After dawn, as the battle ended, Shen Shuren personally rode his horse into Changsha City, which had just been burned by fire.

After seeing the tragic situation in front of him, he was also rarely angry.

These people who slaughtered the people were so brutal that they had to set fire to the follow-up food of the officials and soldiers when they lost the city, and to create more killing and chaos.

In the face of this new sudden viciousness, the Shen Shuren were also forced to adjust the captive policy again.

For those troops who stayed in the city last night, of course, all the soldiers could be pardoned and not killed, but they were only assigned to the hard labor battalion and the death battalion, but the officers were still all killed.

For those troops who take the initiative to open the door to respond, even the officers can not be killed, as long as the officers' higher superiors are killed and their heads are sacrificed to atone for their sins. And ordinary soldiers can avoid entering the death camp, as long as they serve a year of hard labor.

As for those who follow Liu Jinzhong and set fire to the city when the city is broken, then the whole army will be beheaded! From officers to soldiers, no one is left!

At noon that day, Zhu Wenzhen took more than 2,000 prisoners who robbed and killed people who tasted the sweetness and followed Liu Jinzhong to the entrance of the vegetable market in Changsha City.

In front of the small number of Changsha people who survived, they clearly stated their crime of setting fire to create chaos last night, and then lined up more than 2,000 people to behead them, leaving no one behind, piling up their heads for Jingguan, and sprinkling lime to prevent the plague as a warning.

The blood dripping from the heads of more than 2,000 people suddenly overflowed the crossroads, and there was not a single place on the ground within a diameter of at least fifty zhang that was not blood-red.

When the rest of the captives saw this scene, they were all frightened, but fortunately, the Shenshu people quickly announced rewards and punishments at all levels, and did not kill more ordinary soldiers, which quickly calmed people's hearts again.

"This Shen Futai is really ruthless, much more ruthless than Chen Futai and Supervisor Xiong encountered in Shaanxi and Xiangyang!"

Some of the thieves who had gone through the period of Chen Qiyu and Xiong Wencan only felt a chill in the back of their necks, and at the same time they were glad that they had killed Shangguan last night to surrender, otherwise they would have been unable to escape death at this moment.

Because they have an absolute superiority in troops, Shen Shuren is not afraid of these troops to make trouble again. Under the pretext of killing people and justifiable reasons, they directly reorganized the surrendered troops with the power of thunder, and put them into custody and reform by the officers and soldiers as soon as possible, so as to clean up the residual poison of the indiscriminate killing and looting of the rogue troops.

……

Because of the severe damage to Changsha City, Shen Shuren estimated that he would be held back for several more days in order to reestablish order, pacify the people, and confirm his rights and responsibilities.

Seeing Zhang Xianzhong getting more and more out of control, Shen Shuren was also deeply worried, and he was afraid of "when will this kind of pursuit come to an end" for the first time.

For being able to chase Zhang Xianzhong all the way and let Zhang Xianzhong help him do the things he can't do, Shen Shuren is actually willing in his heart.

If Zhang Xianzhong only kills the local tyrants and inferior gentry, vassal kings and nobles, even if he smashes some wealth, Shen Shuren will endure it.

But the problem now is that Zhang Xianzhong seems to realize that "he will never be able to gain a foothold in the Huguang area, and everything here is not worth nostalgia". Therefore, in Zhang Xianzhong's eyes, only the softness that is taken away is something that needs to be cherished.

Even the source of soldiers, people's hearts, and even the miscellaneous army were not taken seriously by Zhang Xianzhong - although Zhang Xianzhong never said it explicitly, Shen Shuren could observe this.

This kind of dog jumping over the wall mentality to do sabotage, the lethality is very huge. For example, a fire burned down several percent of the urban area of Changsha City, and the poor peasants slaughtered them frantically without distinguishing between them, and the damage to the social productive forces was too serious.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a population explosion, and there was no shortage of people, even if a few percent were killed, the remaining population was still enough to farm. But Zhang Xianzhong burned the city and material wealth at every turn, and it was difficult to resume production quickly.

It's destroyed if you don't get it! I won't leave it to the people of Shenshu! The destruction of this twister is too great!

You can't keep chasing it like this! At least we can't let him escape in Huguang anymore! Must be forced!

Either kill him at once, or if you can't kill him, you must be forced out of Huguang immediately!

In short, the key is "immediately"! Can't be delayed!

The idea was quickly clear, but the next step, how to implement it, Shen Shuren fell into a thousand troubles again.

There is still a lack of Zhang Liang and Zhuge Liang-type staff and wise generals around him.

Although there are several staff members, they are all literary scholars or domestic affairs talents. In terms of military generals, he has no shortage of people who directly lead the troops, but the conspiracy and tricks are completely on his own.

"Alas, that's it, I can't think of it, I can't think of it, let's deal with the aftermath of internal affairs first, and think about it slowly." After not coming up with a result for a long time, Shen Shuren had to temporarily accept his fate, do some simple work to change his brain, and strive to have a flash of inspiration.

"The Great Age of Genes"

Then he plunged headlong into the post-war restoration of order in Changsha City.

……

The whole day's internal affairs pacification work was soon over, and Shen Shuren almost toured all parts of Changsha City to understand the difficulties in various places, post-war losses, and sequelae, and made on-site office disposals.

He also roughly counted the list of dead feudal officials, huge rich gentry, and figured out how many granges around Changsha would become borderless.

At the same time, we also tried to collect the ledger of the lease contracts of these deceased gentry, so as to confirm to whom the land was leased before the war, and if the tenant farmers were still alive, it was directly recognized that the land without ownership was directly allocated to the original tenants, as long as the national tax was directly paid to the state.

It wasn't until it was completely dark that Shen Shu returned to the yamen of the Changsha prefect, ready to rest and discuss military aircraft tomorrow.

However, Zhang Xianzhong was destined not to let him stop, and that night, Zhu Wenzhen, the general in charge of the cavalry, came to see him late at night and had an urgent military situation to report.

Shen Shuren was destined to sleep well for another night, put on his clothes and listened to the report in casual clothes, Zhu Wenzhen did not contain the lake, and said directly to the point:

"Lord Futai! The last general sent scouts to the south to search today, and captured a few defeated soldiers who fled here to avoid the war through Hengshan Guard, saying that Zhang Xianzhong had broken Hengzhou City! The officials and vassal kings of Hengzhou are afraid that they have also been poisoned! ”

Shen Shuren only felt that his head was slightly "buzzing", and his breathing was heavy and bored for a while.

It's not that he's afraid of the death of the vassal king, in fact, he also thinks that there are too many vassal kings in the Ming Dynasty and it's too much of a hindrance, but if Zhang Xianzhong continues to toss like this, Shen Shuren is afraid that he won't be able to cover the lid and won't be able to stabilize local power in Chongzhen's last year and a half of life.

He scratched his hair in annoyance: "How can our army recover a city, at least it will take five or six days, seven or eight days, and Zhang Xianzhong will only break the city for three or four days at most!" We attacked the city that was broken by Zhang Xianzhong once! It is said that the city defense should be more dilapidated! ”

Zhu Wenzhen was also a little depressed when he heard this complaint, which was not his fault, but fortunately, before he came to report, he had already asked more carefully, so he immediately played it in detail:

"I heard that it was He Yide, the chief soldier of Hengzhou, who was forced by His Royal Highness King Gui to send troops out of the city to fight in the field to cover the breakthrough of the people in King Gui's mansion when the city was just besieged.

He Yide was already short of troops, and he was forced by this, afraid of being convicted, and among the troops who fought with him, there were troops of Yin Xianmin, the general soldier of Changsha, who surrendered to thieves, and the two sides were already familiar, so they wavered in front of the battle and surrendered directly to Zhang Xianzhong. ”

Shen Shu was so angry that he slammed the teacup on the ground: "The old army of the guard station in the south of Huguang is too erosive!" I don't even think they're ashamed to live in the world! A rotten one can pull out a string of rotten ones! The total soldier surrenders and can also cast a chain! This place hasn't been at war for too many years, alas......"

Zhu Wenzhen also smiled bitterly: "This is already the case, please ask Lord Futai to decide, what should our army do next?" ”

Shen Shuren also smiled helplessly: "What else can I do?" Repair and settle the people in Changsha City for three days, and then march south! Anyway, this is already the case, if you want to hurry, you can't reach it, and if our army chases too fast, it will be easy to get tired and give the enemy a chance to take advantage of.

Fortunately, south of Hengzhou, there is nothing worth Zhang Xianzhong deliberately killing and robbing the vassal king. Now that Hengshan Tianbao is also in his hands, he shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to run. In the past few days, I have to think of a plan so that Zhang Xianzhong no longer wants to harm Huguang, but to make a break as soon as possible. ”