A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television

The winter is coming, and the spring is coming.

12

In the blink of an eye, winter has gone and spring has come, and everything is revived. The first year of Tianqi (1621) has passed, and the farmers on the land of Liaodong have started a new year of farming.

Unlike previous years, this year, the faces of the people in southern Liaoning have more hope and vitality.

Since Lu Cheng took charge of the four guards in southern Liaoning, he has paid great attention to the development of people's livelihood. Not only did he let the people in southern Liaoning have land to plant and food to eat, but he also provided them with a variety of jobs, allowing them to engage in various processing and production work and get extra rewards, so that the whole family can have enough food and clothing.

Life has hope, and the people are more energetic, and their spirits are different.

During the slack season, Lu Cheng would send soldiers from the four guards of southern Liaoning to various villages to organize the villagers to conduct simple military training, call on each village to form its own militia, and formulate various strategies to deal with the Tatars' sneak attacks.

In each village, a simple beacon tower and a lookout would be set up. Once a small group of Tatar cavalry came to harass, the beacon would be lit immediately to inform each other.

Once the nearby patrolling reconnaissance brigade and the stationed cavalry team found the signal, they would immediately go to rescue, and never give the Later Jin cavalry a chance to sneak attack and destroy.

Once the Later Jin cavalry dared to attack, the cavalry under Lu Cheng's command would intercept and kill them at the fastest speed, so that they would never return.

After many casualties, the Later Jin did not dare to go deep into Liaodong to harass, and the people of Liaodong were able to farm and develop with peace of mind.

In addition, the craftsmen of the logistics department also built water conservancy facilities on large tracts of land in southern Liaoning, and let some experienced old farmers guide the people to farm scientifically, etc.

One day, Lu Cheng had just finished his work and was about to go out with Ding Baiying to relax, when he saw Lao Bao from the Intelligence Department walk in.

"Sir, news came back from Shandong that our people have infiltrated the Wenxiang Sect, and with their abilities, they have been highly valued by Xu Hongru. Recently, Xu Hongru has been actively developing followers and preparing weapons. He should be planning a rebellion."

Lu Cheng nodded after hearing this. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Let the logistics department prepare a batch of swords, guns, sticks and clubs that we have eliminated, and send them to Xu Hongru by sea. In addition, let Ding Chong and Ding Tai's pirate groups cooperate with the work.

At the same time, find more islands suitable for survival overseas, build some houses, and store some food. Prepare to receive refugees."

"Yes, sir. I will do it right away."

"Wait, don't leave in a hurry. Write a letter to the people in Shandong and tell them to try to delay it and not let Xu Hongru revolt too early. Let them check whether there are traitors in the court..."

After Lu Cheng gave some instructions, he let Lao Bao leave.

The Wenxiang Sect mentioned by Lao Bao is the famous White Lotus Sect.

In the history of the Ming Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect has been banned repeatedly. As for Xu Hongru, he is an important leader of the White Lotus Sect.

As early as last year, Shandong suffered a severe drought. In February this year, Jinan, Dongchang, Yanzhou and other places in Shandong experienced a major earthquake that had not occurred in a century.

The successive natural disasters have left the people on the verge of life and death. However, the court not only did not organize disaster relief, but continued to increase the Liao salary under the pretext of pacifying Liao. Local officials took the opportunity to extort the people in the name of the court, causing many people to lose their families.

In this case, those people who could not survive had only one way to go, which was to rebel.

According to the news from the secret line, Xu Hongru, the leader of the Wenxiang Sect, has developed nearly 100,000 followers in Shandong and Hebei, and often secretly organized gatherings, and has been preparing for rebellion.

Historically, this uprising had to be carried out in advance because of the betrayal of a traitor. At the beginning, the uprising was indeed fierce, sweeping across many provinces. The number of the rebels reached 100,000 at the most, and they defeated the government troops many times, causing a shock to the Ming Dynasty.

Unfortunately, although the Ming Dynasty was already on the decline at that time, it still had some assets and was still capable of dealing with the rebels.

In the end, the uprising lasted less than half a year and ended in failure.

However, this uprising also officially kicked off the prelude to the peasant uprisings in the late Ming Dynasty. After that, during the Tianqi and Chongzhen years, a peasant uprising would be launched almost every once in a while.

Even until the Kangxi period

The wave of peasant uprisings was completely quelled in the intervening period.

In fact, even if the imperial court repeatedly increased the grain and salaries, it was difficult to squeeze out much money from ordinary people.

In the end, very little of the grain and salaries collected could be transported to Liaodong.

If the entire Liaodong was not engaged in farming and reclaiming wasteland, I am afraid that the hundreds of thousands of troops in Liaodong would have starved to death long ago.

This peasant uprising, even if Lu Cheng secretly supported some weapons and supplies behind the scenes, still could not escape the fate of failure.

Therefore, Lu Cheng also made some arrangements in the coastal area in advance, and when the rebels were defeated, he would gather as many people as possible.

According to the original history, after the failure of this uprising, the governor of Shandong massacred the rebels and innocent people, created several mass graves, chopped off the heads of the rebels and innocent people, and cast them into Jingguan, hoping to deter the people.

If possible, Lu Cheng still hopes to kill fewer people.

Those rebels, after all, were just a group of ordinary people who couldn't survive.

Of course, even if Lu Cheng made full preparations, it was impossible to save everyone. At most, he could save as many as he could.

In Lu Cheng's view, population is the most important resource. Whether it is farming, mining minerals, or developing technology, it is inseparable from the population base.

After arranging everything, Lu Cheng took Ding Baiying out for a walk around.

At this time, Ding Baiying was already seven or eight months pregnant, and her movements were becoming more and more inconvenient, and she needed someone to take care of her at any time.

Zhang Yan also came over every day to help take care of her and chat with Ding Baiying.

No matter how the outside world changes, the land of southern Liaoning has always remained stable and peaceful.

This was a turbulent era, but the soldiers of southern Liaoning used their swords to win peace for the people of southern Liaoning.

At the end of May in the second year of Tianqi, Xu Hongru, the leader of the Wenxiang Sect, gathered a group of insurgents in Yuncheng, swore an oath of blood, and started a rebellion. In one night, they successively captured four or five villages, and the surrounding people followed them.

Afterwards, the insurgents gathered more than 10,000 people and began to attack the county.

However, although Xu Hongru had some military talents and some appeal, he was a bit mediocre in other aspects.

At the beginning of the uprising, even a county had not been taken down, and Xu Hongru directly proclaimed himself emperor.

Immediately afterwards, the leaders of the White Lotus Sect in Shandong and Hebei responded to the uprising, each captured the county, and soon controlled most of the areas on both sides of the Shandong Canal, cut off the canal transportation, and confronted the government troops.

Afterwards, in order to settle the families of the insurgents and let the soldiers have no worries, Xu Hongru directly led people to occupy Liangshan Marsh and settled the families of the insurgents on Liangshan.

For a period of time thereafter, the rebels swept across Shandong, invincible, opened warehouses and released grain wherever they went, and maintained strict discipline, without harming the people, and soon won the support of the people.

In early June, the rebels continued to advance eastward, captured cities everywhere, absorbed people from all over the country, and the team even grew to hundreds of thousands at one time.

The news was sent back to the capital, and the court and the people were shocked. Emperor Tianqi immediately ordered the guards near Shandong to recruit soldiers and besiege the rebels from multiple directions, firmly trapped the rebels in Shandong, and annihilated them all.

However, Xu Hongru adopted flexible and changeable tactics, avoiding the real and attacking the virtual, fought guerrilla warfare with the officers and soldiers, and mobilized the masses to sneak attack the officers and soldiers, making those Ming generals go around in circles.

Soon, a wave of uprisings broke out all over the country, with a great momentum of war and sweeping the world.

However, after the initial rapid development, the rebels soon exposed various problems.

Due to the rapid development and the absorption of too many refugees, the rebels soon faced a food crisis.

For this reason, Xu Hongru set his sights on the Grand Canal leading to the capital, preparing to cut off the food supply to the court.

However, this move undoubtedly made Emperor Tianqi even more angry, and he immediately ordered the mobilization of troops from all over the country to quickly quell the rebellion...