No one is perfect, and some people have high attainments in a certain aspect, but at the same time they have a stinky problem, and the things they do are often despicable, such as this Wang Fuzhi.

But that's all in the future, Wang Fuzhi is just a young man in his twenties, the first time they met, how his character is is still not visible for the time being, Wang Kefan is too lazy to care so much, casually asked a few words about his family background and studies, and went to talk to other lifters.

These people came to see Wang Kefan, one is out of politeness, the other is to be familiar, the friendship of fellow villagers in the officialdom is a very important link, Wang Kefan is not only a feudal official, but also a Huguang person, since they met on the way, these Huguang people of course want to come to worship the mountain gate...... They are about to take the exam, if they can jump over the dragon gate, it is of course a good thing to be able to get acquainted with a court member like Wang Kefan, and if they fall behind, they can also go to Wang Kefan to get a job and step into the official career as a son.

So in front of Wang Kefan, these moves try their best to show their abilities.

Before they came, they had done their homework, and they knew that this Admiral Cao Jiang was a military general, and he was definitely not interested in the eight-strand system, so they expressed their opinions on the current situation and criticized the problems of the military and political affairs in Huguang. However, their views are rather extreme, focusing on the administration of officials and the management of the army, and it seems that the problem can be solved by creating a storm of clean government and killing all the corrupt officials and corrupt officials.

Seeing that they couldn't say anything new, Wang Kefan brought the topic back to the upcoming Enke, encouraged a few people, and sponsored dozens of taels of silver to send them away.

The insights of these people are relatively mediocre, or they can only play with mouth cannons, although they talk about the disadvantages of the times, but there is no specific solution, Wang Kefan is not interested in them.

The officials of the Ming Dynasty are difficult to return. Officialdom has formed its own set of unspoken rules, as long as people in the system want to do anything, they must abide by this set of unspoken rules, otherwise it will be difficult to move an inch...... Over time, all the officials' buttocks are not clean, and the problem cannot be solved by killing their heads alone.

However, through this conversation, Wang Kefan also got a lot of information, and had an intuitive understanding of the latest situation in Huguang, combined with other information he had. Wang Kefan concluded that Huguang's shape was worse than expected.

Since the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the Qing army has not put the main direction of attack in Huguang several times when it goes south, and the Ming army is therefore in an advantageous position in Huguang, if it can seize this opportunity to develop rapidly. Huguang could have become a strong anti-Qing base area.

But it's a pity that He Tengjiao has been running Huguang for several years. Always busy with power. There are many problems in the military, political, and economic aspects.

In terms of politics, He Tengjiao disobeyed the Yang and Yin of the Longwu Imperial Court, and was separated from the governor of Hubei, and was also keen to meddle in eastern Guizhou and try to expand his territory...... As a result, Huguang was very isolated in the Southern Ming regime. However, there are contradictions between Hunan and Hubei, and there are many factions in the officialdom, and there is no incessant infighting, and there is no deep understanding of the severity of the struggle against the Qing Dynasty.

On the military side. He Tengjiao first wantonly recruited warlords, such as Liu Chengyin, Huang Chaoxuan, Zhang Xianbi and others, and later found that these warlords were not easy to use, and vigorously expanded the supervision battalion and other cronies. It's a pity that he doesn't know anything about military management, and his subordinates lack generals, so he has led tens of thousands of troops into a group of ruffians, and his combat effectiveness is not as good as those warlords.

Among the troops under He Tengjiao, Wang Jincai and Hao Shaoqi's troops have the strongest combat effectiveness, and the warlord Liu Chengyin and other troops are in the middle, but these warlords are also full of contradictions.

Hubei's military strength is relatively strong, whether it is Li Guo's loyal battalion, or Ma Jinzhong of Yuezhou Mansion, and the gentleman's battalion of Gu Yinxi himself, they are all outstanding in the Huguang official army.

The 200,000-strong army of the loyal battalion occupied Jingzhou Mansion and Chengtian Mansion, and was active along the Yangtze River, so that Luck Dehun did not dare to take a step out of Wuchang Mansion. However, it is a pity that the loyal battalion does not have a solid rear base area, and the Jingzhou Mansion and Chengtian Mansion alone cannot support these 200,000 troops, and the size of the troops has never developed greatly, and the weapons and equipment are also insufficient.

Ma Jinzhong did not recruit He Tengjiao to see, after Wang Kefan left Huguang, Ma Jinzhong also had no wind wall, and was constantly squeezed out by Yan zhòng, so he could only be forced to move closer to Plug Yinxi, after some twists and turns, his troops were changed to Plug Yinxi, but they were still stationed in Yuezhou Mansion.

With the help of Wang Kefan, Li Guo and others, the starting point of the Junzi Battalion is very high, the training is strict, and it has been pulled to the Hubei battlefield to fight a few battles, and the real sword and gun have competed with the Eight Banners, and it is also a strong army.

Of course, this "strong army" is relative, and the loyal battalion, the gentleman's battalion, and Ma Jinzhong's troops are still one or two grades behind, and their more than 200,000 troops can have a slight advantage over Lucke Hun in Wuchang Mansion, and once Kong Youde's troops enter Huguang, this military balance will be immediately broken.

On the whole, Huguang's Ming army is much worse than Kong Youde's Qing army, even if the Gongyi battalion is added, it will not be able to pry the balance of strength comparison, and the Ming army in Huguang is not united, and if it is not good, it will be broken by the Qing army......

There are political and military problems, and on the economic front, Huguang has also encountered big troubles, especially since Hunan is already on the verge of collapse.

In this era, military expenditures, except for a small amount of weapons and equipment, were mainly used to pay military salaries. The total number of Ming troops in Huguang was nearly 400,000, and they needed several million taels of silver every year, while Huguang's annual financial income was only a few hundred thousand taels, which was far from enough.

He Tengjiao racked his brains for this, in addition to his own supervision battalion to ensure continuous pay, other armies can be delayed, can be deducted, especially the troops in Hubei are basically indifferent, but there are tens of thousands of officers and troops in Hunan, and there is still a gap of more than one million taels of salaries.

In order to solve this problem, He Tengjiao levied "free tax", increased the rent and tax, increased the tax per mu of land by more than five times, and ate the grain, and pre-levied the tax for next year in advance......

Such wanton expropriation and extortion, coupled with the fact that corrupt officials and corrupt officials are fishing in troubled waters, have exceeded the limit that the common people can bear, because the collection of "righteous salaries" has repeatedly caused the destruction of families, ordinary tenants and self-cultivated households have sold their children and daughters, fled and left Hunan, and small and medium-sized landlords have also had to sell their fields, and their family property has shrunk sharply.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, landlords used "field bones" and "field skins" to divide the ownership and cultivation rights of land, and under normal circumstances, the increased land rent tax would be passed on to the "field skins", that is, the tenants and self-cultivators who farmed the fields, and had little impact on the landlords and gentry.

However, due to the fact that He Tengjiao increased the land rent tax too much, causing a large number of tenants and self-cultivators to go bankrupt and flee, the landlords and gentry could not find a target to pass on, and they also suffered great losses, so they were extremely dissatisfied with He Tengjiao.

This created a vicious circle, after a large number of tenants and self-cultivators fled, the Hunan government could not receive enough money and food, so it had to deduct the arrears of military salaries for the troops, and let Liu Chengyin, Huang Chaoxuan, and other warlords "eat" in the garrison, that is, find their own way. These warlords plundered and plundered arbitrarily, and robbed money and grain from the common people and gentry, further destroying the productive forces of society.

In this case, the social contradictions in Hunan have intensified sharply, the common people are dissatisfied with the government, the gentry and landlords are also dissatisfied with the government, thieves are everywhere, bandits are rampant, and it has evolved into a jungle society where the weak eat the strong, and the Ming government has lost the support of the people among the people, and Wang Fuzhi and others have come to complain, which is the reason.

When the Qing army was about to go south, the Hunan government lost the support of the people and gentry, and it was defeated before the war......

In Hubei, the situation is slightly better.

There are not many soldiers and horses under Gu Yinxi, and although the burden of the people is heavy, they can barely bear it.

The loyal battalion regarded Jingzhou Mansion and Chengtian Mansion as their own territory, and did not want to cause severe damage to the local area, so they did not excessively expropriate and resisted with the help of blocking Yinxi...... However, this has also caused the troops to be in arrears for a long time, to be short of food and materials, and to decline in the morale and combat effectiveness of the troops.

In general, Huguang is full of internal contradictions, there is no external support, the strength of the army is insufficient, there is a lack of food and materials, and the support of the people is also very low, it is a complete mess!

In the imperial court and Wang Kefan's side, people who knew a little bit of military common sense believed that the battle of Huguang was defeated and unwon, for example, Zhang Jiayu believed that the best result was to hold Hengzhou (now Hengyang City), block the Qing army's attack in southern Hunan, and if the war did not go well, the Qing army would even invade Guangxi and Guizhou.

However, among the civilian officials and the common people, there was a feeling of blind optimism, believing that the Huguang Ming army could fight the Qing army. Their reason is very simple, the Ming army in Huguang has nearly 400,000, accounting for more than half of the total number of imperial officers and soldiers, and Kong Youde plus Luck Dehun has a total strength of only 100,000, and with 400,000 against 100,000, how can it not be too ugly to lose.

Before Wang Kefan left Guangdong, he already felt this deeply, most of the civil officials in the imperial court had high hopes for the battle of Huguang, hoping to stabilize the situation through the battle of Guò, and even Emperor Longwu was thinking about how to take He Tengjiao after defeating the Qing army.

After talking to those young people, Wang Kefan found that the gentry of Huguang did not realize the severity of the situation.

In all fairness, although He Tengjiao had a certain amount of selfishness in Hunan, it was only a mistake in administrative measures, and the gentry and landlords had the protection of "Tian Gu" and "Tian Pi", and suffered the least losses in this turmoil, and the great enemy was still busy safeguarding his own interests, and the selfish side of human nature was fully exposed. (To be continued......)