The atmosphere in Beijing is depressing, and the fall of Jiangnan has dealt a huge blow to the morale of the city. Compared with the Mongol Yuan of that year, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has completely decayed in military strength, at least the Yuan army of that year has never lost its combat effectiveness.

Of course, the biggest repression came from the political struggle at the top, Qianlong died, He Shen fell, these two powerful figures that had made Beijingers accustomed suddenly disappeared, and the void left in people's hearts was greater than the gap in the power apparatus.

Jiaqing's attack on Heshen's henchmen was measured, but decisive and swift. Officials such as the Jiucheng Terracotta Division have all been replaced, in fact, not everyone is necessarily Heshen's henchmen, but Jiaqing can't take care of it, he is pro-government, he has to take power personally, and the military force must be in his hands.

Zhu Jue is the chief director of these actions, but he himself doesn't want to do it, because the general trend of the world is here, and Zhu Jue, who puts the community first, does not want to purge Heshen's henchmen at this time. But Jiaqing couldn't bear it anymore, he endured it for decades and didn't want to endure it anymore.

After all, Zhu Jue is a courtier, and if the emperor wants to do it, he can only choose to support it. Then, under his operation, either do not move, or move vigorously. Therefore, in the key departments, important departments, vigorously and resolutely quickly grasp the hands. But murder is rare, because their purpose is not to kill people, to let the people watch the excitement, but for power.

The local governor also boldly used to call his cronies, and He Shen fell, and He Shen's henchmen naturally did not dare to put them in power at the local level. I am not afraid that they will surrender to Zhou Lang, because most of the local governors are still Manchu. What I am afraid of is that these henchmen collude with Shen and make waves.

So after arresting Heshen, for the first time, Zhu Jue was the main one to make those non-Heshen henchmen express their position, and the first to impeach Heshen was Shulin, to be precise, Shulin's younger brother Guangxing, Guangxing exposed many of Heshen's crimes, and was promoted to Sichuan to take charge of military supplies. And Shulin had been a governor before, and he was the governor of Liangjiang at the highest, and he was rarely incorruptible, but he was suspicious of He Shen, and the Jiangnan salt merchant case was discovered, and He Shen insisted on giving Shulin a charge of covering up and transferred to Xinjiang. He Shen fell, and Shulin was immediately transferred back to be the governor of Huguang.

This person is actually a very suitable candidate, because he is not a henchman of Heshen, and has considerable military experience, when Qianlong conquered Jinchuan in the 38th year, he was the leader of the team, and with bravery, he was rated as "the first to fight in battle, dozens of Kejian Towers, and the most meritorious." ”

This is a military commander who can take the lead in charging into battle, and he is obviously very suitable for suppressing the White Lotus Sect.

After the Shulin brothers took the lead, the governors of various places, whether they were Heshen's henchmen or not, in order to clear up the relationship, they all wrote to impeach Heshen, after all, to bring down Heshen (big tiger), and the local government expressed support for the imperial court (central government), which was just the most basic political operation.

The local governors expressed their positions one after another, and immediately created a general trend, and He Shen couldn't turn over.

While creating this tense general trend, it also began to ease the psychological pressure of local governors. put all the blame on He Shen, who did everything alone. Jiaqing told all parties that "the cause of the White Lotus Sect is that the officials have searched in many ways and exhausted the people's fat and anointment, so the radical change is like this. However, the state and county officials are not only for self-enrichment, but also for the sake of serving their superiors. And the extortion of subordinates by the governors is not only for personal greed, but only for friendship and arsenic. It is to exploit layer by layer, and they are all one person with arsenic. And the infinite suffering is deserved by our people. ”

This kind of quick blow, and then immediately appeased, even Su Ling'a pardoned, and soon made the governors of all places feel at ease, and they can achieve the level of governors, and they are all brains, knowing that the imperial court does not dare to suppress them too much now, so the high-level political situation has gradually stabilized.

Defeating He Shen was only the first move of director Zhu Jue, and in the original history, his exploits were mainly in the field of cultural governance, and he was extremely outstanding. Because it was under his impetus that Jiaqing abolished the long-term implementation of the literary prison policy during the Kangqian period, and rehabilitated some criminals during the Qianlong period.

Zhu Jue's other great achievements, is still reflected in the aspect of cultural governance, he brought up the new ideas that have been applied to the world, and later famous ministers, Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi, etc. are all practitioners of this practical thought, it can be said that if it is not for Zhu Jue to set off this kind of thought, it is difficult to say that Li Hongzhang and others in the late Qing Dynasty dared to put forward the master of Yi long skills, because the old thought of learning Yi people is simply unreasonable.

It's a pity that Zhu Jue's thinking still stays within the framework of Song and Ming science, and he didn't completely jump out of the constraints of science like Wang Yangming, otherwise he should have allowed the Manchu Qing to have a saint.

Today's situation does not allow Zhu Ju to focus on cultural governance, he must guard against the northern expedition launched by the traitor Zhou Lang from the south of the Yangtze River, Zhou Lang will go on the northern expedition, there is no doubt about it, the Manchu Qing Dynasty knows that as long as Zhou Lang has a firm foothold, he will immediately go on the Northern Expedition. But to take advantage of Zhou Lang's unstable foothold to recover Jiangnan, a group of Wenchen shouted slogans loudly, but in fact they couldn't do it.

Zhu Qi had fought with Zhou Lang, and he knew very well how powerful Zhou Lang's musketeers were. However, Zhu Qi, who is not familiar with military science, still can't understand that Zhou Lang's army was formed with the military concept of the firearms era, and the strength is the concept, and Zhu Qi can only see more superficial things, mainly in terms of weapons and military discipline.

Therefore, he immediately rebuilt the firearms unit in Beijing and built a new Shenji battalion, so that there were three firearms battalions in Beijing: the Jianrui battalion, the firearms battalion, and the Shenji battalion.

Swap out decades-old weapons and let Beijing's workshops make new firearms with good materials. Although Zhu Lang's attempt to contact the foreigners in Guangdong was unsuccessful, Zhou Lang left behind some weapons in his last attack on Beijing. In particular, hundreds of infantry guns were given to He Shen as gifts. Beijing has the strongest handicraft manufacturing capacity in China, and the technology is strong enough to imitate these weapons. It is nothing more than the difference between an arquebus and a flintlock pistol, and in terms of power, it is fired with black powder, not to mention a qualitative leap. So whether it is a gun or a cannon, the Manchu Qing can build it.

The most important thing is the personnel, Zhu Jue believes that Zhou Langhaikou's troops are not afraid of death and have strict discipline, he reaffirmed military discipline in the firearms battalion, eliminated a large number of old and weak, and simply promoted a group of officers who made contributions to the suppression of the White Lotus Uprising, but the fundamental problem he could not innovate, that is, the three major firearms battalions are still the Eight Banners, mainly the Han Eight Banners. Even Jiaqing could not suppress the bannermen and recruit Han Chinese, at least not in Beijing.

Zhu Jue was personally responsible for supervising the manufacture of weapons and training soldiers, and he thought that as long as he was given time, he would be able to build a strong army for a decisive battle against Zhou Lang Haikou.

But strategically, Zhu Jue decided to take a defensive position, striving to make Zhou Lang Haikou Group unable to expand first. He stationed heavy troops in the Jianghuai region, believing that as long as his army was pressed on the Yangtze River, Zhou Lang would not dare to attack other places unscrupulously, such as Huguang, or take the sea route to attack Beijing again.

Zhu Jue needs time, whether it is to purge the government or rebuild the military, it will take time.

The loss of the two rivers and the cutting off of the Cao Yun naturally have pressure, but it is still supported. During the Qianlong period, there were basically no major disasters, and the per capita grain output during the Qianlong period was as high as 1,000 catties, which was almost equivalent to the output of the New China period. The government also controlled the copper raw materials for coinage, and the finances were relatively sufficient, and a large amount of rice and grain was purchased every year, and the purchase quantity was so large that the courtiers continued to increase the price of rice and linked it to the government's purchase of grain, so that Qianlong decided to stop buying grain for a year. Although most of the local government coffers were empty, there was still a lot of accumulation, which, together with the grain stocks held by the landlords and grain merchants, was a huge amount of reserves.

The method adopted by Zhu Jue was to stabilize grain prices, crack down on hoarding, buy grain on a large scale in various localities, and use the government's grain reserves to continue to balance grain prices. This set of combined punches still played a role, and the increase in grain prices in various localities generally did not exceed 20 percent.

The government's loss of money was compensated for by the confiscation of Heshen's property. But compared to such a large country as the Manchu Qing Dynasty, now it is a period of brave soldiers and the elimination of maladministration, these money is not enough to spend, Zhu Jue's response is to mint money, a large amount of copper has been accumulated in the treasury of the local government, even the Song Dynasty when there is a shortage of copper to the point that only iron money can be used in Sichuan, there are a large number of copper reserves, the local governor more than once asked to mint money to make up for military expenses.

As for the large-scale minting of copper coins, whether it will cause an imbalance in the proportion of silver coins, there is not so much control at this time, and the most important thing is to gain time.

Gain time, hold Lianghuai, Jianghan, and stabilize the situation, Zhu Jue thinks that there is still a chance to pacify the Zhou Lang bandits.

Another major phalanx to stabilize the situation was to continue to suppress the White Lotus Sect, because of the existence of Zhou Lang, the Manchu heavy army group had to be stationed in the Jianghan and Jianghuai regions, and the number of troops that could be mobilized to Sichuan and Chu was only 100,000. 100,000 people were completely insufficient for the White Lotus Sect, which spread hundreds of miles and spanned several provinces. Zhu Jue ordered all localities to hold group exercises and defend themselves. The landlords of the entire Manchu Qing Dynasty began to train in regiments.

But at this time, Zhou Langhaikou, who had obviously ended the military operation, suddenly provoked another incident, more than ten warships rushed to Wuchang, shelled Wuchang City, 40,000 or 50,000 horse infantry landed, and actually conquered Wuchang City (Wuchang County, Ezhou in later generations, Wuhan Wuchang was called Jiangxia at this time). Then all parts of Hubei south of the Yangtze River, that is, Wuchang Prefecture, almost heard the wind and fell.

In just one month, bad news kept coming, not only the south of the Yangtze River was lost, but also the Hanyang Mansion, Huangzhou Mansion, Anlu Mansion and De'an Mansion north of the Yangtze River were lost one after another, and the entire east of the Han River was lost. Shulin, the governor of Huguang, was fortunate not to die in Wuhan because he pursued and suppressed the White Lotus Sect in the Xiangyang area.

After that, Shulin led the army and thieves to lose many field battles and retreated to the west of Hanshui, at this time, except for Jingzhou, Jingmen Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture, almost the entire Hubei Province fell. Zhu Jue did not ask Shulin about the crime, but asked him to make meritorious service for his crimes, gave a death order, and guarded Jingxiang to the death!