"Hmph, wait for the Huguang soldiers to come to the rescue, don't expect it, Lord Zhang has already sent 30,000 troops to attack the Xingquan Mansion of the thief army, saying that he wants to copy the thief army's lair, Wuzhou was so dangerous at the beginning, the Governor did not send reinforcements to Guizhou, how can he send troops to save us now!"

"But they have been fighting in Xingquan Mansion for so long, and they haven't heard any good news, and they don't know how they fought, it is an army of 30,000, and the thief army is only a few thousand people at most on the Xingquan Mansion, and they haven't been defeated yet!"

"Don't worry about Xingquan Mansion, don't worry about whether there will be reinforcements from Huguang, the key is what do we do now?"

"Yes, what are we going to do, are we just waiting to die?"

"The only way to do this is to recruit more young and strong men to defend the city, and there will be brave men under the heavy reward, and more rewards will be given to the soldiers when the battle is about to be made, and this city will also have a chance to defend!"

"But we still have silver there, we have been besieged for more than a month, and when the thieves attacked the first few times, we already spent a lot, but now there is not much silver left, how can we reward the soldiers?"

Is there no money in Guilin? The government is indeed poor, but we have a good habit in the Ming Dynasty, which is called hiding wealth from officials.

These officials here can take out as little as a few hundred, as much as a few thousand, or even tens of thousands of taels of silver, but this money is their own, and they take it out as a reward? No kidding, they'd rather have the thieves beheaded than take out the money they've worked so hard to find.

After studying hard for so many years to be admitted to the imperial examination and become an official, and it took so many years of hard work to be an official, so that corruption and bribery accumulated these net worth, and let them take it out as a reward? Believe it or not, they immediately opened the gates and let the thieves in!

Even if he is a thief, it is impossible for the official to come up with the silver!

So these people consciously didn't say anything about the big guy's net worth, should they first scrape together a few thousand taels of silver to deal with emergencies or something like that, but soon there was a smart person: "Now that the city defense is in crisis, why don't you go to the palace to intercede and let the palace pay a sum of money?" ”

The palace of Guilin Mansion naturally refers to the Jingjiang Palace, which was crowned king from the place where the Ming Dynasty was founded, and was later moved to Guilin, Guangxi during the Yongli period, which has been passed down for seven generations and lasted for more than 100 years.

Now the prince has been passed to the seventh generation of Zhu Bangli, and when Zhu Banglai saw the Guilin officials who came to ask for grain and grass support, he showed great concern, and patted his chest and said that as the king of the Ming Dynasty, in the face of the siege of the thief army, he naturally needs to contribute money and efforts, and this force can't be produced, but the money and food are trivial! ”

Hearing that Zhu Bangli agreed so happily, the officials who came were full of smiles, originally they thought that King Jingjiang would refuse, but they didn't expect Zhu Bangli to be so refreshing.

But when they heard Zhu Bangli's next sentence, their faces began to change!

I only heard Zhu Bangli say: "Now there are still eight hundred taels of silver in the house, just take all of them, it's a big deal that in the future, the people of our Jingwang Mansion will eat chaff vegetables, and we can always survive this day, but in order to fight the thief army, it is worth enduring this hard time!" ”

Hearing this, the officials all looked at each other, and even some people's faces were already cold.

Eight hundred taels of silver? It's really like they're called Hanako!

But before they could speak, Zhu Banglai said: "Okay, the hour is not early, and the adults are estimated to be busy with city defense affairs, so this king will not stay!" ”

As he spoke, he picked up the tea!

Those officials, you look at me, I look at you, but in the end they didn't say anything, and then they left with a rather bad look.

After they took a look, Zhu Bangli squinted his eyes and sneered: "They are all a group of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and they don't have a dime, so they just want to let the king pay."

And this money was taken out, and it didn't fall into their pockets in the end, so this king is a fool! ”

At this time, an elderly man dressed as a servant came over next to him, and he only listened to him: "Lord Wang, now that the city defense is in crisis, is this money too little, after all, it costs a lot to defend the city, and there is no silver incentive, I'm afraid it will be difficult to hold this city!" ”

Zhu Banglai said: "What are you afraid of, they have money!" ”

"It costs money to defend the city, but why do they get so much money on weekdays when they are officials, but at this critical moment, they don't pay any money, is it possible that the king looks so wronged?"

"When the situation is urgent, I am not afraid that those officials will not take out the silver to serve as military supplies, otherwise the city will be broken, and they will all die one by one!"

And Zhu Bangli, the king of Jingjiang, didn't know that at this time, in the prefect's yamen, several middle and high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty heard that they had only received a mere eight hundred taels of silver from the Jingjiang palace, and their faces were quite ugly.

Among them, the Guilin Mansion also knew: "In the past 100 years, how many people's fat and anointment have their royal palace absorbed, and how many millions of gold and silver have been accumulated, and they are not even willing to take out a mere 10,000 taels of silver to motivate the soldiers to defend the city?" ”

This person said with an indignant expression, people who don't know still think that he is a good official for the people and the country, but since this person took office in Guilin Mansion Tongzhi, I am afraid that he has made no less than several thousand taels of silver, and this person has been an official for more than ten years, it is rumored that his family only had dozens of acres of thin fields before, but now he has no less than a thousand acres of land in his hometown in Jiangnan, and there are many shops of all kinds.

Of course, the people present were basically like birds, so everyone naturally didn't think of this aspect, but instead blamed Jingjiang Wangfu.

Now it is the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Xungui group has long been in decline, and the vassal king is raised like a pig, although they still maintain the glory and wealth of the past, but the political status is almost nothing, any Jinshi civil official is afraid to scold a vassal king, and often can win a reputation that is not afraid of the powerful.

The conscience of heaven and earth, in this era, their civil officials are the biggest magnates!

Those generals and vassal kings are just a herd of pigs fed by good food and drink!

After condemning Queen Jingjiang, the big guy is back to the old issue, how to defend the city? How can you boost morale without silver when defending a city?

You must know that the reason why the previous few times was able to hold the city under the attack of the puppet Tang thief army was all due to high gold and silver incentives.

In order to boost morale, these officials offered high rewards, such as 10 taels for killing a fake thief and 30 taels for killing a real thief.

And these are still small amounts, because they can't kill and injure a large number of thieves, and the rewards they offer are often in the nature of mass distribution, for example, when the thieves come to attack, they say before the battle, if they repel the attack of the thieves, all the soldiers will directly reward how much silver, although they are all rewards of a few taels of silver, but they can't stand the number of people.

During this period of siege, the 1st Provisional Regiment carried out three exploratory attacks, the first two of which were only fire reconnaissance attacks to find weak points in the defenders, and the third attack was mainly to fill in the moat.

But it was these three attacks that had already cost the defenders in the city thousands of taels of silver, plus the food and drink on weekdays, and the daily food, since the thieves entered Guilin, the direct war expenses of the Guilin government have reached more than 10,000 taels of silver.

And this is not only the consumption of the reserve silver of the official warehouse in the city, but even the apportionment of this twice.

If the provisional 1st Regiment outside the city knew that the defenders inside the city relied on a large amount of silver to maintain the battle, it was estimated that they would attack frequently.

After everyone discussed, after thinking about it, there was still only the old way, and the third apportionment was made to the city, and this time the apportionment was not only limited to those large households, but also some medium-sized families.

But even so, it is not impossible for them to get too much silver, which has been apportioned twice, and those big families also have tempers, giving once, giving twice, but it is impossible to give every time, even if they give, it is impossible to give so much as before.

And the result is indeed so, this third apportionment, those big families are crying poor one by one, and a total of only two thousand taels of silver have been apportioned, what is this silver enough for, thousands of defenders in the city, are not enough for one person and one tael of silver.

Moreover, according to the usual practice, the two thousand silver and even the more than 800 taels of silver taken out of the Jingjiang palace will be floated, at least 30% of them must be deducted, and the rest will be distributed.

It is also very tiring and sad to preside over the defense of the city, and this drifting is also the practice of the dynasty, they even took a mere thirty percent because of the tension of the war, if in normal times, this money passes through their hands, at least half of it has to be floated, and it would be good to be able to leave half of it for the soldiers.

And after this money arrives in the army, generals at all levels will deduct a part of it according to the official rank, and in addition to putting this money into their personal pockets, in fact, part of it also needs to be distributed to their own soldiers.

Why? Because the pro-soldiers are their henchmen, and even the core combat power of the entire Ming army defending the city!

As for ordinary soldiers and even young people, it is very good that they can divide the remaining two or three achievements!

And this kind of thing is taken for granted in the eyes of everyone, drifting and deducting this is an old rule for many years, and everyone has become accustomed to it and has formed a routine.

Otherwise, how can everyone maintain a decent life, feed a family, and buy fields and shops in their hometown, just rely on a few dozen taels of silver a year, don't joke.

The two thousand eight hundred taels were divided a lot by everyone here, and the silver raised by the previous two apportionments and the thousands of taels of silver in the official warehouse, everyone here naturally will not take less.

This siege battle is not over yet, and the pockets of everyone present are bulging a lot!

Not to mention the final destination of these silvers, and not to mention how much benefit everyone here has shared, but after the third apportionment, even if you add the eight hundred taels of silver donated in the Jingjiang Palace, a total of two thousand eight hundred taels of silver will be raised, which is not enough.

"This silver is still less, is it apportioned more, those gentry in the city are afraid that they will not be able to take it out, but there must be money in the palace, go a few more times, you can always get the silver, otherwise once the city is broken, everything in his Jingjiang palace must not be taken by the thief army, let alone the silver!"

"What's the use of going now, will he give it?"

"When the thief army officially attacks the city, I'm not afraid that he won't pay!"

"Yes, at that time, King Jingjiang will definitely not sit idly by and watch the city break!"

These officials of Guilin Mansion still don't know that the King of Jingjiang also fought this idea, and now the people on both sides are counting on the other party to come up with money at a critical moment to save the situation.

As for the lack of money and food now, there is a shortage of it first, although the reinforcements of the pseudo-Tang thief army are coming, but this is not the siege yet!