In the Huguang Province of the Ming Dynasty, there is a place that is more special. This place is the birthplace of Emperor Jiajing, and it has been renamed Anlu Prefecture of the former Huguang Province of Chengtianfu decades ago.

On the 20th day of August of the 10th year of Jiajing, Xu Zhen, the inspector of Nanluokou in Huguang Guizhou, asked Yu'an Luzhou to establish a Beijing division. The lower rite department discussed: "There is no basis for the construction of the Beijing division in the ceremony. Taizu originated in Haozhou, changed the state to the government, compared to Anlu, the matter is the same, and it should be promoted to the government to govern the long. ”

Therefore, the household department asked the name of the county of the king's government, and the officials of the second department of rites cast the seal, so that they could go to the stewardship, and cut off the county of the state to govern it. The edict is followed, and the name of the Dingfu is said: Chengtian, and Guo County is attached: Zhong Xiang, Jingmen Prefecture of Jingzhou, Dangyang, Qianjiang County, and Weiyang Prefecture and Jingling County are subordinate to it.

The "Xingdu Chronicles" and "Chengtian Dazhi" edited by Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty both said: "It is the year, the speaker asks Jian'an Luzhou to be the Beijing teacher, and the official said: The capital of the Son of Heaven can be called the capital of the Beijing Division, and Emperor Wen Dingding Beijing, the land of the dynasty of all countries, there is no need to build the Beijing Division in Anlu." However, the emperor's dragon flying domain, and the emperor's mausoleum, should be changed to a state such as the story of Fengyang. On the can be played, the name of the house is called Chengtian, attached to Guo County said Zhongxiang, to re-tomb. ”

The names of Chengtian Mansion and Zhongxiang County were both appointed by Emperor Jiajing. Although the change of state to government is "such as the story of Fengyang" as the official said, Emperor Jiajing is not limited to this, but is born of Zunxian, and the name of his hometown is to be compared with Beijing Shuntian and Nanjing Yingtian. Its jurisdiction has also been extended to five counties and two states.

As the birthplace of Emperor Jiajing and the "Land of Longxing", and because of the sudden transfer of the emperor's lineage, both Emperor Jiajing and Emperor Jiajing's Longqing, Wanli and other emperors have built their hometown Anlu as a capital comparable to Beijing and Nanjing. Therefore, Chengtianfu is also known as Xingdu in the political system of the Ming Dynasty.

Although Chengtianfu was neither the actual administrative capital of the Ming Dynasty like Beijing, nor the central administrative system that completely replicated Beijing due to historical reasons like Nanjing, because the ancestral homes of several generations of emperors were here, whether it was the eunuchs guarding the town or the defense troops, there were higher-level administrative deployments in the Chengtianfu.

Unlike other military guards that were under the direct management of the Huguang Command Envoy, the Chengtianwei was directly managed by the central government of the Ming Dynasty. The supreme commander of Chengtianwei is not the commander of Chengtianwei, but the eunuch of Chengtianfu.

Since the Fuxing Society began to farm the entire north of the Yangtze River, all the military guards under the direct command of Huguang in the five prefectures of Jingzhou, Wuchang, Huangzhou, Xiangyang, and Yunyang in Hubei have been taken over by the Fuxing Army. In less than half a year, the officers and their families at all levels, from the commanders to the 100 households, were sent to Zhijiang for labor reform. All the military fields under the jurisdiction of the military guards of the five prefectures began to enter the stage of farm transformation.

Although Chengtianwei was directly under the central government of the Ming Dynasty and was directly managed by the local town guards and eunuchs, it was not fundamentally different from other military guards.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, not to mention the local military guards, even the Beijing camp at the foot of the Son of Heaven, which claimed to be 200,000 people, was rotten, and even there was no soldier who could fight among them. Therefore, although the name of Chengtianwei is good, it seems to have more face than ordinary guards, but Chengtianwei, who should have five or six thousand people, is just two imperial tombs left behind in the division, and some of them can still be seen on the surface, and they are full of full-time honor guards.

The other military households of Chengtianwei were also serf soldiers who farmed land for officers at all levels.

The eunuch thing is very interesting. Maybe it's a psychological perversion caused by physical disability. The general eunuchs, mainly those who have been castrated into the palace since childhood, are not like Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxiang, who have any political ambitions. Their love for money is more than ordinary people.

Although Chengtianfu is known as Xingdu, it is one of the three capital divisions in the legal theory of the Ming Dynasty, but because it is far away from the political center and is located in the remote inland of Huguang, it not only has no political rights at all, but also is very weak in economic interests. Therefore, whether it is in the struggle for power or in obtaining extra money, as the eunuch of Chengtianfu, Mu Nan, who seems to be in a high position, has nothing to do.

Although nominally at the same level as the eunuchs of Nanjing, the duties of the eunuchs of Chengtianfu were only to lead the Chengtianwei and manage and defend several imperial tombs. Managing the Imperial Tomb is the most difficult thing to do. It's your duty to do it well, and if you don't do it well, you'll lose your head. For Mu Nan, who is nearly fifty years old, his position as a eunuch in Chengtianfu is just a safe retirement.

Mu Nan was in the position of guarding the eunuch in Chengtianwei, but he was just like the generals of those local guards, eating empty salaries. This situation made him from the inner court of the capital feel very bitter.

The average military general eats empty salary, and the more serious one is to eat seven and vomit three. That is to say, if you eat seven layers of military salary, you will actually pay three layers of military salary. This situation refers to the fact that an army of 30 men reported 100 men. In other words, even if the military salaries of those 30 people were not paid in full, and the officers had to deduct a part of them, they would still be paid in general.

Mu Nan is a eunuch, not a general. As a close minister of the Son of Heaven, this method of eating empty wages is also different from others, and his old man plays without vomiting. That is to say, there were originally thirty people under Mu Nan's command, and he reported that there were 100 people, and after the imperial court issued the "floating" military salary, he would put all the military salaries into his own pocket, and not pay a penny to the soldiers under his command.

Originally, it wasn't a big deal for Mu Nan to do this. The serfs of the guards and military households, as officers of all ranks, were in fact tenant farmers who were treated very poorly. In feudal society, even tenant farmers who were better treated did not have a reason for the master to pay money. Therefore, it is not a big deal not to pay these military households, who are already serfs.

But the problem lies in the fact that although Huguang Province is still nominally under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, it is no longer the Huguang Governor who has nothing to do in the Yamen of the Huguang Governor's Yamen in Wuchang Mansion, but the Fuxing Society, which has more than 40,000 modern armed military forces.

At present, the Fuxing Society has not only mastered the guards of various provinces in Hubei through the Fuxing Army, but has also begun to expand its influence to the north with Jingzhou Mansion as the center. In the face of the expansion of the power of the Revival Society, the Chengtian Mansion bore the brunt.

The contradiction between the Fuxing Society and Mu Nan is not a big deal, but because the Fuxing Society has carried out land reform and farm construction in Jingmen Prefecture, which is subordinate to Chengtianfu, the military households under Chengtianwei have begun to flee to the farms of the Fuxing Society in large numbers