Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 202 Returning to Beijing
Inside Xu Da's tent.

Zhu Di sat in front of Xu Da's desk with a humble attitude, not as proud as usual.

When he was out, it seemed that only Xu Da could suppress him. No matter who the others were, they were no match for Zhu Di.

Almost the entire battlefield time had passed since Xu Da entered the tent. He hadn't spoken a word, just quietly looking at the battle map on the table.

After a long time, Xu Da finally asked:
"Fourth Brother, do you think the Ming army should return to the capital now, or should they pursue the victory and attack deeper into the enemy territory?
You see, we have currently occupied all the territories of the Jianzhou Jurchens. If nothing unexpected happens, from now on, unless the Mongols are willing to have a direct conflict with the Ming Dynasty, no one will be able to take away our territory.

At present, under our influence, the Joseon Dynasty of Korea has gradually gained control of the Korean regime. They are also willing to become a vassal kingdom of the Ming Dynasty. It can be said that from the beginning of the expedition to now, the territory added by the Ming Dynasty is equivalent to a quarter of the previous Ming Dynasty. What do you think we should do next? Should we stay where we are, build cities, and consolidate our country, or choose to fight?"

Xu Da knew very well why Zhu Di wanted to find him, which was to discuss how their army should proceed next.

This is not a small problem, but a big problem. If the decision made is unfriendly, it may affect the future direction of the Ming army.

To be precise, it is the future of Zhu Di's army.

From the moment he was chosen to be Zhu Di's military teacher, Xu Da knew that he had to start making plans for Zhu Di.

The conferment of titles on other princes was an established fact. As the first person qualified for such title, Zhu Di had to set a good example to avoid possible problems caused by the conferment of titles on other princes in the future.

At present, in the north of the Ming Dynasty, except for the remaining tribes of the Northern Yuan Dynasty who are still surviving under the leadership of Wang Baobao's former subordinates, the Northern Yuan Dynasty has actually no longer posed a threat.

This time when Xu Da went on a long journey, he actually did not go on a closed-door trip to take care of Zhu Di, but to find out what the situation was like in the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

According to reports from spies, the current situation of the Northern Yuan Dynasty is very bad.

The young emperor had no control over these ambitious ministers, all of whom wanted to establish themselves as kings. To this day, there are already many military generals who claim to be the Khan of the grassland.

The Northern Yuan Dynasty finally established a regime with the help of the Han people who defected to it, but it soon became a puppet regime.

The situation is so dire that even if the Ming Dynasty does not take personal action to extinguish it in the future, the Northern Yuan Dynasty will slowly disappear on its own in the future.

No one can avoid the trend of the times.

The current situation is quite favorable for the Ming Dynasty. Even in the near future, the Northern Yuan Dynasty may disappear on its own, and the Ming Dynasty can reap the benefits.

Isn’t it a joy to have such a wonderful thing?
Putting the affairs of the Northern Yuan Dynasty aside, Xu Da is now only concerned about what choice Zhu Di will make.

This also determines how Xu Da will take care of his future.

After thinking for a while, Zhu Di said:

"General, from what I've seen, our army's morale is now at an all-time high. If we have the opportunity to pursue our victory, we will surely achieve a very impressive result.

However, as time goes by, and the weather has been getting worse in recent times, there will definitely be many accidents involving zombies in the future.

In this situation, continuing to fight is not the best choice.

However, it is not my character to let these Jurchens go easily, so I think of sending some young generals under my command, each leading 200 people, into the forest to conduct spy activities and launch attacks with the weapons they have.

The weapons of our Ming army are very powerful, and the Jurchens have never seen them before. When they are fooled, the Ming army will continue to retreat. During this process, if anyone can see someone providing support, they should go forward and surround them at the same time.

Within the limited time, we must eliminate all Jurchen tribes that may affect us and reduce unnecessary obstacles for the subsequent progress.

In addition, I also think that it is time to arrange some refugees from the court to garrison at the Songhua River border to prevent subsequent arrivals from destroying our defense line.

By the way, Marshal, if there are not enough refugees in Ming Dynasty to carry out the construction, why don’t we let the Joseon Dynasty send their people into Ming Dynasty to help.

Anyway, the Joseon Dynasty is willing to submit to the Ming Dynasty and become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty. In this case, all their subjects should serve the Ming Dynasty. "

Zhu Di was still young after all, and Xu Da gave him two options to choose from, but he didn't expect that this guy actually wanted both. This seemed to be the style of the princes of the Ming Dynasty.

But Xu Da didn't expect that this guy was so decisive and really left no stone unturned.

Xu Da himself also knew about the arrangements for the refugees.

The original idea was to use work-for-relief to prevent too many refugees from leaving the country.

Once some people find out that they can get benefits from the court for free just because they are poor, they start to cry poor all the time to avoid working for food.

But in the end, Yang Chen's work-for-relief policy made many people despair.

They can no longer be honest and sneaky, so how can they be happy about that?
For this reason, before the Ming Dynasty could mobilize a large number of refugees to the Songhua River, Zhu Di proposed to first bring some people from Korea to carry out simple construction tasks.

When the city is almost built, we can let the refugees from the Ming Dynasty come and station here. It will not be so as to say that we are unprepared and really transfer people here in the cold winter. If we can really find people to come by doing this, then there will be problems.

It is possible that in the end it will become another form of compulsory labor. No one knows what kind of problems the rumors will cause to the court. Zhu Di does not want these messy things to fall on him.

On the contrary, Xu Da was slightly surprised by Zhu Di's proposal.

Logically speaking, no matter how Zhu Di fought, he wouldn't be so inhumane, right?
Now, in order to successfully eliminate the enemy and safeguard their own interests at the same time, the other party is actually willing to sacrifice the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty and borrow people from Korea to do things.

To put it nicely, this kind of thing is a collaboration, but to put it bluntly, it means that human life is not taken seriously at all.

Everyone knows that we should rest more at home in this season. How could anyone go out to work?

This is a naked use of power to bully others.

Xu Da always felt that this guy seemed to have an inexplicable hatred towards North Korea, otherwise how could he act like this?
So Xu Da asked tentatively:
"I say, Fourth Brother, you don't seem to be like this usually, do you? Why are you so impulsive and overbearing now? Don't you know that doing such a thing to a vassal state can easily cause some unnecessary impact?
Besides, the Joseon Dynasty was a puppet that we supported. It has only been stable for a short time. I'm afraid it's not right for you to treat them like this."

Faced with Xu Da's doubts, how could Zhu Di not know the reason, so he told him some of Korea's later actions.

When they learned that North Korea had actually betrayed its allegiance in order to survive, Ming Dynasty had provided a lot of military support to North Korea during the hundreds of years of Ming Dynasty's existence.

In the face of the life-saving grace, North Korea simply threw everything behind it and forgot about it completely. Xu Da himself hated this ungrateful behavior the most.

He affirmed Zhu Di's actions on the spot.

"I said that there is something wrong with the North Koreans themselves. Although they are not the same as the Japanese, their behavior is very similar. I am really disappointed.

The Ming Dynasty has assisted them more than once, but these people have no intention of mobilizing all their people to assist the Ming Dynasty. It's a shame!

If we don't destroy such countries, what's the point of keeping them in the future?
Keep them to stab us?
It's funny just to think about it! Cough, cough, cough!!!" Xu Da, who was fine originally, suddenly felt a discomfort in his chest because of this sudden smile, and then he kept coughing, and even coughed to the end, he suddenly felt dizzy.

In an instant, Zhu Di watched his father-in-law faint on the table.

Before he fell into coma, Xu Da vaguely heard Zhu Di anxiously calling for a military doctor while running towards him, trying to prevent his head from hitting the hard table.

Fortunately, Zhu Di was quite skilled and used his hands to block Xu Da's head before Xu Da was injured.

His vision was blurry and Xu Da slowly woke up from his fainting state. When he opened his eyes, he saw the military doctor in the barracks.

The other party was also a veteran selected from the Imperial Medical Bureau. Compared with others, he had extensive experience in dealing with external injuries.

The moment Xu Da woke up, he walked forward.

At the same time, he instructed his disciples:
"Hurry up and inform Prince Yan that Marshal Xu has woken up!"

Upon hearing this, the apprentice with a childish face dared not stop and quickly ran towards where Zhu Di was.

Inside the tent, the military doctor helped Xu Da sit up from his lying position.

Just when he was about to take the test, the military doctor reminded him:
"Marshal Xu, please don't lean on me like that. You have a serious back abscess. You have been in a coma for three days since you had the surgery.

If the wound is damaged again, even if Hua Tuo were alive, he would be powerless to save the patient!"

Xu Da's identity was very important, and the military doctor was naturally well aware of this. Therefore, he had to remind the other party again and again that it would be best not to get into trouble under his treatment, otherwise in the end, he would not know how the contemporary emperor would deal with him.

After taking a closer look at the wound on his body, Xu Da smiled bitterly.

"Haha. So I'm almost at this point?
It's really fate that plays tricks on me. I thought my body could still hold on, but I didn't expect it to end up like this.

I wonder, military doctor, given my current physical condition, can I still make it back to the Ming territory?"

As if he had calmly accepted his fate, Xu Da wanted to know how long he would live with the imperial physician.

Faced with this terrible question, the military doctor hesitated again and again, but finally answered truthfully:
“In reply to the Marshal, based on my experience, you fell ill yesterday because of the cold weather, which prevented the pus in the wound from draining out on its own, causing the pustules to grow larger and larger, and the rotten flesh inside has long been like a rotting corpse.

Generally speaking, unless there is a miraculous doctor who can perform the same superb medical skills as Hua Tuo who scraped bones to treat poison, it will be useless no matter who comes.

As for the question of life expectancy, I am not experienced enough to know how long the Marshal can live. If I really have to answer truthfully, I think he may have less than half a year left. "

"What! My father-in-law only has less than half a year left! Are you kidding me? Be careful or I'll punish you!"

Suddenly, there was a loud noise outside the door.

Everyone looked towards the door and saw Zhu Di hurriedly approaching the tent. He was only wearing a thin piece of clothing. Besides him, Zhang Yu and others were also there.

The same was true for Xu Da's own close associates.

When they heard that Xu Da only had six months left to live, no one was willing to believe this bad news.

Everyone knows that Xu Da is the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty. He was the greatest hero who drove the Northern Yuan Dynasty to the grassland.

No one could accept the fact that such a general who was capable of fighting the enemy was going to die of illness.

When the military doctor heard what Zhu Di had just said, his legs went weak.

Sure enough, what he was worried about happened. He didn't expect that Zhu Di would still target him. This feeling was not pleasant.

Faced with Zhu Di's tough attitude, the military doctor mustered up his courage and finally said:
"Your Highness, Prince of Yan! I am not talking nonsense, but the truth. You saw it a few days ago. The rotten flesh dug out from the Marshal's body had already stank, and the pus was almost the same as corpse water.

The Marshal is still able to speak and walk, relying entirely on his previous strong body to support him.

Once these are gone, it won’t be a big deal if the Marshal is in danger.

So I am not talking nonsense, but the truth! I hope Your Highness Prince Yan can not be impulsive! "

That was all he had to say. The military doctor didn’t know whether they could listen to him or not. He only knew that whether they could survive or not depended on Zhu Di’s decision.

Zhu Di clenched his fists and wished he could chop the guy in front of him to death. The army was about to set out, and what he said was simply disrupting the morale of the army.

However, his last bit of reason told him that if he really killed this guy, the morale of the army would definitely be weakened.

As for why?
Judging from Xu Da's prestige in the military camp, there is not so much reason.

While thinking, the shadow of Yang Chen flashed through Zhu Di's mind.

"Brother Yang! That's right! He can definitely cure my father-in-law!"

From the time of training the troops to the time of the expedition to the north, Zhu Di had very little time to spend with Zhu Biao and the others.

Not to mention Yang Chen who has already gone to Zhenjiang Prefecture.

At first, Zhu Di thought that he could see Yang Chen coming to see him off. After all, there was no need to say much about the relationship between the two of them. They were good friends who had fought and joked with each other.

Unfortunately, Yang Chen was unable to get away from Zhenjiang Prefecture, and in the end, Zhu Di could only see the weapons given to him by Yang Chen.

He used these weapons to kill as many enemies as possible on the battlefield to prove that he was still useful.

Now that his father-in-law is in danger, Zhu Di first thinks of the development of Zhenjiang Prefecture.

He knew very well that the only hope to save his father-in-law was in Zhenjiang Prefecture.

If even Yang Chen couldn't help, Zhu Di didn't know who to turn to.

As for why he trusted Yang Chen so much, he actually didn't know, it was just his subconscious feeling.

"Father-in-law! I'll take you back to the capital! As long as we get back to the capital, Brother Yang will definitely find a way to save you!"

Upon hearing this, Xu Da's face changed drastically.

(End of this chapter)