In a landlord's mansion near Pingduguan, Daning County, Pingyang Prefecture, the unique medicinal fragrance of Maojian tea floats in the hall. Zhu Cijiong, the loan king of the Ming Dynasty, was wearing a commoner suit and a handkerchief. He was sitting at the top with a confident smile on his face. At first glance, he looked like a little Zhu Cijiong.
Seeing Zuk Kefa coming in accompanied by Li Jiantai, the Acting Prime Minister, and Luo Xiu Shen, the general of the palace, Zhu Cijiong greeted him with a smile, and asked the three of them to sit down without courtesy, looking easy-going. Zukofa couldn't refute King Dai's face. After bowing with a smile, he sat down on a chair. Li Jiantai and Luo Xiushen were accompanying them in the hall.
"The prince is very happy. Wu Sangui is determined to do something right this time! He has 330 soldiers and horses from a thousand households, and he can pull out an army of 100,000!
Now Wu Sangui has occupied the territory of Xi'an Mansion and Tongguan Guard. As long as he changes his position, the prince's territory will be connected with the court's territory. It seems that overcoming Shenjing and restoring the Central Plains is just around the corner. By then, the prince will be my number one hero of the Ming Dynasty..."
Listening to Zu Kefa describing a great situation against the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but smile bitterly.
Adding a vassal king to the number one hero... no matter how it sounds, it sounds like he has achieved great success and shocked the lord!
Moreover, as a vassal king, he still owes a lot of loan sharks. It is impossible for him to return to the vassal mansion and become a rich and virtuous king! Because he owed not only a "silver debt" but also a "blood debt". It was easy to repay the silver debt, and his emperor brother was said to be good at amassing money, and could be regarded as the most greedy king in the history of the Ming Dynasty. You wouldn’t want to watch your own brother die in poverty because of a debt of several million taels, right?
But how to repay the "blood debt" that King Zhu Lo owes others?
After merging Jiang Yu's troops, the number of troops under King Dai's command has reached as many as 45,000 to 45,000...many of them have lost their lives in order to defend the Ming Dynasty!
This is a blood debt! This is the blood debt owed by the acting king Zhu Cijiong!
Can Zhu Cixi help pay these blood debts?
These "creditors" who helped Zhu Cijiong fight against the Qing Dynasty in Luliang Mountain and Datong Prefecture wanted not only a few military salaries, but also land in Shanxi. Shanxi had more than 36 million acres of land in peacetime. The "blood creditors" who loaned money to the king got an average of two to three hundred acres per family, and then gave some to the families of the soldiers who died in the battle, and more than 10 million acres were gone. Already......
In addition, there are still debts to be repaid by the Shanxi gentry who lent money to Dai Wang to fight the war!
If both the silver debt and the blood debt are repaid, Shanxi Province will almost return to Zhu Cijiong's old ministry! Can Zhu Cixi agree?
Zuk Kefa looked at Zhu Cijiong with a sad look on his face and thought he was worried about the Qing army to the east of Tongguan Guard. So he considered it and said: "Your Majesty, Wu Sangui suffered heavy losses in the battle of Monk Yuan. Now there are only more than 30,000 capable soldiers left, and they have little food and pay. I am afraid it will be difficult to withstand the Qing army's fierce attack. So he wanted to go to the Qing army. Your Majesty, please lend me troops and pay me."
Zhu Cijiong frowned a little when he heard this. He had paid all the debt himself, so how could he lend it to Wu Sangui? So he gave his prime minister and father-in-law Li Jiantai a look, hoping that he would find an excuse to push back.
Li Jiantai nodded and said, "Zu Zhaofu, it's easy for Wu Sangui to borrow troops and pay him, but the question is, what will he give in return?"
What to give in return?
Zuke Faxin said: Your Highness the King and the Emperor are indeed brothers from the same father and mother...
Zu Kefa smiled and said: "Now that Wu Sangui's sister has become the queen, are you still afraid that he will default on his debt?"
That would be even more scary... Zhu Cijiong thought to himself, can he go to the queen to collect debts as a vassal king? But don't worry about the accounts, but the poisonous wine is enough!
"This can't be done..." Li Jiantai was a Shanxi merchant, so he knew how to make a calculation.
How could it be possible to add real money and silver to the army and just lend it to Wu Sangui?
"Prime Minister, rescuing troops is like putting out fire!" Zu Kefa was anxious, "Besides, the prince and Wu Sangui are close friends, and it would be shameful for them to die."
"There must be a mortgage." Li Jiantai, an old profiteer and an old traitor, just shook his head.
"Mortgage?" Zukefa was stunned. You who are contemporary kings and kings of Pingxi, do you still need to mortgage money to borrow money?
"I wonder what kind of mortgage the prince wants?" Zukefa asked.
"Ningxia." Li Jiantai said, "Now that Wu Sangui has the foundation of being the king of Guanzhong, it is not appropriate to hold the source of elite soldiers like Ningxia and Gansu... isn't it appropriate? Why not give up the town of Ningxia to my prince."
Zukfa's eyes widened and he was completely stunned.
Can such an operation still be possible? Do you people just give and receive the country's land privately? These are traitors and traitors!
He took a breath, frowned and asked, "Your Majesty is in Luliang, and there is Yan'an Mansion between him and Ningxia. How can you get along?"
"It's passable, why can't it be passed?" Li Jiantai smiled, "Wang Yongqiang has agreed to submit to the imperial court, and there are many generals from Yan'an, Yulin, and Ningxia under his command."
Li Jiantai's idea was to have Zhu Cijiong move to Yan'an, Wang Yongqiang and Gao Di to Ningxia, Jiang Yu to guard Yulin, and Zhang Xixian to guard Luliang Mountain.
In this way, King Dai captured half of the elite soldiers of Gansu and Shaanxi, and he also transformed from a mountain prince into a genuine powerful vassal of Gansu and Shaanxi!
Even if the prince in Nanjing wants to reduce his vassal status, he has to make careful calculations...
In addition, with the territory of Yan'an, Yulin, and Ningxia, King Zhu Cijiong could repay some of his "blood debt" to some extent, and the soldiers who followed King Dai in the mountains could also have a piece of land where they could rest and recuperate.
Zukefa also took care of Wu Sangui's affairs, so this method was okay. Now Wu Sangui is so poor that he can't even afford to be a traitor, so giving up Ningxia is nothing.
Besides, how can Ningxia be as good as Xi'an? After Wu Sangui surrendered to Ningxia, he could easily move the thousands of households previously settled in Ningxia to Xi'an Prefecture and Fengxiang Prefecture for guarding, and first firmly control the Guanzhong Plain before talking about anything else.
In addition, with Dai Wang, a powerful vassal in the northwest, as a companion, Wu Sangui's group will not be so conspicuous... If the Qing Dynasty cannot be destroyed for a while, the prince of Nanjing may be able to tolerate Wu Sangui and Zhu Cijiong in the northwest Carefree.
"Okay!" Zukefa nodded, "I will agree on behalf of Wu Sangui... But now the military situation in Xi'an is so fierce that we can't delay sending troops to borrow money for a long time!"
Li Jiantai and Luo Xiushen turned to see the king at the same time. Zhu Cijiong had already made a plan. He said: "My king's troops have been assembled and can be sent out at any time! There are still hundreds of thousands of taels of silver here in Pingdu Pass. You can borrow them first." Give Wu Sangui an emergency."
It turned out that after Zhu Cijiong learned the news of Zhang Xianzhong's death, he also planned to send troops to Shaanxi to grab some territory - he was not having an easy life on the Luliang Mountains, and he urgently needed a rich territory to recuperate.
Now we can reach an agreement with Wu Sangui to divide Gansu and Shaanxi, which is better than the two families falling out, right?
...
"Tell Nikan that there is no need to march into Guanzhong... just occupy Shaanzhou with one force and block Wu Sangui's eastward advance. The main force enters Jin and is controlled by Azige!"
Shandong, Qufu. The Qing Emperor Amadorgun, who was presiding over the archaeological excavation work, was giving orders to Nikan who was far away in Shaanzhou at this time.
Contrary to the expectations of Wu Sangui and Zhu Cijiong, Dorgon did not want to enter Bingguan at all. Because he didn't know that the Daxi Army without Zhang Xianzhong actually beat Wu Sangui and suffered heavy losses... It's impossible to think about it. Zhang Xianzhong, the leader, is gone, and the group of younger brothers below are still leaderless and allowed to be slaughtered?
This is like the Qing Dynasty without his Duo Amma, so what hope is there? Just waiting to perish...
"Give Azig another order," Dorgon continued, "tell him to enter the Luliang Mountains immediately and suppress them! We must give the Southern Dynasty King Dai's troops a thunderous blow before Wu Sangui betrays us, the Qing Dynasty!"
Fan Wencheng had already drafted the edict based on Dorgon's dictation and brought it over to Dorgon for review. Dorgon waved his hand and asked Fan Wencheng to collect the imperial edict, and then asked: "Have the accounts of Zhengluqi been settled? How much deficit did you make last year?"
It turns out that Wu Sangui was not the only one who suffered losses for being a traitor. Many people in Zhengluqi also suffered losses. After the New Year, all the Jia La and Niu Lu were settling accounts. After settling the accounts, they had to ask for mercy and give some money and food. Subsidies and so on... There are a lot of expenses to be made in the future. We can't let the minions under Zhenglu go bankrupt so quickly!
