Ma Cheng has been yearning for the ancient people and customs since he crossed over, especially the developed Qinglou culture in the Ming Dynasty, and Ma Cheng wants to experience it. But today, Ma Cheng's mood fell to the bottom when he saw Fengyang's ghostly appearance, and the entire Fengyang became a garbage dump, what the hell can he do?

"Gu San, why is there such a bird in the middle capital?" Ma Cheng asked, pointing to the ruins in the distance.

Gu San heard Ma Cheng say this and thought: This is already good, when the old man first came to Fengyang, the city was still full of dead corpses! It's been almost cleaned up in the past few years.

"Second master, this is also no way, Chongzhen rebelled in eight years and burned Fengyang, most of the tens of thousands of people in the city died, and the rest were coerced by the rogues, it is good to be able to recover to this state in the past seven or eight years!"

Ma Cheng couldn't ask, "What are the fun places in that city?" ”

Eating, drinking, prostituting and gambling is really asking the right person, Gu San hurriedly said: "Second master, this is the north of the city, all of them are official offices and palaces, and they were naturally the focus of the robberies back then, and the south of the city can be much better, or let's go to the south of the city!" ”

Ma Cheng heard Gu San say this and nodded: "Okay, let's go to the south of the city, the master wants to have a good look at the demeanor of the women who lost their footing in the Ming Dynasty today!" ”

Gu San didn't know what a stumbling woman was, but seeing that Ma Cheng was going to the south of the city, he hurriedly said, "Second master, please wait, the villain will borrow a few pro-soldiers to protect us!" ”

Ma Cheng was right when he thought about it, he was the second generation of the governor's son-in-law, how could he go out without pomp, and waved his hand to let Gu San enter the governor's yamen to call someone.

Gu San re-entered the governor's yamen from the side door that came out, and Zhang Guozhu at the door saw that this guy had come back again? Just about to open his mouth to curse, he knew that Gu Sanxian said: "Master Zhang, my subordinates are back to borrow personal soldiers to protect them!" ”

Because Ma Shiying was a relative of Gu Congxin, the commander of the Guizhou Guard, he borrowed 300 Guizhou soldiers from Gu Congxin after Ma Shiying took office. These Guizhou soldiers are different from those local military households in China, these people are the elite who have been fighting in Yunnan and Guizhou and local ethnic minorities all year round. However, Ma Shiying went to Pukou a few days ago and took away 200 people, and now there are only 100 people left in the entire governor's yamen.

Of course, in addition to the 100-person governor's yamen, there are also 500 pacesetters guarding it, but these pacesetters are all local Fengyang military households, and their combat effectiveness is naturally not comparable to that of Guizhou soldiers.

As soon as Zhang Guozhu heard that Gu San wanted to borrow his own soldiers, his eyes were about to scold, and he knew that Gu San said directly: "Don't be angry, Lord Zhang, you all saw that the second young master was going out for a walk, yesterday the second young master was injured, the old lady spoke, and the second young master went out again to let his subordinates take enough people." Those families in the mansion have powerful soldiers in the yamen, for the safety of the second young master, please ask Lord Zhang to help! ”

Zhang Guozhu lost his temper when he heard Gu San say this, although he was not afraid of Ma Cheng, but if Ma Cheng had an accident again, it would be really difficult for the governor to explain. Zhang Guozhu had no choice but to shout to an officer at the door: "Xu Dahu, come here!" ”

A strong man in his twenties at the door heard Zhang Guozhu's voice and ran over, and shouted: "Lord Qianhu, the end is coming!" ”

"Xu Dahu, you take ten people and follow Gu San to protect the second son, if the second son has something to ask you, do you know?"

Of course, it is better to take people out for a stroll than to stand guard at the door, Xu Dahu happily agreed, and took ten people to follow Gu San out of the governor's yamen.

Gu San asked for a war horse from the signing room at the door, led him to Ma Cheng's side and said, "Second master, it's done, please get on the horse!" ”

Ma Cheng looked at the eleven people who followed, led by a strong man with a height of nearly one meter eight, five big and three thick, and at first glance he was a knife cargo. In ancient China, because of dietary problems, the height was generally not high, and the height of men was generally about 1.6 meters, and this strong man was two heads taller than others, and he should be the elite of the army.

Ma Cheng looked at Xu Dahu, and then asked, "You are also my uncle's personal soldier?" ”

Xu Dahu knew that the little white face in front of him was the son of the governor, so he hurriedly arched his hand and said: "Back to the second son, the last general is not the pacesetter of the commander, the last general is the commander of Guizhou Wei, because of his military exploits, he was sent by the commander to the governor, and now he is serving as the governor to mark the small flag!" ”

The military rank of the Ming Dynasty was different from that of other dynasties, and the soldiers who defended the country were divided into army and soldiers. The army is the guard system set by Zhu Yuanzhang that year, and the positions are divided into small banners, general banners, 100 households, 1,000 households, guard commanders, and all commanders, and then there is the governor's office of the five armies. These official positions are hereditary, that is, whatever official position you are, what official position your son and grandson are.

The system set by Zhu Yuanzhang at that time still played some role in the early stage, but in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, because there was no major war, the guard was abolished, and those officers slowly became landlords, and the soldiers who were supposed to be soldiers and fought became tenants of landlords.

During the Jiajing period, because of the war with the Japanese on the southeast coast, and the local guards were unusable, the recruitment system appeared. The conscription system is different from the guard system, when a soldier receives a day's money and food, so the combat effectiveness is still guaranteed. In order to distinguish between the guard system and the conscription system, the imperial court separated the military and soldiers, and the military representative referred to the guard soldiers, and the military representative referred to the recruiting army.

The recruitment officer position is different from the guard soldiers, from small to large, it is divided into chief, captain, sentry officer, general, guerrilla, general, deputy commander, general soldier and other positions, as the name suggests, the chief of the army leads ten people, the captain leads dozens of soldiers, and the total army leads thousands to tens of thousands, which is similar to the commander of the army in later generations. The general soldier is the largest official position that a warrior can have, and the governor and governor above are not the governor and governor who can be a warrior. (The governor was in charge of the military and civil affairs in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, which does not need to be explained by himself!) ）

Xu Dahu used to be a recruiter, and when he came to Fengyang, he became a military household, so his current position is Xiaoqi, which is equivalent to the squad leader in the army in later generations. Although the descendants of Xu Dahu, who has become a military household, will be in the army for generations, but the military household is still different from the military household, and the military household directly under the governor is comparable to other ordinary military households, so Xu Dahu still likes his current identity very much.

Ma Cheng liked this Xu Dahu very much, nodded and said, "Okay, you eleven protect Young Master Ben, and you will come back in a while and each will be rewarded!" ”

Gu Sanyi's face turned green when he heard that he was going to reward silver, but the master had already promised him what he could do, and there was no way to just lead the horse in front of him.

Fengyang was the central capital of the Ming Dynasty back then, and it was built in accordance with the system of the national capital, but there were so many people in Fengyang, where there were so many people, and Zhu Yuanzhang moved tens of thousands of rich households from Jiangnan, but the economic foundation here in Fengyang could not support so many rich families, so in the decades after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, most of these rich families moved back to Jiangnan.

However, Fengyang is the capital of the country after all, and at its peak, there were seventy or eighty thousand people in the entire Fengyang City, which can be regarded as a big mansion in Jiangbei. But after Fengyang was burned down by Li Zicheng in the eighth year of Chongzhen, it has not developed in the past eight or nine years, and the streets are still dilapidated, most of the houses on both sides of the street are empty, and there are no people at all.

After entering the south of the city, it has some popularity, and because it is located in the business district, there are still some prosperous scenes. There are seven or eight shops on both sides of the street, and there are seven or eight things. Turning the corner of the street is the Drum Tower of Fengyang, which is the only building that has been preserved to future generations in the war, and it is also the highest place in Fengyang City at present.

Drum Tower is the business district in Fengyang City, most of the population of Fengyang is concentrated here, along the Drum Tower around a few streets the flow of people is not bad, see here Ma Cheng only feel that the city is a little vibrant.

The social system of the Ming Dynasty was strict, the classes were completely parallel to each other, Ma Cheng rode a tall horse, followed by more than a dozen military men, at a glance, it was either rich or expensive, so the pedestrians on the street saw Ma Cheng avoided one after another, and some of the timid ones knelt on the ground and kowtowed again and again.

Ma Cheng This is the first time to contact ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, when he saw these unkempt ordinary people, Ma Cheng felt completely deceived by the later TV series, those group actors in the later TV series were oily and powdery, and they wore slippery and slippery, which could not truly restore the working people of ancient China.

Ma Cheng looked at the thin civilians on the street, wearing torn cotton jackets with patches and patches, their faces were covered with dust, and they had a pair of godless eyes, probably at this time, they would not resist even if they cut off their heads.

Ma Cheng saw old photos of Beijing in the last years of the Qing Dynasty in later life, where ordinary Beijing citizens looked like these Fengyang citizens, and at that time Ma Cheng thought that it was the Manchu Qing Dynasty that ruled China to turn the Chinese people like this, but now it seems that this is not the case.

Ma Cheng remembered that the history books said that after the Manchu Qing occupied Beijing, they were exempted from the "three major salaries" levied by the Ming Dynasty government, and immediately won the welcome of the local ordinary peasants, and from Hebei to Shandong, tens of millions of people in large areas of land unconditionally surrendered to the Manchus. In the past, Ma Cheng didn't understand why these people were so spineless and surrendered to foreigners? Now Ma Cheng understands that compared with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, this Zhu family Ming Dynasty is not a good thing.

Now that he has really seen the situation of the people in the Ming Dynasty, Ma Cheng feels that he has a long way to go, why did the Southern Ming Dynasty occupy Jiangnan, which has a population and economy several times stronger than that of the north, and why did he surrender without fighting a decent battle, seeing the appearance of these ordinary people, Ma Cheng felt a little understood!

Ma Cheng rode the horse and thought about it while walking, when suddenly the horse stopped, and Gu San said on the side: "Second master, in front of you is the largest restaurant in Fengyang City, Huaiyang Building!" ”

Hearing Gu San say this, Ma Cheng raised his head and looked, and there was a three-story building not far away, with a wooden sign hanging in front of the door, with the words Huaiyang Building written on it.

There are very few buildings in the Ming Dynasty to build buildings, because the Ming Dynasty social hierarchy is strict, not the nobles and scholars dare not build the building at all, this Huaiyang building can build a three-story building in the middle of the capital, and the force behind it must be not small.

However, Ma Cheng didn't think about this, he came out today to see the society of the Ming Dynasty, and a restaurant is a microcosm of society, so Ma Cheng got off the horse at the door of Huaiyang Building.