In the Jianji Palace, Chongzhen, the cabinet and the military officials quickly formed a tacit understanding and characterized this incident as a long-planned exploratory move against the Manchus.
From this point of view, this matter is indeed true. Basically, everyone who knows something knows that at present, neither the Ming nor the Qing Dynasty has a basis for peace talks. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties cannot stop at this time when their morale is high, and the Ming Dynasty also has no basis for peace talks.
I can't bear the shame of losing ground and breaking up the earth. Who can we talk to in such a situation? It can only be a strategic test, just to see how big the ambition of the Manchus is. If they reply quickly, it means that they have already done it.
Regarding war planning, a slow response shows that you are still hesitating and the strategic direction has not yet been determined. Of course, such an advanced strategy can only be operated by senior people. The more you know, the easier it is to leak it.
Wang Chengen was asked to summon all the angry officials outside the palace into the main hall. These people did not even care about basic etiquette. As soon as they entered the main hall, they knelt down and begged to punish the traitors.
"Kneel down, all of you! You guys who listen to wind and rain, you should really kneel for a while to clear your mind. I went to find a pen and write down the names of all the ministers who came to the hall to kneel down today.
, keep it in mind and always remind me that these people are mediocre ministers without any strategy and cannot be used for much purpose!"
Since you are going to play with me, why don't I play with you? Are those sitting down afraid of you kneeling? Who can outlast whom?
"Your Majesty, I am here to let Your Majesty punish the traitors of the country, so how can I become a mediocre minister?" A sharp-tongued official took the lead in attacking. He did not understand what the emperor was playing.
"Red lips and white teeth, you can actually talk! I want to ask you who is the national traitor?"
"I and others joined Chen Jianheng, the minister of the Ministry of War, and privately negotiated peace with Hou Jin and betrayed the country in order to seek glory. Please ask your majesty to be the Holy Judge of the palace to avoid this trouble."
"Negotiating peace with Hou Jin? Do you think we can negotiate peace? In the Battle of Songshan, our Ming Dynasty almost used all the troops in the country to fight, but still did not achieve any results. On the contrary, we lost territory, cities, and all our elites. Now that Hou Jin has strong soldiers and horses,
The morale is high, but the imperial court wants to negotiate peace. Do you think they will agree? Are all those people you serve as fools? If they are fools, aren't all our officials in the Ming Dynasty even worse than fools? Who would fight with someone who has been defeated all the time?
Did the opponent negotiate peace sincerely? What was the prerequisite for Song and Liao to have an alliance with Chanyuan? It was because the Song army had won battles before and was capable of defeating Liao. Don't you all read history?"
Something is wrong! What we are talking about now is not about whether Hou Jin agreed to negotiate peace, but about Chen Xinjia running up to the pole to negotiate peace with others! What you said seems to mean that we want to go over to negotiate peace.
"Your Majesty, it was not us who wanted to negotiate for peace, but Chen Jianheng and others from the Ministry of War went to negotiate for peace, and they have already received a reply from Hou Jin, who agreed to negotiate for peace."
"So Hou Jin is a fool? Now do you think I said you are mediocre or wrong? Do you think Jian Heng has never read history? Or do you think I, the cabinet and the Ministry of War are all people who can't think clearly?
Even though you know that if you ask for peace with the Queen, you will only get a false reply from the Snake Committee at most, why do you still want to ask for peace? Who can tell me, what is Chen Jianheng's intention in negotiating peace with the Queen? I will let Wang Zhangtang
Take him off the list of mediocre officials."
Who knows what are you trying to do? The emperor asked in reply, which made all the ministers of His Highness stare blankly! They really don’t know what Chen Xinjia is trying to do when he goes to negotiate for peace! Are people trolling you for this? In fact, many people don’t even know whether they are negotiating for peace now.
They haven't really thought about it at all. They are opposing for the sake of opposition. Anyway, the peace talks are betraying the country and seeking glory! As for why the peace talks are being negotiated, and whether the peace talks can succeed is really not their concern.
"Look at you one by one! You are really rotten wood that cannot be carved! I and Jian Heng originally planned to use the excuse of peace talks to try out Hou Jin's plan this year. But now you have caused trouble in the city, and this matter has slipped through the cracks.
Failure!"
"Your Majesty, how can you find out their plans for this year by making peace with Hou Jin?" A well-informed official asked the question in his heart. He really didn't understand how he could find out the truth by making peace.
"You said that Hou Jin clearly had no sincerity in peace talks, so why did they respond so quickly to the court's peace talks?"
"They must have made a false alliance and wanted to hold the court back so that they could attack when the court was unprepared."
"You're not too stupid to think of this! When do you think they will attack?"
"It's nothing more than entering the customs and plundering this winter or next winter."
"It's not next winter, it's this winter! Hou Jin can give a reply so early, which means they can't wait! Otherwise they will delay for a while. If you think about it, Hou Jin, who just won a big victory at the beginning of this year, has every reason to be concerned about this matter.
The imperial court was trying to figure it out, but they just didn't do it. This can only show that they were very anxious. Why was Hou Jin so anxious? Is it because he was afraid that he would fight with the imperial army?"
"Hou Jin will enter the enemy's territory this winter?" The ministers who were kneeling on the ground were so moved by this news that they almost couldn't kneel down! They had previously been thinking about how to deal with Chen Xinjia and oust Chen Xinjia and the cabinet. Unexpectedly,
A big thunder actually came out.
After carefully considering the emperor's logic, it seems to make sense! The reasoning is perfect and there is no flaw at all.
"Originally, I wanted to make good use of this opportunity and have a fictitious committee with Hou Jin. We would openly prepare for peace talks and secretly make arrangements to catch them by surprise. Now everyone in the capital knows about this.
Even what our monarchs and ministers said today will inevitably be leaked by some people with different intentions, so all the planning is in vain. Chen Shangshu, this matter was caused by your careless behavior. What do you think the court should do now?
"
The big thunder has been resolved, but Chen Xinjia, the cheating king, cannot be allowed to have nothing to do. No matter what, he must take some responsibility and contribute some efforts.
Chen Xinjia was named by the emperor, and he quickly stood up and said solemnly: "I am guilty of death because the law is not strict, which makes the court lose the opportunity to arrange things calmly. I feel deeply guilty and ask the Holy Spirit to punish me!"
"Let go of the punishment in advance. Your task now is to find a way to remedy the mistake."
"Your Majesty, I have thought about it carefully. Since there is no guarantee that what happened today will not be leaked, it is better to try to overcome the mystery with good!"
"The right overcomes the strange? What is the meaning of this statement?"
"The imperial court already knew that Hou Jin was going to invade this winter and informed the world in the form of a Tongbao, and then openly deployed defenses in Zhili and other places. If Hou Jin knew about it, they would probably have some scruples and changes because of the leak.
Plan! Even if their plan remains unchanged, we can still take advantage of the opportunity to arrange things in advance. This strategy can be said to make the imperial court in an invincible position."
"This strategy of our army is very good, and I approve it! This is the theory of country planning. Not only Zhili must be prepared, but Shandong and the capital must also be prepared. Strike first and control others later! What a good person to defeat the strange with the right, and see you forever.
The Ministry of War should pay attention to this matter. This is the end of today's discussion. If you are kneeling, if you still want to kneel, please continue to kneel. If you don't want to kneel, just get up and go back to the Yamen to do business."
Drama queens! They are all drama queens! When they left the hall, Zhou Yanru and several other cabinet ministers admired the acting skills of Zhu Youjian and Chen Xinjia.
They have never been so good at lying. If they didn't know the inside story, they would have been deceived by the acting skills of this pair of monarchs and ministers.