Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 117 What do you think?
Xu Renjue was born in the Duke of Wei's Mansion. Judging from the number of military books he has read alone, he can crush most of the generals in the world.

But experience is something that cannot be compensated by anything else.

In Zhu Jiancang's eyes, the second son Xu, who had only been in the army for a while, was just a rookie recruit.

So when he saw Xu Renjue standing there in a daze, he was not surprised at all. He even shouted jokingly, "You haven't seen him before? Why don't you chase him?"

No, of course not!
The only time Xu Renjue faced a battle was against the elite Tatars led by white-armored soldiers.

If His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had not risked his life several times in that battle and boosted the morale of the soldiers, he might have been buried.

But now?

He led fifty guards to attack from the flank, and the enemy army was immediately defeated.

The only two battle experiences in his life were completely different. It was understandable that Xu Renjue was a little dazed by such a gap.

But no matter how dazed he was, he never forgot to kill the enemy.

After being awakened by Zhu Jiancang, 301 Yingtian soldiers chased more than a thousand naval and land camps all the way to Chongming.

"There seems to be a group of people ahead. Should we stop and take a look at the situation? Don't let us accidentally defeat our friendly forces."

Looking at the torches in the distance, Zhu Jiancang shot an arrow, then stopped and asked Xu Renjue.

In his simple concept, friendly forces are friendly forces and they must always be taken into consideration during combat. However, who would have thought that what Xu Renjue said was not only beyond his expectations, but also shattered his three views.

"Don't worry about it. It's better to defeat them in one go. We have to let those bastards on the island know how powerful our Yingtian Army is, so that they won't play dirty tricks on us in the future."

Zhu Jiancang probably couldn't digest these words in a short period of time, but before leaving, Yan Yingyuan had already told him several times that he must listen to the second young master Xu on major matters, so even though he was still a little confused in his heart, he started to draw his bow and draw his arrow again.

But then again, one of them has a family background in learning, and the other is rich in experience, so those defeated soldiers are just ordinary people, right?
Xu Renjue originally planned to use his fleeing soldiers to disperse the army in front of him, who knew that when they arrived, he saw a large number of soldiers kneeling on the ground and kowtowing to the army in front, while those in the army were standing there in a daze, as if they were about to flee.

Seeing that his plan had failed, Xu Renjue was naturally unwilling to give up, but Shen Tingyang's figure had already appeared before him, and he could not kill the surrendered Chongming Island soldiers in front of him.

But the authority must be established after all, so why not do something to leave a deeper impression on them.

"Whoever dares to challenge the might of our great Ming army will be killed!"

"kill!"

As soon as he shouted, three hundred soldiers responded immediately.

Not to mention those who had already knelt on the ground after this shout and response, even many in the "military formation" were frightened to their knees.

Shen Tingyang was naturally overjoyed at this situation, but Tian Yang, who was far away, had already had a huge wave of emotion in his heart.

When they received the news that Zhu Cilang had captured Zhenjiang, they only thought that it was with the assistance of Liu Linsheng, and that the night attack on the Tartar camp was just an advantage of surprise.

Therefore, when defining the combat effectiveness of the Yingtian Army, people probably only thought that they were only slightly stronger than the Luying.

But judging from the current situation, it is more than just a little stronger, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is several times stronger.

Thinking of this, Tian Yang's brain started to work quickly.

As the Tartars' tyranny and extortion became more and more severe, the gentry and wealthy families who had originally planned to sacrifice some of their wealth and become obedient citizens began to contact the remaining Ming troops around them.

With these people as internal support, plus the land camp of Yingtian Army and the navy of Chongming Island, it seems that there is hope to recover the Jiangnan area.

if that is the case
Tian Yang waved to his attendant beside him, then leaned over and whispered in his ear: "Go find General Zhang and tell him that the two battalions have been defeated by the Yingtian Army, and that guy is looking for him to confront him."

After saying this, he jumped off his horse and landed on the ground, then quickly ran towards the front of the "formation".

"Second Young Master! You scared me to death!"

This sound brought the originally suppressed scene back to life. For a moment, cries of begging for mercy and sighs of relief were heard everywhere, and Tian Yang only took this little time to run to Xu Renjue.

"It's good that you're okay, it's good that you're okay. If you really have something wrong, how are we going to explain it to His Royal Highness the Regent?"

not him.

Xu Renjue eliminated him from the suspicion in his mind, and then showed enough kindness to Tian Yang.

"Thank you, Governor, for coming to our rescue."

"You're thanking the wrong person. You're thanking the wrong person. The soldiers are under Peng Yi's command, and the money for them is raised by Ji Ming. I just happened to be here at the right time."

"No matter what, it is a great favor for the governor to take the risk to come here. I will report it to Your Highness after I return."

As he finished speaking, the smile on Tian Yang's face became more friendly, but after a moment, he put away his smile and shouted at the soldiers kneeling beside him: "Tell me, who ordered you to do this?!"

"My lord, have mercy on me! My lord, please have mercy on me!"

The soldier was probably too frightened by the previous escape to recover. He could only kowtow on the ground but could not utter a single useful word.

Tian Yang seemed extremely angry at this performance. He kicked the soldier on the shoulder and started scolding the other soldiers.

"You almost ruined the court's important affairs today. If you don't confess the truth, do you think that I won't dare to kill anyone because the law doesn't punish everyone?"

After the words fell, the soldiers who were still kowtowing were stunned for a moment, and then several of them shouted loudly.

"Sir! We heard that the Yingtian soldiers were rewarded with wine and meat as soon as they arrived on the island. We felt unfair and did such a stupid thing!"

"Sir! We have no other intentions, we just want to grab some wine and meat!"

"Sir! The leader has been shot dead by Yingtian soldiers. We are just followers!"

Normally, the generals would deal with the soldiers who demanded pay by simply executing the ringleader, but it seemed that Tian Yang wanted to kill all of them.

In a short while they explained the whole story one by one.

“It doesn’t look like someone is deliberately instigating this.”

Since the leader is dead, there will be nothing to be found out by investigating further.

Therefore, Shen Tingyang thought that the matter should be left at this point. After all, Zhang Shiyi still had a lot of soldiers and warships under his command. If he continued to investigate under such circumstances, wouldn't it be obvious that he was regarded as the mastermind behind the scenes?

In this case, what other choice does he have except to escape or fight to the death?

The anti-Qing forces would naturally suffer considerable losses.

Shen Tingyang's concerns were of course very reasonable, but Tian Yang did not intend to let the matter go.

As soon as he finished speaking, he asked the soldiers, "How did you know that wine and meat were sent to the Yingtian soldiers?"

"That's what the Marshal's personal soldiers said."

"Where are the guards?" "Dead."

After asking three or two questions, Tian Yang stood there silently.

At this point, everyone can see that this personal soldier played an extremely important role in the whole incident, so it goes without saying who the mastermind behind the scenes is.

However, the adults were really troubled by how to deal with the subsequent matters.

Although the Yingtian soldiers did not suffer any losses that night thanks to their powerful fighting ability, it was their ability that helped them to avoid losses, but an explanation was still needed for Chongming Island.

As for how to give this explanation, there are some considerations to it.

As long as Tian Yang didn't ask, the investigation into the matter could have stopped there.

By then, if a few soldiers were sent out to be killed, Yingtian would save face, and Chongming Island would not suffer any substantial losses.

The two families can unite around His Royal Highness the Regent and do their best to expel the Tartars.

As for the man behind the scenes.
I think under the intimidation of Yingtian's powerful military force, he would give up other thoughts.

Wouldn't everyone be happy this way?
But as luck would have it, Tian Yang asked a few more questions. How could we pretend to be ignorant in this situation?
So the question is, how to deal with Zhang Shiyi?
If we investigate, the personal soldier is already dead, so naturally we cannot investigate. But if we don't investigate, can Yingtian let it go?

If Xu Renjue launched an attack on the spot and insisted on causing trouble for Zhang Shiyi, how would the others deal with it?
Is he really going to lead his troops to fight him?
"I guess even the general is unaware of this."

"Yes, yes, yes, what the Second Young Master said is absolutely right."

"The military discipline there is very poor, and the soldiers have no rules."

Xu Renjue only said one sentence and the three adults echoed him. If we ignore the chaotic soldiers kneeling on the ground, the atmosphere at this time can be described as full of joy and harmony.

However, the slap in the face always comes quickly. Just when several people were preparing to put all the blame on the dead soldier, a rider came rushing from the direction of Chongming City.

It didn't take long for the knight to arrive and report loudly: "My lords, General Zhang has led his warships away from the island!"

It is not difficult to imagine what happened next. Zhang Shiyi's escape was tantamount to confessing himself, so the other people would naturally not show any mercy.

They dealt with the aftermath at an extremely fast speed, and the rest they just had to report to Yingtian.

A few days later, Zhu Cilang received a letter from Chongming Island, which not only detailed Zhang Shiyi's rebellion, but also included the situation in Hangzhou and the "performance reports" of Tian Yang and Zhang Pengyi.

He just glanced at the letter about Zhang Shiyi's rebellion and threw it aside.

Just kidding, the two battalions attacked 300 people, but were killed 400 instead. Although such a battle report is encouraging, it is really not worth spending too much energy on it.

On the contrary, although the words "think" and "possibly" appeared repeatedly in the information he got from Wu Zhikui, most of his attention was still focused here.

As for the other half
Aren’t there also “performance reports” from Tian and Zhang?

To be honest, this "performance report" does not have much practical significance.

Apart from expressing support for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to govern the country at the end, the rest of the part describes how they persisted in fighting the Tartars without any reinforcements from outside and a strong army from within.

But Zhu Cilang had no impression of these two people at all, so he was unwilling to give up the opportunity to get to know his new "allies".

After reading for a while, he formed a vague impression of the two people in his mind through these two "performance reports", and then solemnly placed the one about Hangzhou in front of him.

The news about Hangzhou was obtained by Shen Tingyang and his colleagues from Wu Zhikui. It was precisely because they were waiting for this news that the "performance report" and "situation explanation" only arrived in Yingtian today.

Wu Zhikui and Huang Fei were stationed in the Songjiang Prefecture area. Although the land route was not as fast as the sea route, since the area between the two places was not completely occupied by the Tartars, they were able to obtain some information about the situation in Hangzhou.

According to them, although Duoduo's army had arrived at the city of Hangzhou, it seemed that no fighting had taken place yet.

It is impossible to know much about the inside story during this period, but Wu Zhikui inferred that the Qing army was probably preparing to attack the city.

Such speculation is naturally reasonable, but in Zhu Cilang's memory, it seems that only a few small-scale battles took place in Hangzhou before it surrendered.

So he thought that the possibility of negotiations taking place inside and outside the city at this time was higher.

"What do you think?"

After informing everyone of the relevant situation, Zhu Cilang threw the question aside.

What do you think?
Just stand and watch.

The ministers could more or less guess what His Royal Highness the Regent was thinking.

Previously, we were trapped in the city and could do nothing regardless of whether we knew the situation outside.

Now with the help of the Chongming Island Navy, it is possible to exert some influence on the outside world, so His Highness is a little restless.

But the situation is stronger than the people. No matter how important the location of Hangzhou is, and no matter how bad the impact after its fall is, there are still tens of thousands of Qing troops outside Yingtian City.

How can we spare the energy to care about Hangzhou when we don't even understand the enemy at our doorstep?

"Your Highness, we all understand what you mean, but the navy's transport capacity is limited. Even if all the large ships are used to transport soldiers, there are only more than 10,000 people. This amount of troops is really a drop in the bucket for Hangzhou, not to mention..."

Qian Qianyi paused for a moment, and when he saw that Zhu Cilang was not angry, he continued, "What's more, Hangzhou has already supported Prince Lu as regent. Even if they really send troops, it's hard to say who Hangzhou will regard as the biggest enemy."

Mr. Qian had experienced a battle for the throne, so he naturally knew who the biggest enemy was in the eyes of his competitors. To be frank, the first half of his words was just a prelude to the last sentence, so as to make it seem that his proposition was not just because of this.

"Mr. Qian's words are very serious. Does anyone else have any ideas?"

As soon as Qian Qianyi finished speaking, Zhu Cilang asked everyone another question.

He had already made up his mind about this matter, and the reason he asked everyone was just to see if anyone had the same idea as him.

After all, he had thousands of reasons but none of them could be stated openly. If someone could help him convince everyone, he could avoid being branded as stubborn and self-righteous.

But expectations are often dashed. Considering the known situation, Yingtian cannot have much impact on the war in Hangzhou.

Not to mention other people, even Yue Qijie and Xu Yinjue could not find any reason to support sending troops to Hangzhou under such circumstances, so Zhu Cilang waited for a long time but no one expressed a different opinion.

How to do?
Hangzhou had to be rescued no matter what, but the ministers also had to be persuaded.

Otherwise, if you force everyone to do something because of this today, and force everyone to do something because of that tomorrow, if this continues for a long time, one day you will end up being deserted by everyone.

Of course, if he could move from one victory to another, then he wouldn't have to worry too much. But Zhu Cilang is essentially just an ordinary person. How could he be so confident?
"I have some ideas here, please consider them."

As he spoke, Zhu Cilang stood up from his chair, then slowly walked between the civil and military ministers before stopping.

"The situation has deteriorated to this point. We should seize every opportunity to change it. Just like in Yingtian, if you hadn't supported me with all your strength in an impossible situation, how could I, Zhu Cilang, have achieved what I have today?"

You're actually bringing up old issues to shut us up?!
(End of this chapter)