After the People's Army completes its planned occupation of Guangxi, Huguang, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces, the war should be over, and the People's Army should seize the time to digest the newly occupied four provinces.

However, the People's Army has not yet completely ceased war with the Ming Court, in order to force the Ming Court to negotiate peace, local wars have been breaking out, the People's Army has been taking divisions as units, leaving the ruling area to attack the Ming Army, consuming the strength of the Ming Army, and after every battle or two, it will return to the People's Army's ruled area to rest, and there is no idea of occupying more territory.

The Ming troops outside the area ruled by the People's Army were all frightened by the People's Army, and when they saw the People's Army coming, they hurriedly retreated, causing the number of battles between the People's Army and the Ming Army to drop significantly.

The People's Army does not stop fighting, Wei Linhan, the minister in charge of peace negotiations in the Ming Court, is anxious, he is only a civil servant, and will not lead troops to fight, but the current situation in the Ming Dynasty Wei Linhan knows a little, the Ming Dynasty can not beat the People's Army now, as long as the People's Army wants to, it is not a problem to completely occupy the south of the Yangtze River, and the Ming Dynasty can only rely on the Yangtze River to block the People's Army.

Wei Linhan sent people to Jiangxi almost every day to hold peace talks with the top level of the People's Army, but every time he was refused, and he was not even allowed to enter the area ruled by the People's Army, but Wei Linhan did not give up and continued to work hard.

By mid-March, Wei Linhan's efforts seemed to impress the People's Army, which said it could talk to the Ming court in Jiande County, the capital of Chizhou in Nanzhili, a small place bordering the People's Army's territory.

After receiving the notice from the People's Army, Wei Linhan immediately set off for Jiande County, and breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, it is good that the People's Army is willing to talk, if the People's Army is unwilling to talk, he, the minister in charge of negotiations, will have no effect, and may be directly dismissed because of his unfavorable work.

But thinking of the next negotiations, Wei Linhan began to worry, the People's Army is now so strong, if you want the People's Army to cease fighting, the Ming Court is afraid that it will have to pay a huge price, for fear that the conditions offered by the People's Army will not be acceptable to the Imperial Court.

Many times Wei Linhan also felt very helpless and took on such a thankless job, but this was the task given to him by the emperor, and he had to do it if he didn't do it.

Wei Linhan set off for Jiande County, and on the other side, the Ming court was already in a daze because of the People's Army.

Don't worry, the People's Army has occupied nearly five provinces in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Huguang, and the Ming Dynasty originally had fifteen provinces, but now there are ten provinces left, and the Ming Dynasty has no one to resist the People's Army, as long as the People's Army wants, it will soon be able to occupy the south of the Yangtze River.

Every day at the court meeting, looking at his courtiers, Zhu Yijun couldn't wait to scold, a group of mediocre ministers, a small thief actually made it bigger, and no one in the Ming Dynasty could resist the People's Army.

Why is there such a team of thieves? Why is no one able to stop this anti-thief?

Zhu Yijun understands that this problem lies with his own courtiers, if the officials of the Ming Dynasty govern all parts of the country well, and the common people are honest and farming, how can there be rebels, it is because some officials are corrupt and bent the law that the people can't survive, so they will choose to rebel, so that the people's army has a chance to become bigger.

Everything is the fault of this group of mediocre ministers!

But after understanding this, Zhu Yijun has nothing to do, Daming still needs this group of mediocre ministers to govern the world, without officials, he Zhu Yijun alone cannot govern the world, so Zhu Yijun endured the anger in his heart, and discussed with the ministers every day how to deal with it, if the people's army can be exterminated, Zhu Yijun will turn around and shoot at these ministers.

Every day in the court, Zhu Yijun would ask two questions to the ministers: Which of you can lead the army to defeat the thieves? Which of you has a strategy for the thief?

After a month, none of the ministers stood up and said that they could lead the army to defeat the People's Army, they were basically all Wenchen and would not lead troops to fight, and they did not have few suitable people to recommend now.

There are almost no officials and generals in the entire Ming Dynasty who surpass Li Chengliang, Mei Yousong, and Song Yingchang in leading troops to fight, but in terms of the strategy of suppressing thieves, the ministers put forward a lot.

"The minister thinks that a large army can be mobilized to guard the north bank of the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River is a natural danger, and thieves cannot cross it."

Some ministers thought that the Ming Dynasty could defend the Yangtze River, but the next moment it was severely criticized by other ministers and guarded by the Yangtze River.

As the emperor, Zhu Yijun will not give up Nanzhili, and every inch of land in the Ming Dynasty cannot be given up, and this minister who came up with a "bad idea" was directly driven out of the palace.

However, Zhu Yijun and the ministers also knew that once the People's Army occupied the south of the Yangtze River, the Ming Dynasty could only defend the Yangtze River, but now is not the time to say this, the timing is not right.

The other attention that the ministers put forward was basically to expand the army and expand the army, preferably by recruiting millions of young men to form a large army and swallow up the people's army.

But there are also many problems in expanding the army, in order to form a million army in the past few years, the Ming treasury is becoming more and more empty, even if the recruits are not paid, the Ming does not have much money to expand the army, and the recruited recruits even have to go hungry.

Preparing weapons for recruits is also a big problem, even if they are not equipped with firearms, at least they must be equipped with broadswords and spears, and it takes a lot of time to build broadswords and spears, and it is impossible for the recruits to be equipped with a wooden stick and go to the battlefield.

The most important thing is the combat effectiveness of the new army, no matter how many people the new army is, it may be defeated by the people's army, Li Chengliang's 500,000 army was defeated by less than 200,000 people's army in a battle, and the strength of Li Chengliang's 500,000 army is not comparable to even a million new army.

Zhu Yijun and the ministers couldn't find a way to resist the People's Army.

Until today, when Wei Linhan was about to negotiate an armistice with the top brass of the People's Army, a minister named Liu Xiyang said a plan in the court.

"Your Majesty, every time the thieves break a place, they will slaughter the gentry and merchants, and the minister thinks that he can order the gentry and merchants from all over the country to recruit young men and women to form an escort team, and they will not be stingy with silver to form an escort team in order to save the life of a family, once the thieves attack, you can order the officials below to command the escort team formed by the gentry and merchants, and the court can get millions of troops without spending a tael of silver."

Hearing this strategy, Zhu Yijun and other ministers in the hall all looked at Liu Xiyang, it sounds like this strategy is very good, although the strength of the guard team formed by the gentry and businessmen is very poor, but the court does not need to spend money, and the number of guards will be very large, if there can be millions of people, maybe they can stop the thieves.

However, there are also many risks, the military power has always been in the hands of the imperial court, if the lower to the gentry businessmen, the gentry businessmen have the military power, maybe there will be chaos, millions of guards for the Ming is a sharp weapon, if against the Ming, the Ming will fall into danger, there must be a perfect strategy.