Great time travel

Chapter 171: There Are Emperors in Shanghai!

In the face of Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi's angry accusations, Zhang Pu behaved very calmly, almost putting on a posture of "spit on his own face", and waited until these two Songjiang celebrities were tired of scolding, Zhang Pu deeply felt He sighed, then bowed his head, and said with a very sincere attitude:
"...Everyone, ever since the Tartars slaughtered Jiangnan, Zhang also knew that he had led wolves into the house and made a big mistake. Although he died a hundred times, he could not atone for his crime. He should have died to thank the world. The rest of the people have all died at the hands of the Tartars, and even the ancestral halls and ancestral houses have been burned! If such bloody enmity cannot be avenged, Zhang will be a son of man in vain. Even if his soul returns to the underworld, he will have no face to face the Zhang family. Ancestors!"

He said this with a sad expression, and after Chen Zilong and Xia Yunyi learned that Zhang Pu's family was also massacred by the Qing army, their expressions softened a little.Next, Zhang Pu suddenly changed the subject, "...Although the barbarians are rampant for a while now, fortunately, there is still a holy emperor in my Ming Dynasty, who will surely win over the gentry, establish a court again, expel the barbarians, and return Jiangnan to a bright future. Qiankun! Also invite His Majesty the Emperor to come out and meet the ministers of Songjiang!"

Immediately afterwards, a young man in a bright yellow dragon robe walked in with a blank expression, which stunned all the officials and gentry in the room for a moment.

——The young man brought by Zhang Pu and Shen Tingyang is naturally Zhu Yihai, the Yonghe Emperor supported by the Nanjing Donglin Party.

When Emperor Chongzhen's troops invaded the Taiping Mansion and approached Nanjing, Zhu Yihai, who had inquired about the news, immediately imitated the old wisdom of Emperor Jianwen in the past, took a trusted old eunuch shaved his head and put on a monk's robe, and quietly escaped from the palace Folks, all the way to the east.Unexpectedly, after fleeing for only a few days, the unlucky Yonghe Emperor was recognized by Zhang Pu who happened to pass by when he was passing Jinshan Temple in Zhenjiang and was about to place an order for the night!
Therefore, Zhang Pu, who thought that rare goods could be lived in, immediately took a few strong servants and put Zhu Yihai under house arrest, planning to put this puppet up again after Nanjing was liberated.Who would have thought that the current situation would be erratic. Although Emperor Chongzhen's crusade army was indeed defeated, the reinforcements from the Qing Dynasty invited from the north refused to leave again, and Huang Taiji also appointed King Shaofu as Emperor Hongguang, as the emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The puppet of the Eight Banners ruling Jiangnan.

As a result, Zhu Yihai, the Emperor of Yonghe controlled by Zhang Pu, immediately became a hot potato.Seeing that the situation in Zhenjiang is getting worse and worse, tens of thousands of Qing troops are constantly crossing the south of the Yangtze River, burning, killing and looting everywhere, doing all kinds of evil, and I heard that the Qing government decided to enclose land in the south of the Yangtze River and demote the people The unprecedented bad news of being a slave, Zhang Pu, who finally understood what he had done this time, couldn't help regretting it.

I had to make a big mistake, and it was too late to regret it.Zhang Pu had no choice but to flee Zhenjiang with Zhu Yihai in his arms, trying to return to his hometown in Taicang, mobilize the clan power, and contact his colleagues and friends to plan countermeasures.As a result, a group of talents went to Jiangyin and were besieged by Qing soldiers in the county.Afterwards, another Jiangyin offensive and defensive battle lasted for more than ten days, until the Qing soldiers retreated and Shen Tingyang's naval fleet arrived, Zhang Pu and others were able to escape from the cage.

On the way back east on the ship of Shen Tingyang Navy, Zhang Pu went to his own mansion in Taicang, but only saw a piece of ruins that had been completely burned by the fire, and numerous corpses hanging on the trees outside the door... So, Extremely remorseful, Zhang Pu collected the corpses of his family members with his own hands, knelt down in front of the ruins of his house and cried bitterly, and brought Emperor Yonghe to Shanghai to join Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and others, hoping to create another situation.

On the other side, facing Zhang Pu and Emperor Yonghe who came uninvited, Xu Guangqi and others were inexplicably surprised at first, and then saw the great significance of it.

You know, the remnants of the Ming Dynasty in the south of the Yangtze River today, those landlords and gentry who have always looked above the top and are stubborn, thinking that they are the biggest under the world, have finally been completely awakened by the bloody butcher knife of the Qing army, and everywhere is in full swing. The ground recruited troops to prepare for war and planned to resist the Qing Dynasty.But the problem is, because there is no signboard that is convincing enough, all the anti-Qing forces are scattered, unable to form a cohesive core.

In response to such a situation, the bigwigs have already begun to try to form an alliance, but it has become a big problem to choose who should be the leader.

If there is a Ming emperor as a signboard, then the court can be rebuilt according to the situation, so that the resistance of the Jiangnan gentry will become "regularized".

Although the signboard of Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai is not authentic enough and the gold content is relatively limited, it is better than nothing!

So, after discussing with each other, all the members of the Shanghai County Maintenance Committee came up to greet Zhu Yihai, kneeling three times and kowtowing nine times to Zhu Yihai.

However, in the face of the reverent worship of the courtiers, "Emperor of Yonghe" Zhu Yihai only sighed faintly in his heart:

"...Hey, how long will the days of making marionettes last?!"

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On February 25th, the seventh year of Chongzhen, Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai appeared in Shanghai, announcing the rebuilding of the Ming court, appointing Xu Guangqi, a highly respected retired scholar, as the chief assistant of the cabinet, and Sun Yuanhua, the former governor of Denglai, as Minister of the Ministry of War. He followed Xu Guangqi from Beijing to Hainan Huang Daozhou, who fled, was the second assistant of the cabinet and the Minister of the Ministry of officials.They were also "promoted out of the ordinary" (in fact, it was just an admission of reality) Zhang Dai, a famous scholar from Shaoxing, served as Minister of the Ministry of Households, Fang Yizhi, a famous scholar from Tongcheng, served as Minister of the Ministry of Industry, Xia Yunyi and Chen Zilong, famous scholars from Songjiang, served as ministers of the Ministry of War, Xu Fuyuan served as minister of the Ministry of Punishment, and Shen Tingyang served as minister of the Ministry of Rites Also Admiral of the Navy.

As for Zhang Pu, the leader of the Fushe who came to Shanghai with Emperor Yonghe, although because he led the Qing soldiers and horses across the river to "rescue" Nanjing, the gentry and gentlemen in the south of the Yangtze River who were killed miserably gritted their teeth with hatred, and were even killed. I think it's more than enough to die.But after all, this person has a great reputation, a lot of contacts, and now he has the great achievement of "welcoming back to the emperor". In addition, Zhang Pu's family was also massacred by the Qing army. Right now, for the sake of employing people, he reluctantly forgave his guilt, pinched his nose and gave him the official title of Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites.

——The Jiangnan Shilin at the end of the Ming Dynasty certainly had a high-profile and brazen side, but they also had another set of more pragmatic unspoken rules.That is, no matter whether you are a good person or a bad person, as long as you are a "capable person", you can enjoy a corresponding position in the locality.

Through the butcher knife of the Qing army, almost all the talkative experts or paranoiacs in the Donglin Party have been killed, and the remaining guys, no matter their character is good or bad, are basically able and willing to do things.Therefore, the re-established Yonghe court is much stronger than the original in terms of efficiency.

With the re-establishment of the Yonghe court in Shanghai, the gentry and officials in counties in the south of the Yangtze River that had not been occupied or slaughtered by the Qing army suddenly had a backbone and responded in groups.In just half a month, the imperial court, which looks like a grass-roots team, already has a strength of [-] troops under its command.

However, Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and others are very clear that their current situation is not as optimistic as it seems.First of all, just judging from the process of how this army grew from nothing, it is not difficult to find that this is definitely a bunch of typical mobs—the armaments are simple, the quality is low, and the soldiers and officers basically have no combat experience; Secondly, the Communist Party of Shanghai has no real binding force on most of the troops under its name, because they are actually private soldiers recruited by the gentry from all over the country, but under the call of the banner of resisting the Qing Dynasty, they loosely gather together.

Generally speaking, the reason why these people defect to the Communist Party in Shanghai is that most of them are just for the sake of peace, and a few are for prosperity and wealth.So even though the gathering is quick, if something goes wrong, it is easy to disperse or even turn against the rebellion.It is not an easy task to control such a messy mob, and it even brings no less trouble than its opponents.

It will take considerable time and effort to transform them into a truly qualified army, and it may not be successful.

Therefore, as soon as the Yonghe Emperor in Shanghai was established, it had to give rewards and confer a lot of empty titles to appease people's hearts.

In addition, although under the banner of anti-Qing righteous soldiers, these mobs have never been a benevolent and righteous army.Without a stable rear to provide supplies, they simply cannot survive without looting their homes.Moreover, the local gentry who spent a lot of money to set up regiments to practice village bravery must also hope to earn back all the capital they invested in armaments by plundering the people-so, the legendary brutal Qing army has not yet been killed. The Ming army, which was pulled up in a hurry, had already caused a miasma in all the places where it was located, and brought serious disasters to the people in the south of the Yangtze River.

What's worse, in addition to the above-mentioned troubles, Xu Guangqi also found that he had to face a more terrible problem: famine!
——As the work of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty in various prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River began to enclose land successively, as well as the brutal and bloody massacres in Suzhou and other places, the people in the prefectures and counties in the western part of the south of the Yangtze River became frightened, and they dragged their children and took care of their elders one after another. The young land flooded into Songjiang Mansion, which was the only one that was still intact, and the total population of Songjiang Mansion suddenly swelled to more than 300 million!
This is really a terrible number. Although Songjiang Mansion is located in the same location as Shanghai, the magical capital with a population of tens of millions, Songjiang Mansion at the end of Ming Dynasty could not solve the basic necessities of life for such a large population.There is even a huge gap in food alone - although the Yangtze River Delta is an extremely fertile land of fish and rice, it can be used as the birthplace of capitalism in the late Ming Dynasty. Songjiang Prefecture, famous for its cotton textile industry, was already highly urbanized. It needs to import a large amount of food from other places to maintain it.Now that the food import channels have been interrupted due to the war, it is already sitting on the mountain, but now because of the refugee wave, so many mouths to eat have flowed in, and it will be even worse!
According to the most pessimistic estimate, because the Songjiang Mansion will run out of food in one month, it is very likely that the Qing army has not yet come from the west. A full-scale civil uprising caused by famine and internal strife in the army can make this weak The **** is destroyed!
Although all the civil and military officials and rich gentry in the entire Songjiang Mansion are very aware of the critical situation, everyone must contribute their strength and money, otherwise if the Qing soldiers break into Songjiang Mansion, or the rebellion of hungry people breaks out, then they Everyone has no good fruit to eat, so it is extremely rare to achieve unity.But it is hard for a clever woman to cook without rice. Even if they are willing to open the warehouse, the amount of food is still far from enough.

After all, the current territory of the Yonghe court is much smaller than last year.No matter how much money you have, there is nowhere to go shopping and eat.

Under such circumstances, Zhang Pu, who had always been looked down upon, once again stood up and proposed his strategy of "unity with the captives":
"...At present, the Tartars and bandits are wreaking havoc on the Yangtze River, and the food and rice in Huguang can no longer be obtained. Now that the Australian bandits occupy Guangdong, they have newly acquired several fertile lands along the coast of Zhejiang, and they are also doing business with countries in Southeast Asia. Presumably, they have quite a lot of rice in their hands. Many. If we can reconcile with them, we will surely be able to buy a lot of food and rice. If we can form an alliance with them and borrow their strong ships and sharp guns to jointly fight against the Qing soldiers, it will even solve my urgent needs..."

As soon as this strategy came out, it immediately attracted ridicule, "... Zhang Tianru! You forgot that you borrowed the soldiers and horses of the Tartars in the north of the Yangtze River last time, and ended up killing a mountain of corpses and blood in the south of the Yangtze River? Why are you colluding with the Australian bandits again now?" Don’t you forget that these two foreign barbarians are the same breed, and they are also greedy for our land!”

"...Ahem, at least this Australian barbarian only wants land, not life, but the Manchu Tartars want both land and life!"

Xu Guangqi, the chief minister of the cabinet who had just taken office for a few days, coughed and staggered to his feet, saying this to everyone.

"...Everyone, this is not the time to pay attention to the dignity of the court. This method should really be tried. In this situation, the Great Ming Dynasty has only a small area left, and the army of the Tartars is close at hand! Even the Australian bandit If you harbor evil intentions towards me, how bad can my fate be? Of course, the so-called capable people work harder, and let Zhang Tianru, the minister of the Ministry of Rites, lead the team on this trip..."

So, in the warm spring of this year, or at the beginning of March when the season was green and yellow, Zhang Pu, Minister of Rites, embarked on a journey to Hangzhou.

On the other side, our protagonist, Wang Qiu, and the immigration commissioners from the republics of the China League, sat on the gazebo of the Phoenix Mountain Villa in Hangzhou, overlooking the mighty refugee team in the distance with binoculars, and could not help but Sighing repeatedly, "...this is really driving fish for Yuan!"