prosperous age

Chapter 406 Chapter 405
"The officers and soldiers have at most three months to carry out the campaign, and then they have to return to their respective defense areas to guard against the invasion of Japanese pirates. I'm afraid it will be a bit troublesome for Fujian."

Wei Guangde shook his head, and poured cold water on everyone when he opened his mouth.

For King Yu's inquiry, Wei Guangde gave his own judgment.

What Wei Guangde said is less than three months, naturally refers to the period between now and March next year.

With the new defeat of the government and the army, it is definitely impossible to organize a new offensive in the short term. Basically, it is impossible to attack again in the past three months, and then the Japanese pirates will be involved.

Fujian was also a key area for the Ming Dynasty to guard against Japanese pirates. Every year, large groups of Japanese pirates invaded several times, and those small groups of Japanese pirates invaded more and more frequently.

This year is coming to an end, next year Fujian's military pressure will be a bit heavy, but in the eyes of King Yu, Yin Shizhen and others, it is nothing more than a need to deploy some anti-Japanese troops to monitor Zhang Lian's rebels, why does Wei Guangde say that it is a bit troublesome?

"Fujian will be under a lot of pressure, but it won't be in big trouble."

Yin Shizhen has a relatively good personality, and he often says what comes to mind, so he speaks directly at this time.

King Yu, Zhang Juzheng, and Li Fang who was standing on one side all nodded slightly when they heard the words, agreeing with Yin Shizhen's statement.

These days, none of you actually would have thought that the Ming Dynasty would collapse in less than a hundred years. If Wei Guangde didn't know that there is no eternal dynasty, he would think so.

But it's just a mere anti-thief, can it still become a weapon in the end?
In this era, even if the imperial court has various flaws, in the eyes of most people, the imperial court is always the imperial court, and it represents orthodoxy.

In the recorded history of China, there has never been a dynasty that existed for more than 300 years.

"The government and army are newly defeated, and the morale of the army is unstable. It is impossible for the Fujian government to organize a large army to attack again in the short term, but the rebels are on the contrary. At this time, morale is high. It is hard to say whether they will spread around. , Siege the city."

Wei Guangde opened his mouth to respond to Yin Shizhen's question, but he said what he was most worried about.

He has been to Zhejiang, which is a rich and prosperous place, all of which are full of dissatisfaction because of the Japanese Suppression Sect. He has also inquired about other places, and the situation is even worse. So at the beginning of the year, he reported to Emperor Jiajing in the capital, at most one year, Otherwise, there will be chaos in the south of the Yangtze River.

The actions of Zhang Lian and his gang seemed to confirm his thoughts, and some people who were not afraid of beheading jumped out to make trouble.

Although most of the participants are forced by life, the leaders are definitely not. They are often full of ambitions. Even if they didn't think so much when they started the incident, their ambitions will continue to grow after the incident is completed.

The founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, chose to rebel only for food, but after gaining strength, he chose to attack the throne of the emperor. There are only countless bones behind him.

Zhang Lian's group is bound to fail, but they don't know how the Ming army encircled and suppressed them.

Wei Guangde didn't even have time to think about this right now, because his intuition told him that the uprising in Fujian might have a great impact.

In fact, from the very beginning, Wei Guangde felt that it was better to surround the people first, and mobilize a large army to wipe them out in one fell swoop after figuring out the information.

Because of the failure, the rebels took advantage of the situation to spread around, but what is the situation in the surrounding area?
Will the common people, who have been made miserable by the additional faction, follow the thieves in large numbers?

A single spark can start a prairie fire. Once this trend spreads from Fujian to surrounding Guangdong and Jiangxi, it is not an exaggeration to say that half of the south of the Yangtze River.

"The imperial court can only increase troops to Fujian, and the army must be stationed in Fujian in January, so that they have enough troops to contain the rebels and defend against Japanese pirates."

Wei Guangde didn't have the time to talk to Yin Shizhen and others, so he just talked on his own.

"It's not that serious, is it? Don't they dare?"

Hearing what Wei Guangde said was serious, Li Fang, the eunuch next to King Yu, couldn't hold back his words, but realized that he had made a slip of the tongue in the middle of speaking, so he quickly covered his mouth with his hand and lowered his head.

As a slave, he can't speak until his master asks him to speak. Even though he can chat with Yin Shizhen and others in private, he is not qualified to speak when discussing serious matters, unless King Yu allows him to speak.

However, Yin Shizhen, Wei Guangde and others are different from him. They are the teachers of King Yu, officials of the imperial court, and future courtiers of His Highness King Yu.

After Li Fang withdrew, Wei Guangde thought about it and said something about going to the south of the Yangtze River at the beginning of the year. In name, the imperial court sent him to supervise the trial of the Suzhou evil boy incident and the beheading of the Japanese leader Wang Zhi, but Emperor Jiajing asked him to check it in private. It's about the people's feelings in the south of the Yangtze River.

"That's what I played back, but I didn't expect it to become a reality. Someone in the south of the Yangtze River really rebelled, and a rebel army of nearly 100,000 people was raised at once, which really surprised me."

Wei Guangde said here to look at the people who are still thinking silently, and continued: "The situation in Jiangnan is like this, you can imagine what effect it will have if the rebels are really allowed to spread around, a hundred thousand troops, take down a few prefectures and counties, those People who can't afford to eat are afraid they will choose to join the bandits, and by that time, it is unknown that the military strength of the bandits will double."

Wei Guangde also knew that what he said was a bit exaggerated. Before the downfall of the Ming Dynasty, the thieves did indeed do this.

The main reason why Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others suppressed more and more soldiers and horses was not because the people did not have enough to eat and had no way to survive.

And the vast majority of the people who still wanted to live in peace and stability, after the thieves crossed the border and looted wantonly, the last hope of survival was also extinguished by the thieves, so they could only live with the thieves.

"Is everything in Jiangnan like this?"

At this time, Yu Wang finally couldn't help but asked again.

"It's hard."

Wei Guangde shook his head and said: "Hu Zongxian sent 100,000 taels a year to Jiangnan to suppress Japanese military expenses. In reality, the people in Jiangnan have to pay several times the tax. Increased distribution, taxation, and relief of money and food in the hardest-hit areas of the Japanese invasion, but it is still not enough, and it is light to say that the people are destitute."

"His request for memorials should also be aware of the instability of the people in the south of the Yangtze River, so he acted like this."

Yin Shizhen frowned and said.

"That's natural. As a local official, the most fearful thing is a civil uprising, because it means that you have failed in the management of the government, not to mention suppressing Japanese and thieves at the same time. At that time, Hu Zongxian may be able to guess. What will happen to me."

Zhang Juzheng nodded and said that when he returned to his hometown to recover from illness, he traveled all over Huguang and learned about the hardships of the grassroots people.

The taxes stipulated by the Ming court were actually very light, really light, it can be said to be the lowest tax in all dynasties, but when it was implemented, the miscellaneous taxes imposed by the local government became very heavy.

This is also a question that Zhang Juzheng has been thinking about all the time, how to solve the increased miscellaneous taxes at the local level, and make the tax and labor paid by the people more open and transparent.

Hearing Wei Guangde say that the people in the south of the Yangtze River are burdened with millions of taels of extra money, as well as the heavy taxes and labor they themselves bear, it is not surprising that Fujian will be in chaos.

Even if it is not Fujian, it will be Guangdong or other places.

"Is there a solution?"

At this moment, King Yu opened his mouth and asked Wei Guangde directly.

He could already know from their conversation that the life of the people in the south of the Yangtze River was very hard, but sitting here now was not to feel sorry for others, but to find a solution.

Moreover, after Wei Guangde said these words, he also understood that now it is not just about solving Zhang Lian's rebellion, but also how to solve the huge increase in military expenditure due to the suppression of Japanese.

Solving the problem of Japanese pirates seems to solve the problem of increasing military expenditures, but are Japanese pirates so easy to eradicate?

Since the Japanese plague cannot be eliminated in the short term, only by solving the problem of incoming money and fundamentally reducing the burden on the people can the resurgence of the rebellion be prevented. Otherwise, even if the rebels in Fujian are wiped out this time, it will be the rebels in Guangdong and Zhejiang tomorrow. The villain appears.

"We still have to mobilize troops from all over the south of the Yangtze River to trap the Fujian rebels first, and wait until the Japanese pirates in March and April are dealt with."

Wei Guangde could only answer.

Although at this time, Wei Guangde was a little moved and wanted to throw out some things that he had thought of in the past, but he was not sure if now was an opportunity.

"It's difficult. It takes a lot of money to mobilize troops from various places. The imperial court can't spend so much money to mobilize the army in a short period of time, and there are not many armies in various places that can be dispatched."

Zhang Juzheng shook his head at this time and said, "Perhaps, Fujian, Guangdong, and even Jiangxi are the only ways to find a way to send troops to surround them."

Zhang Juzheng told the truth, that is, there were not many troops that the Ming Dynasty could dispatch.

The Daming Guard had millions of soldiers in name, but only nearly half of them were actually able to fight. It has to be said that the guard system established by Zhu Yuanzhang had long existed in name only.

Moreover, in order to suppress the Japanese a few years ago, most of the elite troops that Jiangnan could mobilize had already been dispatched to the front line, so there were no troops to dispatch.

However, at this moment, King Yu said: "Gu means that there is a way to solve the problem of Japanese pirates or solve the source of military expenses."

Ok?
Wei Guangde was a little surprised, he didn't expect King Yu to think of going here.

Before King Yu's problem, Wei Guangde only thought it was to solve the Fujian rebels, but he didn't expect that King Yu wanted them to find a way to solve the trouble completely.

Also, the throne of Emperor Jiajing will be handed over to him sooner or later, and if the problem of Japanese infection cannot be solved, it will also trouble him.

Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng also had the same idea as him, they both looked at King Yu at this time, and then they looked away and began to think.

Solving the Japanese pirates or the source of anti-Japanese funds will naturally alleviate the plight of the people's livelihood in the south of the Yangtze River and bring the situation in the south of the Yangtze River back to peace, but how to solve it?

This is almost unsolvable, and if there is a way, it should have been brought up long ago.

At this time, Wei Guangde thought of the matter he had considered before, and it seemed that he could throw it out today to test the opinions of other people in the palace.

Thinking of this, Wei Guangde took a peek at Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng, and found that they were all thinking hard, and felt more and more that now is really an opportunity.

Wei Guangde acted hesitant to speak, and his face was also very conflicted, but he just didn't speak, but his performance naturally easily attracted King Yu's attention.

"Good loan, but what can you think of?"

King Yu directly named Wei Guangde, wanting to know what method he came up with to solve the predicament.

Hearing King Yu's question, both Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng turned their attention to Wei Guangde, and wanted to hear what he had to say.

With King Yu's roll call, Wei Guangde immediately stopped performing, just looked at the crowd with a very hesitant expression, and then said: "I don't know Your Highness, but there are two adults who know why the Japanese plague is so serious in this dynasty?"

Hearing Wei Guangde's words, everyone in the room widened their eyes in surprise.

In fact, civil officials have discussed this issue in private, but only a few officials think that it has something to do with Emperor Jiajing's abolition of Shibo.

Many officials of the Ming Dynasty knew that although Japanese pirates existed all year round, they were not so rampant when several emperors were in power before, so almost everyone believed that it was caused by Emperor Jiajing's immorality.

Then, everyone dared not speak anymore.

You slandered your father, don't you want to live?

Of course Wei Guangde didn't think that the emperor lost his virtue, he was one of the very few officials.

The abolition of Shibo was the introduction to Japanese pirates. It was precisely because of the actions in the early years of Jiajing that the maritime merchants became alert and gradually developed their own armed forces. out of control.

Seeing that everyone's attention had been drawn, Wei Guangde naturally wouldn't keep it a secret, and continued: "Everyone, have you heard about the battle for tribute in Ningbo?

After this incident, Xia Yan, the chief assistant who was still involved in the matter at that time, reported that the Japanese disaster started in Shibo, and he was the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang cities. As a result, Japanese pirates reappeared in these two places many years later. "

Speaking of this, Wei Guangde clasped his hands to King Yu and said, "Your Highness may have heard that most of the Japanese pirates are actually Ming people. In fact, most of the so-called Japanese pirates are Ming pirates. It's just that they hired a large number of unemployed Japanese warriors. The looting is always led by these Japanese people, so most people think that the Japanese pirates are Japanese people."

Yu Wang nodded. Regarding the composition of the Japanese pirates, the Ming Dynasty officials had known about it for a long time. Even if they didn't know it before, they had already known it after the elimination of Xu Hai and Wang Zhi, the two main Japanese pirates.

"In fact, most of them are maritime merchants. As for why they didn't pretend to be Japanese pirates and rob houses before, that's because they still have business to do through Shibo. The regiment went directly overseas.

But after the battle for tribute, their way of life was cut off, and they started to become Japanese pirates, trafficking the goods of the Ming Dynasty to the sea by force, to the point where it is irreparable today. "

Wei Guangde said that he will not continue here, he needs to see other people's attitudes.

"Isn't the Shibo Department restored now? Why aren't those people doing business, are they still working as pirates?"

Yu Wang asked in surprise.

"They can't turn back, because both Xu Hai and Wang Zhi were killed by the court. If they put down their weapons, they are just waiting to be beheaded by the court."

Wei Guangde said in a low tone.

(End of this chapter)