Duoduo listened silently at first, but when Ajige spoke more and more, he became more and more involved in the empress dowager. Duoduo was so scared that he quickly stood up and persuaded: "Brother, it's okay to talk between you and my brothers, but don't involve the inner palace!"

Duoduo knew that his elder brother Ajige was full of complaints, but based on the relationship between the three brothers, it was nothing that the elder brother scolded his second brother. After Dorgon knew about it, he just laughed, but it was different when he scolded the empress dowager.

Bumubutai's identity is now very good, not the ordinary concubine before. At the same time, two yellow flags and two red flags stood behind Bumubutai. These opposition parties have always been eyeing Dorgon's brothers, and they wish they could not find enough with a magnifying glass. If Ajige's open insult to the empress dowager's behavior reached the ears of the ministers of the two yellow flags, they were afraid that Dorgon would not be able to defend Ajige.

Ajige frowned when he heard Duoduo's persuasion and cursed: "Third brother, why are you so mature at such a young age? Now half of the imperial army is in the hands of you and my brothers. According to what my brother thinks, why are we fighting Nanjing? We will directly take our hundreds of thousands of troops back to Beijing, overturning the yellow boy Fulin to the ground, let the second brother be the emperor, and will you and my brother be the king of one word and shoulder to shoulder?"

When Duoduo heard Ajige say this, he smiled bitterly. His elder brother is not very educated and he loves to listen to Han people's storytelling the most. Don't say that there is no word in history, but there is one. Do you Ajige dare to be the one?

It is not realistic to bring hundreds of thousands of troops back to Beijing. Dodo and Ajige have 440,000 troops, which looks quite scary, but most of these people are New Affiliated Army, and the main Eight Banners Army has only 80,000 people, of which more than 8,000 are the two White Banners who can be called confidants. It is really a fool to just want to subvert the court and support Dorgon.

Although the two white flags of the three brothers were Nurhaci's two yellow flags of the guards of the army back then, and their combat effectiveness was the first among the Eight Banners, after Huang Taiji's continuous division and disintegration over the past decade, the strength of the two white flags was no longer as strong as before. Now there are only 24,000 strong men of the two white flags. The two yellow flags that support Fulin have more than 30,000 combat effectiveness, and their combat effectiveness is no less than that of the two white flags. In addition to Daishan's two red flags, Fulin's strength is now far greater than that of the three Dorgon brothers.

Ajige is a reckless man who doesn't understand these things, but Duoduo understands. He doesn't want Ajige, a brave and unscrupulous guy, to ruin the big affairs between his second brother and himself. He heard Ajige say this and quickly persuaded him: "Brother, don't do this. The two yellow flags and two red flags are far stronger than you and my brothers, and your and my brothers' families are in Beijing. If the eldest brother acts rashly, what will they do?"

Ajige heard Duoduo say this right. He thought for a while and said, "Third brother, you are the smartest. What should you do if your brother returns to Beijing this time?"

"Brother, you must listen to your second brother when you go back this time. I think the second brother will definitely make the eldest brother suffer and have to explain to the ministers of the two yellow flags. But please don't worry, the second brother will soon ask the eldest brother to come out to lead the troops again!"

When Ajige heard this, he was right. He was the best at beating him. The second son Dorgon had no reason not to do so. When Ajige thought of this, he felt relieved and was determined to go north.

In the evening, Ajige held a banquet to entertain Duoduo, and at the same time, he introduced the Ming army general under Zuo Menggeng to meet Duoduo. When he introduced a general of the Ming army, Tian Xiong,

Jige smiled and said, "Third brother, this time my brother will bring you a big gift! A gift that will make you win Ying Tian without bloodshed!"

Duoduo didn't expect that there would be such a good thing, so he asked quickly: "Brother, please tell me, what gift is so important?"

Ajige pointed to Tian Xiong in front of him and said, "This gift was brought by General Tian, ​​and it was Zhu Yousong, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty!"

It turned out that after Zhu Yousong escaped from Nanjing on May 18, he immediately went to Wuhu to surrender to Huang Degong, but unexpectedly, Huang Degong was already at the end of his strength. After Huang Degong died on the battlefield, General Tian Xiong and General Ma Ma Degong stepped forward to capture Zhu Yousong and wanted to dedicate the last emperor to the Qing Dynasty as a contribution.

Zhu Yousong did not expect that he would be betrayed by his generals, so he cried and begged the two of them to let him run away. Tian Xiong carried Zhu Yousong on his back, and Ma Degong grabbed Zhu Yousong's feet and said, "The fame of our two is on you, where can we let you go?" In this way, Zhu Yousong fell into the hands of Ajige.

Duoduo was overjoyed when he heard Ajige say this. He had been attacking Nanjing for more than two months, losing tens of thousands of soldiers, and had no progress at all. Now that he can capture this emperor, he will definitely be able to capture Nanjing City.

Duoduo quickly thanked Ajige and said, "Thank you, brother. When I seize Yingtian Mansion, this is my first contribution!"

Ajig smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Hey, I don't know what happened to my brother when he is back this time. Don't talk about anything else, come! You and my brother are drinking!"

The next day, Ajige brought a thousand personal soldiers to the river from Dasheng Pass to Beijing, while Duoduo brought 200,000 Manchu and Han coalition forces back outside Nanjing to join his army. Now Duoduo has 440,000 troops under him, and it is enough to surround Nanjing, so Duoduo divided his army into multiple groups. Starting from Dasheng Pass outside Nanjing, passing through General Mountain outside the Nancheng, and Chunhua Town outside Xiaoling, and finally to Longtan Town on the edge of the Yangtze River, using several fulcrums here to make Nanjing encirclement unobstructed.

At the same time, Ajige brought tens of thousands of Zuo Liangyu's naval forces, which also came in handy. Although these people were not strong in combat, they were still able to patrol daily. Duoduo asked these navigators to patrol the Yangtze River day and night, and strictly prohibited all ships from approaching the docks in Nanjing. Duoduo had made up his mind to trap the city of Nanjing to death here.

Duoduo's strategic deployment Ma Cheng in the city soon discovered that he suddenly cut off all contacts with the outside world.

The Nanjing defense war that began in May has actually been limited to the Nancheng, namely Jubaomen and Zhengyangmen. The Nanjing city is more than 70 miles long and passes through many mountains, rivers and rivers. With Duoduo's troops, it is definitely not completely surrounded. Therefore, although the battle was very fierce in the past, the wharfs in the north of the city were still operating normally.

Taking advantage of this period of time, Ma Cheng transferred a large amount of grain from the surrounding prefectures and counties that were not occupied by the Qing Dynasty, and at the same time purchased a large amount of grain from merchants, because Ma Cheng knew that this battle to defend the city was not sure when it was fought, and that only with food could the morale of the army be stabilized.

But now Duoduo's actions have completely hit Ma Cheng's fatal point. Nanjing City originally had more than 600,000 residents, plus refugees outside the city, people who fled to Nanjing in various counties. Now the population in Nanjing has exceeded one million. The increase in population has increased confidence in Ma Cheng's guarding the city, but it also added a burden to Ma Cheng, because these people are all

Want to have a meal.

After learning that Duoduo was besieging Nanjing Tuantuan, Ma Cheng immediately found his own grain transport officer Wang Xian and asked about the food situation in his army.

Although Wang Xian is only a fourth-rank grain transport officer, he has great power in his hand. The logistics supplies of more than 100,000 troops in the city are in his hands. He is really a fat man. Now Wang Xian is also a figure in the city. Some people want to stick it on, and many people usually give gifts and beauties.

But Wang Xian was probably stimulated back then and was calm about everything. Except for a boy in the family, there was no one servant in charge of chores, and there was no one with a beautiful maid.

It is precisely because of Wang Xian that Ma Cheng was relieved to hand over the most important food in the city to him for management.

"Wang Xian, now Duoduo is playing a siege outside the city. This guy is preparing to play a protracted battle with us, so food has become the top priority. How much food is stored in the city now?"

After hearing Ma Cheng's question, Wang Xian took out the account book from his side, looked through it carefully and replied: "My Lord, there were 20,000 shi of grain in the army. In May, his subordinates received an order from the master to purchase 100,000 shi from grain merchants, and then transported 38,000 shi from Lishui County, Jurong County, Gaochun County, Jiangpu County and other counties. In addition, Changping Warehouse in Jiangning and Shangyuan counties in the city, there are 60,000 shi of grain stored in Yi Cang Warehouse. A few items are added to the city now with 218,000 shi of grain!"

In the Ming Dynasty, the per capita ration was six stones per person per year, which is the average. Adult men had six stones and six dou of stones, adult women and the elderly had four stones, and underage children had three stones, so on average, each person consumed six stones of grain every year. Of course, this is calculated based on full food. The grain output in the Ming Dynasty was very low, so even in the wealthy Jiangnan, less than half of the families who had enough food were full.

If calculated according to the minimum standards, adult men need one liter of food every day, three stones and six dou of food a year, and other minors need one stone a year. This is already the lowest value. Below this number means that people cannot complete their daily basic labor and are not far from death.

Ma Cheng calculated that he now has 120,000 troops. Even if each person calculates six stones of grain per year, 210,000 stones of grain is only enough for three months. This is not enough for his new army who have three meals a day.

Thinking that his army would not have enough food in another three months, Ma Cheng scratched his head very much. After seeing it, Wang Xian said, "Sir, this is just the grain we have. There are Taicang, inner warehouse and water warehouse in the city. I guess there are millions of grains in these large warehouses, which is enough for our military to use for a few years!"

The warehouses Wang Xian mentioned belong to the national grain warehouse. Taicang is the central grain reserve warehouse. The water warehouse is located along the canal and is a reserve grain warehouse that ensures the transportation of the northern grain. As for the inner warehouse, it is a royal grain warehouse, used to store the private property of the emperors and the princes and nobles in the capital.

"Sir, in addition to these cities, there are hundreds of grain stations and grain shops. I have purchased grain at the wharf in the past few months. I saw that these grain shops have collected more than we did. I guess I want to make a big profit while the city is besieging."
Chapter completed!