Chapter 451 - The End of the Second Year of Apocalypse - Under the Battle Situation
During the two years when Yin Feng and the Zhonghua Company devoted all their efforts to the Liaodong Campaign and the Nanyang War, the political struggle at the top level of the Ming Dynasty was extremely fierce, and the final result was a situation in which "the good people prevailed in the court, but the villains looked sideways."
Beginning in the first year of Tianqi, the Donglin Party gradually gained the upper hand in the court, and all the ministers who were at odds with them were fired. At the beginning of the second year of Tianqi, surrounding the Wanli Dynasty's demon book case, the assault case, and the Taichang Dynasty's palace transfer case, Donglin Party members revisited old scores and violently attacked their opponents. By the end of the year, Ye Xianggao and Han Guangfang were assisting the government, Zhao Nanxing was in charge, Gao Panlong, who had been in the family for 30 years, was appointed as the Shaoqing of Guanglu Temple, and Sun Chengzong was promoted to the Ministry of War. Shangshu is also a bachelor of Dongge University, and is involved in engine maintenance. Others include Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou Bingxian, Li Tengfang, Chen Yuting's assistant, Wei Dazhong, Yuan Huazhong, Chang Kedao, Zheng Sanjun, Li Banghua, Sun Juxiang, Wang Zhidengqing 2nd, and the fourth Zou Weilian, Xia Jiayu, Zhang Guangqian, Cheng Guoxiang, Liu Tingjian...all the officials in the imperial court, the six cabinet ministries, and the government officials were almost all controlled by people from Donglin.
Emperor Tianqi was a well-known carpenter enthusiast. Wang Tiqian and Wei Zhongxian, the eunuchs in charge of the rites and seals, always waited for Emperor Tianqi to chop with axes and cut knives or undress his ragged clothes. They would submit memorials and documents to Emperor Tianqi when they were not usually in close proximity to his neighbors and were not allowed to peep. He casually left it to them to make their own decisions. However, at this time, Wei Zhongxian, the Eunuch Bingbi and the eunuch in charge of the East Factory, was still in his infancy. He was suppressed by the people in Donglin outside, and Wang Tigan was still fighting for power inside. The palace is recharging its energy and waiting for the opportunity.
Since a gentleman is in charge of the government, the government must of course be refreshed. Nowadays, internal and external troubles are emerging in an endless stream. One of the top priorities is the rebellion of the new army in northern Zhejiang, which threatens the safety of southern Zhili. Starting in May of the second year of Tianqi, the imperial court assembled a large army in Zhejiang. North, prepare to suppress the New Army rebellion.
To be fair, during the annihilation of the rebels in northern Zhejiang, everyone in Donglin, both in and out of government, was indeed ruthless and spent money. The Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs allocated money from Liaodong army salaries to various officers and soldiers in Jiangxi and Sichuan. As the Minister of War, Sun Chengzong personally came to Nanjing to supervise the formation and pay. The wealthy households in the south of the Yangtze River who originally paid the "New Army" also took the initiative to assist the imperial army under the leadership of many Donglin Party members who were also from the south of the Yangtze River. rates.
With sufficient pay and money, various officers and soldiers surrounded the rebels gathered around Hangzhou.
In fact, at the beginning of the siege, most of Luo Xiaoming's artillery battalion had already separated from the rebel brigade, leaving behind their heavy firearms and throwing them into the Chinese Army-controlled area in the south of the Yangtze River. Two months later, the rebels who had been unable to attack Hangzhou City for a long time had already Internal strife broke out: the rebels who originally belonged to the New Army, the Ming Dynasty official army, and the rebels from all walks of life, and the bandits began to compete for food supplies, and quarreled over command rights and the distribution of spoils, and finally developed into internal strife. and.
At this time, officers and soldiers were rebelling across the country. Rebellious soldiers from all over Jiangxi, South Zhili, and western Zhejiang gathered in Hangzhou one after another, turning the beautiful land south of the Yangtze River into a desolate, scorching hell on earth. Yuan Xin The key officers in the army, all those who belong to the underground staff system of the Chinese Army, have already separated from the rebels; there are also some rebel leaders who originally belonged to the new army and low-level officers of the official army, because they originally came from the official army system of the Ming Dynasty. Even when the war situation was unfavorable, he tried to contact the Ming government and the Chinese Company.
Originally, this was an opportunity to quickly end the chaos in northern Zhejiang, but the political stubbornness and inflexibility of the Donglin Party members made this opportunity fleeting. Sun Chengzong, the Minister of War in Nanjing to supervise the war, had already assembled 100,000 officers and soldiers from all over the country. He rejected the surrender conditions proposed by the rebels: to set up an army to guard eastern Zhejiang. He wrote a memorandum and circulated it throughout northern Zhejiang, declaring that "the heaven will never make peace with the rebellion and must crush it."
The rebels, who were originally divided internally, had to temporarily unite to fight against the outside world.
After discussions between the major rebel leaders, Jiang Cheng, the former deputy commander of the artillery battalion of the New Army, was elected as the leader. This man was originally a musketry soldier in Yiwu and a subordinate of Luo Qing, the former deputy commander-in-chief of Zhejiang Province. He fought in the Battle of Penghu , during the Battle of Nanjing, he was really an experienced veteran of hundreds of battles. Under his command, bandits from all walks of life looted various parts of Zhejiang to collect grain, and rebel soldiers from all walks of life harassed and pinned down the officers and soldiers of Jiangxi, Fujian, and South Zhili. The rebels, mainly composed of the former New Army, set up an ambush in the north of Hangzhou.
At the foot of Gaoting Mountain in the north of Hangzhou City, in May of the second year of Tianqi, on a bright spring day, the Southern Zhili Army and the Sichuan Army, the main force of the imperial army's suppression campaign, encountered an ambush during their march. The only cavalry in the rebel army was originally stationed there. The Jiangxi Jiujiang soldiers in South Zhili - oh, they should have been called the Jiujiang rebels at that time. After attacking the government troops, they quickly left the battlefield and lured the government troops to pursue them to the southern foot of Gaoting Mountain. The original new army had already ambushed them. The artillery battalion opened fire on the mountain, and even four Western red cannons were used. Although the backbone of the rebel artillery battalion basically defected to the Chinese army, the remaining artillerymen who had received complete training from Portuguese gunners were still able to use these When the artillery was activated, the dense pursuit column of the officers and soldiers was hit by bursts of artillery fire, and immediately fell into chaos. The rebels suddenly ambush all around, beating the officers and soldiers to a complete collapse. They even pursued the officers and soldiers all the way to Changxing County, Zhejiang and The junction of South Zhili.
In this way, the first comprehensive attack by officers and soldiers against the rebel forces in northern Zhejiang failed, and the losses were extremely heavy.
Afterwards, Sun Chengzong decisively ordered the surrounding armies to focus on defense and advocated a comprehensive defense strategy to block the rebels in northern Zhejiang from advancing to southern Zhejiang, western Zhejiang and other provinces. In order to persist in defense, he did not hesitate to argue repeatedly with Donglin officials in the imperial court. , although he himself is considered a member of Donglin, he rarely participated in court quarrels.
His plan soon bore fruit. The rebels, who had temporarily lost the external threat, began fighting among themselves again. The rebels had no unified command system, no recognized leadership, and no consistent political goals. The group was like a piece of loose sand. , there are three main components: the original New Army, the former Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers, bandits in northern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang and other places, and the people who were held hostage. By June of the second year of Tianqi, these three components once again fell into internal strife.
News continued to come that rebel leaders had been killed, and small groups of rebels continued to surrender to the officers and soldiers in Hangzhou City. The internal strife was completely out of control. In the end, the rebel armed forces collapsed on the spot and were wiped out one after another around Hangzhou City. At the end of June, Yuyao, Cixi and other places were also recaptured. The New Army rebellion lasted for nearly seven months and finally collapsed on its own.
In July, Sun Chengzong, Minister of the Ministry of War, was appointed as Nanjing's manager. The Ming Dynasty's military forces began to gather around Nanjing, intending to regain half of the country in the south of the Yangtze River - the eastern area of Jiangnan under the control of the Chinese army.
From the perspective of the Ming Dynasty court, the situation in Jiangnan has always been embarrassing and shabby. The Ming Dynasty has always adhered to the three no principles: no payment, no cession of land, and no marriage. In Jiangnan, Fujian, Hainan and other places, It has become a self-slapping decoration.
In any case, the maritime ban is an ancestral system, and appropriate relaxation is the limit. Therefore, the existence of Chinese companies that oppose the maritime ban is intolerable.
The people in Donglin act with moral integrity, but no one can really see the face of the Chinese Company. In fact, the Chinese Company is dominating the overseas trade order along the entire coast of China, and is also using various means to enter the domestic market. It is clear that the Chinese Company is The sea ban actually pushed all trade between overseas and domestic markets to Chinese companies. The Ming Dynasty government actually used the trade profits of major domestic merchants and Chinese companies to help the expansion of Chinese companies, because the sea ban Due to the policy, it was difficult for the Ming Dynasty government to obtain profits from overseas trade, and these profits were the driving force for major domestic merchants to continue supplying goods to Chinese companies.
Although no one can see through this, the Chinese military-controlled area in the south of the Yangtze River has become the largest overseas smuggling trade distribution center in the country in the past five years. This has made many Ming Dynasty officials angry, jealous, and hateful, especially those of their own families. Those people in Jiangnan.
Jiangnan is the main producing area of silk, China's main export product. The Chinese army controls half of Jiangnan and the Yangtze River Estuary, almost monopolizing the overseas silk trade. Take the most important raw silk trade as an example: a load of raw silk is purchased from all over Jiangnan and sent to the warehouse of the Zhonghua Company. The purchase price of the Chinese company was 70 to 80 taels of silver per load, and they did not even need to move the goods. They could change hands and sell them to Japanese businessmen who came to buy raw silk at a price of 250 taels, and then transport them to Taiwan. The price of raw silk traded between Luzon and the Portuguese and Spanish could reach 280 taels. The price of raw silk shipped to Malacca and Banten traded with the Western Arabs in the second year of Tianqi soared to 400 taels of silver due to the war. , of course, there are also major domestic merchants involved in the acquisition and transportation of raw silk here, but they are all under the banner of the Chinese Army when transported by sea.
The eastern part of Jiangnan has prospered in recent years due to the overseas trade of Chinese companies, but the families of court officials in Jiangnan are unable to participate in the booming overseas trade due to their political stance.
Although the Jiangnan official and gentry families also secretly trade with the China United Company, given that the Donglin Party members like to pursue all moral issues, these secret transactions cannot become big, and Chen Zhongji's Jiangnan Governor's House has no control over the Donglin Party. The Lin Party members did not take it seriously at all. They treated the families of the Donglin Party members equally with other gentry and landlords. Anyone who committed a crime would be severely punished without mercy. For those who blatantly disobeyed the Chinese military laws, they would confiscate their homes, exterminate their clans, and then divide the land. No exceptions.
Therefore, the Donglin Party members who live in the Jiangnan area are the ones who most vehemently advocate war against the Chinese Army.
At the end of November, Yin Feng, who had just taken a breath from the war in Nanyang, received a battle report from Zheng Zhihu at the intersection of Songhua River and Hulan River: the Chinese army defeated the remaining Manchu troops of Abata and the Mongols here. The coalition forces and the enemy have fled north and west. There will be no more fighting in the Northeast before the end of winter.
The place where Zheng Zhihu won the battle was called Harbin in another time and space. His main force was the Liaodong Security Corps and the Pioneer Regiment militia composed of local people. The Chinese Army's strength in the Northeast was seriously insufficient: instability began to appear in North Korea again
Due to the situation, the Ming army on the other side of the Liao River was also ready to move. Yin Feng sent an order to Liaodong, and the entire Chinese army entered a state of comprehensive defense in the entire Northeast.
When the wars in various places where the Chinese army participated gradually subsided, tensions began to appear in the Jiangnan area. At the same time, officers and soldiers from Fujian also began to gather forces southward. Officers and soldiers from Jiangxi and Guangxi were also moving to southern Fujian.