Daming Military Empire

Chapter 36 Natural and Man-made Disasters
By the beginning of August, Sun Chengzong had basically eliminated the influence of the Ningyuan Mutiny, and the situation in Liaodong tended to be stable. After Zhu Cijiong received the report, he finally let go of his hanging heart.As for Sun Chengzong's private release of the king's ministers, he didn't care at all. Corrupt officials wanted to be killed, but if they could be made to report more corrupt officials and spit out the proceeds of corruption, it would be more meaningful than killing.

What he is paying attention to now is not Liaodong, there is another thing that he is more interested in.

In the first year of each emperor's succession to the throne in the Ming Dynasty, there was a very important thing, and that was to open a subject to obtain a scholar, which is also known as the imperial examination as the saying goes.The imperial examinations are generally held every three years. Of course, there are special important happy events that can also be opened for Enke. The new emperor's reform is usually the first year of the three-year round.The first year of Chongzheng was the beginning of the Chongzheng Dynasty, so naturally the first imperial examination for the new emperor would be held.

The imperial examination is divided into three levels: the provincial examination, the general examination, and the palace examination. The rural examination is a local examination held by the southern and northern Zhili and the chief ministers. It is generally held in the middle of August of the first year; the general examination is presided over by the Ministry of Rites. The national examination was held in mid-February of the second year; the palace examination was presided over by the emperor himself and held in mid-March of the next year.

After the pacification of the Ningyuan Mutiny, it coincided with the start of the imperial examination. The government and the public were full of joy. It seemed that the situation was very good. However, is it really like this?

Of course not. The last years of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be a tragic era. I don't know whether it is the end of the Ming Dynasty or the end of the sky. All the bad things are concentrated in these few decades.The disaster of the eunuch, the invasion of the Later Jin Dynasty, and the failure of the Donglin Party to harm the country are usually unlucky enough for the emperor to encounter one of these things, but it happened to all the emperors in the late Ming Dynasty.And this is not the most terrible thing, the most terrible thing is the severe drought in the north. According to historical records, the severe drought in the late Ming Dynasty lasted from the 29th year of Wanli (AD 1601) to the 13th year of Chongzhen (AD 1643), which lasted for more than 40 years. The severe drought, even an emperor could not stand it.Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian was unable to resist, so the country perished. What about Chongzheng Emperor Zhu Cijiong, can he resist?
In Shaanxi in August, the sun is scorching like fire, and there are twisted ripples in the air, which is an extreme manifestation of the high temperature.

Great drought in the first year of Tianqi, severe drought in the second year of Tianqi, severe drought in the third year of Tianqi, severe drought in the fourth year of Tianqi, severe drought in the fifth year of Tianqi, severe drought in the sixth year of Tianqi, severe drought in the seventh year of Tianqi. This is not to make up the number of words, it is important I have to say all the things three times. Of course, this life-threatening thing must be described truthfully.

There have been years of severe droughts. At this time, Shaanxi has already been barren for thousands of miles, and the rivers and rivers have dried up. Let alone watering the farmland, drinking water for the common people has become a problem; the entire land of Qinchuan is dry and there is no grass, let alone food. Find some grass roots and bark to satisfy your hunger, but you can't find it!
At the beginning of the year, the imperial court had already allocated disaster relief money, but 300 million taels was nothing but a drop in the bucket for Shaanxi, which has a population of nearly 500 million. In prefectures and counties with clean officials, all the disaster relief money has been replaced by food, and ordinary people can drink it every day. A mouthful of porridge and batter; in prefectures and counties where officials are corrupt, civilians do not receive a sliver of relief, even the grass roots and bark are eaten up, and in the end they can only eat soil. The famous Guanyin soil in later generations came from Shaanxi during this period.

Among them, officials in Xi'an Prefecture and Yan'an Prefecture are the most corrupt. Zhang Douyao, the magistrate of Chengcheng County, Xi'an Prefecture, is a typical representative.Shaanxi Xuancheng Chief Secretary has a total of more than 300 counties in eight prefectures and two prefectures. The 1 million taels of silver were scattered, and then allocated and deducted layer by layer. In the hands of Zhang Douyao, the county magistrate, there were only less than [-] taels.

How can this work? As the saying goes: Three years in Qingzhi County, one hundred thousand snowflakes silver, this year only earned less than 1 taels, so it was a loss of more than 2 taels!Zhang Dou's dazzling eyes turned, and he made up his mind, didn't the imperial court exempt this year's rent and tax, I can collect it, as much as I collect is my own!So, not only did he not distribute the relief money, but he also extorted tax from the peasants!
This person is going to starve to death, so how can he still have money to pay taxes? Naturally, the income from this tax is very small. Zhang Douyao doesn't care about it. Send your subordinates to various places to press hard, if you don't pay taxes, then beat them until you pay them!

Wang Er is an out-and-out farmer in Baishui. If it wasn't for the severe drought, if it wasn't for the pressure of Zhang Douyao, the county magistrate, he would definitely be like Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Wu, and Zhao Liu, silently Farming, marrying a wife and having children silently, and then aging silently will not take away a cloud, let alone leave any traces in history.

But Zhang Douyao is too damned. Years of severe drought and no crops, he even sent people to collect rent and taxes.Even the grass can't grow in the field, so how can there be money to pay rent and tax!They still beat people for not paying taxes, even if they beat him, his 60-year-old mother was pushed to the ground and kicked a few times, but she didn't come back up and died!
Wang Er was completely angry. After he hastily buried his mother, he began to mobilize from house to house in the countryside to seek revenge on Zhang Douyao.Everyone was forced by Zhang Douyao and had no choice but to respond positively. In the end, he gathered hundreds of people!
Wang Er has no culture, and he didn't want to rebel, he just wanted revenge, so he didn't give an exciting speech after gathering the people in the village. He only had one sentence: "Who dares to kill Zhang Douyao, this dog with me?" official?"

Everyone couldn't bear it anymore, and everyone replied in unison: "I dare to kill."

As long as you dare, Wang Er led these hundreds of people directly into the county town and killed Zhang Douyao.Is that the end of the matter?Of course it's not over.

If there are too many people, accidents are easy to happen. Wang Er has avenged his revenge, and the others are not satisfied. The county magistrate has been killed. What are you afraid of? They simply copied Zhang Douyao's corrupt silver and robbed the treasury. Everyone If you pay a penny, you don't have to starve to death!
It's not over yet, Wang Ershou has followed suit from all over Shaanxi. Of course, they are not following Wang Er's revenge, but learning to kill corrupt officials and grab money!

The slogan they chanted was simple: "Rather than starve to death, it is better to rebel and die." Anyway, if there is no food, you will starve to death. Killing corrupt officials and rebels can also grab some money.

As a result, rebel armies sprung up from all over Shaanxi, including King Jiayin of Fugu, Daliang King of Hannan, Gao Yingxiang of Ansai, and Zhang Xianzhong of Mizhi.

The most influential in this period was Wang Jiayin's rebel army. They once occupied Fugu and proclaimed themselves king and set up officials.The rest were running around without much momentum. Later, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong joined Gao Yingxiang's rebel army, and Gao Yingxiang gradually developed and grew, and finally became the largest one in the rebel army.

Let's not talk about how the rebels are doing, these are things to come, the most important thing now is how our Chongzheng Emperor Zhu Cijiong is doing!

Zhu Cijiong is excited at the moment, Liaodong is fine, the imperial examination has begun, and the most important thing is that Bi Maokang and the others have made the first flintlock gun!
Although the appearance is still very rough, although the round bullet needs to be poked in from the front, although it still fails to fire from time to time, none of these can conceal its epoch-making significance:
First of all, you can aim. Some arquebus guns also have front sights, but it doesn’t make much sense. A matchlock is burning in front of your eyes, and you can’t aim with the front sight. You don’t have glasses, and a few people will suffer if sparks splash into the eyes. Got it.

Then, the rate of fire increased. After the barrel of the flintlock gun is made of low-carbon steel, it will basically not be deformed after a few shots, and the few minutes of waiting for cooling will be saved. Just pull the trigger, which greatly increases the rate of fire. It is not impossible for a skilled musketeer to fire four or five rounds in one minute.

Finally, the shooting range increased to a terrifying two hundred steps (about 300 meters), which finally surpassed the average bow and arrow!
Zhu Cijiong hadn't been excited for two days, and the Shaanxi memorial was pouring cold water on his head, which made his heart feel cold.

The peasant uprising finally came, but in the next ten years or so there will be continuous natural disasters, and the peasant uprising will be like a spark that starts a prairie fire, burning more and more vigorously.

Zhu Cijiong knew that it was time to really test him.

(End of this chapter)