"Your Highness, Your Highness, Li Zicheng is going to do it, Li Zicheng has picked a good time!"

The urgent military affairs reported by Li Yan turned out to be that Li Zicheng was finally going to send troops eastward in a big way! This great military division, who was calm and calm in the face of the Qing soldiers coming south, was extremely anxious this time.

Zhu Cihong sat behind the bookcase, and Wei Zaode and Wu Xiang sat opposite, and all three of them looked at Li Yan in surprise.

Wu Xiang just smiled: "Alas, when it is a big thing, what is Li Zicheng afraid of?" With the Zuo family army in front, he can always resist for a while. ”

Wei Zaode also smiled: "His Royal Highness the Prince's new army is invincible, are you still afraid of the rogues?" ”

Zhu Cihong looked at Li Yan with a smile, obviously not realizing that Li Zicheng was also improving!

The current Li Zicheng is different from the Li Zicheng who went south from Xiangjing in history! Now that Li Zicheng has learned to "enclose land and take root" and "plan to dictate the fields," not only has the revolutionary contingent become more stable, but also his ability to incite the working people of Huguang has also been greatly enhanced.

In addition, Li Zicheng did not give up his only base and went south in the state of a rogue army. Instead, it firmly controlled the five prefectures of Xiangjing, Shenyang, Nanyang, Hanzhong, and Xi'an. On the one hand, he seized an extremely favorable opportunity and waved his army east to Huguang.

Li Yan shook his head: "Now Zuo Liangyu's life and death are unknown, the people of the left army are panicking, and there has been news recently that the Zuo family army is moving to Jingzhou Mansion, obviously to avoid the war!" ”

Zhu Cihong frowned slightly, "What?" Can Li Zicheng be stronger than Hauge? ”

Li Yan was stunned for a moment, and looked at Zhu Cihong in some surprise, "How can Li Zicheng not be able to compare to Haoge?" In the past, in Shanhaiguan, he resisted more than 100,000 troops of Wu Sangui and the Dongyu coalition army with 60,000 troops, and fought hard until late at night before he was defeated and went west, and the losses were more than half. If there were only 18,000 people in Haoge's army that day, Li Zicheng would have been defeated. ”

This...... Li Yan seems to have a point!

Li Zicheng's old camp of rogues is really ruthless, and they are quite capable of fighting, and their performance in the Battle of Shanhaiguan is no worse than that of the New Army's performance in the Battle of Bloody Creek.

The reason why their combat effectiveness became weaker and weaker after the Battle of Shanhaiguan was actually Li Zicheng's refusal to take the regressive line of feudalism, which made the old brothers under his hands who were not highly conscious chilled and had no strength to fight the world.

However, now Li Zicheng has corrected his mistakes, actively strived to regress, and encircled tens of millions of acres of land in Xiangjing, Shenyang, and Nanyang and distributed them to the 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers under his command, thus completing the transformation of the feudal land military service system.

And the seventy or eighty thousand Dashun generals who got the land have full fighting spirit at least in the short term.

Li Yan frowned: "And now the autumn harvest in the Huguang area has only ended for a long time!" ”

Wu Xiang asked puzzledly, "So what?" ”

Li Yan said: "After the autumn harvest, it is often the time when the contradiction between the gentry and tenants is the heaviest! Tenants want to resist rent and repay debts, and landlords want to force rent and debts. Moreover, there is no grace in the Huguang area for five years of free food, and the magistrate who works for Zuo Liangyu has to intensify his search, can the resentment of the tenants not boil? The thieves' meticulous work has been spreading the news of dictation in various prefectures and counties of Hubei since before the autumn harvest......"

"Put away the autumn ......" Zhu Cihong coldly popped out of his mouth these four words!

Li Zicheng is now fighting the idea of "intensifying the contradiction between the gentry and tenants in the autumn harvest", although the time is a little later, but the effect is no different - Li Zicheng's army is also feudalized, they themselves are also landlords, and they also need to collect rent after the autumn harvest, and it is impossible to send troops at the same time as the autumn harvest, so the earliest time to send troops is early winter!

"That's right, it's to take advantage of the contradictions after the autumn harvest!" Li Yan was born in a rogue, of course he understands how big the contradiction between the gentry and tenants in the countryside is after the autumn harvest, "Li Zicheng fought this idea...... Don't say that Zuo Liangyu's life and death are unknown, even if he lives well, he can't stop the power of the Huguang people and the army of thieves!

Your Royal Highness the Prince, we can't wait any longer...... Once Hanyang and Wuchang are lost, the Huguang grain road will be broken! ”

At present, there are too many people in the south of the Yangtze River, and cash crops are widely cultivated, crowding out the grain fields. Therefore, grain and rice cannot be self-sufficient, and they have to be purchased from Huguang upstream. Once Wuchang lets Li Zicheng occupy and pinch the Yangtze River waterway, the grain prices downstream will immediately soar, and big cities like Nanjing, Suzhou, and Yangzhou will be in chaos!

"This Li Zicheng deserves death!" Zhu Cihong scolded, "If it weren't for the war between the palace and the Tartars, he Li Zicheng would have been killed long ago, how could there be a situation of secession of the five mansions now?" There are five provinces, and they are not satisfied...... This palace must exterminate this fang this time and pacify Huguang in one fell swoop! ”

"Prince, but you want to send troops?" Wu Xiang frowned slightly, "The autumn grain has not been confiscated yet...... The southeast is not very stable! ”

The contradictions caused by the autumn harvest exist not only in Huguang, but also in the southeast.

The "autumn harvest contradiction" in the southeast is different from that in Huguang. The contradiction in Huguang is relatively simple, that is, the contradiction between the gentry and the tenants. And the southeast side is more complicated...... Of course, there are also contradictions between the gentry and tenants, in addition to the contradictions between the officials and the gentry, the contradictions between the north and the south, and the contradictions between masters and slaves.

Among them, the contradiction between the officials and gentry was caused by Zhu Cihong's imperial court's strict inspection of the military tun and official fields! For the southeastern gentry who invaded the military tun and official fields, Zhu Cihong's practice was confiscating their property!

The contradiction between the north and the south also arose because of Zhu Cihong, mainly because the northerner group that followed him obtained a large amount of land in the southeast - in the eyes of the scholars and landlords in the southeast, these vulgar northern military landlords were Zhu Cihong's rogues!

And the contradiction between master and slave is actually a little related to Zhu Cihong. In order to levy business taxes and inspect official fields, he strongly suppressed the gentry power in the southeast. By strengthening the state and county governments, some of the gentry were deprived of the power to govern the countryside, and the prestige of the local gentry who did not participate in the "strengthening of the state and county governments" was greatly damaged.

And the gentry power in the southeast achieved their rule over the people with the help of prestige.

After the prestige of the gentry was severely attacked, the most oppressed slave class began to move.

In the past few months, Prince Zhu has received many "slave mutiny" incidents reported by local states and counties.

"I can't wait...... Zhu Cihong shook his head, "Wuchang can't afford to lose, Huguang ...... It can't fall into the hands of Li Zicheng! If he really gains a foothold in Huguang, it will be difficult for us to recover.

Moreover, after the calculation of the oral teaching of the fields, the Huguang rice grain sold to the south of the Yangtze River will be greatly reduced! ”

Verbal land assignment will severely discourage commercial activity in the rural areas, because most landlords are also engaged in commerce, and the rural merchants and landlords are actually one and the same. Once Li Zicheng dictates the fields in Huguang, the merchants and landlords in Huguang will definitely suffer a heavy blow. The original business network that spread all over Huguang will also disappear!

In addition, how much demand does the granted smallholder farmers have for silk, porcelain, tea and other handicrafts from the southeast?

Without these needs, why would they sell human rations?

"Prince," Wei Zaode shook his head, "Now that the situation in the southeast is unstable, you'd better send a general to the battle!" ”

"Who can go through this?" Zhu Cihong frowned and asked.

"How is Cheng Guogong?" Wu Xiang recommended Zhu Chunchen, "He played well in Fengyang." ”

"Let's transfer Li Ruolian back from Shandong." Li Yan recommended Li Ruolian.

Can these two guys do it?

One of the biggest weaknesses of Zhu Cihong's core group is that there are few generals who can stand alone. Wu Xiang and Li Yan may have this ability...... But Zhu Cihong needs Li Yan to give him advice, and at the same time he has to prevent the expansion of the Wu family's power.

After all, there is now a great Qing Dynasty Pingxi general Wang and the green flag **** Wu Sangui......

"It's still the main palace!" Zhu Cihong thought for a while, "Nanjing is still asking Shoufu and Lao Taishan here." ”

Wu Xiang asked: "How many troops are sent?" ”

"The army will send out a division first...... Two more three-pounder artillery batteries and two Hongyi artillery batteries were strengthened. Zhu Cihong said, "In addition, the main force of the Yangtze River Naval Division will be dispatched!" ”

One army division is 14,500 people, and if the Yangtze River Naval Division produces the main force, it is almost 14,500, and one piece is 30,000 people.

Wei Zaode asked, "Then whether the emperor can go up or not?" ”