"Thank you, sir! Yang Wenqiao is in prison! Zhao Wende presented the letter with both hands, his eyes shining: "This news is much better than sour plum soup to relieve the heat, right?" ”

"What?" Liu Cheng's eyes widened, and he looked dumbfounded, and only after half a sound did he ask, "Is this serious?" ”

"It's true! It was sent by the detective of the Beijing Division, and it definitely can't be fake, presumably the Tang newspaper will arrive two days late! ”

"Why did Chongzhen do this?" Liu Cheng took the letter with surprise and joy, read it carefully, looked at it for a while, raised his hand and said, "God really helps me!" I was worried that there was no name for sending troops, so Chongzhen sent it to the door, and it seems that God is also on my side! ”

"Your Excellency is going to do it?" Zhao Wende asked: "Why don't you wait for two months, wouldn't it be better when the autumn is high and the weather is crisp and the horse is fat and the soil is hard?" ”

"How can you have everything? If you have a six-or seven-percent certainty, you can do it! Liu Cheng took the saber from Hao Shaoqi behind him and tied it to his waist, and said with a smile: "My relationship with Yang Sichang is so deep, Chongzhen wants to check Yang Sichang, and he will soon be able to find out about me, after all, he is the Son of Heaven, if he is asked to buckle his hat and then do it, it will be a loss, and it is better to strike first." Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"What name do you intend to use?"

At this time, Liu Cheng had already fastened his saber and said with a smile: "Naturally, I am following the example of the sages: the Qing monarch side, the Yasukuni is difficult!" ”

Hearing Liu Cheng's words, Zhao Wende was stunned at first, and then smiled bitterly. It turned out that Liu Cheng's slogan was the slogan of Zhu Di, the king of Yan, when he raised troops to defeat Emperor Jianwen more than 200 years ago. One of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang's laws is about "Jing Difficulty". In order to ensure the normality of the imperial court, if there is a situation of traitorous ministers and disorderly government, the vassal king can bring troops into the king of Jingqin, so as to "clear the monarch's side, and it will be difficult to Yasukuni". Zhu Di seized this point, launched the "Battle of Jingyan", and finally entered the city of Nanjing and seized the throne of his nephew, that is, Emperor Yongle of Ming Chengzu. But Zhu Di is also the fourth son of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang anyway, and Emperor Jianwen is a close blood relative, although Liu Cheng is already a count, but he can't fight with the Zhu family's vassal king, this statement is also a little far away.

"What's wrong, can't it?" Liu Cheng patted the saber on his waist: "With this thing, as long as you enter Beijing City, someone will naturally make the round for me!" Wave the flag, you immediately go to give an order and convene all the generals to meet! ”

The military discussion was held in the hall of the Qingning Palace, and four long tables were arranged in a square with upward openings, and Liu Cheng sat in the middle position, with Du Guoying on his right hand and Gesang on his left, the Mongolian and Han generals on Liu Cheng's left and right hands, and the newly surrendered Jurchen generals sitting opposite. Among them is Dai Shan, next to Dai Shan's right hand is his son Yue Tuo, on his left hand is Abatai, followed by Babutai, Suppilon and others, and in the far corner is Dai Shan, who is described as haggard and empty-eyed, like a man haunted by nightmares, and it seems that the effects of long imprisonment and former torture have not disappeared from his body.

No one spoke, everyone's eyes were focused on Liu Cheng, and everyone present knew that Liu Cheng had summoned them at this juncture for only one thing, and in history, anyone in Liu Cheng's position had only one thing to do—that is, to go south.

Liu Cheng's gaze swept over everyone's faces, and it was not difficult to see in their eyes the eager expressions -- in this matter the Han Chinese, the Mongols, and the Jurchens were no different, and perhaps the eyes of the Han people were even hotter -- the Mongols and Jurchens were more concerned about the countless treasures they could obtain by going south, while the Han generals were more concerned -- the dragon feats of entering the city of Beijing and ascending the throne were not much more meaningful than the treasures of gold and silver.

"Generals!" Liu Cheng's voice was not loud, but it was enough for everyone in the hall to hear clearly: "Our long-awaited opportunity has finally come, and in one to a month and a half, we will cross the Yanshan Mountain and the sea and enter the Central Plains." Many of you have come to that land as invaders and as part of the Ming army, and have witnessed with your own eyes the richness, vastness, and antiquity of the land. And this time, we will overturn that young man in his early twenties from his throne, the blood of the Zhu family has been tainted, and it is no longer capable of maintaining order and law, and now it is the turn of someone more powerful! Speaking of this, Liu Cheng paused slightly and continued: "But before sending troops, I want to remind you that this time you did not come to that land as robbers, but as rulers. If anyone dares to challenge you, then resolutely return with iron and blood, but if they bend their knees and surrender, then reach out and lift them up. Otherwise, no one will ever submit to it, gold, silver, silk and porcelain are not real wealth, people and land are, and I want each of you to keep this in mind! Hao Shaoqi! ”

"The last general!"

Liu Cheng took off the saber on his waist and handed it to his guard leader: "This time you will send troops, you will serve as the military judge of the army, if there is any violation of military discipline, you will be dealt with strictly!" ”

"Yes, sir!"

When the generals heard this, their faces changed slightly, especially the generals of the Mongolian and Jurchen tribes, they were even more unbearable, the military discipline of the soldiers in these years was not good, and robbery was the first magic weapon to stimulate morale. If it's so harsh, the battle won't be fought.

Liu Cheng looked at the faces of the generals and said with a smile: "Am I an unreasonable person, the soldiers are born and die, how can I treat them badly." This time, before the departure of the whole army, the settling-in allowance of half a year's military salary will be paid, and in addition, it will be a double salary every month. After the city is broken, each general can levy twenty-one military taxes according to the amount of foreign capital in the city, and one-third of them can be distributed to the soldiers. But remember, that it is not advisable not to indulge in the plunder, for this will not only provoke the people to revolt, but will also destroy so much and gain very little! ”

When Liu Cheng said this, he saw that the generals were still a little confused, so he called Xu Xianming, who was on the side, and asked him to explain to the generals. When the army occupies a certain piece of local territory, it sends an accountant to roughly estimate the amount of public and private wealth (crops, orchards, trees, livestock, houses, etc.) on the enemy's land, and then levies a certain percentage of temporary tax on the local people according to the amount of their wealth. This has three advantages: first, it can use the enemy's local civil affairs agency to collect military taxes, and the enemy's people will inevitably actively pay taxes in order to ensure that their property is preserved, and military taxes can easily obtain a large amount of cash; Secondly, it is not easy to provoke the resistance of the local people, because it is the local civil affairs agency that directly collects taxes, the army will not directly conflict with the local people, and the lives and property of the people can be preserved, and the local people will not take drastic actions in order to avoid retaliation by the army; In the end, the plundering of the army will not only destroy its own discipline, but also greatly damage the local economic and social environment, and after obtaining a large amount of cash through military taxes, the army can buy necessary materials from the people and merchants by holding bazaars, which is a stimulus to the local economy in itself, and in a sense it is beneficial.

"But my lord, how do we know how much tax to collect?" Gesang asked suspiciously: "The local people will definitely hide their property!" ”

"Rest assured, everyone!" Xu Xianming said with a smile: "My lord has already prepared, last year he selected forty pawnshop apprentices from the pawnshop in Chaoyi, this time they will be sent to your army as the chief accountant, with their skills, you can know how much money this town has when you look outside, and they will never make a mistake!" ”

After listening to Xu Xianming's words, the generals breathed a sigh of relief, but there were still many people whose faces were a little unnatural, Liu Cheng saw this and knew that these people felt that they would get less in this way, so he smiled and said: "Do you think you have suffered a loss like this?" Hey, Yue Tuo, let me ask you, when you entered the customs and plundered in the second year of Chongzhen, you must have gained a lot, right? ”

Yue Tuo didn't expect to suddenly call his name, he wanted to say something to shirk, but after thinking about this kind of thing, Liu Cheng knew it after a little inquiry, where could he hide it, so he nodded and said: "It's really a lot, I alone will get tens of thousands of gold and silver, nearly a thousand mouths, and a lot of all kinds of livestock!" ”

"Then let me ask you, how many people died and how many houses were burned for the sake of these raw gold and silver?"

"This—?" A layer of sweat oozed from Yue Tuo's forehead, and he lowered his head and said, "I don't know about this, right?" ”

"That's five times as much?"

"Surely there is?" Yue Tuo bowed his head and said.

"Hmm!" Liu Cheng ripped off the robe on his body: "This dress is made of twill, which is the top grade in Songjiang cloth. It is a worse three-shuttle cloth, and one horse also costs six pieces of silver. However, this kind of cloth can produce 10,000 horses a day in Songjiang County, and it is obtained by women working at the loom at home, and they can get one horse a day. If you rob it, and most of your husbands and sons are dead, how will you have the heart to weave cloth for you? What's more, one of the ten hungry and thirsty people on the road may not survive, even if it comes to your house, how many taels of silver are worth it? Why don't you let her stay at home and live with her husband, and it would be much better for you to take one out of every ten horses, for men and women to weave? ”

"What my lord said is, I understand!" When Yue Tuo heard this, he lowered his head and thought thoughtfully.

"Everyone!" Liu Cheng turned his gaze to the rest of the generals: "We and other people with swords and bows, wearing them on their bodies and eating them in their mouths, all of them are obtained by the people who cultivate and weave. After conquering the Han land, the honor and wealth of your descendants will come out of these people, and if you wantonly slaughter, will it not destroy the herd of your descendants? ”

When Liu Cheng said this, everyone immediately understood, most of the generals under his command were Mongols and Jurchens, and it was commonplace to loot and slaughter each other in their past wars, if they wanted to talk about all kinds of big truths, they didn't understand, but Liu Cheng's analogy was easy to understand, they immediately understood, and a Mongolian general smiled: "Lord Jinong, please rest assured, I also have cattle and horses at home, stay to milk, shear, and there will be every day, and there will be calves and lambs coming out; If we kill and eat meat with a knife, we will eat it for four or five days at most, and we will not do such a stupid thing! ”

Acton said with a smile: "Yes, these Han people are like fruit trees, as long as they don't touch their roots, they will have fruit to eat every year, if they insist on moving to another place, they may die, and there will be no more fruit to eat!" ”

"If only everyone understood!" Liu Cheng nodded: "Since that's the case, I'll start assigning tasks next!" ”

The generals immediately became serious, and they all knew that the wealth of themselves and their descendants depended on the next battle exploits. Liu Cheng saw the look of war in the eyes of the generals, nodded with satisfaction, he opened the curtain on the wall behind him, pointed to the map on the wall and said: "The Ming Kingdom is vast and has a large population, although the monarch and the ministers are not in harmony, the fatigue of the soldiers should not be underestimated. Therefore, I intend to take the two capitals first, cut off their leaders, and then put away the border army, take the prefectures and counties on both sides of the canal, and slowly draw the ......"

Liu Cheng pointed out on the map while explaining his plan in a loud voice. With his current strength, it will not be difficult to capture Beijing, but if Chongzhen retreats to the south, like the Southern Dynasties in history, he uses the natural dangers of Jianghuai and the abundant manpower and material resources in the south to divide the river to defend himself, and the war may turn into a protracted one. After all, most of the troops under Liu Cheng's command were cavalry, and they were not suitable for the mountainous south, so it would be unfavorable for Liu Cheng to hold on. Therefore, he planned to attack the north and south of the capital at the same time, and then go down the canal with a large army to open up the connection between the north and the south of the capital. In this way, the two richest provinces and regions of the Ming Dynasty, the north and south Zhili, fell into the hands of Liu Cheng. Since the main military strength of the Ming Dynasty was in the nine sides, and the wealth was from the south of the Yangtze River, the canal was the only way to transport bulk goods in the north-south direction, if Liu Cheng could control the Cao Yun, the lifeblood of his northern border army was actually in Liu Cheng's hands, as long as it was soft and hard, it was not difficult to collect it for his own use. Having lost both the northern and southern capitals and the two richest Zhili districts, as well as most of the fighting armies, even if Chongzhen could escape Liu Cheng's pursuit, defeat would only be a matter of time.

"The first step of the war was to attack the north and south of Beijing at the same time, first sending the partial division south along the coastal road to join up with the Xu Hecheng department in Yangzhou, and then taking Nanjing to cut off the Cao Yun. At the same time, an army from Lushunkou landed in Tianjinwei and cut off the way for the southern escape of the Beijing division. Our main force went south, broke the border in Da'ankou, Longjing Pass, Songting Pass and other places, and attacked the Beijing division from the north and south with the partial division that landed in Tianjinwei, and strive to take Beijing City in one fell swoop! ”

Listening to Liu Cheng's strategy, the generals couldn't help but be a little dizzy, they were all veterans, but like Liu Cheng, he attacked the two centers of the Ming Empire at the same time in two places thousands of miles apart from the north and south, trying to destroy the other party's center and backup center in one fell swoop, he really didn't think about it. Based on their military experience, it is not difficult to see that if Liu Cheng's strategy is successful, although the Ming Empire still has more than a dozen provinces, there is no one who can command them in a unified manner. These provinces will inevitably have their own vassal kings in their respective regions, forming more than a dozen forces that are not subordinate to each other, and Liu Cheng, who has the richest provinces and the strongest military power, can easily defeat them one by one.