When several ministers sat down in the conference room, Zhu Youzhen said to them slowly: "Tell me, what happened in Shaanxi?" I didn't know enough about it just now, so which of you will elaborate on it for me? ”

Shoufu Huang Liji glanced at his colleagues around him, and then slowly explained to Chongzhen: "Just now, the cabinet received urgent reports from Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi, and Cai Maode, the governor of Yansui. Said: Shaanxi has bandit leaders Wang Zijin Liang and Gao Yingxiang to break into the generals, the two recruited rebellious people in the Ansai area, and after detaining the local county order, they also attacked Yan'an Fucheng for a time, but were fortunately repelled by the governor Cai Maode.

Originally, the two governors planned to ask the governor of the three sides, Shi Yongan, to send troops to encircle the bandit army from three sides and eliminate the two bandits near Ansai. However, as soon as they began to deploy troops to suppress them, riots broke out in many places in Shaanxi in response to the two bandits, forcing them to stop their plans to use troops.

And Wang Ziyong and Gao Yingxiang took advantage of this opportunity to escape from Ansai and flow to the edge of the Yellow River. Now the two thieves can cross the river into the hinterland of Shanxi in the east, and enter the Guanzhong Plain in the south.

Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi, thought that it was the time for spring ploughing, and whether the two thieves were allowed to go east or south, it would affect the local spring ploughing, so he asked the imperial court to give him the power to recruit the two thieves, and it was the best policy to strive for a peaceful settlement of the matter. However, Cai Maode, the governor of Yansui, believes that the two thieves are capricious, and Zhao'an is probably just raising tigers for trouble, and it is advisable to send troops to exterminate them as soon as possible.

Because the two of them disagreed on the disposition of the two thieves, the dispute could not reach a result, so they chose to play their own games to the court and wait for the court's decision. After receiving the urgent report from the two of them, the ministers sent someone to inform Your Majesty, hoping that Your Majesty would give us an instruction. ”

After listening to Huang Liji's ominous explanation, Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but subconsciously raise his head and glance at Shoufu, Huang Liji immediately lowered his head and avoided the emperor's gaze.

Looking at Shousuke's actions, Zhu Youzhen probably guessed that there was something hidden in it, so that Shousuke had to hide it from himself.

Zhu Youzhen retracted his gaze, spread his hands to the ministers at the conference table, and said, "If you only know a little bit about it, then I don't think it's a good time to make any decisions. We might as well wait until the rest of the people arrive in the capital. Only when we have sufficient and detailed information at our disposal can we make the right decision.

Otherwise, we will only make a wrong judgment and lose the credibility of the imperial court in the hearts of the people of Shaanxi. Do you agree with me? ”

The ministers of the cabinet all fell silent, and after Zhu Youzhen glanced at their faces, he slowly continued: "And I also have a question? In the past two years, in order to help the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi, the imperial court has not only invested a large amount of relief food, but also invested millions of yuan in cash-for-work relief for the construction of water conservancy and road projects in Shaanxi.

Even if there was a major drought like this in Shaanxi the year before last, the victims in Shaanxi could still obey the imperial court's resettlement orders and carry out personnel diversion so that everyone could survive. Why has the climate in Shaanxi just returned to normal this year, and people everywhere have to rise up? Can't you gentlemen solve my doubts? ”

Shoufu Huang Liji pursed his mouth tightly, as if it had become a gourd with a sawed mouth, while the expressions of the other ministers were different, Zhang Ruitu, who was sitting in the middle of Chongzhen's left hand, twisted his body from time to time, carefully looked at the faces of his colleagues left and right, trying to see what they were thinking in their hearts.

After a moment of silence, Zhu Youzhen withdrew his hands spread on the table, then hugged them to his chest and said calmly: "Since everyone doesn't know the inside story, let's wait for other news to come, I don't think it will take a day or two, and I can also know what is going on with the chaotic people in Shaanxi." ”

Huang Liji subconsciously looked up at Chongzhen, and when he was about to say something to the emperor, Zhang Ruitu finally couldn't wait to preempt him and spoke to Chongzhen.

"Back to Your Majesty, in fact, the inside story is like this... With the millions of yuan allocated by the imperial court, it is more than enough for disaster relief, but if you want to build water conservancy and roads in Shaanxi, I am afraid that this amount of funds has not reached about half of the total amount of funds invested. In particular, when the disaster relief campaign began, grain from other places had not yet been transported to Shaanxi, so grain could only be collected from large local households.

With the price of grain in Shaanxi on that day, the relief money from the imperial court was just a drop in the bucket. Therefore, in order to be able to help as many families as possible and to complete the water conservancy project in Shaanxi as soon as possible, so as to avoid the possibility of a drought that may continue in the coming year, the local officials in Shaanxi had to take out the ownerless land and make deals with these Shaanxi gentry.

Although it is terra nullius, the local officials did not implement this policy with great care. Except for a few county officials who have checked whether the owners of the land still exist, the land in most places is the boundary drawn by the county government according to the places designated by the local gentry.

In this way, some of the owner's fields were also allocated to the squires in various places. According to the situation in previous years, basically one or two out of ten people who fled the famine rarely returned. And those who have fled to other provinces are unlikely to return to the countryside without three to five years. Therefore, even if the fields of these victims are usurped, they are rarely able to get them back.

However, because of His Majesty's disaster relief and water conservancy construction policies, at least more than half of the population of the people who fled from Shaanxi Province were saved. Because the old and weak women and children were divided into camps, and the young and strong laborers were organized to build various projects, most families did not become dispossessed people.

Last year, there was no drought in most parts of Shaanxi, so many people began to return to their hometowns in January this year to rebuild their homes. But when the victims returned home, they found that most of their fields were now in the hands of the local gentry.

Without land, they would not be able to feed their families. And if they want to leave their hometown, their savings are already insufficient, and they have nowhere to go. Therefore, in order to get their fields back, these victims who returned to their hometowns either went to the yamen to file a complaint, or gathered their fellow villagers to drive out the tenants on the land, causing many disputes.

The local squires who had spent the money and grain were unwilling to hand over the land, or demanded that the local government return the silver taels. The local officials could not come up with money to compensate the squire, nor did they want to meddle in the dispute between the two sides and make trouble for themselves, so they chose to avoid it.

Such disputes are getting bigger and bigger in various parts of Shaanxi, and in some places the grain planted by both sides has been destroyed, and in other places there have been human deaths. Gao Yingxiang was originally a general in the Shaanxi army, and when there was a civil uprising in Shaanxi the year before last, the two of them were just unknown people.

However, after those thieves were recruited by the imperial court and transferred out of Shaanxi, the two saw that the people in Shaanxi were full of complaints, so they teamed up with some disgruntled victims to riot, broke the Zhuangzi of several squires in Ansai, and then recruited troops and horses, attracting thousands of people to join the thieves. ”

After listening to Zhang Ruitu's explanation, Zhu Youzhen couldn't help but raise his eyebrows and asked: "So what slogans did they play after Wang Ziyong and Gao Yingxiang gathered to make trouble?" When there was a conflict between the returnees and the local gentry, how did Yang He deal with it at that time? When did the Cabinet find out about this? Why not come up with a solution in time? ”

Huang Liji had to get up and confess to Chongzhen, before replying: "The cabinet has only known about these things for a few days, and the ministers originally planned to discuss a plan first, and they will report to Your Majesty in the next few days." But no one thought that there would be chaos in Shaanxi so soon, and the cabinet did not even make a solution.

As for Yang He, he is also stumped by something now, so he can't go to various places to inspect and appease the victims, otherwise those victims would not be able to be bewitched and confused so quickly. As for the slogans advocated by Wang Ziyong and Gao Yingxiang, they demanded that the government return the land occupied by the small people and that the additional water money be waived. ”

Zhu Youzhen first motioned for Huang Liji to sit down, and then asked suspiciously: "What else is more important in Shaanxi than this matter?" What's the deal with this extra water money? ”

Huang Liji sighed in his heart, and then said in a concealed manner: "Some people in the Qin Wangfu and Qingwang Mansion took advantage of the drought in Shaanxi to buy some land from the victims in Guanzhong.

Later, when they heard that the imperial court planned to build water conservancy and roads in Shaanxi, they bribed local officials, obtained the areas where these construction projects passed, and then either fraudulently or forcibly bought, and bought thousands of tons of land from the local area. When the local gentry heard about it, they also followed them to forcibly buy the land in the area through which the canal passed.

As a result, the water conservancy project built by the imperial court in Shaanxi not only did not bring benefits to the local people, but caused many families to lose their own industries.

In addition, the Bahui Canal in Guanzhong, which was originally planned to be built by the imperial court, has now completed two smaller canals, which are expected to irrigate nearly 40,000 acres of fields. But now the fields on both sides of the canal were occupied by the royal palace and the squire, who controlled the mouths of the ditches on both sides of the canal, claiming that the water passed through their land, and that the fields far from the canal had to pay them for water, otherwise they would not want to let them release the water.

Most of the wells and reservoirs built in Shaanxi subsidized by the imperial court were also controlled by the local tycoons, who claimed that the palace could collect water money for the Huimin canal, so they paid for the wells and reservoirs, so naturally there was more reason to collect water money. Yang He just wanted the palace to give up collecting water money, so he delayed the pacification of the people who returned to their hometowns..."

After listening to Huang Liji's words, Zhu Youzhen suddenly restrained the smile on his face, and he only now understood why the eunuchs and Jinyi guards in Shaanxi did not report these news to him. As long as it is not the information of rebellion, basically no one will pay attention to the domineering actions of these royal clans in the local area.

In other words, first, there are too many violations of law and discipline in the vassal royal clan, so many that they can't pay attention to it; The second is that he is afraid that the emperor will think of his relatives, but blame them for many things. Therefore, the eunuchs and brocade guards who spared no effort to collect intelligence from Shaanxi officials and the army directly ignored the affairs of the two royal mansions.

However, since there has been chaos in the place, he should be on the way to talk about these things, otherwise he will have to consider replacing the eunuchs and Jinyi guards in Shaanxi.

After taking a deep breath and suppressing the nameless fire that came out of his heart, Zhu Youzhen asked Huang Liji with no smile on his face: "So, what is the cabinet's opinion on the civil unrest in Shaanxi?" What are the opinions on the handling of the clan and the powerful occupying water sources? ”