The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 77: Tianjin Storm (Thanks to the cowardly and heroic Governor Daming for the reward!)
With the silver sent by Kang Yingqian, the staff of the six ministries were very active and collected all the materials rewarded by the emperor in just two days.

Of course, it's a slight discount.

Finally, the following items were distributed to the Kaiyuan army: 5,000 kilograms of gunpowder, 500 bows, 3,000 spears, halberds and maces, and 3,000 dan of grain.

In other words, the nearly 20,000 silver coins spent on gifts were finally exchanged for these things.

Huang Kezun, the Minister of War, accepted two thousand taels of silver from Liu Zhaosun. Seeing his colleagues from the six ministries treacherous the young general, he felt guilty. So he ordered someone to take General Liu to the Shenji Camp to find some treasures as compensation for Kaiyuan.

The head of the Ministry of War accepted two hundred taels of silver and suggested that Liu Zhaosun take some muskets back with him. He went to the Shenji Camp to check and found that the muskets were covered with mold spots and the barrels were rusty, so he declined the kindness of the Beijing official.

This type of musket was extremely prone to explosion. After learning from the lesson of the last Battle of Hunjiang, Liu Zhaosun secretly decided to make these firearms himself in the future.

Kang Yingqian was tricked by the officials from the six ministries and was very unhappy.

He urged Liu Zhaosun to ask for supplies from the six ministries, from the Ministry of Revenue to the Ministry of Justice, and not to let go of any government office.

"These beasts took the money but didn't do their job, breaking the rules of the officialdom. Is there still justice in the Ming Dynasty?"

However, apart from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War, other government offices had nothing to give him.

Not to mention the Ministry of Rites, as for the Ministry of Works, are they going to give them a limited edition model of the Forbidden City?
But now that the money has been given, let's just consider it as getting to know each other so that we can meet in the future. We still need to consider things carefully.

Kang Yingqian refused to give in and scolded Liu Zhaosun for being so stupid for wasting so much silver in vain.

Liu Zhaosun suggested that Lao Kang go to the Ministry of Justice to ask for a few pairs of shackles, or bring back a few copies of "The Great Ming Law".

This is all the Ministry of Justice can give them now.

"Lord Kang, if you complain too much, you'll break your heart. You should take a broad view of things. The Kaiyuan army is not strong enough, so they are being manipulated at will. When I pacify Liaodong and have an army of 100,000, I will return to the capital..."

Kang Yingqian looked at Liu Zhaosun in surprise and was impressed by his domineering aura.

~~~~
On May 30th, the 47th year of the Wanli reign, at Guangqumen in the capital.

Thirty-six horse-drawn carriages slowly passed through Zuoanmen, with Liu Zhaosun riding in the front. The fanatical people of the capital threw food, vegetables and cloth onto the carriages to express their reluctance to part with General Xuanwu.

Several Mongolian women even threw silver and jewelry onto the carriage.

"People's hearts are available!"

Kang Yingqian squinted his eyes and glanced at the few bold Mongolian girls upstairs.

The dark and thin Yuan Chonghuan was also extremely excited. He stuck his head out of the carriage window and expressed his gratitude to the enthusiastic Mongolian girl.

"Hello, pretty girl Lei..."

As soon as he stuck his head out, he was attacked by several rotten vegetable leaves.

Half an hour later, everyone finally left the city.

Liu Zhaosun looked back at the prosperous capital with infinite emotion in his heart, and finally he resolutely rode his horse eastward.

Behind him was a long line of carriages, followed closely by the central army guards, and behind them were two hundred and forty soldiers.

This trip to the capital to announce victory and surrender prisoners was a great success. Not only did he receive hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, but he also established connections with officials from the six ministries and three judicial departments of the cabinet, and even planted spies in the capital...

The future is expected.

After leaving the capital, Liu Zhaosun asked Kang Yingqian and Yuan Chonghuan to ride ahead and rush to Tianjin to buy food.

Ten soldiers escorted the Liaodong Inspector and the Military Preparations Commissioner and disappeared on the official road.

As we got further away from the capital, the road became muddy and the number of pedestrians on both sides became sparse.

Occasionally, we would run into a few vegetable farmers carrying loads on their shoulders, but when they saw the Ming army, they would run away as if they had seen a ghost.

Only the ragged refugees were not afraid of the soldiers. They rolled their eyes and looked at the food and cloth on the carts like evil spirits.

Liu Zhaosun knew that these people had killed people, and such vicious eyes could only be possessed by people who had fallen into hell.

He had seen a eunuch at Zuoanmen. The man's legs were broken by the Bingmasi. He was paralyzed sitting by the moat, looking at passers-by in the same way.

Most of these refugees were bankrupt farmers from nearby areas, who were forced into hell by powerful and evil gentry and turned from human beings into ghosts.

Is the Ming Dynasty hell?

Jin Yuji drew her bow and aimed an arrow at a refugee who was about to attack. Liu Zhaosun reached out to stop him:

"This place is not far from the capital, at the feet of the emperor, so don't kill anyone."

But the refugees under the emperor's feet were killing people.

After passing Shuntian Prefecture, there were more and more refugees on the roadside, and it became more dangerous. Many strong men would form groups of three or five and rob lone pedestrians in broad daylight.

Liu Zhaosun looked coldly at the refugees on his horse. He held a lance in his hand and had a sharp gaze. The refugees were frightened by him and consciously stayed away from this murderous god.

Liu Zhaosun ordered his soldiers to be on high alert, and fifty soldiers armed with spears dispersed the refugees.

The special forces team released five night patrolmen to conduct patrols within a five-mile radius.

Song Yingxing walked on the muddy dirt road and struggled forward on the official road.

He couldn't ride a horse and didn't want to ride in a carriage, so he fell behind the team.

Liu Zhaosun was afraid that the scholar would be abducted by refugees, so he sent two soldiers to protect him closely.

Song Yingxing's current identity is the magistrate of Anle Prefecture, Kaiyuan.

In the sixth year of Yongle (1408), the Ming court established Anle and Zizai prefectures in Kaiyuan.

The Ming Dynasty had extremely limited control over the Kaiyuan area, and these two states were actually only located within the city of Kaiyuan.

To put it bluntly, neither state has any actual control area. Outside of Kaiyuan City, it is all Jurchen and Mongolian territory. If you want to control others, you have to ask their consent.

The Mongols and Jurchens obviously disagreed.

During the Chenghua period, Zizai Prefecture was moved to Liaoyang, and Anle Prefecture became a shell.

As Liu Zhaosun observed along the way, he found that Song Yingxing was kind-hearted, practical, stubborn and inflexible, and had some resemblance to Wang Yangming.

This person is completely different from a political veteran like Kang Yingqian. Letting Song Yingxing serve as the governor of Anle Prefecture was also a matter of careful consideration.

In the Ming Dynasty, the rank of a prefect was the fifth rank. For Song Yingxing, such an appointment was considered an extraordinary promotion.

It should be noted that the top three Jinshi like Yuan Chonghuan, Ma Shiying, Shao Jiechun and Sun Chuanting started their official careers as county magistrates in remote areas.

The imperial examination system flourished in the Ming Dynasty. Some Jinshi candidates waited for many years but in the end could not even become a county magistrate.

The magistrate of Anle Prefecture didn't even have an office; it was registered under the name of the Lieutenant General's Mansion and was a completely sinecure.

Song Yingxing could then take time to engage in his scientific research.

Before leaving, Song Yingxing said goodbye to his brother and asked him to take good care of his mother.

The team continued to move eastward without any conversation along the way, and arrived at Zhangjiawan, Tianjin in the afternoon of the next day.

Kang Yingqian, Ma Shiying and others were waiting at Zhangjiawan Wharf early.

Seeing Liu Zhaosun leading his troops over, Kang Yingqian breathed a sigh of relief.

Liu Zhaosun got off his horse and saw that the dock was piled with sacks filled with grain.

There was a huge crowd of refugee boatmen gathered around, and a dozen young men were making a fuss outside the crowd.

The ten soldiers brought by Kang Yingqian formed a circle with their spears and stood firmly around the grain.

"General Xuanwu is finally here. If he hadn't come, I would have grabbed my knife and attacked!"

Kang Yingqian took the coconut ladle handed to him by Liu Zhaosun and gulped down a sip.

"That damn Tianjin garrison commander said he'd send watermen to help us buy food, but now that we've bought the food, there's not a single soldier left, and instead these scoundrels show up."

They arrived at Tianjin yesterday and found the commander, Lord Lu.

After giving a gift of five hundred taels, the deal was quickly done.

He spent 15,000 taels to buy grain and hired 15 large ships, and the money and goods were paid in full.

When the grain was about to be loaded onto the ship, Lu Tongzhi stopped the Liaodong inspector and asked him to spend some money to hire water soldiers to help guard the grain.

Lu Tongzhi explained that many refugees had come to Tianjin and it was not safe to leave the grain at the dock.

Each soldier in the water camp was rewarded with two taels of silver and asked to help protect the grain.

Kang Yingqian knew that he was being plotted against, so he gritted his teeth and asked how much silver he wanted.

Lu Tongzhi smiled and said, one thousand taels.

Kang Yingqian was furious.

He didn't even bargain for the 20,000 taels of silver. I wonder how much money this man surnamed Lu made.

Now you still want to rip me off, you really think you are a country bumpkin!

Kang Yinggan usually plots against others. This time, he was first tricked by the six ministries, and now he is being bullied by this little Tongzhi.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

Thinking that he was leading the troops and did not need to worry about a few thieves, he refused the greedy Lu Tongzhi.

Today, thousands of trackers and dozens of young boatmen flocked to Zhangjiagang Wharf.

The 10,000 dan of grain purchased by Kang Yingqian, which had not yet been loaded onto the ship, were blocked at the port by them.

Tianjin, with its prime location bordering the sea to the east, the Haihe River to the west, the canal transport system to the south, and the capital to the north, served as a strategic transportation hub between Liaodong and the capital. Even before the Battle of Sarhu, a large number of foreign troops had gathered in Tianjin, entering Liaodong from there.

Tianjin's gang of thugs is one of the best in the north. These local thugs are cruel and ruthless. They threaten passing officials and bully ordinary people. They dare to do anything that is against the will of heaven and earth.

Behind the rampant Qingpi are the support of the masters of Tianjin Biaoying and Shuiying.

The thugs love to bully passing merchants from other places. Generally speaking, when merchants suffer losses, they can only think that they are unlucky and have no way to retaliate.

In addition to merchants, they also showed no mercy to foreign soldiers. As the saying goes, a strong dragon cannot defeat a local snake. They knew exactly what kind of foreign soldiers they were.

The Mao soldiers from Shaanxi and Henan didn't even have thick coats to wear. They were skinny and bony, even more miserable than the beggars on the street.

After these beggar soldiers received their wages, they were tricked and harmed by the gangsters, and some of them even lost their lives.

Qingpi insisted that Kang Yingqian had moved grain onto the boat yesterday, hindering the boatmen's business and must pay compensation.

"Each person must pay one ounce of silver. For three thousand people, that's three thousand ounces. Otherwise, you can leave the three thousand dan of grain on the shore."

Ma Shiying was furious and started fighting with Qingpi with a knife.

Fortunately, Liu Zhaosun and others arrived in time. After understanding the cause of the incident, Liu Zhaosun smiled and said:
"General Kang, since you are buying food from General Lu's territory, you must follow their rules."

Kang Yingqian was about to scold Liu Zhaosun when he saw him slowly draw out his Miao Dao:

"You owe money and you pay it back. Kill someone and you pay with your life. It's such a simple truth, why are you so long-winded?"

Qingpi walked towards this side with his head tilted, glanced at Liu Zhaosun's casual clothes, and thought he was a captain sent to aid Liao.

There was a look of disdain on everyone's face.

"Mana! Our master is the Tongzhi of Tianjin. Half of Zhangjiawan's business is under his control. Every time a wild goose flies by, he has to pluck a feather from it. Where on earth did you guys grow your onions?!"

"Hey, that girl is pretty good, let me use her!"

Da Xing, who looked wretched, pointed at Jin Yu Ji who was standing behind Liu Zhaosun and smiled lewdly.

Liu Zhaosun looked at the young man opposite him as if he were a dead person.

"You all come together! I'm busy with official duties! I'm in a hurry."

Liu Zhaosun looked at the two fighters rushing towards him and raised the Miao Dao in his hand.

(End of this chapter)