Nanjing City, Dakongfang.
On August 15th, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the nobles and ministers in Nanjing were invited to gather in Dagong Square to listen to the opera and admire the moon.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is supposed to be a day for family reunions, but these dignitaries and ministers in Nanjing are uncharacteristically uncharacteristic, and all the respectable ones come to Dakongfang to eat moon cakes.
The mooncakes are delicious, but there is no festive atmosphere. After the dinner, when everyone gathered in the Dagong Hall to drink tea, everyone looked sad, and the atmosphere was so depressing that it made people breathless.
The situation is unfavorable!
The Crown Prince of Yangzhou was too ruthless and defeated the Zhenjiang Commander-in-Chief Jiang Yuntai with thunderous force, and also forced the two Commander-in-Chiefs Wang Zhiren and Huang Binqing to hand over their military power. The Jiufu areas of Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou, Songjiang, Ningbo, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Shaoxing, and Hangzhou downstream of Nanjing also all fell into the hands of Xingchao.
These nine mansions plus the second Huaiyang mansion are all places where the world's wealth gathers! Zhu Cixiang took over these eleven mansions, which was equivalent to controlling more than half of the wealth of the Ming Dynasty!
What's worse is that the Yangtze River estuary and three of the four major silk centers are now all in Zhu Cihong's hands.
If the Fujian pirate Zheng Zhilong still wants to do business happily, he must seek refuge with Zhu Cixi... In this way, Fujian and Guangdong provinces will soon become the territory of the imperial court.
The Tatars in the north and the bandits in the west have softened inexplicably. Not only did they not send troops to attack Shandong and Huaixi, but they also proposed peace at the same time.
Dorgon, the regent of Donglu, wanted to marry his daughter to Prince Zhu. And Li Zicheng had no daughter to marry, so he simply proposed to become a vassal - Gu Junen has now arrived in Wuchang!
She is a married woman and a professed minister. Regardless of whether she is sincere or not, she is no longer in trouble with Zhu Cihong for the time being.
And it will also greatly enhance Prince Zhu’s prestige!
At the same time, Zuo Liangyu, who originally favored Nanjing, planned to send an envoy to Yangzhou to express his respect to the court.
As a result, the situation will be very unfavorable for Nanjing!
Of course, there is good news.
"My lord, the prince seems to have taken a step back..." The person who spoke was a short-built man with a Chinese character face and a big beard. He was in his thirties or forties. He was none other than Liu Kongzhao, Admiral Cao Jiang's sincerity uncle.
Liu Kongzhao is a descendant of Liu Bowen, but his Chengyi Bo was not passed down from Liu Bowen, but was renewed by Emperor Jiajing - the Chengyi Bo passed down by Liu Bowen was broken in the generation of Liu Bowen's grandson Liu Lao. During the Jiajing period, Liu Yu, Liu Yu's sixth grandson, was granted the title of Bo Chengyi.
Because there was a break of more than a hundred years, the wealth of the Chengcheng family cannot be compared with those who have not had a break. However, the drive and talents of Uncle Chengyi's family are much stronger than those of those who have been rich for more than two hundred years.
Liu Kongzhao and his grandfather Liu Shiyan both did a lot of work that can be written in the history of history.
Among the nobles in Nanjing, he and Chang Yanling, the Marquis of Huaiyuan, who was also renewed, were considered relatively capable masters.
Liu Kongzhao has been in charge of Caojiang Navy for many years and has some strength. Although the Yangtze River Navy has now been established in the imperial court, this Yangtze River Navy is a new one after all. It is basically the grain transport army operating on the canal and Gu Sanmazi's river mouth pirates. The situation on the river west of the Nanjing section If you are not familiar with it, you will probably suffer a loss if you head westward hastily.
Therefore, Cao Jiang Navy was the only force in the hands of Nanjing nobles that made Zhu Cixiang a little afraid.
"Cough cough cough..."
The Duke of Wei, Xu Hongji, who was suffering from tuberculosis, had another heartbreaking cough, and the maids waiting around him were busy for a while. It would be best to bring out a spittoon to let the old man vomit blood!
Old Mrs. Xu's expression was a bit more dejected than the last time she saw him! Look at this, it looks like it won't last long...
After finally catching his breath, Xu Hongji opened his mouth. His pair of cloudy old eyes slowly scanned the room, taking in everyone's faces. Finally, he exhaled and said, "You all want to take a breather?"
Linhuai Marquis Li Zushu nodded and said: "My lord, if this situation continues, it will not be good for us! Not to mention anything else, these eleven wealth-gathering mansions in the southeast are all controlled by the prince, and the mouth of the Yangtze River is also controlled by the prince. In the hands of the prince's naval forces. We only have Yingtian Yifu... If we drag it on, will we still have enough money to spend?
In order to rectify the Beijing Camp Army in Nanjing, we have spent three hundred thousand taels! Three hundred thousand! Now the troops in the Beijing camp have to receive hundreds of thousands taels of salary every month, and we support it with our own money. If the confrontation lasts for several months, without the prince sending troops to fight, we will be depleted in military pay alone! "
This Marquis of Linhuai is a descendant of Li Wenzhong and Li Jinglong. During the Yongle period, Li Jinglong was killed by Zhu Di and his title was removed. He also went on a hunger strike at home to lose weight - he starved for ten days but did not die, and then lived until the end of Yongle period. Although his descendants no longer have titles, they still have hereditary command. During the Jiajing period, another Linhuai Marquis was added.
But this generation of Marquis of Linhuai was quite clever. He was originally an official in Beijing, but when he saw something was wrong, he escaped before the city gates of Beijing closed on March 12, the 17th year of Chongzhen.
As soon as Marquis Linhuai opened his mouth, voices of agreement immediately rose.
"Yes, Huang Yushi said he could raise money for us, but so far we haven't seen a single tael of silver!"
"We are all paying for it!"
"I raised a million taels before, but it's only been a while now, and I've already spent almost all of it. It's not an option to keep putting off King Qin's affairs."
"If we raise money from Nanjing, we will still bleed..."
"It's hard to collect money on the river! The merchant ships coming from Hankou Town all carry the flag of Pingthief General. If we want to collect taxes, we will offend Zuo Liangyu!"
"We can't delay! The prince has eleven extremely rich mansions in his hands! After the taxes are paid next spring, the prince will have millions more taels of silver on hand!"
"More than a few million, the land tax of the Eleventh Prefecture can amount to more than 10 million taels! The half-year salt tax of the Second Prefecture of Huaiyang is 3 million taels...and the tax package of Nanbeiyang and the Eleventh Prefecture The business tax is two million taels."
"With so much money, how can we fight with him? If we have money, we will have soldiers! He now has six land divisions, two navy divisions, and seven military guards, which is nearly 100,000 troops. In half a year, he will have 150,000 troops. , let’s fight for nothing!”
"Cough cough cough!" Xu Hongji coughed violently again. The nobles and ministers present were silent for a moment, and they all looked at the critically ill Duke of Wei.
"Uncle Sincerity," Wei Guogong looked at Liu Kongzhao, "You are the most resourceful person here. You can tell me."
Liu Kongzhao twirled his beard, looked solemn, shook his head and said: "The prince used the emperor to command the princes, and now he has taken control of the eleven southeastern prefectures. But our side is too passive... You can always lead the troops to attack Zhenjiang? What kind of banner can we use? This time the prince sent soldiers and horse officials to occupy the nine mansions in the south of the Yangtze River. Except for the battle with Jiang Yuntai in Zhenjiang, they were defeated everywhere. No scholar-officials in the south of the Yangtze River raised troops to resist the prince! Why is this? Isn't it because? The prince has this banner of the Holy One in his hand? To resist the prince is to rebel!"
The reason why the scholar-bureaucrats in Jiufu in the south of the Yangtze River did not resist was not only because Zhu Cihong controlled Emperor Chongzhen, but also because he did not violate the bottom line of the scholar-officials in the southeast - the tax-free privileges of the scholar-officials!
The benefits of the salt tax mainly belonged to nobles and high-ranking officials, and most of the southeastern scholar-officials were not qualified to get involved in salt profits. Moreover, Zhu Cixi also left a certain profit margin for the four salt managers of Huibang, so that they could continue to transfer some profits to the bosses behind the scenes.
The interests of the guards belong to the nobles, hereditary military attachés and military literati, and it is difficult for civilian literati to get involved.
In other words, Zhu Cihong's current infringement on the interests of civilian literati and bureaucrats, who accounted for the majority of the southeastern gentry, was not serious. Only the military literati and bureaucrats in the second Huaiyang Prefecture were harmed. Therefore, the reaction of the Southeast scholar-officials was relatively negative, and they could still tolerate Prince Zhu.
Moreover, the righteous title of Chongzhen is still in Zhu Cixiang’s hands!
How could these guys who read the books of sages challenge the prince who has a great reputation without obviously harming their own interests?
In this case, the Nanjing nobles seemed very passive and could not take the initiative.
Liu Kongzhao then added: "And there is still a trump card in the prince's hand that he has not released yet!"
"Is there any trump card?" Xu Hongji frowned.
"Yes!" Liu Kongzhao said, "The prince can still do enke! He has the Holy Emperor and the court, so he can open eunuchs to recruit scholars. The court lost many officials in the process of moving south, and it was just in time to open an enke to make up for the manpower.
Moreover, most of the Northland has fallen, and there will no longer be a North-South list! If the Crown Prince issued an order to open Enke, I am afraid that the scholar-officials in the southeast would shout long live for him! "
Xu Hongji's brows were already knitted together and he asked, "Then what do you think we should do?"
"How about using a trick!" Liu Kongzhao said, "Since the Crown Prince has taken a step back, we should also take a step back! As long as the Crown Prince arrives in Nanjing, are we afraid that we will not have a chance?"
"How to retreat?" Xu Hongji asked.
Liu Kongzhao thought deeply and said: "If we agree to hand over 20 million acres of land and then respectfully welcome the emperor and the prince to Nanjing, the prince will definitely come to serve the emperor."
"Hand over 20 million acres? You...ahem..." Xu Hongji was so angry that he coughed loudly and almost lost his breath.
After finally recovering, Liu Kongzhao frowned and said: "Master, the problem now is that the prince and the emperor are willing to come to Nanjing. Only when they come do we have a solution! Otherwise, it will take a year and a half, and this money It has to be spent!”
"Then when they come, can we beat them?" Xu Hongji asked again.
"This..." Liu Kongzhao looked at Zhao Zhilong.
"We can beat him!" Zhao Zhilong rolled his eyes and said, "Although the prince has many soldiers and horses, they have been scattered all over the place, and the number of people still in his hands is only 20,000 to 30,000 at most. If we surrender to the prince, he will definitely We will get carried away and lead the 20,000 to 30,000 people stationed in Yangzhou into Nanjing without waiting for the army to gather... We still have a chance!"
