I have a cornucopia

Chapter 266 The Exiled Emperor
His Majesty the Emperor stood there angrily, looking at the complicated gazes around him.

Indifference, contempt, even hostility...

But none of them was the submission and awe he had imagined.

He stood there like a clown, even stripped naked. His confidence along the way turned into self-humiliation in the end.

Of course, it wasn't his fault, at least he didn't think it was his fault.

But...

"Rebel, you rebel, you always say loyalty and righteousness in front of me, is this your loyalty and righteousness? I am the Son of Heaven, the Lord of the world, you are my ministers, how dare you compare yourself with me? You say I am a tyrant, are you not treacherous ministers? You were dismissed by me for protecting the families of corrupt officials who took bribes and perverted the law, but now you are here to accuse me of levying heavy taxes and trusting treacherous ministers. If I trust treacherous ministers, you are all treacherous ministers. If I levy heavy taxes, you are all corrupt and perverted the law.

Have I ever used a single ounce of silver for pleasure during my lavish taxation? My underwear still has patches, and my three meals a day are no more than normal. Even if I levied heavy taxes, I used them for the country.

Have you ever used a single ounce of silver from your corruption and perverted laws for the state? Each of my gardens is as big as an imperial palace, I eat a hundred sheep for a meal, and I have many concubines. Didn't you corrupt me for all the money I collected through levying heavy taxes? I did not protect the ancestral temples, which led to the turmoil of the country, but why did the Ming Dynasty end up like this? Wasn't it because of you corrupt officials? It was you who corrupted the army and made the soldiers unable to defend against the enemy. It was you who annexed the land and left the people with no place to live. It was you who played with the enemy and enriched yourself, causing the world to collapse. Now you blame me for this. How shameless!

I really have no face to face the Xiaoling Mausoleum.

But what about you?

If Emperor Taizu Gao were to be resurrected, all of you would be exterminated for your crimes.

You still have the nerve to mention Taizu?"

He said.

Then all eyes turned to Fang Fengnian.

The latter just smiled slightly...

"Your Majesty, I have said that I dare not escape punishment. If Your Majesty thinks that dismissal is not enough to punish me, I will accept the punishment. But are you willing to step down and bring peace to the world?"

He said.

What’s the point of Chongzhen’s struggle?

We are both guilty, the emperor and his subjects. I am not denying my guilt. I did plead for the families of those officials whose property was confiscated, saying that they were implicated too much and that was why you dismissed them. I am not denying it. Even if we call other elders now, they will also dare to admit that they are guilty. There are a lot of former grand secretaries, nine ministers, and governors of the Chongzhen Dynasty. They say that Chongzhen was incompetent in governing the country and brought the world to this point. They really cannot escape responsibility.

After all, no matter what Chongzhen did, they were all involved, and many of them were even blamed and dismissed from their posts by Chongzhen.

But we admit our guilt and we are willing to accept punishment. So are you willing to admit your guilt and accept punishment? We dare to die, do you dare to abdicate?
We don't want you to die, but we can at least ask you to abdicate, right?

Isn't this too much?
We have all been responsible for bringing this upon the world. We admit our guilt and are willing to be punished. But as the emperor, the supreme ruler, you are the primary person responsible. We are at most accomplices, and you are the principal offender. You can't just ignore your responsibility, right? And don't even mention a confession of guilt. If we really want to count our guilt, our guilt can't be fooled away by a confession of guilt.

Chongzhen...

"I am the Son of Heaven, how dare you talk to me?"

Chongzhen roared angrily.

He was obviously so angry that he lost his mind, or he had forgotten to hide his feelings and just said what was in his heart.

"Your Majesty, what else can an old minister say?"

Fang Fengnian said with contempt.

After saying that, he turned and walked directly towards the cabin.

"Your Majesty, I dare not kill the king. Please do as you please."

He said without turning his head.

Then his guards also put away their pistols.

"Dock. I am the Son of Heaven, the supreme ruler of the world. Today I want to see who dares to stop me from going to the Southern Capital."

Chongzhen, who didn't realize he had been tricked, shouted.

But at this moment, as the militia officer pointed his knife forward, all the militia officers on the shore aimed their muskets at Chongzhen.

Even behind these militias, the people who came to watch the fun crowded together and formed a human wall blocking the dock. Several of the nearest ships also stepped forward to block Chongzhen's ship.

"Your Majesty, you have been messing with this country for seventeen years. The people have had enough and don't want to endure it any longer. The princess has been regent for two years, and the people have lived and worked in peace and contentment. We don't want to be ruined by your Majesty again."

The officer said this under Chongzhen's angry gaze.

"Your Majesty, please go back quickly!"

"Your Majesty, please stop harming the people!"

……

There were shouts all around.

The soldiers and civilians watching were not stupid. Chongzhen had ruled for seventeen years, and they knew very well what the Ming Dynasty was like. They had endured darkness for their entire lives, and finally got a break during the two years when the princess was regent. The three taxes were no longer collected. Of course, they actually had no ability to collect them. After all, the local gentry didn't want to pay them. The local officials were now begging for food on their knees, so of course they had no ability to collect them. There were no restrictions on industry and commerce, and the economy was becoming more and more developed. Although natural disasters continued, new crops were gradually promoted, and the canned food industry along the coast and the river continued to expand. Although it couldn't be said that everyone had enough to eat, at least there were very few people starving to death in the cities of Jiangnan.

Of course, the most important thing is that it has gradually stabilized.

Famine alone will not cause devastating deaths. War destroys production, mass deaths cause plagues, the collapse of order is unable to solve various problems, and there is killing. These are all important causes of devastating deaths.

Order and stability can always solve these problems.

A major advantage of the militia model is that it enhances local control over order.

No matter how this control is achieved, whether it is the bloody suppression of unruly people or allowing the gentry to become separatist and powerful people, the result is indeed the maintenance of local order.

The militia did indeed bloodily suppress the rebellious people, but they also bloodily suppressed the outsiders who entered their territory, and they were also very dedicated in killing the bandits!

A stable order and an economically developed society are naturally advantageous in resisting natural disasters. The rising period is enough to cover up most contradictions, not to mention the current fanatical rising period. Even if our Great Britain allows five-year-old children to work in factories, and more than half of the workers' children do not live to the age of five, and a child laborer can only buy a piece of black bread mixed with sawdust with a day's wages, our Great Britain has finally succeeded in standing at the pinnacle of the world.

Moreover, the gentry of the Ming Dynasty is actually stronger than the capitalists of the British Empire, at least for now. After all, the old people are still the ones who actually hold the power. Their lifelong education can still allow them to maintain a bottom line, and some old habits of the Ming Dynasty society will not be kicked away for a while. For example, when a plague breaks out in a local area, the gentry is still willing to pay for treatment under the Huimin Pharmacy system, and nursing homes and orphanages in various places can still get money to maintain...

The idea of ​​doing good and accumulating virtue is still deeply rooted in the East.

In terms of moral standards, the bottom line of the East is ultimately higher than that of the West, especially when there are still a lot of external threats.

Just like the situation Yang Feng faced in Shandong, although the younger generation has begun to change, the power is still in the hands of the old guys. The younger generation believes that child labor is completely worthwhile, but the old guys have a lifetime of solidified moral standards and still believe that children must go to school. This transitional state can't last long, but at least it is still in transition, and the chaos of the past is enough to let even the most arrogant young generation know that they can't force the people into a dead end.

They still know how to be afraid. They also know that if things really don’t work, they should back off and give up some of their benefits to the unruly people.

All this eventually led to a rare prosperity in at least some provinces such as Jiangnan and Shandong, and even the dawn of a prosperous era was faintly seen.

The doomsday-like darkness that shrouded this land is indeed fading away.

And now...

His Majesty the Emperor has arrived.

He wanted to make it all end and return them to the darkness of the past...

Of course, Chongzhen might change, but no one would pin their hopes on this possibility. They already have the light that does not need any possibility, but exists in reality. Why should they expect that a person who once gave them a nightmare past might change?

Instead of hoping for a possible change on his part, it would be better to simply stop him from setting foot in Jiangnan and protect the light that he has already obtained.

So at this moment, at the dock of Longjiang Pass, no matter the militia or the common people, no matter the scholars or the peasants, everyone stood in the same camp, like a wall in front of the emperor, blocking him from setting foot on the land of Jiangnan. Even behind them, more people ran over here and joined the ranks of blocking. Several ships participating in the blocking had already hit Chongzhen's ship. The sailors used various woods in their hands to push their emperor out.

Chongzhen stood on the deck holding a rope, angrily looking at the hostile eyes around him, or those unruly people.

"Your Majesty, you have already lost the world, so just stop making trouble. We don't want to care about your past, after all, it's all in the past. But you still come here to make trouble, which is wrong. We can still respect you as Your Majesty in Xi'an, but you insist on coming to Nanjing, so you are our enemy. What awaits you in Jiujiang is cannons, and what awaits you here is not five bows and three kowtows, but cannons and turtledove guns."

the officer said.

The muzzles of the guns of the militiamen around him were also pointed steadily at His Majesty the Emperor.

"Traitors, you traitors, I am the Son of Heaven!"

His Majesty the Emperor roared like a madman and pointed at these traitors.

"I, I, dog-foot I!"

The officer sneered.

"Go away, you dog emperor, don't come to harm us!"

"Get out of here!"

……

There were angry shouts all around.

Some people were already throwing things at His Majesty the Emperor.

His Majesty the Emperor was filled with grief and indignation. He pointed at these traitors and looked at their faces. Their shouts continued to ring around him, but soon their voices gradually became blurred, and their faces gradually became blurred...

His Majesty the Emperor suddenly staggered, and then a mouthful of blood spurted out.

"His Majesty!"

"Long live the Lord!"

Zhang Jiayu and Lao Wang screamed at the same time.

Amid their screams, His Majesty the Emperor fell backwards, spurting blood, and hit the deck.

The old king hurriedly hugged the emperor, who was already unconscious, and turned to look at the officer.

"Your Majesty is already in this state, why don't you get out of the way? Hurry up and find the imperial physician."

he cried with sorrow.

"His Majesty just spit out a mouthful of blood. He has tortured tens of millions of people to death. There is no imperial doctor, and this is not his capital."

The officer sneered.

The people behind him didn't seem to want to move aside either.

"Go back to Xijiangkou first!"

Zhang Jiayu shouted.

Boss Hu quickly ordered the boat to sail, and their boat, carrying the unconscious emperor, left the dock in a sad manner amid the boos from the shore. Zhang Jiayu's boat left soon after, and the two boats sailed to the mouth of the Xijiang River. Boss Hu's boat also had some emergency medicines, and they were elixirs bought from Shandong. He fed the emperor a pill first, whether it worked or not. As for the emperor, he woke up soon. He was just angry, not injured. Of course, the emperor didn't say a word after waking up, as if he was already useless. It could also be that he was too ashamed to face reality.

This time he lost completely, and in the most shameful way.

For someone with his personality, vomiting blood is inevitable. The fact that he didn't die of anger is already a sign of good health for him.

Because they were crossing the river upstream, the boat was very slow. Zhang Jiayu brought the boat over and asked a skilled soldier to pull the rope thrown from Boss Hu's boat. Then he jumped into the river and swam across to bring some ginseng to the emperor and make some ginseng soup for him to recover.

They did not dare to disembark at Pukou, after all, Pukou was also controlled by the militia, and went directly to Xijiangkou where the Guangdong-Guangxi Allied Forces were stationed.

West River Estuary.

His Majesty the Emperor walked onto the dock like a zombie, supported by Lao Wang and Zhang Jiayu.

Because we don't know what happened yet, the core generals of this army, such as Bai Gui, and Li Suigong from Guangdong, are Zhang Jiayu's deputy. His brother Li Suiqiu is the main initiator of Guangdong militia. In fact, before Chongzhen issued an order to send troops to all places, Li Suiqiu, Chen Zizhuang and other elites in Guangzhou Prefecture had already organized militia. Originally, Li Suiqiu also donated 500 iron guns to Hongguang. Although it is hard to say what model it was, considering that Guangdong gentry had long used banjo guns in large quantities, it is likely that this was also the case. As for choosing Zhang Jiayu to lead the team, it was mainly because he escaped from the capital and was more familiar with the situation in the north.

As for the remaining main generals, they are Chen Shangyong, the son of Chen Zizhuang, and Kuang Hong, the son of Kuang Lu.

"Quick, what are you looking at? Come and meet His Majesty!"

Zhang Jiayu shouted.

Li Suigong and others were stunned. They couldn't connect the middle-aged man in front of them, who was wearing an old robe and looked like a zombie, with the emperor.

Of course, Zhang Jiayu could not be wrong. After all, he went south only after the fall of the capital.

"Your Majesty, I bow to you. Long live the Emperor!"

Li Suigong, the oldest one, quickly led the others to kneel down before the Emperor and perform the ritual of five bows and three kowtows.

Thousands of soldiers behind them also knelt down in chaos.

The shouts of "Long live the emperor" were more effective than ginseng soup. His Majesty the emperor felt more energetic and his eyes were shining.

(End of this chapter)