Because, Wu Shigong remembered that there was a cattle man in the Shaanxi peasant rebel army - Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang.

Since he has beaten Li Zicheng, Hong Chengchou must also be a very capable military commander. So Wu Shigong firmly remembered Hong Chengchou's name.

However, Wu Shigong is also a little puzzled, in the current Di newspaper, why is the name of King Chuang called Gao Yingxiang? But Li Zicheng has become a general? Anyway, this question is difficult to understand, so let's put it aside for the time being.

Another speculation is that Hong Chengchou's meritorious service has aroused the suspicion and defense of Emperor Chongzhen and the ministers of the imperial court. Therefore, they did not give Hong Chengchou the authority to lead troops into Shanxi to exterminate the main force of the peasant rebel army.

Of course, Zheng Ling also provided quite a lot of evidence, and these evidences also came from the clues revealed in the Di newspaper. Wu Shigong did have a feeling of enlightenment after seeing it. Indeed, as Zheng Ling speculated, Hong Chengchou, the tiger, is now tied up in Shaanxi by the Ming Dynasty court, and he can't escape!

Wu Shigong didn't know that this actually wronged Emperor Chongzhen, and it was the new first assistant Wen Tiren who made these arrangements. Wen Tiren is now in a period of pride. He and Emperor Chongzhen were also in the honeymoon period.

We already know that Wen Tiren is a person who is dedicated to "state affairs". He is not greedy for money, lustful, and does not form parties for personal gain, and is morally exemplary, so it is difficult for any political opponent to grasp Wen Tiren's pigtails.

Of course, Wen Tiren's "state affairs", the first thing in the list is to consolidate his position as the first assistant; the second is to cater to Emperor Chongzhen; In third place, it is a real national event.

And Wen Tiren is still a person with a strong desire for power. Although Hong Chengchou's threat is still far away, Wen Tiren still has to take precautions. What if Hong Chengchou sent troops to Shanxi and wiped out all the peasant rebel armies? That will definitely reward him for his merit and promotion to the secretary of the military department. It may even be over-pulled into the cabinet.

And with military merits in hand, Hong Chengchou is likely to threaten the position of Wen Tiren's first assistant. It's better to let Hong Chengchou stay in Shaanxi honestly now, and let other officials share some credit.

However, Wu Shigong will definitely not know about the secrets of these high-level officials, and his official position is too small. There is no place for Wu Shigong to intervene in the temple, and now that he understands Zheng Ling's speculation, it will not be of much use, it is just to let Wu Shigong satisfy his curiosity.

However, Zheng Ling's other bold speculation was crucial to the Runing Army.

According to Di Bao, the situation of the peasant rebel army in Shanxi is not very good.

On the seventh day of the twelfth month of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Cao Wenzhao, the commander-in-chief of Lintao, was ordered to lead 3,500 horse infantry Ding Ding, who were "selected one by one and repeatedly battled" to "select one by one and go through battle formations" from Qingyang, Gansu, cross the river through Tongguan, and go to "Puzhou, Shanxi, Hejin and other places where thieves gather." Transferred to the four thieves in Pingyang and Lu'an"

The Ming court placed great hopes on Cao Wenzhao, the chief executioner of the bandits, to enter the Jin Dynasty and suppress them. Emperor Chongzhen personally approved the promotion of Cao Wenzhao by one level, authorizing "temperance of Qin, Jin generals." And Ma Ke, Cao Bianjiao, etc. were also promoted to encouragement. The Ming Dynasty court hoped to expand the results of Shaanxi's war to Shanxi, and a battle to encircle and annihilate the Shanxi rebel army was about to begin.

And in order to deal with the Ming army that gathered in Shanxi. The peasant rebel army adopted the strategy of avoiding the real and making up for the false. In the first month of the sixth year of Chongzhen, they crossed the Taihang Mountains to the east and entered the Jifu area. It appeared in Shunde (now Xingtai District, Hebei Province) and Zhending (now Zhengding). This deeply disturbed the Ming government.

In order to prevent the peasant rebel army from entering the Kinan Plain. To protect the safety of the Beijing Division, the Ming court hurriedly dispatched 2,000 soldiers from Tongzhou and 2,000 soldiers from Changping, together with 8,000 people from Liangfu's department of Baoding, to cooperate with the famous soldiers to prepare Lu Xiangsheng and Shanxi officials and troops to suppress them.

In the battle against the Ming army, the peasant rebel army gave full play to the superiority of mobile warfare. They continued to move to the border areas of Shanxi, Hebei, and Henan provinces, avoiding the heavy troops of the official army and attacking with cameras. This puts the officers and soldiers in a position of being passively beaten. (The Henan region referred to here is the area north of the Yellow River in Henan Province.) Wu Shigong's Runing Army believed that Henan, where the peasant rebel army entered, was the area south of the Yellow River in Henan Province. Therefore. These two concepts are different).

This guerrilla war also intensified the contradictions in the court of the Ming Dynasty. The Ministry of War accused "Henan of not being in danger of being too busy, and thieves must not be innocent." And the gentry of Henan (behind these gentry were all local officials of Henan) asked the imperial court that Hong Chengchou, the governor of the three sides, should also be in charge of the military affairs of Shanxi and Henan.

Although the Ministry of War agreed to this plan, it believed that it could unify the powers of affairs, prevent the provinces from passing the buck to each other, and facilitate the full deployment of the encirclement and suppression of the peasant rebel army. Moreover, the Ministry of War also suggested that Hong Chengchou be stationed in Tongguan, at the junction of the three provinces, to supervise the second governors of Shanxi and Henan, and the three general troops of Cao Wenzhao, Deng Xi, and Zhang Yingchang.

However, under the persuasion of Shoufu Wen Tiren, Emperor Chongzhen was still unwilling to let his subordinates hold greater power at this time, and did not agree to this plan.

Emperor Chongzhen attributed the activity of the rebel army in the three provinces to the ineffective combat of the official army, so he sent eunuchs Chen Dakui, Yan Siyin, Xie Wenju, Sun Maolin and others as the inner army, and served as the supervisors of Cao Wenzhao, Zhang Yingchang, Zuo Liangyu, and Deng Xi respectively.

Emperor Chongzhen has also been the emperor for six or seven years, and he has also suffered too much in front of the civil officials, so now he can only slap himself and appoint eunuchs to be sent to the army to act as his eyes and ears, so as to prevent the deception of civil and military officials.

However, what the eunuchs were good at was only clever words to deceive the emperor's trust and use them to attract power and bribes. Militarily they are completely amateurs. The so-called "supervision of discipline and meritorious deeds" is just to provide them with an opportunity to make a fortune.

And the local civil and military officials, in order to let them say something good in front of the emperor, gave some oil and water from the proceeds of corruption, and they also colluded with each other to show each other.

The peasant rebel army fought against the Ming army in the southern Jinan area, and each other won and lost. Because the rebellious peasants' Liliang was still no match for the official army, and there was no danger on the North China Plain, after the imperial court gradually strengthened the defense of Liliang in this area, the rebel army moved into the Taihang Mountains.

And King Minglu was divided into Weihui Mansion (the government was in Ji County, Henan), and he saw that the peasant army in Liliang in northern Henan was getting bigger and bigger, and the fief was in danger, so he was in a hurry. Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen specially appointed Ni Chong and Wang Pu as the chief soldiers, the eunuchs Yang Jinchao and Lu Jiude as the supervisors, and 6,000 soldiers from the Beijing battalion went to northern Henan to fight against the rebels. Relying on superior forces, the official army gradually compressed the main force of the rebel army in the area north of the Yellow River in Henan Province. The Ming government thought that there were heavy troops in the north and a big river in the south, so that the rebel army could be wiped out here.

At this time, in May of the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zijin Liang (Wang Ziyong), an important leader of the rebel army, died of illness in Jiyuan, Henan. After Wang Jiayin's death, Wang Ziyong was promoted as the leader of the alliance by the rebel armies in Shanxi. Later, due to the Ming Court's discordant strategy, there was a gap between Zijin Liang and other leaders. Despite this, Wang was still an influential leader at the time.

At this time, the officers and troops transferred by the Ming court gathered in the border areas of Shanxi, Hebei and Henan provinces. Since the main battlefield had been moved to northern Henan at that time, the officers and troops of Henan Province were called the main soldiers, with a total of more than 8,300 soldiers; There were 19,600 guest soldiers from Shanxi, Hebei, and Beijing, and the total number of officers and soldiers participating in the encirclement and suppression should be more than 30,000 with the Shaanxi soldiers under the command of Cao Wenzhao and others. At the same time, the room for the peasants' rebellious army activities is getting smaller and smaller, and they are extremely difficult to provide food, and they are facing the danger of being surrounded and annihilated by the official army.

Therefore, there is an optimism in the newspaper issued by the Ming Court. What is surprising is that by this time, the entire Ming court still did not pay attention to the peasant rebel army that crisscrossed several provinces. Most of the military expenditure of the Ming Dynasty was still invested in Liaodong. Of course, Kong Youde's Denglai rebellion also took up a lot of military spending in the Ming court.

But the Runing Army is different, because their leader, Wu Shigong, has already made a prediction of "chaos in the world". Therefore, all the actions of the Runing Army were prepared for the worst outcome.

And Zheng Ling's speculation is based on this. In his speculation, he said: If the Shaanxi bandits want to get rid of this unfavorable situation, they must cross the Yellow River and enter the hinterland of the Central Plains and Henan.

However, under heavy defense, it is very difficult to cross the river, and it is impossible to collect so many ferries, so if you want to cross the river, you must wait until the Yellow River freezes. Therefore, the most likely time for Shaanxi bandits to enter the hinterland of Henan, and the most dangerous time, is this winter. To this end, the Runing Army must make all preparations against the enemy as soon as possible.

Of course, if the Shaanxi bandits are unable to cross the Yellow River this winter, then the Shaanxi bandits will suffer heavy losses, and in the next few years, it will no longer be possible for the Shaanxi bandits to enter the hinterland of Henan and threaten the Runing army.

After reading Zheng Ling's speculation, Wu Shigong discussed it with Deng Qifan, Xue Yongli and other major aides, and found that this speculation had a considerable possibility. For the first time, Wu Shigong was able to grasp the dynamics of the peasant rebellion. And this is even more crucial for the preparation of the Runing Army.

So I'd rather work in vain than take chances. Wu Shigong immediately began to step up the preparations for war of the Runing Army. And all of Yang Goudan's workshops have also started shift production, seizing every bit of time to increase the strength of the Runing Army.

Wu Shigong immediately promoted Zheng Ling to the deputy director of the Mountains and Rivers Division. Moreover, the intelligence collection and analysis department that Zheng Ling was in charge of was also directly managed by the inner study of the Runing Army.

In modern intelligence gathering, the collection of newspapers, television, and other news media in enemy countries is also a major source of intelligence. And now with Zheng Ling's department, the intelligence work of the Runing Army has finally begun to open up the situation. However, this is also inseparable from Zheng Ling's own efforts. This opportunity always falls to those who are prepared!

But what Wu Shigong didn't expect was that Wu Shigong was racing against time here, and a big accident happened. He will have to leave Runing and rush back to the capital. (To be continued......)