The court meeting continued, and the prince ordered Shu Guoming, director of the Political Research Office, to speak.

"There are several pieces of information, and the ministers have analyzed them and come up with several general inferences." Shu Guoming said and took out a stack of papers from his sleeve. Under the gaze of everyone in the hall, he slowly sorted out the order of the papers, and then began to read them quietly.

"Mr. Shu, please be louder! The adults in the back can't hear it! Qin Yi had to remind Shu Guoming.

Oh! Shu Guoming woke up like a dream, quickly shook the paper, and read aloud:

“…… It can be seen that Xue Guoguan's death can be expected, and Zhou Yanru can wait for him. The recent news has preliminarily confirmed the judgment of the Political Research Office. If Yixing (Zhou Yanru) is in power, it is speculated by the Political Research Office that he will oppose what Xue Xiang did: exempt from arrears, reduce or exempt two taxes, expand the imperial examination, and return the old ministers. But although Yixing is alert and greedy, he marries a party and despises his colleagues; If you are good at playing the right thing but you don't have military talents, this will be a mistake for the country! ”

There was a buzz in the hall, and it was getting bigger and bigger. Zhu Pingjin had to pat the handrail to stop the ministers' random speculation:

"I think you and gentlemen want to know where this information came from and why they made such inferences. Here the son of this world can clearly tell that the source of the news is confidential; The process of inferring conclusions is also confidential; The verification process of the conclusion is even more confidential, and it is not allowed to inquire without authorization! Violators, sin! Jia judged, and wrote down the people who met today. If there is any leakage of secrets, it should be investigated from among the people who meet today! This is a common practice, in the future, the court meeting, the people in the palace, all sign in and leave their names! ”

The trial Jia Jichang is an old man about 50 years old, and he has been serving as a judge in the Shu Wangfu for more than 20 years. He answered with a bluff and scanned his eyes again, remembering every face.

Shu Guoming was only briefly disturbed. When he saw the prince re-signaling, he hurriedly took out the second piece of paper and shook it down:

"After Fu Zonglong, the former governor of Sichuan and the current governor of Shaanxi Province, led his troops out of Tongguan, he has been chasing after the thieves. Chased from Henan to Huguang, and from Huguang to Henan, but still failed to catch up. At the beginning of September, Fu Zonglong joined Yang Wenyue, the governor of Baoding, in Xincai, Henan, and the official army had three general soldiers, He Renlong, Li Guoqi and Hu Dawei, as well as two superintendent battalions, and the strength of the army had increased greatly, and the strength of the army had reached more than 30,000. Fu Zonglong wanted to fight a decisive battle with the thieves, but there were many cavalry in the thieves' camp, and the speed of movement was very fast, and most of the people in Henan were thieves, providing news for the thieves. Now that the emperor is in a hurry, the military department is even more consulted every three days, Fu Zonglong and Yang Wenyue are already anxious, and simply fight north along the road from Xincai to Kaifeng, forcing the thieves to come out and fight with them. ”

This article is much more informative than the previous one, and the style is very different. If you want to come to the political research room, it is not one person who is working behind closed doors.

"If the official army is defeated, the thieves or turn to attack Kaifeng, or turn to attack Nanyang, and it is possible to sweep the counties of central Henan, southern Henan, and northern Chu, so that Henan Province except for Henan and Deshu prefectures, a province is a thief, or it is inevitable. Colleagues, the judgment of the Political Research Office is: "Shu Guoming looked up at the people in the hall and read out loud the conclusion: "Fu and Yang Erdu will definitely be defeated!" ”

Shu Guoming also read several research results of the Political Research Office on Guanwai, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, and Nanzhili, and all aspects of the situation were gloomy.

If this continues, the Central Plains will be eroded, the customs will be lost, and there will be more and more thieves, and the situation will be out of control! When Shu Guoming finished reading the last few words, he was surprised to find that the initial discussion was gone. The main hall is as quiet as an empty mountain, and the atmosphere is like an icicle. The faces of the crowd were so heavy that they could drip water.

Shu Guoming hurriedly packed up the research results, saluted Zhu Pingjin and Luo Yuhong on the throne, and then turned around the group, turned around and walked out of the hall. He was not a participant in today's pilgrimage. It's not that he is unqualified, but Shizi believes that as a think tank to assist decision-making, it is better for the Policy Research Office not to be influenced by the situation and maintain the status of a relatively independent third-party observer.

The development momentum of the Shu Wangfu this year is very good, and some people are a little complacent, or do not want to forge ahead, or their minds are shifted. The report of the Political Research Office gave them a head start, reminding everyone: Now is not the time for horses to put Nanshan and knives and guns into storage!

Zhu Pingjin asked the Political Research Office to appear at this time, not only to beat Zheng Anmin, but also to let him not have too much fame and fortune; is also testing Hong Qihui to see if he can maintain a loyal heart under this pressure. It must be known that he took refuge in the Shu Wangfu for fame and fortune. He, like Cheng Xiangfeng, is a representative of the Yazhou Shiren Group. To a large extent, he can observe the movements of the scholars in Yazhou, and then speculate on the movements of the scholars in Shudi.

……

The gloomy clouds in the hall were bleak and silent, which was not the effect that Zhu Pingjin wanted. Zhu Pingjin smiled easily, and used his smile to dispel the gloom clouds that shrouded the hall. He ordered Liu Mingsheng's general and asked him to give everyone an exciting good news after a lot of bad news.

Liu Mingsheng's good news is about the sacrifice of two giant thieves.

Li Zicheng's first attack on Kaifeng was unfavorable, and then retreated to western Henan. Luo Rucai had a falling out with Zhang Xianzhong, and instead joined forces with Li Zicheng and "brothers". After Zhang Xianzhong conquered Guangzhou and Suizhou, he began to go north to Henan and besiege Nanyang. Nanyang does not gram, and turns to break Xinyang and Miyang.

The imperial court urgently transferred Zhang Xianzhong's natural enemy, Zuo Liangyu, into Yu to pursue and suppress him. At this time, one of the major characteristics of Zhang Xianzhong's personality and use of soldiers was revealed, that is, "extremely clever". On the one hand, he used partial divisions to disguise the main force, and continued to show his form in Henan, attracting the left army to speed up the northward advance; On the one hand, the enemy advanced into us, and with the main force in concealment, they moved southward, and pounced on Yunxi County, the old nest of the left army, and successfully captured Yunxi County, which was caught off guard, in July.

Tens of thousands of family members of the left army are in Yunxi, and now they have all become the crotch playthings of Zhang Xianzhong and his subordinates. One can imagine how happy the thieves are, and how hated the left army!

Li Zicheng attacked Chengtianfu, walked from north to south, and chased after Fu Zonglong of the Qin army. Zhang Xianzhong once again performed his clever stunt, and immediately turned north, preparing to seize the Henan territory left by Li Zicheng, who knew that this time he miscalculated.

When Zuo Liangyu heard the news of the occupation of the old nest, he was not in a hurry to go crazy and returned to Huguang from Henan, but calmly wandered around Wuyang Pass (now Wusheng Pass), Xingsha Pass (also known as Pingjing Pass), and Xinyang, the key traffic passes in Huguang and Henan, looking for fighters. In August, Zhang Xianzhong returned north to Henan, and was grabbed by Zuo Liangyu, who came to catch the traitor, in Xinyang. The officers and men of the Left Army, who were eager to wash away the shame of men, were like rainbows, all of them were little tigers, and they beat Zhang Xianzhong so that they couldn't find the north as soon as they came up.

In the first battle of Xinyang, almost all the thieves were wiped out. Zhang Xianzhong's general Sha Hei was killed in battle, and he himself fled for his life with dozens of horsemen. At present, there are rumors that Zhang Xianzhong voted for Li Zicheng and became his general. It is also reported that Zhang Xianzhong fled east and fled to Anhui.

……

When Liu Mingsheng finished telling the news of Zhang Xianzhong's fiasco, Zhu Pingjin's laughter was already echoing in the empty beams and pillars of the carrier hall. In fact, when he got the news a few days ago, he couldn't help but hug his wife and laugh wildly, but today he still couldn't hold back.

In his heart, Zhu Pingjin prefers to make a deal with Li Zijing rather than Zhang Xianzhong.

The two of them used soldiers, each with its own merits. Li Zicheng's tactical characteristics are steady and fierce, and Zhang Xianzhong's tactical characteristics are fast and smart; Li Zicheng relied more on strength, and Zhang Xianzhong relied more on command; The military discipline of the army is better, it is easier to get the support of the people, and the combat effectiveness of the army comes from many political pluses; Generally speaking, military discipline is more common than bandits, robbing money and women, and Zhang Xianzhong himself took the lead in robbing. After occupying Wuchang and establishing the Daxi regime, in order to whitewash the image of the new regime, Zhang Xianzhong once issued 500,000 yuan in silver to help the victims, but after leaving Wuchang, he reverted to his old state, and when he arrived in Sichuan, he became even more serious, turning from a bandit to a devil.

The above difference between the two is not decisive, the decisive difference is at the strategic level, Li Zicheng threw off Zhang Xianzhong a few streets.

Li Zicheng repeatedly besieged Kaifeng, not because he was paranoid, but because he saw the value of Kaifeng, an important town in the Central Plains. Kaifeng is dispensable in Li Zicheng's strategy, and if it is flooded, it will be discarded like contempt. But Kaifeng played an irreplaceable role in the strategy of the Ming Dynasty, covering the canal and grain channel, controlling both sides of the Yellow River, and being the bridgehead of the North directly subordinate to the Yellow River. It also covets Luoyang, the ancient capital of the Nine Dynasties, and can close the passage of Guanguan (Tongguan) east and Guanxi at any time. Kaifeng is the naval base of the Ming Dynasty in the Central Plains, which can send a fleet at any time to threaten the surrounding area for hundreds of miles. In order for Li Zicheng to control the Central Plains, cut off the connection between the north and the south, and isolate the Jingshi, he must destroy Kaifeng. Li Zicheng did it, so he quickly took down the Jingshi and sat in the Jinluan Palace.

Zhang Xianzhong is different, he has almost no clear strategic goals, and he fights wherever he wants: take Wuchang and abandon it; took parts of Hunan and Jiangxi and abandoned them again; The Shaoguan guards all ran away, and he didn't know how to send some people to occupy it, and by the way, he enjoyed the scenery of Lingnan; It was easy to invade Sichuan, and he destroyed it with his own hands, and finally planned to return to his hometown in Shaanxi, but fortunately, he was killed by an arrow by a Qing army archer sniper halfway through.

His adopted grandson can be expected to be far more strategically minded than Zhang Xianzhong. After Zhang Xianzhong's painful death, Sun Kewang reoccupied Chongqing with the spirit of seeking survival in death, and then took Guizhou in Yunnan, winning a place of cultivation for the Great Western Army on the verge of defeat. However, Sun and Li competed for the throne, and the Great Western Army was divided again, and the final defeat was only a matter of time. Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu, Ai Nengqi and others have the same tactical and campaign command capabilities as Zhang Xianzhong, but their strategic vision is still a shortcoming.

But no matter how high Li Zicheng's strategic level is, he is not Zhu Pingjin's opponent.

Because in the past 300 years, there have been countless masters who have helped Zhu Pingjin repeatedly analyze Li Zicheng. As a traverser, the height and breadth of Zhu Pingjin's strategic vision are not something that can be achieved by a poster who came out of northern Shaanxi in the late Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Zhu Pingjin was not worried about Li Zicheng, who was tactically stable and strong, but worried that Zhang Xianzhong, who had an IQ of 19, would give him a moth, and suddenly a god-level tactical move crushed his hard-trained army, forcing him and his hard-working wife to climb 8848.

As soon as Zhang Xianzhong was defeated, he gave Zhu Pingjin time and gave Zhu Pingjin a chance.