The team escorting the third lady left the Ma family's compound and slowly advanced towards the east, and after a while, they left the dirt road built by the Ma family themselves and walked onto the wide official road. There were basically no people on the official road, no merchants and convoys shuttling back and forth, and not even peasants walking around on the official road.

After walking for a short time, Zhu Yuanzhang saw an official shop on the side of the road.

The so-called official shop is a facility used by the government to transmit documents and welcome officials. Later generations of people often confuse shops with posts, the Ming Dynasty has posts and shops on the transportation routes throughout the country, a post every sixty miles, and a shop every ten miles. The head of the post is called the post leader, and the head of the shop is called the shop chief.

The main task of the post is to provide boats, horses, husbands and other means of transportation, accommodation and food for political officials, and also has the responsibility of delivering urgent official documents. The main responsibility of the shop is to deliver documents, and it also has the obligation to guide dignitaries when they come and go. In other words, the shop does not have the ability to receive official accommodation, and only sends people to serve as guides.

Zhu Yuanzhang saw that the official shop on the side of the road was very dilapidated, the two adobe houses in disrepair looked crumbling, there were two old and thin inferior horses in the stable, and an old man sat in front of the stable, looking at the passing family sending team with blank eyes, looking old and desolate.

He couldn't help but sigh in his heart, when the Ming Dynasty was under his governance, the post shop system was still very strict, and without the permission of the imperial court, ordinary officials were not allowed to use the post station privately. However, he disdained that his children and grandchildren were playing spoofs, and the rule of officials was completely corrupted, and the post shop system was also full of evils. When officials of all sizes traveled to and from the roads, they often arbitrarily extorted men and horses, and even extorted "folded dry", that is, ordered the post stations to provide more supplies than they actually needed, and the excess part was converted into silver and put into their private pockets. In this way, the limited manpower and material resources of the post station are overwhelmed, and they are exhausted, and even sell their sons and daughters in order to compensate for the expenses.

In the second year of the Apocalypse, Fang Zhenru once wrote to the imperial court: "If you deliver to the post, the husband only has this number, and the horse only has this number, and since there has been an Eastern affair, the military situation is at noon, and there is a crowd of bad officials, and it is a hundred times more than before." And if you want it to continue to support, you will not be lucky. The ministers passed by, from Tongzhou to the mountains and seas, and saw the husband's head, horse households and car households, all of them wept like rain, and could not bear to see and hear. And the thin horse walks on the side of the road of death, and it is incomprehensible. ”

The most serious evil consequence caused by this [***] post delivery system is the emergence of Li Zicheng! Li Zicheng, the most terrifying leader of the peasant war in the late Ming Dynasty, turned out to be a post man of Yinchuan Station, because he was oppressed in the post station and could not survive, so he threw himself into the peasant uprising.

Zhu Yuanzhang was bent on reviving the Ming Dynasty, so when he saw the post shop, he couldn't help but think: If the post delivery system is rectified at this time, can Li Zicheng not revolt? If there is no Li Zicheng, can I save my Ming Dynasty? Hey, forget it, it's useless to think about this, what qualifications do I have to rectify the post delivery system now? Let's take care of what's in front of you.

The convoy traveled on the official road for a while, and after walking for more than ten miles, it gradually left the most prosperous and lively center of Baishui* County, and the official road penetrated into the undulating hills, and the continuous mountains could be seen in front of it, which was to enter the dangerous territory.

Fang Guard waved his hand, and a swordsman left the team, and rode forward, apparently acting as a scout, to find out the way ahead first. Zhu Yuanzhang secretly praised in his heart, although this guy looks down on people a little, but his mind is quite delicate, and he knows that when he sends scouts, he is more than one cut better than ordinary people, and he should have been a soldier.

It is now the seventh year of the Apocalypse, and although the great peasant uprising has not yet broken out in full force, it is already very chaotic in Shaanxi. Later generations were accustomed to taking the uprising led by Baishui Wang Er in the first year of Chongzhen as the starting point of the peasant war at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and this is no problem, because the chaos began here.

But most people don't know that before the uprising of the second king of the white water, there had been many small uprisings sporadically, and these small uprisings spread over a wide area, occurred very frequently, and had a strong mobile surname.

Yang Sichang once wrote a note to Emperor Chongzhen, which made it very clear: "The scourge of thieves began in Wanli Jiwei (forty-seven years, 1619). Liaodong marched on the fourth road, and the third route was defeated, so the soldiers of Juniper, Wang Xuan, and Zhao Menglin's subordinates fled westward. At that time, Henan Fuchen Zhang I continued and Daochen Wang Jing invited him to attack Mengjin, beheaded more than 20 levels, and flew to the news. So he did not enter Tongguan, but went to Shanxi and Yansui, and did not dare to return to the army and fall into the grass. On the temple, at the beginning, because of the thorns in Liao, the spirit is all focused on the East, and it will be said that Shaanxi is not enough to think deeply. Unexpectedly, the reinforcements did not stop, and the escape turned into a lot. Hunger is recommended, and coercion is subordinate. The spark has been nineteen years now. ”

In the local annals, there are also sporadic records of the movement of early rebellious peasants from various places. For example, "Hanyin County Chronicles" said, "In the forty-third year of Wanli, thieves plundered the countryside, haunted impermanence, and caused local troubles. "Huozhou Chronicles" contains, "In the third year of the Apocalypse, Liukou rushed to Nanguan in Huozhou and killed several people. "Yangxian Chronicles" contains, "In July of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the thieves burst to the Xiyan River Dam and killed Zhou Zhihong, and the Yi was stirred. "Xixiang County Chronicles" said, "In the eighteenth year of Wanli, the thief Yu Shiqian led the crowd to invade the territory. In the seventh year of the Apocalypse, the thief king Kuilu led the crowd to commit crimes on the ground and other places. "Guoyi" also recorded the words of Yin Tonggao, the governor of Sichuan: "Shaanxi thieves entered Sichuan from Baoning and ravaged Guangyuan and Shenxuan. In August of the sixth year of the Apocalypse, Shen Xuan commanded Wu Sangui to kill three levels, a series of thieves. In December, he invaded from Meilin Ditch, guarded Wang Hu and other royal officials, beheaded Ji Shouen and other twelve people, and chased them to the Ningqiang realm. Qin and Shu are two provinces, and the matter is expedient, and the provincial governments in Shaanxi are seized in many ways. from it. ”

At this time, the territory of Shaanxi was already rumored and full of bandits, so the Ma family sent a third lady to Chengcheng * County, so they were so nervous and sent the most confidant and the most powerful team.

After a while, the swordsman sent out to serve as a scout returned from the front, and the second swordsman galloped forward, and the two took shifts. This kind of scout rotation is also a common method used by the army, and the scouts sent out must return within the specified time to report the situation in front, otherwise the army behind will assume that the scouts have been killed by the enemy and will make emergency preparations.

The returning swordsman smiled at the guard: "There are no traps within five miles ahead, only a few small thieves, lying on the hillside, and when they see my horse and sword, they are so frightened that they don't dare to attack our team." ”

Guard Fang nodded.

Zhu Yuanzhang also knew in his heart that the rogue robbery was also to choose the object, seeing that the scout sent by the other party was riding a good horse and hanging a Pu knife from his waist, as long as his brain was not bad, he knew that what was following him was not an ordinary business trip, and he couldn't rob it casually. Otherwise, if you don't grab something and lose your surname, then it will be a woo.

The convoy plunged headlong into the mountains, the scouts kept changing, and every half hour, a knife man returned to report the situation on the road ahead, while a new scout explored forward, and under such strict precautions, the convoy passed through the mountains between Chengcheng* County and Baishui* County, and entered the boundary of Chengcheng* County.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at it, huh? There was a desolation as far as the eye could see, a large area of farmland was deserted, no one cultivated it, and there were a few small dilapidated mud houses on the edge of the fields, which had obviously long been uninhabited and had become ruined.

Seeing that his face was shocked, Baishui Wang Er next to him gently patted him on the shoulder, and said in a low voice: "Brother, don't be surprised, Chengcheng * County has been like this for several years, not to mention that it is only now on the edge of Chengcheng * County, even if it is very close to the county seat, there are large areas of farmland abandoned." ”

"What's the explanation?" Although Zhu Yuanzhang has seen the world for hundreds of years, he is not an all-knowing and all-powerful superman, and he has not come to see a small county like Chengcheng * County when he was a bystander in the sky.

Wang Er said in a low voice: "The land in Chengcheng* County is even more barren than our Baishui* County, and there is a serious shortage of water. We are still barely able to support ourselves by the Baishui River, but there is no water here. But the government still has to collect heavy taxes, and it refuses to relax a little. Many people could not afford the heavy taxes, and did not want to be sent to the homes of the rich as slaves, so they abandoned their family property to flee the famine, or fled into the mountains to become homeless bandits, leaving large tracts of arable land uncultivated. ”

Speaking of this, Wang Er said with a slightly angry expression on his face: "Didn't that shirt say that the shirt family lacks land?" He should come to Chengcheng* County, enclose a piece of land casually, and ensure that no one cares about him. Wei Zhongxian's ancestral hall should not be built on the good land of our Baishui * County, and it should be cultivated here to save more land. ”

Zhu Yuanzhang was silent, a place has been eroded to this point, if he is still the emperor, he will definitely be exempted from taxes here, so that the peasants can recuperate and get through this difficult period, why don't you disdain your descendants and not learn from him these methods of governing the country?

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, Zhu Yuanzhang once vigorously encouraged the development of wasteland, and those who had no cattle were exempted from taxes for three years. Hongwu three years customized, the northern barren fields, call the villagers to reclaim the landless, the household to give 15 acres, there is no limit to the acres of spare power, are exempt from three years of tax. Twenty-eight years later, after twenty-seven years, no rent will be charged for newly cultivated land, no matter how large or small. If the magistrate increases the number of offenders, the offender shall be punished. Those who dare to have barren fields and displaced people, the whole family will be sent out to fill the army.

Under his encouragement policy, it was not easy to make the national strength of the Ming Dynasty flourish, but I didn't expect that more than two hundred years later, disdain for the descendants to make the fields of the Ming Dynasty abandoned and no one planted, which is simply unreasonable...... The officials who dared to make the land wasted, when they met Zhu Yuanzhang in the previous life, they really had a knife and a head, and no one could escape.

The great drought is not exempt from taxes, and the emperor of the apocalypse ...... Damn it! Chengcheng * county commander Zhang Douyao, local management is not effective...... Damn it! Officials who cannot assist the emperor in exercising benevolent government should all be killed!