"Now abolish the slaves and forgive the people of the world, after the drums fall on the twentieth of June, except for the slaves and government officials, the people have a curfew."

"At night, the local government will pay for the deed of redemption, and the local gentry and officials shall not violate it, and the slaves of each government may bind their masters and escort them to the nearest military camp!"

】

"If there are slaves and bandits who make trouble at night, the local guard camp can be killed immediately, and those of the nine bandits who do not report it will be exiled to Lingbei."

On the tenth day of June in the twentieth year of the Apocalypse, when there was a great drought in the world and the people fled one after another, Zhu Youzhen's second killing move against the Jiangnan gentry appeared on the stage of history.

With this notice posted everywhere on the city wall, the imperial store, and the entrance of the government office, the people and gentry of the three provinces in the south of the Yangtze River were shaken.

Not only that, Zhu Youzhen also made a detailed plan for the slaves in the newspaper.

The plan is divided into three steps:

First, each family is responsible for each family, and whoever enslaves you, you will guard the door of your house, waiting for the county government to come and redeem you.

Second, some people were cruising in the streets, and once any of the gentry dared to resist, they immediately rushed over to support, and at the same time escorted the rebellious gentry to the barracks outside the city.

Third, send some people to urge the county government to redeem themselves for everyone, and if you see the county government doing things, you don't have to interfere, if the county government doesn't do things, you will tie up the county officials and play the government office.

It's not sophisticated, but it's not sophisticated, so it's suitable for minions.

"The court is going to ransom us!"

"Don't be a slave!"

"Really?!"

"Where? Let me see? ”

On the first day the news spread, many of the slaves were the first to get the news.

They walked down the streets, newspapers and periodicals were sold on the streets, and they went to the royal store, and there were constant notices in the royal store.

The law of slaves was abolished, and the local government paid for the purchase of silver, and if the yamen and gentry did not obey it, the slaves could bind the yamen officials and gentry to the nearest military camp.

For this reason, the Ming Dynasty publicized it ten days in advance, and at the same time announced that it would be carried out on the night of June 20, and that the servants would not be affected by the curfew that night.

That is to say, that night, the government would first send people to negotiate with the gentry in various places to redeem the slaves.

If the local government does not act, they can tie up the officials and take them to the nearest military camp.

If the gentry did not want to, they could tie up the gentry and take them to the nearest barracks.

After this news spread, all parts of the world were shaken, first of all, after the officials had been invited by the imperial court to invite Yingzhou women and Nanyang women to come to the Central Plains, they had begun to take the lead in redeeming their slaves.

Of course, a large number of officials are scolding and releasing people at the same time.

Since the way of the formation of slaves in the Ming Dynasty was mainly through the dedication of righteous men as servants, sons-in-law as servants, and deeds of sale as servants, many officials, nobles, and wealthy families bought slaves at very low prices.

When the slave grows up, the price rises, and the owner of the house usually chooses to keep or resell it to others.

Thus, slavery is actually also a kind of "trade", a disguised trade of the population.

If the court ransomes the slaves of the world at the price of the original deed of sale, then all the gentry will be equivalent to being cut off a pile of meat.

Slaves who were originally worth tens of millions of taels had to be sold at the original price of millions of taels.

This is only the main source of slaves in the north, and in the case of the Jiangnan region, the source is more complicated.

Since the beginning of the Jiajing period, the Ming Dynasty has been extremely harsh in taxation.

Such a strict tax caused a large number of ordinary people to bring their own land and property to the gentry's house in order to avoid the harsh taxation.

This is why there are so many slaves in Jiangnan, and why Jiangnan can hide so many people.

If you don't take refuge, you will be stripped to death, which is the main theme of the Ming Dynasty during the Jiajing and Wanli periods, and this situation makes the status of the master and slave in the Jiangnan region very different, and the slave does not dare to betray the master at will.

Of course, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, was clearly opposed to raising slaves, except for some military slaves, Zhu Yuanzhang personally did not support private slave raising.

But in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, under the operation of civil officials, there were male and female servants in the families of dignitaries and dignitaries.

Therefore, the abolition of the slavery system seems to be Zhu Youzhen's means against the gentry in Jiangnan, but in fact, he offended the noble class to death.

However, even so, no powerful people dared to resist, because Zhu Youzhen firmly grasped the military power.

They were like the landlord Haoqiang who was relocated by Liu Bang in the early Han Dynasty, and they gritted their teeth with hatred for Zhu Youzhen, but they had to laugh together.

Once the hundred officials, nobles, and military generals compromised, the gentry who had been dismantled from the slave system were fish and meat on the eucalyptus board, and they were left to be slaughtered by Zhu You.

From June 10 to June 20, before the local government began to implement the new policy, more than 200,000 slaves of the officials in the official offices had been redeemed, which shows how unscrupulous the officials of the Ming Dynasty were in the use of slaves.

When June 20 came, the people everywhere had already bought the things they needed for the second day, and before the time came, many people had already returned home, and they did not dare to go out of their homes.

"What about Zhang Xian?!"

"They went out early in the morning, and they said that they were free, and the government would give them money to ransom them."

In Liu's Mansion in Guanyin Fang, Nanjing, Liu Juren looked at the empty mansion and couldn't stop panicking.

He found his master, and when he was asked, he panicked and told the slaves about the collective departure of the slaves in the morning.

At this moment, not only Liu Juren was panicking, but even the old master, who was also a slave, was also very panicked.

People who are as flustered as they are, as well as the gentry of the entire Jiangnan and the whole world.

It's just that at the same time as they were panicking, the railway station square in the east of Nanjing was already crowded with a crowd of people at this moment.

One by one, they were dressed in coarse linen clothes, wearing scarves on their heads, and cloth shoes on their feet, and they were all gathered here at this moment, and the number was probably no less than 10,000.

The number of people of such a scale naturally attracted the attention of the Gong Guard Battalion stationed in Nanjing.

The battalion of 3,000 guards patrolled around the square, warning some of the leading among them not to take advantage of the disturbance and attack the palace, or they would be killed.

In the face of the warning of the Gong Guard Battalion, the slaves appeared to be very obedient.

After the warning, the general of the Gongwei battalion also reminded them that there are four military camps in Nanjing City today, corresponding to the four city gates of Jiangdong, Guanyin, Qilin, and Shang.

The meaning of the generals was obvious, if the gentry dared to bully them, or refused the mediation of the two county governments of Jiangning and Shangyuan in Nanjing, then they could escort people to the city gate.

"Yes!"

"Okay!"

Having received the verbal promise of the general, many of the servants were gearing up, as if waiting for the night.

There are 10,000 people in just one square, and it is not difficult to imagine how many slaves the rich and noble families in Nanjing City raised.

"Winter—"

When dusk came, and the twilight drums sounded, all the people closed their doors and windows, and the servants divided themselves into ranks, and went from house to house, ready to send men to the door to wait for the people of the government to come and ransom them.

If you look down from the sky, this huge crowd is probably no less than 100,000.

"Beep-"

"Be vigilant! If you let Banzai be frightened, you are ready to apologize with death! ”

When the slaves began to enter the city and were seen by the patrolling Terracotta Division, the Terracotta Cavalry began to whistle in the empty streets.

After the whistle sounded at the head of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, Wei Liangqing, who was in charge of defending the Imperial City, also shouted for Yiluanwei to lift his spirits.

"Winter ...... Winter! ”

It seems that the twilight drum is not beating on the drum surface, but on the chests of the entire Nanjing City.

"Planer—"

In the Qianqing Palace, in the face of the farce outside, Zhu Youxiao ignored it, he was concocting his wood at the moment, ready to contribute to his three major halls in Nanjing.

"Hooray...... This...... Don't you care? ”

Standing on one side, Wei Zhongxian was cautious on the surface, and he wanted to cry without tears in his heart.

An edict from the king of Qi that the six hundred slaves he bought will be dispersed tonight, which are the slaves he used to support his old age......

"Tube?" Zhu Youxiao wiped the sweat from his forehead, he was still a little fat with a short beard, but it could be seen that he had controlled his diet, otherwise it would not be difficult to rise to two hundred catties.

"What's there to do?" Zhu Youxiao asked Wei Zhongxian rhetorically:

"You haven't ever understood the enmity between the Jiangnan slave and the master of the family."

"If you don't do it today, you will do it later."

"Then in that case, wouldn't it be better to let my brother do this thing in advance?"

"Okay, it's hot and dry, go get me some crispy mountains to cool off."

Zhu Youxiao waved his hand impatiently to let Wei Zhongxian leave, and Wei Zhongxian could only withdraw from the Qianqing Palace with a sad face after answering.

At the same time as he withdrew from the Qianqing Palace, the servants outside the palace became more and more loud.

Before their anti-slavery activities began, some of them had been discussing for ten days, and they had basically eaten up the methods handed down by the King of Qi.

Therefore, they followed the steps described by the King of Qi in the newspaper, surrounded the mansions of the gentry, the powerful, the wealthy, and the noble in Nanjing, and waited for the county government to send someone to negotiate.

In order to make a strong noise, they shouted the slogan "Loyal to the monarch and patriotism, eradicate the master and servant, and the king of Qi Chitose" at the gates of various mansions and on the streets.

Such slogans continued to be sounded and never stopped, as if they felt that if they stopped, the gentry would send men to clean them up.

"How dare you! How dare you! How dare these slaves turn against me! ”

In the attic of the Duke of Wei's mansion, Xu Hongji, the Duke of Wei, took a clairvoyant mirror to look at the slaves on the street outside the mansion holding torches and shouting 'King Chitose of Qi', he didn't expect that this group of slaves really dared to come to "coerce" him as a prince.

"Hooray doesn't care?!"

Xu Hongji looked at his son Xu Wenjue beside him, but Xu Wenjue shook his head bitterly.

Xu Hongji was also very uncomfortable when he saw this, but fortunately, there were dozens of guards in the Guogong Mansion, so that he would not be left unavailable.

"It's coming, it's coming! The people from the county government are here! ”

When it was completely dark, Xu Hongji did not wait for the people who came to the palace, but only waited for the officials of the county government of Jiangning County, Nanjing.

"Open the door ......"

At this moment, Xu Hongji's face was pale, and he had no choice but to let Xu Wenjue open the door.

Seeing this, Xu Wenjue could only take dozens of guards and carry boxes of deed of sale to the door of the Guogong Mansion.

"Tuk Tuk ......"

After the knock on the door of the Guogong Mansion, Xu Wenjue opened the door like frost hitting an eggplant, and the five or six boxes of deed of sale behind him made the thousands of tenants and slaves who surrounded the Wei Guogong Mansion even more red-eyed.

They are all heads of families, which also means that behind them are thousands of families, thousands or even tens of thousands.

"The Duke of Wei, 11,237 copies of the deed of sale, 64,370 taels of silver."

Xu Wenjue said bitterly, you must know that these slaves, he can obviously give them to other rich families at a price of more than 100,000 taels, but now he can only return the capital.

"Let's look it up."

The one who took the lead was the magistrate of Jiangning County, and behind him were more than 100 ordinary officials from the county government.

After all, it is the government of the state, and if you send a master or a warden, it is a bit too unkind.

"Spread out! Don't stand in the way of the adults redeeming us for us! ”

Seeing that the county government really wanted to redeem them for them, some of the slaves immediately asked the big guy to give up a piece of land to settle accounts.

Under their arrangement, a vacant land was vacated, and the county officials began to knock on the plan and settle accounts according to the price of the deed of sale.

After the calculation, they should burn the one, and the officials next to them will write down the person's name, place of origin, and selling price.

"Zhang Wuliu, who should be from the Longmen Pass of Tianfu, sold his body for two taels and six dollars."

"Zhang Huarui, a native of Xijiangkou in Tianfu, sold his body for three or two whole silver."

"He inspires ......"

A person's name is pronounced, and some slaves shout that it is themselves, and some shout that it is their brother, their sister-in-law, their wife, their sister, and so on......

Such a scene lasted for a whole hour, and during this hour, the entire city of Nanjing was carrying out a mighty "abolition of slavery" action.

The gentry with less power could only honestly cooperate with the government under the supervision of the slaves, and the gentry with a little more power did not honestly say that the deed paper was elsewhere and not here, and deliberately said that it was particularly distant.

In the face of such people, the slaves often swarmed up and dragged these former high-ranking gentry into the crowd and beat them.

These three fists and two feet came up, and immediately beat them beyond recognition, and the servants also tied them up, tied a sign saying "disrespectful to the court" to his back, and escorted them to a nearby military camp.

Some gentry were beaten and immediately confessed, while others were beaten and confessed immediately.

Some of them were beaten and did not confess, and they went to the barracks to confess.

There were all of them, that is, those who were not beaten and did not confess when they went to the barracks.

Often when they were about to arrive at the barracks and saw the brocade guards at the gate of the barracks, they explained one after another.

Such a bully of the soft and afraid of the hard, naturally it is inevitable that the slaves will be beaten again.

Some of the slaves beat me and shouted, "Why enslave me!" ”

These were only a microcosm of the whole world that night, and many of the gentry were not even entertained by the doors, and were not prepared to discuss the matter of slaves with the officials of the local yamen.

Faced with this situation, the servants directly chose to bang on the door, knock down the wall to rush into it, and if they caught the master of the house, they were beaten, and put on various signs, dragged them around the street, and sent them to the barracks.

The Suzhou Xu family, the Songjiang Xu family, the Hangzhou Qian family, and the heads of the major Jiangnan clans, who were still clamoring yesterday, were all subjected to undignified means by the slaves after choosing interests.

They were beaten by the slaves to the point of inhuman form, and they were punished to kneel under the plaque of the mansion, and the slaves in front of the mansion counted the exploits he had exploited the slaves over the years.

During this period, there was tax evasion, and officials recorded it one after another.

Perhaps it was too angry, and many of the slaves inevitably went up and punched each other again.

If it weren't for the presence of officials, I'm afraid some of the servants would have vented their anger at the female curls in the master's house.

Such scenes were staged in various places of the Ming Dynasty tonight, which can be called the most nightmarish night of the Ming gentry.

The small and medium-sized gentry who saw the miserable situation of other family owners did not dare to stop the slaves and officials, and cooperated with the county government to redeem the slaves.

"Free!"

"Woohoo-"

Standing at the head of the palace, a forty-year-old living official looked at the scene of the torches like dragons and the gentry being beaten outside the palace, and listened to the sound of freedom coming from outside the palace, and couldn't help but write a full three pages of heavy ink for this night.

It was only one night, and it was obvious that it could not be completely abolished.

When the rooster began to crow, there were no more than 10,000 slaves redeemed by Nanjing Cen, and more than 100,000 people were still hanging on to the slave status.

It is foreseeable that the bright night of the coming month will be filled with slaves holding torches high just to restore their freedom......

"In just one night, more than 16,000 slaves were redeemed in the capital alone."

"Your Highness, I'm afraid that the population of my Ming Dynasty is no less than 30 million!"

At noon on June 21, the twentieth year of the Apocalypse, when Li Changgeng, the secretary of the household department, came to Zhu Youzhen with the abolitionist population of Daxing and Wanping counties in Beijing last night, he couldn't help but be shocked when he saw the greed of the gentry.

He was motioned by Zhu Youzhen to sit down, and there were seven people who appeared in the carrier hall with him, including Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting, Chengde, Wang Chengen, Sun Chengzong, Cao Huachun, and Lu Wenzhao.

Counting him and Zhu Youzhen, there are a total of nine people in the hall, and these nine people can determine the political direction of the Ming Dynasty.

After Li Changgeng sat down, Zhu Youzhen said bluntly:

"The number of civil slaves and tenant farmers is probably not less than 10 million, and the number of tenants who have signed deeds of sale is probably much more than I thought."

"I expected it to be a million people before, but now it seems that there are probably more than a million, it should be millions of people."

"With so many people, they have to move to the seven provinces outside the northern customs and the three southern provinces, and the Railway Bureau and the Relocation Department must be ready."

Zhu Youzhen said, and then continued:

"The Metropolitan Procuratorate should send enough officials to take advantage of this time to recover all the taxes owed by the gentry in various places through the people's report and second."

"The gentry could not afford so much grain and silver, so they used the land to pay off their debts, so that the cost of recovering the gentry's land would be avoided."

Zhu Youzhen said lightly, but with this sentence, it was decided that these things were things that he had been planning for a long time.

Perhaps the only thing that should be thankful is the gentry who moved away before June 20.

Although they went overseas, their accounts were also wiped out, which is a blessing in misfortune.

"In the three provinces south of the Yangtze River, how many people have migrated out this year?"

After Zhu Youzhen finished speaking, without waiting for Hong Chengchou and them to speak, he continued to ask Li Changgeng.

In this regard, Li Changgeng also skillfully said: "About 3.2 million people, basically all of them have moved to Nanzhou and the old port. ”

"At present, the Han people in the provinces outside the Guanxi are about 5 million in Jiugang, about 1.2 million in Nanzhou, about 4.6 million in Jiaozhi, and about 2.7 million in Luchuan."

"About 450,000 in Wusizang, about 130,000 in Lingbei, about 230,000 in Anxi, and about 170,000 in Beiting."

"About 360,000 alone, about 3.27 million in Modong, about 4.15 million in Donghai, about 420,000 in Beishan, and about 1.88 million in Yingzhou."

"The number of Han people in the national dynasty is more than 155.3 million, and the total population is about 180 million."

Li Changgeng reported on the situation of the population, which Zhu Youzhen had not known for several years.

After these years of drought, the population of the Ming Dynasty exceeded 60 million on paper to 180 million in 20 years, and nearly 25 million Han people migrated outside the original two capitals and thirteen provinces.

These Han people, together with the nearly 25 million local Shaomin, that is to say, in total, the ratio of Han Chinese to Shaomin in these thirteen provinces outside Guanwai, overseas, and Indochina has averaged to 50 to 50.

Of course, some provinces are all Han Chinese, some have only a small number of young people, and some still have more young people than Han people, such as Yingzhou and Luchuan.

Overall, however, the immigration situation is generally good.

When the abolitionist movement is over, more than one million people will emigrate to these thirteen provinces, and the proportion of Han Chinese will be even higher.

With the increase of the Han people, the local area will gradually become sinicized, and the situation like Annan in the early Ming Dynasty will naturally not appear again.

"Recently, ......" Sun Chengzong, who was the head of the Donglin Party and the cabinet, suddenly spoke, and everyone looked at him, and he continued:

"Recently, the situation of land sales in various parts of the world has been getting worse, and the land in the hands of the imperial court has been more than 48 million mu."

"According to the local land price, these acres are worth at least more than 260 million taels of silver."

"This amount of silver, the dynasty can't take out this money no matter what, even if the officials of the dynasty don't eat or drink, it will take four years to come out."

"In addition, 11 of the two capitals and thirteen provinces in the Central Plains have suffered from drought this year, and more than 600 million mu of cultivated land have either reduced production or have no harvest, and this year's field grain is probably less than 40 million stones."

"With an annual income of 50 million taels, I'm afraid it will be even more difficult to reach ......"

After Sun Chengzong's words were finished, Zhu Youzhen understood that he had encountered the same experience as Chongzhen in this year in history.

The lack of money in the country will be a major challenge for the purchase of arable land, the construction of railways, or the resettlement of real borders.

However, in the face of this challenge, Zhu Youzhen said calmly:

"Silver, Sun Ge doesn't have to worry about it......"

As he spoke, Zhu Youzhen looked at Li Changgeng, who had just taken a sip of tea:

"What is the total denomination of banknotes printed by the Department of Finance?"

"Banknotes?" Hearing this word, although it was impossible to understand at first, as soon as they thought that paper and currency were connected together, Sun Chengzong and others immediately knew what the so-called paper money was.

"The Department of Finance printed banknotes with a denomination of 10 taels, a total of 30 million bills, with a total denomination of 300 million ......"

When Li Changgeng spoke, Sun Chengzong and the others couldn't sit still.

Printing 300 million banknotes similar to treasure banknotes in one go, if these 300 million banknotes are issued, it is only a matter of time before the private economy of the Ming Dynasty is crushed.

At this moment, everyone looked at Zhu Youzhen, and they all wanted to know what he thought.

Facing their gaze, Zhu Youzhen also slowly put down the cup: "The 300 million taels of banknotes ......"