Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The official ship docked in Yunxiang County. Ju Ming called the county magistrate to inquire about the basic situation and learned that the people at this time mainly lived on the banks of the Han River.

The area in Shiyan is completely undeveloped primitive mountain forest.

Including the entire Shennongjia, it was developed on a large scale during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty.

The Nanxiang Basin was filled with refugees during the Yuan Dynasty. The Yuan Dynasty was afraid that the refugees would crawl into the mountains to rebel, so it strictly sealed off Shennongjia. The Ming Dynasty inherited the Yuan system and continued to implement the blockade policy.

Until the Mingbao Sect lost its divisions and lost its territory, and the war in the north continued, refugees from the three provinces gathered in Nanyang and Xiangyang, and flooded into the Shennongjia area. At its peak, there were as many as 1.5 million refugees, and two major refugee uprisings broke out in the tens of millions.

Emperor Chenghua changed his strategy. After suppressing the uprising, those who were willing to return to their hometowns returned to their hometowns, and those who could not return were reclaimed in Shennongjia, and he was given unprecedented preferential treatment for land reclamation.

From then on, Yunyang Prefecture was established and Yunyang Fuzhi (with the same position as governor) became the top governor in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The jurisdiction included four provinces, five provinces, eight prefectures, nine states and 65 counties. Xiangyang, Nanyang, Hanzhong, Kuizhou, Xi'an... are all under the jurisdiction of Yunyang Fuzhi.

Compared with the more than one million people in the mid-Ming Dynasty, there are only two to three hundred thousand people today.

They can only wait for the population to increase naturally. It is impossible for the Zhu family and his son to immigrate to Shennongjia because there are too many places that need to be reclaimed by immigrants.

"Dong dong dong dong..."

The official ship continued to go southeast, and the sound of the piano sounded in the cabin. It was Master Li playing the piano, and it was Pei Chang'e who sang.

Ju Ming leaned back on the chair and closed his eyes to listen. Other wives and concubines also came to enjoy the performance.

Especially Zheng Yuanyi, who breastfeeds her child while listening to music. Although the milk supply was insufficient and a wet nurse was hired, she occasionally nursed her herself.

Ju Ming's third child was finally no longer the first child, which made him extremely happy.

Even the name was given more care. Zhu Ming personally read the Book of Songs and named his eldest daughter "Zhu Youyi".

Youyi was originally used to describe the state's handsome and virtuous people.

It can be seen from this maiden name how much Ju Ming likes his daughter. So the wives and concubines also liked it, and they would tease it from time to time. Ju Ming couldn't stop it. It can't be said that adults have too many bacteria on their bodies, right?

After singing the song, Zhang Jinping's hands felt itchy and he borrowed Li Shishi's instrument to play.

Her piano skills were at an amateur level and could not be compared with Master Li's playing level. After playing a piece, she felt a little embarrassed and said, "It's embarrassing!"

Master Li said: "My wife is very talented, but she just neglects to practice."

"Don't compliment me, I'm far behind my teacher," Zhang Jinping said with a smile, "Little sister Pei can sing well. How many years have you been learning to sing?"

Pei Chang'e quickly replied: "I entered the Jiaofangsi when I was twelve years old and studied for less than two years. Less than a month after entering the palace, I followed my senior sister to Hanzhong."

Zhang Jinping said in surprise: "You are only fourteen years old?"

Pei Chang'e said: "I will be fifteen next month."

Zhao Fujin clapped his hands and said: "But he is the same as me, only one month older than me."

All the way on the boat, the relationship between the several women became close and warm. At least for now, there was no competition for favor.

Pei Chang'e behaved the most humblely. She was young and did not have a prominent background. She was not as good at talking as Master Li, so she was cautious about who she dealt with.

Zheng Yuanyi asked: "Why did my sister join the Jiaofang Division?"

Pei Chang'e said: "My father was a Kaifeng general. He was framed for offending others. He lost his military resources and could not afford to pay for it. Both his slave and his mother joined the Jiaofang Division."

"Poor people too." Zhang Jinping sighed.

The women were still chatting, and Ju Ming had fallen asleep leaning on the chair.

Between Laohekou and Danjiangkou, the Guanghua Army was set up in the Northern Song Dynasty to hoard heavy troops to intimidate the Shangyong area. Now that the Guanghua Army has been dismantled, only one county, Gande, is left, which will be allocated more than 600 refugees this year.

The number of resettled refugees in Gucheng County downstream is only a few hundred.

The two counties are mountainous and are not key reclamation areas.

Further downstream in Dengcheng County, there are more immigrants there. They are mainly resettled in the northwest of the county, with more than 1,200 people.

Ju Ming asked his wives and concubines to continue taking the boat, and he took a few followers and rode to the countryside to check.

Ask along the way and find one of the reclamation sites.

There are only more than 400 people here, and they are all local refugees. For the convenience of management, they have been resettled together to form a new village called "Fengyu Village".

The beans they planted have already sprouted. The villagers live in temporary shacks and are currently ramming earth to build permanent houses.

Ju Ming inquired carefully and found out that these more than 400 people could only share four oxen.

A large amount of wasteland outside the village has not yet been cultivated, and there are thorns and weeds everywhere as far as the eye can see.

The Baochang was an old man in his forties with gray hair. He smiled and said, "Is the officer a general from Hanzhong? We can finish the cultivation here in two or three years, and it will become mature in four or five years. When the time comes, It’ll be better.”

Ju Ming asked: "Has the county magistrate informed me that taxes will be exempted this year?"

The Baozhang replied: "As I said, we will not pay taxes this year. Next year, we will collect only 20% of the taxes for the land surveyed and so on. The taxes will be 50% the year after, and 80% the year after. The people in the village were very happy, and asked Mr. Lue and Da Marshal’s great blessing, he can finally survive.”

"Is there enough food to eat this year?" Ju Ming asked again.

The chief security officer said: "It's enough to save on food. I heard from the official that the grain distributed to us by the government was borrowed by Mr. Jinglue from the rich households in Hanzhong. Mr. Jinglue is really a good man. He borrowed grains from rich households." You have to pay interest, but you don’t charge interest when you lend it to us, and you have to transport it from Hanzhong. Aren’t you losing money inside and out? I’ve only heard of corrupt officials who steal skin and drink blood, but I’ve never seen a good official who loses money and cares about the people. .”

Ju Ming said with a smile: "Don't worry if there are too many lice, and don't itch if there are too many debts. Mr. Manager will have to borrow grain from rich households this year. There is no need to transport it from Sichuan, there are many rich households here."

After asking a few more questions, Ju Ming headed to the next reclamation point.

Perhaps the execution and exile of dozens of corrupt officials last year had a huge deterrent effect, and officials have restrained themselves from corruption.

In several reclaimed villages in Dengcheng County, food distribution is relatively normal.

Someone must be reaching out. Officials are not corrupt, and officials are also corrupt. It only needs to be suppressed to a certain extent. This thing has been impossible to eradicate at all times and in all countries.

In order to appease the landowners, they continued to issue bonds to wealthy households. This year, the land fee was reduced again, and only thirty cash per bucket was required. This thing is the transportation fee for the people when they pay the land tax, but they have to bear it themselves.

The loss during the transportation of money and grain, that is, the loss of fire in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhu Guoxiang did not return to the government for the time being, which is equivalent to allowing local officials to legally commit corruption.

However, taxes must be collected in full and cannot be collected at 90% as in the Song Dynasty (the remaining 10% is distributed by officials and can be directly put into their own pockets).

Ju Ming rode to the county seat again and asked about the price of food here.

Food prices are still high, but have been brought down somewhat. At the turn of spring and summer, it is the time when food prices are the highest throughout the year. The price of rice and wheat in Dengcheng County is about 1,000 yuan.

This thing should be reduced to three to five hundred yuan to be normal!

The reason why food prices have skyrocketed is not only because of wars and natural disasters, but also because of the excessive spending of money by the imperial court in the past few years.

This year, it will be announced that coins containing more than ten large coins and tin coins will be invalid. The government will not care about private transactions and will have no way to control them. However, when the government collects taxes, they will not collect large amounts of money or tin money, which is more than ten yuan, to prevent Song Huizong from continuing to issue coins indiscriminately. The money flowing in through out-of-town businessmen will disrupt the economic order of the rebel territory.

The existing iron coins will also gradually be phased out, and the money casting supervisor in Sichuan is casting more exquisite iron coins.

These high-quality iron coins will definitely be collected by wealthy households and use low-quality iron coins to pay business taxes.

While the government was cracking down on private casting, it was taking back the bad money for smelting. If it suffered a loss, it would suffer a loss, and the replacement was gradually completed. There are abundant iron mines in Sichuan. According to the amount of bad money destroyed, fine iron coins are issued to a limited extent to ensure the stable transition of coins.

When the value of iron money stabilizes and the government's warehouses are full, we can try to issue paper money.

There are only more than 3,000 troops stationed in Xiangyang, and they are all Ju Ming's troops. Not only were these soldiers not assigned land, but they were also only allowed to bring their wives and children, and were not allowed to move with their whole families. Because the surrounding areas of Xiangyang are highly developed, there is not much land available for distribution.

The pro-soldiers were treated more generously, and the land they were given was converted into money and paid out, thus eliminating the imbalance in their hearts.

More soldiers were stationed in Jingmen and Xinye.

Because of the vast territory and sparse population, there was not even a new city in the Northern Song Dynasty, only a commercial town. The large area was too sparsely populated to establish a county.

More than 6,000 soldiers, together with their whole families, moved to Xinye to settle down.

At the same time, 10,000 refugees were allocated to cultivate wasteland. If the land owned by soldiers and their families cannot be cultivated by themselves, the refugees must rent a certain amount of land, giving priority to ensuring that the soldiers' fields are cultivated.

I believe that within ten years, Xinye City will be able to reappear in the land of China.

When Ju Ming came to Xiangyang, an official ship also came from Nanyang.

The prefect of Nanyang urgently reported that there were so many refugees there that they could no longer bear them. Every month, refugees from Henan come in groups from the territory of the Song Dynasty. Officials from various counties in Nanyang accepted several groups, totaling more than 50,000 people. They all came after hearing that Zhu Thie was willing to resettle the refugees.

"Marshal, you are finally here!"

Zhang Bor said anxiously: "The Fangcheng County Magistrate urgently reported that there is a rebel leader named Cui Dalang who has taken refuge across the border with an army of 300,000 people. The Fangcheng County Magistrate has been frightened and has ordered him to stay at the border and wait to receive him."

"Three hundred thousand people? What a fool," Ju Ming said with a smile, "That Cui Dalang, if he had an army of three hundred thousand people, he would have gone directly to attack Tokyo."

Zhang Boring said: "The number of three hundred thousand people is definitely an imaginary number, but including the old, weak, women and children, this rebel army probably numbered twenty to thirty thousand. They came from Ye County of the Song Dynasty. I heard that they were still passing through the Huaihe River, and the Song Dynasty along the way The officials did not dare to stop them and were even eager for these rebels to come to us. I heard that when Cui Dalang led his troops out of Ye County, the county magistrate asked the rich households to allocate two thousand stones of grain and sent them out with gifts as soon as possible with a smiling face."

"Take it, we've broken up the settlement," Zhu Ming said. "We don't have enough food, so we can only borrow food from rich families in Nanyang."

What kind of world is this?

The rebels in the imperial territory headed towards the rebel war zone with great swagger, and local officials even raised food to see them off.