After dawn, as the war ended, Shen Shuren personally rode his horse into Changsha City, which had just experienced a fire.
After seeing the tragic situation in front of him, he rarely became angry.
These guys who killed the people were so cruel. When they lost the city, they even set fire to attack the government and army's subsequent food collection, creating more killing and chaos.
Faced with this new sudden viciousness, Shen Shuren was forced to adjust the prisoner policy again.
For those troops who stayed in the city last night, of course, all the soldiers can be pardoned and not killed, but they will be organized into hard labor camps and death camps, but all the officers will still be killed.
For those troops who take the initiative to open the door to support, even the officers may not be killed. As long as the officer's superior is killed, a human head can be offered as atonement. Ordinary soldiers can avoid entering death camps as long as they serve one year of hard labor.
As for those who follow Liu Jinzhong and set fire when the city is broken, then the entire army will be killed! No one will be spared, from officials to soldiers!
Shen Shuren knew rewards and punishments clearly. At noon that day, Zhu Wenzhen took more than 2,000 prisoners who had tasted the benefits of robbery and murder and stubbornly followed Liu Jinzhong, and took them all to the food market entrance in Changsha City where the fire was still burning.
In front of a small number of Changsha people who survived, they clearly stated their crime of setting fire to create chaos last night, and then lined up more than two thousand people to be beheaded, leaving no one alive.
, as a warning.
The blood dripping from the heads of more than 2,000 people immediately filled the intersection. At least there was no place on the ground within a diameter of fifty feet that was not blood red.
When the other prisoners saw this scene, they were all frightened out of their wits. Fortunately, Shen Shuren quickly announced the rewards and punishments at all levels and did not kill any more ordinary soldiers, which quickly made people calm down again.
"This Shen Futai is so cruel. He is much more cruel than the Chen Futai we met in Shaanxi and the Commander Xiong we met in Xiangyang!"
Some of the bandit officers who had experienced the period of Chen Qiyu and Xiong Wencan only felt chills on the back of their necks. At the same time, they were glad that they had surrendered by killing Shangguan last night, otherwise they might not have been able to escape death at this moment.
Because of their absolutely superior strength, Chen Shuren was not afraid that these surrendered troops would cause chaos again. With the power of killing people and justifiable reasons, they directly reorganized the surrendered troops with thunderous force, and the officers and soldiers would oversee and reform them as soon as possible, and clean up the flow.
The remnants of the thieves' troops killing and looting indiscriminately.
…
Because of the severe damage suffered by Changsha City, Shen Shuren estimated that he would be detained for several more days to reestablish order, appease the people, and clarify rights and responsibilities.
Seeing Zhang Xianzhong getting more and more out of control, Shen Shuren was also deeply worried. For the first time, he was afraid of "when will this pursuit end?"
Shen Shuren was actually happy to be able to chase Zhang Xianzhong all the way and let Zhang Xianzhong help him do the things he couldn't do.
If Zhang Xianzhong only killed local tyrants, evil gentry, feudal lords and nobles, even if he destroyed some wealth, Shen Shuren would not be able to bear it.
But the problem now is that Zhang Xianzhong seems to realize that "he will never be able to gain a foothold in the Huguang area, and everything here is not worth cherishing." Therefore, in Zhang Xianzhong's eyes, only the ones that are carried away are the ones that need to be cherished.
.
Even the source of troops, the hearts of the people, and even the miscellaneous troops were not taken seriously by Zhang Xianzhong - although Zhang Xianzhong never said it explicitly, Shen Shuren could observe this.
Destruction caused by this kind of desperate mentality is extremely destructive. For example, a fire burned several percent of the urban area of Changsha City, and poor farmers massacred wildly without any discrimination. This damage to social productivity is too serious.
There was a population explosion at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and there was no shortage of people. Even if a few percent of the population were killed, the remaining population would still be enough to cultivate the land. However, Zhang Xianzhong frequently burned down cities and material wealth, and it would be difficult to quickly restore production.
.
It is destroyed if it cannot be obtained by itself! Nor is it left to the tree-sinking people! The damage caused by this kind of twister is too great!
We can't keep chasing him like this! At least we can't let him escape in Huguang anymore! We must force a fight!
Either kill him at once, or if you can't kill him, you must force him out of Huguang immediately!
In short, the key is "immediately"! Don't delay!
The idea was quickly clarified, but Shen Shuren was troubled by countless worries about the next step and how to implement it.
He still lacks Zhang Liang and Zhuge Liang-type staff advisors around him.
Although he has several staff, they are all literary men or internal affairs talents. In terms of generals, he has no shortage of people who can directly lead troops, but he can only rely on himself for conspiracy and conspiracy.
"Oh, that's it. I can't think of anything even though I'm trying to solve the problem. Let's deal with the internal affairs first and think about it slowly." After a long time without coming up with the result, Shen Shuren had no choice but to accept his fate for the time being and do some simple work to change his mind and try to get some inspiration.
flash.
Then he plunged into the work of restoring order after the war in Changsha City.
…
The whole day's internal affairs pacification work ended quickly. Shen Shuren took a tour of almost every place in Changsha City, understanding the difficulties in various places, the post-war losses, and the sequelae, and made decisions at the on-site office.
The transfer of the transfer,
He also roughly compiled a list of dead vassal officials, wealthy gentry, and figured out how many farms around Changsha would become ownerless land.
At the same time, we also try our best to collect the tenancy contract ledgers of these deceased wealthy gentry, so that we can confirm to whom these fields were leased before the war. If the tenant farmers are still alive, we will directly recognize these uninherited lands and transfer them directly.
If it is used by the original leaser, it only needs to bear the national tax directly to the state.
It was not until dark that Shen Shu returned to the Changsha magistrate's office, ready to take a rest and discuss military aircraft tomorrow.
However, Zhang Xianzhong was destined not to let him calm down. That night, Zhu Wenzhen, the general in charge of the cavalry, came to see him late at night and had urgent military information to report.
Shen Shuren was destined to have another bad night's sleep, so he put on his clothes and went to the reception in casual clothes to listen to the report. Zhu Wenzhen did not hesitate to talk about it, and said straight to the point:
"Master Futai! The last general sent scouts to search south today and captured several defeated soldiers who fled here to avoid the war through the Hengshan Guard. It is said that Zhang Xianzhong has broken the Hengzhou City! I am afraid that all the officials and princes of Hengzhou have also
Suffered a vicious attack!"
Chen Shuren only felt his head buzzing slightly, and his breathing was heavy and boring for a while.
It wasn't that he was afraid of the death of the vassal king. In fact, he also felt that there were too many vassal kings in the Ming Dynasty and it was too much trouble. But if Zhang Xianzhong continued to toss like this, Shen Shuren was afraid that he would not be able to cover the lid and would not be able to survive the last year and a half of Chongzhen's reign.
It has stabilized local power for many years.
He scratched his hair in annoyance: "Why does it take at least five or six days for our army to recover a city? On the other hand, it only takes three or four days at most for Zhang Xianzhong to break the city on seven or eight days! After all, the city we attacked is still the same city that Zhang Xianzhong conquered once.
!Ordinarily the city defense should be more dilapidated!"
Zhu Wenzhen was a little depressed after hearing this complaint. It was not his fault, but fortunately, he had asked more carefully before he came to report, so he immediately reported in detail:
"I heard that He Yide, the commander-in-chief of Hengzhou, was forced by His Highness King Gui to send troops out of the city to fight in the field when the city was first besieged to cover the breakout of the siege.
He Yide was already weak in military strength, so he was forced to do so and was afraid of being punished. In addition, among the troops fighting him was the troops of Changsha General Yin Xianmin who had surrendered to the bandits. The two sides were already familiar with each other, so they wavered before the battle and surrendered directly to Zhang Xianzhong.
"
Shen Shuren was so angry that he smashed his tea cup on the ground: "The old guard army in southern Huguang is so corrupt! I think they are a shame in the world! If one of them is rotten, there will be a bunch of rotten ones! The general surrendered.
You can also cast a chain! There hasn’t been a war in this place for too many years, alas..."
Zhu Wenzhen also smiled bitterly: "The situation is already like this, please let Mr. Futai decide what the next step for our army should be."
Chen Shuren also smiled helplessly: "What else can we do? Renovate and stabilize the people in Changsha City for three days, and then march southward! Anyway, this is already the case. Haste makes waste, and if our army pursues too fast, it will easily tire us out and allow the enemy to take advantage of it.
machine.
Fortunately, there are no vassal kings south of Hengzhou that Zhang Xianzhong should deliberately kill and rob. Now that Hengshan Mountain is in his hands, he shouldn't be in a hurry to run away. In the past few days, I have to think of a strategy to let Zhang Xianzhong
I no longer want to harm Huguang, but put an end to it as soon as possible."