Chapter Three Hundred and One Death Remonstrance Encirclement and Suppression
The change in the direction of the wind in the court was, of course, to spread the word about the "Victory of Laizhou" to the world, and of course to reward the meritorious personnel. But at this time, the ministers who had planned the rewards suddenly remembered that there was another great victory that had not yet been rewarded.
That was the great victory of Jiyan (Jining Prefecture and Yanzhou).
No official raised any objection to the outcome of the Jiyao victory, because the memorials and heads handed over by officials from various places had formed a complete chain of evidence.
But when the officials who planned the rewards submitted the memorials about the rewards for the two great victories to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen was surprised to find that the lingering Henan garrison named "Wu Shigong" appeared again.
"Wang Banban, who is this Wu Shigong? Why does he sound so familiar to me?" Emperor Chongzhen asked Wang Cheng'en who was beside him.
"The emperor has such a good memory. He is the son-in-law of Marquis Xue!" Wang Chengen replied with a smile: "But that boy has a bad character. He was also greedy for money and lustful when he was the commander of Nancheng. I heard that he hooked up again later.
He married a widow and was driven to Henan by Marquis Xue."
"However, that boy was diligent as a general in the local area. Although he was not a good general, he was brave and dared to fight. When he was King Qin last time, he also followed General Qin to recover the four cities of Yongping and made some achievements."
"But he still hasn't changed his nature, so the old slave estimates that he must have some credit for fighting in Denglai this time, but the bad habits of the generals in those places must have been learned by the boy. It's really
It’s a stain on his noble background!”
Emperor Chongzhen also laughed. It is always pleasant to hear other people's family scandals. So he laughed and scolded: "Xuehou's beloved daughter is entrusted to a wrong person! That's all. I also want to give Xuehou some face.
Don’t worry about Wu Shou Bei anymore.”
Wu Shigong was carefree in Shandong, but Xue Lian, who understood the trend of the court, was worried about his son-in-law. Therefore, a few days ago, Xue Lian gave Wang Chengen another generous gift, so today Wang Chengen did this smooth favor.
.
However, Wu Shigong was quite unlucky. It should be said that Wu Shigong's performance in the Runing Battalion in wiping out Kong Youde's rebels in Shandong this time was remarkable, but he was almost imprisoned for no apparent reason.
However, it was a blessing in disguise. Also driven by Wu Shigong's unintentional victories, the countdown to the resignation of Zhou Yanru, the chief minister, had begun. This actually also made Wu Shigong's most worrying issue-after the war, he was transferred from Runing Mansion and received
A fundamental solution.
Afterwards, the internal officer who delivered the order came to Liu Yulie's army and read out the imperial edict awarding them. In addition to promising Liu Yulie that he could act cheaply and continue to recruit the rebels, the imperial edict only rewarded three military attachés.
One is Jiang Guerrilli from Henan. Of course, this is a posthumous gift. This posthumous gift is very generous, far exceeding the ordinary posthumous gift. However, no military attaché would envy or be jealous of Jiang Guerrilla.
The other one is Liu Zeqing, who was promoted to deputy general of Caozhou. Moreover, this promotion was a real-duty promotion.
The last one is Wu Shigong, who was promoted to the rank of Dusi of Runing Prefecture. But this promotion is a false promotion. The area under his jurisdiction and the number of troops have not increased. To be precise, he enjoys the treatment of Dusi and leads the garrison of Runing Prefecture.
Just a position.
In fact, it can be seen from here that the promotions of Liu Zeqing and Wu Shigong were all due to their meritorious service in the Jiyan Victory. In the Dengzhou Victory, except for Jiang Guerrilli who died in battle, all the military attachés were not rewarded.
Of course, the reason mentioned in the imperial edict was: after the rebels are wiped out, they will be rewarded together. But Liu Yulie and others knew that Emperor Chongzhen already knew the truth about the Denglai victory.
The boss was angry, and the consequences were serious. Zhou Yanru and Liu Yulie stepped up their efforts to appease him.
So since civilian officials can't recruit rebels, then find a Liaodong military general who has good relations with the military attache of Dongjiang Town to recruit them. At the end of May of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Liao general Sun Yinglong wrote a letter to persuade Geng Zhongming to surrender because he had a good old relationship with Geng Zhongming.
But Geng Zhongming used his plan and sent a random head over, saying that he had killed Kong Youde, and asked Sun Yinglong to quickly sail to accept the surrender. So Sun Yinglong happily led the navy fleet from Tianjin to Dengzhou.
But as soon as he landed, Sun Yinglong was killed by Geng Zhongming, and the large number of warships he carried became the spoils of war for the rebels. Then with the captured warships, the rebels repelled the sea attack of Huang Long, the general of Pi Island.
During the land attack, the rebels captured Zhaoyuan and seized a large amount of supplies and silver there, as well as more than 8,000 taels of gold. The amount of gold hidden by the rebel soldiers was several times this amount.
The Zhaoyuan Gold Mine is still famous until modern times. However, in the Ming Dynasty, it was abandoned by the court because of deception and the excuse of depletion of mineral resources. However, local officials and local tycoons colluded with each other to mine privately. But now the gold is
They all enriched Kong Youde's rebels.
Therefore, although the attack on Laiyang failed and Laizhou City was still under siege, the rebels' arrogance was still growing increasingly arrogant.
But the Ming Dynasty court still did not learn its lesson. In order to capture Laizhou City, the rebels repeated their old tricks and asked Governor Liu Yulie to surrender again, and proposed that they would surrender as long as several civil and military officials in Laizhou City came out of the city in person to declare the edict.
Under the pressure of Governor Liu Yulie, Denglai Governor Xie Lian, who had a glimmer of hope for recruitment, decided to go out of the city to recruit surrender. As soon as he and Laizhou Magistrate Zhu Wannian left the city, Kong Youde knelt down in tears and said that he was guilty of death. Kong Youde was so surprised.
His realistic performance really deserves the Oscar for Best Actor.
Kong Youde also said that during the surrender ceremony the next day, he invited Commander-in-Chief Yang Yufan to attend. When Xie Lian returned to the city, Commander-in-Chief Yang Yufan, who came from a military family, was well aware of the capricious nature of the rebels and refused to leave the city. Here, we can
We have a profound understanding that sometimes, military attachés do have higher IQs than civilian officials.
Sure enough, on the next day, which was the Qixi Festival of this year, Xie Lian and Zhu Wancheng were arrested by the rebels as they left the city again. The rebels took them hostage and ordered Yang Yufan to surrender to the city. But Zhu Wancheng shouted: We
He's dead, you must hold on! Surrounding me are the elite troops of the rebels, fire at me quickly!
Yang Yufan also decisively ordered artillery fire on the densely populated areas of the rebels. The rebels suffered heavy casualties, but Zhu Wancheng also died under his own artillery fire.
Although this bravery like Wang Cheng's makes people sigh, we also feel a little tired of the fact that the rebels have repeatedly succeeded in pretending to surrender.
If you are a human being, you will never step into the same cesspit twice. However, the most elite group of scholar-bureaucrats in the Ming Dynasty were repeatedly manipulated by a few low-grade rebel generals who were former miners. This situation
It really makes people speechless!
But at this time, Zhou Yanru and other main sponsors still insisted on recruiting. Not to mention, Zhou Yanru's eloquence was indeed good, and Wen Tiren was also watching Zhou Yanru's clown-like performance, waiting for how long he would perform.
.So Emperor Chongzhen still hesitated whether to suppress or appease.
But some upright ministers could no longer stand it! Liu Erzhi, a native of Laizhou, the Minister of Hubu, and a great calligrapher, hit his head on a pillar in the court hall and died when the two factions were arguing. His death remonstrance finally convinced Emperor Chongzhen
Zhou Yanru was determined to send a powerful force to encircle and suppress the rebels. The death of Liu Erzhi completely ruined Zhou Yanru's dream of being the first assistant.
At this time, General Yang Yufan, one of the four remaining members of Laizhou City, led the Laizhou army and civilians alone to continue to defend Laizhou City. He adhered to Xu Congzhi's belief of never leaving, not surrendering, not appeasing, and fighting to the death to fight against the rebels. Their actions
It firmly held back the rebels.
Liu Yulie was dismissed from the post of governor by Emperor Chongzhen and returned to Beijing to report on his duties. The person who succeeded Liu Yulie was Zhu Dadian, the new governor of Shandong. And with Zhu Dadian, there were also 20,000 eunuchs and 20,000 men who were hiding in the supervisory army.
But at this time, the successive victories had already made Kong Youde and others go to their heads. When Kong Youde knew the news, he said contemptuously: I think killing the Shandong soldiers is as easy as cutting melons and beans. Even though they came with hundreds of thousands of people, they
What can be done?
It is indeed true that successive victories have made the rebels stronger. During the eight months of Kong Youde's rebellion, he continued to recruit and recruit rebels. In Mao Wenlong's old tribe in Liaodong, people continued to cross the sea to defect to him. He also recruited soldiers across the Yellow and Bohai Seas.
There were many pirates, pirates, and a large number of refugees who fled.
But what Kong Youde didn't know was that the 20,000 troops brought by Zhu Dadian and Gao Qiqian this time were not all Shandong troops. Among them, the elite 5,000 troops were composed of the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, Jin Guoqi, Jin Guochen, and the Zu family.
They were led by powerful generals such as Zu Dabi and Zu Kuan, who were nicknamed "Zu Er Madman", as well as Wu Xiang, who had done meritorious service, and his son Wu Sangui, an officer of the Young Zhuang faction.
Since Wu Shigong built the front camp in early April, the spies he sent out had several small-scale strangulation battles with the rebel spies. However, neither side had the intention to cause a war, so after several more tests, in Shahe, both sides
A de facto ceasefire line was formed.
In the next three months, Wu Shigong and Liu Zeqing's former army had nothing to do. Except for Liu Zeqing becoming Liu's deputy general and Wu Shigong becoming Wu Dusi, they just enjoyed Kong Youde's performance of toying with the civil servants.
But Wu Shigong didn't know that he was temporarily free, but the three bold military attachés he left in Henan were thinking of planning an independent military operation.