By the beginning of August, Sun Chengzong had basically eliminated the impact of the Ningyuan mutiny, and the situation in eastern Liaodong tended to stabilize. As for Sun Chengzong's private release of Wang Zhichen, he didn't care at all, corrupt officials wanted to kill, but if corrupt officials could be allowed to report more corrupt officials and spit out the proceeds of corruption, it would be more meaningful than killing.

He is not focusing on Liaodong now, there is another thing that he is more interested in.

Every emperor of the Ming Dynasty had a very important thing in the first year of succession, that is, to open a branch to take scholars, which is what the saying goes. The imperial examination is generally held every three years, of course, there are particularly major happy events can also be opened, and the new emperor is generally the beginning of the three-year round. The first year of Chongzheng was the beginning of the Chongzheng Dynasty, and it was natural to hold the first imperial examination of the new emperor.

The imperial examination is divided into three levels: the township examination, the general examination, and the palace examination, and the township examination is a local examination held by the southern and northern Zhili and the political envoys of each country, and is generally held in mid-August of the first year; The National Examination is a national examination conducted by the Ministry of Rites and is held in mid-February of the following year. The palace examination was presided over by the emperor himself and was held in mid-March of the following year.

After the Ningyuan Mutiny was pacified, it coincided with the beginning of the imperial examination, and the government and the opposition were celebrating, and it seemed that the situation was very good, but was this really the case?

Of course not, the last years of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be a tragic era, I don't know whether the Ming Dynasty has run out or the sky is going to die, all the bad luck is concentrated in these decades. What kind of eunuch disaster, Houjin invasion, Donglin Party misunderstanding these things are generally unlucky enough for the emperor to encounter one, but at the end of the Ming Dynasty, several emperors encountered all of them. And this is not the most fatal, the most fatal is the drought in the north for many years, according to historical records, the drought at the end of the Ming Dynasty lasted from the twenty-ninth year of Wanli (1601 AD) to the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1643 AD), the drought for more than 40 years in a row, an emperor can not resist. Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen didn't parry, so he lost the country, what about Chongzheng Emperor Zhu Cijiong, can he parry?

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In Shaanxi in August, the sun is like fire, and the air is full of twisted ripples, which is the ultimate expression of high temperature.

The drought in the first year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the second year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the third year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the fifth year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, the drought in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, and ...... are not just words, important things must be said three times, and this thing that costs human life is naturally to be described truthfully.

After years of severe drought, Shaanxi at this time has already been thousands of miles away, and the large and small rivers have dried up to the bottom, not to mention watering the farmland, and the common people have become a problem to drink water; The trees in the entire land of Qinchuan are dry and there is no grass, let alone food, and you can't find some grass roots and bark to satisfy your hunger!

At the beginning of the year, the imperial court had already allocated two taels of silver for disaster relief, but three million taels was tantamount to a drop in the bucket for Shaanxi, which has a population of nearly five million. In the states and counties where officials are corrupt, the common people can not receive a trace of relief at all, and even the bark of the grass roots has been eaten, and in the end they can only eat the soil, and the famous Guanyin soil in later generations is from Shaanxi during this period.

Among them, the corruption of officials in Xi'an and Yan'an is the most serious, and Zhang Douyao, the magistrate of Chengcheng County, Xi'an Prefecture, is a typical representative. Shaanxi Xuancheng has a total of more than 70 counties in eight prefectures and two prefectures, and once the three million taels of silver are scattered, and then transferred and deducted layer by layer, there will be less than 10,000 taels in the hands of Zhang Douyao, the magistrate.

How can this work, as the saying goes: three years in Qingzhi County, 100,000 snowflakes of silver, this year I earned less than 10,000 taels, isn't that a loss of more than 20,000 taels! Zhang Dou's dazzling eyes rolled, and he thought about it, didn't this court exempt this year's tax, I can collect it, and how much I collect is my own! As a result, he not only did not distribute the disaster relief silver, but also extorted rent taxes from the peasants!

This person is going to starve to death, where is the money to pay taxes, this tax is naturally very little income, Zhang Douyao doesn't care about these, what he is best at is knocking bones and sucking the marrow, this gang of Diao people can't squeeze oil if they don't work hard, he sends his subordinates to various places to urge, don't pay taxes, then fight, beat until you pay!

Wang Er is an authentic farmer in Baishui, if it weren't for this great drought, if it weren't for the urging of Zhang Douyao, the county governor, he would definitely be like those Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Wu, Zhao Liu, silently farming, silently marrying a wife and having children, and then silently aging, without taking away a cloud, let alone leaving any traces in history.

But Zhang Douyao's was too much, there was a drought for many years, and there was no harvest, and he also sent people to collect rent and taxes. There is not even grass growing in the field, where is there money to pay taxes! If they don't pay taxes, they still beat people, and even if they beat him, his sixty-year-old mother was pushed to the ground and kicked a few times, but she didn't come back in one breath and died!

Wang Er was completely furious, and after he hastily buried his mother, he began to mobilize in the township from house to house, wanting to go to Zhang Douyao for revenge. Everyone was forced by Zhang Douyao to have no choice, so naturally he responded positively, and in the end, he gathered hundreds of people!

Wang Er has no culture, he doesn't want to rebel, he just wants revenge, so after he gathered the people of the township together, he didn't make an exciting speech, he only had one sentence: "Who dares to kill Zhang Douyao, a dog official, with me?" ”

Everyone couldn't bear it anymore, and everyone replied in unison: "I dare to kill." ”

Since he dared, Wang Er rushed directly into the county seat with these hundreds of people and killed Zhang Douyao. Is this the end of the matter? Of course it's not.

This person is prone to accidents as soon as there are too many, Wang Er has taken revenge, and the others are not satisfied, this magistrate has been killed, what are you afraid of, they simply copied Zhang Douyao's corrupt silver taels, and robbed the treasury, everyone gave a cent of money, and finally didn't have to starve to death!

That's not all, Wang Ershou has learned from all over Shaanxi, of course, they are not learning from Wang Er to take revenge, but learning to kill corrupt officials and rob silver!

The slogan they shouted was simple: "Rather than starve to death, it is better to die in rebellion." "Anyway, if you don't have anything to eat, you will starve to death, and if you kill corrupt officials and rebel, you can still grab some silver, so you can be a full ghost.

As a result, the rebels from all over Shaanxi sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and Fugu Wang Jiayin, Hannan Wang Daliang, Ansai Gao Yingxiang, and Mizhi Zhang Xianzhong rose up one after another.

The most influential of this period was Wang Jiayin's rebel army, who once occupied Fugu and called Wang an official. The rest were all running around, and there was not much momentum, and then Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong joined Gao Yingxiang's rebel army, and Gao Yingxiang slowly developed and grew, and finally became the largest force in the rebel army.

Let's not talk about what happened to the righteous army, these are all later words, and the most important thing now is how our Chongzheng Emperor Zhu Cijiong is!

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Zhu Cijiong is excited at this moment, Liaodong is fine, the imperial examination has begun, and the most important thing is that Bi Maokang and they made the first flintlock pistol!

Although the appearance is still very rough, although it is necessary to poke the round bullet in the front, although it still fails to shoot from time to time, these cannot hide its epoch-making significance:

First of all, you can aim, some arquebuses also have crosshairs, but it doesn't make much sense, an arquebus is burning in front of you, and you can't aim at a crosshair, there will be no glasses, and there are a few people who can stand the sparks splashing in their eyes.

Then, the rate of fire came up, after the flintlock pistol was made of mild steel as the barrel, it would basically not be deformed after firing a few shots, and the few minutes of waiting for cooling would be saved, plus there was no need to ignite the rope again, just pull the trigger directly, so that the rate of fire would be greatly improved, and it was not impossible for a skilled musketeer to shoot four or five rounds a minute.

In the end, the range was increased, reaching a terrifying two hundred steps (about three hundred meters), finally surpassing the average bow and arrow!

Zhu Cijiong hadn't been excited for two days, and Shaanxi's performance was like a pour of cold water poured on his head, pouring it on his heart.

The peasant uprising finally came, but in the next ten years, natural disasters continued, and the peasant uprising would burn like a spark on the prairie and become more and more vigorous.

Zhu Cijiong knew that the time had come to really test him.