nanming man

Chapter 344

In 1645, the world was in turmoil. The Dashun regime in the north, because Li Zicheng was defeated in Beijing, and the Shun army retreated in Guanzhong, the rule of Dashun in the north collapsed, and the power of the Qing court began to expand unprecedentedly.

This year, Li Zicheng's life in the north was not easy, and the energy of the Qing army was also restrained by the Chuang army, busy cleaning up the occupied territory, and was restrained in the north.

This year, for the Ming Dynasty in the south, can be said to be an extremely easy year.

Not to mention that Nanjing got rid of the burden of the north. The situation where the two powerful enemies, the thieves and the barbarians, took turns to blow up the hammer no longer exists. Can calmly sit on a mountain and watch tigers fight.

At this time, there was no external pressure from the Nanjing court, and life can be said to be quite easy.

Although Ma Ruan and the Donglin party members were busy fighting for power and profit in the Nanjing court, there were still many people with lofty ideals in the court and the opposition. They proposed to take advantage of the opportunity when the invaders were fighting for the front and had no time to look south, and quickly consolidate the defense lines of Huaisi and Huguang in order to deal with it. time-varying.

Although the princes of Nanjing have no enterprising spirit, they still need to defend Lianghuai and Huguang if they want to be on the left side of the river.

The gentry in the southeast can abandon the north, but they have to consider the safety of the south of the Yangtze River.

To a certain extent, what they thought was only to control the imperial court by themselves in order to safeguard their interests, but they never thought about capsizing the Nanjing ship.

At this time, Nanjing set up four towns in Jiangbei, Huang Degong, Gao Jie, Liu Zeqing, and Xu Dingguo. Gao Mingheng, a university scholar, was the governor of Xuzhou. The forwards of the Ming army even entered Shandong to deploy their defenses.

Compared with the history, the Jiangbei defense presided over by Gao Mingheng undoubtedly assumed an aggressive attitude.

This can be seen from the fact that he set up the academician's office in Xuzhou instead of Yangzhou, which is close to the river.

Gao Mingheng, who is famous for his good defense, is in charge of the defense of Huaihe River and Huaihe River. The southeast officials and gentry are very confident in the defense of Jiangbei.

There is no problem in Jiangbei, so the direction that the Nanjing court is worried about is Huguang.

As early as last year, the Nanjing imperial court had already focused on Huguang, and allocated a lot of money and food to Huguang, and the Huguang Ming Army also took advantage of Zhang Xianzhong's entry into Sichuan and successfully captured Wuchang.

In Wuchang, the southeast survived if it gained it, and died if it lost it.

After the Nanjing imperial court took Wuchang, the defense in the west also had a layer of guarantee. With Gao Yihuan's appeal, Wuchang was not threatened by the north for the time being, and Zhang Xianzhong went west to Sichuan. Nanjing was not so concerned about the war in Huguang .

After all, war requires taxation, and taxation will harm the interests of the southeast officials and gentry. The Donglin party members are suppressing the passage of the new tax law. If a large-scale war breaks out at this time, the new tax law will not be able to suppress it.

Therefore, after the Ming army took Wuchang and the west defense was guaranteed, the Nanjing court gradually reduced the money and food to Huguang.

Emperor Jianzhang of Nanjing actually wanted to do something, but the officials and gentry in the southeast were colluding, the emperor came from the north, and he didn't have his own team, and he was young, so he was completely incapable of controlling the court.

After all, this country is still the Zhu family's country, the ministers are not in a hurry, the little emperor is impatient, but it is useless for him to be impatient, wars need money, if the new tax law cannot be passed, the court will have no money, and the army will naturally lie still.

In the late Chongzhen Dynasty, the officials and armies of the towns in the Ming Dynasty had become warlords. Now that Beijing has been destroyed, the authority of the Ming court has been further weakened.

The little emperor saw that the tax law could not be passed, and the imperial court did not have much money to allocate Huguang, so he could only use titles and cabinet appointments to lure Huguang officials and ask them to raise money and food by themselves, hoping that they could regain Jingzhou and Xiangyang.

He Tengjiao is very concerned about getting the title and joining the cabinet, but raising money and food by himself is not an easy task.

As the governor of a province, although his official position is high, he is not as convenient as Gao Yihuan in terms of physique. He is not bound by the rules.There are various rules and regulations in the physique, and there is also a censor who specializes in finding faults to join you.

In the 200-year-old empire, the relationship between local gentry, tyrants, local officials, and officials in the DPRK and China has been intertwined. Every big gentry, even if no one is an official in this generation, is guaranteed to have a few generations. Jinshi lords, there are old disciples.

In this network of social relations, even the governor can hardly move the interests of the gentry and powerful, so he can only search from Kuhaha, but if Kuhaha is alive, he has already tried his best, and he can find a few more money?
Nanjing did not allocate money and food, and the Ming army, the strongest in Huguang, remained silent. As a result, Gao Yihuan, who still maintains the Huguang area, occupies Xiangyang, the Western army occupies Jingzhou, and the Ming army occupies Wuchang, Yuezhou, Changsha and other large areas. , and lasted for nearly a year.

Originally, this situation would continue to be maintained, but in April, the situation in Huguang suddenly changed.

The Huguang government, which was unable to make ends meet, suddenly had money and food.

I have to thank Gao Yihuan for letting Ma Hongshan come to Huguang to fry grain. After Ma Hongshan and others raised the grain and cashed out, they immediately ran to Changde to avoid the limelight. Small businesses with insufficient connections have not received the news that the government is going to do something.

At this time, the Ming court still had a certain degree of majesty, especially for civil servants, it still had a relatively strong binding force.

Therefore, even if He Tengjiao is the governor, he can't act recklessly, and he can't just raid his home to make money. However, this food speculation incident gave He Tengjiao a very good excuse.

Originally in Huguang, it was difficult for the gentry and powerful to collect money, and the taxes paid by the poor were limited, which made He Tengjiao helpless.Now merchants fry grain, it is tantamount to delivering it to their door.

These merchants who participated in the rice frying were all locked up and imprisoned by He Tengjiao before the money they got was warmed up, and all the shops were searched.

The government is cracking down on hoarding, and the censor has nothing to say, and the merchants whose homes are ransacked can spend some money to clear up the relationship, and avoid disasters if they are released.

At the end of April, He Tengjiao copied more than 20 taels of silver and [-] shi of grain, and the Huguang treasury was instantly sufficient.

After having money and food, He Tengjiao became ambitious and recruited soldiers and horses from nine towns in Hunan. He assembled an army of 10 people and directed them to Jingzhou, preparing to take back the core of Huguang.

Outside Yuezhou city, in a restaurant near the river, Gao Yicheng stood by the window on the second floor with his hands behind his back, looking at the river view outside.

At this time, a man hurried up to the room, turned around and closed the door, walked behind Gao Yicheng, and then saluted and reported: "Commander, the investigation is clear, the Ming army is indeed going to attack Jingzhou!"

(End of this chapter)