The suggestions they made to Ma Shiying were nothing more than repeating the old saying of "uniting the captives to defeat the bandits". This old saying had already deceived Emperor Chongzhen and Sun Chuanting in the past. It stands to reason that as long as Ma Shiying has a little bit of brains,
This will prevent us from repeating the mistakes of the Maritime Alliance and Duan Ping entering Luo.
However, the Southern Mission of the Qing Dynasty in Nanjing, which emphasized "distance and close attack", still greatly interested Ma Shiying and the ministers of the three towns. Especially after He Tengjiao failed in his northern expedition and lost his wife and troops, one of the key points in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River was
Di, Wuchang, Yueyang, and Jiujiang are all under the control of Dashun. Chu controls the upper reaches, while Wu is in the lower reaches. "Chuang Nie" flows eastward along the river. How can the Wu people not feel like they have a light on their backs?
In addition, the Southern Mission of the Qing Dynasty exaggerated the prosperity of the Central Plains and Huguang. Of course, Dorgon originally instructed the mission to exaggerate the success of Dashun in managing the Central Plains and the prosperity of the place, so as to lure the Southern Ming monarchs and ministers to send troops to plunder the wealth of the Central Plains.
However, it is obvious that the Han ministers in the envoy knew the nature of Hongguang's monarchs and ministers better than their masters. Therefore, they did not mention Dashun's management of the Central Plains at all, but only emphasized that every time Dashun conquered a city, every gram
In one place, the whole city must be wiped out, and the stolen goods must be tortured and recovered. He also made an extremely exaggerated exaggeration of the gains from Dashun's plundering, saying that Dashun destroyed hundreds of prefectures and counties, and each city received more than 100,000 silver. Kaifeng's accumulated gold
The silver treasure is already over 70 million taels.
Such a huge sum of money was of course extremely tempting to Ma Shiying, who was feeling helpless due to financial difficulties. The other ministers of the three towns, even a gentleman like Huang Degong, were also very interested in it.
It's just that Gao Qian had experience fighting against the Dashun Army. He knew very well how powerful the Jin King Li Laiheng was, and he didn't believe that Jiangnan's troops could fight the Dashun Army in a decisive battle. Since he didn't have the power to defeat the Dashun Army, he could capture and plunder the Dashun Army.
The huge wealth of tens of millions and taels has also become empty talk.
However, the Qing Dynasty's southern mission lost no time in introducing the current situation of the Yellow River War to Hongguang Jun and his ministers. Since the beginning of this year, the Qing army has launched a large-scale southern expedition. It has won consecutive victories in Cizhou, Daming and other places, and has defeated all the field battles of the Dashun Army.
The main force was attracted to the front line of the Yellow River.
Nowadays, the Central Plains is empty, and "Chuang Ni" only retains "tens of thousands of boatmen" in Wuchang, Yueyang and other places. This is the reason for the failure of He Tengjiao's Northern Expedition. However, except for the navy in Huguang, from Guan, Luo to Kai, Gui,
From Nanyang to Xuzhou, on this vast front line of thousands of miles in the Central Plains, "Chuang Nie" left almost no soldiers.
In the southern part of Henan and the western and southern parts of Shandong, the local officials and gentry were in great distress due to the "Chuang Nie" theory of robbing and equalizing land, and were in urgent need of rescue from the Jiangnan King.
If the three towns send troops at this time, they will definitely have the effect of occupying a large area of territory without losing any blood.
Originally, except for Huang Degong, who had the idea of restoring the Central Plains, Gao Qian and Liu Liangzuo were already satisfied with the territory and status they had obtained and had no interest in the Northern Expedition.
However, due to the power of Ma Shiying's alliance with the three towns, it was not able to completely overwhelm the Supporting Tang and Supporting Lu factions. After Hongguang became emperor, the Supporting Tang and Supporting Lu factions separated their respective regions and could not lose their power, making the three towns' food and salary problems difficult for Ma Shiying to solve.
difficult problem.
The Southern Mission of the Qing Dynasty, starting from the aspect of money and food, used Kaifeng's accumulated silver of 70 million as bait to lure the ministers of the three towns. Now even Gao Qian, who knew Li Laiheng's details very well, was attracted by it.
Trying to send troops back to Germany, the idea of Xuzhou.
When the ministers in the south of the Yangtze River were still hesitant, the Qing Dynasty's southern envoy received another secret letter from Fan Wencheng by sea. After the great victory in Liaocheng, the war situation in the north was undergoing chain changes. In the secret letter, Fan Wencheng urgently requested the envoy to spare no effort. At all costs, the Nanming court must be instigated to send troops as soon as possible, and at least some of the troops must be restrained.
Under such circumstances, the Southern Mission immediately relaxed its tone and proposed an irresistible and tempting offer to Hongguang Junchen:
The Qing government will return Tongzhi Emperor Zhu Cixiang, other Chongzhen princes, and northern vassals to the south of the Yangtze River within this year.
In terms of patriarchal status, Zhu Yousong was far less orthodox than Chongzhen's crown prince Zhu Cixiang. Therefore, Emperor Tongzhi in Beijing has always been the heaviest shadow on the Jiangnan court. Now the Qing court not only agreed to return Emperor Tongzhi, but even proposed other Chongzhen princes and their fall. All the royal family princes in the north can be returned to the south of the Yangtze River.
This can completely dispel Zhu Yousong's inner worries, greatly consolidate the orthodox status of the Hongguang court, and internally suppress the forces of the pro-Tang and pro-Lu factions.
Therefore, under the multi-pronged approach of the Southern Mission, Jiangnan finally took the bait, and the Hongguang monarch and his ministers had agreed in principle to the strategic plan of sending troops to the Northern Expedition to lead the Eastern Division.
But in terms of details, Gao Qian, who was familiar with the combat effectiveness of the Dashun Army, was still very unconfident. He was very worried that if the situation in the north was not as optimistic as the Qing Dynasty's southern mission said, and if the warlords of the three towns were damaged during the Northern Expedition, then The Hongguang court is likely to be overthrown by the pro-Tang and pro-Lu factions who have retained their strength.
For this reason, Ma Shiying proposed a plan for the three factions, King Fu, King Tang, and King Lu, to join forces to send troops to the Northern Expedition to restore the Central Plains.
Because Hongguang Junchen was the first to propose the Northern Expedition, he could occupy the political and moral high ground. Ma Shiying was not worried about the opposition of the pro-Tang faction and the pro-Lu faction. Even if these two local forces were resolutely unwilling to send troops in order to preserve their strength, Ma Shiying could use this as an excuse to attack The pro-Tang faction and the pro-Lu faction adopted methods of suppression, attack, and disintegration.
Most of the Supporting Tang faction were from the north, and Liu Zeqing was a native of Shandong, the main battlefield of the Northern Expedition. Using the righteousness of the Northern Expedition as an excuse, he could just use the power of the Supporting Tang faction.
The Supporting Lu faction is in a lot of trouble. Huang Mingjun, the governor of Zhejiang, is a civil servant, but he has close relations with the local forces in the south of the Yangtze River and the Donglin Party. Like Zhu Dadian, he has mastered the local regiment training and armed forces in Zhejiang, and is one of Ma Shiying's political opponents. Fujian Zheng The family is also a household dog and will not leave Fujian easily.
It would be very difficult to mobilize the Yong-Lu faction to participate in the Northern Expedition. But if the Yong-Lu faction did not send troops, then the warlords of the three towns and the Yong-Tang faction would definitely not take action.
If everyone continues to be in this stalemate, Ma Shiying, who will still be unable to pay the warlords of the three towns in another month, will have to consider whether his position as chief auxiliary can still be maintained.
Therefore, Ma Shiying tried every means to ensure that the warlords of the three towns, the pro-Tang faction, and the pro-Lu faction sent troops at the same time, so that the Jiangnan court could decide on the Northern Expedition. Under such wrangling, although Hongguang monarch and ministers had unanimously agreed with the Northern Expedition, the date of dispatching the troops was not The further you delay, the further away you go.
This is undoubtedly a big bad news for the Qing court. If it continues like this, the war will end in the north!
The Battle of Jiahe has reached a critical moment. If Nanming does not send troops, it is estimated that they will have no chance to send troops in the future. Zheng Sen, who had just returned to Nanjing from Fujian at this time, had a clear understanding of this.
However, Zheng Sen believed that at this time, the Southern Ming Dynasty sent troops to the Northern Expedition, which was nothing more than an attempt to gain traction for the captives. Even if it gained the land of Henan, it would only end up with the same self-defeating result as the Southern Song Dynasty when Duan Ping entered Luo.
Zheng Sen's opinion was that Jiangnan should of course organize a large army for the Northern Expedition, but after the Northern Expedition arrived near Xuzhou, they should rely on the military strength of the Southern Ming army as a bargaining chip, and at the same time start negotiations with Shun and Qing.
At that time, the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Southern Ming Dynasty will become the most critical factor on the battlefield of the decisive battle between the Shun and Qing Dynasties, and will be fought hard by both sides at the same time.
Zheng Sen believed that if he wanted to protect the south of the Yangtze River, he must strive to reach the upper reaches. Therefore, what he hoped was to "unite the invaders and quell the captives." After the Jiangnan Northern Expedition arrived in Xuzhou, they would assist the Shun army in repelling the Qing army in exchange for the "remnants of the enemy" to conquer Wuchang, Jiujiang, and other places.
Yueyang was returned to Ming Dynasty.
Zheng Sen's idea also has no practical practicality, but his starting point is much better than that of Hongguang Junchen, and it also hits the key points of the Chinese barbarian defense, and can get more support from some knowledgeable people.
Even Zheng Sen's father, Zheng Zhilong, who has been immersed in Wenwen Township for many years, thinks his son has a good idea. After all, the Hongguang court only occupies a corner of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. If it can achieve its purpose of "borrowing Jingzhou" by forming an alliance with the intruders,
, you can consolidate the Yangtze River defense line.
In the worst case scenario, the Southern Dynasty could last for more than a hundred years!