Shen Shuren inspected every day, rectified internal affairs, and worked hard.

The last period of April quickly passed in a busy way. There are also many newly discovered problems, all of which are encountered and solved, and they are disassembled one by one to come up with solutions.

The governor personally assigned the task, and the people below did not dare to slack off, and several measures for good governance reform began to be initially implemented in just half a month.

The production of double-barreled breech-loading trolls and revolver trolls pistols, after further run-in optimization, continues at full speed.

At the same time, Daye Iron Yard also set aside a few people to make a batch of training guns that look the same as the rear-loading double-barreled spray, but are still front-loaded, and they don't need a lot, about dozens of them, which are enough for training.

Anyway, when it comes to training musket weapons, the utilization rate is still relatively low, and even if there are only 60 training guns and 20 people sharing one for 1,200 soldiers with new muskets, it is not a big problem. Anyway, an average of a few hundred shots are fired every day, and each person can get dozens of shots to fire.

The Shen family army originally had a certain number of cavalry, and when the thieves of the fifth battalion of Gezuo were eliminated before, at least hundreds of war horses were captured for each one destroyed. In addition, the troops withdrawn from Liaodong this time also had a small number of cavalry and war horses remaining, so it was completely stressful for Shen Shuren to reorganize a pure cavalry force of 2,000 people.

There are also about a thousand more horses for scouts and officers at all levels.

Therefore, after the inspection that day, as soon as the training gun was in hand, hundreds of people were assigned to take turns to hunt in the wild every day to practice waist shooting, which not only reduced the pressure of the army to raise horses in captivity, but also trained the team, and could also adapt to the subsequent raids in the mountainous and hilly areas to a certain extent.

And because of the increase in musket live-ammunition training, the supply of steel on the side of Daye Camp is still sufficient, after all, Daye Iron Mountain has been expanding production in the past few months, and it is operating very well under the management of Shen Shuren and the Song family's uncles and nephews.

However, the supply of gunpowder is a bit tight, and the people of Shen Shu have steadily expanded the production capacity of the black powder workshop in the past two years, but the supply of raw materials has always been the old method and old channel, and the people of Shen Shu have not personally supervised and optimized.

This time, the gap was finally discovered, and Shen Shuren had to ask in person, and everyone thought about it together.

In the end, it was unanimously felt that the high-end and refined gunpowder production capacity should still be completely in the hands of the government. However, with the increase in demand and production of gunpowder, coupled with the low-end gunpowder, thieves and Tartars are now actually made.

After all, it was the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the gunpowder thing was still a bit secret in the Southern Song Dynasty or the early Ming Dynasty, but by the end of the Ming Dynasty, all forces would actually make it, and there was no technical secrecy at all.

Therefore, Shen Shuren waved his pen and allowed low-end gunpowder to be operated by the people, but it was necessary to accept the control of the government and obtain the authorization license of the governor's yamen, and then the businessmen could contract and organize the production by themselves.

In this way, the ship is small and flexible, and the production links without confidentiality and monopoly are put to private capital, and the production efficiency will definitely be improved.

At the same time, among the main raw materials needed for gunpowder, charcoal is impossible to control, it is available anywhere, not to mention that charcoal cannot be controlled, even if it is the coke used in Song Yingxing's new blast furnace ironmaking, it cannot be monopolized, and there are too many supplies.

So the materials that can be controlled, that is, saltpeter and sulfur.

The supply of saltpeter was once relatively tight, and the Shenshu people remembered that other traversers also used the toilet soil scraping method, that is, scraping off the earthen toilet wall and the crystals like the white hairs that often appear, and that thing contained a considerable proportion of nitrate.

Sulfur was the easiest to control, and the largest source of sulfur supply in East Asia at that time was the country.

Shen Shuren has now pulled Zheng Chenggong under his command to be the Taishou of Jiujiang, of course, he wants to let the Zheng family have some blood to curry favor with the eldest son's eldest brother and top boss.

Therefore, Shen Shuren just approved a note, and Zheng Chenggong obediently offered hundreds of large sea ships of sulfur at a reasonable price every year. Only collect the purchase price of the capital, plus the cost of basic freight, that is, the supply consumption and sailor money, not counting the profits, and even the depreciation of the sea ship is confiscated, in fact, the Zheng family still loses a little money, but it is not much, and it can be afforded.

In addition to army training, equipment and consumables production and supply, the Shen family army has not been idle in other logistics construction.

After further optimization and testing, the various new types of military rations that have just been developed have also been selected to step up production and hoarding. In this way, when fighting in the mountainous areas in the future, we can carry more military rations with the army, reduce the pressure on the logistics grain route, and facilitate long-distance surprise attacks and rushing attacks.

After all, Zhang Xianzhong's current territory is a vast and sparsely populated place, and the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River is nearly 1,000 miles long. "Between the white emperor and the clouds, thousands of miles of Jiangling will be returned in one day", if the transportation of military rations is slow, the rapid sneak attack of the large army will not be realized.

……

The time soon came to early May, and the propaganda war and smoke bombs arranged by Shen Shuren before finally reached the time to quickly close the net and take effect.

Around the beginning of May, Fang Ziling and Bian Yujing, who created the same works based on Shen Shuren's "The Continuation of the Thief", had already infiltrated into the Henan region and began to perform among the people.

After about ten days of fermentation, around the tenth day of the first month of May, these discordant voices finally reached Li Zicheng's ears.

And it has to be said that the wisdom of the masses of the people is endless.

Especially in the process of spreading rumors and jokes, there will naturally be the most vigorously deformed and the most tenacious version of the transmission, winning in the natural selection of natural laws.

After all, the more thrilling and curious the jokes, the easier it is to be remembered and impressed by the listener, and then cause retweets.

So, when it reached Li Zicheng's ears, he was immediately angry.

"The reason why Li Zicheng was able to kill Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying in the first place was because he was inspired after reading Governor Shen's "Theory of Thieves", and he shamelessly told Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying's subordinates that he was a eunuch of Tianyu and could not give birth to a son.

In order to prove this, Li Zicheng also took the initiative to disclose it, saying that the reason why his wife Xing followed Gao Jie to He Renlong six years ago was because he couldn't do it! His wife has been a widow for half her life!

So he can only accept the righteous son! In the future, if you win the world, you will pass on the world to your son! Today, if anyone takes Luo Rucai and Ma Shouying's main force to join him, he will accept them as his righteous son, and whoever has more credit in the future will be able to pass on all the status to him! That's why Luo and Ma rebelled! Li Zicheng is copying and answering and punishing dissidents according to Governor Shen's "Theory of Thieves"! ”

These words, of course, could not have been expressed in the form of declarative sentences at first, but were all displayed as plots in operas, at least in the form of folk storytelling, which was very colorful.

In addition to these scenes of "Li Zicheng killing his comrades-in-arms", the other two most popular plays recently are "Yang Ge is eager to go north for reinforcements and seek Li Zicheng's decisive battle." Governor Shen strategized and dissuaded Yang Ge Lao from not being in a hurry."

The image of Shen Shuren in the play directly copied Zhuge Liang's appearance, a lupine scarf, and when Yang Sichang was in a hurry to urge Zuo Liangyu and Liu Guoneng to go north for a decisive battle together, Shen Shuren was very sure that Zhizhu was holding the ground and admonishing:

"The elder doesn't have to worry too much, the thieves seem to have multiplied the army, but in fact, there are many internal factional contradictions, he just relies on the heavenly eunuch to attract more people to work hard, and the newly attached people have different intentions, although they are not afraid.

With the current strength of the thieves, they will continue to wander around, looting and maintaining, and they will never dare to storm the official army and the fortress! The most favorable situation for our army is that he is arrogant, has a hot brain and has no self-knowledge, whether it is attacking Tongguan in the west or Kaifeng in the east, he will inevitably be under the fortification of the city in the end.

We can wait for the thieves to attack for half a year and three months, and the veterans of the division are tired, and then support the attacked fortified city, and then we will definitely be able to hit the thieves under the city at that time! ”

After the first and second two paragraphs that humiliated and despised Li Zicheng were widely spread, they simply made him angry.

At that time, Li Zicheng was stationed in Zhengzhou County, which is in Kaifeng Prefecture, and he immediately ordered to arrest and kill all those who spoke this kind of book and acted in this kind of drama in several counties around Zhengzhou-

In fact, at that time, no one in Zhengzhou County dared to act like this, after all, this was Li Zi's residence, and the people who ate this bowl of rice also knew how to avoid danger, and they would not be mentally retarded enough to deliberately give away people's heads in vain. Therefore, the news in Zhengzhou County is passed on by word of mouth and comes from other places.

Li Zicheng searched and killed, but he didn't find a single storyteller and singer that day, and finally only searched a few gossip gossip soldiers who didn't have the door on their mouths, tied them up and cut them down. In the following days, he searched and killed several other counties in the occupied area of Kaifeng Prefecture, and only then did he catch a few typical cuts.

After the cut, Li Zicheng was still angry, originally he had been busy integrating the team for more than a month after killing Luo and Ma in March, and he did not have a plan to attack the fortifications immediately, but just let the troops have their own food, pick soft persimmons everywhere and pinch people and rob people.

After being humiliated like this, of course he wanted to prove himself, and immediately called his brother-in-law Gao Yigong and nephew Li Guo, and instructed them: "From now on, immediately reorganize the soldiers and horses, gather the whole army in Kaifeng, besiege the city to death for me, and attack it day and night!"

Shen Shuren deceives people too much! How dare you despise me so much, saying that I can't break Kaifeng? I'm going to break it and show him! When the time comes, I will kill the whole family of King Zhou, and I will say that Shen Shuren provoked me to kill him! Let Chongzhen chop off the head of the tree man! ”

Gao Yigong and Li Guo both felt that it was not impossible to storm Kaifeng now, but since the integration of the three armies, the supply of troops has actually become more and more difficult in the past few months-

"The Legend of the Fairy Tree"

Because Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Ma Shouying were originally in a wide range of areas, each of them had their own flows, and the robbed resources of each prefecture only needed to support tens of thousands of people.

Recently, the troops have been concentrated, and they only rely on robbing the people of Kaifeng Mansion to supply military rations, except for Kaifeng City, other places in Kaifeng Mansion have basically been robbed, there is no human population for hundreds of miles, and even the people have been killed for the army to eat people.

Gao Yigong gently persuaded: "The king...... It's right to attack Kaifeng, but 300,000 horses must not be stationed in one place for a long time to besiege it, otherwise what will happen to the military rations? It is necessary to divide the troops to the various provinces and plunder the official warehouses. ”

Li Zicheng patted it: "What there is in Kaifeng City is military rations!" Last year, Luoyang was broken, and just scattering the property of the Fu Wangfu Mansion was enough for the army to eat until the end of the year! Now that you kill King Zhou, you can eat the whole army for several months! Don't raise the morale of the officers and the army!

The current stock of food is enough to eat for a month! Dig some wild vegetables and eat some people, hold on for half a month, and you can't take Kaifeng after a month and a half of attacking day and night? Let's slaughter Kaifeng to establish power! ”

Gao Yigong has nothing to say, he can indeed eat for a few days at present, and he is not easy to persuade hard, if it does not go well after starting the attack, the food is indeed not enough, and then find a way to persuade it slowly.

King Chuang is angry, if the food is not immediately exhausted, he will never listen to the persuasion.

After Gao Yigong retreated, Li Guo thought of a question again, although he didn't read, he was still a little clever in figuring out people's feelings, so he persuaded:

"Father, it's right to attack Kaifeng, but my father expects that after breaking Kaifeng and killing King Zhou, he will blame Shen Shuren for the radical method and let Chongzhen kill him, I'm afraid it will be a little difficult.

This Shen Shuren also has no duty to assist in the defense of Henan, he is just a governor under Yang Sichang, helping to prevent thieves around the Dabie Mountains and Wuchang and Jiujiang, and it is none of his business that Kaifeng is slaughtered.

As for these rumors...... There is no evidence to say that this is what Shen Shuren did, and if he makes trouble in the court of the capital, it must also be a lake account, and it is a little difficult to kill him by this trick. ”

Li Zicheng was stunned for a moment, and then thought about it. The words of these radical generals, if they were written in the text of "The Continuation of the Thief", they were provoked, really went to slaughter Kaifeng, and killed King Zhou, it can be said that Shen Shuren was self-defeating.

But these folk jokes, storytelling, and dramas are about Shen Shuren's affairs? I can't bite him at all.

"No matter! Attack at any cost! Slaughter all the Kaifeng and talk about it! Can you take the opportunity to kill the Sinking Tree Man and then think about it in the long run! It's a big deal to win the victory after slaughtering Kaifeng, and seek an opportunity to force the battle! It would be better if Yang Sichang and Shen Shuren took the initiative to come to the aid during the siege! I have an army of 300,000 people, and I am not afraid of casualties at all! ”

What Li Zicheng is not afraid of now is the dead, because soldiers still have to be given food when they are alive, so it is better to use it as consumables, anyway, as long as there is food, a man can be a soldier if he catches a living man.

Under Li Zicheng's arbitrariness, the war machine of the Chuang Army soon began to operate in a step-by-step manner. In just two days of preparation, the troops continued to advance eastward from Zhengzhou County, arriving in Kaifeng on May 13 and besieging the city.

And Gao Mingheng, the governor of Henan in the Ming Dynasty, did not flinch at all, and according to the successful experience of defending the victory last year, he once again organized troops to strictly defend it, while asking Yang Sichang for help.

At the same time, the king of Zhou, who escaped the catastrophe last year in the city by scattering his wealth, did not dare to spare his property, and once again scattered half of his family wealth to reward the Ming army in the city.

All parties in the world, except for Shen Shuren, no one dared to despise Li Zicheng's offensive this time, and no one dared to be sure that Kaifeng could be defended.