During the Spring Festival of Chongzhen's fifth year, Xu Guangqi, the second assistant of the cabinet, spent it in torment.

He was not in good health, but he suffered a heavy blow, his most appreciated student Denglai Governor Sun Yuanhua, was captured by the rebel generals Kong Youde Geng Zhongming and others, and the Dengzhou City that the imperial court painstakingly managed was also broken and occupied by Kong Youde and others, and Wang Zheng, the supervisor of Denglai, was also captured at the same time, and other officials in Dengzhou City were killed.

Dengzhou was an important military town of the imperial court and a naval base of the Ming Dynasty, and its importance is self-evident.

In order to save the crisis, the imperial court has removed Yu Dacheng, the governor of Shandong, and let Xu Congzhizhi serve as the governor of Shandong and be stationed in Laizhou, Xie Lian as the governor of Denglai, and cooperate with Xu Congzhi to fight the rebels.

The reason for the rebellion of Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming and others involved the battle of Dalinghe, the original Jiliao governor Sun Chengzong built yì Denglai recruits to reinforce Dalinghe City, the emperor decreed, Sun Yuanhua immediately sent Kong Youde and others to lead 1,500 soldiers to reinforcements, you must know that Denglai recruits are mainly firearms and heavy artillery, and the marching speed is very slow, and they want them to rush to Dalinghe to reinforce, which is a bit of a fool's dream

Because of the slow speed of the march, when Geng Zhongming and the others were still on the road, the battle of the Daling River had already ended.

A heavy snowfall in leap November, Shandong was not spared, Kong Youde and others in the march, came to Wuqiao, according to the rules Wuqiao County should be supplied with grain and grass, but unfortunately the famine for many years, thousands of miles of red land, this time there was a heavy snow famine, the affected Wuqiao County could not take out the food at all, the extremely hungry sergeants could not stand it, and began to loot everywhere.

The sergeants under the command of Kong Youde were originally Mao Wenlong's subordinates, after Mao Wenlong was killed, he was quickly recruited by Sun Yuanhua, these Han people in Liaodong are strong and don't want to die in battle, but his biggest flaw is that the military discipline is lax, and when he was training in Dengzhou and Laizhou, he harassed the people, made everyone afraid, and even made Dengzhou and Laizhou homeless.

These sergeants also knew the severity, but they robbed the ordinary people, and did not dare to touch the official house, the gentry and the rich households, but in the process of looting, a sergeant went to a house and robbed a chicken, and the owner of this house was a lifter, so the robbing soldiers were pierced through the streets with arrows, and the angry soldiers could not bear it and killed the owner of the house.

The matter should be over here, but Li Jiucheng, who was sent to Biansai to buy horses, was addicted to gambling, lost all his money, and was thinking about how to make a difference, came to Wuqiao, and when he saw this scene, he instigated the sergeants to rebel, so chaos appeared.

Kong Youde attacked Dengzhou City, it was impossible to take it lightly, who knew that Geng Zhongming, who was in charge of resistance, opened the city gate, so that Dengzhou City was easily taken by Kong Youde, 7,000 soldiers in Dengzhou City, 3,000 war horses, 100,000 taels of silver, more than 20 Hongyi cannons, more than 300 Western artillery, and countless other firearms and armor, all of which were captured by Kong Youde.

There are so many coincidences.

When the emperor learned of these things, he was furious.

Dalinghe City was defeated, the emperor was already heartbroken, and the Dengzhou recruits who had invested heavily in the imperial court also rebelled, and also captured Dengzhou City.

When the new army was formed, the court was very optimistic, thinking that after the new army was trained, it would be able to gain an absolute advantage in the battle against the Houjin Tartars, and it would not take long to completely exterminate the Houjin Tartars, who knew that such a big basket appeared, and Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others among the recruits actually rebelled, which indicated that the painstaking management of the imperial court was ruined.

The dispute between the main battle and the main peace in the court was very serious, and many people thought that it was necessary to hold the new army.

Xu Guangqi was in a state of hesitation and did not express his position.

To say that Xu Guangqi is not an immortal, after all, he is a civilian official, and he is not very familiar with military affairs, and his student Sun Yuanhua is also a Jinshi, not particularly familiar with military affairs, and a common mistake they made is that they have not been able to strictly enforce military discipline.

In fact, at this time, the imperial court should make up its mind decisively and resolutely exterminate Kong Youde and others, but unfortunately the lord and faction in the imperial court still have the upper hand, which prompts the tragedy to spread faster.

While the imperial court was still arguing, Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others, who had greatly increased their strength, had already begun to attack the Fuzhou County of Denglai, and were preparing to attack another important military town, Laizhou.

At such a critical moment, Xu Guangqi received a letter from another student, Zheng Xunrui, the prefect of Yan'an Mansion, talking about the impeachment, in fact, Xu Guangqi had already told the emperor about this matter, because the emperor thought about too many things, and he didn't care about the affairs of Yan'an Mansion at all.

All the things came together, making Xu Guangqi's already weak body unbearable, and he was basically in a state of bed rest, making it difficult to participate in the discussion of the government.

Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren also had different attitudes towards Denglai's mutiny.

Zhou Yanru, who had the support of the Donglin Party Restoration Society and the Ying Society, built a rebellion against Kong Youde and others, and Wen Tiren, who was supported by the Zhejiang Party, firmly believed that it must be exterminated.

This time it should be said that Wen Tiren's construction is correct, for the rebels to surrender, the imperial court has too many lessons, most of the rogues in Shaanxi were surrendered, but later all rebelled again, so that the court's hard work was in vain, and a lot of money and food were consumed.

Zhou Yanru's construction is also reasonable, Dengzhou is the place where the imperial court firearms are most concentrated, if it really fights, the losses will be very heavy, in a short period of time, the court house will form a strong army, and in the face of Houjin's biggest advantage in firearms, it will also be lost because of the Denglai mutiny.

Xu Guangqi, who can make up his mind in one sentence, is already sleeping at home and can't express his opinion at all.

The disputes within the court are very fierce, these ministers have not thought at all, Kong Youde and others, who have become stronger, have begun to prepare to attack Laizhou City, and people's eyes are not only Dengzhou City, they need to occupy more places, at least to be able to be in a safe corner, but the ministers in the court are still discussing how to recruit Kong Youde and others.

According to the requirements of the imperial court, Xie Lian should sit in Laizhou to command the operation, and Xu Congzhi should sit in Qingzhou to do a good job in logistics, but in order to appease the panicked people of Laizhou, and to stabilize the situation in various parts of Shandong, Xu Congzhi resolutely entered Laizhou City, and commanded the defense of Laizhou City and the counterattack on Kong Youde.

Xu Congzhi and others moved very quickly, without waiting for the final decision of the imperial court, in the first month, they consolidated the defense system of Laizhou, but Kong Youde and others also moved quickly, and soon after occupying Dengzhou, they began to tentatively attack other Fuzhou counties, and aimed the final goal at Laizhou.

After Kong Youde took Dengzhou City, the number of sergeants under his command exceeded 10,000 people, and the strength was very strong, and it was no longer a place in Shandong and Laizhou that the sergeants could resist, Xu Congzhi and others at this time could only take a defensive position, and it was impossible to launch an attack on Kong Youde, and Kong Youde was a standard military general who knew how to lead the army to fight, and Xu Congzhi Xie Lian, who was in Laizhou, and Zhu Wannian, the prefect of Laizhou, were all civil servants and were not particularly familiar with the military.

At least there is a problem from the arrangement, Xu Congzhi is the governor of Shandong, and it should be necessary to consider comprehensive matters, the imperial court decided to let him stay in Qingzhou, which is a very good arrangement, once there is a big problem in Denglai, when the imperial court decides to send a large army to reinforce, Xu Congzhi, as the governor of Shandong, can coordinate and command in the center, after all, there is also Denglai Governor Xie Lian in Laizhou City, but the two governors are sitting in Laizhou, once Laizhou is besieged, the entire Shandong is in a situation where the dragons are leaderless.

The subsequent development of the gaffe also proves this.

Zheng Xunrui, who was in Yan'an Mansion, also received continuous letters from Yang Tingshu, talking about the Denglai mutiny.

During this time, Ma Zhukui, Sun Qimeng, Yang He and Hong Xinyu and others, often saw Zheng Xunrui sighing for a long time, and they were holding the letter they had just received, and everyone did not take the initiative to ask, thinking that it was because of the impeachment of Chen Yaoyan in the matter of Hu Ke, it is said that there is not much problem in this matter, after receiving the documents of the cabinet, Wu Fu, the governor of Shaanxi, carefully replied, and praised Zheng Xunrui in the reply, thinking that Yan'an Mansion can basically stabilize dìng, and the situation in Shaanxi, It will also be greatly relieved because of the stability of Yan'an Mansion, and they don't know what Zheng Xunrui is emotional.

Finally one day, Yang He couldn't help it, opened his mouth to ask, Zheng Xunrui's words shocked him, and actually talked about the Denglai mutiny, Zheng Xunrui said that Denglai was in huge trouble, the imperial court was not able to grasp a good opportunity, and there were problems with decision-making, I am afraid that this time the loss is extremely heavy, and it has a great impact on the Ming Dynasty.

Yang He couldn't think of it that far, and he didn't understand why Zheng Xunrui only judged from a few letters that Denglai was going to have a big problem, and besides, Shandong was far away from Shaanxi, so he didn't need to think about things so far, his current idea was to seize the time and strictly train Zheng Jiajun.

No one knows why Zheng Xunrui can have such far-reaching insight, and no one will understand that Zheng Xunrui, who was in the middle of the Denglai Mutiny, could only watch, but could not contribute, and the discomfort in his heart was indescribable.