In the Longwu Imperial Court, Tang Laihe's status is very special, not only has he been appointed to the cabinet, but he is also regarded as the most likely candidate to succeed He Wufu in the next cabinet.

Emperor Longwu was able to sit on the throne of the emperor was a very accidental event. In that year, Duoduo led the Qing army south, Emperor Hongguang was captured, and Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, who succeeded him as the superintendent, surrendered to the Qing army. According to feudal ethics, it is not the turn of Zhu Yujian, the king of Tang who was born in the lineage of Zhu Yuanzhang's concubine, to be the emperor (the status of the concubine is very low), which also laid the foundation for the later "Tanglu Dispute" and "Tanggui Dispute".

Emperor Longwu was a very ordinary prince at that time, fleeing all the way from the north, without any ideological preparation to be an emperor, he was a puppet when he first came to power, he would not be an emperor, and he did not have his own team, so he could only reuse Huang Daozhou and other Donglin Party ministers, as well as the warlord generals of the Zheng group. But he was not willing to be just a puppet emperor, after coming to power, he selected the former ministers of the opposition and appointed more than 20 cabinet scholars in one breath to fight against a monopoly Donglin Party, the number of cabinet members was so large that it set a record in the Ming Dynasty, He Wuyu, Guo Weijing and Fu Guan and others all entered the center of power in this way.

In the beginning, it worked.

With the continuous southward movement of the political center of the Longwu court, the rapid rise of the "Southern Party" with He Wuyu as the leader, after the martyrdom of Huang Daozhou, the leader of the Donglin Party, Lu Daqi and others could not shoulder this heavy burden, plus the Chu Xun group representing the warlord forces, the political pattern of the Longwu court formed a three-legged stand and restrained each other. Balancing each other, Emperor Longwu's imperial power was gradually strengthened.

But that's not enough.

No matter He Wuyu or Fu Guan. Even Guo Weijing, Wen Anzhi, Chen Zizhuang and others are all former ministers of the former dynasty with high status. The qualifications are older than the other, and the fame is greater than the other, and Emperor Longwu is still not easy to use. The so-called once a son of heaven and a courtier, the newcomers promoted by himself are always better than these old guys, he has been vigorously cultivating his own cronies, and the "imperial party" has sprung up and become a rising star among the various factions of the Longwu Dynasty.

In the imperial party, the eunuchs of the inner court and the Jinyi guards were not allowed to sit at the table, and only Tang Laihe was pinned on by Emperor Longwu.

The ability to come to the first soup is very strong. He is not only capable of civil and military affairs (Chongzhen fought against him and the peasant army). And it is a pragmatic person who can engage in economic work, when the Longwu Imperial Court was just established, Tang Laihe, who was then the political envoy of Guangdong, sent 100,000 taels of silver to help the emergency, thus entering the field of vision of Emperor Longwu.

Secondly, Tang Laihe's character is also good. Don't talk about honesty and dedication, the key is that Tang Laihe is fair, has always taken into account the overall situation, tried to stay away from party disputes, and his political propositions are also more pragmatic, which is in stark contrast to those civil officials who can only talk about empty words. (After the martyrdom of Emperor Longwu in history.) Tang King Zhu Yulu succeeded Emperor Shaowu in Guangdong and fought a civil war with Emperor Yongli in Guangxi. It is very rare among Ming Dynasty officials who like to fight in the nest. ）

Last but not least, Tang Laihe belongs to the Shaozhuang faction and is only in his early forties this year. It was personally picked up by Emperor Longwu, and there is no problem with loyalty. Let him experience a few years in the cabinet. Then he succeeded He Wusu as an assistant, and Emperor Longwu had even thought about it. If there is a problem with your health in a few years, you have to ask Yu Yu to congratulate him.

Letting Tang Laihe serve as the overseer of the Eastern Expedition is also a fancy to his characteristic of taking into account the overall situation. According to Emperor Longwu's original plan, Wang Kefan took the Chu army to attack Jiangnan, and Tang Laihe was responsible for attacking Fujian, one was to strike at the enemy, and the other was to recover the lost territory...... Of course, in the end, it was the imperial court that fell into the benefits.

Now that Emperor Longwu suddenly changed his strategy and leaned towards Nanjing, Tang Laihe inevitably had some twists. Although he would not disobey Emperor Longwu's orders, he thought in his heart that the Chu army would be defeated, and it was better to come up and fight a defeat and withdraw to Jiangxi, so that he would have a reason to persuade Emperor Longwu and then shift the strategic focus to Fujian. It is not too late to make amends, it is still too late to adjust the strategy, as long as the Ming army holds the Xianxia Pass, Jierharang will not be able to enter Fujian to support Tong Yangjia.

Of course, he didn't want the Chu army to be wiped out, but he just hoped that Wang Kefan would fall on his heels, become more sober, more tame, and more convenient to be controlled by the imperial court in the future, instead of being as unruly as he is now, and even have formed countermeasures against the imperial court. Tang Laihe is very grateful for Emperor Longwu's promotion and trust in the past two years, and has the idea of "the one who dies for his confidant", but deep in his heart, Emperor Longwu is not a true dragon emperor like Emperor Chongzhen who will be loyal to him without thinking about it at all, Tang Laihe is more often from the perspective of the Ming court, and has a high tolerance for warlords like Wang Kefan.

"Thousands of troops are easy to get, but one is hard to find!"

Tang Laihe's mood is very complicated. Intellectually speaking, he also knew that the current shape was still strong and weak, and he hoped that the friendly army would defeat the battle, even if Wang Kefan and Jierharang were defeated, the Longwu Imperial Court would not benefit, and Dolgon was the one who had the last laugh. In order to fight against the powerful Manchu Qing, Tang Laihe could tolerate Wang Kefan's temporary self-respect, but he was worried that if this continued, Wang Kefan would sooner or later threaten the rule of the Zhu family.

As for defeating Zilharan, it was clearly an impossible task. The 60,000-strong army of Jierharang was huddled together, but the Chu army was only more than 40,000 people, and the Qing army had more troops and stronger combat effectiveness, and the strength of the two sides was obviously a big difference. For this kind of large-scale battle with a total strength of more than 100,000 people, strength is the only factor that determines the outcome of the victory, even if Wang Kefan plays the 36 tricks, but Jierharang only uses the stupid method of grinding tactics to advance little by little, the Chu army will definitely not be able to stop them, if Wang Kefan forcibly blocks it at any cost, the Chu army will inevitably suffer heavy losses, and even the entire army will be annihilated.

On the one hand, Tang Laihe hoped that the Chu army would lose the battle, on the other hand, he was worried that the defeat of the Chu army would be too miserable, and the Southern Ming would no longer have any soldiers to fight, and the best result was that the Chu army did not dare to confront Jierharang head-on, and let the Qing army enter Yanling Town, rescue Zhu Mala and Mulima, and then be forced to withdraw to Jiangxi. If he runs fast enough, the Chu army will not have much loss, and at that time, Tang Laihe will be ready to impeach Wang Kefan in this book, suppress his arrogance, and make Chu Jun and Chu Xun more honest in the future.

In this entanglement of gains and losses, Tang Laihe followed Tang Wang and his entourage into Moling Pass.

The keeper of Moling Pass was Xi Baotian of the Pingjiang Battalion, who warmly received the envoys of the Tang Dynasty, but resolutely did not allow them to continue to penetrate into the mountainous area of Ningzhen, and only released Jiao Lian's 5,000 Yangshuo soldiers to pass guò.

"Wang Junmen has already made it clear that our army is fighting fiercely with the Qing army, and His Royal Highness the King of Tang cannot go deep into the dangerous situation, so he and the court officials will temporarily rest at Moling Pass, and when the front-line war is over, Wang Junmen will naturally come to see His Highness."

The main force of the Chu army is concentrated in the Ningzhen Mountains, from the Anqing Corridor to the Ningzhen Mountains, the heavily guarded Moling Pass is the safest place, and it can be advanced or retreated, if necessary, you can turn around and run back to Jiangxi, so that Tang King Zhu Yulu is the most suitable to stay here.

Zhu Yulu was very dissatisfied, pointed at Xi Baotian's nose and scolded, but Xi Baotian refused to eat hard and soft, and Zhu Yulu and Ma Jixiang had to stay in Moling Pass obediently in the end.

Tang Laihe was not a member of the envoy group, and he was the identity of the overseer of the Eastern Expedition, so Xi Baotian did not stop him and rushed to the front line with Jiao Lian.

"Mr. Nandou (Tang Laihe Nandou), when you go this time, you must go to the battlefield for the lonely prince to see how the battle on the front line is going. I heard that the captive king Jierharang was cunning and cunning, and the lone king was afraid that Wang Kefan was not his opponent. ”

Zhu Yulu is now an idle prince, and he doesn't have too deep thoughts, he just hopes that the Chu army will win a big battle, and it is best to wipe out Ji'er Harang in one fell swoop and recover the entire Jiangnan. But he also heard that the Qing army was fierce, and the Chu army was afraid that it would be difficult to match, so he was very worried.

More worried than him was Ma Jixiang, who was blocked by Xi Baotian in Moling Pass, Ma Jixiang gritted his teeth with hatred, but in the Chu army's one-acre and three-point land, he couldn't mobilize Tiqi to arrest this nasty guy in the edict. I had to be like Zhu Yulu, and repeatedly instructed Tang Laihe and Jiao Lian to send the latest battle situation on the front line to Moling Pass.

Seeing that they were so nervous and still had illusions about winning this battle, Tang Laihe could only shake his head secretly, and finally couldn't bear to look at it, so he found the two of them privately when he left, analyzed the current battle situation, and reminded them to be mentally prepared for defeat. Although it is cruel to do this, it is much better than holding unrealistic illusions and finally taking a blow to the head, after all, after preparing for defeat, there will be no haste when retreating.

In the afternoon of the same day, Tang Laihe and Jiao Lian's troops left Moling Pass and entered the mountainous area of Ningzhen, as the front line got closer and closer, the atmosphere of the war became thicker and stronger, as the commander of the Eastern Expedition South Route Army, Tang Laihe quickly left all other problems behind, and changed to a purely military perspective to observe the shape of the battlefield.

Before approaching the front line, he suddenly flashed a thought, it was a strategic mistake to divide the Eastern Expedition into two routes, north and south, if Wang Kefan did not fight a decisive battle with Jierharang in the mountainous area of Ningzhen, but attacked Fujian with him, and blocked Jierharang on the more dangerous Xianxia Ancient Road, the possibility of winning this battle would be much greater.

Immediately after, he heard the rumbling of artillery from the front...... (To be continued!)

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