Liukou besieged Shenjiazhuang for dozens of days, although it was not defeated, but it caused heavy losses to Mei Zhihuan, Li Changgeng and other landlords and squires. casualties, property damage, destruction of fixed facilities...... Mei Zhihuan and the others have not been able to recover for a long time.

Li Changgeng, as a former secretary of the ministry, is naturally well-informed in officialdom.

The governor of Huguang, Fang Kongzhi, and the general Zhu Shunming reached an agreement privately, Zhu Shunming withdrew from Wuchang, and Fang Kongzhi ceded Huangzhou to Zhu Shunming.

Although it is gossip and there is no official announcement on the surface, the source and the subsequent changes in Huangzhou Mansion show that this matter is by no means groundless.

"A military general, such an act, does he want to emulate the end of the Tang Dynasty to make the secession possible?" Mei Zhihuan said disdainfully: "In the warlord rebellion at the end of the Tang Dynasty, all dynasties are learning lessons. Song Taizu released the military power with a glass of wine, and Ming Taizu killed and punished the heroes, respecting Confucianism and suppressing the military, all in order to prevent the generals from making trouble. ”

"The Ming Dynasty is like the sun, and the emperor is prosperous in the Spring and Autumn Period, how can a small general soldier be allowed to act recklessly?" Mei Zhihuan continued to be dissatisfied: "Sit back and watch Huangzhou suffer, Macheng is besieged, and the people suffer, such an unkind and unrighteous person, wait for the old man to go and scold him fiercely." ”

Li Changgeng sat upright and read, unmoved. Seeing that Mei Zhihuan didn't move for a long time, he raised his head and smiled: "Father Bin, why don't you go?" I also scolded a few words for my brother to vent the hatred in my heart. ”

Mei Zhihuan sat down, picked up the tea on the table and drank it all, and said dejectedly: "When the old man is a hairy guy who is self-willed? The old man has lived for a long time, will he not understand the sophistication of human feelings? ”

"I heard that Zhu Shunming is in his early twenties, and when he is complacent, he will listen to the old man, a bad old man with no power and no power, making a fool of himself?"

Mei Zhihuan showed a helpless, unwilling, and lonely look, and said slowly: "Huguang Governor Fang Kongzhi, I heard that Yunwen Yunwu is very talented, but he is helpless against a small general soldier, and this general soldier climbed up from the bottom without roots. If you want to say that Zhu Shunming is incompetent and talentless, who believes it? Wait and see...... Huangzhou has been destroyed by the rogues, how bad can it be? ”

………………

Humans are animals that are good at forgetting.

The injuries caused by the ravages of the Liukou in Huangzhou, Macheng and other places have not yet healed, and the living people have begun to forget or pretend to forget the injuries they have suffered, and they are ready to live in the future.

The rogues killed, set fires, QJ, plundered, and destroyed houses and buildings on the ground in Huangzhou...... The first thing the survivors faced was food.

Mei Zhihuan was giving porridge in Macheng for disaster relief, but he was worried about food. There is not much food in stock.

The invasion of the Liukou disrupted the agricultural production of Macheng, and there was no need to think about the grain production in the first half of the year. Later...... Let's talk about it until the second half of the year!

Mei Zhihuan inspected the soup kitchen, but found that there were not many people who came to beg for food, and most of them were old, weak and disabled. There was not the slightest sadness on their faces, and they looked full of hope for the future.

When I inquired, it was the county government that issued a notice of hard labor, and those who were able to work went to serve in hard labor.

Servitude? In the past, labor was carried out during the winter farming season, so how could there be a labor service during the spring and summer farming season? The local people couldn't even eat, so what kind of labor did they go to serve (in the past, they had to bring their own food to serve the laborers, that is, the laborers ate their own food and worked for the court for free)? Could it be that as soon as Zhu Shunming entered the Huangzhou Mansion, he began to expropriate the people who were tyrannical?

rushed to the county office, but Mei Zhihuan found that there was a long queue at the entrance of the county office, and the people were elated and couldn't wait for the collection of the yacha documents.

When I asked, I found out that this labor was not labor at all, but large-scale employment.

In this labor, the yamen came forward to repair water conservancy facilities, roads, and county government offices on a large scale...... The yamen not only manages the food, but also has a salary.

The food is pretty good, brown rice is pickled, full, and occasionally meaty; The salary is paid once a day, and the strong laborers are thirty copper plates a day, all of which are fine copper coins with bright colors and clear handwriting.

And such a good thing? Mei Zhihuan will be skeptical.

Mei Zhihuan mixed in the team, successfully received a temporary work card, and arranged to repair an irrigation canal by the Jushui River in the southeast of Macheng.

The leader of the team is a junior in his early twenties, who speaks non-standard official language, behaves rudely, speaks rudely, and has a good heart.

Seeing that Mei Zhihuan had white hair, Housheng asked him to be responsible for cleaning up the weeds on both sides of the canal, and did not let him do heavy work.

"My lord, you're not a local, why did you come to Macheng?" Mei Zhihuan is close to the posterity.

"No, I'm from Baoqing Mansion. If it weren't for the crippled ......" Housheng laughed at himself: "I'm still in the army, maybe I'll be a hundred." Who wants to come here to dig up and move stones? ”

The future is also a chatterbox. As soon as the topic was opened, the future life began to talk about the past non-stop.

Mei Zhihuan praised it at the right time, and the more he talked about it, the more energetic he became.

“…… Do you know how my leg is lame? He was wounded and lame in the battle with the natives in the southwest. ”

"At the beginning in the southwest, we killed the natives in fear, and the dead piled up, and the first battle played the prestige of the Han people. Now in Yunnan, when the word 'Zhu Demon King' is mentioned, the natives will tremble with fear......"

“…… We only have 20,000 men, and the regular army has about 5,000 men. The boss took us to attack the east and west, besiege Wei to save Zhao, encircle the point to send reinforcements, secretly cross Chen Cang, outflank in a roundabout way, and move by land and water...... After the battle, only 50,000 of the 200,000 troops in Shadingzhou were left, and they shrank in Kunming City and did not dare to come out......"

“…… Qian Guogong wanted to pretend to be the boss in front of the boss, and the boss borrowed a knife to kill people, hey, Grandpa Guo was so frightened that he immediately sent the little county lord to apologize......"

“……”

In the words of this lame, Mei Zhihuan knew some information that he had not heard before.

The rebellion in the southwest was so bloody and tragic that the imperial court newspaper actually summarized it in a few hundred words, and the entire court downplayed this matter so lightly, as if only a few small thieves were killed in the southwest.

Zhu Shunming not only conquered the natives of the southwest, but even the prince of Qianguo in Yunnan, the town of Shizhen, had to offer a small county lord to appease him, and Zhu Shunming left an ominous army in the southwest with an astonishing number of combat effectiveness...... In this way, is the southwest still the southwest of the Ming Dynasty?

Later generations are obviously not clear about Zhu Shunming's layout in Huguang.

Mei Zhihuan analyzed from the words of his later life that Zhu Shunming should have a huge industry in Huguang to support his huge military strength and military operations. Because whether it was Zhu Shunming's army or the southwest military operation, the imperial court did not give the army salaries, grain, grass and equipment.

It is not a blessing for the imperial court for a general soldier to raise a large army with amazing combat effectiveness on his own.

………………

Back in Shenjiazhuang, Mei Zhihuan told Li Changgeng in detail what he had seen, heard, thought and thought, and finally said worriedly: "Youqing, this matter is not small. How to act, we have to plan ahead. ”

Li Changgeng is two years older than Mei Zhihuan, and he has experienced many more dirty and dark things in court battles than Mei Zhihuan.

After a few years at home, Li Changgeng has been sorting out his articles, works, and experiences of being an official over the years.

Li Changgeng raised his head, looked at the anxious Mei Zhihuan, and said slowly: "Mencius said, 'The people are precious, the community is secondary, and the monarch is light'. It's easy to say, how many people have actually done it? ”

"Two hundred and sixty-six years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, from the founding of Taizu to the restoration of Yingzong, the national strength of the Ming Dynasty is thriving, which is for the rise of the dynasty and has accumulated enough foundation for the Ming Dynasty."

"The three major expeditions of Wanli began to shake the foundation of the Ming Dynasty; The protracted struggle over the country's capital corrupted the rule of the Ming Dynasty; Zhang Shoufu (Zhang Juzheng)'s reform treated the symptoms but not the root cause, and only caused the people to suffer. ”

"By the time of the Apocalypse and the current ascendant, the Ming Dynasty has been seriously ill, suffering from internal and external troubles, and the disease is terminally ill, and it cannot be treated without good doctors."

"Now that he has been in charge of the court for a few years, do you think he is a good doctor? Can you cure the dying Ming? ”