【226】Double Horse

After Li Zicheng's death, Song Youliang's military operations were temporarily halted. After taking stock of the seizures, all the generals, including Song Youliang, couldn't help but be speechless, and got a total of 70 million taels worth of wealth from Li Zicheng.

Sun Chuanting, Fang Kongzhi, He Tengjiao and others were dumbfounded, and Sun Chuanting said incredulously: "Is all this money obtained by Li Zicheng from Xi'an?" ”

Luo Yangxing replied: "The torture of the captives learned that most of them were from the capital. ”

"Beijing?" Fang Kong shook a huge silver cake, "Where did you get so much money in the capital?" Could it be the emperor's internal money? ”

Luo Yangxing shook his head and said sarcastically: "The internal money only accounts for a small part, and most of them are recovered by Li thieves from officials of all sizes. ”

"Recovery?" Sun Chuanting was stunned, "There are ~~ There are so many corrupt officials and corrupt officials? ”

Luo Yangxing said: "According to the thieves and prisoners, Li Zicheng issued the "Gold Plunder Order" as early as October of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen to raise wages. The amount of subsidy is stipulated to be "50,000 yuan for Jiuqing, 30,000 yuan for Zhongcheng, 10,000 taels for supervisors, and half for state and county magistrates." Where are those greedy misers who are greedy for ink and have nothing to pull out? Therefore, the thieves often pursued their salaries with punishment. Wherever the thieves went, the first puppet official was the official in charge of the pursuit, and the first thing he did was also to pursue the salary. If you ask for money in Chenggu County, you will be punished with cannon branding; When the Fenyang thieves searched the rich room, they used sticks to force them to give money; In Jiangzhou and other places, the scholars and doctors were brutally tortured to death; After the thief army occupied Xuanhua, the thief army levied the gentry Benda, ran through the five woods, prepared extremely miserable and vicious, and asked for money; In Yongnian County, "even cut off people's hands and feet, and split people's limbs; In Quzhou County, Dashun County ordered torture to be "brain-turned, stick-clamping, cannon branding, and torture." All punishments are prepared. In addition to the torture equipment, there are the names of iron quinoa flowers, Lu Gongqi, and red embroidered shoes, and many of the torture instruments are unheard of, and they are all used by thieves and soldiers. ”

After Luo Yangxing's colorful description, he laughed self-deprecatingly: "There are more tricks than our Jinyiwei." ”

Wu Mengming took Luo Yangxing's words and said: "After Li Zicheng entered Beijing on 19 March, in order to continue his policy of "subsidizing salaries," he specially set up a "Department of Pursuing Salaries and Suppressing Compensation" at the central level, with Liu Zongmin in charge. It is stipulated that the amount of subsidy is "100,000 yuan in the middle hall, 70,000 or 530,000 yuan in the Jingtang brocade clothes of the ministry and the courtyard, 53,000 yuan in the Taoist department, 32,100 yuan in the Hanlin department, and thousands of subordinates and subordinates." "The money under the stick is very substantial. For example, Jiading Bo Zhoukui, recovered 700,000 stolen goods, and copied 530,000 taels of silver when raiding the house, and miscellaneous utensils and satin cars; Chen Yan, a university scholar, recovered 40,000 stolen goods, and later copied out tens of thousands of silver and 360 taels of gold; Li Yuzhi, the secretary of the ministry, recovered 40,000 stolen goods; The head of the household department worked in school and recovered 130,000 stolen goods; The heart of the master of ceremonies and eunuchs Wang recovered more than 150,000 stolen goods, and countless gold, silver, and satin. ”

Wu Mengming deliberately made an infiltrating expression and continued: "All the officials who have been tortured and pursued, most of them have tens of thousands of gold, at least 20,000 or 30,000 silver and two districts to ransom people. If you don't make up enough numbers, it will be miserable, and you will be extremely miserable and poisonous, and you will never die. Their wails and wails resounded through the neighborhood. In addition to recovering wages from the gentry, the wealthy merchants and residents were also tortured, and more than 1,000 people died under torture. On the first day of the first month of April, the military advisor Song Xiance said: "The sky is tragic, the sun is dark, and it is urgent to suspend the execution." On the seventh day of the first month, Li Zicheng went to Liu Zongmin's apartment, and saw more than 300 people in the courtyard, wailing and wailing, which was unbearable, and ordered him to be released by torture. For the official gentry who could not lose enough to recover the stolen silver, they were put to the ticket number of the official store at the front door, and borrowed money according to it, which was called "loan stolen goods", even if they did not know the shopkeeper, they did not dare not borrow. ”

Sun Chuanting scolded: "What else do you say about hanging the people and cutting down the people, relieving the people from fire and water, isn't that what robbers and bandits do?" There are also these corrupt officials and corrupt officials, the first emperor persuaded them with kind words and asked them to donate salaries, and they did not pull out a dime one by one. Now it's okay, let's have fun~~"

Yin Hongsheng took Wu Mengming's words and said: "The captives also confessed, before going to Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng had already made preparations, and on April 11, he detained thousands of silver and iron craftsmen in the palace, and melted the plundered gold and silver artifacts into ingots, one thousand taels and one ingots, and obtained tens of thousands of ingots; On the 16th, he ordered his confidant Luo Dain to drive horses, mules, and camels, and thousands of camels to return to Shaanxi. Li Zicheng is like this, and the soldiers also have heavy assets, "more than 1,000 people have more than 1,000 waists, and no less than 3 or 400 gold, and everyone has the heart to return to their hometown with wealth......"

"Hahaha~~" Wu Sangui laughed, "I said that the thieves are afraid to fight when they fight, it turns out that they are afraid that they will have money and die to spend ~"

Fang Kongzhi looked at Song Youliang and said, "An Guogong, how do you plan to use this money?" ”

Song Youliang hurriedly got up, and the other party Kong Zhi saluted and said, "It's okay for the teacher to call me Youliang!" ”

Fang Kongzhi waved his hand and said with a smile: "If we take off our official uniforms, we are masters and apprentices, and wearing official uniforms is a relationship between superiors and subordinates." The number of etiquette can't be broken~"

Song Youliang smiled at this time: "Don't look at the 70 million money, but it can't stand spending at all." After Li Chuang's trouble, the northwest, Hebei, the Central Plains, the two lakes, and Jiangxi, the people's livelihood is withering, and all industries are waiting to be developed. Disaster relief, peace of mind, buy good seeds, cattle or something, what kind of money doesn't cost you? ”

Everyone nodded silently

"There is also Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan who has not been destroyed, and the Fuwang in Jiangnan is not easy to send. Then there is the army's salary and ordnance expenses~~" Song Youliang frowned as he spoke, "This is only for now, what about the future?" Look, in a few days, half of the 70 million will be removed! ”

Everyone agreed again, and at this time, someone came to report that a person who claimed to be An Jianqing brought a woman who claimed to be Princess Changping to ask to see her.

"An Jianqing? He's not dead yet? Luo Yangxing was surprised

Wu Mengming was also surprised, and then smiled: "I heard that on the day Li Zicheng broke Beijing, the first emperor asked him to take several princes south~"

Song Youliang said: "Please let him in!" ”

Suddenly, a large lean man and a young girl with only her right arm walked in

Although Song Youliang had never seen An Jianqing, he could recognize at a glance that the girl who was missing an arm was Princess Changping who had met in the palace back then.

"Song Youliang has seen the princess~" Song Youliang got up and saluted Princess Changping

"The ministers have seen the princess!" Sun Chuanting, Fang Kongzhi, Wu Sangui and others also saluted her

"It's not a princess anymore, you don't have to be polite!" Princess Changping's figure is much haggard, but she has a little more noble aristocratic temperament and a little less girlish posture

Song Youliang then gave up the main seat, let Princess Changping sit down, and stood by himself, while An Jianqing stood beside Changping with a sword in his hand

Princess Changping said: "The first emperor was in trouble, thanks to all the Qing family. ”

Song Youliang replied: "It's just that I did my duty." At the beginning, I wanted to welcome several princes to the throne, but I had no choice but to find the whereabouts of the prince. The so-called country cannot be without a king for a day, and the people cannot be without an owner for a day, so they support King Lide to succeed to the throne, and ask the princess to see it. ”

After a period of purgatory of life and death, Princess Changping has matured a lot, how could she not know that Song Youliang's words were insincere lies? However, she was helpless. Princess Changping said: "I found out that several younger brothers are in Nanjing and are imprisoned by King Fu. He also asked An Guogong to send troops as soon as possible to rescue the prince. ”

Sun Chuanting and the others glanced at Song Youliang, thinking that they would save the prince back, so what should the current Emperor Hongde do? Are you willing to come down after sitting on the dragon chair?

Sure enough, Song Youliang said: "The minister also inquired clearly, the so-called prince in Nanjing is a fake. ”

"What?" Princess Changping seemed to have been poured a basin of cold water on her head

Song Youliang said: "Yes, according to the report of Jinyiwei, at the beginning of March of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Gao Mengxi, the Shaoqing of the former Ming Honglu Temple, met a young man who claimed to be Zhu Cihong, the prince of the East Palace, on the way south from Beijing to Nanjing. Ma Shiying cooperated with university scholars Wang Duo, Cai Yichen and relatives of the emperor and the officials of Jiuqing Kedao to distinguish the authenticity of the teenager. There are not many ministers in Nanming who have seen the prince's face, only Liu Zongzheng and Li Jinglian have seen the prince from afar, and they all think that this young man is shorter than the prince Zhu Cihong, how can there be a reason for a young man to become shorter for no reason? The courtiers were suspicious, asked some about the inside of the palace, and the answers were also wrong, but this young man had an arrogant attitude, and all the courtiers thought were fallacious, and they all replied, "What do you know about Xiaoxiao?" It was really tricky for a while, and the enraged bachelor Wang Duo said the word "fake" loudly and then brushed his sleeves away, Ma Shiying immediately added fuel to the fire, and the ministers unanimously agreed that this "prince" from the south was a fake. After an interrogation, this young man's name is Wang Zhiming, the nephew of Wang Yu, the concubine of the Wanli Dynasty, who lives in Gaoyang County, Baoding Prefecture, and heard that the whereabouts of the prince are unknown, and he suddenly wanted to pretend to be the name of the prince in the hope of being rich and noble. This matter caused a stir among the people, and Zhu Yousong, the Hongguang Emperor, specially engraved the interrogation record and promulgated it to the world to correct the public. ”

Luo Yangxing, Wu Mengming and Yin Hongsheng were all stunned, thinking that they had indeed reported to Song Youliang the case of the fake prince in Nanjing. But when did you report in such detail? Could it be that in addition to Jinyiwei, Song Youliang has another group of intelligence people? No, it should be that Song Youliang deliberately added oil and vinegar in order to perfunctory Princess Changping, anyway, it is impossible for Princess Changping to go to Nanjing to find someone to check whether what Song Youliang said is true or false

"Luo Yangxing, Wu Mengming and Yin Hongsheng~~" Song Youliang turned his head and asked the three of them, "Do you say that's the case?" ”

Luo Yangxing, Wu Mengming and Yin Hongsheng dared to say no, so the three of them replied in unison: "What An Guogong said is true. ”

Princess Changping was completely disappointed, two tears flowed down her delicate cheeks, it was really pear blossoms with rain, I felt pity

Song Youliang took out a brocade from his arms and walked slowly to Changping

An Jianqing wanted to stop it, but Xuan gave up again

Sun Chuanting glanced at everyone, so everyone retreated, leaving only Song Youliang and Princess Changping in the huge house

Song Youliang gently wiped away her tears for Princess Changping, and said softly: "When the first emperor worshiped his ancestors in Taimiao, he already called me a concubine, don't worry, princess, I will take care of you for the rest of your life." ”

"Wow~~" Princess Changping is just a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl after all, and she has suffered multiple blows such as the destruction of the country and the death of her family, the death of her parents, and the disappearance of her brother. So he threw himself into Song Youliang's arms and cried loudly

So in the second year of Daming Hongde, Song Youliang married Princess Changping, the daughter of the first emperor Chongzhen, as his wife and became a double horse. In this way, the orthodox status of Song Youliang and the Dewang line is more and more justified.