Wuchang.

Since the Xinghan army rebelled and captured Wuchang, the most ferocious person who shouted for the expulsion of the Tartars and the restoration of China was actually a demoted official.

This person is the Yichang Xuezheng Wang Ang, who was the first to surrender to the Xinghan army.

Since the surrender of the Han army, Wang Ang has often talked about righteousness and orthodoxy.

He believed that since the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, he slaughtered my bare-handed people, changed my clothes, cut off my civilization, and made our Chinese clan become slaves and ignorant people, so it is necessary to fundamentally overthrow the policy of the Qing court, so as to awaken the vast number of ignorant people to rise up and jointly overthrow the Qing court.

Because Wang Ang was the first Qing court official to surrender on his own initiative, he was appointed by Gu Shidao, the commander of the Xinghan Army, as the political envoy of Hubei.

It may also mean the bones of a thousand golden horses.

After Wang Ang took office, he immediately mobilized the people in Hubei to cut their braids and grow their hair, and also implemented Hanfu and Han crowns, so as to mark the legitimacy of the Xinghan regime.

To this end, Hubei Buzheng Yamen promulgated the "Han People's Crown Clothing System" and "Han People's Crown Clothing Map", requiring officials at all levels to take the initiative to take the lead in wearing Han official clothing, and restore the former Han etiquette, abandon many bad habits imposed by the Qing court on the Han people one by one, and burn a large number of historical materials compiled by the Qing Dynasty.

For this reason, some people went crazy, and even the Qing court's textbook "Disciple Rules" for children everywhere was banned, and "Kangxi Dictionary" was also renamed "Hongwu Dictionary".

It is also stipulated that whenever the words of the Qing court appear in the official documents of the yamen at all levels, they will be replaced by "Tartar" and "Hulu", which is completely opposite to the Qing court's literary prison.

However, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty occupied China for a hundred years, the common people did not say that they knew Hanfu, that is, they did not even know much about the former Ming, so although the Xinghan Army itself was a remnant organization of the Ming Dynasty and preserved the Han people's clothing and civilization during the Ming Dynasty, due to the demonization and propaganda of the "traitors" of the Qing court, most of the people in Hubei were suspicious and resistant, except for a few community elements and speculators who were close to the Xinghan Army.

At the same time, because there has been no war in Hubei for decades, although the officials are corrupt, the people can still have food and clothing, so there is no motivation to overthrow the Qing court.

Therefore, Wang Ang's new policy of restoring clothing did not cause great resonance among the people, only the streets of Wuchang and other big cities have Hanfu reappearing, and the rest of the places are still worn in the past.

On the contrary, the forced cutting of braids and hair growth has achieved a lot of results.

In order to let the people take the initiative to cut their braids, Wang Ang actually issued a strict order and ordered people to post notices in various places, saying, "The captives are full of thieves, Yi Wu is crowned, and the system of forcibly braiding hair is obeyed by the fishy customs." … Now the general trend of the Qing court has gone, and the restoration of the Han Dynasty is about to succeed.

Anyone who does not remove the braid shall be cut off for twenty days on the day of the order, and those who do not comply with it shall be punished with the Manchurian Tartars. ”

It's just that the notice was posted, and the effect was not very good.

The reason is that the people think that if the parents of the body are exposed to the skin, if they cut the braids now, it is unfilial to the parents.

In addition, many people think that although it is ugly with braids, if you cut off your braids, you will become a big bald head, which will look even uglier.

Of course, the most important reason is that the Qing court ruled for a hundred years, and the braid was deeply ingrained in the minds of the people, believing that there has been a braid inheritance since the beginning of human beings, and if it is cut off now, it will destroy the ancestral inheritance.

In addition, some squires who were not optimistic about the Xinghan army secretly spread rumors, saying that if the Qing soldiers came back after cutting their braids, they would all be beheaded, and the result was that only a handful of people responded to the braids.

In response to this situation, Wang Ang initially adopted a method of inducement, that is, free meals were set up at the traffic arteries and city gate checkpoints in various places, and as long as the people were willing to cut their braids, they could enjoy free meals with the braids, and they could also receive three cents.

This method has a certain effect, many poor people really cut their braids for this free meal, but many people cry while eating, and when they leave, they have to take their braids back, saying that even if they die in the future, they can also let their relatives put it in when they are buried.

After the information about braiding was fed back to Wuchang, Wang Ang immediately knew that it was not enough to lure me, so he asked the army to assist in forcibly cutting braids.

"It has been more than a few months since the restoration of Guangguang in the lake, and the braids have not been removed, and the people still have hesitation and hesitation, and the ugliness of the thieves still exists, and the prestige of our Han people is damaged."

Gu Shidao, the commander of the Xinghan Army, immediately ordered all departments to cooperate with local braids to cut braids, and with the intervention of the army, all localities began to cut braids on a large scale.

After all, compared to life, braids are not too important.

However, although many local gentry were forced to cut their braids and grow their hair, they still cursed the Xinghan army with "long hair", saying that "long hair" would not last long.

However, as the power of the Xinghan army became more and more powerful, and even the general Dingxi of the Qing Dynasty was killed, the attitude of the gentry was obviously somewhat relaxed.

When many people talk about "long hair" in private, they no longer attack as viciously as they did at the beginning, but will sigh a few words, saying that in the past, my Han people were not all long hair?

In order to gain merit and gain a firm foothold in the Xinghan army, he suggested that the high-level leaders of the Xinghan army go to Xianling to worship to show that the Xinghan military regime was the successor of the Ming Dynasty and was the orthodoxy of China.

Xianling is the mausoleum of Zhu Youqi, the biological father of Emperor Jiajing of the former Ming Dynasty, at the beginning of the prince's regulation buried in Songlin Mountain, Jiajing was restructured and upgraded, the mountain is called "Chunde Mountain", the mausoleum is called "Xianling", and the temple number is Ruizong Xian Emperor.

It is also the only Ming Emperor's Mausoleum except for the two capitals.

This visit is the first time in a hundred years that the remnants of the Ming Dynasty have paid homage to the tomb of the former Ming Emperor, so they attach great importance to it.

Wang Ang wrote the "Sacrifice to the Obvious Tomb" in the name of Gu Shidao, writing: "...... The Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the middle of Xia, and I helped the husbands and brothers, and they were stacked on top of each other, as for more than a hundred years..."

The article refers to the 100-year period of the Qing court's rule as the era of the fall of the Chinese state, which is intended to warn the world that the Han people will return to power and restore China, just as Zhu Yuanzhang destroyed the Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Huizu, the governor of Qinghuguang, also put forward a series of suggestions after his surrender.

First of all, it was proposed to reorganize the army, reorganize the Xinghan Army, which had originally formed battalions into the main force of the 12th Army, and at the same time propose to sort out the finances and strengthen the army and raise troops to prepare for the Northern Expedition.

The financial problem is the biggest problem for the Xinghan army at present.

Originally, the main force of the Xinghan army was less than 4,000 people, and the conquest was mainly captured, but now it has expanded to more than 100,000, and it has three provinces.

In addition, due to the war, business has been blocked, residents have been trapped, and the market has been depressed, so once the external pressure is too great, the environment is very easy to collapse from the inside.

As Chen Huizu said: "If money and grain are not handled well, the soldiers will become thieves, and the people will rise up and become bandits." ”

In the past, Gu Shidao only led the remnants of the people to resist the Qing Dynasty in Jinchuan, and he was only a county magistrate in terms of territory, and he was only a general in terms of soldiers.

Therefore, for Chen Huizu, who had been the governor of Huguang, Gu Shidao treated him very politely, and still ordered Chen Huizu to be the governor of Huguang, and he took another official to Hunan Governor Ba Yansan as the Yangtze River strategy.

That is, Chen Huizu helped the Xinghan army establish political power and carry out actual local governance;

With Bayan San as the Xinghan army, the Han army attacked the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

After Chen Huizu took office, he tried every means to provide generous money and food to the officers and men of Xinghan to ensure the morale of the army, and at the same time carried out drastic reforms in view of the past maladministration, that is, to reduce local expenditures on a large scale and eliminate local useless people.

At the same time, a similar fund-raising unit was set up in Wuchang, called the "Funding Bureau".

The method of raising funds is to send people to investigate, solicit donations from door to door, identify the amount, and fill out the donation book.

Large and small merchants, local gentry, and wealthy households in Huguang are among the subsidized households.

The focus is on those Zhishi officials who have been great officials in the Qing Dynasty.

For example, Guo, the former waiter of the Criminal Department, was personally persuaded by Chen Huizu to donate, and in the face of Chen Huizu's intimidation of extermination, Guo had no choice but to donate 300,000 taels.

However, there are many people who take the initiative to donate money to the Xinghan Army.

Liu, a native of Jingzhou who had been Su Songdao, took the initiative to donate 100,000 taels of silver to the Xinghan Army, and said to Chen Huizu that if the Xinghan Army did not harass the people and persecuted the retired officials in Huguang, he could also come forward to persuade donations.

And persuaded the Xinghan army not to torture the gentry like Li Zicheng did back then, in that case, the revival of the Han dynasty may be short-lived.

This Liu Mou is a little sincere in his desire to restore the Han family, but due to various reasons, he is inconvenient and does not dare to surrender openly like Chen Huizu.

Chen Huizu was not difficult for Liu, agreed to his request, and repeatedly asked the Xinghan army stationed in Jingzhou not to disturb the gentry.

So under Liu's campaign, the retired Qing court officials and local gentry in Jingzhou donated a total of 1.58 million taels of silver, 10,000 stone of grain, and more than 10,000 pieces of cotton clothes for the Xinghan army.

In addition to persuasion, Chen Huizu rebuilt the yamen at the prefecture, prefecture, and county levels, and also persuaded many Qing Dynasty officials who avoided disasters to come out as officials.

Other money and grain will be levied as usual, soil plaster will be donated as usual, taxes and salt taxes will be levied as usual, and all public funds and public property will be inventoried and used at any time.

All kinds of policies and the powerful means of the Xinghan Army really sorted out the financial problems of the Xinghan Army in half a year, although the money and food support everywhere should still be insufficient, but it was enough to support the needs of the war.

Gu Shidao, the commander of the Dexing Han Army, looked at Chen Huizu with admiration and said: "Dehuizu is alone, like half of the wall." ”

While solving the problem of money and food, Chen Huizu also vigorously admonished the rectification of military discipline.

Due to the rapid expansion of the Xinghan army in the previous period, the composition of the personnel was complicated, and a large number of soldiers were scattered and brave, and the ruffians and hooligans were filled with it, so in addition to the elite core, the military discipline of the rest of the departments was worrying, and there were often vicious incidents such as mutiny and robbery among the soldiers, which caused the people's dissatisfaction with the Xinghan army.

For example, when more than 400 soldiers of the Huangzhou Green Battalion surrendered were named in the school field, the soldiers actually demanded military salaries, and the Huangzhou governor appointed by Wuchang did not agree to the unreasonable request of surrendering the troops, so the troops mutinied and robbed, and after the count, after the rebellion, Huangzhou lost as much as more than 300,000 taels.

On the fourth day after the mutiny, it was suppressed by the Xinghan army, and dozens of people led by him were brought to justice.

In fact, the problem of military discipline has appeared as early as when the Xinghan army captured Jingzhou, when the main force of the Xinghan army entered the city, in a hurry, only paid attention to the eight banners of the city, and did not have time to care, as a result, the thousands of new recruits took the opportunity to rob in the outer city, and the unemployed vagrants in the city also took advantage of the fire to rob, resulting in the outer city has not been quiet for two days.

Most of the shops were robbed, and the one with the greatest loss was robbed of more than 70,000 taels of cash on the same day.

There were many new recruits who were added in the follow-up, but the order was not in order, the soldiers did not need orders, the discipline was poor, and it was difficult to command.

After all, time is limited, and even if the Xinghan Army is aware of the problem of military discipline and has taken a lot of targeted measures, it is still difficult to integrate and improve more than 100,000 troops in a short period of time.

It is not easy to achieve the current situation.

In terms of troops, the main force of the Xinghan army of more than 100,000 is not inferior to the Qing army, so as long as it can continue to create victories, all kinds of internal deficiencies will not affect the overall situation.

The trend of the situation was indeed as Chen Huizu expected, the Qing army was defeated and retreated, and it took no effort for Jiangxi Province to gain it.

Under the pressure of the Xinghan army, the Qing army of Anhui and Jiangsu in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River was transferred to Anqing, and it seems that Anqing is difficult to gnaw down, but as long as the Xinghan army can conquer Anqing at any cost, it will be a matter of time before Anhui and Jiangsu change.

With the support of money and grain in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it is not a fool's dream to restore the prosperity of the Hongwu Northern Expedition.

Therefore, Chen Huizu advised the upstream to focus on defense, concentrating money and grain resources and elite troops to attack the downstream.

In addition, it was constantly suggested that the title of the Han army should be changed, and the Ming army should be officially used as the name, and the descendants of Zhu Ming should be supported as emperors as soon as possible, completely overpowering the Manchu Qing in the general trend.

Gu Shidao and his nephew Gu Mingyuan and other high-ranking members of the Xinghan army agreed to the strategic plan of attacking the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and were ready to transfer two more armies from Hubei to participate in the Battle of Anqing, but Gu Shidao and his nephew Gu Mingyuan disagreed on whether to immediately support Zhu Ming's descendants as emperor.

Gu Shidao regarded himself as a remnant of the Ming Dynasty, and he was willing to restore the Ming Dynasty and become a famous minister like Xu Da and Chang Yuchun.

Gu Mingyuan did not agree to support Zhu Ming's descendants as emperors, saying that it was impossible to determine whether the Zhu Ming descendants Chen Huizu found were true or false, and Yu Daming's restoration of the country had no merit, how could such a person be allowed to be the emperor.

Many other generals of the Xinghan Army also did not agree to support Zhu Shaogong as the emperor, and Lu Yuanguang, the commander of the First Army, thought that if he had to ascend the throne and be called the emperor, the country name could be the Ming Dynasty, but the emperor may not be surnamed Zhu.

The implication of the words is to take care of Zhu Ming in the Ming Dynasty.

If Gu Ming Dynasty Zhu Ming and Gu Shidao have no children, the crown prince must be his nephew Gu Mingyuan.

Even if Gu Mingyuan had no ambition to be an emperor, facing the throne of the Son of Heaven at his fingertips, he couldn't help but have some reverie in his heart.

Gu Shidao thought about it again and again, temporarily put aside the dispute over whether to support Zhu Ming's descendants as emperors, and only asked people to treat that Zhu Shaogong well, and convened the army to say that it was his long-cherished wish to restore the Ming Dynasty, and he only needed to conquer Nanjing to worship Xiaoling and officially restore the country.

This is also a prudent and prudent method, at least for the time being, we can unite the Xinghan army and make the Xinghan army concentrate on forging ahead.

It's just that when Gu Mingyuan planned to transfer two armies to join the downstream battlefield, the Qing army made a big move.

Prince Heshuorui Aixinjue Luo Shikai was named the king of generals by Qianlong, and led tens of thousands of children of the Eight Banners of the Beijing Battalion to Huguang in the south.

At first, no one knew which temple this Aixin Jueluo Shikai was, but when the follow-up information came out, this Aixin Jueluo was actually Jia Jia Shikai, and the Xinghan Army knew that this person was fine, whether they liked it or disliked it, they were silent.

"This turtle son, how did you mix it up?"

Lu Yuanguang pondered for a long time, but he didn't figure out the reason, but his mind always flashed with the Eight Banners disciple who pointed at his face, looked cheap, and tied a white cloth strip on his right arm.

"There are not many people in the Qing army who are as timid as a mouse like me, greedy for life and afraid of death, right?"

"If the court reuses me, it will be good for you, won't it?"

“......”

And while he was pondering, the messenger of the boy came, and he wanted to talk with them.

"Talk about him as a bird!"

Lu Yuanguang didn't agree with Gu Mingyuan talking to that kid, because he felt that kid was a waste at all, and he could beat him ten by himself.

In order to prevent Gu Shuai from agreeing to talk to this kid, Lu Yuanguang even persuaded Gu Mingyuan not to report the matter.

After all, that kid is Gu Shuai's son-in-law.

In order to convince Gu Mingyuan that Jia Jia Shikai was a big parallel import, he was here to give away his head at all, and Lu Yuanguang told everything he knew.

After that, the two armies that were originally going to be transferred downstream were also transferred, and they were ready to fight to the death with the Qing army under the command of Gu Mingyuan.

But the news that his son-in-law led troops to Huguang was still known to Gu Shidao, but Gu Shidao just sighed and did not ask his nephew why he hid it from him, but let his nephew take full command of the battle with the Qing army.

What the Xinghan army didn't expect was that the Qing army did not make any major moves after that, and it seemed that it was preparing to attack Wuchang after the New Year.

When the news that Zhong Xiang was lost and Qiu Ba, the commander of the Third Army, was killed by his subordinates in a rebellion reached Wuchang, the Xinghan army was shaken.

Soon, there was news that the defenders in many places were rebelled by the Qing army.

Chen Huizu, who was well aware of the horror of the Silver Bullet Offensive, proposed to Gu Shuai to send someone to assassinate Prince Rui, believing that as long as Prince Rui died, the Qing army would be leaderless.

He pointed out that the soldiers of the Xinghan Army were already complicated, and more than half of them were surrendered troops from the Qing army and local villagers, and these people were not firm in their will to resist the Qing Dynasty and were very easy to be bought.

If only a few generals are bribed in the past, it may not have a big impact on the overall situation, but if they are surrendered in pieces, even if it is only a local second-line army, it will shake the ruling foundation of the Xinghan army.

In addition, there were a large number of Qing troops in the Xinghan army, and if these troops were bought by the Qing army, the great cause of expelling the Tartars and restoring China would be in vain.

But the finances of the Xing Han army cannot be compared with the Qing court at all, so it is impossible for the Qing army to pay 100 taels, and they to pay 200 taels, using money against money.

Either a large-scale offensive is immediately organized, or the thief captures the king first.

It is possible to organize a large-scale offensive, but no one knows how many troops will be bought by the Qing army, and if some troops mutini and make chaos during the movement, I am afraid that there will not even be a chance to clean up.

Therefore, only the thief must capture the king first.

Get rid of that Prince Rui, and the Qing army will collapse without a fight.

However, this suggestion was not agreed by Gu Shuai, and even Gu Shuai had obvious displeasure on his face.

This made Chen Huizu very puzzled, and then looked at Lu Junshuai's face was also very awkward, and his heart was even more confused.

"That Jia Jia Shikai... It's my brother-in-law who has always taken good care of us in the past, and we are where we are today thanks to my brother-in-law. ”

Gu Mingyuan's face was very strange when he said this, but he didn't deny the facts.

Without this brother-in-law, they might have died for the Ming Dynasty in Xiaojinchuan.

"Huh?"

Chen Huizu was stunned, if this is the case, then the question is, who is the thief?

It can't be him Chen Huizu.

He's a traitor.