Jia Yujing of Red Mansion

Chapter 272

Since the strategy of sending troops to Japan was adopted at noon that day, Jia Qiong has reported to the Ministry of War almost every day to discuss various matters with officials from the Ministry of War.

How many troops to send, where to mobilize them, marching routes, supply points, where to go to sea, how many transport ships to mobilize, which navy to escort, etc.

Everything was discussed in detail, and every matter had to be discussed repeatedly and a large amount of information was consulted. As a result, Jia Qiong learned a lot about the military situation in various places in Dachu.

On this day, Jia Qiong was checking the information of various naval divisions in the database of the Ministry of War. When flipping through the information of Dengzhou Navy, he saw another familiar name, Yu Tonghai.

He read Yu Tonghai's information in detail and found that this person's ancestral home and father's name were completely consistent with Yu Tonghai in the original history.

This also convinced Jia Qiong that this person was the Yu Tonghai he knew.

In the original history, Yu Tonghai was a naval general under Zhu Yuanzhang.

He first formed a naval force with Zhao Pusheng in Chaohu to resist the Yuan army.

Later, Zhu Yuanzhang rebelled against the Yuan Dynasty. In the 15th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1355), he led more than [-] navy troops to defect to Zhu Yuanzhang and became a naval general. He crossed the Yangtze River with him, occupied Jiqing (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), and was promoted to Marshal of Qin Huaiyi.

In the 17th year of Yuan Zhizheng (1357), Yu Tonghai led the navy to attack Zhang Shicheng's army and forced Zhang Shicheng's reinforcements to return.

Later, he fought with Chen Youliang at Poyang Lake. He led his warships into the enemy's formation many times and set fire to hundreds of Chen's warships.

In the 27th year of Yuan Zhizheng (1367), he led his army to attack Huzhou and occupied Taicang.

Later, he was seriously injured when he entered Suzhou and died of his injuries soon after.

Yu Tonghai can be said to be the most important naval general in the early days of Zhu Yuanzhang's army. He made great contributions to his ability to gain a foothold and expand his power.

This is the third familiar name Jia Qiong has seen so far.

He is now basically certain that although this world has deviated from the original history after the Northern Song Dynasty.

But those figures who were originally active in the history of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties will still appear in this time and space.

However, their life experiences will inevitably change. For example, Wang Guangyang was a Jinshi in the Yuan Dynasty in the original history, but in this time and space he did not even pass the examination.

Yu Tonghai was originally the leader of the rebels who resisted the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, but now he became a low-level general in the Dengzhou Navy.

Knowing that this person should be quite capable, Jia Qiong kept him in mind and prepared to wait for the right time to transfer him under his command.

Now that it was determined that the heroes from the early Ming Dynasty should all appear in this world, Jia Qiong came up with the idea of ​​​​finding these people.

Whether it is generals such as Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, and Li Wenzhong, or political talents like Liu Ji and Li Shanchang.

If he could find them and gather them into his hands, then he would really have a lot of talents under his command.

However, judging from the situations of Wang Guangyang and Yu Tonghai, these people are likely to change their place of birth.

If you look for it based on its original historical location, there is a high probability that you will not gain much.

Jia Qiong had no other choice but to give Wei Wentong the general information about the people he wanted to find most, and asked him to ask Jin Yiwei from various places to help them find them.

At this time, thousands of miles away in the Jianghuai region, a chaos caused by Japanese pirates was brewing.

After the three thousand Japanese pirates who penetrated deep into the hinterland of Dachu were defeated by the Hongze Lake navy, many Japanese pirates fled to the surrounding Haozhou Prefecture and Huai'an Prefecture.

In order to avoid the encirclement and suppression by officers and soldiers, these Japanese pirates fled into the mountains and forests to hide.

There were small groups of Japanese pirates in groups of three to five, and it was impossible to mobilize a large army to eliminate them. Zhu Youzhen ordered the various state governments to deal with these small groups of Japanese pirates on their own.

This gave local officials a reason to impose additional assessed miscellaneous taxes.Many officials in the Jianghuai area were dismissed because of their involvement in the Ning Wang case, so many officials are new.

It turned out that those officials were like fat ducks with their mouths full of food, while the new batch of officials were like a group of skinny ducks that had not had enough to eat.

These people are more ruthless than the previous officials in extracting money.

In Dingyuan County, the county magistrate Dong Xiangyi once again approached Guo Zixing, a wealthy family in Dingyuan County, and asked him for money and food to fight the Japanese pirates.

Guo Zixing had just been given a large sum of money by Dong Xiangyi not long ago. Not long after, Dong Xiangyi came to force him to donate again, which made Guo Zixing gnash his teeth in hatred.

At this time, Han Shantong, who had been exiled to Dingyuan County, was planning to continue to preach the White Lotus teachings secretly.

After he learned about this incident, he quietly approached Guo Zixing and invited him to raise the flag of righteousness to resist the stupid and unscrupulous court.

Hundreds of miles away in Zhongli County, Zhu Chongba worked hard farming, looking forward to a good harvest so that he could live a good life.

Unexpectedly, he was suddenly told by the government that he had to perform hard labor, and it was a fatal job like transporting grain to Beijing.

In fact, he is the only male in Zhu Chongba's family, and according to the regulations of the court, he is exempted from labor service.

Zhu Chongba went to Baojia to explain the situation, but was told that because he wanted to eliminate Japanese pirates, even if he only had one male in his family, he had to perform labor service.

If you want to be exempted, you can, but you must spend 20 taels of silver to compile the county's classic history.

Zhu Chongba's family only had a few acres of thin farmland in total, and he could only plant it with seeds distributed by the government.

The little money he had saved through begging in the past few years was just enough for him to wait until the summer grain harvest. How could he have the money to manage it?

Sending grain to the capital was the most miserable form of labor, and even your life was in danger.

When Zhu Chongba was desperate, he could only think of selling land to raise money.

He still has four acres of land at home. Although it is not good land, in a prosperous land like Jianghuai, he can still sell it for about 12 taels per mu.

Zhu Chongba only needs to sell two acres of land to collect enough money. In this way, he can still have two acres of land left, and it will not be a problem to support himself.

So he went to the rich man Sun in the village and wanted to sell the land to him.

As a result, Rich Man Sun was only willing to buy an acre of land for six taels of silver.

Zhu Chongba agreed, so he found another rich man, but this man was still only willing to give six taels of silver.

Zhu Chongba looked for people everywhere, but the wealthy households who could afford to buy land were only willing to pay six taels of silver per acre.

He couldn't find a buyer willing to pay a high price, and the yamen had a deadline to pay.

In desperation, he had no choice but to sell four acres of land at six taels of silver per acre. In exchange for 24 taels of silver, he managed the county's classic history and exempted him from labor.

Land is the lifeblood of farmers. Zhu Chongba did not sell his land even when he went out to beg for food. Now he completely lost hope of living a good life.

Depressed, he went to a restaurant to drink, and happened to hear the clerk from the county government next door talking about this hard labor.

It turns out that this is a scheme that the county magistrate and the wealthy households jointly set up to force poor people like Zhu Chongba to sell their land. The wealthy households bought the land at a low price and paid a small sum of money to the county magistrate.

After Zhu Chongba accidentally learned the truth, one can imagine the anger in his heart.

With only four taels of silver left, and full of hatred for the government and these wealthy households, he left his hometown again and embarked on the road of wandering again.

(End of this chapter)