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Part One: Penghu Storm Chapter 503: Pay!

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    In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, Ding Yunyi, the Marquis of Wu Lie, went on an expedition to Luzon. In the same year, he surrounded the Ming Dynasty.

    The nightmare that can never be dispelled, the catastrophe has appeared again!

    In the spring of this year, Zhang Xianzhong was besieged at the junction of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei, and everyone could see clearly. However, Emperor Chongzhen was besieged in the Forbidden City, but no one could see clearly.  He himself only knew how to struggle desperately, but he did not understand the situation of being surrounded by layers of layers.

    One night in early March, after the second watch, Chongzhen was not sleepy and walked around in the courtyard of Qianqing Palace.  The two palace maids held two silk palace lanterns and stood silently on both sides of the Danqi. The other eunuchs and palace maids on duty stood far away in the shadows, not even daring to make a big noise.  Occasionally, a sharp and cold north wind blew by, and the iron horses on the eaves of the palace made a tinkling sound, but Chongzhen seemed not to hear it.  His mind was thinking about the terrible situation that made him very worried, and he sighed deeply from time to time.  After hesitating for a long time, he lowered his head, walked heavily back to the East Nuan Pavilion of Qianqing Palace, and sat down slumped in front of the imperial case again.

    At present, Jiangbei, Huguang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Hebei half of China is suffering from famine and rebellion everywhere, with tens of thousands of people in large numbers, thousands of people in second place, and hundreds of people in second place.  Small stocks are everywhere.  South of the Yangtze River, there are also famines and riots in Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and other places. Even the so-called land of plenty like Suzhou and Jiaxing are experiencing droughts, locust plagues, soaring food prices, and people are constantly gathering in groups to openly grab food and cause trouble.  .  Since he took charge of the country, the situation has become worse and worse. Nowadays, there is almost no quiet land. Although Yang Sichang recently had a victory at Agate Mountain, Zhang Xianzhong still did not kill or capture him. Zuo Liangyu, He Renlong and others did not want to  Taking advantage of the victory to pursue the suppression, the troops were not able to advance. According to Yang Sichang's repeated reports, the army was in serious payment arrears and the morale of the army was very unstable.  Once a major event is lost, good opportunities will never come again. He thought, "Only when the soldiers' pay is secured can we severely punish the troops and prevent Zhang Xianzhong from having a chance to breathe, so he can be surrounded in Sichuan and Shaanxi."  Annihilating the areas at the junction of Hubei and Hubei can also inspire the soldiers to sweep Shangluo Mountain in one fell swoop.  But where do the wages come from?  The increase in recruitment and training rates has caused commotion across the country, and there are continued objections in the DPRK. Now it is impossible to increase the number of personnel at all.  He asked himself in his heart: How can it be good to have "the treasury is clean"?  "

    "And the current situation in the country is in dire straits." Yang Sichang was not the only one who was in urgent need of food and wages. For several days in a row, he received urgent documents from various provinces every day, either asking for wages or asking for troops.

    "Rates, rates, how can we survive this day without wages?"

    That night, he slept very uneasily and had many nightmares.  After retiring from the imperial court the next morning, he was like an ant on a hot pot in order to raise money. After much deliberation, he came up with a more effective way, which was to ask the royal relatives to lend some money to the country.  He thought that every family of the royal relatives "received the kindness of the country" and "shared weal and woe" with the country.  At present, the country is in great difficulty, and others are unwilling to contribute money. They should come up with money and be an advocate, so that the people in the world can know that they are kings and fathers without selfish motives.  But which royal family member should be asked to set an example?

    Chongzhen often heard that there were three richest families among the royal relatives: one was the queen¡¯s natal family, one was Concubine Tian¡¯s natal family, and the other was Wuqing Hou Li¡¯s family.  The first two families were both newly minted. They relied on their status as relatives of the emperor and the fact that the queen and concubine Tian were favored by the emperor. They "annexed land in the Gyeonggi area and ran businesses." After more than ten years, they accumulated a large fortune, surpassing many old ones.  Royal relatives.

    The Hou family of Wuqing is the natal family of the Empress Dowager Xiaoding, the mother of Emperor Wanli. The current generation of Houye Li Guorui is Chongzhen's cousin.  Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun was only ten years old when he came to the throne and was under the guardianship of his mother.  After he got married at the age of sixteen, her mother no longer took custody of her. It was not until Zhang Juzheng died of illness in the tenth year of Wanli that he took direct charge of the government.  Previously, state affairs were presided over by the Empress Dowager Xiaoding and the Prime Minister Zhang Juzheng. According to legend, the Empress Dowager Xiaoding often transported the gold and silver treasures in the palace to her natal family, some of which were publicly rewarded, and some were secretly rewarded. Therefore, the Wuqing Hou family is still very wealthy to this day.  Among the old and new royal relatives, he is second to none.  If one of these three royal families can set an example, the rest of the royal families will be convinced and follow suit.  But he refused to hurt the Queen and Concubine Tian, ??and he could not let Zhou Kui and Tian Hongyu set an example first.  After much deliberation, it is more appropriate to ask Li Guorui to serve as a role model.  He also thought that asking for money from various royal relatives might not go smoothly. If he encountered resistance, he would be severely punished and even use national laws.  But this is not an ordinary event, and there has never been such a story among ancestors throughout the ages. Story and "precedent" are synonymous with each other.  This was a commonly used term in the court at that time.

    , will the spirits of the ancestors in heaven be surprised?  What would all the royal relatives and nobles say?  After thinking about it over and over again, he suddenly hesitated.

    The next day, all parts of North China, especially the Gyeonggi area, were covered with dark yellow thick clouds, strong winds and gray sand  The sun was pale, appearing and disappearing, the shops on the street were closed, and people's faces could not be seen clearly even a few feet away.  In broad daylight, every house must be lit with lamps and candles.  Everyone thought this was a terrible disaster, which was classified as an "earth disaster" in the Five Elements. Chongzhen himself was even more afraid, thinking that this disaster was a "warning of changes in the sky" related to the fate of the country.  He was restless in Qianqing Palace, and went to Fengxian Palace to burn incense and pray to his ancestors, asking them to ensure that his country would not fall. He also explained to his ancestors the reason why he wanted to seek help from the emperor.  He was lying on the ground praying silently, when he suddenly heard a crack in the courtyard, which made him jump. He quickly turned around and asked, "Is that the noise outside?"

    A eunuch knelt outside the curtain and said: "A branch was broken by the strong wind."

    Chongzhen continued to pray to his ancestors. He was filled with sorrow and tears filled his eyes. He could hardly help but cry bitterly in front of his ancestors.  After praying, I walked out of the palace door and saw an ancient locust branch as thick as a bowl fell on the ground. The top of the branch was pressing on Danbi and had not moved away.  He thought that this must be because his ancestors were displeased with his plan to raise wages, otherwise it would not have been such a coincidence that the branch would have been broken by the strong wind just as he was praying silently, neither sooner nor later.

    This accident shocked him as much as the harrier kiss that blew down Fengxian Hall in the strong wind two years ago.

    The sky was dark and the ground was dark, and the ancients called it a strong wind haze. It lasted for two days, and on the third day the wind stopped and the sky became clear. The temperature suddenly dropped to cold, like a severe winter.  All the red baskets of charcoal prepared in the winter were moved into the palace to provide fire to the palaces to keep out the cold. During the last dynasty, Chongzhen sent warnings to the heavens and ancestors one after another, asking the ministers to save their lives and restore heaven's heart.  When it comes to raising military pay, the ministers are either speechless or make empty remarks. There is a new censor from Nanjing named Xu Biao who can't offer any ideas for the emperor.  Instead of worrying, he knelt down and "risked his own life to report," saying that he came from the south of the Yangtze River. He saw that the villages along the road were in ruins, often with no human habitation for dozens of miles and swarms of wild animals.  He cried while talking, and urged the emperor to quickly issue an imperial edict to stop the training, so as not to force the remaining people to rebel.  Afterwards, several department and Taoist officials knelt down to report the severe disasters in Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Huguang, and Jiangbei, explaining that it was absolutely impossible to raise money from the common people.  After listening to the kneeling performance of the officials and Taoist officials, Chongzhen was at a loss, very distressed, and at the same time very scared. He thought, now he has no choice but to be ruthless and seek help from the royal relatives, even though the "spirit in heaven" of his ancestors is for this reason.  If he is not happy, he will understand his difficulties afterwards. As long as he can raise several million dollars to make the "suppression of bandits" successful and protect his ancestors' empire, his ancestors will not criticize him severely.

    He plans to summon several ministers in Wenhua Hall to study his plan.  But when he arrived at the Wenhua Hall, he hesitated again.  He was worried that the emperor's relatives would use all hard and soft methods to confront him, which would not help the country's difficulties, but would instead make the emperor's relatives feel cold towards him.

    He stayed in the Wenhua Palace for a long time, unable to make up his mind.  This Wenhua Hall was originally the place where the emperor of the Ming Dynasty listened to lectures by Confucian officials, so there were several couplets hung on the pillars of the front and back halls, all of which were related to the emperor's study. At this moment, they almost seemed to be a satire on Chongzhen. On weekdays.  When Qin Zheng rested in the Wenhua Hall, he liked to stand in front of the pillars and admire these couplets, but today when he walked in front of the couplets, he was no longer in the mood to look at them.  He walked from the back hall to the front hall, and finally stopped in front of a couplet, as if out of habit.  He usually not only likes that this couplet is written with full ink and round strokes, dignified and vigorous, which is the best in the pavilion style, but also likes that its antithesis is stable.  Now he couldn't help but watch it again.  That couplet wrote: The world is at peace, the world is at peace, the world is at peace, and the world is at peace. What else is "the world is at peace?"  Qingxia, 1" He shook his head and walked to the back hall of Wenhua with his hands behind his back. Just as he was about to step on the white jade steps of the back hall, he looked up and saw the horizontal plaque hanging above the door of the hall, which read: "Learn from the Second Emperor and the Third Emperor.  The first and second emperors refer to Yao and Shun, and the three kings refer to Xia, Yu, and

    Tang of Shang and King Wen and King Wu of Zhou.  This is the Confucian ideal of an ancient monarch.  The great classic that governs the world**.  "These twelve characters are divided into six lines, with two characters in each line. They were written by the Empress Dowager Xiaoding, the mother of Emperor Wanli. She was the aunt of Li Guorui, Marquis of Wuqing. Chongzhen felt ashamed, lowered his head and walked into the east part of the apse.  Nuan Ge sat in silence for a long time and canceled summoning ministers to ask Qi Wan for help.

    Chongzhen returned to the Qianqing Palace with a very conflicted and anxious mood, and sat down slumped in front of the imperial case. He did not bother to read the documents or speak. He even felt upset when he heard the slight footsteps of the palace maids and eunuchs outside the curtain.  He wrote the word "rate" twice on the imperial desk with his index finger and sighed.

    When he was anxious and desperate, Wang Chengen came to him with a document, bowed and whispered in a low voice: "Ask the emperor, someone has written a copy."

    "Who got this degree?"

    "It's a student named Li Mi."

    Chongzhen said boredly: "I don't want to read it."?I don¡¯t have the time to read the memorial of a Tai student in my free time.¡±

    Wang Chengen said in a low voice: "What is written in this memorial is a suggestion for raising military pay."

    "What? A plan to raise military pay?"

    Read it to me quickly1"

    In his essay, Li Ban expressed his deep concern about the current situation in Jiangnan.  He first said that there had been no wars in Jiangnan for many years. Large households annexed land and ran commerce. They only cared about rich clothing and food, competing for luxury, and did not care about the country's difficulties.  He pointed out that the root cause of the great chaos in Qin, Jin, Henan, Chu and other provinces was that the big households only knew how to exploit the small people and annex the land, resulting in an excessive disparity between the rich and the poor.  Even in a good harvest year, the common people can't help but cry out about hunger and cold: when there is a famine, the weak ones have no choice but to toss and starve to death on the roadside, while the strong ones rise up in rebellion.  He said that Jiangnan seems to be very stable today, but in fact there are crises lurking everywhere: If the wealthy and large households are not restricted from annexing land as soon as possible and the plight of the common people is not relieved as soon as possible, then Qin,

    The catastrophe of disintegration and collapse of Jin, Henan, and Chu will also occur in Jiangnan.  In his message, he asked the emperor to resolutely issue an edict, ordering the big households in the south of the Yangtze River to voluntarily report their property and pledge military salary. If anyone disobeyed, his family property would be confiscated and he would not tolerate it at all.  In addition, he also suggested that mergers and acquisitions by large households should be strictly prohibited and land should be cleared carefully to equalize the burden on the people.  This memorial is very long, and it also mentions the examples of many dynasties in history where peace has lasted for a long time, and powerful mergers led to great chaos and the destruction of the country. The words are full of loyalty to the king and concern for the country.

    When Chongzhen heard Wang Chengen read this memorial, he was very moved and took it over to read it carefully in person.

    Regarding the proposal to clear the land, he believed that delaying the proposal would not solve the problem urgently, and that it would be more difficult. He did not give it much thought. He only thought that asking the big households in the south of the Yangtze River to lose wages was feasible and a good solution for the current emergency.

    When the Manchurian soldiers threatened the capital in the winter of the previous year, Lu Xiangsheng suggested that he persuade the wealthy officials and gentry in the capital and Jifu to lose military pay. He was also moved, but it was not as moved as it is now.  The areas south of the Yangtze River have indeed been peaceful and prosperous for many years, unlike the Gyeonggi area that has been repeatedly destroyed by Qing troops and suffered from natural disasters year after year.  He thought that the country was in such difficulty and critical situation at present, so it was reasonable to ask the big families in Jiangnan to donate a few dollars to prevent the country from disintegrating.  However, after thinking about it calmly, he couldn't help but hesitate.

    He expected that this matter would definitely be opposed by courtiers from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and that the big gentry families living south of the river would be even more opposed.  Nowadays, most of the country's annual income depends on Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Dai rice is distributed to civil and military officials from Lumi in the capital.  Food for the people, as well as military food for Kinki, Ji and Liao, are almost entirely supplied by Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places. Unless there is no way out and it is absolutely necessary, it is best not to provoke an uproar and opposition from the big officials and gentry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.  He was at odds with the imperial court.

    But he was really reluctant to give up Li Jin's suggestion.  After thinking about it again and again, he mentioned Zhu Bi and wrote: Li Jin's report to persuade large households in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to lose military pay is feasible. The cabinet and household ministers will discuss it in detail.

    The fastest update, please¡ª¡ª
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