It's the same night, the military department.

Yang Sichang has been in Beijing for nearly a month.

Although the imperial court was sorry for his father Yang He, Chongzhen's personal trust in him Yang Sichang was beyond doubt. This is not only because of Yang Sichang's personal ability, but also because Yang Sichang has never participated in party struggles. Especially when everyone around Chongzhen is either pro-Donglin Party or anti-Donglin Party, Yang Sichang, who does not rely on both sides and adheres to a neutral position, is particularly reliable for Chongzhen. Therefore, even if Chongzhen was ineffective in suppressing Yang He's bandits, and sat back and watched the anti-thieves do a lot of hatred, Yang Sichang, who was the son of man, repeatedly wrote to cry out for his father, and even bargained with him with his own appointment and dismissal, which did not make Chongzhen's trust in Yang Sichang slightly reduced. After all, a filial son is more reliable than an unfilial son no matter how he looks at it, if he is not filial to his father, how can Chongzhen dare to believe that he will be loyal?

Yang Sichang was very grateful to Chongzhen for his letter. On the other hand, he also thinks that his father is indeed wrong, but as a son of man, he cannot sit idly by and watch his father suffer, so his heart is painful, but there is no resentment. He and his father actually have political differences, just as Dayu and his father's methods of controlling water are diametrically opposed.

Yang He believes that the people's rebellion is really due to hunger and cold, and it is because the court has not been able to let the people have enough to eat, and as long as the people can eat enough, they are unwilling to rebel in their hearts, and they will still be the people of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, Yang He has mainly appeased the rebellious army, and is unwilling to encircle and suppress it. On the contrary, Yang Sichang believes that the people are the people before they rebel, and once they rebel, they are thieves. No matter what the cause of the rebellion of the people was, as long as they participated in the rebellion, they tasted the sweetness of rebellion. Even if they are disarmed and returned to the fields after recruitment, as long as they have the slightest dissatisfaction in their lives, they will immediately rebel again. Therefore, the elimination of evil is done, and the suppression of bandits is the same.

In fact, when he read "Water Margin" back then, he was not less in dispute over whether the imperial court should recruit An Liangshan, and every time he talked about this topic, his views were never unified.

Yang He believed that the people rebelled because of hunger and cold, which was different from the conspiracy of careerists to rebel. Just as the vast majority of people on Liangshan are actually loyal to the imperial court, they just can't aspire to the court. As long as the court recruits peace, they will fight for the court. Today's imperial court is facing the threat of construction, how similar is it to the Northern Song Dynasty court facing the threat of Liao! Therefore, after recruiting An, it is really the best policy to let them go to Jianyu.

Yang Sichang believes that if there is no story of Liangshan circulating, perhaps the policy of appeasement can still be used, and there is no problem with the policy of Kou Yukou. But the story of Liangshan has been passed down for hundreds of years, and it is almost a household name, known to women and children. If Song Jiang hadn't died in the end of Liangshan, maybe the thief might have accepted Zhao'an, but Song Jiang was finally poisoned by the Northern Song court. In this way, the thief has lacked basic trust in the imperial court. When any thief is considering whether to accept Zhao'an, he will definitely think of Song Jiang's fate, and then shudder. Therefore, after the one hundred and twenty times of "Water Margin" circulated, the thief will no longer sincerely accept the court's recruitment.

At that time, Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi's trilateral military affairs, had actually achieved initial results in appeasing the rebellious people, which Yang Sichang also admitted, and this was also the reason why he repeatedly wrote to cry out for his father. But in the end, as Yang Sichang expected, the rebels who had already recruited An rebelled again. Objectively speaking, this was not an error in Yang He's judgment, and the chaotic people sincerely accepted Zhao'an at that time. It was only because the relief food and other materials promised by the imperial court were not in place that the rebellious people still could not survive, so they surrendered and rebelled.

In fact, Yang He did not have the main responsibility for the whole process, and the imperial court really couldn't get enough materials, but in terms of results, Yang He, as the governor, was indeed ineffective in suppressing bandits, causing the bandits to become bigger, and there was no problem for the court to punish him. At that time, the imperial court wanted to directly ask Yang He, Yang Sichang wrote to accept it on behalf of his father, Chongzhen saw that his filial father was like this, how could he be disloyal? had a good impression of Yang Sichang, and for the sake of his face, he spared Yang He's life and punished him to the side.

Later, Chongzhen wanted to promote Yang Sichang to be the governor of the three sides, this is the position that Yang He made mistakes in that year, Yang Sichang wrote to Chongzhen: "The father of the minister is sent as the governor, how can the son bear to worship this official?" "I want Chongzhen to spare his father in his face. But what kind of person is Chongzhen? Chongzhen is a very pure person who admits death. Love someone and love death, hate someone and hate death, believe in a person is not easy to doubt, and once you doubt a person, it is useless for others to say good things about him. Therefore, Chongzhen, who deeply hated Yang He for missing the opportunity to suppress bandits, ignored Yang Sichang's request. At the same time, instead of decreasing, the trust to Yang Sichang is heavier: for the sake of his father, he doesn't even want a promotion and a salary increase, how filial is this? How loyal should such a person be?

The year before last, Yang He died in the garrison, and when he heard the news, Yang Sichang fell into a coma on the spot, and woke up after half a month, and the first thing he did when he woke up was to write to Chongzhen to correct his father's name. Chongzhen saw that Yang He was dead, and his hatred was basically gone, and he was worried about the health of his loyal minister Yang Sichang, so he agreed.

Last year, Jianyu entered the prison, Zhang Fengyi, the secretary of the Ministry of War, committed suicide in fear of crime, Chongzhen remembered Yang Sichang, who was filial piety at home, and in October, he issued an order to seize affection and let Yang Sichang take over as the secretary of the Ministry of War. Yang Sichang repeatedly asked for his resignation, but Chongzhen really couldn't find other suitable people, and almost forced Yang Sichang to come to the capital. Yang Sichang saw that Chongzhen valued his trust in him, and he was grateful, and decided to sacrifice his life to serve the king, and arrived in Beijing last month and began to serve as the secretary of the military department.

As soon as he took office, he received the news that the bandit had failed again. Yang Sichang has been thinking about one thing day and night these days, how to quell the bandits. Fortunately, because of his father's experience, he never gave up thinking about how to suppress bandits, and he himself had supervised the army for many years, and there was no shortage of combat experience.

In the past few days, Yang Sichang has been dragging up and perfecting his plan to suppress bandits, and although it was late at night, Yang Changsi still stayed in the military headquarters and did not want to return home, because there was still a very crucial problem in his plan that had not been perfected.

Yang Sichang's plan is called "Four Positives, Six Corners and Ten Networks": Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Fengyang, where the chaotic people are mainly active, will be the "Four Positives", and the governors of these four places will mainly suppress the bandit army, supplemented by prevention; Yansui, Shanxi, Shandong, Yingtian, Jiangxi, and Sichuan around the "Four Positives" were regarded as the "six corners", and the governors of these six places were mainly responsible for guarding against bandits, supplemented by suppression.

The whole plan has the meaning of Han Xin's ambush on all sides, but Han Xin ambushed Xiang Yu on all sides, and Yang Sichang wanted to open a net to capture the bandits in the "Four Positives".

In order to smoothly implement this plan, it is necessary to rely on the cooperation of Hong Chengchou, the governor of the five provinces, and Wang Jiazhen, the premier of the five provinces. Among the two people, although Hong Chengchou's character is not very good, it is said that he is lustful and timid, but he is trustworthy in the art of war. But Wang Jiazhen, on the contrary, has never heard of any problems with his character, but he has no achievements in the art of war, so his talent is really mediocre. Such a person can handle government affairs in ordinary times, but it is really difficult to do the job of suppressing bandits. Therefore, Yang Sichang was worried about the selection of another important minister to suppress bandits.