Chapter 756 Do you want to be the king of the subjugated country?
On June 26, the fourth year of Xuanping, the Forbidden City in midsummer was as hot as the southern provinces. However, even though the heat was unbearable, the doors and windows of Emperor Zhengde's palace were still closed!
Even though eunuchs would move in from time to time and put ice cubes in the ice cellar to cool down in the winter, the room still felt extremely stuffy.
Emperor Zhengde, who was on the dragon bed, struggled to read several memorials in person while being supported by his eunuchs.
Maybe it was because it was quite hard for him to do, or maybe because the content of the memorial made him angry and his face flushed a little!
The few eunuchs serving on the side, even the eunuch Bingbi, the eunuch in charge of etiquette inside, did not dare to take a breath!
Because just yesterday, a eunuch accidentally coughed a few times while Emperor Zhengde was reviewing a memorial, and Emperor Zhengde ordered him to drag him down and kill him with a cane!
During this period of time, Emperor Zhengde was in a very bad mood, very bad. This fact was not only known to these eunuchs, but also to the ministers in the outer court and even the concubines in the harem.
A little carelessness may lead to death with a stick or loss of office!
What made Emperor Zhengde feel so bad was naturally because the suppression of the puppet Tang Dynasty in the south did not go smoothly. Not only did it not go smoothly, but it also lost troops and generals. Even strategic towns like Changsha and Jiujiang were successively captured by the puppet Tang rebels.
Last month, there was a report from South Zhili that a small-scale bandit army had appeared in the South Zhili area. People in the vast Jiangnan area were in a panic, fearing that the puppet Tang bandit army would be able to attack them soon.
Jiangnan is coming.
Moreover, some southern officials who know military affairs, especially the puppet Tang rebel army, even said that according to the usual situation and methods of the puppet Tang rebel army, the spring and summer are the time for the puppet Tang rebel army to accumulate strength, and when the time comes
During the autumn harvest, the puppet Tang bandits would often launch large-scale offensives, which they called the Autumn and Winter Offensives!
Once the puppet Tang rebel army launches a new round of autumn and winter offensive this year, Jiangnan will probably not be protected!
Emperor Zhengde couldn't understand why this pseudo-Tang traitor army couldn't be beaten to death, and why did it get stronger the more it fought?
Is it because he didn't pay enough attention to it? No, on the contrary, Emperor Zhengde attached great importance to encircling and suppressing the puppet Tang rebels. He sent Zhang Yue to supervise six provinces, sent Wang Yiqi to sit in Jinling, and served as Minister of War in Nanjing. At the same time, he also mobilized no less than 40,000 border troops.
The army and tens of thousands of new northern troops sent the Beijing camp south to suppress the bandits, and the military expenditures spent were incalculable.
The military expenditures taken out of his inner treasury alone amounted to no less than five million taels!
He had been in power for more than 40 years, and he had intrigues with ministers, and was even accused of competing with the people for profit. Only then did he plunder a lot of money and reserve five to six million taels of silver in his inner treasury.
However, now, the money in the inner treasury has been almost spent, and the national treasury is even more empty. A rat could starve to death, but the puppet Tang traitor army cannot be wiped out.
Not only could it not be wiped out, but several provinces in the south were lost!
Who's to blame?
Do you blame him?
Shit, as the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he wanted to destroy the puppet Tang traitor army more than anyone else, and he was more concerned about it than anyone else, and he asked himself that he didn't do too many negative things.
Zhang Yue said that he would raise military funds to set up bandit pay in Huguang and other provinces. Although Emperor Zhengde might cause some subsequent trouble, he still went ahead.
Wang Yiqi said that there were not enough troops and said that he would send the border troops to go south. He was right!
Emperor Zhengde never rejected the rewards for meritorious soldiers reported from the south, and approved them all!
He asked himself, he did everything he needed to do!
Even the soldiers on the front line did what they should do. In the Battle of Hengyang, the entire army of 30,000 soldiers was wiped out, dozens of senior generals died on the battlefield, and Cheng Hongan, the dignified commander of the army, was defeated and died.
In the Battle of Changsha and the Battle of Jiujiang, countless soldiers fought to the death and suffered heavy casualties!
But I still can’t beat it!
Why?
He thought about this problem for two or three months but still couldn't figure it out!
Why are the puppet army of the Tang Dynasty so powerful? Because their guns are sharp? Just kidding, although the guns of the puppet army of the Tang Dynasty were indeed sharp in the early days, now the official army is also making large amounts of guns, even in terms of the number of guns, it is not inferior to
The puppet Tang Dynasty rebels.
It's because the tactics of the Puppet Tang Dynasty rebel army are more advanced, but Du Biao and other new armies also use the same tactics as the Puppet Tang Dynasty rebel army!
Emperor Zhengde still couldn't figure it out after two months of hard thinking!
This made him feel helpless that the general trend was so overwhelming!
Is it possible that he really wants to be a king who will subjugate his country?
But it shouldn’t be. He has been in charge for decades, and he thinks he has done better than most of the emperors of this dynasty and even many emperors in history. For more than forty years, although turmoil has occurred from time to time in various places, there has even been an outbreak of King Ning’s rebellion.
Such major events shocked the world, but they were all settled by him one by one.
The whole world dare not say that it is prosperous, but it is much stronger than before. Some time ago, some people even said that this dynasty is prosperous.
Sometimes, he would think that maybe after he passed away, future generations would give him an evaluation of a prosperous age of righteousness. Even if there was no evaluation of a prosperous age, a ZTE of righteousness would probably not be able to survive.
But under such a background, a monster like the Puppet Tang Thief Army appeared, and no matter how hard he fought, he couldn't be killed!
Especially when he thought that this autumn and winter, the Jiangnan area might be affected by war or even fall into the hands of thieves, he would even feel a sense of despair.
It's strange that he can be in a good mood like this!
At this time, the handbook from Shaanxi made him feel even worse! The booklet said that some time ago, someone in Shaanxi gathered a crowd to rebel, took the refugees and captured the local county. The local officials and soldiers did not dare to do so.
Without the slightest carelessness, for fear that if he let it go, another pseudo-Tang traitor army would come out, so he immediately used thunderous means, using tens of thousands of troops to defeat the rebels in one fell swoop.
But although this was a reward for victory, it still made Emperor Zhengde unhappy, and instead made him feel even worse.
Is this the first time this year that bandits have captured the county? Is it the eighth or ninth time?
In the past two years, perhaps due to the influence of the rise of the puppet Tang thief army, the ambitious people in the world have the illusion that the Central Plains is prosperous. Various rebellions have emerged in endlessly, several times more than in normal years.
And the scale is not small. There is even a Shandong guard commander who thinks he is so awesome that he actually plans to kidnap thousands of guard soldiers to rebel, and he even brazenly uses the puppet Tang rebel army to launch a partial division in the Northern Expedition.
He calls himself the King of Lu in the Tang Dynasty.
As a result, the new army that was newly organized and trained in Shandong in the past two years was directly defeated. The specific situation is that the 500 people in this Shandong training camp fired several volleys of guns and fired several rounds of artillery shells.
The rebels who got up dispersed in a hurry.
Although the Ming army, especially the various new troops in the Ming army, could not defeat the puppet Tang rebels in the south, they could still easily capture the other rebels!
Deer in the Central Plains are getting fat, this is definitely an illusion!
In this war for hegemony, in fact, both the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty were not weak in strength. The current Ming Dynasty is not from the late Ming Dynasty, and Emperor Zhengde is not Chongzhen. His methods are still very sharp.
The civil servants in the court were suppressed by him. Those eunuchs were just dogs that obeyed orders. They did whatever Emperor Zhengde asked them to do. The entire Ming Dynasty was under the control of Emperor Zhengde.
Not to mention the Tang Dynasty, with Li Xuan as an anomaly, it is definitely not something that ordinary rebels can compare with.
So in the past two years, whether it was under the Ming Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty, there were actually countless rebellions. In the Tang Dynasty, there were always armed tax resistance incidents, and in the Ming Dynasty, there were also various rebellions.
There are so many.
But so far, no rebel army with greater influence has emerged!
However, although the impact was not too great, it still made Emperor Zhengde feel a deep sense of crisis!
After putting down the memorial, he picked up another memorial. As soon as he looked at it, a rare joy flashed in his eyes. This was a memorial written by Wang Yiqi. It said that he had compiled it after months of rectification.
The Jiangnan New Army, which has 100,000 soldiers, is currently undergoing intensive training.
One hundred thousand Jiangnan new troops, plus other official troops, are enough to stop the puppet Tang rebel army, right?
However, this excerpt later stated that the new army in Jiangnan was seriously short of military expenditures and lacked guns, food and pay. It was hoped that Huguang, Jiangxi and other provinces could follow the example of Huguang, Jiangxi and other provinces and set up anti-thief pay in South Zhili, Zhejiang and Fujian.
At the same time, he also said that suppressing the bandit army is no longer a matter of a year or two. We must be prepared for long-term operations. In the last two or three years, we must focus on solid defense. We must defend the important areas in the south of the Yangtze River no matter what, use defense instead of attack, and consume
The vigor of the thief army is gone, and when the vigor of the thief army is lost, it is time to counterattack.
In order to fight for a long time, he proposed that not only the southern provinces, but also the northern provinces need to be set up to make up for the lack of military expenditure.
After Emperor Zhengde saw this document, he agreed with Wang Yiqi's long-term war vision. Although he wanted to destroy the puppet Tang rebel army in a short time, reality did not allow it.
But if the war is going to last for a long time, where this military expenditure will come from is a problem.
After thinking about it, he planned to convene his ministers in two days to discuss the matter of paying the bandits. At the same time, he also planned to prepare for rainy days and train more new armies in the northern provinces.
Wang Yiqi's method of reorganizing the garrison soldiers was quite good. He only selected the elite and turned the old and weak garrison soldiers into simple colonization soldiers. These selected elites were supplemented by the recruited young men to form the new Jiangnan Army.
This approach can be replicated in other provinces.
In this way, the guard station system can be retained without causing too much unrest, and at the same time, a new army with combat effectiveness can be obtained.
The only drawback is that it costs a lot of money!
But compared with the supervision and inspection model created by Zhang Yue, this new army model still costs less!
Although Emperor Zhengde did not give Zhang Yue much money, he also knew that Zhang Yue spent a lot of money on his supervision. Countless military expenditures were spent to train a supervision team, and its combat power was considered to be the first among the Ming army.
.
However, there is no one like Zhang Yue who dares to stare at the impeachment of countless people and collect money to support the army. At least Wang Yiqi does not dare to do this. Therefore, Zhang Yue's supervision standards cannot be copied, and Wang Yiqi's Jiangnan New
The army can be copied.
In addition, one Zhang Yue already made Emperor Zhengde afraid. The second and third Zhang Yue would make him sleep uneasy. He would not be able to wipe out the puppet Tang traitor army by then, but these supervisors
They rebelled again. When the time comes, what will Emperor Zhengde do to suppress these supervisors?