Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 594 Epilogue: Longqing
"Recently, the Guanzhong region has been experiencing drought and little rain, and the north has been hit by floods and snowstorms, resulting in reduced grain production. All of this is consistent with the disasters predicted by the emperor. However, don't worry. The Little Ice Age will not last long. The court has comprehensive measures to stabilize the situation, so there is no need to worry about a surge in grain prices..."

“Don’t worry about the skyrocketing food prices…”

In a market town, when the sound of the radio echoed under the archway, the whole town was sparsely populated, and only a few people were walking on the streets under the scorching sun.

Most of the shops along the street were closed, and one of the few that was open had a flag flying outside.

[Baishui Town, Fuzhou County, Yan'an Prefecture… April 6, the third year of Longqing’s reign]

"It seems like I really can't stay in this place any longer."

A sigh was heard, and an elderly man in a round-necked shirt walked up to the archway, picked up the radio, and turned to look outside the town.

Outside the town, the sun was like a fireball soaked in oil, hanging in the sky and emitting scorching heat. Even the few remaining clouds that provided cover were reduced to ashes in the sun's evaporation.

The steam had long since disappeared from the ground, and as far as the eye could see, there was no green at all, only the earth that had become dry and cracked due to years of intense heat.

In such a climate, not to mention humans, even animals had to migrate south, and this was the background of the Longqing era...

"Since the beginning of autumn last year, Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, northern Zhili, and parts of Shandong have suffered unprecedented drought disasters, which have not eased to date. More than 40 million people have difficulty getting drinking water, more than 500 million mu of arable land has dried up, and a large amount of land has seen reduced or even no harvest."

"Since the beginning of summer this year, the average precipitation in the above-mentioned areas has accumulated to 75.2 mm, a decrease of 285.1% compared with the annual average of 74 mm..."

"There are floods in the northeast, water disasters in the southeast, and the construction of railways in the southwest is slow. The court can only rely on transporting grain from Beizhou, Dongzhou, Nanzhou, and Nanyang to alleviate the problems in the Central Plains."

Inside the Fengtian Hall in the Forbidden City in Beijing, the seventy-three-year-old Zhu Yixuan was listening to the report of the Minister of Revenue Bi Ziyan in front of him as the emperor.

Apart from him, the rest of the Shangshu of the six ministries, the left and right vice ministers, the palace ministers, and the six military commanders all obeyed this voice.

"Northern Continent and Eastern Continent have also experienced drought this year. I suggest that we no longer transfer food from these two continents, but focus on Southern Continent, Nanyang, and Shannan."

"Also, regarding foreign grain trade..."

Bi Ziyan was a little hesitant. After all, the consequences of the interruption of grain trade in the past were quite serious, and he couldn't make the decision alone.

All the officials knew about it, but no one dared to speak up.

Seeing this, Zhu Yizhen had no choice but to make the decision: "The alcohol ban is promulgated, and foreign grain trade is only conducted with vassal states."

"This is a situation that has not happened in hundreds of years. The court's first priority is to ensure that we survive!"

Zhu Yixuan's words were a bit serious. After all, the Ming Dynasty was still the overlord of this era, and it still had 3.8 billion mu of arable land to support it. It shouldn't be so exaggerated.

However, judging from the current situation, Zhu Yizhen might be being conservative.

On the tenth day of the fourth month of the third year of Longqing, the Ming Dynasty promulgated a "prohibition order" and restricted foreign grain trade to the scope of the Ming Dynasty's vassal states.

This meant that the World Trade Alliance that had just been formed during the Jiajing period began to be interrupted. Except for Sweden, Poland and Hungary, which had paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty early on, no other country in Western Continent could obtain grain from the Ming Dynasty through legal means.

This situation plunged the world, which had been peaceful for more than 20 years, into chaos.

On the night of July 17, the third year of the Longqing reign, earthquakes occurred in Changsha, Changde, Baoqing, Yuezhou, Hengzhou and other prefectures in Huguang, especially in Changde and Lizhou.

There was an earthquake in the Wuling area of ​​Changde Prefecture in the middle of the night. Black cloud blocked the sky, wells and springs overflowed, and holes in the ground cracked, gushing water gushed out, collapsing countless palaces, city walls and houses in the Rong Mansion, and crushing hundreds of civilians to death.

That same night, there was a thunderous roar in Lizhou. The ground cracked, sand surged with water, houses collapsed, trees were uprooted, and countless people and animals were crushed to death.

More than five miles of the city wall built by Jingzhou Prefecture during the Hongwu period was destroyed, and houses collapsed, killing hundreds of soldiers and civilians.

The earthquake affected more than 60 prefectures, counties and cities including Jingzhou Prefecture, Yiling Prefecture in Huguang, Zhongxiang, Jingling, Qianjiang in Chengtian Prefecture, etc., killing nearly 10,000 people and causing losses of no less than 7 million taels.

In February of the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the Second War of Xizhou broke out in Xizhou.

In the same year, the grain supply of the three Indochina countries of Siam, Champa and Ganbozhi was taken over by officials sent by the Ming Dynasty, and all grain that could be used for trade was used for trade with the Ming Dynasty.

In July, the Mengjin section of the Yellow River, which was supervised in the 38th year of Jiajing, broke through a distance of 12 miles, leaving more than 400,000 people in three counties homeless and 8,724 military, civilian and merchant casualties or missing.

Upon hearing the news, Zhu Yixuan ordered Yang Lian and others to investigate, and executed and confiscated the property of 274 households, seizing more than 854,000 taels of money and grain, all of which was used for disaster relief.

In addition, the court allocated another 6 million taels for disaster relief and exempted local taxes for three years.

In April of the fifth year of Longqing, Wu Gan, a member of the Imperial Secretariat, submitted a memorial saying:

"Since August last year, there has been no rain in Shanxi and Shaanxi for several months. The land is barren and the crops have all failed. Although the imperial court has tried to stabilize grain prices, the local grain price is still 800 coins per stone, which is not a price that ordinary people can live on for a long time. Therefore, local people have all fled south. In Xi'an Prefecture where I live, I'm afraid that no less than one million people have fled south in just half a year..."

In response to the memorial, Zhu Yizhen ordered an investigation into the population changes in the disaster-stricken areas.

In October, the drought spread to the Jianghuai region and also occurred in eastern Sichuan.

In the same year, areas such as Transoxiana and Persia suffered from drought to varying degrees, and in Beizhou and Dongzhou, there were even incidents of robbery and robbery due to the drought.

During this period, the only thing Zhu Yixuan could be thankful for was that Nanyang was not greatly affected. The 600 million acres of arable land in Nanyang and Nanzhou could provide Zhongzhou with enough cheap grain of 500 million shi while being self-sufficient.

Although Zhu Yizhen focused on research, his imperial mentality and political tactics were not bad.

He bought the grain at the local price of 200 to 300 wen per stone and sold it to the disaster-stricken areas at the price of 500 wen.

Excluding transportation costs, the imperial court could make ten to twenty cents per dan of grain.

This is not a lot, and the reason for making this money is to better provide disaster relief.

The Ming Dynasty had basically no accumulated wealth during the Jiajing period, so the first thing Zhu Yixuan did after coming to power was to issue 5 billion taels of national debt to overcome the difficulties.

This national debt has not been fully issued yet, but every penny has been used in the disaster-stricken areas.

For example, in the fifth year of Longqing, the Ming Dynasty purchased more than 960 million shi of grain throughout the year. In addition, a large amount of oil, salt, and meat were shipped to the disaster area to stabilize grain prices.

The annual expenditure is about 300 million taels, which is more than the annual fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

If the 5 billion bilateral bonds were not issued, Zhu Yizhen would have to mobilize money and grain in the bank to provide disaster relief.

Such actions are fine under normal circumstances, but not in years of disaster.

If someone leaks the news, people will become uneasy and a run on the bank is inevitable.

Issuing national bonds and using the rich's money to relieve disasters is the best method Zhu Yizhen can use.

He was not a military emperor, nor did he have the prestige to initiate major cases, so all he could do was find a way through compromise.

Facing nature, the Ming Dynasty was still so weak...

In the sixth year of the Longqing reign, drought continued in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong, and locust plagues broke out in some areas.

In the same year, seawater flooded back into Jiangnan, but due to the complete river embankment system and water-control sluice design established during the Hongxi period, Jiangnan did not suffer a major disaster.

In June, heavy rains continued in the Northeast, causing floods in the rivers there, but did not cause much damage.

In October, the Battle of Vienna broke out in Spain, where the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire fought each other.

In the same month, Chen Shang, Marquis of Zhaozhou, submitted a memorial stating that the climate in Northeast China was cooling down. In the past, if machines were used to cultivate and fertilizers were spread on each acre of land, 300 kilograms of rice could be harvested in October.

However, since the second year of the Longqing reign, grain production has been declining, with only about 250 kilograms per mu this year.

According to statistics from Jilin Agricultural University, since the Little Ice Age began, the total grain output in Northeast China has dropped from a peak of more than 23 million shi in the th year of Jiajing to more than million shi today, a % overall decrease...

If there is no urea, potassium fertilizer and phosphorus fertilizer, the grain yield will drop by about 30%, and the yield per mu will not exceed 140 kilograms.

This is the output from deep cultivation with the help of machinery. If we still use animal power for farming, it is estimated that we will not even reach 120 kilograms per mu.

Against such an historical backdrop, the Northeast was still able to transport 200 million shi of grain to the interior every year, all thanks to the Ming Dynasty's development of the Northeast since the Hongxi period.

In February of the seventh year of Longqing, Bi Maokang became the president of Taixue.

In April, the Ministry of Revenue reported to Zhu Yihuan that over the past seven years, 30 million people from Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, Shandong and parts of northern Zhili had migrated southward intermittently, most of them going to Jiangnan, Nanyang, Nanzhou and even Kunlunzhou.

In May, the Ministry of Revenue reported that the populations of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces were over 66 million, over 44 million, and over 42 million, respectively.

The population of the three places accounted for about 17.8% of the total population of the Ming Dynasty, and the tax revenue contributed by the three places was 27.6%...

In August, Hanlin scholar Wen Tiren impeached the Yan Party for disrupting the government, and the Zhejiang Party and the Yan Party started fighting again.

In October, Spain annexed Portugal, and the Ming Dynasty still called it France.

In the twelfth month, Henan Provincial Governor Ruan Dacheng was impeached by Zhejiang Party member Wen Tiren for embezzlement of disaster relief funds. Zhu Yixuan angrily ordered Wen Tiren to investigate the case.

Wen Tihen took the opportunity to suppress the Yan Party. More than 200 officials including Ruan Dacheng, Wang Shizhen, and Hui Shiyang were investigated, and more than 7.8 million taels of money, grain, and houses were seized.

Zhu Yizhen executed Ruan Dacheng and others, and used the money and grain to provide disaster relief.

In March of the eighth year of the Longqing reign, a locust plague broke out in the Arab region, and the grain in the granary was looted. Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of the Arab region, ordered the military to suppress the hungry people, which led to a civil uprising. Uday Muhammad, a hungry man, claimed to be a descendant of the Arab royal family and gathered more than 300,000 hungry people to launch a rebellion.

The Dashi area was a new administrative region established in the 16th year of the Jiajing reign when Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao led his army to quell a rebellion. However, during the 67th year of the Jiajing reign, the Ming Dynasty did not carry out much infrastructure construction in this area, resulting in the lack of railways and roads in the area, and relief food could not be transported to the disaster area.

Uday's rebellion continued to expand and soon occupied the inland areas of the Caliphate.

On April 24, Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of the Arab world, submitted a memorial to impeach Mao Wenlong, the commander-in-chief of the Arab world, for harboring the enemy and seeking permission to lead troops to quell the rebellion.

After the memorial was submitted, Zhu Yixuan was very angry and ordered the dismissal of Yuan Chonghuan and transferred Lu Xiangsheng, the Shaanxi Provincial Surveillance Commissioner, to be the Governor of Dashi.

On the seventh day of May, Yuan Keli, the Minister of War, submitted a memorial stating, "During the crisis of the country, we should stabilize the army. If the army is stabilized, the country will be stable. The army's pay has not increased for more than 200 years since the Yongle period, while prices have risen by more than 40%. We should increase the pay to stabilize the army's morale."

Zhu Yixuan agreed with what he heard, so he adjusted the annual salary of soldiers in the inland areas from 20 taels to 30 taels, and that in the border areas from 50 taels to 60 taels.

After the military pay was adjusted, the 850,000 Ming troops were delighted.

In September, Yuan Keli submitted another memorial requesting the reform and streamlining of the Bingmasi soldiers, and the increase of their salaries.

With the results of the last time, Zhu Yixuan was very convinced of Yuan Keli's words, so he allowed him to reform the Bingmasi.

In October, Yuan Keli reformed the Bingmasi and set up a Bingmasi Yamen, with one vice minister of the Ministry of War, four deputy ministers, and twelve principals.

At the local level, there were 39 military preparation departments, each responsible for a province. There was an indefinite number of military preparation departments in each province, and the organization was mainly based on guards, regiments, battalions, brigades, teams, and squads.

The small county has a military brigade with a total of 142 people.

Zhong County has a military brigade with 426 people.

Large counties have a military reserve regiment with a strength of 1,278 people.

If it is a provincial capital, there will be a guard with more than 3,800 people.

In places like the two capitals, there was a guard in each of the east and west counties, with a total of more than 7,600 people.

As for the soldiers' salaries, they were increased from fifteen taels per year to twenty taels.

After Yuan Keli's reform, the Bingmasi was reduced from an originally bloated 1.24 million to 860,000.

From the army to the Bingmasi, Zhu Yizhen's reforms achieved remarkable results.

As expected, in February of the ninth year of the Longqing reign, Sun Chuanting, the left vice minister of the Ministry of War, became the emperor's mouthpiece to the world and announced a reform of the civil service system.

Although everyone knew that the emperor was going to reform the civil service system, no one expected that someone would actually dare to stand on the emperor's side.

You must know that this is not Hongxi, Jingtai, Chenghua or Zhengde. The current emperor has no military merits, and there is no peace inside and outside the court.

It is not a good choice to stand on the emperor's side at this critical juncture.

The Ming Dynasty had been established for 269 years. During this period, the Western Han Dynasty had become the Eastern Han Dynasty, and even the Eastern Han Dynasty had entered the countdown to its demise.

During this period, the Tang Dynasty was only twenty years away from its demise, and the two Song Dynasties were only fifty years away from their demise.

Although people know that they cannot judge the present by comparing the past, comparison is inevitable.

Not to mention that the Ming Dynasty is now suffering from disasters all over the country, and it has only been able to survive the past eight years thanks to the continuous delivery of food from Southeast Asia, South Africa and the Northeast.

Although the imperial court repeatedly said that the active period of the Little Ice Age would not last too long, seeing that the snow had accumulated to a foot in the south of the Yangtze River, anyone with a discerning eye could see that the Little Ice Age would probably not end so soon.

Sun Chuanting's behavior of taking sides is undoubtedly stupid in the eyes of many people...

In March, Sun Chuanting was promoted to the Minister of Personnel and concurrently served as the Governor of Beijing.

Zhu Yi issued the emperor's flag and allowed Sun Chuanting to act at his discretion.

In May, after Sun Chuanting had recruited 6,000 officials from the five ministries for the imperial inspection with great difficulty, he launched a massive imperial inspection campaign.

He started from Beijing, which was different from previous inspections in Beijing.

Previous inspections in Beijing were conducted from bottom to top, but Sun Chuanting investigated from top to bottom, and started with the palace first.

In response to this, Sun Chuanting and Zhu Yizhen expressed their thoughts.

Sun Chuanting believed that the eunuchs in the inner court were greedy and often leaked information to people in the outer court, so the Beijing inspection must start with the eunuchs and palace maids in the inner court, and then the meritorious officials and civil servants in Beijing.

As long as the officials in Beijing fall, the local officials will have no support. Your Majesty has already won the support of the people by increasing military pay and the salaries of the military department. Even if there is a rebellion in the local area, it will be difficult to form a trend and can be suppressed at any time.

Sun Chuanting's idea was very dangerous, but Zhu Yizhen thought it made sense, so he approved his top-down Beijing inspection idea.

On May 24, Sun Chuanting officially launched the Beijing inspection.

In just one and a half months, more than 700 eunuchs of all ranks in the inner court confessed during the imperial examination and handed over 24.26 million taels of stolen money.

Upon hearing the news, Zhu Yixin was furious. After ordering the execution of these eunuchs, he became depressed and fell ill.

Before his fall, Zhu Yixuan ordered the Crown Prince Zhu Changqing to govern the country and asked Zhu Changqing to continue to support Sun Chuanting's imperial inspection.

Upon hearing this, all the officials began to impeach Sun Chuanting to Zhu Changqing, but Zhu Changqing asked in return: "What crime has Chuanting committed?"

Obviously, Zhu Changqing was also a smart man. He knew that if the problem of official administration was not solved, there would be no disaster relief. No matter how much money and grain were distributed, it would eventually fall into the pockets of corrupt officials.

It was precisely because of his support that Sun Chuanting gained confidence and immediately launched an inspection of Beijing officials and meritorious officials.

On September 18, Sun Chuanting reported to the emperor that 2,765 officials, including Duke of Cao Li Huaiyu, Duke of Cheng Zhu Chuncheng, Grand Secretary Zhang Jinyan, and Chen Yan, were guilty of taking bribes, and he handed over the evidence to the Qianqing Palace.

At that time, there were only about 9,600 meritorious officials and civil servants in Beijing. Sun Chuanting found so many corrupt people in just four months of investigation. Zhu Yixuan was so angry that he vomited blood, and ordered Sun Chuanting to handle the case according to the law.

On September 19, Sun Chuanting and Jinyiwei commander Hu Neng led the Yanshan Guard and Jilin Guard to arrest the officials involved in the incident in Beijing.

On the ninth day of October, Wang Chongming, the commander-in-chief of Guizhou, raised his army in rebellion and invited the whole country to join forces to fight against Sun Chuanting in order to purge the emperor's side.

On October 15, Li Bangyan, the commander-in-chief of Laos, responded to Wang Chongming.

On October 22, Zhu Zaijie, the Prince of Beizhou, raised an army to quell the rebellion in order to purge the imperial court.

For a time, smoke of war rose in the southwest and northern Taiwan. Zhu Changqing ordered troops from various local military governors to suppress the rebellion, but the military officers from various local military governors pretended to obey his orders while secretly disobeying them. Only Cao Wenzhao, the commander-in-chief of Shaanxi, and Cao Bianjiao, the commander-in-chief of Hezhong, requested to suppress the rebellion.

On the second day of the winter month, Sun Chuanting requested to lead troops to quell the rebellion, and Zhu Changqing agreed.

When the news came out, the local area was shocked, and Sun Chuanting became the first civil official to command the army since Wang Shouren.

On the fourteenth day of the winter month, Wang Chongming attacked the entire Guizhou province. Although his soldiers were unwilling to rebel, the matter was already done and deserters were basically executed, so no one dared to disobey the order.

On the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Sun Chuanting led the Yanshan Guard and the Jilin Guard to Chongqing, and during a banquet, he killed Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong, the commanders-in-chief of Sichuan and Huguang.

On the 20th of the winter month, Sun Chuanting led troops from Huguang, Sichuan and other places to encircle and suppress Wang Chongming. The two armies fought in Bozhou. Sun Chuanting ordered the Air Force to drop a notice of amnesty.

At that time, Wang Chongming's soldiers were unwilling to rebel. Seeing that the court had forgiven them, they defected one after another.

Upon seeing this, Sun Chuanting sent a large number of troops to the front and defeated Wang Chongming at Hailong Pass in Bozhou, killing more than 1,600 stubborn resisters and pacifying more than 38,000 rebels. Wang Chongming died in the bombing.

On the second day of the twelfth lunar month, Sun Chuanting recovered the entire Guizhou province and marched into Laos.

On the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, Sun Chuanting led his troops to Pu'er Prefecture. Li Bangyan, the commander-in-chief of Laos, was killed by his subordinates, and the Laotian rebels surrendered.

Sun Chuanting executed all the rebellious military officers, while the middle and lower-level officers and soldiers continued to serve.

In February of the tenth year of Longqing's reign, Sun Chuanting returned after suppressing the rebellion. At that time, Prince Wei Zhu Zaijie attacked cities and plundered land, and eight of the twenty-four prefectures in Beizhou fell.

Zheng Zhilong, the commander-in-chief of Beizhou, was originally on the sidelines, but when he learned that the rebellion of Wang Chongming and Li Bangyan had been suppressed, he sent troops to fight Zhu Zaijia.

The two sides fought at Yuhe (Mississippi River), and Zheng Zhilong, who had naval, land and air forces, was defeated by Zhu Zaijia. Fortunately, his son Zheng Sen led his troops to the battlefield, repelled Zhu Zaijia's attack, and covered Zheng Zhilong's retreat after being shot.

On February 18th, Zheng Zhilong died of his injuries.

Zhu Changqing originally wanted to mobilize the Western Army to Beizhou to quell the rebellion, but the Minister of War Yuan Keli believed that Zheng Zhilong was defeated and killed. Although Zheng Sen was young, he had just lost his father and might fight to the death with the rebels. Therefore, he suggested that Zheng Sen take over the position of Beizhou Commander-in-Chief.

As Yuan Keli had expected, after Zheng Sen took over the post of commander-in-chief of Beizhou, he recruited soldiers again to prepare for war, defeated Zhu Zaijia at Baishui River, and captured twelve cities in a row.

Zhang Huangyan, the governor of Beizhou, led the military to raid Chaoge Prefecture and captured Prince Wei's relatives alive. Prince Wei Zhu Zaijie led his troops to surrender.

After the war, Zhu Changqing ordered Sun Chuanting to continue the Beijing inspection and cut off all the guards of the various vassal states in Beizhou, leaving only 300 people in each prefecture.

On the eighth day of the third month of the tenth year of the Longqing reign, Zhu Yixian passed away in the Qianqing Palace at the age of eighty. The crown prince Zhu Changqing ascended the throne and gave the late emperor Zhu Yixian the temple name Muzong and the posthumous title Qitian Longdao Yuanyi Kuanren Xianwen Guangwu Chunde Hongxiaozhuang Emperor...

(End of this chapter)