Paper Maker: This is the end of the Ming Dynasty in Liaozhai

Chapter 176 Chongzhen: One more year of hardship for our people!
"My dear friends, just now when Prince Heng's son entered the capital, Qingzhou Fucheng has fallen, and King Heng and Qingzhou Fucheng lived and died together."

Zhu Youjian said in a low voice: "Now the rebel army is becoming more and more powerful. If you can't control its limelight, it may become a catastrophe."

Hearing this, Han Yu and the others also fell silent. Although Nanzhili is one of the two capitals, there are 38 guards and eight guards in the whole Nanzhili, including the left-behind division of Zhongdu. 10,000+ people, plus the soldiers and horses of the Zhejiang Chief Political Officer, there is no problem in gathering 20 troops.

But fighting is not a game of play. As the saying goes, plan for defeat before winning. Wang Congyi despised Su Hao before, which led to this situation. If Wang Congyi planned to defeat first, he would keep part of his troops in Qingzhou Prefecture and Yanzhou Prefecture to contain him. For the rebels, even if they lose this time, it is impossible for Su Hao to capture Qingzhou Mansion so easily.

So even if they want to attack Su Hao, Nan Zhili must at least leave enough defensive troops to prevent Qingzhou Mansion from happening again. If Qingzhou Mansion is lost, the court can still hold on. If Nan Zhili is lost, then The world is in chaos!

Therefore, troops can only be transferred from Fujian, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, and then a part of the troops will be transferred from Nanzhili, but the order to transfer troops has just been passed to the Chief Commissioner of Fujian at most.

It will take at least three or four months to wait for all the soldiers and horses from Fujian and Guangdong to gather in Nanzhili, and it will take at least half a year to wait for the rest and rectification to go to Shandong to counter the rebellion.

However, attacking from the south is also beneficial, that is, if you start from Nanzhili, you don't have to worry about being cut off by the rebels in terms of food and grass, and you can use rivers to transport food, grass and luggage, which can save a lot of consumption.

"Your Majesty, do you want to recruit new soldiers?"

After thinking for a while, Han Yu said: "Now the guards have been corrupted for a long time, and the soldiers are useless. Recruiting new soldiers can put down the rebellion faster."

The guard system has been abolished long ago. If only half of the soldiers in each guard are left, it is a high incense. Now the structure of the frontier army is basically half of the recruits and half of the guard soldiers. The main combat force is the recruits, and the guard soldiers are doing odd jobs. of.

It is very difficult to rely on guard soldiers to wipe out the rebels. It is best to recruit new soldiers. They only need to train strictly for a period of time, and they will become elite soldiers, which are much easier to use than guard soldiers.

"Recruiting recruits?"

Hearing Han Yu's words, Zhu Youjian frowned immediately. The imperial court spent millions of taels of silver every year in Liaodong. If they recruited more soldiers, the imperial court might not be able to hold on.

Seeing Zhu Youjian's face, Han Yu instantly understood what Zhu Youjian was thinking, and sighed secretly in his heart. Although the soldiers in the guards are worthless, they usually don't need to spend money and food from the court at all, and the monthly salary for recruiting soldiers is one year. More than two taels of silver, followed by food. It takes at least 20 taels of silver a year to raise a recruiter, plus weapons and armor, almost 30 taels of silver as a base, plus false claims, it costs 40 taels of silver a year to raise a recruiter.

Today there are more than 40 troops at the border, and there are 20 recruits. Although the weapons and armor do not need to be replaced every year, the salary and food alone cost 400 million taels of silver, plus other miscellaneous items such as city repairs and armament repairs. It costs tens of millions of taels of silver.

In addition to these, there are the Beijing camp, Shangzhi personal guards, plus the royal family's expenses, the royal clan's salaries, the salaries of hundreds of officials, and the expenses of various ministries. If it is not enough, we can only add more money.

"Your Majesty, if recruits can be recruited, then the rebellion will be put down faster, and it will be good for the people."

Seeing that Zhu Youjian was still hesitant, Han Yu could only persuade again: "Now the power of the corvee people in several prefectures around Kaifeng is almost exhausted. If it continues, there may be changes there, and the capital will be in danger by then!"

If only relying on those guards, even if the rebellion can be quelled, it will be a protracted war. Now that the water transport has been cut off, a large amount of grain needs to be transported by land, which wastes a lot of manpower and material resources, and a large amount of grain is consumed by the people who transport it.

More importantly, there is a limit to the number of corvee workers that can be recruited. This time, the transportation of grain will delay the cultivation of hundreds of thousands of households. If it is delayed for another year or two, chaos may even arise in Henan. It's really over here in the capital.

Hearing Han Yu's words, Zhu Youjian's face became heavy, and he finally sighed: "Then recruit recruits, how many recruits should we recruit?"

Han Yu cupped his hands and said, "Returning to Your Majesty, at least [-] recruits must be recruited, and they will be trained for another half a year."

"Why so much?"

Hearing this, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but exclaimed, now the additional Liao pay is 520 million taels of silver per year. Recruiting [-] soldiers means that Liao's salary will be doubled.

Although he has never left the capital, he also knows how heavy the Liao pay is on the people. If the levy is doubled, many people will not be able to survive.

"Your Majesty, the location of Shandong is extremely important. We must not form a tug-of-war here. We must do our best to wipe out the rebels, otherwise Ming Dynasty will be in danger."

Han Yu sighed, if Su Hao, like An Bangyan, occupied a remote area far away from the Central Plains, then he would never make this suggestion, but now Su Hao occupies Shandong, threatening the safety of the capital by going north, and threatening the safety of Zhili south by going south, In the center of the Ming Dynasty, the most affluent place in the world, half of the imperial court's taxes come from Jiangnan.

In addition, Su Hao also cut off the canal, the lifeline of the imperial court, aiming a sharp dagger at Daming's heart. In terms of the degree of danger, Su Hao is bigger than the Jurchens in Liaodong and the Mongols on the grassland. If not Now that the Mongols and the Jurchens are sharpening their knives and staring at Beizhili, he wants to ask Zhu Youjian to mobilize elite frontier troops into Shandong to counter the rebellion.

"Let's levy more."

After a long time, Zhu Youjian closed his eyes in pain: "One more year of hard work for my people!"

He has always wanted to be a good emperor, but as soon as he ascended the throne, the eunuchs ran rampant and caused chaos in the country, and finally overthrew Wei Zhongxian. Su Hao, a vicious eunuch, rebelled again. There were rebellions and natural disasters, and the entire Ming Dynasty was in turmoil.

.........

Jinan Prefecture, Jinyiwei Yamen.

"Master, Qingzhou Mansion has been captured."

Ding Zimo hurriedly came to Su Hao.

"Have Qingzhou Mansion been taken?"

Hearing Ding Zimo's words, Su Hao raised his head. He was not too surprised by this result. There are not many troops in Qingzhou Mansion and Denglai Second Mansion, so they can be easily captured even with a strong attack.

"The commander of the Qingzhou guards made Gao Ting rebel, and Jiang Baihu and the others won Qingzhou Fucheng without paying much."

Ding Zimo cupped his hands and said: "Jiang Baihu and the others have already sent people to escort Liu Yingjiu, the prefect of Qingzhou Prefecture, and Zhu Yiwok, Prince Heng."

Hearing this, Su Hao's eyes suddenly brightened. To him, these vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty are big gift bags. These people have been dominating the local area for decades, and their karma is quite heavy.

In fact, in addition to the vassal king, there are also a large number of royal relatives such as the county king, the general of the town, and the general of the auxiliary country in the prince's fiefdom. He has killed a few of them before, but the cause and effect of these people is surprisingly less, even compared to Not some subordinate staff like headhunters.

The main reason is that since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there have been too many imperial relatives and relatives. In addition, the power of civil servants has risen and the imperial power has declined. I don't have much status anymore, and I have to think carefully about bullying the people, whether I will be impeached by the civil officials, resulting in the loss of titles.

After all, the imperial court is now almost intolerable for the huge annual salaries of many royal relatives, especially the county king. There are only less than 30 vassal kings in the entire Ming Dynasty, but the county king has thousands of people.

You must know that the annual salary of the king of the county is two thousand shi, plus other miscellaneous cloth and the like, it can reach more than 500 shi, and thousands of people are more than 200 million shi, and the sons of the king of the county are the generals of the town The yearly salary is one thousand stones, and the number of generals in the town is several times more than that of the county king, so the court is extremely active in revoking the title of imperial relatives. It is not easy to withdraw the feudal king, but the county king is a little bit The crime is to revoke the title.

"Are they willing to surrender?"

After retracting his thoughts, Su Hao asked.

Ding Zimo cupped his hands and said, "Master, they don't want to."

"Then go to death row."

Su Hao waved his hands and said, "Choose a day to cut."

Now that he is the leader of one party, he can't always kill people in public, otherwise others will think he is crazy, and he will naturally not do such things that ruin his image.

For this reason, he set up a death row, and also refined a paper man similar to a normal person to act as an executioner, and used it to harvest enlightenment points in a legitimate way.

"Yes, Master!"

Hearing Su Hao's words, Ding Zimo nodded, then took out a list from his sleeve, and said, "Master, Jiang Baihu and the others also sent people to escort the wealth accumulated by Prince Heng's Mansion over the past 200 years."

"how many?"

Su Hao took over the list. Now he has nearly 13 soldiers and horses, and he is still recruiting continuously. In another month, there should be more than 15. Before the next conquest by the court, there should be 20. People, the monthly salary and food are a huge number.

In addition, there are various equipment, weapons and armors, which are okay. The 10,000+ army that defeated Wang Congyi before captured a lot. Some relatively new weapons have been produced, but there are also quite a few. Now the weapon workshop is also casting new weapons day and night.

And now he has built a firearms factory with more than 2000 people in Jinan Prefecture, manufacturing Hongyi cannons, firecrackers, and other firearms in large quantities.

There are also all kinds of defense and siege equipment that are being built overtime. All of these are silver. He has used one-third of the more than 600 million taels of silver he collected from the Dewang Mansion and the Tong family. If he doesn't get any more money, he will have a headache.

Ding Zimo replied: "Master, Prince Heng's mansion has more than 110 million acres of fields, and four pastures, with more than 300 good horses, tens of thousands of various livestock, and thousands of shops. There are more than [-] million taels of gold and silver in all parts of the world."

Hearing this, Su Hao nodded in satisfaction. With these 300 million taels, he won't have to worry about military pay for the next two years.

At this time Ding Zimo continued: "In addition to gold and silver, there are more than 500 precious medicines from 500 to [-] years old, twelve thousand-year-old precious medicines, and a [-]-year-old spiritual ginseng."

As he said, Ding Zimo took out a crystal clear black ice jade box from his sleeve, and a ginseng plant with a nine-point human shape lay quietly in the jade box.

"Spirit Ginseng!"

Su Hao appeared in front of Ding Zimo in a flash, took the Xuanbing jade box, opened the box, a gust of spiritual energy rushed towards his face, Su Hao quickly closed the box again, and then drained all the overflowing spiritual energy Breathe in as much air as possible.

As the pure spirit entered into the meridians, Su Hao's calm internal energy instantly boiled up, swallowing up all the clear spirit.

"I didn't expect Prince Heng's Mansion to have such a good thing."

Sensing that the internal force in his body has increased a bit, Su Hao can't help but sigh, this world is different from his previous life, the heavens, earth, everything and stars contain clean energy that can allow people to cultivate, and plants can instinctively absorb these clean energy, and their lifespan is far longer than his previous life The plants are longer, and there are not a few trees and flowers that are hundreds of thousands of years old. Therefore, there are not many precious medicines that are hundreds of thousands of years old, and you can buy them if you have money.

However, there is a kind of medicinal material that is hard to come by, that is, to open up spiritual wisdom and become a magic medicine for demons. Whether it is a human or a demon, it is not easy to step into the road of cultivation. Once you set foot on the road of cultivation, it is a transformation.

Humans are the best, they are born with spiritual wisdom and created the method of cultivation. As long as they are talented, they can step on the road of cultivation step by step, followed by beasts and monsters. There are few, but beasts can move freely, and can also form groups, and have their own race's practice and inheritance.

And the worst thing is the plant monster race. Plants can't move even if they have spiritual intelligence. They don't have the inheritance of their own race's cultivation skills. Leaves and vines are used as means of attack, as well as a little self-protection ability.

The worst ones are plants like ginseng, ganoderma lucidum, and Polygonum multiflorum. Before the spiritual wisdom is developed, the heaven and earth qi absorbed by the plant's instinct can basically not remain in the body, and can only be accumulated by time.

And after opening the spiritual wisdom, the absorbed heaven and earth qi can strengthen the body very well, and it can surpass the accumulation of thousands of years in the past 80 or [-] years. Spiritual Qi.

And the spiritual energy is a super tonic for any creature. With his martial arts master's internal strength, just taking a breath of the overflowing spiritual energy can have obvious effects.

If he eats this spirit ginseng, it will save him at least three to five years of hard work, which is much better than eating a hundred thousand-year-old medicine. When his father had this spirit medicine, he would never run out of vitality , The oil ran out and the lamp withered and died.

Originally, precious medicines such as ginseng and ganoderma were the objects of competition between the human race and the beast race. After opening the spiritual wisdom, it is equivalent to refining oneself into a panacea. Once discovered, it will be eaten immediately. The elixir that can be obtained is rare in a hundred years.

Moreover, every time the spiritual qi in the elixir goes through a catastrophe, there will be a transformation. The pure qi contained in the thousand-year elixir does not mean life and death, but as long as there is still a breath, it can definitely be saved.

If an ordinary person gets a thousand-year-old elixir, as long as he has the skills and the talent is not bad, it is completely easy to become a martial arts master. Even if the talent is good, it is not impossible to be a congenital master.

It's a pity that this level of elixir, even if the emperor who sits on the world can get it depends on chance, if there is no chance, it is useless to search the world.

This is also the reason why Lu Yi turned his face on the spot when he blackmailed Lu Yi, the city god of Zichuan County, with a thousand-year-old elixir.

(End of this chapter)