"It's fine! OK! ”

After listening to Hou Fangyu's account of this small friction incident that happened outside Meixiang Building, Hong Chengchou couldn't help but secretly exclaim: "It's so dangerous! Mazu Niangniang bless! Although it was a rainy day, he could still feel the cold sweat quietly soaking his underwear.

Sending troops, especially the white-armored soldiers of Manchuria with white flags, to Meixianglou for protection, this was his suggestion to Duoduo. In order to protect the women inside, to prevent harassment by the rebels and the ruffians who took advantage of the city's changing the king's banner and taking advantage of the fire to loot during the gap in law and order.

Naturally, there is a deeper purpose behind it.

From the Qing army entering Shanhaiguan and entering the city of Beijing, the regent Dolgon was very clear that the Qing army was the great enemy and fierce enemy. It's just two Li one. One of the two Li is Li Shouhan, who has not been on the other hand, although there has never been a form of secession and self-reliance, but there is the fact of secession and independence. The other Li is Li Zicheng, the Yongchang Emperor of the Dashun Dynasty. That is, King Li Chuang. One, needless to say, is another "Liukou" leader who is called Chuang Xian with Li Zicheng, who is now in Sichuan, and has established himself as an emperor in the southwest region, called Zhang Xianzhong, the emperor of Dashun of the Great Western Dynasty. Except for these two Lis, other armies are not in the eyes of the Qing Dynasty!

The strength and combat effectiveness of these three soldiers and horses have been taught by the Qing army to some extent, either directly or indirectly.

"The Southern Army is the most difficult to deal with! The soldiers and horses can endure hard fighting, and their tenacity and hard work are not inferior to my Eight Banners Manchurian soldiers and horses! Moreover, there is sufficient food and grass, excellent equipment, and there are health camps, pensions and other systems to eliminate the worries of the soldiers, so the soldiers are happy when they hear the battle, which is far from comparable to the Ming army. ”

Although many of the generals of the Qing army did not think so, the generals of the Eight Banners quietly put away their contempt and replaced it with awe.

"If it is purely a battle for the world with the southern army, Lord Wang, what is the chance of winning for the soldiers and horses of the Qing Dynasty? Can grain and grass be abundant in the south? Can the military salary be abundant in the south? Can the equipment be as sharp as Nanzhong? The soldiers and horses that can be used for combat can have the mobilization of Nanzhong, and there is an endless stream of them, and they can become an army when they come, and they can go into battle when they become an army? ”

"Therefore, the lower officials thought, oh! The minions thought that to deal with the Southern Army, it was imperative not to compare the length with the soldiers, but to use strategy, means and power, and the general trend of the world. forced it to negotiate peace with our Qing Dynasty and become my Qing Dynasty's domain town. The prince might as well offer a high price, and allow him Li Shouhan to give him the title of prince with his current territory, and he only needs to pay tribute once in three or five years, and so on. ”

"As long as I can exchange for hundreds of thousands or even millions of elite soldiers of the Nanyue Army, and do not fight against my Qing soldiers and horses, what if I follow the example of Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin and draw the river with a jade axe, cede the southwest half of the country to him, let him be the king of Dali, and call him a lonely widow behind closed doors?"

Dorgon also knew very well that on the battlefield, being able to win the enemy army to temporarily stand still and wait and see was a great support for his own team. Let the-for-tat enemy become a quasi-ally with tacit understanding, and make him willing to pay any price to fight and work hard.

What's more, since the Qing army entered the customs, in addition to the military, one of the issues that Dolgon is most concerned about, and the one that he asks the most, is food and materials, not silver. Among the seizures of the Qing army, the most are gold and silver, soft and soft, jewelry and antiques. However, what is most lacking and urgently needed is grain, cloth, oil, salt, gunpowder and other bulk materials.

Fan Wencheng, Hong Chengchou, Bao Chengxian and other civil officials flipped through the money and grain books over the years, and the entry and exit accounts of the granaries in various parts of the capital reported to him with a sad face, "Since Grandpa Cheng set the capital in Beijing, the capital has been an area for grain import, and the 100,000 military and civilian officials and ordinary people in the city have to rely on the grain transported by the canal to survive. ”

Not only did the grain and daily necessities of Beijing rely on the canal to transport grain from the south, but the Jiubian Military Town also had to rely on the grain from the south to survive. This point was well known to the high-ranking members of the Qing army who had obtained a large amount of grain and rice from the smuggling and smuggling of military grain in Liaodong Military Town, but they did not expect the situation to be so serious.

"Now, I have hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses in the Qing Dynasty, and the people of Qiding have entered the customs from the dragon, which has increased the consumption of grain and grass. What's more, with troops everywhere and hundreds of thousands of troops fighting everywhere, we must not let the food and wages be cut off for a day. "Hong Chengchou knows very well what the virtues of the Ming army who have just surrendered, there is no silver and food, they are afraid that they will come to deal with the Qing Dynasty if they turn their guns.

"The slave has checked the account books of the past years, and since the Wanli years, there has been a gap in the rice in the south, ranging from two to three percent per year, and it is better during the Apocalypse, which is basically the same. In the early years of Chongzhen, the gap increased suddenly. As a result, the price of grain in Jingshi and Jiubian skyrocketed. However, at the beginning of the ninth year of Chongzhen, the supply of grain and grass in Jingshi and Jiubian areas entered a relatively stable period, and the supply of grain and grass could also meet the needs. ”

"What's the reason for that?" Dorgon was a little surprised. If you want to say that there is not much shortage of grain during the Apocalypse, he can still understand it, it is because the evil Wei Zhongxian Wei Gonggong is in power, suppressing the righteous people and gentlemen in the court and not daring to raise their heads. Under his tyranny, money and grain everywhere did not dare to be in arrears, so the price of grain was also within the range that people could tolerate. However, in the Chongzhen period, why did the front skyrocket, but the back became stable?

"Master, it's a very simple matter. Look at this. Fan Wencheng looked at Hong Chengchou and took out a copy from the protective book he was carrying. This is an inscription from Li Shouhan, the Duke of Liang, to Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Kingdom, proposing that Nanzhong grain and rice could be shipped to Tianjin. Emperor Chongzhen approved it, and set up a maritime eunuch in Tianjin, the governor of Nancao, to manage this matter. A large number of Nanzhong grain rice was shipped to Tianjin Wei, and then transshipped to Beijing through the Wei River, Ziya River, canal and other rivers. Therefore, it will be difficult for grain and rice everywhere to rise and fall sharply. ”

I see! Thinking of the mountains of grain and rice from the south that he saw in Shanhaiguan, in Tongzhou, and all over the capital, Dolgon suddenly realized in his heart. "It seems that with these southern barbarians, the battle cannot be won, even if they barely win for a while, they go back and reorganize the soldiers and horses to kill again, with their wide range of money and food, and the simplicity of equipment manufacturing, it is not difficult to pull up hundreds of thousands of horses. For the sake of food, rice and materials, I can't fight with them, they can afford to consume this battle, and I can't afford to consume the soldiers and horses of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty! ”

You asked the author to kill the regent, and he couldn't say anything about military and economic warfare, but he could clearly analyze that militarily and economically, the conditions, strength, and needs of the Qing Dynasty did not allow him to easily go to war with the Nanyue army.

However, since the Qing army entered the customs, the Nanyue Army immediately stopped shipping grain, rice, and other bulk materials to Beijing, and instead transported grain to Shandong and other coastal areas to serve as military rations. Especially after Li Huayu's death in battle, it was even more difficult for the Qing army to obtain all kinds of materials they wanted and urgently needed from the merchants of Nanzhong. Of course, luxury goods such as silk, shochu, ceramics, sugar, and tobacco are still readily available, as well as non-military and non-civilian necessities. In addition, it is tea, which is difficult for the Qing army to obtain.

"This has to change!"

At this meeting in the capital, two policies were decided. The first is to find ways to avoid military confrontation with the Nanyue Army and Li Shouhan. Because militarily and economically, they can't fight with the Nanyue army. It is necessary to win over Li Shouhan and his huge and powerful forces.

The goal is to be able to appease, even if it is to carve out the southwest half of the country. The minimum goal is also to gain their neutrality and restore trade between the two sides.

"Scholar Hong, I sent you out of Beijing to the south this time, in addition to helping General Yangwei, the bigger task is to find ways to deal with the relationship with Liang Guogong and his family."

This was the envoy personally handed over to Hong Chengchou by Dolgon in Beijing. And gave him a privilege, as long as he could complete the plan of appeasement, below the Eight Banners Manchurian Melle Zhangjing, and below the Han officials, the general soldiers, and the governor, he could ask for a holy decree and make a decision on the spot. "Everything is cheap!"

In another matter, Dorgon remembered a minion of the Eight Banners of Manchuria.

"I remember that when the first emperor died, he died in the Liaoyang Iron Works under the jurisdiction of Chen Banda's dog slave, right?"

"Exactly! On the same day, when the new wheat came down, Chen Banda organized people to harvest some of the fields, and they were also loyal, and steamed steamed buns to offer to the first emperor, and as a result, the first emperor was very happy that day. If you don't want to, you'll die. ”

"Hmmm! Let him come to me. I want him to be on the ground in Gyeonggi, on the ground in Jinan, Baoding, Tianjin and other places, and continue to give me the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty to practice the method of Tuntian! Then, the iron factory and the A battle bureau, he will also take care of me! ”

In December of the first year of Shunzhi, Dolgon issued an enclosure decree in the name of the regent. From the perspective of the government, this decree was born on the basis of restoring agricultural production in North China as soon as possible, so as to ensure food self-sufficiency, meet the needs of the military rations in the front war, and solve the livelihood of a large number of Manchu residents who moved to settle in the customs after moving the capital to Beijing. From a private point of view, the Manchurian aristocracy headed by Dolgon himself, for their own selfish interests, nominally distributed the "ownerless wasteland" in the prefectures and counties near Beijing to the kings, ministers, soldiers, etc., but in fact they encroached on the property of the Han residents in the Kifu area in large quantities, regardless of whether they had owners or not. "When the field is encircled, the owner of the field is evicted when he arrives, and everything in the room is also there. Those who have wives and ugly wives are taken away, but those who want to stay dare not take them. Its tenants have no survivors, but they rely on it to cultivate."

Of course, the first to bear the brunt is the property of the Ming Dynasty's imperial villages, vassal kings, princesses, noble ministers, and eunuchs.

Here are a few more examples: Yutian County, Hebei Province in the last years of the Ming Dynasty "palace land" as many as more than 130,000 acres, of which Qianqing, Cining two palace land is 633 hectares, Shouning princess land 238 hectares. Jingfu land is 437 hectares (Qianlong 21st year "Yutian County Chronicles" volume 3, "Tian Fu"). The county of Dong'an (now Anci District, Langfang City) is dotted with Weiyang Palace, Princess Yongqing, Princess Yong'an, Mrs. Gongsheng, Ying Gong, Marquis of Zhenyuan, Marquis of Taining, Anpingbo, Hui'anbo, Princess Jiaxiang, Shunyi Mansion Yibin, and Jinyiwei commanded a large area of Zhuangtian (see the sixteenth year of Kangxi's "Dong'an County Chronicles" volume 4, "Enlistment"). At the time of the death of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen's aunt, Princess Rongchang, occupied more than 370,000 acres of "land and self-purchased land" in Shuntian, Baoding, and Hejian, and she also said that "only enough to make ends meet", which fully reflected the greed of the royal family (see "Ming and Qing Historical Materials", Series C, Book 3, page 264).

(A large amount of land became the private property of these people, and the property of the nobles, officials, and eunuchs was not rented or taxed.) Therefore, the money and grain system of the Ming Dynasty was destroyed by the old Zhu family, his court officials, and domestic slaves, and everyone worked together to bring it down. ）

Such a huge matter, Dolgon was very relieved to hand over to the slave under the original Yellow Banner Manchuria, and Chen Banda, who was promoted by Huang Taiji. The reason is that "this slave is in Liaoyang Tuntian, and he has a lot of experience." My Eight Banners enclosed land on the ground in Kifu, which is actually Tuntian. So I told him to do it. The lord of the flags, Lord Baylor, must not be lazy! ”

Press Chen Banda's busy enclosure in the Kifu area, measure and clear the land, and prepare for spring ploughing. We continue to turn our gaze back to Fellow Hung.

Although when the Qing soldiers did not enter the city of Nanjing. Hong Chengchou learned from Zhao Zhilong and others, who came to surrender the table, that Li Huabao began to retreat with the Nanyue army, and he was quite happy in his heart, thinking that the Nanyue army had no intention of fighting the Qing army. Since you don't want to fight me, then there is something to talk about.

However, if there is to be a talk, it will take a person of status and status to communicate between the two camps. It was based on this that Hong Chengchou agreed with Duoduo to send troops into the city in advance, in addition to controlling various key points, such as the imperial palace, yamen, and treasury, but also to strictly protect Li Shouhan's mansion, Li Zhenli's Meixiang Building, and several large merchants of Nanzhong in Nanjing, prohibiting anyone from disturbing them.

In order to make a gesture to Li Shouhan, "You see, although we are two camps with their own masters, your mansion and your woman, we have protected you well, and we have not been damaged by the slightest fright." "Give the two sides room to meet and negotiate in the future, leaving room for each other.

But I don't want to, today's painstaking arrangement was almost ruined by Hou Fangyu's oily little student! Hong Chengchou almost wanted to pull out a long knife from the guard next to him and slash him. However, he has cultivated his heart and qi for many years, and he has also cultivated the ability to be invisible.

"Brother Shi, have you ever entered Meixiang Building? Met Miss Li? ”

The girl Li in Hong Chengchou's mouth is the well-known Li Shouhan's outer room friend, Li Xiangjun's adoptive mother Li Zhenli.

"This has never been, the student didn't even touch the door, and it became like this." What Hou Fangyu was thinking about was Li Xiangjun, the "incense fan pendant" in Meixiang Building. The oolong between the words of the two is the so-called "mistaking Feng Jing for Ma Liang".

"Okay. The officer got it. Where are you staying now? ”

"The student lives temporarily in the teacher, the former Ming Rite Department Shangshu, and the former science detective who spends money on the public and the Qianyi Mansion."

"Okay, if there is news, the lower official will send someone to Qian Shangshu's mansion to find you. In the past few days, what has the commander done? ”

"I didn't do anything. When the soldiers entered the city, his wife Liu Ruyi, crying and clamoring to follow Qianming, pulled him to throw himself into the lake. As a result, Liu Ru threw himself into the lake, and after my teacher went into the water, he found that someone was too cold, and it was like an initiation. I feel that there is something wrong with this matter, and the previous Ming Qi has been exhausted, and I can't commit to burying the useful body for him. went ashore on his own and ordered someone to pull Mrs. Liu up. ”

"Oh! Where is the Ryu family now? ”

"It's not easy for students to ask too much about the inner house. I just listened to people's discussions, saying that after Mrs. Liu came back, she closed the door and did not let my teacher enter the room. There was no movement for several days. Today is the third day. If I don't come out of the room again, I'm afraid that my teacher will be in a hurry. ”

Hong Chengchou listened to Hou Fangyu's answer, and was speechless for a while.

"Alas! He Dongjun's temper was unexpectedly so strong. ”

For Qian Qianyi and Liu Ruye's encounter and combination, it could originally be regarded as a good story of "talented and beautiful".

In the 11th year of Chongzhen, the 20-year-old Liu Ru got acquainted with Qian Qianyi, who was the former courtier, and at the age of 28, he had to explore the flowers, and in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), Liu met Qian again in the name of a man and a Confucian scholar, and Qian met again in the place where he lived in the Banye Hall (as I heard) (Buddhist scriptures are often collected with this word, which means narrating the Shamen to listen to the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. Another "I smell room" is built to echo the name of Liu Ruyi. And take Liu Ru to wander in the lake and landscape, accompanied by poetry and wine. Liu Ru felt his deep affection and was willing to marry Qian Qianyi, who was already over half a hundred years old at this time.

In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), Liu Ru married Qian Qianyi, the leader of Donglin and a well-known bureaucrat. After Qian Qianyi married Liu, he built a magnificent and gorgeous "Qianyun Tower" and "Red Bean Pavilion" for her in Yushan, and the golden house was hidden. The two lived together in Qianyun Tower, and they were very happy to read and discuss poetry. Qian Qianyi jokingly called Liu Ru "Liu Rushi". Liu Ru became the stepwife as she wished, and Qian Qianyi instructed her family to call them "Mrs.", not "aunt", and he respectfully called Liu Ru "Hedong Jun".

"Then, so troubled in the master's house, I don't know what else he has done?" Trying to find out Qian Qianyi's dynamics from Qian Qianyi's disciples, Hong Chengchou found out about Qian Qianyi's dynamics.

"My lord, my teacher, in addition to ordering a few exquisite gifts to be presented to General Yangwei when the soldiers enter the city, they have been waving for days and days. Write letters to various places to persuade the Jiangnan gentry to join me in the Qing Dynasty. ”

"My teacher wrote to his friend the day before yesterday, Wang Jiefu, a former middle school scholar, and said: Lou Dongru's homeland, when you return at a gallop, you can get a big official with your household registration."

"I also wrote to my friends, peers, and colleagues all over the south of the Yangtze River, calling my Qing soldiers the division of three generations, and earnestly persuading the city to return to obedience."

"Good! Please tell the general that this official will definitely ask for a beautiful official for the prince of Mu Zhai. ”

The dark clouds on the horizon became thicker and thicker, and Hong Chengchou and Hou Fangyu said goodbye to each other.

Before leaving, Hou Fangyu told his former scholar: "Now that you are by the side of adults, you must serve adults with all your heart!" ”