Zhu Hao couldn't help but smile when he saw the person sent by Lu Song. It turned out to be his old friend Lu Bing.
Lu Bing was already twelve years old. He had grown a lot taller. He suddenly appeared in front of Zhu Hao. After not seeing him for a few months, he felt half a head taller again. His heroic spirit showed on his body.
Seeing Zhu Hao, Lu Bing looked unpretentious and grinned: "Zhu Hao."
Zhu Hao asked him to sit down and wanted to get up to make tea, but Lu Bing refused.
"My father asked me to tell you that the Yongping Prefect and other local officials want to take away our mines. It seems that there are backers in the court to support them. Even if my father comes forward as a member of the Jinyiwei Qianhu, they will not give him face."
Lu Bing looked businesslike.
Zhu Hao did not dwell on the problem and asked with a smile: "How did you get here?"
Lu Bingdao: "Oh, my father heard that you were going south, so he asked me to go south along the canal and hurry up to catch up. In fact, I caught up with you the day before yesterday, but I still couldn't meet you. I finally saw the opportunity to meet you today...
Just relax, no one will see me come in."
Zhu Hao smiled.
Lu Song was in charge of the mining and there was trouble. He did not report it to the emperor, but came to ask him for advice because Lu Song was very concerned about the credit for this business trip.
If he turns to the emperor for help, it means that he is very incompetent. As a member of the Qianhu Jinyi Guards, there is no problem in fighting with the local government. He can just arrest some people and threaten them. But Lu Song has a flexible mind.
I guessed that the reason for the local trouble was to provoke him and make the situation get out of control. They once gave the civilian faction an excuse, saying that the mining operation was disturbing the local area. If the iron ore plant was shut down, then he, Lu Song, would be the guilty party.
Reporting to the police seems incompetent, and if you don't report the situation, it will cause trouble frequently, and you are tired of dealing with it. The best way is to ask Zhu Hao for advice.
Zhu Hao thought to himself that Lu Song was very smart and not self-righteous.
"Zhu Hao, please quickly think of a way to deal with those local officials who come here to cause trouble. My father is mining for Your Majesty, why do the local officials dare to make things difficult? Who gave them the courage? Do you have any idea?"
Lu Bing was very straightforward and asked questions one after another.
Zhu Hao said: "Lu Bing, what does your father mean?"
Lu Bing thought for a while and shook his head: "I don't know. My father just said that I want to ask your opinion and then act according to your instructions."
Zhu Hao smiled and went out, went downstairs to the kitchen, asked for a pot of hot water, brewed tea slowly, and then filled the teacup in front of Lu Bing. Everything seemed orderly.
The young man acted impulsively and recklessly, and he couldn't calm down for a while. What Zhu Hao had to do was to calm down Lu Bing completely.
Seeing Lu Bing take a sip of tea reluctantly, Zhu Haocai said: "Even if you want to deal with the local officials, you have to wait until I come back from Nanjing... Now I can only ask your father to stabilize the place. If anyone asks for trouble, send someone
Surround the entire mine. Show the enemy weakness first, and then deal with them properly later."
Lu Bing said: "What if they rob me forcefully?"
Zhu Hao couldn't help but sigh.
In Daming, it is not easy to do something practical.
Even when running errands for the emperor, local forces dared to get involved. The rule of Confucianism has always been that "a strong dragon will not suppress the local snakes." This makes the local snakes emboldened. Even if the king of heaven comes to his own territory, he dares to cause trouble.
, as if the court did not dare to do anything to them...
"Then fight!"
Zhu Hao said sternly: "If you defeat them completely, everything will be fine. But don't cause any harm to anyone. Under this premise, it's easy to talk about anything. You can even take the initiative to fight back..."
Speaking of this, Zhu Hao thought thoughtfully: "Your father asked you to come, but did he tell you to go back and recover as soon as possible?"
Lu Bing shook his head: "My father asked me to work with you."
as expected.
Zhu Hao understood Lu Song's good intentions.
Let Lu Bing come to ask for advice. Firstly, his son is the most trustworthy and will not leak information to others. Secondly, Lu Song is looking for a good future like Lu Bing.
From Lu Song's point of view, the best way for his son to enter the official career is naturally to follow Zhu Hao. Even the emperor respected him as a capable minister. He could even think everything through in advance. Zhu Hao
Each of the disciples he accepted was more promising than the last. Lu Song knew that he could not train Lu Bing into a talented person, so he could only ask Zhu Hao to help him.
"Okay, you go to Nanjing with me, but it's still the same as before. You can only follow me secretly, and you can't show your face. And... restrain yourself a little. Looking at you, you look like a chivalrous and righteous Jianghu guest. This world is too shabby.
Being too arrogant can easily lead to trouble. If you don't have an official status, you will be targeted and you will easily suffer."
Zhu Hao educated Lu Binglai by the way.
Lu Bing smiled and kept saying yes, but in fact it went in one ear and out the other. He was probably already thinking about how to go out to play after arriving in Nanjing.
Zhu Hao said, "I'll find someone to inform your father right now... You need to find a place to stay first."
Zhu Hao didn't talk too much to Lu Bing. He could only see Lu Bing when Yu Chengxun was in the city. The rest of the time, Lu Bing could only follow him from a distance, and the two could not stay together.
…
…
Entering September.
The young Emperor Jiajing is about to get married.
At this time, the focus of the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs was almost entirely on the northwest war.
The pressure on the front line of Xuanda University is extremely huge.
The Tatars have formed an organized body and entered the territory of the Ming Dynasty to plunder. Because of the lessons learned from the Tumu Fort Incident and Zhu Houzhao's stubbornness before the great victory in Yingzhou, the attitude of the Ming court officials was very clear, that is, no matter what chaos happens in the northwest,
We must keep chaos out of Juyongguan.
In other words, the emperor could not lead a personal expedition, and the Ming Dynasty’s capital troops could not be transferred northward.
This put tremendous pressure on Yang Tinghe.
Because from Yang Tinghe's point of view, the best strategy is to mobilize troops from Beijing Camp to Xuanda, avoiding the need to mobilize troops from three sides, and there is no need to mobilize troops from Liaodong and other places.
But now, because the tone has been set in the court, the capital's defenses cannot be relaxed at all, and even Yang Tinghe cannot break this rule.
As a result, Yang Tinghe was forced to take a "dangerous move", which was to mobilize troops from three sides to Xuanda.
In order to avoid Xuanda local generals jumping over the wall and defecting to the Tatar camp, causing cholera in the capital, Yang Tinghe specially asked the young emperor to issue an edict before the king, meaning that even if it was me, Yang, who proposed the troop transfer proposal, I would be the one to take the blame.
It can only be you, the new emperor! Who told you to plot against me and dig such a big hole for me to jump down? Now I will put you on the line and dare to ask you whether you will comply with this decree or not?
Zhu Si was very supportive of this, because he had previously asked Zhang Zuo to convey his opinions to the cabinet, the Ministry of War and other departments, and mobilize reinforcements from various places as soon as possible, including the three sides...
The Ming Dynasty belonged to Emperor Zhu Si, who was more anxious than anyone else to pacify the northwest, so Yang Tinghe suggested to the emperor in the court that after issuing an imperial edict, Zhu Si made a quick decision and asked the Ministry of War to draft a strategy. Finally, in the form of an imperial edict, the general issued an order to all areas in the northwest.
at.
…
…
The third day of September.
Cabinet value.
That night, Yang Tinghe and Mao Ji were on duty. This was the first time the cabinet had increased the number of night shift personnel after military affairs in the northwest became tense again.
"...It seems that His Majesty is determined to quickly quell the war in the northwest. According to the previous experience, this protracted harassment can be ended before winter. After all, after winter, the Tatars will not be able to grab anything if they want to.
"
Mao Ji was originally worried like Yang Tinghe that the new emperor would make a big fuss out of the Xuan Da Chaos and confront Yang Tinghe head-on.
But unexpectedly, Zhu Si showed an extremely sincere attitude, as if he wanted to solve Ming Dynasty's problems. During several court discussions about the situation in the northwest, Zhu Si did not have a direct conflict with Yang Tinghe.
Only in terms of money and food dispatch...
Zhu Si was very strict about this, and always asked the Ministry of Revenue to allocate funds as appropriate. The Ministry of Revenue used the excuse that the autumn grain harvest had not been completed, and the autumn harvest had not been collected yet. In short, Sun Jiao found a lot of excuses, saying that the court had no money, which made Xuanda
The gap in money and food continues to widen.
Yang Tinghe said: "Now the soldiers in the army have not even prepared their winter clothes. If this battle lasts until winter, how will the soldiers survive the winter?"
The Tatars were plundering the Xuanda front line, and the Ming border troops were basically huddled in the city fortress. There was a possibility of encounters between the two sides.
No big deal. In fact, the Tatars had no intention of starting a war with the Ming Dynasty.
The number of Ming cavalry is greater than that of the Tatars. After all, Xuanda is the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Once the Tatars find out that the Ming cavalry is coming out of the city, they will immediately disperse. On the contrary, if the Tatars gather and the number exceeds the Ming cavalry in the fortress,
The Ming cavalry also gave in and fled back to the city fortress.
The two sides maintained a tacit understanding.
You rob yours, and I will do my job as a facade. As long as we don't fight in close combat and do whatever we want, even if you Tatars set up your camp under my Ming Dynasty Fortress, we can still get along with you in peace.
Mao Jidao: "There has never been a decent victory. It is really not an option to continue like this! If we don't beat the Tatars, the Tatars will think that our Ming border is undefended!"
Yang Tinghe picked up a trilateral report and said: "We will see how this battle will be fought after the Yansui reinforcements arrive! I hope everything goes well. The Tatars are frightened by the power of our Ming army and retreat on their own. No matter what, they will survive first."
Let’s talk about it after this year.”
…
…
Yang Tinghe had a wishful thinking.
The situation in the northwest is now in chaos.
But the three parties that were in the eye of the storm in the past have basically faced no pressure this year.
Previously, Yang Tinghe successfully obtained the military power of Xuanda through the chaos of Xuanda. If he mobilized troops from three sides to assist Datong in the Xuanfu, and the Tatars accepted it as soon as they saw fit, they would wait until the winter and strengthen the fortress of Xuanda in the next spring.
The collapsed Great Wall has been repaired properly, which is perfect for Yang Tinghe.
With Trilateral and Xuan Da's military power in hand, the little emperor's plan was completely in vain. Yang Tinghe could use this as a springboard to start with the garrison of the capital, and gradually replaced the capital camp with his people...
After all, the northwest is related to nearly half of the expenses of the Ming Dynasty. By controlling the northwest, Yang Tinghe is equivalent to controlling the economic lifeline of the Ming Dynasty. But this is only in terms of expenses. The next step is to control the production area...that is, the taxes in Jiangnan. This
It is necessary to replace Nanjing's Minister of Hubu and Minister of War with his people.
Plan step by step.
The premise must be that the situation in Xuanda is under control, and the northwest is under its control before any follow-up can be discussed.
Now the imperial court needs the help of Huang Zan, Minister of the Southern Household Department, to raise military supplies, and cannot do anything to him for the time being.
Yang Tinghe asked Zhu Hao and Yu Chengxun to go south. In fact, he wanted to alert the enemy. He first placed a few nails, and he might burst the balloon in Jiangnan at any time.