On February 15, Li Zhi arrived in Kaifeng, Henan. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

After being canonized as the queen, Li Zhi rushed to Henan after a short stay in Tianjin to see the situation in Henan.

This time to conquer Li Zicheng, Li Zhi did not recruit in person, but let Li Xing and Li Laosi lead the troops on the front line. Therefore, for the situation in Henan, Li Zhi only knew the reports of the front-line generals and Han Jinxin's intelligence. Although these reports cover major events in Henan, they lack first-hand details.

For Li Zhi's management of Henan, the details that could not be reflected in the documents were very important. So after finishing the affairs in Tianjin, Li Zhi rushed to Kaifeng as soon as possible.

The depression in Kaifeng City did not surprise Li Zhi. Kaifeng was originally a city of consumption, which means that the main economy in the city was supported by the consumption of the clans, bureaucrats and gentry here. These magnates sucked blood from all over Henan, and then spent the sucked silver in Kaifeng, hiring servants, handymen, actors, and maidservants to prop up the business of restaurants, goulans, and brothels.

After the bloodbath of the invading army, the gentry and clans in Kaifeng City were slaughtered. Without the consumption of these people, Kaifeng City will inevitably become a dead city.

However, as Li Zhi's Henan bureaucracy gradually moved in, Kaifeng City would regain its position as the political center of Henan. When the time comes, the clerks of the various yamen will impress the economy of Kaifeng. Even if it can't restore the prosperity of this big city in the Central Plains, it will still allow people from all walks of life to eat.

So riding in the withered market of Kaifeng City, Li Zhi was not surprised.

What surprised Li Zhi was the countryside of Henan.

After Li Zhi walked around Kaifeng for half a day, he went out of the city with a simple guard of honor and personal guards, and walked all the way through the countryside of Henan. It's February, and the winter wheat in the fields is at its greenest. There is a lot of wheat planted in the fields of Shinosa, and it looks like a striped ornament of the earth.

But there was something strange about the choice of fields. Li Zhi looked at the soil in a wheat field that was not growing well, and found that the wheat field that was being cultivated was very shallow and barren. Then he picked up some soil on a deserted field and rubbed it, and found that the soil of the abandoned field was thick, and he couldn't help frowning.

Li Zhi looked at the wheat fields and asked, "Why is this fertile field abandoned instead, but wheat is planted in the barren field?" ”

Li Laosi replied: "The owner, Li Zicheng was exempted from paying taxes in Henan Juntian, and distributed the fields to the people who followed the army to kill the gentry, so some peasants who took refuge in the army to be hungry soldiers got a lot of fertile land. ”

"After so many years of war, Henan's population is only three or four percent of its original population. In the past, the gentry of Henan occupied a large amount of land, and after this land was distributed to Li Zicheng's hungry soldiers, some of the families of the hungry soldiers could not grow it at all. So these people only chose the most fertile and irrigated places to plant. And the worse land was abandoned. ”

Li Zhi nodded and asked, "Then why are there wheat that doesn't grow well on those barren lands?" ”

Li Xing hurriedly replied: "Big brother, it was planted by the people who did not take refuge in the thieves." Although most of the people in Henan eventually became thieves, there were still some honest peasants who were afraid of the government's retaliation, so they fled to the south with their families and escaped from the thieves. After the thieves withdrew from Henan in September, the peasants ran back to farm. ”

"Because these people did not follow the thieves, they naturally did not get the gentry's land, and they still owned a few acres of thin fields. Therefore, although a large number of middle fields and even fertile fields were abandoned, the least courageous farmers still cultivated the worst fields. ”

Li Zhi listened to the words of the two division commanders and frowned.

Li Xing spread his hands and said: "Big brother, the so-called Juntian of the thief is actually an empty word. In the end, it was up to him to kill the gentry and get more land. ”

Li Zhi asked, "Why don't the people who have been given a share of the fertile land rent the fertile land they have abandoned to those poor households?" ”

Li Laosi took a breath and said, "Dongjia, what surprised our Tianjin soldiers the most was the chaos in the countryside of Henan. Originally, the common people who followed the army most actively and became rich did not dare to rent the surplus fertile fields and middle fields under their names to the poor people for cultivation because they were afraid that the poor people who did not defect to the thieves would be jealous. ”

"The thieves and murderers are very bloody, and they don't investigate which gentry are good and which gentry are bad, and as long as they are rich, they rush in and wash them in blood. Now the wealth of the whole Henan has been rearranged by the thieves, and the atmosphere and rules of the whole society have changed. ”

"Since their fields were all looted from rich households, the peasants felt that whoever became rich in the future should be robbed, and the landlords deserved to be killed. Therefore, even if they have hundreds of acres of land, no one dares to rent their fields to others to eat rent, and would rather abandon the land than be a rich household who eats land rent, which eventually leads to the abandonment of a large number of good fields. ”

Hearing Li Laosi's words, Li Zhi was a little surprised.

Unexpectedly, Henan experienced a thief, and it was chaotic to such an extent.

In the countryside of Henan, because of this bloody sack by the thieves, all the original order was broken. When the bad order is broken, the good order is also shattered. Since there is no order, and only one word is left, then the whole society will be in a state of extreme inefficiency. In this case, it is not surprising that good land is abandoned.

Order is the cornerstone of maintaining the functioning of a group, an organization, and even a society. Li Zicheng's thieves plundered everywhere, disrupted order everywhere, and in the end, hundreds of thousands of people were also vulnerable. In the original history, Li Zicheng even had a million people, and he owned the entire north, but it collapsed under the attack of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

At that time, there were more people who broke into the army than the Qing army, and the horses were stronger than the Qing army, but there was no other reason for losing the war again and again, that is, because the soldiers who broke into the army were not orderly.

Li Zhi pondered for a moment and said, "Go to the village and have a look." ”

Li Zhi left Tian Ridge and walked to the nearby village with the honor guard.

By this time it was dinner time, and smoke was billowing over a nearby village. Obviously, last year, the people did not need to pay land rent and land endowments, and they were much richer than before, at least every household had food to eat.

Li Zhi got closer and closer, and walked to the front of the village, only to find that the gate of the village was closed. Some of the villagers' men stood on the wall of the village with their heads shrunk and looked at Li Zhi and his party outside the village with hostility.

Li Zhi stood at the gate of the village, he didn't expect that he had eaten a closed door here, and he was a little unhappy.

Li Xing touched his head and said, "Big brother, don't be unhappy, the current situation in rural Henan is like this." The thieves spread rumors that the eldest brother was going to confiscate the fields that the people had looted, and that he would confiscate all these fields as public land for rent, and this rumor is still circulating among the people. ”

"The people all spread the word 'Li Zhi is here, collect the land and hand over the endowment', and they regard our Tiger Ben Army as an enemy on weekdays, and they easily don't let us enter the village."