In the process of Zhang Mingwei leading the westward expansion, it was actually also a process of propaganda.

The march of the army did not say anything about the local autumn season, and more than 100,000 people sang in unison, which was even more topical, and spread far away.

Here in Fengyang Mansion, whether it is Huang Degong or Liu Liangzuo, they have all received news about the arrival of the troops led by the Duke of Xingguo.

First, he stationed troops in Yangzhou, copied the home of a big salt merchant, and reformed the salt policy, promoted the salt drying method, and made a lot of money from the hands of those salt merchants.

This let them know that the court is rich again!

Recently, there have been rumors that there is something called potatoes, which is not only very delicious, but also has a high yield, which means that the food problem of Daming will soon be solved.

In short, with the westward expansion of Xingguo Gong, all kinds of favorable news began to spread.

Huang Degong was okay here, Liu Liangzuo was a little frightened, and he didn't dare to think about it anymore, so he immediately strictly restrained his troops and reported the official list early.

At the same time, the dispatch did not collect at night, and the thieves and sentry agents on the side of Luzhou Mansion also began to strengthen.

When the army of Xingguo Gong entered Chuzhou Mansion, it was not far from the Luzhou Mansion occupied by the thieves. Zhang Mingwei sent them a military order, and the army's arrears and salaries would be paid after the army met. However, before that, Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo were required to strictly guard the north of Luzhou Mansion and not let the thieves jump north.

At the same time, the headquarters army, which had been marching slowly, suddenly increased its speed and attacked the Luzhou Mansion with a posture of rushing thousands of miles.

On the side of Luzhou Mansion, the slogan of attacking Nanjing was shouted loudly, and the posture was that as long as the training of the naval army was completed, it would immediately attack along the south of the Yangtze River.

However, when Zhang Mingwei's troops launched an attack, Zhang Xianzhong and the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo turned out to be rabbits, and it can be said that they fled when they heard the wind, and they did not fight with the court officials and troops of Zhang Mingwei's department at all, but also jumped into Huguang at a very fast speed.

Even the spies who had been sent to the Rogue Army did not know about this matter in advance. Therefore, the cunning Zhang Xianzhong was not revealed to anyone at all at the beginning.

Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai's allied army, known as a million-strong army, did not win the battle against the Xingguo Gongsuo, which was still weak at the beginning. No matter what the reason is, in Zhang Xianzhong's view, it also shows that the Xingguo Public Office is difficult to deal with.

Since it's a hard bone, why should he gnaw it?

In addition, Li Zicheng's slogan shouted loudly, saying that he would send Liu Zongmin over to attack Yingtianfu together, but he did not come to Luzhou to meet. Even if the reason made up over there sounded reasonable and explained slowly, Zhang Xianzhong was so easy to fool, and immediately understood Li Zicheng's intentions.

Whether it is Fengyang, the central capital, or Nanjing, since it is the most important place in the imperial court, it means that the imperial court will definitely be heavily guarded, and who is so stunned will attack directly!

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong didn't plan to fight these two places from the beginning. His goal has been set from the beginning, and that is Huguang.

Huguang, that is, Hubei, has always been the granary of the Ming Dynasty, and there is a saying that "Huguang is ripe, and the world is full".

Zhang Xianzhong has long wanted to attack here, as long as he has enough money and food, he can recruit more people. In the future, not only will he fight with the imperial court, but sooner or later he will fight with Li Zicheng, and he will have more capital.

Therefore, his bluff and claim to attack Nanjing was actually done for the imperial court officials in Huguang.

As soon as Zhang Xianzhong heard that Xingguo Gong had led his troops westward, he quietly revealed this purpose to the leader of the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo, and at that time, they were secretly preparing for troops.

Of course, the external nature is to attack Nanjing. As a result, suddenly, the army of thieves abandoned the Luzhou Mansion and rapidly marched westward, jumping into Huguang.

Zhang Xianzhong in history did the same, first training sailors in Chaohu Lake in Luzhou Mansion, saying that he was going to attack Yingtianfu, but he turned around and raided Huguang.

This time, because of Li Zicheng's participation, he formed an alliance and shouted slogans, which was even more deceptive, so that the court officials and soldiers on Huguang's side were really able to attack Yingtianfu for these thieves, and they were all there to watch the excitement.

As a result, as soon as the thieves invaded Huguang, they were like bamboos. The night attack captured Danzhou, and then connected to Danshui, Huangzhou, and Macheng. Along the way, they grabbed grain and grass materials, coerced the population, and the prosperity of the military was suddenly in full swing.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Xianzhong did not stop at all, took Hanyang in the west, crossed the Yangtze River from Yadanzhou, and pointed directly at Wuchang.

Here in Wuchang, there is a vassal king who is sealed here, that is, the king of Chu. The contemporary king of Chu is called Zhu Huakui, who belongs to the kind of person who is ruthless but very stingy.

At that time, he instructed his subordinates to beat Zhao Kehuai, the governor of Huguang, who had a grudge against him, to death. You can't see this kind of thing anywhere else.

Zhu Huakui reigned for sixty-three years, and his strength combined with the wealth of Wuchang made him accumulate a mountain of money.

But even so, when Zhang Xianzhong attacked Wuchang, the local officials of Huguang gathered in the palace of the king of Chu, knelt down and begged Zhu Huakui for donations, and even took out the palace newspaper of the imperial court to persuade Zhu Huakui with the deeds of the king of Zhou, and asked him to take out the money to resist the army of thieves.

However, Zhu Huakui asked people to move out of the gold-wrapped chair given by the Hongwu Dynasty, and said to the local officials: "He has nothing to do with this army!" ”

Taizu gave something, who would dare to move?

And Zhu Huakui is very strong, and he was able to kill the governor of Huguang back then. Although these local officials have the will of the imperial court, none of them have the responsibility, and they dare not really tear their faces with Zhu Huakui.

As a result, he couldn't get a penny of grain from the Chu Palace.

Therefore, the other squires and rich people in Wuchang Mansion naturally followed suit, thinking that he King Chu did not take out money, obviously relying on it, and felt that Wuchang Mansion would be fine, so why should they take money.

In this way, when Wuchang Mansion was still worried about money and food, Zhang Xianzhong rushed to attack Wuchang Mansion, not to mention, and even sent people to infiltrate Wuchang Mansion in advance. In this way, as soon as the attack was attacked, Wuchang Mansion fell.

Zhang Xianzhong entered the city and looked at the carts of gold and silver treasures that were moved out of the palace of the king of Chu, and laughed happily: "There is such a wealth without guarding, Zhu Huzi is really mediocre!" ”

It is said that hundreds of cars were not finished from the Chu Palace. Subsequently, Zhang Xianzhong immediately issued more than 6 million taels of silver to gather displaced people from all over the country to expand his strength.

At the same time, Zhang Xianzhong also ordered Zhu Huakui to be thrown into the Yangtze River and drowned, and drove all the clans surnamed Zhu in Wuchang City to the riverside and ordered him to throw himself into the water. For a while, the cry on the bank of the Yangtze River shook the sky, and the floating corpses flowed downstream.

If the original history is changed, and the vassal king is killed by thieves again, Emperor Chongzhen will naturally be furious again and will severely punish a group of sub-officials. However, since Zhang Mingwei crossed, the situation has been different.

First of all, Zhang Mingwei made it clear to him that the disaster of the Ming Dynasty will have the fruit of the clan. In two more years, the Ming Dynasty will perish. It is self-evident which is more important than the clan and the ancestral society.

Coupled with the performance of the clan after 1644, none of them were presentable, which made Emperor Chongzhen realize the fact that these clans are all pig-like existences.

For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen listened to Zhang Mingwei's suggestion, and not only issued an edict requiring the vassal king to take the lead in subsidizing money and grain to defend the city when he encountered thieves attacking the city, but also changed the national policy to divide the vassal kings overseas, and also set up the king of Zhou as an example.

But even so, this King of Chu didn't listen, so this time the result was different. After Zhang Mingwei played this matter, Emperor Chongzhen made it clear to the world and strictly demanded that the vassal clans of all regions should take the king of Zhou as an example and the king of Chu as a warning.

Look, Kaifeng was held, but Wuchang fell. This is the result of the different reactions of different vassal kings!

As for the punishment of the people involved, this time it was not!

After Zhang Xianzhong captured Wuchang Mansion, he actively prepared for war, preparing to meet the pursuing Xingguo Mansion.

Because he knows that always running away is not a way. Now that his strength has been greatly expanded, he has the confidence to fight with the Xingguo Gongfu Department for a long time.

Anyway, if you can't win, then run away!

On the side of the court officials and soldiers, the result of the killing of the King of Chu on the Wuchang side made the local government and the court officials and soldiers breathe a sigh of relief. At the same time, morale was rising.

After Zhang Mingwei knew that Zhang Xianzhong's headquarters and the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left were not leaving Huguang and were preparing to fight him, he was not in a hurry, and no longer let the army advance in a hurry, but began to wait for the follow-up baggage battalion, that is, the fleet and car battalion along the river.

At the same time, Zhang Mingwei also ordered the dispatch of officers and troops from various localities to strictly guard the main transportation routes in the north.

Not only Liu Liangzuo and Huang Degong's men and horses assisted in the defense of the northern front, but he also transferred Tang Tong, Li Fuming, and Ma Ke, three generals, to block the northern part of Huguang and slowly shrink the encirclement, at least not to let the thieves flee to the north.

With such a division of troops, his headquarters only has more than 50,000 troops.

The generals were very worried at first, because they were afraid that there would be danger on the side of Xingguo Gong. However, this time, Zhang Mingwei insisted on his own opinion and went down according to this arrangement.

He knew that if he didn't give the thieves hope on his side, the thieves wouldn't come to fight him.

It is equivalent to saying that Zhang Mingwei is using his side as bait to lure the thieves and prevent the thieves from engaging in guerrilla warfare with him.

He stayed in Luzhou Mansion for half a month, and after the army was in charge and the local order was restored, he led the army into the territory of Huguang.

………………

On Zhang Xianzhong's side, he killed all the vassal clans at the beginning, not that he hated it, but he knew that if he did this, it was tantamount to borrowing a knife to kill people, and he could ruthlessly kill a group of feudal officials and generals of the imperial court, which was experienced before.

If you can kill that Xingguo Gong because of this, it will be the best.

As a result, the result he waited for was completely different from before, which surprised him.

It was only at this time that he really realized how difficult this Xingguo Duke was to deal with, which also made him start to pay great attention to the upcoming war.

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