Since the army led by Xiao Xuan in the fourth year of Chongzhen launched an expedition, the military situation has been concealed as much as possible. Except for the small number of high-level volunteers who were stationed in Beijing and even Xi'an at this time, the majority of the people could only have a premonition from the continuous collection of manpower and financial resources and the selection and training of reserve units, and the expedition that lasted for more than two years and nearly three years seemed to be still not over.

However, when the spring of the seventh year of Chongzhen had just arrived, a long letter was suddenly published in the city of Hangzhou, and then spread throughout the Kyushu continent.

"Good news! Good news! The Western Expedition army arrived at the western part of Taixi and won decisive battles on land and sea in the Taixi Polar West Strait. At this point, the expedition from the river to Rosa, and then to the Taixi states finally ended victoriously, and more than 2.3 million levels were beheaded to achieve an unprecedented victory! The king and his army of 100,000 are on their way back! To a large extent, such news simply made the literati of the entire southeast feel as if they had been granted amnesty.

In the past two or three years, the situation in China has changed. First of all, the original officials, gentlemen, and even non-governmental scholars of the Ming court took advantage of their connections and foundations, and even the newly established provincial governments and courts in various places launched a counterattack in a substantive sense against the forces left behind by the military management committee.

In the beginning, the heads of the military management committees in various places, who did not have much experience in political struggles or even power tricks, did not understand the intentions of some people behind them. At most, I think that those literati who have suffered a major blow before and are a little unwilling to express their grievances by taking advantage of some local problems in the reform of the agrarian revolution at the grassroots level.

However, after the autumn harvest of the fifth year of Chongzhen, in a sudden "litigation coup" in the provincial capitals, the leaders of the military management committees in more than 200 counties were forcibly arraigned for violating the law in the name of law enforcement, and the main officers and backbone officers of the military management committees in more than 90 counties were suddenly executed by the law hall system because they were unprepared.

Although the other party's behavior seems to be legal and compliant, the leaders of the military management committees in various places have also carried out a thorough cleanup of the legal hall personnel and even the relevant guards and militias in various places in order to protect themselves. Because of this incident, the civil war that affected the entire Central Plains broke out completely in the winter of the fifth year of Chongzhen.

In the beginning, the Military Management Commission, which had more manpower and material resources and was more experienced in modern army building, quickly gained the upper hand in most places, and thoroughly purged and controlled the actual control of most of the provincial capitals in China. The sphere of influence of the "Southeast Rebel Army" was compressed to two relatively water-close cities, Guangzhou City and Hangzhou City.

However, when the expeditionary force took away most of the high-quality gunpowder and even related artillery, and a lot of gunpowder stocks and defensive equipment were left in Guangzhou and Hangzhou, the war did not go as smoothly as the armed forces of the domestic military management committee expected.

In order to cope with the military needs and errands in the expeditionary operations, the base camp of the remaining forces had to maintain heavy troops in the Shaanxi and Gansu areas, and did not short of manpower and material resources to the west. At the same time, to a large extent, the domestic military management commission also lacks a relatively unified leadership and command system. Most of the forces drawn from the southward civil war were temporarily drawn from various places, and they did not have a clear advantage over the armed forces of the Fado faction with a clear organizational structure. In addition, the military management committees in various places, which have gradually changed qualitatively over the past few years, have also lost a lot of support from the lower levels, and the war has fallen into a stalemate since the autumn of Chongzhen's sixth year.

When the good news of the expedition reached Lanzhou and Hangzhou almost at about the same time, Li Siyuan, the commander of the left-behind division of the volunteer army and the nominal head of domestic military and government affairs at this time, and many leaders of the military management committees gathered in Li Siyuan's mansion could not sit still after all.

"The good news of the victory should have let us know first, how did such an important news reach Hangzhou and even our hands almost at the same time through the two roads of the road and the sea?"

"Hangzhou City is thousands of miles away from the northwest border, there is no such coincidence in the world, it must be those literati in the southeast who got the news in advance!"

"Yes! It's so weird! Does this mean that the Holy One is about to abandon us? ”

At this time, after several years of military and political practice, Li Siyuan was no longer the somewhat simple and wooden boy in the imperial horse prison. He thought carefully for a long time, but finally did not hide some of his feelings and opinions at such an important secret meeting: "I am worried that we are likely to be abandoned by the Holy One!" The day the army returns, perhaps, is when those of us lose the power and wealth we have accumulated over the years! ”

Li Siyuan's radical views were not accepted at the beginning. At this time, the commander of the Shanxi Military Management Committee said disapprovingly on behalf of many people: "How is this possible? Since your ascension to the throne, you have always stood in the position of our young warriors to innovate the world and sweep away the accumulated shortcomings. ”

Li Siyuan smiled: "Those people are evil, aren't you even more?" Martial artists, what kind of martial artists should they be. Perhaps those main forces that have been tested by the actual combat of the Western Expedition are the objects that the core will rely on in the future; Perhaps, those folk literati who have lost their power can still play a role in balancing civil and military affairs through the coordination of the Fatang. What you have done in the local area over the years have a lot of witnesses, what do you think are of any value to the king today? ”

Hearing Li Siyuan's words, after the "movement" in the past few years, people who are generally a little bit of a human mind have also begun to worry.

However, at this time, Li Siyuan had already made up his mind at this time, and said to everyone: "Now, it is possible for the main force of the Western Expedition to return to the division in as little as half a year or as much as a year. The only way for us to survive now is to completely wipe out the anti-bone literati in the southeast before the expeditionary force returns to the division, and the only way to do this is to completely eliminate them. Those of us who have mastered a little bit of the new culture may be able to be reused by the Holy One, regain control of the Dharma Hall or some other military and political system, and play a balancing role in the new political structure... ”

Li Siyuan's words seem to have a certain sense of disobedience. However, since he was sent out, many people have understood that they are no longer the core people by Nian Junshang's side. If you want to keep your lowest level of wealth, you have to take a risk.

"In this case, we are all at the mercy of the Governor's arrangement, as long as we don't openly pull the flag to rebel against the monarch, I think the presidents of the military management committees in most counties around the country should follow us east and south!"

(End of chapter)