As soon as the firecrackers for the New Year sounded, the second year of Longwu (1647) finally came. 『，

In the second half of the first year of Longwu, Emperor Zhu Cihuan of Longwu was rarely stable for a few months.

It is rare that there is no war in Huguang and Jiangnan.

The Qing court and the Ming army forces very tacitly stopped all military operations.

The negotiators sent by Dorgon were in Nanjing, but Yang Chao did not negotiate with them three times in a row, on the pretext that their grade was too low, Yang Chao was an earl, and the other party had to send at least one Baylor.

But who of Baylor of the Eight Banners wants to take that risk?

And Dolgon is also willing to toss back and forth again and again, but Yang Chao tells them that everyone can be very hot during the negotiation, so it is not bad to waste time on the road.

Yang Chao knew that Dolgon was reorganizing the strength of the Eight Banners, not only transferred 100,000 Han soldiers outside the Guan, all of them were incorporated into the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty, but also united with Mongolia, and several younger brothers of Shunzhi Fulin all married the daughters of the Mongol Great Khans of various tribes, especially the Horqin Mongols, and sent three daughters to marry the Manchu magnates.

At the same time as uniting Mongolia, 100,000 Ding Zhuang were requisitioned from Mongolia, and they were also incorporated into the Mongolian Eight Banners sequence, and during a period of time, Dolgon formed 200,000 Mongolian and Han Eight Banner Xinding, and trained intensively.

Yang Chao didn't care at all about the reorganization of the Eight Banners of the Manchu Dynasty, because what Yang Chao lacked in the Manchu Dynasty was not troops, but internal unity, and the split situation of the Southern Fourth Banner and the Northern Fourth Banner had not been eased, and it could not be condensed into a rope.

As for whether the strength of the troops is the Han Eight Banner or the Green Battalion, there is basically no difference, in terms of real combat strength. Border soldiers in the Shanxi area. It may not be worse than the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty. Even these Hanmin farming in Liaodong are not as good as those elite border soldiers.

The reason why the Eight Banners used to be so powerful was because they were full of people who did not produce anything, only practiced martial arts since they were young, practiced archery with their arms hung from an early age, practiced horseback riding, and farmed with clothed slaves, so they could become professional soldiers who were out of production. But now these Han soldiers, although they are also nominally Eight Banners, have been farming since childhood, and have no martial arts background, even if they are formed, they cannot be the opponents of Yang Chao's army.

And Dolgon needs time to train soldiers, Yang Chao actually needs time to train soldiers, veterans continue to train, the elite of the green battalion collected from Shandong needs to be retrained, and the coats who fled from Beizhili. is also willing to serve as a soldier, and Yang Chao has also expanded by 200,000 people. Coupled with the original veterans, the total number of troops has reached 500,000, even if Dolgon plays violent tactics, he has no capital to play with Yang Chao, who occupies Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Shandong and other provinces, and has a population of about 80 million.

Therefore, under the tacit agreement of both sides, the military operation was stopped.

At this time, the strategic form was that Yang Chao occupied Shandong, Jiangnan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, and the Qing army occupied Beizhili, Shanxi, Henan, and Huguang, and the imperial court nominally owned Liangguang and Fujian.

Sichuan became a no-man's land at this time, there were tigers infested on the Chengdu Plain, there were barren grass everywhere, and no people could be found within a hundred miles, only a small group of warlords existed, some of these warlords were the remnants of the Ming army, some were the remnants of the peasant army, and some were all kinds of bandits.

Guizhou was occupied by the rest of Zhang Xianzhong, led by Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi, the four of them united to annex Zhang Xianzhong's prime minister Wang Zhaoling, and killed Wang Zhaoling and Zhang Xianzhong's empress.

The four of them sincerely united, collected and dispersed, reorganized the team, and ordered the order: "From now on, unless you fight, you must not kill anyone." The military discipline of the army has taken on a new look, and "there is no crime in the autumn." It was easy to occupy Guizhou controlled by the Ming army, but Guizhou was narrow and poor, and Zhang Xianzhong had 300,000 people in the rest of the army, and could not support it at all, so the four of them decided to kill Yunnan again, just Yunnan Tusi was in turmoil, they pretended to be the Mu Wangfu family members who guarded Yunnan, under the banner of avenging Mu Wangfu, they were not attacked by other Tusi, and successfully invaded Kunming, and after the Tusi rebellion was suppressed, the whole Yunnan was also included in the bag of the Great Western Army.

This is the situation that Yang Chao faced when he began to deal with government affairs after the New Year, the world was in a mess, and he couldn't find a place to start if he wanted to clean it up.

"Last year's financial situation has been sorted out and distributed to everyone"

At the military and political conference at the beginning of the year, Huang Yuan, Huang Yuan, many men, Li Wuliu and other military and political officials of Huangfeng Mansion all participated.

After Yang Chao finished speaking, Huang Fengfu took out a stack of documents and began to distribute.

Last year, a total of 5 million taels of summer and autumn grain were collected, 4 million taels of tax silver, 3 million taels of money collected from the customs customs, and more than 2 million taels of customs silver, and the commercial tax silver was the largest amount, with 8 million taels, and after deducting 3 million quintals of military rations, there were still 2 million orders of grain leftover, which was enough to support the summer grain, and last year the silver expenditure was 20 million taels, of which 10 million taels were military salaries and various material consumption, and the remainder was the officials' salaries and administrative expenses for building bridges and repairing water conservancy.

"My lord, this deficit is too big, isn't it?"

After distributing the financial report, Huang Fengfu sighed worriedly.

The total tax collection was 17 million taels, but 20 million taels were spent, and 3 million taels were short.

"Big? Where is the big, the deficit is less than 20% of the tax revenue, which is also called big? ”

Compared with the government debts in later generations that are lower than taxes, even if it is a good situation, the government of the Ming Dynasty is simply too good.

"But the deficit has to be made up."

"What are you afraid of. Another 20 million bonds will be issued this year. Last year, I sent 10 million, but I didn't use it up! What a waste. Let the local government make a financial application, repair the renovated canals, water conservancy facilities, roads, and schools, don't be afraid to spend money, we are rich in the south of the Yangtze River, and some are rich. ”

Huang Fengfu was stunned: "This, I'm afraid that 10 million taels is not enough." ”

Yang Chao sighed: "This year's income is expected to be 20 million taels, and the grain that can be received should also be 10 million taels." ”

Huang Fengfu nodded.

Yang Chao said: "Then what are you worried about, our soldiers are very well fed." ”

As soon as they heard that the soldiers were well fed, many men and Li Wuliu were quite excited, and these two people came back for a meeting on behalf of the armies of the south and the north, hoping to know whether they could fight this year, and they were idle for several months in the second half of last year, and everyone was a little anxious, when would they be able to seize the world if they continued like this.

Sure enough, Yang Chao said next: "So this year, our army is fully capable of launching an offensive against the Qing court on two fronts at the same time, and if our army is willing, we can storm Beijing this year!" ”

These words made Li Wuliu burn all of a sudden, but many men were a little depressed, although they are now in high positions, but they still have the mentality of fighting for merit back then, but this is not the merit of the other, in the past, what they fought for was merit, and the picture was to be promoted and make a fortune, and now they are fighting for merit, seeking the title of duke and marquis, and seeking to leave a name in history.

People's needs are staged, the lowest level is food and clothing, the higher level is safety, and the highest level is to realize self-worth, that is, the Chinese say merit, who does not want to make meritorious achievements, who does not want to leave a name in history.

No one spoke and stared at Yang Chao, Yang Chao continued: "However, the purpose of the two-front battle cannot be achieved, what I need is to destroy the Qing Dynasty in a war, and if it continues, it is meaningless to fight back and forth." Li Wuliu, you have formed a new military formation in the north, and you have advised to use the all-bird gun tactic, I think it is very good, you can try it first. If successful, it can be rolled out throughout the army. Jiangnan now has no less than 50,000 craftsmen who can make fine bird guns, and they can build 100,000 bird guns every month, and one million bird guns a year can support 300,000 bird guns. Moreover, with the addition of a new bayonet to the bird's gun, the spear can be saved, and the bird's gun can attack from a distance and in close combat, and the assault is sharper. ”

The problem of bayonets is a big problem, with a bayonet we know that we can save the long gun, but the bayonet on the barrel is a delicate technical problem, which has not been well solved, it is possible to build it by hand, but it is impossible to manufacture it on a large scale.

The final solution was a craftsman's divergent thinking, since iron barrels are not easy to process, why not process wood, which is much easier than wood, and it is rumored that the craftsman was inspired by accidentally tying a broken spear to a bird's gun, and then lengthened the bed under the barrel to expose the barrel by three inches, which did not affect the loading, and wood was easier to work with.

It was easy to attach a bayonet directly to the three-inch-long wooden handle, find a long gun head to put it in, tighten it, and the craftsmen did it better, after stuffing the holster in, inserting a wooden pin, and solving the problem perfectly.

Yang Chao rewarded the craftsman with 10,000 taels of silver, and immediately popularized this technology, and the new style of bird guns now wear bayonets, all of which are two-foot-long bayonets, and can be used as steel knives when taken down.

"Governor Qiqi, if you want to experiment with the military formation, you will inevitably have to fight with the Qing army, then can our army advance to the north and Zhili?"

Li Wuliuyi couldn't help but ask happily when he heard that he was asked to experiment with a new military formation.

Yang Chao said: "Who said that if you want to advance towards the north and Zhili, can you fight Henan?" Nan Siqi has always been so cooperative, beating them is tantamount to doing Dolgon a favor. Let them go to infighting. ”

It's not bad to be able to hit Henan, Li Wuliu sat down with a smile.

Many men said, "My lord, what should I do with the Southern Army?" ”

If there is a war to fight in the north and no action in the south, many men are always unsteady.

Yang Chao said: "Don't worry. This year, there will be an additional 200,000 troops in the south, all of whom will be stationed in Jiangxi. ”

Many men also sat down, and the responsibility was very heavy.

Then Yang Chao concluded: "Remember, we still need to work harder, three years to extinguish the Qing, five years to level the world!" ”

Yang Chao finally threw out a big strategy, and everyone was overjoyed and couldn't hide their excitement.

finally has a goal, they are afraid that Yang Chao will not be able to level the world, then their identities are very embarrassing, they are loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty, it seems that no one will listen to the words of the Ming Emperor, if Yang Chao refuses to be the emperor, what are they?

Now Yang Chao said the three words of Pingtianxia, which cut into their hearts. (To be continued......)