"This bunch of shit! The world has not yet been unified, just two and a half years of truce, and it has decayed like this! Do they think they can live like this forever?

The Ming people in Nanjing are really so cowardly, will they be like the Southern Song Dynasty and our ancestors, and they will be safe for a hundred years? My Baqi disciple has only received hardcore crops for two years, and he has learned to carry cages and birds?

Drag the few soldiers who escaped and practiced today, connect with the Niu Lu who received their benefits, and drag them all to the entrance of the vegetable market and behead them! Set an example! Rectify military discipline! ”

This scene happened one day in June of the fourth year of Shunzhi. Early this morning, Dolgon, the regent of the Qing Dynasty, rarely went to inspect the two white flag drills that he had not paid attention to for a long time, and found that the problem of uneven manpower during the drill was very serious.

A group of Manchurian Eight Banner soldiers who pretended to be sick and took leave, as well as those rotten Niulu officers who turned a blind eye after accepting the benefits of the soldiers, made the regent very angry, and he had a seizure on the spot, and ordered that all the typical ones be dragged out and cut down and the military discipline was purged.

Of course, the two Niu Lu who received the benefits and were cut down were more or less a personal grudge - two and a half years ago, Dorgon's own brother Duoduo destroyed the main force of the two white flags in Jiangnan.

Today's Two White Flags are from the families of the reservists of the original Two White Flags, and senior officers are sent from the Two Yellow Flags controlled by Zilharang and Hauge to reintegrate and train.

The soldiers are soldiers with two white flags, but the generals are generals with two yellow flags, and many officers even reach the two white flags, and they are still loyal to Hauge and Zilharang in private. For these people, since Dolgon has caught obvious mistakes and can be punished according to the law, there is no need to open the net, just to kill chickens and monkeys, and eliminate dissidents.

……

During the truce of the past two and a half years, Dorgon had darkened a lot, which showed that he had worked hard, but he had not lost weight. Most of his energy was devoted to the formation and training of the new army of the Green Battalion, as well as raising armaments and controlling the people.

The 600,000 green battalions he planned have also begun to take shape, and the first batch of 200,000 people recruited at the beginning have already undergone two and a half years of training, and they also have a certain foundation, and their combat power is already obviously considerable, not much worse than the veterans of the Han Army Banner.

The next two batches of 400,000 green battalion reserves, although the quality was slightly worse, also had the appearance of a regular army, which was far from being comparable to the peasant army of that year.

The price of all this is that half of the northern country has been brutally oppressed by Dolgon, becoming more and more dilapidated, and the cumulative population has declined, reaching more than one million every year!

The Manjiadong Rebellion in Shandong involved hundreds or thousands of villages, and those places where the resistance was fierce were almost slaughtered by the Qing army, and all the remaining wealth of the people was also robbed, and it was directly used as military funds.

As long as you are not afraid of murder or robbery, even on a broken and disaster-ridden basic plate, it is absolutely possible to gather resources and support the army with a shot in the arm.

For example, at the end of the Han Dynasty, Guanzhong was brutalized by Dong Zhuo for more than two years, and was brutalized by Li Dao and Guo Yan for seven years, which can be regarded as causing Guanzhong to be "one of a hundred people", and the population was almost wiped out. But in this process, the money and grain in Guanzhong have been supporting more than 100,000 Xiliang troops, which shows that this road is also feasible in a short period of time.

Dolgon really had no choice, when Dordor had just fallen, he really couldn't organize the southern expedition again, so he had to engage in internal exploitation, rob all the rebels, and expropriate the fields to build military cantonments, and the tax ratio could be much higher than that of ordinary fields, greatly expanding the military rations.

Behind the 200,000 veterans of the Green Battalion and the 400,000 reservists of the Green Battalion, about two million people were starved to death or killed for resisting and miscellaneous taxes, and more than one million people fled south to the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning of the second year of Shunzhi, Dolgon made a preliminary attempt to conduct a thorough investigation, and at that time determined that there were still 19 million people in the north, of which about 1 million were Manchus, about 1 million were Mongols, and 3 million were Han people outside the Guanwai and Han people who were newly raised to raise banners, and the remaining 14 million were purely ruled Han Chinese.

After two and a half years, by the turn of the summer and autumn of the fourth year of Shunzhi, the total population of the north had dropped to 16 million, and the racial composition of the first three parts of the population had not changed much, but the denominator of the fourth part of the oil extraction had shrunk year after year, leaving only about 11 million.

When it comes to population changes in each province, Shandong and Huaibei are the places with the most dramatic population declines. Two and a half years ago, these two places were relatively densely populated areas under the Qing court, each with more than 2 million people, but now they have almost halved their hukou.

Shandong is because of the repeated washing and washing between the Manjiadong peasant army and the Qing army in the Luxi Plain, and the slaughter is too tragic. Huaibei is because the military tun is more pressing, and at the same time it is close to Daming. Many people really couldn't survive, knowing that as long as they secretly crossed the Huai River, they would have a way to live, so they kept fleeing south.

Counting on the remaining 11 million Han people who were ruled by the Guannei, the two million Manchurians in front of them, and some of the Han people who rose to the ruling class, it is obvious that this support ratio can no longer be sustained.

Dolgon knew very well that since the new army had been trained, and the combined combat power of the descendants in the hands of him and Azig had once again overshadowed the joint efforts of Hauge, Zilharang, Abatai and other parties, it was imperative to go south again.

Otherwise, the Qing Dynasty would be able to directly eat itself to death, bleed and let it to death, and there was no possibility of sustainable development.

It was precisely because he felt that he had overwhelmed Zilharang with the Green Battalion that he had recently begun to gradually test and become stronger, and began to pay attention to the daily training of the two white flags, and when he saw the corrupt and degenerate Eight Banners who should be severely punished, he would not be soft to regain his authority.

If it was half a year back, when the combat power and scale of the green battalion were not so strong, Dorgon would not dare.

……

Dorgon, uncharacteristically, re-intervened in the daily reorganization of the two white flags, and also marched to kill several officers who had been selected and transferred by Zilharang and who had belonged to Hauge.

This is not a big deal, but it is definitely enough to set off quite a wave among the relatives and nobles of the Manchurian Eight Banners in Beijing, which has been calm for two and a half years.

People with a keen sense of smell know that this is the regent who wants to show his muscles again, show his absolute control over the court situation, and suggest that the auxiliary prince should not point fingers at the fundamental decisions related to the future and fate of the Qing Dynasty. This time it is a good position, and there will definitely be big moves in the follow-up.

Zilharang on the other side was not stupid, and after getting the news that afternoon, he was so angry that he directly dropped two tea tasting lamps:

"This is for this king, and I know that I have my teeth with this king! Could it be that he thinks that the new army of the green battalion has been trained, and he wants to find an opportunity to provoke and establish his authority privately? ”

Zilharang's status in the Qing court has always been inferior to Dolgon in history, mainly because Dolgon established the policy of leading troops into the customs, seized Beijing, and entered the Central Plains.

Manchu people have the most important military merits, no matter what the original status of Dolgon and Zilharang was at the time of Huang Taiji's death, just looking at the subsequent achievements of Dolgon, those kings who did not obey him at the beginning, Belle, also slowly obeyed.

At this juncture in history, that is, in the spring and summer of the fourth year of Shunzhi, Zilharang was supposed to be punished by Dolgon for the reason that the palace exceeded the system, and took the opportunity to remove him from his auxiliary position.

And in fact, it is because Dolgon's power is gradually becoming overwhelming, and his military achievements are brilliant, and he is just a random excuse - Dolgon himself used the emperor's honor guard at that time in history, and if you want to say that it is overstepping, Zilharang is simply a child in front of him.

Now that Dorgon has been restrained and restrained by Zilharang for two and a half years, it is nothing more than the previous defeat, so he has to temporarily divide power to appease people.

But in any case, when Dolgon was in power, he finally allowed the Qing Dynasty to obtain and keep the northern Central Plains, and as long as he recuperated and recovered from occasional defeats, the Manchu nobles would still support Dolgon again.

……

After realizing Dolgon's re-assertion, Zilharang did not dare to make a mistake, and only found an opportunity to "negotiate amicably" with Dolgon.

At the end of the court meeting the next day, Zilharan stopped Dolgon and said in private:

"How is the Lord Regent doing lately? I heard that the regent has been managing the army and killing people recently, could it be that the liver is too hot? Since the importance of the Netherlands is important, it is still necessary to have a good life and recuperation. ”

Dolgon was stopped, and he couldn't see the slightest expression on the surface, but the clouds were light: "Brother Wang is talking about the rectification of the flag affairs a few days ago?" That's the internal affairs of our white flag, and this king can do whatever he wants, isn't it appropriate? ”

Zilharang choked slightly, and his nasolabial folds twitched slightly. Dolgon told him that he really couldn't grasp the problem.

Because the flag owner's handling of flag affairs really has nothing to do with outsiders, Dolgon has allowed him to infiltrate the two white flags in the past two years, which is just an unspoken exchange of rules in the final analysis. Zilharang offered the above conditions in exchange for allowing Dorgon to loot more money and food in favor of forming the Green Battalion.

Now that Dolgon wants to talk about the truth on the table, he can't stop it directly, at most, he can only invalidate the previous private trading conditions, and no longer support the further expansion of the green battalion and the enhancement of weapons and armaments in terms of money and food.

Therefore, Zilharang just said without humility or arrogance:

"The daily rectification of the two white flags is naturally a private matter within the flag. However, some of the officers of the two white flags have been slack so far, in the final analysis, it is also because the imperial court has not spent enough money and food in the past two years, and it is impossible to maintain the money and food needed for the training of soldiers and horses to prepare for war.

All the money and food were used to expand the green camp. I have no credit for the war in the Eight Banners, how can I maintain my morale with that little military salary every day? As long as the imperial court is further tilted, allowing more enclosures and more hardcore crops, these problems will be solved. ”

Zilharang's words are pure nonsense, and there is no logical causal relationship at all, but he just wants to forcibly involve the two things together, and to put it bluntly, he used the previous interest exchange tacit agreement to remind Dorgon:

If you have a business with me on the last thing, then I can only do business with you on this one thing.

However, the expected situation of Dolgon re-compromising with him and dividing the spoils did not appear, and Dolgon was willing to go this far, obviously because he had accumulated enough strength and felt that he could break through the critical point.

I only heard him say without waves: "I am full of eight banners, it is true that I have lived a little aggrieved in the past few years, and there is no shortage of military salaries, but I am only lacking in looting and rewards, so I have a more decadent life than in previous years."

】

However, the people of the north are already miserable, and it is impossible to count on the expansion of enclosures and hardcore crops to boost people's hearts. For the sake of today's plan, since they want to live a good life, they should take it from the head of the Southern Barbarian! ”

Zilharang Tong Kong scaled slightly: "The regent really wants to reopen the border provocation?" Do you know what that means? Now that the war has suddenly resumed, the timing may not be more favorable to my Daqing than last year or next year!

This king is not against war. Now, Nanming and I are bound to coexist for a long time. But after all, the truce has stabilized in front of us, and when it will be reopened, it is natural to pick the most favorable time for my Qing Dynasty! This king doesn't see anything particularly beneficial to my Daqing this year!

I heard that in the past two years, several genera of rice and wheat have been transmitted from the south, such as corn and potatoes, which were not found in ancient times, and the yield is much higher than that of rice and wheat. Last year, only a few places in Huaibei privately tried military cantonments, and sure enough, part of the military rations were solved. This year, the promotion has been expanded, and it has also spread to Shandong and Hebei.

It is said that Nanming promoted these things, the longest has been seven or eight years, at first in Suihuang, and later expanded to the whole Huguang, it is said that four or five years ago gradually promoted to the entire south.

It has been seven or eight years since the Southern Barbarians got their profits, but it has not been two years since I got the benefits, and this year is only the second year, the promotion area is not large enough, and the harvest has not yet come down. In this way, the national strength of the north and the south has benefited from the amount of corn and potatoes, and it is obvious that the south is far better than the north! If I recuperate for a few more years in the Qing Dynasty, I will gradually grow corn in the north spontaneously. Wouldn't it be better to regain some of the national strength relative to the south, and wouldn't it be more advantageous to go to war when the time comes? ”

Zilharan said nothing else, but casually only focused on the issue of food and population, and argued with Dorgon.

The corn and potatoes he mentioned were indeed gradually spread in the middle of the Ming and Qing dynasties and peaceful truces and farming. This thing Zhu Shuren can't control, because once a kind of grain is popularized to ordinary people, everyone can plant it, and they can get seeds, then it is inevitable that it will be smuggled to Huaibei and infiltrate into the occupied area.

A thing that millions of people can access, what kind of technical secrecy is there to talk about? It is nothing more than a diffusion process, and it takes time for the Qing army to experiment, to promote, and to breed and retain seeds.

Daming only occupies the interests of a time difference, I have planted corn and potatoes for six years ahead of you, and these six years of savings can form a huge gap in national strength.

After all, Zilharang is older, he is already fifty years old, and he has been consumed from forty-seven years old to fifty years old, so naturally he no longer has the recklessness of young people, and wants to seek stability.

Dolgon, on the other hand, was much younger than him, and he was Chinese New Year's Eve six years old and wanted to fight for a big one. More importantly, he saw the problem more comprehensively than Zilharang, and he realized that the comparison of the development of national strength was not so simple.

"How can the rise and fall of national strength depend on the amount of food! For the sake of today's plan, as long as there is enough food to eat, we can stabilize the national strength. As for the hope of relying on surplus grain to reproduce the population, how long will it take more than ten years to see the effect?

In recent years, the household registration in Shandong and Huaibei has been halved, and the trend of the oppressed Han people fleeing south has become a trend, and if it drags on any longer, it will only be detrimental to our Qing Dynasty.

At present, the only way to do so is to immediately defeat it militarily and regain its prestige, so as to deter the Han people in the world and let them know that there is no chance for Tou Ming! It's nothing more than being killed by me again! It's better to be obedient to me from the beginning! ”

When the truce began two years ago, to be honest, Dolgon did not expect so many people to flee south during the truce. The main reason is that the Qing Dynasty won against the Ming for decades in a row, and he felt that everyone in the world should see clearly, Ming has no future, and no one will go to the Ming Dynasty and suffer twice and suffer twice.

But after all, he underestimated the follow-up long-term influence of the fall of Duoduo and the death of Huainan Nikan and Liu Liangzuo.

Even if Nanming gave him a "face" in the end, pretending to fail in trying to storm and recover Fengyang, and retreated, so that the Qing army seemed to have grabbed the "victory in the last battle before the truce", and the mood was relatively relaxed and the card table was lowered.

But as the people of Lianghuai calmed down, there were still many people who gradually recognized the future of following the Ming Dynasty, and recognized that "this Ming is not the other Ming, with the reign of the sage and the virtuous minister, the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty when the first emperor Chongzhen was in power, it is completely different, and the current Ming Dynasty is promising and worthy of allegiance."

The awakening of this man's heart was what Dorgon feared the most, more severe than any specific fiasco on the battlefield. He had to gather a little starting strength to extinguish this idea with all his might!

……

Zilharang didn't think so deeply, but after being repeatedly emphasized by Dolgon, he had to admit that Dolgon had some reason from the perspective of serving the overall interests of the Qing Dynasty.

But then comes another trouble.

Zilharang had to remind: "Even if the war is to be renewed, how can we boost morale and find an excuse for going to war?" I don't care about faith and righteousness, if I want to kill the barbarian, I will kill the barbarian, and if I want to invade the south, I will invade the south. But after all, it has been a truce for several years, and it is always necessary to give the soldiers a proximate cause. ”

The greatest righteous name of the Southern Expedition is, of course, "unifying the world and ending the civil war", which can be used by any change of dynasty. To put it bluntly, for the sake of unification, the side of the couch does not allow others to snore, and they can fight at any time.

But that's only a distant cause, not an imminent proximate cause. In order to boost morale, it is also very important to combine the motivation of far and near, so that ordinary soldiers can be substituted.

The troops did not know why they were fighting, and why they were suddenly fighting again at this time, and it would be troublesome.

In particular, Manbaqi is not as bloody as it was three years ago, and the social garbage that carries cages and birds in Beijing has gradually increased, and you have to find a reason for him.

For this question, Dolgon obviously came prepared and thought about it in advance.

He had a straightforward showdown: "In the past few years, the Southern Barbarians have been absorbing my Qing fugitive slaves!" This reason is worth using at any time to arouse the hatred of my Baqi Erlang and the southern expedition to snatch back the children's jade silk!

As for the moment, I will make up some provocations and frictions, but I say that during the summer or autumn harvest this year, a large number of Huaibei tunhu will flee south, and my Qing Heavenly Soldiers will pursue and arrest them! Once the war starts, the follow-up will be a matter of course!

As for the route of the army, this king will be cautious, and will no longer choose to go straight to Nanjing from Huaiyang as he did three years ago - at that time, letting the fifteenth brother go straight to Huaiyang is nothing more than to see that the foothold in Nanming is not stable, and there is internal friction, the foundation is not deep, and the dispute over Fulu goes straight to the heart. In the end, because of the rashness, the success fell short.

Now that the foundation of the Southern Ming Dynasty has been stable, it is meaningless to seek a quick surprise attack, since the ancient southern expedition of the art of war is the right way, strive for the advantage of slowly seizing the upstream, and then sweep Wu Yue!

Or march from Nanyang, break Xiangyang, or take the land of Xinyang Huainan first, all according to the danger of Dabie Mountain, and then encroach step by step, or along the Dabie East Road, take Shou County and Hefei from Fengyang, and go straight into Jiangbei from Chaohu Lake. These routes are better than going south from Huai'an and Yangzhou to the ditch. ”

Zilharang saw that Dorgon could recognize the strategic mistake of three years ago, and he regained some confidence in him.

Indeed, from Huai'an to Yangzhou, and then from Zhenjiang to cross the river, that is the way to fight for time, asking for a preemptive. Since ancient times, once the confrontation between the north and the south has been stabilized for many years, no one will take this road if they want to march south.

Striving for the benefits of the upper reaches is the right way to march south since ancient times, but now it is impossible to start from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, that is, the Sichuan region.

After all, the Qinling Mountains were completely in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty's rule in the Sichuan region was still very stable. I heard that the governor Fang Kongzhi, who may be promoted to governor, is also very popular with the people, and there is no opportunity to take advantage of it.

Qin Liangyu, the Sichuan defender, is also an old and famous general, and is jealous of the Qing army, the only fly in the ointment is that Qin Liangyu is old, and I heard that he has been seriously ill in the past two years - in the third year of Longwu, Qin Liangyu is already seventy-four years old (in history, he will die of old age if he can live for more than a year)

The current situation in Sichuan made it completely impossible for the Qing court to start, not to mention that Wu Sangui in Shaanxi was still wandering there.

Dolgon gave up Yangzhou Road, did not consider Sichuan, which could not be done, and focused on Nanyang, Xinyang, and Hefei, indicating that he was more stable.

The Qing court's top leaders consulted again, and a unity was formed on the general direction of the war again.

All that remains is the details of the deployment and how to distribute the troops and personnel of the various armies, which can be discussed.

In addition, since the war is going to start, it is necessary to make some preparations for internal unity. In the name of Shunzhi, Dolgon issued an order for the governors of the provinces to send their sons to Beijing as hostages, so that when the military power was delegated in wartime, they could better control the hostage places.

Of course, in practice, the officials of the Qing court would not be so sloppy and directly state the real purpose.

So the text on the plain side of the will goes like this:

"Officials in Beijing with more than three grades, foreign officials, governors, governors, and commanders-in-chief, each send one of their sons in law to the court to guard, in order to learn Manchurian etiquette, test their talents, and appoint envoys." (Historical facts, the original text is word-for-word.) The only discrepancy is that this decree was issued in March of the fourth year of Shunzhi in the official history, and it has now been delayed until May)

On the surface, it was to give the sons of the governors an extra chance to test their promotions, not to be hostages. Moreover, before the governor, an additional "more than three grades of officials in Beijing" was added, as if it was mainly for the children of Beijing officials to give more opportunities, and the governor was just piggybacking.

In fact, anyone with a little political consciousness knows that it is true to target the governor, and the Beijing official is just a smoke bomb.

After the decree was issued, the Han people everywhere naturally had to do the same, especially the generals who were newly incorporated into the green camp.

Wu Sangui from Shaanxi and Jiang Jiu from Shanxi are also among the recipients.

It's just that Wu Sangui has never said that he is a Qing minister in name, and his position is delicate, and after receiving the Qing court's overtures, it is difficult to make a decision for a while, whether to send Wu Yingxiong to Beijing.

Jiang Hao of Shanxi has been a Qing minister for many years, and he is located in the hinterland of the Qing controlled area, so he has no choice, so he only hesitated for a few days and sent his eldest son to Beijing. Jiang Jiu's submission further made the pressure completely on Wu Sangui's side.