Of course Zhu Cihong knew that Li Banghua was honest. When he saw Li Banghua looking embarrassed, he patted Li Banghua on the shoulder and said with a smile:

"Li Qing, don't get me wrong. You served in the Ministry of War before joining the cabinet and you are not considered a censor. I know that you are clean and honest, so the purpose of letting you concurrently serve as the censor of Zuodu is to completely rectify the Imperial Procuratorate.

I have already banned the Yushi Wenwen Zhaoshi, and there is no need for the existence of the Six-kegei Shizhong. I hope the cabinet will discuss it and write to my father to abolish the Six-kegei-shizhong.

As long as it is beneficial to Ming Dynasty, just go ahead and do it. I am your strong backing. No matter what trouble you cause, I will help you solve it."

Although Li Banghua was a civil servant, he was always upright and honest and never joined cliques to choose sides. He only did things that were beneficial to the Ming Dynasty. He was isolated and attacked by the officials and demoted several times.

After the crown prince took charge of the country, he finally saw the hope of reviving the Ming Dynasty and wanted to do his best in his job for the court.

Unexpectedly, he was recommended by the crown prince to join the cabinet and became the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty cabinet.

This moved the aloof and upright Li Banghua so much that he swore allegiance to the Ming Dynasty and the crown prince to the death.

Today, the crown prince delegated the power to rectify the Supervisory Office to him for the first time, which made Li Banghua even more excited.

He had long been disgusted with those gossips, and hurriedly handed over his hand to express gratitude:

"Thank you for your trust, Your Highness. I will never disappoint your expectations. All ministers in the cabinet are willing to serve the Ming Dynasty till their death!"

In addition to Yang Sichang, several other cabinet ministers were recommended to the cabinet by Zhu Cixiang. They also followed Zhu Cixiang's lead and expressed their gratitude to the crown prince:

"Thank you, Your Highness, for your grace!"

Zhu Cihong nodded, thinking of Lu Xiang's promotion to the cabinet, so he said:

"Rogue bandits are rampant, and bandits often invade the east. After Zhang Fengyi committed suicide, the post of Shangshu of the Ministry of War has been vacant. At special times, the Ministry of War cannot be left alone to take command. Which one do you think is more suitable, Lu Xiangsheng or Sun Chuanting?"

Li Banghua and the cabinet ministers looked at each other, and the elders fell into deep thought for a moment.

Both Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng are capable of serving as ministers of the Ministry of War, and any one of them is far more capable than Zhang Fengyi.

However, Sun Chuanting was unruly and unruly, and it would be difficult to control him once he became Minister of War.

Compared with Sun Chuanting in terms of conduct, Lu Xiangsheng was obviously easier for several people to accept, but they all wanted to know who the crown prince had in mind.

While Li Banghua, Feng Ying, Cheng Guoxiang and others were deep in thought, Yang Sichang felt very uncomfortable.

After joining the cabinet, he had already set his sights on the position of Minister of War.

Based on Yang Sichang's understanding of Emperor Chongzhen, as long as he takes the initiative to speak, the Minister of War will definitely be in his pocket. However, he cannot recommend himself and must be recommended by an official.

I mentioned this matter intentionally or unintentionally to several cabinet colleagues a few days ago, but these old foxes pretended not to understand and did not mention it at all.

Today, when he heard the crown prince talking about the Minister of War and recommending Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng, Yang Sichang suddenly felt like a thunderbolt struck his head, and his mind went blank.

After a moment, Li Banghua cupped his hands and said:

"Your Highness, both Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng are quite capable. The minister believes that Lu Xiangsheng is more suitable for the Minister of War. Sun Chuanting has a somewhat aloof personality and may need to improve in handling interpersonal relationships."

Seeing Li Banghua speak, several other cabinet ministers hurriedly raised their hands and seconded:

"Your Highness, what Li Ge said makes sense!"

After they finished speaking, seeing that Yang Sichang had not expressed his position, Jiang Feng pulled Yang Sichang's sleeves and asked:

"Weak brother, what do you think?"

At Jiang Fengguan's reminder, Yang Sichang suddenly realized that in order to leave a good impression on the Crown Prince and for the sake of his position as Minister of War, he hurriedly handed over his hand and said:

"Your Highness, the suppression of rogue bandits is currently the top priority of the Ministry of War, in order to prevent the Jian slaves from taking advantage of the army to suppress the bandits and enter the border to retaliate.

I believe that the suppression of rogue bandits can be divided into three steps.

First, to fight against the outside world, we must first secure the inside; second, to have enough food and then to have enough soldiers; third, to protect the people, we can defeat the invaders."

So Yang Sichang explained what he already thought was a perfect plan to suppress the bandits.

Its countermeasures mainly focus on the first two points.

Regarding the first point, he believed that the general trend of the world is like a human body. The capital is the head, Xuan and Ji Zhuzhen are the shoulders and arms, and the Central Plains south of the Yellow River and north of the river are the heart and heart.

The current situation is that the beacon fire appears outside the shoulders and arms, and it is extremely urgent; the rogue bandits are causing trouble in the heart, and the attack is very deep.

Although external troubles cannot be alleviated, internal troubles cannot be ignored, because they poison the heart and soul.

If you allow "the poison in your belly and heart, your organs to ulcerate, and your essence and blood to dry up day by day", what's the use of having only shoulders and arms?

Therefore, he advocated peace talks with the Qing Dynasty first, stabilizing the situation near the capital, and concentrating on annihilating the peasant army in one go.

Regarding the second point, he suggested adding 120,000 troops, including infantry and cavalry.

It also increased the salary by 2.8 million taels and adopted four methods: uniform transfer, land overflow, student supervision, and postal delivery.

The three-point program proposed by Yang Sichang was all in service of realizing what he believed to be the encirclement and suppression plan of "four righteousnesses and six corners, and a net spread on ten sides".

The implementation of this plan relied on the cooperation of Hong Chengchou, the governor of the five provinces, and Wang Jiazhen, the premier of the five provinces.

Hong Chengchou had made great achievements in the process of encircling and suppressing the peasant army, but Wang Jiazhen was considered by Yang Sichang to be mediocre and unworthy of the task.

So Yang Sichang introduced Zhu Cihong and recommended Xiong Wencan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, to succeed the premier of the five provinces.

In fact, in history, Yang Sichang did the same thing when he was appointed Minister of the Ministry of War by Emperor Chongzhen.

Yang Sichang first secretly launched the peace negotiation operation.

In March of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, Fang Yizao, the governor of Liaodong, sent the blind man Zhou Yuanzhong to Shenyang as an envoy to test his tone.

Huang Taiji treated him very politely and said: "If there is confirmation, we will withdraw our troops and return eastward."

After Yang Sichang received Fang Yizao's report, he immediately suggested that Emperor Chongzhen allow Fang Yizao and the superintendent eunuch Gao Qiqian to work at their own convenience and successfully negotiate a peace, which was tacitly approved by Emperor Chongzhen.

Zhou Yuanzhong returned to Ningyuan and brought back a letter from Emperor Taiji Zhi Gao Qiqian. The letter said: "I still want to pay you. If you don't agree, Xia Qiu will definitely take action.

Yang Sichang tried his best to persuade Emperor Chongzhen to seize the opportunity to negotiate peace with the Qing Dynasty, but Emperor Chongzhen only ordered him to "consider carefully".

Yang Sichang refused to give up and continued to criticize the officials for ignoring the situation of the Ministry of War and only making empty words to mislead the country. He asked for "Holy Mirror to allow it to be done", which meant that Fang Yizao and Gao Qi were explicitly approved to discuss peace secretly.

At this time, Yang Sichang's leadership in negotiating the peace had become public, which aroused fierce criticism from courtiers and launched a movement to impeach Yang Sichang.

Among them, the most powerful critic was Shao Zhanshi Huang Daozhou. On the surface, they opposed Yang Sichang's "seizing love to join the cabinet", but in fact they opposed the peace talks with the Qing Dynasty that he led.

Emperor Chongzhen summoned the ministers on the platform on July 5 of that year and asked Yang Sichang and Huang Daozhou to debate in front of the emperor.

In the end, Emperor Chongzhen protected Yang Sichang and denounced Huang Daozhou and other officials who impeached Yang Sichang.

Although Yang Sichang escaped impeachment, Emperor Chongzhen did not dare to accept Yang Sichang's suggestions due to the opposition of his officials.

Fang Yizao expressed his clear support for the peace talks, and Gao Qiqian's peace talks with the Manchus came to nothing.

At the same time, the newly appointed Minister of War, Lu Xiangsheng, also firmly opposed peace negotiations with the Qing Dynasty, forming a sharp opposition with Yang Sichang.

Seeing this situation, Huang Taiji sent troops into the fortress in September of the 11th year of Chongzhen to launch a punitive attack on the Ming Dynasty.

Due to political differences within the Ming court, Lu Xiangsheng, who was the governor of the world's reinforcements, was ignored by Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian.

In the end, Lu Xiangsheng died in Julujiazhuang in battle, more than 70 cities were lost successively, and 460,000 people were captured (including King Zhu Youshu of Germany).

It was not until March of the twelfth year of Chongzhen that the Qing army left.

When the responsibility was investigated afterwards, although Yang Sichang was impeached, Chongzhen still preserved him. Like the Ming Dynasty, the prosperous age began from the prince's supervision. Please collect it: (https://www.myxls.net) The Ming Dynasty, the prosperous age began from the prince's supervision. Search and read novel network updates
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