Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 136 The prologue begins
The so-called "ground" thing.
The original garrison troops had died, but their family was not extinct, so the land that had been taken away previously could not be taken back.

It just doesn't make sense that the first group can grab land while the ones coming later can only wait for salaries. Under such circumstances, it would be reasonable to allocate more land.

But Erdu is not a reckless man after all, and his methods are much more gentle and kinder.

According to them, the people of Huating can let the new soldiers inherit the land of the fallen soldiers through replacement. In this way, Huating County will not be affected by another wave of land grabbing, and the families of the fallen soldiers will not have to work hard to manage the land thousands of miles away.

However, in this process, the interests of the families of the fallen soldiers were obviously damaged, so Huating County had to come up with corresponding compensation measures.

Of course, this method was proposed by Ordu with good intentions and was not mandatory, so whether it was adopted depended entirely on the voluntary decision of the people of Huating.

Afterwards, Wen and Qi negotiated back and forth, and the people of Huating not only voluntarily accepted the proposal, but also praised Ordu for his compassion for the people.

Finally, in an atmosphere of reluctance, Ordu led his troops to the next county, while the people of Huating began to raise compensation for the families of the fallen soldiers.

Of course, that amount of money is nothing to these wealthy families. Even if only the Wen family is asked to pay, most of it can be taken out.

But this is a matter for the entire county after all, and naturally the people of the entire county have to work together. Otherwise, how can we reflect the unity of the people of Huating County?
Therefore, after some discussion, the gentry and elders of Huating decided together that the money should be shared by all the people in the county according to household.

For a period of time thereafter, such scenes continued to be played out in various counties of Suzhou and Songjiang. Finally, Ordu, who had eaten his fill, returned safely to Suzhou after discovering that the Ming army had no further action.

Although the wealthy families in various counties suffered some losses in silver, in these turbulent times, it was generally within an acceptable range.

After all the calculations, it seems that the people who suffered the most were the ordinary people who were completely powerless during the period.

This situation is probably a bit like the big fish eating the small fish, and the small fish eating the shrimp.

As for whether the shrimp will explode because of this.
I think no one would care about these things except Zhu Cilang in Hangzhou.

In the past few days, military intelligence from all sides has been continuously flowing into Hangzhou through different channels. As the "leader" of the remaining Ming forces in Jiangnan, Zhu Cilang is naturally...
Okay, admit it, he really has nothing to do.

Even though there was a constant flow of information, on the one hand, he had already made arrangements on what to do next, and on the other hand, even if he had some new ideas, they might not be conveyed in time.

In addition, although both Hangzhou and Yingtian regarded Zhu Cilang as their lord, he had already established connections with the clerks and clerks in Yingtian, so the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty actually did the work of the prefect and commander of Yingtian.

But it is different here in Hangzhou. All power, big or small, is in the hands of various forces. Apart from being able to exert some influence on them, he is not like in Yingtian where his words are law and his daily affairs are handled by thousands of things.

Zhu Cilang was generally acceptable to this situation.

To put it bluntly, Hangzhou has not experienced too much turmoil, and the old systems are all intact. If he does not want to cause a drama in which the ministers assassinate the king before driving the Tartars back to Jiangbei, he has no choice but to accept it calmly.

As a result, his attention naturally turned to the army.

In times of chaos, the army is the foundation of survival. Not only are the generals well aware of this, but even the civil servants who previously despised the soldiers are doing their best to reach out to the army.

Under such circumstances, Zhu Cilang naturally would not be willing to lag behind, nor would he dare to fall behind.

However, several troops in Hangzhou City have already been taken, and the only ones he can choose are the more than 30,000 Yingtian Guard troops trapped in the camp.

All parties in Hangzhou were actually salivating over this group of people, but they did not have a suitable entry point after all. In addition, Chang Guanlin moved into the camp as soon as possible, so many days after the battle of Hangzhou ended, this piece of fat meat could remain intact until Zhu Cilang arrived.

Of course, nothing is perfect in the world.
This army had experienced an extremely serious mutiny, and now there were more than 20 commanders, 150,000 households and more than 1,000 centurions among the 30,000 people.

If we include the small flags and miscellaneous military officers, 20% of them are officers.

Such a situation was naturally unacceptable to Zhu Cilang.

So he followed the old method and first took control of all the commanders and thousand-man commanders in the army.

Then they formed a separate battalion for the old and weak common soldiers who were no longer fit for duty, and allowed them to return to their farms in response to the Queen's request.

The remaining 20,000 people were mixed with the 2,000 elite soldiers they brought with them into one army, and Chang Guanlin served as the commander-in-chief.

This operation dazzled the officials in Hangzhou and made them marvel at it.

On the one hand, they were surprised at the courage of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and on the other hand, they were puzzled why the army of more than 30,000 people did not mutini.

But Fang Guoan was the only one in Hangzhou who had actually led troops. How could he tell those civil servants that the usual unrest and mutinies were all instigated by senior military officers?

So in the end, the civil officials could only sigh at the Crown Prince's luck.

Five or six days had passed since all this was done, and the Qing troops sent from Suzhou had already patrolled the counties that had been plagued by "banditry" and were on their way back. However, the strategy set by Zhu Cilang had only now been truly implemented.

When he left Suzhou, Ordu led 5,000 soldiers, but when he returned, the 5,000 soldiers became 3,000, and there were many more fully loaded carriages in the team.

This trip was quite fruitful. Not only did he bring back tens of thousands of taels of silver, but he also obtained more than 4,000 shi of grain for the army.

Of course, this is not all. After all, his subordinates had previously occupied a lot of land in various counties. If the wealthy and powerful families did not want to engage in another land grabbing race, they would have to pay some money to redeem the land according to the market price.

This is not a small amount of money. Although the land price is not as valuable as it was in the early years, a good acre of paddy field still costs seven or eight taels.

Based on this calculation, it is conservatively estimated that the revenue from Ordu was at least 500,000 to 600,000 taels.

As for whether this money will force the aristocratic families to take risks.
joke!

Five or six hundred thousand may sound like a lot, but when it is shared equally among each family, it is only a few taels.

For decades, the Ming Dynasty from top to bottom has been booming its maritime business. Even though the number of merchants has been decreasing in recent years due to some reasons, the accumulation over the years has reached an extremely terrifying amount.

It might be an exaggeration to say that tens of thousands of taels of silver is a drop in the bucket for aristocratic families, but Erdu is confident that this amount will not be enough to make them take risks.

He doesn't think that "there is so much silver that there is no place to bury it" is just a rumor.

"Keep up the good work! We'll reward you two taels of silver each when we return to Suzhou tomorrow!"

These days, it is the season of continuous plum rain in the south of the Yangtze River.

Although it wasn't raining at this time, the road was still very muddy and slippery.

Seeing that it was getting dark and the original camping site was still six or seven miles away, Ordu became anxious and offered a reward to the soldiers.

It is not necessarily true that this reward is purely for motivating soldiers.

After all, he made a lot of money on this trip, so it was reasonable for him to share some of the soup with the soldiers.

But there are some rules to follow when rewarding people.

If the soldiers were rewarded for their deeds, they would probably feel that the emperor clearly distinguished between rewards and punishments. However, if the emperor gave them money without any reason, they might develop bad habits. If he promised them two taels of silver at this time, and if they performed well, he would find a reason to give them one more tael of silver when they returned to Suzhou, the three thousand soldiers would have to pay nearly ten thousand taels of silver. If he also counted the profits for the two surrendered generals and the arrangements for various parties, he would have to spend at least two or three thousand taels of silver.

In this way, even if he brought back tens of thousands of taels this time, no one would gossip about it.

As for the other several hundred thousand taels of silver
The so-called wealth is not revealed in vain.

How could someone as smart as Ordu reveal his true self to others?

The hundreds of thousands of dollars of land redemption money had long been turned into gambling debts and hidden in his sleeves. When things calmed down a little, he would find a way to transfer them back to Beijing quietly.

"Thank you, sir!"

"Thank you General!"

"Thank you, indeed!"

After the reward was given, both the Eight Banners soldiers and the surrendered troops from Jiangbei naturally worked much harder than before, and their marching speed immediately increased.

Although it was still a little slower than usual, it was not slow considering the situation of transporting so much money and grain.

According to common sense, the best way to send so much goods back to Suzhou would be to go upstream along the Songjiang River.

But the closer we are to Suzhou, the closer we are to Taihu Lake, and the closer we are to Taihu Lake, the greater the possibility that the remaining Ming troops will appear.

The soldiers under Ordu are not good at naval battles. If the Ming army fleet suddenly attacks them, the loss of money and food will be secondary. He may also have to die here.

Traveling by land is different. It is slower, but safer.

Even if the Ming army came with tens of thousands of troops to besiege him, he had the confidence to hold out until reinforcements arrived on the battlefield he was familiar with.

"Why are there so many potholes on this broken road?"

Ordu looked at the soldiers who were struggling to push the cart and felt speechless.

If it were dry, you could tell at a glance where there were potholes and where there were no potholes, but now the ground is all muddy and the wheels will fall into the potholes after just a few steps.

If it was a smaller pit, it would be fine, the soldiers could just put in some effort to get out from behind. But if it was stuck in a big pit, they would have to move some of the money and food off the carriage and then load them back after the carriage was free.

As a result, the marching speed, which was already slow due to the slippery ground, became even more difficult.

"Why did you stop?!"

Just when Ordu was feeling a little depressed, the carriage in front suddenly stopped.

As soon as he asked this question, a soldier ran towards him from the front of the convoy in a moment.

"Oh my god! Something is wrong. The road ahead has been dug up!"

Hearing this, his heart suddenly tightened, and he urged his horse to run straight forward.

The team of 3,000 people was about a mile long from front to back. Ordu, who was in the center, reached the front of the team in just a few breaths.

At this time, a long ditch about twenty to thirty feet long and four or five feet wide and deep was across the front of the convoy.

From the piles of soil scattered around, it can be seen that this ditch must have been dug within a day or two.

If it is in the dry area in the north, you only need to fill the ditch up by four or five feet and the road will remain passable.

But the soil in this place had long been soaked by rain and became mushy. Even if it was filled entirely, let alone a section, it would hardly support a fully loaded carriage.

At this point, not to mention Ordu, a general who had fought in battles for half his life, even the ordinary soldiers had already realized that this ditch was dug specifically for their own troops.

"Go to Suzhou and tell them to proceed according to the plan!"

As soon as Erdu's military order was issued, several soldiers on horseback immediately rushed out.

Then he glanced at the surrounding terrain, and when he saw an open area, he ordered his soldiers to surround the carriages in a circle as a temporary defensive fortification.

The soldiers moved quickly, but the objective conditions were too bad. After three or two incense sticks of time, the temporary defensive fortifications were only in their infancy.

But faced with this situation, Erdu neither urged nor showed any anxiety. He just kept looking around, with some expectation on his face.

Judging from the current situation, the stragglers in Susong must have had their eyes on his troops. But while you were having eyes on others, did you ever think about whether others were also having eyes on you?
Thinking of this, Erdu couldn't help but sneer.

When he went out, the Ming army did not make any moves, so he took the initiative to disperse some of his troops in various counties. Now there are only 3,000 troops, so the Ming army should have made some moves anyway. Otherwise, would they have gone through so much trouble just to let him go out for a walk?

Time passed little by little, and the circular formation of vehicles was completed.

But after such a long time, there was still no sign of the Ming army.

This made Ordu wonder if he was overthinking it. The Ming army didn't have the courage to attack at all, and the long ditch was just a nuisance.

is it possible?
The situation before him made Erdu full of doubts.

According to common sense, if the Ming army wanted to ambush, the best time to attack would be when they just realized that something was wrong and the soldiers were still a little panicked.

If this node is missed, the ambush will turn into a confrontation, and both sides will be on the same starting line.

Then the problem is coming.

If the Ming army really had the courage to fight against me, would it take so much trouble?

The more Ordu thought about it, the more he doubted whether he had overestimated the Ming army. In the end, he even felt that he should not have sent someone back to deliver the message so early.

"What exactly is the Ming army planning?"

Having fought for so many years, he had seen all kinds of strategies, but this time the Ming army's actions really left him a little confused.

He took great pains to lure me out, but after he came out, he didn't even move at all. Was he really doing it for fun?
"Eh, look."

Just when Ordu was puzzled, black dots slowly emerged from the horizon. After he looked carefully, he found that those black dots were indeed composed of a large number of Ming troops.

"It's finally here that's supposed to come."

(End of this chapter)