Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 706 Long Wu
Zhu Yihai stayed with his five adoptive sons for dinner.

The food in the army was also simple, and the emperor didn't like to make any ostentation. It was still the usual four dishes and one soup. Cold purslane, a seaweed egg soup.

The deer, wild boar, and rabbit were all shot and hunted by Zhu Yihai with his five adoptive sons and the two princes after the meeting, and even the purslane was picked in the wild.

The dishes were made by Qin Wang and Han Wang, and the cooking was not bad, and the five foster sons praised them repeatedly.

The deer was very fat, and a piece of candied deer was reserved, and the rest was given to the accompanying scholars, prime ministers and ministers, and the rest was rewarded to the admirals and general soldiers of the towns.

The rest of the boar meat was rewarded to the assistant minister, deputy generals and guerrillas.

Zhu Yihai looked at the five sons, and gave each of them a large piece of roasted deer, "I shot and hunted this deer myself, but it was also thanks to you who surrounded and chased it, and you slaughtered and divided it. Stew, eat more."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, King Qin and King Han."

Although Zhu Chenggong is not very old, he is the eldest among the five righteous sons. In this new adjustment, Zhu Chenggong was changed to be the admiral of the navy, and he was the admiral of the new No. 20 four towns, stationed in Qingdao Port on the Shandong Peninsula , Dengzhou and Yantai are the garrison areas of his fleet.

From the commander-in-chief of the Fujian battalion to the admiral of the navy stationed in Shandong, this is obviously a promotion, because Shandong is the key point of Gyeonggi, and his 24 towns are also the first town of the navy, which can be called the royal navy.

Zhu Shengli, Zhu Pengfei, Zhu Zhongyi, and Zhu Dingguo also thanked each other.

In terms of age, Zhu Shengli is actually the longest, his qualifications are quite old, and he has a background in Shunying. What is rare is that the emperor has always trusted him, and he has not failed the emperor in the past few years. He is not only a bodyguard, but also a camp in Huguang , Stabilizing the upstream, all have made a lot of credit.

In fact, since Zhu Yihai had an heir, many courtiers in the court suggested to him that there is no need to adopt adopted sons. For Zhu Chenggong and others, they can restore their original surnames and no longer be the adopted sons of the emperor.

The righteous son is also a son, in front of the courtiers, he is the righteous son of the emperor, even a bachelor has to be respected, the status is too special.

But Zhu Yihai didn't reply to these memorials.

At the beginning, he adopted Zheng Sen as his adoptive son and gave him the surname Zhu. He really meant to win over the Zheng family in Fujian. At first, he even let the Zheng family say that he wanted to marry Zheng Sen as his son-in-law. Son, it is a step further than choosing the princess as her son-in-law.

Although the current situation is different, Zhu Yihai appreciates these foster children.

Now Zhu Chenggong is the admiral of the No.20 four towns, and the other four are also the admirals of the first town of the imperial camp.
The ninth town of Zhu Shengli is in Hunan, the No.18 town of Zhu Zhongyi is in Henan, the No.19 town of Zhu Pengfei is in Shaanxi, and the No.20 town of Zhu Dingguo is in Hubei.

They are all generals guarding a province, and their titles are also granted to the Duke of the county.

The emperor appreciated them very much, even Zhu Dingguo, who had been attached to them not long ago, received such treatment, and Zhu Dingguo was very grateful to Zhu Yihai now.

Although Zhu Dingguo was known as the foreign enemy and Xiao Yuchi, although some people secretly called him a family slave of the three surnames, Zhu Dingguo knew that the emperor was kind and generous, and he did not blame them for the past, and could save their lives at critical times, and accepted them. Even more appreciative and important, this young general of the peasant army does not know many words, but he knows loyalty.

"Your Majesty, I have something to say. Please beware of Zhang An, the Dong thief. This person dared to contradict and disobey His Majesty in front of the imperial court.

Dong thieves are not often rebellious, so they must be careful to let the tiger go back to the mountain, thinking of future troubles. "

Zhu Dingguo is young, but he has fought in the Western Army for many years, and he has seen many anti-army leaders who have no promises. That kind of stabbing in the back is too common in the peasant army, and even Zhang Xianzhong is a representative of capriciousness.

Dong thieves were actually a very special group in the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court also called them Dong Man. Zhang An and his new Longwu army were actually Southern Jiangxi thieves. The imperial court called them Dong thieves, but they were not the Dong family.

In the early years, Wang Yangming suppressed bandits for the governor of Southern Jiangxi, and it was actually this group of people who were suppressed.

The composition of this group of people is relatively complex. They are a group of people who are active in the mountainous area at the junction of the four provinces of Jiangnan, Fujian, Guangdong, and Hunan. There are She people, Yi people, Hakkas, Han people, etc.

In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Jiangxi and Gannan areas were sparsely populated, and in some places there were no people for tens of miles, which was similar to that in Yunyang, Hubei at that time.

In the mid-Ming Dynasty, famines continued, officials were corrupt, various taxes were exorbitant, and local fish and meat people bankrupted many people. In order to avoid taxes and labor, many people fled and became refugees.

Millions of refugees from Shaanxi, Henan, and Hubei flooded into the Yunyang area, while a large number of refugees from Jiangxi, Guangdong entered the Southern Jiangxi area.

They went into the mountains to reclaim wasteland and farm land, and even entered the mountains to do slash-and-burn farming like the She people. They lived a life of nomadic farming, shooting and hunting in the mountains, evading taxes and evading labor, and were called refugees by the court.

In order to collect taxes, local officials went into the mountains to set up households to collect taxes, and even pulled people to serve in the mountains. It was not easy for the refugees to go to the mountains.

So they continued to resist the tax. The government called them bandits, sent troops to suppress them, burned their houses on the mountain, and arrested their people. Robbing a business trip.

The entire mountainous area at the junction of the four provinces of Southern Jiangxi has become a place outside the law.

The harder the court suppressed, the more serious the banditry became.

Later, Wang Yangming went to be the governor of Southern Jiangxi, and put the military and government in these areas of the four provinces under his control. Wang Yangming did not simply suppress, but used both suppression and appeasement. He succeeded in appeasement of many southern Jiangxi bandits, and established many new counties and townships to stabilize the turmoil.

But it didn't really solve the problem.

Because there is no cure for the symptoms.

It is because many people are too burdened to survive.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the people in the Central Plains could not survive, and countless peasants rebelled, and Nanganshan was no exception.

Many Han people who immigrated there in the early days, that is, the Hakka people, as well as the inland people who fled there in the late Ming Dynasty, plus the local minority tribes such as the She and Yi people, in order to survive, they all rose up as robbers again.

Of course, they usually call themselves brave, but plundering the village and robbing big business travelers is definitely not a brave thing.

At the beginning when the Tartars sent Jin Shenghuan and others to send troops to Jiangxi, some local gentry in Jiangxi raised troops under the vassal of the Ming Dynasty. They once appointed officials and nobles and recruited four bandits.

Zhang An was one of the four battalions at that time, and his battalion was called Qianzuoying.

Later, his battalion grew more and more troops, claiming to be in the tens of thousands, and even controlled many counties and townships in the south. Wanji and Yang Tinglin, appointed by Zhu Yihai, also recruited righteous men and gentry everywhere in Jiangxi, and also won over Zhang An.

Because Zhang An was strong and strong, he was also given the title of Longwu Xinjun.

Zhang An later led the Longwu new army to the north, and assigned Raozhou Guangxin to garrison him, and gave him [-] official troops. However, in his Longwu new army, the local barbarians actually accounted for only a minority, and most of them were Han Chinese. , both Hakka Han people and mainland Xinmin.Most of them joined the Longwu New Army not because they had any loyalty or greatness in their hearts, but because life in the mountains was difficult and they fought everywhere, so when they came out to serve as soldiers, they also robbed together.

You must know that the Dongman people at that time, including the Han refugees, cultivated in the same way as the She people and the Yi people in the southern Jiangxi area. They were slash-and-burn farming. They burned a mountain, and the ash was used as fertilizer. On the burned-out mountain, stick a hole and plant rice, and some cane cane, and then build a hut on the mountain to live in, and also hunt and so on.

When one hill was not fertile, they changed to another hill to continue slash-and-burn farming. They kept swimming like this, and usually went down the hill to trade salt and iron wares with Han merchants.

This kind of life, in fact, even hundreds of years later, in the mountainous areas of Laos and Myanmar, there is still this way of slashing and farming, but most of them have settled down, and they rarely continue to live in the mountains.

The difficult environment also created a sturdy character. They are aggressive and love to fight. When encountering natural disasters such as drought and heavy rain, they will go down the mountain to plunder.

In the chaotic world at the end of Ming Dynasty, the refugees from all over the world became more and more active.

In essence, Zhang An and his Longwu army were not much different from Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng's Xiying and Shunying, they were just poor people who couldn't survive.

If we want to talk about the difference, it is that the complex environment has created Zhang An and the gangsters with more sturdy personalities, and they may not have any legal or moral constraints in their hearts.

More obey the law of the jungle of the jungle.

Not only have they occupied two prefectural sites in northern Jiangxi in the past few years, but the rest of the Dong thieves that Wanji and the others dismissed before will go to Ganzhou, Ningdu, Jianchang, Fuzhou and other places, and still occupy a lot of sites, and they still call themselves brave. Wanji was also unable to rectify at that time, and only awarded them the title of group training.

Zhang Anfan recruited and organized many Dong thieves under the banner of the imperial court, set up a battalion number, and blossomed everywhere.

At the beginning, it was said to be 4 people, but now it is far more than that.

Zhu Dingguo was born in the peasant army. He knew that although the peasant army was indeed forced to rebel, most of the peasant army's structure was limited, short-sighted, and did not see the big picture.

Besides, the world has been so turbulent in the past few years, and it is difficult for ordinary people to live in peace. How can the life of slash-and-burn farming and setting up tents in the mountains be as cool as occupying prefectures and counties?
Zhang Xianzhong was at the end of his life many times, and the court called for peace several times, but which time Zhang Xianzhong was really willing to accept the surrender?Not only did he distrust the court, but he was also a person who had been a bandit and rebelled. It is difficult to go back to live that kind of hard life.

Zhu Yihai cut off a piece of roasted deer breast, chewed it with a fork, it was tender and juicy, very delicious, just right.

"You mean, do you want me to kill Zhang An, and then cut off his five thousand dragon army outside the city?"

Zhu Dingguo was unable to answer.

Zhu Yihai shook his head, "It's impossible to do this. It's easy to kill Zhang An now, and it's easy to kill the five thousand Longwu army, but what are the consequences? How many She, Hakka, and refugees are there in the border areas of the four southern and Jiangxi provinces? If it is cut down, 5000 people will fall, and there will be 50 rebels."

"But even if His Majesty can keep Zhang An in the court, if his 5000 people go back, he will let the tiger go back to the mountain. There are no less than [-] thieves in Nangan!"

"Mr. Yangming summed up what he said when he was the governor and suppressed bandits in Southern Jiangxi, which is very reasonable.

People are not born to be thieves and rebels, they are all forced to survive, so the court can't just think about how to encircle and kill those thieves and rebels, but think about why they become thieves and rebel. go down, why?Is it too high a tax, too little land, a natural disaster or a man-made disaster?
Wherever there is a problem, we must find a way to solve it, rather than solving the person who raised the problem.

Zhu Yihai put down the knife and fork.

"You are very brave in war and you are excellent generals, but in the future you have to learn more about local civil affairs. Those people in Nanjiang who are called thieves are actually refugees. Most of them were not refugees at first, but whether they were former Immigrants, or later refugees, or generations of aboriginals, they all lack an identity, a court recognition,

They have no status and therefore no security.

I have a will for the Longwu Army, and also for all these refugees, Hakka people, and Sheyi in Southern Jiangxi.

Exempt them from all the exorbitant taxes in the past. If they slash and burn on the mountain, they will not be allowed to do so.Those who are willing to go down the mountain to reclaim wasteland and settle down can be granted [-] mu of upper land, [-] mu of intermediate farm, [-] mu of lower farm, [-] mu of general mountain land, and [-] mu of low-grade forest land.

They go to towns for general transactions, and they are also exempted from their entry tax and so on.

Set up households for them, set up Baojia and regiment training, set up post stations, establish inspections, social studies, etc., open markets, sell salt, oil, cloth, iron, etc. to them, and also buy tea, rice, sugar cane, camellia oil, and herbs from them. , tung oil, fur, dyes, etc.,

Interest-free or low-interest loans are also provided to mountain residents in need.

Regardless of She, Yi, guest, or Liu, all are treated equally. If barbarians marry, the living is barbarian, and Huayi intermarries, and the living is Xia.

The imperial court will set up counties and townships in those mountainous areas, organize households for the common people, and also station imperial camps, establish villages and towns, and station posthouses.

Businessmen and mountain people should also be encouraged to open mines, etc. To develop industry and commerce and drive the economy, only when people have enough food and clothing can they understand etiquette and abide by the laws and laws of the country, so that everyone will not steal or rebel.

The key to solving the Nangandong thieves is not to suppress them, but to solve their livelihoods so that they can live and work in peace and contentment again.

If the imperial court can do this, there are still some people who want to plunder and rebel. At that time, if they are forced to suppress them, they will be supported by the people. This is an act of benevolence, not tyranny. "

"The five thousand Longwu troops may be transferred to other military towns, or transferred to towns and regiments for training, but they need to be rewarded with a sum of money. You can help them marry wives, etc. Officers should also be properly arranged, even if they are not capable enough, they need to be properly arranged.

Although the Longwu army was born as a bandit in Dong, they also played a part in the great cause of rejuvenating the Ming Dynasty in Zhenzhong. They also made contributions to the stability of Jiangxi. Those who have made meritorious service by sending troops.

It cannot be dealt with in a simple and rough manner. The imperial court has to be generous when doing things, and everyone has to be convinced.

If we have done our utmost to be benevolent and righteous, and there are still some people who do not know what is good or bad to rebel, then don't blame us.I also believe that there will not be many people who don't know what is good or bad. "

Zhu Dingguo did not expect the emperor's disposition. He used to follow Zhang Xianzhong and treat those who dared to rebel against him, whether it was old brothers or others, Zhang Xianzhong would never be polite.Zhang Xianzhong had more than four adoptive sons, he had many adoptive sons, and there were many adopted sons who were highly regarded and generals, all of whom died in his hands.

But although the emperor wants to withdraw military power, the way of handling it is completely different.

"Your Majesty is kind and holy." After a long time, Zhu Dingguo also said sincerely, and the other four adopted sons also praised him together.

Zhu Yihai smiled, and said to Zhu Hongjia and his brothers, "Did you all understand what I said just now? Study hard. In the future, you will also need to have this kind of thinking when you open a feudal clan and guard one side."

"There are still five of you. When ZTE's great cause is completed in the future, I will give you a feudal domain to guard, and serve as the imperial court's screen feudal domain. It will be inherited from generation to generation, and we will live forever with the country!"

(End of this chapter)