Dominate the Country

In mid-February, martial law and curfew were imposed in Nanjing. Then, the people of Nanjing could only hear the sound of the army passing through the city at night. The curious people would peek out through the cracks in the doors and windows, while the timid people would huddle tightly in their beds. When it got dark, all the doors had to be blocked with tables and chairs.

This phenomenon meant that a storm was coming. The Northern Expedition, which had been passed on by word of mouth for more than a month in the ears of the military and civilians, finally got to the point.

During the day, no one dared to talk about the Northern Expedition in the streets and alleys of Nanjing, in pubs and teahouses. Many acquaintances would just exchange glances and say hello when they met, and then pass by each other.

This was a critical moment.

No matter how attractive the fight between the sticking pole and the dark camp was, it was only to attract a pair of ears. Don't really get yourself involved. At this time, if you were caught by the Fu Han Army because of having more mouths, it would be so unfair.

"Beep beep..."

In the middle of the night, a sharp whistle suddenly sounded on the bank of the Qinhuai River. A large group of Fu Han soldiers seemed to emerge from the ground in an instant. They lit torches, held guns and knives, and rushed towards a small house with a sharp whistle.

"Brother, go quickly..." Two men dressed in short clothes watched Zhou Mazi climb over the wall and escape.

"Brother..." Zhou Mazi's tears flowed across the wall. The people in the yard were his most trusted brothers.

"Brother, go quickly. Only when you are alive, the death of brothers is worth it..."

The sound of gunfire and explosions has already sounded in the front yard.

The two Zhou Mazi confidants inside the wall were not prepared to go to the front to help. They had to go to the study room to burn everything that could be burned. At the same time, they prayed in their hearts that their big brother could escape safely. Otherwise, no one would remember them above, and the people in this yard would become worthless even if they died a hundred times. Only when Zhou Mazi, the eldest brother who was already a seventh-rank official, was alive, their family would have something to think about.

"Woof woof woof..." The sound of a dog barking sounded outside the yard.

Zhou Mazi had no way to escape. Zhou Mazi, who resisted to the end, was chopped three times and tied up while struggling. Several torches shone on him.

Wei Changkong walked up to him and smiled disdainfully at Zhou Mazi who was still cursing, "Show him your face." The two Fu Han soldiers who were escorting Zhou Mazi grabbed one of his ears with one hand, and the face stained with dust and blood was immediately exposed under the light of the torch. A shrinking man was pushed to Wei Changkong's right hand at this time, "See clearly, he is Zhou Mazi?"

The man looked at Zhou Mazi timidly, "Yes, yes, sir, he is Zhou Mazi."

"Then five..." Zhou Mazi looked at the person in front of him who was identifying him, and his eyes were about to pop out. Because this is a bannerman, and a bannerman of the Manchu flag, he should be a die-hard fan of the Qing Dynasty. He is one of the followers of the big man who led Zhou Mazi into the stick-sticking department before.

"Bah. You ungrateful dog, the adults will not let you go, the court will not let you go..." Zhou Mazi struggled hard, and a mouthful of bloody spit sprayed on the face of the five.

Wei Changkong waved his hand, and the guy in front of him, who was born as a rogue, seemed to be very loyal to the Qing Dynasty.

"Sir, this is really ironic. Zhou Mazi, a Han Chinese, was so loyal to the Tartars, but Wu, a bannerman, confessed everything after being slightly threatened..."

Wei Changkong also had a sneer on his face, but he still said: "Don't think Zhou Mazi is too hard. Whether he is really loyal to the Tartars can only be seen after he goes through a severe torture in the torture room. If he can survive it, I will admit that he is a man."

Wei Changkong had one more sentence to say, "Traitors, there are always many." There are many traitors among the people captured by the Manchu Stick Office, and there are also many traitors among the people captured in the strongholds of the Fu Han Army's dark camp that were pulled out by the Tartars. Their job is to succeed through repeated failures.

Let alone other things, even the dark camp in Beijing has had more than one incident.

At the beginning, Beijing had four points, but now there is only one Beijing Station left. What about the other three points? Besides, a while ago, when Qianlong's mother celebrated her birthday, the people in the secret camp in Beijing teamed up with the Special Branch of the Northern Bureau to organize an assassination operation. As a result, nothing happened at the Beijing Station, but someone else was caught. This matter has caused quite a stir. Now at least half of the middle and lower-level cadres in the secret camp know that in addition to the Beijing Station in Beijing, the Eighth Master and the Twelfth Master each have a group of people ambushed. The competition between the two masters will probably become more and more open in the future.

Chen Ming has not slept well these days. The transfer of tens of thousands of combat troops and most of the logistics troops is a huge project. In addition to this team, the Fu Han Army and logistics troops in northern Jiangsu, the front-line troops and logistics in Jiangyin, Zhenjiang, and Nanjing, will also be withdrawn one after another. In the meantime, they must guard against the Qing army in Haizhou and Songjiang to attack, and the rear guard troops need to be carefully arranged. Everything will bury Chen Ming.

A staff agency, Chen Ming has never needed a staff agency as urgently as he does now. No matter whether it is mature or not, as long as the framework is set up and the system is established, no matter how many things come up, they can be broken down layer by layer and eventually he will be able to reduce a lot of things.

The military and political cadres of the expeditionary army have been in a state of tension. The team has expanded too quickly. Many grassroots platoon leaders and team officers have risen step by step by fighting. Such people can do practical things, but they are not suitable for entering the staff organization. The most suitable personnel for building the staff are the members of the military school and those who graduated from the Lushan Cadre School. Unfortunately, there are too few people in the former and too far away in the latter. This time when he returned to Huguang, Chen Ming kept this matter in mind.

The large-scale mobilization of the Fu Han Army also brought the situation of the courts in various places to Chen Ming. The administrative jurisdiction of the army in Jiangnan has always been military control. Except for a few cities such as Nanjing and Yangzhou, other places are military control committees. Strictly control the prices of daily necessities such as grain, salt, and cloth, and severely crack down on speculation. In this case, the relatively independent establishment of court institutions is rarely criticized. Because compared to the judges who are criminal lawyers or lawyers in the court, the people of Jiangnan are more afraid and less confident to sue a group of soldiers. The former are professionals, right? And they don't need to kneel down to file a complaint in court.

The county-level courts, prefecture-level courts, and the Supreme Court of Jiangnan, which is above the prefecture, are naturally accepted by the people of Jiangnan. And the concept of courts, the specifications and obligations of courts at all levels are also accepted by the people of Jiangnan. In fact, these things are very easy to understand. There are similar rules in all dynasties in China. As long as they are replaced, it is easy to understand.

The rules of the Fu Han Army are just to make a clear regulation of the process of "appealing for grievances", so that the people will not go directly to the capital to beat the drum for reporting after losing the case in the county government. They have to appeal one level at a time, that's all. Moreover, the Fu Han Army publicly introduced lawyers in the trial process and changed their names to lawyers. This measure has certain benefits for both the plaintiff and the defendant.

In the Jiangnan area, the Jiangnan Supreme Court under the Fu Han Army was jokingly called the Eight Prefectures Inspector. Although the Jiangnan people had not had a single case brought to the Supreme Court in the past few months, it did not prevent them from having a favorable impression of the Fu Han Army's approach.

Chen Ming also heard that in the county-level courts in various places, a large number of people flocked to listen to the public trials. The defendant's lawyer and the plaintiff's lawyer's verbal battles in the courtroom were like watching a big show in the eyes of many people. When he first heard such a report, Chen Ming was angry and amused and said, "Fooling the people." But now it seems that this is not a process that is deeply rooted in people's hearts.

It's a pity that the army is leaving now. And it will be difficult to fight back to Jiangnan this year. I don't know how much of the impression left will be left when the Fu Han Army comes back again.

On the morning of February 16, there was no pigeon message from Jiujiang, and the Fu Han Army's large force had already set off from Xiaguan Wharf.

This is the third team that has set out from Nanjing to the west this year, but it is also the most surprising team.

Where is the promised Northern Expedition? These thousands of large and small ships are sailing up the river in a mighty manner. There is no Northern Expedition. The Fu Han Army is on a Western Expedition, a Western Expedition, not a Northern Expedition!

When the countless people on the shore saw that the fleet was not crossing the river to the north, but to the west, the boos at that moment almost overwhelmed the cannons.

How many people were stunned at this moment, and even many Fu Han soldiers were stunned when they found that the ships were crossing the river to the west instead of the north. When a small sampan carrying Fu Han soldiers holding trumpets shouted along the fleet: Fight back to Huguang, fight back to my hometown, how many Fu Han veterans from Henan and Hubei burst into tears and could not control their emotions in an instant. Similarly, many soldiers from northern Jiangsu and southern Jiangsu also burst into tears and snot...

"Hurry, send it to Haizhou as quickly as possible!"

In a small courtyard in Nanjing, a young man with a ferocious face was yelling at an ordinary middle-aged man in his thirties. The middle-aged man sealed the secret letter and turned to leave the courtyard. Slowly, the young man's distorted face gradually eased. Looking at his current face, he is still very elegant. He is wearing a beige robe, like a gentleman.

The young man walked back to the room with his back straight and sat upright on the chair. The whole person seemed like a cold wooden sculpture.

Western Expedition, Western Expedition, the thieves did not cross the river to the north, but went west...

The pain in the young man's heart is hard to express. The impact of this complete failure of the grand strategy on the Qing Dynasty is unpredictable. A sense of extreme distortion is about to rub his heart into minced meat.

West, west...

The Fu Han army went west. Although it was unknown whether Chen Ming wanted to completely abandon Jiangnan, whether it was Anqing or Jiujiang, there were suddenly tens of thousands of Fu Han army troops, which was a disaster for the Qing army in Anhui and Jiangxi.

This person did not know that the Jiujiang Fu Han army had already marched towards Hubei by land and sea.

With tens of thousands of troops on the march, so many follow-up troops, and nearly 20,000 accompanying military dependents, more than 2,000 large and small ships were used. It was definitely not something that could be wiped out in a short time.

But such momentum, such a shocking reality, spread like a gust of wind throughout the south and north of the Yangtze River. Especially when people saw the logistics troops of the Fu Han Army transferred to Huai'an to assemble, and the five or six hundred grain ships concentrated there were fully loaded and rushed to Yangzhou, and saw the Fu Han Army in Yancheng and other places running towards the Yangtze River like rats with their tails on fire, especially when the news came that the Qing army in Haizhou crossed the Yellow River and rushed to Huai'an, everyone seemed to have performed a big drama, a big drama called "Northern Expedition", and now the drama has finally ended...