"Quite simply, they're short of food."

When Yang Guoguang explained this, first of all, Liu Zongmin kept shaking his head, and at the same time said, "No, this is impossible, you are simply whimsical, if it is at another time, such as a few years ago, you said this, I am afraid there is still a certain amount of truth, but now, it is simply impossible, let's not talk about whether the Manchu court will let the soldiers on the front line fight hungry, let's just say what time it is, now is the time of the autumn harvest, with the place occupied by the Manchu court, how can they be short of food, No way, you're wrong. ”

After listening to Liu Zongmin's words, at the beginning, Li Yan also nodded, but soon, he stopped nodding and fell into contemplation, and after a long time, he slapped his palm suddenly, and said excitedly, "Yes, they are short of food, and only this reason will let them do this, okay, great, it is really effortless to step on the iron shoes and find nowhere to go, our opportunity has finally come, quickly, let's go back quickly, prepare for war, maybe we can take advantage of this opportunity to completely eliminate Wu Gouzi, in this way, we can not only take Henan, can also avenge King Chuang's hatred. ”

Seeing Li Yan and Yang Guoguang who were so excited, Liu Zongmin next to him looked puzzled, although he was a good hand at fighting, but when it came to this trick, it was not as good as a small official. If it were someone else, I am afraid that I would have put this doubt in my heart, but Liu Zongmin was an anxious person, seeing that two of the three people knew it, he didn't know it, and his heart was as uncomfortable as a cat scratch, and he immediately pulled Yang Guoguang who was on the side and asked.

After Yang Guoguang's explanation, Liu Zongmin finally understood.

It turns out that there are many places where the Manchu Qing Dynasty is standing now, but these places, to put it bluntly, are all ruined places. Whether it is Nanzhili, Shandong, Anhui and other places, after so many years of natural and man-made disasters, the people have long been miserable, let alone ordinary people. It is the ordinary landlords and gentry, many of whom have also died one after another, in this case, how much tax can the Manchu Qing receive, he just doesn't subsidize the grain in it. In addition, although the northern region has been a large grain producing region since ancient times, it is also the most densely populated place.

Therefore, it is like the grain in the capital area. Every year, it is transported from the southern Huguang land through the canal, which is also the origin of 'Huguang is familiar with the world', but now, because the southern region is still controlled by the Yongli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, it is definitely impossible for the Manchu Qing to transport grain from the south of the Yangtze River to the north, how can he not lack food?

Although Wu Sangui is now leading the troops to fight abroad, it stands to reason that the logistics supply should be fully supplied, but you must know. Now it is the Manchu people who are in power, to be precise, the Manchu aristocracy. In other words, the Manchus are now a first-class nation, and you think they haven't been supplied yet, so how can they give food to a guy like Wu Sangui who surrendered halfway, fortunately, there is a Dolgon on it to suppress it. Although Dolgon had done his best to send supplies to Wu Sangui, it was a drop in the bucket, and it was not enough for the more than 100,000 troops under Wu Sangui to consume, so there was a situation where Wu Sangui sent people out to collect food on a large scale.

In fact. This situation has also happened in history, just because the Manchu unification was too fast, so that people ignore this point, the most typical is that the nobles of the Manchu Eight Banners stook land outside Beijing, why did they stake land, the fundamental reason is because the Manchu regime lacked food, Dolgon in order to reduce the supply of Manchu troops stationed in Beijing, so as to introduce such a policy. Although, on the surface, the Manchu Qingming Dynasty is to reward those meritorious officials, but from the beginning of the horse race, the Manchu Eight Banners were everywhere in the-for-tat, and the fundamental reason was to raise food and salary.

Of course, this kind of policy is also a palliative rather than a cure, from the Manchu Dynasty staking and thus stirring up countless popular uprisings, rebellions can be seen, if the Nanming regime can hold on for a period of time, then the Manchu Qing is likely to fall into a food crisis, thus falling into internal friction, if that is really the case, maybe the Ming Dynasty still has a chance to recover, but unfortunately, the Nanming regime's pole monarchs and ministers are too stupid, so in just one year, they lost a large area of the south of the Yangtze River, As a result, the Manchu Qing Dynasty obtained a wide land with rich food, so as to solve the internal crisis, and it can only be said that all this is the fate of the time.

Just when Li Yan and the others got this opportunity and began to formulate the corresponding battle plan, Wu Sangui, who was located in Kaifeng City, had an angry look on his face.

"Uncle, take a look, this is the letter that the regent just came, saying that the 50,000 stone grain that was supposed to be sent to us will be delayed for half a month to arrive, this is simply unreasonable, if it is in peacetime, let the soldiers endure it, it is a big deal to drink two more days of gruel, and deal with this past, but when is it now, the enemy on the opposite side is thinking about killing us all the time, but we can't even eat our stomachs, how to fight this battle, I have never fought this kind of battle in my life." After finishing speaking, Wu Sangui slapped the letter paper in his hand on Hong Chengchou's desk, and then drank all the tea in the teapot in one go.

Seeing Wu Sangui's movements, Hong Chengchou did not reach out to take the letter on the table, he already knew the situation in the letter, to be honest, even with Hong Chengchou's mentality, he was very angry when he thought of it, through the letter from Fan Wencheng and others, he had already known the news in advance, and he knew more than Wu Sangui.

That is, the food that should have been sent to their army has been distributed to the soldiers of the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing, and the reason is the result of the joint pressure of those Manchu nobles on Dolgon, although he also understands Dolgon's distress, but thinking of the current situation, he is really helpless, and even came up with a way to send troops down to forcibly collect food, which shows his embarrassment.

He knew very well what the soldiers who went to collect food did in his heart, and even some places had caused riots for this reason these days, but he had no way, if there was no food, let alone fighting with the Ming army in Shaanxi, the army would be thankful that it would not collapse.

"Virtuous nephew, how much food do we have now, enough for us to eat for as long as we want." Hong Chengchou, who had no choice, thought about it and asked.

"Uncle, the last batch of food sent by the imperial court has already been eaten, and now we are eating these days, the grain collected from below, but after this period of collection, there is no food in this vicinity, if we eat two meals a day, one dry and one thin, we can barely hold on for five days, if after five days, there is no food arrived, I'm afraid we have only one way to retreat." Wu Sangui said with a gloomy face.

"That is to say, if the soldiers eat dry twice a day, then we can only hold out for three days at most, half a month, I'm afraid we are not starved to death, but also defeated by the group of wolves on the opposite side, no, we still have to think of a way, if it goes on like this, we only have one way to retreat, but if this happens, then we will only have a dead end." Hong Chengchou said irritably as he walked back and forth in the room.

At this time, I suddenly heard a rush of footsteps, and then I saw Xia Guoxiang coming from outside in a hurry, and as soon as he walked to the door, he said to the two people in the house, "Lord Hong, Lord Wang, something is wrong, something happened to our food collection team." As a confidant by Wu Sangui's side, he is responsible for the matter of requisitioning grain.

Hearing Xia Guoxiang's words, Wu Sangui hurriedly said, "What's the matter, is it that those untouchables dare to resist, where is it, you bring people over and kill them all, I don't believe it, is it their necks that are hard, or my knives are hard." Because there was no food, Wu Sangui's pent-up anger in the past few days was suddenly released.

"No, my lord, I'm afraid they were attacked by the Ming army." Xia Guoxiang said hurriedly.

"Ming Jun, how is this possible."

"Tell me where they met." As soon as Xia Guoxiang said this, Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou both asked eagerly, of course, the meaning of what these two people said was completely different.

Although Wu Sangui is Xia Guoxiang's boss, but this is Hong Chengchou's biggest, so Xia Guo said to Hong Chengchou, "Lord Hong, this afternoon, other grain transport teams have returned, but only the grain transport team to Songzhuang has not returned, at first we thought that they had something delayed, but we knew that it was nearly evening, they had not come back, in desperation, we sent people to investigate the situation, but found that our people were all dead, and the bodies were all placed outside Zhuangzi, According to the intelligence from the spies, they were killed by a team of people wearing Ming army armor, and there were dozens of people, but the means were vicious, and in less than a stick of incense, our team of nearly 100 people were all killed. ”

"It's not good, it's a big deal, the old man originally thought that we would be able to persevere, but I didn't expect that it would be discovered by the Ming army so soon, I'm afraid they will soon know about our lack of food." After listening to Xia Guoxiang's words, Hong Chengchou suddenly exclaimed.

Seeing Hong Chengchou who was so panicked, Wu Sangui said with some doubts, "Uncle, they won't know, besides, just by relying on the words of the two little officials, how could they believe that we are short of food, you better put your heart down and calm down!" ”

As soon as Wu Sangui's words were finished, he saw Hong Chengchou suddenly shook his head and said, "Hey, if it were someone else, I'm afraid the old man wouldn't be so anxious, but the person opposite is Li Yan, you haven't dealt with him, I don't know his difficult birth, it can be said that Li Zicheng and the Dashun army can rise, and eight of them should be counted on him, such a person, how can he not see the truth in it, forget it, until now, we can only reorganize our armies and fight, hoping to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop, otherwise, we can only retreat." , there is no other way. ”

Ask for collections, ask for recommendations, ask for monthly passes (to be continued.) )