I

  Chapter 338 336 [Lu Xiangsheng]

  Nanjing Imperial City and Beijing Imperial City, the layout is not exactly the same, but it can be called similar.

  There are six offices with similar locations.

  Zhao Han now lives in the area west of Liubu, walking north along the Qinhuai River, he can reach Taiping Gate, and Xuanwu Lake is just outside the Taiping Gate.

  At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were many lakes in Nanjing. In addition to Xuanwu Lake, there were also Qianhu Lake, Nanhu Lake, Zhonghu Lake, Mochou Lake and so on.

  Before Zhao Han conquered Nanjing, Xuanwu Lake belonged to the forbidden area of ​​the royal family.

  Now the ban is naturally lifted. Some fishermen go fishing in the lake, some farmers farm by the lake, and even famous prostitutes move their painting boats to Xuanwu Lake.

   Zhao Han took the boat today, not to visit famous prostitutes, but to travel with his whole family. After the flood receded, they took advantage of the leisure time to visit the lake, and let Fei Rulan, Pan Qimei, Zhao Zhenfang and the others relax by the way.

  Several women were lying on the window of the painting boat, looking at the scenery of Zijin Mountain, chatting about private matters.

   "The city wall over there should open a water gate."

Zhao Han pointed to a section of the city wall to the northwest of the Taiping Gate: "Emperor Hongwu built the city and forcibly separated the Qinhuai River and Xuanwu Lake, so that Xuanwu Lake could not be used for flood discharge during floods. The water of the Yangtze River could not flow into Xuanwu Lake through the Qinhuai River. It will become smaller and smaller. There must also be an order that the area around Xuanwu Lake, within half a mile, must not be used for farming!"

  After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the ban on Xuanwu Lake was lifted, and the gentry and dignitaries continued to reclaim land from the lake, resulting in a crazy decrease in the area of ​​the lake, and the filling of the lake made Nanjing Zhonghu disappear directly.

  Xu Nianzu nodded and said: "It is indeed time to reconnect the Qinhuai River and Xuanwu Lake. This year, the Qinhuai River has flooded the streets on both banks."

  The famous prostitute Gu Hengbo was playing the piano in the cabin.

  Lu Xiangsheng listened to the sound of the piano, closed his eyes and rested his mind. He was waiting for Zhao Han to assign errands.

  Zhao Han got up and looked at the lake, but he was thinking in his mind, if Nanjing is the capital, how to stabilize Beijing.

  In the Ming Dynasty, there was Shuntian Mansion where Beijing was located, Yingtian Mansion where Nanjing was located, and Chengtian Mansion (the hometown of Jiajing) in Hubei. These three are equivalent to municipalities directly under the central government, and Fengyang must be added to the strict calculation.

  If you want to stabilize Beijing and prevent Beijing from declining, you must establish a "municipality directly under the Central Government".

  The administrative establishment of Chengtian Mansion must be abolished, and Zhao Han, the municipality directly under the central government, intends to set up five—

  The first is Nanjing, the second is Beijing, the third is Shenyang, the fourth is Xi'an, and the fifth is Kunming.

  The prefects of the five municipalities directly under the central government must be at the same level as the chief envoy. Only with a high enough grade, a large city in a remote area can radiate the surrounding area and play a role in stabilizing the country.

  Suddenly, Zhao Han turned around: "Mr. Jiutai, you go with the army to fight Anqing."

   "Yes." Lu Xiang stood up and cupped his hands.

  Zhao Han said with a smile: "First read "Da Tong Ji" carefully a few times, and serve as a military missionary officer for a year, so that I can transfer you to a commanding general."

  Floods in several provinces this summer are indeed not suitable for the full-scale Northern Expedition.

   But occupying cities along the river is still possible as a stronghold for the Northern Expedition.

  Fei Ruhe has already occupied Yangzhou, and Liuhe, Jiangpu, Hezhou, Wuwei, Wangjiang, and Anqing can be occupied.

  These cities are all by the river, or not far from the Yangtze River.

   There is no need to recruit a large number of civilians to transport supplies, and you can fight across the river by boat. After the fight, it will be the former stronghold of the Northern Expedition.

  The end of June.

  Lu Xiangsheng held "Da Tong Ji" in his arms, and followed Zhang Tieniu to fight Anqing.

  Anqing, Jiancheng also.

   King Ning rebelled, and he was always blocked here, and the Jiajing Dynasty built another city.

   "Fujun, Jiangxi soldiers are coming." Fang Yuegong, the prefect of Anqing, said.

  Anlu Governor Li Yukui asked back: "Do you want to surrender the bandits?"

Fang Yuegong sighed: "My home is in Gucheng, which was stolen by the eight thieves (Zhang Xianzhong) for a year, and now it has been completely occupied by the eight thieves. My father wrote a letter saying that the family property is still there, but the floating wealth has been looted. Silver buried in the cellar."

  Li Yukui smiled bitterly: "You still know the information about your hometown, but there is no news about my family. I don't know if they were robbed by the intruder (Li Zicheng)."

  Li Zicheng is sweeping Shanxi, and Li Yukui is from Shanxi.

   Fang Yuegong said: "Zhao Han opened a port in Shanghai, and I built the sea wall and stone pond in Shanghai County by myself. If you want to come, you can go there to ask for an errand."

  Over there in Shanghai, there is Fang Yuegong's shrine...built by the common people.

   It is also because of the construction of seawalls and stone ponds, forcing rich Shanghai households to pay. Those with more than 100 mu of land were paid 8% of silver per mu, which violated the interests of the gentry, and they were falsely accused of embezzling 3,000 taels of silver. Fang Yuegong was once imprisoned.

  After the grievances came to light, Fang Yuegong was sent to supervise the transportation of grain.

  In the past few years, the grain supply has been cut off in two days, and Fang Yuegong was relegated to be the prefect of Anqing because of his ineffectiveness.

  Li Yukui walked out of the governor's private residence and came to the city with Fang Yuegong.

  Looking at the enemy troops landing outside the city, Li Yukui said to the officials and soldiers around him: "If you want to surrender, then do so. Jiangxi soldiers will not kill innocent people indiscriminately."

  Anqing, I can't keep it.

  Two years ago, Shi Kefa trained the Anlu New Army, and Ding You went home to observe the funeral. Last year, Zheng Eryang crossed the river with the new army, held on to the Taiping Mansion, and was finally forced to lead the crowd to surrender.

   Now, Li Yukui succeeds the governor of Anlu, how can he still have soldiers?

  There are only a few thousand recruits in the whole city, and they are all recruited vagrants!

  Anqing is a very important cargo transfer station in the Yangtze River Basin. In particular, many grains from the provinces in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River are first transported here for storage. Therefore, the transit trade is extremely prosperous, the population gathers rapidly, and the vagrants can also find jobs to make a living.

  After Zhao Han occupied Jiangnan, he did not dare to transport food to Anqing for transit, fearing that it would be detained by imperial officers and soldiers.

  Other goods, many dare not go to Anqing.

  The trade volume in Anqing declined rapidly, and a large number of urban homeless people lost their jobs. Li Yukui could only recruit these homeless people as soldiers.

   Now that Zhao Han's army is coming, what choice will the homeless people defending the city make?

  Of course, surrender quickly and resume Anqing’s trade and transportation as soon as possible. They can find jobs and earn money to support their families. If they continue to serve as soldiers, the whole family will starve to death sooner or later!

  Li Yukui knew this well, and said with a sad smile: "Surrender, all go to Kaesong and surrender."

Li Yukui looked to the north again, and murmured: "The emperor is in power, the treacherous ministers are full of courts, and the Ming Dynasty is hopeless. But how can there be no ministers who have been martyred for three hundred years? Your Majesty, sir Take a step, it won't be too late for you."

  Fang Yuegong felt something was wrong, and said: "Fu Jun, don't think too much. The country is changing, the destiny is reincarnated, beyond human power...Fu Jun!"

   Li Yukui suddenly rushed forward, turned over the female wall, jumped from the high city wall, and still fell with his head down.

  Fang Yuegong wanted to stop him, but his movements were too slow, and he only caught Li Yukui's clothes corner.

   "Boom!"

  With a muffled sound, the body fell to the ground.

  Lu Xiangsheng has already landed with the army, and seeing the flag lowered from the top of the city, he is lamenting that the great city is taken so lightly, that the great Ming Dynasty is completely hopeless.

   There was a muffled sound, and the corpse was only a few dozen steps away from Lu Xiangsheng.

  Lu Xiangsheng hurried over and turned the corpse upside down. The brains have already burst out, the blood has flowed half of the face, and it is still possible to discern who it is.

  Lu Xiangsheng said in grief and indignation: "Li Yifu, why are you so confused!"

  The gates of the city gradually opened, Zhang Tieniu came over with his troops, looked at the corpse and said, "It's true that you are very confused, the surrender has been surrendered, why seek death?"

  Lu Xiangsheng shook his head and said: "You don't understand, you don't understand. He didn't die for the emperor, but for the Ming Dynasty. Throughout the dynasties and dynasties, someone has to die for the country."

  Zhang Tieniu muttered: "What festival do you die for? It is the right thing to let the common people have enough to eat."

  I couldn't explain it to Niu playing the piano, so Lu Xiangsheng didn't bother to talk about it.

  After the officers and soldiers in the city left the city and surrendered, Lu Xiangsheng said: "Buy the martyrs generously, and I will pay for the money myself."

   "Meet the general!" Fang Yuegong brought the officials to greet him.

Lu Xiangsheng recognized Fang Yuegong and reminded him: "Zhang Bingyuan, this Mr. Fang is very famous. He supervised the construction of the first seawall and stone pond in the south of the Yangtze River. He protected countless good fields and provided food and clothing for the people. Shanghai There is still his ancestral hall in the county."

  Zhang Tieniu was originally dismissive of Fang Yuegong, but when he heard this, he cupped his hands and smiled, "You are a good official, Lao Zhang will salute you now."

  Fang Yuegong returned the salute and said: "The general doesn't have to be like this. It is reasonable to serve as an official and benefit one side."

   While they were talking, all the defenders in the city had come out, and they put down their weapons and ran to find work.

  When the army arrived in Anqing, there was naturally a lot of luggage, and most of the defenders were vagrant coolies. These people don't want to fight, they just want to do coolies to make money, and take the opportunity to carry luggage for the Datong army.

   "General, move the rations on board for us!"

   "That's right, I have been carrying bags at the pier for several years, and I am very strong."

   "Your Majesty will give you some work, and the wages are very low, guaranteed to be less than the coolies in Nanjing."

   "..."

  These people, who were the Anqing defenders just now, nodded and bowed over in a blink of an eye to take over the work.

  Lu Xiangsheng couldn't laugh or cry, he was so full of emotions that he could only sigh.

  He often fights with rogues. This kind of situation cannot happen when rogues attack the city. Not to mention vagrant coolies, even the residents of the city will spontaneously go up to the city to defend themselves when they encounter rogues, because rogues will inevitably rob when they enter the city!

  This is not something that can be done with a strong army, but the reputation of benevolence and righteousness must be spread far and wide.

  The people of Anqing know that as long as they surrender to King Zhao, they will have a better life in the future.

  The entire cities along the Yangtze River know this truth. There was only one river across, and they heard countless rumors that the farmers on the other side had already divided their fields, and the people in the city did not pay excessive taxes.

  What a beautiful life that was, why didn't Zhao Tianwang fight Jianglai?

   "Under Heaven!"

   "Long live King Zhao!"

  The common people had some doubts at first, seeing that the soldiers of Datong Qiu were innocent, so they walked out of their houses one after another, standing on both sides of the street to watch and cheer.

  Lu Xiangsheng entered the city with the army and saw more and more people celebrating with joy.

  This feeling is absurd and intoxicating.

  Maintaining order in the city during the day, Lu Xiangsheng took out "Da Tong Ji" at night. He has read this book more than ten times, but every time he reads it, he has new thoughts.

  Many truths in the book can be verified by farmers in Yixing and urban residents in Anqing.

  Lu Xiangsheng is also sympathetic to the people, and the Tianxiong Army is also innocent.

  But the Tianxiong Army and the Datong Army are obviously different.

  One is to fight for the emperor, and the other is to fight for the people!

  Lu Xiangsheng read "Yuanjun", "Yuanchen" and "Yuanmin" repeatedly, and he finally fully understood what Zhao Han said about the great unity of the world.

  (end of this chapter)