The military situation in the northwest was urgent, Chongzhen held a pre-imperial meeting overnight, Wang Qiang sent the eunuchs in the palace to the ministers' homes to deliver the decree, Chongzhen walked back and forth anxiously in the south study, thinking about the current situation. After more than half an hour, the cabinet ministers rushed to the south study one after another, some of them had untidy robes, some were smoky, some were sleepy-eyed and yawning, and there was an obvious lipstick mark on the neck of the head of the head of the head of the household. Chongzhen had just been disturbed, and he was upset, he looked at the ugliness of these "important ministers of the country" with disgust, and sighed helplessly in his heart. Chongzhen looked at everyone with a gloomy face and said in a deep voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, now that the military situation in the northwest has changed, the situation is urgent, so I came to you overnight to discuss countermeasures. At the same time, I also want to make it clear to you that my original intention of working hard for state affairs will not change, and I will never be as extravagant as Emperor Tang Ming, greedy for women, and I hope that all the ministers will join hands with me to overcome difficulties and revitalize our great tomorrow dynasty! ”

When all the ministers heard this, they all knelt on the ground and said in unison: "We are willing to be loyal to the Lord and revitalize the Heavenly Empire!" ”

"Yes. The ministers are flat and sit. Chongzhen's face was a little gentle, and he instructed the eunuch to hand over the two military reports to the ministers for circulation, and after a while, Chongzhen continued: "Now that there are many bandits, and the state affairs are worried, what are the good plans of the secretaries, although they say." ”

After reading the excerpts, the ministers all looked serious, and they exchanged discussions, and the south study suddenly became chaotic. Chongzhen saw that no one responded, frowned, and said to Yang Sichang, the secretary of the Ministry of War: "Yang Sichang, you are in charge of the Ministry of War, do you have a way to deal with it?" ”

Yang Sichang came out of the squad and said: "Back to the emperor, for this occasion, we should issue an order to strictly order the defenders of Shaanxi and Shanxi to block the way of the bandits to the north, and at the same time issue an order to let Hong Chengchou mobilize the defenders of Henan to quickly go north, and divide Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin's two forces and destroy them one by one. ”

Chongzhen listened to it, and said in his heart: "This is all nonsense, if it was so easy, the bandits would have been eliminated a long time ago, do you still need to delay until now?" ”

Chen Shaoliang got up and said: "Your Majesty, now that the bandits have entered the mountains and Shaanxi, which are the hometowns of the bandits, their forces are likely to expand rapidly, and it is certainly not enough to rely on the existing soldiers and horses on the northwest front, and Zhang Xianzhong has rebelled this time, echoing the north and south of the bandits, and the strength of the southwest region is even weaker, and troops and horses must be drawn from all over the country to support the northwest and southwest fronts." ”

Zhang Bingkun, a member of the Cabinet University, also said: "Your Majesty, last spring several northern provinces were invaded by the Qing army, the official army suffered great losses, and the provinces of Zhili and Shandong were also very short of soldiers and horses, and it was really difficult to draw reinforcements, and the threat of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was still there. ”

Qian Qianyi said: "Your Majesty, the southern provinces are already short of troops, there are no troops capable of field battles, and the southern soldiers are not adapted to the climate in the northwest, and the water and soil are not adapted, and the combat effectiveness is naturally weakened, so it is definitely not appropriate to transfer troops from the south." ”

"There is a shortage of soldiers everywhere, and troops should be immediately conscripted from all over the country!"

"It's too late to recruit now, go to the battlefield without training, and you have to blow up the camp as soon as you see the bandits."

"Then where do you go to find soldiers?"

"How do I know, it's too late to recruit anyway!"

------

Everyone was gossiping, discussing, and arguing for a long time still without a fixed opinion. Chongzhen listened, upset for a while, and secretly said in his heart: "These wastes! Usually boastful and talkative, when it comes to the moment of emergency, I can't even think of a decent solution. He glanced at everyone and saw Wang Qiang standing alone in the corner of the study, with low eyebrows and smiling faces, deaf to everything around him. He got up and walked over to Wang Qiang.

At this time, Wang Qiang was immersed in reverie, what Chongzhen said, he didn't listen to what everyone was talking about, he was now thinking about Chen Yuanyuan, he felt that Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were really buddies, and they launched the incident in time, so that there was a military report, and they saved their sweetheart in time, and according to Chongzhen, Chen Yuanyuan can be sent out of the palace tomorrow, so isn't she completely free! But where will she go when she goes out? Sent to your own house to raise? No way! Don't say that the emperor and queen know that it's not good, even Cai Ling'er won't agree. Just buy a small courtyard for her to live in, and after she finishes her errands every day, she will find her to chat and sing songs, and wait for the opportunity to coax Cailinger to be happy, and marry this Chen Yuanyuan to her own home, how beautiful it should be. But Yuanyuan is afraid that she can only be a little wife in her own home, which is a little too wronged by her, so she simply does not matter the size, and is on an equal footing with CRBT, they are all the same lady status, but can CRBT agree?

Wang Qiang was engrossed in thinking about beautiful things, smiling for a while, frowning for a while, as if he was enchanted, he didn't even notice that Chongzhen walked to him, and all the ministers stopped arguing and looked at Wang Qiang curiously.

Looking at Wang Qiang's demeanor, Chongzhen felt funny, he patted Wang Qiang's shoulder coldly, and asked, "Wang Qiang, do you have any good ideas for daring to love?" ”

Wang Qiang woke up suddenly, saw Chongzhen standing beside him, hurriedly turned over and knelt down, and said, "Greetings to the emperor." ”

The ministers laughed when they heard this, Chongzhen frowned slightly, and said, "Get up, we are here to discuss military affairs, but you are distracted, what good things are you thinking?" Speak up and listen. ”

Wang Qiang got up, looked for a clue and said: "Back to the emperor, the adults are discussing military affairs, and the slaves and maids are served in the palace, and they are not allowed to participate in political affairs according to the rules. The slave didn't think about anything else, just how to persuade my mother-in-law, this, and how to let her move back to the capital to live. ”

The ministers heard this, but no one laughed, everyone had the same thoughts: "This Wang Qiang was originally a resourceful and capable minister, but the emperor asked people to go to the palace to be slaves, according to the rules, the people in the inner palace cannot participate in the government affairs, no wonder Wang Qiang thinks of something else." ”

Chongzhen listened to Wang Qiang's words, his heart also sank, it seemed that it was really a mistake to put Wang Qiang back to the inner palace, he sighed lightly, and said softly: "Wang Qiang, when I transferred you back, I made it clear that I wanted you to give me advice at any time by my side!" It is a rule that eunuchs in the inner palace are not allowed to interfere in politics, but you are different, I still treat you as a minister, now is the time when the country is in danger, I know that you have many methods, I want you to put forward a good strategy to control the chaos, help me calm the world and the people! After Chongzhen finished speaking, he said to the eunuch next to him: "Come on, give Wang Qiang a seat." ”

Chongzhen's words didn't move Wang Qiang at all, his opinion of Chongzhen was big, oh, now it's dangerous, think of me, when the bandits are exterminated, you don't know how to fix me! Thinking of this, he said lazily: "Back to the emperor, it's not that the slave maid is hypocritical, the slave maid has been in the palace for more than half a year, and the slave maid is not clear about the situation outside, and the slave and maid don't understand the matter of leading troops to fight, and really don't know what to do." At this time, the eunuch moved a brocade pier for him to sit, and he dodged away and said: "Emperor Xie gave him a seat, but there is no rule for slaves and maids to sit in front of their masters, so I still stand, anyway, I am used to it." ”

Chongzhen saw that Wang Qiang was so ignorant, his face changed slightly, and he said with a sneer: "Hmph! If you don't want to sit, kneel. After saying that, he turned around and strode back to his dragon chair, and said as he walked: "Today, if you can come up with a good idea for me, I will be rewarded, if you can't come up with a good idea, hum, then you will always kneel there!" After speaking, he sat on the chair and stared at Wang Qiang, and all the ministers also looked at Wang Qiang, hoping that he could quickly come up with a good way, and everyone should go home and sleep early.

Wang Qiang knelt on the ground with a bitter face, he originally wanted to come to Cao Ying with Xu Shu and no longer give Chongzhen any ideas, but now the emperor is obviously consuming it with himself, not to mention it. What ideas can you give to the emperor? When he was learning the art of war with Li Gang, he had heard Li Gang talk many times about the strategy of resisting the Qing army, as well as the analysis of the situation of the military forces of various factions in the country, and he was quite impressed.

Chongzhen was already impatient to wait, he stood up and looked at these ministers under him one by one, hoping that one of them could come forward and come up with a good solution, but whoever he saw, he quickly lowered his head. He was angry in his heart, and was about to have a seizure, when he suddenly heard Wang Qiang say: "The emperor's slave has an idea." Chongzhen saw that Wang Qiang had an idea, and he was overjoyed, and immediately interrupted Wang Qiang's words and said: "I don't allow you to call yourself a slave anymore, here you are my minister, not a slave, you get up and speak!" ”

"Yes." Wang Qiang got up and said loudly: "According to Weichen's knowledge, the current imperial court is not a small number of soldiers, but an improper subordinate and lack of training, so that it is overstretched everywhere. Let's take this northeastern border as an example, the imperial court has more than 400,000 officers and troops stationed in Sanguan and 18 towns, while the Manchu Qing Dynasty has only 200,000 troops stationed outside the pass, far less than the official army, so why can tens of thousands of Qing troops break through the border fortress this time, drive straight in, and sweep through several provinces in our north? It is because these defenders are not subordinate to each other, each of them draws a prison and only guards their own territory, and there is no mutual response and rescue, so they were broken by the Qing army and repeatedly defeated. If the imperial court can select a general to command the soldiers and horses of the three passes and eighteen towns, and plan the defense of each town in a unified manner according to the deployment of the Qing army, then as long as there are 200,000 horses in the northeast, it is enough to not only resist the Qing army, but also find an opportunity to go north and attack the Manchu nest. In addition, the imperial court appointed a good general to command tens of thousands of elite soldiers to guard the Shanhaiguan, tighten the gate of the Qing army's southern invasion of the Beijing division, and to the north can respond to the towns outside the pass, and to the south can garrison the safety of the Beijing division. So ------"

"In this way, the imperial court can send 100,000 soldiers and horses from the northeast to the northwest to suppress bandits." Chongzhen excitedly took Wang Qiang's words and said.

"The emperor is really far-sighted and far-sighted, but Weichen hasn't thought of this layer yet." Wang Qiang lost no time in putting on a high hat for Chongzhen.

"Go on, Zhao Aiqing, what else do you say?" Chongzhen rubbed his hands excitedly and said.

Wang Qiang scratched his head and said: "Also, it seems that there is nothing, oh, by the way, there are also the bandit suppression troops in the northwest provinces, it is best to unify the power, if this general does not agree, I am afraid it is not conducive to the extermination of the bandits." Wang Qiang refers to the infighting between Hong Chengchou, the minister of the northwest anti-bandit strategy, and Sun Chuanting, the governor of Gansu and Shaanxi, Hong Chengchou is nominally the commander of the anti-bandit forces in the five northwestern provinces, but the garrisons of the two provinces are directly commanded by Sun Chuanting, and the two have always been at odds with each other, since Hong Chengchou's general Shang Dayong washed Tongcheng in blood and killed Sun Chuanting's nephew Sun Ping, the contradictions between the two have become public, often accusing each other, and the troops they belong to have friction and fighting from time to time. Chongzhen and the ministers all know these things.

Chongzhen listened and nodded frequently, he paced back and forth in the center of the study with his hands behind his back, thinking about Wang Qiang's suggestions, and everyone looked at Chongzhen silently, waiting for him to make a final decision. Chongzhen walked to the side of the bookcase, turned his back to everyone, held the bookcase with his right hand, and pointed with his left finger and said: "The cabinet intends to appoint Hong Chengchou as the minister of the Northeast Anti-Qing Dynasty Economic Strategy and command the soldiers and horses of the three passes and eighteen towns in the northeast. The second will: Sun Chuanting was appointed as the minister of the northwest anti-bandit strategy, commanding the soldiers and horses of the six provinces in the northwest and southwest, and the soldiers and horses of Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Shanxi, were under Sun Chuanting's control. The third decree: The Ministry of War is responsible for selecting and transferring 100,000 officers and soldiers stationed in the northeast, moving them to Shanxi, and handing them over to Lu Xiangsheng. ”

Chongzhen turned around and said to everyone: "This Shanhaiguan is the gateway to the Beijing Division, it is very important, we must choose a loyal and reliable, deep strategy, brave general to guard, who can take on this heavy responsibility?" ”

Everyone thought of Wang Qiang and said in their hearts: "This idea was made by Wang Qiang, and Wang Qiang is also one of the few ministers who has defeated the Qing army, so this appointment is not Wang Qiang's last subordinate!" ”

But Chongzhen knew Wang Qiang's roots, and knew that this kid didn't know soldiers, so he asked Yang Sichang, the secretary of the military department: "Do you have a suitable candidate who has led troops in Liaodong and is familiar with the situation at the border pass and the tactics of the Qing army?" His words were tantamount to denying the idea of sending Wang Qiang to guard the Shanhaiguan.

Yang Sichang lowered his head and thought for a while, and said: "Long live, Wu Xiang, the former chief soldier of Jinzhou, has been dealing with the Qing soldiers in the northeast for many years, and he is well versed in the art of war, and now he is dismissed from his post in Beijing, this ------."

"Unconscious! That Wu Xiang is already old, he was not the opponent of the Qing army in Jinzhou back then, and he has suffered repeated defeats, is it necessary to let such a person go to guard the border towns? Chongzhen interrupted Yang Sichang's words and said.

Yang Sichang smiled and said: "Shengshang Mingjian, it is indeed inappropriate to let Wu Xiang guard the mountain customs, but this Wu Xiang has a son named Wu Sangui, who was in the martial arts back then, this person is familiar with the art of war, wise and brave, and can fight through the battle. Wu Sangui is currently the general army of Ningyuan, and this time the Qing army attacked south, Wu Sangui led the army to resist and ensure that Ningyuan was not lost, which is really a rare talent for commanding the army! ”

Chongzhen nodded slightly, he had heard of Wu Sangui's name, according to Yang Sichang, this person was indeed a suitable candidate, and his family lived in the capital, so he would definitely not have a rebellious heart, he thought about it and said: "Spread the decree, Xuan Wu Sangui will enter Beijing to see the driver on the same day, and I will personally take the test." ”

Wang Qiang heard Wu Sangui's name, and said secretly in his heart: "Hehe, this big traitor really appeared, and he is going to guard Shanhaiguan, it seems that this history is really written, and I don't know what this guy looks like." Alas! Not good! If according to history, this big traitor will have to rob me of the round girl next, I have to find a way to change this for him as soon as possible! ”

The military deployment planning stopped, Chongzhen's annoyed mood was slightly reduced, he saw these ministers sitting below yawning for a long time, and his spirit was sluggish, and he secretly thought: "When the country is in danger, it is necessary for the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty to unite sincerely and cheer up their spirits in order to recover the declining situation. He got up slowly, and said with a deep face: "Ladies and gentlemen, now the country is in danger, bandits are raging, the five northwestern provinces are erosive, and the imperial court has been fighting for many years, conscripting soldiers and salaries, so that the people's strength is exhausted, the treasury is empty, and the lives are miserable. This is all caused by the failure of De Bo to govern, and the responsibility for the crime lies with me. I have decided that from now on, I will reduce my food and stop my pleasure, spend the difficult times with all the people of the world, and I will not destroy the bandits, and I will not return to the inner palace! The cabinet intends to write a "Guilty Edict" to me according to this meaning, and make it clear to the world! ”

When everyone heard that the emperor was going to issue the "Edict of Guilt", they were all taken aback, and Qian Qianyi, a member of the cabinet university, knelt down and wept and said: "The emperor has worked hard all night for the country, is diligent and thrifty, and is a saint who will never be born." Now that the state affairs are in turmoil, it is the incompetence of the ministers and other ministers, who cannot share the worries and solve problems for the emperor, and the crime deserves death. I hope that the emperor will not blame himself so much, and he will not dare to give the edict during the minister's period. All the ministers also knelt on the ground and said in unison: "Please take back the emperor's order!" ”

Chongzhen was moved for a while, his eyes were a little moist, and he said with emotion: "Zhongqing is flat, I have made up my mind, and I hope that Zhongqing will be one with me, cheer up your spirits, and revive my great tomorrow dynasty!" ”

"Hooray! Banzai! Hooray! The ministers said in unison.

Wang Qiang also knelt on the ground, but he had his own little abacus in his heart, just now the emperor personally promised to reward him if he gave him an idea, he was going to ask the emperor to give Chen Yuanyuan to himself, didn't you say that Yuanyuan is a red face and troubled water, but I, Wang Qiang, am not afraid, I like troubled water, what's the matter. If the emperor can give him a marriage, then the ringtones can't be stopped. But now that the emperor has issued the "Edict of Guilt", he wants to reduce his food and stop his pleasure, and it seems that this request cannot be mentioned, so what should the emperor reward? He was still pondering there, and Zhang Bingkun next to him patted him on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Lord Wang, what do you want?" Get up, the emperor is gone. ”

"Ahh The emperor has been, but he hasn't ------ yet" Wang Qiang said half a sentence, turned his head to see, the emperor was gone, and all the ministers were almost gone, he knew that the emperor had forgotten the reward for him, so he had to get up helplessly, tidy up his robe, and withdraw from the south study with everyone.