The soldiers under his command were cleaning up the battlefield, and those remnants of Chen Wen who had fled upstream sent cavalry to chase and kill, and the combat mission was over.

He Decheng died in the chaos, and in the midst of the tsunami-like cheers of the mountains, Cao Conglong and other captured rebel leaders were put into prisoner cars, and the captives were also tied with their hands behind their backs, one after another by ropes around their necks, escorted forward by the Ming army. As for Cao Conglong's most important assistant in launching the rebellion, Lu Wenlong's head was sent to Chen Wenjun with Liu Cheng's messenger the day before yesterday, and the time when he received the letter with Cao Conglong was probably the front and back.

In the letter sent the day before yesterday, Liu Cheng detailed the information that Lu Wenlong brought to him for Chen Wen one by one, and also explained his plan to set up a counterattack. From the beginning, Cao Conglong didn't have the slightest chance of winning, but he didn't know it at all!

However, Chen Wen could not let go of Liu Cheng, even if Lu Wenlong's head had already been sent to him. Therefore, from the very beginning, he used his own strength to fight a decisive battle with the rebels, and even always held the cavalry of the brigade in his hands and refused to let them go out to completely crush the rebels, in order to prevent the possibility of Liu Cheng plotting against him.

After Liu issued the letter, Chen Wen exchanged the two outposts in the garrison with the troops he had brought to quell the rebellion, and appointed another officer to temporarily act as the general of Dongyang County, and then led the army to the county seat of Dongyang.

That officer is from Taizhou like Liu Cheng, and he is also one of the earliest captains of the old Nantang Battalion A outpost, one is the Third Mandarin Duck Array Killer Team, and the other is the Fourth Mandarin Duck Array Killer Team. Relying on his old qualifications, steady work, and brave combat, this officer has been slowly promoted in the battalion directly under the town, and has only now been appointed as a guerrilla general, responsible for the defense of a county, and is far from having a smooth ride like Liu Cheng's leap promotion.

Whether it is a lack of people's hearts or is really a last resort, Chen Wen is not very clear for the time being, but this time there are a lot of officers who are forced to rebel, since he has pardoned the three generals in the city anyway, and only seized the military power, then he does not need to do anything in a hurry before he understands Liu Cheng's affairs, especially he is likely to continue to use these rebellious garrisons to fight, let alone make the army unstable for a Liu Cheng.

However, this pimple has already formed in Chen Wen's heart, even if it proves that Liu Cheng is only forced to do so in the future, he does not plan to let this officer lead the troops independently, and it is most reassuring to be transferred back to the old battalion as a training officer.

With the understanding of the process of rebellion, Chen Wen realized that it was not enough to rely on military judges and prestige alone, that the leadership structure of the unitary system was absolutely undesirable, that it was necessary to set up a military supervisor, and that it was best to popularize the chief of staff system, divide the powers, and let these officers form a system of mutual restraint, so that he could ensure that the army was always in control as much as possible and minimize the possibility of rebellion.

The details of these things still need to be pondered and prepared again before they can be carried out in the army, and it is best to suspend the war, otherwise if we do not do a good job in carrying out structural reforms while fighting a war, the army will be completely collapsed.

With this in mind, Chen Wen returned to Dongyang County. The rebellious civil officials in the county have long been controlled by Liu Cheng, and even their families are no exception. It is necessary to put on a show to stabilize the people's hearts, but not now, because there are more important things to figure out now, one of which is related to the most important warehouses in Yushan Town.

"Bring the people up, quick!"

Hearing Chen Wen's order, Zhang Jun hurriedly took an officer from the Dongyang County garrison to pick up people, and by the time Zhang Jun came to Chen Wen's line with a few soldiers escorting a Qing army, he had already figured out the general situation of the matter from Liu Cheng's mouth.

After Cao Conglong launched a rebellion, he began to transport the warehouses hoarded in Fucheng to Yushan Town, which mainly consisted of grain, grass, weapons and silver. Almost all of these things were obtained by Chen Wen after he came to Jinhua Mansion through seizures, donations, loans, and summer taxes that had already begun when he set out on the expedition, which was the foundation for the support of this army under his command. Cao Conglong transported these to Yushan Town in order to attack Taizhou, and at the same time as the starting capital for the Lu Jianguo group to return to Zhejiang.

The soldiers and horses went first before moving the grain and grass, but anyone who had led the troops to fight was very clear, so after Liu Cheng accepted the appointment of the Fubiao battalion, he sent two outposts of infantry to Yushan Town to guard the warehouse until late at night five days ago.

The clothes of several soldiers brought by Zhang Jun were burned to tatters by the fire, and the wounds caused by the cold weapons on their bodies were also simply bandaged, as for the Qing army, not only did his nose and face be swollen, but he was obviously tortured, and he was almost unstable when he was brought in.

"Ben Shuai doesn't have that much patience to tell you everything you know, otherwise the previous one is just an appetizer!"

Hearing Chen Wen's angry shouts, the Qing army trembled like a dead leaf in the wind, kowtowing, and said that he would definitely know everything and say everything.

"The villain is a soldier under the command of Yao Guochang under the command of Xu Jiang under the command of the left battalion of the Taizhou Green Battalion, half a month ago, Ma Dashuai ordered that the left battalion be transferred to Tiantai County to assist in defense. Eight days ago, Ma Dashuai suddenly arrived and ordered the left battalion to sneak out of the county seat that night with dry food......"

After the Qing army set out from Tiantai County, they went west through Jianshan Town and went straight to Yushan Town, and launched a surprise attack on the night of their arrival. There are only two outposts in Yushan Town, with a strength of 200 people, and although the Taizhou Green Battalion that came on a rapid march is tired, it has a strength of nearly 1,000 troops, and the cavalry is all dispatched. Yushan Town was attacked, and the garrison hurriedly resisted, but the advantage of the Qing army's strength was too great, and the target was not only them, but also raided the warehouse and burned it while attacking the garrison, and those soldiers escaped by luck and captured the Qing army who went in the wrong direction at night.

"The lowly rank was ordered to be stationed in Yushan Town to guard the warehouse, and five days ago, the Taizhou Tartars suddenly attacked us. Everyone gathered in the confusion and didn't know how many people came from the Tartars, so they got up and fought separately, until the Tartars who rushed into the warehouse set fire to the warehouse, and the fire soon spread, and we really couldn't do anything but break out, leaving this life to tell the marshal about it. ”

Ma Xin went straight to Yushan Town, this is not simple, how did that guy get this information, Chen Wen is no longer able to think about it. Because after hearing all this, he only felt that everything in front of him was spinning, and it would take a long time before it would be relieved.

The military is huge, just a military salary, one or two and a half dollars per soldier, the strength of the army is as high as more than 9,000 people, throw away the fraction, a month is 13,500 taels of silver, not counting the New Year's reward, a year is 162,000 taels. Among them, the military salaries of officers are higher, and in real terms, doubling them together is to say that they are less.

This is just a folded color, and the true color has to be counted separately!

In addition, horses, weapons, gunpowder, armor, clothing, other parts and consumables, plus ships and vehicles for marching and fighting, and the construction of large and small forts and military camps, the cost of which is astronomical. Moreover, now the army is fighting with the Qing army on two fronts in Anhua Town, Shaoxing Prefecture and Longyou County, Quzhou Prefecture, and the use is even greater.

If the administrative expenses of Jinhua Mansion are included, if it were not for Chen Wen's strict "big loan for the aftermath", this army would not be able to support the summer tax at all. As for the future, Chen Wen's original plan was to take Quzhou, which was no more than Jinhua Mansion, which had been ruined in the massacre, plunder, and battle, Quzhou was also located on the Jinqu Basin, there was no shortage of land, and in addition, the trade was extremely prosperous, and the wealth was naturally far superior, so it was more than enough to supply such an army.

But now, Quzhou has not been taken down, not to mention, and the warehouse in Yushan Town is gone. Calculated from the account books of the governor's yamen and the treasury of the prefecture, the number of warehouses in Yushan Town is very large, especially the aftermath of the big loan and summer tax are almost all in it, without these, only relying on the remaining scraps in the prefecture, Chen Wen is afraid that he will not even be able to pay this month's military salary, let alone continue to regain the lost territory.

As for the eunuch bag of Ma Jinbao seized in Longyou County, although it is not without a small supplement, but "when the cannon goes off, there are ten thousand taels of gold", especially in this there are only silver coins and jewelry, not even a grain of grain, now it is a troubled time, grain is not something that can be bought if you want to, and the army will be scattered if there is no food, and it is really difficult to say how long an army of nearly 10,000 generals and officers and soldiers is still in a state of war.

As for the reforms, military expansion, training, meritorious rewards, and land division that urgently need to be started and continued in the plan, the more Chen Wen thinks about them, the more he feels that he has difficulty breathing, as if he has fallen into the water and cannot extricate himself.

After asking the details again, Chen Wencai asked these people to go down, and specially asked Zhang Jun to be guarded to prevent the news from leaking. But things have happened, the warehouse was burned down is a problem, and there is another problem is because of the terrain, he has always ignored the threat of the Qing army in Taizhou, and now Ma Xin has burned the warehouse in Yushan Town, and the threat of this army is imminent.

Chen Wen recalculated, if Ma Xin only came with that battalion, his army in Dongyang County would be enough to deal with it, but if more, such as Ma Xin brought the entire army of the Taizhou Green Battalion, he would have to transfer the main force of the counterinsurgency led by Chen Guobao to defeat it.

The terrain of Jinhua Mansion made Chen Wen inevitably face the dilemma of fighting on two fronts, which was a taboo for soldiers, if it were not for a fortress, he could only shrink in Jinhua, and he was unable to attack Quzhou at all. But if the next blow fails, the battle is stalemate, and the three-front battle will only have one way to lose.

Thankfully, these soldiers were lucky enough to capture a Taizhou Qing army and got a little information from it, but the intelligence was far from enough, and it was necessary to find out the movements of the Taizhou Qing army as soon as possible!

A large number of rangers were dispatched, but the matter of interrogating Cao Conglong and the civil officials of Dongyang County was not taken care of, because another news brought by Liu Cheng was that Yu Guowang, the Bo of Xinchang, was no longer good.

………………

After being defeated by the Qing army in Linhai County, the capital of Taizhou, Yu Guowang came to Jinhua to join Chen Wen under the persuasion of Wang Jiang. Yu Guowang's people did come, but Taizhou killed too many old brothers in that battle, and the blow to him was too great, and he soon fell ill in depression, and the doctor could only prescribe some warm medicine, after all, heart disease is difficult to treat.

During this period, Chen Wen sent a letter to Yu Guowang, hoping that he would come to live in Fucheng. The medical conditions there are more convenient, and Fucheng, which is recovering every day, should have a better treatment effect for this kind of heart disease. But. Yu Guowang was unwilling.

"It's closer to Tiantai Mountain, and it's closer to Linhai County......

A person from Xinchang County, Shaoxing Prefecture, wrote these in trembling handwriting, Chen Wen knew very well what this was for, but he had no other way to go, but to hire a few doctors with better medical skills to take care of him, and then pinned his hopes on Yu Guowang himself.

When Chen Wen arrived at Yu's house, Yu Guowang's son had already rushed out to greet him.

According to him, in the first few months, Yu Guowang's health deteriorated day by day, and later he even ate very little food, and only ate some porridge every day. Until the news that Chen Wen captured Longyou County and captured Ma Jinbao alive, Yu Guowang was overjoyed that not only could he eat more, but even his condition was relieved. But within a few days, Cao Conglong launched a rebellion, Yu Guowang vomited blood in anger, and fell completely ill on the bed.

Since the crushing defeat at Simingshan, it has been difficult for Chen Wen to trust other forces, but Yu Guowang is an exception.

Yu Guowang is generous and has the style of an elder, and he always would rather suffer his own losses than help others. On Tiantai Mountain, Yu Guowang helped many remnants of the Ming army in Dalanshan, which was in trouble at that time. When Chen Wen resisted the decree and even let Taizhou insist on recovering Jinhua Mansion, although Yu Guowang was dissatisfied, Chen Wen's plan was indeed in line with the right principle of the soldiers to avoid the real and make the false, so he bluffed in Taizhou, making Ma Jinbao ignore the situation of the old nest. After the defeat of Taizhou, he came to Jinhua, Chen Wen faced the encirclement and suppression of the superior Qing army, Yu Guowang was sad and did not hesitate to hand over his troops to Chen Wen, just to help him, and he lived in the resettlement camp in Dongyang County, and did not ask for anything because the troops handed over to Chen Wen.

Chen Wen remembered all these things, and remembered them very clearly, but now Yu Guowang's body and bones are no longer good, and when Chen Wen stepped into the ward and saw Yu Guowang with his own eyes, he already looked like he had run out of oil and dried up.

Perhaps, today is the day when I can't bear to talk about it.

"Brother Yu, the younger brother is back, I have completely annihilated the rebels, and the Tartars are also cowering in Quzhou and do not dare to attack, Wang Shi is still in an advantage on the battlefield in Zhejiang, so there is no need to worry. Take care of your illness first, and the little brother will have more to borrow in the future. ”

Seeing clearly that it was really Chen Wen, Yu Guowang's pale face suddenly began to flush, and he struggled and even planned to sit up and talk to Chen Wen. But when Yu Guowang was reluctantly helped up by his son, he said something that Chen Wen never expected.

"Furen, Governor Cao can't die, he definitely can't die in your hands!" (To be continued.) )