Three-three-seven, harvest

In February of the sixth year of Chongzhen, the 36th battalion went out of Taihang, entered Hebei, and captured Zhaozhou, Xishan, Shunde, Zhending, etc.\\ and went west in Xingtai Motianling, to Wu'an, and defeated Zuo Liangyu's army; The garrison Cao Ming and the chief bookkeeper Wu Yingke were all killed in battle, and the 36th battalion greatly boosted its power in Hebei.

On February 26, the generals Wang Zhifu and Zu Kuan were in Shuicheng, Kedeng Prefecture. At that time, Kong Youde was waiting in the siege of the city, and the food was exhausted, but the city could escape, so it did not surrender. Wang Zhifu and others seized the parapet outside the water city gate, and Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming fled. Before the official army attacked the water city, they adopted the strategy of guerrilla attack on Liu Liangzuo and bombed the city with gunpowder. The city collapsed, and soldiers poured in. The adjutant general, Wang Laiping, was wounded and died. The city was broken, more than 1,000 people were captured, and the dead who committed suicide and threw themselves into the sea were incalculable.

Shandong is peaceful, the imperial court has more troops can be used to suppress bandits, the elite soldiers besieging Dengzhou turned back to Hebei, and encircled and suppressed the 36 battalions together with several soldiers and horses, and the peasant army was overwhelmed and had to retreat to the west of Shanxi again.

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, June has come to an end, the weather is hot, and the temperature is rising.

A busy scene in the countryside beneath Whitewater turned out to be farmers harvesting potatoes! Potatoes planted in the spring are ready to be harvested by the end of June, which is called "early potatoes", and the farmers obviously did not expect the growth cycle of this new crop to be so short, and it was only harvested in the summer?

Due to the short time period, many farmers are in disbelief! As the saying goes, in the golden autumn of October, our heavenly kingdom has been spring plowing and autumn harvest since ancient times, how can there be a reason to start harvesting grain at the end of June?

But when the villagers saw Xia Erduo dig out a few lumps of mud from the ground, wash them, cook them, and distribute them to everyone, the farmers' emotions were completely explosive: "Oh my God! It's really edible, and it tastes good. ”

The people of the three counties all fried the pot, and many people hurriedly ran to their fields with hoes, hurriedly digging up the soil, and digging out lumps of soil one by one, and then hurriedly put them into the pot to cook and taste them, until they were sure that their own taro was also ripe, so they hurriedly called their wives and children, three aunts and sisters-in-law, and harvested potatoes together.

As a result, the fields are crowded with people and a prosperous scene.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Xia Erduo walked side by side in the middle of a field, surrounded by busy farmers, who were carefully digging for fear of digging up the potatoes.

The so-called potato harvester is actually a machine similar to a trolley, inserted into the ground, pushed forward, the machine is running, the soil will turn up, and the potatoes that were originally buried in the ground will be turned to the ground, and they can be easily picked up in the back. The advantage of this machine is that it is fast and not strenuous, but the disadvantage is that the potatoes are often broken and damaged, so the potatoes you buy at the farmers' market are often strangely shaped, and there are holes on them.

However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there could be no potato harvester, and farmers could only rely on extremely rudimentary tools to cut potatoes, which had a different taste. From time to time, the joyful cries of the peasants came from the fields: "Hahaha, my family dug up a huge taro, so big...... This guy is at least three pounds......"

"Cut, only three catties dare to say giant, look at my ......"

"Whoa...... someone is crying: "My hoe accidentally dug up a taro...... This taro is at least a pound, and I have dug up dozens of dollars...... Woo...... Wow......"

"Don't cry, look at your little breath, wash it well, and eat it yourself......"

"Brothers, dig carefully...... Don't learn from that guy, it's your own who will dig up the loss......"

I have to say that the job of digging potatoes is more suitable for women and children, and the rough men accidentally dig up a potato, which provokes the mother-in-law to scold, but the women and children are much more delicate, and the digging of potatoes is very dexterous, not as careless and easy to do bad things as men.

A large number of potatoes were dug up in the fields of each family, and in a short time there were not enough baskets they had brought with them! Why? Because farmers miscalculated the yield of potatoes.

In the barren land of western Shaanxi, the yield of wheat, millet and other crops is generally about two stones (about two hundred and fifty catties) per mu, and the high point is only three stones, and the planting on the relatively fertile land by the Baishui River can only reach four stones (less than five hundred catties).

Farmers don't have much confidence in this fresh crop, and its growth cycle is so short, everyone dare not expect its yield to be higher than wheat and millet, so the average person picks a few small burdens, one load is a stone, and two or three burdens are logically enough to hold the yield of one acre of land.

But potatoes don't play cards according to common sense! The production capacity of this thing in the improved varieties of later generations exceeded 10,000 catties, and now of course there are no improved varieties, they planted the original American potatoes brought by Xia Erduo, and the yield is much worse than the improved varieties in later generations, but ...... Its yield can still easily reach one or two thousand catties.

The farmers dug and dug and began to feel that something was wrong: "Wow, my family has dug out five quintals, why haven't I finished digging yet?" ”

"My family is too...... My family's acre and a half of the ancestral field has been dug up eight loads of taro, oh my God! I haven't finished digging yet. ”

"Hey, that's a shame! With this amount, I can't eat it all for a year. ”

"Hahaha, I can finally stop starving this year......"

As the farmers dig, they chatted ecstatically with their neighbors in the fields next to them, happy and satisfied smiles crawling all over their faces. At this time, they saw Zhu Yuanzhang and Xia Erduo passing by the Tiankan, so they stopped what they were doing, ran to the Tiankan, and knelt in a long row along the Tiankan: "It's the eldest brother and the ...... Xia County."

"Thank you for the county master for instructing us to plant taro ......"

"Parental again......"

"Please Bow Our ......"

A relieved smile flashed on Zhu Yuanzhang's face, these are the people of the Ming Dynasty, he sincerely hopes that they can live happily, and now seeing their satisfied expressions, Zhu Yuanzhang himself feels extremely satisfied.

And Xia Erduo next to him was kneeling like this by the people, but he felt a little unbearable, and hurriedly went to help the farmer kneeling by the field, and said in his mouth: "Don't do this...... Kill me...... I didn't do anything either......"

"Get up, don't kneel......"

Xia Erduo was in a hurry, helping this and that.

"Lord Xiancheng, we have a question for you." The peasants said.

"Oh? If you have something to say, just ask. ”

"My lord, our soil has only been harvested at the end of June, is the land so empty for half a year, and we will wait for next spring to sow it? Isn't this a little too long? The farmers asked.

The farmers of our Celestial Empire are extremely industrious, except for the winter that is not suitable for farming, they never dare to let the land and people be idle, and always want to toss something out.

"Don't worry!" Xia Erduo said with a smile: "The taro is divided into two methods: early taro and autumn taro, you are harvesting the early taro now, we have to plant another round of autumn taro, everyone will rest for a month, at the end of July, the beginning of August, we will sow the taro again, and at the end of October and early November, you can harvest again." ”

"What? Wow! Can we do it again? The peasants were shocked: "Isn't that it, you can also harvest another one or two thousand catties of taro?" ”

"Exactly!"

"Wow!" It's really a frying pot now, and the peasants who just managed to help them up knelt down for Xia Erduo again: "Lord County, you are our reborn parents......"

"I'm going to set up an immortal tablet for you at home......"

"Has the county lord married? Do you want my daughter to ......?"

“……”

Xia Erduo looked at these people who were sincerely grateful to him, and his eyes were also chewing with tears, he turned his head to Zhu Yuanzhang and said, "I didn't expect it...... Helping the people is such a happy thing, even happier than the hundreds of taels of silver I have earned......"

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled faintly: "I feel the same!" ”

"This time, thanks to you and Xu Yuanwai for bringing me from Xi'an, otherwise how could I have the opportunity to do these things? I don't think the people should thank me, they should thank you. Xia Erduo said seriously.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled but didn't answer, he didn't need anyone to thank him, and he wasn't afraid of anyone to hate him! In the blink of an eye, this has been clear to him in the hundreds of years he has been floating in the sky.

He patted Xia Erduo on the shoulder and turned around to leave.

At this time, there was a person in the distance who suddenly ran over while shouting something loudly, and when he got closer, Zhu Yuanzhang saw that the person who came was Yang Hong, he waved the Tang newspaper of the imperial court in his hand, and hurriedly came to Zhu Yuanzhang and said: "The big thing is not good...... The big leader of the thirty-sixth battalion, King Zijin Liang used it for his own use, died! ”

"Oh?" Zhu Yuanzhang was slightly surprised, but he was not surprised, Zijin Liang died if he died, anyway, he is not a great character, the real powerful characters are Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, these two people did not die, and the thirty-sixth battalion would not collapse.

But Yang Hong is not as calm as him, because for people other than Zhu Yuanzhang, they don't know who Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong are, they only know that the biggest leader of the 36th battalion, Zijin Liang Wang Ziyong, is the most powerful, once he dies, I don't know what kind of changes will be brought to the overall situation of the peasant uprising.

Yang Hong hurriedly said: "In June, Deng Xi, the general soldier of Si*Sichuan, shot and killed Zijin Liang, the leader of the righteous army, in Jiyuan, and the righteous army retreated to Lin County. The Ming general Yang Yuchun chased and killed the rebels and died in ambush. The righteous army used its banner to trap and kill other officers and soldiers, the Sichuan army was defeated, and on the fifth day of the first month, the army of Tusima Fengyi was also defeated by the righteous army in Houjiazhuang, and Ma Fengyi was killed in battle. ”

Hearing him say this, Zhu Yuanzhang was slightly surprised: "Tusima Fengyi, huh?" I want to think about it...... This man seems to be a little impressed...... By the way, she is the daughter-in-law of the famous general Qin Liangyu...... Led by ...... Kawanaka White Pole Soldiers? ”——

Thirty-two variations: about the death of the king for his own use. The records of various historical books are very inconsistent. In the fiftieth year of Kangxi's "Wu'an County Chronicles", volume 15, "Biography of Wang Shiyi", "In the seventh year of Chongzhen, thieves entered Guantouchuan Town, Wu'an, from the right side of the mountain and set fire to slaughter, which was like a boil. Zhang Guozhu, the magistrate of the county, reported to the army to patrol Yang Daotai, and the committee (Hebei soldier patrol battalion garrison king) Shiyi led 150 soldiers to strangle the thief in Xiaodian Village in the west of the county. Shiyi bravely bent his bow and shot the thief Zijin Liang, and died in the brain. The thieves were furious, and the bees were surging. Unable to support the morale, he was killed, 146 soldiers were killed, and only four survived. When the incident was heard, the funeral place was carried out, and the dead soldiers were also buried, and Zhang ordered the stone to remember. "Here, there must be a mistake in timing.

In the first volume of "Suikou Jiluo", in May of the sixth year of Chongzhen, Deng Xi attacked the thief in Shanyang Mountain in Jiyuan and shot Zijin Liang to die. Or the king may die of sickness for his own use, and his people will be scattered to other tribes. ”

In September of the sixth year, Zhang Yingchang, the general soldier of the Ming Dynasty, was in Pingshan County, Hebei Province, "won the thief Zhang Youyi, that is, a lamp." I knew that Qu Shuai Zijin Liang died in May. ”

Volume 6 of "Huailing Liukou Always Record" was recorded in April of the sixth year of Chongzhen, "Zijin Liang died in Jiyuan, and his party returned to Chuang General (Li Zicheng)." Later, Zuo Liangyu captured a thief, saying that he died of illness and was buried in the mountain. At that time, the generals falsely claimed that they had died by arrows. ”

"Historical Materials of the Peasant Uprising in the Late Ming Dynasty" contains the inscription of the military department for the Shanxi Jieyin incident, saying that on December 14 of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Du Sihe Renlong attacked the rebel army in Guanzhuangtun of Yicheng County at night, "Zijin Liang had four arrows in his arm and one arrow in his throat", "he was seriously injured and fled".

According to the above historical data, it can be deduced that King Zijin Liang should have died of illness for his own use, and then the officers and soldiers who pursued him, that is, Deng Xi, the general soldier of the Sichuan army, lied to the above that he shot him in order to fight for merit, so there was a chaotic situation in the historical materials, some of them were remembered as dying of illness, and some of them were killed...... God knows what is going on, and we future generations will not be able to confirm it with our own eyes, so we can only choose one or the other. (To be continued.)

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