Lu Ming

Chapter 285 Longyan Battle ([-])

The talks between Ding Liqiu and Wang Yuanzai Bo that day were fruitful.Not only did the two sides unify their minds, but they might also get an internal response from Lin Shiwan's gangsters. It can be said that sleepiness met a pillow.

Coincidentally, on the night that Ding Liqiu was drinking, Wei Yuan was also drinking in the barracks of Tianhou Palace outside the city.

Eating wine in the military camp is not so particular. You can find a table in the cafeteria next to the kitchen, and then you can start the whole meal with wine and food.

Who is the guest?Ma Rulin, Ma Jigong and his son from a hundred households of Jinyiwei.

In the Ming Dynasty, Jinyiwei ranged from commanders to small flags, and most of them were hereditary military households.And the father and son sitting in the cafeteria eating wine today are the hereditary guards of the Hundred Households Office in Longyan County.

Ma Rulin, the current hundred householder, is in his 40s. He has a solid body, a hard red face, and is wearing an indigo muslin robe. Judging from his appearance and conversation, he is a very honest person.

This kind of situation is not uncommon, especially in remote areas-not all Jinyiwei are shrewd and tricky urbanites who "speak the capital's language".

His son Ma Jigong is 20 years old this year, with a square face and thick eyebrows, and looks very calm.This one has already made up the captain of Jinyiwei, and when his father retires, he will be able to fill the shortage of hundreds of households.

In a remote and small county like Longyan, the biggest official is only a seventh-rank county magistrate. There are usually few officials and gentry who are unemployed and stay at home. Therefore, the biggest responsibility of the local Jinyiwei: the function of monitoring the public opinion of the gentry is basically abolished. Lost.

And the father and son who came here today can also be regarded as the "last Jinyiwei" in history-Ma Jigong was one of the hundred households of Jinyiwei when the Qing soldiers entered Longyan.

The Jinyiwei in the Ming Dynasty is quite important.

Although this department has a variety of responsibilities, for example, during the Wanli period when the imperial court used force in North Korea, Jin Yiwei provided a lot of information about Japan; usually these uncles would occasionally catch a gangster or something.

However, the purpose of Zhu Baba's establishment of Jinyiwei at the beginning was to check and balance-Jinyiwei was a tool used by the imperial power to fight against the power of the gentry.

The ancients were sometimes very direct.As the emperor monitors and suppresses the eyes and ears of the gentry, in a metropolis like the capital, any official with a slightly higher rank has fans in his family who "sit and listen" all the year round.

This is equivalent to the Disciplinary Commission appointing someone to work in the living room of the leader's house all the year round. Fortunately, the houses of the leaders in ancient times were big. Well, the ancients were so direct, and they looked very cute.

Jinyiwei South Town Fusi is in charge of internal supervision and let’s not talk about it. Jinyiwei North Town Fusi has a prison dedicated to the emperor, specializing in cases appointed by the emperor, and can arrest, torture, and execute officials without going through ordinary judicial mechanism.

This app is the root of Jinyiwei's existence. It is the core function of deterring officials, suppressing gentry, and maintaining the dynamic balance of the court.

Once the senior civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty committed crimes, they could not get out of the "prison under imperial edict". This is the root cause - Jin Yiwei did not need to go through legal procedures to deal with officials, and acted completely according to the emperor's will.You know, if a case goes to the three courts, it will be done according to the wishes of the civil servants, and the difference here is decisive.

In the Ming Dynasty, the many emperors before Chongzhen dealt with the issue of Jinyiwei in a relatively "balanced" way. In short, the court was generally in a smooth transition.

The abolition of Jinyiwei by Chongzhen is actually a rumor that has been circulated in later generations-in the Ming Dynasty, Jinyiwei has always existed.It lasted until 1661, when Ma Jixiang, the commander of the Jinyiwei under Emperor Yongli of the Southern Ming Dynasty, was killed in the curse water, and it can be said that the 290-year history of the Jinyiwei was officially ended.

However, Chongzhen, who came to power after eating a dead chicken, was different.

At this time in 1628, Chongzhen was about to do a stupid thing: he would reduce the core rights of Jinyiwei.What are core rights?Supervise and suppress the gentry.

Although the factory security system that lost its core application was not abolished, it soon became half-dead, and the consequences were naturally borne by Chongzhen himself.

This is the natural weakness of the emperor who came to power after eating a dead chicken: without systematic imperial education, he doesn't know where his butt is.

For a qualified emperor, the officials of the outer dynasty and the eunuchs of the inner court are in a dynamic balance: whichever side starts to be arrogant, he must support the other side to suppress and bite, while he himself sits firmly on the Diaoyutai.The emperor's butt will always sit on the weak side.

In this process, the factory guard system is the core fulcrum used by the emperor to cut peaks and fill valleys and maintain a triangular balance.

However, under the flickering of civil officials, Chongzhen disabled Jinyiwei himself, just like he abolished the post station system that didn't cost much money for a year.

The consequences of things soon became apparent.The gentry class in the late Ming Dynasty can be said to be the craziest era in all dynasties: forming gangs, fighting against dissidents, interfering in administration, controlling the village, going in and out of public offices, and robbing people's property.

These scholar-bureaucrats who got out of the rein during the Ming and Qing Dynasties completely destroyed the entire administrative system. It is no exaggeration to say that they were the source of disaster for the country: in the early years of Chongzhen, when Qi Biaojia was appointed as the inspector of Su Song, Zhang Pu, the leader of Fushe, went to have an audience, that is, " The sleeves are uncovered. They belong to each of Suzhou, and they are famous scholars of the Yun family," and asked to be taken care of.

The scholar-bureaucrats were extravagant and promiscuous, drunk and dreamed of death, and the students at the bottom were no less inferior: taking up lawsuits, concealing money and food, being insane and insane, gathering crowds to make trouble, and students besieged local officials everywhere.

This kind of crazy behavior of destroying the country and destroying the government caused people in the Ming and Qing Dynasties to almost unanimously hate the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River at that time.It was not until a series of "crying temple cases" and "money and food effective cases" in the early Qing Dynasty that the gentry class was completely broken by the Qing court, canceling the ability of this class to disrupt administration and evade taxes.

How should I put it, it's a bit embarrassing: because the ethnic minorities are not used to those problems, the gentry instead began to be obedient citizens of the braided country.Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, the gentry class did not interfere with administrative operations.

Ten permanent attendants at the end of Han Dynasty, warlords at the end of Tang Dynasty, officials and gentry at the end of Ming Dynasty.The internal, external, and military systems of a regime must be kept in balance. Dominance by any one system is a sign of national subjugation.

In short, Chongzhen, a non-professional emperor, reduced the factory guards, causing the officials and gentry to completely lose control, which was undoubtedly one of the important reasons leading to the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

Closer to home.

Ma Rulin and his son, the hereditary Jinyiwei family in Longyan, a small remote county, naturally couldn't afford such a big pot of death.

In fact, as mentioned above, the Jinyiwei in this small mountain town is like the village police station in later generations. There are not so many officials and gentry to monitor, and there is not so much money to fish for. There are only a few big families who come and go , it is not easy to make accusations.

Coupled with the fact that several generations have taken root in the local area, the Ma family has become a local aborigine, that is, a middle-class family.So being invited by Wei Yuan to come to the barracks for a "drink" today, to be honest, the Ma family father and son were a little flattered.

Even if Jinyiwei has lost its main business, it still has a side job of monitoring the local military and civilian social situation, so the news of the Ma family and his son is usually relatively well-informed.They knew Wei Yuan's identity very well: he wiped out the giant bandits in the sea overnight, he was a popular fried chicken in Xinke, and he was a direct subordinate of Cao Chuan, a powerful general with over ten thousand troops.

Although it is not yet the time of corruption in the end of the Ming Dynasty when the army heads were everywhere, it is an indisputable fact that with the smoke everywhere in the Ming Kingdom, the status of warriors is gradually rising.

So Ma Baihu came here respectfully today: he is different from those idiots who can't figure out the situation, he knows very well that this group of short-haired people have a monstrous background, if they really offend the other party, they will kill Jin Yiwei Hundreds of households, the court will not even blink.

Unlike Master Baihu who was a little panicked, Wei Yuan admired the father and son very much.Ma Rulin is calm and serious, Ma Jigong is young and mature, and the two of them don't have that disgusting officialdom. In fact, Ma and his son have a good reputation in the local area, and the old horse seldom gets involved in those messy things.

All of this information was collected in advance by the time traveler.Before the Red Spear Battalion entered Longyan, the intelligence department of the crossing people had already secretly deployed in this small county. This is why Wei Yuan invited Ma and his son to drink today.

After three rounds of wine and five flavors of food, Wei Yuan saw that the heat was almost ready, so he explained the purpose of today's visit: "Master Ma is a landlord, my department is new here, and I am not familiar with the place, so I still need your help in the future!"

Hearing this, Ma Rulin clasped his fists quickly: "Don't dare, General Wei is a general on the battlefield, so polite, it's really hard to kill him."

After saying this sentence, Ma Rulin thought for a while and then said: "The general is summoned today, and I probably know the meaning of it."

Having said that, Ma Rulin turned his head and winked at his son.After Ma Jigong saw the signal, he reached out and took out a stack of light yellow bamboo paper from his pocket: "This is the military situation of thirteen local bandits, big and small, and the inside story of a big household who collaborated with and raised bandits."

"In addition." When Ma Jigong said this, he smiled and took away his palm pressed on the paper: "There are still 26 lists of old bandits who have lived at home for many years."

"Hohohohoh..." Wei Yuan shook his head with a smile when he heard this, "It's true that drums don't need heavy hammers. Ma Rulin is loyal to the state, and Wu Qianhu in Zhangzhou will not deceive me!"

Hearing Wei Yuan's words, Ma Baihu really let go of the big stone in his heart-as expected, his immediate boss had already leaked his family's foundation.

After complimenting the old horse, Wei Yuan nodded, then stretched out his finger, and flicked the kerosene lamp on the table: "Master Ma, what do you think of this?"

"This thing is exquisite, and I'm afraid it's not vegetable oil inside, so it's expensive." Ma Rulin, who had studied kerosene lamps for a long time from the beginning, didn't know what Wei Yuan meant, so he could only answer honestly.

"In Hangzhou, this lamp costs 500 taels of silver, and the lamp oil is sold in taels."

"This lamp is produced by the workshop run by my general, so my general is as rich as an enemy."

"Anyone who cooperates with us will not fail to make a fortune." Wei Yuan looked at the old horse with a smile when he said this: "Master Ma, wait for the bandits to be suppressed here, so you should stop doing this Jinyiwei job."

After a while, Wei Yuan said slowly, "Wouldn't it be nice to hand over the position to brother Jigong early, and then become a shareholder in the mine?"

(End of this chapter)