In October of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, who had been recuperating in Guanzhong for half a year, regrouped, broke through the Qinling Mountains in one fell swoop, attacked Henan again along the Shangluo line, and defeated Li Guoting, the general soldier of the Ming army at the mouth of the West Gorge, and wiped out more than 20,000 people in his department, and connected more than ten counties in Nanyang, Ruzhou and Henan within two months, and his prestige was greatly enhanced.

At this time, Li Zicheng completely mastered the rest of Gao Yingxiang, and his subordinates Liu Zongmin, Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Li Guo, Liu Fangliang, Zhang Nai, Gu Ying and other talents were full of talents.

It is reported that after Li Zicheng got Li Yan, the two talked for three days and three nights without sleeping, after which Li Zicheng almost obeyed Li Yan's words, and at this time, Li Yan showed his prominence when he first arrived at the peasant army, and put forward the strategy of occupying the foundation of the Central Plains' development forces, gradually changing the style of the peasant army's mobile warfare, and establishing a complete base area. At the end of the year, he put forward the slogan of free land payment, so that the people were like clouds.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of the Ming army concentrating on the fierce battle with Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan, Li Zicheng led the army to attack Henan, and in less than three months, it developed into a force of nearly 100,000 people, and Luo Rucai's troops also entered the northern part of Huguang, and the entire west of Luoyang and Xiangyang became the scope of activity of the peasant army, echoing Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan, and the flames of the peasant uprising were rekindled.

Fu Zonglong, the governor of Shaanxi Province who guarded Xi'an, complained to Emperor Chongzhen several times in a row, but the main force of the imperial court was divided into two, most of them were concentrated in the northeast frontier, and the rest of the army that could be fought such as Zuo Liangyu and Wang Zhifeng were scattered in the eastern part of Sichuan, unable to draw out strength to suppress bandits.

In fact, Emperor Chongzhen's heart is extremely contradictory, he is suspicious by nature, although Zhu Hao's every move in Huaibei is not detailed, but the movement is too big to hide from the eyes of the imperial court after all. Although he could also see that this young imperial uncle was a little uneasy, but now he was suffering from internal and external troubles, and he had to rely on such a person who could fight, and he couldn't say that he didn't need it, but how to use it took a lot of thought.

Not only did the new army successfully exterminate the thieves, but also controlled the new army within a controllable range, and could not let the new army not fall out, which really embarrassed the emperor who was not shrewd for a long time, and finally decided to follow the old method of previous years, let Zhu Hao take the lead, and when the main force of the peasant army was annihilated, it would be withdrawn and replaced by others, and the credit would be shared equally.

Therefore, Chongzhen issued two holy decrees in a row, urging Zhu Hao to raise troops to march west, but Zhu Hao shirked the past on the grounds of insufficient ammunition production.

Entering the wax moon, Sun Yujiao's body became more and more bloated, Zhu Hao was still immersed in the joy of becoming a father, as soon as the information from the west came, he immediately realized that there was another battle to fight, although the holy decree has not yet come, but it is always right to prepare in advance, thinking that there is less than a month before the New Year, so he convened a meeting and summarized the work of the past year by the way.

In the auditorium of the workers' school, in addition to a group of generals headed by Luo Yunqu, Wang Fuzhi and other government affairs personnel, elites from all walks of life in the Xuhuai area also attended the meeting, such as Wang Jingwen and other representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, Su Wanqian and other trade union representatives, Song Yingxing and other scientific and technological personnel also attended the meeting, and even some low-level rural representatives such as Xu Maosen of Xujia Village also attended the meeting of the Marshal's Mansion for the first time and were very excited. Liu Ru recorded the content of the meeting as the secretary of the military aircraft.

The meeting first summed up the work of the year, affirmed the main work achievements, and commended some advanced elements.

In terms of fiscal revenues and expenditures, the total amount of revenue from various types of taxes and fees, mainly commercial taxes, is 4.6 million taels, and the expenditure is 4.5 million taels, of which the investment in land reform accounts for more than one-third, and the surplus is more than 100,000 taels.

The large-scale construction of water conservancy has provided the basis for the widespread use of new agricultural technologies in various localities, and as a result of the implementation of the land reform policy, a large amount of wasteland has also been reclaimed, and the production enthusiasm of the vast majority of peasants has been unprecedentedly high.

The total output of wheat in the three provinces alone has reached 50 million stones, and the income tax grain of the Ministry of Government Affairs is 2.4 million stones, which is simply a miracle in the north where the yield is generally low, and this is still affected by the Xiaoice River period at the end of the Ming Dynasty, otherwise it will usher in a greater bumper harvest! As of the beginning of the month, the number of livestock owned by farmers in the three prefectures exceeded 1 million, basically reaching one head per household.

In addition, due to the planting of high-yield crops such as corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, the people's dining table has been greatly enriched, and the highest yield of these high-yield crops per mu is even more than 3,000 catties, and the people in the Xuhuai area do not have to worry about food and clothing at all, and a large number of surplus wheat and potatoes are also sold to all parts of the north in exchange for silver. The peasants have solved the problem of food and clothing and increased their income, and they have become more supportive of the leaders of the Grand Marshal's Mansion.

Stimulated by the encouragement of the establishment of new factories and overseas trade, there were about 20 large-scale government-run factories and more than 500 private factories, including textile, iron smelting, porcelain and other bulk industries, and the output value of that year reached more than 50 million taels! More than the sum of the two provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, nearly half of the industrial products are exported to East and Southeast Asia and as far as the West, and the overseas income alone has exceeded the foreign trade volume of the two provinces in the south.

In the past year, the military factory has produced more than 5,000 tons of steel, of which more than 2,000 tons are suitable for making various types of artillery and firearms, and there is no problem at all in supply.

The government hospital was also established, gathering a large number of doctors and medicinal materials, and Julia also invited several Western doctors to stay with early Western doctors, and at a very low cost to the general public in the three prefectures, to ensure that no one died because of lack of money to see a doctor.

Later economists and sociologists made statistics that in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, there was only one area in China, Xuhuai, where no one died of starvation, and no one died due to lack of money to see a doctor. The work of this year is simply a miracle compared with the whole country, including the surrounding areas that do not belong to the rule of the Ming court, and the total output value of the three industries of industry, agriculture and commerce in the three prefectures accounts for an astonishing quarter of the country, and you must know that there are more than 200 state capitals in the national statistics at that time!

After the implementation of the new household registration system, population management has become more standardized, and after the census, there are about 1 million households and more than 5 million people in Xuhuai Prefecture, nearly one million more than in the previous old-fashioned survey, and more than 800,000 other people. This year's statistics show that the number of crimes committed throughout the year has dropped by more than half compared with last year, and in the second half of the year, it has dropped sharply.

In the six months since its founding, the NLD has done remarkable work, putting forward more than 100 rationalization proposals, half of which have been adopted by the Marshal's Office, and the idea of ordinary people being masters in participating in state affairs has gradually become enthusiastic, forming an atmosphere in which all the streets and alleys and peasant fields talk about political affairs. The supervisory power of the China Democratic Federation has also been used on a large scale, and ordinary people can also initiate the impeachment of a certain official, and in the past six months, a total of 23 officials who have violated discipline have been investigated and punished, most of whom are old-fashioned officials. In this atmosphere, the integrity of government officials has also skyrocketed, and the Marshal's Mansion has not treated them badly, and a generous year-end bonus was issued at the end of the year, of course, these bonuses were paid by Zhu Hao himself. Among them, the best contribution award was awarded to Wang Yinzu.

Zhu Hao mentioned in his subsequent speech that Wang Yinzu has been conscientiously serving Xuzhou for several years, working tirelessly for the implementation of the new policy, and has completely devoid of the stubborn and backward thinking of old-fashioned officials, and has made great contributions to Xuzhou and even the entire three prefectures. Zhu Hao also made an exception to take advantage of the privileges of the marshal to include Wang Chengzong, the eldest grandson of Wang Yinzu, who had just graduated from the workers' school, into the Ministry of Political Affairs, and let him serve as the deputy county magistrate of Xiao County under the rule of Xuzhou. Fortunately, Wang Chengzong is also competitive, and his academic performance in school has always been among the best, and his moral character is good, and others can't say anything. Later, Zhu Hao was proclaimed emperor in the founding of the country, and Wang Chengzong relied on his talents to achieve the high position of vice premier of the State Council, and also left a strong mark in history.

Spiritual civilization is a word newly invented by Zhu Hao, and it has also become popular recently. Wang Fuzhi mentioned that certain achievements have been made in the building of spiritual civilization, and that simple literacy classes have been set up in every town, and so far more than half of the poor children have entered literacy classes, and a small number of gifted children have passed examinations to enter workers' schools. The students of the workers' school are the elite of one in a thousand, except for a small part of the students who are accepted by the professional masters and can continue to stay in the school for further study, some of them are arranged to various positions by the Marshal's Mansion, most of the technical students will be divided by the major factories as soon as they graduate, many factories will place orders a year in advance, these students generally enter the factory with a high salary of dozens of taels of silver a year, and some of the top students can even earn a hundred taels at a young age! In the former countryside, it was a small landlord, how could it not make ordinary people red-eyed?

Academics have also made a lot of remarkable achievements, the workers' school basically has new inventions or technological breakthroughs every day, major technologies such as the production of microscopes, the large-scale production of glass, the successful development of cement, the invention of new iron smelting, the improvement of new textile machines, etc., and the scientific aspects such as agricultural technology, mathematics, mechanics, medicine, etc. The early steam engine, which attracted the most attention from Zhu Hao, also reached the experimental stage.

In terms of energy and environment, due to the mining and large-scale application of coal mines, there are fewer trees cut down, vegetation has been effectively protected, and the tree coverage rate has always maintained more than 60 percent, which is very rare in the main agricultural production areas.

The Ministry of Government Affairs has also allocated special funds to renovate the canal, re-digging and widening the section from Xuzhou to Jining, and plans to renovate the section from Xuzhou to Yangzhou next year in order to prosper commerce and strengthen exchanges between the north and south of the Huaihe River.

At the end of the summary meeting, Zhu Hao made a speech, praised the achievements, thanked all walks of life for their support to the new deal, and said that he would make persistent efforts in the new year and strive for better results.