How to make a famous minister

Chapter 55: Apocalypse 6 Years

Zhu Youjian came back to his senses when he touched his hand. He was annoyed by his subconscious action, but felt his hand was cold, frowned, and asked, "Why are your hands so cold?"

Fan Xuanchao breathed a sigh of relief, and subconsciously rubbed the tips of his red and itchy ears, "It's okay. Ever since I was imprisoned in Jinyiwei, my hands and feet are often cold when I come back. It's okay."

"Why don't you say it's okay? Come on, come on the brazier."

Zhu Youjian stretched out both hands to hold his, and rubbed them together until he felt the heat in his hand, then he put it down, and asked, "Where is that hand?"

Fan Xuanchao smiled with a stiff expression, "It's okay, this hand is kept in the sleeve all the time, it's very warm."

Zhu Youjian came to his senses, he was mad, and kept silent.It wasn't until the charcoal basin was delivered, and the attendants brought a small stove to warm Fan Xuanchao's hands, that the atmosphere gradually heated up with the charcoal fire.

Zhu Youjian took a closer look at the chess game, and it turned out that he had unknowingly reached a dead end, and was beaten a lot. "Okay, I lost this game, let's start over."

Fan Xuanchao said hastily: "Your Highness has something on his mind, and he lost his mind for a moment, and that's why I lost. In the next game, I won't have such good luck."

Zhu Youjian: ...

"No, I have nothing on my mind." Zhu Youjian said, he was really embarrassed to confess to Fan Xuanchao that he was fascinated by his fingers. "In this round, I will definitely be able to kill every single one of you."

"You'll know after you play." Seeing that Zhu Youjian didn't want to say anything, Fan Xuanchao stopped asking and concentrated on playing chess.

At the end of the game, Zhu Youjian really won, and he felt at ease immediately.Seeing him happy, Fan Xuanchao didn't care if he won or lost.

"Look, it's snowing."

Fan Xuanchao leaned on the railing, stretched out his hand, and caught a snowflake. Before he retracted his hand to take a closer look, most of it had already melted.

Silky snowflakes drifted down and fell into the water without making a ripple.

Fan Xuanchao withdrew his hand resentfully, "This year's winter also came very early."

"It's just winter, and it's snowing." Zhu Youjian also withdrew from the extravagant atmosphere, "I don't know how many places will be affected this year."

"The blizzard in Yan'an just ended, and locusts covered the sky in Jinan. It's another year of hunger. I don't know when the weather will be smooth."

In the fifth year of the apocalypse, starting from June, Yan'an had a three-month blizzard, and I don't know how much resentment there is.Before the snow fell in Yan'an, there was a plague of locusts in Jinan. It is said that the situation has become difficult enough to sell children and daughters.

The last years of the Ming Dynasty were in the Little Ice Age, and natural disasters continued. In addition, the officials were ineffective, and the number of people who died could only be more, not less.

"..." Zhu Youjian didn't know when this disaster would end, anyway, it wasn't over when he died.

Fan Xuanchao began to mobilize his remaining common sense of history, but he is an engineering student... I only remember that because the Ming Dynasty introduced crops such as potatoes and corn, the number of people who died was not as many as other Little Ice Ages in history.

Potatoes, corn and other crops were actually introduced during the Wanli period. At that time, this thing caused a shock in the court. After all, the yield was too high, and it didn’t pick the land or the weather. It can be said to be the best food to satisfy hunger.

According to those southern officials, in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and southern Fujian, the hills where no food can be grown are full of potatoes, and the tables of poor farmers are not full.

But even the omnipotent potatoes and corn in the novel did not completely save the Ming Dynasty, and there were still some places where they could only sell their sons and daughters in times of famine, or even exchange sons for food.

"It's not just a famine. Hachi took Lushun years ago. Now the army is entrenched in the border town. I heard that they even sent letters to Yuan Chonghuan, a political rightist in Guangning, asking him to surrender." The situation of the Ming Dynasty is exhausted.

If it weren't for Wei Zhongxian's death, Yuan Chonghuan would even go back to his hometown next year because of his disagreement with Wei Zhongxian.

"□□Ha Chi?" Fan Xuanchao's deepest impression on□□ Ha Chi is "wild boar skin", which sounds like a very difficult person to deal with. "I just heard that this man is brave and good at fighting, and has great strategy. He unified the Jurchen tribe and became king and emperor. Some people compare him with Genghis Khan."

"But I am not a weak Song Dynasty!" Zhu Youjian looked serious and his eyes were cold.He has already been a king of subjugation once, and he will never make another mistake.

Fan Xuanchao thought about it, indeed, at least Daming still had an army and generals.

---------------------------

In the sixth year of the Apocalypse, in the first month, Nurhachi led his army across the Liaohe River. Wherever he went, the defenders of the Ming Dynasty either fled or were defeated. They were invincible and marched all the way to the city of Ningyuan.

At the foot of the city, Nurhachi claimed to have 30 horses, but there were actually 13, and asked Yuan Chonghuan to open the city and surrender.

Yuan Chonghuan flatly refused.

Yuan Chonghuan vowed to defend Ningyuan City, and even asked Yang Lin, the Shanhaiguan defender, to show no mercy if he found a Ningyuan defeated army and killed one, or found a team to kill the other.

On the 23rd of the first lunar month, soldiers approached the city, and launched an attack on the 24th.The Jurchen army is not afraid of death, and it is menacing.Yuan Chonghuan also fought back with various cannons on the city wall.These are cannons brought in tribute from the West. The Jurchen army has never seen such a long-range and powerful cannon. The soldiers in front were terrified. It was a mess.

The Jurchen army was in a mess, and the generals didn't care about the accuracy of their guns, they just fired at the places where the crowd was densest.Those Jurchen soldiers, men and horses, soared into the air, and fell into broken limbs and wreckage all over the place.What's even more frightening is that they have no way to fight back against the enemy, and as long as they mess up, they will be hit immediately.

Nu|erhachi was guarded by his own soldiers. Even though various orders were passed on continuously, even though all the orders without exception carried the "beheading of those who disobeyed orders", more and more soldiers began to be defeated.

When some great nobles and generals were killed by stray bullets, the soldiers under him quickly collapsed.

Nu|Erhachi shot from the left to the right, and couldn't believe that he was defeated by a group of less than 25 Ming Dynasty defenders and a row of cannons.He started leading the army at the age of [-], and he has never been invincible in the grassland, but he did not expect to...

"boom--"

Nu Erhachi's ear suddenly exploded with thunder, which was deafening, and he felt as if he was flying, and lost consciousness when his eyes went dark.

On March [-]th, because the chief general Nurhachi was seriously injured, and the Jurchen army suffered heavy casualties and morale was low, the menacing Jurchen army quickly retreated.

This was the first victory of the Ming Dynasty since the Jurchen declared war on the Ming Dynasty. It is not an exaggeration to say that the whole country was jubilant.Yuan Chonghuan's reputation has reached an unprecedented peak, almost reaching the level of national heroes like Yue Fei and Qi Jiguang.

Even the cannon that made great contributions was personally conferred the title of "Anbian Jinglu Township General" by Emperor Tianqi, and he has a ninth-rank official position.

In September, Hachi, who was seriously injured in the Battle of Ningyuan, finally closed his eyes unwillingly.His son Huang Taiji came to the throne, but without the suppression of the tyrant Hachi, the hearts of the Jurchen tribes were uncertain. Huang Taiji, who had just inherited the throne, was busy winning people's hearts and concentrating power, and did not care about avenging his father.

The Ming Dynasty also temporarily recovered from the war with the Jurchen.

But that's all for later. At this time, Fan Xuanchao was walking into the examination room with the sound of joy in Ningyuan's victory.

He was also accompanied by Bai Yang and Ni Houzhan. Needless to say, Bai Yang, Ni Houzhan was inconceivable that he was able to step on the tail of the list to be admitted to Juren.Until now, I still say, "If I can be admitted to Jinshi, then I will change my mind and start a new life. I will never go to Changchun Garden again, and I will never hang out with those cronies again."

Bai Yang rolled his eyes, "You also know that you are wandering around all day long?"

Ni Houzhan smiled, "I'm not going to fight with you now, I want to save the entrance and test questions, and we'll settle the score when we come out."

Fan Xuanchao supported his head, couldn't help laughing, and welcomed the attention of the people around him.

When those people saw that it was Fan Xuanchao, they discussed it in twos and threes.After all, Fan Xuanchao passed the test and won the Huiyuan again. If he performs well this time, he wins the Huiyuan... If he doesn't fall in the palace examination, His Majesty the Emperor will take it for the sake of "appointing a six-leader during his tenure". As long as he doesn't make a big mistake, he will always be the champion.

So Fan Xuanchao became the target of everyone's scrambling to attack and crusade.Before the examination, more than 3000 of the best candidates from all over the country gathered in the capital, all of whom had studied hard for years, so when they arrived in the capital, they naturally wanted to "meet friends with literature" and compete with each other.

It is not only making friends, but also testing the level, and it can also make a reputation for yourself, and invite some Hanlin or celebrities to judge.

Originally, at this time, every Hanlin would have to argue, but this year, unexpectedly, almost everyone thinks that Fan Xuanchao is the most likely to win the champion.

There are three reasons: first, he is indeed very knowledgeable, and I heard that he never reads a book that he has read once; second, he has made great contributions to the downfall of Wei Zhongxian, and the big bosses of the Donglin Party value him; third, as mentioned earlier However, Emperor Apocalypse once praised him, and it is considered that Jane is in the heart of the emperor, and because he has won the first place in the case, he has won the first prize, and as long as he wins the Huiyuan again, this champion is also in his pocket.

Over the past few days, Fan Xuanchao has received many invitations due to the above three reasons.He went to a few, and found that if they were not provocative, they were flattering, and almost none of them were serious exchanges.

As time goes by, I will get bored, no matter who the invitation is, I will not go, and I will stay at home all day reading and reviewing my homework.

But he went and was surrounded by people, and if he didn't go, he couldn't do it.

Somehow, it spread that he was proud of his talents and had a clean-eyed reputation.Fan Xuanchao didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and he didn't care about them, just let them go.

Anyway, everything will be revealed in the examination room, and the results will naturally shut them up.