In the city of Yangzhou, which is still singing and dancing and is not much prosperous in winter, Gao Yue, who is full of filth and stench, staggered with the flow of people to the front of the festival, looking at the familiar guards of the mansion, and couldn't help but cry with some affection.

It was really not easy for him, in order to escape the sifting of those grass thieves, and the various grass head armies spontaneously raised on the other side, he took the fire to rob the level; It can be said that he racked his efforts and narrowly escaped to death several times, before he was able to get all the way to the border of Runzhou, which had not yet fallen.

However, the local officials and soldiers along the river who are difficult to distinguish between friend and foe, he also dare not go to find and ask for help. Therefore, in the bitterly cold weather, he could only mingle with the filthy homeless people, and wrap his body with everything he collected along the way.

In order to escape the captivity of the strong beams and bullies among the displaced people, as well as the local bandits who robbed them along the way, he could only pretend to be crazy and sell the filth left by cattle and horses, and smeared his whole body from head to toe, at the cost of a few beatings in exchange for the disgust and disgust of the other party.

Then when he was a Dantu, he also thought about asking to see Zhou Bao, the envoy of the local Zhenhai Navy (West Zhejiang). After all, this duke was Gao Linggong's early brother and ally; As a messenger of Ling Gong, he also traveled back and forth to the house several times. However, before he could step forward and have a chance to reveal his identity, he was almost beaten to death on the spot by the impatient guards in front of the festival bar.

When Gao Yue finally woke up from the abandoned ditch, he had lost three of his front teeth and turned into a broken mouth, and his arms had been broken. In the end, he could only bribe the guards guarding the pontoon bridge on the Jingkou River with one of the only two silver buckles on his body, and was able to staggered back to the Yangzhou boundary in the north of the river.

Gao Yue couldn't help crying, and finally attracted the attention of a certain clerk who entered and exited the festival, and he stopped and shouted in surprise:

"Isn't this Gao San Lang Jun? How did you change into this? ”

"It's really hard to put into words."

Hearing this greeting, Gao Yue couldn't help but feel sad and wanted to cry again, but he responded with tears in his eyes. Then he looked at the other party carefully, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Aren't you Cui (Zhiyuan) Jishi. How did it become dressed like this?。。 ”

"But I have offended the king with many mouths, and I have been demoted to a subordinate to redeem it."

Cui Zhiyuan, who has an authentic Luo Yin, sighed helplessly.

Then there was this guarantor and proof of identity, and Gao Yue was also brought back to the familiar Jieya Mansion from the side gate as he wished. By this time, he had lost half of his ears, several of his toes and the small soles of his feet were frozen, and his whole body was covered with many bruises and blackened chilblains.

Therefore, when he washed and groomed again, and had eaten and drunk enough to sleep for a whole day and a night, he was reawakened in the arms of the servant girl who warmed the bed, but he felt that his whole body was sore and painful everywhere, and he could not get up. However, the other party's words made him immediately struggle with excitement.

"Ling Gong wants to see you."

However, under the light of the day after the snow, he was led all the way, only to see that in the Huainan Festival that was being built on a large scale, there was already a lot of smell of things and people; At least many of the familiar faces are gone;

But after all, he was still one of the sons and nephews that Gao Yu once valued, so after waiting for a long time, he was finally used by Lu Yongzhi, who had made friends with several faces, and was introduced to the Purple Cloud Pavilion where Gao Linggong stopped and cultivated.

However, the next day, news came out that because of sadness and hard work, Gao Linggong's original chronic illness - wind paralysis suddenly worsened; And just escaped from the annihilated army, but for unknown reasons angered Gao Yue, the son and nephew of the high envoy, and even fell out of favor and drove him out of Yangzhou City, and was exiled to Chuzhou to be a state town envoy.

。。。。。。。。

In Jiangling City, leaving aside the follow-up impact of the Zhao'an incident, Zhou Huai'an is still listening to the routine administrative report from Guangfu step by step:

"The newly harvested rice and wheat in Lingxi is 41,000 and 56 stones, and there are more than 2.91 million catties of jicama, melons and vegetables, mainly from the jurisdiction of several larger prefectures such as Gui, Huan, Rong, Liu, Fu and He."

"Among them, about 50,000 stone of old grain can be replaced, and the winter labor is being launched for processing and processing."

"The master of Chai has once again pacified the Shukun Tuban Rebellion in Southern Guizhou, destroyed 22 local and large and small walled cities, and obtained more than 6,000 men and women. . .

"The rebellion of the remnants of the Chen thieves in the area outside the Jianshan area in Guiyang has been eliminated, but the progress of road construction and ore transfer in the mining area will inevitably be delayed."

"Then cancel this part of the supply plan and the associated production target; Transferring manpower and production to other projects... ”

Immediately, Zhou Huai'an opened his eyes and instructed:

"Then I will order Guiyang to be transferred to the mountain in the pit in the north of the mountain. Xiangtan has been preparing to build a new hydraulic workshop and production area to take advantage of the convenience of river water transportation in central Hunan and Jianghan, and bring all kinds of minerals to the local area at a relatively low price. Therefore, it is possible to transport the minerals from various places in advance and pile them up for later use. ”

As far as Zhou Huai'an's common sense is concerned, Hunan in later generations can be regarded as a major mining province in the south.

For example, the large-scale shallow coal mines in Loudi, Shaoyang and Chenzhou, and Chenzhou and Hengyang, which are rich in tin, lead, zinc and graphite; In addition, Hengyang, Huaihua, Yueyang, and Chenzhou all have corresponding gold and silver mine output; In Hengyang and Changde, there are also natural outputs of salt brine, gypsum and calcium miscanthus nitrate.

Although most of these minerals in later generations belong to small and medium-scale, and most of them are types with poor metallurgical properties; However, as long as a small part of it can be developed, it is also a considerable resource bonus under the general backward level of this era.

Today's Taiping Army has actually controlled the Pearl River Basin, the Red River Plain, the Central Hunan Plain and most of the Jianghan Plain, all of which were important grain producing areas in ancient times.

Although compared to the highly populated northern regions, the degree of development was generally not high in this era; However, with these grain-producing areas as mutual buffers and adjustments, coupled with the addition of waterway transportation and communications, even in the event of serious famine and chaos, there is a relative sense of risk resistance.

Coupled with the mountainous landforms of Lingxi (Guangxi) and the mineral resources in central and southern Hunan, it is fully capable of opening a primitive industrial production center as an upgrade and backup in production capacity; In fact, a correspondingly self-sufficient cross-regional economic circulation system has been formed under the management of the Taiping Army.

"This is the latest list of township officials under the name of the Liusi, counting the alternates and transferred personnel, the number of people on the register has reached about 4,615."

After explaining the things related to mining, metallurgy and factory production, another young man stepped forward.

"But most of them are concentrated in Lingnan Province, about 3,571 members; During this period, the thirteen prefectures of Lingdong in the Pearl River basin were the most numerous, and about 2,857 members were appointed one after another. ”

"Most of them are working well and working well. Only 67 of them abandoned their jobs and absconded, and 89 of them disappeared, died, or died due to accidents. ”

"The above examples are very few in Lingdong, mainly concentrated in Hunan, Lingxi and other places where the situation has just opened. Especially in Hunan. ”

"However, there are still 23 people who have been found and reported by the three patrolling detachments because of different degrees of violations, or committed acts of adultery, and they will be punished for their crimes."

Zhou Huai'an nodded slightly, these figures of escape, death, injury, and disappearance undoubtedly represent the details that are difficult for most people in the local area to pay attention to, and the uncompromising cruelty and dark side of the struggle for the replacement of various old and new forces at the grassroots level.

However, among the thirteen prefectures in Lingdong that have initially settled down, it is not surprising that there will be similar job-related crimes such as taking advantage and embezzlement; This is a problem that any nascent regime will face. It depends on whether there is a sufficiently powerful internal supervision mechanism, as well as a long-lasting external blood replenishment channel of survival of the fittest, and a virtuous cycle of competition in the only one.

According to the general content of the promulgation of the "Brief Explanation of the Taiping Farmland System"; At present, the land in the area controlled by the Taiping Army, after the preliminary clearing and boundary survey, has been divided into five categories, such as water, drought, slope, grass, and sand, about 12 grades; The type, amount and proportion of the levy levied on each type of fineness are also different.

At present, the Taiping army basically controls a small half of the land by taking over the abandoned and idle borderlands, and expropriating and confiscating the land of the powerful clans who are famous for their crimes or dare to resist the rebels; It was possible to gather displaced people and poor households and establish large and small areas of tuntian.

As for the remaining land, land and houses in other places, it was after the "three detachments" initially cleaned up and destroyed the upper echelons of the local villages, such as the wealthy and powerful households, as well as the old remnants of the officials, scoundrels and idlers, so that the remaining villagers could re-establish a new order of self-government and self-determination; At the township and town levels, grass-roots posts called "township officials" are appointed to indirectly administer them and perform the functions of regular collection and distribution.

Thus, with the exception of those cantonments and barracks that were directly under the militarized control of Tocao; These township officials, large and small, can be said to be the guarantee of the Taiping regime's executive power at the grassroots level, which is almost equivalent to the small head of the lower limit of the grassroots organization. And they lead a number of public security, household registration, taxation and other staff who want to do it, control the administrative functions at the first level of the township, and indirectly influence and control the villages at the lower level.

Moreover, unlike the practice and tradition in the past where government officials could recruit non-staff personnel on their own, the officials at the grassroots level were uniformly trained after a short period of time, and then assigned to them under different departments. Therefore, there are not so many remnants of the old evils and bad habits, but on the contrary, they constitute a situation of faint mutual supervision and restraint in daily life.

In addition, there is a system of supply and marketing (vendors) that flows around regularly, a system of magistrates (summary justice) that travels on a regular basis, and a system of routine visits and practical training by census teams, which will be sufficient for a period of time to come.

Although it cannot be said that the existence of those selfish greed is completely forbidden, in this era when everything is simplified, it is not a problem to create a relatively fair and transparent environment or ruling order; After all, it is still in the rising period of the rise of the Taiping military regime.

As long as there is a little common sense, people will not ignore the long-term prospects and possibilities of the system for the sake of immediate petty profits. And the township officials are also the best place to settle those injured, sick and disabled retired veterans of the Taiping Army, so at present, in terms of results and composition, it is still relatively simple and has a certain vitality.

Of course, the existence of these township officials is mainly arranged in key and key areas where the Taiping army has strong control over the power or has established a relatively stable ruling order.

At present, in Lingxi and Hunan, there are still many remote areas, mountains, and marginal areas that are within the territory of the Taiping Army, but their control is relatively weak or their military power is inconvenient. They did not deliberately appoint township officials to serve as consumables that outweighed the losses in the past, but temporarily maintained the original basic pattern, and "only listened to the old ones with money and food".

Of course, after the abolition of the imperial court levy and the apportionment of the local government, the vast majority of the powerful officials cleverly set up additional projects, and the vast majority of excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes were wasted. The major taxes left by the Taiping military regime at present are nothing more than the land taxes (vast villages) in the vast countryside according to the type and quality of the land under the "Taiping Fields and Mu System";

In towns, towns, and ports, the household (tax) is levied according to the (adult) head and household; and the money (city tax) and money (customs duty) generated by the transaction and transit of goods in the market, a total of three categories.

As for the other taxes, miscellaneous taxes, shelf taxes, seedling money, flat money, and even the additional taxes on bamboo, salt, wine, tea, and other monopolies, they were abolished at all. Of course, the Taiping military regime has the confidence to do so.

On the one hand, under the relatively simple administrative system, there are not so many redundant personnel inside and outside the system to support. On the other hand, there is the diversification and abundance of other economic resources.

Thus, in fact, in addition to the production of food and specific goods, it is necessary to maintain a basic level of security; The share of other projects in the Taiping regime has been steadily declining; The reason is simple: from the very beginning, the Taiping regime had a large source of income and a relatively stable source of income outside of these traditional projects.

For example, the comprehensive production system of monopoly industrial and mining farms with Guangzhou and Chaoxun as the core; In addition, Guangzhou and Jiaozhou have huge foreign trade interests since ancient times and the heavy bonuses brought by the entrepot business of domestic products; In addition, it has de facto mastered the supply and marketing system between major cities and towns, most of the major livelihood projects and bulk demand;

In fact, through these channels and economic lifelines, it is not too easy for the Taiping regime to quietly suck blood in the dark. There is no need to be like the traditional feudal bureaucrats and wealthy and powerful households, and directly do the extremely ugly things of forcible seizure, exploitation, or sucking the marrow of the bones.

After all, as a transcendent with thousands of years of experience and forward-looking vision, it would be too embarrassing not to know how to generate income and increase production by opening up sources and increasing production in addition to farming. At the very least, the future generations will have the direction of a ready-made industrial system and the prospects for the development of overseas trade according to local conditions, which can be used as a reference and use one or two.

With the addition and support of these additional sources of income, the Taiping Army can even use some of the revenue to feed and subsidize local production; There is no need to maintain a relatively large group of bureaucrats, bureaucrats and white servants at the cost of excessive costs and inefficiency, as in previous dynasties. And the resources that have been collected have been wasted in the long transfer cycle that has passed through the layers of hands

Therefore, as long as we do not go too far and are driven by the exertion of the people's strength, and we can persistently and resolutely implement the principles of the "Tianmu System" without deviating too much, it will be a matter of time before we change the hesitant and uneasy public opinion and win over the hearts and minds of the middle and lower strata of the people.

was thinking and thinking like this, Zhou Huai'an heard another report from outside; Cao Shixiong, who went to escort grain and grass supplies to Raozhou to congratulate and show goodwill, soon returned, and brought an unexpected visitor to Zhou Huai'an.

(End of chapter)