Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 498

New book for collection: "The Rise of Great Powers 1900"

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Guangdong was in such a catastrophe that Yang Chao immediately ordered that the people in Guangdong be exempted from the food tax for three years, and at the same time began to send a large number of officials to take over the government affairs of Guangdong.

For the local officials in Guangdong, almost all of them were abandoned. The first reason is that a large number of officials have been trained under Yang Chao’s rule in the past few years. Disappointed, many of these people were Wang Tizhong who came and surrendered to Wang Tizhong, Wang Deren who came and surrendered to Wang Deren, Hong Chengchou who came and continued to surrender to Hong Chengchou, and finally surrendered to Yang Chao. To describe them as slaves with three surnames is already a compliment.

However, the situation of corruption is extremely serious. In a province with superior geographical conditions like Guangdong, with a population of only 1000 million, it has forced a large number of ordinary people to rebel, which shows the corruption situation in Guangdong.

Not only did Yang Chao not use these officials, but he also wanted to treat a large number of them as models and punish them severely.

Among them, Ji Yisheng, the magistrate of Conghua County, and Huang Zhizheng, the magistrate of Xinhui County, are the symbols.

When Hong Chengchou hit Conghua, Ji Yisheng not only did not organize an attack and surrender, but as a civil servant he did not resist, Yang Chao would not be harsh, but he turned around and actively worked for the Qing court, helping the Qing court build the Hongyi cannon , and finally bombarded the city of Guangzhou. After the fall of Guangzhou, it was massacred by the Qing army, and 10 people died.

Needless to say, Huang Zhizheng, the tragedy in Xinhui was enough to give Yang Chao a reason to punish not only the Qing army who surrendered here, but also all officials, big and small.

And the records of their interrogation will be published in the newspaper and written evidence will be left, because they are not only guilty at this time, but also in history.

At the same time, the Xinhui incident made Yang Chao also have to reflect on whether he was indecisive on the battlefield, whether he was protecting the people or persecuting the people. Perhaps his army has always treated the people well and gained a good reputation, but this reputation has Do you really have a clear conscience?
So Yang Chao immediately issued an announcement to all the generals, and even the entire army, telling all the officers and soldiers that if they encounter enemy forces threatening the people in the future, they should not hesitate to attack with the most decisive attitude.Explain to the soldiers that in this case, any hesitation will cause greater losses.

Yang Chao's strict discipline, never looting the people, refusing to spare their lives, etc., are not only recognized by the people, but also by the soldiers. They are all from the people. Such words are enough to express the feelings of the people towards the soldiers.

As for the reason for this kind of feeling, it is because the soldiers in ancient times were of low status, and the common people disliked the poor and loved the rich, and despised them, and then caused the soldiers to distrust the common people, so the military discipline was very bad, and the military culture evolved into ** Under the vicious circle of culture, the common people hate soldiers more and more, and the soldiers become more and more corrupt in military discipline.

It is also because the soldiers have corrupt military discipline first, and then the people hate them, causing this vicious circle.

Yang Chao didn't want to trace the source, because it was probably a muddled account of who was at fault first, which caused such evil results. Yang Chao just insisted on keeping his soldiers in good military discipline, and the effect was not good at first. Not obvious, but with each victory and the slow communication with the people, the relationship between Yang Chao's army and the people has improved, especially in Huaiyang, Haizhou and other places. It will cause panic among the people.

On the contrary, many ordinary people welcome soldiers to live in their homes and are willing to provide some rooms for soldiers.While the soldiers lived in the homes of the common people, Yang Chao had issued various orders, such as letting the soldiers do things for the common people in their spare time, repairing houses, fetching water, etc. This is how the military-civilian relationship is improved step by step, and mutual trust is built step by step. .

So later the common people had such a subconscious mind that the Ming army is the Ming army, the Yang family army is the Yang family army, and Yang Chao's army also obtained such exclusive titles like Yue Fei and Qi Jiguang, the famous generals.

Yang Chao used to think that this kind of title of a certain army was simply to distinguish the army by generals, without any deep meaning, but now he understands that it is slowly called by the common people to distinguish the good army from the bad army .

And once called out, a special sense of belonging has evolved. The soldiers of the Yang Family Army have changed from passively accepting military discipline to actively obeying military discipline, especially in front of the common people. Lazy people often suffer from boards during training, but when they go out, they definitely look upright, deliberately showing their military demeanor.

This situation made Yang Chao very satisfied. He still remembered that a few years ago, when he took Wang Pu and Li Wuliu to the north for the first time to King Qin, when they met the common people on the road, the common people hated the soldiers, and he The soldiers also have a kind of inferiority complex of military households being inferior to others. When they come into contact with ordinary people, they often walk with their heads down unconsciously, but now their necks are higher than anyone else.

The military already has a sense of honor.How did this sense of honor come about? It's not just because of victories, but also because of the recognition and even respect of the people.

Yang Chao's army was able to win big battles again and again, not necessarily without this deep-seated spirit in it. The saying that the benevolent is invincible is reasonable to a certain extent.

On the other hand, the Qing army ruled through terror and force. Even if it successfully ruled China for 300 years, the banner of anti-Qing and Ming Dynasty has never disappeared from the beginning to the end. The kind of scars left deep in memory.

Throughout history, there are not many successful minority regimes. For example, the Liao established by the Khitan people ruled the Han people in the way of the Han people, and the Khitan people in the way of the Khitan people. Satisfied, from the beginning to the end, I have never heard of any anti-Liao-to-Song voices in the Liao Kingdom.

The Guangdong incident not only shocked Yang Chao, but even delayed the military action.

It was approaching the end of the year, Yang Chao asked Xie Fei to stay in Zhaoqing for the time being, continue to rest and take a new offensive after the New Year.

Let Song Kun enter Guangzhou and start to recruit armed forces from all over Guangzhou. The Qing army and green battalion who surrendered, as long as their crimes are not obvious, they still accept their surrender. The most important thing is to recruit the insurgents who are active in various places, no matter they are peasants. The rebel army, or the old Ming army, is welcome as long as they are willing to surrender, of course, the premise is that they accept the changes of the Yang family army and receive systematic training.

There is another reason, that is, Yang Chao has no money and has to suspend military operations.

In fact, Yang Chao is already able to make a lot of money. The financial list announced every year often makes the civil servants of the small court very angry, and makes Dorgon in Beijing feel toothache.

This year, Yang Chao’s income has exceeded 3000 million taels, and the business tax has successfully exceeded 1000 million taels. The increase in grain tax is not large. With Jiangxi and Zhejiang, two major grain-producing provinces, it has only increased to 800 million taels. Of course The 1000 million taels of grain are not included in it, the customs clearance fee is 700 million taels, there is no increase, and the tariff revenue is 500 million taels, and there is no big increase. The silver alone is 3000 million taels. It is worth 2000 million taels of silver.

The tax of 3000 million taels alone is enough to shock the world. When Emperor Chongzhen exhausted his money and levied three additional rates, the tax revenue of the whole world was only more than 2000 million taels, but it forced the world into a turmoil. Li Zicheng gathered millions of people at every turn. .

However, Yang Chao only took half the world to collect so much money, but even the most prejudiced gentry class had to admit that under Yang Chao's rule, "the people are more generous and their food is cheaper".

If this only makes the small imperial court and the Qing court feel strange, then Yang Chao also sold 3000 million taels of silver bonds and borrowed 3000 million taels of silver from Jiangnan and other places, which made them feel incredible. From the point of view of civil servants who knew the situation too well, this kind of borrowing was obviously part of a search for people's fat and anointment. Li Ruyue had always believed that Yang Chao was using precious money to do evil.

The scholar-bureaucrat class in ancient China often had an overkill governance habit. After the death of Qin II, they believed that everything in Qin was bad. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, a large number of feudal princes with the surname Liu were entrusted to the world, but within a few years It started to fight endlessly, and in the end it was still necessary to unify.Qin's laws are strict, and they didn't know how to modify them slightly, but they went against the rule of law for 2000 years.

In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that printing precious banknotes could control the wealth of the world, as if the emperor could control the wealth of the world, so he simply banned the circulation of gold, silver and copper coins. His son Zhu Di also insisted In this way, it was discovered later that the common people could not bear their private money at all, but no one wanted the precious banknotes.

The reason is that the imperial court issued treasure banknotes indiscriminately, but refused to take them back, and refused to use real gold and silver to take back the treasure banknotes. Zhu Di only set up the banknote gate in desperation, demanding that the treasure banknotes be used to pay taxes, and planned to recover some of them in this way. There are precious banknotes in circulation, but the banknotes continue to be issued indiscriminately, and the officials at the bank don’t even want the banknotes. In the end, from the Song Dynasty to good management, the Yuan Dynasty was not stable, but the paper currency system has lasted for hundreds of years. It was ruined in the hands of two uneconomical emperors of the Ming Dynasty.

Civil officials, on the other hand, didn't think about the reasoning behind it. Instead, they beat them to death. They firmly believed that printing banknotes would harm the common people, and that precious banknotes were an evil law.

But Yang Chao printed banknotes and sold bonds, all of which were paper bills. The literati who didn't understand didn't think carefully about the reason, but insisted that this was using the banknote law to rob people's wealth.

But they scolded fiercely, but it didn't prevent the economy under Yang Chao's rule from being more active day by day with the emergence of easier-to-circulate banknotes, and the tax revenue was also increasing rapidly year by year.

(End of this chapter)