Ming Taizi's Total War

Chapter 189 The Confrontation in the Hejian Mansion
Of course, the main expenses are armor and weapons. These things are very troublesome and expensive to build. Even if the government still maintains military bureaus and craftsmen, the cost of materials and labor is still unavoidable.

Where did the money come from?Zhou Yuantong was a military and political officer in Shandong, so the money certainly came from local gentry and wealthy merchants in Shandong.

Although Shandong is not as prosperous as the small area in the south of the Yangtze River, it can definitely be called the best in North China, and it can even be said to be one of the wealthiest places outside the south of the Yangtze River.

There is no other reason. Although Shandong is in North China, it is rarely damaged by war because of its geographical location. Because Zhili, Shanxi, and Gansu are at the top, there is almost never the threat of Mongols and Jurchen invaders.

As for the vigorous peasant uprising that lasted for decades at the end of the Ming Dynasty, because the government and army fought effectively for a long time, it has been controlled in a few provinces such as Shaanxi, Henan, and Sichuan, and has not caused any damage to Shandong.

The most important thing is that Shandong is a coastal province. The Shandong Peninsula is very close to North Korea. It is very convenient to do business with North Koreans, and even sail across the East China Sea to trade with Japan.

But no matter how wealthy the area is, most of the wealth is still in the hands of the gentry, landowners, and wealthy businessmen. This is true no matter where it is.

And Zhou Yuantong's method of getting money from them is also very simple, that is, to use his power and force to force them to hand over a sum of wealth enough for Zhou Yuantong to reorganize the army regardless of all resistance.

If these people listened to Zhou Yuantong honestly and handed over all their money, then Zhou Yuantong would let them live. What was their life before, and what will happen in the future.

Zhou Yuantong could not guarantee that they would enjoy happiness in this land for generations to come, but he could guarantee that they would live a peaceful life during his tenure.

Although the gentry held part of the local power and had a lot of wealth and property, many people were bound by them.

But most of these people have no idea about power or going further. Being able to live peacefully, continue their own incense, and enshrine their ancestors' spiritual thrones from generation to generation is their highest pursuit.

So when Zhou Yuantong threatened with force, they immediately compromised. After all, Zhou Yuantong was not that ruthless, and the money he demanded only accounted for a small part of their wealth. They all regarded it as filial piety to the new commander.

As for those few stubborn guys, Zhou Yuantong mercilessly dispatched local government servants and local soldiers from nearby counties and counties immediately to surround those people's courtyards in the countryside.

Although it was surrounded, he did not order these people to attack, but surrounded the yard, and no one was allowed to enter or leave, just spending time with those gentry who refused to hand over their money.

After a few days, those country gentry knew that there was absolutely no hope for them to fight against Zhou Yuantong, so they obediently handed over the money. Some even secretly sent another batch of silver in order to extinguish Zhou Yuantong's anger. Regarding this, Zhou Yuantong Naturally, all comers are welcome.

Even Zhou Yuantong from Qufu's Yan Sheng Gong's family was not spared. Although Yan Sheng Gong had a special status and a noble status, no one had ever dared to offend him, let alone be extorted for money.

But now the Tatars are only a few hundred miles away from Shandong. If the Qing army takes its hand away from the war with Li Chuang, the whole of Shandong can be planted with Qing flags in the blink of an eye, so Zhou Yuantong can't care about that much. .

He led thousands of people with armor, knives and guns, and went directly to Yan Shenggong's mansion. Once he encountered a slave sent by Yan Shenggong to resist, he would kill him on the spot without giving him any face.

In the end, he broke through the gate of Yan Shenggong's mansion directly, grabbed Yan Shenggong's collar and forced him to give him money to train the army.

Although Yan Sheng was fair and obedient, and even the royal family didn't pay attention to it, but when Zhou Yuantong put the sword on his neck, he immediately froze, and a puddle of yellow and white matter flowed out from his crotch, and he quickly agreed to Zhou Yuantong's sword. conditions of.

Before leaving, Zhou Yuantong found a portrait of Confucius with a money mouse tail, and snatched it and sent someone to give it to Zhu Cihong quickly.

Zhu Cihong had known for a long time that Yan Shenggong's family had this portrait, but Yan Shenggong was nominally a descendant of Kong Shengren after all, and he was a family of saints in the hearts of scholars all over the world.

Even if he doesn't give Confucius a face, he must give the world's scholars a face. Besides, Yan Shenggong's family didn't make any big mistakes except disgusting people.

So even though Zhou Yuantong sent the portrait of Confucius with a rat tail in money, Zhu Cihong still pretended he hadn't seen it, and made the matter trivial.

After collecting enough military expenses from the local gentry and wealthy households in Shandong, Zhou Yuantong immediately ordered people to build weapons and train the army.

And when he heard that Zhu Cixiang was advancing on Huaiqing, in order to cope with Zhu Cixiang, he did not bother to train for a while, and hurriedly pulled out the new army that had only been trained for more than a month.

Although the training level of the army is very poor, but after spending millions of military expenditures, their equipment is not bad.

Zhou Yuantong knew that no matter how long the training time and no matter how high the level of the army trained on the training ground, it could not compare to the army honed on the battlefield.

If he can hone on the battlefield for a long time, even without training, he can still get a strong army.

At the same time that Zhou Yuantong was responding to Zhu Cihuang, Dorgon also came to Hejian Mansion. Dorgon discovered Zhou Yuantong first, but he did not dare to attack.

Because Zhou Yuantong's marching formation is very strange, neither is it like the general generals of the Ming army used to march in a long snake formation, nor does it send a small army as the forward of the army, and the large army slowly marches behind.

Instead, 6 or [-] people crowded together to form a large square formation, with a large formation on the front, back, left, center, and right. There were tens of thousands of people, and this formation was maintained during the march.

Although this formation is very slow and can only cover one or twenty miles a day, its defense is extremely strong and it is not afraid of a sneak attack at all, just like a hexagonal warrior.

Dorgon's number is very small, the number of people in the early [-]s is only one-fifth of Zhou Yuantong's. Although they are all veterans and have strong combat effectiveness, the number is too small after all. It is impossible to defeat Zhou Yuantong in a head-to-head battle, unless Zhou Yuantong Thousands of people collapsed at the first touch.

That's also unlikely. Zhou Yuantong's formation allowed the army to march extremely slowly, but it also caused the various ministries to coordinate with each other.

Once Dorgon came to attack the front battalion, the left and right battalions immediately stepped forward to support them. If the front battalion was breached, there would be the rear battalion.

These 4 to [-] people cooperated with each other, and Dorgon couldn't use his full strength to any one of the battalions, so naturally he couldn't easily defeat one of them.

(End of this chapter)