Chapter 522: Roving King, Someone Wants to Carve Up Our Turf!

Hearing Zhu Cilang announce his "disciplinary decision" regarding Zhu Cizhao, Jin Shenghuan, Du Yinxi, Qin Liangyu, and also He Tengjiao, Chang Yanling, and Wu Guoyong, who were eavesdropping just outside the main tent, all breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Did this matter have anything to do with them?

Of course it did!

This matter had something to do with everyone under heaven!

If Zhu Cilang could tolerate Zhu Cizhao, then the other warlords in Huguang would no longer worry, and what followed would be bargaining — now the Prince of Chu's estate and Zhang Yong's twenty-some thousand men already had a place to go. But Jin Shenghuan, He Tengjiao, and Chang Yanling, these three parties, still had to negotiate.

Among them, He Tengjiao and Chang Yanling were relatively easy to deal with. After all, they were warlords whom Zhu Cilang had propped up, and they had not been warlords for long, nor had they formed very tight-knit factions.

Jin Shenghuan, however, had more substantial strength, so his asking price would be higher — but Zhu Cilang could still afford that price.

If the price was settled and everyone was willing to put in effort, then defeating Li Zicheng should be no problem... And once Li Zicheng was defeated in Huguang, the Great Ming would be secure — the size of Zhu Cilang's base was tied to the resources he held in his hands.

At present, Zhu Cilang only firmly held the Huainan and Jiangnan portions of the Southern Metropolitan Area, roughly controlled Jiangxi and Zhejiang, and also held a small part of Shandong Province.

With this territory, he could support two to three hundred thousand households of Northern Army soldiers, arm them, and give them good training and treatment.

If the vast territory of Huguang came under his control and was absorbed, then the Northerners' bloc could expand to five or six hundred thousand households — there were still many Northerners struggling in the southeast!

If Fujian and the two Guang provinces also fell into his hands, then expanding the Northern Army bloc to seven or eight hundred thousand households was also possible.

Only at that point would Zhu Cilang truly possess the strength to crush the Qing and the Shun — in this age, everyone could only count the strength of their base, not the total population! Mobilizing the entire populace would have to wait for the French Revolution; how could the Great Ming, a feudal dynasty, have that kind of capability?

Of course, settling seven or eight hundred thousand households, integrating them, and then mobilizing, arming, and training their able-bodied men into an army... that would still take enormous effort, and was by no means something that could be accomplished just by flapping one's lips!

All kinds of contradictions, all kinds of troubles, all kinds of struggles, all kinds of buck-passing — there was still plenty of all of it!

In addition, the southeast's overpopulation and grain shortage, the balance between natives and the Northern Army, the various problems brought by commercial and industrial development, the new army's severe shortage of horses, and other troublesome matters that Zhu Cilang had not yet thought of — all of these also needed to be properly resolved one by one...

"Commissioner-in-Chief Qin," Zhu Cilang's "disposition" of Zuo Mengmei was not yet fully finished, and he could not let her go. At this moment he turned his head and said with a smile to the elderly Qin Liangyu, "Coming all alone to the main camp at Hukou Crossing, you must be rather lonely, aren't you?"

Lonely? Qin Liangyu did not understand for a moment. Her man had been imprisoned and punished in the forty-first year of Wanli for offending Eunuch Qiu, who had come to Sichuan as army supervisor, and had died of illness in prison. Since then she had indeed been lonely for a long time — she was used to it.

The old lady did not understand, but Zuo Mengmei already did. She immediately picked up the thread: "Thousand Years, this slave would have nothing to do back in Gong'an anyway. Better to stay at Hukou Crossing and keep Commissioner-in-Chief Qin company!"

Zhu Cilang smiled at Zuo Mengmei. She had a future — then be a good hostage! With you in hand, the troops of Qiu Lei and Zhang Yong could be deployed smoothly!

Qin Liangyu understood too, and said repeatedly, "Good, good, good. I am old, and I just want a younger person by my side to keep me company and talk."

Zhu Cilang said with a laugh, "Then let the Princess Consort acknowledge you as her adoptive grandmother."

Qin Liangyu grinned so wide she could not close her mouth. "That would truly be more than I could ask for!"

"Your Majesty, the Ming armies in Jiangnan have joined forces!"

Inside the city of Jiangling, Li Zicheng, who was at that moment leafing through the military reports sent by Yuan Zongdi and Liu Fangliang from Xiangjing and Hanyang, received the news that the Ming armies in Jiangnan had merged.

Li Zicheng raised his head and looked with his single eye at Huang Shu, the Minister of the Board of Punishments — his ministership was nominal; his real post was Li Zicheng's military advisor, ranked after Song Xiance and Gu Junen.

Because neither Song Xiance nor Gu Junen understood the inner workings of the Great Ming very well, this "third military advisor" had now risen from behind to become a strategist Li Zicheng relied on heavily.

"Your Majesty, Zhu Cilang has arrived!"

Huang Shu guessed it at once.

Li Zicheng looked at him.

Huang Shu said, "Only Zhu Cilang has the means to bring the two forces at Hukou Crossing and Gong'an county seat together."

"He has the means?" Li Zicheng was not entirely sure.

"He does!" Huang Shu was quite certain. He stroked his goatee. "This scoundrel is skilled at using false benevolence and sham righteousness to beguile people's hearts, and can also use interests to bind together forces from all sides... In this respect he is indeed far stronger than his father, the Chongzhen Emperor."

"Alas!" Li Zicheng sighed. "It's just a pity Chongzhen no longer holds power. Otherwise I would have had the chance to sweep straight down to Jiangdong."

Li Zicheng now truly missed the Chongzhen Emperor! Such a fine emperor — how had he been sidelined by that treacherous and ruthless Crown Prince, Zhu Cilang?

"But that bandit Crown Prince Zhu is not without weaknesses!" Huang Shu said with a cold sneer.

"Oh? He has a weakness?" Li Zicheng asked hurriedly. "Where?"

"In that he cannot last long!" Huang Shu said. "The land in the southeast is mostly planted with mulberry and cotton, and too many people have gathered there. The grain shortage is not a matter of a single day. Food is the heaven of the people; when food is insufficient, the people will fall into disorder on their own. Once a popular uprising breaks out in Jiangnan, can that bandit Crown Prince Zhu still linger in Huguang and not go back? The moment he leaves, the various armies in Huguang will be dragons without a head, and Your Majesty can defeat them one by one!"

"Ha ha!" Li Zicheng laughed heartily. "I benefit from dragging things out; the bandit Zhu benefits from a quick decision!"

"Your Majesty is brilliant!"

"Then I shall drag it out!" Li Zicheng said. "If I drag it out for two or three months, can the bandit Zhu's Jiangnan fall into chaos?"

"It will surely fall into chaos!" Huang Shu said. "It is already summer now, and in two or three months autumn will arrive... If this year's autumn grain from Huguang again cannot be shipped to the southeast, how can the southeast not fall into great disorder?"

"Good. I shall order men to dig trenches and build ramparts near Jiangling city, and hold out against the enemy!"

"Marquis of Huaiyuan, the Pacifying Barbarians General has always been an important post in the Huguang region. The Shizhou Guard, the Yongshun Pacification Commission, the Baojing Prefecture Pacification Commission, and many guard posts in Yuezhou Prefecture, Chenzhou Prefecture, and Jingzhou can all be placed under the Pacifying Barbarians General's command... These places are also not suited to be reorganized the same way as the rest of Huguang. This Pacifying Barbarians General post shall be yours!"

"Commander Jin, We intend to establish the Southern Expedition General's command to oversee the affairs of the various guard posts and native chieftain offices throughout Guangxi... This Southern Expedition General is something only you can do well! Guangxi may not be as rich as Guangdong or Huguang, but it has no shortage of guard posts and native offices within its borders, and it borders the Annan Military Commission. These years Annan has been in chaos, and there are plenty of opportunities — it all depends on whether you can manage them."

"Governor He, although you hold only the juren degree, We employ men without rigid conventions, and there is no rule that one must be a jinshi to enter the Grand Secretariat. Once the Huguang affair is settled, there will surely be a seat for you in the Grand Secretariat!"

"Wu Guoyong, those seven thousand Shaanxi troops you incorporated — We have already reviewed them. They are fairly elite. The silver you asked for will soon be disbursed in full... As long as they are willing to fight to the death, We will also reward them handsomely!"

The above were the promises Zhu Cilang made in his private talks with He Tengjiao, Chang Yanling, Jin Shenghuan, Wu Guoyong, and the other commanders after arriving at the main camp at Hukou Crossing — the great Crown Prince Zhu was one who "always repaid his debts and always kept his word," at least so far his performance in this regard had been quite good.

So everyone could still trust him, and the terms he offered were also fairly satisfactory.

Of course, all of this was said in private, and would not be recorded by Bi Jiucheng to be entered into the histories later.

In the official histories, the great Crown Prince Zhu naturally moved the commanders below him with benevolence and virtue. And He Tengjiao, Chang Yanling, Jin Shenghuan, Wu Guoyong, and the rest were all loyal and good men of the Great Ming — the Great Ming simply had so many loyal and good men!

With so many loyal and good men helping to charge into battle, what good end could the tiny minority of rebels represented by Li Zicheng possibly have? They could only wait to be defeated together by the Great Ming's loyal subjects and loyal people!