The purpose of Shen Shuren's strategy of provocation and anger is clear:
Find a way to humiliate Li Zicheng, and if possible, try to make him suspicious of some of his newly conquered subordinates. Then openly publicize:
"Yang Sichang does not need to be afraid of Li Zicheng, and there is no need to rush to attack. As long as he sticks to the tired enemy and waits for Li Zicheng to take the initiative to attack first, whether it is to take the initiative to attack Nanyang southward or to continue eastward to open the seal, with the current cohesion of Li Zicheng, this useless snack, in three to five months
It is impossible to capture any strong city.
At that time, while Li Zicheng is exhausted and depressed under the fortification of the city, it will still be too late to rescue the attacked targets and seek a decisive battle from Li Zicheng."
After spreading humiliation through private channels, as long as it can anger the other party, there are only two consequences:
First of all, Li Zicheng's small universe exploded, and his offensive power surged at all costs, and he even changed history and captured Kaifeng. If that happened, Li Zicheng's losses would definitely be considerable, and he could fight again while he was tired.
Moreover, because these provocative and irritating behaviors did not come from Chen Shuren's own writings, but from folk behaviors, neither the Ming officials nor the emperor could blame Chen Shuren for the fall of Kaifeng or elsewhere.
, Shenshu people are not at a loss anyway.
Secondly, Li Zicheng's combat power failed to explode, and indeed he could not defeat Kaifeng for several months. But at least he would be held back by Kaifeng City, which would be more beneficial to Shen Shuren and Yang Sichang. The time difference between Shen Shuren and Yang Sichang
It can also be achieved completely.
However, this kind of exaggeration and anger takes time to ferment, so in the remaining time of April, Shen Shuren will not be able to see the effect of this move for the time being.
At the moment, he still has to prepare his army for war, strengthen his troops, and be busy with other aspects of work.
Opportunities only come to those who are prepared. The time before the opportunity comes is for you to prepare, and it cannot be wasted.
…
On April 20, just a few days after the propaganda war began, Daye County, Wuchang.
In the two months since he returned to Wuchang, Shen Shuren finally visited Daye in person for the first time. He took the time and energy to pay attention to the latest progress of the armaments industry and the rest and reorganization of the troops previously sent to Liaodong to fight after returning.
The terrain of Daye County is mountainous and hilly. Due to more than a thousand years of mining history, much of the land is not suitable for farming. In the west of the city near Liangzi Lake, there are many swamps and wetlands.
Since the rectification of mining and metallurgy in Daye County began last fall, the county's land has also been reorganized and reorganized.
If water conservancy can be built to create polders, polders will be built, and the dredged ones will be used to raise fish and lotus roots.
The remaining areas where the terrain is relatively high and cannot be irrigated will need to be leveled off to build factories and barracks. Some of the land is even renovated from abandoned mine pits left behind after thousands of years of ore mining.
After more than half a year, Daye County has become the military industry and garrison center of Wuchang Prefecture. After Zheng Chenggong's troops returned at the beginning of the month, they have been resting and stationed here for half a month, and have basically recovered their strength.
Chen Shuren always managed the army with a mixture of leniency and severity, which was very healthy. He knew that the troops who went to Liaodong to fight had worked hard, and many of them had narrowly escaped death. So when they came back to rest, they had to give them a meal of good wine and meat every few days.
, and you have agreed to take half a month off without practicing, so you have to do it in earnest.
For those with minor injuries and illnesses, the rest is generally extended to a month without training, and soldiers are not strictly checked to see if they are pretending to be sick. What is needed after the war is tolerance, and the promised benefits must be fulfilled. This way next time
When there is a battle and the troops need to be mobilized again, morale will be high.
Early that morning, Chen Shuren rode to Daye on horseback. Before entering the city, he went straight to the military camp located in the abandoned mine in the west of the city, near Liangzi Lake.
Zheng Chenggong also came out immediately to greet Brother Shen who had been supporting him all the way: "Brother, you are finally here. I heard that you have been very busy recently because of the boss of Mr. Yang Ge.
We have been waiting for you to hand over and review the troops who have been withdrawn from Liaodong. After the handover is completed, I can officially go to Jiujiang and take up my post as the prefect."
Jiujiang is adjacent to Wuchang. It goes down the Yangtze River from Daye County, separated by Xingguo County, to Jiujiang. First it goes to Ruichang County, and then to Dehua County, which is governed by Jiujiang Prefecture at the mouth of Poyang Lake.
Therefore, Zheng Chenggong's current station is only two counties away from the station where he will take office in the future.
After the appointment of local officials in the Ming Dynasty, there was a three-month handover period. In the Ministry of Personnel, Zheng Chenggong was promoted to an official in early March. In theory, it would be no problem if he could take office in May. Now there are still forty days, which is definitely enough.
.
Zhang Mingzhen, who was previously sent to Liaodong with Zheng Chenggong, did not return to Wuchang this time. Because he was already the canal protection commander of the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs, responsible for coastal defense, and now he needs to be stationed in Zhoushan to inspect the defense of the Yangtze River Estuary.
When the sea transport fleet from South Zhili went north, Zhang Minzhen would send warships to escort it.
However, Shen Shuren is not worried that Zhang Mingzhen will escape his control. Even if he is not an official in Huguang, Zhang Mingzhen is still determined to follow the Shen family and become a die-hard general of the Shen family——
What's more, Zhang Mingzhen's theoretical immediate superior is now Shen Tingyang, who has been given the title of Minister of Household Affairs. Is there any difference between being a general for his father and being a general for his son?
Chen Shuren exchanged a few words with Zheng Chenggong, and then walked side by side, casually asking about the current situation in the army while inspecting the status of the soldiers with his own eyes.
"Jiujiang is not far from here, so I can take office in time. By the way, I have a lot of things going on lately. How many people have you brought back? I can't even remember clearly."
Zheng Chenggong: "Originally, in the battle of Liaodong, a total of 23,000 friendly troops were rescued, but Cao became a Jiao, and Li Fuming retained 6,000 troops to make trouble for the imperial court.
After excluding the thousands of battle losses and the 1,500 organized North Korean musketeers who came to surrender, our army finally had an additional 17,000 troops.
When we went there, we had 5,000 canal guards and 5,000 sailors. After we came back, most of the sailors and canal guards still had to stay in South Zhili and Zhoushan, so we actually brought back 18,000 people.
There are actually 4,000 soldiers left at Zhang Junmen to protect the canal, but only 1,500 are from the hometown, and 2,500 are Liaodong soldiers. As you said, the old should lead the new, and whenever we expand the army
, keep at least one-third of the die-hard veterans, and expand two-thirds of the new troops."
Chen Shuren nodded, quite satisfied with this number.
In the end, the Battle of Liaodong actually made a net profit of 17,000 people, but not all of them could be brought back. Because the original 5,000 people as capital were all elite soldiers selected by Huangzhou, the maritime escort business became more and more popular.
Da, four thousand people were left behind and never came back.
When Shen Shuren finished the Erhe campaign last year, the total military strength expanded to more than 20,000. Later, they designed to force Zuo Liangyu to move the town, unable to take away the military establishments of Wuchang and Hanyang.
Chen Shuren also accepted these local miscellaneous troops, weeded out the best, trained them more, and added new blood. Finally, by the beginning of this year, he actually had more than 30,000 troops, and theoretically the full strength was 35,000.
Now 4,000 people have been taken away to Zhoushan to be responsible for coastal defense and navigation, and Liaodong has brought back 17,000 people. After the increase and decrease are offset, the actual net increase is 13,000 people.
Therefore, the current full strength of Shen Shuren's army is 35,000 plus 13,000, which is 48,000. If we recruit a few more new soldiers, we will round to almost 50,000.
Of course, Chen Shuren's 50,000 yuan was a real 50,000 yuan. He did not take empty pay or play for free, and his training and morale were not comparable to those of other Ming armies in the same period.
At most, only Guan Ning's army can be stronger than Shen's army in terms of bloodthirsty and tenacity in battle. But in terms of weapons and equipment, even Guan Ning's army has no advantage over Shen's army.
"How many people are currently stationed here in Daye? I haven't been here for a few months, and the camps are all connected. It's doing well."
Shen Shuren asked as he inspected and saw the military camp town rising from the ground in front of him. It was probably that the scale had expanded to accommodate tens of thousands of people.
In fact, it is impossible for all military camps to be occupied. During construction, sufficient margin must be left in advance to prepare for future military expansion.
The military barracks houses that I saw in front of me were all houses with earthen walls, at least, with wooden rafters and roofs covered with tiles. In better cases, even the walls were covered with bricks.
As a long-term station, the Chenshu people would definitely not let the soldiers live in rag tents. The durability would be low, and the tents would often break down, which would not save any money.
It turns out that other warlords in the late Ming Dynasty also lived in tents when they were stationed for a long time. The main reason was that they did not want to invest too much at one time, or they felt that they had to move towns frequently and the house could not be taken with them. But if you live in a tent, even if the durability is low, you can still go down on your own.
Solve it, whether it's robbery or looting, the burden is pushed down anyway, and the commander-in-chief doesn't have to worry about it.
Chen Shuren has already regarded Wuchang as his own core territory for construction. It can be seen that he has not considered at all the issue of "whether the imperial court may transfer him in the future."
And his approach also made the soldiers have a greater sense of belonging to Shen Futai. When they served as soldiers here, at least the accommodation conditions were better than those in more than 90% of the Ming Dynasty's guard posts and military towns.
Zheng Chenggong had a better understanding of the situation nearby and explained while giving instructions: "Wuchang Prefecture currently has 30,000 troops stationed. Your 50,000 troops and 20,000 are in Xiangyang, Hanyang, Huangzhou and other places."
Here in Wuchang, the main base is the local soldiers that Zuo Liangyu couldn't take with him at the time. In addition to the 17,000 people who came back this time, there are also a few thousand veterans you brought from Huangzhou. The other veterans have basically not moved.
.
In fact, strictly speaking, the troops under General Liu Guoneng and Liu in Xinyang Prefecture in Henan Province, as well as Huang Degong and General Huang's troops in Anqing and Luzhou are also considered to be under your control, but they are not direct lineage, and you have not troubled them yet.
.”
Chen Shuren was stunned. Recently, his power has been expanding too fast, and he is indeed a little lost. He has not yet communicated with Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong in depth. Later, he will have to allocate some military pay and equipment to them, and slowly and completely conquer them.
Liu Guoneng's side had more than 10,000 troops last year, and later they were assigned thousands of Erhe prisoners of war to reorganize and reorganize. It was only because Henan was poor and lacked military supplies that they could not expand the army. But Liu Guoneng's side had 15,000 troops.
There must be some.
Liu Guoneng was also very loyal to Shen Shuren and always thought of his kindness. He remembered that Shen Shuren helped him arrange for his son to go to the Nanjing Imperial College so that he could have a scholar's background in the future.
Huang Degong had been Shi Kefa's subordinate for the entire six years before that. Now Shi Kefa has just been transferred to the post of Governor of Water Transport less than half a year ago. The original friendship between Shen Shuren and Huang Degong could only be regarded as cooperation and colleagues, and it was impossible for Huang Degong to bow to him.
.
But Huang Degong also had more soldiers and horses than Liu Guoneng. After all, several prefectures in Anhui Province had much better finances and food than the poor Henan Province in the late Ming Dynasty, and they could afford to support them. Huang Degong had at least more than 20,000 soldiers.
Chen Shuren will have to work hard this year to make Huang Degong's loyalty to him exceed the level of loyalty to his old boss Shi Kefa. If Chen Shuren can win a few battles and establish his authority, this matter will be more certain.
Once Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong were both under complete control, Shen Shuren's troops would further expand from 50,000 to 80,000. Even taking into account Liu and Huang's empty pay, there would still be at least 70,000.
At that time, if we can destroy Zhang Xianzhong in the west and reject Li Zicheng in the north, we are basically sure.
Chen Shuren couldn't help but rub his temples:
"Indeed, the army that needs to be reorganized and the hearts of the people that need to be gathered are so messed up that they have to be slowly integrated one by one. Come on, take me into the camp first to have a good look at these troops who have been withdrawn from Liaodong.
How is the situation and whether you are adaptable to the new equipment."