October 5, the twenty-seventh year of Chongzhen.

Zhu Cixiong led an army of 70,000 to Pei County, preparing to attack Xuzhou.

Before the troops set out, everyone discussed whether to divide the forces.

The specific strategy was to allocate part of the troops to attack Xuzhou, and the rest to go to Henan to deal with Ma Shiying.

After discussing for a long time, everyone agreed that there was no need to divide the forces.

Nanjing is on the south bank of the Yangtze River.

To defend Nanjing, we must defend the Yangtze River.

To guard the Yangtze River, one must guard the Huai River.

In order to defend the Huai River, we must defend Xuzhou.

In other words...

As long as Xuzhou is taken, Nanjing will be threatened.

At that time, Ma Shiying would have to retreat from Henan in order to return to Nanjing.

Henan’s predicament was easily resolved.

At noon on the sixth day, Zhu Cijiong brought a group of generals to the bank of the Yellow River to inspect the terrain.

After watching it, everyone had a smile on their face.

Liu Zhaoji laughed and said, "Great! The Yellow River is frozen."

Zhu Cixiong nodded: "It is indeed a good thing. Our army does not need to build boats and pontoon bridges to cross the river."

Li Dingguo turned over and dismounted, stomped hard on the ice a few times, then rode his warhorse and ran on the ice for a while.

He came back and reported to Zhu Cijiong: "The ice is not very thick. Although the infantry and cavalry can pass through smoothly, the artillery and other baggage may collapse the ice and sink into the water."

Zhu Cijiong stretched out his hand to feel the biting cold wind and said, "Then wait a few more days."

The crowd searched along the river bank for a while and then returned to Pei County.

Officials in charge of logistics began to prepare cotton cloth and straw in advance.

Tied to the horse's hooves to prevent slipping when crossing a river.

Zhu Guobi was helpless when he learned that the Yellow River was frozen.

He originally wanted to send people to chop ice to stop Zhu Cijiong from going south.

But it's just thought, not action.

There are indeed examples in history of preventing the enemy from crossing a river by cutting through ice.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Eastern Wei and Western Wei confronted each other in the Luoyang area.

At the beginning, the Western Wei Dynasty was weak. In order to prevent the Eastern Wei army from launching an attack while the river was frozen, people were sent to break ice on the Yellow River every winter.

Later, the offense and defense changed, and the other side stopped the other side's attack by chiseling ice.

The reason why this move works is mainly because the two parties are in an upstream and downstream relationship.

As long as a section of the ice is chiseled away, the enemy can be prevented from marching across the ice.

Now Zhu Guobi and Zhu Cijiong are the relationship of the South Bank and the North Bank.

The river was too long for Zhu Guobi to finish digging.

(The scene in a certain film or TV series describing the Song army using ice to resist the Liao army cavalry may have existed, but no corresponding historical materials have been found.)

In order to resist Zhu Cijiong, Zhu Guobi could only deploy defenses based on the terrain of Xuzhou.

When the two sides were on the verge of a war, Zhang Rong, the governor of the East Factory, brought his men to Qufu.

Those who wanted to escape in the city have already fled, and the rest are surrenderers.

Local officials and gentry had long heard of Zhang Rong's deeds.

In order to survive, they prepared silver in advance.

But the silver prepared was not much.

Because they had destroyed the account books in advance.

Without account books, Zhang Rong would not be able to demand huge amounts of money and grain from them.

What a pity.

Like the people in Dongchang Prefecture, they underestimated Zhang Rong.

Zhang Rong came to the county government office and met the magistrate of Qufu.

He sat in the magistrate's seat and asked, "Magistrate Kong, I heard that the rebels had raised money and food in the city. Is this true?"

The Qufu County Magistrate nodded and admitted: "Yes."

"Where are the account books?"

The Qufu County Magistrate began to play dumb: "Account books? What account books? Please tell me clearly, Lord Admiral."

"In order to raise money and food, the rebels registered those who donated money and promised to give them corresponding tax reductions after the war."

"It is true, but I have never seen the account book. Perhaps it was taken away by the rebels."

"Oh!" Zhang Rong smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. The account book can be found sooner or later."

The magistrate of Qufu frowned, and suddenly had a bad feeling.

But he didn't take it to heart.

He watched the account books burn to ashes.

Zhang Rong couldn't turn the ashes into account books again, right?

Besides, this is Qufu.

Confucius' hometown.

His surname is also Kong, and he is a member of the Kong clan.

As the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Depot, Zhang Rong's every word and action represented Chongzhen.

They shouldn't do anything wrong to the Kong family members.

After the two chatted for a few more irrelevant words, Zhang Rong asked, "County Magistrate Kong, where is the son of Duke Yansheng, Kong Xingxie?"

"In the Yanshenggong Mansion."

"Can you take me to see him?"

"Admiral, please follow me."

The two of them arrived at the Yanshenggong Mansion one after the other.

Kong Xingxie, who had received the news long ago, came to the door to greet him in person.

As soon as they met, Kong Xingxie covered his face and cried: "Admiral, you must make the decision for me!"

Zhang Rong pretended to be surprised and asked, "Master Kong, what happened? Why are you crying so hard?"

Kong Xingxie wiped his tears and said, "After Zhu Guobi led the rebels into the city, he asked for money and food to supplement the military supplies from the Duke of Yansheng's Mansion. As a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty and the eldest son of the Duke of Yansheng's Mansion, I naturally did not want to agree."

"But Zhu Guobi threatened that if I didn't take the money, he would burn down the Confucius Mansion and the Confucius Temple."

"In order to protect the ancestral foundation and tablets, and to protect the holy land in the eyes of scholars all over the world, I had to compromise with Zhu Guobi."

After saying this, Kong Xingxie cried again and shed tears.

Zhang Rong just stood there and watched his performance without moving.

When Kong Xingxie stopped crying, Zhang Rong asked, "How much money did Lord Kong donate to the rebels?"

"I scraped together a hundred thousand taels of silver and gave it to Zhu Guobi."

Kong Xingxie's words were half true and half false.

The truth was that in order to raise more money and grain, Zhu Guobi asked him to take the lead in donating money and publicize it in the city.

This news is known to everyone and there is no need to hide it.

The lie was that the money was not borrowed, but came from the Yanshenggong Mansion.

He said that his purpose of borrowing the money was to cry poor to Zhang Rong in order to gain his sympathy.

As the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Depot, Zhang Rong no longer knew the meaning of the word sympathy.

He asked Kong Xingxie: "Master Kong, are you sure it is 100,000 taels?"

"Sure."

“What if it’s fake?”

Kong Xingxie was stunned: "Every word I said is true, how could it be false?"

Zhang Rong nodded vigorously: "That's good, that's good."

Just when Kong Xingxie thought he could get away with it, he heard Zhang Rong ask, "Sir Kong is indeed the eldest son of Duke Yansheng. His words and deeds are very similar to those of Duke Yansheng."

Kong Xingxie didn't know whether this was a kind or malicious remark, so he frowned and asked, "What does Admiral Zhang want to say?"

"Haha!" Zhang Rong sneered, "When the Jiannu went south, Duke Yansheng gave them money. When the rebels went north, you gave them money again. You eat the court's salary, but you betray the court. You are simply ungrateful and heartless!"