The news that Chai Guozhu would lead troops to the south reached the imperial court on August 20th.
It was also on this day that Shen Yicheng once again received a report from the Yangzhou government. The Yangzhou government reported that after the Zhenjiang government occupied Nanjing, they did not continue to attack the north. Instead, they firmly defended Zhenjiang and Nanjing. At the same time, they blocked the Grand Canal. The Yangzhou government expressed that if they could not annihilate this navy, it would be difficult to recover Zhenjiang and Nanjing.
After learning this news, Shen Yicheng held a cabinet meeting. The main content of the meeting was to choose the commander-in-chief to fight the rebels in the south.
There was no need to think about military officers. It was impossible for a military officer to be the commander-in-chief this time. They must choose a trustworthy civilian officer to lead the troops to the south. Shen Yicheng's requirement was someone capable, qualified, and loyal enough to deter the troops of the capital camp and Ji Town in Liaodong.
The officials recommended one after another, but Shen Yicheng was not satisfied. Then someone even recommended Xiao Heng and Liu Huangchang, but Shen Yicheng did not agree.
Xiao Heng had to stay by his side to help him deal with military affairs, and Liu Huangchang had to advise him on military affairs. These two people could not leave him.
Therefore, he had to choose a capable person who was good at both the pen and the sword to be the commander-in-chief.
When everyone was having a headache about the candidate, Zhao Shiqing suddenly put forward a name.
"How about using Li Hualong again?"
Shen Yicheng looked at Zhao Shiqing.
"Li Hualong, the former Liaodong Governor?"
Zhao Shiqing nodded.
"Li Hualong has been a local governor for many years and has led troops for many years. It is well-known that he is very capable of using troops. He is from Henan. In the 23rd year of Wanli, he left his post due to illness and stayed at home to recuperate. It has been three years since then. He is a good candidate."
Xiao Heng also thought that Li Hualong was a good candidate.
"Li Hualong can suppress the fierce generals of Liaodong in Liaodong. He is very good at commanding. Since we are going to use the Liaodong Army this time, Li Hualong is obviously the best candidate."
Shen Yicheng thought about it.
"Then send him an edict and ask for his opinion. If he is willing to come, let him come to the capital. I want to see him."
Boss Xiao immediately went to make the arrangements.
Chai Guozhu's Ji Town Army and Li Rusong's Liaodong Army were the best choices. As for Shanxi and Datong, which were further west, because they had just suffered a military disaster, the local situation was still unstable. It was impossible to transfer troops and horses there. Yulin, which was further away, was also out of the question. There was not enough time.
The Grand Canal was blocked, so the grain could not reach the North. This caused the North, which had just experienced the Northern Expedition against the Northern Barbarians, to be in dire need of food.
Although they could get a large amount of food from killing the Jin merchants, most of the food was used to settle the local refugees so that they could get through this difficult year. Not much of it could be used on the army.
After a rough calculation, to gather a hundred thousand men to suppress the rebels in the south, it was still a question whether the rations in Shen Yi's hands could last for half a year. The sooner they got rid of Xiao Ruxun's remnants, the better the crisis would be.
As for whether Xiao Ruxun was still alive, Shen Yicheng had asked Luo Sigong to take the Imperial Bodyguard to solve this problem. He asked him to give him an accurate answer in half a month. Otherwise, he would teach Luo Sigong a lesson.
Luo Sigong had been completely tied to Shen Yicheng. All his actions were based on Shen Yicheng's will.
Shen Yicheng made use of Luo Sigong's Imperial Bodyguard to carry out the white ops that Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di used. In order to ensure his power and safety, he let the Imperial Bodyguard reach into the homes of almost every minister. Nothing could escape his attention.
He now began to understand why Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to set up the Imperial Bodyguard. He also knew how Zhu Yuanzhang knew what the ministers ate and wore.
Being a spy was really useful and great. It was great to use it to strengthen one's power and prestige, intimidate the ministers, and increase one's power and prestige!
But on the other hand, if they used too much of their strength to keep an eye on the capital and maintain law and order, the number of people that the Brocade Guard could deploy outside would be greatly reduced. As a result, Luo Sigong had done his best to squeeze out more people to handle this operation in the south.
While Shen Yicheng was nervously preparing for the war to the South, Xiao Ruxun was basically smooth sailing.
When Shen Yicheng got the news that Li Rusong led the army to suppress the rebellion in Liaodong, Xiao Ruxun captured Guilin on August 27th and occupied Guilin Prefecture. After that, he made the strategy of advancing eastward and northward.
Since then, Xiao Ruxun had basically taken over the weak areas of the southern gentry. He began to lead the main force into the strong areas of the southern gentry, such as Jiangxi, Huguang, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Nanzhi.
As for Guizhou, Xiao Ruxun didn't intend to advance.
As the four chieftains ruled Guizhou separately, the Ming government's power in Guizhou was actually very limited. Xiao Ruxun arranged a team of people to be stationed in Huaiyuan to watch out for the movements in Guizhou. Meanwhile, under Cen Dalu's suggestion, he sent people from Black Water to contact the chieftains in Guizhou with money and let them stay neutral as much as possible.
After all, the Ming Dynasty had tamed some people in Guizhou. However, these people were not in Xiao Ruxun's eyes.
In order not to waste time, Xiao Ruxun directly left Guizhou and led his troops north to Huguang. Their target was Changsha.
Chen Lin and Li Wenyuan led their troops from Guangdong to Fujian. The first place they faced was Zhangzhou Prefecture, which was developed in commerce. There were a lot of sea merchants here. Basically, they were supported by the gentry and had their own private armed forces. Although the official power was weak, these sea merchants were not easy to deal with.
Xiao Ruxun's instruction to Chen Lin and Li Wenyuan was that if they dared to resist, their families would be exterminated, their money would be taken away, and their land and houses would be distributed to the local farmers who had lost their land.
At present, Xiao Ruxun didn't want to make the problem too complicated, nor did he want to shout the slogan of "beating the local tyrants and distributing the land". However, in fact, such an action might play an unexpected role in some places.
Xiao Ruxun thought so, and the fact was so. However, Xiao Ruxun hadn't figured out the farmers' sense of belonging to the land in this age. He didn't understand what land meant to the farmers in this age.
He had experienced hunger and the cruel competition for survival. However, he had only read about the difficult life of the farmers in ancient times in books. He only knew the mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and stains of blood and tears behind the four words "cannibalism".
He had seen starving people in Burma. However, Burma had a lot of wastelands and didn't lack land. Later on, the grain output increased steadily. After the introduction of potatoes and corn, people didn't starve anymore. Therefore, he couldn't understand the psychological activities of the people in the Daming Dynasty.
Therefore, he still didn't understand the plot of land passed down by the common people for thousands of years.
Strictly speaking, the Ming Dynasty wasn't destroyed by the Manchurian Qing. It was destroyed by Li Zicheng. The Daming Dynasty collapsed amidst the cheers of "The Roaming King is here and we don't want to collect grain" …
Sometimes, the beginning of an earth-shattering event would happen inadvertently.
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