Although the Nanjing court has been secretly contacting various forces.
But not everyone kept their secret.
Officials from all over the country soon realized that something was wrong.
Some officials wrote letters to the court and Chongzhen to inform them of the situation, while some officials pretended to be ignorant and remained silent.
The same is true for the princes.
Prince Yongming Zhu Youlang and Prince Tang Zhu Youjian immediately wrote a letter to Chongzhen and sent their confidants to deliver it to the capital.
Other princes, dissatisfied with Chongzhen's failure to pay their royal salaries, either supported the crown prince's support or expressed their indifference.
The situation in Jiangnan soon spread to the capital.
The cabinet chief, Xie Sanbin, was skeptical.
He did not believe that the prince would raise an army to support the king.
First of all, it doesn't make sense.
They said they were serving the king, but in reality they were rebelling.
The Ming Emperor Chongzhen is still alive!
In the Ming Dynasty, there has never been a precedent of a son rebelling against his father.
The second is the disparity in strength.
In the north there are nine frontier garrisons and the Ping Liao army, with a total force of no less than 300,000!
Even if half of the troops were deployed to quell the rebellion, there would still be 150,000 troops.
These are all real elites.
The total military strength in the South seems to be as high as hundreds of thousands, but the actual number of troops that can go out of the city and fight in the field is only a handful.
Once the two sides go to war, the prince will have almost no chance of winning.
Although Xie Sanbin didn't believe it, he immediately reported the situation to the Imperial Household Department.
When the Imperial Household Department told Chongzhen the news, he almost jumped for joy.
Very good!
Thanks to his unremitting efforts, the South finally rebelled.
After waiting for a month, there was still no response.
However, official documents from all over the country flew to the capital like snowflakes.
They are all official documents.
They exposed the suspicion of rebellion in Nanjing and asked the court to either make preparations or send troops immediately.
Seeing that Nanjing had not rebelled, Chongzhen could no longer wait.
So he decided to speed up the rebellion!
On the second day of April, Chongzhen, who was lying on his sickbed, suddenly announced that he would summon the chief minister and the minister of war.
When the news came out, the capital was shocked.
You know, Chongzhen hasn't appeared in public for a long time.
This summons was obviously to announce something important.
Could it be that Chongzhen was in poor health and wanted to take this opportunity to entrust his son to someone else?
Or deal with Jiangnan’s affairs?
The chief minister of the cabinet and the minister of the Ministry of Revenue, Xie Sanbin, and the minister of the Ministry of War, Wang Jiayan, came to the Palace of Heavenly Purity with trepidation.
What was different from the past was that this time they came directly to Chongzhen's bedside.
Looking at Chongzhen's defeated face and his breathless appearance.
Xie Sanbin fell to his knees with a thud: "Your Majesty, I pay my respects to you. May your Majesty be in good health and live a long life!"
Wang Jiayan followed suit and saluted: "Long live the emperor..."
After the two of them finished their greetings, Chongzhen said weakly, "Do you know why I asked you to come here?"
"I don't know, please enlighten me, Your Majesty."
"Alas," Chongzhen sighed, "My health has been getting worse recently, but the imperial physician can't find the cause. I am very distressed."
Xie Sanbin expressed his sincere concern, "Your Majesty has been overworked. You just need to rest for a while."
Chongzhen sighed again: "Alas! I have rested for so long, but my health has not only not improved, but has become worse and worse. Obviously there is something strange going on."
Xie Sanbin thought someone had poisoned Chongzhen. He was about to ask, but Chongzhen said, "I had a dream last night. In the dream, I met an old man with white hair and a youthful face. He told me that my illness is a mental illness. If I want to cure my mental illness, I must root out the enemy when dealing with it."
Xie Sanbin immediately understood Chongzhen’s thoughts.
The Ming Dynasty had many enemies, but the strongest enemy was the Jiannu.
Although Liaodong had been recovered, the Jiannu fled to Korea and were not completely wiped out.
Chongzhen wanted to send troops to Korea to completely wipe out the Jiannu.
Wang Jiayan also understood Chongzhen's idea. He asked in a low voice: "Your Majesty, do you want to wipe out the Jiannu?"
Chongzhen neither admitted nor denied it, but said: "My health is getting worse day by day. I will not feel at ease until the enemy is eliminated."
Xie Sanbin lowered his head and thought for a while, "Your Majesty, the matter in Nanjing..."
Chongzhen immediately interrupted Xie Sanbin: "I know that with the prince in Nanjing, there won't be any trouble over there!"
Xie Sanbin lowered his head and grinned.
It is precisely because the prince is in Nanjing that there is trouble there...
He didn't want to point this out to them in person, but the matter became so serious that he had to say it.
After some thought, Xie Sanbin said, "Your Majesty, officials from all over the country and many princes have sent news that the Crown Prince is going to raise an army to defend the king. I think we should first appease the Crown Prince, and then consider sending troops to Korea."
"Haha," Chongzhen laughed, "It's better for the meat to rot in the pot than outside the pot! You are the Prime Minister of the Ming Dynasty, you can't be unable to understand this truth, right?"
What Chongzhen meant was that even if the prince really rebelled.
The court’s top priority was to eliminate the Jiannu, not to quell the rebellion.
"Your Majesty..." Xie Sanbin wanted to say something.
Chongzhen interrupted again: "You two can go now. I am waiting for your good news."
"Your Majesty...Your Majesty will take your leave." Xie Sanbin and Wang Jiayan got up and left helplessly.
After walking out of the imperial city and turning a corner, the cabinet chief Xie Sanbin stopped.
Minister of War Wang Jiayan also stopped when he saw this.
The two looked at each other.
After a moment of silence, Xie Sanbin took the lead and asked, "How much does it cost to send troops to North Korea?"
Wang Jiayan counted on his fingers for a long time, then raised his head and said, "At least five hundred thousand."
"I will give the Ministry of War one million taels of silver. How long will it take to conquer Korea?"
Wang Jiayan counted on his fingers again, "It's hard to say how long it will take, but according to the reports from the frontline about the strength of the Jiannu army, our army will be able to conquer Korea in half a year at the latest."
Xie Sanbin took a deep breath and said in a more serious tone: "Then fight! The sooner the better."
"Where's the money? When will it be available?"
"It can be as long as five days, or as short as three days."
Just as Wang Jiayan was about to agree, he remembered a question.
He asked in a low voice: "As far as I know, the national treasury is already in deficit. How did you raise a million taels of silver in such a short time?"
Xie Sanbin answered straightforwardly: "Official sale!"
"What are you selling?"
"Selling saltworks."
"Which saltworks?"
"The salt fields in Fuzhou, Liaodong, have been empty since the recovery of Liaodong. It would be better to sell them to merchants temporarily and take them back after a few years. This way, we can raise much-needed funds and lower the price of salt in Liaodong."
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