I

"In the main town, there is a man who calls himself Qianshan Zhao Han and wants to see him."

"Um?"

Zhao Han raised his head with a strange expression, then smiled and said, "Please come in."

Fei Yu works outside, and he is one of the three secretaries. Not long after, seeing Fei Yinghuan and Wei Jianxiong being brought in, he almost cried out in surprise, but immediately buried himself in the official documents.

Without squinting, Fei Ying was led into the house, and said with cupped hands, "Qianshan Zhao Han, meet Zhao Zongzhen!"

Zhao Han was a little surprised that the father-in-law came, and he quickly got up and said, "Uncle, please sit down."

Wei Jianxiong retreated outside the house and closed the door to prevent anyone from eavesdropping.

"Brother Han has done a great job." Fei Yinghuan teased with a smile, seeming to be mocking, but also seeming to complain, with a bit of admiration.

Zhao Han had a thick skin, and said, "Master Taishan has praised you absurdly."

"I've seen some of your policies, so I won't ask any more," Fei Yinghuan went straight to the point, "I just ask you, when can you take Jiangxi?"

Zhao Han said: "We must take Nanchang Mansion next year."

"I heard that there are Fujian and Guangdong armies in the south. I thought you would go to Ganzhou first," Fei Yinghuan was a little disappointed. "If we take Nanchang first, I'm afraid the imperial court will send more guest soldiers to encircle and suppress them."

Zhao Han explained: "I discussed with several gentlemen, and my original intention was to take Ganzhou first, but Nanchang was too bullying. Its private Nanchang banknote customs tax was heavier than that of the eunuchs, which greatly affected the people under my rule. Business and people's livelihood. If they kill themselves, let them be fulfilled!"

Fei Yinghuan asked again: "How sure are you of winning Nanchang?"

"Very sure." Zhao Han replied.

"So confident?" Fei Yinghuan asked.

Zhao Han smiled and said, "If it wasn't for consolidating the territory, I would be able to occupy half of Jiangxi this year."

Fei Yinghuan stopped asking questions and said, "I want to go south to Funing to be the magistrate. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Fu Ning is in Fujian?" Zhao Han was not sure.

Fei Yinghuan said: "On the seaside of Fujian."

Zhao Han smiled and said: "Master Taishan, if you are willing to help, you can befriend Zheng Zhilong for me."

"Okay, I understand." Fei Yinghuan nodded.

"well!"

Fei Yinghuan suddenly sighed: "When I brought your brother and sister back to Jiangxi, how could I have expected the situation today?"

Zhao Han said: "Even if I don't come to Jiangxi, my son-in-law will find a place to rebel."

"Do you like rebellion that much?" Fei Yinghuan asked.

Zhao Han shook his head and said, "It's not that I like rebellion, but that the Ming Dynasty is hopeless."

Fei Yinghuan smiled and asked, "Do you know that many of the courtiers have the idea of ​​settling in the south?"

"I don't know." Zhao Han said.

Fei Yinghuan explained: "This idea was first proposed by civilian scholars and gradually spread to the court. It is believed that the mansions in the south of the Yangtze River are the wealthiest places in the world. Instead of harvesting money and food, several northern provinces have to continue to provide money from the court. Fighting. Just abandon the north, move the capital to Nanjing to rectify the government, eliminate the long-standing abuses, and then send troops northward."

"It's a beautiful idea. After peace, how can anyone be willing to go to the North? Is this the idea of ​​the southern scholars?" Zhao Han said with a sarcastic smile.

"Indeed," Fei Yinghuan nodded and said, "Although it has been widely circulated, it is all private discussion, and no one dares to speak out openly. Now that you are raising troubles here in Jiangxi, there are probably fewer and fewer people who want to be partisan. ”

Suddenly, Zhao Han asked: "Master Taishan, why don't you go to the inner house to rest for a while and call Rulan and Ruhe to talk."

"No need," Fei Yinghuan raised his hand and said, "There are many people and it is best for me not to see them. I will leave after I finish speaking with you. Zhang Yinggao, the prefect of Guangxin, is a man who knows how to govern the people and fight. He has trained five thousand Xiangyong, you should be careful."

"Thank you, Lord Taishan, for reminding me," Zhao Han said with a smile, "No matter how elite the country warriors are, their combat effectiveness will drop exponentially after they leave their hometown, because they don't know why they fight."

"Okay, that's all, I'm leaving first." Fei Yinghuan stood up and said.

He really wanted to leave without even seeing his son and daughter. He had to rush to Fujian to take up his post.

Fei Yinghuan quickly arrived in Ganzhou by boat and headed southeast along the Gongshui River. Huichang County there had been recovered by officers and soldiers.

Halfway through the journey, I suddenly saw a large number of ships approaching from the opposite side. It was the army of Fujian Governor Zou Weilian. The boats were used to transport baggage, and about ten thousand soldiers (including civilian husbands) walked along the river bank.

Fei Yinghuan was not stopped for inspection and arrived in Huichang County smoothly.

When I inquired at the dock, I found out that the Ruijin rebels had been wiped out, and only a few hundred remnants were left to flee into the mountains.

Fei Yinghuan was a little worried about his son-in-law, so he immediately returned by boat and went to Ganzhou Fucheng to meet Zou Weilian.

In the military camp outside the city.

Zou Weilian was going on a killing spree, and sixteen mid-level officers were lined up waiting to be beheaded.

The Fujian soldiers he brought with him always burned, killed, raped and looted after entering Jiangxi. There was even a general who killed good people and took credit after massacring the village, which made Zou Weilian so angry that he beheaded him on the spot.

Zou Weilian is from Jiangxi!

If he were asked to lead troops to suppress bandits in Zhejiang, he might turn a blind eye. But if you lead troops back to Jiangxi to suppress bandits, how can you allow your troops to cause chaos? That's going to get poked in the back by the folks back home!

Among the three governors, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, the governor of Jiangxi, and the governor of Fujian, Zou Weilian was the most eager to suppress thieves.

Because his hometown, Xinchang (Yifeng County), is just north of Fenyi and Xinyu counties. In a year and a half at most, the Luling Zhao thieves will take over his hometown. Can Zou Weilian not be anxious?

There was a fire in the backyard of the governor of Guangdong and Guangdong, so he withdrew his troops and returned to Guangdong to quell the chaos.

Zou Weilian stayed alone in southern Jiangxi, but intensified his efforts to suppress the bandits, and took back Ruijin County in just one month.

He left five hundred soldiers each to garrison Ruijin and Huichang, and then led a large army to Ganzhou.

"kill!"

The sword flashed and the head fell to the ground.

The soldiers were solemn and the generals were resentful.

In order to prevent the guest soldiers from looting his hometown, Zou Weilian could only pay his troops in full. And you have to avoid the generals, otherwise the generals will definitely deduct money.

Therefore, ordinary soldiers and junior officers all supported Zou Weilian very much.

But the middle and high-level generals hated Zou Weilian to the core. If we don’t let them drink the blood of soldiers and don’t let them loot, then why are they coming to Jiangxi from Fujian to engage in Mao Zedong? Wouldn’t it be nice to just stay at home and enjoy the happiness?

"Commander Fu, I have an old friend visiting me." The staff handed over a greeting note.

Zou Weilian picked up the greeting card and looked at it, and immediately said with joy: "It's the Great Zhao who is here, please come quickly, please come quickly!"

Fei Yinghuan strode over, cupped his hands and said, "Brother Dehui, long time no see."

"Brother Dazhao," Zou Weilian bowed in return and said with a smile, "please sit down in the tent and have a drink."

These two people were from the same hometown and were elected in the same year. They also went to Beijing to take the exam together and failed.

Zou Weilian was only four years older than Fei Yinghuan. He lost his father when he was young and had to drop out of school. When he was less than ten years old, he went to the mountains to cut firewood with his mother. Both mother and son made a living as woodcutter.

He didn't have money to buy books either, so he borrowed them from neighborhood children. Read at home, read on the road chopping firewood, and read at any time and anywhere. I was afraid of getting the books dirty, so I wrapped them in pieces of cloth while working.

Zou Weilian only had a tutor and no Confucian teacher. He relied on self-study of the Four Books and Five Classics. He was admitted as a scholar at the age of nineteen.

After entering the county school, he finally became a Confucian teacher and studied Confucian classics seriously. Then, he won the imperial examination at the age of twenty-one and the imperial examination at the age of twenty-five.

"Why is Brother Dazhao here?" Zou Weilian asked.

Fei Yinghuan replied: "My foolish brother was transferred to the magistrate of Funing. Hearing that a Zhao bandit was causing trouble in Jiangxi, he went to Ji'an Mansion to investigate in person."

"Oh, what's the gain?" Zou Weilian took it seriously. He also had Ji'an scholars defecting to him, but they all came from Taihe County and Wan'an County. The gentry in Jishui, Luling and Anfu counties preferred to go to Nanchang and Jiujiang.

Fei Yinghuan said: "This thief has three things that make him quite unpopular."

Zou Weilian asked: "What three things do you dare to ask?"

Fei Yinghuan laughed and said: "The first is to divide the fields, and divide the land of the big family among the small people. How cruel is it? The second is to release the slaves, and release all the domestic slaves, military households, and music residents. The third is to look down on the scholars, Regardless of whether you are a scholar or a scholar, anyone who becomes an official under the Zhao thief must start from a small official or a small official."

Zou Weilian was stunned and said in horror: "How can this be unpopular? This is an act of incitement and deception!"

The "human heart" mentioned by Fei Yinghuan is the heart of the gentry.

The "people's heart" in Zou Weilian's mouth is the heart of the head of Guizhou.

Zou Weilian asked, "Did the bandits Zhao indiscriminately kill landlords and gentry?"

"They did not kill indiscriminately," Fei Yinghuan said. "Every time they went to a village or town, they would kill the local people who committed the most evil crimes to vent the people's anger. The rest of the landowners were forcibly divided into fields, but they kept their money, food, houses and houses."

"Are there any exploiting merchants?" Zou Weilian asked again.

Fei Yinghuan said: "All merchants are happy with the Zhao thief's government. On the contrary, the governor and chief envoy of Jiangxi Province have already complained about the heavy taxes imposed by the private banknote checkpoints."

Zou Weilian sighed: "This thief is really extraordinary."

Fei Yinghuan took out a copy of "The Collection of Great Harmony": "The ships passing through Linjiang Mansion and Ji'an Mansion will be forcibly sold a book of rebellion. Brother Dehui, please read it."

Zou Weilian opened the book and read it carefully. He was angry at first, and then terrified.

The articles written by these rebels actually contained many of the same thoughts as Zou Weilian himself.

Except for the rebellious remarks in it, Zou Weilian likes this book very much, and even feels a bit like seeing each other later.

Fei Yinghuan suddenly asked: "How many soldiers does Brother Dehui have, are you confident in defeating that Luling Zhao bandit?"

"How can I have any confidence?" Zou Weilian sighed, "I heard that the Zhao thief defeated two governors one after another, so he must be stronger now. Although I have more than 10,000 soldiers, I only have three or four thousand who can fight. The ones I rely on are only a thousand or so blunderbuss soldiers, and those ten or so Franc cannons."

Fei Yinghuan asked again: "Brother Dehui, why didn't he march in quickly and kill that bandit Zhao by surprise?"

Zou Weilian shook his head repeatedly: "In the suppression of bandits in southern Jiangxi, we achieved great victories one after another. My men are all arrogant soldiers. I stopped them again and prohibited them from looting in Jiangxi. The generals under my command have become increasingly disobedient. This time they moved to Ganzhou, firstly to raise money and food, secondly to recuperate the troops, and thirdly to enforce military discipline! If the military discipline is not strict, I definitely dare not go north to suppress the bandits."

"Brother is a man who knows how to fight." Fei Yinghuan admired.

For the next few days, Fei Yinghuan was not in a hurry to leave, so he went to Ganzhou to help Zou Weilian, and by the way, to investigate the situation in his army.

Wei Jianxiong quietly went north and sent a letter to Zhao Han.

Even the name of Lieutenant General Zou Weilian's army was written clearly in the letter, not to mention how many firecrackers and artillery there were.

(About Yuan Chonghuan, the discussion is more intense. I can only say that except for the time of Wang Tingshi's dismissal from office, which I got wrong by two months, all the content in the previous chapter is recorded in historical books. Yuan Chonghuan must have done it. He got into a lot of shit, but his attitude towards Mao Wenlong was first helpful, then helpless, and finally angry. There is too much content, so I will write it down in the author’s words.)

In the situation at that time, Mao Wenlong reported 200,000 troops, and Chongzhen only paid the army according to the actual number of more than 20,000 troops.

Both sides are outrageous.

Yuan Chonghuan could only make peace with each other, hoping to give Mao Wenlong Guanning iron cavalry treatment, and all the more than 20,000 soldiers would get double pay.

At this time, the relationship between Yuan Chonghuan and Mao Wenlong should be pretty good. Mao Wenlong agreed to double the salary and promised not to engage in salary plunder again, but Chongzhen firmly disagreed.

Bi Ziyan, the Minister of Household Affairs, returned the official document to Yuan Chonghuan, saying that he was helpless and could only obey the emperor's order and could not give Mao Wenlong double pay.

Civil servants, including Yuan Chonghuan, were angered by Mao Wenlong. At the beginning of the second year of Chongzhen, Mao Wenlong led troops to rob Dengzhou for the second time. Bi Ziyan, who had wanted to help before, took the initiative to cut off Mao Wenlong's military pay.

From beginning to end, Yuan Chonghuan always wanted to get along with each other.

Especially in August of the first year of Chongzhen, Mao Wenlong sent troops to Dengzhou, and the Tatars sent troops to Liaodong, which was equivalent to fighting each other and cooperating to attack the territory of the Ming Dynasty. While Yuan Chonghuan was fighting the Tatars, he asked for double pay for Mao Wenlong, which many civil servants would not be able to do.

I'm not trying to whitewash Yuan Chonghuan, he did have a lot of outrageous actions, but killing Mao Wenlong was really a helpless choice. Because Mao Wenlong has been forced by the court to have no way out, he must either rebel himself or seek refuge with the Tartars.

It was not Yuan Chonghuan's order to stop paying Mao Wenlong, but the Ministry of Households did not allocate money.