Chapter 189

Capital.

"Your Majesty, it's time to rest!"

Xu Zhongen reminded.

As a eunuch, his life and wealth are completely tied to Emperor Yongning; he doesn't want the Emperor to ruin his health.

"Internal trouble and external aggression; I can't sleep!"

Emperor Yongning sighed and said.

The era of Emperor Tianyuan was Great Dayu, which already had a shadow of restoration, but it was interrupted as soon as he succeeded to the throne.

Because of the party strife in the court, they missed the best opportunity to suppress the White Lotus rebellion, triggering a great chaos that affected several provinces.

The tax exemption he announced at the beginning of his reign became a joke.

Because of the war, the central government's finances were severely depleted, and they had to apportion military pay to the localities.

After a series of operations, the political prestige he gained from suppressing the eunuch party was all lost.

He thought that after taking personal control, replacing them with a batch of loyal and virtuous ministers would improve the situation.

Reality, however, was a very hard slap in the face.

The clean-stream officials he promoted, besides being good at spraying people in the court, performed very generally in other aspects.

The two teachers he placed high hopes on only showed outstanding ability during party strife.

Once it involved specific affairs, they often made jokes.

The suggestions put forward sounded very good, but they were just a bit lacking in operability and were often sprayed as worthless by several assistant ministers.

When they were out of office, Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang, who had been cultivating their reputation for many years, were regarded by everyone as virtuous ministers who could revive Great Dayu.

After a few months in the court, without the distance filter, they immediately revealed their true colors.

The reputation of the two among the hundred officials plummeted.

Including the students and former subordinates of the two, they now only boast about their character and morality, never mentioning their ability.

With such a fast change in reputation, it is naturally inseparable from the crowd of assistant ministers fanning the flames behind the scenes.

First, arrange for people to blow them up, deliberately raising their expectations in everyone's minds, and then deliberately digging holes for them to jump into.

Without any accident, both were pitted very miserably.

Now all the hundred officials believe that Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang are just two big bluffers who only know how to talk on paper and have no real skills.

Once cognition is formed, it is not so easy to reverse it.

Not to mention that the practical ability of Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang themselves is not very good.

Several times they wanted to prove themselves, but they were all left with gray faces.

If it weren't for their good reputation in the scholar forest and the fact that there was really no one else available, Emperor Yongning would have abandoned them long ago.

"Your Majesty, everything will get better."

Xu Zhongen hurriedly comforted.

Knowing that the Emperor does not like eunuchs interfering in politics, he never expresses opinions on court affairs.

Compared to eunuchs in other periods of Great Dayu, the power of this Chief Eunuch can be said to be the smallest.

Even the red-penning of the Directorate of Ceremonial was taken back by the Emperor to do personally.

However, with this, Emperor Yongning's own workload increased significantly.

In the past, the Directorate of Ceremonial would screen the memorials from below and pick the important ones for the Emperor.

Memorials with similar content would also be classified uniformly and reported to the Emperor together.

Now these jobs are all done by Emperor Yongning alone, and staying up late to work overtime is the norm.

"Don't comfort me; small matters cannot crush me.

Send an imperial decree to Grand Secretary Xu to speed up the process of suppressing the rebels; I hope to see the head of the rebel leader before the end of the year."

Emperor Yongning then ordered.

At present, Great Dayu's biggest problems are three: financial deficit, White Lotus rebellion, and Northern barbarians invading the border.

In a sense, these three problems can also be attributed to one, which is that the imperial court lacks money.

As long as the money and grain problem can be solved, the other two threats can be easily handled.

"As you command!"

"Wait a moment!"

"Send an imperial decree to the Provincial Governors of the front-line provinces as well, telling them to fully cooperate with Grand Secretary Xu in suppressing the bandits.

Don't forget the crowd of generals in the army.

Tell them that as long as they can suppress the rebellion on time, I will not be stingy with official titles!"

Lianzhou Prefecture.

"Magistrate, when we were interrogating prisoners, we learned a fatal piece of news.

Before the White Lotus rebellion, they had hijacked a batch of military equipment.

The strange thing is that during the transport of this military equipment, no heavy troops were sent to escort it, only yamen runners were allowed to transport it.

After the rebellion broke out, someone also ordered the garrison troops to forbid them from coming out to suppress the bandits.

Following this clue, we dug deep and found traces of the participation of the Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the Minister of the Court of Imperial Stud.

According to the confession of the White Lotus leader, before the rebellion broke out, they had cooperated with a Jiangnan chamber of commerce.

The person in charge of this chamber of commerce is exactly a clansman of the current Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, Yin Zhiming.

In order to collect more intelligence, I also investigated the letters at the post station at that time.

Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices Yin Zhiming and Minister of the Court of Imperial Stud Zuo Hongjiang both sent letters here on the eve of the White Lotus rebellion.

Although I don't know the specific content of the letters, the recipients were the Yin Chamber of Commerce and some officials in Guangxi Province respectively.

It just so happens that these people all provided help to the rebel army during the White Lotus rebellion.

Among them, there were two people who chose to go to the capital to report on their duties on the eve of the White Lotus rebel army growing big.

Because they were in the capital before Guangxi was lost, they don't need to be responsible for the fall of Guangxi.

If we could catch them and interrogate them, I think it should..."

Xiang Xinghan said half of his words and swallowed them back.

Now he is a Guangxi local troop, no longer the once-famous Embroidered Uniform Guard, and has no right to arrest court officials.

Even if he has mastered the criminal evidence of the other party, he can only follow the procedure and report it to the imperial court.

Even so, this shocking news still gave Li Mu a fright.

It is not strange for court officials to have contact with the White Lotus in private.

But colluding with the White Lotus to rebel is different.

Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang both come from Jiangnan gentry clans and are Emperor Yongning's most trusted confidants; there is absolutely no need to collude with the White Lotus to rebel.

But the clues found now point exactly to the two of them.

In an instant, Li Mu thought of party strife.

He clearly remembers that the White Lotus rebellion was the biggest help for the clean-stream to crush the eunuch party.

Local officials reported that eunuchs were extorting and looting in the localities, triggering the White Lotus rebellion.

Emperor Yongning, in order to seize power, didn't even send anyone to re-examine it and directly threw the pot to the eunuch party.

At that time, it seemed there was no problem.

Eunuchs harming the locality and triggering civil unrest is not something that hasn't happened; it's just that this time it was the biggest.

Looking back now, there are too many loopholes in it.

The combat effectiveness of the newly rebellious White Lotus rebel army was actually not very good.

In the early stage, attacking some gentry's earth buildings required repeated tossing several times.

When occupying the first county town, it was by working from inside and outside that they were able to take it down.

Theoretically, in the early stage, local officials had the ability to extinguish them.

It's just that these people didn't expect the White Lotus to develop so fast and actually annexed the wolf soldiers with the strongest combat effectiveness in the province.

Realizing the situation was not good, wanting to work hard to remedy it, everything was already too late.

"The investigation stops here; Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang are both the people the Emperor trusts most, and they also have a high reputation among the people.

Just some suspicions are not enough to topple the two.

But we can't let them off too easily; find a suitable opportunity to throw the evidence we have in our hands to Grand Secretary Xu.

It's best if it's discovered by his people accidentally and found by following the clues."

Li Mu decisively chose to borrow a knife to kill.

Among the seven assistant ministers in the court, not one of them looks at Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang favorably.

The only ones who can kill the two are those assistant ministers.

If Li Mu himself poked the matter up, even if he took the two down, he would be scolded to death by civil officials.

The scholars who support the two among the people will even regard him as a great enemy.

It's not that everyone has no principles, it's mainly that no one is willing to believe that Yin Zhiming and Zuo Hongjiang are the black hands behind the White Lotus rebellion.

It's all caused by abolishing the factory and guard.

If these two intelligence agencies were still there, the imperial court would have discovered the problems inside long ago.

Of course, if someone was staring at them, they wouldn't dare to make such a big mess.

"This general obeys!"

Watching Xiang Xinghan leave, Li Mu sighed secretly.

Whether doing this is right or wrong, he can't say clearly.

Lifting this lid will inevitably trigger a new round of party strife and even affect Emperor Yongning.

The most trusted confidant suddenly becoming a rebel; I guess anyone would collapse.

But all this has to wait until after the summer campaign to see the outcome.

In the short term, neither he nor Grand Secretary Xu has the energy to make trouble in the court.

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, it entered June, with only the last ten days left until the great counterattack.

Whether it is the imperial court or the White Lotus rebel army, they are constantly mobilizing troops.

Originally, Guangxi could also have received reinforcements, but it was politely declined by Li Mu on the grounds of insufficient grain and grass.

There is a limit to the cake; for every person added to the table to share the cake, the cake the others can share will decrease by one point.

Not to mention that reinforcements are not easy to take.

The "50,000-strong army" that Zhejiang previously reinforced Fujian with directly shrank to 5,000 people, clearly wanting to go over to balance the accounts.

Now Fujian doesn't want to be this sucker, and Zhejiang has set its sights on Guangxi.

Compared to several other battlefields, the troop strength in Guangxi is the least, and it looks like it needs reinforcements.

However, war is never about winning just because there are many troops.

Few people have few people's fighting methods, and many people have many people's fighting methods.

Instead of adding a group of pig teammates, it's better to work harder yourself, and the odds of winning can increase by a few points.

"Regional Commander Li, it is not yet the date for sending troops stipulated by the Grand Secretary.

Sending troops at this time is very likely to startle the snake and affect the Grand Secretary's strategic deployment!"

Jia Bo hurriedly spoke to persuade.

As Grand Secretary Xu's trusted subordinate, he knows Xu Wenyue's temper very well.

Not obeying orders and sending troops without authorization is fine if you win.

Once you suffer a defeat, you will inevitably be held accountable.

By then, not only will the commander be in trouble, but he, the army supervisor, will also be hard to blame.

"Rest assured, no trouble will be caused.

Grand Secretary Xu's strategic deployment is known to the porters below; can the rebels not know?

All plans are placed in front of the enemy; if we can't act in advance, we will be completely passive.

Look at the distribution of the rebels' troop strength: Zhen'an Prefecture, Nanning Prefecture, and Xunzhou Prefecture each have 30,000 troops deployed.

It seems the number is not large, but unlike the rebels of the past, the enemies in front of us are the rebel's direct armed forces.

Not only is the combat effectiveness stronger, but the enemy is also aiming to be a turtle and has never thought about taking the initiative to attack.

At this moment, the enemy is busy mobilizing troops on one hand and strengthening the city walls and building defensive works on the other.

If we wait for the enemy to be ready, let alone recovering lost territory, whether we can break the enemy's defense line is an unknown.

We have all seen the Grand Secretary's military order.

It only limits the final time for sending troops, but it doesn't stipulate that we cannot attack in advance!"

Li Mu explained calmly.

When a general is abroad, he is not bound by the sovereign's orders.

Mechanically executing the orders of superiors; what kind of war is that?

"Regional Commander Li, attacking the enemy by surprise is naturally no problem.

However, the encirclement armies of all provinces are still in preparation.

If we take the lead in launching a great war, we have to bear the risks alone.

You must know that besides the troops on the front line, there are quite a few troops left behind in the enemy's lair.

Once the war is ignited, it is very likely to attract these troops over, and that will be a big trouble!"

Zhang Sihan tactfully persuaded.

Launching the war in advance, the risks he needs to bear are really too great.

The three people in front had already made great battle merits in previous battles and had the support of big shots behind them.

If the front line suffers a great defeat, he, the Provincial Governor, is the best scapegoat.

After all, before he took office, the Guangxi Army was invincible and had severely damaged the rebels twice.

As soon as he took office, the front line of the troops suffered a great defeat.

To say it has nothing to do with him, someone has to believe it.

"Magistrate, being overly cautious is a taboo in military strategy.

Since the opportunity has been delivered to the door, it cannot be missed.

If we don't send troops at this time, recovering two prefectures before September is just dreaming!"

With the big move of task timeliness, Jia Bo and Zhang Sihan, who originally opposed sending troops, instantly changed their positions.

No matter what, the operational task handed down by Grand Secretary Xu must be completed.

"Since Regional Commander Li is confident, then the next battle will be commanded by you!

The goal is only one: severely damage the rebels and recover lost territory.

You handle other things; do not let the opinions of miscellaneous people affect your judgment!"

After Jia Bo finished speaking, Guangxi Provincial Governor Zhang Sihan's face changed instantly.

Giving away military command as soon as he came up; this was the first time he had encountered such a novel army supervisor mode.

He wanted to open his mouth to stop it, but when the words reached his lips, he couldn't speak for a long time.

Throwing all the command power to Li Mu and breaking the balance of power is indeed not in line with the rules.

But he couldn't help that the other party could win battles.

Zhen'an Prefecture.

Fu Sanqi, who also served as the garrison general, was leading a group of generals to inspect the city defense.

After suffering a loss once, his style of using troops became exceptionally cautious.

He did many things personally, fearing that the people below would be careless and cause trouble.

"Prime Minister, something big is wrong!

The puppet dynasty's army has crossed the river!"

Receiving this news, everyone's faces changed.

It wasn't even June 15th yet, and the enemy launched an attack so impatiently; no matter how you look at it, it feels abnormal.

"Where did the enemy army land?

How many troops landed?

Who is the general leading the team?"

Fu Sanqi's three questions in a row directly confused the personal guard who delivered the order.

Except for the landing location, other information was not written in the battle report, so he naturally didn't know.

(End of chapter)