There is a Chinese saying that husband and wife are birds in the same forest, and they fly away when disaster strikes. As the closest couple, they must run away from their own lives when the situation is not right, let alone small groups such as Hongguang monarch and ministers connected through interests.

Zhu Yousong had a little intention of escaping, and the same was true for the court officials such as Ma Shiying. Just now, Ma Shiying asked in the hall to let his son enter the city, just because he was trying to escape. The other ministers in the court were similar. After coming out of the Ganqing Palace, they came to Ma Shiying and asked the Prime Minister what to do next.

Tongzheng envoy Yang Weiyuan was from Wendeng, Shandong, and was a complete eunuch party. Now he has defected to Ruan Dacheng. However, Ruan Dacheng has not returned from Huang Degong's army in Taiping Prefecture, so Ruan Dacheng's group followed Yang Weiyuan's horse.

"Yuan Fu, Your Majesty is moving the capital now, what do you think?" Although Yang Weiyuan is a eunuch, his reputation in history is pretty good. After the city of Nanjing was destroyed, this guy also had a family death anniversary, which is better than those of Donglin's righteous people.

Ma Shiying looked at Yang Weiyuan and smiled and said, "Doushu, the emperor just listened to the bewitching of outsiders. There are more than 100,000 troops in the Nandu City. The Nandu City is strong and we can defend the first half of the year. The Northern Barbarians are all from Liaodong. After a few months of plum rain season, they will definitely return north to escape the summer heat. At that time, the siege of Nandu will be lifted!"

Yang Weiyuan looked at Ma Shiying not saying anything practical, and asked: "Yuan Fu, you are right, but what should I do now?"

Ma Shiying just said that he was okay to deceive the ignorant new official in the officialdom, but Yang Weiyuan had been in the officialdom for a long time, and he still didn't know what Ma Shiying's idea was! There are nearly 100,000 troops in Nanjing now, but I don't see who they are? Either they are too young or too old, or they are newly recruited soldiers. The only 50,000 strong soldiers were sent by Ma Shiying to Taiping Prefecture to resist Zuo Liangyu. Now it's too late to recall them urgently.

Before Ma Shiying could speak, Zhang Jie next to him said, "Brother Doushu, the Northern Territory is still in Yangzhou. We can secretly order Huang Degong to return to the Nandu to help, and there are still 70,000 to 80,000 troops in Songjiang and other places. We can order Songjiang Governor Yang Wencong to lead these troops to Nandu to serve the king. As for the river surface, we have to ask Chengyi Bo!"

After Zhang Jie finished speaking, he looked at Liu Kongzhao beside him: "Zhengyi Bo is Governor Cao Jiang, Zheng Hongkui and the others blew the mountain sound. Now is the time to see their real kung fu!"

Zheng Hongkui is in charge of the defense work of the Yangtze River Waterway in Nanjing. He brought hundreds of warships from Fujian. He was not holding hands to deal with the land ducks in the Qing Dynasty?

When Liu Kongzhao heard Zhang Jie say this, he quickly promised: "Please rest assured of this, sir. I promise that I will never allow a Beilu boat to cross the river!"

Liu Kongzhao is a military general. He said so what else can everyone do? There is no way, everyone has to rely on Zheng Hongkui. After all, the Zheng family is playing the navy. I hope they can block the northern captains on the north bank of the Yangtze River!

Now the city of Nanjing is in chaos, and Ma Shiying has no intention of going to the cabinet to work, and there is no official business to do. Ma Shiying leaves the imperial city and takes a sedan chair, and is preparing to go home under the protection of his servants.

When Ma Shiying's official sedan passed Shengping Bridge, he found a large number of refugees outside the city entering the city. At first, Ma Shiying thought that all the soldiers guarding the gate had fled. The group of refugees were preparing to enter the city to rob, but after looking for a while, he found that these refugees were in order, and there were more than a dozen soldiers next to him maintaining order.

Ma Shiying said to Ma Gui, the butler beside the sedan chair, "Ma Gui, go and ask which part of it is? Who ordered the refugees to enter the city?"

Ma Gui bowed out and waited for a while to report: "Master, I asked clearly that they are the subordinates of the Second Young Master. Now the Second Young Master has brought the troops into the city and taken over all the city gates to prevent anyone from taking the opportunity to cause trouble!"

Ma Shiying nodded when she heard that it was her son's team. It seemed that Ma Cheng still had some vision and knew that he was sending troops into the city to guard the main traffic roads.

"Ma Gui, go find Ma Cheng, give him the emperor's will, and then ask him to go home this afternoon. I have important things to find him!" After Ma Shiying said that, he handed over the emperor's imperial edict to Ma Gui, put down the curtain and went home.

After Ma Guigong sent Ma Shiying away, he found out Ma Cheng's location from the soldiers, and then turned to Zhengyang Gate.

Ma Cheng has been very busy these two days. More than 200,000 refugees outside the city have to be resettled, tens of thousands of people in Lishui County have to be relocated, and the security in Nanjing has to be maintained. The more than 20,000 people under his command are really not enough. Fortunately, Ma Shiying's reputation is very good, and the one who manages the security and defense in the city is Xincheng Bo Zhao Zhilong, who can be regarded as Ma Shiying's party, so the twelve guards in the city are still obedient.

In the early years of Hongwu, there were more than 200,000 soldiers in Nanjing. In addition to the garrisons in Songjiang, Yangzhou and other places, there were more than 500,000 troops guarding the capital. However, with the relocation of Emperor Yongle Zhu Di, the elite troops around Nanjing were gradually transferred to Beijing to garrison, so during the Chongzhen period, there were 36 soldiers left in Nanjing.

These thirty-six guards are under the management of Ma Cheng, and the remaining twelve guards are called inner guards, and the small school grounds in the city are under the jurisdiction of Nanjing.

If we count each guard at 5,600 people, there should be a scale of 200,000 people inside and outside the city of Nanjing. But the actual situation is that these thirty-six guards cannot even get together with 100,000 people. These troops with serious shortages are all composed of old men over fifty years old and minors under fifteen years old.

Most of the twenty-four guards outside the city were farmers, with a number of only more than 30,000 people, and half of them were women. The twelve guards in the city were better. After all, you can do some small business in the city. There are more than 20,000 guards in the city, of which only 20,000 were from the middle age of 18 to 30.

Ma Cheng took the preliminary statistics from Wang Xian and smiled bitterly. He had already estimated the virtues of the soldiers guarding the city in Nanjing, but when he really faced it, he found that it was not as good as he thought. According to Wang Xian's estimate, the garrison troops in and outside the city could only streamline ten thousand males, which was the result of relaxing their age to sixty years old.

Ma Cheng looked at Wang Xian's counting number of soldiers and wanted to give up Nanjing City. Although the city of Nanjing is solid, how can more than 30,000 people defend it? You should know that the Nanjing city wall is more than 70 miles in circumference, and 30,000 soldiers are arranged on the city wall of 70 miles, and no one soldier can guarantee one meter.

Ma Cheng sighed and asked, "Wang Xian, this city cannot be defended, what other good ideas do you have?"

Wang Xian was very rigorous. He heard Ma Cheng ask himself and quickly bowed and replied: "Military Master, the subordinates have already made a countermeasure. Although there are only 30,000 soldiers, there are still many noble servants in the city. If these servants are gathered together, they can still be more than 5,000. In addition, there are servants from wealthy families, yamen runners from one government and two counties, Kuaishou, tax collectors, etc., as well as Jinyiwei, flag bearer guards, Han generals, etc., there are probably 20,000 people, so there will be more than 60,000 people. It should be enough to supplement some strong men!"

Ma Cheng didn't expect that Wang Xian could have such a clever plan, which would have collected enough 60,000 to 70,000 people, and would have the strength to fight against the Qing Dynasty.

Ma Cheng nodded with satisfaction: "Okay, Wang Xian, you are now the deputy general. In addition to food and supplies, you will also leave the training and integration of the strong men!"

Wang Xian used to be just a thousand households, but now he has become a deputy general. This is a senior official second only to the four generals in Ma Cheng's army. Wang Xian quickly bowed to thank him.

At this time, Ma Cheng's personal soldiers outside the city tower came in and reported: "Mr. Military Gate, you have your housekeeper Ma Gui, please see him!"

Why did Ma Gui come? Ma Cheng quickly asked his personal soldiers to lead him in. Ma Gui is already in his sixties and rushed from Nancheng to Zhengyang Gate, and then climbed up the city wall more than 20 meters high. He was so tired that he was so panting.

Ma Cheng didn't dare to neglect his father's old book boy. He quickly stood up and helped Ma Gui sit down on the chair, and then asked, "Uncle Gui, why are you here? But what's going on at home?"

Ma Gui said after panting evenly, "Second Young Master, the master asked me to send you the emperor's imperial edict!"

The emperor’s imperial edict? Shouldn’t it be conveyed by the eunuch? How did it be delivered by my own housekeeper?

Ma Cheng took the imperial edict and opened it. It was very simple, and he ordered Ma Cheng to guard Nandu and be responsible for all the defense and public security of the Thirteen Sects of Nandu!

This is a good thing. With this thing, Ma Cheng can justify orders all the garrisons and inspection departments in Nanjing. Of course, the Jinyiwei and the imperial guards in the palace city cannot command it, but this also solves Ma Cheng's urgent need.

Ma Gui stood up and said, "Second Young Master, the master also said, be sure to let the Second Young Master go home in the afternoon, so that the master has something important to discuss!"

"Okay, please come back first, General Ma Cheng will explain the affairs of General Ma Cheng and go back!" After saying that, Ma Cheng arranged for personal soldiers to escort Ma Gui back.

When there was no one in the city tower, Wang Xian stood beside Ma Cheng and whispered: "Mr. Military Master, something must have happened in the court!"

Ma Cheng asked in a daze: "How do you know?"

"Mr. Military Sect, this imperial edict is extraordinary. In the past, the governors of Nanjing were all held by nobles, but now they have handed over this important position to the military Sect. Therefore, the officials speculated that this imperial edict was probably fake and must have been brought by the Prime Minister!"

Fake imperial edicts are a serious crime to kill the nine clans. Although Wang Xian was saved by Ma Cheng, his father and son can turn against each other these days, let alone a life-saving benefactor. Ma Cheng was afraid that Wang Xian would go out to talk about this matter, so he frowned and asked, "How did you know?"

When Wang Xian saw Ma Cheng talking, he slowly held his hand on his waist and knew that Ma Cheng had begun to be alert to him.

Wang Xian quickly knelt on one knee and said, "Mr. Military Sect, the lower officials are saved by the Lord. The lower officials will definitely be loyal to the Lord!"
Chapter completed!