The grain speculation incident in Jiangnan had a great impact, especially the beheading of a large number of noble gentry and raiding their homes, which quickly stabilized the south.

The gentry of Liangguang and Fujian, who had just declared their allegiance to the Hongguang court, were also much more honest, and the "Hongguang New Deal" began to be implemented in these places and went very smoothly.

Li Xianzhong appointed Sun Chuanting as the governor of Liangguang and temporarily placed Taiwan under the rule of Liangguang.

Sun Chuanting's main task was to restore production in Liangguang, recruit and train new troops, and prepare for the next conquest of Annam and Manila.

Although Zheng Zhilong and Liaodong Bank made a lot of profits, in fact, the biggest profit was still Huishang.

Although the direct profit is not very much, the Suzhou businessmen have suffered a lot of vitality this time, they not only took the opportunity to seize the market, but also took over many industries cheaply.

As a result, the Hui merchants mastered many silk workshops.

Originally, they controlled the porcelain in Jingdezhen, and now the silk and cloth in Suzhou also have their place.

Hui merchants also became new suppliers to the East Ryukyus and began to participate in overseas trade.

For them, it has opened up a new market, which is also the dividend brought by the successful standing of Li Xianzhong!

After this battle, the imperial court imposed a maximum price limit on bulk products such as salt, grain, and wine.

The chamber of commerce of the same industry in the imperial court is implemented according to regional differences, and the maximum price is limited.

Once the limit price is exceeded, the imperial court will impose sanctions!

In this way, the possibility of malicious hype is basically eliminated!

After Li Xianzhong set out from Nanjing in April, he has been confronting Zhang Xianzhong's men and horses in Wuchang.

said it was a confrontation, but in fact, Wuchang did not pose much of a threat.

Because the Liaodong Naval Division completely controlled the waterway of the Yangtze River, Zhang Xianzhong's Great Western Army was powerless to threaten Wuchang on the south bank of the Yangtze River.

The main contention between the two sides was Hanyang, north of the Yangtze River.

At the beginning, Chen Qiyu led thousands of remnants of soldiers to flee all the way from Xiangyang to Wuchang, so he naturally gave up Hanyang and went all out to hold Wuchang City.

Therefore, Zhang Dingguo's men occupied Hanyang.

After that, Mao Wenlong led an army of 30,000 to Wuchang, and he, the newly appointed governor of Huguang, naturally could not let Zhang Xianzhong fight in Wuchang.

The Liaodong Army relied on the strong firepower of the naval guns of the Navy Division to cover it, and easily recaptured Hanyang.

Just when Mao Wenlong was about to make persistent efforts to fully recover the Jiangbei lands, Li Xianzhong's order came.

Mao Wenlong was ordered to go south to occupy Yueyang and Changsha first, and prevent Zhang Xianzhong's Great Western Army from entering Jiangxi.

So Mao Wenlong had to give up the Hanyang he had just captured.

Speaking of which, this is still a pit dug by Li Xianzhong himself.

At the beginning, he wanted to open up the situation for Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng, these peasant armies.

gave them the big killer weapon of "Dividing the Fields", so that the people of Huguang got a large number of land deeds issued by Zhang Xianzhong.

Now that Zhang Xianzhong's Onishi regime has been established, these people holding land deeds naturally support the Onishi regime.

As long as Zhang Xianzhong called, the cake he painted for them earlier became a reality.

This led to the rapid fall of the Huguang region.

Today, only Wuchang and Huangzhou are left in the whole of Hubei, and they have not been completely captured by the Great Western Army.

Even the Hunan region is rapidly falling.

Therefore, Li Xianzhong only adopted some bills restricting land annexation, such as for those who own more than 300 acres of land and then purchase land, which will greatly increase the deed tax on the transaction, from 3% to 100%; Owning more than 1,000 acres increases to 300%.

The desire of these large landowners to annex land was basically eliminated.

Then, through killing, raiding homes, and forcing donations, he took a lot of land into his own hands.

The official land of these imperial courts was leased to peasants at relatively low prices, which also limited the landlords from using the fields to collect high rents to a certain extent.

After all, there are a large number of cheap official land for rent, and the landlord's land rent is so expensive that naturally no one will give you a tenant.

Moreover, now that the gentry pay for their food, the people do not need to evade taxes by hanging their land in the name of the gentry.

Although the Ming Dynasty did not have the concept of inheritance tax, Li Xianzhong stipulated that the transfer of land deeds and land deeds must pay deed tax.

The ordinary deed tax is very low, only 3%, but he stipulates that all land deeds and land deeds with a market value of more than 10,000 taels must pay a 10% deed tax.

This 10% is equivalent to inheritance tax!

So it's a huge shock to the traditional landlords and old money.

Hoarding large amounts of land has become unprofitable.

However, Zhang Xianzhong, who holds the big killer weapon of "Dividing the Field" in Huguang, is still popular.

In addition to breaking through Xiangyang and killing King Xiang earlier, he successively killed Zhu Fengquan, the king of Shu, Zhu Qiyun, the king of Min, Zhu Qiyun, the king of Min, Zhu Qiyun, the king of Jing, Zhu Youfan, the king of Jing, in Qizhou, the king of Ji, Zhu Youdong, the king of Ji, in Changsha, Changde, the king of Rong, Zhu Youfang, and Jiangling killed the king of Hui, Zhu Changrun.

Although it is still not as good as Li Zicheng's killing of the ten vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty in a row, it has a tendency to catch up.

When Mao Wenlong recovered Changsha, Zhu Changying, the king of Gui in Hengzhou, almost cried and begged Mao Wenlong to enter Hengzhou to protect him.

In order to express his sincerity, he was willing to follow the example of King Lu and King De, and only kept 10,000 acres of farmland, and the rest of the land was dedicated to the imperial court.

Under the leadership of King Gui, Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu in Wuchang, Zhu Youben, the king of Yiwang in Jianchang, and Zhu Changqing, the king of Huai in Raozhou, all expressed their willingness to sacrifice Zhuangtian to support the "Hongguang New Deal".

So far, except for the king of Zhou, who surrendered to Li Zicheng, all the remaining vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty have handed over their own fields.

Li Xianzhong successfully recovered a large amount of land from the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Xianzhong's "Dividing the Fields" barely left a way for the gentry in Huguang to survive, causing them to fall to Li Xianzhong in an all-round way.

After all, Li Xianzhong just wants their silver, and Zhang Xianzhong not only wants their silver land, but also their heads!

For the first time since the Liaodong Army went south, it was actively welcomed by the gentry!

However, the current situation in Huguang is not very optimistic, and Zhang Xianzhong's Great Western Army has 350,000 people.

Li Xianzhong did not move in Wuchang for two months, first, he needed to observe the situation in Jiangnan, and in case Jiangnan caused a mutiny, he had to return to the division in time.

Therefore, he can't get caught up in the melee with the Great Western Army at this time, so as not to be able to withdraw in time in the future.

Second, he focused his energy on Hunan, where the enemy was weakly defended, and first cut off Zhang Xianzhong's passage from Huguang to the south, so as to prevent him from flowing to Jiangxi and even Guangxi, and harming these places.

In the past two months, Mao Wenlong's 30,000-strong army has successively recovered Baoqing, Yongzhou, Changde, Yuezhou and other places, almost driving Zhang Xianzhong's forces out of Hunan.

On June 20, Mao Wenlong defeated Zhang Wenxiu's troops in Jiuxiwei, Yuezhou, annihilated more than 20,000 elites of the Great Western Army, and then went north to occupy Shimen, Gong'an, Yidu and other places, approaching Jiangling, the important town of Huguang.

Zhang Kewang was forced to withdraw his troops from the Wuchang front line and return to Jiangling to prevent the Ming army from taking advantage of the situation to cross the Yangtze River and threaten their rear.

At the same time, Zuo Liangyu also led 20,000 people from Luzhou and Anqing to attack Huguang and recover Huangzhou Mansion in one fell swoop.

Zhang Dingguo keenly sensed that the atmosphere was wrong.

Although the Ming army did not make major moves on the Wuchang front, it only relied on the advantage of its naval division to constantly shell Hanyang and consume its own living forces.

But the Ming army had already begun to move on his flank, and although it was still far from Wuchang, he was clearly feeling the pressure.

There is also the fact that the naval division of the Ming army is too strong, and the battle along the Yangtze River is fighting, and the Great Western Army has no chance of winning at all.

So Zhang Dingguo decided to abandon Hanyang and retreat to De'an Province.

However, at this time, Emperor Zhang Xianzhong of Daxi had already come to Chengtianfu in person.

Chengtianfu is also the original Anlu Prefecture, after Emperor Jiajing soared into the sky in Anlu, this place was also renamed Chengtianfu.

It is located between Gangneung and Wuchang.

This is also the reason why Zhang Xianzhong chose to sit in Chengtian Mansion, which can be taken into account on both sides.

After Zhang Wenxiu lost 20,000 main forces in Yuezhou, the Great Western Army still had 330,000 horses.

Among them, Zhang Nengqi led 50,000 people to garrison Forte, Sichuan, and the defeated Zhang Wenxiu led 30,000 people to garrison Kuizhou to choke the throat of Sichuan.

"Cao Cao" Luo Rucai led 30,000 people to garrison Xiangyang,

Zhang Kewang and Zhang Dingguo each led 60,000 people to garrison Jiangling and attack Wuchang.

Zhang Xianzhong himself personally led an army of 100,000 to sit in Chengtianfu.

After receiving Zhang Dingguo's request to evacuate Hanyang and retreat to De'an, Zhang Xianzhong began to hesitate.

He said, "Zhang Guoshi, what do you think about this matter? ”

Since Zhang Jiao presented Zhang Xianzhong with the big killer move of "Dividing the Field", he was named a national teacher by Zhang Xianzhong.

However, Zhang Xianzhong is different from Li Zicheng, he is very suspicious and hardly trusts strategists.

If it weren't for Zhang Jiao's "Dividing the Field" to be of great use to him, it is estimated that he would not even stay as the only strategist.

Zhang Jiao knew that Zhang Xianzhong was suspicious, so he had to say the opposite, so he said: "Zhenxi Hou has been confronting the Ming army on the front line, and he should understand the situation. Judging from the current situation, the Ming army has indeed begun to advance to Jiangling, Wuchang and other places. ”

"It's safer to retreat to De'an!"

At this time, Zhang Xianzhong didn't say a word and retreated to De'an, this scene is a bit familiar.

Last year, he retreated from Wuchang City in a hurry, and was stalked by Cao Wenzhao's cavalry all the way, and he almost couldn't get out.

If Zhang Kewang hadn't taken the initiative to lead away the pursuers, it is estimated that there would be no him, the Emperor of the Great West, now.

Just when Zhang Xianzhong was hesitating, suddenly the sergeant came to report that the town Donghou had arrived.

Isn't Zhang Kewang stationed in Jiangling, why did he come?

I saw Zhang Kewang say: "See my father, my son is here for the matter of Hanyang!" ”

"Did the third brother ask to give up Hanyang?"

Zhang Xianzhong said: "Dingguo does have this meaning! ”

Zhang Kewang said: "This matter is absolutely impossible, and now the north bank of the Yangtze River is still under the control of my Daxi. Although Zuo Liangyu occupies Huangzhou, he has a total of only 20,000 horses, so as not to threaten the flank of the third brother! ”

"But if we take the initiative to abandon Hanyang, then the Ming army will take advantage of the situation to cross the Yangtze River in a big way."

"Once Wuchang is no longer contained, the warships of the Ming army will go down the river and capture Jiangling. At that time, both Dean and Gangneung will be attacked by the Ming army, and we will face the risk of total collapse! ”

"At this time, sticking to Hanyang is the best policy, and the child suggests increasing the number of troops in Hanyang!"

From Zhang Kewang's point of view, his analysis is not wrong, as soon as Zhang Dingguo retreats, his Jiangling will be in danger.

Now they are all looking at the problem from their own point of view, so in the end, Zhang Xianzhong has to make his own decision!

Zhang Jiao, as an undercover agent of the Intelligence Department, of course, hoped to attract Zhang Xianzhong's main force to the Wuchang area.

If he is allowed to run back to Sichuan, it will be even more difficult to destroy him!

He said: "Your Majesty, my Daxi will fight Li Xianzhong in Huguang, and Li Zicheng's Dashun can't watch the fire from the other side!" ”

"Weichen is willing to go to Luoyang to persuade Li Zicheng to send troops to threaten Fengyang, so Li Xianzhong will definitely be difficult to take care of!"

Zhang Kewang also said: "What the national teacher said is extremely true, if Li Zicheng can send troops, our chances of defending Huguang will be greatly increased!" ”

Huguang is the place where Zhang Xianzhong made his career, if you want him to give it up directly, he is naturally reluctant.

Xiangyang, in particular, was besieged by the Ming army for a year and was not lost.

In the end, Zhang Xianzhong decided to personally lead an army of 80,000 to support Hanyang.

In this way, the Great Western Army on the Hanyang Front reached 140,000 people.

Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong personally led the army to come, the Ming army naturally had to cooperate.

Zuo Liangyu sent light cavalry to attack Xiaogan in the north of Hanyang, but was repelled by the Great Western Army, and then the Great Western Army took advantage of the situation to advance and capture Huangpi County in Huangzhou Prefecture, completely consolidating the flank of Hanyang.

Li Xianzhong naturally could not delay in Wuchang for two months in vain, and Mao Wenlong's 30,000-strong army attacked the Hunan prefectures all the way, which naturally attracted the attention of Zhang Kewang and others.

In fact, Mao Wenlong was just covering for Zhang Zhiji.

To be exact, it just opens the passage for him.

In just over a year, it was impossible for Zhang Xianzhong to control the whole of Sichuan.

Sichuan also has considerable Tusi power, and these people are still subservient to the Ming Dynasty, at least on the surface.

Li Xianzhong also understood that it was easy for him to recover Huguang at this time, with the help of 100,000 troops and Liaodong Sailors, Zhang Xianzhong's hundreds of thousands of horses were not enough at all.

But if Zhang Xianzhong is allowed to flee back to Sichuan, with his cunning, coupled with the dangers of mountains and rivers, as well as the desperate battles of Zhang Kewang, Zhang Dingguo and others, the pacification of Daxi will definitely be far away, and it is not impossible to even engage in a year or two.

So he decided to give Zhang Xianzhong a shut-off and beat the dog.

His goal is Kuizhou, and he wants to trap Zhang Xianzhong in Huguang.

He was not sure about the other toasts, but Ma Xianglin and his mother Qin Liangyu must be loyal to the Ming Dynasty.

They also have a white pole soldier in their hands.

The location of the Shiyan Propaganda Division is also very critical, it is just south of Kuizhou, next to Wanxian.

So Mao Wenlong's approach to Jiangling was just a cover.

Just when Zhang Kewang was defending Jiangling, Zhang Zhiji and Cao Bianjiao had already led 10,000 people all the way from Wuchang for two months.

During this period, they did not take the main road, but plunged headlong into the deep mountains of northwest Hunan Province.

Starting from Yongdingwei, he entered the territory of a large number of Tusi such as Yongshun Xuanwei Division, Baojing Prefecture Xuanwei Division, and Youyang Xuanwei Division.

Zhang Zhiji and others took the holy decree of Emperor Hongguang to re-canonize these toasts all the way, and rewarded them with gold and silver all the way.

These toasts were originally unaccustomed to Zhang Xianzhong's burning, killing and looting, so it was naturally impossible to wear the same pants with him.

Anyway, they are all loyal to the Ming Dynasty, and they don't care if it's Emperor Chongzhen or Emperor Hongguang.

After receiving a large amount of gold and silver, these Tusi not only sent guides, but also sent troops to help in the battle.

So when Zhang Zhiji and the others arrived at the Shi Yan Propaganda Division, it was already a combined army of 15,000 people!

The sudden appearance of this army really startled Qin Liangyu.

Qin Liangyu was also very excited after learning about Zhang Zhiji's intention.

However, Ma Xianglin on the side was embarrassed!

He said: "When the thieves entered the Sichuan, my white pole soldiers sent troops to stop them, but unfortunately now we are besieged by the thieves and it is very difficult to replenish. ”

"Even my own five thousand people can't have enough to eat, where can I supply so many troops?"

Zhang Zhiji said: "The reason why we walked for two months was because we carried a lot of food and equipment with us. ”

"The prince has fought hand in hand with the white pole soldiers, and he knows very well that the situation of the men is difficult!"

"So the special order Pontus Governor brought 3,000 pieces of heavy cloth cotton armor, as well as 1,000 Lumi guns, and 50,000 stone of grain!"

Ma Xianglin said excitedly: "All this equipment is for us? ”

Zhang Zhiji nodded and said, "The prince knows in Liaodong that the white guns of the white pole soldiers are indestructible, but your armor is not good. ”

"The prince said that if the white pole soldiers can wear these heavy cloth cotton armor, then the combat power will definitely increase greatly!"

At this time, Ma Xianglin and Qin Liangyu were very moved.

They sent troops to help the Ming Dynasty many times, whether it was Sichuan, Banzhou, or even Liaodong, a large number of white pole soldiers shed blood!

Although the imperial court also rewarded them with money, food, and titles, it never took the initiative to provide them with weapons and equipment.

Qin Liangyu said: "The road in Kuizhou has been blocked by the thieves, and all of your things were transported here over the mountains?" ”

Zhang Zhiji said: "Actually, the prince originally wanted to bring hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to Mrs. Qin and Ma to express the court's reward to you, but this mountain road is really difficult to walk!" ”

"If it weren't for a few toasts who sent a large number of clansmen to help us carry them together, we probably wouldn't be able to transport it for another month!"

What are the virtues of his neighbors, Qin Liangyu naturally knows very well, they are sending people and troops, I am afraid that the little grandfather Zhang Zhiji in front of him has not spent much money.

Qin Liangyu said: "It is our duty to serve the Ming Dynasty. When the dog was in Liaodong, thanks to the king of Liaodong County, he was able to get out of it thanks to the army sent by the king of Liaodong to contain the main force of the Tartars. ”

In fact, Ma Xianglin had been guarding Kuandian Fort for three months, and he was blind in one eye, and he also complained a lot about Li Xianzhong's Liaodong army if he didn't save him!

However, he was relieved to learn later that Li Xianzhong used their containment to break the Tartars on the northern front.

Qin Liangyu also said that Li Xianzhong's method of encircling Wei and saving Zhao at that time should be the best choice.

Qin Liangyu is 58 years old this year, and years of fighting have left her with injuries.

However, in order to repay the Ming Dynasty, she resolutely decided to go out of the mountain again to help Zhang Zhiji and others seize Kuizhou!

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(End of chapter)