Wu Shigong then had a cordial conversation with Xuan Mo in a friendly and harmonious atmosphere. They agreed that each would be responsible for suppressing bandits in the north and south of Henan, and would exchange information and work together to pacify the entire territory of Henan as soon as possible.
After that, the two will cooperate with each other to try to prevent the peasant rebels from entering Henan again. To this end, Xuanmo also agreed to Wu Shigong and gave Wu Shigong twenty low-level officials from Runing, Nanyang, Guide and Ruzhou.
Wu Shigong can designate the quota by himself. All he has to do is go to the governor's office to apply for approval and leave a file with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
It should be said that Xuan Mo fully supported Wu Shigong. Although he also had his own goals, such support made Wu Shigong and Xuan Mo immediately form an alliance.
When the two were chatting happily, Hong Chengchou also unexpectedly came to the back hall. When he saw Xuan Mo and Wu Shigong, he smiled and said: "I wanted to ask Xuan Fu for someone, but I never thought that Xuan Fu would get there first.
Governor, it is good for a gentleman not to take advantage of others. But I would like to have a few words with you two. Do you welcome me?"
When Hong Chengchou saw Xuan Mo and Wu Shigong leaving the banquet one after another, he couldn't help but leave the banquet and go looking for them. But as soon as he saw Wu Shigong and Xuan Mo chatting and laughing, he knew that he was a step too late.
So Hong Chengchou simply joined the conversation, and after some bargaining, the three reached the following agreement:
Wu Shigong will supply Hong Chengchou's army with 5,000 shi of grain free of charge, and will allow Hong Chengchou to take 10,000 shi of food on credit. If Hong Chengchou requests it, the Runing Army will send troops to escort the grain and grass to ensure the smooth flow of food routes for the officers and soldiers who are suppressing bandits in Huguang;
The Runing Army and Xuanmo's Henan officers and soldiers will jointly operate to wipe out the remaining bandits in Henan as soon as possible. After that, on the basis of ensuring that the peasant rebels are prevented from entering Henan again, five months later, General Wu Shigong will personally lead many
Six thousand Runing troops joined Hong Chengchou's bandit-suppressing army;
Hong Chengchou strongly supported Wu Shigong's idea of setting up granaries along the section from Xinyang to Wuchang, and issued a document to the officials along the way asking him to cooperate with the Runing Army in its implementation;
Hong Chengchou will squeeze out 5,000 taels of military pay per month from the military expenses for suppressing bandits to pay to the Runing Army.
This agreement also served everyone well. For Wu Shigong, the biggest gain was the opening of the road to the Yangtze River through Xinyang. Hong Chengchou also had no worries, at least saving a large number of troops responsible for transporting grain. And five months later, there were
With the addition of a new force, the Runing Army, as for Xuanmo, he can safely annihilate the bandits in Henan in a short period of time. Moreover, the military expenditures given by Hong Chengchou to the Runing Army can also reduce some local expenditures in Henan.
However, in this discussion, although Wu Shigong still respectfully placed himself at the bottom, judging from the process and results of the discussion, he was already on an equal footing with Hong Chengchou and Xuan Mo.
Wu Shigong did not go to Xinyang after that. He wanted to make adjustments as soon as possible to meet this great change. The other Ming armies also rushed to Xinyang one after another. However, the other Ming armies basically had no major events. Only Zuo Liangyu
His troops clashed with the Runing Army several times. After losing hundreds of people, a disgraced Zuo Liangyu rushed to Xinyang.
As soon as he arrived in Xinyang, Zuo Liangyu immediately complained to Hong Chengchou, but Hong Chengchou was in a good mood and ignored him at all. Therefore, the matter was dropped.
In April of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Hong Chengchou held a military meeting in Xinyang. During the military meeting, Hong Chengchou proposed: "There must be a long-term strategy to control thieves. I went to Yu and the thieves went to Qin, and I went to Qin and the thieves went to Chu and Yu... Now we must divide the trust.
The ground is choked."
The key to Hong Chengchou's plan was to press the whole court and add regional defense. You must know that at this time, Hong Chengchou was the governor of three sides and the governor of five provinces. He had to protect half of the Ming Dynasty. He had great power and great responsibility.
According to Hong Chengchou's deployment, Zuo Liangyu, Tang Jiuzhou, You Shiwei, Xu Laichao, Deng Qi, Chen Yongfu, Zhang Yingchang and others each led thousands of troops to garrison the pass fortresses between Shaanxi, Henan and Huguang to prevent the peasant rebels from flowing into Shanxi.
, Huguang, Henan.
Wu Gang, the governor of Shanxi, was ordered to strictly guard the Yellow River crossing to prevent the peasant army from entering Shanxi from Shaanxi, in an attempt to block the peasant army entering Shaanxi. Hong Chengchou personally led Cao Wenzhao, He Renlong, Ai Wannian, Zhang Yingchang and other main forces back to Shaanxi
.Responsible for commanding the elimination of the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi.
On the surface, there is absolutely no problem with this plan. However, the situation changed again at this time. After several months, the strength of the peasant rebel army was greatly different.
Previously, Zhang Xianzhong's troops came to avoid the real situation and attack the weak. They led the army westward from southern Anhui, passed through Huoshan and Yingshan, entered Huguang, met up with Lao Huihui, passed Tianxing and other troops, and drove westward, passing through Zaoyang, Xiangyang, and Xunyun.
He followed the old road to Yang, entered Shangzhou, occupied the Shaanxi area with empty troops, and joined Shangzhou again with Gao Yingxiang and Fengxiang.
As the Shaanxi official army left Tongguan and entered the Central Plains, all the peasant rebel armies returned to the Qin Dynasty. They were completely hiding from the official army. At this time, the situation in Shaanxi was "extremely dilapidated and famine-stricken", and the farmers had no hope of survival.
So after a large group of peasant rebels entered the Qin Dynasty, hungry people joined in enthusiastically, and the total number of people participating in the rebellion soon reached more than two million.
Guaiguai Longdi Dong! Two million people! It’s a real number, not an imaginary number. This is almost half of the population of Shaanxi. Therefore, it can be said that except for the people in the city, almost the entire population of Shaanxi has rebelled.
Not only that, through successive years of fighting, the peasant rebel army has developed some strong armies. More importantly, after winning successive victories, they have the courage to actively fight against the official army, instead of passively resisting like before.
So Hong Chengchou's plan ran into problems. Obviously, the total strength of the government and army was not large to begin with. Facing the huge peasant rebel army, they were already unable to cope with the huge number of peasant rebels. Now that each army is divided into guard units, the number of troops used for pursuit and suppression will be
Less.
At this time, the number of peasant rebels had increased significantly compared with the past, often several times to dozens of times that of the official army. Facing the overwhelming majority of peasant rebels, the official army had no confidence in winning and could not realize Hong Chengchou's plan.
The mission of encircling and suppressing the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi.
On the other hand, the generals stationed in various places do not have many troops, and they cannot play the role of intercepting the peasant rebels at all. As soon as the peasant rebels find an opportunity, they will immediately look for weak spots and move around.
But what was Hong Chengchou thinking? Although he did not know that the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi had expanded to such a scale, Hong Chengchou still knew that it was impossible to annihilate the peasant rebel army only by following this battle plan.
But Hong Chengchou had no choice. Emperor Chongzhen's order to exterminate the rebels within six months was still in his ears, and it didn't take long before Fengyang fell, so Hong Chengchou had to give Emperor Chongzhen an explanation no matter what.
Therefore, Hong Chengchou used this military plan to achieve his political goals: It doesn't matter if the peasant rebels cannot be eliminated in Shaanxi, as long as they can be driven out, and the rest will be done by the generals responsible for blocking. If they can intercept
It's best to stay there. It doesn't matter if you can't stop him. Hong Chengchou can easily find a scapegoat.
In fact, we have learned from the agreement between Hong Chengchou and Wu Shigong that Hong Chengchou had no illusions about suppressing the peasant rebel army in six months. His plan was to first stabilize the peripheral areas of the peasant rebel army's activities, and then gradually suppress the peasant rebellion.
The area where the army was active was the last word, and the peasant rebel army was completely wiped out with the final blow.
But to make all this come true, the first thing is to fool Emperor Chongzhen. If Hong Chengchou himself loses his official position, no matter how beautiful the idea is, no matter how perfect the plan is, it will be a castle in the air.
"Sir! The people we sent to Kaifeng sent a reply: The woman said that our people have promised her, and from now on she has nothing to do with our Shanchuan Division." Li Zhu said cautiously while peeking at Xue Zhinong's face.
"Fart! Who promised her?" Xue Zhinong was really angry.
"Yes...it's the younger uncle!" Li Zhu replied hesitantly.
Thinking of shopkeeper Li, Xue Zhinong could no longer get angry. He let out a long sigh to suppress his emotions, and then said: "Tell that woman that she was born as a member of our Shanchuan Division and died as a ghost of our Shanchuan Division. She wants to leave."
?In the next life! No one from our Shanchuan Division ever quits!"
Xue Zhinong has been in a bad mood these days. First of all, the Shanchuan Division is no longer the unique intelligence agency of the Runing Army. The Military Intelligence Bureau of the Military Command Division established by Xue Cunyi has divided a large part of the power of the Shanchuan Division.
And his deputy Zheng Ling has also become the person in charge of the intelligence collection in the inner study, basically breaking away from the Shanchuan Division system. This made Xue Zhinong, who had been trusted by Wu Shigong before, feel a great crisis.
And now he heard that Tang Mei was leaving the Shanchuan Division, which made Xue Zhinong even more angry. Finally, she had an ace female spy who could take action, but she wanted to leave, and there was no such door. But now
Xue Zhinong was also a little anxious. He was eager to make some impressive results for Wu Shigong to see.
After thinking for a while, Xue Zhinong said to the newly promoted deputy Li Zhu: "How are you getting in touch with the people in the village?"
"Just connected! But the Reclamation Company is doing similar things. Sir! Is this good for us?"
"What does he care about? They are all doing things for my uncle. Whoever gets it first will get the credit. Go ahead and do it as soon as possible!"
What Xue Zhinong wants to do is to recruit those bandits who have formed strongholds in Ruzhou, Nanyang, Kaifeng and other places through the relationship of selling weapons in the past, so that they can surrender to the Runing Army as much as possible, so that the Runing Army can control these new areas as soon as possible.
.
But because Chang Meng's reclamation firm is also doing the same thing, there is some overlap between the two parties' work. But now Xue Zhinong can no longer control so much. As long as he has merit, he will be offended if he offends the reclamation firm! (To be continued