Win the Ding 1617

The tenth month of the lunar calendar is only late autumn, and it is only the beginning of winter in the north. However, for the Ming Dynasty, the central ministers, and even Chongzhen in the Qianqing Palace, this season is as cold and harsh as midwinter.

If there are electronic display screens in this era that can mark on the map and display on the display screen all kinds of urgent military reports flying from all over the country like fallen leaves in late autumn, then, at this moment, the Ming court, Tongguan on the west line, and Tongguan on the south line Jiangnan and Huguang are in crisis.

Needless to say, Tongguan on the western front.After Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai recruited nearly [-] soldiers recruited and trained by Sun Chuanting for them, Tongguan was shocked three times a day.From time to time, the rebels who appeared outside a few ditches were regarded as the main force of the rebel army, and urgent documents were sent to the capital as if they did not need money.

The clans, officials, and gentry in Xi'an city packed up the gold and silver and fled to Shanxi across the Yellow River.A large number of goods have been transported across the Yellow River, but it is cheap. The boatmen on the Yellow River are the lowest-grade sheepskin rafts, and they cost ten silver dollars for a ferry.Those boatmen who used to be as humble as ants now looked coldly at the way these old gentlemen and wives jumped over the wall in a hurry.

On the contrary, it is cheaper for Shanxi businessmen and Long Sheng to sell several businesses in Xi'an.Shops, real estate, clumsy furniture, land properties, and many other valuable properties that the rich and powerful could not take away were bought at low prices one after another, and became the belongings that the lords and wives carried with them.Anyway, they don't have to worry about Lao Li confiscating their property after entering Guanzhong.

Some mid-level officials and gentlemen from the countryside gathered in one place every day, discussing the increase of taxes per mu, training volunteer soldiers, and forming villages to protect themselves against the coming army of Li Zicheng.All these kinds, and so on.

And the southern line was even more of a headache for Chongzhen.

Zuo Liangyu was defeated and retreated to Wuchang and Hanyang. Chengtian, De'an, Jingzhou and other grain production areas in the north of the Yangtze River all fell into the hands of Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai.It is the autumn harvest season.There is a lot of rice in the fields, but none of them has become this year's autumn grain, but all of them are cheap for those unscrupulous people and thieves.

The original "Songjiang cooked, the world is full" quietly changed to "Huguang cooked. The world is full" as early as a hundred years ago, while Jiangnan has changed from a grain export area to a grain import area. A large number of economic crops are planted, crowding out the Space for food crops.However, the news of the fall of De'an Four Mansions came.The grain prices in the capital and Jiangnan immediately turned upside down, and within a few days, they rose by [-]%.

If it hadn't been for the capital and the grain banks controlled by more than a dozen nobles and eunuchs in Liudu to jointly issue grain contracts to those small and medium-scale grain merchants, it was agreed that a large number of Nanmi would definitely arrive in Beijing within one month, so that they would not have to Panic just sell.These merchants were skeptical, which stabilized the prices of food, oil, salt and other things, but the huge food shortage also made them celebrate, and everyone had another chance to make a fortune!

Today, more and bigger food gaps are about to appear in front of the head of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king of rogues who was originally active in Wuwei and Chuzhou in Jiangbei, suddenly robbed hundreds of large ships in Jiangbei.Armed with thousands of fishing boats, they crossed the Yangtze River in a mighty way, and the soldiers pointed directly at the south of the Yangtze River.When the Nanyue Army in the Xiaogushan Naval Division Camp in Anqing and the Naval Division in the Liudu garrison arrived after hearing the news, hundreds of huge wooden signs were erected on the land in the south of the Yangtze River, saying, "The eight kings of Xiying crossed the Yangtze River here." , to take a trip to the south of the Yangtze River. Officials don't have to send each other off!"

Zhang Xianzhong, the eighth king, crossed the Yangtze River. For the officials of the Ming court, it was much more terrifying than Li Zicheng's troops coming to Chengtian Mansion not long ago, threatening Chongzhen's ancestral grave!You know, the Donglin faction is now very powerful in the DPRK.If it is true that Zhang Xianzhong, the demon king and butcher they are talking about, rushed into the hinterland of Jiangnan, then their shop and garden in Jiangnan.Wouldn't the money in the house, the cook in the garden, the cook in the yard and the money in the house be cheap for Zhang Xianzhong, the devil? !

"Why didn't the men and horses of the Anqing Marine Division attack Zhang Xianzhong while he was halfway across the river? Not only can he do meritorious service, but he can also eliminate this great harm for the country!"

"Why did the Liudu garrison yamen sit and watch Zhang Xianzhong go south and ignore him? Let him cross the river at will?!"

"The troops of the Duke of Liang are in Jinshan, Shanghai and other places, watching the bandits crossing the river. What do you want?"

There was a lot of shouting and cursing from the ruling and opposition parties.From the garrison yamen in Nanjing, to the navy stationed in Xiaogushan, Anqing, to the garrison in the Shanghai business district a little farther away, none of them could escape the verbal criticism of the gentlemen of Donglin with the wind and rain and the sound of reading books.After all, this is a big matter that concerns their lives, property and honor, how can they be taken lightly?

While writing in the study, he swept away thousands of troops and scolded Fang Qiu, accusing the generals of their incompetence and negligence, and making improper arrangements. At the same time, the adults and gentlemen ordered their confidants to send letters to their homes quickly, ordering them to move as soon as possible!Don't be greedy for the rural houses at home, quickly bring gold, silver, soft, antique calligraphy and paintings, land deeds, etc., and go to Jinshan, Qingpu and other places in Shanghai to avoid chaos!That is the territory of Liang Guogong's Southern Guangdong Army, no matter how courageous Zhang Xianzhong is, he would not dare to stroke the tiger's beard easily!

The scale is far larger than the crowds fleeing and fleeing chaos in Xi'an and Guanzhong, and it is similar to the Spring Festival travel season that everyone is familiar with in modern times.Appeared on the south bank of the Yangtze River.People either take boats, or take cars and sedan chairs, and they converge into rivers like streams of water, and then quickly form rivers and rivers, rushing eastward.

A large number of people quickly poured into the newly expanded Shanghai business district, and quickly turned the land that was just a patch of reeds and riverside tidal flats into a place where every inch of land was expensive.Houses and courtyards that have been built before, and the housing prices of the Shihuanhang Taiwanese Businessmen and Tourist Inn are changing day by day.

The large amount of gold and silver belongings brought by these people pushed up the price of goods in the area of ​​Songjiang Mansion rapidly, causing the people who originally lived here to complain endlessly.

The prefect of Songjiang Prefecture quickly became a member of the court.Every day, all kinds of letters and invitations are overwhelming.All kinds of people with great background made the prefect of Songjiang very headache, painful and happy.

There are also those with more active minds who don't go to the Shanghai business district to join in the fun, but turn around and go to Hangzhou. "Anyway, there are Nanyue Army navy in Hangzhou Bay. On the Qiantang River, the navy's gunboats can run amok. Ningbo Port is the place where the navy is stationed. Let's go there. Firstly, it will be safe, and secondly, it will be cheaper. It is easy to buy land and build houses at a low price, and the population is not so large. Naturally, living is much quieter.”

A large number of people crowded into various strongholds in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River controlled by the Southern Guangdong Army overtly and covertly in order to seek asylum, and the gentry and celebrities in the south of the Yangtze River even exchanged letters for the sake of the people. They asked the court to come forward and make Li Shouhan Help defend Jiangnan. "Since Liang Guogong signed the Jianghai defense contract with the left-behind yamen in Nanjing, he has to assume the obligation to preserve the land in the south of the Yangtze River. Where in the world can he only enjoy the power of blocking roads and collecting donations and taxes, but he has never fulfilled the responsibility of preserving his hometown? A good thing?" The words were righteous and strict, not like the ones who wrote "The Tombstone of Five People" with a swipe of a pen.

There are also people who find another way.In front of Li Xiangjun's adoptive mother Li Zhenli, Miss Li begged bitterly, trying to achieve her goal through pillow wind, "Don't look at it, please don't look at it, please look at the face of the people in Jiangnan, please protect the people in the south of the Yangtze River, and the girl is bound to be killed by Jiangnan. People regard it as their reborn parents and set up a shrine with incense and fire to worship!"

Everyone knows that the relationship between Li Zhenli and Li Shouhan is unusual, and it is rumored that Miss Li even had a miscarriage for Mr. Li once.If there is no such relationship, how can Li Zhenli become the representative of Li Guogong in Jiangnan and win the hearts of Jiangnan for Li Gongye.Distribute tuition money to those poor scholars?

However, the person who pierced this layer of window paper was pretending to be smart, so Li Zhenli just sent them away with a sneer.

With all these actions, the top figures in Jiangnan have only two goals. The highest goal is naturally to oppress Li Shouhan to lead the Southern Guangdong Army to station in Jiangnan, so as to preserve their wealth and property, and ensure that they can continue their lives of singing, dancing, drinking and composing poems without being disturbed.The lowest goal, no matter what means or means, even if it is to force Hou Chaozong to wash up his good friend Li Xiangjun and send him to the bed of her cheap stepfather Li Shouhan to serve Li Gongye together with her adoptive mother.He also had to be forced to agree to continue to expand the Shanghai business district so that everyone could have a refuge in a paradise.

As Zhang Xianzhong's army and old Hui Hui Ma Shouying began to attack cities and territories in various places in the south of the Yangtze River, Li Shouhan was even more on the cusp of public opinion.

The imperial decree issued by the cabinet in the name of the emperor, the special decree written by Chongzhen himself from the Qianqing Palace, and the official documents of various ministries.The letters from the chief minister of the cabinet and several bigwigs, and the letters from the eunuchs with palm prints and pens written by the eunuchs, flew like snowflakes across the Five Ridges, and flew to the palace in Guangzhou.

However, no matter how many these documents are, they are useless, and Li Shouhan is not in Guangzhou at this time.

foshan.

This town is known as one of the four famous towns in the world.Located in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta, the waterway occupies the upper reaches of Guangzhou and the lower reaches of the Xijiang River and the Beijiang River. It is the only way for the waterway to reach the provincial capital.Geographically adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, water and land transportation extends in all directions.During the Eastern Han Dynasty, advanced farming techniques appeared, and Foshan became a land of fish and rice.During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Foshan became an industrial and commercial town, and during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it became one of China's four famous towns and China's "Four Gatherings".

In Liu Xianting's "Guangyang Miscellaneous Notes" in the Qing Dynasty: "Hankou is not only the throat of Chu Province, but the goods from Yun, Gui, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Jiangxi are all transferred here. There are four gatherings in the world, the capital in the north, Foshan in the south, Suzhou in the east, and Hankou in the west. However, besides Suzhou, there are Wuhu, Yangzhou, Jiangning, and Hangzhou to divide their strengths; But Hankouer is the only one."

Since Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty, it has been the distribution center of commodities in the Lingnan area and the center of manufacturing industries such as smelting, ceramics, textiles, and Chinese patent medicines.

If it weren't for Li Shouhan's leading the emergence of many manufacturing industries in Hejing, Foshan would still be the center of smelting, casting, ceramics, textiles and other manufacturing industries on the wealthy side. The foundry industry here has been famous all over the country since the Song Dynasty, and the ceramic industry Is the industry leader.Huang Qiying, who created bone china for Li Shouhan and the Nanyue Army, a hen that can lay golden eggs, was born in the ceramics industry in Foshan.

As for the smelting industry, because the iron material produced was very famous in Daming, some merchants from the north even traveled thousands of miles to Guangdong to transport iron and sell it.Their caravans sometimes consist of thousands of head of cattle.As early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty, this small town was an important iron smelting center in Lingnan. The iron industry was the most prosperous. There were tens of thousands of single ironworkers inside and outside the city. If you don’t want to do your best, the supervising officials only want to save money, and it’s enough to keep everything simple, An Neng’s fine workmanship?”

The notes also say that during the trade between the East and the West, the barbarians exclusively bought guns from Guangzhong. technology industry chain.If it is not for the Ha Tinh area to rely on its own unique geographical conditions.Coal-iron joint manufacturing greatly reduces the cost of smelting, and the use of coke to smelt iron improves the technical performance of pig iron.It has greatly suppressed the industrial market in Foshan, which relies on charcoal to smelt pig iron, and it is not yet known who will die.

Now, Foshan and the entire Pearl River Delta have all been changed to the surname Li, so Li Shouhan naturally wants to make an idea of ​​this famous town in the world.

"Brother Zong, you organize people to draw up a charter. Let's see how to revitalize Foshan's ceramics, iron smelting, manufacturing, textile and other industries. You might as well let Huang Qiying come back from Nanzhong. He is a native of Foshan. Long, I am familiar with the situation here, so of course I have to do something for my hometown."

Li Shouhan smiled and asked Li Peiting who accompanied him to Foshan to conduct his so-called research activities.Since Li Peiting returned to Guangzhou, Li Shouhan has entrusted him with an important task in the office. "You are familiar with all parts of the Central Plains, whether it is the rebels in Liaodong or the various militias in the Central Plains, don't worry about other things. It's better to be alone in the office and analyze the actions they may take next. The army should have planned in advance."

a word.Then Li Peilin was transferred from Long Shengxing to the official office, and every day, analysts from the business intelligence department and the investigation room were organized to gather the materials and military intelligence of Dorgon, Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, Zhang Xianzhong and others into one place for analysis and research.

In order to facilitate the discussion, Li Peiting was ingenious and simply appointed a group of people to play Dorgon and the Liaodong rebel group. Tartar, think carefully for the lord, and think about how Dorgon will act."

same.There is also a group of people playing the role of Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai, and Zhang Xianzhong, the three big thieves in the Jianghuai galaxy, to figure out their movements.These four groups of people are extremely busy every day, and the interaction is very lively.

The trip to Foshan was because he was familiar with the way of management.He knew how to resume production, so Li Shouhan took him and a large group of deacons from the Commercial Relations Department to Foshan excitedly to change their minds.

Foshan, after the anti-grain and anti-tax wave in Guangdong and Guangxi, has become much more withered.There were hundreds of iron smelting furnaces, big and small, that had been burning day and night, but only a hundred or so are still barely supporting them.The iron materials produced are mostly clumsy things like farm tools.There are very few high value-added products such as firecrackers, artillery knives and guns.

"Since the rise of the army, Foshan has suffered the most disasters. Iron materials are hard to find, and taxes are heavy. It is very easy to make something, but it is not transported, or it is robbed by tyrants from all over the country. There are large and small iron smelting workshops and factories inside and outside the city. , open a room and pour it down, it’s useless.”

The entourage heard the county magistrate of Sanshui County introduce the situation of Foshan's dilapidation to Li Shouhan, and all of them knew it well, but there was a look of compassion on their faces.If it hadn't been for Li Shouhan's large-scale import of iron materials and various manufactured products to the inland, Foshan's smelting and manufacturing industries had been wiped out, and the government offices in Guangdong had continued to collect various taxes, causing Foshan's related industries to go bankrupt. Practitioners were either involved in the torrent of rebellion and donations, or crossed the sea and went south to work in the iron field of He Tinh; I am afraid that Foshan is still a place of prosperity and comfort, and people get up early to eat Daliang pheasant rolls, Daliang sand, and Daliang ginger juice Milk, Fried Milk, Double Skin Milk, Xiaofeng Cake, Nanhai Yusheng, Dafu Cake, Jiujiang Fried Dumpling, Sanshui Paparazzi Duck, Crystal Dumpling, Steamed Carrot Cake, Xiqiao Flatbread, Foshan Nine-layer Cake, Shiwan Preserved fish, Foshan Zhuhou sauce, silkworm chrysalis, white sugar cotton cake, Yingji wonton noodles, Jinyuan restaurant carrot cake, Fenning white sugar cotton cake, Zhuangyuan Jidi porridge, Blind Gong cake, Gaomingse powder, drink Zhuangyuan And congee, listening to Cantonese opera in the evening, and eating dim sum in the afternoon, so that you can pass the time comfortably and peacefully.

"My lord, since the rise of the army, I'm afraid that the most profitable ironworks in Foshan are the wide pots that are specially sold to the northern Tartars and Liaodong rebels." Li Peilin was not without complacency and supplemented for the magistrate of Sanshui by Li Shouhan's side.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian people who had fled back to the northern grasslands realized that they had no iron smelting technology at all. After that, they had to "import" iron pots for daily necessities from the Central Plains Dynasty.On the other hand, the government of the Ming Dynasty was afraid of the strong fighting power of the minority people, fearing that the exported iron pot would be destroyed and turned into a weapon, so it would be included in the category of strategic resources. its exit. The "Da Ming Hui Dian" clearly stipulates: "Iron pots and nitrated steel are strictly prohibited. The market is set in Datong Town. There is one city every year, and each city is no more than two days." One side has strong demand, and the other side has various restrictions. The battle of wits and courage between political dynasties has staged one diplomatic drama after another.For the former, it is called "War of Begging for the Pot and Scrambling for the Pot", while for the latter it can be called "Battle of Iron Pot Defense".

It is recorded in the history that the Mongolian tribes at that time "the raw pot was destroyed, and all kinds of methods were used to mend the leak, and they used it as a last resort, until they used skins to store water and boiled meat for food." pot", "molecular married daughters have a pot and each divides half of it".Such a lack of pot life can be said to be miserable.

Among the bulk items that Li Peiting's prosperity exported to the Mongolian tribes in the north, the Saurons, and the Liaodong rebels, the iron pots cast in Guangdong were the most profitable.

The so-called "wide pot".The reason is that "Guangdong pig iron is not subject to frying and refining", and "if it is destroyed, it cannot be turned into a soldier", that is, it can only be used for steaming and cooking, and it cannot be stir-fried. It just fits the cooking habits of ethnic minorities such as Mongolia. It is difficult for the pot to be destroyed and turned into a weapon. This is the point that the Ming government is most concerned about.In order to prove this point, someone made the following experimental statistics: ten catties of Guangguo can be smelted to five catties of iron, and the quality is so poor that "it cannot be made", and the price of Guangguo itself is high, so the minister asserted that Mongolian Tubo Jurchen and other ministries He would not be so stupid as to use such an expensive pot to smelt iron: "Although the captive is very cunning, who is willing to use the rare daily cooking utensils to destroy himself?"

Li Peiting's prosperity is that after purchasing a large number of iron pots from Foshan and other places, they shipped them northward to conduct various trade activities with Liaodong rebels, Mongolian tribes, and Saurons.It is used to exchange all items that can be traded by both parties, and to obtain huge profits from it, absolute huge profits!

"My lord, if we want to revive the grand occasion of iron smelting in Foshan that day, I'm afraid it will take a lot of effort. Compared with the furnaces in Hejing, the capacity of the iron smelting furnaces everywhere is small, and most of them use charcoal as fuel, which consumes a lot of energy." The cost of production is too high. My subordinates think that we should start with the manufacturing industry first. Order the iron factories in Foshan to manufacture everything needed for our Southern Guangdong Army, and to manufacture various items for trade in Longsheng. From the outside to the inside, gradually advance .”

Duan Yihong, an official of the household division who accompanied him, pondered for a while, and then put forward his own opinion. (~^~)