As soon as this remark came out, not only Shunzhi, but even Zhu Zhixi was also surprised, but with Liu Cheng's next story, they quickly understood Liu Cheng's intentions. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

"It is ridiculous to use religion to gather people's hearts and boost morale, such as white lotus, smelling incense, and other cults. However, as far as the minister knows, the Ctessi nations all believe in God, and have organized many crusades to fight the religion east of Ctessi, and its three major knights, the Teuton, the Hospital, and the Temple, have achieved outstanding results. ”

But when it came to this, Liu Cheng turned to say: "However, the religion of Taixi is contrary to Chinese tradition, and it is not easy to spread. But Taixi's machinery and weapons are the heroes of the world, and the Zhejiang bandits started with the Mandarin Duck Array, which has many of Chen Rebellious's miraculous strokes, but among them, such as weapons and machinery, it depends on the power of Taixi. If the imperial court can obtain the support of the Taixi countries, whether it is a Zhejiang bandit or a western thief, it can be easily pacified. ”

Religion is not the key, the key is European machinery manufacturing and weaponry, which is Liu Cheng's core view. Of course, there is another point that Liu Cheng did not mention - it is not appropriate to bring it up now, and more importantly, he is not willing to bring it up now.

Coming alone, Liu Cheng not only needs the protection of the imperial power, but also needs the support of the Jesuits to achieve great things. In exchange for the full support of the Jesuits, Yongli borrowed Portuguese soldiers from Macau, which was why he went to the observatory to seek the support of John Tong.

Shunzhi certainly understood what Liu Cheng was referring to, that he had a good personal relationship with John Tong, that he knew a lot more about Catholicism than Liu Cheng, and that the Jesuits had also improved their own teachings to a certain extent in order to adapt to Chinese traditions. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was indeed some progress in the scholarly class, and a few years ago, he even received reports that Yongli of the Southern Ming Dynasty had converted to Catholicism in order to gain the support of Taixi.

However, in terms of religion, Yu Manchu Qing was by no means like Nanming. Manchuria was sparsely populated, and it was necessary to connect Mongolia and realize the combination of the Northern and Eastern Yi in order to have the possibility of confronting the Han land head-on, so it was inevitable to promote the Yellow Sect. Just as Kangxi said, "Xinghuangjiao, soft Mongolian", the Manchus' own attitude towards Huangjiao is actually not to believe, but to use, they need Huangjiao to maintain their relationship with Mongolia and Tibet, as if it is a truth to promote Confucianism in Han to establish legitimacy, so it is impossible to convert to Catholicism at this stage.

However, Shunzhi knew very well that the machinery and weapons mentioned by Liu Cheng were exactly what the Manchus urgently needed now, and the human resources of Mongolia were also the foundation of the Manchus, which invisibly appeared a contradiction, after all, the Eight Banners Army could not believe in Catholicism during the day and Huangjiao at night.

It only took a very short time for Shunzhi to figure out the pros and cons of this, and there are many ways to get the support of the Jesuits, and it is not necessary to learn from Yongli.

As for the blessing of religious belief on combat effectiveness, Shunzhi did not want to give the Pope and cardinals a handle, nor did he have much confidence in the power of religious brainwashing. The Manchus were able to do this, ensure the interests of the core group, deter and win over more people, and thus achieved the miracle of the conquest of an ancient civilization of 70 million ding by a barbarian tribe of tens of thousands of dings. Even if it is Chen Wen, Shunzhi can hear from Liu Cheng's previous tone that he is also more respectful of the military merit awarding system. And the so-called defense of Yixia is much worse.

If you think about it carefully, it is actually normal, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has done a good job of using the "righteousness of the monarch and the minister" to fight against the "defense of Yixia" before, if it is not for a Chen Wen, as long as Sun and Li are still in a state of internal strife, it will only be a matter of time before the whole of China is pocketed. If the defense of Yixia is really useful, then why are there more gentry and warriors who are willing to drive for the Manchus than for the Ming army. In the final analysis, the overwhelming superiority of force is the key, and all the popular will and morality are just embellishments.

Liu Cheng's suggestion is problematic, but this is precisely because he does not know enough about the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and it cannot hide his talents, especially since Liu Cheng's understanding of the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Ming armies is definitely the best candidate in today's Manchu Qing Dynasty.

"Aiqing is an outstanding person, and her words are middle-minded, but the attachment days are short, and I don't understand my tradition of the integration of the Qing Dynasty, Manchu and Mongolia. All in all, Aiqing Muyi came to vote, it can be of great use, I am very pleased, when the flag of the Han army is the red flag, what does Aiqing think? ”

"We're thanking you."

"Still calling himself Weichen?"

Hearing Shunzhi smile and ask this question, Liu Cheng immediately reacted.

"Slave thank you, Lord Long."

This worship, Shunzhi gained talents and hope for the future, while Liu Cheng got a shortcut to climb up quickly. It's just that at the moment of bowing down, Liu Cheng's smile always has an unusual meaning in it, which is fleeting.

"Then in Aiqing's opinion, where should I start?"

The theory has been elaborated by Liu Cheng, but the key is the specific operation. He knew very well that this point had to touch Shunzhi's heart, and only then could he be regarded as a real shortcut, not a nice one.

"The slave thinks that in today's Eight Banners, the old tactics still have an overwhelming advantage in the face of ordinary thieves, but they can no longer adapt to the Zhejiang bandits. What's more, after several years of war, especially this year's two battles, Niu Lu has suffered a lot of losses, Niu Lu is not satisfied with the formation, and the combat effectiveness has plummeted, if you want to improve your combat effectiveness, you must carry out reforms, and draw soldiers who can still fight from each Niu Lu to form a new army. ”

As soon as these words came out, Zhu Zhixi was confused, but Shunzhi understood the intention, and the excitement in his heart was immediately expressed.

"Aiqing's words are really geniuses. I thought that it was only when I joined the Han Army that I was worthy of Aiqing's talent. ”

There is a big gap in status between the upper three banners and the lower five banners, and the same is true of the Han army flag, originally Shunzhi raised Liu Cheng's flag, which was meant to win over, after all, a Han man who came alone to vote could become the official of the five banners of the Han army and would not be subject to too much opposition. But now it seems that the strength of this co-optation is obviously not enough, far from enough.

Liu Cheng touched Shunzhi's heart, and from this moment on, the subordinate and Yijun finally stood together. In the next few days, Shunzhi and Liu Cheng had a series of meetings, and the latter also naturally recommended many capable generals to Shunzhi who could not be reused. Former members of the Nanchang shogunate, such as Hu Quancai, Li Benshen, Liu Fangming, Zou Zhuoming, Zhang Daocheng, and Hao Zongfu, have been reactivated, and already serving officials such as Zhu Zhixi and Cai Yurong have also embarked on the track of promotion.

In this apocalyptic atmosphere when incumbent officials are worried, sent to the world, and hung up their seals, this group of fortunate people led by Liu Cheng and Hu Quancai, who were called the Restoration Party by later historians, staged a promotion plan and filled the vacancies of officials in various ministries, which really made people unable to see the current situation clearly, and even Ning Wan, who had been sitting firmly in Diaoyutai, was shocked by this.

But in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Hanchen was originally attached to the imperial power, and although Ning Wan I am now the head of Hanchen, he didn't dare to disobey Shunzhi's intentions, so he had to extend an olive branch to Liu Cheng and Hu Quancai, ready to take a few more points in front of Shunzhi in the next reform.

However, everything was still in the plan, and there was still some time to prepare for the official start of operation, and the changes in the Manchu Qing Dynasty were first interrupted by an urgent military situation. And the actual content of this military situation is only one point, that is, a local tyrant named Yu Qi raised troops against the Qing Dynasty in the name of the Shandong General Army under the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Ming Army, and has captured Ninghai City!

………………

Yu Qi anti-Qing uprising, there have been two times in history, the first is not long after the Qing army entered the customs, Yu Qi revolted in Zigya Mountain, and accepted the appeasement after failure, and the second time was inspired by Zheng Chenggong's battle of Nanjing, and because he did not get the expected treatment after being appeased, he raised troops against the Qing Dynasty on Ziya Mountain again.

Zheng Chenggong's battle of Nanjing was four years ahead of schedule, although it still failed to succeed, but Nanjing was captured by Chen Wen, and two princes of Heshuo were killed by the Ming army of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Zhejiang, and the deterrent power of the Eight Banners Army plummeted, so Yu Qi raised troops again. As for the name of the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Ming Army, but it was a tiger skin that was pulled, Chen Wen didn't know anything about it. However, the effect is not bad, as soon as the banner of the Ming Army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang came out, 10,000 people responded in an instant, and even Ninghai Prefecture City almost went down without a fight. At first glance, the fate of breaking through and becoming a monk after the failure of the uprising is getting farther and farther away from Yu Qi.

Shandong was in turmoil, but the Huai land south of Shandong was divided into two. Taking advantage of the tremendous momentum of the two famous kings and the recovery of Nanjing, the Ming army of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Zhejiang sent less than 30,000 troops, but in just over a month, they recovered the entire territory of Yangzhou Prefecture, Luzhou Prefecture, Anqing Prefecture and Hezhou Prefecture and Chuzhou, as well as the southern counties of Huai'an Mansion and Fengyang Prefecture, including Fucheng, forming a situation of confrontation with the Qing army across the Huai River.

The Qinling Mountains and the Huai River are the dividing line between the north and the south of China, and Chen Wen has many troops under his command, but there are also many potential opponents and other forces that need to be faced in different places. The division of forces was so scattered that he lost the desire to continue to attack the city to the north and west. Of course, even if you have soldiers in your hands, there is no need to rush the Northern Expedition now, there are still many things that need to be done before that, otherwise even if the Manchus are eliminated, the future will not be much better.

A new batch of expansions has begun, new battalions and divisional formations, and a large number of local garrisons are also needed for the new occupied areas and the plans for the future. At the same time, in order to better control the newly recovered areas, Chen Wen also adjusted the garrisons of the prefectures and counties in the original occupied areas. The garrisons of some of the stable prefectures were reduced, and the surplus troops were transferred to the newly recovered prefectures.

Jiangbei, as the front line, naturally needs a large army to sit in the town. The southern part of Yangzhou and Huai'an was in charge of Yin Yue, and the main force of the Jinhua Division was stationed in the capital of Huai'an Prefecture.

This was originally the residence of the Manchu Caoyun Governor, the previous Caoyun Governor committed suicide by jumping into the river in the Battle of Zheng Chenggong Nanjing, the new Caoyun Governor, Cai Shiying in history, was killed by Chen Wen as early as last year, and the Tuntai who took over was the Governor of Zhejiang and Fujian in the same period in history, and now the jurisdiction of the Governor of Zhejiang and Fujian is left with several prefectures in Fujian, and the traffic has long been cut off, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty has to have Liu Qingtai himself to maintain there.

Historically, during Tuntai's tenure as the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, he went to the Qing court and demanded that a sea ban be implemented on the coast, and "no sails are allowed to enter the sea". Now, even if he wants to do this, he has no chance, when the guard battalion from the Jinhua division arrived close to Huai'an Mansion, Tuntai crossed the Huai River without hesitation, and ran to Pizhou, northwest of Huai'an Prefecture, to continue to be his governor of Caoyun, anyway, he didn't leave Huai'an Mansion.

Huainan Rusi, on the ground of Anhui in later generations, the pressure of Yongjiashi is not small, and it is necessary to take into account the pressure on the north of Fengxiang Mansion, the southeast of Henan and the north of Huguang. However, the recovery of Fengxiang Mansion in the central capital is also an encouragement for the Ming army, which is Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown after all, and has special significance.

Before the recruits left the camp, in the Jiangbei region, the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Ming armies needed to temporarily enter the defensive. Even some prefectures and counties in Huaibei and Henan, which are now nearby, have secretly expressed their intentions to Chen Wen anyway, but Chen Wen has no plans to continue to expand in two directions for the time being, so he asks them to continue to lurk for a period of time and wait for the dawn to come.

Now for Chen Wen, the general trend is in hand, step by step to expand the basic market, explore greater potential, recover more lost ground, step by step to roll the snowball, whether it is the current goal, or the future career, is the most stable rhythm. Blindly expanding the occupied territory, especially in areas such as the north, which is more favorable to cavalry, will only lead to self-defeating results.

Disadvantage can resist pressure, and victory is not waved. Chen Wen has done a good job in the first half of the race, and now he has entered the second half, and even as early as when Jiangxi has entered the second half of the race, he also needs to be more cautious, not to take 100 steps and stop at 99 steps.

This is the case militarily for the time being, and after more than a month of investigation, the people involved in the previous Zilharang and Ma Guozhu Daxing Tonghai cases have basically been investigated.

When Jilharang and Ma Guozhu were in danger in the south of the Yangtze River, they chose to provide food and salary for the Qing army by attacking the anti-Qing forces, and provided a large amount of money and food to the Manchu court in case of emergency, and at the same time achieved the military goal of forcing Chen Wen to enter the battlefield pre-selected by Jierharang and fight a decisive battle, which can be called killing three birds with one stone.

However, the military defeat made Chen Wen and the Jiangnan gentry enter the honeymoon period, although it was only temporary, and both sides knew about it, but Chen Wen thought that he had the obligation to avenge the righteous soldiers who died against the Qing Dynasty, just as he had avenged the martyrs who had slaughtered the city!

Many of the people involved in the Tonghai case escaped the Yangtze River, but Chen Wen's army was not slow, and recovered a large amount of lost territory and captured many people involved in the case.

According to the usual punishments, many of them were to be executed, and the location Chen Wen chose in front of the gate of the newly completed Tonghai Martyrdom Shrine. However, this place was nominally established for the Tonghai case, but in fact, among the righteous men who were executed by Jierharang and Ma Guozhu, many of their crimes were hung on the Tongzhe case, that is, communicating with Chen Wen. For most of these characters that he had never even heard of, Chen Wen was not stingy, and all of them were enshrined in the shrine.

The "Nanzhili Di Bao", which had just been established and began to be issued, serialized the ins and outs of the Manchu Daxing Tonghai case and the Tongzhejiang case, and vigorously publicized the feat of revenge for the righteous soldiers of the Ming army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which attracted universal praise from the gentry and ordinary people everywhere. This is the case with "Nanzhili Di Bao", as well as "Zhejiang Di Bao" and "Jiangxi Di Bao", and for a time, the entire occupied area of the Ming Army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang was full of praise for the Ming Army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and Chen Wen.

Compared with these praises, Chen Wen also paid attention to another mass case. Zheng Chenggong was defeated in Nanjing, and the women who came to aid the Qing army to loot the area recovered by the Ming army were sold in Suzhou.

In history, it was Liang Huafeng who was now sunk in the mouth of the Yangtze River, but this time due to Chen Wen's interference, Liang Huafeng not only failed to catch up with the first battle of Nanjing, but was also reprimanded as a mediocre general by Jierharang, and finally had to fight the giant ship cannon of the Ming army at the mouth of the Yangtze River. In this regard, Chen Wen said that this can be regarded as revenge for the martyrs who died in Nanjing in history.

Liang Huafeng didn't have a chance to be a reinforcement, but Ma Jinbao had already died in Jinhua, Zhang Tianlu took advantage of the situation to take over this burden, and it was no surprise that Liang Huafeng did the sins he had done before.

Suzhou was recovered, and the reinforcements of Nanjing World War I were put into prison by the Ming army in batches, and the identification work was carried out, but most of the women who were sold were lost in the process, and at the same time as the suicide case swarmed, Chen Wen had to sprinkle his anger on those who committed violence, whether it was the green camp as a seller or those who were buyers.

Buying and selling human beings is inevitable in this era, but it is no longer as simple as abduction and trafficking of women in a blatant and wanton manner like our Qing Dynasty officials and soldiers. Something like this happened after almost every war, when the Qing army snatched everything they thought could be exchanged for money and sold it elsewhere, with women being the biggest victims.

Severe punishment is inevitable, but this time there are a lot of mass cases, and it takes a lot of time to investigate and collect evidence and rescue the victims.

In Nanjing, the demolition work of Jiangning Mancheng continues, and it will take time for Liu Da and his team to go north, but they want Chen Wen to guarantee that the construction period can be counted from the beginning of the Ming army's recovery of Nanjing, and ensure that the task will be completed. What this means, Chen Wen knows very well, but he is not interested in stopping it, just like the garrison Eight Banners of Hangzhou Mancheng, the garrison of Jiangning Mancheng is the same as the garrison Eight Banners of Jiangning Mancheng in Nanjing City, this is just a debt to be paid. Since it should be, it is a waste of saliva to say more.

The work was still ongoing, and with the recent recovery of ten prefectures, three prefectures, and some scattered prefectures and counties, and a large number of documents to deal with, Chen Wen once again entered the same busy state as when he had just recovered Jiangxi. Unfortunately, this happy time of "happy work" was interrupted by an unexpected event, just like the reform plans of the Manchu Restorationists. However, it was a good thing to interrupt Chen Wen, at least a good thing for him.