Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 12 The world is corrupt
"Eh...Eh..."

In the early morning, when the fog receded, a donkey cart drove out of the university grounds, and sitting in the cart were Zhu Gaoxu and Yang Zhan, who had changed their bodies to black and short brown.

Yang Zhan drove in front, and Zhu Gaoxu sat on the donkey cart. Looking at the retreating cathedral, he became more curious about the town more than ten miles away.

The stupid Wang Xuan was left in the courtyard because the Duke of Wei's house was sending something today and someone had to look after the house.

Sitting on the swaying donkey cart, Zhu Gaoxu glanced at the skinny donkey and couldn't help but ask:

"Since the price of private beef is so low, is the price of cattle cheap?"

"It depends on the cow." Yang Zhan replied while driving skillfully:

"Wang Xuan and I didn't go to see it yesterday, but when we were in Songjiang Mansion before, I remembered that a yellow ox only costs seven taels. A plow ox is more expensive and requires ten taels to buy."

"What about the horse?" Zhu Gaoxu was a little curious, but Yang Zhan was confused:

"I don't know about that. Your Highness, you will see for yourself later. Besides, there may not be one. There is a shortage of horses in the world, and the price is difficult to determine."

"Lack of horses? Are we short of horses?" Zhu Gaoxu asked in confusion, but Yang Zhan turned around and said as if he had seen a ghost:
"Que, when I was in Songjiang Prefecture, I didn't see many people who could ride horses. When I arrived in Nanjing, there were more donkeys. It was only when I entered the big teaching field that I saw so many horses."

"I remember that in the 21st year of Hongwu, His Majesty the King of Chu made great achievements in conquering Alutu in Yunnan. His Majesty specially gave thirty Qin horses. As a result, all the vassal kings were very envious."

Yang Zhan's words gave Zhu Gaoxu an understanding of the situation of horses in Ming Dynasty, but he asked doubtfully:
"Why does the King of Chu want so many horses? His fiefdom is in Wuchang, so he shouldn't have any foreign enemies, right?"

"Of course there are none near Wuchang, but south of the Yangtze River and west of the Xiangjiang River are all barbarians and mountain bandits." Yang Zhan explained, while also mentioning several of the vassal kings' bandit suppression deeds he remembered:

"I remember that the year before last, His Highnesses Chu, Xiang and others led troops to level the mountain bandits in southwestern Guangxi and killed many barbarians."

"But it's normal. Currently, south of the Yangtze River, west of the Xiangjiang River, and west of Guangzhou are mostly native barbarians. Although the court has moved many people, I heard that there are only two barbarians and two Han people in the area, and they are very poor."

Yang Zhan told Zhu Gaoxu about the situation of the Ming Dynasty in the southwest. Generally speaking, since the Han Dynasty, there have been very few gathering places for Han people in the southwest.

In the late Tang Dynasty, the Han people in southwest China experienced large-scale wars.

In the Song Dynasty, although the number of Han people in the local area increased slightly, after the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty entered the customs, a large number of Han people died in the war.

When Zhu Yuanzhang recovered the whole world and Yunnan and other places, the number of Han people in the southwest was pitifully small, so he decided to move a large number of people to the southwest.

But even so, in later generations, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, south of Chengdu in Sichuan, and west of Guangzhou in Guangdong were all populated by a small number of people.

It is precisely because of this that Zhu Yuanzhang set up vassal garrisons in Wuchang, Jingzhou, Kunming, Chengdu and other places.

During the Hongwu period, with the exception of King Zhu Zhu of Zhou, the other vassal kings all had targets to guard against. Even King Qi and King Lu of Shandong also needed to guard against Japanese pirates and protect the canal connecting the north and south.

According to Yang Zhan, except for Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Southern Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, and Beiping, the rest of the provinces in the Ming Dynasty were basically turbulent provinces where Hu and Han people lived together, and there were a large number of Hu people.

There are Mongolians who have migrated in the north of Shaanxi, there are Tubo and Qiang people in the west, and the Hexi Corridor is basically inhabited by Semu and Green Mongolians.

The area south of Chengdu in Sichuan is basically populated by Yi people. The situation in Yunnan, Huguang, Guangxi, and Guangdong is more complicated.

As for Liaodong, there are no Han people except military households. They are all Koreans, Mongols and Jurchens.

The six provinces of Nanjing, Peiping, Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Shandong, and Shanxi can be regarded as the basic base of the Ming Dynasty. Even the naturalized Mongolians in Henan are very restless.

From this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang did need a lot of energy and courage to govern such an empire.

Zhu Gaoxu, who was sitting in the car, couldn't help but admire Lao Zhu, but at the same time he thought of Zhu Yunwen.As far as my good brother's method of cutting down the vassal vassal is concerned, if a strong man does not stand up, it will be really difficult to predict the future of the Ming Dynasty.

Thinking like this, Zhu Gaoxu couldn't help but feel a little more urgent, and he became more interested in studying military books and learning the art of war.

"Your Highness, please take a rest. There is still seven or eight miles to go. It will probably take half an hour."

Yang Zhan explained, while also skillfully driving a donkey cart to avoid potholes on the dirt road.

Following his words, Zhu Gaoxu also spent half an hour in boredom.

It wasn't until Chen Shi that the two of them saw a little building popping up in the fields. Then the building continued to enlarge, and a market town appeared in front of them.

This town is called Dashuying, and it is the only market town within a radius of more than [-] miles south of the outer city.

Zhu Gaoxu and Yang Zhan arrived at the entrance of the town, showed their military badges to the military households guarding here, and then led the donkey cart into the town.

Most of the market towns in the south of the Yangtze River during the Ming Dynasty were attached to rivers, and Dashuying was no doubt the same.

In fact, Zhu Gaoxu was very interested in the name of the town Dashuying, because he traveled to Yunnan in later generations, but these three characters are a place name worth pondering in the local area.

He never imagined that when he came to Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty, he would actually see a place with these three characters as the name of the town.

He walked around the town. The land in the town was basically compacted dirt roads. On both sides of the dirt roads were rows of wooden tile houses and foot merchants setting up thatched shops and setting up stalls.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial court stipulated that people could only wear variegated plate-collared clothes, and yellow was not allowed. Men's and women's clothes were not allowed to be embroidered with gold, and materials such as brocade, silk, and silk were not allowed. Only silk, silk, plain gauze, and cloth were allowed.

In the 25th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that common people were not allowed to wear boots, but only shoes.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang was relatively tolerant when it came to common people's weddings. He stipulated that common people could wear ninth-grade crown clothes when they got married.

In addition, ordinary people are not allowed to wear crowns and can only wear square scarves, women's hats or net scarves prescribed by the government.

As for merchants, Zhu Yuanzhang regarded merchants as inferior, which was also reflected in the clothing system.

For example, farmers' homes are allowed to wear silk, gauze, silk and cloth, but merchants are only allowed to wear silk and cloth, not silk or gauze.

In addition, he also clearly stipulated that if a farmer's family has a merchant, the family is not allowed to wear clothes made of silk or gauze.

This knowledge is no stranger to Zhu Gaoxu, who lives in the Internet age, so he also feels that Zhu Yuanzhang cares too much and is too complicated.

But when he came to this era, he discovered that Zhu Yuanzhang's regulations had no restrictions on real ordinary people.

For example, in Dashu Camp right now, most of the people selling supplies wear soap cloth towels on their heads, green cloth cotton-padded jackets, cloth trousers, white cloth socks, and green cloth shoes.

Clothes and boots made of materials such as brocade, silk, and silk were simply not something that ordinary people could afford.

Even silk, gauze, silk, square scarves, women's silk scarves or net scarves, which Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated could not be worn by ordinary people in this era.

"Sure enough, hearing is worse than seeing..."

Zhu Gaoxu sighed, but at the same time he sighed: "I'm afraid I'm the only one who can see this scene."

(End of this chapter)