On this day of 20 November, the Second Corps of the Second Guards Army and the entourage of Emperor Zhu Youzhen, totaling 80,000 people, were all gathered under the Huangji Gate of the Forbidden City in Nanjing. Books.com

On that day, it was the time when the sun was shining.

The 80,000 soldiers were all dressed in mandarin duck robes, wearing cotton armor, wearing red tasseled round helmets, holding Chongzhen 19-style flintlock pistols, and leather boots, shining in the sun, looking mighty.

Even the cavalry rode tall horses, wearing white gloves and holding alloy steel scimitars, shining with cold light.

The gun carriages were even more lined up, tigers and tigers, like iron beasts, glaring ahead.

Qin Liangyu rode a white war horse wearing a silver chain mail, holding a long halberd, his helmet was silver like ice crystals, and a pair of phoenix eyes swept over but also showed his true character as a heroine.

As the commander of the Ming army in this war, she naturally has to have a certain bearing, so Zhu Youzhen specially ordered her to wear silver armor and hold a halberd, so that she looks mighty.

But Qin Liangyu is also old in the end, and he can no longer gallop on the battlefield wearing such heavy silver armor and halberd, but it still doesn't hurt to ride a horse.

Immediately behind Qin Liangyu was He Xin and Wu Mengming, the commander of Jinyi Weidu, both of whom were wearing python suits and did not wear military uniforms, so as to bring out Qin Liangyu's prestige.

Zhu Youzhen came out on the golden dragon chariot, this time he can only be regarded as an inspection and not a royal expedition, so he naturally did not come out of the limelight, and only handled political affairs with Lu Jiude in Longyuan.

It stands to reason that in this big war, as the emperor, he doesn't have to leave the Forbidden City.

However, Zhu Youzhen didn't want to trap himself in the Forbidden City all the time, he wanted to go out and have a look, he wanted to see with his own eyes how the people in the area where the war took place viewed the dispute between the Ming and Qing dynasties, and see with his own eyes what the officers and soldiers of the Guards who participated in this war thought.

In addition, he also knew that he had almost offended the entire official group now, and his biggest reliance now was the army, and he could not lose control of the army, even in this war, he had to get closer to the officers and soldiers of the guards.

The gentry of the northern bloc did not want to see the Ming continue to exist, so they would always be charged with betraying the Ming, and they did not want the maritime interests to be occupied by the Ming forever.

Because in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, there was a policy of banning the sea, and the scholars, especially the coastal scholars, wanted to ban the sea, so that they could control the profits of the maritime trade in their own hands.

And the Ming Dynasty opened the sea, and now it is getting bigger and bigger, and even directly affects the interests of the northern gentry.

Therefore, the northern gentry hoped that the Manchus would dominate the world.

The gentry in the Ming Dynasty are also opposed to opening the sea, the Donglin Party has even been advocating the ban on the sea, and the Ming Dynasty in Chongzhen 17 years also because of the party dispute, so that the Jiangnan gentry got what they wanted, and now Chongzhen 17 years later is to further open the sea to four ports.

It is precisely because of the full opening of these four ports and the implementation of commercial taxes that the gentry in Jiangnan still strongly resisted Zhu Youzhen's imperial power after the Qian Qianyi case and Zhang Shenyan's case, and even almost launched a coup d'état.

To be precise, there had been several coups d'état by officials attempting to overthrow Zhu Youzhen's regime before Zhu Youzhen issued a decree to levy commercial taxes before he moved south.

But now Zhu Youzhen relied on the support of the army and the common people, as well as the Zheng clique, to establish his own navy, so that the gentry in Jiangnan continued to be suppressed, and the entire official clique no longer dared to interfere with the imperial power, and even supported Ruan Dayue, a "traitorous minister" who could only follow him, from the deposition of the crown prince and the demolition of the Donglin Academy, it marked that the entire official clique had no chance to resist the imperial power at all.

However, these officials must be dissatisfied with Zhu Youzhen's behavior, and even began to circulate in the community that it is now the darkest era in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and it is even darker during the Chenghua Apocalypse, because Zhu Youzhen treats officials not only in court battles, but also directly mobilizes the army to slaughter.

These officials now dare not speak out, and while thinking about how to restore Zhu Cihong in the country, they hope that the Manchu Qing can teach Zhu Youzhen a lesson, so that Zhu Youzhen knows that such tyranny is not good.

Zhu Youzhen knew that these officials and gentry were dissatisfied with him in their hearts.

But if he does it all over again, he still has to do this, how can he raise his own army without taking away the benefits from the officials and gentry, and how can he develop the Ming military industrial base that now has a complete industrial system.

If Zhu Youzhen had not seized the interests of these Jiangnan gentry by raiding their homes and commercial taxes and then smashing them all to the army, it would have been impossible for him to control the 600,000 army so easily.

The high salaries and benefits, as well as the superior political treatment, and even the courage to order the slaughter of soldiers for the dignity of the officers and men of the Guards, were the reasons why Zhu Youzhen firmly controlled the army.

This is why many of the gentry do not understand why their children are no longer willing to be at the mercy of their clan after joining the Guard, because they no longer need to gain more benefits through their clan.

Zhu Youzhen knew that this war could not be lost, and once lost, it would mean that the Manchus would dominate the world.

And his backyard will also catch fire, the official group that is dissatisfied with him will take the opportunity to make trouble, and the army under his control will fall apart because of failure, he will lose control of the finances if he loses the army, the interests of maritime trade will be taken away again, and the Zheng group, which has not yet turned against him, will continue to be his smuggling group.

However, Zhu Youzhen believes that it is impossible for him to lose.

At least the recuperating common people were reluctant to fight, and the craftsmen and petty merchants and petty bourgeoisie were not willing to allow most of the commercial interests to be taken over by the wealthy families.

These are all soft power comparisons, even if they are harder power, Zhu Youzhen doesn't feel that he will lose.

At this time, the combat effectiveness and equipment level of the Ming army was far from Chongzhen's seventeenth year, Chongzhen's seventeenth year still thwarted the Manchurian iron cavalry southward, Chongzhen's twenty years, even if the Manchu Qing Dynasty improved and expanded the troops and horses in firearms, there would be no first offensive.

Seeing the continuous ships of the Yangtze River leaving the port one after another, and all the guns and shells loaded with them, Zhu Youzhen was undoubtedly more confident.

At this time, the Zhijiang shipyard also began to have a number of warships out of the military port one after another to start their maiden voyages, and the existing large warships of the Ming Navy have reached dozens of them, and it is no longer a problem to guard the entire Jiangnan sea area and harass the Liaodong Peninsula to the Bohai Bay.

Zhu Youzhen and his entourage were on the shore of Kuabu.

As soon as he arrived at Kuabu, in addition to Jinyiwei and an independent cavalry battalion and an independent infantry battalion directly under the Second Corps of the Guards Army continued to escort Zhu Youzhen's safety, Qin Liangyu first rushed to Fengyang with the main force of the Second Corps of the Second Corps of the Guards Army.

According to the plan, the governor's headquarters officers of the Guards were to hold a pre-war meeting in Fengyang in early December to issue the final strategic plan.

Zhu Youzhen did not directly participate in this war, so he was naturally not in a hurry.

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