Traveling through the Ming Dynasty, as soon as you open your eyes, you will die

Chapter 96 Hidden dangers in Jiangnan

The autumn air is crisp, and the plague should have weakened and subsided. He finally resolved the death disaster that "half of ten" caused by the rogue bandits entering Beijing and bringing to Zhili Beijing.

When setting off, Lu Mou specifically asked Li Yan to give him a ride alone. After all, in this world, Lu Mou believed that although he made friends accidentally, Li Yan was still his only friend, so he would just make do with it, what else could he do?

And Li Yan also knew that this little guy must be holding back something bad and wanted to say it to his harmful friend. Let yourself help him give advice on how to do the worst.

For this reason, Li Yan was truly moved from the bottom of his heart. What does it feel like to be shown so much trust in me?

It was a feeling that he wanted me to die in return.

Riding on his horse, looking at the fields on both sides of the road where a good harvest was expected, Lu Mou sighed to Li Yan: "With the implementation of the New Deal, there is almost no idle land in Zhili, and the people's enthusiasm is high. There is no problem with the great harvest in the golden autumn. According to the Now the average output of grain in the Ming Dynasty is calculated as three shi per mu. The 20 million acres of land we contracted will produce 60 million shi of grain. This year, the entire Zhili army and civilians will no longer be hungry. For this reason, water transportation in the south of the Yangtze River has been cut off. I’m not afraid anymore.”

"You're talking about business, why are you going so far?" Li Yan was not bothered. That's the Ministry of Finance's business. What did you tell me? I have a lot of things to do in the Ministry of War, so I don't have time to chat with you.

Lu Mou was choked: "Why can't we talk properly?"

"As you said, a boss who always talks about feelings with his subordinates is not a good leader and is suspected of trying to deceive his subordinates. I don't want to misunderstand you."

Lu Mou spread his hands: "How come you just remember this? Why don't you know that according to the habits of you literati, when you want to say something, you can't get to the point directly, but you have to slowly and deeply detour into the clouds. This It’s the art of conversation, do you understand?”

Li Yan sneered: "Dong Lin's stinky problem."

Then he frowned and said: "The reason why I brought up the water transportation in the south of the Yangtze River is because, have you seen the situation in the south of the Yangtze River revealed by Shi Kefa's visit to Beijing this time?"

Li Yan also frowned and nodded: "With this Jiangnan trend, it's not that the officials left behind in Nanjing don't know how to solve the problem. But they don't think about how to solve the problem. Instead, they send the chief officials left behind to go to Beijing to impeach you, the prince. Is that to impeach you? ? That’s to ask the imperial court for punishment.”

Lu Mou nodded: "Yes, now the imperial court has reached the point where needles cannot penetrate Jiangnan and water cannot pour in. In fact, the imperial court is close to losing control of Jiangnan. The little money and food that Jiangnan turns over every year is actually Jiangnan. Give the court money to maintain the status quo."

"There are historical reasons for the segregation of the north and the south. It is not something you or I can change if we want to."

"Yes, replacing a few officials and sending out a few officials cannot fundamentally change the status quo. Therefore, if we want to make a big difference, we can only rely on ourselves. The North must be self-sufficient to feel at ease."

Li Yan nodded silently.

"Now, not only is there a situation in Jiangnan where the south does not want to interfere with the affairs of the north, nor does it want to implement the policies of the north, but at the same time, the south also has huge hidden dangers for development."

"What's the hidden danger?"

Lu Mou raised his fingers and said: "The first one is that the land in Jiangnan is highly concentrated, and the gentry does not pay for it. In order to pay less for the country's original heavy taxes, the people in Jiangnan donated money to the gentry one after another. For this reason, the gentry and landlords in the world have Occupying 40% of the world's land, more than 200 million acres, this has caused a huge drain on the national finances, but I dare not poke this hornet's nest. Instead, Tonghe can only rely on money to implement the New Deal, forcing those landed people to surrender to the gentry. , and then return to the common people, but this will take time.

At that time, Zhang Xianzhong traveled to Huguang, Jiangxi, Southern Zhili, and Guangdong and Guangxi. But they all come and go in a hurry, and burning and killing are not enough. "

There are always three things in historical records about the changes of dynasties: official corruption, high concentration of land, and the outbreak of natural disasters.

The first two are accumulated evils, like dry firewood piles, and the natural disasters in the latter are the triggering sparks.

The first two cannot be solved by relying on the ruling class. Only by a vigorous explosion of the people at the bottom can we completely destroy them and start over again, so that a healthy and nearly fair dynasty can be born again. Then this dynasty continued to slowly enter that vicious cycle.

This is the fatalism of the dynasty for three hundred years. Sighing: "Zhang Xianzhong did not release a large amount of land. At the same time, he left too early, and my New Deal did not keep up. Therefore, even if I reborn the Ming Dynasty, the hidden dangers are still not solved in the end, and another turmoil will break out sooner or later." of."

Li Yan was convinced. Now that Lu Mou had spoken out so bluntly, he had become accustomed to his hatred for the gentry and landlords.

In fact, of the two people, one was born out of the ideological basis of education in his previous life, and Li Yan was born out of the habit of a rebel. But the two of them share the same ideal of changing the world and allowing farmers to have their own land.

"There is another thing. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it has been a disaster for the vassal towns that the civil servants have taken every precaution against. For this reason, they did not hesitate to suppress the military generals. As for the unscrupulous generals, the iron-blooded Ming Dynasty was reduced to a soft egg. But now Liu in the Jianghuai area Liangzuo, Liu Zeqing, Gao Jie, and Huang Degong, although they are not named as a vassal town, they are already actual vassal towns. This is a hidden danger, and the sooner it is removed, the better to avoid endless troubles."

Li Yan nodded: "That's the next best thing. I have already seen that the emperor and you are in the event of the collapse of Zhili. You and your son will not go south at all."

Lu Mou sneered in his heart, in order to stabilize Zhili, I just sang a high-profile song, do you take this seriously?

If, as history goes, Li Zicheng's millions of troops march to the gates of Beijing, no matter how irreversible the situation is, I will be the first to run away with the bucket. Anyway, it would be enough for the Ming Dynasty to have a king named Chongzhen die in Sheji. I am not a real descendant of the old Zhu family, and I have no obligation to fulfill my filial piety for him. If God hadn't dialed the wrong compass and traveled to the Ming Dynasty by mistake, for the sake of survival and power, I wouldn't bother to care about this nonsense.

Li Yan continued to talk about his own understanding: "Once such a situation occurs, the four towns will fight for their support. Shi Kefa, a good old man without soldiers and generals, will not be able to control the situation. When the time comes, Jiangnan will be in chaos, and there will be no hope of separatist control of even half of it."

You know history very well: "Yes, that situation is disastrous. But as you said, I am beyond my reach now, so I can only borrow his hand to get rid of these four people first. At least weaken them first and connect us." Jiangnan, deal with them and reduce the resistance."

Li Yan nodded: "How about letting Li Zicheng do what we can't do now?"

Lu Mou nodded: "That's what I mean, but I'm still not sure, so I'll call you out and discuss it carefully in a place where no one is around."

Zhao Hu's voice rang in his ears: "Your Majesty, Mr. Li, it's inappropriate to talk about such a confidential matter on this official road where people come and go. Do you want us brothers to protect the prince when he goes to the woods to discuss the conspiracy?" "

Lu Mou was stunned. He looked at the three hundred guards around him who were nodding together. He looked at the busy traffic on the official road. Lu Mou was sweating a little and Li Yan was a little panicked.

Zhao Hu quickly explained: "My prince and your Majesty talked about killing people with borrowed knives and eliminating vassal towns. I promise that I didn't hear a word of it."

Did you look down and see on the wooden sign on the ground that it clearly says, There is no silver here?

It is indeed uncomfortably hot in Qiuhu, so it is necessary to take shelter in that forest.

Walking into the woods, the guards were scattered around to keep watch. Zhao Hu laid a blanket on the grass for the two of them, and they sat on the ground. Zhao Hu carried a waist knife and walked around to investigate.

Li Yan thought deeply: "What I just said is to use Li Zicheng's sword to solve the above problems, but I'm afraid Li Zicheng is not willing to do it."

"why?"

"Because the current situation of Li Zicheng is very embarrassing. Although he founded the country smoothly and became the emperor. But whether it is among themselves or the people in society, especially the officials of the Ming Dynasty who came all the way and surrendered to him, in fact, they are worried in their hearts. If you are not convinced by him, you will not recognize him. Therefore, he must now conquer Beijing and sit on the chair in the Forbidden City in order to win over people's hearts and gather strength.

Once he goes south, his internal members will be disappointed with him, and his internal Luo Rucai Department, Hao Yaoqi Department, and especially Gao Yigong's original Lao Chuang Wang Gao Yingxiang Department may go their own way. Therefore, with the need to ascend the throne in a legitimate manner and the fear of falling apart, I think Li Chuang did not dare to go south to Huguang and then sweep across Jiangnan. "

Lu Mou smiled and shook his head: "My thoughts are a little different from yours. I think the situation forces Li Zicheng to do this."

(End of this chapter)