Ming Zhengzhi, I am Zheng Kezang

Updated: 2012-11-03

Zheng Kezang knew that the basis of rule was economy, so after the Wu Ding Dynasty initially stabilized the rule in Jiangnan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, the first thing he ordered was to clear the land and household registration.Of course, the purpose of clearing up the land was not to imitate the free land grant policy implemented in Dongning back then, but to quickly accumulate a large number of official land directly under the Ming Zheng regime by confiscating the properties of the "traitor" families.

There are a total of three purposes for this astonishing amount of official land.The first is Wang Zhuang enshrined to Zheng Kezang as the direct source of income for the inner court. In the future when the Zheng family founded the country, the royal land of the princes and daughters should be allocated from it.Therefore, the number accounted for almost half of all confiscated land, and Zheng Kezang continued to order a large number of mountains and forests to be used as Wangzhuang.

The second is as the fiefdom of Spyker.Zheng Kezang actually didn't want to enfeoff within the mainland, but the current overseas colonial governor's office is not a climate. If he just entrusts the heroes, it is not a reward but exile. Therefore, he can only compromise and give it to the generations. Yongye Field and Yongye Forest.In addition, in view of the fact that Yongye Tian and Yongye Forest are exempted from land taxes, in order to avoid further losses in national tax revenue, all Spykers' fiefs are not large. Usually, a third-class uncle only has [-] acres of land and [-] acres of forests. The highest first-class marquis is no more than a hundred hectares of fields and a thousand hectares of mountains and forests.

In addition to the use of the above two parts, this batch of confiscated official land will continue to be distributed to meritorious officials in accordance with the policies of the Dongning period.The so-called meritorious people naturally refer to the officers and soldiers who participated in the Zheng army in various periods, including the nobles of all levels.However, since most of the confiscated land had been taken away by Zheng Kezang himself, the land allocated to these meritorious citizens also included the wasteland originally controlled by the government. Due to the chaos caused by the war, there were quite a lot of such wasteland, so it was unforeseen to allocate them.Of course, in order to reflect the difference between the meritorious and ordinary people and encourage them to join the army, these meritorious people will be exempted from the land tax within 30 years.

Since Zheng Fan exempted the poll tax from the mouth tax at the beginning, and now he has lost a large amount of land tax, Zheng Kezang can only focus on the industry and commerce (salt and iron) industry.For this reason, on the one hand, he used the inner court to personally manage the production of silk reeling, cloth weaving, iron smelting, porcelain, lacquerware, paper, sugar, wine and other commodities; Cancel all banknote customs in the territory, revoke Jiangnan Sanwei weaving, acquiesce in the merger of large households, and prohibit official and buying policies.

Maritime trade and tariff revenue are the key to the Ming and Zheng regime's financial stability at this stage.

According to Zheng Kezang's instructions, after the Lianzhou Prefecture in Guangdong was placed under Guangxi, the coastal provinces respectively had five major foreign trade ports: Qinzhou, Guangzhou, Xiamen-Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Songjiang, and Wenzhou, Xinghua, Penghu, Leizhou, etc. The land is also open to Thai and Western merchants.In addition, Zheng Kezang also opened up trade with Japan and North Korea. Although the loss of the monopoly rights caused considerable losses to the internal and external treasuries, it promoted the sales of ships and the further prosperity of the coastal economy.

In February of the fourth year of Wuding, Zheng Ming, Marquis of Ningyang, passed away. Before his death, Zheng Ming asked Zheng Kezang to pardon Zheng Zhi and others who were living in Japan. Zheng Kezang, who had already established a solid foundation, did not refuse.But something unexpected happened. The envoys who went to Japan to recall Zheng Zhi and others did not bring them back, but the envoys of the shogunate came instead.

In view of Zheng Fan's extensive sales of drugs in Japan, which caused a considerable number of middle and high-level samurai to be depressed and a large amount of gold and silver to flow out, the shogunate hated this.Yoshiho Yanagisawa, who was in charge of the shogunate, ordered the confiscation of the opium ointment carried by the "Tang Ship" while categorically announcing the ban on opium dens. However, in view of the importance of Sino-Japanese trade, Japan had to send an envoy to explain this issue.In addition, the Japanese side also mentioned several issues of extreme concern to Kansai luxury businessmen, such as reducing silk prices and repaying due loans.In this regard, although Zheng Kezang was very angry at the Japanese side's detaining Zheng Zhi and others, he could only endure it when the Qing court had not yet conceded defeat and the Sino-Japanese trade was in full swing.Immediately afterwards, the Prime Minister's Office of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Countries was ordered to start a protracted negotiation with Japan.

In April of the 35th year of Kangxi, after receiving the first batch of [-] shi of rice subsidized by North Korea, the Qing army, with sufficient military rations, crossed the Yalu River with [-] bannermen under the command of Naerfu, the king of Duoluoping County. Go straight to Pyongyang via Yizhou.The North Korean army was caught off guard and lost ground one after another. In just over half a month, the overwhelmingly powerful Qing army had reached the banks of the Han River.

At this time, the North Korean side was already in a state of panic. The court king Li Xuan first fled to Ganghwa Island, and then fled to Gyeongju because he felt that it was not safe.The Ui government who stayed in Seoul sent envoys to the Qing army to beg for mercy one after another, but the Qing army ignored them. As a last resort, the DPRK could only summon all kinds of soldiers and horses to King Qin.However, the previous army has been disbanded, and it is impossible to recall it immediately during the busy spring farming season, and the guards in various places are not confident enough to face the menacing Qing army, so Qin Wang's army has been delayed.

Seeing that the Qing army was about to cross the Han River, North Korea sent envoys to Jeju Island in a hurry, hoping to get Zheng Fan to send troops at the price of completely ceding Jeju.However, the envoys were still on their way. The Qing army had captured Seoul, raped and looted wantonly in the city, and plundered all the savings of the Korean royal family and government for nearly a hundred years to Beijing.

Hearing that the Qing army sent troops to North Korea, Zheng Kezang, who was worried about the defense of the unfinished Huaihe line of defense, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Therefore, Zheng Kezang took advantage of this gap to fine-tune the existing Lu division system.

According to the new system, a squad consists of 11 people; a team consists of 35 people; each sentry governs two rifle teams, one white soldier (grenadier) team, and a firehead army squad, with a total of 120 people; This time, the level was also compressed to only govern three outposts and one black soldier team with a total of 420 five people; three regiments and one artillery post formed brigades, each with 450 people; There is one Black Army Corps and one Central Base Corps, and one Chinese Army Corps is organized into divisions. In this way, each division has about 6000 people.

For the field troops, it is naturally a good thing that the strength of the reorganized divisions has increased, and it has strengthened the command of the regiment (brigades) at the sentry level, which is conducive to wartime dispatch.As for the local military troops, an additional level of command has been divided, which is also convenient for them to arrange local garrisons and dispatch nearby.

In addition to the reorganization of the troops, Zheng Kezang also demobilized at least [-] veterans from Dongning and the same number of soldiers from Fujian Province who were below the rank of eighth-rank Xiuwu lieutenant. They were assigned as meritorious persons to Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Jianghuai, and Zhili to act as the backbone of Zheng Fan in the local area, so that Zheng Fan could maintain local stability after the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, it takes time to adjust the troops, but the fighting in Hunan and other places did not stop because of this.In order to destroy the enemy's economic base, in April, Hong Gongzhu and Mao Hongyan repeatedly launched small-scale raids along the Yuanjiang River and Zishui River. Threatening Lizhou.

Forced by the threat of Zheng Jun cutting off the Yangtze River waterway and breaking into the Lishui River, Sige, who retreated to Lizhou, had to continue to retreat across the Yangtze River.It was precisely because of Sige's retreat that Sang'e fell into a situation of isolation and helplessness. At this time, the governor of Guizhou Gartu once again asked for reinforcements to help the anti-Qing rebels, so Sang'e withdrew from Yuping to Guizhou. As a result, Hunan fell into the hands of Zheng Fan.

Although Hunan changed hands, the chieftains in western Hunan and southwestern Hubei had not yet surrendered. Therefore, Hong Gongzhu and Mao Hongyan agreed to send a police force to the north to control the Jingnan area and confront Shanahai and Sige troops across the Yangtze River. Yuan and Chen rested to suppress the Miao and Yi ethnic groups, and peeked at eastern Sichuan and northern Guizhou.

However, Mao Hongyan did not expect that his stagnation on the Hunan-Guizhou border caused great losses to the Guizhou Rebel Army, which was already in full swing.The Qing army transferred back from Guangxi, together with Sanger's troops, went on a rampage in Guizhou, almost killing the entire Guizhou to nothing.Shocked by the atrocities of the Qing army, the various rebels had to withdraw to eastern and southern Sichuan, another part fled to Yunnan Province to join forces with the local rebels, and some ventured over the mountains to join the Zheng army.

The change of hands in Guangxi alarmed Lord Zheng of Shenglong. Lord Zheng, who had already directly bordered Ming Zheng, hurriedly sent envoys to Nanjing for a pilgrimage.Based on the fact that the rulers of the two countries have the same surname, the Annan and Northern Dynasties hoped to get the support of Zheng Kezang so that the Zheng Dynasty could unify the entire Annan.For this reason, Dingnan King Zheng Gen, who was old enough to become Zheng Kezang's uncle, shamelessly called himself his nephew in the worship table, hoping to win Zheng Kezang's favor.

For Lord Zheng's shamelessness, Zheng Kezang deserved it. However, the mere cheapness of the title is not enough for Zheng Kezang to pay a high price to support the other party.Therefore, in accordance with Zheng Kezang's will, the Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Office proposed two prerequisites for assistance to the envoy of Lord Zheng.The first condition is to cede the Haiyang coastal area, which will be named Hongji in the future, and the above-mentioned areas will be directly incorporated into Lianzhou Prefecture; the second condition is that the Zheng Dynasty needs to be exempted from the forced payment of every ship when Chinese merchants come to Annan for trade. An additional fee of 1000 taels.As compensation for Lord Zheng's economic losses, the Ming Zheng regime could sell gunpowder guns, red barbarian guns, tiger crouching guns and other firearms and gunpowder to Lord Zheng at an ultra-low price.

Considering the absolute hegemony of the Zheng Army Navy in Northeast Asia, and Ming Zheng's clear promise to help transport Lord Zheng's army to bypass the "Great Wall" defense line in the future when Lord Zheng launches a war against Lord Ruan, on behalf of the Zheng Dynasty The messenger felt that such a price was acceptable.In this way, on April [-] of that year, the full-power envoy of the Zheng Dynasty signed the "Bingzi Vascular Treaty" in Nanjing, and Zheng Kezang seized a huge treasure.

In fact, the significance of the "Bingzi Treaty" is not only that he acquired a coal mine with amazing reserves, but more importantly, Zheng Kezang obtained the power to intervene in Annan's affairs, and Zheng Gen did not realize that it was precisely because he Zheng Kezang called his nephew, which gave Zheng Kezang an ethical basis for interfering with the succession of the Zheng Dynasty's throne and annexing the Zheng Dynasty.

After the Zheng Dynasty is settled, the situation in North Korea has also undergone new changes.Kangxi, who did not want to directly rule North Korea, finally agreed to receive North Korean envoys in Nerfolk after obtaining a large sum of gold and silver supplies.After the North Korean envoy swore to the heavens and conceded the bet, the Qing army used North Korea's annual tribute of one hundred taels of gold, one thousand taels of silver, two hundred bolts of white ramie cloth, two thousand bolts of cotton of various colors, four hundred bolts of fine linen of various colors, On the basis of 500 pieces of fine cloth and 3 bags of rice in various colors, the annual tribute is increased to 20 taels of gold, [-] taels of silver, [-] pieces of cloth of various colors, and [-] stones of rice.How can the North Korean side, which is already the meat on the chopping board, refuse and can only agree to pay the bill. So far, (the so-called North Korean side) the second "Bingzi chaos" has finally come to an end.

The aftermath of the second "Bingzi chaos" has not yet subsided, and the Qing army has not completely withdrawn from North Korea, and a great chaos has begun in North Korea.