Before the paper tiger was punctured, it looked like it was vicious.

Wang Kefan stretched out his finger and lightly poked a small hole in its body, and the paper tiger was deflated by itself.

All kinds of previous plans and calculations have become a laughing stock at this moment, and even such a high-sounding reason for the Northern Expedition has lost its convincing power in the face of the Chu army's great military exploits...... Wang Kefan's attitude is obvious, there is no problem with the Northern Expedition, but how this battle should be fought must be decided by the Chu army, everyone speaks on the basis of military merits, and without military merits, there is no right to speak.

The civilian officials painfully realized that if they wanted to continue to fight for territory with the Chu army, the army in their hands was still too small, and they had to do everything they could to seize the military power.

The army will not fall from the sky, if you want to quickly have an army with enough troops, the only way is to recruit those Qing troops who are trapped in the three provinces south of the Yangtze River, as long as they return to the Ming anyway and obey the command of the Longwu court, they will seize the territory of Suzhou, Hangzhou and Fujian first, no matter how tough Wang Kefan's attitude is, it will not provoke a large-scale civil war, right?

Yang Tinglin, Tang Laihe, and Wan Yuan Ji didn't sleep all night, quarreled for a while, discussed for a while, studied for a while, and pulled all the departments of the Qing army back and forth, but whenever there was a little possibility of being recruited, they had to send people to contact and negotiate, this matter was already being done, but the strength was not enough, since Wang Kefan's attitude was so tough, then he had to get rid of his scruples and catch the army first.

In addition to Li Chengdong and Tong Yangjia, Xiong Lichun, Zhou Lianggong, and Tian Xiong all entered the list, and under the tremendous pressure of the Chu army, and under the persuasion of Wan Yuanji and Tang Laihe, Yang Tinglin threw away the most cherished discipline of the scholar and agreed to recruit Tian Xiong.

In the end, several people came up with Jin Shenghuan's idea again. In the end, it was unanimously concluded that Jin Shenghuan belonged to the objects that could be wooed, but they were not enough. Only Emperor Longwu himself could subdue this great warlord with tens of thousands of troops.

Want to fight against the Chu army. There are still a lot of specific details to do, and the three of them have been discussing until dawn, and then they have reorganized the whole plan, whether it is good or bad, there is finally a way to implement it, and their hearts are much more steady.

Yang Tinglin immediately said goodbye to Tang Wan and the others, preparing to go to Zhejiang to preside over the overall situation, Tang Laihe persuaded him to stay for two more days, in case Wang Kefan had any follow-up means. was resolutely rejected by Yang Tinglin.

"He is just screaming fiercely, and he has no time to go south for a while, and I don't want to go to the unveiling ceremony of the monument to that Raushzi and suffer another pickle."

"That's not necessarily, if he leads his army south and hits Zhejiang and Fujian first, how can we stop him." Wan Yuan Ji said worriedly: "Alas, Wang Kefan is also cunning, where to hit first, something that can be explained in one sentence." I think most of the articles he wants to write are focused on Zhejiang and Fujian. ”

If Wang Kefan is willing to attack Nanjing first, he only needs to say a word of resolute support for Emperor Longwu's wise decision. Since he wrote this article solemnly, he must have different plans, either to attack Suzhou and Hangzhou first, or to attack Fujian first, which is an unacceptable result for Emperor Longwu and the civil official clique.

Tang Laihe said: "I can't guess his intentions, so I want to ask Jian Shan Gong to wait for two more days, so as not to be caught off guard when things come to an end." ”

Yang Tinglin waved his hand, as if he was driving away a nasty fly: "He's just playing tricks." After the Battle of Ningzhen, the Chu army was already at the end of its strong crossbow, and it had no spare strength to go south for a while. Wang Kefan used all kinds of means to confuse people's ears and eyes, and if it was really delayed until two or three months later, it would still be like this. It's time for him to do it. If I stay here for one more day, Zhejiang will be more dangerous, so the two of you don't need to say much, I will leave Jurong today, alas, Dolgon's house is also weird, more than 20 days have passed since the battle of Ningzhen, why is there no movement in Jiangbei at all? ”

If the Qing court sent a large army to rescue Tan Tai, the Chu army would be dragged down, and even fight with the Qing army to lose both, and the civilian clique would take the opportunity to seize Zhejiang and Fujian.

……

Thousands of miles away in Beijing, the Qing court was lifeless, like a mourning woman.

In fact, it is really similar, Zierharang is Shunzhi's cousin, he will die in Jiangnan, no one thought in advance.

After the news of Zilharang's death came, the city of Beijing was in chaos, and everyone was desperately urging Dolgon, and sent troops to rescue tens of thousands of Qing troops trapped in the mountains of Ningzhen, but the Qing court was on fire everywhere, and Dolgon had no troops to send, so he could only send messengers to Shaanxi to urge Wu Sangui to go south, Wu Sangui's reply had not yet arrived, but the news that the Qing army had been completely annihilated.

Dolgon was so angry that he immediately fell ill and was bedridden for more than ten days, but only in the last two days had he improved slightly, and began to deal with the backlog of military affairs.

The battle has been lost, and it is useless to say anything, the most important thing now is how to rescue the remnants of the Qing army such as Tan Tai and Hetuo, who are mixed and miscellaneous under their command, and there are 10,000 banner soldiers, which are very important to the Manchu Qing who have been repeatedly hit.

Who to send to rescue Jiangnan? It is a question of tearing down the east wall and making up the west wall.

With the continuous enhancement of the national strength of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Eight Banners Dingkou also increased rapidly, and thousands of recruits could be replenished every year, but the front battles were lost one after another, and the speed of replenishing new recruits was far from keeping up with the losses, and the number of Eight Banners had been declining.

The only way is to send the Han army into battle.

Wu Sangui originally said that it was good, but the battle of Ningzhen ended in complete defeat, and the defeat was so fast that Dolgon had a trace of worry, and he didn't dare to pin all his hopes on Wu Sangui...... Dolgon has been dealing with the Wu family father and son for half his life, and he knows Wu Sangui's personality very well, and has a certain ability and strength, but he can't match his greater ambitions, and the two-faced and three-knife is the nature of being immersed in the bones, in short, he is an unreliable guy, seeing that the situation in Jiangnan is not easy to clean up, and seeing that the Ming army is so fierce, maybe he will be a turtle with a shrunken head.

The facts also proved his worries, just in the past two days, the news from Shaanxi was suddenly cut off, I don't know what Wu Sangui is doing, Dolgon issued a few more urgent orders to Shaanxi, but it will take at least three or four days to wait for the news to come back...... As a pragmatic ruler, Dolgon had prepared for the worst, if Wu Sangui really had two hearts. The Qing court not only could not turn against him, but tried its best to appease him, lest he fall to the side of the Ming army. Deal. Give him the territory of Shaanxi, and let him withstand Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo of the Western Army in front. It can be regarded as solving a trouble, and the Qing court can also transfer back some elite troops from the northwest, such as Meng Qiaofang and Li Guoying.

If you want to rescue Jiangnan, the other green battalion soldiers are not enough, and Dolgon pulls back and forth, eyeing Kong Youde.

Kong Youde still has a certain strength, and he is relatively close to Jiangnan, so if he sends them some reinforcements. It should be possible to fight with the Chu army, and win without seeking to fight, as long as you pull out the gap and cover Tan Tai and Hetuo to break through...... The Manchu Qing Dynasty is now greatly weakened, and has no strength to recover Jiangnan for the time being, as long as Tan Tai and other troops are rescued, it will be a victory.

The next step is to let Kong Youde defend Jianghuai, and wait until three or four years later, when a new generation of Eight Banners soldiers grows up, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty recovers its vitality. It also solved the problems of the northern provinces, and then launched an attack on the Southern Ming...... At that time, it is not yet known who will kill the deer.

As for the Hubei side. If you can't hold it in Wuchang, you will directly retreat to Henan, hold the Yiyang Sanguan and Nanyang Basin, and prevent the Ming army from entering the Central Plains.

All in all, Dolgon had already cleared his mind from his hospital bed, and in the next three or four years, the Manchus would first take a defensive position and shrink the line of defense. It doesn't matter if you lose some territory, the second is to implement the Han system. The Eight Banners could no longer fight lightly, otherwise the troops would continue to lose and decrease. After dropping below the safety value, it will be impossible to maintain deterrence against a Han army like Wu Sangui, and there will be a second and third Jiang Jiu appearing, and without the Ming army's Northern Expedition, he will be finished.

Dolgon also made some other policy adjustments to solve the problem of insufficient soldiers, such as lowering the enlistment age of the Eight Banners, such as recruiting those idle bannermen and clothed minions into the army, so that more than 10,000 soldiers were cobbled together to supplement the blue flag that was almost wiped out and the two white flags that suffered heavy casualties, and finally preserved the basic structure of the Eight Banners.

This problem cannot be ignored, Zilharang was completely annihilated, the combatable soldiers of the Blue Banner were all wiped out, and if the Eight Banners became the Seven Banner Soldiers, the prestige of the Qing court would be gone.

This newly formed army could not be raised in vain, and was sent to Shanxi by Dolgon, in order to eliminate Jiang Hao and get rid of this huge burden, if it were not for the war in Shanxi that contained too many Qing troops and consumed too many manpower, financial and material resources, Jiangnan would not have been defeated so badly.

The overall strategic structure was set, but Dorgon was not satisfied. This strategic plan is too conservative and too negative, if it had been placed a few years ago, he would definitely have chosen a more active strategy, such as concentrating his forces to attack against attack, launching a fierce attack from Hubei to Hunan, directly destroying the Chu army's lair, and even fighting all the way to Guilin, putting the Longwu court in a pot, the Chu army will inevitably turn back to save it, and the Qing army in Jiangnan will be able to calmly relieve the siege...... But now he is riddled and bedridden, and he no longer has that kind of sharpness, and the main force of the Eight Banners has been dragged by Jiang Jiu, and there is no certainty of victory in attacking Hunan, Dolgon hesitated again and again, and still chose a conservative strategy.

Saving soldiers is like fighting fires, and he can't wait for news from Shaanxi for several days, Dolgon didn't dare to delay any longer, and directly gave Kong Youde an urgent order, ordering him to send troops to rescue Jiangnan. In this will, he repeatedly told Kong Youde that this is a movement war with a weak enemy and a strong enemy, with the purpose of rescuing Tan Tai, Hetuo and Tong Yangjia, if there are practical difficulties, you can give up Tong Yangjia, as long as Tan Tai and Hetuo's main force of the Eight Banners is rescued, in view of the fact that Suzhou and Hangzhou are located on the coast of eastern Zhejiang, if Kong Youde is alone in the depths of the danger is too great, it is necessary to send people to get in touch with Hetuo in time, the two sides should cooperate with each other, echo each other, cover and retreat to the area of Anqing Mansion, cross the Yangtze River and naturally escape.

For the Qing court, which was greatly injured, Kong Youde's Han troops were also a very valuable resource, which could not be wasted, and Dolgon also pointed to him to guard Jianghuai and deal with the Chu army for a long time.

As for Wu Sangui in Shaanxi, Dolgon has not considered it, not to mention anything else, this time alone can not afford to delay, and when Wu Sangui slowly rushed from the northwest to the south of the Yangtze River, Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou are likely to have been lost, let Wu Sangui, a two-faced guy guard Jianghuai, and Dolgon will not sleep steadily.

Two days later, Wu Sangui's recital finally arrived, claiming that he was gathering troops and horses, raising grain and grass, and making preparations for the expedition, and at the same time reported to Dolgon that Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu's western army had recently suddenly stopped its offensive for unknown reasons.

Dolgon immediately thought of Hong Chengchou and Zhu Cihuan.

In order to increase the value of this gift and allow Sun Kewang to maximize the role of Zhu Cihuan, this matter was handled by Hong Chengchou and directly responsible for Dolgon, without suing Wu Sangui...... The sudden cessice of the Western Army is likely to have played a role in Zhu Cihuan.

Hong Chengchou has not yet sent a report, and Dolgon has no way to know the specific details of the negotiation, but in any case, as long as Sun Kewang accepts this "gift", he will bury a huge hidden danger in the Nanming camp.

Dolgon knows that Hong Chengchou is a very scheming person, if you talk about conspiracy and trickery, there are few people in the world who are his opponents, even if it is a bad card in your hand, you can be dazzled, and you will be hit by it inexplicably.

When Hong Chengchou was captured, he planned to surrender at the beginning, but he was unwilling to sell himself too cheaply, pretending to be just looking for a quick death, and kept saying that he wanted to be loyal to the Ming Dynasty, and scolded Huang Taiji endlessly, but secretly observed his attitude.

When the time was almost up, Hong Chengchou gently flicked off a grain of dust on his clothes, and conveyed his attachment to a better life to Fan Wencheng, and then like Jiang Ziya who was fishing with a straight hook, waiting for Huang Taiji to make a bid, and then later, it was a copycat version of Sangu Thatched House, Hong Chengchou finally found the true son of heaven for whom he could be loyal, and began his traitor career in the second half of his life.

Defeated and captured, this card is too bad, but Hong Chengchou won this bad card and climbed to the second peak of his life.

Hong Chengchou's surrender to the Manchu Qing Dynasty was a very heavy blow to the Ming Dynasty, the morale of the army was greatly affected, the top military secrets were leaked, and even the allies of North Korea were sold together, and later he spared no effort to help the Manchus occupy China step by step. (Korea had been conquered by the Manchus by this time, but there were still resistance forces, many of whom were high-ranking Korean officials and clansmen who secretly supported the Ming Dynasty but were betrayed by Hong Chengchou.) ）

Most people are greedy for life and afraid of death, and it is impossible to ask everyone to be a martyr, but on the contrary, they are the most shameless hardcore traitors.

Qian Qianyi is also a traitor, despised by later generations, and compared with Hong Chengchou, he is a person of noble character. (To be continued)