Chapter 137: The Clouds Rise in All Directions (Medium)

In April of the sixth year of Chongzhen (the first year of Yonghe), Nanzhili, Nanjing

Like Beijing, as the other capital of the Ming Empire, there is also a magnificent palace city in Nanjing. It is a huge complex of buildings that is five miles long from north to south and four miles wide from east to west, surrounded by tall red walls, and the bright yellow glazed tiles of the roof shine in the sun.

Within the palace city, it is bounded by the Chengtian Gate, and to the north of the gate is the Forbidden City. Walk through the end gate and the noon gate, and there are three halls of "Fengtian", "Body" and "Huacani" standing in turn. The east and west sides also have "Wenhua Palace" and "Wuying Palace" respectively, as well as "Wenlou" and "Wulou". This is the place where the emperor receives the pilgrimage of hundreds of officials and holds a grand ceremony. And the north of the "three major halls", all the way to the Houzaimen, belongs to the "Houting" range. There were many palaces of various names, as well as an imperial garden, where the emperor's daily life took place.

In addition to this part of the Forbidden City, to the south of the Forbidden City, there is a wide imperial road that stretches straight from the Wulong Bridge outside the Chengtian Gate to the Hongwu Gate, the main gate of the palace. On the east side of the royal road, there are five yamen departments such as officials, households, rites, soldiers, and workers in addition to the criminal department, as well as several minor government departments such as Zongrenfu, Honglu Temple, Qintianjian, and Tai Hospital; To the west of the imperial road is the highest military institution of the Ming Empire, the Governor's Office of the Five Armies, as well as the location of the Yamen such as Jinyiwei, Tongzheng Envoy, and Taichang Temple.

However, such a huge and magnificent palace city, since Emperor Chengzu Yongle moved the capital to Beijing, has been abandoned and idle for 200 long years, and now it has long been depressed and dilapidated, and it has completely lost the atmosphere of the past. Since Emperor Yongle, except for Emperor Zhengde, who once went down to the south of the Yangtze River, the rest of the great emperors of the past dynasties have basically never left Beijing, and have come to visit the capital in the south.

As a result, because of the owner's perennial absence, most of the palaces in the Forbidden City of Nanjing were naturally in disrepair, and they were almost in ruins by the end of the Ming Dynasty. Even those who have always had officials stationed in the various ministries of Nanjing. Except for a few doorways, because there are officials who go to the ministry to inspect the office, so they are neatly tied, and most of them are also allowed to collapse and no one cares. A decaying appearance.

Although the current Nanjing court has already supported the Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai, this palace once again has an owner. However, the Donglin Party clique has always taken tax evasion as its own responsibility, and it is willing to pay a huge sum of millions of taels of silver. Renovate the palace for this new emperor you have erected?

Therefore, compared to the idle years in the past. At this time, the Forbidden City of Nanjing still did not change much. The vermilion palace walls of Chengtianmen are still covered with peeling marks everywhere, looking mottled. The roof of the castle tower is overgrown with lush trees and weeds, which have obviously not been cleaned for many years. There were finally a few eunuchs and guards standing at the gate of the palace, but none of them were listless, and they couldn't see the slightest royal atmosphere.

At this time, in the Wenhua Palace, the only one in the entire Forbidden City that has been slightly repaired, the second son of King Lu, the current Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai, is sitting boredly on the throne with paint peeling and cracking. Perfectly playing the role of a clay puppet, watching the ministers of Nanjing fighting below.

It seems that because of the critical situation, all the scholars and doctors under Danqi are all very angry, and they can no longer care about any style.

Of course, he didn't care about the respect for Zhu Yihai, the puppet emperor......

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In general, although the current Nanjing small court has not yet been invaded by soldiers, the situation is already very bad. Not to mention that there are scenting incense demons in the north. There are Australian thieves in the south, and Emperor Chongzhen in the west, even the remnants of the Jiangnan inch territory are also in turmoil.

Nowadays, the place with the most money in the Ming Dynasty is naturally the fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River with developed industry and commerce in Nanzhili and northern Zhejiang, and the huge wealth of tens of thousands of dollars abounds. But the Song Dynasty's "Suhu is familiar with the world". But it is already in the past, and now there are many kinds of mulberry trees in the countryside around Su and Lake, and the profits of mulberry and silkworm raising are far better than planting rice. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, it has entered the era of "Huguang is familiar with the world", and after Huguang and Jiangxi have been fully developed, they have replaced Jiangnan as the granary of the world. Even the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, which is known as rich. It is also necessary to rely on grain imports from Huguang, Jiangxi, and Lianghuai to meet the basic needs of a large number of non-agricultural population.

But the problem is that with the secret support and self-respect of people from all walks of life, since the early years of Chongzhen, the momentum of the peasant rebel army in southern Jiangxi has become increasingly rampant, causing great damage to Jiangxi's grain production and export. In view of the fact that the Wenxiangjiao rebel army was rampant in Huainan and Huaibei for a whole year, there was also no hope for the grain of the two Huai, so the "land of fish and rice" in the south of the Yangtze River became more and more dependent on the grain and rice import from Huguang.

However, now this Huguang grain road, which is vital to the lives of the small court in the south of the Yangtze River, has been cut off.

At the beginning of this month, the deposed emperor Chongzhen came to Wuchang to take over the military and political power of Huguang Province, and at the same time ordered the closure of the river and the ban on the export of grain from the lower reaches.

So, as soon as this bad news reached Nanjing, the entire Jiangnan water town exploded at once.

Although it is now the season of green and yellow, and the summer grain will be harvested for several months, there will not be many grain merchants who will go to Huguang to buy goods at this time, but they can't stand the market panic effect brought by this bad news! All of a sudden, thousands of citizens took out their treasured silver money to buy grain and hoard it at home, which invisibly pushed up the price of grain even further. In addition, there are many profiteers who take the opportunity to hoard Juqi, create rumors, and frantically speculate...... As a result, when the price of grain in Nanjing was the highest, it was once fried to the point that brown rice was sixteen taels of silver and one stone!

Not only did it encounter difficulties in importing grain, but the channels for exporting goods were also not smooth, since the Australian thieves invaded Zhejiang, although its troops temporarily stopped in Hangzhou and did not continue to invade Nanzhili. However, its sailors used the Shengsi Islands as a base to launch a long-range blockade at the mouth of the Yangtze River, intercepting and detaining any ship that dared to go to sea! As for the trade route to sell cotton cloth and other goods to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, it was also cut off by Emperor Chongzhen's river closure order!

There is no source of imported grain, and export goods are blocked! And it is surrounded on all sides by strong enemies...... Such heavy military and economic pressure suddenly overwhelmed this small imperial court, which was born less than half a year ago! Suddenly, textile factories in Suzhou, Songjiang and Wuxi went bankrupt, thousands of citizens lost their jobs, and the sharp rise in rice prices caused a series of rice grabs in the local markets. And at the same time. At least 300,000 or 400,000 war refugees fled north from Hangzhou and stayed in Huzhou, Jiaxing, and other places, bringing huge hidden dangers to public order and social burdens to the localities.

The direct consequence of this series of bad news is that the price of food in Nanjing City is three times a day, like a monkey drilling into the sky. The entire Jiangnan region is full of grief and complaints. It's not just the common people who can't afford to eat food. Even ordinary petty officials can only drink porridge every day to survive.

Faced with such a severe test, Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the small court in Nanjing, was anxious for a while. As a former assistant under Emperor Chongzhen. A career politician who has held the power of the world certainly does not fail to understand the threat of high food prices to the ruling order. However, the reason why the Donglin Party clique in Nanjing supported this unjustifiable Yonghe Emperor in the first place was to avoid paying taxes as much as possible. Therefore, Nanjing's household department has already exempted all the taxes that can be exempted, and at this time, even rats have to cry and move out of the treasury, how can there be reserves of grain to stabilize grain prices?

So, without any grain reserves, Zhou Yanru, who was forced to be anxious, was ruthless for a while, and sent Jinyiwei to lock up the profiteers who raised the price of grain. But the result was thunder and rain, and the ministers of the small court collectively rebelled against this, almost threatening to overthrow the cabinet. forced Zhou Yanru to take back the above-mentioned "chaotic life": the so-called profiteers who speculated on grain prices for huge profits were the big financiers behind the Donglin Party, where could this small court suppress?

From the beginning of its birth, the court of the Yonghe Emperor in Nanjing was an out-and-out small government. Not only is the so-called Yonghe Emperor a puppet of the Donglin Group, but even the old Shangshu above the imperial court must also serve the interests of the gentry in Jiangnan. This sounds a bit like the relationship between the American consortium and the government in later generations, but the gentry of the late Ming Dynasty were more short-sighted than the people at the helm of the American consortium. I also prefer to die......

In desperation, Zhou Yanru had no choice but to burst into tears in the court, trying to persuade the Donglin gentlemen and the financiers behind them to stop a little, and not to continue to speculate on grain prices at this time to make the country rich! Otherwise, it is almost ironclad that it will trigger a popular uprising and make it out of control!

But such a bottomless and weak protest was naturally unceremoniously pushed back by the iron-faced and selfless gentlemen to the final decision of the imperial court. The capital of Nanjing, which was left in the capital, entered a state of martial law from now on, and severely suppressed all the treacherous and rebellious people who looted the grain shops...... At the same time, Lu Weiqi, the military secretary of Yangzhou, was recalled, and Yangzhou and other strongholds in Jiangbei were abandoned, and more than 10,000 soldiers and horses in Jiangbei were withdrawn to prepare for the possible outbreak of chaos......

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After discussing the price of food and deciding to let the people starve to death, the courtiers began to discuss more serious military issues.

With the fall of most of Zhejiang Province. After deducting those immovable city defense troops, the field corps under the name of the Yonghe Emperor in Nanjing that really had a certain combat effectiveness was left with only more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under Lu Weiqi, the military secretary of Yangzhou.

Although he had previously decided to give up the land in Jiangbei and rely on the Yangtze River Heavenly Danger and the Nanjing Water Division, he could not consider the threat of the Smelling Fragrance Sect demon for the time being. But even so, Lu Weiqi Shangshu had no way to rely on this little force to deal with the Chongzhen Emperor in the west and the Australian thieves in the east at the same time. Not to mention that the imperial court must also maintain a certain amount of mobile troops in Nanjing, so as to suppress the rice-grabbing riots that may break out at any time in the major cities in the south of the Yangtze River.

Under such circumstances, the expansion of armaments and warfare naturally became the top priority of the Nanjing Imperial Court, as well as the top priority of all work!

“…… Now that the territory of the imperial court is declining, only the southeast corner is left, and there are strong enemies on all sides, it is impossible not to devote financial resources to recruit soldiers......"

Although he had just been slapped in the face on the issue of stabilizing grain prices, in line with his sense of responsibility as the chief assistant of the imperial court, Zhou Yanru still threw out the army expansion plan he had just conceived and recruited 100,000 troops in Songjiang, Suzhou and other important textile towns, on the one hand, to enrich several important strongholds such as Jingying and Xiaolingwei in Nanjing, and on the other hand, to give the local unemployed weavers a way to live, so that they would not gather to riot......

But Qian Qianyi immediately raised objections, and he said that since ancient times, if you want to train an army that can fight, you need to recruit soldiers from the peasants, because the countrymen are timid and honest, hard-working, and obey orders, while most of the people in the city have the habit of being a merchant, do not endure any hardships, and are better at stealing and playing tricks...... Therefore, it is better to recruit troops in the relatively barren mountainous areas of southern Anhui.

on this. Most of the ministers in the DPRK and China echoed it, and most of them had a fixed mode of thinking in their hearts, that is, the poorer they were, the more they could fight, and the richer they were, the more they would have pockets. For example, if the Mongolian Tartars and Liaodong Jiannu hadn't grown up in poor mountains and bad waters, and were so poor that they only had one life left, how could they be so fierce?

And so on. Most of the citizens in the rich land south of the Yangtze River are bound to be weak and cunning. I didn't dare to meet the enemy in battle, so it was better to go to the mountainous areas of southern Anhui to recruit troops...... Of course, the unemployed weavers in Songjiang and Suzhou should not be appeased, so they should all be arrested and sent to the official army as coolies!

So, Zhou Yanru had to pinch his nose and revise the recruitment plan, and then proposed the real highlight to ask for money!

According to his calculations, the cost of raising and training 100,000 troops, and driving them into battle, would cost at least five million taels of silver!

Because there is almost nothing in the arsenal of the Nanjing court today. Even the ordnance and robes had to be made on the fly, and a large number of artillery pieces had to be cast. Now Nanjing's treasury is basically empty, and the civil and military officials are in arrears for a month, and this huge amount of money can only be looted from the heads of the gentry, and it is useless to raise agricultural taxes and land taxes, and the Jiangnan area is the base camp of the Donglin Party gentry, and the peasants are either attached to the hands of the family officials or are the tenants of these people. Homesteaders here are as rare as giant pandas. Even if it is squeezed dry, it will not be able to knock out a few dollars.

Hearing that they wanted so much money, the Donglin gentlemen in the court immediately jumped up and reprimanded Zhou Yanru for being tyrannical and cruel to the people...... But Zhou Yanru said that he really had no choice, and if he wanted to pull out an army that could fight, he had to throw a lot of silver down.

No matter what era it is. In any country, the cost of building and maintaining a regularized professional army is enormous.

First of all, this requires the gathering of a large number of strong men and the payment of a settling-in allowance for each recruit.

Secondly, people who have just been recruited cannot yet be called real soldiers. Military training is necessary, for which instructors are hired, training grounds are established, food and equipment are provided, and a lot of money is spent to support the "para-soldiers" in these training.

Thirdly, after the completion of training, these soldiers still need to be paid, equipped, clothed, sheltered, and other benefits, which are indispensable recurrent expenses even in peacetime.

Then, in wartime, all kinds of expenses poured in like a tidal wave, such as ammunition, arrows, etc., of course, an absolute mass of consumables; The service life of guns and swords is actually quite limited, and they will have to be replaced in two or three battles at most.

In addition, in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the troops, it was necessary to purchase building materials to build fortresses, hire merchant ships and convoys to transport supplies, and prepare medicines and doctors to treat the wounded...... Either of them would mean an astronomical amount of terrible overhead.

Finally, the wounded and wounded soldiers are paid a pension, burial expenses, and an old soldier is also paid a pension.

To sum up, when a country undergoes a large-scale military expansion and reaches a certain level of professional military numbers, these attritions can quickly turn into enough terrorist expenditures to bring down the finances. No matter how rich the treasury is, it will be completely emptied in a very short time. This contradiction is particularly acute in traditional agrarian countries with relatively poor real monetary incomes.

Therefore, the so-called expensive soldiers, not expensive for a long time, is by no means as simple as a general statement.

And the corruption in the army will further exacerbate the corruption of the Ming army, which is enough to make anyone feel hopeless. Of the five million taels of silver budget, if one million taels of silver can be used in practice, it is already Amitabha Buddha thankfully.

But even if it knew that there would be such corruption, the imperial court had to pinch its nose and allocate military spending, otherwise the situation would only get worse. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )