The palace has been basically repaired, and the female officials have finished their training and will soon take up their posts, but Zhu Youzhen has no intention of moving into the palace at all, and now all his thoughts are devoted to the upcoming counterinsurgency battle.

It has been more than three months since the end of the Battle of Nanjing in February, and for such a long time, Zhu Youzhen and his subordinates have not been idle, and they are all preparing for the counterinsurgency battle after the summer harvest.

After careful consideration, Zhu Youjian decided on the next strategy, preparing to use half half a year to completely quell the Jiangnan rebellion and "recover" Jiangxi, Huguang and other provinces.

"We must put down the rebellion in the provinces as soon as possible, first stabilize the localities, and then start to implement the reform of the Juntian system." Zhu Youzhen said to the ministers. There are too many things to do to pacify the provinces as soon as possible, and then implement the Juntian reform, and Zhu Youzhen does not want to continue the civil war and waste time and energy.

"If we put down the rebellion as soon as possible, we will need too many troops, and I am afraid that the existing army in Nanjing is not enough, and more troops will have to be transferred from other places." Jiangnan Governor Hong Chengchou said.

According to intelligence, in the past few months, the Jiangxi anti-thieves have recruited a lot of troops, and with the anti-thieves in Huguang, their total strength has reached more than 200,000 again. In addition, the anti-thieves refused to defend the city and occupied the advantageous position, although Nanjing had newly organized and trained 100,000 Praetorian Guards, if it advanced steadily and slowly, the strength of the troops would be about the same, and if it was thought that it would take half a year to completely pacify the two provinces of Jiangxi, Huguang and Guangzhou, the number of troops would be seriously insufficient. Moreover, the new Praetorian Guard has only been training for a few months, and although it seems that it has been trained, it is difficult to say what it will be like if it has not experienced a battle.

"What Lord Hong said is that if the rebels defend the city, such as Jiujiang, Wuchang, Nanchang and other cities, they are all extremely strong, and it is almost impossible to take them in a few months, and half a year to pacify the two provinces is too hasty." Yuan Keli also said. Fighting a war is not as simple as a decision made with a pat on the head, and who dares to guarantee that the war will go according to the plan? With Nanjing's current strength, it may be possible to defeat the main force of the rebels in half a year, and it may be impossible to completely pacify the two provinces.

"If there is no army, it will be sent from other places. The Henan Red Turban thieves have been completely pacified, and Sun Chuanting has newly trained some soldiers and horses, and there should be no problem in sending 30,000 or 40,000 troops. Then he ordered Cao Bianjiao to lead his troops from the southeast of Shandong, gather the Cao soldiers of Zhao Sect in Linqing and other places, and there was no problem in gathering 20,000. Then ordered Lu Xiangsheng to mobilize 50,000 troops from Liaodong to the south, so that he could raise 100,000 troops, plus 100,000 new troops of the Praetorian Guards in Nanjing, 200,000 troops, what is the difficulty of pacifying Jiangxi and Huguang? Zhu Youzhen said that he had been thinking about it for a long time.

"Your Majesty, no!" Yuan Keli was shocked and hurriedly said, "Last winter, Jiannu also launched an attack on Liaodong, but fortunately was repelled by Lu Xiangsheng. I'm afraid that Liaodong will not be guaranteed by then. "Last year, the situation in Nanjing was so dangerous that troops were not transferred from Nanjing, and now that it has stabilized, the anti-thieves will be able to calm down sooner or later, so why risk losing Liaodong?

Zhu Youzhen smiled slightly and looked at Hong Chengchou: "What do you think of Da Sima?" ”

Hong Chengchou said slowly: "According to the information from Liaodong, it should be no big problem to transfer Liao troops. ”

Depending on the location, the understanding of the situation is different. Last year, the battle report of Liaodong had already been sent to Nanjing, but Zhu Youzhen did not spread it. Hong Chengchou is the secretary of the military department, but he has read the battle report.

Last winter, Huang Taiji gathered Mengman's troops and tried to attack and disturb the original Tieling, but he was hit and bloodied. The defenders of Tieling were only 5,000 people, and Huangtaiji had 70,000 Manmeng and Eight Banner soldiers, but they were unable to break through the city.

Lu Xiangsheng mobilized 30,000 Praetorian Guards to reinforce Tieling from Shenyang, and seeing that the siege was hopeless, Huang Taiji left more than 1,000 corpses and led his troops to retreat into the grassland in a hurry.

According to the information sent by Lu Xiangsheng, although Huang Taiji captured Horqin and other Mongolians, his strength seems to have recovered, but his internal troubles are very serious.

The first is that the Mongols are not united in their hearts, and they rely entirely on violent suppression to make the Mongols obey their orders.

In the past, when Jiannu was strong, it occupied the entire Liaodong, and from time to time sent troops to plunder the Ming Dynasty, although the Mongols did not want to be vassals, they would also be honest and obedient.

However, now it is not as good as before, Jiannu lost Liaodong, and even lost the nest of Jianzhou, and fled to the grassland like a lost dog, how could the Mongols be willing to obey orders?

Although Huang Taiji used various means, such as killing the Taiji, the leaders of the Horqin tribe, and distributing the horses, cattle and sheep of the tribal leaders to ordinary herdsmen, he won the support of some ordinary herdsmen, but it was far from enough. These Mongols are no longer the Mongol iron horsemen who galloped the world in the past, giving them benefits, pulling them to the battlefield to fight hard battles, but one by one they cowered and refused to give their lives, and when they encountered a slight setback, they ran faster than the other.

The reason why Huang Taiji couldn't defeat Tieling, which was garrisoned by only a few thousand people, was because these Mongolian cavalry refused to attack the city with their lives, and Huang Taiji refused to lose the few Jianzhou Jurchen Eight Banners, so he had no choice but to retreat.

And this is only one of the reasons, and there is another important reason, that is, the voice of opposition to Huang Taiji within Jiannu is getting louder and louder.

Defeated one after another, losing Liaodong, losing the old nest of Jianzhou, losing hundreds of thousands of people, and losing more than half of the Eight Banners troops, Huang Taiji's prestige has long been less than before. There has long been discussion within Jiannu, believing that it was Huangtai Jili who made a detour to Mongolia to invade the Ming Dynasty that gave the Ming army the opportunity to sneak attack Jianzhou, otherwise Liaodong would never be lost. Many Jurchen nobles were very dissatisfied with Huang Taiji, believing that he had ruined the lives of countless Jianzhou people.

However, after Huang Taiji conquered the Horqin Tribe, he had tens of thousands of Mongol cavalry, and these Jurchen nobles did not dare to move. Otherwise, I am afraid that he would have been ousted from power. However, the trend of civil strife in Jiannu has already been loomed, and it may break out at any time.

According to Lu Xiangsheng's proposal, perhaps there is no need to spend a large army on conquest, but only need to send some details to divide the relationship between the Mongols and Jiannu, or to separate the high-level Jiannu, maybe it can make Jiannu civil strife. And now that the Ming Dynasty has recovered Liaodong, its strength is as good as the sky, coupled with the urgent need for various goods of the Ming Dynasty, almost all Mongolian tribes on the grassland will choose to follow Jiannu again. Even North Korea has already drawn a clear line with Jiannu and re-sworn allegiance to Daming's father.

It can be said that Jiannu is now in turmoil and turmoil, which is the current situation of Jiannu.

Therefore, it is not necessary to defend Liaodong at all now. There are more than 70,000 regular Praetorian Guards in the entire Liaodong, and 50,000 can be drawn out. The remaining more than 20,000 people, plus the people of Liaodong can recruit at least 70,000 or 80,000 strong men, there should be no problem in holding Liaodong.

"Liaodong soldiers, Shandong soldiers, Zhao Shujiao's Cao soldiers, plus Sun Chuanting's subordinates, there should be no problem in gathering enough 100,000 troops, plus the new army of the Janissaries in Nanjing, the troops to attack Jiangxi Huguang are enough." Hong Chengchou finally said. Most of Cao Bianjiao's Shandong soldiers were Praetorian Guards, and Zhao led the Cao soldiers who were transferred from the Beijing Praetorian Guards, guarding Cao Yun, and the more important task was to escort the tax divisions and tax customs along the canal, and the combat effectiveness of these armies was not weak.

However, Yuan Keli's face turned even paler, the 200,000 troops, plus the people who fought with the army, had to mobilize at least 500,000 people to participate in the war, which was definitely a very big challenge to logistics.

"Your Majesty, such a large-scale battle requires too much money and food, and with the existing money and food in Nanjing, I am afraid it is far from enough." Yuan Keli said in a heavy tone.

"The reason why I decided to send troops after the summer harvest was because of the problem of money and food. This year, the wind and rain in all parts of the south of the Yangtze River are still smooth, and the summer grain harvest is not bad, and I will issue an order that the entire Nanzhili field will only receive grain, and the original grain will be temporarily detained for military use. The four prefectures of Jiangdong, Yingtianfu, plus the taxes and grains of Yangzhou Fengyang and other prefectures, are enough for two or three million stones, enough for the army to use for half a year. Zhu Youzhen said.

"If the grain is detained, what will happen to Beijing and Jiubian?" Yuan Keli shook his head and said.

The annual grain of 4 million stone is mainly used to supply the troops in Beijing and Jiubian, and if there is no such grain, I am afraid that life in the north will not be easy. If there is a mess because of this, it will be even more troublesome.

"When Jiangxi and Huguang are conquered, we can mobilize grain from Jiangxi and Huguang and transport it to the north as grain. At the same time, in the name of the imperial court, grain was purchased from the people, or grain merchants from all over the world were called on to transport grain to the north, or they could make up for the shortage of grain. Zhu Youzhen explained.

"It's only like this, after the ministers go down, let's take a good look at how to ensure that there is no shortage of materials needed by the army." Yuan Keli finally said.

The matter of the army and money and food was thus decided, and then the discussion began on how to fight this battle and what strategy to adopt. In this regard, Zhu Youzhen is not good at it, he has always been half-aware of military strategy, in the previous life, he didn't know this, and when he encountered wars, he liked to point fingers and command remotely, so he suffered a lot of defeats. The reason why Hong Chengchou had the defeat of Songshan and ruined the last elite of the Ming Dynasty, and the reason why Sun Chuanting defeated Li Zicheng and ruined the Qin army, making the peasant army uncontrollable, were inseparable from Zhu Youzhen's remote command. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen often reflects on the wrong things he did in his previous life, and he also sees the evaluation of himself by later generations when he is in a soul tour, and consciously begins to make up for his character defects in this life. So when it comes to fighting, he has been able to listen to other people's opinions.

And Hong Chengchou and Yuan Keli are both proficient in military strategy, and they can throw Zhu Youzhen 108,000 miles in terms of fighting, so the main thing is that these two discuss military strategy, and Zhu Youzhen is just listening to it most of the time.

According to the results of the discussion between Hong Chengchou and Yuan Keli, this battle should be divided into three routes. Cao Bianjiao's Shandong soldiers and Zhao led Cao's soldiers to Nanyang Mansion and Sun Chuanting joined forces, a total of 50,000 soldiers and horses, and went south along the Han River from Nanyang to attack Wuchang and be responsible for attacking Huguang.

The 50,000 Liao soldiers went straight to Nanjing, joined forces with the 100,000 troops in Nanjing, and as the main force of this battle, marched along the waterway of the Yangtze River, and attacked Jiangxi through Jiujiang.

The third road was led by Li Yanzhi, the general soldier of Fujian, who attacked Jiangxi from Fujian and copied the back road of Jiangxi anti-thieves.

"The three-way army is at the same time, and the rebels will definitely take care of one and lose the other, especially the rebel army in Huguang, whose hometown is attacked, will not have the energy to help the rebels defend Jiangxi. And without the support of the Huguang rebels, how can Jiangxi Fuyi block our army's attack? It is estimated that it will take less than half a year to lay down Nanchang City. Hong Chengchou said angrily.

"Okay, this time, I personally led the army to attack Jiangxi!" Zhu Youzhen slapped his thigh and shouted excitedly.

Hong Chengchou and Yuan Keli looked at each other, and finally Yuan Keli persuaded: "Your Majesty, there is no need to risk the arrow stone to lead the troops, you only need to send an important minister to supervise the division." From the minister's point of view, it can be supervised by Lord Hong. ”

"The minister is willing to serve, Your Majesty is at ease in Nanjing, and the minister will definitely be able to plow the court and sweep the holes and annihilate the rebels in one fell swoop!" Hong Chengchou also hurriedly assured.

Whether it is Yuan Keli or Hong Chengchou, they don't want Zhu Youzhen to drive the expedition in person, worrying that there will be danger is only one aspect, and they are even more worried that Zhu Youzhen will command indiscriminately and even defeat the army. The rebels have a lot of troops, their strength is not bad, and they have a strong city to defend, once Zhu Youzhen commands indiscriminately, maybe there will be chaos.

Zhu Youzhen glanced at the two of them, knowing what they were worried about, and he didn't care.

"In the midst of an army of 200,000, what danger will I have? I knew that it was not possible to fight, so Hong Aiqing was by my side to assist me, Yuan Aiqing was the quartermaster, responsible for the supply of food and materials, Hong Aiqing was the supervisor, responsible for the actual military affairs, and I was only responsible for boosting morale. Zhu Youzhen said with a smile.

Yuan Keli and Hong Chengchou glanced at each other and nodded slightly. Indeed, if the emperor personally led the troops to march in person, the morale of the army would inevitably be high. The soldiers will inevitably fight bravely to kill the enemy, because they know that the emperor can see the merits of their achievements. Therefore, the morale improvement of the royal driving campaign is still very obvious. But there is a premise, Zhu Youzhen wants to be a man of his word, and he really does not interfere in military affairs indiscriminately.

"Your Majesty, Jiangdong and Jiangnan have been initially decided, local affairs are complicated, and many things need to be decided by Your Majesty. Hong Chengchou made a final effort to persuade.

"Aiqing, don't persuade me, I've made up my mind!" Zhu Youzhen waved his hand. The reason why he drove the expedition in person was not because he was not worried about Hong Chengchou's ability, but because he wanted to be as close to the army as possible and close to the generals in the army.

The more than 200,000 troops are all elite of the Praetorian Guard, and almost all the elite troops owned by Zhu Youzhen can be imagined.

Zhu Youzhen wants to ensure that this army is absolutely in his own hands and absolutely loyal to him.

Even if he does not command the battle, he can often meet with generals at all levels, and then gain the heart of the army and completely control the army. At present, Zhu Youzhen has long fully realized that the army is the foundation of everything. As long as there are soldiers and food, there is nothing to fear.

You can observe the generals up close, so you can know which ones can stand alone and which ones are available. Even if Jiangxi and Huguang are pacified, there will be countless battles to be fought in the future. As for who to use, Zhu Youzhen must know in his heart.