Although we have made up our minds to officially take over the territory of the southeastern provinces in disguise, we still have to do enough work on the surface. Anyway, he also wants to save enough face for Emperor Chongzhen in Beijing to be the master of Zhongxing, isn't it?

As a result, although the inscription book jointly signed by hundreds of officials was sent to the capital by clipper, the inscription of Li Shouhan, the Duke of Liang, and the impeachment of his poor management of his subordinates were also sent to Emperor Chongzhen's desk at the same time. Along with this notebook, Li Shouhan's decision to punish these hundreds of officials was also delivered. shall be fined for one year and demoted to remain in office.

Seeing this question book, I couldn't help but smile bitterly at the corner of Zhu Youzhen's mouth. "Li Aiqing, how can you play with this trick?" A one-year fine? The penalty was only a few dozen taels of silver issued by the Ming Dynasty to the ministers according to their official ranks, which was not enough for Zheng Zhilong, Jiang Yihong and others to drink a few morning teas. As for demotion, it is even more nonsense.

These people expressed their stance in front of Li Shouhan, what are they afraid of relegation and retention? I'm afraid that the drop is not ruthless enough! The more ruthless it falls at this time, the more it will soar in the future.

However, the countermeasures proposed by Li Shouhan in the inscription book are quite in line with Chongzhen's appetite. It also made the bigwigs in the DPRK and China once again unable to see whether this person's face was Zhou Gong or Wang Mang and Cao ****.

Li Shouhan shouted a slogan in the inscription, this time the southeast mutual protection, the purpose of which is to build a consolidated southeast Zhongxing base for the Ming Dynasty.

In addition to this slogan, Li Shouhan also attached a note to the back of the inscription, which elaborated on how to build the southeast into a prosperous place for the Ming Dynasty. After a few hasty glances, in addition to preparing to implement the money and grain system in Fengyang, Nanzhili, Zhejiang, southern Jiangxi, and northern Jiangxi, which had already been effective, it was to train a large number of officials and organize and train a new army.

The specific method was to let the imperial court select officials, and then the Liang State Mansion would train them according to the official standards of the Nanyue Army. The required money and food will be reported by the Liang State Mansion. The new army was jointly established by the Nanyue Army and the imperial court, the imperial court was responsible for the soldiers, and the Nanyue army was responsible for providing the training of the instructors, and was responsible for the supply of money and food needed for the training. All the armor and equipment required were reported by the Liang State Mansion.

These Terms. Let the ministers of the cabinet be quite concerned. Everyone understands that the reason why the Nanyue Army has today's power and influence is that they have an administrative system that echoes and is as flexible as an arm. If the officials selected by the imperial court can also be trained, and appointed within the jurisdiction of the imperial court, they will inevitably receive similar results. Moreover, Li Shouhan is really useless with a lot of money and food, and he wants to train military horses for the imperial court, okay! Then allocate tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to him for training. Anyway, there are many disaster victims and displaced people in the Central Plains and Gyeonggi now, and there will be people who eat food when the recruitment flag is erected.

But. The bigwigs in the cabinet still consciously kicked the ball to Chongzhen's feet. "The matter is serious, and I ask Your Majesty to make a decision." They all knew that Li Shouhan's inscription was in the same way as the previous inscription written by hundreds of officials from the two Guangxi and Guangxi and the Southern Guangdong Army requesting mutual protection in the southeast. If you agree to him to train officials and train new troops for the imperial court, you have to agree to the request for mutual protection in the southeast. Otherwise, not to mention the Optimus Prime who offended the Ming Dynasty, the officials and nobles of Liangguang and Nanzhili, Fengyang, and Liudu and even the eunuchs who stayed behind will become your enemies.

However, if Chongzhen investigates this guilt afterwards, it will be difficult for them to escape. So. In line with the principle that the sky falls and the tall man goes to the top, they put the final decision back into Chongzhen's hands.

"Fabricate the will." Chongzhen glanced at the cabinet bigwigs kneeling on the ground in the warm pavilion. A wave of sadness welled up in my heart, mixed with a wave of nausea. "This is my servant! I can't make up my mind when I have something, and I don't have to take responsibility when I encounter something. On weekdays, the struggle for power and profit is one for hundreds. Alas! ”

"Sent the edict to Liang Guogong, and I saw his inscription and got it. He ordered the secretary of the Nanjing Military Department and Shi Kefa, the superintendent, to recruit soldiers in Fengyang, Mengcheng, Sizhou, and Bozhou, and the Nanyue Army sent personnel to carry money, food, and equipment to the exercise. The deadline is to form an army as soon as possible to contribute to the imperial court. ”

There was a slight pause. Chongzhen glanced at the notes next to his feet again. In addition to the question book that requires Southeast Mutual Insurance, it is the question book that Ma Shiying, Wang Yetai and others asked to join Southeast Mutual Insurance. He felt weak, and leaned back on the back of the chair, "Ma Shiying, Zheng Zhilong and others played, the public is loyal to the country." The heart is in the community. The Ministry of Rites took out the charter, and each of the people who initiated the initiative was given a first-class position, and Yin Yizi was a thousand households in Jinyi. ”

Since the emperor said so, there is no doubt that this title of southeast mutual insurance has also been tacitly approved. However, adults and gentlemen still have to knock on the corner to confirm.

"Your Majesty, what about the mutual protection of the southeast? What should I do? ”

"Accurate!" Chongzhen spit out these two words in his mouth, just like his own Tsing Yi hat kneeling at the gate of Beijing with the seal in his hand, and his sons next to him **** their upper bodies, holding a sheep in their hands and waiting for the verdict of the victor. It's just that other kings of the fallen country were approached by other armies, but he was forced to this step by his own courtiers.

The cabinet bigwigs immediately kowtowed to receive the decree and went to work with the celebrant to draft the decree and issue it, and the order was ordered to be handled by the secretary and the official in charge. Only Chongzhen was left alone in the warm pavilion in a daze, not knowing what to think.

*********

War is a spring and autumn pen for literati, a sand table for generals, and a heavy burden for ordinary people. Military rations and equipment must be borne by these peasants facing the loess with their backs to the sky, and the difference is only whether these efforts can have a certain return.

The Yellow River, in the world, is just a river with an average water volume and length, but it is divided into two worlds, east and west.

Shanxi is surrounded by mountains and rivers, the location is extremely important, starting from Qin Shi Huang, it is a consensus that those who get Shanxi get the Central Plains. Because Shanxi is higher than North China and more fertile and rich than Shaanxi, whether the North China regime occupies Shanxi or the Shaanxi regime occupies Shanxi, it can create an overwhelming advantage over the other side. And whether Li Zicheng or the Ming Dynasty is obviously not stupid, so they can see through this matter. Therefore, both sides threw all the forces they could concentrate on the banks of the Yellow River, and a decisive battle was about to break out.

In the east of the river. In recent years, if the people of Hedong are compared with the people of Sanqin in Hexi, they can be regarded as smooth and peaceful, and compared with the people of Datong, Xuanfu and other towns in the north, they can be called Guotai and Min'an. There were no floods and droughts, nor large-scale locust breeding, nor could the Mongol Tatars and Liaodong thieves enter the customs and plunder Shanxi. However, will the people of Shanxi be able to live a good life? The answer, of course, is wishful thinking! There are no natural disasters, and there are no military rebellions, but. But it has made up for its share in man-made disasters.

In order to show their loyalty to the Ming Dynasty, the official gentry did not hesitate to mobilize all the Zhuangding militia under his command, and strictly demanded that the villagers must dedicate their loyalty to the Ming court, such as grain, land, copper coins, silver dollars and even daughter wild vegetables. All obedient good citizens will be issued by Emperor Chongzhen for a short time, and if the treasure money is insufficient, the squire will make an IOU, and agree to use this IOU to compensate for future taxes after the thief.

Time. The land of Sanjin has staged all kinds of tragicomedies, kneeling and begging for mercy, throwing themselves into the river, and taking risks, if the contemporary **** director can be lucky enough to take a look at where he goes, he will definitely feel that the various drama stories he came up with behind closed doors are really weak. But unfortunately, these seemingly farce things happen every day.

And Hexi. It's also very lively, if you can use a drone to take aerial photos of the entire Dashun ruling area. You will find that almost every day, there will be people wearing flail on the street. Unlike Hedong, most of these people are well-dressed, and there are a large number of monks and nuns. They were driven away by officials from the Qin Law School, and the officials sifted the gong in their hands as they walked, and shouted loudly: "Fathers and villagers are optimistic, Dashun New Deal." Rent and interest are reduced, and the officials and gentry pay grain in one piece, and those who do not pay grain for no reason will be paraded through the streets. The old practice of Jiajing is exempted, and the arrears are fixed at eight cents. ”

These were paraded through the streets by the sound of gongs. Most of them are all decent people in the area. Although the identities of monks and laymen are different in different industries, they all have a common economic identity, they are all big landlords and big usurers. Now, the people of Hexi are all applauding when they see these guys who used to exploit high rents for heavy profits in the past being paraded through the streets with shackles and locks. These guys roam the streets with shackles, and naturally the rent and interest were forcibly suppressed to the share stipulated by the Dashun Imperial Court. Even the tenants at the bottom felt a lot lighter.

However, Hedong is a different story. If you want to say that it is only three salaries, the burden of the people of Hedong is amazing enough, but it is not enough for the official gentry who are loyal to the Ming Dynasty. In addition to the three salaries, there were also flat thief donations, river defense taxes, etc., and some people even heard that Hexi Wuxing had a Dingqin tax, and these officials and gentry also followed suit and also made an Anjin tax.

So the people of Hedong made up a ballad with tears in their eyes: Dingjin tax, sleeping alone, wife and daughter sleeping with others. It is said that thieves drink horses with blood, and now they are not afraid of drinking horses. As the saying goes, where there is oppression, there is resistance, and along with the expropriation and expropriation, it is a rebellion like a spark of rebellion. All kinds of uncontrollable outbreaks of civil unrest cannot be completely extinguished, and at the same time, among the people in Hedong who have not yet rebelled, a ballad is secretly circulated: eat his mother, wear his mother, open the city gate to meet the king, and the king has come to the debt.

In order to exaggerate the cruelty and tyranny of the opponent and increase the legitimacy of their own behavior, the officials and gentry in various parts of Shanxi, especially along the river, invariably invented such a saying:

"The war horses of the Dashun army usually do not drink water, but drink blood. Kill the blood of the captives and drink the horses. The horse was accustomed to drinking blood and disdained water. The day before the battle, horses are often not drunk, making them particularly hungry and thirsty. On the battlefield, once the war horse smells blood, it gallops and neighses, and its eyes are red, almost like a lion. Riding this kind of horse into battle, all of them are invincible. ”

"In addition to drinking horses with human blood, they also cut out people's abdomen to make a manger to feed the horses, so that when the horses see people, they will open their teeth like tigers and leopards and want to eat people."

Listen up! In this way, how many people will be turned into the drink of war horses in each battle? If you don't want to become a trough of drink and fodder for war horses, you can honestly endure the labor pains, pay taxes after completing the grain, and contribute to work and money to help our Ming officials and troops defend the Yellow River, and you can go to live a peaceful life.

Out of good intentions, the officials racked their brains to concoct the statement that Dashun used human blood to drink horses, but it was actually despised by those Shengdou people in Shanxi who did not know what to do, and regarded it as a rumor. However, there are naturally people who have discerning eyes. Hundreds of years later, this kind of rumor is still used by people to write in their own works, paving the way for their careers, and they have risen like a rocket all the way. It is really as Mr. Lu Xun said, in exchange for being a son-in-law for others.

However, to the astonishment of later historians. In the face of the victorious Dashun army in the west and the internal beacon fire, the official gentry of Shanxi showed surprising calmness. Far from being relentless, they are even more insane. Aren't you rebelling? Then I will collect the tax on the rebels. Don't you sing songs? I charge the rumor tax. There is a road tax for crossing the road, there is a bridge protection tax for crossing the bridge, there is a dung donation for farmers to collect dung, and there is a head tax for killing pigs and sheep on red and white ceremonies. Let the flower children have flower children to donate, and those who don't do anything must have lazy donations. Who told you to do nothing?! And when collecting taxes, these guys who read poetry and books are unexpectedly not good at counting, and they can always calculate one plus one to three, four, five, or even ten.

Not only are the gentlemen and village sages who donate and package taxes not very illiterate when collecting taxes, but they are even more illiterate when they pay taxes to governments at all levels. Obviously, the task was completed several times overdue, but it was reported to the upwards, and there were too many people who were barren and poor, and there were too many people who resisted donations and taxes. Only 50 percent of the contracted taxes were collected, and more than 60 percent were insufficient. If the court wants us to hand over the full amount, then we can only break the family and serve the country.

This is not the most exaggerated, some small landlords who have read books go to the county seat to complain, and the county official actually told him in a serious manner that the sage of the township is a model of the country, and if he wants to complain, he only needs to gather half of the people in the village to complain. The county can accept it, otherwise it will be punished for false accusations against the villagers.

As for why local officials at all levels are so protective of those gentry and village sages. In fact, the reason is very simple, just wait until after dark to wait at the back doors of the various government offices, and you will know the key when you see those heavy vehicles rolling around. Why did the gentry and townsmen who paid taxes and taxes not complete the amount but did not do anything, why did someone denounce them, and the officials responded so much.

Speaking of which, the unkind author should stop for a moment. Because the house has to build walls. As for why you need to build a wall, the reason is very simple, there are too many bricks in the house, or if you don't build a wall, there will be no place to put it. It's not. The reason for the latest bricks thrown over is as follows: "Fart, the ancient folk customs were simple, the landlords and peasants were all villagers, and no one would bully anyone." Like now, gutter oil Sudan dyes are simply morally degenerate, and people's hearts are not ancient. The author thinks that he is not a noble person, and he has done a lot of all kinds of undisciplined things, but at least in the author's heart, it is really not noble to use debt to get a young girl to bed.

However, according to what the author knows about the elders, some of them actually think that this is a good deed. The reason is that he has finally escaped from his poor family, eats well and dresses well, and his family's debts have been forgiven. First of all, I would like to state that although the old man who said this was not a party member, he was also conscientious and conscientious during the years of the republic, and he did whatever the party told him to do, and he never did anything like a traitor and a criminal in his life.

However, the moral standards of those who came from that era are like that. As for the lower ones, they threw the dying children into the ditch and snatched the beggars' food. When you really understand what kind of moral limit our predecessors were, will you still feel that Sudan red gutter oil is still a thing? Compared with our predecessors, we can confidently say that we are morally noble. Of course, we don't blame our predecessors for this, they are all careful to survive in the sea of suffering, unlike us who are protected by the People's Liberation Army and covered by the police, and the worst thing is that they are beaten up by hooligans in the alleys.

Most of us can't imagine what a world would be like in a village where the majority of the people were accustomed to acting against their conscience because of fear of power or clan bondage. Unfortunately, there are such places in China. Somewhere in the south, the village chief's son raped a girl, and the reporter went to investigate, and most of the villagers said that the girl seduced the village chief's son. Only a few villagers whispered to reporters after confirming that there was no one, Comrade reporter, they are all from the same family, and they all talk to each other. We didn't dare to tell the truth, otherwise we wouldn't be able to live in the village. See, this is the so-called simple folk customs, this is the so-called township sage governing the country. As for the democratic election in a certain village in the south, the two families almost caught fire, I won't say more, lest Comrade Dahai send people to my house to send warmth and express delivery, and I will live two more days to accompany my wife and children to do something I like to see without moderation!

The land of the Three Jin Dynasty was frightened in Ji County, Xiangning County, Daning County, Xi County, Yonghe County, Shilou County, Zhongyang County, and Liulin County along the Yellow River, and tens of thousands of officers and militias were mobilized to confront the Dashun troops stationed in Fugu, Jia County, Linxian, Mizhi, Suide, Wubao, Qingjian, Yanchuan, Yanchang, Yichuan, Hejin, and Hancheng in Hexi.

On the other side of the river, there were tens of thousands of elite troops of the Dashun army led by Liu Zongmin, Marquis of Ru. It was as if a sharp sword hung high over the necks of the defenders on the east coast.

Finally, the sword hanging over the heads of the defenders on the east bank of the Yellow River has a tendency to fall!

With the last bundle of sorghum in storage, the entire east and west banks of the Yellow River have become clean and empty, and grain and grass are abundant. Along the cliffs three or four zhang high on the banks of the Yellow River, the Dashun and Ming armies on both sides of the river each built countless forts and pillboxes, preparing to block this section of the river 70 to 100 steps wide with their own artillery. Such a narrow river, whether it is a big Buddha Lang machine or a six-pounder gun or an eight-pounder gun, can be completely blocked. It's just that in terms of the number of artillery, the weight of the shells, and the density, the Ming army on the east bank pales in comparison with the Dashun army on the west bank.

Under the escort of hundreds of cavalry soldiers, Liu Zongmin, as the commander-in-chief of the eastward expedition to cross the river, led Zhang Nai, Liu Fangliang and others along the route of Qingjian and Yanchang to inspect the preparations of each battalion before crossing the river.

It was already the Chongyang solar term, and the water vapor on the river surface mixed with the northwest wind on the northern Shaanxi Plateau, blowing the cloak of Liu Zongmin and others like a sail full of wind, and people could even feel the chill blowing on their skin through the cotton armor and iron armor.

I knew that it was so cold, and I should have put on that dragon leather armor and iron armor before leaving the camp! A few of the pro-soldiers muttered quietly in the middle of the group. They were all soldiers of their own generals, and each of them had miscellaneous auxiliaries in charge of cooking, armor, equipment, and horses. Today's Dashun Army is far from being comparable to the old Eighth Team when they fought in Shangluo Mountain and Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Mountains. These pro-soldiers, not to mention one person, two horses, or even three horses, three layers of armor, even the equipment in their hands are also dazzling.

In addition to the familiar lance long knife bow and arrow bones, there are also horse guns and short fire guns hanging from the saddle's back, ready to shoot flames and projectiles to shoot opponents.

For the current equipment of the Dashun Army, Liu Zongmin, Zhang Nai, Liu Fangliang and others are quite proud, and today's achievements are also the result of their hard work.

"Little Nai, long live marry Huimei, who grew up in front of him and Gao Niangniang, to you, although you are also the righteous son of Long Live, this can be regarded as a princess marriage." Liu Zongmin, who is majestic and serious on weekdays, is in a good mood today, and actually joked with Zhang Nai. (To be continued.) )