The governor of Jiangnan was very powerful and was responsible for the ten prefectures on the south bank of the Yangtze River in Nanzhili. He has always been called the governor of the world.

Zhu Yuanzhang started his career in Nanjing and occupied Nanjing. After he established the Secretariat in the tenth year of Longfeng. The prefectures and counties under the Jiangnan province of the Yuan Dynasty were directly under the Secretariat, commonly known as Zhili. In the first year of Hongwu, after becoming emperor, he abolished the Secretariat in the Yuan Dynasty, and the prefectures and counties around Nanjing were placed under the jurisdiction of six ministries. In the second year of Hongwu, Linhao Prefecture was established as Zhongdu, and prefectures and counties such as Huaian, Yangzhou, and Fengyang were also assigned to Zhili. In this way, the jurisdiction of Zhili was basically formed, with a total of fourteen prefectures in Jiangnan and Jiangbei and four Zhili prefectures.

After a large-scale war in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, Nanjing was sparsely populated, but Nanjing is a place with outstanding people. By the end of Hongwu, Nanzhili had a prosperous economy and ranked first in the country in taxes.

At this time, Lao Zhu's suspicious habits broke out again. He was really worried about handing over such a large place to the six ministries of Zhili. So after careful consideration, Lao Zhu divided the entire Nanzhili into two provincial governors and magistrates, which were left and right. Later, he was worried about setting up a deputy, so there were four provincial governors in Nanzhili, two chiefs and two deputy chiefs.

The left governor was in charge of the ten prefectures in Jiangnan and had always been under the jurisdiction of the prefectures, with its resident in Yingtian, that is, Nanjing. The right governor was in charge of the four prefectures in Jiangbei and three directly under the jurisdiction of the prefectures in Yangzhou. It was changed to Fengyang in the late Ming Dynasty.

The Left Governor of the Southern Zhili was the predecessor of the Governor of Jiangnan. After the establishment of the Governor of the Yongle period, the court established the Governor of Yingtian on the Governor of the Left Governor of the Governor of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the South, and its powers were also managed by the ten prefectures and one prefectures in Jiangnan. Later, the names changed, such as Governor of Susong, Governor of Suzhou, Governor of Nanji, etc. Although the jurisdiction of prefectures and counties changed, their powers were basically the same.

Zhu Lunkui appointed Qi Biaojia as the governor of Jiangnan this time, and the title of Minister of War was not aimless, but also meaningful. As the central inspector, the governor was in the central government, and generally had the title of the six ministers to ensure authority.

However, this time, the Minister of War was given to Qi Biaojia as the second-rank minister of war. Although Ma Cheng was the governor, according to the court's official system, he was more than the governor, and he was definitely the first-rank official. But the worst thing is that Ma Cheng had no official status and did not even have the most basic identity as a scholar. Naturally, it is impossible to hold the civil official title. Therefore, the full name of Ma Cheng's official position is Marquis of Guiyang, the Grand Governor of the Central Army, and manages military affairs in various provinces in Jiangnan.

Ma Cheng has no civil service, but Qi Biaojia is a real Minister of War. Although Ma Cheng's military position is higher than Qi Biaojia, the Minister of War should take care of you, Ma Cheng. In this way, two unparalleled heads in the army have formed in the army, and it also fulfilled Zhu Lunkui's desire to pull Ma Cheng back.

However, Zhu Lunkui's arrangement was clever, but Ma Cheng did not take it seriously. Now his power has been established. Where can Zhu Lunkui send a civil servant to seize power? Not to mention that Qi Biaojia is still a defeated general under Ma Cheng.

Although Ma Cheng didn't care, Wang Xian was a little guilty. He originally wanted to give Qi Biaojia to the court and ask the court to take the charge of killing civil officials. However, he did not expect that Qian Qianyi had high methods and simply broke Wang Xian's plan, and in turn sent Qi Biaojia to disgust you.

Wang Xian said to Ma Cheng very embarrassedly: "Marquis, it's because the marquis is not considerate, which makes the marquis embarrassed!"

Ma Cheng smiled and persuaded, "Mr. Wang, don't blame yourself. This Qi Biaojia is a defeated general under the governor, and he also came to the army.

There are no big waves!"

Although Ma Cheng said this, he realized that Wang Xian had too little experience in the officialdom and was still a little short of conspiracies. This was also impossible. Wang Xian was originally a scholar. Without decades of influence from the big dyeing vat in the officialdom, what Donglin Party can he have?

Ma Cheng sighed in his heart, he still lacked civil servants! When Xu Zhenye was there, the ideas he gave him were very accurate, but Wang Xian was still not good! But Xu Zhenye's mother died and went home to Dingyou, not to mention that Xu Zhenye is a third-rank ninth minister, where can he follow him to make suggestions at any time? It seems that he still has to search for talents!

As things were gone, Ma Cheng no longer thought about it. He threw Zhu Lunkui's imperial edict aside and began to prepare his Jiangnan strategy with all his might. At this time, Ma Cheng had already occupied Changzhou without any bloodshed. Fang Guoan did not resist here in Changzhou, and retreated to Suzhou with the remaining defeated generals.

Ma Cheng repaired it in Changzhou for fifteen days, and then prepared to attack in three groups. The first route was led by Ma Cheng's elder brother-in-law Gu Changwei, and divided 20,000 troops to attack Changshu and Songjiang, and cleared up the Lu Wang forces. The second route was led by his confidant Xu Dahu, and divided 10,000 troops to bypass the mountainous areas of northern Zhejiang, and went through Guangdezhou to attack Huzhou. Now Lu Wang's army is concentrated in Suzhou, and if there is a mountainous area in northern Zhejiang, Lu Wang will definitely relax the warning of Huzhou. The last route was the main force led by Ma Cheng, who was mainly attacking Suzhou.

After all the preparations were completed, Ma Cheng set out again on April 29 and led the main force to head for Suzhou. Ma Cheng was going to end the Suzhou battle before the plum rainy season in Nanzhili.

The climate here in Nanzhili is humid. The plum rain season begins every May. When the plum rain season ends in July, the typhoon will come again. Although most of Ma Cheng's army is from Nanzhili people and is not afraid of the stuffy and humid climate of Nanzhili, a large number of firearms in Ma Cheng's army are afraid of rain. Therefore, Ma Cheng must occupy Suzhou as soon as possible before the plum rain comes, and then wait in Suzhou until the typhoon in September before continuing to attack Zhejiang.

Changzhou is more than 150 miles away from Suzhou. The Taihu Lake Basin is densely populated and has very complete infrastructure. In addition, with the Grand Canal as the transportation artery, Ma Cheng's army arrived at Hushu Pass ten miles away from Suzhou ten days later.

Hushuguan is known as the "bridge of the fourteen provinces". Cotton, wheat, grains in the north, sea goods in Fujian and Guangxi in the south, silk, cotton fabrics and other handicrafts from Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiahu Lake and other handicrafts were all passed here, so merchants in the town gathered together and trade was prosperous. During the Zhengde period, the Ming Dynasty government set up a tax on Hushu, and since then it has become one of the most famous cash passes in the Ming Dynasty, with a considerable annual revenue of commercial taxes.

Hushuguan is always in charge of a head of the Ministry of Revenue, responsible for collecting tariffs from merchants. At the same time, a thousand households are stationed here. However, in recent years, Nanzhili has been in chaos and the business roads are basically cut off. In addition, Fang Guoan has concentrated his efforts to defend the city, so more than one thousand tax officials in Hushuguan have been transferred to Suzhou.

The passerman of Hushu Pass had run away without a trace, and his yamen was also occupied by Ma Cheng. Hushu Pass is exactly ten miles away from Suzhou City, which is very suitable for Ma Cheng's command center.

After a day of rest here, the military situation in Suzhou also came continuously. Now the garrison of Suzhou City is Fang Guoan, the only one under Lu Wang, who has some battles.

The fighting generals knew that their strength was not equal to Ma Cheng, so they could not stand it and vowed to fight Ma Cheng to the end based on the solid walls of Suzhou City.

The Suzhou city wall has a history of more than 2,500 years. The first city builder was Wu Zixu who had white hair all night. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Taihu Basin Economic Exhibition was basically formed, and Suzhou City had basically formed a pattern of eight six gates and eight water gates.

By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Suzhou was the old nest of Zhu Yuanzhang's old rival Zhang Shicheng. Zhang Shicheng controlled the wealthy Taihu River Basin and renovated the Suzhou city wall from the inside to the outside, forming the Suzhou city with a circumference of more than 50 miles. After Zhang Shicheng's defeat, he served as the prefect of Suzhou to repair the city wall many times, so what is now in front of Ma Cheng is the city wall defense system in Nanzhili, second only to Nanjing.

Suzhou City has eight six gates, namely the Chang, Xu Gate on the west, Pan, She Gate on the south, Lou, Jiang Gate on the east, Qi and Ping Gate on the north. The attack location chosen by Ma Cheng is the Ping Gate on the north city.

Pingmen is the tallest city gate in Suzhou City. According to legend, it is the city gate that Wu Zixu led his children from Jiangdong to pacify Qi and returned to the court. Pingmen is the main city gate to the north, consisting of two-story urns. The city wall is as high as 17 or 8 meters. The moat outside the city is more than 20 meters wide, which is really not suitable for siege.

When Zhang Guozhu heard that Ma Cheng chose the attack location at Pingmen, he frowned and stood up and asked: "Master, Pingmen has complete defense facilities and is very inconvenient for siege. Why not choose the attack location at the Snake Gate to the south?"

Unlike other city gates, the Snake Gate was built in the Song Dynasty and was built with rammed earth. It was only when the city bricks were added outside during the renovation in the Ming Dynasty. Because it was built for a long time, the defense facilities of the Snake Gate were far less than those of the other seven gates. At the same time, there was no industry and commerce here in the Snake Gate, and even if it was destroyed by the war, it would not have much impact on Suzhou City.

Zhang Guozhu considered the problem from Ma Cheng's perspective. Suzhou is extremely prosperous and will definitely become a major financial and taxation site for Ma Cheng in the future. Naturally, he does not want the war to have any serious impact on Suzhou, so he attacked from the remote Snake Gate to become an option.

Zhang Guozhu was right to think so, but Ma Cheng could not only consider the problem from a tactical point of view. He did not want to wipe out the Lu Wang army in Suzhou now, but was preparing to drive the Lu Wang army to Zhejiang, so that the attack on Zhejiang would be a name. In order to leave a way out for Fang Guoan, he naturally could not attack at the Snake Gate in the south, and attacking from the Ping Gate in the north gate became an option. As for how many people died in Suzhou city, these details were not the issues that Ma Cheng had to consider.

"This governor has decided that he must attack from Pingmen! Zhang Guozhu, you will lead 10,000 new troops to attack Pingmen tomorrow as the city lord! Now the plum rain season is approaching, I will give you three days to take down Pingmen!"

Zhang Guozhu was just Ma Cheng's subordinate. He couldn't say anything after Ma Cheng's decision, so he could only bow to receive the order. As for whether he could win the flat gate within three days, Zhang Guozhu didn't feel that it was difficult, because Ma Cheng's side was strong, and in addition to the well-trained new army, there were 200 artillery and thousands of large and small Folang aircraft for firepower support. On the other hand, Fang Guoan was not able to do so. Is a group of defeated generals the new army's opponent?
Chapter completed!