Ma Jiyuan looked at Zhu Hai, who was as tall as himself, and felt mixed feelings. According to what Ma Jiyuan learned in his life, supporting the prince and establishing the eldest son is his life creed. However, his daughter, son and some subordinates and staff all hoped that Zhu Jiang would come out to fight for the position of the prince in order to gain greater benefits. Although Ma Jiyuan opposed, the power to push Zhu Jiang to the throne was too great. In addition, Ma Jiyuan was very dissatisfied with his younger brother Ma Mingyuan occupying the seat in the cabinet, so Ma Jiyuan also turned a blind eye to his subordinates' small actions.

But after all, Ma Jiyuan is still a gentleman. There is a fundamental difference between those who are thick and black like Zhu Hongsan, Ma Mingyuan, and Tong Yangjia. Today, when Ma Jiyuan saw Zhu Hai bowing to him, his conscience still hurt a little.

Ma Jiyuan quickly stepped forward to stop Zhu Hai and said, "Your Highness, don't be too polite. After all, your highness is the crown prince. I can receive your highness's gift!"

When Zhu Hongsan saw the two of them entangled here, he smiled and said, "Brother, don't give in. Although he is the crown prince, he is your nephew after all, and it's reasonable to be treated as a gift from him!"

After hearing what the emperor said, Ma Jiyuan had no choice but to accept Zhu Hai's bowing ceremony. Then Ma Jiyuan returned Zhu Hai's half-hearted ceremony, which was considered respect for the crown prince.

After the ceremony, Zhu Hongsan asked, "Mr. Ma, can you receive the imperial edict?"

Ma Jiyuan replied respectfully: "Go back to Your Majesty, I went to the Military Affairs Office's imperial edict and the Emperor's Sword yesterday afternoon, so I came to the palace today and I will rush to Zhenjiang in the afternoon! Work with the navy to unload the cannons and then rush to Yangzhou!"

Zhu Hongsan nodded and said, "Mr. Ma, Yangzhou is really important. In history, it was known that defending the river and must defend the Huai River. Now the Qing army was beaten by us and it is the best time to seize Yangzhou. Therefore, Mr. Ma must urge the army and navy to work together to attack the city this time, and must take Yangzhou before the fifteenth day of the first lunar month!"

"Please rest assured that I will definitely be able to take Yangzhou before the fifteenth day of the first lunar month when I go on the expedition. I am willing to issue a military order!"

"I am very satisfied with what you said. There is no need to establish a military order. You just need to do it with your heart!"

After saying that, Zhu Hongsan thought about it and continued, "There is another point. After occupying Yangzhou, Mr. Ma should not go north. Just occupy Liuhe and Chuzhou to the west. Just ensure the safety of Nanjing!"

Ma Jiyuan was completely confused when he heard Zhu Hongsan say this. To defend the river, he must defend the Huai River. It does not mean that the Huai River refers to the vast area south of the Yellow River to north of the Yangtze River, including Yangzhou, Huai'an, Xuzhou and Fengyang. If he only occupied one Yangzhou city, there was no strategic depth at all. It would be better to rely on the Yangtze River natural barrier to resist the Qing army. After all, the navy on his side is still very powerful.

"Your Majesty, I don't understand why I only occupied Yangzhou. Yangzhou is less than 200 miles away from the capital. The Qing cavalry can reach the riverside in one day. If we don't go out of Huai'an Prefecture, we will not have enough warning time!"

Of course, Zhu Hongsan knew what was going on, but the war was for politics. Now the country's war treasury is empty, and the army has been on the battlefield for more than a year, so it takes time to recuperate and train. There is really no way to attack Yangzhou. Yangzhou is on the north bank of Nanjing. If it does not occupy this place, it will completely lose its strategic initiative. Therefore, Yangzhou will be defeated even if it is used as a pants. However, occupying Yangzhou Zhu Hongsan's army will become the last step. He really has no money or energy to continue to fight, and it takes too much time to repair it.

In addition to the main reason for lack of money, there is another secondary reason that cannot be said, which is the threat from Emperor Yongli. This year, Zhu Hongsan, Guangdong has developed rapidly, and now it has occupied a large area of ​​territory, completely changing the division of power in the entire China.

Zhu Youlang, who used to be the main force in the fight against the Qing Dynasty, was basically chasing him and fighting again. However, after Zhu Hongsan occupied Nanzhili, Jiangxi and Wuchang Prefectures, the situation changed, and the entire confrontation with the Qing Dynasty became Zhu Hongsan. Zhu Youlang only occupied Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan in Huguang, and only Sichuan bordered the Qing Dynasty. The Sichuan governor Wang Yingxiong, Sichuan Governor Ma Gan and others were suppressed by the Qing army in several prefectures in southern Sichuan, relying on the mountains and steep support from Yunnan and Guizhou.

So after Zhu Hongsan occupied Nanjing, he looked back and realized that he had become alone in facing the attack of millions of Qing troops in the north. Zhu Youlang only had contact with the Qing troops in Sichuan, but the shit terrain of Sichuan could not become the main battlefield at all. Therefore, as long as Dorgon was not stupid, he would definitely gather all his strength to destroy himself in the next step. It was precisely because of these that Zhu Hongsan was preparing to talk with the Qing Dynasty. If it really couldn't give up Wuchang, he must attract the attention of the Qing Dynasty to Zhu Youlang again, and it would be best to destroy Zhu Youlang in one breath. Zhu Hongsan thought fiercely.

Because of this, Zhu Hongsan ordered Ma Jiyuan not to attack any longer, occupy Yangzhou and leave a buffer zone in Liuhe and one area, and the rest will be solved by politics.

"Mr. Ma, you are not in the cabinet and don't know what is going on now. The most important thing is that you have no money. There are less than 100,000 silver dollars in the treasury, which is not enough to pay salaries to officials. The war in Yangzhou is already at the end of our strength. If we want to continue, we should not come to the Qing Dynasty. I will hang myself directly!"

Ma Jiyuan didn't expect that the country's financial problems were so big. You should know that he was the governor of Luzon for several years. Every year, the new colony of Luzon sent a large amount of rice and minerals that were not expensive. Why is it still unsustainable now?

"Your Majesty, I saw the report last year that the country's annual income of tens of millions of silver dollars, why can't I continue now?"

Zhu Hongsan couldn't help but curse in his heart: It's not you, the stinky old ninth. In order to win the hearts of the people with that bastard Zhu Youlang, I have given you, the stinky old ninth. The factory will give you free of charge and will not charge you commercial taxes, land taxes, and even the promotion of silver dollars. In this way, I still have extra money in my hands. This is still a blessing for the great development of business in recent years. If I hadn't done a good job in trade with Nanyang, and the stolen iron ore mines would not cost money, how could I beat the Qing Dynasty?

Although Zhu Hongsan slandered the scholar group, he could not say that. The boss Ma in front of him was an outstanding representative of the scholar group. Ma Jiyuan can be said to be a staunch supporter of Confucian supremacy, and no minor changes could be passed by him. Zhu Hongsan sent him to take charge of Nanzhili and was also fond of his harmonious relationship with the scholar group.

"Mr. Ma, you don't know that the army is too expensive now. A division's soldiers will cost nearly three million silver dollars for equipment, which is not counted as the later supplies, the soldiers' salaries and equipment maintenance, and the navy is even more expensive. A thousand-ton warship costs 500,000 silver dollars. Including the artillery personnel, one million and two million silver dollars, Mr. Ma has been in a ban for a long time, so he will not know these things!"

Of course, Ma Jiyuan knew that the army cost money. Not to mention anything else, the soldiers ate too well and had meat every day. In Luzon, Ma Jiyuan made suggestions on the new army's way of raising troops, but the new army was not under his control, and his suggestions were also regarded as fart by Zhu Hongsan.

Now when Ma Jiyuan heard Zhu Hongsan talk about the reason for his lack of money, he thought to himself: How could these Qiu Bas be so spoiled? I have told His Majesty a long time ago that I know the bitter fruit now! But Ma Jiyuan will not say these words now. The new army has now formed a system, and he is not the young man in the past. Now he is talking about reducing the treatment of the new army and immediately offends all the new army generals. Those killers may be able to shoot themselves in the back.

Ma Jiyuan thought for a while and said to Zhu Hongsan: "Your Majesty, if it doesn't work, you can learn from the army of the Ming Dynasty. The army of all firearms is strong in combat, but the requirements for logistics supply are too high. If it doesn't work, firearms and cold weapons are OK!"

Zhu Hongsan was the director of a township demolition office in his previous life. He knew the difficulty of industrialization. When he first formed the army, he thought that they were equipped with firearms, just like those in the movies who were lined up to kill him. However, there was a gap between reality and ideals. In this era, according to the productivity of the Ming Dynasty, it would never be possible to achieve the entire army and firearms. If Zhu Hongsan occupied the whole of China and devoted the whole country to support more than 100,000 modern troops, but Zhu Hongsan only occupied one Guangdong Province. If it weren't for the fact that Zhu Hongsan used the sugar and salt produced by simple industries in recent years to transport them to the north and southern Zhili for dumping, and the occupation of Luzon and robbed Spain's savings for hundreds of years, he would have formed such a large army.

Now Zhu Hongsan has occupied Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, the most wealthy provinces in southern China, and the territory is large, but they can no longer dump industrial products like before. The previous dumping of industrial products caused the bankruptcy of a large number of handicraftsmen in Nanzhili and Zhejiang, and the cheap salt caused the production cost of Huaiyang salt farms to increase, because these salt transported from Hainan was still more than twice as cheap as Huaiyang salt in Nanzhili. This price war was impossible to fight. The direct consequence was that the large salt merchants in Yangzhou who had been so popular for hundreds of years went bankrupt. The turmoil at the bottom of the society directly caused the storm of the Qing Dynasty rule, and ordinary people don’t care about you. Although the tax revenue was high when the Ming emperors were there, they could still survive. However, when the Qing Dynasty came, we had no way to survive. In addition, the Qing Dynasty implemented the stupid headshaving order, it is not surprising that the entire Nanzhili and Zhejiang were in such a big quarrel.
Chapter completed!