Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 160
Xuzhou is walking, in the lobby.

Zheng Sen, Wang Fuzhi and several other scholars were busy in front of the huge sand table, mainly placing models of blunderbuss platforms and scholars along the Yellow River.

There are eight counties in the east of Pizhou, including Suqian, Suining, Taoyuan, Qinghe, Shuyang, Andong, Haizhou, and Yancheng, as well as Shanyang City, the prefectural city of Huai'an. Models of blunderbuss platforms and scholars have already been placed. This also means that Chongzhen has sent scholars to these eight counties and Shanyang City.

[Note: This Qinghe is Qinghe County in Huai'an Prefecture]

Then the dispatched scholars will train the bravery of the townships in eight counties including Shanyang and Suqian. While training the bravery of the townships, they will mobilize the peasants to build gun towers and consolidate the city defenses.

When we got here, the Huanghuai line of defense envisioned by Chongzhen was ready to emerge.

The core support of the entire Huanghuai defense line is undoubtedly the Xuzhou defense line. The Xuzhou defense line is composed of the Xiazhen defense line, Pizhou defense line and Xuzhou defense line. The ten-town frontier army on the town defense line has withstood a wave of tests and won a big victory.

The right wing part of the Huanghuai defense line is the Huai'an defense line.

At this stage, the Huai'an line of defense only includes eight counties including Shanyang Fucheng and Suqian.

However, after Yan Yingyuan and other dispatched scholars completed the training of the Xiangyong in Shanyang Prefecture and eight counties, Chongzhen would send more scholars to take some of the Xiangyong trained by Yan Yingyuan and the others to the ancient cities along the Yellow River. Cuizhen, Baiyanghe Town, Yangzhai Township and other townships, all the way to Yunti Pass at the mouth of the Yellow River.

At that time, there will be hundreds of defensive strongholds on both sides of the Yellow River in Huai'an Prefecture.

Moreover, these more than one hundred strongholds are not traditional cities, but an aggregation composed of dozens or even hundreds of gun platforms. Facing these defensive strongholds, small Jiannu can't move, and large Jiannu can't. It will take a lot of work, the key is protracted, which will greatly increase the difficulty of infiltrating from Huai'an.

Chongzhen's eyes fell on the left side of the sand table.

The left side of the sand table is the left wing of the Huanghuai defense line.

The left wing of the Huanghuai Line of Defense is the Guide Line of Defense.

If possible, it should be extended to Kaifeng Prefecture.

However, until now, the Guided defense line is still blank.

Because the situation in Guide Mansion is obviously different from that in Huai'an Mansion.

Huai'an Mansion has been under the rule of Ming Dynasty from the beginning to the end. It has not been occupied by bandits, and it has suffered relatively light military disasters. With sufficient population as support, it can directly recruit village braves to defend the border.

But Guide Mansion can't do it, not even the whole Henan Province.

Because the various prefectures under Henan Province have been repeatedly ravaged by rogues, and the Ming army who chased and suppressed rogues also burned, killed and looted.

According to the data of the Yulin Atlas in the sixth year of Wanli, the number of Henan chief envoys is about 520 million.

What I want to explain is that this is the number of adults, that is, the number of adults who need to pay the income tax, excluding women and children who do not need to pay the income tax. In addition, the rich and powerful clans usually hide the number of incomes to evade taxes, so The actual population must be far more than five million. Generally speaking, multiplying by three is the total population.

In other words, there were almost 1500 million people in Henan Province in the sixth year of Wanli.

This data is also credible, because Henan and Shandong are the only two provinces in the Ming Dynasty with more than [-] million mu of cultivated land. (Including Liaodong) The chief envoy's [-] million mu is slightly less.

There is no pressure to feed 1500 million people with [-] million mu of arable land.

Not to mention 2 shi per mu, but calculated based on 1.5 shi per mu, 1.5 million mu of arable land can also produce 6000 million shi of grain, and then use [-]% of it to pay tenant rent, and there will be [-] shi left as tenant farmers. Wanshi food.

1500 million people received 6000 million shi of grain, 4 shi per capita, which was barely enough for large mouths, but surplus for small mouths.

Back to the story, the Henan Chief Political Officer still had a population of 1500 million during the Wanli period, but now, according to Chongzhen, it is estimated that there are only more than one million people. This is really ten rooms and nine empty spaces!

What's more, most of the remaining one million people were coerced by local bandits.

For example, Feng Quan, a former scholar of the Ming Dynasty, occupied Weihui Mansion, Liu Hongqi occupied Runing Mansion, Han Jiadi occupied Xuzhou, Li Jiyu occupied Yuzhou, and Liu Xuan occupied Xiangcheng.

The only population of more than one million people was divided up by these tyrants.

Therefore, even if Chongzhen sent officials and scholars to Guide Mansion and Kaifeng Mansion to recruit Xiangyong, no one would apply at all, and it would be useless even if you gave them the best treatment.

But fortunately, there is no need to rush to build the left-wing Guide and Kaifeng defense lines.

Because if Jiannu fails to attack Xuzhou by force, there is a high probability that he will choose the right-wing Huai'an Mansion instead of Guide Mansion or Kaifeng Mansion as a breakthrough. Need supplies, and Huai'an Mansion is much richer than Guide Mansion and Kaifeng Mansion, at least for now.

When Chongzhen was meditating on the sand table, Wang Chengen walked in quickly.

"Long Live Lord." Wang Chengen whispered, "Du Yinxi has returned to Xuzhou."

"Du Yinxi is back?" Chongzhen went to the living room next to him and said with a smile, "Quickly announce him in."

Du Yinxi didn't come back alone, he also came back with him and Kim Hyun, a member of the Ministry of War and Temporary Chief of Military Affairs. Both of them looked like they had traveled a long way, and they seemed to have traveled a long way.

After the ceremony, Chongzhen gave up his seat to Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan with a smile.

Except for the more than [-] scholars in the scholar camp, there were not many civil and military people in the Manchu Dynasty who could win the trust and appreciation of Chongzhen, but Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan were undoubtedly one of them.

"Du Qing, Jin Qing, you two just came back from Kaifeng mansion?"

"Returning to the Holy One, the ministers just came back from Kaifeng Mansion. It took almost two months to finally investigate the connection between the powerful gentry and the thieves in Guide Mansion and Kaifeng Mansion."

"The two lovers have worked hard, what's the result of the investigation?"

Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan looked at each other, and said in a deep voice, "Shocking!"

Jin Xuan also said with a dark face: "We originally thought that the situation in Kaifeng Mansion would be better than that of Guide Mansion, but it turns out that the situation in Kaifeng Mansion is worse than that of Guide Mansion!"

Du Yinxi said: "At any rate, there are a few gentry such as the Yuan family in Guide Mansion who have maintained their integrity, but all the gentry in Kaifeng Mansion have fallen, and none of them can maintain their integrity!"

Chongzhen's expression darkened and he said, "If that's the case, then they can't blame me."

Du Yinxi said: "Your Majesty, there is one more thing. King Zhou, King Fu and King Lu all sent people to Kaifeng, saying that they wanted to take back their mansions' farms in Kaifeng."

"Their noses are upside down." Chongzhen said with a sneer, "but this is a delusion!"

After finishing speaking, he stood up, and Chongzhen said with a dark face, "I won't even give you a single piece of land!"

Seeing Chongzhen's reaction in this way, Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan couldn't help but glance at each other, feeling first-class satisfaction.

Back then when thieves ravaged Henan, Fu Fan, Lu Fan, and Zhou Fan, the sons and grandsons of Emperor Gao, all ran faster than rabbits. Now that the situation slowed down, they ran back to collect the farm. good thing?

But while he was excited, Du Yinxi was also a little worried, and said: "My lord, if you don't give anything at all, I'm afraid the censors in the court will have unfavorable remarks."

"Let them talk about it." Chongzhen said coldly.

"When the country is in crisis, even my Huangzhuang is sold."

"The farms of these vassal kings can't be moved? There's no reason for that!"

Speaking of this meal, Chongzhen said again: "You just need to tell me how much land there are in Guide and Kaifeng?"

Du Yinxi replied: "When investigating the culpability of Guide and Kaifeng's association with thieves and gentry, the officials and others also made clear the arable land of the two prefectures. Ten thousand mu, Kaifeng Prefecture has a total of more than [-] million mu of arable land, of which about [-]% of the arable land is the farmland of Fu Fan, Lu Fan, and Zhou Fan, about [-]% of it is the farmland of the noble gentry, and less than [-]% of the arable land of Shengdou small people, and, More than ninety-nine percent of the arable land has been abandoned."

Hearing this sentence, Chongzhen was both happy and angry. He was happy that he had 2400 million mu of arable land this time. Fu Fan, Lu Fan and Zhou Fan accounted for [-]% of the cultivated land in Guide Mansion and Kaifeng Mansion. The vassal kings are so greedy, how can Ming Dynasty not perish?
Of course, Chongzhen also knew that most of these cultivated lands were only attached to the name of the vassal king.

But it was precisely because of this affiliation that the Ming court lost its most valuable source of taxation, because the vassal king's farm did not need to pay taxes, not even the regular tax!

Lao Zhu was sympathetic to his descendants back then, but he planted the root of disaster for the Ming Dynasty.

That is to say, the self-cultivating farmers in Henan have less than [-]% of their arable land, but they have to bear [-]% of the tax, and there are three salaries in addition. Who the hell can stand it?It's no wonder that after Li Zicheng entered Henan, the people of the whole Henan rebelled, and even gentry like Li Yan also rebelled.

This is the case in Henan, and the same is true in provinces like Shanxi and Shandong.

In other words, Nanzhi, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang had fewer vassal kings, so the situation was better.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Chongzhen asked the two of them again: "Did those gentry make trouble?"

"Of course there are troubles." Du Yinxi nodded and said, "Among them, Hou Xun's family, former Minister of the Household Department, was the most troubled. If there were no cavalry outside the Jin Yuan to frighten us, it would be difficult to proceed with the clearing of Zhang Zhang's fields."

Jin Xuan said: "Your Majesty, in order to frighten the Hou family, I had no choice but to behead several of the Hou family's children. Because the road is far away, and I haven't had time to ask for an order, I also ask the Holy Majesty to punish them."

"Good kill." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "Qing is not guilty."

After a short pause, he continued: "You don't need to be merciful to these gentry who secretly collude with thieves, let alone ask for an order, not to mention that I have given you the right to be exclusive in the first place."

(End of this chapter)