Although he temporarily rejected the suggestion of the dog-legged people to instigate himself to become emperor, the persuasion of the officials of the fat army also reminded Lu Fatzi of two things, one is that the magnates of the Fat Army are already very dissatisfied with the current political situation and are anxious to consolidate their vested interests, and the second is that Lu Fatzi must speed up the recruitment of the middle forces that can be fought for, otherwise, the political value of Wu Laohan's edict will really expire and be invalidated. [No pop-up novel network]

Taking this into account, on the second day of the first lunar month, Lu Fatzi took the opportunity of condolences to the Fat Army and the family members of the old Pingxi Palace, and summoned Wang Pingfan's deputy Wu Zhen and Wang Pingfan's righteous son Wang Jizhen on the Desheng Gate in the northwest of Yanjing Inner City, and made a promise to them in person, pointing to the Desheng Gate at his feet and swearing in public that unless this majestic Desheng Gate collapses by itself, he will never usurp the throne and become the emperor! If you regret and break your word, the heavens will be disgusted, the earth will be disgusted, and you will die under the sword and arrow!

In the end, Lu Fatzi announced that he would give Wang Fuchen and Wang Pingfan the two mansions in Hairpin Hutong next to Desheng Gate, so that after their families entered Beijing, they would personally supervise whether they would break their promises and cheat! ――To be precise, it is to supervise whether Lu Fatzi sent someone to dig up the Desheng Gate and create a momentum for his rebellion and usurpation.

Wang Pingfan and Wang Fuchen are loyal to Wu Laohan, but they are not the Wu clan, and the hostility, suspicion and suspicion towards Lu Fatzi are naturally not as big and deep as the Wu clan, and seeing Lu Fatzi's oath and resolute attitude, Wu Zhen and Wang Jizhen immediately put their hearts at ease, and together they promised to persuade Wang Pingfan and Wang Fuchen to accept Lu Fatzi's canonization, lead the army to surrender, and promised to write to Wu Guogui, Wu Yingjing, Wu Zhimao and Wu Guozhu and other Wu clans, indicating Lu Fatzi's loyalty to Wu Laohan, and strongly persuading the Wu clan to lead the army to surrender, Joined forces with Lu Fatzi, the pillar of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the first loyal minister, to exterminate Guo Zhuangtu's rebels.

Of course, it was easy for Fat Lu to swear in front of Wu Laohan's hardcore lackeys, and he said it beautifully and happily, but a few of Fat Lu's lackeys present at the time were in a hurry, and as soon as they sent Wu Zhen and Wang Jizhen away, several lackeys attacked Fat Lu together, accusing Fat Lu of not saying such things and swearing such an oath - even if he should not swear in the future, when Fat Lu usurps the throne and becomes emperor, he will have an extra infamy out of thin air.

"What's the hurry? I just swore that I would not usurp the throne, and I did not swear that my children and grandchildren would not usurp the throne. Fat Lu's answer relieved the lackeys, and they once suspected that Fat Lu was planning to emulate Wei Wu Zhouwen and let his son be the emperor if he was not the emperor, but Fat Lu's next words made the lackeys cry and laugh.

Lu Fatzi said with a smile, "Besides, if the destiny of heaven is in Lone, God must let Lone be the emperor, then this Deshengmen will naturally be pushed down by God." The lackeys rolled their eyes, but they didn't dare to accuse—they couldn't question that the destiny of heaven could not belong to Lu Fatzi, right?

But not to mention, in this era of general superstition, strange power and confusion and attention to etiquette, Lu Fatzi's casual oath really had some effect, when Wu Zhen brought the news back to Xi'an, Wang Pingfan, who had long been willing to return to obedience, no longer hesitated, and immediately sent an envoy to contact Han Daren and Xie Chang, the generals of the Fat Man Army stationed in Tongguan, and asked Han Daren Xie Chang to send troops to take over Xi'an, and then follow Ma Bao to lead more than 40,000 people to join the Fat Army and accept the reorganization of the Fat Army, while Wang Pingfan himself led his family and important generals to Yanjing, Accepting the canonization of Lu Fatzi in person, the overjoyed Fat Lu personally went out of the city thirty miles to greet him.

There is also Wang Fuchen, since Wang Ping Fan has already surrendered to the Fat Army, Wang Fuchen's rear convenience is not dangerous to defend, but fortunately, Wang Fuchen has already broken through Lanzhou at this time, killed the hardcore Han and annihilated Daniel Zhang, captured Zhao Liangdong and his sons Zhao Hongcan and Zhao Hongxie, and completed Lu Fatzi's trust to him. Under the great peace in his heart, Wang Fuchen ordered Zhao Liangdong and his son to be escorted to the capital to dedicate to Lu Fatzi, and at the same time carefully put forward the conditions for submission, under the pretext of the rebellion of the Mongolian tribes in Ordos and Geerdan, hoping that the army would not be reorganized, Wang Fuchen himself stayed in Lanzhou, and only sent his son and family into Beijing as hostages.

Lu Fatzi's answer was very unexpected by Wang Fuchen, not only agreed to Wang Fuchen's request that his team not be reorganized and stay in Lanzhou, but also took the initiative to leave Wang Fuchen's family in Gansu under the pretext of the war and the danger of the road, and crowned Wang Fuchen as the governor of Ganning, who was also in charge of Ningxia, and at the same time, Lu Fatzi also added 10,000 to Wang Fuchen's team with a stroke of his pen, allowing Wang Fuchen to have 43,000 troops in Gansu. When the news came back to Lanzhou, Wang Fuchen was overjoyed, and immediately led the army to change banners and announced that he would accept the jurisdiction and command of Lu Fatzi.

Of course, Lu Fatzi's decision caused a lot of controversy, and many civil and military officials of the Fat Man Army thought that Wang Fuchen was capricious, and he did not collect military power and did not reorganize the army, but he was afraid that something would change sooner or later, so he suggested that Lu Fatzi adopt the strategy used on Wang Pingfan and Ma Bao, transfer Wang Fuchen back to Yanjing for use, reorganize Wang Fuchen's team, and let the reliable generals of the Fat Army be in charge of Gansu and Ningxia.

"To be a person and do things, you must not be rigid." Lu Fatzi replied to the lackeys' questions like this, "Wang Fuchen is different from General Wang Pingfan and General Ma Bao, General Wang Pingfan is unwilling to fight the Great Zhou Civil War, General Ma Lao is old and war-weary, but Wang Fuchen still wants to fight and make contributions, and at the same time, Wang Fuchen did not have a good relationship with me before, and there are many proud soldiers and fierce generals in the team. Under these circumstances, the forcible reorganization of Wang Fuchen's army will inevitably make Wang Fuchen and his main generals suspicious, and then cause new troubles. ”

"Besides, Wang Fuchen's excuse is also tenable." Speaking of this, Fat Lu paused and said solemnly: "The rebellion of thousands of Mongolian annihilators in Ordos may be easy to solve, but behind these Mongolian rebels, there is also a Geerdan, and that is the real evil wolf. Under such circumstances, our army forcibly incorporated Wang Fuchen's army, even if it succeeded, with the vast and sparsely populated terrain in the northwest, it would be difficult to quickly stabilize the place in a short period of time and gain a firm foothold, which would give Geldan an an opportunity. If he fails and forces Wang Fuchen to Geerdan's side, the consequences will inevitably be even more terrible! Therefore, for our army, the best way is to satisfy Wang Fuchen's desire to support the army and respect himself, and let him stop Geldan for us! Also, suppress those white hats in Ganning! ”

After listening to Lu Fatzi's incisive analysis, all the people in the fat army admired it, but there were still a few people who were still a little worried, and said cautiously: "The prince is reasonable, but Wang Fuchen has a heavy army in Gansu, if he sits on a big ......." ”

"Wang Fuchen doesn't have a chance to sit big." Lu Fatzi interrupted with a smile, "Gansu and Ningxia are no longer the Western Xia of the Song Dynasty, at that time, the environment in the Ganning region was not as bad as it is now, and the products were relatively rich, so the old Li family could have the opportunity to build a country in Ganning, but now?" Not to mention anything else, as long as we cut off the grain route supplying Gan Ning for a year, how many people will be left in Wang Fuchen's team? Besides, the horse harrier is now in his fifties, how many years can he live? ”

The fat man army suddenly realized, and hurriedly slapped his ass, and praised Lu Fat Man in unison for his clever calculation like a god, and the world returned to his heart. But Lu Fatzi was not completely relieved, and summoned Wang Pingfan and Ma Bao overnight, and told them straight to the point, "I asked Wang Fuchen to stay in Gansu and transfer you back to Yanjing, not because I don't worry about you, but because I don't want you to fight a civil war, I don't want you to shoot and shoot at your former comrades-in-arms, can you understand my hard work?" Wang Pingfan and Ma Bao nodded to show that they understood, and Lu Fatzi rewarded the two again to compensate for the sacrifices they made for the peaceful liberation of Shaanxi and Jiangxi.

Time is approaching March in a blink of an eye, the spring snow in Yanjing City is exhausted, the temperature is gradually rising, and the strategic plan of the Fat Army to conquer Liaodong to annihilate the remnants of the Qing Dynasty has also entered the countdown, after a series of intensive and careful preparations, on the first day of the first month of March, Gao Dejie, the general of the Fat Army and the governor of Liaodong, finally led an army of 70,000 to launch a northern expedition, and launched an attack on Shengjing Jiancheng, where the Qing Dynasty was entrenched, and the goal was to capture Shengjing, Xinmin, Tieling, Haizhou and Phoenix City in Liaodong. Strive to annihilate the Mite Qing court in Liaodong, or retreat to the next best thing and drive the Mite Qing court back to Tunguska's hometown.

On the day of the expedition, Lu Fatzi personally rushed to Shanhaiguan to see off Gao Dejie's army, boosted the morale of the three armies, and once again reiterated the fat army's four killing orders, announcing that the heads of the four evil slaves with the surnames would be purchased from the mites, Koreans, Oroqen and Mongolians in Liaodong with money and grain, and announced that the mites who were not the four evil slaves could avoid death as long as they cut their braids and grow their hair. In the end, Lu Fatzi quietly told Gao Dejie to kill more evils, and he could find all kinds of excuses to slaughter the people of Liaodong Banner, cut the grass and eradicate the roots as much as possible, once and for all, Gao Dejie understood and agreed.

On the way back to Beijing, an unexpected news came to Lu Fatzi, and the Fat Army on the southern front led by Li Tianzhi actually suffered a big defeat in Fujian for the first time -- in order to drive Zheng Jing's army back to Taiwan as soon as possible, Yang Yingyuan, the vanguard of the Fat Army, was caught in an ambush by the Zheng Army in the vicinity of the Magang Hall in the north of Xiamen Island, and the Zheng Army occupied favorable terrain and used a large number of Sanhao rockets and Sanhao mines with explosives hidden in them, and the Fat Army was caught off guard and suffered a heavy defeat, the loss of more than 22,000 soldiers, including more than 4,000 cavalry, the fat army generals Peng Shao, Hu Tu, Wang Shiyu and Wang Zhenbang were killed, the general soldier Huang Lan was missing, Yang Yingyuan was seriously wounded, led the defeated army to flee back to Quanzhou City, Zheng Army achieved a major and brilliant victory, the momentum was big, and then surrounded Quanzhou City, not to mention, Tong'an and Changtai County, which had surrendered, also rebelled again.

The battle of Magang Hall was the biggest defeat of the Fat Army since the start of the army, and it was also the first time that the Fat Army lost more than 20,000 troops in the defeat, so after reading this battle report, Lu Fatzi was inevitably sad and worried. Yao Qisheng, who was on the side, saw that Lu Fatzi looked displeased, and hurriedly comforted: "Lord Wang, don't worry, victory or defeat is a common thing in soldiers, and it is normal for our army to have occasional small setbacks." Moreover, most of the troops under the command of General Yang Yingyuan were surrendered troops from Zhejiang and Fujian, and the main force of our army suffered little loss, and when General Li Tianzhi led the main force of our army to Quanzhou, he would definitely be able to avenge the fallen officers and soldiers of our army. ”

"Zheng Jingxiaoer was forced back to the east of Zhangzhou by our army, the troops are abundant, and he will return to the light and win a battle, there is nothing surprising, I won't care." Lu Fatzi shook his head and said solemnly: "What I'm worried about now is the chain reaction after the end of the battle in the Magang Hall, I'm afraid there will be problems in Guangdong, and I'm afraid the war in the Fujian-Guangdong battlefield will be delayed for a long time." ”

"Something is going to be wrong in Guangdong?" Yao Qisheng was stunned and asked suspiciously, "Why does the prince think so?" ”

"Last time, when Shang Zhixin sent Wan'er back, he took the opportunity to ask our army to compensate him in Dating Prefecture and Ganzhou, but I refused." Lu Fatzi said quietly: "My brother-in-law's virtue, I know very well, I refused his request to cut the land, although he did not express dissatisfaction, and took the initiative to withdraw the Guangdong army in Fujian, but in his heart he must have hated me to the bone marrow, but he was afraid of the might of my army, and he didn't dare to attack." Now that our army has suffered a great defeat at the Magang Hall and has suffered a lot of losses, it is inevitable that he will have evil intentions and take the opportunity to attack our army. ”

"Not really." Yao Qisheng couldn't believe it, and said suspiciously: "Shang Zhixin has the courage to start a war against our army?" Can't he see that the loss of our main force in Fujian is not big at all, and more than 100,000 troops are still there, and Shang Zhixin has the courage to bury Zheng Jing? ”

"It's hard to say." Fat Lu shook his head again, pointed to a line on the battle report and said, "See? In the battle of Magang Hall, the reason why Zheng Jing was able to win a big victory, in addition to occupying favorable terrain to wait for work, another important reason was to take out a large number of new firearms, where did Zheng Jing'er's new firearms come from? ”

"Guo Zhuangtu!" Yao Qisheng blurted out.

"That's right, it's just him, not to mention that Zheng Jing's possibility of obtaining new gunpowder production technology is very small, even if he has technology, he can't make it without enough time and enough raw materials." Lu Fatzi nodded, and said in a yin voice: "Guo Zhuangtu can hook up with Zheng Jingxiao'er, and naturally he won't miss the opportunity to hook up with Shang Zhixin's child, and now Zheng Jing used Guo Zhuangtu's firearm to support him to win the battle in the Magang Hall, which is equivalent to letting Shang Zhixin'er see the example and the hope of defeating our army. ”

Yao Qisheng nodded again and again, thinking that Lu Fatzi was reasonable-with Shang Zhixin's best character, it was indeed possible to do such a thing. However, after thinking about it, Yao Qisheng smiled again and said: "If this is the case, it may not be all bad for our army - at least, we don't even need to find an excuse, we can justifiably kill the capricious Pingnan Palace." ”

"This king thinks so too." Fat Lu smiled and nodded, and then ordered: "Just in case, Yao Junshi, for this king, the first line is to Wang Shaobo and Xie Dong, let them increase the production of Xuanwu Lake and West Lake Arsenal, and make every effort to meet the supply of firearms for Li Tianzhi's army on the southern front." Speed up the construction of the Tongling Arsenal, and then find a suitable place in the south of the Yangtze River to build two or three new arsenals, and find more alum ore and alum ore that can be mined. ”

Yao Qisheng agreed, and immediately put pen to paper, and Lu Fatzi added: "You are in charge of Bingcao, the purchase price of soil nitrate in Zhili and Shandong, you can increase it a little, and you must encourage the people in these places to be active in refining nitrate." Say hello to the official Cao again, just say what the king means, let the provincial governors and county officials start a competition, once a year, who collects the most nitrate for the king, the official is promoted to a level, and the merit is recorded once, don't be afraid that the local officials will force the people to refine nitrate in order to be promoted, only by ensuring the supply of saltpeter, we can hope to eliminate Guo Zhuangtu, who also has new firearms. ”

Yao Qisheng agreed again, and quickly prepared the first order, and Lu Fatzi ordered: "The second way is to Li Tianzhi, let him inform the troops bordering Fujian and Guangdong as quickly as possible, especially Liu Jinzhong and Du Guochen in Chaozhou, and be sure to notify them, so that they can be prepared to guard against Shang Zhixin's backlash, and don't suffer a big loss like the Magang Hall because they are caught off guard." ”

"Inform Li Tianzhi again, if Shang Zhixin suddenly turns his face and joins forces with Zheng Jing and Guo Zhuangtu to attack our army." Lu Fatzi thought for a while, and added: "If such a situation occurs, Li Tianzhi must remember the tactics of one attack and one defense, let the partial division defend against Shang Zhixin's attack with all his might, and the main force will attack Zheng Jing with all his might. But don't take the offensive on both sides at the same time, if you do this, Shang Zhixin and Zheng Jing will inevitably unite tightly in order to protect themselves, and work together to resist our army's attack, which will increase the difficulty of our army to capture Fujian and Guangdong. There must be a priority, first Zheng Jing and then Shang Xin. ”

"Understood." Yao Qisheng nodded in agreement, and then asked: "Lord Wang, for Shang Zhixin, do you want to give him a canonization edict in advance, just like Geng Jingzhong, as long as he is willing to surrender and withdraw from the domain, hand over the army and land, and give him an idle lord to raise?" And your father-in-law is still happy, what should I do? ”

"No!" Fat Lu waved his hand categorically and refused, and snorted coldly: "I raised Geng Jingzhong with Xian Jue Houlu, because Geng Jingzhong really resisted the Qing Dynasty and really killed Mangou, thanks to his compatriots and to Huaxia!" What did Shang Zhixin do when he was a child and Shang Kexi was old and immortal? Donated 1 million taels of silver to Kang Mazi as a military salary, deceived the Han and Mangou of the Great Zhou Dynasty to protect Guangdong, deliberately let go of the Mangou in Guangzhou Mites, and deliberately did not clean the hardcore Han Zhan in the Guangdong local government and the army, which of these crimes is not a crime that deserves death? ! ”

"Tell Li Tianzhi that after the attack on Guangzhou, the Pingnan Palace, there will be no chickens and dogs! All property and land are confiscated! Don't give me face! Lu Fatzi said gloomily: "If Li Tianzhi can't take care of the old feelings, he can hand over my slaughter order to Zeng Yang or Ma Jiuyu, and let Zeng Yang and Ma Jiuyu avenge their comrade-in-arms Bai Xianzhong!" ”

(To be continued)