After thinking clearly about these twists and turns and being sure that he could not be used as a pawn for the emperor, Shen Shuren also began to prudently help Liu Guoneng come up with ideas.

His wording was very cautious, and he was also afraid that he would appear to be not loyal enough and be suspected by Liu Guoneng.

Shen Shuren said: "Your Majesty asked us to support Luoyang and save King Fu, this matter is naturally deserved." However, it is also a fact that our troops are small and weak, the rear is unstable, and we are exhausted after the war.

I believe that Yang Ge Lao's side will definitely be trying to find a way in all parties now, and he will not just count on our family. For example, Zuo Liangyu has been standing still before, and after more than a month of bloody battles here, he stayed in Wuchang and didn't do anything! This time, wouldn't Elder Yang Ge let Zuo Liangyu also hurry up to go north from Hanshui?

In addition, we have to rescue Luoyang, after all, it is too risky to go on an expedition of more than 800 miles as a guest army far away from our own defense area, and the situation is not under our control. Even if we do, we don't have the dominance of the global battlefield, and we are likely to be pitted by friendly forces. Therefore, you must be cautious about how to reinforce - the reinforcements will definitely go to reinforce, you can rest assured. ”

Shen Shuren told the story and gave the tone first.

It's not that he's disloyal to the Ming Dynasty, he's just unwilling to fight those battles that he doesn't have absolute autonomy over. If your own success or failure is to be manipulated by your pig teammates, it will be too pitiful.

Fortunately, between the chats just now, he has already thought of some reasonable excuses, which can help himself and Liu Guoneng to fight for a few more days of repair-

A few days ago, when He Yilong was awarded the head, Shen Shuren only wiped out the main force that He Yilong brought with him, and in the past few days, he has only recovered Xinyang County nearby.

But the other counties of Runing Mansion are still in the hands of He Yilong's remnant generals.

If the Shenshu people ignore these county seats, they will continue to go north from the Tongbai Valley Road between Suizhou and Xinyang to reinforce other areas of the Henan battlefield.

Then the remnants of thieves and soldiers in other counties of Runing Prefecture north of Xinyang may harass and destroy his grain route.

This forced the Shen Shu people to divide their forces and energy to open up their own grain routes first.

Therefore, after thinking about it, Shen Shuren explained this reason and said: "...... Therefore, it is okay for us to reinforce, but we must also ensure that the enemy does not cut off the food route, and we must recover the past step by step. ”

Liu Guoneng thought about it, this is indeed the right way to war, and the court can't question it. And with Luoyang's sturdiness, it must be no problem to hold it for another two or three months, right? I have been working so steadily all the way through the past, and I should be able to catch up.

However, Liu Guoneng soon thought that Shen Shuren's remarks had a secret wound. He also had to point out:

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"This is indeed in line with the art of war, but after all, we are an official army, and we are fighting within the jurisdiction of the imperial court. Even if the Runing counties north of Xinyang have not yet been recovered, the Kaifeng Mansion further north is now in the hands of the imperial court.

Even if the grain route is cut off, we, as guest troops, should enjoy the treatment of eating wherever we go and supplying military rations by Kaifeng Prefecture. In this way, I am afraid that the imperial court will urge us not to worry about the grain route, and go north directly, right? ”

Shen Shuren couldn't help nodding secretly when he heard this, it seems that although Liu Guoneng doesn't study, he is still very sensitive to the common sense of officialdom.

Shen Shuren could only see the move, and replied in a tone of discussion: "If Kaifeng Mansion is willing to provide us with military rations, it is naturally the best." But we also have to be cautious about making sure it's possible.

To what extent Henan is so erosive today, General Liu, you also know. Years of natural disasters have worsened food supplies. If we rashly go north with the whole army and take 20,000 soldiers and horses, can Kaifeng Mansion be able to supply it? Won't it be delayed?

General Liu, it's not that I want to remind you of the sad things. In the second year of Chongzhen, Yuan Chonghuan let Huang Taiji enter the customs, and all the armies on the nine sides went to the capital to Qinwang, how many troops couldn't even distribute rations, and some died of hunger? How many soldiers and horses are there because of the time in the second year of Chongzhen, when King Qin did not pay bounties and food, and mutinied thieves? ”

As soon as this question was raised, Liu Guoneng was completely silent, because he himself was the one who did not give food or silver in the second year of Chongzhen, and rebelled with the army. Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others, a considerable part of them were forced out that time.

Daming magistrates, it is too common to give military rations but not give them. Shen Shuren wants to stabilize logistics, and use this excuse to plug the mouth of the Beijing official, saying that he wants to prevent trouble before it happens, even Chongzhen can't find fault with it.

Seeing that Liu Guoneng was silent, Shen Shuren hurriedly struck while the iron was hot and said the last point:

"Even if Kaifeng Mansion can supply us with food and grass, our troops have more firearms. The reason why I was able to win in the previous battles against Liu Xiyao and Erhe was that of course the tactics were proper and the soldiers used their lives, but it was also indispensable to rely on the sharpness of the improved firearms.

Our army's firearms, ammunition and ammunition are still specially made by themselves, as well as Hongyi cannons. The supply of these ammunition must rely on the continuous production and transportation to the front line by the Huangzhou Military Bureau. Therefore, our logistical roads must be held in our own hands in order to ensure combat effectiveness, even if we rely on others for food, we must rely on ourselves for ammunition!

Our army has already been loyal to the country and has fought bravely against the enemy ten times larger, shouldn't the imperial court even meet the requirement of protecting its own ammunition routes? Isn't that going to send us to death? ”

After saying this, Rao is Liu Guoneng is loyal and righteous, and he also realized the necessity of steady and steady.

He didn't feel that Lord Shen had the slightest intention of being afraid to move forward, it was indeed just out of the art of war and to ensure that he would win the battle.

Liu Guoneng was ashamed in his heart, hugged his fist at Shen Shuren, and sincerely admitted: "The adults are thoughtful, but the last general is reckless." How to rescue Henan this time, the last general will still listen to the adults! ”

The two drank three glasses in the end, and the banquet to celebrate the promotion and discuss the dispatch of troops was dispersed. The two tacitly agreed that they had reached a higher-level tacit understanding.

……

Shen Shuren originally planned to go back to farming after He Yilong's promotion, receive and digest the results of the battle, and by the way, officially collect the woman he owed before the battle.

was stirred up by the belated Li Zicheng's siege of Luoyang, and it was inevitable that it would have to be delayed for another month. And in this month, the internal affairs had to be handed over to the civilian officials in the rear to advance step by step.

And his women can only continue to wait in the rear.

In the last few days of late June, Shen Shuren and Liu Guoneng gradually regained the past little by little in the remaining counties of Runing Mansion in accordance with the strategy discussed before.

The main thing is to recover those counties where Runing Province is located south of the Huai River, and the Huaibei side has spent much less energy and resources - Shen Shuren is well aware that it will be impossible for him to gain a firm foothold in the north of Runing Province for a long time to come.

The Huai River is the dividing line between the north and south of China, the Runing Mansion of the Ming Dynasty passes through the Huai, the Huaibei part is equivalent to the Zhumadian of the later generations, and the Huainan part is Xinyang, which is equivalent to the mansion formed by the two prefecture-level cities together in the later generations.

There are many plains in Huaibei, and if the Shenshu people make a big move in farming, they are easy to be feared by the imperial court and are easy to be besieged from all sides. Therefore, for the time being, it is only shrunk in Huainan, which is blocked by the Huai River and backed by the Dabie Mountains, which is very suitable to be the emperor of the soil.

On the other hand, in order not to leave a handle for the imperial court, Shen Shuren's paperwork was also done very well. When he and Liu Guoneng recovered the Huainan counties of Runing Prefecture, they wrote a letter to the officials of Kaifeng Prefecture in advance, questioning them about their work in raising military rations for reinforcements that might arrive at any time.

Henan has been thousands of miles away this year, how can the officials of Kaifeng Mansion get military rations?

Of course, in the letters, he begged for forgiveness, saying that the north was seriously affected by the disaster, and foreign troops should have supplied military rations, but now they can only ask reinforcements from the rich areas in the south to bring their own military rations.

The tone of Kaifeng's prefect's reply was even worse than Li Peiji's words in "1942" begging Jiang Dingwen to forgive military rations.

But Shen Shuren is obviously much more "lenient" than Jiang Dingwen, as soon as he heard that the people of Henan were so bitter that they couldn't get military rations, he didn't rush anymore.

just said that "it is okay to raise military rations by yourself, but because of this, you need more time to open up the grain route and ensure that your back road is not harassed by the remnants of the party scattered in the counties after He Yilong's death."

If this leads to the delay in reinforcing Luoyang, the responsibility will naturally lie on the heads of Gao Mingheng, the prefect of Kaifeng, the king of Luoyang, and the governor of Henan, Li Xianfeng.

In addition, if the rescue of Luoyang through Kaifeng Mansion will disturb the people, the logistics are inconvenient, and it is really necessary to transport grain from the south, then the reinforcements of the Shenshu people do not need to take the eastern route from Kaifeng to Luoyang through Bishui Pass. It is completely possible to take the southern line, first retreat back to the Hanshui coast, take the Nanyang Basin, attack the southern line thief army from Luyang, and then support Luoyang after breaking the encirclement.

The magistrate in Henan was not able to oppose this suggestion.

In the end, the Sinking Tree Man just wanted some documentary evidence. And he wants to prevent himself from going deep alone and being surrounded by Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Ma Shouying.

On the other hand, Yang Sichang was actually in a hurry to look for other reinforcements as early as ten days ago, before the emperor's new decree was issued. He also gave Zuo Liangyu a death order, asking Zuo Liangyu to go north.

Zuo Liangyu also started to move slowly, but he always felt that "I was guarding Huguang, and I was actually transferred to Henan, a thousand-mile expedition, I'm afraid there will be changes", anyway, it was slower than Yuan Shikai's Feng Guozhang out of Wuchang in later generations, and it was just a turtle speed, so he wanted other friendly troops to take the lead and consume Li Zicheng first.

After some tugging, it dragged on until the beginning of July, and an accident happened suddenly, so that Shen Shuren, Liu Guoneng, and Zuo Liangyu didn't have to rescue Luoyang anymore.

The people in Luoyang City, after being besieged several times and besieged for more than half a month, suddenly one day, because the thieves fanned the poor, saying that the Fuwang Mansion had millions or even tens of millions of taels of family wealth, but they only gave the soldiers and people who defended the city to eat chaff and vegetables, and refused to give them their family wealth as rewards.

The morale of the army suddenly collapsed in one day, and a part of the troops took the lead in opening the city gate, leading Li Zicheng's troops to rush into the city, and killed the people of Fuwang's Mansion when they encountered them.

King Fu's family hurriedly tried to prevent the breakout and escape when the city was broken, but King Fu himself was recognized when he went out of the city, tied back to the city, and sent to Li Zicheng because he weighed more than 300 catties, was too obese, and was unable to move and was too conspicuous.

Li Zicheng killed and dismembered King Fu in public, plundered King Fu's family property, and divided a part of the reward soldiers and surrendered to the thieves and soldiers, which was a big momentum for a while.

When the news of King Fu's death came, among the various reinforcements of the official army, the people with the best attitude and the most diligent combat posture were Shen Shuren and Liu Guoneng.

At that time, they were in the Luyang area at the junction of Nanyang Mansion and Henan Prefecture, and they fought "fierce battles" with Ma Shouying's troops, who were responsible for blocking the bandits, and it is said that they also fought several small victories, slightly annihilating thousands of second- and third-line troops of the thieves.

This place in Luyang is located in an important obstacle in the Funiu Mountains, and it has always been rescued from the south and north to Luoyang, and it is basically necessary to take this road. During the Three Kingdoms, Sun Jian's northern expedition to Luoyang to fight against Dong was here to fight fiercely with Hua Xiong, Lu Bu and other thieves.

Shen Shuren and Liu Guoneng had a little fight with Ma Shouying in Luyang, this posture is definitely worthy of Daming, which is equivalent to working as hard as Sun Jian when he was begging Dong.

In contrast, Zuo Liangyu's performance was even worse than Yuan Shu when he was courting Dong, preserving his strength and acting slowly. Not only did he not help, but also because he refused to save Shen Shuren before, which caused Liu Guoneng to be restrained by the butterfly effect and went south, delaying Liu Guoneng to save Luoyang!

A few days later, the news of the destruction of Luoyang City and the killing of his uncle reached the capital, and Chongzhen had to pretend to drop out of sadness out of filial piety. A reckoning of merits and demerits is obviously inevitable.