The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 435: Hong Tianwang: What? Luo Yaoguo can't even pray for rain? (Please subscribe, please vote)

"Your Highness, the Southern Prince, look at this sunny day, it seems that it is determined to go against us. If we can't get rain, the autumn grain will really be 'annihilated'. How can we march to Guangdong after the autumn? The Hongmen brothers in Guangdong are like chicken blood, howling and moving. If we fail to deliver troops in time, how can they withstand the foreign rifle team of that dog official Ye Fatty!"

As soon as the Southern King Feng Yunshan stepped out of the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother Hall, he was grabbed by the Southern Heavenly Marquis Luo Dagang. Luo Dagang had been very successful in Southeast Asia before. He was the leader of the Hongmen, the leader of the Hakka people in Jiaying Prefecture, a relative of the Lanfang Luo family, and the consul of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He brought a group of Hakka brothers from Jiaying Prefecture to Borneo and forcibly promoted Luo Zhonghua of the Lanfang Luo family to the top. He also traveled east and west to promote the Chinese companies in Borneo to form a group, all gathered under the banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and beat the colonial army of the Dutch East India Company to a pulp.

After completing these wonderful tasks, his work in Nanyang was considered to be a complete success. During the last National People's Congress, Feng Yunshan quickly "pulled" him back and made him the commander-in-chief of the rear army, that is, the commander-in-chief of all the armies under the command of Feng Yunshan, the chief general of the rear army. This was a key role that required him to charge into battle and control the overall situation, equivalent to the "stabilizing force" on the battlefield.

According to the plan, the commander-in-chief of the upcoming Guangdong Campaign would be Wing King Shi Dakai, a renowned figure, and the deputy commander-in-chief would be Luo Dagang. The two of them should have been an invincible combination, but they had to be disrupted by the drought of recent days.

Besides, although Feng Yunshan did not take Guangdong directly during the past two years, he was not idle. He secretly contacted a group of Hongmen bosses in Guangdong, waiting to "catch the turtle in the jar" and take over the entire Guangdong Province with the help of both inside and outside forces.

But the Hongmen's actions were like those who beat gongs and drums, but the raindrops fell to the ground in a few strings, and there were leaks everywhere. I guess the news has spread all over the streets and alleys of Guangzhou City now, and the Hongmen brothers in Guangdong are about to rise up.

Ye Mingchen, the bad official, must be sharpening his knife, waiting to start a massacre. The Guangdong Campaign has already begun, and it has to be launched. Any delay will lead to chaos.

At this critical moment, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's granary, Huguang, seemed to be cursed by God, and suffered from severe drought for three consecutive months. Seeing that this year's autumn grain was going to be lost, Feng Yunshan was very anxious, just like watching the rice in the pot almost cooked, but the fire went out.

Feng Yunshan has been rooted in southern Hunan for just over two years, and there have only been three autumn harvests, including this year. The year before last, he was busy fighting, and the autumn harvest was pitifully small. Last year, he was lucky and had a good year, but how much wealth can a good year save? It was far from enough to support 100,000 troops and 100,000 civilians to march to Guangdong. He had hoped to have another good year this year... or even an average year, but who could have expected that after the beginning of autumn, the sky in Hunan would be as dry as a sponge that had been drained of water.

If it doesn't rain, there's no way we'll be able to harvest much grain this winter. I'm afraid we'll have to open the granaries to distribute grain as relief. What can we do?
Feng Yunshan craned his neck and looked at the sky eagerly, muttering to himself: Is it because I support the king of heaven so wholeheartedly that Brother Tian is angry and won't let me rain? Alas, no matter how much I beg, there is not a single cloud in the sky.

Thinking of this, Feng Yunshan sighed heavily and muttered, "It seems that I have no choice but to ask the Holy Angel to make some concessions with the higher-ups and sprinkle some sweet rain on Huguang!"

……

In the city of Tianjing, the former Governor-General's Office of Liangjiang has now become the first Heavenly King's Palace after Hong Xiuquan entered Tianjing. Now it has undergone a gorgeous transformation and become the location of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Prime Minister's Office and military advisors meeting.

The birth of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Zongli Yamen was the "crystallization" of a series of political, military and economic reforms of the Heavenly Kingdom after the successful convening of the National People's Congress.

The official system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a mess, with many prime ministers in the central government and many ministers in the palace, but few of them could really do anything. Moreover, Hong Xiuquan's early promises that these official positions would be hereditary, if this was not changed, wouldn't it be a mess in the future?
Therefore, Luo Yaoguo took advantage of the fact that he held the "divine spear" and was in great power to push the National People's Congress to pass a series of reform resolutions, one major bill after another, such as the "Official System and Title Reform Bill", "National Rank Bill", "Zhongli Yamen and Ministries Organization Bill", "Zhili Province, Prefecture, County, Town, Village Level Government Organization Bill" and so on.

According to the "Official System and Title Reform Act", all the messy hereditary official positions in the past were transformed and upgraded into corresponding titles. The general routine is that the prime minister is conferred the title of marquis, the minister and inspector are conferred the title of earl, the commander, general, and guard are conferred the title of viscount, the general commander, military supervisor, and military commander are conferred the title of baron, and below the military commander, the first, second, third, and fourth ranks are conferred according to the size of the official position. Above the marquis, there are dukes and kings. The duke position is temporarily vacant, which is a "golden step" for the people below to make meritorious contributions and promotion. The king is even more "rare", and you have to have earth-shaking achievements to get it.

In addition, when conferring titles and granting national identities, the Heavenly Kingdom Center under Luo Yaoguo was particularly generous, giving out silver and houses in Tianjing and Shanghai, making everyone happy. He had mastered the art of winning people's hearts. At the same time, Luo Yaoguo also came up with the "Nine Ranks and Eighteen Grades" official system, which was specifically used to confer titles, promotions, and salaries on the brothers of the Heavenly Kingdom. To put it bluntly, it was a system for assigning ranks and paying salaries to officials. Luo Yaoguo also gave it a name, called "rank officials."

The titles of officials are divided into civil and military. Military officials are generally called "general", "captain", "colonel", "sergeant", while civil officials are called "scholar", "doctor", "lang", and so on.

Of course, these official ranks are not hereditary like the previous ones. Correspondingly, there is also a system of official positions, which is a system of specific jobs and matters.

Luo Yaoguo's current rank is the first-rank commander of the upper army, his title is King of Wu, and his official position is prime minister and military advisor who presides over military advisor meetings.

In addition, he had two "non-staff positions", one was a "membership position" and the other was a "teaching position". These two positions were not in the bureaucracy or title system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but they were very important. His "membership position" was the chief lecturer of the Datong Society, which was reorganized from the God Worshipping Society, and his "teaching position" was the president of the Tianjing University, which was under construction. He was definitely a busy man.

Today, this busy man encountered a problem at the meeting of the Zongli Yamen that he should solve, but could not solve - praying for rain!
Yes, it means "making a phone call" to ask Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother to send some heavy rains to Hubei and Hunan to completely alleviate the drought there.

This really made Luo Yaoguo feel very embarrassed. How could he have such ability? Moreover, the severe drought in Huguang this year was destined! The Yellow River will collapse next year, and the year after that, it will be the turn of the drought in Jiangnan! There are still many places waiting in line for disasters. In 1877-1878, there was a famine in Dingwu that killed more than million people and caused more than million people to flee famine!
Of course, the absence of "extreme famine" does not mean that people did not starve to death. For China in the second half of the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation and freezing every year. That was the norm. If there were not so many people suffering from hunger and cold, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would not be in its current situation!

Therefore, for China today, there is no such thing as a good year. There are only "small famines", "medium famines", "great famines" and "extreme famines"! In short, every year is a famine, and many people starve to death every year.

What's even worse is that while so many people were starving to death, countless babies were also drowned.
The most fundamental reason for this hellish scene is not that God doesn't give us food, but the old contradiction between people and land. Now there is no industry, no fertilizers, no pesticides, no good seeds, and even no water pumps when there is a drought! With this kind of productivity, it is not enough to rely on more than 1 billion mu of land to feed more than 400 million people.

Therefore, if there is no surplus food in good years, many people will starve to death in normal years, and of course there will be starving people everywhere in famine years.

Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has implemented the "land distribution" policy, which has given the lower-class farmers some land, this is a distribution under the condition of serious shortage of total amount. No matter how much it is distributed, it cannot change the dilemma of insufficient total amount. Moreover, a more equitable distribution will lead to an increase in the total amount, that is, the number of newborns. In a good year, there may be enough food, but once a famine occurs, it is still not enough!
What Luo Yaoguo faced was the two major famines every three years: this year's drought in Huguang and the year after next's severe drought in Jiangnan.
Millions, perhaps more, will starve to death because of these two droughts!

Thinking of this, Luo Yaoguo, the angel holding the "divine spear", could only sigh. He studied history in "heaven", and rain was under the jurisdiction of meteorology, so his major was not related!
This Prime Minister cannot do it!

Golden Dragon City, Sun Palace, and Our Lady's Church.

A voice that sounded a little crazy suddenly laughed wildly: "Hahahaha. He can't pray for rain? He is a holy angel, Luo Yaoguo, who can use the Tongtian Mirror to contact the Father and Brother in Heaven, but he can't even pray for rain? Haha, he still dares to say that he is not a fallen angel? Come on, go to the Prime Minister's Office!"

(End of this chapter)