Chongzhen's latest reward to Zhu Shuren was sent from the capital when it was about to expire in mid-March.

The messenger was still the prince who had gone to supervise the army, and the journey would take longer than the previous return to Beijing, and it would take about late April to arrive in Chongqing, which would take more than a month.

The reason why it took a long time is that, on the one hand, this time the decree does not need to be too urgent, and it can be more relaxed.

Second, on the return trip, the 1,500-mile Yangtze River from Jiangling to Chongqing is going upstream, and the speed of the boat will be much slower, and this section of the river alone will have to drive five or six days longer than when it is downstream.

Third, Chongzhen also realized that it was very troublesome to pass the decree into Sichuan once, so he had to get some more things done every time, so he also added an article to his will, so that when the prince went south, he would first pick up the relatives of the Lu Wangfu in Wuchang, as well as Chongzhen's cousin, the little county lord Zhu Yuchan.

Taking advantage of the addition of the governor this time, he directly gave Zhu Shuren a marriage, and ended this errand, saving more trouble in the future.

Wang Gonggong himself did not need to go to Hefei to find King Lu, Chongzhen would naturally ask Wang Chengen to send two other eunuchs to take the Grand Canal and go south on a fast horse and go to Hefei and Nanjing respectively.

On the way to Hefei, it was natural to inform Chongzhen's Uncle Lu Wang, so that everyone in Luwangfu was ready to send the little county lord off in advance.

And the way to Nanjing, of course, was to find Shen Tingyang, the head of the household department in Nanjing-in the Ming Dynasty, when the nobles got married, there was no reason for the woman to send her daughter directly to the door, so where did the woman's face go?

Outsiders don't know, and they think that they can't get married and have to stuff it out.

What's more, Luwangfu is the prince marrying the county lord, if one misses, it will lose the dignity of the royal family, and it must not be negligent.

Therefore, even if it is a wartime military affairs officer, Zhu Shuren can't come to pick up his relatives in person because of the peace thief supervising the war, at least let the Shen family send someone to come forward, and go to Hefei to give gifts and arrange wine and marry.

After Shen Tingyang and King Lu himself handed over, the little county lord also met his in-laws, Shen Tingyang could go back to Nanjing, and then let Xu take his daughter-in-law to Wuchang first, meet with the eunuchs, and then enter Sichuan together, so that he could barely save the face of King Lu's mansion.

In this way, it is not that Luwangfu sent his daughter who had not passed the door to Chongqing to go to the door, but first visited his in-laws, and his mother-in-law took her daughter-in-law to visit her husband.

Finally, in Chongqing, it was just a "husband and wife worship". (In ancient times, marriage worshiped the high hall and only worshiped the man's elders and did not worship the woman, so Zhu Shuren did not have to worship his parents-in-law, and he did not have to go to Hefei, which was also acceptable to Luwangfu)

……

The relevant decree was sent to Nanjing and Hefei respectively on March 25, and it took only seven days to set off from Beijing, which was considered very fast, and the journey was more than 300 miles a day.

The will sent to Nanjing, of course, will not mention the matter of Zhu Shuren's promotion to governor.

After all, one thing is the same thing, Nanjing and Hefei only need to know about the marriage, and the rest has nothing to do with them, and the will of the promotion is directly sent to Chongqing.

Therefore, Shen Tingyang also lost the ecstasy of double happiness, and he couldn't know his son's promotion and his son's marriage in one day.

But this is enough for Shen Tingyang, and it can even be said that Chongzhen arranged it this way, and objectively avoided the risk of Shen Tingyang's high blood pressure attack.

Otherwise, if so much glory was really smashed on his head at once, Shen Tingyang was so excited that it was possible to have the same mental disorder as Fan Jin.

As it is now, even if he has been mentally prepared, after Shen Tingyang received the order, he couldn't help but go back to his house to temporarily place the ancestral ranking (not a formal ancestral hall, the official ancestral hall is in Taicang, Suzhou, and the mansion of the Shangshu here in Nanjing has only one hall for temporary tablets),

A handful of snot and tears burned high incense to the ancestors, and murmured how good the descendants of the Shen family are: "Dad, grandfather, you have all seen it...... Our Shen family can be given by the Son of Heaven to marry the county lord of the Lu Palace, and the glory of the ancestors......"

After Shen Tingyang's mood stabilized, he confirmed the number of gifts, property, and scale needed to welcome his relatives, and then waved his pen, all according to the configuration of the top grid.

Anyway, the Shen family has nothing else, just money!

In the past two years, Xiaowan spinning machine and flying shuttle loom have continued to flourish, and the Shen family's textile business has almost monopolized Nanzhili, and any one of them is a million-tael level of income. As for the Yellow Sea and sea trade, it has always been monopolized, and the capacity of the imperial court to change the transportation capacity of the sea is also increasing in proportion to the annual number.

The Shen family's business earns the least, with an annual income of about one or two million, and if it is more, it will not be able to cap three or four million.

In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, when Zhu Shuren had just hung up the title of governor, the wealth of the Shen family at that time was about one-third of Zheng Zhilong's family (historically only about one-twentieth of the Zheng family).

Now that it has developed for more than a year and a half, the Shen family's wealth has snowballed to more than half of the Zheng family! It's almost sixty percent, and the catch up is a god speed!

If this growth curve remains unchanged, according to this ratio, within two or three years, the Shen family's wealth will be able to equal or even surpass Zheng Zhilong.

In this case, how can the Shen family's eldest young master marry the eldest young grandmother, how can the cost be saved?

In just a few days, everything was ready to go.

In addition, because the marriage process this time is more special, the groom himself will not appear, but the in-laws will send people to drink and receive relatives, so it is necessary to invite more guests as witnesses - a bit similar in nature to the witnesses of later generations, but it is not the same.

Considering that the Shen family went to Hefei to do business, and here in Nanjing, Shen Tingyang is already a scholar of the sixth department in the south, and there is no one with an obvious status higher than him, and there is no local official in Hefei whose status can be higher than Shen Tingyang.

Finally, he negotiated with the Luwang Mansion and confirmed that he invited the governor of Caoyun and Shi Kefa, who had just served as the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department this year, as the guest of honor for the witness.

Shen Tingyang naturally had to give a generous gift to the guests who witnessed the marriage, and others didn't say it, just a Qing official like Shi Kefa, when he received a few buckets of Korean pearls and Japanese tortoiseshells from Shen Tingyang, his eyes were straight.

However, Shen Tingyang was just a daily exchange of courtesies, not a bribe to bend the law for personal gain, and Shi Kefa had no reason to refuse, so he had to accept it.

……

As soon as Shen Tingyang made a move, the number of salutes was definitely not just the level of Shi Kefa's shock.

On the day the Shen family arrived in Hefei, Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, looked at the greeting posts and gift lists sent in advance, and felt dumbfounded.

No matter how rich the Luwang Mansion is, the savings of the two generations in the past 40 years, the family property combined, is less than 10 million, and the wealth is scattered in the process of fleeing more than 2 million, and the real estate of the palace has also fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Now Zhu Changshu can take away and get the soft family property in Hefei, which adds up to two million taels.

Seeing the dowry gift sent by the Shen family, Zhu Changshu felt that he couldn't take the return gift from the Luwang Mansion a little bit.

In the end, it was his daughter Zhu Yuchan who reminded him in private: "Father, your reputation for elegance is well-known in the world, why do you care about the weight of your wealth." I heard that the Shen family has been a maritime merchant for several generations, and when Shen Shangshu donated to the official position, he did not seek money in return, but only sought decency. You give back some elegant things made by the palace, and Shen Shangshu will be delighted. ”

Zhu Changshu thought about it and it really made sense, so when it was time for Shen Tingyang to pay a visit, Zhu Changshu was at the banquet, and in front of Shi Kefa and several other dignitaries, Yun Yufeng returned the salute to Shen Tingyang lightly:

"The Shen Pavilion is rich and rivals the country, it is really enviable, this king is just an idle person in the mountains and wilderness, and he has lifelong interests, only studying the ancients and studying the music and rhythm. A little thing, the Shen Pavilion may not be able to look at it. ”

Then, he asked people to send a row of Boshan furnaces and other incense burners supervised by Luwangfu, a bunch of precious incense, plus a set of ancient chimes drawn by himself, and a few hand-made "Luqin".

Shen Tingyang was originally a nouveau riche temper, and the Shen family was a maritime merchant until his generation, and he began to donate real power and official positions.

The musical instruments produced by Luwangfu are the best in the world in the Chongzhen Dynasty, from the piano to the chime to the incense burner, which is not the most elegant thing?

Shen Tingyang was overjoyed when he received this gift, and thanked him again and again, thanking the prince for his generous gift. He also said that after going back, he must offer these bronze incense burners well.

As for those instruments...... In the future, he will definitely urge his son to learn music and rhythm well, so that his son and daughter-in-law can be harmonious.

Other guests couldn't help but come over to watch, such as Shi Kefa and others, who also knew a little bit of music and rhythm, and their cultivation quality was much more elegant than that of the Shen family.

"What a piano! Exceptional! ”

"Those ordinary luqins on the market, which are thousands of taels and those carefully selected by the prince himself, are really different from cloud and mud."

Shen Tingyang was originally not very knowledgeable, but after listening to the discussions of others, he was a little ashamed, and felt more and more that he was really vulgar.

In this way, one side of the two sides feels that the other side is really rich and unfathomable, and the other side feels that this side is really noble and elegant, and the situation is harmonious and equal.

There is neither the in-law looking down on the mother-in-law, nor the mother-in-law looking down on the mother-in-law, everyone has their own awe and takes what they need.

The temporary Luwang Mansion set up a banquet for three days, and then Shen Tingyang returned to Nanjing, and Xu also took his daughter-in-law who had finished worshipping Gaotang to set off again, and then went to Chongqing after meeting in Wuchang.

……

The team that sent the eunuchs and the Luwang Mansion to send relatives will take more than half a month to enter Sichuan.

But this speed did not affect Zhu Shuren's layout and war advancement in Bashu, because Zhu Shuren had estimated in advance that Wang Chengen and Chen Xinjia would most likely persuade Chongzhen to send Cao Bianjiao to Hanzhong and Dasanguan to deploy defenses.

There may be deviations in the specific candidates, but it is definitely necessary to send someone to come.

Chongzhen has already hated Zhang Xianzhong like this, of course he wants to kill this thief chief who dug up his ancestral grave, and he will never let him escape.

And Cao Bianjiao crossed the Yellow River west from Hedong and Pingyang to Guanzhong, and then to Chencang, into Chencang Road to Hanzhong, even if there were only a few thousand troops, the march would take more than half a month.

The march of a large army is much slower than that of a messenger, one can travel hundreds of miles a day, and the other can travel seventy or eighty miles a day at most.

From Beijing to Taiyuan to Hedong to Chencang and then to Hanzhong, the total mileage of the letter delivery is about 1,200 miles, and the follow-up march is nearly 1,500 miles, which adds up to more than a month.

Therefore, since Zhu Shuren expected this situation, he would not stand still for the time being, and would not rashly attack Zhang Xianzhong's heart before Cao Bianjiao or anyone else deployed in Hanzhong.

Otherwise, if Zhang Xianzhong is beaten and fled north in advance, enters Hanzhong, and harms one more piece of territory, it will be impossible to reach the problem quickly and complicate the problem.

Of course, not taking a start-up does not mean that no other military action will be taken in the next month or so. Zhu Shuren still needs to make adjustments and explanations for the front-line deployment.

So, as early as a few days after Zhang Huangyan had just sent a letter and reported that Sun Kewang had divided his troops to guard Leshan and choke the Dadu River fortress on the Minjiang River, that is, when Zhu Shuren had just sent the prince back to Beijing, Zhu Shuren immediately sent a reply letter to Zhang Huangyan, asking Zhang Huangyan to drag Sun Kewang and try to divide Sun Kewang.

He also sent a staff member who was eloquent and good at explaining from the perspective of the overall situation, and conveyed to Zhang Huangyan and Fang Kongzhi why he did this-in fact, Zhang Huangyan didn't need to explain too much, mainly to Liu Guoneng, as well as Fang Kongzhi and Qin Liangyu.

Zhu Shuren doesn't have too many eloquents around him, so this role is naturally due to Gu Yanwu.

Gu Yanwu set off on February 19, and around February 25, he arrived in Neijiang and Leshan successively, conveying Zhu Shuren's suggestions.

After Zhang Huangyan got the order, he didn't think too much about it at first: "Zhang Xianzhong is entrenched in Chengdu, and the people will suffer more every few days, and spring plowing will also be affected, so why should he slow down?" ”

Zhu Shuren's original intention, of course, has another consideration, that is, he doesn't want to kill Zhang Xianzhong, Chongzhen can immediately find an excuse and transfer him north to King Qin, Beijing.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren hopes that after Zhang Xianzhong's death, Sun Kewang will not clean up the remnants of this point, which can be used as an excuse for him to raise his self-respect, and delay it for an extra year and a half.

After all, it has been Chongzhen for 16 years, and a military excuse to delay it for half a year, this is really not too much, Wu Sangui can drag it for half a year, why can't he Zhu Shuren?

It's just that he can't say this, and he can't say it to Zhang Huangyan, so Zhu Shuren didn't even tell Gu Yanwu, he just asked Gu Yanwu to say another reason publicly:

"Zhang Daotai, you are not an outsider, you have been fighting side by side with the surname of the country for many years, don't you still believe him? He is trying to ask the court for his life through the prince,

Let the imperial court send another way to Hanzhong to first block the opening that may run north after defeating Zhang Xianzhong, and then fight a decisive battle with him. Although the people of Chengdu may suffer for a long time, they can avoid more places where the poison is corrupted.

In addition, the national surname Ye estimated that this Sun Kewang asked for a division of troops at this time, and it was possible that he had a disagreement with Zhang Xianzhong, and we must make full use of this. The surname of the country has come up with a way to test Sun Kewang's sincerity. ”

Zhang Huangyan raised his eyebrows and humbly asked for advice: "I want to hear about it!" ”

Gu Yanwu asked people to take a map, and after unfolding it, he relayed the strategy taught to him by Zhu Shuren: "Zhang Daotai, please see, the place where the Tsing Yi Water (Dadu River) and the Min River meet is Leshan, around Leshan, the three-forked land where the two rivers converge, there are three county towns and health stations.

To the east of the Minjiang River is Leshan County, as well as Jiadingwei. west of the Minjiang River and north of Tsing Yi Water is Jiajiang County; To the west of the Min River and south of the Tsing Yi River is Emei County.

If our army wants to march into Chengdu from this, it is necessary to storm and take Leshan County and Jiadingwei east of the Minjiang River, but it is not necessary to completely wipe out the west of the Minjiang River. Even if we let it go, we will still remain in the hands of thieves, and our army's warships and troop carriers will still be able to pass through......"

When Zhang Huangyan heard this, he immediately interrupted: "This is too risky, isn't it?" It does not conform to the common sense of the art of war, if Jiajiang County and Emei County are not cleared, in case our main force passes, the siege of Chengdu will be protracted again, and it is necessary to transport grain from Minjiang.

And our grain fleet can't be protected by heavy troops every time, what if Sun Kewang takes advantage of the lack of food? Aren't our troops suffering heavy losses? The reason why every confluence of waterways must be cleaned up is not for the sake of grain routes. ”

Gu Yanwu is just a messenger, of course he won't get angry in the face of doubts, but just explained kindly: "Therefore, the surname of the country has also prepared a second move, he hopes that Zhang Daotai, on your side, can try to secretly contact Sun Kewang, at least it is also a combination of grace and power to reach a tacit understanding."

For example, first with the momentum of thunder, forcibly captured Leshan County, showing that if our army is willing to fight, regardless of the cost, it will definitely have the strength to eliminate Sun Kewang. However, after taking Leshan, he was not in a hurry to cross to Minxi to expand the results, but Sun Kewang could continue to occupy Emei, Jiajiang and other places.

Our army only pretended to ignore the back road, and bypassed Sun Kewang with a small number of troops and marched north along the Min River, but used heavy troops to protect food. As long as Sun Kewang comes to rob the grain, he will be beaten! If Sun Kewang doesn't come to rob the grain, we will escort the heavy troops and run for nothing.

After two or three times like this, if Sun Kewang never robs grain, it can be regarded as a tacit understanding of the country's surname, and we can continue to not offend each other.

But if Sun Kewang was forced by the pressure of Zhang Xianzhong's remote order, he sent troops to rob the grain once, and he didn't dare to go out again after being beaten, so the surname of the country asked you to spread rumors to Chengdu, only saying that our army had reached a secret agreement with Sun Kewang, as long as he did not save Zhang Xianzhong in the follow-up battle of Chengdu, our army would allow him to stand on his own feet and not pursue.

In this way, if Sun Kewang does not work hard to rob the grain, Zhang Xianzhong will inevitably become more and more suspicious of him, and if he tries to rob the grain, he will hit the muzzle of our army's grain guard again. In order to protect himself, Sun Kewang is likely to find another way and be forced to reach a new tacit understanding with our army! ”

When Zhang Huangyan heard this, his eyes lit up completely.

I have to say that Zhu Shuren's combination of grace and power is really a bit like the heart-to-heart battle in the Pingjin Battle in later generations - for the adjacent twin cities, the first thunder kills one, showing muscles, indicating that we can't fight, and for the other, he patiently shows sincerity, and is false and wrong.

Now it is the same as killing Leshan first and leaving Emei's soldiers, and killing Chen Changjie first and leaving Fu.

Since Sun Kewang has divided his troops with Zhang Xianzhong, it is impossible to say that he has no idea at all. Therefore, as long as you dig well, most of you can seize the opportunity to divide and disintegrate.