Not long after walking out of Wuying Hall, the crisp sound of porcelain being broken came from the hall. Li Banghua shook his head helplessly, his face full of bitterness. "General Zhou, why are you going to do this? The Lord of the Lord has made a huge concession. Why do you still want to ask for the position of Shandong Governor? It is one thing that the Lord of the Lord of the Lord of the throne will give you, and if you ask for it yourself, it will inevitably mean to force the Lord of the Lord. It is difficult for ordinary people to accept it, let alone the Lord of the Lord."

Zhou Xian looked ahead with a calm tone. "Cithie Li, do you know how many people there are in Denglai?"

Before Li Banghua answered, Zhou Xian continued: "The population of Dengzhou is less than 400,000, and Laizhou is about 800,000, and the sum of the two is only about 1.2 million. One Yanzhou Prefecture has a population of 1.7 million, and Jinan Prefecture has more, reaching 2.1 million. And the most important thing is that Denglai is barren, while Jinan and Yanzhou are the two richest prefectures in Shandong. Liu Zeqing is currently supporting King Lu to ascend the throne, which is a relationship with the court. No matter what considerations he is in, the first thing he has to do is to try his best to expand his troops, and with the sufficient wealth and population of the three Shandong and east governments, it can completely satisfy everything he wants. In this case, unless I let me control everything, it will be difficult to win with Denglai's weak military strength."

Li Banghua pondered for a moment, and finally shook his head gently and said, "What Zhou Xuanwu said has some truth, but Denglai also has his own advantages. For example, Denglai's soldiers defeated the Manchu captives in a row, and their strength is not something that Liu Zeqing can recruit. Besides, Liu Zeqing is violent by nature and is difficult to convince the public. In terms of his ability to command troops, I do not think that he can surpass General Zhou. Using a tiger and wolf army to expel the newly recruited weak soldiers may not have no chance of winning."

Zhou Xian smiled and said, "Censor Li really looks up to Zhou. But to be honest, if I use the troops of the fifth battalion of Denglai, even if I cannot defeat Liu Zeqing, I will at least be invincible. But the current situation is that the two battalions are deployed in Jinzhou, Liaodong, and the first battalion is deployed on Pidao. And all I can call at present are the two battalions of Yongziying and Renziying, more than 10,000 people. Liu Zeqing is a long-standing general on the battlefield, and even if he does not recruit new recruits, he has tens of thousands of elite soldiers under his command. With such a huge gap in strength, if he wants to win, he must decompose his power and destroy his morale. If I am still a crime, how can the gentry of Shandong stand on my side to oppose Liu Zeqing? The official position of Shandong Governor is a signboard, showing everyone that the court has entrusted me with all the affairs of Shandong. Only in this way can I have prestige and what I do win the recognition of the soldiers."

Li Banghua was surprised, "General Zhou, are you not going to transfer the soldiers in Jinzhou and Pi Island?"

Zhou Xian nodded and said, "How can I give up the size of the land that countless soldiers have tried their best to exchange for? And I always believe that the Manchus are the enemy of the court. Now our army has achieved certain results in operating in Jinzhou and Pidao. If we give up at this moment, it may take several times of sacrifice to retake it in the future."

Li Banghua said: "But the emperor said..."

Zhou Xianxiao said, "Since Your Majesty has appointed me as the governor of Shandong, it means that I am the only one in charge of the military allocation of the entire Shandong. If you are away, you will not accept any military orders. As long as I think it is appropriate, you can decide to withdraw or not."

Li Banghua frowned and said, "The canal is blocked, and the grain in the south cannot be transported from the north. If Liu Zeqing cannot be defeated as soon as possible, the consequences will be unimaginable."

Zhou Xian said: "Although the famine in the north is severe, the autumn harvest has been completed at this moment. Based on the grain storage in Hebei, Shanxi and other places, it should not be a problem to maintain it for two or three months. The reason why the price of grain in the capital has risen rapidly is that in addition to the panic of the people, some unscrupulous merchants took the opportunity to raise prices. As long as new grain is transported to the capital and traded at a moderate price in the name of the court, the grain prices will be restored to a stable level. I will ask the navy of Denglai to fully support Shen Shi and transport grain to the capital as soon as possible. However, due to the number of ships, I am afraid that it can only temporarily satisfy the people of the capital and the soldiers on the nine sides. As for the army in Shaanxi, I may only rely on allocating food and grass from Shanxi, and we must make preparations as soon as possible."

"This emperor has made a resolution. In addition to sending officials to Shanxi to buy grain to transport it to Shaanxi as soon as possible, he also sent 500,000 yuan in salary to Sun's Ministry of War. At least in a short period of time, there will be no big problems in Shaanxi."

Li Banghua suddenly laughed and said, "When it comes to this, it's thanks to General Zhou. The court's treasury is empty and there is no spare wealth, but you rashly confiscated the houses of Wang Dehua and Gao Qiqian, but you provided millions of silver for the court. Although Gao Qiqian escaped punishment, all his millions of property were confiscated. Wang Dehua was even more miserable. The last time the capital was in chaos, it had something to do with him. When the truth was not fully found out and the emperor wanted to let you go, he could only bear the responsibility. The emperor ordered the nine clans to be punished and all his property was not earned by the officials."

Zhou Xianqi said: "The eunuchs also have nine clans?"

Li Banghua smiled and said, "He didn't jump out of the crack of the stone, so why didn't there be any Nine clans? It's just a pity that so many innocent people died because of him."

Zhou Xian did not say anything about this matter, but instead said: "Please ask the Censor Li to convey to the emperor. At most, I will defeat Liu Zeqing in three months. But before this, please do not lightly attack the army in Shaanxi. The bandits have become a force and cannot win in one battle. If you rashly leave Tongguan, you will likely repeat the mistake of Geshuhan's defeat. The best way now is to let the garrisons in various places adopt a defensive momentum, first stabilize the stability of the occupied area, and then send elite soldiers to continue to attack, and accumulate a big victory with small victory. When Governor Sun is fully prepared, I will lead the troops from Shandong to respond, and General Qin goes out of Sichuan to attack Jingzhou, and at the same time, and Zuo Liangyu goes out of Wuchang to advance westward. The cooperation between the four parties may be able to defeat Li Zicheng."

Li Banghua frowned and said for a while: "This matter is probably difficult. General Zhou doesn't know yet! When Li Zicheng captured Xiangyang, the emperor issued an edict to ask Sun's Ministry of War to attack Henan. The reason why it has not been implemented at the moment is that Sun's Ministry of War shirked the blame on the grounds that there is insufficient food and grass and troops. But at present, in addition to allocating food and grass, replenishing equipment, and military pay, His Majesty also ordered Tang Tong, Zhou Yuji and other generals to lead their troops to Shaanxi. When the food and grass arrive, I'm afraid that Sun's Ministry of War will have no reason to refuse to send troops."

Seeing Zhou Xian's face look ugly, Li Banghua continued: "Huguang is the granary of the Ming Dynasty, while Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the money treasurys of the Ming Dynasty. At present, the treasurys have captured Jingzhou, while the Sun treasurys are even attacking Yangzhou. If the court does not take some measures to break such a disadvantage, sooner or later they will be trapped to death by these thieves."
Chapter completed!