"The Ming Dynasty will not die quickly, but it cannot win quickly either!" Zhu Yihai said straightforwardly to his closest ministers, "We must be prepared for a protracted war and accumulate small victories into big victories!"
On the battleship going north, Zhu Yihai was blowing the warm sea breeze of early summer, and did not forget to give instructions to Sichuan, Shaanxi and other places in the far west. "He Zhen's army collapsed, Ma Ke surrendered, Zhang Xianzhong pretended to surrender and rebelled, destroying Sichuan and heading north. Many people suggested The imperial court sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight, causing them both to suffer losses. Some even proposed to negotiate peace with the Tatars and join forces to kill the Western bandits!"
"Ridiculous, ridiculous!"
"These people must be the same people who proposed joining forces to destroy the bandits when Zhu Yousong was in Nanjing. They still haven't woken up to this day."
Zhu Yihai was very dissatisfied with these officials.
There were too many bad teammates in the court who could not be brought under control. Even though he repeatedly strictly prohibited internal fighting within the party, some people still did not forget this. Before Zhu Dadian's army was defeated in Huguang, countless people impeached him and listed his culpability. They opened up old scores and tried to settle him thoroughly, calling for his death or even his execution at a languid time.
Just like when the Beijing court killed Yuan Chonghuan.
Although Zhu Yihai felt that Yuan Chonghuan was not entirely unjust when he was killed, he believed that given the situation at that time, Yuan Chonghuan was still the Imperial Supervisor anyway, and in Liaodong he had 70% merit and 30% fault, so the court should not have killed him at all. , Chongzhen should not be killed.
This is the same as Yuan Chonghuan should not kill Mao Wenlong.
Chongzhen killed Yuan Chonghuan, which caused a lot of harm but no benefit. It did not achieve the results he wanted, but instead ruined the monarch's authority and the people's support.
Zhu Dadian was defeated, but Zhu Dahai did not punish him at all, and even sent a special envoy to comfort him. Why, because he knew very well that the situation in Huguang was very critical at that time, and Zhu Dadian had only a short time to achieve a small climax victory. It's not easy anymore.
It can even be said that regardless of whether He Tengjiao, Zhu Dadian, or Du Yinxi were in charge, given the objective conditions at the time, the army would inevitably collapse. This was a crime other than war.
If Zhu Yihai couldn't see through this and couldn't tolerate any failure, he had previously appointed him as the Grand Master of the Superintendent. In the blink of an eye, he immediately shouted for beatings, killing, capturing and jailing. This would not help the overall situation, but would make the whole Huguang even worse in the future. Chaos, who will dare to do things in the future?
In order to avoid being held accountable by the court, it is very likely that like the Liao generals such as Zu Dashou who later reported only good news but not bad news, they even lied about the military situation. In the Chongzhen Dynasty, whether it was Zhou Yanru, Wen Tiren or other supervising ministers, in the end Basically it's the same.
Why?
It's because the imperial court cannot tolerate any mistakes.
Zhu Yihai is well aware of the situation in Huguang, so he can accept Huguang's defeat, and he also knows clearly that it is not Zhu Dadian's fault. He can accept the failure and continue to reuse Zhu Dadian, and avoid greater turmoil in Huguang, and avoid someone taking the opportunity to liquidate or even re-employ him. Set off internal strife.
Zhu Dadian's status as governor was maintained, and Du Yinxi and others were still in charge of Huguang to avoid the situation from getting worse.
Facts have proved that Zhu Yihai was right to do this. Zhu Dadian was saved, and Du Yinxi and others became more and more grateful for their hard work. With the reinforcements of Qu Shichu of Guangxi, Zhang Mingzhen of Jiangxi, etc., they quickly put down the rebellion of Liu Chengyin, Zhang Xianbi, and others of the dynasty, and stabilized the situation. Lived the situation south of Dongting Lake.
Even after Zhu Shengli arrived with his Huguang battalion, he recaptured Changsha and Yueyang.
Most of the chieftains from various places who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty returned to the Ming Dynasty.
At least it did not make the situation worse, and even launched multiple attacks on the Qing troops in Xiangyang, Jingzhou and other places, which effectively contained the Qing troops in Huguang and continued to raid the Jianghan Plain, robbing people, cattle, food, etc., and destroying
Their farming made it impossible for the large granary of Huguang to provide food for the Qing army. Even the local Qing army in Hubei was not supplied with food.
In Zhu Yihai's opinion, this is already a great success.
However, there are always some officials in the imperial court who are still trying to settle old scores about the defeat of the Wuchang army. They always make trouble for Zhu Dadian. One day they say they should be killed, and the next day they say they are harming the country. They also always say that there were hundreds of thousands of Huguang loyalists
People and horses, it seems like the numbers on the paper are the same.
Zhu Yihai could only reprimand such brainless or evil-hearted officials, but there were too many of them.
The situation in Sichuan and Shaanxi is now worse than that in Huguang.
After the Xi'an army was defeated, a large group of people jumped out and shouted for death. They wanted to punish the governor Gao Doushu, the governor Sun Shoufa, the admiral He Zhen, the governor Wen Anzhi, and the chief military officers Liu Tichun and Wang Guangtai.
Wu Da Ding et al.
One shouted more fiercely than the other.
After Zhang Xianzhong faked his surrender, he rebelled and went north again. Many people began to accuse Wen Anzhi, saying that he mistakenly trusted the traitors. Some people proposed to unite with the captives to destroy the traitors. They first united with the Qing army to completely strangle Zhang Xianzhong to get rid of this cancer.
What else can be said about taking this opportunity to reach a peace agreement, in which Sichuan and Hanzhong will return to the Ming Dynasty, Shaanxi and Gansu will return to the Qing Dynasty, Hubei will return to the Qing Dynasty and Hunan will return to the Ming Dynasty, the boundaries will be formally demarcated, and the north and south will have a truce and peace talks, etc.
It's just farting.
Although some did not say that they would unite with the captives to destroy the bandits, they still wanted the court to sit back and watch the Tatars and Western bandits attack each other.
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Some people even suggested that in order to allow the Tatars to fight the Western bandits with peace of mind, the imperial court should not send troops to fight the Tatars for the time being.
This is also fart.
Although Zhu Yihai is also very dissatisfied with Zhang Xianzhong, this guy was the first group to rebel against the Ming Dynasty and is also the group that has lasted the longest. However, under the current situation, the Tatars are the thorn in their side, and Zhang Xianzhong is the secondary conflict. Even in the face of invasion
In the face of the alien Tartars, we can still find ways to put aside our prejudices and fight for a united front first.
Even if Zhang Xianzhong was selfish, Zhu Yihai could not sit back and watch, let alone provide the Tatars with an opportunity to beat Zhang Xianzhong in peace.
Strategically speaking, the Tatars are now stronger than the Ming Dynasty, so even if Zhang Xianzhong is rebelling now, as long as he fights the Tatars, he can still be considered a temporary ally.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
They are fighting on the Western Front, and Zhu Yihai must seize the opportunity to open up a battlefield on the Eastern Front.
If you think of watching the excitement and eating melon, that is either stupid or bad.
When the Tatars can annihilate Zhang Xianzhong with all their strength without any worries, it may not be that both sides suffer losses, but the Qing army takes advantage of the situation to occupy Hanzhong, and even goes straight into Sichuan, and then annexes the Western army's horse money and food, and its strength may not decrease but increase.
At that time, Daming regretted it too much.
The Qing army had just entered the Pass a year ago. At that time, the Shun army was defeated. Hong Guangchao wanted to take the opportunity to unite with the Qing army to kill the Shun army first. What he didn't expect was that after the Shun army completely collapsed, the Qing army also collapsed.
Taking advantage of the trend, they captured Nanjing and Hangzhou in one wave, taking away the emperor and the governor.
Although Li Zicheng was not a good bird at that time. He invaded Beijing and forced Chongzhen to death. He was indeed the great enemy of the imperial court. But under the situation at that time, if we could have been more rational, when the Qing army attacked the Shun army, the Ming army was in Henan and Shandong.
If the Qing army is contained, Li Zicheng will not be defeated so quickly, and the Hongguang Dynasty will not be defeated so quickly.
Both the Shun army and the Qing army are enemies, but it is necessary to unite the weak and separate the strong.
Just like the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu had no real allies, but Wu and Shu were defeated by Wei Qiang. If they wanted to survive, they had to unite against Wei. If Wu and Shu fought on their own first, they would be just a short distance away from being destroyed by Wei. Not far away.
"Let Wen Anzhi pay close attention to the movements of the Western bandits and Tartars. We can open the way for them to start fighting in Guanzhong, but this does not mean that we will just sit on the sidelines. With the current situation, we do not have the capital to watch."
"Your Majesty's intention?" Shen Tingyang asked.
"Letting Zhang Xianzhong go north is to avoid fighting with them first and letting the Tatars reap the benefits. But we still have to remember that the primary enemy is the Tatars, and only the Tatars. Now the Tatars have surrendered Ma Ke and won the victory. After capturing Hanzhong and gaining an advantage, Zhang Xianzhong's entire army marched northward. However, I feel that even if Zhang Xianzhong tried his best, he might not be a match for the Tartars. Therefore, we not only want to conduct the Northern Expedition on the eastern front to contain some Qing troops.
Even on the Western Front, we must go directly to the field to help."
"Let the remaining troops and horses from various places in Shaanxi and Gansu move closer to the Zhongnan Mountains and Longyou area, and at the same time launch attacks in a timely manner to create some trouble in the rear of the Tatars.
At the same time, the Ming army in Yunyang, Sichuan and other places also looked for opportunities to launch attacks on the Qing army.
We cannot allow the Tatars to attack Zhang Xianzhong with all their strength!"
Hanzhong was the main battlefield. The Ming army gave way and allowed the Qing army and the Western Army to fight. However, the Ming army could not just sit idle and eat melon, and had to help from the sidelines.
From Shaanxi-Gansu to Huguang, a wave of offensives must be launched. Take advantage of this opportunity to attack the Qing army as much as possible. If you can disrupt and attack their logistics, food and salary supply lines, that would be even better.
"Your Majesty, if we come down to help, if the Tatars are defeated by the Western Army, won't we be feeding tigers?" Zheng Zhilong, the Duke of Ping, felt that the emperor's idea was very bold. Most people would definitely sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight at this time, and they would only like these thieves. It would be better to counterattack and injure both sides.
But the emperor wanted to help.
Not only was it necessary to carry out the Northern Expedition on the three routes on the eastern front, it was also necessary to let the defeated soldiers of Shaanxi and Gansu carry out guerrilla attacks against the Qing army and carry out disruptive warfare. The Ming army in Huguang and Bashu also had to look for opportunities to join the war and attack the Qing army from the side.
"Zhang Xianzhong is facing Wu Sangui and Haoge this time. This is a heavy military group mobilized by the Tatars. When Li Zicheng was in his heyday, he was defeated by them in Shanhaiguan. Zhang Xianzhong today is far inferior to what he was then. Li Zicheng is even less likely to win."
"I dare to predict that Zhang Xianzhong will be defeated when he leaves Sichuan and may even die in Hanzhong. Once Zhang Xianzhong dies, the Western Army will not be able to escape the collapse. So we must prepare in advance and cannot wait to watch the excitement. Not only must we To help the field, you must also be prepared to receive Xiying at any time.
If Xiying is defeated and disbanded, the imperial court will have to recruit and accommodate them as soon as possible."
"The Western thief is capricious, yet he still wants to be appeased?"
"As long as they are willing to fight the Tatars, I am willing to give them another chance!"
Zhu Yihai sighed, "I don't expect to defeat the Qing army in this battle on the Western Front, but if we can stop the Qing army in Hanzhong and be unable to enter Sichuan, it will be a rare victory for us. For this goal, we cannot Watch!”
This goal is difficult, but Zhu Yihai hopes that Western civil and military officials like Wen'an, Qin Liangyu, Gao Dushu, He Zhen and Zeng Ying can understand it!