0p0 Chapter 163 Miao Xuan, Miao Tong
Chapter 163 Miao Xuan, Miao Tong
11
Just when the Ming Dynasty was in turmoil, the general's mansion of Haizhouwei welcomed a happy event. Ding Baiying, who was more than nine months pregnant, gave birth to a big fat boy for Lu Cheng smoothly.
Lu Cheng thought for a long time and named his first son in this world Lu Junhong.
Jun can be a gentleman or a monarch.
Scholars must be ambitious and have a long way to go.
If we have another son, we will name him Lu Junyi or Lu Junyuan. It is much easier to choose two or three names at once.
The addition of a new baby to the General's Mansion was a great joyous event, so Lu Cheng specially gave rewards to all the servants in the Mansion and set a date for the full moon banquet.
Just after the child was one month old, Lu Cheng married Zhang Yan.
While there were many happy events in General Lu Cheng's mansion, the Ming Dynasty was also doing its best to quell rebellions everywhere.
Starting from July, the uprising armies in various parts of the Ming Dynasty were suppressed one after another, and troops from all over the country began to gather in Shandong to encircle and suppress Xu Hongru's uprising army.
Xu Hongru's rebel army soon ran out of food and supplies, and following the advice of several of his generals, they retreated towards the coast, retreating step by step and resisting at every step.
When he retreated to Junan, Xu Hongru was surrounded by the Ming army and never escaped.
However, the rebels under his command escaped under the leadership of some generals and reached some places near the sea.
Immediately afterwards, the rebels were picked up by some ships and fled to some islands along the coast.
Afterwards, these rebel forces were dispersed. Some became pirates, some became fishermen and civilians on some overseas islands, and some were secretly sent to Liaodong to open up and cultivate the land.
Not long after, Shandong Governor Zhao Yan ordered an investigation of all towns and villages that had colluded with the rebels. Anyone who had any connection with the rebels would be arrested and beheaded in public to serve as a warning to others.
However, just after Zhao Yan issued this policy, the governor was assassinated in his own house that night. The murderer also left a wooden sign that read "Those who kill innocent people will die!"
After that, the rest of the officials stopped the investigation, and even those low-level officials who wantonly implicated innocent people became much more honest.
After this incident, the pirate group led by Ding Chong and Ding Tai grew rapidly. The newly added pirates were all civilians who had escaped from being hunted down by government troops. At least they had experienced life-and-death battles and seen blood.
When these people were equipped with ships, weapons, and even muskets, they began to grow and develop rapidly.
Not long after, Ding Xian, with dozens of special forces members, mixed in with the pirate group, led two to three thousand pirates, and directly looted two seaports of the Lee Dynasty of Korea, obtained a batch of ships, and then went south along the coast, occupying the coastal islands in Shandong and Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
At this time, a group of Dutch colonists were occupying Penghu Island near the southern Taiwan Province. After occupying Penghu, they confronted the Ming navy and demanded that the Ming Dynasty trade with them.
The Governor of Fujian flatly rejected the colonists' request for trade, and actively prepared the navy and made preparations for war with the colonists.
The navy at this time still had a certain combat effectiveness.
Lu Cheng did not allow the pirate group to continue moving south to join the battle between the Ming navy and the Dutch.
According to the customs of the Ming Dynasty court, if the pirate group supported by Lu Cheng went south and entered the Wandao Island, I am afraid that the Ming Dynasty navy would deal with the pirates first and then deal with the colonists.
In the autumn of the second year of the Tianqi reign, the entire southern Liaoning province welcomed a rare bumper harvest. People from all over the country happily stored the harvested corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes, thanking God for the good weather and General Lu for providing them with enough food.
This year, the Later Jin did not harass Liaodong, but was busy further conquering the Mongolian tribes on the grassland.
But the tribes on the grassland followed the water and grass and could migrate at any time, and they were not willing to become the younger brothers of the Later Jin.
The Later Jin used the Khorchin tribe as a vanguard to help them wipe out the Chahar tribe, and attempted to attack the Tumed and Khalkha tribes, but the Tumed and Khalkha tribes united, and with the support of the Ming Dynasty behind them, the Khorchin tribe suffered heavy losses and it was difficult to make any progress for a while.
What made the Later Jin even more troublesome was that the Khalkha tribe actually learned to use the Ming Dynasty's gunpowder weapons, causing considerable casualties to the Later Jin cavalry.
During this ongoing conflict, the number of infantrymen under Lu Cheng's command had reached nearly 50,000, and he had also trained more than 2,000 cavalrymen, making the entire southern Liaoning province like an iron barrel.
Among the four guards in southern Liaoning, except Haizhou Guard, the other three guards also developed rapidly under the impetus of multi-party trade, renovated the city and strengthened the city defense.
Even Penglai, which was across the sea from Jinzhouwei, was boosted and its business became increasingly prosperous.
Compared with the prosperity of southern Liaoning, the northeastern Liaoning region is much worse.
Although Xiong Tingbi was also trying hard to govern, the court's food and salary could not keep up, and the supply of materials was sometimes unavailable, which directly led to some officers having to dismiss some soldiers, and even going back to their old jobs and collecting empty salaries.
Xiong Tingbi repeatedly petitioned the court to allocate food and wages, but after suppressing peasant uprisings in various places, the court could no longer raise any food and wages.
This peasant uprising also lifted the last fig leaf of the Ming Dynasty, making this dynasty, which was coming to an end, even more precarious.
In the court, the struggle between the eunuch party and the Donglin party intensified. The Jinyiwei and the East and West Factories arrested people everywhere, confiscated homes and exterminated families, making the entire capital city a mess.
At the end of October, a maritime caravan under Lu Cheng's command passed through the port of Tianjin Wei, picked up a group of people sent by the Intelligence Department, and transported them to Liaodong.
These people were minor officials of the sixth and seventh ranks in the court. They did not have much power in the court, but were accidentally involved in the struggle between the Eunuch Party and the Donglin Party. Some of them had even been targeted by the Jinyiwei.
People from the Intelligence Department contacted these officials in advance. As long as they were willing to resign and leave, they would escort them away through special channels and take the water route directly to Liaodong.
There have been more than one or two such officials. Lu Cheng has informed Lu Wenzhao and asked him to take care of them when he can, to let them off the hook when necessary, and to turn a blind eye to them and pretend not to see anything.
It is worth mentioning that in the past two years, Lu Cheng also had people send a lot of money to Lu Wenzhao to help him make further progress in officialdom. He has been promoted from a thousand households to the commander-in-chief of the Northern Pacification Office.
Naturally, Lu Wenzhao would return the favor. Sometimes, when he met some unimportant but capable officials, even if they had not committed any crime, Lu Wenzhao would ask the Jinyiwei to scare them, forcing them to leave the capital and then secretly send them to Liaodong.
In order to allow these officials to work with peace of mind after arriving in Liaodong, the staff of the Intelligence Department would usually send their entire family to Liaodong.
Although this method is not very bright, it is very useful.
Especially in the past few months, almost every month two or three minor officials were sent to Liaodong with their families and settled in various places in southern Liaoning.
Anyway, once you are targeted by the Intelligence Department, you may be targeted by the Jinyiwei next, and in the end you can only accept your fate and even be grateful to these saviors of unknown origin.
Of course, there were some smart people who might have seen some clues, but they were simply powerless to resist.
For those officials, being able to leave Kyoto, the dangerous and dangerous city, and go to Liaodong to do some down-to-earth work was already a very good result.
On this day, Lu Cheng, led by Lao Bao from the Intelligence Department, went to meet the group of officials who were sent over.
On the way to meet these officials, Lao Bao approached Lu Cheng and chuckled twice: "Sir, I have something good to tell you."
"What good news can you give me? If you have something to say, please speak up."
"Yes, sir. Among the officials who came this time, there is a director of the Ministry of Works, his surname is Zhou, and his name is Zhou Wencheng. This director Zhou has two daughters, one fifteen and one twelve, both of whom are standard beauties. Your Excellency only has two wives at home now, so why not take these two into your home?"
"Old Bao, what do you mean? Is your general that kind of person? By the way, what are the names of those two girls?"
"The two Miss Zhous, their maiden names are Miao Xuan and Miao Tong. Sir, please rest assured that we in the Intelligence Department will never embarrass other people's families."
Lu Cheng was also stunned when he heard this. If these two were really the two heroines in the original play, then it would really be an accidental success...