Qiming 1158

Chapter 1202 You must punch hard!

The high-level officials of the Chengdu court were generally separated from the masses, and they were not very happy to have any contact with the masses. Living in their own high-end circle was as happy and happy as living in an ivory tower.

The only thing that made them unhappy was that the business of Shu Jin could not be done, and there was no money to be made.

However, they don't care about the fact that the people are unemployed, have no income, and have no food to eat, or they don't even know it. The people who have direct contact with the masses are low-level officials and petty officials, and only they know the actual situation.

What small officials and officials report, they think it is, and expecting them to go to the people and communicate with the people in person to understand the actual situation, it is better to expect the sow to climb the tree.

The distance between high-ranking officials and the people is said to be a spatial distance, but it can be said to be a class distance. It is said to be infinitely small, but in fact it is infinitely large.

The lower-level officials are more willing to please their superiors, whitewashing peace, singing and dancing to promote peace.

When faced with the unemployed people on the streets of Chengdu, what I think of is not to solve, not to report, but to conceal, as long as the concealment does not let the superiors know, then the years will be peaceful and everything will be fine.

So when the unemployed began to appear on the streets, they felt that nothing was happening, so they did not act, and they did not report to the court what happened on the streets. The senior officials who were separated from the masses didn't know anything, and they realized it later.

When the unemployed people on the streets started stealing and looting on a small scale because they were hungry, very few of them felt that they could take action, but most of them were very passive and felt that it is better to have more things than less things. It's just trouble, it's no big deal, just catch it and finish it off.

When unemployed people on the streets form gangs to commit crimes and tend to make things worse, the clerks are terrified of the hordes of bad guys, thinking that they might be able to do something, but they have enough manpower. Insufficient, many things can no longer be done.

When the rice riot broke out in Chengdu in July of the sixth year of Hongwu with more than 500 people participating, when seven rice shops in Chengdu were violently robbed by the people, and many grain merchants were beaten to death by angry people. The bureaucrats realized they might be able to do something, but it was too late.

They were helpless in the face of the anger of the people.

The rice disturbance in Chengdu city soon intensified.

It was originally a looting operation involving more than 500 people from several looting teams against seven rice shops, but after these people grabbed the rice, other Chengdu residents who were afraid to act due to the deterrent force of the government were also eager to move, and joined in at dusk. Among the team of rice disturbance.

The rioting team of more than 500 people soon expanded to more than 5 people, and the whole city of Chengdu was full of teams looting rice grains. At first, they were looting rice grains to survive, but they soon evolved into looting everything that the naked eye could see. Snatch of things to see.

Many commercial streets and many shops in Chengdu were devastated and looted, and some people even set fire to it. During the commotion, many houses were also attacked, and some people were robbed and killed. The situation was very chaotic.

The earliest batch of rice rioters in Chengdu City were afraid of retaliation from the Chengdu court after robbing rice grains, so they fled Chengdu, and their escape brought the news of the rice riot in Chengdu to surrounding towns.

So the commotion expanded.

The place where the price of rice has doubled is definitely not only in Chengdu. The price of rice grain in many cities and towns other than Chengdu has risen for three consecutive months, and the momentum is very fierce, and the unemployed industrial and commercial personnel in these places are also affected by the price of rice grain. The torment is unbearable.

The news of the rice riot in Chengdu opened the valve of anger in their hearts, anger began to spew, and people began to attack the rice grain store.

Those big-bellied and ugly-faced grain merchants were soon hung up on the southeast branch by the furious unemployed, the grain was robbed, and the shops were burned down.

In the first ten days of July in the sixth year of Hongwu, following the rice riots in Chengdu, the county towns of Guangdu County, Lingquan County, Pi County, Jintang County, Jinyuan County, Jiangyuan County, Pingquan County and other counties broke out in various scales of rice riots. A large number of unemployed people are involved.

In places where industry and commerce were more developed before, there were more unemployed people, and the more unemployed people, the greater the intensity of the outbreak of rice riots.

And at the beginning, all the rice disturbances were aimed at rice grain stores, and then it began to develop into an indiscriminate attack on commercial stores.

The participants ranged from hundreds to more than 1000 people, and there were also large-scale riots involving more than 2000 people in individual counties. Be rational, wreak havoc on towns and even zero-dollar purchases.

The government was helpless about this, and some timid officials even hid in the government office and dared not come out. They had no choice but to send someone to Chengdu for help.

By the middle and late July, the rice riot further expanded, spreading from Chengdu to Hanzhou, Pengzhou, Huaianjun, Jianzhou, Longzhou, and Meizhou, all of which were caused by the general rise in rice prices. Public grievances boiled over, which eventually led to an uproar in Mi.

This wave of large-scale and continuing Mi turmoil frightened the upper-level rulers of the Chuan-Shu regime.

Although they are psychologically far away from the masses, once the anger of the masses erupts, they can physically shorten the distance between the top and bottom.

For the first time, they faced such a large-scale mass riot, and their hearts were full of puzzlement, worry and fear.

Not long after Zhao Buxi took the throne, he was busy dealing with the expansion of the army with senior officials. His eyes were on major military affairs, and he had no time to take care of these small things. However, when the small things suddenly expanded into big ones, Zhao Buxi also panicked. .

The angry cries of the people in Chengdu could even reach Zhao Buxi's ears.

He hurriedly summoned the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs of the Manchu Dynasty to discuss and inquired about the solution to this matter. Everyone discussed and discussed it, and directly characterized this matter as a rebellion.

It is someone with ulterior motives who is creating a rebellion against the Great Song Dynasty, and a rebellion against the Great Song court, which has been reborn from ashes.

This is by no means a simple civil uprising, this is a group of rice thieves!
Must hit hard!

Therefore, the method proposed by Wu Lin has been generally recognized - sending troops to suppress.

Not that there are no other solutions to the problem.

For example, one of Ma Yongkang's subordinates mentioned that he has heard a lot of rumors recently, saying that these rioters in the city are the original machine households and employees who lost their livelihoods, because textile factories and a large number of The closure of the shops left them without a livelihood and had no choice but to take to the streets to make trouble.

They originally just wanted to have a bite to eat, so the imperial court gave them a bite to eat. In addition, they could use the old method used by the imperial court in the past - once there appeared a group of refugees with nowhere to live, then recruit them all into the army and manage them. Better than fighting and killing.

"Mr. Wu Xianggong needs to expand his army right now. His Majesty has ordered these chaotic people to submit to the imperial court and be incorporated into the army as appropriate. Then everything will be fine, so why bother killing them?"

(End of this chapter)