Although through ten years, Zheng Xunrui's thinking, there are still traces of hundreds of years later, he has been perfectly integrated into the Ming Dynasty Chongzhen years, for a lot of things that do not conform to common sense, also have an unusual understanding, after all, not hundreds of years later, the quality and culture of the people, it is impossible to compare, many unbearable things, or silently endure, this degree of endurance, is a few hundred years later people can not imagine things.

Despite the advantages of combining ancient and modern, Zheng Xunrui's judgment is still biased in some aspects, the most obvious being in the matter of collecting agricultural taxes that have been in arrears over the years.

According to Zheng Xunrui's understanding, once the Ming Dynasty began to collect the arrears of agricultural taxes over the years, there would definitely be a big chaos, after all, the people had no food to eat, and there would definitely be a commotion, but more than a month has passed, and the situation in various places is still stable, and even the Liukou who are active in Shanxi, Henan, Sichuan, and Huguang have not had much news.

This made Zheng Xunrui a little confused, why did Chongzhen start to collect arrears of agricultural taxes in the early years, and there would be large-scale riots, but now it will not appear, could it be that the adults in the court are prescient, can it be that the emperor is unpredictable.

In order to be able to grasp the actual situation, Zheng Xunrui has asked Zheng Jinhong to send scouts to the north to investigate, and asked Hong Xintao, who is stationed in Xi'an, to pay attention to the situation in Shaanxi, and the information collected has been continuously sent to Huai'an, which has many things that Zheng Xunrui can not accept, for example, some officials, taking advantage of the opportunity of collecting agricultural taxes in arrears over the years, wantonly exploited the people, levy high fire consumption, and fill their own pockets, which has made the people unbearable.

It can be said that this time the tax was levied, and the practice of some officials was even worse than in the first year of Chongzhen.

Why is it that under such circumstances, the common people can still tolerate it, can it be said that the common people are really loyal to the monarch, and can they really endure all unfair treatment. Are you really willing to wait for death?

Zheng Xunrui looked at many documents and fell into hard thought, this is by no means that he has nothing to do, because it involves the issue of the governing philosophy. Is there a deviation in the theory that water can carry a boat and can also overturn a boat?

After a short period of judgment, Zheng Xunrui felt that things were not so simple, and the people were definitely going to rebel, but the autumn harvest had just passed. Although the people have been exploited by the officials, they can barely survive, once the government acts too much and pushes the people to a dead end, then the problem will definitely erupt, and once the problem erupts, the shock caused by it is not something that the imperial court can deal with.

Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of the five provinces, was very anxious.

It has been a while since he stepped down as the governor of Huguang and was specifically responsible for the extermination of the Liukou, but the Liukou have not been exterminated. On the contrary, its activities are more cautious, and its whereabouts have become very strange.

More than a year has passed, and the Liukou have changed from operating in the plains to operating between the mountains and the plains, and Lu Xiangsheng has sent countless scouts to find out where the main force of the Liukou is, but they have not succeeded.

However, Lu Xiangsheng still figured out one thing, that is, the central area of the Liukou activities has been concentrated in Henan, and Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong spend most of their time in Henan. They have become very cautious, and they have also changed their previous raiding methods, and have begun to merge with the common people in the mountains.

There has also been some change in the situation of the Rogues, that is, the emergence of several new leaders. Including Liu Zongmin, who originally belonged to Li Zicheng, who was also a native of Mizhi, Shaanxi, led a part of the Liukou, who was active in Shanxi, Henan, Sichuan and the vast areas of Hu, with very strong mobility, and it was the implementation of the previous combat style of the Liukou. That is to move quickly, mainly to loot money and grain, although the sensation caused is not very big, but it is also a headache for local governments.

Liu Guoneng, Lin Chengyang, Scorpion Block, Zhang Yichuan, etc., were all the leaders of the Liukou before, and their power was not very large, so that during the Xingyang Conference, they were not able to be counted as a battalion alone, and in the process of the imperial court and the Zheng family's army to exterminate the Liukou, they all suffered a lot of losses, but with the extermination of most of the Liukou leaders, their strength slowly began to grow, and they have become an eye-catching force among the Liukou.

Finally, there are several righteous sons of Zhang Xianzhong, among which the eldest Sun Kewang has been killed by the Zheng family, and the remaining three righteous sons Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi have grown up rapidly, these people are already very brave, plus they followed Zhang Xianzhong to fight around, especially when facing the Zheng family army in Kuizhou, Sichuan, it was a fierce battle of blood and fire, so the ability became very powerful, and quickly rose among the rogues and became a headache for the government.

As for Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, their whereabouts are even more mysterious.

Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, has become the leader of the Liukou, led less than 100 people, fled from Banzhou in Sichuan, returned to Henan, hibernated for a period of time, with the help of Gu Junen and others, soon began to recruit sergeants, the strength was strengthened, and Li Zicheng appeared more cautious in battle, every battle, after a long period of planning, the battle was unexpected, there was no law to follow, almost a success, although the victory was not very big, at most it was able to take the county, But the impact is significant.

And Li Zicheng also paid attention to one point, that is, he no longer blindly recruited sergeants and did not blindly expand the team, which made his actions more rapid and almost never encountered a great drag.

Zhang Xianzhong once had a period of time, was the most powerful among the rogues, and once calculated Li Zicheng, but unfortunately when he was in Kuizhou, he was hit by the Zheng Jiajun and suffered heavy losses.

After escaping from Kuizhou, Zhang Xianzhong also hibernated for a while, and his righteous descendants were expected to be killed by Zheng Jiajun, which made him grief-stricken, but with extraordinary courage and extraordinary ability, Zhang Xianzhong got rid of the decadent situation in a short period of time and quickly began to recruit sergeants.

After many battles, even to the edge of being exterminated, Zhang Xianzhong became calm, the means he took was to enter the mountainous area to develop, he had the experience of developing in the mountains of Kuizhou, and after entering Henan, Shanxi and other places, he was able to give full play to these advantages.

After years of fighting, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong have become cautious and suspicious, they generally do not show up directly, most of the battles are the soldiers under their command, and they are very keen, for the encirclement and suppression of the government, they can often learn the news in advance, according to the strength of the official army, quickly make a judgment.

This allowed them to develop in Henan, Shanxi, Huguang and Sichuan, and also made Lu Xiangsheng have no good way to treat them.

Lu Xiangsheng knows a lot about the situation of the Liukou, but unfortunately he has no good way to deal with it, let alone extermination, the most important thing is that the money and food are limited, although he is the governor of the five provinces, responsible for the eradication of the Liukou, can mobilize the army in Shanxi, Shanxi, Huguang, Henan and Sichuan and other places, but the successive years of famine, so that these places are unable to feed the army, and the imperial court is in arrears of military salaries, so that the sergeants do not have the slightest morale, such an army is sent out, can not be exterminated Liukou not to mention, The common people along the way will also suffer.

For a time, the common people hated the army of the imperial court and even welcomed the rogues.

This made Lu Xiangsheng helpless, he had written to the emperor and the court several times, imploring the court to allocate a certain amount of money and grain, for the complete eradication of the Liukou, but unfortunately his performance, not paid attention to it at all, the court has not felt the threat of the Liukou for a long time, in fact, it is not taken seriously, in this case, thinking of asking the household to allocate a large amount of money and food, it is almost impossible.

Fortunately, the rogues did not make large-scale moves, which also allowed Lu Xiangsheng to barely maintain stability in the north.

Seeing the imperial court's report on the collection of arrears of agricultural taxes over the years, Lu Xiangsheng's heart sank, he was very aware of the situation in the north, and also knew that the common people were actually still struggling on the death line, and finally this year did not encounter any natural disasters, and they were able to harvest some grain, but they had to pay the arrears of taxes before, which was not even more tragic than encountering natural disasters.

Lu Xiangsheng had no way to stop the matter decided by the imperial court, he could only watch Henan, Shanxi, Huguang and Sichuan and other places begin to collect agricultural taxes on a large scale, knowing the stakes, what he can do is to ask the troops in various places to always pay attention to the movements of the Liukou and avoid the Liukou launching a large-scale attack at this time.

After receiving these reports, Lu Xiangsheng, who was furious, couldn't help but curse, he was originally opposed to this time to collect agricultural taxes in arrears, and he also knew that officials at all levels could get a lot of benefits from it, but only the people could not survive. I am afraid that there will be a lot of resistance, and the officials will treat these boycotts as rogues.

Lu Xiangsheng's scolding spread quickly, which made his relationship with local officials delicate, as the governor of the five provinces, if he did not get local support, it would be whimsical to want to exterminate the liukou.

However, Lu Xiangsheng didn't pay attention to this aspect for the time being, and he didn't think about the consequences, he didn't think about the consequences, he thought that this was not a problem, he was the governor of the five provinces appointed by the imperial court, and he was responsible for the extermination of the Liukou, even if the local people had opinions, they didn't dare to disobey the orders of the governor's office of the five provinces. (To be continued.) )