Before a war that is destined to last for a long time, it is always very important to reassure the generals participating in the war and make them believe that the commander-in-chief will not advance rashly and risk their lives and the lives of the soldiers casually, so that they are willing to trust the commander-in-chief's orders and prohibitions.
A big problem that Hong Chengchou had during the Battle of Songjin was that he did not do a good job of appeasing and unifying his thoughts in this regard.
So much so that the Eighth General Soldiers were suspicious of each other, and everyone felt that the commander might lose his footing, and that everyone might become cannon fodder abandoned at the critical moment of life and death. Then, Wang Pucheng and his ilk came up with the idea of "abandoning friendly troops and fleeing first."
It is true that Wang Pu and his like deserved death, and they were indeed beheaded by Chongzhen in the end. However, the problem of Hong Chengchou must not be ignored just because Wang Pu was guilty.
Everyone has brains, not NPCs in the game. When a critical moment comes for a person who reads books about sages, what is the use of only talking about loyalty to the emperor, patriotism, and defending the homeland? He must take a multi-pronged approach to show that he respects the soldiers.
life.
Of course, it is easy to talk big words, but it is difficult to implement them in practice.
At the reception banquet, Chen Shuren made a firm promise to Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong that he would plan to disperse Li Zicheng's forces and then wait for an opportunity to advance. He would never act rashly when Li Zicheng's forces were concentrated.
Being able to do this will certainly make Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong have more confidence in him and obey his advice in the future. Unfortunately, Liu Guoneng and Huang Degong wanted to break the bank and did not expect how Shen Futai would fulfill it.
Shen Shuren himself should be the only person in the room who has a clear idea of the overall direction.
…
After the reception banquet, when he returned home that night, Chen Shuren immediately summoned Wan Yuanji, who had recently taken refuge with him.
That is, Wan Yuanji, a doctor in charge of the Nanjing Ministry of War, who was originally Yang Sichang's supervisor.
After Yang Sichang died of illness a few days ago, Wan Yuanji also wore mourning for the first seven days, which was considered as a teacher's ceremony. Then he took state affairs as his priority and took refuge with Chen Shuren.
Everyone worked for the imperial court. Shen Shuren inherited Yang Sichang's legacy of suppressing thieves and pro-army troops in Huguang and other places. Of course, he also inherited some of his staff.
When Chen Shuren was hiring people, he also went through a lot of picking and choosing. He eliminated those who were too busy and those who were not reliable in terms of confidentiality, or at least transferred them to unimportant positions.
Wan Yuanji was retained and reused by him because he had some ability to do confidential work, and he could ensure that the sieve-like information leaked around Yang Sichang had nothing to do with Wan Yuanji.
Wan Yuanji has been verified by facts and is definitely not a traitor of Li Zicheng or Zhang Xianzhong. Only then would Shen Shuren use him.
After using it for a few days, Shen Shuren also discovered that Wan Yuanji had made some achievements in the enemy's intelligence work.
In particular, although Yang Sichang was not capable of burying spies around Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were always good at fighting among themselves.
Therefore, during Yang Sichang's lifetime, there were definitely traitors around Zuo Liangyu and Sun Chuanting, who were used to guard against their own people. These eyeliner systems have now naturally been assigned to Chen Shuren along with Wan Yuanji's defection.
Chen Shuren recently wanted to share the pressure on the enemy, so these insiders could just be put to good use. A few days ago, he had already told Wan Yuanji what to do.
At this moment, in the dead of night, Wan Yuanji came to Futai's study and reported carefully. Chen Shuren opened his mouth and asked:
"What happened to what we told you last time? In the Nanyang Mansion next door, has Zuo Liangyu had any contact with Li Zicheng recently? I don't believe that with his personality, he would be so honest that he would do nothing at this moment and just guard Nanyang in silence.
Mansion."
Hearing this, Wan Yuanji felt a little more awe in his heart, and he replied sincerely: "Your Excellency, you are really good at predicting things. After your last order, I have already let Mr. Ge keep an eye on Zuo Liangyu.
After watching for a few days, I found out that Zuo Liangyu actually took the initiative to send someone to deliver a letter to Li Zicheng. It happened the day before yesterday, and the official was just about to report back. However, I couldn't find out what Zuo Liangyu's letter contained. Yang Ge
The eyeliner who always stays with Zuo Liangyu is not enough."
Chen Shuren has actually been waiting for this day for a while. Recently, he has been asking Wan Yuanji after finishing work every day, so he can't say he is lucky.
All luck can only be grasped by those who are prepared. If you are unlucky, just wait a little longer. The premise is that you know enough about human nature and your opponent to know that certain things will happen sooner or later.
Hearing this, Shen Shuren waved his hands calmly and calmly: "The content is not important, just make sure that Zuo Liangyu has contacted Li Zicheng. You don't need to think about anything in the letter. You can guess it casually.
It must have something to do with showing goodwill.
Since our army went north to Ruyang and assembled at Cai, Li Zicheng also sent more and more troops to gather in Yancheng, and the neighboring Ye County will also share some. The soldiers and horses in Yancheng are blocking Xinyang Mansion.
When the army goes north, the soldiers and horses of Ye County can stop the army of Nanyang Prefecture going north.
When Zuo Liangyu sees signs of increasing troops in Ye County, will he not worry about whether Li Zicheng will continue to attack him? At this juncture, how can he not be busy making a deal with Li Zi and expressing mutual non-aggression? "
When Wan Yuanji learned that Zuo Liangyu had indeed sent a letter to Li Zicheng during the day, he thought about it for a long time. At this moment, he had almost figured it out and realized that Zuo Liangyu had a high possibility of doing this.
However, he still admired Shen Shuren's keenness when he heard that Shen Shuren could tell the truth immediately without even thinking. Besides, the other party was a Shangguan, so of course he had to express his admiration:
"My lord, what a wonderful plan! I figured out such a truth in an instant."
Chen Shuren waved his hand: "It's nothing. It's not difficult to understand. The key is to deal with it. In this case, can you estimate when Li Zicheng will be able to return to Nanyang County if he replies to Zuo Liangyu?"
Wan Yuanji is an intelligence officer and is very familiar with the speed of information transmission. After thinking about it for a moment, he said: "Our people can send the news from Nanyang to Ruyang, at most one day faster than sending it to Kaifeng. So at most three
In four days, someone from Kaifeng will definitely return to Nanyang to reply."
Shen Shuren nodded. One day's journey was a two-day round trip. So he had to respond immediately and send people to Nanyang to do something. The fastest would be two days faster than Li Zicheng's reply. There really couldn't be any delay.
After Chen Shuren thought about it for a while, he called his confidant butler Shen Fu and asked him to find Gu Yanwu, the clerical staff.
Wan Yuanji looked confused and couldn't figure out what to do with Gu Yanwu.
Although the only confidant around Shen Shuren, apart from those brought by his own Shen family, is Gu Yanwu, an old friend, but Gu Yanwu is basically a traditional scholar. What can he do at this time?
After a while, Gu Yanwu arrived carelessly.
He was by Shen Shuren's side, doing writing work every day, and occasionally being responsible for occupying the commanding heights of publicity. The two parties had cooperated for more than two years, and the relationship had always been relatively loose, and Shen Shuren had always maintained some courtesy as a friend.
Wan Yuanji felt a little envious when he saw Gu Yanwu's coolness.
And Chen Shuren also ordered unceremoniously: "Brother Gu, write a letter for me to Zuo Liangyu. The main idea is that I hope that for the sake of the Ming Dynasty, he will support our army when it attacks Yancheng.
, and attacked Ye County at the same time, forcing Li Zi to divide his troops to reduce the pressure on our army.
Although he was implicated by Mr. Yang Ge's decision, there are still 60,000 veterans after all, and they all serve the imperial court, so they should ignore past grudges."
When Gu Yanwu just arrived, he was stunned when he heard this. He had never been an official before, he was laid-back by nature and outspoken. He ignored Wan Yuanji's presence and asked back:
"Brother, are you kidding me? Zuo Liangyu and you are at odds with each other, how can you persuade him to come back with a letter? Even an outsider like me has heard that last year, you were forced to let him go because of Li... Miss Li's incident.
Zuo Liangyu is very shameless, such a villain will definitely hold a grudge in his heart for a long time."
Chen Shuren made a serious face: "If you are asked to write, you will write. Even if it doesn't work, you are going on my behalf. Does Zuo Liangyu still dare to kill you? Then he will really have to bear the name of a traitor who betrayed the imperial court.
, he knows the importance.
As for him not following the instructions after writing it, and even refusing to make any gesture of support, that is his business, at least it belongs to Zuo Liangyu, and His Majesty will have an explanation when the time comes."
Gu Yanwu thought about it and mistakenly thought that Shen Shuren was just trying to fight in a nest. This move was not really to get Zuo Liangyu to send troops, but just to disgust Zuo Liangyu in the political struggle of the officialdom.
In the future, we will further attack Zuo Liangyu’s living space in the court and reduce the number of civil servants in the court who support Zuo Liangyu.
Since it was just like this, Gu Yanwu felt that it was nothing for him to help write a letter or even act as a messenger once. With Chen Shuren's salary of one to two thousand taels per month, he still had to do this kind of work.
Moreover, as long as Zuo Liangyu still maintains his identity as a military general of the Ming Dynasty, he will never dare to do anything to the envoy. There is absolutely no danger in this trip.
After Gu Yanwu thought about the wording, he took the order and left, immediately starting to write. Before leaving, Shen Shuren said a word of caution, and asked him to bring it to him for review after writing, and then send it away tomorrow.
Watching Gu Yanwu leave, Wan Yuanji felt mixed and asked tentatively in a low voice: "Don't you really just want to run against Zuo Liangyu? If it is to divide Li Zicheng's army, it will be difficult to rely on Mr. Tinglin's writing style.
Success is something that cannot be impressed by words.
It is said that King Yan was benevolent and righteous, and Xu died, and Zigong was wise and eloquent, but Lu was weakened. The people of Qi attacked Lu, and the border was ten miles away from the gate.
The land you want is not what Si Yan calls it. What's the use of being wise and argumentative when interests are present.
If you have to do this kind of thing, it is better to let Xiaguan...Although Xianguan has not been able to prove himself with meritorious services so far, it is just because he has not had the opportunity before. Today, as long as you give him this opportunity, he will stand out like a cone in a bag."
Chen Shuren smiled calmly and said, "You can't do this. What I want is not for Zuo Liangyu to actually send troops. I just want the messenger I sent to delay a little longer when he arrives at Zuo Liangyu's place.
Oh my God, I happened to be bumped into by someone sent by Li Zicheng to reply to the letter. That was enough.
What I want is that Li Zicheng knows the existence of my messenger and that I am communicating with Zuo Liangyu. Even if Zuo Liangyu wants to deny or defend later, it doesn't matter.
And if you show up, Zuo Liangyu will be alert, and will realize that 'my messenger and Li Zicheng's messenger arrived at about the same time, it is not a coincidence, but because I also have eyes and ears around him'. Only if you don't show up, Zuo Liangyu will
If Zuo Liangyu were an unreliable pure Confucian, he would not be so wary, let alone pass this worry on to Li Zicheng to defend himself."
Wan Yuanji was stunned, and he still didn't fully understand the twists and turns. After a while, he realized the subtleties of it, but he still felt that it was not very reliable.
Although Shen Shuren's idea was very sensitive to human nature, it was also based on the fact that Li Zicheng must be an extremely suspicious person.
But is Li Zicheng really that suspicious? Zuo Liangyu can't see anything fishy here, so he will be more suspicious?
But these are not things Wan Yuanji should worry about. At least he knows that Shen Shuren does not use him as his envoy this time. It is not that he does not value him, but he just hopes that someone who is more naive on the surface can lower the other party's wariness and
Lenovo.
I want to make further contributions, and I will have another chance in the future.
That night, Gu Yanwu stayed up late to write the letter to Zuo Liangyu and brought it directly to Chen Shuren for review.
After Chen Shuren read it, he had to praise that the writing was really good. It looked like Chen Shuren was really trying his best to win over Zuo Liangyu.
In his letter, Gu Yanwu cited many details of Shen Shuren's deeds, emphasizing that he was "different from other civil servants of the Ming Dynasty who looked down on generals. Therefore, bold men like Liu Guoneng, Huang Degong, etc. worked very hard when serving Shen Futai, and they all felt
When a scholar dies for his bosom friend, he is more sincere and sincere than when he sacrificed his life for Yang Sichang, Hong Chengchou, and Sun Chuanting.
Therefore, although General Zuo had a small misunderstanding with my family Futai, it was not an unsolvable grudge. Time will naturally wash away those little things about robbing women. As long as General Zuo cooperates sincerely, he will definitely be able to rise quickly with Shen Futai.
, Zuo Zixiong is an example.
In addition, my family Futai also knows that General Zuo has avoided war many times before, not because he is disloyal to the court, but because he just wants to preserve his strength. And this kind of preservation of strength cannot be regarded as "supporting the troops and supporting the invaders to respect themselves", but more of
The military minister's loyalty to Pao Ze cannot allow his subordinates to die casually.
Coincidentally, my family Futai is similar to General Zuo in this regard. He has never betrayed his teammates at the expense of his reputation. He has always cherished his troops. This is definitely much better than those beasts like Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng who betrayed their teammates.
As long as General Zuo changes his family and follows my family in Futai, he will definitely have long-term wealth and honor. You can't be a man who only cares about the immediate benefits. A man like Li Zicheng, who was castrated by nature and has no heirs, now relies on the fact that he has no son to win over so many careerists, all of whom have different intentions for the time being.
Goal striving.
But in the future, if things get better and the thieves no longer have to work together to survive, they will definitely be jealous and kill each other. So even if Li Zicheng promises you higher benefits now, he will eventually get back his capital and profits..."
Shen Shuren originally just asked Gu Yanwu to do useless exercises, but he didn't expect that the useless exercises were made so realistic and took a lot of brains. If this thing is given to Zuo Liangyu, maybe Zuo Liangyu will feel that Shen Shuren is sincerely trying to win over him——
Although a hero like Zuo Liangyu is destined not to be successfully won over.
"Very good. Send this letter early tomorrow morning, and I will select some bodyguards to escort Brother Gu to Nanyang."
Chen Shuren immediately made the decision and sent Gu Yanwu away the next day.