The purpose of torture is to inflict extreme pain on the victim, to warn the observer in fear, and to make the victim's enemies or those who have been mutilated by them feel the pleasure of revenge.

Demand stimulates innovation, and for this reason, torture in ancient and modern China and abroad has emerged in an endless stream, such as iron virgins, rat punishments, and bronze bull punishments in the West; China's cannon branding, waist beheading, and five horse corpses; It is said that in that era when the death penalty had been abolished in many countries and regions, the ruler of a certain country also used Wang Xingren and anti-aircraft guns to solve political opponents.

In ancient China, the torture that could achieve those effects was naturally Ling Chi - using a knife to cut off the flesh piece by piece, as little as more than 100 knives, as many as more than 3,000 knives, three days and three nights of execution, until the last knife to end the life of the tortured, just one cruelty is impossible to fully describe.

At the beginning of the punishment, the old executioner took the main knife, according to the rules, the first two knives thanked the sky and the earth, and from the third knife it was a fish scale cut, and the meat in front of him was like a piece of meat off the body of the prince of Pingnan. Every time a slice is cut, there will be a special number to report the number of knives to the people watching the execution and the common mound on the other side, each knife will cause a cheer, more than a dozen knives down, and there is no tired look of those people.

If that's the case, it's just that, every time a slice comes down here, there will be people shouting to buy it—eager to eat its flesh and sleep its skin, and sometimes, it's not just a matter of saying it.

The punishment here continued, Li Dingguo, Guo Zhiqi and Chen Kai glanced at each other, and quietly left here. The purpose of punishment was to achieve justice, to avenge the wrongful dead, to avenge the living and to deter other Qing troops. However, for them, this is by no means the time to rejoice with the people, Guangzhou is recovered, and the next thing is even more complicated, and time is not to be wasted.

They left quietly, entered the city through the Great East Gate, passed through the city all the way, and returned directly to Li Dingguo's tent in the west of the city. Along the way, the most uncommon thing was the Ming army, and some people who had just cut their braids were also doing things under the leadership of the Ming army, striving to clean up the entire city of Guangzhou as quickly as possible.

The group walked through, and the Ming army and the people automatically retreated to both sides of the street. Seeing the flag clearly, many people fell to the ground, and the whispers during the period were endless.

"That is His Royal Highness the King of Xining, who really deserves to be a famous general of the two famous kings."

"It was the old man of the Fu army who came to Guangzhou to save people, and now it is the old man of the Fu army who has recovered Guangzhou, if there are more officials like the old man of the Fu army in the country, where will the world fall to this."

“……”

In the midst of these praises, they returned to the camp on the west side of the city as quickly as they could. The east of the city is killing people, and the west side of the city is celebrating this great victory. Meritorious deeds, rewards or something are not in a hurry, we must always determine the casualties and capture these things, but the celebration banquet is indispensable, and Chen Kai and they must not be absent.

The celebration banquet, along with the Chinese New Year's Eve banquet, is held at the same time, even if the Ming army patrolling the sentry cannot drink, but meat is absolutely indispensable. These have almost exhausted the new city of Guangzhou and the meat reserves supplied to the army.

The next day, despite a hangover, Li Dingguo, Guo Zhiqi and Chen Kai got together again. The punishment in the east of the city is far from over, and Shang Kexi is still hanging himself with ginseng soup, and he can't die for a while. Here, after a night of counting, I finally have an approximate number.

"Report to His Royal Highness, Guo Supervisor, Chen Fujun, I will count overnight, counting more than 43,000 beheadings in this battle, and the green battalions that are captured by the division and supervising the standard, Fubiao and other co-defending are all right, as for the capture of the private property of the various departments participating in the war, there is no relatively accurate number. However, the inventory of yamen and warehouses at all levels in Guangzhou City, as well as the two palaces of Pingnan and Jingnan, is extremely abundant, but the time is too short, and it is not clear for the time being. ”

stayed up all night, Jin Weixin, the most useful staff member in Li Dingguo's curtain, looked at the panda eyes, but he still couldn't give an accurate number.

On the one hand, there are a large number of Ming troops participating in the war, and there are quite a lot of calculations based on each town, battalion, and even each department. On the other hand, the amount of goods in this city is really huge, even if you put aside the ones seized by the various ministries themselves, and only say that they are on the public account, it is an extremely huge number, especially those two royal palaces, which are not clear for a while.

However, one thing is certain, that is, the feudal soldiers and their families in the city, the men, were almost killed by the Ming army of all departments, and the rest were basically female dependents and clothed slaves, and some Ming troops were red-eyed, and even the female dependents and clothed slaves were not spared, as long as there was no too blatant trouble, Li Dingguo and they did not plan to pursue it, so as not to make other Ming troops unhappy.

The cruelty of war has always been like this, just like when Shang Geng's second feudal slaughtered Guangzhou, how could he have considered the fate of the innocent and good in the city?

"In the battle of Jiangmen, half of the captive divisions on the northern front fled the battlefield, and most of the others were prisoners; On the southern front, except for the more than 2,000 cavalry led by Xu Erxian, the five Niu Lu led by Shang Zhizhi entrenched on the top of the mountain, and the rout of about 4,000 people led by Shang Kexi and Zhu Mala, all of them were annihilated by our army, beheading 6,637 and taking 4,906 prisoners. The fleeing captive division, Xu Erxian's troops have been determined to be completely annihilated by Wang's division in the city of Guangzhou, and the rout of Shang Kexi and Zhu Mala was also intercepted and killed by Chen Fu's army in Foshan. ”

"The various divisions of the royal division started from the siege of Xinhui, fought hard for half a year, and captured a total of more than 8,000 soldiers such as Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan, Shang Zhixin, the prince of Pingnan, Xu Erxian, the general of the left wing of the Pingnan Domain, Ban Zhifu, the general of the Pingnan Domain, and Yunlong, the general of the domain; Geng Jimao, the king of Jingnan, Geng Jingzhong, the prince of Jingnan, Xu Degong, the general soldier of the left wing of the Jingnan Domain, and Lian Decheng, the general soldier of the right wing of the Jingnan Domain, were more than 8,000 people; There are more than 7,000 people in the eight banners of the Mongolian and Han armies. ”

This is the overall number of the four battles of Xinhui, Jiangmen, Foshan, and Guangzhou, because the opponents are all the same. After the four wars, the Ming army annihilated the Qing army in Guangdong and the army that rescued Guangdong, and recovered a large part of the lost territory. As for the Green Battalion, there are anyway, there are beheadings, and there are prisoners, but for the Ming army, which has captured so many Eight Banner Army and vassal soldiers, it is already a little unfavorable.

"The loss is that it is close to this Guangzhou, and in another place, you don't have to think about such a gain at all."

In addition to the layout of the Ming army itself, the more important thing is the geographical environment of the Pearl River Delta water network, as well as the loss of sea control caused by the Qing army's naval division in Chen Kai's perennial bloodletting and the defeat in the Jiangmen water battle in August. Otherwise, relying solely on the number of Qing army horses, it would not be a problem to get rid of 20,000 or 30,000 Qing troops.

The Qing army that really escaped in these battles, the Eight Banners Army, the feudal soldiers and the Green Battalion, there are more than 10,000 people. However, the establishment no longer exists, and it is scattered everywhere, and it has long been no real threat to the Ming army, so the Ming army dared to move north so quickly and take the city of Guangzhou before the arrival of the ninth year of Yongli.

"Such a brilliant victory, we should report to the Son of Heaven as soon as possible!"

Guo Zhiqi waved his big arm, very excited, Li Dingguo also nodded at this and agreed, only Chen Kai was still thinking about something, and did not make a statement at the first time.

However, they were so excited that they couldn't take care of Chen Kai for a while. What he said is nothing more than how to write the report of success, Guo Zhiqi is an expert in this regard, although he has not written any good news, but the format of the article is still clear in his chest, and he will never waste his fame as a jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen.

There are solo performances, and there are joint successes, and it stands to reason that both of these are to go. Not to mention the solo performance, Li Dingguo, Guo Zhiqi, Lian Chengbi and Chen Kai are either county kings or feudal frontiers, and they all have the right to do so. However, the matter of joint play, after all, it also involves the positions and sensory issues of the Zheng Group and the Qin Wangfu, and the eyes refocused on Chen Kai.

"The lower officials should sign their own names, and if necessary, the same is true for Marquis Zhou and Admiral Ke."

This joint report is tantamount to showing off the might of the Qin Domain. The combination of the Ming Army in the Southwest, the Ming Army in Western Guangdong, and the Zheng Group under Li Dingguo's command means that there are hundreds of thousands of Ming troops plus the territory of two and a half provinces, and such a huge containment is undoubtedly quite huge for Sun Kewang.

As soon as these words came out, Li Dingguo and Guo Zhiqi looked at Chen Kai with a different gaze. Especially the latter, if you think about it, they have never been harmonious, but judging from this matter, when facing the arrogant and domineering Qin King Sun Kewang, they are still on the same front. In fact, if you think about it carefully, from the time when Chen Kaizhen mobilized a large army to come to converge, he had already chosen the former between the Yongli Imperial Court and the Qin Palace, just like them.

The joint name of the report is still being written, and the first one does not need to be too detailed, as long as the general process is written clearly, and it is enough for the court to know the general situation. Specific beheadings, captures, captures, and retributions, and then slowly reported, are not in a hurry.

Guo Zhiqi personally wrote it, sprinkled a large article, and didn't seem to bother much. Among them, it not only mentions the merits of Li Dingguo's army and the Ming army of western Guangdong, but also mentions Chen Kai's great contribution to this series of operations with the army led by Chen Kai himself. This is not only as a reward for standing in line, but also to clearly let Sun Kewang see clearly the alliance between the Yongli Imperial Court and Li Dingguo, Chen Kai and even Zheng Chenggong behind Chen Kai.

After confirming that it was correct, they signed and sealed it, Zhou Hezhi and Ke Chenshu were still in the south and east of the city, Chen Kai would send someone to send this joint recital to the past, of course they also knew what to do.

After writing the note, the three of them discussed the current situation. As far as Guangdong is concerned, today, when the main force has been destroyed, the military presence of the Qing army is already negligible, and even the surrounding provinces are now mostly empty, at most they are just self-preservation, and it is basically impossible to counterattack back.

However, the Ming army has been tired of major battles, especially Li Dingguo's department, which has been fighting since February, and the battle of Jiangmen has been full of casualties, and the army has long been exhausted. Even if the Ming Army of Eastern Guangdong brought by Chen Kai fought four battles in a row, it was actually difficult to fight again.

In addition, after the recovery of Guangzhou, these Ming troops, including some troops of the Ming army in western Guangdong, captured a large amount of gold and silver goods in the city, which was enough for them to spend a while.

All in all, the sergeant is tired and has captured a lot of money, but the sergeant has no heart to fight to the death, and if he wants to make another big move, it will always take a while to slow down.

It didn't take much time. In fact, even if Guangzhou was conquered, it was mostly the last strength of the exhausted Ming army, and the thirst for capture was indispensable. Li Dingguo and Chen Kai don't need to talk about it, they already know it in their chests, even if Guo Zhiqi listens to the explanations of the two, he can only sigh.

"However, it is not completely motionless. After the recovery of Guangzhou, most of the prefectures and counties around Guangzhou can be passed on, and it is impossible to fight hard, but it is still possible to test it. ”

While he was talking here, Gong Ming, another extremely useful staff member in Li Dingguo's curtain, came back. He stayed in the Pingnan Palace, counted and seized, and at this moment, he rushed back, but he found a bunch of account books from a secret room, and even a few of the clothed servants of the Pingnan Palace, confessed some things, so that he had to rush back.

"Your Highness, Shang Zhi occupied land in a province of Guangdong to establish Wangzhuang, control rivers, lakes and coastal fisheries, and organize the head office to manipulate the province's market trade. As for the seizure of private houses, false accusations of theft, extortion of huge sums of money, and imposition of additional taxes, the list goes on. According to the account books, Shangrui's annual income is nearly one million taels. ”

From the end of the fourth year of Yongli to the beginning of the eighth year of Yongli, Li Dingguo swept western Guangdong, to say the least, it took more than two years, that is, the income of two million taels of silver. Moreover, this is still the number that can still be achieved when Chen Kai blocked the Pearl River Estuary and cut off the sea trade between the two feudatories.

This number is probably about the same on Geng Jimao's side. In other words, their exploitation in Guangdong will have to be doubled again. In this way, they can still maintain the annual income of the Zheng Group's sea trade roughly the same as that of the Zheng Group by relying on Guangdong Province, to be precise, without the two big prefectures of Chaozhou and Qiongzhou, which really makes Chen Kai gain insight.

The two vassal kings are like this, and the guys under them are naturally not much better, and Yunlongzhi is an example of this. Now that I think about it, if it is simply worse, although the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty also want to be powerful in the local area, at least there are civil officials who dare to scold the emperor in the chapter, and compared with these two masters, they are already like sons who love the people.

Not to mention, the Ming Dynasty has been established for more than 200 years, such as Shandong, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, Henan and other provinces, which are not a bunch of vassal kings. In particular, Huguang and Henan have nine vassal kings, the long ones have multiplied there for more than 200 years, and the short ones have been thirty, forty, forty or fifty years, and there is no such thing as Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao who have ended up with a saying that "Guangdong is one province, and it is unbearable for two kings" in just over two years.