mtl008 Chapter 730 Accumulating Strength for Future Success
Chapter 730 Accumulating Strength for Future Success
Wen Tiren was secretly pleased. The Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial was Wang Chengen, who served the Emperor for many years but rarely interfered in the affairs of the Directorate. The actual power lay with the Grand Secretary. If everything went smoothly, Fang Zhenghua would be promoted to Grand Secretary, and even without being appointed Director of the Eastern Depot, he would still be one of the most prominent figures in the court. In this way, the Grand Secretariat, the Directorate of Ceremonial, and the Qionghai Army would all be leaders in their respective fields, forming a powerful triangular alliance of both civil and military strength. Who in the court, besides the Emperor himself, could challenge their dominance?
As for whether Fang Zhenghua could complete the mission, Wen Tiren wasn't worried at all. They were all on the same side; what couldn't they discuss? Moreover, Wen Tiren knew Liu Ye well. He had immense ambition, but he wasn't an impulsive brute. He had managed to restrain himself even with his army almost storming the palace; he was a man capable of great things. Attacking Liaonan was definitely not a casual act, but rather part of a strategic plan. Perhaps Li Zicheng's sudden rise from a nobody to the top bandit leader was also due to Liu Ye's machinations. Ultimately, the one who tied the knot must untie it; to resolve the threat posed by Li Zicheng, it still depended on Liu Ye.
Yang Sichang was puzzled and somewhat annoyed to see the usually composed and prudent Grand Secretary being unusually active lately, and seemingly targeting him intentionally or unintentionally. He couldn't believe the Grand Secretary would collude with such an arrogant and domineering military general. He simply felt he couldn't let Wen Tiren lead everyone by the nose and needed to salvage the situation. Since the other side's reason for deploying the Qionghai Army north was compelling and he couldn't veto it, his only option was to focus on preventing Li Zicheng from entering Beijing, thus saving face and preventing the other side from stealing the limelight.
He said to Emperor Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, I request to lead the troops in Beizhili to join forces with the Southern Army to attack the rebel Li and eliminate the threat to the capital in one battle."
Emperor Chongzhen did not try to stop him and readily nodded: "Granted."
Yang Sichang felt a pang of desolation. A few months earlier, the emperor would have surely kept him in the capital to oversee the overall situation, instead of sending him out as a military commander. It seemed that mobilizing troops from Henan to march north was a major blunder, and although the emperor didn't say it aloud, he was certainly resentful about the death of Prince Fu. If anything went wrong during this attempt to intercept Li Zicheng, his career would likely be nearing its end.
He sighed inwardly. He recalled how much the emperor had trusted him back then, even standing up for him against public opinion when the Qionghai army besieged the capital and officials turned against him. In just a few months, his standing in the emperor's eyes had subtly shifted; the difference between a favored minister and a disgraced one was probably only a blink of an eye. He suddenly regretted coming to the capital; being a governor on the frontier would have been better, with less risk.
After the court assembly, Fang Zhenghua, as a special envoy, went to Qiongzhou, signifying that Liu Ye's south-to-north strategy had yielded results, and he had successfully mobilized all three forces: Li Zicheng marched north seven years ahead of schedule as planned; the court consolidated its forces in the Central Plains in Beizhili and planned to deploy the Qiongzhou navy to suppress the Shun army; the Qing army's original invasion plan was disrupted, and according to reports from Zhang Geming and others, Huang Taiji was preparing to send Dorgon, Haoge, and others to lead an army south to retake Liaonan and eliminate any worries about their rear. Everything proceeded smoothly according to Liu Ye's plan.
The external situation was excellent, and the internal situation was also good. During this period without war, the Qionghai Navy was not idle.
The organization and training of the local army in Lingao has been basically completed. Among the hundreds of thousands of refugees, 20,000 young men were selected as reserves. They were trained while farming, while the rest were dispersed to Chengmai, Danzhou, Wanxian and other places to reclaim wasteland. Gradually, they began to have a harvest. In addition, they paid taxes on the existing fertile land, and the harvest was quite abundant. The grain reserves were gratifying. The original granaries were not enough, and the construction of new granaries began south of Lingao New City.
In Shandong, Su Chutu did an excellent job. With Lin Tianming's full support, he reorganized the original garrison troops within Shandong, eliminating redundant personnel and incorporating elite troops into the Independent Regiment. In just over six months, all the garrison troops in Shandong, except for the military garrisons, were disbanded. The imperial armed forces were nearly nonexistent, leaving only the Independent Regiment under the Qionghai Navy. Its original size of less than four thousand men had expanded to over ten thousand, two to three times its original size. Shandong, which served as a shield for Beizhili, had been completely disarmed and became a base directly controlled by the Qionghai Navy. Reinforcements could be dispatched at any time to land from the sea and launch offensives against the capital, Shaanxi, and Liaodong, allowing for free movement.
Meanwhile, a completely different scene unfolded in Taiwan. Zhu Dadian managed the people, and Xu Yifan managed the military, bringing order to the region. Centered on Tainan, a large-scale immigrant settlement had formed, and as the population increased, it continued to expand outwards, reaching as far north as Zhuluoshan (present-day Chiayi City, Taiwan Province), as far south as Takow (present-day Kaohsiung City, Taiwan Province), and as far east as Ahou (present-day Pingtung County, Taiwan Province).
These areas were only gradually developed during the Qing Dynasty and even after the Republic of China era, and remain in a primitive state. Industrious mainland immigrants brought these places into the agricultural era ahead of time, inevitably leading to fierce conflicts with the indigenous peoples, represented by the Amis, Paiwan, and Pingpu tribes. Zhu Dadian's methods of extensive deforestation and armed immigrants were remarkably effective. The indigenous people's living environment was destroyed, and their struggle against the immigrants gradually lost ground. They either submitted or were forced to flee into the depths of Alishan. The area within hundreds of miles west of Alishan became the domain of Han Chinese.
The influx of refugees from northern Shaanxi led to a rapid increase in the number of paramilitary personnel under Xu Yifan's command. In terms of sheer numbers, the Tainan base was almost catching up with the main base in Lingao. Unlike the starving people from Shandong and other places, most of the refugees from northern Shaanxi had been coerced into joining bandit cannon fodder units. They had fought and seen blood, making them more efficient and easier to train into soldiers. In just over six months, the Second Regiment not only replenished its lost manpower but also expanded its reserve force, mainly composed of local militia, to over 20,000. However, its weaponry was still far behind that of Lingao itself—Tainan did not have an arsenal, and all equipment had to be supplied by Lingao. Moreover, the arsenal's production capacity was clearly unable to keep up with the rate of troop expansion.
Under Liu Ye's strategic planning, the Qionghai Navy, having accumulated strength, experienced a rapid increase in overall strength due to the explosive growth in population and food production. However, figuring out how to integrate and transform this strength into effective combat power still required some thought. After receiving news from the southwest that Li Zicheng had entered Beizhili, Liu Ye convened a meeting with relevant personnel to discuss how to integrate existing military and economic resources and to make targeted deployments for the current situation.