Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 136
Qin Liangyu's Sichuan army was stationed in Hanzhong, guarding the important pass where the Shaanxi thieves entered Sichuan via the plank road, and could go north to support Fengxiang Mansion at any time.

Now stationed in the Fengxiang area are the brave general Cao Wenzhao and his nephew Cao Bianjiao. The two led 3000 troops to fight fiercely with several bandits such as Ma Jinzhong and Hun Tianwang. The two sides are currently in a stalemate.The main reason is that most of the cavalry under Ma Jinzhong and others, the number of officers and soldiers is small, and the cavalry is only Cao Bianjiao's five hundred.The officers and soldiers basically focused on defense, while the adventurous Cao Bianjiao led the cavalry to look for opportunities to make a surprise attack.

The biggest effect of Sun Chuanting's farming was that it greatly reduced the burden on the imperial court, the local government and the people in northern Shaanxi.

Not to mention the salaries of the officers and soldiers, the food consumed by the officers and soldiers alone is an astonishing figure.The imperial court often had to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to transport the grain from the south to the capital through water transport, and then organize a transport team of thousands of people to drive the car to Shaanxi.

Thinking of this spectacular scene, Chongzhen also admired these courtiers.

Based on this alone, you can't spray people with blood and say they are worthless.

Because Shaanxi has been drought for several years, and most of the fields have failed to harvest year after year, it is impossible for the officers and soldiers to collect food from the local area.If there is food, will the common people rebel?
Therefore, the transportation of personnel and materials from the capital to Shaanxi has become the only channel.

Each time a thousand or several thousand peasants transport food, the distance of this road is nearly two thousand miles, how much will the consumption of these peasants alone cost?Because they are double - go and have to come back.

All of this has to be calculated in detail by the officials of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Households, and Shuntian Prefecture: the number of officers and soldiers, the number of civilians, how much food is consumed per person per day, how much fodder is needed for war horses and pack horses, and how much daily consumption can be supplied to the officers and troops after they arrive. , Some discounts have to be discounted, such as accidents such as overturning, encountering floods, falling into the river and so on.

Don't forget that this is not a one-time performance problem, it has been repeated several times a year in recent years.In this era of extremely backward roads and means of transportation, this is definitely a remarkable thing.The history of the Ming Dynasty was written in the Qing Dynasty, so it is natural to cover up the good things of the Ming Dynasty and magnify the shortcomings infinitely.If it was true, as the history of the Ming Dynasty said, the emperor was impatient and suspicious, and the courtiers only cared about their own interests, Ming Dynasty would be over by now.

The reason why Chongzhen can persist for 17 years is because there are still many officials who are doing practical things in obscurity.Although they are also greedy for ink and use their power to seek personal gain, they are really not tainted in the grand scheme of things.

Selfishness is human nature, and Chongzhen never thought of asking others to pay without expecting anything in return.If you have meritorious service, you will be rewarded, and if you have done something wrong, you will be punished. As long as you insist on clear rewards and punishments, you can solve most problems.

Because of the special situation in Shaanxi, there are only a handful of prefectures and counties that have not been war-torn, and the imperial court had no choice but to reduce taxes in Shaanxi for several consecutive years.It doesn’t work if you don’t reduce it. In many places, the food and taxes can’t be collected at all. Why don’t you just make a gesture and tell the gentry and common people in other provinces, see?The imperial court was sympathetic to the people, knowing that the severe drought in Shaanxi made it difficult for the people, so they directly waived the grain.

The grain harvested in the fields of Xi'an Prefecture can be directly fed to the army, avoiding the huge consumption and waste caused by long-distance transportation, which is equivalent to paying taxes to the court.

From this point alone, even if Sun Chuanting hadn't captured Gao Yingxiang, he had already made a great contribution.

Thinking of this, Chongzhen felt a little sorry for this strong man.He has solved a big problem that has been a headache for the court for several years, so just give him such a small reward?
No, you have to add some more.

An hour later, several Jinyiwei rushed to Daizhou, Shanxi with a handwritten letter written by Chongzhen. .

Doing this is more of a gesture, so that Sun Chuanting can understand that your son's future is no problem, you should work hard ahead.

Chongzhen's side was already quite safe.Many factors of instability have been eliminated one by one. With a strong army under full control and an organization that can spy on the government and public opinion, there is no need to worry about being ostracized or ordered by courtiers.

The end of Chongzhen in history was quite tragic.Li Zicheng's army besieged the capital, but Chongzhen finally let go of his arrogance and airs in desperation, trying to leave a way for his children to survive.So he found Gong Yonggu, the captain-in-law, and asked his loyal brother-in-law to take the prince and King Ding to Nanjing to continue the Ming dynasty.

But Gong Yonggu told him very frankly that he had no one to use, only one servant, and it was impossible to flee to Nanjing with the prince.

Think about it, everyone, the king of a country, if he has someone available under his command, why would he seek Gong Yonggu?
And a noble like Gong Yonggu has no one under his command!
Those brainless texts that crossed over to Chongzhen who was about to hang himself, and killed the Quartet after passing through were pure nonsense.

You still kill this and that, at that time, you couldn't even command a eunuch.No one listens to you at all, and if you annoy them, they will kill you.

The hygienic situation in the capital is worrying. Except for the imperial city, the other roads in the capital are basically dirt roads.It is a daily life in the capital to be covered in dirt on sunny days and muddy in rainy days.

In addition, both residents and merchants have the habit of littering. The drainage channels in the city are basically seriously blocked, and it is common for traffickers to defecate indiscriminately.

In view of this situation, Chongzhen thought of another function of Jinyiwei-in charge of the repair of the capital's streets and pipeline maintenance.

So Chongzhen issued a decree, and Jinyiwei and Shuntianfu joined forces to launch a vigorous patriotic health campaign.

Shuntian Mansion put up announcements everywhere, and sent people to beat gongs and drums everywhere in the streets and alleys to publicize: From now on, littering and defecation in public are prohibited in the capital.

After three days of publicity, Jinyiwei and Shuntianfu formed a joint law enforcement team, divided into several groups, and began to patrol the capital every day.

On the day of the patrol by the law enforcement team, thousands of people who violated the regulations were arrested. For those who are willing to pay, they will be fined depending on the severity of the situation. Press to hit ten boards on the spot.

After just half a month, the streets and alleys in the capital were obviously clean. This bad habit accumulated over the years has basically been completely solved. After all, no one has enough money to pay while throwing rubbish. Shame on me.

Shuntian Prefecture builds a pool for the other party's garbage every [-] steps in the city. Whether it is a household or a business, the garbage must be piled into the pool, and then at night, Shuntian Prefecture hires special personnel to transport it to the outside of the city by car for landfill.

Considering that there are many foreigners in the capital, their three urgent problems need to be solved urgently.According to the instructions, Shuntian Mansion built a public toilet every two miles and a market every two miles in the densely populated blocks of the city.Public toilets are divided into men and women, and special personnel are hired to clean them.There is no charge for these two items, and the unified government has paid for it. In fact, Chongzhen paid for it himself.Who let him come from later generations and can't stand this uncivilized phenomenon?
Chongzhen also allocated money from internal funds to Jinyiwei to purchase green bricks and stones and hire people to repair roads in the city.The main roads are mainly paved with stone materials, while the streets and alleys are paved with blue bricks.

This project takes a long time, mainly because there are too few kiln openings for firing bricks, and it is not easy to mine stone materials, so it is not too time-consuming to lay them up.But it doesn't matter, after everything is repaired, a brand new capital will appear in front of everyone.

The work of dredging the culvert is also going on at the same time. Although there has been drought and little rain in the past few years, we should not only look at the present, but also think about the future.

There are a few ways to make money, but there are more people who spend money, thinking about it gives Chongzhen a headache.

The biggest two, Liaodong and the clan, can be said to have directly led to the bankruptcy of the court.

Liaodong basically knows a little bit of history, and the annual military salary is several million taels.After Chongzhen passed through, Zukuan and other ministries were called out one after another, and the military salary allocated to Liaodong was also reduced accordingly, but the problem was not fundamentally solved. The Liaodong army chief basically urged the payment of a book every few days, just like a reminder .Seeing the bitter face of the old man Hou Xun, Chongzhen couldn't bear it, so he had to dial twice, 20 taels each time, and asked the cabinet to write a document to reprimand Liaodong: "An inch of merit has not been built, so why pay for it?"
After cleaning up the thieves in northern Shaanxi, solving the Liaodong issue was put on the agenda. The key is how to solve it thoroughly without leaving future troubles. Chongzhen didn't think of a good solution for the time being.It can only be tested by giving Zu Kuan and Li Chongjin the rank of general, and giving them each a mansion in the capital, and letting out rumors that as long as the two continue to make meritorious deeds, the imperial court may have plans to seal them as uncles.Let's see if we can disintegrate the leaders of the Liaodong army. This matter has not been effective yet. I don't know what Zu and Li are thinking.

There is also a problem that is almost unsolvable - suzerain and vassal.

For the blood-sucking worm and parasite on Daming's body, Chongzhen felt disgusted in his heart, but he couldn't openly turn his face.If the suzerain vassal problem can be solved, I believe that the life of the imperial court will be much better, and the people around the palaces in various places will also feel very relaxed.

But how to solve the problem of this century?
　Thanks to book friends, book friends, wind of nature 6, and Kai Kai Lingyun for their rewards.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)