The twelfth year of Chongzhen is a turbulent year, in the first half of the year, the Qing army entered the customs, all the way to Shandong, broke Jinan, captured the king of De, entered the customs for half a year, went deep into 2,000 miles, captured a government, three states, 55 counties and two passes, abducted nearly 500,000 people, plundered gold and silver millions, and did not withdraw from the customs until March.

And immediately after May, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, and others, who had already been appeased and surrendered, rebelled again, and the Central Plains was on fire again. Even the thieves and Cao thieves also killed the whole army of the imperial court general Zuo Liangyu, and Yang Sichang went out of Beijing to supervise the division with auxiliary ministers, but in the end, he was defeated by mistakes again and again.

Luckily, things start to turn around in the fall. First of all, Mei Zhihuan, Liu Jun and others defeated the Liukou in eastern Sichuan, captured Zhang Xianzhong alive, broke Luo Rucai, beheaded more than ten bandit leaders, and defeated nearly 100,000 prisoners. The momentum of the bandits who had just revived was extinguished, and Luo Rucai, like Li Zicheng, who had been defeated before, fled to the mountains.

Now the only one that is still on scale is the fifth battalion of Gezuo entrenched in the mountains east of Beibei Mountain, Jiangbei.

Chongzhen couldn't wait to exterminate them immediately.

Especially now that Mei Zhihuan, Li Changgeng, Liu Jun and others are training the new army and preparing a batch of sufficient food and salary, Chongzhen feels that everything is ready. He couldn't wait, and he didn't want to let the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo continue to exist for a moment.

The eunuch who came to Yunyang to deliver the decree got Chongzhen's edict, and after the decree was crowned Liu Jun as the commander, he passed the oracle, ordering Liu Jun to immediately lead the troops to suppress it, immediately!

Liu Jun had already prepared for the dispatch of troops, and the emperor's hatred for the bandits was still above the captives. Especially in recent years, the internal and external troubles, the court finally unified the strategic thinking, that is, first from the inside to the outside, the so-called outside must first be at ease, first pacify the bandits and then fight and build prisoners, and resolutely do not discuss and negotiate with the bandits.

In some ways, Liu Jun actually admired the stubbornness of the Ming Dynasty. Although people such as Chongzhen, Yang Sichang and even Yuan Chonghuan who really understand the situation in the world. In his heart, he was more inclined to negotiate peace with the Qing soldiers for the time being, thinking that it was a strategy to delay the army, so that the imperial court could take out his hand to pacify the civil strife of the Central Plains bandits first, and then work together to deal with Jianyu.

It's a pity that there are not many people in the Ming Dynasty who really understand the situation, most of them are ministers who can only talk about empty words, especially those who are young Jinshi, young and vigorous, but the position they are in is the impeachment of the news of the supervision of the news. Whether it is to say that they are young and vigorous, to say that they do not understand the situation, or to say that they do not know strategy, anyway, there are these people staring at them, and whoever dares to negotiate peace is cowardly, who is a traitor, and they don't care what strategy or tactics they have.

No matter how good your purpose is, if you use the wrong means. That won't work either.

It is precisely because of these people that the Ming Dynasty has been passively following Houjin for many years, but the army is not good, and there are always those Wenchen who do not know how to lead the army. It's even more terrible. Outside the gate is like a huge wound, the Ming Dynasty not only did not know to bandage the wound earlier, but had to stab the wound a few times every once in a while, so that the wound kept bleeding. After so many years, Daming is almost dry.

It was originally just a traumatic injury, but now the trauma is bleeding profusely. Finally, there was a problem with the internal organs of the introduction, and the giant Daming was already crumbling.

Now that the imperial court has finally made great progress against the bandits in the Central Plains, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and Luo Rucai, the alliance of bandits has been defeated to the death, and only the last major force of the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left is left. Chongzhen wanted to urgently end the chaos in the Central Plains, wanted to transfer troops and horses from the Central Plains as soon as possible to strengthen the defense of the north, and even plotted a counterattack to restore Liao.

That night, Liu Jun held a banquet to entertain the angels.

Governor Zhu Dadian, Governor Huang Daozhou, Deputy Envoy Yang Tinglin and other former Yunyang officials accompanied them, and the newly arrived eunuchs such as Wang Kun, the governor of Hubei, Lu Weining, the governor and eunuch, Bian Yongqing, Xu Jinzhong, Xie Wenju, and Wang Zhixin, who passed the decree, were invited to come, and the newly arrived officials of the Third Division of Hubei were also invited to the banquet.

The new political envoy of Hubei Zuobu is Liu Jun's old acquaintance, who was originally assigned to guard the Xiajiang Defense Road and the military preparation road Zhao Cheng, and this time Zhao Cheng was promoted to the political envoy of Bu again.

When the two met again, they were overwhelmed with emotion, thinking that when the two met for the first time, Zhao Cheng was prepared for the road, and he summoned Mei Zhihuan, a gentleman from Macheng Township, and others to encircle and suppress the thieves who committed the massacre of the village, Liu Jun and Li Chunjiang led the nine-headed bird and horse team to obey the order.

At that time, Liu Jun's team had just opened, with 100 people and dozens of guns. In the blink of an eye, Liu Jun has already relied on his merits, met the wind and clouds, and rose to the top, and he has been promoted to the rank of admiral. And Mei Zhihuan, the original squire of Zhishi, has now become a cabinet scholar, an auxiliary minister, and a superintendent of military affairs in nine provinces.

He Zhao Cheng was able to rise to the current position, and he was mostly stained with the light of Mei Zhihuan and Liu Jun.

"Zhao Cheng meets the military gate!" Zhao Cheng bowed down seriously, without the slightest sloppiness. This move attracted the attention of countless people in the banquet hall. Zhao Cheng is a political envoy, and he is also a provincial official, only under the governor, in charge of the civil affairs of a province.

Now he bows to a young man, although officialdom does not respect him by age, but Liu Jun is a martial artist, even if he is a martial artist, but the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty, especially those who are born as scholars like Zhao Cheng, which one will put the honor in their eyes?

It was the sound of the military gate that reminded everyone that Liu Jun is not just a young man, nor is he just a young marquis, he is also a commander-in-chief, with the rank of ministry on his body, Liu Jun is the white crane mixed into the grass pheasant, which is extremely conspicuous.

Everyone always remembers Liu Jun's identity as a military general, but they forget that the current Liu Jun hangs the title of ministry and commander, and this is equivalent to the identity of the governors and governors, and the governors and governors can be completely equal.

The new chief eunuch Wang Kun and the governor eunuch Lu Weining all took this scene in their eyes. These two Wang Kun is Cao Huachun's person, Lu Weining is Wang Chengen's person, when the two of them went out of Beijing, they had to explain, saying that although Liu Jun is old, the saint goes to Jilong, especially this person is very means, and has a very good relationship with Mei Zhihuan Li Changgeng and others, in Chudi, Liu Jun's strength is very strong, in the past, you must have a good relationship with Liu Jun, don't offend Liu Jun.

When they heard that, the two didn't pay much attention to it. However, in a short period of time in Hubei, they had already heard a lot about Liu Jun, such as sending troops to set the old Yunyang generals' troubles as rebellions and quickly quelling them, killing hundreds of Yunyang generals. Later, he made a salt pan and lottery tickets, and raised a million silver taels, like turning a stone into gold. Now they are tidying up the tuntian of the guardhouse, killing a group of people, and clearing out more than 2 million mu of military tun.

Now in Yunyang, when the name Liu Jun is mentioned, there are many people who hate, the families of those old Yunyang generals, and the military attaches of those guards, they hate Liu Jun to the core, but they dare not speak out, because Liu Jun is iron-blooded and extremely strong, and his subordinates are recruiting tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, especially in Yunyang City, there are 30,000, and even the governor's Fu Biao has been handed over to Liu Jun.

Of course, there are many people who are full of praise when they mention the name Liu Jun, those salt merchants who have invested in the salt farm, those who buy lottery tickets to win the lottery, and those Yunyang businessmen who are grateful because of the good order of Yunyang, of course, the most grateful to Liu Jun are the military households of those guards.

Overnight, they were no longer the tenant slaves of the military attachés of the guard, they were assigned to the field, they had their own land, although they also had to pay rent, but compared to the past life, it was the difference between heaven and earth, and there was a new hope in the future, and every military household set up Liu Jun's immortal tablet.

In short, there are many people who hate Liu Jun, but there are even more who praise Liu Jun.

Now that they have seen with their own eyes that even civil officials such as political envoys worship Liu Jun like this, they finally believe in the words they heard before leaving Beijing.

On the same day, Wang Kun and Lu Weining each received a generous gift from Liu Jun, 10,000 taels of silver each, and the other three eunuchs also received 5,000 taels each.

With such a generous gift, several eunuchs were very satisfied with Liu Jun, and sure enough, it was rumored that Liu Jun's reputation as a man was not wrong.

"I will send troops to the east tomorrow, and I will continue to entrust you with the rectification and clean-up affairs of the tuntian of other guard posts in Hubei." In the study, Liu Jun told Huang Daozhou and Yang Tinglin the news of the troops.

"It's too sudden to send troops tomorrow. Whether we can leave later or not is now the crucial time for rectification. Huang Daozhou said with a frown.

"This is what the emperor meant, let me send troops immediately. But don't worry, I will leave three battalions of men and horses, two infantry battalions and one chariot battalion in this dispatch, and I will give them an explanation, so that they can train and be at your disposal at any time. If anyone who doesn't open their eyes wants to make trouble while I'm out of the army, they'll put them down. ”

Liu Jun left behind an infantry battalion and a chariot battalion in the Zhenbiao battalion, and Liu Jun transferred three from the fourth battalion of Fubiao and left one. Now that Liu Jun of the Fubiao Battalion has taken over and reorganized, the officers have also changed their own people, so there is no need to worry about staying.

"When are you expected to be back?" Yang Tinglin asked. The time he spent with Liu Jun was not very long, but he was very satisfied. Although Liu Jun is a military general and so young, he is very good at doing things and is very decent.

"Although the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution is just a group of bandits, it has been entrenched in the Yinghuo Mountains for two or three years, and a group of bandits who do not wander are sometimes quite troublesome, they do not wander, but use the Yinghuo Mountains as their base camp base and begin to operate and defend, I expect that this encirclement and suppression will not be so easy."

Huang Daozhou was surprised, "Could it be that they are more powerful than the sacrificial thief Cao thief?" ”

"It's not like that, in the last battle of Sichuan, the thieves were in the middle of the flow, we ambushed in the wild, and the thieves were basically defeated in the first battle. But now that the Fifth Battalion of the Revolution has a base, there will inevitably be a cottage fortress, and there may even be some support from the people. This battle may be a tough battle, after all, they also have tens of thousands of bandits, but at most, it is a little more time, and they will be swept away in the end. ”

"That's good, we have a lot of confidence in you, triumph early, it's still waiting for you here."

"It's just that without you, I don't feel so efficient." Yang Tinglin said with a smile.

"Good luck with triumph!" (To be continued......)