August 22, everything is appropriate.

Zhu Di left the eldest prince Zhu Gaochi, Dao Yan, and Qi Guogong Qiu Fu to guard Nanjing.

Zhu Neng, the Governor of the Left Army and the Duke of Chengguo, was appointed as the commander of the army, leading Zhang Wu, Marquis of Chengyang, Huoli Huozhen, Marquis of Tong'an, Wang Zhong, Marquis of Jing'an, Li Yuan, Marquis of Anping, and Fangkuan, Marquis of Si'en, with a total of 57,000 soldiers and cavalry, and only 32,000 auxiliary soldiers and civilians were recruited due to the extremely short supply line.

The army marched out from the Shence Gate and Jinchuan Gate on the north side of the inner city of Nanjing, the Taiping Gate and Chaoyang Gate on the east side, and some soldiers and horses went down the river by boat.

Because Zhu Di crossed the river into Jinchuanmen to claim the emperor, and the Jiangnan region looked down on the wind, so since Zhu Di ascended the throne, his invincible Yan army iron cavalry has not actually set foot in the core areas of the south of the Yangtze River such as Susongjia Lake.

On the upper floor of the Shence Gate, several green-robed officials of the cabinet were gathering to watch the army leave the city.

Spears and spears are like forests, flags cover the sky, and the cold armor shines in the scorching sun; The armor was mottled with blood that could not be washed off, reflecting a palpitating light in the sunlight

Such a majestic and murderous army made the civil servants who stood at the head of the city and watched couldn't help but feel frightened, and even those who claimed to be accustomed to seeing the world secretly beat drums in their hearts.

There are a total of seven members in the cabinet, Xie Jin, Huang Huai, Yang Shiqi, Hu Guang, Jin Youzi, Yang Rong, and Hu Yan.

Except for Jin Youzi, the remaining six people are here.

In fact, in terms of position, except for Hu Guang, who does not stand in line, and Jin Youzi, who is determined to be a lonely minister, the position of the remaining five people is inclined to the eldest prince Zhu Gaochi, but it is just a matter of degree.

But this is external, and once this group of the brightest young talents of the Ming Dynasty gets together, the positions between each other are even more interesting.

Of course, since the emperor's decision has been decided, no one dares to say that it is not good to say that it is not good to enter the mu in front of his colleagues who have a competitive relationship, so he can only discuss it from the side without leaving a word.

As the person with the highest status in the cabinet, Xie Jin was the first to speak, and he looked at the horizon and chanted a Tang poem: "The bow back Xia Ming sword shines on the frost, and the autumn wind goes out of Xianyang." If you haven't received the Tianzi River, you don't plan to look back at your hometown. ”

After groaning, Xie Jin, who provoked the conversation, looked at Hu Yan, who was a little straightforward, and Hu Yan was recommended by him, this person's standard Confucian demeanor, every word and deed is unruly.

"The small German river, the great German Dunhua, this heaven and earth is so big." Hu Yan had to say a few words because of Xie Jin's face, but he didn't want to say it deeply, just borrowed a sentence from "The Mean" to express his attitude paradoxically.

Hu Guang would not fall to one side until anything had settled, so he stood at the end, shrunk his neck and tried to hide himself to reduce his sense of existence.

"That's not the case, virtue can't push government decrees." Huang Huai and Xie Jin have similar qualifications, since it is his turn to speak, he naturally speaks at this time to argue Hu Yan, "It is a national event to enter the mu of service, and it must be pushed with a strong wrist like military armor." ”

As soon as the topic opened, Yang Shiqi, who was slightly inferior to Xie Jin and Huang Huai, naturally didn't have too many scruples.

"From these Hou uncles who lead the army, it is not difficult to see what Your Majesty means."

"Oh?" Hu Yan was curious about what Yang Shiqi meant.

There are a total of two soldiers in the cabinet, one is Jin Youzi, a typical invincible tactical staff officer, and the role of Shu Hanfa Zheng. The other is Yang Rong, who is not good at front-line staff officers, but is better at planning and logistics such as tuntian, border defense, and food and salary, which is a bit similar to the low-profile version of Zhuge Wuhou.

Yang Shiqi looked at Yang Rong and said, "Brother Mian Ren will explain?" ”

Yang Rong, who was warming up with Yang Shiqi, softened his stiff face when he listened to Xie Jin's speech, and then took over: "Needless to say, Zhu Neng, the Duke of Chengguo, will definitely be the lord of the Ding in the future." ”

Everyone nodded, Zhu Neng is only thirty-two years old now, but he followed Zhu Di from the north of the desert to Jingnan to fight all over the field, and there are handsome talents, when Zhu Di took the division around, it was Zhu Neng and Zhang Yu who commanded the Yan army.

In the Battle of Jingnan, Zhu Neng defeated Geng Bingwen and Li Jinglong in succession, and captured Ping'an and other famous generals of the Southern Army in the decisive battle of Lingbi.

If nothing else, Zhu Neng in the future will definitely become the white jade pillar of the Ming Dynasty, and build the purple gold beam of the sea.

Yang Rongfu said again: "As for the two marquises, Zhang Wu, Marquis of Chengyang, was originally the right guard of Yanshan for a hundred households, and the Marquis of Tong'an was really a Tartar official, and he was originally a guard for thousands of households in Yanshan, all of whom were fierce generals under His Majesty, known for their courage and open-mindedness. ”

"Jing'an Hou Wang Zhong is a strange soldier in every battle, Anping Hou Li Yuan is good at camouflage and ambush, these two people were raised and surrendered during the Battle of Ulzhou, and Si'en Hou Fangkuan is the only remaining representative of the Daning system, and the old man is tight."

Speaking of this, Yang Rong stopped talking, and several smart people in the cabinet also understood what he meant.

Zhu Di's selection of generals took a lot of thought.

As the head coach, Zhu Neng, the Duke of Chengguo, can hold the field in terms of ability and status, the two marquis of the descendant line dare to fight, and the three equally tested generals and earls also have room to complement each other and display their strengths.

"Then what is Your Majesty doing?" Xie Jin asked suddenly.

"Do you want to see Jiangnan with your own eyes?"

Jin Youzi rode a mule with Zhu Di, followed by Ji Gang, the commander of Jinyiwei, Tong Xin, the commander of Zhongyiwei, and several old guards who followed Zhu Di during the period of King Yan.

Several people dressed as pedestrians, this time Jin Youzi pretended to be the master, and Zhu Di and others pretended to be guards, and they did not stay away from the route of the army.

In fact, to be precise, surrounded by armies.

After leaving the city from Nanjing, more than 50,000 soldiers and horses marched by land and water, along the Yangtze River to the east, passing through Zhenjiang Mansion and Changzhou Mansion, but in four or five days, they entered Suzhou Mansion, Songjiang Mansion, Jiaxing Mansion and Huzhou Mansion around Taihu Lake, which is commonly known as the Jiangnan Heavy Endowment Area of Susongjiahu.

The army was divided into six roads with five Hou Bo as generals, and these six roads were like surging rivers in the ranks of soldiers and horses, and with the advance from east to south, in each county, town, and township, it would be divided into smaller tributaries.

If you look at it from the sky, it really looks like a flowing river composed of people, penetrating into every capillary of the behemoth of Susongjiahu Prefecture.

Within a radius of fifty miles around Zhu Di, there were thousands of loyal and righteous cavalry scattered over different distances, and they only needed a sound of the dwell, and they could come in an instant.

Unlike the northern region, which has a solid ruling foundation, this place is extremely unfamiliar to Zhu Di. He'd been in the north for so long that he couldn't remember being there as a child.

In the same autumn, unlike the yellow sand in Saibei and the maple forest in Beiping, the autumn in the south of the Yangtze River is continuous and soft, and the air is mixed with the elegant fragrance of osmanthus, as if you are in the middle of landscape paintings.

"Everyone says that Jiangnan is good, and tourists are only old in Jiangnan."

On the dirt road of Songjiang Mansion, you can see the mooing of water buffalo in the paddy fields by the roadside, the farmers who are barefoot making their last efforts, the children jumping around, and the women who speak the soft language of Wu Nong.

Zhu Di took the reins of the mule and sighed and said: "The wind in the south of the Yangtze River is warm, and it has been smoked for a long time. ”

"Your Excellency is from Jiangbei?"

Zhu Di's voice was not deliberately lowered, and was listened to by several scholars who came from the same direction as Daozuo.

Several scholars were dressed in the attire of the academy students, although they were all slightly plainly dressed, but their demeanor revealed a sense of arrogance that only scholars have.

Zhu Di signaled the guards not to be nervous, and simply stopped the mule.

The young gentleman who rode the donkey ahead first also stopped the donkey, and after giving his hand, he asked in a questioning tone: "Since Your Excellency has been to Jiangnan, you must have experienced the customs and customs of Jiangnan. ”

The other students also chattered like little magpies, but there were no unpleasant words like countrymen, and their soft accents could not hear the meaning of anger, but only quoted the scriptures in a strange way.

After discussing it to the point where there was nothing more to say, a gentleman finally asked.

"Can I ask your Excellency your name?"

Another young scholar next to him answered: "If Your Excellency knew the scenery and people in Jiangnan, you would definitely not be as emotional as you are now!" We scholars who read the books of the sages are meant to be sincere and righteous, so how can we be biased and criticized at will? ”

Zhu Di frowned slightly.

Jin Youzi, who pretended to be the master, hurriedly stood in front and said with a smile: "I am not very familiar with your place when I first come to Jiangnan, and I hope to forgive me for the offense." ”

Jin Youzi was not afraid of these Jiangnan scholars, but he was very worried that these young scholars would anger His Majesty the Emperor and cause unforeseen disasters - after all, His Majesty the Emperor has been a little short-tempered recently.

As Jin Youzi spoke, he stretched out his right hand to the side, and made a gesture of "please", signaling these young scholars to move on.

Hearing Jin Youzi's Jiangxi accent, the faces of the scholars were a little pale, Jiangxi is also a place of culture, and the scholars who came to Jiangnan from Jiangxi to visit the book nodded and wanted to continue to move forward.

Two groups of people passed by the wrong donkey and mule.

And one of the scholars glanced at it inadvertently, but suddenly fell silent with fright.

"What's wrong with you?" Seeing that he was staying where he was, his companion asked curiously.

"Mongols!" His fingers trembled as he pointed to Tong Xin with his hat.

"Mongols?!"

The other three were also startled and followed his point.

I saw that hidden in Jin Youzi's team, there was a man with a sturdy body, slender arms like an ape, and bright eyes, looking at them.

And this man, on the saddle of the mule, there was a bulging thing wrapped in cloth.

"Really Mongolians!" The four exclaimed in unison.

Although they have not seen the fierceness and barbarism of the grassland Hu people like the older generation, the notoriety of the Mongolians in Jiangnan has been deeply rooted in the bone marrow with the story of their grandmother since childhood, and they are all terrified for a while, and they can't help but tremble.

Especially, this Mongolian man looks weird!

If Jiang Xinghuo is here, I'm afraid he will blurt out a sentence.

- What a Durant!

Of course, Tong Xin, as the world's No. 1 marksman, has long arms and eyes like eagle eyes are necessary conditions, and it is this strange appearance condition that makes him the first to be exposed in the crowd.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Jin Youzi hurriedly scolded: "Wait for a panic! ”

When the four of them heard this, they came back to their senses and immediately shifted their attention to Jin Youzi in front of them.

At this time, they didn't care about any insults, and they retreated like frightened rabbits, looking like they were facing a great enemy and a tiger's den.

"This is a descendant of the Mongolian people I hired in Quanzhou, and I have long been no different from the Han people, not a thief, don't be afraid."

Hearing this, the four scholars were stunned, and only then did they breathe a sigh of relief when they saw that the other party really had no bad intentions.

Jin Youzi secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Although these Jiangnan scholars are scholars, their heads are still sober, or they are quite foolish, and they did not disappoint themselves.

If they really scattered and fled, it would be difficult to say whether they would be killed by Tong Xin.

After all, once they escaped, Tong Xin and Ji Gang could not guarantee whether these people would not be afraid of the Mongols because they recognized the emperor, so they went to the opposition of the people to report to them.

They can't afford any eventuality.

"I'm really a Mongol, and I'm scared of you." The silent Tong Xin spoke, speaking fluent Fengyang official dialect.

And the scholar on the other side, after calming down a little, Chong Tong Xinnunu, led by him, said softly: "Relax your mind, there are many Mongolians in Quanzhou since the former dynasty city. When we came to Songjiang Mansion this time, didn't we also meet many Mongolian descendants? You must have forgotten that it has been the day of the Yaji recently, and now that the war is in chaos, it is not uncommon for rich people to hire some fierce Mongolian guards. ”

I don't know if he believes it or not, but the three companions did.

Everyone was suddenly relieved.

Yes, the person in front of him is a guard, who is only responsible for protecting the master, so naturally there is no need to be afraid.

They slackened and became their usual appearance again.

"Since it's a guard, it's fine."

"What are we going to do?"

"Let's go, let's go!"

After several scholars finished discussing, they each went forward, but the speed of the donkey was somewhat wild.

Ji Gang and the others also breathed a sigh of relief when they saw this, and scolded in their hearts, sure enough, they were stupid to read, and they were fooled so quickly.

They packed up their minds and moved on.

When the students disappeared from sight, Tong Xin raised his head and whistled, and a Haidongqing in the sky spread his wings when he heard the sound.

"Your Majesty, I'm afraid that these people are disguised, do you want to" Ji Gang made a throat-slitting gesture.

"No, you don't."

Zhu Di rode the mule slowly, and in front of them, the three thousand horsemen of Zhongyiwei were scattered around in groups of hundreds of households, and there was no danger.

Zhu Di didn't seem to be in a hurry at all, and kept observing the customs and customs of Jiangnan along the way.

"Why don't these farmers plow the land with buffaloes?"

Zhu Di stopped the mule again, looked at the farmers working on the terraces not far away, and asked questions.

I saw a green buffalo wrapped in a layer of mud and looking fat and strong, lying lazily on the edge of the ridge to bask in the sun.

The peasants, on the other hand, were all bent high, their backs bent high, sweating in the scorching sun, and toiling in knee-deep paddy fields.

The green cow leisurely "Mou", as if it was the uncle.

Jin Youzi was speechless for a while.

"You don't know?" Zhu Di was a little strange, "Or is their cow sick?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, Jiangxi is mountainous, so there are many terraced fields, which is not quite the same as a large flat paddy field like Susongjia Lake in the south of the Yangtze River."

Jin Youzi tried his best to explain, and then, under Zhu Di's eyes, he took some copper coins and walked to the paddy field for questioning.

Zhu Di watched Jin Youzi lift the hem of his robe, follow the ridge, his boots one foot deep and one foot shallow, avoid the crops, and walk along the ridge.

Jin Youzi talked with the peasants for a while, and then walked back along the ridge road.

Ignoring the mud on his feet, Jin Youzi explained to the emperor: "It's not that they don't want to use a buffalo, or that the buffalo is sick, but that the crops here are really grown in different shades. ”

Zhu Di nodded.

Jin Youzi was about to ride on the mule and continue to move forward, but Zhu Di suddenly asked.

"How much do they actually pay in taxes here?"

Jin Youzi said: "Now it is still the edict of Emperor Taizu Gao in the 21st year of Hongwu, the average level of the Ming Dynasty is half a bucket of rice per mu, and the Songjiang Mansion is about three buckets of rice. ”

According to the statistics of the 26th year of Hongwu, the eight prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River (Suzhou, Songjiang, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Yingtian, Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Hangzhou, that is, today's southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang) collected a total of 6.86 million stone of rice and wheat, accounting for 23.3% of the country's total tax grain. Among the prefectures, Suzhou is the largest, and the tax and grain paid by Suzhou alone is nearly one-tenth of the country's.

The high tax system for the grain-producing areas in the south of the Yangtze River is not only due to the factors of imperial power, but also to the actual financial needs.

But in any case, this theoretical value is still affordable for the landlords and peasants.

"What they told you, it's also three buckets of rice?"

Jin Youzi nodded, and Zhu Di breathed a sigh of relief and continued to move forward.

And this time, after walking about two miles, Zhu Di stopped again.

"What's that?"

In the distance, on the canal that irrigates the paddy fields, there is a wooden basin floating in which something seems to be there.

"Isn't it whose girl's basin hasn't floated away?" Jin Youzi speculated.

"It's not."

Tong Xin squinted his eyes and stared for a moment, and said affirmatively: "There is a baby wrapped in it." ”

"Go and get it." Zhu Di said simply.

Tong Xin nodded, whipped the black mule under his crotch with a whip, and flew off his horse beautifully without stopping when he reached the edge of the canal, and then jumped on the edge of the canal in three steps and two steps, and with a light stroke of his long arm, he dragged the wooden basin that slowly floated down the canal.

When Tong Xin came back with a wooden basin, Zhu Di and the others saw that it was a cute little girl.

The new book sacrifices to the sky and helps me become an immortal! Sacrifice a copy of "Senior is still here, senior sister, please respect yourself", maybe 20,000 will be ordered tomorrow after the sacrifice?

(End of chapter)