Above the court, the farce of "negotiating peace" was being staged, Zhou Shixian took the opportunity of training and preparing for war, and avoided it from afar, even if Chongzhen wanted to splash dirty water, he couldn't splash it.

However, the farce in the court, the prevarication between the officials of the two factions, and the mutual exposure of each other's shortcomings, are intensifying. The officials of Chongzhen's faction wanted the officials of the Horse faction to negotiate peace, and Chongzhen also encouraged it, but he couldn't say it explicitly.

After all, Chongzhen is also an old non-stick pan, and any responsibility will be pushed out, and those ministers already know what kind of virtue this emperor is, and they also dare not say it too explicitly, for fear that Chongzhen will cross the river and tear down the bridge afterwards.

And Li Banghua, Ni Yuanlu and others began to attack with the black materials and corruption evidence of these officials collected by their hands. Of course, there is black material, and there is evidence, but whether it is enough to dismiss the official is another matter.

But these are not important, anyway, the attack of the Ming Dynasty has long been out of the way, the most important thing is actually the emperor's attitude.

It's just that Emperor Chongzhen, who has another purpose, is not good at attacking his own people at this time, but not his own people, and he can't attack Zhou Shixian's people, otherwise it will be true.

Then, after the farce became known to everyone, the people had seen enough of the drama, and after Lu Jiude sent someone to pretend to be a spy of the Qing army and lit a fire in Nanjing, the situation was no longer under Chongzhen's control.

Not only the people, but also the army, because of Zhou Shixian's unilateral demagogy and incitement, became extremely angry, and there were soldiers who went out on vacation to gather to make trouble.

In this regard, under the instruction of Zhou Shixian, after the instructors brought the people back from the yamen, they naturally criticized education as a supplement and rewards as the main thing, and advised them to calm down next time, at least to beat up those officials who advocated peace with the Qing army.

And after all the noise, the so-called peace was temporarily put on hold, and the court returned to the traditional and simple attack of the Ming Dynasty, not mixed with anything else, just for the trivial attack.

Zhou Shixian naturally has no mind and no time to participate in such a thing, his focus is still on the army.

On the banks of the Yangtze River, a large number of new workshops have been completed, and thousands of craftsmen are loading and unloading the equipment needed for production.

Of course, these workshops near the Yangtze River are all specialized in the production of civilian materials, and the weapons workshops are concentrated in the surrounding areas of Tianfu, which are easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the surrounding walls will be much higher than those of civilian workshops, not to mention that there are special defense forces.

Not only along the Yangtze River in the Yingtianfu section, but also on the north bank of the Yangtze River in Yangzhou Prefecture, there are already many workshops, where there is also the newly established "Yangzhou Weapons Bureau".

However, due to the fact that the "Yangzhou Ordnance Bureau" had just been established and the entire production system had not yet been perfected, that is, the artillery workshop had not yet been completed, and the weapons and equipment of the Ming Dynasty army still relied on the "Nanjing Ordnance Bureau" to supply.

Of course, there is also the "Changsha Ordnance Bureau" in the Huguang area, which has also begun construction at this time, and Zhou Shixian has been very concerned about the Huguang battlefield, Zuo Liangyu, the army of blocking Yinxi has expanded sharply, and military materials are in short supply, and this problem must be solved.

Similarly, Li Guo, the remnants of the Dashun Army, which Gao Yigong actually commanded, also continued to replenish a large number of weapons and equipment, especially war horses and firearms.

Although Gao Yigong has been secretly expanding his team of craftsmen and supervising the construction of new weapons workshops, their financial and material resources are limited, and the recovery and replenishment of the army are not very ideal.

Not to mention, the two were confined to this era, and did not innovate management methods, nor did they have a variety of leading production tools, Huguang, eastern Sichuan and other places, after years of war, labor force is also very scarce. Both the construction speed of the workshop and the production of weapons are much slower.

But war horses and firearms, Zhou Shixian must supplement the same to them, or win a field battle with the Qing army, or just hold the city, these two must be the same.

After all, there was Zhou Shixian on the front line of the Huai River to resist the Qing Army's East Route Army. Otherwise, it would be impossible to succeed in defending the city without the ability to fight in the field, and sooner or later there would be a day when the ammunition and food would run out.

In the barracks of Yangzhou Mansion, Zhou Shixian stood in front of Lu Zhenfei, Zhang Huangyan, Zhang Hong, Sun Hu, Wu Xingye and others, who were reporting to Zhou Shixian on their recent work.

"The construction of the workshops in Yingtianfu and Yangzhou has achieved initial results, and the rectification work in this process has also achieved very good results. So far, more than 80 people have been arrested, and the total value of stolen money has been confiscated is nearly 300,000 taels of silver, but now the Qing army is still eyeing Jiangbei, and the war is the first, and for the sake of the efficiency of wartime mobilization, it can only increase supervision and punishment and give warnings. Lu Zhenfei reported.

In order to punish corruption, Zhou Shixian naturally adopted a joint sitting, as long as the official is corrupt, the whole family will be thrown into prison, and after being convicted, according to the size of the embezzlement, the severity of the crime, and then decide whether to behead or exile to the beach to boil salt. After making efforts to pay a high salary, Zhou Shixian naturally will not have any mercy towards these people.

Zhou Shixian nodded, and then turned his head to look at Zhang Huangyan: "How is the fortress in Huaibei being built now?" ”

When Zhang Huang heard this, he folded his sleeves and said: "Horses, at present, the construction of the first fortress has been basically completed, because most of the displaced people caused by the war have been absorbed, and some of them are building roads in various places. It is the gentry in these places who are now fighting for land with the previous title deeds, and this part is still not easy to solve. ”

Because of the problems of the Nanjing court, Zhou Shixian ordered that the land issue should be properly handled, that he should get along with the squires as much as possible, and unite the gentry in the Jiangnan area, which made the officials sent to these places afraid to do things.

"Tell me about your plans." Zhou Shixian's face was still pale, and he couldn't see his opinion on this matter.

When Zhang Huang heard this, he clenched his fists and bowed slightly, he knew that he had to come up with a means, and raised his head and said: "The lower officials think that the imperial court must use some means to control the situation with the power of thunder. ”

"Tell me about it." Zhou Shixian knew that Zhang Huangyan had a plan.

"Actually, the lower officials thought that these local squires were all good and loyal to the imperial court, but there were many mountain bandits in various places, especially those green battalion soldiers who had fallen behind, and they were the ones who wandered around, causing trouble in the place, slaughtering the people, and making trouble.

Therefore, the lower officials thought that if it weren't for these people's goblies to confuse the public and collude with local bullies, there would never be such a thing of resisting the imperial court today. In order to exterminate the bandits and enable the people to live and work in peace and contentment, the lower officials proposed to send troops into these places to arrest the culprits and restore peace to the people. ”

When everyone in the room heard this, they also knew what Zhang Huangyan meant behind his words. In this way, it is indeed justified, and if you make an example, the effect will inevitably be significant.

In fact, tens of thousands of field troops are in hand, it is impossible for Zhou Shixian to eat this loss, and it is even more impossible to get Zhou Shixian to compromise with them.