Chapter 221 Zhang Xianzhong died at the foot of this mountain
Zhu Shuren flogged Li Dingguo. To put it bluntly, he was protecting Li Dingguo.
After all, there is no punishment for a crime, and the current situation is special. In order to better appease Zhang Xianzhong and surrender to the army, after the expedited trial of Li Dingguo, if there are no other changes in the future, others will not be able to repeat old scores.
After being punished with a cane, Li Dingguo was nominally imprisoned for a month or two, but in reality he was just recovering from his injuries. He would have to recuperate when he was released anyway, and he couldn't do much for the time being.
Although he was imprisoned, he was not ill-treated in life, and did not lack medical treatment. Li Dingguo quickly stabilized his mood and began to sincerely repent and re-recognize the world.
It has to be said that most peasant army generals in this era have a very limited understanding of the world. The most common limitation is due to geographical differences——
Many generals who were born in Shaanxi and Henan had never seen a situation where the people were not suffering. They felt that the Ming Dynasty was really heinous and that the people were in dire straits. In the end, it even developed to the point of "I was tortured like this by the government, and I didn't follow us to resist and kill them."
If you are an official, you will deserve to be punished by aiding the emperor!"
But in fact, there were indeed several provinces in the south at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the people could barely get by. These people also could not understand why the northerners hated the imperial court so much.
This is why in history, some southern provinces persisted in resisting for twenty years after the Qing army entered the customs. People in these places had not suffered much from the Ming Dynasty, so why should they support the Tatar rule?
Only those who could no longer survive under the Ming Dynasty would be eager to smash everything and start over again, just like the rain comes after a long drought.
It can only be said that the land of China is really vast, with different customs and customs, and the specific conditions of each region can be very different.
In an era of limited information traffic, it is really difficult to expect people from different regions to spontaneously understand each other.
Historically, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang and others gradually realized this problem a year or two after entering Sichuan, and gradually discovered that many people in the south really wanted the Ming Dynasty, and then they felt that "the Ming Dynasty may really have not exhausted its energy."
Gradually he reconciled with the court.
Nowadays, Zhu Shuren does not have so much time left for him, so he can only stay in seclusion for a month or two in the prison, trying to be more efficient in reflection while facing the wall than outside. In one or two months, he can solve the problems that took one or two years to figure out outside.
Just think about it, that would be the best.
This article applies not only to Li Dingguo, but also to Feng Shuangli and Bai Wenxuan.
Zhu Shuren also specially imprisoned these captured generals in a prison. They were usually placed in different single cells, but they were allowed to gather in one place during daily breaks to undergo ideological reform together.
Zhu Shuren also specially arranged for his staff member with the highest level of political philosophy, Gu Yanwu, to personally explain to these senior generals that "there are those who subjugate the country, and there are those who subjugate the world. Those who protect the country, their kings and ministers are meat-eaters; protect the world."
"Why should a common man be held responsible for his lowliness?"
Gu Yanwu is best at this job, but since he finished writing "The Continuation of the Thieves" last year, he hasn't had the opportunity to display his talents in this area for more than a year. Now he is naturally at home and is absolutely working hard to brainwash people.
…
It would take a month or two to reform and demote the generals and restore the ruling order around Chengdu.
In history, Chengdu was massacred three times by Zhang Xianzhong, and in the end it almost became an empty city.
Today, due to Zhu Shuren's butterfly effect, Chengdu has only been massacred once, but this time it lasted longer. Calculated, the killings were reduced by about half compared to the same period in history, and the city barely survived with a population of more than 200,000.
Zhang Xianzhong basically killed all the rich and educated people, leaving behind a group of poor people who he regarded as potential sources of soldiers.
Objectively speaking, Zhang Xianzhong's massacre greatly alleviated the land annexation conflicts that had accumulated for more than 200 years in Sichuan - all the landowners were killed, and there was no owner's land everywhere, and not a single one was annexed.
Zhu Shuren can also copy the model in western Hunan last year, such as Changde, Changsha, and Hengzhou. The government will come out to calm the people, re-register the land, and ratify the original leasehold rights of the land. If it is inconvenient to confirm the rights, then collect the land first.
For official settlements, refugees and thieves, the old and the weak are allotted for cultivation.
There is nothing to elaborate on the details of the restoration of agricultural production. Zhu Shuren only briefly inquired about it and inspected it for a few days. The subsequent specific work will naturally be left to the authentic Sichuan Governor Fang Kongzheng.
Nowadays, there is a governor of Sichuan directly appointed by Chongzhen in Sichuan. In theory, Zhu Shuren should not be involved in civil affairs work. Fang Kongzheng listened to his suggestions out of affection, and it was his duty not to listen to him.
The final point that Zhu Shuren negotiated with Fang Kongzhen was that Sichuan's agricultural production was too severely damaged this year, and spring plowing in many places was delayed for a while. Even if production was put back into production immediately, at least half of the season's grain would be lost.
Now that production is quickly resumed, we can only ensure that summer grains are planted on time and autumn grains can be harvested in full. We must also ensure people's rights, distribute seeds, and promote new crops in areas suitable for promotion as soon as possible.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for the entire province to be completely tax-free this year. When Chongzhen appointed Fang Kongzhen, they actually anticipated this situation and verbally agreed to handle it this way in order to quell the thieves.
As for next year, after Zhu Shuren and Fang Kongzhen made a calculation, Fang Kongzhen drew a range. The four prefectures of Chengdu, Chongqing, Luzhou, and Tongchuan, which were severely affected by Zhang Xianzhong's war, will be exempted from head tax and land tax for another year.
Considering that except for Chengdu Prefecture and Chongqing Prefecture, the other prefectures in Sichuan are relatively poor and have not large populations. This has basically exempted Sichuan from two-thirds of next year's agricultural tax.
However, for commercial taxes, except those who transport grain, other commercial taxes will not be exempted. The imperial court has been piloting Lijin for more than two years in Huguang and Nanzhili, and Sichuan will also fully levy it from now on.
All in all, Zhu Shuren is definitely pushing back on the governance of the Sichuan region this year. It will be good if the government can support the government next year. At least it will not be until the year after that that the Sichuan region will be able to export money and grain to support the national anti-war cause.
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Of course, even this year and next, if there is no need for foreign support in terms of money and food, and we just need to recruit some military personnel to join the army and go out to Sichuan to fight against the Tatars, then we can still do it. We are just short of money and food, not people.
Finally, when Zhu Shuren captured Li Dingguo, they also seized most of the gold and silver brocade that Zhang Xianzhong had obtained from looting Sichuan and Western Hunan. This was also a huge fortune, totaling more than 20 million taels.
This amount of money is no worse than the income from serious tax collection in Sichuan for several years. Since the 12th year of Chongzhen, the total annual three-level salary in the country has been less than 20 million taels.
The money recovered by Zhu Shuren after Zhang Xianzhong's robbery was roughly equivalent to the national income of three wages per year and two to three months.
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Taking advantage of this time, all the local bureaucrats and gentry in Sichuan were killed in pieces, and all the vassal kings were killed, and they were all killed in an extermination style. Not even a single fish who could inherit the title as the crown prince could be found.
When Zhu Shuren and Fang Kongzhen wanted to implement reforms in Sichuan, the resistance was much smaller. No one could resist. Basically, what the government said was what it said.
…
While counting the money seized, collecting prisoners of war, reassuring the people, confirming the rights of the land and resuming production, Zhu Shuren did not relax on the military front. The final pursuit of Zhang Xianzhong himself was of course the top priority.
Therefore, after half of April, Zhu Shuren quickly continued to invade Mianzhu, Jiangyou and other places.
Along the way, Zhang Xianzhong's remaining troops were leaderless. Because Zhang Xianzhong himself had been missing for a long time, these defeated soldiers could only listen to Liu Wenxiu's orders and had no fighting spirit.
Zhu Shuren also tried to get Li Dingguo to write a letter of persuasion to surrender and send it to Liu Wenxiu, asking him to surrender directly. However, Liu Wenxiu was obviously hesitant because he did not know whether his adoptive father was alive or dead, but he also knew that Zhang Xianzhong's army was gone, so he did not dare
He was rude to the messenger, but he sent it back respectfully.
Since he refused to surrender directly, Zhu Shuren would not be polite and continued to attack sharply. On April 15th, the army recaptured Mianzhu with almost no bloodshed. On the 16th, Deyang was restored, and on the 19th, Mianzhou (today's Mianyang) was restored. Mianzhu and Mianyang are
Don’t confuse the two places)
After recapturing Mianzhou, the next step will be a bifurcation. Either continue to the north and attack Jiangyou, or go northeast to attack Zitong first, and then advance from Zitong to Jianmen Pass.
The generals under his command were still somewhat divided on where to attack first. Many felt that they should attack Zitong directly, or even bypass Zitong and block Jianmen Pass first.
But Zhu Shuren had other ideas. He knew that even if Zhang Xianzhong fled to Jianmen Pass, he would still die in the end, because Hanzhong had already blocked the northern exit of Jinniu Road, so there was no need to rush to block this road.
die.
In contrast, there are other dangerous roads where it is possible to escape directly from the Sichuan area, which are more worth blocking.
So Zhu Shuren attacked Zitong openly and pretended to capture Jianmen Pass. In fact, he secretly divided his troops and headed towards Jiangyou. However, he did not attack Jiangyou by force. Instead, he went out day and night and used a small number of troops to bypass the city.
Set up an ambush at a dangerous key road in the northern mountains.
This kind of ambush is of course a bit risky, and it is very likely that you will not gain anything from squatting for a long time.
And since they want to deceive Liu Wenxiu's army stationed in Jiangyou City, the number of troops sent out cannot be large, and the armor and stomach cannot be too distinctive. They even have to wear the clothes of exiled people as a disguise.
The army's food supply and logistics cannot be guaranteed. They can only rely on the food they carry with them for ten days and a half. If the food they carry with them is eaten and no one is there, they may have to come back and take turns changing defenses.
Fortunately, when it comes to the portability of food and grass, Zhu Shuren's troops have a natural advantage, that is, Zhu Shuren had already done some research on the issue of "food shelf life" when he was in Huguang, and developed products including honey condensed milk and canned dried green beans.
High energy density foods such as cooked canned cured meat (similar to luncheon meat).
Even at the end of April, in the hot and humid climate between early and mid-summer, the shelf life of these foods can be at least a few months, and they are lighter to carry than fried rice and noodles.
Therefore, if you carry it with dried and fried rice noodles and a little homemade wind oil essence that Shen Jiajun borrowed from the formula of Zhengjia sailing anthelmintics in Fujian, you can stay in ambush for a long time in the hot and humid environment of the mountains and forests.
These things were beyond the imagination and anticipation of Zhang Xianzhong's soldiers.
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Zhang Xianzhong lurked day and night in the Qingcheng Mountains and fled north. Naturally, he did not go quickly. In the first ten days and a half, no one knew where he would flee.
But Zhu Shuren is willing to believe that Zhang Xianzhong will definitely, as Li Dingguo confessed, ultimately aim to reunite with Liu Wenxiu, so it is definitely not wrong to retreat in the general direction of Jiangyou, Zitong, and Jianmenguan.
If the bet was really wrong and Zhang Xianzhong went all the way west from Qingcheng Mountain to Daliang Mountain or even the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, then it can only be said that Zhu Shuren was unlucky and missed being promoted to an official position. But from the perspective of the nation, even if
It's not a big deal if this bet is wrong.
If Zhang Xianzhong goes to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, he will not be able to harm the areas ruled by the Han people in the Central Plains. He will just linger for a few more years. As long as he shows up in the future, he will be killed by the Zhushu people sooner or later.
Zhu Shuren can also get an extra year and a half of excuse window period, so he can more confidently obey Chongzhen's instructions and not the propaganda, so Zhu Shuren's mentality is very good.
Perhaps God's will is more interested in people with a good mentality. Throughout the second half of April, the officers and soldiers indeed found no trace of Zhang Xianzhong.
On the ninth day of May, Liu Wenxiu's garrison in Jiangyou City suddenly opened the north gate of Jiangyou City, and more than a thousand cavalry quietly ran northward along the steep Fujiang River Valley.
Until that day, the government troops had not completely surrounded Jiangyou City. They had only established a siege camp from the south of the city, preparing to attack the stronghold where Liu Wenxiu was stationed. Therefore, the rebel army could completely avoid the government troops' eyes and ears when attacking from the north of the city.
of.
Even the bandit garrison soldiers in the city didn't know that Liu Wenxiu had personally abandoned the city with a thousand cavalry to break out of the siege, abandoning the remaining soldiers in the city.
The reason why Liu Wenxiu chose this point to leave was precisely because two days ago, Zhang Xianzhong went through the mountains and ridges very arduously and took a small road. He detoured from Qingcheng Mountain, bypassed Wenchuan and Maoxian counties, arrived at Jiangyou, and met Liu Wenxiu.
Headed.
When Liu Wenxiu saw that his adoptive father was actually still alive, he did not have the courage to betray his father directly, so he finally obeyed his orders and asked him to evacuate, so he took some of his close guards with him.
In fact, the top management of the bandits is very clear that the troops trapped in the Sichuan Basin, even the old camp brothers among them, are probably impossible to escape from the Sichuan Basin. To break out, only a small group of hundreds or thousands of troops can learn from Deng Xiaoping.
Ai, Fu Youde climbed over the mountains and ridges like that.
However, Zhang Xianzhong obviously underestimated Zhu Shuren's level.
When Liu Chan fell into the trap, he was unprecedented and did not take precautions. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the young leader of the Ming Xia regime, Ming Sheng, fell into the trap. He was also young and had little knowledge.
Zhu Shuren was familiar with "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the life of Fu Youde, the general of the early Ming Dynasty in "History of the Ming Dynasty".
Jiange and Jinniu Road lead to Hanzhong. With Hanzhong blocked, there is no point in taking that road.
Therefore, it is certainly possible that Zhang Xianzhong sneaked directly from Jiangyou to Yinping in the opposite direction, trying to go directly from here to Longnan, Lintao and Didao to Longxi, and then circle back to Guanzhong.
To put it in terms of geographical common sense that can be understood by later generations of officials, that is, the direct road from Sichuan to Shaanxi is blocked by Hanzhong, so let’s make a little detour, first enter Gansu from Sichuan through Longnan, and then go from Gansu to Shaanxi——
Zhang Xianzhong's plan was based on the bet that Li Zicheng might defeat Sun Chuanting and re-enter Guanzhong.
On the evening of the ninth day of May, Zhang Xianzhong and Liu Wenxiu trekked for a whole day in the mountains north of Jiangyou. Working hard and fast, they escaped for more than a hundred miles and were close to Qingchuan.
Qingchuan Suo is Qingchuan County in later generations. Today, there is only a nominal health station in the local area, and there is no official government responsible for civil affairs. Even the health station has long existed in name only, with only a hundred households left. In theory, it has been since the early Ming Dynasty.
Junhu. After passing Qingchuan County and heading north, you will find the most dangerous Motian Ridge on the Yinping Ancient Road.
Zhang Xianzhong walked until he was exhausted. Seeing that the Motian Ridge on his left was extremely steep and difficult to cross, he had no choice but to stop his horse and rest.
But not long after Zhang Xianzhong stopped, there was a sudden loud noise on Motian Ridge and the firing of muskets. A group of officers and soldiers stood high and defended the danger, launching a final attack on Zhang Xianzhong's guards.
"Zhang Xianzhong, the dog thief, is dead! My governor has sent us to wait at the foot of Motian Ridge for many days!"
"Grandma, if it weren't for the canned food and insect repellent oil, I would have been bitten to death by mosquitoes these days! Brothers, all the hardships you have endured these days must be made up for by Zhang Gouzhi!"
Zhang Xianzhong was shocked. He did not expect that after escaping to Motian Ridge through mountains and rivers, he would be intercepted by the officers and soldiers who had already come to ambush him in advance.
The cavalry next to him had completely lost their energy and could no longer resist. Liu Wenxiu was also full of despair. He recalled the letter from his second brother Li Dingguo to persuade him to surrender, saying that Zhang Ni's strength was exhausted and he would still be alive tomorrow.
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There was no way around it. Although Liu Wenxiu wanted to stick to her moral integrity of not betraying her father, at this point, she didn't have much moral integrity left.
Zhang Xianzhong ordered a charge to break out of the encirclement. He suddenly hit his adoptive father's helmet with the back of his sword, and asked his soldiers to tie Zhang Xianzhong up and hand him over to Qin Liangyu's troops who had come to set up an ambush. Zhu Shuren wanted to use his direct troops to attack.
Fortified, but his troops were really not adapted to the environment of Sichuan's high mountains and dense forests, so he had to give Qin Liangyu's troops some Fengyoujing, canned food and other good things, and also gave some credit to Qin Liangyu's troops.
Qin Liangyu also knew that the governor was supporting their old Ma family, so she asked her son Ma Xianglin to personally lead people to block Zhang Xianzhong, and squatted under Motian Ridge for many days.
Ma Xianglin didn't charge for long before the opponent threw all the shots, leaving him quite unsatisfied.
Since Liu Wenxiu knocked Zhang Xianzhong unconscious and tied him up to surrender, he couldn't kill Liu Wenxiu anymore, so he had him kidnapped and sent back to Chengdu.
…
It was only three hundred miles from Jiangyou to Chengdu. Including the more than one hundred miles from Qingchuan back to Jiangyou, after three nights and two days, on the morning of May 12th, Zhang Xianzhong, Liu Wenxiu and his party were finally escorted to Chengdu.
Liu Wenxiu was quickly thrown into prison, and was first imprisoned with Li Dingguo, Feng Shuangli, Bai Wenxuan and others, waiting to determine his merits and demerits before dealing with him.
Considering that he kidnapped Zhang Xianzhong at the last moment, there should be no problem in surviving. But this kind of "surrendering due to lack of opportunity" means that it is impossible to directly receive official rewards.
Ma Xianglin was full of energy and presented his prisoners to Zhu Shuren. Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong was finally bound, Zhu Shuren was also overjoyed.