Chapter 284: Emancipating the Untouchables
Because of the last Kaesong agreement, Xiao Ming stipulated that the Goryeo Kingdom should no longer deploy any troops in North Pyongan Province, but now the Jurchens occupy a large number of land in Pyongan Province, and from time to time there is friction with the local Goryeo government and people, the form is already a mess!
At that time, Dongdan was captured by the Jurchens, and when Xiao Ming evacuated the entire Liaodong, the Jin State once again forced Goryeo to become a vassal state of Dajin, and Li Minbo once asked Park Yongqing if he was taking the opportunity to recover Sinuiju and Nahui Pyongan North Province, and because of Xiao Ming's strong force, Goryeo wrote a letter claiming to be a vassal state of Jin but did not dare to violate anything of the Kaesong agreement.
But now in the face of Xiao Ming's question, Li Minbo really doesn't know how to answer, as for the second question, several important ports in the south, which were burned by the rebels when they were exterminated by the rebels, and now if they want to recover, the court can't scoop up the money, and Li Minbo can save the throne has hollowed out the entire kingdom!
Xiao Ming's advice to him was: to deal with the invasion of the Jurchens, it is necessary to use troops, if you wait for the Jurchens to become bigger in the north, the whole of Goryeo will be eroded by the Jurchens, as for the port construction in the south, it is Xiao Ming who helps them rebuild, but the right to use the port must be leased to Xiao Ming for fifty years!
Li Minbo didn't dare to make the decision, and decided to convene a court meeting to discuss it with the ministers, of course Xiao Ming had no opinion, but such a suggestion was equivalent to betraying the country, and some ministers of insight in the court meeting immediately began to oppose fiercely, claiming that Xiao Ming was a tiger, and now the Jurchens are wolves, but tigers are more dangerous!
Even some ministers rolled in the court and cried, saying that the current Goryeo Kingdom was about to face the disaster of national destruction! But Park Yongqing and others in the court did not express any opinions, he coldly watched the performance of the ministers below, while Li Minbo was terrified and didn't know why, the ministers who supported Xiao Ming's proposal in the court and those who opposed it were almost beaten together!
In the end, Li Min-bak asked the opinion of the prison state Park Yongqing, and Park Yongqing told him that the Jurchens had already entered Goryeo as many as hundreds of thousands, and these people had no experience in farming, only knew fishing, hunting and grazing, and that they had posed a mortal threat to Goryeo in terms of numbers, and it was imperative to use troops against them, while the untouchable uprising in the south was better than relying on Xiao Ming's army to deal with it.
The reconstruction of the port requires a lot of money, and now that the treasury of Goryeo is empty, people scoop up money to help Goryeo rebuild the port, but these ports are not taken away by Xiao Ming, and it will not stay in Goryeo at that time, on the contrary, if Xiao Ming sends people to deal with the rebels in the south, it will also be a big trouble for the henchmen of Goryeo! They were able to send a large number of troops from the south to the north, and they also saved a lot of money and food, which is a good thing, not a bad thing!
Li Minbo was persuaded at this time, so he agreed to Xiao Ming's overall plan the next day, but he attached a clause, that is, he hoped that Xiao Ming would send troops to deal with the rebels and untouchable forces in the south! As soon as Xiao Ming heard that it was exactly what I wanted, he was still worried about how to think about sending troops to the south of Goryeo, since the king of Goryeo asked for this, it was exactly what he couldn't ask for.
So Xiao Ming began to lead the army south to Seoul, and at the same time ordered the Weihai base to start transporting troops to Goryeo, but in fact, most of the soldiers in the Weihai base were new recruits, which were part of the newly trained Guards, considering the problem of combat effectiveness, and finally Xiao Ming decided to transfer all the wolf divisions of Ma Haishu from the Lushun base to Goryeo.
If the ship from Port Arthur goes directly to Kaesong, this route is basically not established, and there are many officers and soldiers who are trained in rotation, so the troop carrier will go back to the Weihai base directly, and then take a straight line route to Kaesong, but Xiao Ming does not want everyone to take the land route, so he called Ma Haishu's three regiments to arrive in Kaesong in advance, and the rest of the personnel just landed from Quanzhou, and then everyone met in Quanzhou.
Xiao Ming personally led the Tiger Guard Army under the leadership of the Goryeo Provincial Army, along the Han River south, directly through Gongju into Jeonju North Province, and then to Jeonju, along the way Xiao Ming saw that the south of Goryeo was a faction of desolation, originally the south was the main agricultural production area of Goryeo, but now after three years of rebellion, it is already poor land and sparsely populated.
The Koreans live in low mud and straw huts, many people cook outside, most of them still eat wild vegetables, the children are black and thin, staring at the army passing by on the road with frightened eyes, it's not that they don't run away, the officials and soldiers basically have to rob everywhere they go, but their families are really poor and can't open the pot, and they can't grab anything, so they simply don't run away, they eat this meal today, and they don't know what to do with the next meal? It won't be long before you don't ask for food, and you'll starve to death!
The misery of the people is everywhere, and occasionally in the manors of some landlords, hired hands and untouchables work in the fields like donkeys, but they are all unclothed, and they don't care about the affairs of the army.
The landlords of the manor generally maintain a good relationship with the government and the monastery, and every year they are indispensable to offer and gifts, so they will not be robbed by the officials and soldiers, and they themselves also have a certain number of guardians, which is to prevent the rogue and the people.
All the way to the south, the whole southern province is basically like this, Xiao Ming continued to go south after converging with Ma Haishu in Jeonju, this time the target was Mokpo Port, the port here was not too badly damaged, Xiao Ming Xiao Ming wanted to establish the first base of Goryeo here.
Merchant ships continue to transport a large number of craftsmen and cement building materials, Goryeo's domestic forest resources are still good, the construction of the port of timber can be completely local, facing a large number of onlookers of the Goryeo people, Xiao Ming decided to recruit workers again, these people are coastal farmers and fishermen, due to the war and food and clothing, now is the need for manpower.
Cui Dianhao, the general of the government army who led Xiao Ming, was left behind by Xiao Ming, he was originally going to return to Beijing to restore his life, but Xiao Ming was left to do some necessary work, the place where Mokpo Port is located belongs to Gyeongsang Province, and the government and the lord of the manor here do not participate in Xiao Ming's work to rebuild the port, which Xiao Ming is very dissatisfied.
After inquiring about the local old man, I found that the largest manor owner here was all a relative of Yiling of the government, and taking advantage of the war and the opportunity of the official army to exterminate the rebel army, this official wantonly annexed land and tenant farmers, and many peasants who lost their land all sold themselves to his manor as untouchables, this person is really a very big corrupt official.
Xiao Ming sent troops to blockade Gyeongsang Province, and then wantonly arrested such officials and manor owners in it, and even many monks of large temples who participated in the suppression of the good and lowly people were in the ranks of arrest, the news came out, the southern part of Goryeo was shaken, and many people sold their heaven and earth and fled north, but because the entire Gyeongsang Province was blocked, they had nowhere to escape.
Xiao Ming deliberately let go of a lot of Wenchen when carrying out this operation, at that time, the government at all levels in Goryeo had a "Dushe" is a place dedicated to raising Wenchen, in addition to cultivating scholars, these Wenchen are also staff and retainers of the government at all levels, Wenchen has formed a certain force at this time, and the Park Yongqing group represents the samurai group, and the two groups are now almost incompatible.
And Xiao Ming's abandonment of the punishment of these ministers and the special punishment of those samurai groups of big landlords and manor owners was intended to cause infighting between them! All the "Tsusha" were disbanded with silver and silver, and then the campaign to liberate the untouchables began, liberating all the untouchables who were among the estates, burning the deeds of sale, and liberating all 80% of the untouchables in Gyeongsang Province in a short time.
This kind of action is bound to cause a certain amount of social unrest, and the peasant and untouchable uprisings that were still brewing in various places have quieted down at this time, and everyone is waiting to see Xiao Ming's next move, although Xiao Ming liberated a large number of untouchables, but did not return the land to them, but wrote to Li Minbo, saying that he had redeemed a large number of land and estates for the Goryeo Kingdom.
On the one hand, Li Minbo was faced with a large number of southern aristocratic landlords and monastic monks who complained to the imperial court, and on the other hand, he was faced with the title deeds of a large number of land properties given to him by Xiao Ming, he was really embarrassed, and some money-hungry ministers in the court were already salivating over this piece of land! As a result, a large number of courtiers of the samurai class suggested that all these lands should be brought under the control of the state, which immediately aroused the resentment of the large landowners and nobles who had lost their land, and the contradictions became more and more serious.
Xiao Ming transformed the contradiction with this hand, and many nobles and landlords who lost their land and their relatives were arrested gradually pointed the finger at the king of Goryeo, because Xiao Ming went to the south with Li Minbo's permission, so what he did was naturally acquiesced by Li Minbo! How could many people swallow this breath, so a conspiracy to overthrow Yizong Li Minbo began.
Xiao Ming didn't have the time to pay attention to this, and he also hoped that it would be better to wait for chaos within the Goryeo Kingdom, but for a large number of liberated Goryeo people and untouchables, Xiao Ming sent people to start propaganda, first of all, those who had worked in the Great Song Army went back to preach, constantly showing the benefits they got from the Song people!
"Look at what did Erlang of the Jin family bring back from working in the Song people? A bag of yellow rice! ”
"Is that wages? Is it really food to be distributed? ”
"Isn't it? Let's go to his house and have a look! ”
Everyone flocked to the Jin family, and the Erlang of the Jin family scooped out the bag of yellow rice to show it, and said to them, "If you want yellow rice, you will give ten catties, if you want 100 meters, you will give five catties, if you don't want food, you will give five coins of silver, this is still my salary for a month, and it costs nothing to work for the Song people, it costs nothing to eat, it is a meal with meat to eat!" ”
"And such a good thing? Jin Jia Erlang, do you still go to work? They don't want anyone anymore, can you introduce me to me? ”
"Of course I need someone, not only do I have to go myself, but I also have to tell my eldest man to call back from the mountain and let him go with me! We've worked hard for a few months, won't we have this year's rations? ……”
The same scene was playing out all over Gyeongsang Road, and soon spread to all places, and at the same time, Xiao Ming began to recruit workers on a large scale, in addition to building Mokpo Port, as well as paving roads, and at the same time, he also recruited people who were urgently needed for the construction of various parts of the Great Song Dynasty!
Of course, it is necessary to recruit a large number of overseas workers in batches, and at this stage, only those Goryeo craftsmen who are very good at mobile phones are the beginning, and the construction that began on a large scale in Goryeo is aimed at all untouchables and farmers, not only young and middle-aged people, but also women who need to do laundry and cook, and for a time a large number of Goryeo people poured into the construction site, and the construction of Mokpo Port was carried out rapidly.
The work of Gyeongsang-do was like an example, and then this kind of thing began to play out in Jeolla Province, so that a large number of nobles and landlords lost their land, the untouchables were liberated, and the Goryeo court was given a large amount of land, and at the same time Hso Myung began the reconstruction of the port of Busan.
The confiscation of people's land was accompanied by the arrest of a large number of manor owners and large landowners, who had long been regarded as labor movements
When it was sent to the Ryukyus, and the property of these people was confiscated, a large amount of gold and silver treasures were obtained by Xiao Ming, and Xiao Ming bought grain, vegetables, meat and seafood everywhere, anyway, not only the laborers ate well, but also the Tiger Guards ate well.
Due to the scarcity of supplies in Goryeo, Xiao Ming went to Liaodong to buy it, and even crossed the sea to Japan to buy grain when the port was almost built, and Wu Song, who was stationed on Kyushu Island, sent a letter to Xiao Ming saying that he was no longer willing to stay in Japan and wanted to follow Xiao Ming.