national surname chiming

Chapter 229

Zhu Wenzhen pursued the remnant of Zhang Xianzhong, Zuo Zixiong personally led the main force to finally break through Hengzhou City, and captured Yin Xianmin He Yide. These things seem to be nothing to repeat, but in fact it took a lot of time.

It has been delayed from mid-July to late July before it can be considered as a preliminary completion.

As for collecting and filing all the gold and silver treasures obtained in the pursuit of southern Hunan, further comforting the people in Hengzhou and other places, and exterminating the stragglers who fled... These tasks cannot be completed by the end of July, and may be delayed until August.

Fortunately, Shen Shuren already had a rough idea of ​​how much gold, silver and jewelry he could get in advance, so he could start to calculate the work of profit and loss assessment in the few days after breaking through Hengzhou.

Shen Shuren seems to have obtained property worth 200 million taels, but there are at least 300 to [-] million taels, which are relatively difficult to realize. They all exist in the form of artworks, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and it may take half a year or even a year or two. Time to slowly pin dirty.Otherwise, if you invest too much in the market at once, the price will definitely collapse and depreciate, and you may not even be able to realize half of the valuation.

This is also in line with common sense. Whether those vassal kings or the wealthy, when their homes were ransacked, how could it be possible that only gold and silver were found?Most aristocrats have a certain level of enjoyment, and they must invest in artwork, calligraphy and painting.

Among the feudal king's property, [-]% are works of art, which is not a high proportion.

And after they were wiped out, Zhang Xianzhong also knew that these things might be valuable, so he didn't just destroy them and burn them, but chose to snatch them away.It's a pity that the thief is uneducated, doesn't know how to evaluate, and finally realizes that there is a risk of breaking out, and they don't give priority to bringing these things with them. They only bring gold, silver and jewelry, which are reserved for Shen Shuren.

Therefore, the hard currency that Shen Shuren can use immediately is more than 900 million taels.

The composition of this money is about [-]% gold, [-]% silver, [-]% silk and other textiles and other hard-to-use civilian materials, [-]% copper coins, and hundreds of thousands of stones of grain.

The conversion of copper coins is of course based on the actual official price in the late Ming Dynasty, about 750~770 copper coins are converted into one tael of silver.The more than 200 million copper coins seized this time are actually only [-] billion pieces.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the import of silver, even copper coins began to be in short supply. Therefore, from the early Wanli period, the official exchange rate of one thousand copper coins for one tael of silver could not be maintained. More than 800 copper coins were exchanged for one tael of silver, and Tianqi Chongzhen further fell to more than 700 for one tael.

Compared to Shen Shuren's income, the bloody battle in these few months had cost a lot.

The troops under Shen Shuren's command reached 6 to [-] people. The salary and rewards of these people during the war will definitely be several times higher than those during peaceful training.

Usually a soldier spends two taels a month, but now he can't afford five taels.If there is a reward or a pension for the injured and dead, then ten taels to dozens of taels will go out at once.

Due to the huge consumption of ammunition, firearms soldiers consume more than 20 taels of silver per month. After all, after a battle, a few catties of lead bullets and gunpowder can be worth a lot of money.

After careful calculation, more than two months of bloody battles cost more than 5 taels of military pay and rewards to 80 people.More than 1 people were killed in the battle, more than 90 were injured, the total pension reached more than 10,000, and there were 20+ taels of medical expenses and more than [-] in nutrition expenses.

Regardless of the damage to weapons and horses, the total direct military expenditure reached 210 million taels.

And Shen Shuren has a total of more than 8 troops (including Huang Degong and Liu Guoneng), and the 3 people who stay behind will have more tasks during this period, and they will have to patrol frequently, and the salary will be improved accordingly, but it is not as obvious as the first-line troops.There are also 30 taels of military pay, military food and logistics for two or three months.

Added to the 210 million of the previous combat troops, Shen Shuren's military expenditure in the fall of Chongzhen's 15th year reached 240 million.

Of the more than 900 million seized, a quarter was used up at once, and the remaining three quarters can be regarded as gross profit.

And it is impossible for Shen Shuren to own this part of the gross profit. He has to use part of it to expand the army, continue to develop the economy, resume production, upgrade technology and upgrade armaments...

A small part must also be used to manage the relationship between all parties, calm down the court's opinion, and make his official career in the last year and a half before Chongzhen's death go more smoothly. "Progress" opportunity, and insisted on hitting Chongzhen's death with his "Daming Loyalty" signboard of justice.

These things require a huge amount of money to clear the way.

……

Shen Shuren originally planned to deal with the pacification of Hengzhou until the beginning of August.

However, the tree wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop, the outside world obviously won't let him keep 1V1 with Zhang Xianzhong.

As early as July 28th, several unexpected news forced Shen Shuren to move his office, first withdraw part of the troops to the north to rest, and deal with some unexpected situations in other directions.

The first unexpected situation was that Liu Wenxiu's troops were in the process of retreating from Changde Mansion to the west, trying to join Sun Kewang, and then rejoining his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong.Because in the southern part of Shizhouwei and most of Yongshun Xuanweisi, new conflicts broke out with the local Miao people and native chieftains.

As a result, some soldiers of Liu Wenxiu's department were dispersed and re-entered Changde to wreak havoc.At the same time, several chieftains of the Miao tribe who were defeated by Liu Wenxiu and Sun Kewang also entered the territory of Changde because they fled to avoid the enemy.

Shen Shuren considered that although the Changde Mansion had been slaughtered and ravaged to such an extent, the delay in completely recovering and pacifying it would also damage the dignity of the court.

Now that Hengzhou, Yongzhou, and Baoqing in the south are all stable, it is time to return to the teacher and completely wipe out Changde.

So Shen Shuren brought 5000 troops, the first batch went north from Hengzhou squadron, returned to Changsha on the fifth day of August, arrived in Changde on the ninth day of the month, and spent a few days fighting fiercely with Liu Wenxiu's scattered stragglers. We wiped out a few fleeing Miao chieftains, and restored order in Changde before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

After the restoration of Changde, Shen Shucai had a real understanding of how miserable the situation in Changde was for the first time.

The autumn harvest here may not be able to harvest much food this year, because the local people were unable to produce during the whole six or seven months, and they fled.Although after the summer grain was harvested, the autumn grain was sown, but basically it was only a sowing action.Subsequent weeding, fertilization and irrigation are basically no one's work, it is completely rotten and natural growth, and irrigation depends entirely on the rain.

Fortunately, there was no drought around Dongting Lake in the 15th year of Chongzhen. Instead, there were floods in some places and a lot of rain.In this case, it is good news for the crops that grow naturally. In the end, it is estimated that tens of catties of grain can be recovered barely per mu of land, and one hundred catties must not be counted on.

The local population had already been slaughtered terribly by Zhang Xianzhong, and this small amount of food was enough for the local surviving people, so at least there was no need to transfer food from other prefectures.Shen Shuren immediately ordered to mobilize his civil affairs officials to persuade the farmers to resume production, and strive to seize the time to fertilize, weed and weed in the last month before the autumn harvest, so as to save as much harvest as possible.

Since there were no civil servants accompanying the army with him during the war, Shen Shuren had no choice but to hand over these internal affairs to Gu Yanwu, his staff member.

Gu Yanwu's level of civil affairs is not very high, but he is still competent in the daily statistical sorting work. After a little work for two days, he returned the statistics of Changde Mansion, especially the counties around Wuling.

Shen Shuren was also taken aback when he saw the situation that Gu Yanwu brought: "This year, Changde Mansion actually estimates that it will be completely self-sufficient in food? Is there any excess?
This has reduced production to such a degree, how can there be so much surplus?So how miserable is the massacre of Changde Mansion?I'm afraid it's worse than Changsha mansion.This is not a place of prosperity, Zhang Xianzhong actually made such a murderous move? "

When Gu Yanwu came back, he also had a look of grief and indignation.Seeing Dong Weng didn't believe it, he explained with a sigh:

"Who said it wasn't? When the students first met, they also thought it was horrible. Firstly, this Changde mansion was the first mansion that Zhang Xianzhong attacked after his comeback. Many young and strong were captured and many old and weak were killed.

Secondly, this Changde mansion is the hometown of Yang Ge's old man. Zhang Xianzhong hated Yang Ge's old man deeply all his life. It can be said that he hated the governor of the court the most.After Zhang Xianzhong broke Wuling County, he ordered all the counties in Hefu that anyone with the surname Yang should be exterminated, leaving no chicken or dog behind.

Yang was originally one of the common surnames, even in other prefectures and counties, there are many people with the surname Yang. In Changde, since they are from Ge Lao, Yang Ge's hometown is naturally a prominent local family, and one out of a dozen people has the surname Yang of.

Zhang Xianzhong also wanted to kill his in-laws, children, and servants together. Thousands of people surnamed Yang were killed, and in the end he killed [-] people.The rogue soldiers under his command also took the opportunity to expand the looting, so more than half of the population of the whole government was killed. "

After Shen Shuren listened to it, apart from the initial shock, he also realized that all this was really not against Zhang Xianzhong, because similar things happened in the original "History of Ming Dynasty".

In the original history, when Zhang Xianzhong came to Changde later, Yang Sichang himself was already dead. Zhang Xianzhong still resented that he could not kill all his clan and relatives in his hometown when Yang Sichang was alive, and that he could not let Yang Sichang hear all the despair. Make him mad.

But Zhang Xianzhong did massacre and exterminate all the people surnamed Yang and their family members who could be captured in the Changde Mansion. This is what he really did in history.

It can also be seen from this that when some later generations read "History of the Ming Dynasty", they insisted that "Zhang Xianzhong attacked Xiangyang and killed King Xiang to frame Yang Sichang. Have to stay on your feet.

Perhaps Zhang Xianzhong's inner motives are really difficult to find solid evidence, but just because he entered the Changde Mansion and slaughtered all the people surnamed Yang in the mansion, isn't it enough to prove the depth of his hatred for Yang Sichang?
After Shen Shuren got used to the bad news, he couldn't help thinking of something, and sighed to Gu Yanwu: "After Xiangyang was destroyed last year and King Xiang was killed, Elder Yang Ge was once worried, and now he is sick and can hardly manage.

This time, King Ji, King Rong, and King Gui were killed successively in Huguang. As the governor of the six provinces, he naturally has certain culpability.Even if Yin Xianmin He Yide could be sent for questioning, it still cannot be completely avoided.

Now that I hear that the clan in my hometown was massacred, I am afraid that he will not be able to withstand this blow, and will soon... Sigh. "

Shen Shuren has already realized that Yang Sichang may really die soon, maybe this is the inertia of history.Shen Shuren relied on his own butterfly effect to pull Yang Sichang and prolong his life for a year and a half. It is estimated that this is the limit, and it must not be extended for two years.

Fortunately, Yang Sichang would also be grateful to him, and hoped that before he died, he could use his last remaining heat to push Shen Shuren up a step further.

(End of this chapter)