Although Chen Zisheng was reluctant, he still did a good job, because his eldest brother told him when he came. Now in the emperor's heart, the war in Jiangxi is the first priority, and he must not lose his temper and not work without knowing whether he is alive or dead, so that the emperor is angry, even the eldest brother can't save him.

Therefore, after Chen Zisheng took office, he worked very hard to resettle displaced people, restore production, build water conservancy, and provide grain and grass for Zhang Jiayu in Ganzhou, and Zhang Jiayu also praised Chen Zisheng many times in the above table to the emperor. I heard that the emperor intended to promote Chen Zisheng to the position of Tongzhi of Nanxiong Mansion.

Today, Chen Zisheng is busy hitting the back of the head, and there will be less than a month to collect summer grain, 10,000 soldiers, 5,000 people, 780,000 prisoners and tens of thousands of displaced people in Ganzhou, most of all the grain has to be transferred from Nanxiong, so Chen Zisheng has eaten and lived in the county government in the past few days to ensure the normal operation of the Ganzhou front.

Dian Shi found Chen Zisheng who was immersed in work in the second hall and said: "My lord, the inspection department has sent a suspicious person, it is better to ask the adult to take a look!" ”

Chen Zisheng frowned and said: "Don't you see that I'm busy with the summer grain, you can just see this kind of trivial matter, and if you have nothing to do, it's really the Manchu spies who handed it over to Jinyiwei!" ”

"My lord, this is their entry certificate, it says that it is Jiang Yueguang, a jinshi in the forty-seventh year of Wanli!"

Chen Zisheng was stunned, Jiang Yueguang knew that he was the same year as his brother Chen Zizhuang. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, there were many big bulls, and the bachelors in the late Southern Ming Dynasty were basically in this period, such as Ding Kuichu, Huang Daozhou, Ma Shiying, Ruan Dacheng and so on.

Chen Zisheng also knew Jiang Yueguang, when his eldest brother was demoted, he took himself to study in Nanzhili, and saw Jiang Yueguang, who was serving as a military officer in Nanzhili at that time, and he was also an old acquaintance.

"Is it really Lord Jiang? Hurry up, please! After Chen Zizhuang finished speaking, he quickly stood up, and the two of them came to the front yard to greet Jiang Yueguang.

It's not that Chen Zisheng is a sycophant, putting aside the relationship between Jiang Yueguang and Chen Zizhuang, that is, Jiang Yueguang is a senior in Shilin, and he has to go out to greet Chen Zisheng.

When he entered the house, Chen Zisheng saw that it was Jiang Yueguang who was sitting there, and hurriedly arched his hand and said: "I don't know that Mr. Yan Ji is here, Chen is late to greet him, capital crime, capital crime!" ”

Jiang Yueguang is holding back his anger now, but his identity is here, and he can't get angry with that inspection and history, so he will lose his identity. At this time, I saw a seven-rank official coming in outside, which should be the local county order. At first glance, he is still an old acquaintance, it is Chen Zizhuang's younger brother Chen Zisheng.

"Humph! Brother Qiao Sheng, I didn't expect you to be the commander of Baochang County, are you very powerful in the inspection department here! ”

Seeing that Jiang Lao's hair was angry, Chen Zisheng smiled bitterly and said: "Mr. Yan Ji, the Inspection Department is not under the jurisdiction of the lower officials, and the county only has the right to guide them, not jurisdiction!" ”

Jiang Yueguang was stunned for a moment, although the inspection department was nominally under the control of the Yamen of the Inspectorate, but in the late Ming Dynasty, the government and county had great power, and the inspection department had already become a magistrate in the government, or the county lieutenant and the history of the county, why did Guangdong completely change?

This is not the place to talk about the imperial court system, and Chen Zisheng did not elaborate.

"Mr. Yan Ji, please go to the backyard and let Brother Xian talk to Mr. well!"

Seeing that Chen Zizhuang had something to say, Jiang Yueguang nodded, got up and went to the backyard with Chen Zisheng, that is, the second hall of the county government.

The two came to the small study room of the Ertang County Order, and the next person came up with tea. Jiang Yueguang asked, "Qiao Sheng, aren't you in Guangdong?" How did you become an official in Nanxiong? ”

Chen Zisheng sighed and told Jiang Yueguang in detail what happened in Guangzhou a few months ago, until he was unlucky enough to be assigned to Baochang County as a magistrate.

After listening to this, Jiang Yueguang asked: "No, I heard that Guangdong's new army is very strong in combat, and 10,000 people in Ganzhou wiped out Jin Shenghuan's 100,000 people, how can Li Chengdong still be allowed to enter Guangzhou?" ”

"Hey! It was not that His Majesty the Emperor was anxious for quick success and quick gain, and in order to seize territory, he transferred all the three regiments of the new army in Guangzhou to other places, so that Li Chengdong could take advantage of it. ”

Jiang Yueguang nodded, but he didn't want to know about Zhu Hongsan's secret history. As a good official for the country and the people, he very much wants to know how Zhu Hongsan took back the landlord's land, and he hasn't made any big mess yet, so far Nanxiong Mansion is still very peaceful.

"Qiao Sheng, when I enter Nanxiong, I will take a look, many tenants have been allocated land, why is this? Where did the land come from? Was it all the landlord willing to hand it over? ”

Chen Zisheng's family is one of the top landlords in Guangzhou, and when he heard Jiang Yueguang ask, he was naturally full of complaints.

"Mr. Yan Ji, you don't know, our emperor is a ruthless master, this time through Li Chengdong's matter, I can't help but recall a large number of officials in various provinces, and at the same time, most of the small landlords in Chaozhou, Huizhou, Nanxiong, Shaozhou, Zhaoqing, Guangzhou and other prefectures who have no merit have been accused of banditry by His Majesty and sent to Luzon, and their land is also returned to the public and distributed to landless tenants."

"What about the famous?"

"The emperor's trick is to kill the chickens and make an example of the monkeys, and now the big rooster has been killed, and we can give these monkeys some benefits, we can exchange the land with the shares of the Dongguan factory at the market price, and each household can only leave half of the land. At first, a few families disagreed, but within a few days, the bandits came in the middle of the night, and the whole family was killed! ”

"Oh? What about the Inspection Division? Aren't they amazing? ”

"Hey, Inspection Division? This kind of thing is what they did, anyway, these Qiu Ba were all rogues in the army before, and they are not familiar with doing this kind of thing! ”

"Could it be that the emperor is so foolish and no one cares?"

Chen Zisheng shook his head and said: "If it was okay before, my brother still had a little influence in front of the emperor, but with the victory of the new army in Ganzhou, His Majesty's prestige is getting higher and higher, and the emperor can't listen to my brother's words." In addition, the emperor's methods were ruthless, and he would destroy all the people, and the gentry in Guangdong dared to say anything, and obediently exchanged land for shares. ”

"What about the other ministers in the court? What about Ma Mingyuan and Qian Qianyi? Do they just care? ”

Chen Zisheng sneered and said, "They? They can't wait to see the Cantonese people unlucky, it's too late to clap, then they can still touch the emperor's bad head! ”

Jiang Yueguang stood up suddenly, walked around the house, and said: "If the emperor does this in the Shengping era, I Jiang Yueguang also supports it, but now the Manchu Iron Horse is outside the gate, and he still makes such a big move, doesn't this chill the hearts of the Cantonese scholars?" No, I'm going to Canton to meet the emperor, and I must stop him from doing this! ”

Jiang Yueguang didn't think this out of selfishness, and now at a critical moment, it was really not a good idea to make a big deal against the gentry who ruled the foundation.

But Jiang Yueguang is a person who belongs to this era, and Zhu Hongsan is indeed from the future, Zhu Hongsan knows that the root of the final demise of the Ming Dynasty is land annexation.

Like other feudal dynasties, Zhu Chongba's establishment of the Ming Dynasty relied on his own group of meritorious heroes, and naturally, after occupying the whole country, he had to be rewarded for meritorious deeds, so the land annexation of the Ming Dynasty began in the era of Zhu Yuanzhang. However, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor took the lead in plundering real estate and set up a large number of imperial villages, which was a prominent feature of land annexation during this period. Huangzhuang began in the Yongle period. When Xianzong Zhu Jianshen ascended the throne, he confiscated the land of the eunuch Cao Jixiang in Shunyi County and used it as a village in the palace. Since then, the number of Huangzhuang has increased. Within the first month of his succession, Wuzong Zhu Houzhao set up seven imperial villages, and then expanded to more than 30 places. There were more emperors in the Ming Dynasty, more than any previous dynasty.

After Hongxi and Xuande, the prince's Zhuangtian gradually increased. They mostly occupied the land through such means as giving gifts, begging, making contributions, buying and buying, and directly plundering. The kings were all large landowners in the Ming Dynasty. For example, the palace of the king of Shu in Sichuan, the Fuguan clan in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, its Zhuangtian from Guan County to Pengshan County, occupies seven-tenths of the fertile soil of the Chengdu Plain. The Zhuangtian of the Chu Wangfu is not only covered with lakes, but also as far away as Guyuan Prefecture, Pingliang Prefecture, Shaanxi. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, King Jing Dai Zhen "crossed the border to seize the people's property for Zhuangtian", covering an area of tens of thousands of hectares. In addition, relatives such as Jingtai are the governor of Wang Quan, and Zhuangtian also has more than 16,300 hectares. The eunuchs also seized the people's property for the farmland, such as the Zhengde Gu Dayong forcibly occupied the people's land to 10,000 hectares.

The Ming court stipulated that the royal palace and the families of meritorious heroes should give land and collect three cents of silver per mu. However, the actual collection often exceeds this limit. For example, in the Baiyun Lake Zhuangtian of Dewangfu in Shandong, the internal official flag school that levied the rent was changed to five cents of silver per mu without authorization.

Bureaucrats and gentry also annexed large amounts of land by various means. For example, Zhao Mu, a landlord in Yangzhou, forcibly seized more than 3,000 acres of land for his own business. In particular, the eunuchs, such as Shoufu Xu Jie, occupy 240,000 mu of land in Susong and have tens of thousands of tenants. Cabinet minister Yan Song "Guangshi good land, all over Jiangxi County", and "widely placed good land and beautiful houses in Nanjing and Yangzhou, without worrying about dozens of them". In the north, "the good fields of the eight prefectures in Kinai belong to the powerful family". As a result, there are serious consequences of a high concentration of land.

With the vicious development of land annexation, the tuntian of the guard station was gradually destroyed. The kings, princes, eunuchs of the supervising army, generals of the army, officers of the guards and landlords competed to encroach on the tuntian and serve the soldiers. During the Hongzhi period, bureaucrat Ma Wensheng pointed out that the Tuntian area in the world was "invaded and sold by the military and the people of the official banner of the guard".

Eunuchs and officers not only encroached on the tuntian, but also enlisted soldiers to cultivate for them. Military families were forced to flee because they were exploited and abused. In the three years of orthodoxy, the number of deserters reached more than 1.2 million. Juntun played an active role in agricultural production in the early Ming Dynasty, and military rations originally relied on Juntun for supply. With the destruction of the military cantonment system, the military rations could only be paid by the state treasury when Zhengde arrived. The destruction of the military cantonment system not only affected the revenue of the Ming Dynasty's treasury, but also weakened the border defense force of the Ming Dynasty.

A large number of landless peasants became displaced people, and these displaced people were the backbone of Li Chuang's peasant uprising in the future.

So when Zhu Hongsan gained a firm foothold in Guangdong, the issue of land annexation was the first problem he had to solve.