Zhu Youzhen had actually read the report of the eunuch who guarded the town a long time ago. Long before Yang He, the governor of the three sides, Hu Tingyan, the governor of Fu, and Yue Hesheng, the governor of Yansui, reported to the imperial court, the local eunuchs in Shaanxi had already made it very clear in their reports to the imperial court. The so-called Shaanxi people's rebellion was not all a people's uprising, or it was simply a people's rebellion caused by a mutiny.

In the report, the eunuchs clearly told the imperial court that the current civil uprisings in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and other places were actually the product of the escape of the soldiers caused by the excessive plundering and oppression of the local garrisons (military households) and the soldiers in the border towns caused by the local governors, and the combination of the victims in the Shanxi region due to the oppression of the gentry and natural disasters.

Therefore, the main reason for the rebellion in the Shanxi, which has become more and more fierce and has become a prairie fire, is on the one hand the continuous natural disasters that have been going on for many years, and on the other hand, it is caused by the excessive deprivation and plunder of the local governors and gentry and landlords.

Zhu Youzhen's temperament is actually very strange. Because he has not received an orthodox imperial education, because he has been indoctrinated and brainwashed by Confucian scholars and Confucian classics for many years, this person lacks the consciousness of being an emperor, but is a bit like a pedantic Confucian who eats the ancient and does not read through the books.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen does not believe in the words of the eunuchs who are the most loyal to the emperor as the emperor's domestic slaves. On the contrary, he thinks that civil officials are all born to read sages, so civil officials are the most reliable and upright people. And the eunuchs were inherently evil and treacherous, so everything they said could not be trusted.

But Zhu Youzhen can not believe the words of the town guard eunuch, but now it is no longer the local town guard eunuch who says such things. Wu Huan, the governor of Shaanxi, has written to the imperial court to clearly tell the court about the bad local situation in Shaanxi.

It turned out that as early as a few years ago, Wu Zhiwang, the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi, who was known as the "Hongru of Guanzhong", and Yue Hesheng, the governor of Yansui, who was said to be a descendant of Yue Fei, were both terminally ill and unable to perform their duties.

In the face of the mutiny and civil mutiny raging everywhere. Hu Tingyan, the governor of Shaanxi, deceived himself and others, and whenever the prefecture and county reported the "thieves", he indiscriminately reprimanded them, believing that these thieves were all hungry people, and after the grain harvest in the summer of the following year, they would naturally disband and conceal the people's rebellion.

However, up to now, all the prefectures and counties in Shaanxi, Luochuan, Chunhua, Sanshui, Luoyang, Qingshui, Chengxian, Hancheng, Yijun, Shiquan, Yichuan, Suide, Jiayao, Jingning, Tongguan, Yangpingguan, Jinsuoguan and other places have all had bandit activities.

Hu Tingyan and Yue Hesheng saw that the problem was getting more and more serious, and the local government was completely unable to control the situation. But they still didn't want to report it to the court. Both sides are still passing the buck. Hu Tingyan complained about the rebellion of the border soldiers in Yue Harmoni's jurisdiction, and Yue Harmony accused the garrison in Hu Tingyan's jurisdiction of rebellion.

Wu Huan, the governor of Shaanxi, saw that the problem was getting more and more out of control, and the Liukou had a tendency to spread to other provinces, so he reported the true situation to the imperial court not long ago. He said in his recital that when the thieves first arose, there were few border thieves and many local thieves, but now they are all elite cavalry, with seven or eight thousand people at every turn, and the two governors concealed and failed to report and passed the buck to each other, which was the main reason for the rapid deterioration of the situation.

It was under these circumstances that the new emperor Zhu Youzhen realized that the so-called Shaanxi People's Rebellion was simply a mutiny under the banner of the People's Revolution. The so-called bandits and border thieves are basically the local garrisons of the imperial court and the soldiers of the border towns along the Great Wall. The governors and civil officials he had high hopes for were really a bunch of bastards who only knew how to abuse the soldiers and the people by eating and taking cards. It's such a bunch of bastards who have caused so much trouble for the imperial court.

Zhu Youzhen found that this group of civil officials is really inferior to Wei Zhongxian and these eunuchs. If it weren't for the fact that the matter was too big to hide, these things would still want to continue to perfunctory themselves.

According to Zhu Youzhen's original plan, he wanted to purge the upper echelons of the imperial court first, replace the eunuchs loyal to Wei Zhongxian, and then start to clean up local problems. But now, because of the chaos in Shaanxi Province, the hungry people in Shanxi, Henan and other places have rebelled accordingly, and the rogue has a tendency to spread to other provinces. The Huguang Patrol also reported that a large number of displaced people from Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan had entered Huguang.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen has no way to immediately carry out drastic personnel changes in the upper echelons of the imperial court. He could only continue to rely on Wei Zhongxian to stabilize the government that he was not very familiar with.

However, Wei Zhongxian now fully understands the attitude of the new emperor Zhu Youzhen towards him. He has completely let go of the government and is just waiting to be assigned to Nanjing. In this case, it is not very realistic for Zhu Youzhen to ask him for some ideas.

In fact, the relationship between the emperor and the ministers is very similar to the relationship between superiors and subordinates in the modern bureaucratic system with a strong feudal flavor of power.

The new leader does not trust and suppresses the cronies of the old leader. The cronies of the old leader know that they must be left out by the new leader, so they will not contribute to the work. At this time, if the new leader has a more mature leadership art, he will use various means to appease the cronies of the old leader and ask him to help stabilize the situation. Only when the new leader has grasped the overall situation will the cronies of the old leader be thoroughly purged.

Obviously, Zhu Youzhen, a 17-year-old young man, has not mastered any advanced leadership skills. However, fortunately, Wei Zhongxian's loyalty to the Emperor of the Apocalypse was still something he could take advantage of.

So when Zhu Youzhen told Wei Zhongxian, Emperor Daxing had said to him: "Wei Zhongxian is loyal and loyal, and he can count big things!" At that time, Wei Zhongxian was still involuntarily moved.

"Emperor Daxing once said to the old slave. The affairs of this government are nothing more than the two things of 'money' and 'soldiers'. But the problem now is that the imperial court is now short of money. ”

"Since the time of the temple master, the imperial court has spent at least one million taels of silver in Liaodong every year. The southeast Tusi rebellion also spends nearly 800,000 taels a year. Now, the imperial court has spent more than seven million taels on the eastern side of Liaodong, and although the Tusi turmoil in the southeast has been quelled, the imperial court has filled the hole in the southwest with more than five million taels of silver. ”

Seeing that the new emperor's face was colorless, Wei Zhongxian couldn't help but think of the distress of the Emperor of the Apocalypse about it back then. He said to Zhu Youzhen in a low voice: "No need to say it, the emperor also knows that the emperor in the inner palace has only left less than one million taels of silver to the emperor." On the household side, because of the collusion between the local gentry and the court officials, the national tax is also getting less and less. The Donglin Party's gang of Southeast families refused to let the imperial court collect commercial taxes even if they died. Therefore, the silver on the household side is only about 500,000 taels at most. ”

Sighing, feeling that the Ming Dynasty's home was not good, Wei Zhongxian continued: "If the emperor wants to pacify the civil unrest in Shaanxi and exterminate the local rogues, he can only start from the two places of 'money' and 'soldiers'. If you have money, you can buy food, and if you have food, you can give relief to the victims, and this can pinch off the roots of the homeless people. ”

"As for the matter of 'soldiers', in fact, in the final analysis, it is also a matter of 'money'. The slaves and maids in Shaanxi have already seen it. The main problem of the local governors was that while they demanded salaries from the imperial court, they also had to deduct the money of the officers and soldiers, so that the officers and soldiers who were originally going to suppress bandits broke up and became bandits. In fact, as long as the imperial court has paid enough money and sent a few reliable supervisors, so that the local governors can suppress the bandits with their hearts. ”

Therefore, from the point of view of the slave maid, whether it is Yang He's "suppressing and appeasing, focusing on care", or Hong Chengchou's "suppressing and soothing, first slashing and then soothing" will not work without money. Even if the place is quiet for a while, as long as the hungry people and the victims continue, this kind of thing will always cause trouble again. "Time Gate 1619

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Chapter 323 of the text The King of the Fallen Country & The Minister of the Fallen Country 2