Next, Zhu Hongsan began to prepare for the Northern Expedition, and for the Northern Expedition, Zhu Hongsan mobilized eighty percent of the troops in his hands, which were divided into three branches: the East Route Army, the Middle Route Army, and the West Route Army. The main force is the Eastern Route Army, led by Emperor Zhu Hongsan himself, the Middle Route Army is four divisions led by Ma Kun, who are responsible for occupying Henan, and then entering Shaanxi, and the Eastern Route Army is Zhou Yu's two divisions, they have been contacted in Sichuan He Tengjiao's troops in Sichuan, and they are responsible for quelling the war in Sichuan.

At the same time, in order to ensure logistical supply, the three major weapons factories in the area controlled by Zhu Hongsan went all out to start production, with the Nanchang Gunpowder Bureau in charge of the weapons and equipment of the Central Route Army and the West Route Army, the Xuanwu Lake Manufacturing Bureau in charge of the weapons and equipment of the Central Route Army, and the Guangzhou Manufacturing Bureau in charge of producing weapons and equipment for the navy. At the same time, Zhu Hongsan threw a large number of orders to those civilian factories, and used them to produce military uniforms, cowhide armed belts, bullet belts, leather boots, wooden gun mounts for artillery, and other unimportant equipment.

Under Zhu Hongsan's strong intervention and Ma Mingyuan's excellent administrative ability, the silver dollar was spent like flowing water, and those Hu Guangxun who had a relationship with the army orders made a windfall one by one.

In March of the sixth year of Shenwu, the troops were assembled, and Zhu Hongsan discussed with the cabinet to prepare to cross the Yangtze River on the 15th and officially start the Northern Expedition.

On March 15 of the sixth year of Shenwu, the weather on this day was good, and today was also the time for Zhu Hongsan to officially set out.

Today is the most important moment in Zhu Hongsan's life, even when he ascended the throne in Guangzhou, it was not as important as it is now. When he was in Guangzhou, the Ming Dynasty had lost half of the country, and several provinces in the south of the Yangtze River were also occupied by several clan vassal kings, and everyone called back and forth. So at that time, Zhu Hongsan was completely unsure of whether he could win the final victory in the future, and was passively pushed to the throne by those cabinet ministers.

Now it is different, Zhu Hongsan has occupied all the land south of the Yangtze River except Sichuan, has in his hands the 200,000 new Ming army that can fight the most capable in East Asia, has 18 warships of more than 1,000 tons, and hundreds of other types of ships. Of course, in terms of naval strength, it is still inferior to traditional maritime powers such as Spain, Britain, and the Netherlands.

On the other hand, the Manchu Qing on the other side of the Yangtze River, since Nurhachi's sons died, the third generation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not have a decent talent at all, and the only Kangxi Emperor who could compete with Zhu Hongsan was still crawling in the crotch of his father Shunzhi, not knowing when he would have the opportunity to be reincarnated. Due to years of famine and war, the Manchus did not have a complete ruling foundation in other provinces, except for a few prefectures and counties around Shuntianfu in Beizhili.

And with the death of Dolgon, the only strategist, the Manchu conservative forces were no longer suppressed, and the Manchu nobles turned the homesteaders on the land into their serfs, and this perverse act against the social trend prompted a large number of peasants to flee, thus aggravating the famine in the north.

The economic aggression of the Zhu Hongsan clique also paid off, and the silver dollars produced by the Nanjing Mint were beautifully made, and they were exchanged for sugar and salt, which were in high demand, and this strong currency immediately occupied the financial markets of the northern provinces. At the same time, because silver could not be legally circulated in the south, a large amount of silver in the north could not be freely exchanged for silver dollars, and could only be smuggled to the south. A silver dollar with a standard weight of one tael can be exchanged for one tael of silver in the south, but it can be exchanged for one tael and five taels of silver on the black market, while in the northern provinces, one silver dollar can be exchanged for three taels of silver, and there is even an exchange quota of four taels and five taels.

The silver from these northern provinces was smuggled to the south through various channels, and could be minted into four to five times the amount of silver dollars, and returned to the north in exchange for large quantities of coal, pig iron, horses, and cloth. In this way, under Zhu Hongsan's economic war, the northern provinces tended to go bankrupt, and some places had already circulated ancient money from the Tang and Song dynasties, and some places even began to barter.

Zhu Hongsan got up early, put on the emperor's full suit with the help of the little eunuch, and the first thing he did today was to go to the filial piety tomb outside the city to pay homage to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Hongsan came to the dismount stone at the gate of Xiaoling, and he could not ride a horse here, so he could only enter Xiaoling on foot.

Zhu Hongsan was wearing a full set of imperial robes, and he was wearing the twelve crowns of the emperor, and he had more than 30 catties in this outfit, not to mention that he had to take these things to walk twelve miles of mountain roads.

Zhu Hongsan scolded Zhu Yuanzhang in his heart as he walked, why did he set up that dismount stone back then? How nice it would be to come in directly by transport!

However, Zhu Hongsan is now the emperor, and everyone has to serve him, so there are more than 100 people waiting around, including those who fan the wind, those who carry water, and those who cheer for the emperor on the side.

After entering Fangcheng, it is the main building of Xiaoling, which is the hall of worship, that is, the god card dedicated to Zhu Yuanzhang and Queen Ma, but now in addition to Zhu Yuanzhang and Queen Ma, Zhu Hongsan also got the god card of Hu Chongfei, the biological mother of Zhu Zhen, the first generation of Chu King Zhu Zhen, and placed it on the right side of Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Hongsan gave himself a title for his ancestor, "Empress Xiaozhao Jingshu Ming Huizheng and An Yuduan Mu Qin Shunren", which echoes the nickname of Empress Ma of "Filial Piety, Compassion, Zhenhua, Zheshunren, Emblem, Chengtianyu, Sheng, and Degao".

What I want to announce today is that Zhu Hongsan's new big pen Hanlin bachelor and crown prince Zuo Yude Huang Zongxi wrote "Fengtian Expels Hu Lu, Revives the Ming Dynasty, and Crusades against Liaodong Rebels", which is a national document, and there was a fierce debate in the cabinet before it was written, whether the Manchu Qing Dynasty was considered a foreign regime or not, just like the Meng Yuan. After the courtiers' arguments and search for historical books, it was proved that Nurhachi was only a personal soldier of Li Chengliang back then, and Nurhachi's background was unclear, and it was very likely that he was Li Chengliang's illegitimate son, so all the courtiers concluded that the Manchu Qing could not be regarded as a foreign regime, and could only be regarded as a rebellion at best, just like Li Zicheng's Dashun and Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi.

There were many advantages to this, at least the Ming had de jure sovereignty over the whole of Liaodong and Mongolia, because the Mongol tribes had already submitted to the Manchus. Another advantage is to psychologically satisfy the filthy psychology of those scholars, after all, they were the ones who were beaten by the Manchus a few years ago and ran away, and now the Manchus are said to be rebellious, and it is still somewhat acceptable to be psychologically defeated by their own people.

Zhu Hongsan first started scolding from the stuttering emperor Zhu Jianshen in the text, and kept scolding the king of the dead country, his father-in-law, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youxiao, there is no way to scold like this, how can he Zhu Hongsan take the throne if the emperor of the previous dynasty did not do well? This is a political attitude!

In the middle of the article, he said that you Zhu Yuanzhang had a good life, and he gave birth to a good son who was Zhu Zhen, the sixth son of the emperor, and Zhu Zhen was also lucky, and there was a descendant named Zhu Hongsan, who saw that the world was plagued by the Yan King family, and he couldn't bear to be corrupted by the ancestors, so he raised troops in Fengtian in Guangzhou and captured Nanjing.

The last paragraph of the text is the general policy of the Manchu war, you Nurhachi was just a small follower of my Ming Liaodong general Li Chengliang, you should be grateful to Tian's grace to inspire Tianliang to be cannon fodder for my Ming Dynasty, but you are ungrateful and take advantage of the internal problems of the Ming Dynasty to rob while the fire is hot, which is really heinous. Now that Lao Tzu Zhu Hongsan is the emperor, Lao Tzu is not the bastard emperor of the Yan Dynasty in the past, so now he is raising troops in Nanjing and will fight to your hometown.

At the same time, he warned all Han officials in the world that as long as they still hold the official position of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, as soon as the Ming Dynasty arrives, as long as Kaecheng surrenders and does not resist, they can be retained in their original positions! If you are afraid of Manchu reprisals, you can also abandon your official position and run away, and you will not be guilty of all your previous crimes. But if you want to follow the Manchu Qing Dynasty to fight against the Ming Dynasty, then I'm sorry, after I catch you, I will rob your family and destroy the nine clans!

It was already noon when the text was read, and it was still Zhu Hongsan who memorized the text in advance, you must know that the university scholar Huang Zongxi wrote it in Chinese. In fact, Zhu Hongsan's water quality is not bad, but the literati of this era have a problem, they all like to use rare words, and they seem to be talented. This is a bitter semi-literate Zhu Hongsan, there is no way to only annotate the words that he does not recognize in the text in the palace with pinyin, and then memorize them, so that he did not drop the chain at this critical moment.

After Zhu Hongsan finished reading it, he returned to the palace with all the ministers, and now he will swear to the Northern Expedition.

As the main force, the Eastern Route Army had a total of 110,000 musketeers in seven divisions, 50,000 cavalry divisions in three divisions, and 50,000 logistics troops in total, a total of 210,000 troops. However, these people could not all go out together in Nanjing, four divisions had already left for Yangzhou half a month ago, and all the cavalry had also gone to Yangzhou half a year ago, so they were only left in Nanjing with the Praetorian Guard Division and two divisions led by Qian Yong, a total of 45,000 people.

These 45,000 people stood in a neat line on the large playground outside Zhengyang Gate, standing motionless from morning to noon, which made some of the surrounding Nanjing guards very moved. I didn't expect these Huguang guys to really endure hardships, and they didn't drink a sip of water for three hours, and they stood under the sun all morning.

At the end of the day, the middle gate of Zhengyang Gate was wide open, and Zhu Hongsan, the Emperor of Shenwu, wore a bright yellow military uniform, and walked out of Zhengyang Gate under the protection of five thousand brocade guards.

The 45,000 soldiers of the new army of the Ming army, who looked like wood carvings, saw the arrival of the emperor and shouted in a voice: "Welcome Your Majesty!" Long live Your Majesty, long live, long live! The soldiers of the new army shouted three times in a row, which really shook the sky.

Zhu Hongsan was full of smiles, these were all soldiers he brought out with his own hands, he took a few adult princes to the high platform that had been set up, and said to these soldiers: "Lao Tzu is the emperor Zhu Hongsan, that is, the gangster Zhu Hongsan who was in Wuchang back then, and now that Lao Tzu is the emperor, he wants to take you to the north to fight the Manchu Tartars, are you willing?" ”

"I am willing to die for His Majesty the Emperor! May I die for His Majesty the Emperor! May I die for His Majesty the Emperor! ”

Zhu Hongsan nodded with satisfaction and said, "Very good!" You can rest assured, Lao Tzu is not an ungrateful person, as long as you can kill the enemy and serve the country, there are many dollars and beauties! After Zhu Hongsan finished speaking, all the soldiers below burst into laughter!