made a mistake and asked to go back to Liaoxi and Ningyuan to care for the people and no longer stay in Beijing.
Hearing Dorgon's question, Wu Sangui had to cheer up, strode out of the queue, and said after a salute: "Your Majesty, my ancestral home is Gaoyou County, Nanzhili. Qi Wuyi, his ancestral home is Chuzhou, Nanzhili. Emperor Gao, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, is from Nanzhili. A native of Fengyang, Zhili."
Dorgon nodded, "That's right...it seems that there are also strong and brave people among the southerners!
But now the north does need rice from the southeast. Otherwise, the price of rice will rise and the people will have no food and clothing. How can the Qing Dynasty be stable? King Pingxi, what do you think we should do? "
"I thought," Wu Sangui paused, "that we can ask the Southern Dynasty for 4 million shi per year of rice, which is equivalent to the amount of rice."
"That's it!" Dorgon pointed at Jin Zhijun, "Jin Shilang, you and Sun Shilang go to the south of the Yangtze River together, and you can go in the name of your personal envoy."
He thought for a while and then said: "As long as the Southern Dynasty is willing to pay tribute of 4 million stones of rice and rice every year and cede Datong Mansion, I will marry Gege to the crown prince of the Zhu family. However, Gege is only 6 years old this year and cannot marry. How many more children will we have?" In the year, when she turned 13, she was married off and sent to Nanjing.
In addition, the Qing Dynasty will not invade Shandong... The vassal of Datong can go to Jinan to become the king of Qi! The Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty were bounded by the Daqing River and the Yellow River Pan-channel, as well as the Yellow River in Kaifeng Prefecture and Henan Prefecture. Is this okay? "
...
When Li Zicheng and Dorgon both sent envoys to the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Cixiang, the de facto head of the Ming Dynasty, was guarding Emperor Chongzhen in Yangzhou Mansion.
Boxes and cattail bags containing arms are being unloaded from two Chinese-Western warships arriving at the Yangtze River Pier in Guazhou Town. Thousands of soldiers from the New Army were carrying these life-saving munitions on their shoulders and hands under the command of officers. The area near the Yangtze River Pier in Guazhou Town was even more heavily guarded.
Liu Liang and Li Shi, two thousand-household officers of the Military and Government Guards, brought a few documents and were sweating profusely as they compared the weapons and ammunition sent by the Zheng family - these two thousand-household officers were converted from civil to military affairs. Liu Liang was still a Jinshi in Chongzhen's 16th year! Just because he had learned mathematics, chemistry and gunnery from Western missionaries, he was transferred to the military attaché by Zhu Cixiang and is now in charge of the equipment department.
Although Li Shi had never been a Jinshi, he had been an official in Qin Tian Jian and was also a civil servant. Now, together with his father Li Zubai (who is also an official of the Qintian Supervisor), he is in charge of the craftsman's office under the Military and Political Guards Supplies Department, which is actually the Guan Suijun Arsenal.
There were also some craftsmen in Zhu Cixiang's court brigade. They were all craftsmen who followed from Tianjin Wei. They were mainly blacksmiths, but also some carpenters and shipwrights. However, their craftsmanship is poor and they cannot make qualified cannons and firecrackers.
Zhu Cixiang raised them mainly to repair instruments, cast lead bullets, and make gun thorns. Because there was no standardized large-scale industry these days, fire guns were non-standard equipment produced by manual workshops. Therefore, the lead bullets and muskets used can only be non-standard. The thorns even need to be customized. That is to say, according to the different specifications of each fire gun, a separate thorn can be installed. Moreover, the quality of these thorns is generally poor and often damaged, so they need to be repaired or remade in time. In this way, the craftsman battalion accompanying the army is indispensable!
Zhu Cixiang stood at the corner of the pier, walking around casually with his senior brother Zheng Sen. From time to time, he opened a box and took out various types of firecrackers inside to play with. Zheng Sen next to him will promptly tell Zhu Cixiang the model, origin and price of the gun.
"Master Chitose, this is a Kuniyou iron cannon produced at the Royal Iron Cannon Forge in Edo Castle, Japan. Although its shooting range is not as far as the Ikaruga Foot Fire Gun and Lumi Gun produced in Foshan, it is more refined in workmanship. , can fire seven blunderbuss in a row, is relatively light and easy to carry, and does not require a stand when firing blunderbuss..."
"Master Chitose, this is a Tanegashima iron cannon, produced in the Satsuma Domain of Japan. It is a relic from Japan's troubled times, but it has been well maintained and is still usable."
"Master Chitose, this is an iron cannon, produced in the Kishu Domain of Japan. It is also a relic of Japan's troubled times. It is forty or fifty years old, but it is still usable."
"Chitose, this is also a second-hand item from Japan. It looks like an old-fashioned Kuniyou iron cannon...Japan used a large number of firecrackers at the end of the so-called Warring States period, so there are many old items left behind." There are ways to buy them in large quantities. Because Chitose is in urgent need of fire guns, he has no time to buy new guns from Foshan, so he simply buys old guns from Japan. Although these old guns are from decades ago, they have been well maintained. It's very good, the quality is decent, and the price is cheap. If the Zheng family buys one, it only costs three to five taels of silver."
"Three to five taels of silver?" Zhu Cixiang was stunned when he heard the price, "So cheap?"
Zheng Sen smiled and said, "It's not cheap anymore. The top-grade turtle-dove-footed fireguns in Foshan are also priced at the same price. The turtle-dove-footed fireguns are much more powerful than Japanese iron cannons. But the fireguns are time-consuming and laborious to make. A blacksmith with dozens of people The workshop, equipped with fifteen drilling rigs, can make ten turtledove-footed muskets or Japanese bird-shot muskets in one month... Chitose Master wants 10,000 muskets, and a thousand workshops must be busy for a month. The Ming Dynasty and Japan There are not that many workshops that can make fireguns in China, so I have to buy some used goods. But even if my father tried his best, he can only get 5,000 guns now. The rest will have to wait for another year. It will take half a year to get it all together.”
