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Yang Sichang boasted that he had found a way to deal with thieves, but it was difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice. Without enough money and food, how could he build guns and train a new army?
After all, what is missing is not one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand taels, but an amount starting from one million taels, and even three to five million taels is too small...
But can the court give him five million taels of silver?
It's impossible to even think about it with your toes, because the court has no money.
But if the court has no money, it can still find a way!
Just as he said when he submitted a letter to Chongzhen for the first time when he resigned from the imperial edict, this eradication will definitely require money and food, but now that rats can starve to death in the warehouse of the Ministry of Household Affairs, the eradication and training should be increased to increase income. .
He also said that Ji Liao spends so much money every year, but they can't eliminate Dongduo in a while. It's better to negotiate peace with Dongduo first, so as to shrink the front line, free up money and food, and kill the internal thieves first.
After the Bao thieves are eliminated and the stray thieves are calmed down, they can then move their army eastward to destroy the Dongdu.
Such a renaissance is expected!
Yang Sichang's series of strategic suggestions to Chongzhen covered all aspects, and even proposed a very complete strategic plan to Chongzhen.
To deal with the foreign invaders, negotiate peace first and hold on guard. Anyway, the Eastern invaders won't be able to get into the pass for a while.
Internally, the countercurrent thieves surrounded and exterminated them forcefully, taking this opportunity to completely eliminate the big thieves such as Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Zizhong, and Li Zicheng.
To protect the thieves, they adopted a containment strategy to buy time, and defended the Yangtze River natural moat in the south.
Defend Xinyang in the east and Ye County and Luyang in the north to block the rebel army from the Central Plains.
On the western front, you can continue to fight with the bandits in Guanzhong and eastern Sichuan, and use fortified city defense and counterattacks to continue to wear down the elite guards of the bandits.
At the same time as the siege, more food and salary were sent to train troops in order to gather elite troops to fight back against Chubei and finally wipe out the Bao traitors.
After the Bao thieves are wiped out, they can then move their army eastward and destroy the Dongdu bandits.
But, as a minister, he is not the kind of minister who joins the cabinet. He is not even a minister, and he cannot directly decide the strategic policy of the imperial court.
Therefore, whether his series of suggestions can be implemented is beyond his control.
Anyway, as a minister, he has already reported what he thinks is the best way to deal with it. As for what His Majesty and the ministers do, he cannot interfere.
The imperial court has not given much reply yet, but has followed some of Yang Sichang's early suggestions, carrying out high-pressure encirclement and suppression against the stray thieves, and blocking and defending the conservative thieves.
But for others, there is no reply yet!
Because the high-level officials of the imperial court are still arguing endlessly, especially the disputes over peace talks with Dongji and the payment of additional wages, there will be no results for a while.
There was no reply from the imperial court for the time being, and Chu Nan was already facing the bandit army crossing the Yangtze River, and Wuchang was in danger.
Yang Sichang could only think of a solution on his own first. He contacted many other state capitals in Chunan to collect money and food, and planned to build a batch of guns and train thousands of new troops first.
The best thing to do is to secure the Dongting Lake area first, otherwise Yang Sichang's hometown will be destroyed first...
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Not to mention Yang Sichang's actions, it is said that the westward detachment led by Colonel Jia Heyun severely damaged the Ming army in the eastern suburbs of Linxiang and then reached the gates of Linxiang City. However, this time the westward detachment failed to successfully capture Linxiang.
The main reason is that the westward detachment lacks mortars for siege. They only brought two eighteen-pound mortars with the army, and only a few two-and-a-half-pound field guns. The artillery power was still relatively weak, making it difficult to fight against the city. It provides too much cover for the troops.
As for the westward detachment, the main force is just one main infantry battalion, and the remaining more than 2,000 people are garrison troops.
Although the combat effectiveness of these garrison troops was much stronger than that of the Ming army on the opposite side, their strength was limited. At least they could not attack Linxiang despite being at a disadvantage in terms of strength.
Therefore, after Colonel Jia Heyun commanded the troops to conduct a tentative attack without any results, he decisively gave up the continued attack on Linxiang, and instead chose to build fortifications and establish a camp outside Linxiang City.
Since Linxiang could not be captured, the land of Linxiang City was directly blocked outside Wuchang Prefecture.
As long as the Ming army on the front line of Yuezhou Prefecture cannot get through, then Colonel Jia Heyun's mission will be successfully completed.
He was ordered to lead the westward detachment to fight. His mission was not to conquer any place, nor was it to enter Yuezhou Prefecture.
His most important strategic task was to stop the Ming army coming from the direction of Yuezhou Prefecture, prevent the Ming army from this direction from reaching Wuchang Prefecture, and interfere with the main force in the rear to attack Wuchang Prefecture.
As for the others, it’s best to have them, and it’s okay not to have them.
Anyway, he had already led his troops to defeat more than 10,000 Ming troops, and captured 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners of all kinds.
Now these prisoners are under the management of the Ministry of Military Affairs to select qualified and willing recruits. After the selection is completed, the Baoxiang Army will be able to obtain at least about 3,000 new recruits.
Adding these 3,000 surrendered troops to the 23rd Garrison Regiment, there will be more than 5,000 people, which can basically set up the frame of the 8th Garrison Division.
The new commander of the 8th Garrison Division, Zhao Hongshu, has been ordered to come from the Wuchang Prefecture area, and it won't take long to arrive in Linxiang to formally take over the various departments of the 8th Garrison Division.
By then, Jia Heyun will be able to return to the main force of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, and maybe he can participate in the battle of Wuchang again and gain another wave of credit.
With these achievements in hand, there is hope for subsequent promotion to infantry brigade commander.
Satisfied, Jia Heyun stopped advancing westward and began to lead the army to build a defensive line. The same thing happened in the eastward detachment.
The eastward detachment led by Colonel Kang Hongbao bypassed the Jiangxia County area of Wuchang Prefecture and went straight to Wuchang County. They successfully defeated the nearly 1,000 local guardsmen and county warriors garrisoned there and successfully conquered it in two days. Got the place.
It is worth mentioning that there were two places named Wuchang in Wuchang Prefecture at this time. People often refer to Wuchang City as the seat of Wuchang Prefecture, which is also the county seat of Jiangxia.
At the same time, there was Wuchang County along the Yangtze River to the east of Wuchang Prefecture, which was later Ezhou.
The Wuchang that Colonel Kang Hongbao led his army to conquer was Wuchang County in Ezhou.
After Colonel Kang Hongbao led his army to conquer Wuchang County, he continued to lead his army south and successfully conquered Daye, an important iron smelting center.
This place is very important, because it is a traditional iron smelting center, and it is also a copper smelting center. It has rich iron ore and copper mines and a large number of corresponding employees. The iron and copper it produces are widely supplied to the entire Huguang and even Jiangnan.
In the past, most of the large amounts of iron materials purchased by the Baoxiang Army came from Daye, and a considerable amount of copper materials also came from Daye.
It can even be said that the iron and copper produced in Daye supported most of the machinery and weapons manufacturing industry of the Baoxiang Army.
Therefore, for the Baoxiang Army, Wuchang City can not be attacked for now, but Daye must be captured and actually controlled as soon as possible.
Because after capturing this place, the Chu Empire will completely solve the supply problem of iron and copper materials. It will no longer have to worry about the supply of iron and copper materials being cut off, and it will also be able to save a lot of money.
After all, when the Baoxiang Army purchased iron and copper materials before, the prices they spent were often far higher than the market price. Now that Daye is controlled by the Baoxiang Army itself, the price of raw materials can naturally be greatly reduced. It is enough for the Baoxiang Army to save a lot of money.
Because of the importance of this place, the army led by Colonel Kang Hongbao had just conquered Daye City, and the Daye County Yamen under the Wuchang Prefecture Magistrate's Yamen had already entered the city and started working on the same day.
Sun Maode, the first magistrate of Daye County, also had a very special background, because he was not a local official in the traditional sense. In fact, before he was transferred to Daye County as magistrate, he had been working in the Ministry of Commerce and Trade. Iron material procurement and supply matters.
In order to ensure that the iron and copper materials in the Daye area could be produced stably and that production would not be reduced due to the war, the superiors directly sent Sun Maode to Daye County as the county magistrate.
Sun Maode can also clearly understand that he has only one purpose in coming to Daye County, and that is to ensure the local production of iron and copper materials to continue supplying various arsenals and machinery factories in the rear.
For this reason, Sun Maode, who had just entered the city, issued an administrative order requiring the persons in charge of all iron-copper mines and iron-smelting and copper workshops in Daye County, whether they were government-run, private, or secretly mining and smelting workshops. A meeting must be held at the county government office as soon as possible to ensure that iron-copper mines and iron-smelting and copper workshops do not stop production, do not reduce production, and seek to increase production.
This frightened the people in charge of many iron and copper mines in Daye, especially those private mines and workshops that mined secretly. Many people thought that the thieves were going to liquidate them, and many people in charge immediately ran away overnight. .
In fact, they are simply overly worried. Sun Maode doesn't care whether you were legal before or not. He just wants you to be legal now and maintain production.
After many government-run and private mine managers and owners ran away, the Baoxiang Army would naturally not let these mines and workshops stop working.
The Ministry of Industry established the "Big Smelting Iron Works" early on, and immediately settled in Daye, and began to accept government-run mining workshops and private mining workshops whose owners foolishly ran away.
At the same time, he also purchased private mining workshops at high prices!
Rather than letting these private owners engage in small-scale mining and smelting, the Dachu Empire's Ministry of Industry is more willing to engage in large-scale mining and smelting on its own.
However, the Da Chu Empire has already been established. At the same time, compared with the traditional feudal dynasty that implemented a salt and iron monopoly, the Da Chu Empire has not established an iron monopoly system for the time being, and has only implemented a salt monopoly system.
In fact, we originally planned to establish an iron monopoly system, but the time was too short. At the same time, a very critical point was that most of the iron materials in the Dachu Empire needed to be purchased from outside the control area, and these sources had to rely on private trading houses for smuggling. Woolen cloth.
At the same time, the Great Chu Empire's demand for iron materials was extremely huge, so it tried every means to expand production. Regardless of whether you were privately owned or government-run, as long as it was iron, the Great Chu Empire would not refuse anyone.
Under such circumstances, the restrictive iron monopoly system will naturally not be implemented.
