Ming Taizi's Total War

Chapter 104 The Vanguard
Hearing Zhu Cihong's questioning voice, Ambassador Cang was standing there, hesitating and speechless.

Obviously, he had a guilty conscience and knew that what he did was wrong, but he had no reason to justify it.

Seeing him like this, Zhu Cihong became more determined to kill someone.

"Hmph, there's nothing to say, right?"

"You corrupt official, do you know what the consequences will be if you do this? Let the soldiers go to war hungry."

"What's on your mind!"

After finishing speaking, Zhu Cihong raised his hand beautifully, and sealed Ambassador Cang's throat with the sword in his hand. Blood spurted out from the throat and directly onto Zhu Cihong's face.

"Your Majesty." Liu Bao saw Zhu Cixiang's face stained with blood and came over to wipe it clean with his sleeves.

"Do not bother me."

"If the upper beam is not straight, the lower beam will be crooked. I will kill all the people in the Jinwuwei granary on the spot."

"In addition, order Jin Yiwei to confiscate the family property of these people. Among the family members, the women will be assigned to Jiaofang Secretary, and the men will be sent to the army."

The emperor's anger is not a joke, as soon as Zhu Cihong said this, dozens of people from Ambassador Cang would all lose their lives.

Their wives and daughters will have to enter the Jiaofangsi and become other people's playthings. Their brothers and sons will have to join the army and become handymen serving the soldiers.

If there is no incident, that's all. Once there is any war, they will be used as cannon fodder, or even fill in the ditch.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me, Your Majesty, please forgive me..." Fushi Cang was about to beg for mercy, but the soldier who came to kill him wiped his neck.

"Your Majesty, calm down, it's not worth being angry about these rats in the warehouse." Liu Bao said as he brought a silk veil to wipe off the blood on Zhu Cihong's face.

Hearing Liu Bao's words, Zhu Cihong's anger calmed down a little.

In fact, he knew that this kind of situation was very common in the Ming Dynasty. After killing this mouse, he didn't know when another one would appear.

But what annoyed him the most was how these people could be so bold now that the Central Plains were about to be restored.

Aren't they afraid that the Ming Dynasty building will collapse and kill them all?

"I know, alas, so much food and grass is gone, and I don't know how long it will take to raise it again. Forget it, let's go north first. The autumn harvest will be here soon anyway, and it won't be too late for the generals from the rear to transport the food."

Zhu Cixiang finally decided to mobilize troops, not because of the newly formed troops, but because of the maturity of the Lijin Bureau system.

After killing tens of thousands of heads in the south of the Yangtze River, everyone finally recognized Zhu Cihong's lijin system, and no one dared to resist the tax collectors, or even attack the tax card.

The mature and stable Lijin Bureau can collect several 10 taels of silver in commercial taxes from Lianghuai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places every month. This is Zhu Cihong's confidence to launch a war.

Otherwise, even if he was given a Gundam now, he would not dare to fight. After all, the essence of war is actually a competition in logistics capabilities.

Zhu Cixiang currently has the pro-army, Shandong soldiers, Henan soldiers, and the four towns in Jiangbei that he can mobilize to fight.

Zhu Cihong's personal troops include about 4000 imperial guards, 200 standard-bearing guards and Jinyi guards, more than 2 Jinwu Four Guards, 5000 Jinling Shenji Camp, and nearly 2 Jinling Jingying Camp.

These 6 people are Zhu Cihong's core force, and it is impossible for Zhu Cihong to separate them out. The real battles are mainly those troops of warlords and local armies.

The soldiers in Shandong are basically the governor of Shandong, the governor of Shandong, and the volunteer army of Shandong, which are 10,000+ people.

As for Henan, because almost the whole territory fell to Li Chuang before, and was ravaged by trespassers and government troops in the last years of Chongzhen, there were no rebels, and even all the guards fell.

Only three people, Yue Qijie, the governor of Henan, Xu Dingguo, the commander-in-chief stationed in Suizhou, and Zhang Yong, stationed in Guide, were left. The three of them had at most [-] troops.

However, I heard that Yue Qijie recruited and surrendered the villages in Henan and Hebei, that is, bandits and bandits. There must be a lot of people on hand, but the fighting power is so good.

The imperial court in the four Jiangbei towns has a rated army of 12, but the towns will certainly not be so honest. Anyway, raising soldiers does not cost their own money, and the imperial court will not punish them if they find out about the expansion of the army.

Because the war is raging now, and the court is in the midst of employing people, it will not take action against them at this time.

To sum up, the troops that Zhu Cihong can use to fight Li Zicheng and Dorgon are almost 50 million. That's it, most of them are cold weapons without armor.

This is already Zhu Cihong's limit. Almost all the income of his small court in the south of the Yangtze River has been invested in it. For this reason, many officials in the capital are even unable to pay their salaries in arrears.

Of course, if you want to expand the size of the army, train the army well, and equip them with more armor and firearms, Zhu Cihong can do it.

But that takes time, at least a year and a half.

It's a pity that what Zhu Cihong lacked most was time. Dorgon's army had already set off, and Zhu Cihong estimated that he was either in Shaanxi or Henan.

If he was allowed to completely defeat Li Zicheng and obtain the entire north, Zhu Cihong felt that even if he was a time traveler, it would be useless even if he could conjure a flintlock musket.

Because a mite Qing with hundreds of thousands of banners, hundreds of thousands of green camps, and hundreds of thousands of Han warlords will be placed in front of him like an ugly dragon.

Spit out flames and tear up his fragile and crumbling Jiangnan court, just like the history of Duoduo's [-] expeditions to Jiangnan.

Of course, with Zhu Cihong as emperor, if Mite Qing wanted to conquer the whole of China, he would have to break his front teeth.

Just when Zhu Cihong was thinking about it, Zhang Yong and Gao Jie were slowly marching northwestward on the yellow sandy land.

Their goal is Kaifeng Mansion, Kaifeng Mansion is the administrative office of Henan Chengxuan Zhengshi, Tijuan and Jushi, and Du Commander. Simply put, it is the provincial capital of Henan.

The capture of this place would mark the end of the rule of the invaders in Henan. At the same time, the recovery of an important big city would also boost the morale of the Ming army and the people.

At the front of the marching team were two men riding horses and wearing mandarin duck jackets.

"General Gao, Suizhou is ahead. Let's keep walking along this road and we'll be there in two hours." The person who spoke was Zhang Yong.

He was holding a whip in his hand, pointing in the direction of Suizhou, and said to Gao Jie who was riding beside him.

"Then shall we be stationed in Suizhou tonight?" Gao Jie asked Zhang Yong, his tone was very gentle, as if he wanted Zhang Yong to make up his mind.

Although Gao Jie was knighted as Uncle Xingping, his official position was still that of the Chief Military Officer.

However, because of Zhang Yong's special relationship with Zhu Cihong, he was named the second-rank Henan Commander and General Dingyuan. The most important thing is that Zhu Cihong ordered Gao Jie to be under Zhang Yong's command.

(End of this chapter)