In late September, Li Dingguo and his son finally arrived in Nanjing.

He stepped down from the boat he was on and stood on the bustling port of Xiaguan in Nanjing, looking at the crowds around him and the large number of Chinese and foreign ships anchored in the port, and like his three sons, he was shocked by the prosperity of Nanjing.

They came to Nanjing for the first time, and Li Dingguo recalled that he had traveled almost half of the world since he was a child, after joining the uprising and then resisting the Qing Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, he had never seen a more prosperous city than Nanjing.

To be precise, everywhere they went, they were affected by the flames of war, and they fought wherever they went, and only after they arrived in Yungui, under the governance of Sun Kewang, they were finally able to see the people living and working in peace and contentment.

Although Sun Kewang is ambitious, there are all kinds of differences, but he has really contributed a lot to the governance of Yungui, if it were not for him, only with Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu, who are better at commanding operations, where would Yungui become a solid backing for the anti-Qing coalition army?

These are all in the past, Li Dingguo has been far away from Sun Kewang, as long as he wants, maybe he will never have to fight Sun Kewang again.

When Li Dingguo was full of thoughts, the official in charge of greeting him finally came over, and the official respectfully saluted Li Dingguo, and then invited the four of them to board the carriage together and go to the palace in the east of the city - since Su Yan called himself the prisoner of the country, at the request of the officials, he still placed his office in the palace in the east of the city, but he did not live in the palace, and only went to the palace when he was dealing with government affairs.

Li Dingguo has been riding horses for half his life, where can he stand the swaying carriage, he refused the official's invitation, insisted on riding a horse, the official could not resist him, so he had to agree to Li Dingguo's request, and ordered someone to bring him a horse.

After Li Dingguo got on the horse, although he was not very satisfied with the quality of the horse, he still reluctantly rode in front of the carriage.

They quickly entered the inner city, because they did not publicize it, so the people on both sides of the street did not know that this was the famous Li Dingguo, the king of Xining.

In fact, Li Dingguo's insistence on riding a horse and not being accustomed to carriages was only one of the reasons, and the other reason was that he wanted to directly observe the living environment of the people of Nanjing at close range, as a judgment on whether he wanted to cooperate with Su Yan.

Well, cooperation.

In Li Dingguo's view, he is only cooperating with Su Yan, not serving under Su Yan, he is here for the banner of the Ming Dynasty held high by Su Yan, if Su Yan abandons this banner, he will leave without hesitation.

At least that's how he decided for now.

The reason why Li Dingguo was so loyal to the Ming Dynasty was not because of the Ming court's trust in him, in fact, the Ming court guarded him better than thieves, he just stubbornly fulfilled the last words left by his father-in-law Zhang Xianzhong before he died-

"The Ming Dynasty has been orthodox for three hundred years, and the will of heaven will not end. When I die, I will return to the light in a hurry, and I will not be unjust. ”

It is this sentence that made Li Dingguo the "last Ming Dynasty man" who became loyal and famous to future generations.

To get back to the point, through a close observation of the people of Nanjing, Li Dingguo had to admit that Su Yan did have a hand in the governance of the people in his territory, not only Nanjing, the core of the imperial court, but also the people in Fujian, Zhejiang and other places that he passed through along the way were far better off than the people in other regions.

What made him even more frightened was that he couldn't see any beggars and refugees on the streets, you know, even if it was Sun Kewang's base camp Guiyang or the stable Kunming, beggars and refugees from other places could often be seen on the streets.

After discovering this, Li Dingguo's evaluation of Su Yan in his heart involuntarily became higher.

Perhaps seeing Li Dingguo's surprise, the official who was riding a horse on the side smiled and explained to him: "Your Highness has always loved the people like a son, and has abolished the onerous taxes on the heads of the people by spreading the land into the acre, and has also provided a place and job opportunities for those who have no fixed residence, so that no one will become a dry bone on the side of the road." ”

"Where are they all placed?" Li Dingguo asked curiously.

"In many cases, His Highness built factories and estates in the provinces, and when there was a shortage of manpower, the beggars and refugees were assigned to work in the factories and estates, relying on their labor in exchange for food and shelter."

Li Dingguo nodded, although he still believed that everyone should have land to grow so that people everywhere could live and work in peace and contentment (this chapter is not over!). )

Chapter 272: Wu Sangui is self-reliant

, but since Su Yan's policy did not have the opposite effect, he would no longer say anything.

The group soon came to the palace in the east of the city, the guards infantry around Su Yan completely controlled the entire imperial city, responsible for guarding the security of the imperial city, after showing the identity certificate to the guards infantry, Li Dingguo and they were just a simple routine body search, they were put into the palace, all the way to Su Yan.

Su Yan and Li Dingguo's father and son naturally need not say much about the process of meeting, this conversation from beginning to end is Su Yan occupies the lead, he first expressed high praise for Li Dingguo's good character of serving the country, and then explained step by step the current predicament facing the imperial court.

Don't look at the current two-front battles of the imperial court, which are frequent successes, but the imperial court's grain reserves are consumed in large quantities in the war, and Huguang, known as the granary of the world, is still unable to resume production in the war, and the imperial court must open up a new place where the land is fertile and can supply food stably.

This place is Annam.

After introducing Annan, Su Yan quoted scriptures and classics, using ancient sayings to show that Annan was originally the homeland of China, and it was only the temporary gain of power by the barbarians of Annam that Annan broke away from the imperial court, and attacking Annam was a righteous move to recover the homeland.

Su Yan's words bluffed Li Dingguo's father and son were stunned for a moment, although he always felt that what Su Yan said seemed to be wrong, but if he wanted to tell what was wrong, he was really speechless for a while.

In the end, Su Yan hoped that Li Dingguo could share the burden for the imperial court and go south to recover the homeland of Annan, in order to avoid Li Dingguo's disagreement, he also exaggerated, saying that this was related to the expulsion of the Tartars and the great task of recovering the north, and hoped that Li Dingguo would not refuse.

Okay, Su Yan said so, what else can Li Dingguo do? I can only promise to come down.

And he didn't have much of a good impression of Annan's monkeys, don't look at Annan is still in the stage of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the forces in the north will still attack the border of the Celestial Empire from time to time and rob the border people, for this group of barbarians who are afraid of power and morality, there is no psychological pressure to attack them Li Dingguo.

So, after Li Dingguo agreed to serve as the chief general of the Southern Expedition, Su Yan immediately issued an order in the name of the superintendent of the country, named Li Dingguo as the general of Annan, and led the troops and horses of his headquarters to the south to conquer Annan.

After this decree was issued, Su Yan condemned Mo Jingyao, the commander of the Annan Metropolitan Government, for disrespecting the suzerain, failing to pay tribute on time, and colluding with Hu Lu in the official name of the Ming Dynasty, and announced the conquest of Mo Jingyao to promote the prestige of the country.

When the text of the conquest reached Annam, it immediately caused an uproar, and Mo Jingyao, who had seized the Nanping Mansion, hurriedly sent an envoy to defend himself, and prepared many tributes in the hope of calming the anger of the Ming court.

Poor Mo Jingyao had no idea why he became the first target of the imperial court, and his actions did not exchange for the court's forgiveness, but only received a cold response from Su Yan-

"It's too late to make amends."

In desperation, Mo Jingyao still did not dare to confront the Ming court, he took the initiative to take the map of the prince and Nanping to the camp of Guo Zhiqi, the governor of Liangguang in Guangxi, and asked the court to surrender, Guo Zhiqi did not dare to decide on his own, and only ordered someone to send him to Guilin to wait for the court's will.

Mo Jingyao's surrender did not disrupt Su Yan's plan, but instead bloodlessly took a forward stronghold for the Chu army to attack Annan.

Su Yan made no secret of his ambitions for Annan, and after Mo Jingyao surrendered, Su Yan directly announced that Nanping Mansion would be included in the territory of the imperial court and send officials to Nanping Mansion to govern.

Li Dingguo's General Annan was not canceled after Mo Jingyao's surrender, and after leaving his three sons in Nanjing, he sailed south to Guangxi to lead his headquarters into Nanping Province.

Li Dingguo learned the lessons of the expedition to Annam in the early Ming Dynasty, and he was not prepared to start the southern expedition in a hurry, but first trained soldiers and horses in Nanping Province, so that the soldiers of the whole army could get used to the climate of Annam, and at the same time trained guides to prevent the army from getting lost in the dense tropical forest and being attacked by disease after the southern expedition.

……

In October, several major events have taken place on the land of China.

The first major event, after several fierce battles, Zhang Huangyan's troops successfully recovered the entire territory of Yanzhou Prefecture, invaded the territory of Tai'an Prefecture, and the troops approached the provincial capital Jinan, Shandong was shaken, and Hong Chengchou hurriedly transferred troops to aid Jinan by the five provinces of the Daimyo.

The second major event, Wu Sangui, who claimed to be the generalissimo of soldiers and horses in the world, made a surprise attack on Xi'an and the west (this chapter is not finished!) )

Chapter 272: Wu Sangui is self-reliant

After the fall of Xi'an, Wu Sangui also saw the weakness of the Qing court in the north, and he went out with his troops in all directions, linking most of the cities in Shaanxi.

Perhaps Wu Sangui was unwilling to be subordinate, he angrily denounced Su Yan as an illegal court, he himself was a chaotic minister and thief, and reprimanded Sun Kewang for supporting the puppet emperor, and the people of the world punished him, and then he was honored as the emperor of Yichuan, the king of Yichuan, who should have been martyred in July in July, and changed the Yuan Zhaowu, respected the Yongli Emperor as Dezong, and established the Xi'an court.

And Wu Sangui himself, who was named the king of Zhou, led the governor of the five armies, and the generalissimo of the world's soldiers and horses, and was actually the principal of the imperial court like Sun Kewang.

At this point, the Ming Dynasty was divided into one country and three governments, and if you count the Qing court, whose territory was extremely shrinking, there were four imperial courts in the huge world at the same time!

However, thanks to Wu Sangui's release of the Qing army into the customs, the strangulation of anti-Qing forces in various places, and the betrayal of the Qing court and his infamous reputation, Wu Sangui's single-handed support of the imperial court did not receive the support and recognition of the people of the world.

As for the Zhaowu Imperial Court supported by Wu Sangui, Su Yan and Sun Kewang invariably counterattacked, although the two did not discuss it together, they both announced the Zhaowu Imperial Court as a pseudo-dynasty for the first time, which can be said to be without tacit understanding.

Chapter 272: Wu Sangui is self-reliant