At this time, the sky was already white, and Chen Qisheng's face was whiter than the fish belly. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It was a night of great suffering for everyone.

It may well be the night that will determine the future direction of this decaying empire.

After being silent for a long time, Chen Qisheng gritted his teeth and said to Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, Cheng Huaishan is talking nonsense! There is only a total of these silver in the criminal minister's family, and there is no such thing as ten taels of silver for a single salt at all!"

But cold sweat continued to slide down his forehead.

Chen Qisheng wants to gamble!

Most of the silver was naturally given to the top, but if he confessed, it would be tantamount to betraying Donglin, and the people above would not only not save him, but would definitely put him to death. On the other hand, if he insisted that there was no such thing, maybe he would be able to give a lighter sentence when the three divisions were tried.

The three divisions, the Shangshu of the Criminal Department, the Dali Siqing, and the Zuodu Yushi are all members of the Donglin Party!

But he knows very well that everything ultimately depends on the emperor. Where did my money go, I believe everyone present knows it, but knowing it and not believing in yourself are completely different things.

If the emperor doesn't plan to start a war with Donglin, then he will choose to "believe" in himself, and he may still be saved. If the emperor chooses to start an all-out war with Donglin, then he will inevitably be killed to sacrifice the flag!

In the final analysis, it is the question of whether the emperor is afraid of Donglin!

Is the emperor afraid? Of course he is afraid! Donglin scholars are all over the world, does the emperor want to go against the people of the world?

Chongzhen hesitated for a long time, and at this important juncture, his indecisive character was undoubtedly revealed again.

After a while, he said to Li Jingting, "Take him down first." ”

"Obey. ”

Li Jingting dragged Chen Qisheng, who was already weak, to the outside.

Chongzhen said to the others, "You all go out, Brother Qin, you stay." ”

Everyone else immediately went out and closed the door.

Chongzhen took a deep breath and said slowly to Qin Shuhuai, "Brother Qin, take this step...... There is no turning back. ”

Qin Shuhuai said calmly, "If we don't take this step, not only will we not be able to turn back in the future, but it will also be difficult to move forward! Brother Huang, the Ming Dynasty can't be saved by repelling a Jiannu once and killing a few Daotai! This trip to the Sword Mountain and the Sea of Fire, as the Lord of the Great Ming, you must go over!"

Chongzhen's eyes gradually became firm.

"Brother Qin, you will accompany me on this path, right?"

"Yes, I will advance and retreat with Brother Huang!"

A few simple words made Chongzhen's blood boil!

"Okay, I'll fight with Brother Qin! I'd rather be an outlaw who fights everywhere than be a ridiculous king of the country! I am a divine mandate from heaven, and with a peerless warrior like Brother Qin, I don't believe in fighting those pedantic scholars!"

Qin Shuhuai lightly spit out four words, "Emperor Shengming!"

After the enthusiasm, Chongzhen returned to his composure. Plan and then act, he naturally knows this truth. This was the case when Dou Wei Zhongxian was in the past, and now the Dou Donglin Party will be like this.

"Brother Qin, in your opinion, how should we eradicate the Donglin Party?"

Qin Shuhuai said, "The minister thinks that it is safe to do four points. First, it is necessary to control public opinion, and we must not allow the Donglin Party to smear Brother Huang's rectification of the imperial court's law and discipline as brutal and unreasonable, and to kill courtiers indiscriminately, otherwise Brother Huang will become a lonely man! Second, we must take every step of the way, and we must not be in a hurry, and we must purge the Donglin Party from place to place, otherwise those governors and governors will unite to resist, and things may happen. The third is to put the local government first and then the Beijing officials. The officials of the six ministries of the DPRK and the Central Committee, the cabinet, the Dali Temple, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and other ministries did not move at first, and even appeased them with the addition of officials to the Jue, and the Donglin rebels have always been the only ones who look to them, and as long as they are safe, they can paralyze the Donglin Party members to a great extent. ”

Hearing this, Chongzhen interjected, "Brother Qin, public opinion is Donglin's strength, I am not sure, Brother Qin has a good strategy?"

Qin Shuhuai said lightly, "The emperor can rest assured, this point will be handed over to the minister." In terms of attacking the heart, they are not the opponents of the ministers when they are united. ”

Chongzhen was overjoyed, and immediately nodded and said, "As soon as Brother Qin said this, I didn't worry at all!" After a pause, he asked again, "However, Brother Qin said that he should first go to the local area and then the central government, so which place to start first?"

Qin Shuhuai said without hesitation, "Start from the place of war! If we take action against Donglin in the name of suppressing corruption, it will inevitably arouse Donglin's vigilance, and we need to know that the Donglin Party members are greedy nine times out of ten! But if we purge the Donglin Party in the name of quelling the chaos, not only will they not be alert, but they will also have nothing to say, and we must know that they also hope to quell the people's rebellion. ”

Chongzhen was stunned for a moment and said, "In this way, will it make the war against bandits even more erosive?"

Qin Shuhuai shook his head with certainty, "No." As long as the officials and the army are not chaotic, the local government will not be chaotic, because the local military and government have long been taken over by the officials and the army, and the government has already existed in name only. And because most of the Donglin Party members are civilian officials, there are few Donglin Party members in the official army, as long as the governor and a few governors are purged, the official army will completely break away from the Donglin Party. ”

Chongzhen nodded and said, "Brother Qin is right. At present, there is no place where the bandits are most rampant than Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu, and other places, that is, the three sides of Governor Yang He. Yang He has a heavy army, but he has always been angry with Zhou Yanru and others, and he is also a member of the Donglin Party, so if you want to clean the Donglin Party on the three sides, you must first transfer Yang He away, and then send a reliable person to the governor of the three sides, what does Brother Qin think?"

Qin Shuhuai said, "Yang He has not had a major defeat recently, nor has he made a big mistake, and it is a little strange to transfer him at this time, which will inevitably cause conjecture among the Donglin party." In addition, if Yang He is purged as soon as the local Donglin officials leave, our purpose is too obvious. In addition, even if Yang He is transferred and the Donglin Party is to calm down the public opinion, the emperor still has to let him hold an important position, which will be a disaster in the future. ”

Chongzhen listened to Qin Shuhuai's unkind tone and seemed to understand something.

"What does Brother Qin mean......"

Qin Shuhuai said coldly, "The minister suggested that it is better to let Yang He die in office!"

Chongzhen only thought for a second before nodding in agreement. As for how to let Yang He die in office, he believed that Brother Qin had 10,000 methods, and he didn't need to care. There was only one concern for him.

He asked, "Who's next?"

"Yang He has a political officer named Hong Chengchou, and the minister thinks that this person should be able to take on this great responsibility. ”

Chongzhen recalled carefully and said, "Hong Chengchou? is the one who led a thousand people to relieve the siege of Hancheng?"

At this time, Hong Chengchou was just a small political participant, and the only time Chongzhen heard of him was the battle of Hancheng not long ago.

But Qin Shuhuai knew that this person would soon become famous, and he would eventually replace Yang He and become the governor of the three sides.

So he just made the process a little earlier.

Without him, the Forbidden City would have been breached by the People's Army at least five or six years earlier!

When Yang He was on the three sides of the governor, he adopted the strategy of "suppressing and appeasing the peasant army", so that it caused a strange phenomenon, that is, after the peasant rebellion, if the official army could not defeat it, he could choose to surrender, not only would he not be disposed of in any way, but he could also get a sum of silver or rations for free. Who doesn't want to do such a good thing? Therefore, the thief army in the trilateral area will never be able to stop it. Even Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong had repeatedly "defrauded and surrendered", and gradually became bigger and bigger in the "fraudulent surrender". It can be said that if it weren't for Yang He, the Holy Mother of the Donglin Party, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong would never have been big.

And Hong Chengchou is very different from his boss. He was a well-known hardliner, not only advocating vigorously suppressing bandits, but also killing and surrendering, and according to statistics, tens of thousands of bandits were killed by him. The effect was also immediate, and there were fewer and fewer bandits during the trilateral period of his governorship, and by the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, the last thief army in western Shaanxi, was almost wiped out, and only 18 cavalry were defeated. If Hong Chengchou hadn't gone to be the governor of Jiliao later, it is estimated that Li Zicheng would have no hope of turning over in his life.

In short, Hong Chengchou is definitely a great talent in the late Ming Dynasty, and what is even more commendable is that he and the Donglin Party are not all the way at all. Although he later surrendered to the Manchus, those who knew the whole thing knew that he was different from Wu Sangui.

Although Chongzhen didn't know much about Hong Chengchou, he was relieved when he heard Qin Shuhuai say that he could take on this big responsibility.

Only then did he remember that Qin Shuhuai still hadn't said the fourth point, so he hurriedly asked, "Brother Qin, what is the fourth point you want to say?"

Qin Shuhuai said, "The fourth and most important step is to solve the problem of arrears of soldiers and horses in various places as soon as possible. Nowadays, there are widespread arrears of salaries in various localities, and the living conditions of officers and men are extremely bad, and this is the biggest loophole! The Donglin Party itself is mainly civilian officials, and those who can control the soldiers and horses are the governors of various localities, and there was originally no basic foundation. But if they talk about the arrears of the imperial court, smear the emperor's arrogance and lasciviousness, refuse to pay salaries, etc., so as to encourage the low-level officers and soldiers to follow them against the emperor, it will be very bad!"

Chongzhen nodded thoughtfully, "Brother Qin is right. Before moving Donglin, it is necessary to settle the arrears first. It's just that the imperial court has been in arrears for a long time, and it's not easy to pay them off one by one!"

As he spoke, Chongzhen looked at Qin Shuhuai with ill-intentioned eyes.

"Brother Qin, I said that this time I only need you five million taels. Don't worry, as the Son of Heaven, I will never ask you more. As for the arrears, I sold the treasures in the palace, and when I became the royal forest, I would settle it myself. Of course, if you give more, it will be loyal to the monarchy, and it will not hurt. ”

Qin Shuhuai knew that this kid wanted to beat his mind again, so he deliberately didn't speak, to see what else this kid would say.

Seeing that Qin Shuhuai didn't speak, Chongzhen cleared his throat again, and muttered like a chatterbox, "Brother Qin came out this time, how can he get tens of millions of taels of silver, right? That's how it works, ...... It's already nine million taels. ”

Qin Shuhuai: ......

"Hehe, Brother Qin, you have developed this time. ”

Qin Shuhuai: ......

"Hehe, Brother Qin, you have already made a net profit of four million taels. ”

Qin Shuhuai: ......

"Hehe, Brother Qin, you are richer than me. ”

Qin Shuhuai: ......

"Hehe, Brother Qin, I envy you. ”

Qin Shuhuai sighed, "Your Majesty, you should say it directly, how much more can a minister pay to be considered loyal to the monarchy?"