Chen Huai's experience is a good illustration of the truth that sometimes people's choices are more important than their efforts.

Of course, Chen Huai is just an example, and the importance of hard work cannot be denied because of this. Making the right choice is part of the effort in itself. Because to make the right choice, the knowledge, vision and other qualities required often require hard work to obtain. One person studied hard and eventually became a doctor or a lawyer, and the other person got into a fight when he was in school, and when he became an adult, he was reduced to hard labor on a construction site, so he can complain that others are doing well because others chose to be a lawyer, and he chose to move bricks. It's not that he doesn't want to be a lawyer or a doctor, it's that he hasn't worked hard to get the opportunity to choose.

Chen Huai's example does not have an inspirational effect, he is a tribute student who buys officials, and the purpose is also to make a fortune, to say that his efforts, that is, to work hard to tie up with the officials, and strive to bully the lower officials. Upwards give filial piety to Heshen, and downwards blackmail officials. The main business is to loot the people and sell official beards.

Why should such a person surrender, although it is impossible for such a person to defend for the Manchu Dynasty, he can run away, and live incognito and live a rich life after escaping.

But for this kind of person, running away and going incognito is actually too demanding. Because of abandoning the city and fleeing, for a civil official, he will still be punished by the Manchus, and if he surrenders, of course, he will be punished, anyway, he will be punished, and he can continue to maintain a high-ranking official after surrendering, so why not surrender.

Of course, this is a realistic choice, and betrayal is often an extremely complex psychological change.

According to Chen Huai's explanation to others now, or the reason he found for himself, he said that Hong Chengchou also surrendered to Huang Taiji back then.

What was the Huang Taiji back then, but the land outside the Guanwai was only two million, the Ming Dynasty was rich all over the world, and Hong Chengchou could surrender; And this week, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, the marshal attacked Jiangxi with the might of plundering Beijing, what reason did he have for not obeying the heavens and surrendering to the Lord in good faith.

Chen Huai compared himself with Hong Chengchou back then, he thought too highly of himself, he was just a tribute student who bought officials, Hong Chengchou was a famous Confucian scholar in the Ming Dynasty, and he was a powerful minister who moved the world, and the two were not comparable at all.

But this can explain Chen Huai's psychology very well, even Hong Chengchou, a person who is more famous and high-status than himself, can surrender to the small foreign regime that had no prospects at that time, what reason does Chen Huai have not to surrender to Zhou Lang, the Han regime. At that time, a large number of unscrupulous civil officials in the Ming Dynasty surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and now it has become the best proof that good birds choose trees to perch on, because these demoted officials, although they were later designated as the second ministers by Qianlong, but their own honor and family wealth have been preserved. Emperor Chongzhen, who was portrayed as mean and unkind, did not even make a move on Hong Chengchou's family.

But Chen Huai was not so lucky, and after Jiaqing became pro-government, he immediately announced a blow to the family members of the demoted officials, and exiled all his relatives in Henan to Ili. Although this move is contrary to traditional morality and culture, it is a good deterrent to the surrender of civilian officials.

But this also forced people like Chen Huai to the point of giving Zhou Lang his life to the point of giving his life to Zhou Lang.

Because of Chen Huai's choice, he had the opportunity to change his court and continue to be a high-ranking official, but his family was in the Manchu ruling area, after all, it would cause him a psychological burden, and now the burden is gone, plus Zhou Lang gave him a chance, he really gave up, and burst out all his wisdom and began to serve Zhou Lang.

In terms of behavior, he is now actively writing letters to some of his protégés and former officials who are still in the Manchu ruling area, using various reasons to persuade these people to surrender. The Qing Dynasty adhered to the principle of being an official in a different place, although the Qing court has been severely cracking down on the surrender of civil officials, but Zhou Lang has occupied half of the south of the Yangtze River, and the Jiangnan region is the area with the strongest imperial examination ability in all dynasties, and there are many civil officials here, so there are a large number of officials from Jiangnan who are from the Manchu Dynasty, and these people have no worries about surrendering, and even worry about the safety of their families who do not surrender.

The Manchu Qing punished the relatives of the degraded officials, which was a two-edged knife that hurt others and themselves. Because this, in turn, had no binding effect on those Jiangnan officials, and the Qing court would not trust these officials, which further encouraged the Jiangnan officials' feelings of detachment from morality. But this is a political war, and if it is a war, it is to kill 10,000 enemies and lose 8,000 of yourself, and it is just an illusion to want to win without spending a single soldier.

If the Manchus had not punished the families of the demoted officials and treated civilian officials like the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that surrender would have become a trend long ago. After weighing the pros and cons, you can only use this scoundrel way to threaten officials with your family.

Zhou Lang used Chen Huai with confidence, and let the wind collection department fully cooperate. The collection has been rectified, and several key officials have been dismissed, because the important news of the last change of the governor of Liangjiang has been omitted. Although it is because of the war, those who should be held accountable must still be held accountable. After rectification, the efficiency of wind collection has been improved to a certain extent, and I dare not say that everyone is in danger, but there is still pressure.

The spies who collected the wind cooperated with Chen Huai and sent Chen Huai's letters of persuasion to those Jiangnan officials in the Manchu ruling area, and soon got some clear news. Among them, Hubei is the majority.

Chen Huai once served as a political envoy in Hubei, and when he was in Hubei, he was already very powerful. In the 60th year of Qianlong, Bi Yuan, a native of Taicang, was the governor of Huguang (Hubei District, Hunan), Funing was the governor of Hubei, and Chen Huai was the political envoy. At that time, there was a song satirizing, "Bi is like a bat, his body does not waver, but he sucks the insects and ants that pass by; Blessings are like wolves and tigers, although people are inevitable; Chen is like a rat beetle, drilling holes and corrosion, and people don't know it. ”

Because of the control of Hubei officialdom, a large number of the current officials in Hubei are Chen Huai's protégés and former officials, and they dare not say how deep their feelings are, but most of them have welcomed Chen Huai in the past and been promoted through Chen Huai, and the relationship is objective, and Chen Huai also has some of his own descendants.

So Chen Huai's persuasion first received an effect in Hubei, Chen Huai played to Zhou Lang, if there is a soldier in his hand, send troops to Hubei to pass through the prefectures and counties, more than half of them can open the city and surrender. It's a pity that Bi Yuan, a native of Taicang, died, otherwise Chen Huai had the confidence to directly win him over and surrender.

This made Zhou Lang overjoyed, because Hubei was the next target he wanted to attack.

Militarily, there is the principle that to defend the Yangtze River must be guarded Huai, and to defend Nanjing, Wuhan must be guarded. The Manchus now regarded Zhou Lang as their number one henchman, and deployed 200,000 heavy troops in the Jianghuai region, even more than they used to suppress the White Lotus Sect, because they were worried that Zhou Lang would go through the Jianghuai region to make a northern expedition and at the same time occupy a favorable position for the pacification of Jiangnan.

Zhou Lang is now exhausted and does not plan to launch a large-scale northern expedition in the short term, so it is difficult to fight Jianghuai, but to hold Nanjing, Wuchang and the Hanjiang River valley, it is impossible not to seize it, because where is the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, 80% of the losses of Nanjing in history are launched from the upper reaches. For example, the Taiping army attacked from Wuchang to capture Nanjing.

But for Wuchang, which was at his fingertips, there was a huge disagreement in Zhou Lang's staff team, because Zhou Lang's troops were limited and could only send 30,000 or 40,000 people to fight, so there was a controversy over the direction of using troops.

Some aides believe that now that the situation is very good, we should go on a northern expedition in one go, and that a force of 30,000 or 40,000 troops is not capable of attacking the Central Plains from the Jianghuai to the north, but there is still hope for a surprise attack on Beijing by sea.

There are many people who cater to this view, and everyone is too optimistic about the current situation. Perhaps Hong Xiuquan was the same back then, easily occupying Nanjing, and then marching north to the west, but only excluding a small force of troops, underestimating the organizational ability of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and finally ending up trapped in Nanjing. At that time, if Hong Xiuquan did not stop in Nanjing and the whole army went north, it was possible to destroy the Manchu Qing Dynasty, because Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang brought 20,000 partial divisions to the Northern Expedition at that time and fought in Tianjin. Hong Xiu's whole army went north, who dared to say that he couldn't defeat Beijing?

Zhou Lang is not so optimistic, he has always been cautious, borrowing scientific concepts, "bold assumptions, careful verification", Zhou Lang is bold planning, cautious implementation, and strive to achieve steady progress. Of course he can't make a mistake like Hong Xiuquan, Zhu Yuanzhang was still fully prepared for the Northern Expedition that year, and appointed a general like Xu Da to concentrate the main forces and work hard in one go. Zhou Lang now does not have the ability to mobilize all his forces, and can only dispatch a small part of the army, so it is impossible to fight a major war like the Northern Expedition, and can only make a certain amount of development on the local battlefield.

Hubei is the best choice.

Zhou Lang decided that there should be no large-scale military action until his rest was over. Rather, it is based on the principle of political co-optation and military action.

Therefore, he directly appointed Chen Huai as the world's appeasement envoy to be fully responsible for the appeasement of Manchu officials, and this was the first time that he transferred 40,000 people who could be used and handed them over to Chen Huai, so that he could collect Hubei.

In fact, the Manchus were also engaged in intense political action at this time, removing and appointing a number of officials. Even a big man like the local governor does not spare his hand, which seems very unreasonable, but it is a good calculation.

Because although the movement is large, the hand is very gentle.

When the news came, Zhou Lang was surprised to find that many damned Heshen irons had escaped the catastrophe.

For example, Su Ling'a, Heshen's in-law, was only dismissed by the emperor, and then forgiven him on the grounds of his old age.

One hand is hard, the other is soft. The hard part lies in the truth, clearly distinguishing between right and wrong, what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong, and the soft place lies in the measures, only distinguishing between right and wrong, and not according to these questions, which did not force Heshen's henchmen into a dead end. Everyone saw that even Su Ling'a didn't have to die, so they had no determination to resist.

At the same time, he is very bold, even if he is on the front line, he dares to quickly remove, such as Su Ling'a, the governor of Liangjiang who retreated to Yangzhou, and the local magistrate of Hubei who Zhou Lang is about to attack, and the governor of Huguang has been replaced by Shulin.