Dashun Yongchang

In an agricultural society, the concept of region is quite serious. Generals from the north naturally like to use soldiers from the north. What's more, most of the generals here are from Shaanxi, and a small number of them are from Henan. It is also in their minds to send elite soldiers from Shaanxi and Gansu. An inherent impression, so they also agree with Liu Zongmin's statement that the proportion of soldiers in the north should be increased, especially the proportion of soldiers from Shaanxi and Gansu.

Although Li Zicheng does not agree with these people's views, he also knows that it is difficult for him to change the inherent concepts in these people's minds. For a soul in the industrial age, let alone regional differences, it is the difference in race. There is not much difference in terms of the times. If it is not for the high cost of training and too few populations, capitalist training

It is easier for orangutans to be assembly line operators than to train people to be operators. After all, orangutans don't need a house, and they won't go on strike.

For the army in the industrial age, what is important is soldiers who can abide by discipline rather than soldiers who are not afraid of death. No matter what era the latter is a relatively rare type, the former is an industrial force that can be trained in large numbers. Taste.

Of course, in this era of agriculture, there are still two problems to be solved in order to establish a modern industrial organization army, one is the problem of language communication, and the other is the problem of the organization of the army.

Compared with the language problem of different pronunciations in the ten miles and eight towns in the south, at least at this time the northerners still have similar accents. After all, the population and communication in the plains are relatively easy.Therefore, an army composed of northerners is actually easier to form, and because of the similar accent, the regional concept in the north is weaker than that in the south. Even the neighboring villages in the south don't think they are township parties unless they leave the county. .

As for the second question, the organization of the army is actually a matter of officers. Now the army is full of northern officers. If you want to use them as the backbone to build a southern army, you don't even have to think about it. Conflicts will inevitably erupt between the two sides. .At the current stage, the unity within the army is still above all else, so Li Zicheng can only choose to compromise.

Chapter 472 Guide Eight

Solving the way out for the officers, the abolition of the army is more than half a success. After all, it is the officers who have the ability to organize soldiers to make trouble. It is difficult for ordinary soldiers to have the ability and prestige to organize a mutiny.

However, Li Zicheng is also very clear that in order to reduce the current size of the army to less than 60, at least 20 to 30 people need to be abolished.Therefore, it is very important to give the soldiers a way out, otherwise, who would dare to surrender to Dashun in the future?

It is actually quite difficult to drive soldiers to go to the battlefield to fight desperately, but it is not necessarily difficult for a group of soldiers who have no way out to stand up and fight with the court. A large number of key personnel in the rebel army are escaped sergeants from the Ming Frontier Army.Li Zicheng didn't want to repeat the mistakes of Daming, so he quickly said to the generals.

"I traveled from Zhengzhou to Guide this time along the Yellow River. I also saw the embankments on both sides of the Yellow River along the way. It can be said that the embankments below Kaifeng are riddled with holes. Floods, I think the downstream will also burst during the summer flood season. The root cause is that the Yellow River has not been repaired since the Chongzhen Dynasty; the second is the man-made damage caused by the war.

In the past we were rebels, so it was not our turn to be in charge of the river regulation, but today we are the imperial court, if the river regulation cannot be put on the agenda, will the people of the world still think that we are the imperial court?In my opinion, we will only feel that we are a group of kings of the mountain.

I don’t know how many low-level peasants have rebelled throughout the ages, but there is only one successful person, Zhu Yuanzhang. Why did everyone else fail and only Zhu Yuanzhang succeeded?Do you know why? "

Liu Zongmin, Yuan Zongdi, these former rebel generals were fine, anyway, they got used to the meeting with Li Zicheng for a long time, but the former Ming army generals who had just attended the meeting were a little shocked, they didn't know that Dashun's Military councils are for discussing these things.

After all, in the Ming Dynasty's military conference, only the commander assigns tasks, and then everyone agrees. As for making any suggestions, it is impossible, because the literati commander does not think that military officials are qualified to command him, and the military commander does not allow his subordinates to question his plan in public. Therefore, whether the Ming army's combat plan is feasible does not depend on the general's ability, but on whether the plan formulated by the commander is out of touch with reality.

In the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming army divided into four groups to attack Hetuala. The leading generals of the four routes: Juniper, Liu Ting, Ma Lin, Li Rubai, etc. were all veterans who had experienced battles. The battle plan of the Jin army after attacking and encircling and annihilating in one fell swoop is completely divorced from reality.

At that time, Xu Guangqi pointed out: "Advancing troops from four directions is absurd", and predicted that Nurhachi would "merge troops to respond to the road, and the one who should be the one must be General Du."

Because at this time, the Liaodong Ming army lost most of its elites due to the Korean War, but the Jianzhou Jurchen’s strength increased greatly by annexing the Jurchen ministries. In addition, the area outside the pass was sparsely populated, and Hetuala, where the Jurchen was located, was far away from Shenyang and other Han people. Not to mention the long distance in the area, the road is almost full of barren mountains and mountains, and there is almost no place for supplies.

Fighting against Jianzhou Jurchen in such a terrain, the focus is on whether the logistics supplies can keep up, rather than letting the army venture across the wilderness to find the Jurchen decisive battle. As long as the army loses a battle, it will inevitably collapse, because the soldiers know that there are no reinforcements behind them. If you don't run, you will be dragged by the Jurchens and starved to death in the wilderness.

Therefore, rather than saying that the Ming army was defeated by the Manchus in the Battle of Sarhu, it is better to say that the army was overwhelmed by the panic caused by the inability to guarantee logistics.However, the Ming people did not learn such a lesson. Instead, they shifted the responsibility for the defeat to Juniper, thinking that his underestimation of the enemy led to the failure of the four-way encirclement and suppression. Apart from a quick battle, does the logistics army have any other options?

Precisely because they refused to reflect on the defeat in the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming army emphasized the commanding power of the commander more and more in subsequent battles, and strictly prohibited subordinate generals from acting on their own, so the command system of the Ming army became more and more serious. The more rigid.Those who said that the soldiers of the Ming army did not know how to fight when they were in the Ming army, but after they surrendered Dashun and the Manchus, they became able to fight. In fact, the Shun army and the Manchus let go of the shackles of these generals in commanding operations.

However, at the military conference, Li Zicheng suddenly discussed the failures and successes of the rebels in history, which was somewhat beyond the imagination of these newly surrendered Ming generals.In their view, Li Zicheng, who has almost reached the pinnacle of rebels, should vigorously promote loyalty and filial piety instead of rebellion experience, otherwise how can he sit firmly on the throne?Even if Zhu Yuanzhang killed Queen Xiaoming, wouldn't he start talking about the Confucian ethics of loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness?

Just when these generals of the Ming army were restrained and did not dare to speak out, Yuan Zongdi first responded to Li Zicheng's question and said: "Your Majesty, I have some opinions on this question. Wall, wide accumulation of grain, slow claim to the king. The strategy. First managed the west of Zhejiang, and then managed Yingtian, Huaixi and other places, so that they had enough strength for the Northern Expedition to unify the world.

And the other rebels either fled around or stayed in one place to be the local emperor, so they were either destroyed by the court or swallowed up by other forces. This is the difference between having a foundation and being aggressive.Ming Taizu had both, so he finally took over the world. "

The former Guide Candidate General Zhang Dan heard Yuan Zongdi say so thoroughly, and couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, thinking to himself: "As a subject, you have studied the rebellion so thoroughly, so don't worry. Have you violated Li Zicheng's taboo?"

Several people including Liu Zongmin also echoed Yuan Zongdi's opinion. They all believed that Zhu Yuanzhang's victory in the end depended on a base that had been in operation for a long time, so that the Ming army could receive continuous support and defeat other opponents.

Li Zicheng nodded, and then concluded: "Rebellion is the destruction of the old system. This kind of thing can be done as long as the peasants who cannot survive stand up and raise their arms. But revolution is not only about destroying the old system, but also A new system is established, a system that can win the support of the people is considered successful.

In the past we were the rebels of Ming Dynasty, but after overthrowing the old system of Ming Dynasty, is our mission over?No, I think our task is not over yet. Next, we must be revolutionaries and build a new country that conforms to our will on the ruins of Ming Dynasty, instead of thinking about resting on the credits of the past.

Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Mongolian Yuan court with a piece of commoner clothes, defeated various forces, and finally created the Ming Dynasty. It is true that his rebellion was successful.But did the Ming Dynasty he established really meet the expectations of the people?I can't see it.From this point of view, the Ming Dynasty is Zhu Yuanzhang's victory, but not the people's victory.

I admit that Zhu Yuanzhang was a great emperor, but he was not a revolutionary.And I hope that when the latecomers comment on us, they will not call us princes and generals, but call us a group of revolutionaries. This is the best appreciation.

And to do this, we must learn to build.For China, water control is always the top priority of the country, because the foundation of our country is agriculture, without a good harvest of agriculture, people will starve to death, and the people will be dissatisfied.So what is the biggest problem in farming?It's nothing more than water control.

Our history begins with water control, and the story of Dayu's water control is familiar even to children.And where is the water that Dayu used to control the water?It is the Yellow River.Therefore, any dynasty that unified the world, even a dynasty established by a foreign race like Meng Yuan, would put the governance of the Yellow River first.

Therefore, I, Dashun, want to be recognized by the people of the world, not because of how many hostile forces we have defeated, but whether we have taken the responsibility of governing the Yellow River.This is the reason why I want to mention the governance of the Yellow River at today's military meeting.

Our disarmament of the army this time is not to disband the army and send the soldiers back to the countryside. We also need to find a way out for these soldiers, otherwise these demobilized soldiers will become an unstable factor in the local area, which will be shaken. The basis of our local rule. "

Liu Zongmin immediately responded when he heard this: "Indeed, you can't just let the soldiers go home empty-handed, or they will turn into bandits when they return to their hometowns and have nothing to do, which will cause danger to local security. I think the Marshal The land distribution policy proposed by the government is still very reasonable, and the demobilized soldiers should be given land, so that they will have land to cultivate when they go back, and they will feel at ease."

However, Yuan Zongdi still has some different views, "Of course it is good to divide the land, but do we really have so many lands to divide? It is okay to say that Shaanxi and Henan provinces have a large number of populations due to natural disasters and wars. In addition, we confiscated the farmland of the Ming clan, so there are many unclaimed lands that can be divided, but what about other provinces? Especially Jiangnan and other places, where the land is narrow and densely populated, do we not divide the land for the officers and soldiers there? Is it? If the land is divided, where does the land come from?"

Liu Zongmin immediately said: "Isn't it enough to confiscate the land of those corrupt officials? Isn't that what we did in Shaanxi and Shanxi? If those gentry resist, can't we suppress it?"

Yuan Zongdi disagreed, "The northern gentry suffered a lot of losses in the war, so they were naturally unable to fight us, but even so, after the Manchus entered the customs, these gentry immediately turned to the Manchus. result of conflict.

Jiangnan has almost never encountered wars, and the power of the gentry has never been lost, and now the majority of the money and food expenditure of the Marshal's Mansion comes from Jiangnan's money and food.If we smashed Jiangnan, wouldn't it be cheaper for Manchurians?

I think the confiscation of the gentry's land should be treated differently, and it cannot be simply deprived of their fields. "

Chapter 473 Guide Nine

The generals quickly divided into two factions. Those who supported Liu Zongmin were all old brothers from the original rebel army, while those who supported Yuan Zongdi were more extensive. Of course, there was a group of people who remained silent and only paid attention to Li Zicheng's attitude.

A certain person was not surprised by this scene. The generals of Liu Zongmin did not actually want to uphold justice for the people. They advocated a comprehensive attack on the gentry, because this is the gentry of the Ming Dynasty, not the gentry of the Dashun. Prosperous, how do they share the fruits of victory?

As for Yuan Zongdi, apart from some newly surrendered generals who are inextricably linked with the gentry class and therefore do not advocate the complete overthrow of the gentry, the remaining old brothers who support Yuan Zongdi are tired of endless wars , hoping to rebuild social order and build a new dynasty, they are unwilling to fight with the entire gentry class anymore.

Since the Wang Erbaishui Uprising, the peasant army and the gentry landlords have fought a full 17 years of war, but the place where the peasant army has really shaken the rule of the gentry is only in some areas of Shaanxi and Henan, but there are two capitals and 13 provinces in the world That is to say, the area controlled by the gentry destroyed by the peasant army is less than one-sixth of the world.

Moreover, after overthrowing the gentry, they did not establish a paradise without the government oppressing the people as they imagined.This reality disappointed many people who defected to the Peasant Army. After discovering that they did not have the ability to govern the country, some rebel generals believed that it was obviously inappropriate to completely overthrow the gentry, because the local government would completely lose control and become a world of the jungle.

Although under the control of the gentry, the common people were also sheep raised in the sheepfold, but at least the gentry returned the sheepfold to allow the flock to multiply in the sheepfold.After defeating the gentry, without the protection of the sheep pen, not only the wolves outside came in to eat the sheep, but even the sheep that were originally in the sheep pen became wolves and began to eat their own kind in the past.

After seeing this scene too much, in fact, many generals of the rebel army have given up their hope of establishing a "world without the oppression of the official gentry" after the overthrow of the imperial court. They believe that even if Dashun replaces Daming, they still want to rebuild society Order instead of doing something else, because they failed to do something different in past wars, and only some areas that cooperated with the gentry restored some order.

Of course, this kind of thinking did not only exist among the generals. Li Zicheng absorbed Niu Jinxing and other scholars to establish a system for Dashun, which essentially started the process of compromise with the gentry.So if we really want to trace the root cause, we still have to fall on himself.On the contrary, Liu Zongmin's persistent faction became a minority in the Shun Army. Of course, this minority only refers to the generals above the middle level.

Li Zicheng could not support the opinions of people like Liu Zongmin, because they only had the concept of overthrowing the gentry but did not refuse to live the life of a gentry. They were neither bourgeois nor proletarian, so they could not propose a new social production system to replace them. Small farmers produce, so in the end they will only become disruptors of all order, forcing the people to abandon them.

But he does not fully agree with the plan of cooperating with the gentry. Maybe this plan was feasible for Li Zicheng in the past, but it is not feasible for someone. If he follows this plan, he will not be able to do more than Zhu Yuanzhang is better, but his control over his subordinates is not as strong as Zhu Yuanzhang, which also means that Zhu Yuanzhang can use the butcher knife to force the gentry to bow to himself. It was the gentry who supported his subordinates to overthrow him.

Because a farmer is not qualified to sit in the position of the emperor, which is completely inconsistent with the Confucian thought of "the Tao does not change, and the sky does not change". Under the guiding ideology of the Mandate of Heaven, everyone should keep their own place , because your position is not obtained by relying on personal struggle, but has been prescribed since birth.

Therefore, when Li Zicheng took the position of emperor, the gentry had to face two choices, acknowledging the usefulness of personal struggle, thus negating the destiny theory on which they relied to rule the country, which would make more and more common people start Question and challenge their right to rule, or prove to the world that those who try to stand up without the destiny will not get good results.

Li Zicheng doesn't want to spend the rest of his life fighting openly and secretly with the gentry. He is definitely no match for this kind of conspiracy, not even the soul of modern people, because these frogs in the well will always pull you to the same place as them levels, and then defeat you with your own rich experience in power struggles.

Therefore, Li Zicheng can understand Yuan Zongdi's desire to establish a stable society as soon as possible, but he always believes that there is no prospect of such a stable society, because for the world in the 17th century, stability means stagnation, while European countries that have begun to colonize the world will continue to accelerate, and eventually leave the rest of the world far behind.

After the two sides basically expressed their opinions, Li Zicheng finally said: "Whether to overthrow the gentry class, I don't think Dashun is currently facing the problem.

What I just said is very clear. The main problem we are facing at present is to let the people settle down first, because if the people do not settle down, they cannot produce, and if the people do not produce, they cannot pay money and food. Without money and food, the Marshal’s Mansion cannot continue to operate. , This is a matter of our life and death.

Therefore, reducing the expenditure of the Marshal's Mansion and allowing the people to have land to cultivate are the two major problems that the Marshal's Mansion has to solve first.Only by solving these two problems can the regime of Dashun barely stand on its feet, and we can talk about the future.

One of the main ways to solve these two problems is to abolish the army, because the current largest expenditure of the Marshal's Mansion is military expenditure.But as I said just now, the disbandment of the army cannot be ended by disbanding. If the demobilized officers and soldiers of the army are not properly arranged, there will be chaos at the local level, which also hinders the resumption of production at the local level.

I don’t think there is any big problem when Ru Hou said just now that the land of the landlords was confiscated to accommodate the officers and soldiers. Compared with offending a few gentry, do we dare to offend hundreds of thousands or even millions of soldiers?We have been fighting the imperial court controlled by this gentry for more than ten years. Everyone should know how capable these gentry are, but we should understand the power erupted by those peasants who cannot survive.

If we blindly accommodate the gentry in order to pursue social stability, then we will become the second Ming Dynasty, and the anger of the peasants without land will turn to us, and they will raise the banner of rebellion to defeat us just like we did in the past.And will the gentry be on our side?I don't think so, the old Zhu's family gave these gentry so many privileges, and they still abandoned the old Zhu's family, why would they support us firmly?They'll just sit on the fence again, ready to welcome a new master.

Therefore, confiscating land from the gentry is not the key to the problem, but distributing land to farmers who have no land is the key. If we cannot find so much land to allocate to them for a while, then we must at least give them one that can support themselves. This is what the court should do.And any person or class that prevents us from doing this is our enemy. "

Li Zicheng's words finally calmed the two sides down. No matter how the two sides argued, what they were fighting for was what kind of policy the new dynasty should implement, and they still had the same view on defending the new dynasty.Because everyone knows that they are just the skin of the new dynasty. If the new dynasty does not exist, then these people will lose their current power and status.

Even those Ming generals who had just surrendered to Dashun also agreed with Li Zicheng's words. Although they have not really established a sense of belonging to Dashun, there is one thing they agree with Li Zicheng. If the new dynasty wants long-term stability, it must stabilize the bottom Even the officials of the Ming Dynasty are very clear about this truth, because suppressing mergers is also regarded as the national policy of the Ming Dynasty. Among them, Hai Rui of the Jiajing Dynasty did the best. Although he only stayed in Yingtian for half a year, he ordered The scholar-officials headed by Xu Jie cleared a large amount of land.

However, although the officials of the Ming Dynasty knew that the prevalence of mergers would lead to the demise of the dynasty, Hai Rui, who advocated an anti-merger policy, was still pushed out of the court by the scholar-bureaucrats. The half-year governor of Yingtian was the end of Hai Rui who tried to save the fate of the dynasty.For these former Ming generals, they opposed the elimination of the entire gentry class, because they were one of them, but they did not object to the elimination of some gentry, so as to ease the current contradiction between farmers and gentry.

For these Ming generals who faced the peasant army directly, they have realized that it is impossible not to give farmers land. Even if Li Zicheng overthrows the Ming Dynasty, this problem still needs to be solved, otherwise, as Li Zicheng himself said, the peasants will still rise up Rebel.As people who have surrendered to the new dynasty, of course they support the new dynasty to confiscate the land of those gentry who have not yet surrendered to appease the peasants, so as to maintain their current living status. This is the idea of ​​beggar-thy-neighbor.

Therefore, under the guidance of Li Zicheng, everyone reached a basic consensus that land should be allocated to farmers, and those people or forces that obstruct the allocation of land to farmers should be eliminated.However, Li Zicheng did not say anything about how to identify and eliminate the part of the gentry. He brought the topic back to the placement of the demobilized officers and soldiers.

"As we said just now, there are at least 30 to [-] officers and soldiers who have been demobilized, excluding the south of the Yangtze River and the Ming army still on the Manchu side. If all these people are sent back to their hometowns, I don't think they will The resettlement is also an extremely heavy burden on the locality, but some people may not be willing to continue to return to the countryside to become farmers.

Therefore, my proposition is to turn part of the army into engineers first, and the country is waiting for prosperity. The Yellow River and the Yangtze River need to be harnessed, canals need to be maintained, roads need to be built, and various mines need to be developed. Manpower is needed everywhere.Let’s hand over these tasks to the engineering soldiers first, so that the money and food for these people can be transferred from the military expenditure to the civil administration expenditure, which not only reduces the labor burden of the common people, but also does not crowd out the military expenditure...”

Few generals would object to this proposition, because fewer people spend money, which means they can spend more, which is of course a good thing.

Chapter 474 Guide Ten

In the past, Ming's military expenses were fixed according to the number of soldiers, so the generals who wanted to get some extra money to support their families would have to pay for nothing. That is to say, they would allow soldiers to fend for themselves, but they would not disappear from the army's roster. Stay, all fell into the pocket of the general.

However, Dashun's military expenses were not distributed in this way. According to the calculation of the General Staff, the cost of raising soldiers plus the cost of ordering military equipment was combined to form an amount, and war expenses had to be allocated separately.Under such a military expenditure system, the chances of generals getting empty pay are reduced, but the servants do not need to spend their own money to support them, because the General Staff has included this part of the cost in military expenditures.

After the empty salary is not available, reducing the number of troops and improving the treatment is a favorable option for everyone.Li Zicheng then suggested by the way that Yuan Zongdi should take over the issue of the army's relocation and concurrently serve as the governor of the river, preparing to start preparations for the management of the Yellow River.

Yuan Zongdi readily accepted this proposal, which was also proposed to him by Li Zicheng before, and he was going to switch from military work to civil affairs work. This was the first step for the establishment of the Central Plains Governor-General.After all, the places that Dashun can really control are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Huaiyang, Jingxiang and other places. A Central Plains Governor's District has almost taken away one-third of Dashun's actual control area. Such an area makes Yuan If Zongdi came to serve as governor, he would inevitably encounter opposition from many people.

But after the establishment of the post of River Governor, managing the Yellow River is a thankless job. No one is willing to compete with Yuan Zongdi for such hard work. Therefore, when Li Zicheng proposed this suggestion, even Liu Zongmin did not object.

For the old and new generals present here, Yuan Zongdi's position as the governor of the river is also very exciting to them, because although this position is very tiring, it was not a position that warriors could get their hands on in the past, because after the governor of the river, the next One step will inevitably advance to the position of the six ministers, and the six ministers are almost the core of the court's power.

This means one thing, the road to the core of power is once again opened to warriors, and any general will object to this proposal.If Yuan Zongdi could take this path today, theoretically all the warriors present would have this opportunity.

If, before Li Zicheng arrived in Guide City, everyone was still worrying about this war, then after this military meeting, what everyone cared about was no longer this war, but the aftermath of the war. The issue of the distribution of series benefits is over.Compared with fighting against the Qing army, it is natural that the distribution of post-war benefits can stimulate everyone's desire more.

The difference from Daming is that this time it is the warriors who decide the distribution of benefits, which means that the warriors who used to only look up to the civilian officials to share the leftovers can finally sit at the table openly.Liu Zongmin, Yuan Zongdi and other generals who were born in the rebel army were in a stable mood. After all, the rebel army didn’t have many scholars, but those generals of the Ming army who had just surrendered became all excited. It was not their turn to interject.

So after this meeting, although it was the first time I saw Li Zicheng, these Ming army generals from Guide already had a sense of belonging to the Marshal's Mansion, and began to think about how they could be in this new dynasty. What did they do, and they didn't even think about it before.

After the military meeting ended, Li Zicheng and Yuan Zongdi had an exchange on the management of the Yellow River. After Li Zicheng and Yuan Zongdi had a confession last time, Yuan Zongdi who returned to Guide also took time to understand the problem of the flooding of the Yellow River. , so he expressed his views to Li Zicheng.

"The flood of the Yellow River has always been a problem. I asked many local scholars and found that the problem of the Yellow River was mainly caused by Du Chong during the Jingkang period of the Song Dynasty. The area has become a flood-prone area.

After that, both Meng Yuan and Ming Dynasty spent great efforts to repair the Yellow River, but they couldn't restore the situation before the Song Dynasty.Afterwards, the Ming army dug up the embankment of the Yellow River near Kaifeng, which only made the situation worse, not the good.

In the section of the Yellow River below Cao County, large and small breaches occur almost every year during the flood season, especially in Guide, Xuzhou, and Gaojiayan of Hongze Lake. These places are most prone to flooding.

The water of the Yellow River is heavy, and a large amount of sediment washed down from the upper reaches eventually accumulates on the plains around Henan and South Zhili. As a result, the bottom of the Yellow River is getting higher and higher, even reaching the level of the two banks.This situation has greatly increased the difficulty of governing the Yellow River...

In addition to these troubles, the Yellow River also has the problem of competing with the Canal and the Huai River..."

Liu Zongmin yawned a lot, and finally couldn't help interrupting Li Zicheng and Yuan Zongdi and said, "Your Majesty, you two can just talk about this kind of thing. I don't need to listen in, right? I want to check the arrangement of the barracks." The situation, can I say goodbye first?"

Li Zicheng always stopped the conversation with Yuan Zongdi, glanced at Liu Zongmin and said: "If you are not interested in listening, go ahead, I dealt with Ding Kuichu today, maybe the local gentry will have other ideas, let the soldiers keep Don't give them an opportunity to take advantage of the state of being loose on the outside and tight on the inside."

Liu Zongmin replied with some disbelief: "Is there such a courageous person among the Guide gentry? If there is such a person, how could we defeat Guide so easily last time?"

Li Zicheng shook his head and said, "Last time we were just fighting with Ming Dynasty over who should rule Guide, but this time we are fighting with these gentry for the power to govern Guide. I'm sure some people won't think about it? Didn't Cao Mengde almost get killed by Zhang Xiu? Is it?"

Liu Zongmin was no longer sleepy now, and replied to Li Zicheng with great interest: "I know Zhang Xiu, because Cao Mengde played with his sister-in-law, he can be regarded as a man, but your Majesty, you probably don't like whose sister-in-law..."

Before he finished speaking, Liu Zongmin looked at Li Zicheng's fierce eyes and hurriedly stood up, clasped his fists and said, "Then I'm leaving now, and I will definitely tell all the troops well, and I won't let those gentry have any chance..."

At the north gate of Guide City, there is a street called Liu Yushou more than [-] meters away from the city gate, and more than ten meters to the east is a luxurious Shangshudi.

Hou Xun's house is gone.After welcoming Li Zicheng back home from the city gate, Hou Xun's face became gloomy. At this time, his nephew Hou Fangyan also came up to welcome him. He was a little curious that his uncle came home so soon.

When he learned about the experience at the city gate from Hou Xun's mouth, Hou Fangyan followed up with his uncle a little angrily and said: "Uncle, I said that it is impossible for us and Li Zicheng to reconcile. After Guide, how many people in our family have died, and several uncles, uncles and grandmothers have all died at the hands of the intruders, why do we still bow our knees to them?"

Hou Xun stopped and glanced at his nephew beside him. Hou Fangyan, who was a head taller than his uncle, suddenly fell silent. Hou Fangyan's father was Hou Xun's younger brother Hou Ke, who died in office ten years ago, so Hou Fangyan can say He grew up under the teaching of his uncle, and he respects and fears this uncle.

Seeing his nephew calm down, Hou Xun said: "It is the honor of our Hou family that my family died in the king's affairs, but there is no personal enmity between my family and Li Zicheng. If such resentment is accumulated, the world will be destroyed." How many gentry families can survive?

My family moved from Kaifeng to Guide during the Hongwu period. From the ancestors to the sixth generation ancestors, they were ordinary military households. The sixth generation ancestors hired teachers to teach their children because they were bullied by gangsters in the same army. It was not until your grandfather left the status of military households. became an official household.Although my family's prosperity is only three generations, but the efforts made for this are far more than three generations.

You only think about the death of these relatives, don't you think about the efforts your ancestors made for their children and grandchildren?How can the efforts of several generations be wasted for the sacrifice of a few people?If Li Zicheng had been defeated by the Manchus before, then it would be a different story, but now that the Shun army has returned from victory, there are Li Zicheng's troops inside and outside Guide, do you want my family to be extinct? "

Hou Fangyan hurriedly saluted and admitted his mistake: "My boy didn't mean that at all. I just thought of my uncles and felt depressed for a while. I just ask my uncle to punish me."

Hou Xun looked behind him, and at this moment the servants were far away, apparently not wanting to hear anything that shouldn't be heard.Hou Xun then lowered his voice and scolded: "Do you think you are the only one who is sad and depressed? Those who died were my mother, my younger brother and my uncle. If I dare not feel sad, what is the difference between me and a beast? But Daming is over, and the world is decided It belongs to Dashun and the Manchus, not us.

If we want to live up to the efforts of our ancestors, we must not take half a step wrong.Although you gave up literature to practice martial arts, you should at least understand the basic truth. If you go against the general trend, even if you are as brave as an overlord, you will die in Wujiang, not to mention Xiang Yu, who is as good as you?

Which of the big clans in my guide city has not shed blood at the hands of Shunjun, but who is absent at the city gate today?The Shen family and the Song family also want to bow their heads to today's Li Zicheng, because today is not what it used to be.Next time you yell like thieves and thieves, don't blame me for using family law.In addition, you stay at home these two days and don't go out for a stroll. "

Hou Fangyan could only be submissive to his uncle, and dared not say anything more.After driving his nephew away, Hou Xun went back to his study to rest. Although the incense burner was lit, he still couldn't calm down.As a man who had experienced the struggle of the Ming Dynasty, he had actually seen some bad clues from Li Zicheng's attitude towards them, the German gentry.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but called his housekeeper and told him to go and watch in front of Ding Kuichu's house, and when he saw Ding Kuichu came back, he would come back and repay him. He planned to have a good chat with Ding Kuichu to see what happened to Li Zicheng. What are you dissatisfied with.In the current season, Li Zicheng is dissatisfied with the quotation. This is by no means a good sign. Once a warrior gets his way, he will forget about it. He is very worried that Li Zicheng will vigorously suppress the German gentry, that is, it is useless to show favor.

Of course, if Li Zicheng made such a move, Hou Xun would not be surprised, because the position of the emperor is that he cannot trust other people. Constantly cleaning out people he does not trust is the essence of imperial power, and it is nothing more than a matter of degree. .

Chapter 475 Guide Eleven

Ding Kuichu returned home much earlier than Hou Xun expected, and he suddenly realized that there seemed to be a problem between Li Zicheng and Ding Kuichu, otherwise the Henan governor would not have been driven home so early.

He was still hesitant to see the other party at first, because it might arouse Li Zicheng's suspicion of the Guide gentry even more. A Henan governor who was dissatisfied by Li Zicheng had someone visit him. Isn't this the best proof of the formation of a party.

But soon Hou Xun made up his mind and asked the housekeeper to arrange a small bridge to send him to Ding's mansion, because today is not the same as in the past, and in the Ming Dynasty in the past, he could use other channels to understand what happened between Li Zicheng and Ding Kuichu What, but now it is difficult for him to inquire about news from the upper echelons of Dashun, or even if he can inquire, it will lose its timeliness.