Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 202: Going to Jiangnan to Fight
About an hour later, Zhu Changwen and others came back, ran to Zhu Yuanzhang crying and shouting, expressing their true feelings and telling him about their grievances.

After they finished crying, the handover of their property became a natural thing, and they were all willing to donate most of their property to provide for military supplies.

In fact, if it was just marching and fighting, Zhu Yuanzhang's own supplies would be enough.

There are a lot of supplies shipped from modern times, including food and all kinds of communication and military equipment. It is not a problem to form an army of hundreds of thousands.

But these supplies are far from enough to save the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Even if there were ten or a hundred times more people, they would not be able to save the hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, they could only use local materials, and most of the supplies had to be obtained by themselves during the Chongzhen period.

Apart from the wealth of corrupt officials and landlords, who was the richest group in the Ming Dynasty?

Naturally, it is the group of vassal kings.

According to historical records, King Guangfu was granted 2 hectares of land. Historical records say it was 4 hectares, but because there were not enough fields, he was only given half, which is 200 million mu of land.

Other princes who owned more land included the King of Jin, the King of Chong, the King of Xing, the King of Jing, the King of Lu, the King of Rui, the King of Gui, the King of Hui, the King of Shu and others. The areas of land they owned ranged from 1 to 4 hectares, and their property and money were innumerable.

Without talking about how many years Prince of Fu Zhu Changxun provided food and fodder to Li Zicheng, just the fact that Zhu deposed Prince of Shu Zhu Zhishu, the money and food seized from his mansion was enough to feed the people of Chengdu for several years with some surplus.

Moreover, seven-tenths of the land in Chengdu Plain belonged to the Shu Palace, and there were also large amounts of land in other prefectures, totaling more than 4 hectares.

During the Wanli period, the number of acres of farmland in Sichuan was only over 1300 million acres, which means that the land owned by the Shu Palace alone accounted for one-third of all the acres of farmland in Sichuan.

It can be said that if the Shu Palace falls, the people of Sichuan can have enough food.

It is no wonder that the King of Shu was said to be the richest vassal king in the world. In a sense, King of Shu Zhu Zhishu might even be the richest man in the world at that time, and he had more than enough money to feed the people of Sichuan.

Therefore, if Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to restore production in the Ming Dynasty, he had to target this group.

Although they are all his descendants, the same thing still applies: in Zhu's heart, the Ming Dynasty comes first, followed by Empress Ma and Zhu Biao. The rest of his descendants can only be ranked third, and the people are ranked fourth.

His own son could only rank third, not to mention his descendants more than ten generations apart, who certainly could not compare with the Ming Dynasty's territory.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang had no burden in his heart to seize money, food and land from those evil princes in order to stabilize the Ming Dynasty. He was even angry at them for not fighting back, as their actions had harmed the Ming Dynasty.

As for those vassal kings who did not do evil.

That is naturally "to persuade with reason and to move with emotion".

Use the status of Taizu to make them voluntarily hand over their property, and use the remaining money to maintain the dignity of the vassal kings.

After we pacify the world and make the pie bigger, we will start to reward them. By then, the property they hand over will be just a drop in the bucket.

The Prince of Ji and the Prince of Gui in Hunan were also large landowners. Although these two princes have not returned yet, Zhu Yuanzhang has already taken over their land.

Now that two more princes have arrived, their lands must be confiscated, and they must also pay up the money and grain they brought with them, just as a way to contribute to the ancestors' efforts to pacify the world.

We will always remember their contribution in the future and reward them.

have to say.

The princes of the Ming Dynasty were indeed rich.

of course.

This refers to royal titles such as prince and duke.

Those below are poor.

The Jiwang domain was a little poorer, with only more than 7,000 hectares, half the more than 14,000 hectares of the Guiwang Palace, but it was still more than 700,000 acres of land.

He divided the land among his sons, Prince Dehua and Prince Fuqing, and gave each of them more than 100,000 acres of land.

So when Zhang Xianzhong attacked Hunan, Zhu Changwen and Zhu Youxi had thousands of servants who were transporting money and grain, and they fled to Liuzhou with thousands of horse-drawn carriages, and they still had quite a lot of assets.

Now most of it was handed over to Zhu Yuanzhang, who then handed it over to Chen Ruimo, the governor of Hunan, to be used to resettle local people and refugees.

Seven or eight days later, outside the Changsha Tonghuo Gate.

It is now the thirteenth day of the first lunar month in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen.

The heavy snow in Hunan has stopped recently, but the world is still covered in white.

At noon, the sun came out, and the pale sunlight shone down, mixed with the cold wind, making people feel no warmth at all.

The Xiangjiang River sparkles, and cargo ships often dock at the wharf outside Tonghuomen to transport all kinds of materials to other places.

Seeing so much money and grain from the two princes being loaded onto the ship and sent to disaster-stricken areas across Hunan for disaster relief, Zhu Yunfeng couldn't help but sigh, "These princes are really rich."

"Well"

Old Zhu pondered and said nothing. He was too embarrassed to speak.

Why are these princes so rich? Isn’t it because of their own doing?

"It's easier for you, my ancestor, to conquer the world. These princes own so much land. Chongzhen can't get money from them, and local officials can't get money either. Only you can do it."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "Sometimes simple and crude methods are actually simple and unpretentious methods. The methods of the bandits and the Qing Dynasty may also be correct. Chongzhen and the officials of the Ming Dynasty were restricted by rules. They could not rob from the princes and landlords, but they did not need to care about these rules."

"Oh?"

Old Zhu rolled his eyes at him and said, "You mean I'm robbing them?"

"You're different."

Zhu Yunfeng immediately said, "You conquered the Ming Dynasty. You are the oldest. How can you call it robbing from them? This is a matter of honoring your ancestors."

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

Old Zhu laughed and looked into the distance.

Large ships came slowly and docked at the pier.

This is the fleet of Chen Shiqi, the governor of Sichuan.

After Chen Shiqi returned to Chongzhen, he strongly supported Tang He's reorganization in Sichuan and made great contributions to the stability of Sichuan.

Now it has been more than a month since he returned from Hongwu.

After the New Year came to the Chongzhen Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately sent a telegram to Chengdu, asking them to set off immediately and meet him in Changsha.

This time he is going to Nanjing.

Nanjing is not like Huguang and Sichuan, but the second capital of the Ming Dynasty.

There was a team of court officials there that was almost identical to that in Beijing, including the six ministries of Nanjing, the left and right censors-in-chief, the garrison eunuchs, the admiral of Nanjing military affairs, the minister of military affairs, and other ministers.

It can be said that the situation in Nanjing is far more complicated than that in Huguang and Sichuan, and the number of officials is also far greater than that in Huguang and Sichuan.

Therefore, he planned to bring all the major officials from Huguang and Sichuan with him, and summon all the officials from Nanjing with the prepared video to prove that he was Zhu Yuanzhang. The fleet slowly stopped at the dock, and major Sichuan officials such as Chen Shiqi and Liu Zhibo got off the ship and came to Zhu Yuanzhang, saying respectfully: "Your Majesty, I am honored to see you."

"Ah."

Lao Zhu nodded and said, "Since we are all here, let's set off. Follow me on board."

"Yes."

Everyone followed Zhu Yuanzhang onto another large ship.

Although this ship is not an ironclad ship and has no energy power, it is equipped with a full range of life-saving equipment, including hovercraft, life jackets, and diesel sailboats.

Once the boat capsizes, it’s basically unknown whether others will die or not, but Lao Zhu and Zhu Yunfeng will definitely survive.

This time, Zhu Yuanzhang set out for Nanjing with a mighty cavalry of more than 30 large ships filled with various supplies brought from the modern world. He will use Nanjing as a starting point to conquer the world again.

Officials from Hunan also came. Although they had the responsibility to defend the territory, Zhu Yuanzhang had left generals in various places. Tang He was in Sichuan, Xu Da was in charge of Hunan, Feng Sheng and Fu Youde were in Hubei, all of whom had the ability to govern the local areas.

Although these high-ranking officials have left, the middle and lower-level officials are still there, which can maintain local stability. Therefore, although they are gone, it does not affect the normal operation of the local area.

At this time, the ship had gathered officials including the Sichuan Governor, Provincial Inspector, Councillor, Military Councillor and Military Supervisor, as well as the Hunan Governor, Pianyuan Governor, and Military Commissioner, all of whom were local high-ranking officials of the third or fourth rank or above in Sichuan and Hunan.

After the people were gathered, the fleet began to set sail and headed northward toward the Yangtze River. They would pick up Hubei officials, including Lü Daqi and others who were currently in Hubei, and set off all the way to Nanjing.

The fleet braved the wind and waves and sailed on the Xiangjiang River at a very fast speed. By the afternoon, it had entered Dongting Lake and was heading towards Yuezhou.

The waves of Dongting Lake are vast, and the lake water, blown by the wind, hits the boats like waves.

The weather in the first month of the year is still cold.

Amid the howling wind, the graying temples on both sides of Lao Zhu's cheeks swayed gently in the wind.

On the ship, many officials discussed national affairs with Lao Zhu.

They talked about the current situation of the Ming Dynasty and how to open up the situation and quickly restore and govern the now broken country.

Everyone was talking and chatting about everything under the sun, and each one of them was chatting passionately and full of fighting spirit.

After all, the number of people who can be here is actually rare.

The rare here does not refer to their level and status that can reach this level, but refers to their integrity, loyalty to the emperor and patriotism.

Anyone who is greedy for even a dime has no right to be here.

Although most of them come from wealthy families or are from official families whose ancestors were corrupt, they have money and food to support their integrity.

There have been few people like Hai Rui who came from a truly poor background but were not greedy for a penny in the Ming Dynasty over the past few hundred years.

But this does not prevent them from having no problems of their own.

This also gave them confidence.

There are many officials of the fourth rank and above in a provincial administration, including nine chief and deputy chiefs of the three departments of the provincial government, the provincial governor, and the provincial governor's office, as well as more than twenty officials such as the military preparation governor, the education governor, the Qing army governor, the guard governor, and the patrol governor.

This does not include the large number of assistant officials in provincial-level departments.

However, there were only about ten senior officials in the Huguang Provincial Administration and the Sichuan Provincial Administration who were honest, loyal and patriotic and could stand in front of Zhu.

More than three quarters of the officials have bad morals, which shows how many corrupt officials there are and how serious the corruption is.

But maybe that's also why.

The corrupt become more corrupt, and the honest become cleaner, which also creates a huge difference.

These honest and loyal officials had no ability to change this corrupt world before.

But now that His Majesty Taizu has come, the blue sky has been established.

Then they would have room to perform and perform well in front of Emperor Taizu, telling him about the malpractices in the officialdom and among the people that they knew about, which would also allow Zhu Yuanzhang to have a deeper understanding of the chaotic times in the late Ming Dynasty.

He had understood the problem before.

But this kind of knowledge of where the problem lies is a relatively broad concept. For example, it is known that the late Ming Dynasty was caused by frequent natural disasters, serious land annexation, rampant corrupt officials, foreign invasions, and constant internal uprisings.

However, the specific details are not very well understood. After all, many things are not recorded in history books, nor are they recorded in such detail.

For example, what corrupt officials in a certain state or county did, how land was annexed, how taxes were passed on to the people, and how wealthy merchants in the south of the Yangtze River used lobbying and bribery to prevent the court from levying salt tax, mining tax, and commercial tax on them.

These officials have all worked their way up from lower-level officials. Although they don't do the work themselves, they are well aware of the ins and outs and drawbacks involved, and are therefore able to quickly give explanations of the situation and their opinions.

It was at this time that Zhu Yuanzhang realized how serious the situation was at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

The cultivated land area of ​​a county in the northern plains would be a little larger, perhaps hundreds of thousands of acres.

But what would it mean if more than 90% of these hundreds of thousands of acres were divided up by various landlords?
And this is not an isolated case, but the norm.

The same is true in the South.

Especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Dongting Lake Basin and the Taihu Lake Basin, two major grain-producing areas, there are only a handful of self-employed farmers.

Either the land belongs to the prince, or it belongs to the landlord.

Even the lands of many vassal kings were occupied.

This kind of encroachment does not mean that the land does not belong to the prince, but that the people in the prince's palace set up a trap and the land was swallowed up by others.

Because the princes only owned these lands in name, the output of these lands also belonged to the princes.

However, the princes were not qualified to inspect these lands, and the annual harvest was under the jurisdiction of the prince's palace's chief secretary, accountant, local government officials, inspectors and other officials, and then handed over to the prince's palace.

As a result, many officials in the royal palace colluded with the inspecting officials and local officials to embezzle the output of the land belonging to the royal palace.

The corrupt official Huang Shu was a representative example of this. When he was the inspector of Henan, he swallowed up the assets of Prince Zhou and Prince Lu.

After hearing about the series of corruption cases, Lao Zhu gritted his teeth, and the knife in his hand exuded murderous aura.

The most terrifying thing is that what these officials said is just a drop in the bucket.

After all, they can only talk about what they saw and heard when they were local officials. There are so many corrupt officials across the country, and what they know is just the tip of the iceberg.

This shows that corruption was rife by the end of the Ming Dynasty and the country was full of parasites.

Nanjing was the hardest hit area.

Jiangnan is the cradle of many corrupt officials, and it is also the place where major landlords annex land and wealthy merchants compete for bribes.

There is naturally a list of major corrupt officials, but many small and medium-sized officials and landlords and wealthy merchants are not recorded in history books. Therefore, these clean and upright officials are needed to act as guides and tell Zhu which people should be killed!

After listening to their stories, Lao Zhu knew what to do. The sword on his waist was once stained with blood during the Hongwu period, but now it had been stored for too long and the smell had faded, so it was easy to get it stained with blood again.

(End of this chapter)