The children of the Eight Banners of the Qing court were good at cavalry and archery, and they were strong in strong bows and fierce horses on land, and they were not able to fight in water warfare, especially at sea. In particular, the strong strength of the Zheng family on the southeast coast, as well as the defeat in several naval battles, made the Qing court shudder, and adopted a tyranny of cutting off the connection between the righteous teachers and the land inhabitants at any cost—coastal border relocation.

The Qing court also estimated and anticipated the impact of large-scale coastal relocation, and then adopted a more short-sighted and arrogant policy, first targeting the Zheng family's troops and generals.

"The first time to urge the officers and soldiers to surrender to Cheng, and assign them to other provinces for reclamation. Officers and soldiers from other towns were given rations and stationed in Zhejiang, Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Huguang, Henan, Shandong, and Shanxi provinces, and cultivated barren land, and gave them cattle seeds, and exempted them from rent for six years. Generals or superintendents, or assigned to serve in the governors, governors, and admirals of the yamen, and civil officials go to the ministry to be candidates. ”

The surrendered Zheng officers and soldiers were sent to other provinces to reclaim the wasteland because they were worried that they would defect again, and by placing them in the provinces, they could disperse their forces and eliminate hidden dangers. Since the Qing court wanted to solve the problem of the Zheng group with the blockade of the strong wall and the clear field, it should have treated the Zheng officers and soldiers who had surrendered well, so that those who surrendered could feel at ease, and those who did not surrender would be tempted, which would be conducive to appeasement. However, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, out of fear of the sea and out of the psychology of guarding against the Han people, did the opposite, and the result would inevitably lead to the centrifugation of those who had descended, and the chilling of those who had not.

This decision of the Qing court was tantamount to a bolt from the blue to the vast number of officers and soldiers who surrendered to the sea and were mostly Fujian and nostalgic for their homeland. As a result, some took risks and plotted to rebel against the Zheng family; Some absconded and hid everywhere; Some of them did everything possible to conceal the dependents in the hope that some of their family members would escape and relocate to Fujian, while some officers and soldiers who defected to Fujian resorted to the method of stealing beams and replacing pillars with the common people to make up for it.

For ordinary Zheng officers and soldiers. An important reason for the reduction of the Qing Dynasty is that it is difficult to bear the pain of homesickness, and no one wants to leave their hometown with their families and be escorted to other places to reclaim the wasteland. Therefore, the erroneous measures of the Qing court will become a negative teaching material used by the Zheng group to stabilize the morale of the army, which makes the Qing court's appeasement strategy look generous on the surface, but it is difficult to work again.

And Shi Lang's sailors raised the standard guerrilla Zhong Rui was originally Zheng Jun of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing court's coastal relocation had aroused his dissatisfaction, and seeing that the officers and soldiers who had surrendered to Cheng were to be relocated to other provinces to reclaim the famine, they secretly discussed with Chen Sheng, the garrison of the Chinese army, and took the opportunity of patrolling Hong Kong to flee to Guangdong with a small number of henchmen to surrender to the Ming army. Speaking of the inside story, this is also a great achievement of the Intelligence Bureau, the first case of successfully plotting against the enemy and surrendering to Chengcheng.

Good horses don't eat back grass, Zhong Rui and Chen Sheng surrendered to the Qing Dynasty by the Zheng family, if there is a choice. Naturally I don't want to go back. That is to say, with the growing strength of the Ming army in the southwest, the attraction of the Qing Dynasty generals to surrender is also surpassing the original largest force in the southeast - the Zheng family. After all, the southwest is orthodox and orthodox, and the family-style operation of the Zheng group often cannot give generals with foreign surnames more room to display.

Plotting against Zhong Rui and Chen Sheng is only the first step in the intelligence bureau's plan, Zhu Yongxing has already reminded him before that as long as he digs out the troops and surrenders the generals from Shi Lang's men, it will be a victory, and there is no need to ask them to do anything important to assassinate Shi Lang and surrender the city.

The rulers of the Qing court, who were unfamiliar with the conditions at sea, had always regarded the sea waves as a daunting path. He didn't dare to talk about naval battles lightly, and he had always been worried about the naval division composed of the Zheng generals. Especially during the reign of the four ministers of Gu Ming, who were full of people and light men. Confidence in the use of force to eliminate the Zheng clique has been seriously shaken. The water division mainly composed of Zheng Jia's troops and generals is even more suspicious, and there are disbanded water divisions in history, and Shi Lang, who has made meritorious contributions to the recovery of Jin and Xia, has been left in Beijing for more than ten years.

Therefore, as long as Zhong Rui and Chen Sheng succeed in returning anyway, in the subsequent campaign, fake letters and rumors will give the Qing court the impression that Shi Lang is an old member of the Zheng family, nostalgic for the old feelings, and cannot escape the suspicion of arson. There can even be Shi Lang concentrating on forbearance. Attempt to imagine a big plan.

According to the suspicion and precautions of the Qing rulers against the Han people, Zhu Yongxing thought that Shi Lang would not escape this catastrophe, and if he went to Beijing to prove his innocence, it was unlikely that he would come back to lead the water division. What's more, at present, the Zheng clan and the Ming army are acting together. Shi Lang's chances of proving his loyalty by winning a battle at sea are also quite slim.

It is naturally a good thing to be able to defeat Shi Lang in a naval battle, and even if it fails, it is another insurance to use rumors and suspicions to make it impossible to reuse, or even to be imprisoned and killed. The two routines of soft and hard, no matter which one works, are enough to breathe a sigh of relief for Zhu Yongxing, who regards the Fujian Navy Division of the Qing Army as a thorn in his side.

This is a happy event, Zhu Yongxing has decided to treat Zhong Rui and Chen Sheng well, the purpose is to use this living example to point out a way out for the Zheng officers and soldiers who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and to prepare for the future Zheng civil strife to absorb a large number of their armed forces.

What made Zhu Yongxing's heart complicated was the comprehensive launch of the Jiangnan sales case. It stands to reason that what the enemy does must be resolutely opposed and tried to stop it, but Zhu Yongxing felt that it was not so simple.

After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, a more severe urging was implemented in the Jiangnan region than in the Ming Dynasty. The officials who have been recruited are all scored with 10 points, and those who do not fall enough will be punished. However, many Jiangnan gentry and powerful people still rely on their power to communicate with the government, bribe scribes, and conceal and default on money and grain, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In order to suppress the privileges of the gentry and subdue the landlords in the south of the Yangtze River, the Qing court used the pretext of resisting grain and created a sales case. At first, the case was limited to Wuxi and Jiading counties, and by the summer of the 18th year, it was in four prefectures and one county. The Qing court dismissed those who owed grain, regardless of whether they were senior officials or not, and regardless of the amount owed, the gentry in the country were deposed according to their names, showing talents, lifting people, and jinshi, and those who did not finish the money and grain were all dismissed from their meritorious backgrounds; The incumbent officials were demoted by two levels, totaling more than 13,000 people. Many of them were arrested and sent to the Penal Department.

Cracking down on the power of the Jiangnan squires and canceling their privileged status, in Zhu Yongxing's view, the Qing court was doing what it wanted to do but had not yet done. But from another point of view, the Qing court was not reinforcing money and grain and increasing military spending to support the war.

How do you react? It was to support the Jiangnan gentry who had been deposed, whipped, and disgraced, and waited for them to have a reason to refuse to pay after the restoration of Jiangnan, so that the government's collection of money and grain would face difficulties; Or sit idly by, let the Qing court deal a heavy blow to the Jiangnan scholars, and collect all the arrears of money and grain.

Zhu Yongxing pondered for a long time and couldn't make a decision right away. At the same time, he still had doubts in his heart, and he didn't know how the Lu Daoqing government defined the term "squire", so it was even more difficult to draw conclusions casually.

……… (To be continued......)