The governor of Jiangnan has great power, and is responsible for the ten prefectures on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and has always been known as the head of the governor of the world.

Zhu Yuanzhang started in Nanjing, and after occupying Nanjing, he placed Zhongshu Province in the tenth year of Longfeng, and the prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of Jiangnan Province of the Yuan Dynasty were directly under Zhongshu Province, commonly known as Zhili. In the first year of Hongwu, the emperor abolished the Zhongshu Province of the Yuan Dynasty, and the prefectures and counties around Nanjing were under the jurisdiction of the six departments. In the second year of Hongwu, Linhao Mansion was designated as the central capital, and Huai'an, Yangzhou, Fengyang and other prefectures and counties in Jiangbei were also assigned to Zhili, so that the jurisdiction of Zhili was basically formed, and there were a total of 14 prefectures in Jiangnan and Jiangbei and four Zhili Prefectures.

After a large-scale war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the population around Nanjing was sparse, but Nanjing was a place of outstanding people, and at the end of the Hongwu period, the economy of Nanzhili was prosperous, and the tax ranked first in the country.

At this time, Lao Zhu's suspicious mistake was committed again, and he was really not at ease when such a big place was handed over to the six departments. Therefore, Lao Zhu divided the entire Nanzhili into two political envoys after careful consideration, for the left and right political envoys, and later set up a deputy without worry, so Nanzhili formed a situation of four political envoys here, two positive and two deputies.

Zuo Bu's political envoy has jurisdiction over the ten prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River and has been in Lizhou, and his station is in Yingtian, that is, Nanjing. The right political envoy governed the four prefectures of Jiangbei and the three Zhili Prefectures, and the station was in Yangzhou, which was changed to Fengyang in the late Ming Dynasty.

After the establishment of the official position of governor in the Yongle period, the imperial court set up the governor of Yingtian on the political envoy of Zuobu, and his authority was also to manage the ten prefectures and one state in the south of the Yangtze River. Later, there were many changes in the names, such as the governor of Susong, the governor of Suzhou, the governor of Nangi, etc., although the jurisdiction of the prefecture and county has changed, but basically the functions and powers are almost the same.

Zhu Lunkui's appointment of Qi Biaojia as the governor of Jiangnan this time, and the title of Shangshu of the Ministry of War, is not untargeted, but also has profound meaning. The governor is established in the central government as a central inspector, and generally has the false title of six servants to ensure authority.

But this time, the military department book that gave Qi Biaojia the second grade has a deep meaning, although Ma Cheng is a supervisor, according to the imperial court official system, he is two levels older than the governor, and he is a proper first grade. But the worst thing is that Ma Cheng has no official status, and he doesn't even have the most basic talent status, so it is naturally impossible to hang a civil official title, so the full name of Ma Cheng's official position is the Marquis of Guiyang, the Governor of the Chinese Army, and the military affairs of the provinces south of the Yangtze River.

Ma Cheng has no civilian position, but Qi Biaojia is a real secretary of the military department, although Ma Cheng's position in the army is higher than Qi Biaojia, but the secretary of the military department should take care of you Ma Cheng, so that two heads who are not subordinate to each other are formed in the army, and it also fulfills Zhu Lunkui's desire to pull Ma Cheng's hind legs.

However, Zhu Lunkui's arrangement was ingenious, but Ma Cheng didn't take it to heart, now that his power has been established, where can Zhu Lunkui send a civilian official to seize power? Not to mention that Qi Biaojia is still a defeated subordinate of Ma Cheng.

Although Ma Cheng didn't care, Wang Xian blamed himself a little, he originally meant to give Qi Biaojia to the imperial court, and let the imperial court bear the charge of killing Wenchen, but he didn't expect that Qian Qianyi's means were superb, and he simply broke Wang Xian's strategy, and in turn sent Qi Biaojia over to disgust you.

Wang Xian was very embarrassed and said to Ma Cheng: "Master Hou, it is the lower officials who have not thought through it and made Master Hou embarrassed!" ”

Ma Cheng smiled and persuaded: "Mr. Wang, don't blame yourself, this Qi Biaojia is a defeated general under the governor, and he is in the army."

Can't make any big waves! ”

Although Ma Cheng said this, he found in his heart that this Wang Xian had too little experience in officialdom, and it was not enough to engage in some intrigues. This is also something that can't be helped, Wang Xian was originally a showman, and he has not been edified by the big dye vat of officialdom for decades, what Donglin Party can be done there?

Ma Cheng sighed in his heart, there is still a lack of civil officials under his subordinates! In the past, when Xu Zhenye was here, the idea he gave himself was very accurate, but this Wang Xian still can't do it! However, Xu Zhenye's mother died and went home to worry about it, not to mention that Xu Zhenye is the Jiuqing of Zhengsanpin, where can he follow him at any time to give advice? It seems that I still have to search for talents!

Things were already like this, and Ma Cheng didn't think much about it anymore, threw Zhu Lunkui's holy decree aside, and began to prepare his Jiangnan strategy with all his might. At this time, Ma Cheng had already occupied Changzhou bloodlessly, and Fang Guoan did not make any resistance here in Changzhou, and retreated to Suzhou with the remaining remnants of the defeated army.

Ma Cheng repaired here in Changzhou for fifteen days, and then prepared to divide his troops into three ways to attack. The first route was led by Ma Cheng's brother-in-law Gu Changwei, and 20,000 troops were divided to attack Changshu and Songjiang to clean up the Luwang forces. The second route, led by his confidant Xu Dahu, divided 10,000 troops to bypass the mountainous areas of northern Zhejiang, and passed through Guangdezhou to attack Huzhou. Now that King Lu's army is concentrated in Suzhou, blocked by the mountainous areas of northern Zhejiang, King Lu will definitely relax the vigilance of Huzhou. The last way is the main force of 70,000 led by Ma Cheng, which mainly attacks Suzhou.

After all the preparations were completed, Ma Cheng set out again on April 29 and led the main force to Suzhou, and Ma Cheng wanted to end the Suzhou campaign before the arrival of the rainy season in Nanzhili.

The climate here is humid, and the rainy season begins in May and ends in July, when the autumn typhoon comes. Although most of Ma Cheng's army were people from Nanzhili, he was not afraid of the hot and humid climate of Nanzhili, but a large number of firearms in Ma Cheng's army were afraid of rain, so Ma Cheng had to occupy Suzhou as soon as possible before the rainy season came, and then wait in Suzhou until the typhoon in September before he could continue to attack Zhejiang.

Changzhou is more than 150 miles away from Suzhou, the Taihu Lake basin is densely populated, the infrastructure is very perfect, and there is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as the main transportation artery, Ma Cheng's army arrived at Hushu Pass, which is ten miles away from Suzhou, ten days later.

Hushuguan is known as "the thoroughfare of the fourteen provinces", cotton, wheat, miscellaneous grains in the north, seafood from Fujian and Guangzhou in the south, silk, cotton fabrics and other handicrafts from Suzhou, Hangzhou and Jiahu all pass through here, so the merchants in the town gather and trade is prosperous. During the Zhengde period, the Ming Dynasty government set up a customs in Hushu to collect taxes, and since then it has become one of the most famous banknotes in the Ming Dynasty, and the annual commercial tax revenue is very considerable.

Hushu Pass is a director of the household department who serves as a customs official here all the year round, responsible for collecting customs duties from merchants coming and going, and at the same time, there are also thousands of households stationed here. However, in recent years, Nanzhili has been in a mess, the trade routes have been basically cut off, and Fang Guoan wants to concentrate on defending the city, so more than 1,000 tax collectors in Hushuguan have been transferred to Suzhou.

The customs officer of Hushu Pass has run away without a trace, and his yamen is also occupied by Ma Cheng, who is exactly ten miles away from Suzhou City, which is very suitable for Ma Cheng's headquarters.

After resting here for a day, the military situation in Suzhou also came in an endless stream. Now the defender of Suzhou City is Fang Guoan, the only battle under King Lu

The fighting generals knew that the strength of themselves and Ma Cheng was not equal, so they couldn't hold on and vowed to rely on the strong walls of Suzhou City to fight Ma Cheng to the end.

The city wall of Suzhou has a history of more than 2,500 years, and the first builder of the city was Wu Zixu, who was white-headed overnight. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, the economy of the Taihu Lake basin developed greatly, and Suzhou City basically formed a pattern of eight land gates and eight water gates.

By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Suzhou was the nest of Zhu Yuanzhang's old rival Zhang Shicheng. Zhang Shicheng controlled the rich Taihu Lake basin and renovated the Suzhou city wall from the inside to the outside to form the city of Suzhou with a circumference of more than 50 miles. After Zhang Shicheng's defeat, the successive prefects of Suzhou repaired the city wall many times, so now in front of Ma Cheng is the city wall defense system of Nanzhili second only to Nanjing.

There are eight land gates in Suzhou City, which are the two gates of Chang and Xu in the west, the two gates of Pan and Snake in the south, the two gates of Lou and Jiang in the east, and the two gates of Qi and Ping in the north. And Ma Cheng's chosen attack location was Pingmen in Beicheng.

Pingmen is the highest gate in Suzhou City, and according to legend, it is the city gate where Wu Zixu led the children of Jiangdong to pacify the Qi State and the class returned to the court. The flat gate is the main gate in the north, which is composed of two layers of urn city, the city wall is as high as 178 meters, and the moat outside the city is more than 20 meters wide, which is really not suitable for attacking the city.

Zhang Guozhu couldn't help frowning when he heard Ma Cheng choose the attack site in Pingmen, and stood up and asked: "Dashuai, Pingmen has complete defense facilities, and it is very inconvenient to attack the city, why not choose the attack site in the south of the Snake Gate?" ”

Unlike other city gates, the Snake Gate was built in the Song Dynasty and was built of rammed earth, and bricks were added to the outside during the renovation in the Ming Dynasty. Because it was built for a long time, the defense facilities of the Snake Gate are far less than the other seven gates, and at the same time, there is no industry and commerce here in the Snake Gate, even if it is destroyed in the war, the impact on Suzhou City is not great.

Zhang Guozhu is from Ma Cheng's point of view, Suzhou is very prosperous here, and it will definitely become Ma Cheng's financial and tax center in the future, so he naturally doesn't want the war to have a significant impact on Suzhou, so attacking from the remote Snake Gate has become the first choice.

Zhang Guozhu is right to think so, but Ma Cheng can't only consider the problem from a tactical point of view, he doesn't want to wipe out King Lu's army in Suzhou now, but is ready to drive King Lu's army to Zhejiang, so that the attack on Zhejiang has a name. In order to leave a way for Fang Guoan to survive, he naturally couldn't attack at the Snake Gate in the south, and attacking from the Pingmen Gate in the north gate became the first choice. As for how many people died in Suzhou City, these details are not something that Ma Cheng has to consider.

"The Governor has decided that he must attack from the flat gate! Zhang Guozhu, you will be the siege officer tomorrow, lead the new army of 10,000 people, and storm Pingmen! Now that the rainy season is approaching, the Governor will give you three days to take down the flat gate! ”

Zhang Guozhu is just Ma Cheng's subordinate, and it is not easy to say anything when he hears Ma Cheng's decision, so he can only bow down and take orders. As for whether he can take Pingmen in three days, Zhang Guozhu did not feel any difficulty, because Ma Cheng's side is strong, in addition to the well-trained new army, there are also 200 artillery pieces and thousands of large and small Franc machines for fire support. On the other hand, Fang Guoan's side is not good, a group of remnants of the defeated generals are the opponents of the new army?

The next day, Zhang Guozhu finished preparing and led 10,000 new troops and hundreds of siege vehicles of all sizes to three miles outside the Pingmen Gate of Suzhou.