prosperous age

Qi Jiguang's letter does not contain much content, but it is very important.

It mainly talks about the current situation of the Jurchens in Liaodong. Since the death of Wang Gao, the deterrent effect on the Jurchen tribes has indeed been achieved.

The other Jurchen tribes no longer dared to disobey the Ming Dynasty's edict and all cooperated with it with all their strength.

Even if there are people who are unwilling to do so, they will behave themselves and not dare to cause trouble.

However, in the past six months, the situation has changed slightly, and the reason is still due to Wang Gao's son.

After Wang Gao's death, his eldest son Ata occupied Hongli Village and his second son Ahai occupied Shaji City. They recruited soldiers on a large scale and constantly contacted various Jurchen tribes, persuading them to rebel against the Ming Dynasty together.

Yes, it seems that Wang Gao's family is in conflict with the Ming Dynasty, and the fight will not stop until one dies.

Not only that, Ata and Ahai also strengthened their ties with the Mongolian Tuman tribe, often using the Mongols' strength to oppress the tribes that stood on the side of the Ming Dynasty.

After all, except for the wild Jurchens in the north, the division of power among other Jurchen tribes is already very clear. If they want to expand their own strength, they can only dig into the corners of other Jurchen tribes, weaken others and strengthen themselves.

A'tai and A'hai were extremely eager to become stronger and avenge their dead father.

After lying dormant for more than a year, as their strength grows, A Tai and A Hai are now unable to hold back and are ready to take action again.

The main purpose of Qi Jiguang's letter was naturally to launch an expedition against Hongli Village and Shaji City.

However, when Qi Jiguang shared his idea with Zhang Xueyan, the Right Censor-in-Chief and Governor of Liaodong, he was opposed.

Yes, the reason Zhang Xueyan opposed it was naturally the news he saw in the court gazette. Now that the Ming Dynasty was in the midst of war in the southeast and southwest, war must not break out in Liaodong at this time.

For some reasons, the imperial court did not release the news of obtaining half of Luzon's land, but only said that the South China Sea Navy entered Luzon to encircle and suppress pirates.

Such a statement would naturally gain support from the court.

After all, during those years when the Japanese pirates were rampant, the hatred towards them reached its peak throughout the Ming Dynasty, and people wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Now that the Ming army is sharp and powerful, it is naturally time to cut the weeds and root them out.

As for Yunnan, the news of Burma’s rebellion had naturally been revealed in the official bulletin before.

But now Myanmar has openly raised the flag of rebellion, and its troops have entered Yunnan. It would be inappropriate to continue hiding it.

The purpose of revealing these is naturally to pass on the blame.

Neither Zhang Juzheng nor Wei Guangde had any intention of covering up for their predecessors.

Because there were already rumors in the court that Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde, two Jinshi from military households, were warlike, so after they had firmly established themselves as the first and second assistant ministers of the cabinet, they kept launching wars and provoking conflicts.

Of course, the main target of the verbal attacks was Zhang Juzheng, because his performance evaluation system offended almost all officials in the world.

To be honest, except for the war in Liaodong which was initiated by Zhang Juzheng, the others were forced, although Wei Guangde played the most important role in promoting it.

I swear to God, the war was not initiated by the Ming Dynasty. Their role was more like prickling the pus and letting the water out.

But when these situations reach the mouths of some officials with ulterior motives, they naturally change their meaning.

In addition to the fact that in accordance with historical trends, Li Chengliang took the initiative to propose the construction of Kuandian Liubao to expand the territory to the north, which triggered a war with the Jianzhou Jurchen Wang Gao's tribe, the Yunnan war was actually just an expansion of the scale of the war and brought it forward by a few years.

After the Ming court turned a blind eye for decades, it eventually backfired on itself.

After the tenth year of the Wanli reign, relations between the Ming Dynasty and Myanmar became extremely tense, and finally the two countries went to war, a war involving hundreds of thousands of people.

Moving the time forward will naturally be beneficial to the Ming Dynasty.

After all, Mang Yinglong had less time to sort out the results of his annexations over the years, and the Ming Dynasty was more prepared for war.

But no matter what, it is an indisputable fact that after entering the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty has been involved in a series of wars in Liaodong, the southeast and the southwest in the past two years, and this cannot be washed away.

Naturally, the officials of the Ming Dynasty court would talk about this matter in private.

Even if Zhang Juzheng didn't mention it to him, Wei Guangde had his own channels of information.

What Qi Jiguang said in the letter might be what Zhang Xueyan and others mentioned in their letters, so he chose to cease fire in Liaodong at this time.

"Hongli Village, Shaji City."

Wei Guangde put down the letter and murmured to himself.

He didn't expect that by killing Wang Gao, he thought he could intimidate the Jurchens for more than ten years, but only two years had passed and it seemed that the Jurchens in Liaodong began to become restless again.

"Does it really mean that we have to change the natives in Liaodong into commoners in order to fundamentally solve the problem of the Jurchens?"

Wei Guangde thought silently in his heart.

"Or, should we raise the butcher knife again in Liaodong and carry out another Chenghua Liting, slaughtering the Jurchens and drastically reducing their population, in order to gain decades of peace?"

The policy of reforming the native chieftain system was to abolish the native chieftain system in ethnic minority areas and replace it with direct rule by officials appointed by the central government, implementing the same local administrative system as in the interior.

The reform was actually implemented during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, when the six southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei abolished the chieftain system and established itinerant officials to govern.

Since the reign of Emperor Yongzheng, the Qing government had implemented the policy of "transforming chieftains into officials" on a large scale in the southwest, gradually abolishing the hereditary system of chieftains and appointing officials with term limits who could be transferred, followed by work such as household registration checks, land measurements, and tax verification.

The reform of native land and return to local rule strengthened the Qing government's management of various ethnic groups in the southwest, broke the ethnic restrictions of the original chieftain system that "barbarians could not leave the cave, and Han people were not allowed to enter", and promoted ethnic integration as well as local economic development and social progress. An important policy to unify the governance, territorial expansion and consolidation of a multi-ethnic feudal country.

The Ming Dynasty never implemented it and always maintained the chieftain system, which was also the reason for the constant rebellions in the southwest during the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

The Jurchen tribes in Liaodong were essentially the same as the chieftain system in the southwest, where the tribal leaders had the final say and actual control.

After all, when the Jurchen tribes migrated south, they were only dependent on the Ming Dynasty in the border areas, rather than being incorporated into the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty never checked the population of the Jurchens, issued household registration cards, or compiled yellow books with fish scales, which were signs of substantive rule.

Wei Guangde was not well versed in history, but he still knew some historical terms, one of which was the policy of "reform of native tribes and establishment of officialdom".

After all, he had watched most of the original TV series "The Yongzheng Dynasty", so naturally he had some impression of it.

However, the TV show was very one-sided after all. Although it mentioned the policy of reforming the native people into officials, it covered very little of the entire process and did not show the cruelty of its implementation.

In the past, Wei Guangde naturally would not have thought of this, but now his position is different and he knows much more about the situation, so he thought that once the policy of converting natives into officials was implemented in the Ming Dynasty, there must be a general in charge to deter the villains, otherwise there would definitely be another rebellion.

"Zhang Xueyan, humph."

Wei Guangde continued to eat, but he had made up his mind that when he went to the cabinet today, he would give Qi Jiguang's letter to Zhang Juzheng to read.

Zhang Xueyan is Zhang Juzheng's man. As long as Zhang can be persuaded, Liaodong can be easily handled.

As long as he found a reason, Qi Jiguang would lead his troops to conquer Hongli Village and Shaji City again.

Treating it as an isolated incident was a passive response by the border generals to the Jurchen raid, not an action planned by Liaodong and the court. Wei Guangde believed that Zhang Juzheng would understand the benefits of doing so after assessing the situation.

After all, keeping Wang Gao's two sons would sooner or later cause trouble in Liaodong.

The best strategy is to eradicate them as soon as possible. Otherwise, once they are ready and join forces with the Mongolian barbarians to launch an attack, Liaodong will be in trouble.

After breakfast, Wei Guangde went out to the yard next door and met his relatives from Liaodong before leaving.

I arrived in Beijing yesterday and came back late and didn’t see him. This is a sufficient reason, but I still didn’t see him the next day, which is a bit unreasonable.

If this gets out, people will say that Wei Guangde has become successful and looks down on his poor relatives.

By then, this matter might be reported to the emperor by an ill-intentioned censor to impeach him, making him feel disgusted.

Although Wei Guangde was kind to others in the court, he was not gold or silver, so it was impossible for him to be liked by everyone.

Moreover, people often have no control over what they like and what they hate.

The Ming Dynasty court prohibited the formation of factions, but in reality there were clear distinctions between them, namely, the local faction and a group of people connected by the teacher-student relationship.

Although the censors knew they could not defeat the ministers, they would still come forward to make comments if they found something that made sense.

It can't hurt anyone, but it can disgust people, which also reflects their value and adds points to their own evaluation.

In this regard, people like Yan Song and Xu Jie in the past, and Zhang Juzheng and Wei Guangde now, were all helpless and could only try their best to protect themselves so as not to be caught by others.

After all, they have not yet extended their hands to the Censorate, and Ge Shouli will not give them face.

They are all trivial matters and not worth making a fuss about.

After leaving the mansion and getting on the sedan chair, the interior had been cleaned up, with no remnants of yesterday.

Wei Guangde lifted the curtain of the sedan chair and looked at the bustling streets and crowded crowds of people in the capital city along the way.

Business in the Ming Dynasty is still prosperous.

Ordinary people did not earn much, but prices in the Ming Dynasty were not high. Although ordinary people in the capital could not eat meat every meal, they could still eat it twice a month.

But once you leave the capital and arrive at a certain place, you have to look at the local conditions.

If the weather is good, the local people can live a good life.

But if things don't go as planned and a disaster occurs, it is a fact that the common people's ability to resist the disaster is also very weak. After all, the gentry above them are not good men and women and will not be merciful.

"As long as there is no war in the Central Plains, the people of the Ming Dynasty will still live a good life."

Wei Guangde sighed in his heart, and when he was in a good mood, suddenly a foul odor came into his nose.

Wei Guangde hurriedly lowered the curtains, picked up the sachet beside him and put it under his nose to sniff, and then he felt better.

Just like what was said on the Internet in later generations, don’t be fooled by the clean and tidy capital city in TV dramas. At that time, the city was seriously dirty and messy.

But think about it, the streets are filled with cows, horses, and donkey carts every day. These animals don't go to the toilet, they just poop while walking, so it would be strange if the streets could feel anything.

Of course, living people would not defecate or urinate in the streets, but because no one was in charge of environmental sanitation, in the words of later generations, the infrastructure was insufficient, so except for the streets near the areas where official residences were concentrated, most of the streets were smelly and in a mess.

Especially when it rains heavily, many places are really inaccessible.

When you step down, you don’t know what you are stepping on.

Suddenly, Wei Guangde was stunned.

Although Beijing was considered a good city in the Ming Dynasty at that time, after all, there were many people who made a living from it and could pull manure carts out of the city every day, but sometimes it was still unbearable for Wei Guangde.

“Urban management and infrastructure.”

Wei Guangde was thinking in his mind that he planned to discuss with Zhang Juzheng and ask Shuntian Prefecture to summon the county magistrates of Daxing and Wanping, and work together with the Five Cities Military Department to take care of the sanitation work in the 49 cities.

As the face of the Ming Dynasty court, the sanitation of Beijing city must be taken seriously.

In his early years, Wei Guangde heard that urban sanitation problems in the West during this period seemed to be more serious than those in the Ming Dynasty.

They don't know how to compost, so they just dump their feces and urine everywhere. It is said that the feces and urine piles in Paris are as high as the city walls.

In the Ming Dynasty, it can also be used as farm fertilizer, instead of being piled up for years. This is why foreigners who came to China at that time thought that China's sanitation was very good.

Thinking about the role of the Five Cities Military Department, Wei Guangde had a general idea.

The Wucheng Bingmasi was a public security management agency established in Beijing during the Ming Dynasty. It was responsible for matters such as urban public security, fire bans, and dredging of ditches and streets.

In the early Ming Dynasty, there were only two military command offices in Beijing, namely the South and the North. Later, in the 23rd year of Hongwu, a reform was carried out, dividing the capital into five cities: East, West, South, North and Central. A military command office was set up in each city, forming a system of five-city military command offices.

These military units were responsible for the public security management of their respective urban areas, including catching thieves, night patrols, firefighting and other tasks.

It seems that the drainage ditches and sanitation of Beijing city can all be taken over by the Wucheng Bingmasi, who will be responsible for hiring people to clean up the city's garbage and arranging for people to transport it out of the city using manure carts.

The county governments of Daxing and Wanping ordered their officers to patrol the streets and deal with any problems they discovered in a timely manner.

The sanitation workers of later generations also needed to use it, otherwise the road surface would be dirty and smelly after cattle and horses passed by on the streets.

  As for the funding, Wei Guangde thought about it and decided to let the Wucheng Bingmasi collect sanitation fees from the shops along the street, charging according to the number of rooms.

Wei Guangde was still thinking about this question when he suddenly felt the sedan chair stop. A long-servant outside the sedan chair whispered, "Master, we're here."

As the rear sedan was lifted up, Wei Guangde bent down and got out of the sedan.

The Imperial City is still better. There is not as much smell around here as in the city.

Wei Guangde couldn't help but take a few deep breaths before striding into Chengtian Gate.

Entering the cabinet, Wei Guangde passed by a secretary and asked casually, "Has the Prime Minister arrived?"

The secretary was standing respectfully by the side. When he heard Wei Guangde's question, he immediately replied, "Lord Wei, Prime Minister Zhang has not arrived yet."

"Okay, got it, go ahead and get busy."

Wei Guangde smiled and nodded at him, then went straight to his duty room.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was definitely a superpower of this era. Even though Spain had gold and silver from the Americas, which meant it was a little richer, its overall national strength was definitely not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde thought to himself that since it is a big country, it must have the bearing of a big country.

First, we will improve the sanitation work in Beijing and then promote it to all prefectures and counties across the country.

When Li Zicheng attacked Beijing in the late Ming Dynasty, I heard that there was a plague in the city. (End of this chapter)