"Your Highness, Your Highness, Li Zicheng is going to take action. Li Zicheng has chosen a good time!"
The urgent military affairs reported by Li Yan turned out to be that Li Zicheng was finally going to send a large number of troops eastward! This great military advisor, who always seemed calm and confident when facing the Qing troops coming south, was extremely anxious this time.
Zhu Cixiang sat behind the desk, and Wei Zaode and Wu Xiang sat opposite. The three of them looked at Li Yan in surprise.
Wu Xiang just smiled: "Hey, what's the big deal? What does Li Zicheng have to be afraid of? With Zuo Jiajun at the front, he can always resist for a while."
Wei Zaode also smiled: "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's new army is invincible, so why are they still afraid of mere bandits?"
Zhu Cixiang looked at Li Yan with a smile, obviously not realizing that Li Zicheng was also making progress!
The Li Zicheng of today is different from the Li Zicheng who came south from Xiangjing in history! Now Li Zicheng has learned how to "enclose the land and take root" and "take control of the land and teach the land by word of mouth". Not only has the revolutionary team become more stable, but his ability to incite the working people of Huguang has also been greatly enhanced.
In addition, Li Zicheng did not abandon his only base area and go south as a rogue bandit. Instead, one side firmly controls the five prefectures of Xiangjing, Yuanyang, Nanyang, Hanzhong, and Xi'an. On the other hand, he seized an extremely favorable opportunity and marched eastward to Huguang.
Li Yan shook his head: "Now Zuo Liangyu's life and death are unknown, and everyone in the Zuo Army is panicking. Recently, there was news that the Zuo Army is moving towards Jingzhou Prefecture, obviously to avoid fighting!"
Zhu Cixiang frowned slightly, "So what? Can Li Zicheng be stronger than Hauge?"
Li Yan was stunned and looked at Zhu Cixiang with some surprise, "How could Li Zicheng not be able to compete with Hauge? In the past at Shanhaiguan, he used an army of 60,000 to resist Wu Sangui and the Donglu coalition forces of more than 100,000. He fought hard until late at night before he was defeated and fled westward, with little loss. It's more than half. If Hauge's army only had 18,000 men that day, Li Zicheng would have defeated it long ago."
This... Li Yan seems to make sense!
Li Zicheng's old camp of rogue bandits was quite capable of fighting if they were really ruthless. Their performance in the Battle of Shanhaiguan was no worse than the performance of the new army in the Battle of Bloody Creek.
The reason why their combat effectiveness became weaker and weaker after the Shanhaiguan War was actually because Li Zicheng was unwilling to take the regressive route of feudalism, which chilled the minds of his low-awaited old brothers and lost their energy to conquer the world.
However, now Li Zicheng has corrected his mistakes and actively fought for retreat. He has surrounded tens of millions of acres of land in Xiangjing, Yuanyang, and Nanyang and distributed it to his 780,000 or 80,000 soldiers, completing the transformation of the feudal land military service system.
The 70,000 to 80,000 Dashun soldiers who had obtained the land had full fighting spirit, at least in the short term.
Li Yan frowned: "And the autumn harvest in Huguang has just ended not long ago!"
Wu Xiang asked in confusion: "So what?"
Li Yan said: "After the autumn harvest, the conflict between gentry and tenants is often the most serious! The tenants have to resist rent and default on their bills, while the landlords have to force rent and debt. Moreover, there is no such thing as a five-year grain exemption in Huguang, so there is no place to do things for Zuo Liangyu. The officials are going to intensify their efforts to plunder, how can the resentment of the tenants not boil over? The thieves have been spreading the news about dictating farmland in various prefectures and counties in Hubei since before the autumn harvest..."
"Qiu put away..." Zhu Cixiong suddenly burst out of these four indescribable words from his mouth!
Li Zicheng's current plan is to "intensify the conflict between gentry and tenants during the autumn harvest". Although the time is slightly later, the effect is no different - Li Zicheng's army has also become feudal, and they themselves are also landlords and need to collect rent after the autumn harvest. It is impossible to send troops at the same time as the autumn harvest, so the earliest time to send troops is early winter!
"Yes, it is to take advantage of the contradictions after the autumn harvest!" Li Yan was a bandit, and of course he understood how serious the contradiction between gentry and tenants in rural areas would be after the autumn harvest. "That was Li Zicheng's idea... Don't talk about Zuo Liangyu's life or death. Unknown, even if you live well, you can't stop the power of the Huguang uprising and the army of thieves!
Your Highness, we cannot wait any longer... Once Hanyang and Wuchang are lost, the Huguang grain road will be cut off! "
Now there are too many people in Jiangnan, and cash crops are widely planted, crowding out grain fields. Therefore, grain and rice cannot be self-sufficient and must be purchased from Huguang upstream. Once Wuchang is occupied by Li Zicheng and the Yangtze River waterway is blocked, food prices downstream will immediately soar, and big cities like Nanjing, Suzhou, and Yangzhou will be in trouble!
"This Li Zicheng deserves to die!" Zhu Cixiang cursed. "If I hadn't started a war with the Tatars, Li Zicheng would have been killed long ago. How could he have the current situation of separatizing the five prefectures? He has the land of the five prefectures, and he is not satisfied. ...I must destroy this beast this time and pacify Huguang in one fell swoop!"
"Prince, are you going to send troops?" Wu Xiang frowned slightly, "We haven't collected all the autumn grain yet... The southeast is not very stable either!"
Conflicts caused by the autumn harvest not only exist in Huguang, but also in the southeast.
The "Autumn Harvest Contradiction" in the southeast is different from that in Huguang. The contradiction in Huguang is relatively simple, it is the contradiction between gentry and tenants. But things are complicated in the southeast... Of course there are conflicts between gentry and tenants, as well as conflicts between officials and gentry, conflicts between the north and the south, and conflicts between masters and slaves.
Among them, the conflict between officials and gentry was caused by Zhu Cixiang's court strictly inspecting military villages and official fields! For the southeastern gentry who invaded military villages and official fields, Zhu Cihong's actions were confiscating their property!
The conflict between the north and the south also arose because of Zhu Cihong, mainly because the northern group who followed him acquired a large amount of land in the southeast. In the eyes of the scholar-bureaucrats and landlords in the southeast, these vulgar northern military landowners were Zhu Cihong's bandits!
The master-slave conflict actually has something to do with Zhu Cixiang. In order to collect business taxes and inspect government land, he vigorously suppressed the gentry power in the southeast. By strengthening state and county government, some gentry were deprived of their power to govern the countryside, and the power of local gentry who did not participate in the action of "strengthening state and county government" was greatly damaged.
The gentry in the southeast relied on prestige to rule the people.
After the prestige of the gentry was severely damaged, the most oppressed slave class was already ready to take action.
In the past few months, Prince Zhu has received reports of "slave rebellion" incidents from many local states and counties.
"Can't wait any longer..." Zhu Cixiang shook his head, "Wuchang can't be lost, and Huguang... can't fall into the hands of Li Zicheng! If he really establishes a firm foothold in Huguang, it will be difficult for us to regain it. .
Moreover, after the oral transfer of farmland, the amount of Huguang rice sold to the south of the Yangtze River will be greatly reduced! "
The plan of dictating farmland will seriously affect commercial activities in rural areas, because most landowners are also engaged in business, and rural businessmen and landlords are actually one and the same. Once Li Zicheng plans to command land in Huguang, Huguang's businessmen and landowners will definitely suffer a heavy blow. The commercial network that originally spread across Huguang will also disappear!
In addition, how much demand do the small farmers who have been granted land have for silk, porcelain, tea and other handicrafts from the southeast?
Without these needs, why would they sell rations that can keep people alive?
"Prince," Wei Zaode shook his head, "The situation in the southeast is unstable now, you'd better send a general to go on an expedition!"
"Who can get away with this?" Zhu Cixiang asked with a frown.
"How about Duke Cheng?" Wu Xiang recommended Zhu Chunchen, "He did pretty well in Fengyang."
"It's better to transfer Li Ruolian back from Shandong." Li Yan recommended Li Ruolian.
Can these two guys do it?
One of the biggest weaknesses of Zhu Cixiang's core group is that there are few generals who can stand alone. Wu Xiang and Li Yan may have this ability... but Zhu Cixiang needs Li Yan to make suggestions for him, and at the same time, he has to prevent the Wu family from expanding its power.
After all, there is already a Qing Dynasty Pingxi General Wang Jian with a green flag, Wu Sangui...
"It's better for me to do the expedition myself!" Zhu Cixiang thought for a moment, "Nanjing should leave it to the chief minister and Lao Taishan."
Wu Xiang asked: "How many troops will be sent?"
"The Army will first dispatch one division...and then strengthen two three-pound artillery batteries and two Hongyi artillery batteries." Zhu Cixiang said, "In addition, the main force of the Yangtze River Navy will be dispatched!"
One division of the Army has 14,000 to 5,000 men. If the Yangtze River Navy Division provides the main force, it will be almost 14,000 to 5,000 people. If you add one more, it will be 30,000 men.
Wei Zaode asked: "Will the Emperor go?"
