On Friday, September 1, 1645, the 12th day of July in the first year of Hongguang of the Ming Empire.

Shaoxing Mansion in Zhejiang Province of the Ming Dynasty, the large battalions outside the city are continuous, and tens of thousands of soldiers surround the city and display the flag. Under the orders of the government, every house in the city was cleaned, incense was burned on the desk, and then men, women, and children knelt in front of their homes.

The rhythm of half a beat slower than the original history continued, and Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, with the support of Xiong Rulin, Qian Sule, Zhang Huangyan, Zheng Zunqian, Zhang Guowei, etc., supervised the country in Shaoxing, regent Zhedong, and declared the following year as the first year of the prison of Lu.

For Zhu Yihai, who has lost his father and brother in the past few years, and he escaped from Nanjing without dying, this is the most important day in his life. Looking at the crowd surging in the audience, Zhu Yihai suddenly felt a little trance. Surrounded by a large number of officials from eastern Zhejiang, Zhu Yihai took the stage to pay tribute to the Ming Emperors of the past dynasties, and then Zhang Huangyan and others were invited to supervise the country.

Although the Lu Wang family is the bloodline of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, the name of royal orthodoxy and righteousness still exists on the surface, but it has been inherited to this day, and the Lu Fan has long been out of the five suits with the emperor. To put it mildly, Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, who announced the supervision of the state in Hangzhou north of the Qiantang River some time ago, has much tougher qualifications than him, but Zhu Changshu's position of supervision has only been for a few days, and even the city of Hangzhou was taken over by the Manchus.

What is even more surprising is that I heard that Zhu Yujian, the king of the Tang Dynasty who had fled to Fujian, was supported by the great warlord Zheng Zhilong of Fujian, and not long ago ascended the throne in Fuzhou as emperor, with the year name Longwu.

It is said that at this moment, the Manchus forcibly implemented the shaving order of "keeping their heads without hair", while still fighting bloody battles with the remnants of the Ming resistance forces in the state capital north of the Qiantang River. From Zhenjiang to Suzhou, from Changzhou to Jiading, there are rivers of blood and corpses everywhere.

The officials who fled from Nanjing and the Ming clan were bumping around like lost dogs at this time. Some entered Jiangxi and transferred to Huguang, some entered Zhejiang, and some continued to go south to Fujian or Liangguang. There were even those who sat back and simply surrendered to the Manchus. The nobles of Tianhuang, who were once kept in captivity by the Ming Dynasty like domestic animals, only then did they realize that the outside world was so terrible.

The master of ceremonies and eunuchs were still shaking their heads, and the officials in the audience were all brightly dressed and kowtowed to Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, while on the stage, a number of ministers with heavier status stood on both sides of Zhu Yihai's back, each smiling and high-spirited.

The long ceremony lasted almost a whole day, and then Zhu Yihai, who was in a daze, accompanied by the minister, returned to the former Shaoxing Mansion as the palace of the prison state. Another round of big bounties began.

One after another, all the third-rate nine sects defected to Shaoxing in the name of gathering righteousness and supporting Lu, and a local tyrant summoned dozens of hundreds of people to protect the courtyard, and he could get the title of a general, and a squire could talk a few times to seal the head of the house. There are as many scholars as dogs, generals and generals walking all over the ground, and a large number of official titles gush out from this, and everyone is smiling.

The same situation was staged in Fuzhou in southern Fujian at this time. The days of the small court of Longwu are also magnificent, and they are being handed down and rewarded.

The anti-Qing movement in Jiangxi and north of the Qiantang River was in full swing, and the anti-Qing uprisings in the occupied areas north of the Yangtze River became more frequent, and the Manchu strategic offensive to the south was greatly adjusted after the capture of Nanjing. Even if Hangzhou has fallen. Overall, however, the military threat of the Manchus was somewhat lower than it had been a few months earlier.

Both Zhejiang and Fujian, under the banner of Ming orthodoxy, were on the wrong side almost from the start, and their mutual hatred surpassed even that of the Manchu armies in the north.

……

A few days later, the government of Taizhou, Zhejiang. Linhai County.

At the gate of a barracks under repair, Zhang Mingzhen, a former Shipu guerrilla and current Taizhou commander-in-chief, was accompanied by a young civilian official and watched a team of grain and grass entering the camp.

King Lu was in charge of the state in eastern Zhejiang. In terms of the general environment, it is a microcosm of the refusal of the common people and gentry in Jiangnan to accept the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and was fully supported by the Ming officials in eastern Zhejiang, especially some of the military attaches who controlled the Ming army in eastern Zhejiang.

Under the leadership of a group of heavyweight civil officials such as Qian Sule, Xiong Rulin, and Zhang Weiguo, Lu Wangjian Guo was like a Hollywood blockbuster with an extremely gorgeous promotional title, which not only attracted a large number of middle- and lower-level officials who fled from Nanjing, but also set off a frenzy of following the trend in eastern Zhejiang.

In a short period of time, the total number of Ming troops from all walks of life in eastern Zhejiang who declared their allegiance to King Lu was 300,000, but there were only a handful of them with real combat effectiveness, including nearly 10,000 people under the command of Zhang Mingzhen, the general soldier of Ningbo.

Although Zhang Mingzhen was a well-known anti-Qing general at the end of the Ming Dynasty, his status in the Luwang Group at this moment was not high. The relationship between Zhang Mingzhen and the Donglin Party used to be good, but with the fall of the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty in more than a year, the once righteous and invincible Donglin Party people surrendered, fled, and died, and collapsed almost overnight, which also made Zhang Mingzhen quite insightful. The pain of the death of the country due to the endless infighting in the court left an indelible painful mark on Zhang Mingzhen's heart.

Now, Zhang Mingzhen felt a kind of boredom that was difficult to express, because on the second day of King Lu's imprisonment, he received a handwritten warrant from Xiong Rulin, the first assistant of King Lu's small court, asking him to lead his army south to the Fenshui Pass (south of Pingyang County, Wenzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang Province in the Ming Dynasty) on the border between Zhejiang and Fujian, in order to defend against a possible invasion by the Longwu regime supported by Zheng Zhilong.

"Lord Commander, now that my Taizhou Town has all the soldiers and horses, Lord Xiong's warrant cannot be delayed, why don't you lead the troops south tomorrow?" The young civil official had a very kind attitude, not as commanding as an ordinary Ming Dynasty civil official in the face of military attachés, but more polite to the older military attaché in front of him like an open-minded student.

This person is Zhang Huangyan, a famous anti-Qing general in the late Ming Dynasty who joined the Taizhou Supervision Army, and is now only a Hanlin editor in his twenties. Among the large group of people who raised troops to support the Kingdom of King Dailu, although Zhang Huangyan's status was not high, he scattered his wealth and contributed a lot.

"Xuanzhu, it's not that the official doesn't want to go south, but now that the northern border is in danger, the Manchu army may cross the river (Qiantang River) to the south at any time, if I send troops to divide the water pass and dispute with Zheng Zhilong, in case I ......"

Zhang Mingzhen touched the long beard on his chin, and looked at the truckload of grain and grass that had been forcibly expropriated or even plundered from surrounding states and counties in the name of "helping the army resist the Qing Dynasty", and his heart ached. A while ago, Zheng Zhilong's whole army fled, and all parts of Zhejiang have been plagued by the Zheng army, and now King Lu has taken root in eastern Zhejiang, and the people's land has been scraped again.

"Lord General Soldier, King Lu is my Ming Emperor Taizu's clan family, this time the prison country conforms to the mandate of heaven and the people's hearts, that Zheng Zhilong supports the army and respects himself, dominates the government and the opposition, fears the enemy like a tiger, and the sinking of Nanjing is not unrelated to him, and now he is a private Tang king, not under the edict of King Lu to supervise the country...... We have a great responsibility and deserve ......"

"Don't mention this matter again, after all, it is a dispute between the Zhu family and the emperor, and when the Manchu Qing retreats, it's not too late to talk about it! Look at the people in the south of the Yangtze River, now their families are ruined everywhere and people are panicking...... If we wait for each other to kill each other, wouldn't it be in the hands of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, when will we be able to recover the two capitals and restore the Ming Dynasty! ”

Zhang Mingzhen immediately raised his hand to stop Zhang Huangyan's persuasion, and looked at the back of the Taizhou people who were crying and crying in the distance, hoping that the officers and soldiers would show mercy and take less food.

Seeing Zhang Mingzhen's painful face, Zhang Huangyan also knew that it was a bit ridiculous to be ordered to go south to Fujian this time, but as a supervisor, he had to remind himself and the other party of their responsibilities from time to time.

"Lord Qiqi General Soldier, Lord Supervisor Army, and Lord Xuanfu Department and Lord Zhiyan have sent envoys to the camp, saying that they want to meet the two adults."

Just when the two were at a stalemate, suddenly a junior colonel arrived quickly and directly presented a letter.

Minister's Propaganda Division? Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan looked at each other at this time, and felt a little unbelievable that the local tyrant who had been lonely overseas for many years and had never participated in internal strife actually sent an envoy to the mainland at this time.

A day later, Zhang Mingzhen and Zhang Huangyan excitedly sent a team of soldiers and horses to leave Taizhou and escort a group of officials from Dayuan towards Shaoxing. By the way, he also sent a letter to Shoufu Xiong Rulin, in which Zhang Mingzhen bitterly advised the small court of King Lu to give up the armed confrontation with Zheng Zhilong in Fujian, and fully cooperate to resist the Manchus and recover the lost land.

The representative of the Propaganda Department was still on the way, and the urgent letter of six hundred miles had already arrived in Shaoxing, which aroused the great interest of King Lu, and even Xiong Rulin walked around the court excitedly.

In fact, except for Zhejiang, the response of local officials of the Ming Dynasty in the surrounding provinces was much worse, but most of the provinces declared their allegiance to the Longwu regime in Fujian. For the regime of King Lu, whose decree does not leave Zhejiang, to support the hundreds of thousands of chaotic troops under his command, the pressure of food and materials can be imagined.

Who doesn't know that the Yan family has been a rich country in business and running to the sea in recent years, selling hundreds of thousands of stones of rice and grain to the mainland of Fujian every year, and there are many soldiers, horses and warships under his command, which can be called a big warlord who can compete with the Zheng family in the East China Sea. The key thing is that the Ming officials who have a bit of status know the private confrontation between the Yan family and Zheng Zhilong in Fujian for more than ten or twenty years. With the support and response of the Yan family, not only can the gap in food and salary be filled, but the influence of King Nalu on the southeast coast will also increase greatly, at least it will make Zheng Zhilong dare not take a shot lightly.

What is even more gratifying is that this time, the Minister of Comfort not only brought the will of allegiance, but even brought the news that "Nanyang Luzon, Nanyang Lanfang, and Xihai States" also intended to "go to the table to congratulate".

This is a court from all directions! After the year of the Apocalypse, the Ming Dynasty was not as good as a day, and I don't know how many years of pilgrimage to foreign vassal vassals had stopped. If King Lu was not the emperor and the Ming Dynasty were orthodox, how could there be such a thing?

As soon as he thought of this, Xiong Rulin and other ministers of the small court of King Lu were very excited, and the envoy of the Great Minister's Propaganda Department was still on the way, and the city of Shaoxing was full of joy, and they were all waiting with their eyes. (To be continued......)

PS: The second round of sincerity ~~~