Cao Zideng nodded and couldn't help but take a look.
For Cao Zideng, if he was willing to betray the imperial court together with Kuai Bai at the beginning of the rebellion, and there were some forced reasons, then he now really feels that Kuai Bai and him are like-minded. People, and felt that he and Kuaibai were the "loyal ministers" who really cared about the Zhu family's ancestral temple foundation.
What needs to be explained here is whether the Zhu family, as the royal family of the Ming Dynasty, can always be the masters of this land, and whether the national power of this land has always been the Han people's power, are often confused by people of this era.
Because in this era, for people who believe in old etiquette, they often only care about whether they are loyal to Zhu Yijun personally, or whether the Zhu family can always be the masters of this land, but whether the country they want to be loyal to is Han Han. In a cultural country, whether the Han civilization will perish is directly ignored.
Now Cao Zideng also directly chose to ignore it.
The same goes for Kuaibai. As a general of a minority group, he would rather become a minister loyal to the Zhu family than become a member of the Han family.
Therefore, Cao Zideng suddenly felt that he was his confidant.
Not long after the two talked like this, Li Rusong's army had approached Ningxia Town and set up camp outside Xiajiabao, the outskirts of Ningxia Town.
Cao Zideng also specially came to Xiajiabao with Kuaibai to supervise the division, and sent envoys to meet Li Rusong, and brought Li Rusong a letter of persuasion to surrender, saying:
"If you know loyalty, you should know that there have been good ministers from ancient times. The so-called loyalty to the emperor and father means loyalty to the emperor's father's ancestral temple foundation, not blind loyalty to the emperor's father himself and all the actions that cause harm to the country and chaos to the government!"
"Nowadays, Wanli is bewitched by treacherous ministers, destroying the order of high and low, and causing everyone in the world to be confused. If you are truly a loyal minister, you should surrender to King Qing and work together to achieve justice and peace!"
After Li Rusong received Cao Zideng's letter of persuasion to surrender, his face darkened and he handed the letter to deputy envoy Tian Le.
After watching it, Tian Le asked Li Rusong: "How do you plan to deal with it?"
Li Rusong smiled lightly: "Since he plans to write the letter first, I will also give him the letter first, talk to him about it, and at the same time pass the reply to the whole army, so that no one in the whole army will suffer from them. The traitors are bewitched, and at the same time, these traitors are made to fear, don’t treat Wu Xun as a fool who only knows how to kill the enemy on the battlefield!”
then.
Li Rusong then said to the envoy sent by Cao Zideng:
"You go back and tell him that Cao Zideng still has Kuaibai, and say that whether it is loyalty to the ancestral temple, loyalty to the emperor himself, or loyalty to the entire Han family, now I have the responsibility to put down this rebellion. If you want to kill Cao Zideng, you still have Kuaibai." Worship, even Zhu Shensong is captured or killed alive, and then he has fulfilled his duty as a minister!"
"Otherwise, if we are like him, with the current land annexation situation in Ming Dynasty, Ming Dynasty will be destroyed within a hundred years!"
"And if he, Cao Zideng, is really loyal, he should secretly serve as an internal agent for the imperial court, find a way to kill Kuai Bai and Zhu Shensong, help the imperial court suppress the rebellion and have a chance to atone for his sins!"
"Otherwise, he, Cao Zedeng, cannot be considered a loyal minister! He just wants the court to ignore the current situation of serious land annexation, and does not really take the people of the country into consideration, and he does not hesitate to confuse right and wrong just for the sake of his own survival!"
Senior generals like Li Rusong, like many important generals in the Ming Dynasty, now regularly study politics in the ruling school. Among them, understanding the land annexation situation in the Ming Dynasty is a required course for them.
Therefore, Li Rusong knows very well what the current land economy of the Ming Dynasty is like. He also knows that based on the current land economic situation of the Ming Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty does not implement new rites, it will not have many more dynasties than other dynasties in history. If it cannot survive, there will be three difficulties. This is the threshold of a hundred years of peace.
Li Rusong, who has been indoctrinated in loyalty education since childhood, naturally knows very well that if he really cares about the Zhu family's ancestral temple foundation and the long-term interests of the entire landlord class, and prevents the world from major turmoil, then if he does not implement the new rituals, this day will really be miserable. Coming soon.
After all, it has been more than two hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Even though a lot of land annexation has been alleviated in recent years, most of the land in the world has been in the hands of powerful bureaucrats after more than two hundred years of land annexation. Therefore, even if it has been alleviated, Quite a few, but the current situation of serious land annexation still exists.
Therefore, if the Ming Dynasty did not implement new rituals and use external expansion to divert conflicts, it would have to wait for a large-scale peasant uprising after natural and man-made disasters intensified, and then use large-scale riots to solve the serious problem of land annexation.
As a member of the landlord class, Li Rusong naturally did not want to see the latter, especially after studying in the ruling school. Moreover, he also studied under Xu Wei and Qi Jiguang, so he naturally had a clearer understanding of society.
He cannot be easily deceived by the literati's rhetoric.
Even if the reasons advocated by scholar-bureaucrats were to be loyal to the emperor and the country but not to the emperor himself, Li Rusong could not be easily confused by it, because Li Rusong already had his own clear ideological opinions.
In general.
The military generals of the Wanli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty were different from before.
The generals of the Wanli Dynasty were not the traditional ones who were educated by old rituals. They only knew that being brave and good at fighting and daring to shroud their bodies in horse leather for the long-term interests of the landlord class was the right path in life. The system for being evaluated as excellent was no longer the traditional one. How heavy a sword can he hold, how many heads can he behead, but he is enlightened and asked to think. Whether it is war command, army management or even personal thinking, he is required to have the ability to think.
thus.
After Li Rusong's reply reached Cao Zideng's ears, Cao Zideng placed the Qiliang Chaoguan he had just received on the table heavily on the spot and said:
"Instead of using the Four Books and Five Classics to let the military officers only know that shrouding corpses in horse leather is the right path for good generals, they are allowed to have contact with state affairs, know the pros and cons of the world, and then have their own opinions. As a result, there is no distinction between civil and military affairs, and military men are more cunning than literati, and they are the most traitorous party. Bad policy!”
According to the Ming system, the seven-beam crown was a court crown that could only be worn by first-rank officials.
In other words, only a first-rank ruler like the chief minister can wear this crown.
Cao Zideng was still addicted to officialdom, so after he became the pseudo-chief assistant of King Qing, he couldn't wait to have a first-class court crown and court uniform made.
But now Li Rusong has affected his mood of being addicted to Shoufu.
After complaining so much, Cao Zideng continued to say:
"This Li Rusong is the most typical representative! He actually criticized me."
"I am a Jinshi!"
"He actually said that I was confusing right and wrong just to survive, and why did he use the seriousness of land annexation as an excuse? Didn't I know that land annexation was serious?"
"He is deliberately sarcastic and humiliating me!"
Cao Zideng slapped the table as he spoke, looking very excited, and then spit out a mouthful of blood. His face was as pale as a layer of white powder, and then he said aggrievedly:
"Do I have to admit that I am a traitor?"
Kuaibai kept a calm face and said nothing.
Cao Zideng knew why Kuai Bai had a sullen face, so he held up his hands and said:
"General, don't let him get away with Li Rusong. This person is the most cunning and cunning. He seems to be honest and kind, but in fact he is full of evil!"
"His previous refusal to share the same fate with Tian Wenwu Heguang was actually just to gain favor from the traitor Qi Jiguang, and to prove to Qi Jiguang that he was only loyal to him, Qi Jiguang. It is the same this time. He explicitly advised me to be an internal agent and help him achieve peace. The purpose of rebellion is actually to drive a wedge between you and me, to make us at odds with each other in civil and military affairs, and then achieve his goal of easily suppressing the rebellion."
"I know!"
"Don't worry, Mr. Cao, how could I believe Li Rusong's words?"
Kuaibai just smiled and replied like this.
Cao Zideng breathed a sigh of relief and said: "It's okay if you don't believe it, general. The next key is to defeat him Li Rusong. From what I see, the troops led by Li Rusong this time are mainly northern soldiers, mostly cavalry, so we have trained them before Li Rusong's camel city tactics should be able to defeat him. Gather all the firearms and carry them on camels. If the enemy is far away, fire cannons. If the enemy is close, shoot arrows!"
"After Li Rusong's Liaodong cavalry is defeated, let Huo Luochi's cavalry rush out, defeat his division, and capture his head!"
He bowed his head and said, "As Duke Cao said, this is what we should do."
"So many camels?"
On this day, a few days after Li Rusong wrote back to Cao Zideng, he saw a large number of camels approaching his camp in rows from the high platform of the camp.
These camels became good artillery carriers, allowing the rebels to make full use of the camels to attack the official Liaodong cavalry.
Although the Liaodong cavalry were brave, they had no choice in the face of the camel city that could change its direction at any time and trap them. They could only be killed by the firearms on the humps.
The Liaodong cavalry who were scouting outside were forced to retreat steadily, and many of them were killed by the rebels behind Tuocheng.
"The camel is equipped with twin cannons and a big wind-chasing blunderbuss."
"This is similar to the chariot wall of Jizhou's southern troops. The Liaodong cavalry suffered a big loss in front of such a camel wall and had to use infantry to deal with it."
Tian Le also started talking from the side.
Li Rusong also put away his clairvoyance at this time and said: "Send an order to retreat to Lingzhou and have Luo Shangzhi's infantry come from Wuzhong Fort immediately!"
Luo Shangzhi was Qi Jiguang's old subordinate and a general of the Southern Army, but he had a good relationship with Li Rusong. This time Li Rusong attacked Ningxia, so he named him to follow him.
Therefore, Luo Shangzhi also came to Ningxia.
However, because the infantry and artillery commanded by Luo Shangzhi march much slower than the Liaodong cavalry, they have not yet reached Lingzhou Station.
At this time, Li Rusong had no choice but to order Luo Shangzhi to come quickly with the infantry.
Li Rusong knew that there was obviously a tough battle to be fought next, because Cao Zedeng's rebels gave the Taoluo powerful firearms and gave him the opportunity to invent the camel wall tactic, which meant that he would not be able to fight like in Liaodong. Just like on the battlefield in Myanmar, you can directly take the lead and kill casually with the cavalry, but you need to be careful.
"This Li Rusong has turned into a coward, hiding in Lingzhou and unable to come out."
Because of this, Kuaibai came back from the front and told Cao Zideng about it.
After hearing this, Cao Zideng's face darkened: "He is actually more cautious than before. It seems that he, Li Rusong, and Qi Jiguang have indeed learned a lot!"
(End of chapter)
