The ninth day of the seventh month in the twenty-seventh year of Chongzhen.
Zhu Guobi led the army to defend the king from Pei County and headed towards Yutai County, Yanzhou Prefecture, Shandong.
Yutai County was originally under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou, and in the seventh year of Hongwu, it was changed to Jining Prefecture.
In the 18th year of Hongwu, Jining Prefecture was downgraded to a prefecture, and Yanzhou was promoted to a prefecture.
From then on, Yutai County began to be under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou Prefecture.
This was different from the surrender in other places in Southern Zhili.
All prefectures, counties and cities in Shandong closed their city gates and showed no intention of surrendering.
Zhu Guobi had no choice but to stop his march northward and start planning to attack the city.
Siege warfare not only consumes manpower, material resources and financial resources, but also wears down the morale of the army.
Zhu Guobi must minimize casualties as much as possible.
at the same time.
Ma Shiying's Western Army was besieging Guide Prefecture.
The defenders in the city repelled the attacks of the royalist army again and again.
Although they defended the city, their morale declined instead of increasing.
Nothing else.
Just because there is no hope.
From the beginning of defending the city to now.
They had neither reinforcements nor any news of any reinforcements coming from the imperial court.
They have to defend the city by themselves.
People die every day.
In order to prevent the outbreak of plague, the people had to endure the grief and burn the bodies or throw them out of the city.
But even so, they had no intention of surrendering.
Why?
Because the city was full of common people, there were almost no gentry.
The gentry had already been killed by Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others.
These lower-class people only recognize Chongzhen.
After all, Chongzhen exempted them from taxes and corvee labor.
In their view, if Chongzhen was in trouble, he would definitely take the initiative to issue an edict, requesting all armies to come to Beijing to defend the king.
Instead, it was the prince who shouted the slogan of supporting the king.
So they firmly believed that the soldiers outside the city were rebels.
While fighting fiercely with the defenders of Guide Prefecture, Ma Shiying smuggled grain and other supplies to the north.
At first he only allowed the caravans that were carrying grain to the Ping Liao army to pass.
However, after learning about the price difference of grain between the north and the south, he couldn't help but think of smuggling grain.
Actually, this can't be blamed on him.
After the silver deposits in the Nanjing treasury were lost, the army sent to support the king never received any military pay or food wages again.
In order to solve this problem, the Nanjing court ordered them to raise money and food locally.
There are two ways to raise money and food locally.
One is to let the common people and gentry donate money, and the other is to resell supplies.
Ma Shiying originally wanted to use the first method, but Henan had just recovered from natural disasters and war.
The people had neither much money nor much food in stock.
Ma Shiying could only choose the second method, which was to resell supplies to the north.
It has to be said that the price difference of grain made him earn a lot of money.
Not only could they pay the soldiers enough wages and food, but they could also have quite a bit of surplus.
The only drawback was that the food and fodder were consumed too quickly, which attracted the attention of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue.
In order to settle the account as quickly as possible.
Ma Shiying had to set a fire late at night.
In order to stabilize the morale of the army, Ma Shiying immediately asked Xuzhou for food and fodder.
As a result, his offensive pace also stopped.
Zheng Zhilong was still the same as before, using various excuses to delay the attack.
......
On the evening of July 9th, news of the fall of Xuzhou reached the capital.
For a time, the government and the public were shocked.
Xie Sanbin was both sad and happy.
The sad thing is that the rebels have already reached Shandong and started threatening the capital.
The good news is that after Shi Kefa's defeat, the court officials agreed to his suggestion to summon Prince Ding to the capital and let Prince Ding lead the troops to quell the rebellion.
So the chief minister of the cabinet, Xie Sanbin, immediately wrote a memorial and asked the ministers of the cabinet and the six ministries to sign it.
Xie Sanbin first found the Minister of War Wang Jiayan.
The Ministry of War is in charge of the military.
If he could sign his name on it, the rest would be easy.
Wang Jiayan frowned and thought for a long time, and finally shook his head gently: "Thank you, sir, I can't sign my name on it."
Xie Sanbin's eyes widened: "Why did you suddenly not sign your name when we had already agreed on this?"
"Because it's against the rules!"
"What rules?"
Wang Jiayan replied: "It is a rule that vassal princes cannot command the army! If we agree to let His Royal Highness Prince Ding command the army, can Prince Yong command the army? Can Prince Zhao, Prince Zhou, Prince Tang, and Prince Shu command the army?"
Xie Sanbin was very angry and threw the memorial in front of Wang Jiayan: "Don't say so much useless things. Are you going to sign your name or not?"
“I can’t possibly sign my name!”
"Okay," Xie Sanbin said, taking out another memorial from his arms and throwing it in front of Wang Jiayan: "Then I will hand this memorial to the Imperial Household Department and ask them to present it to Your Majesty."
Wang Jiayan asked cautiously: "What are you going to do?"
"Haha," Xie Sanbin sneered, "You'll know if you open it."
Driven by curiosity, Wang Jiayan opened the memorial and began to read it.
It would have been fine if he hadn't read it. After reading it, his face began to flicker: "Thank you, sir, you...you are..."
Xie Sanbin raised his lips slightly: "You are not mistaken. If you do not agree with His Royal Highness Prince Ding leading the troops, I will recommend you to His Majesty to lead the troops to quell the rebellion. No matter you win or lose, you will not have a good ending."
Wang Jiayan was anxious: "How could you do this?"
Given the level of favor Xie Sanbin enjoyed, Chongzhen was likely to agree to his proposal.
By then, he, the Minister of War, will be in trouble.
Xie Sanbin sneered: "You were the first to do this!"
Faced with Xie Sanbin's threat, Wang Jiayan had no choice but to sign the memorial.
Afterwards, Xie Sanbin took the memorial to the other cabinet ministers and officials from the six ministries.
Some agreed, some refused.
Xie Sanbin used the same method he used against Wang Jiayan to deal with those who refused.
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