Chapter 137: Clouds of chaos arise from all directions April of the first year of Yonghe, the sixth year of Chongzhen, Nanzhili, Nanjing Like Beijing, Nanjing, another capital of the Ming Empire, also has a magnificent palace city in the city. yznn This is a huge building complex five miles long from north to south and four miles wide from east to west.
It is surrounded by tall red walls, and the bright yellow glazed tiles on the roof shine in the sun.
Within the palace city, Chengtian Gate is the boundary, and to the north of the gate is the Forbidden City.
When you walk in through Duanmen and Meridian Gate, you will see three main halls: "Fengtian", "Jinshen" and "Huagai".
There are also "Wenhua Hall" and "Wuying Hall" on the east and west sides, as well as "Wen Tower" and "Wu Tower" respectively.
This is the place where the emperor received homage from officials and held grand ceremonies.
The north of the "Three Main Halls", all the way to the Houzai Gate, belongs to the scope of the "Houting".
There were many palaces with different names and an imperial garden where the emperor lived his daily life.
In addition to this part of the Forbidden City, in the south of the palace city, there is a wide imperial road that stretches straight from the Wulong Bridge outside Chengtian Gate to the Hongwu Gate, the main entrance of the palace city.
On the east side of the imperial road, there are five yamen of the official, household, ritual, military, and industrial departments besides the Ministry of Justice, as well as several minor government departments such as Zongren Mansion, Honglu Temple, Qintianjian, and Imperial Hospital.
To the west of the road is the highest military institution of the Ming Dynasty, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, as well as the locations of Jinyiwei, Tongzhengshisi, Taichang Temple and other yamen.
However, such a large and magnificent palace has been abandoned and idle for two hundred years since Emperor Chengzu Yongle moved the capital to Beijing.
Now it has become depressed and dilapidated, and it is no longer what it used to be.
Since Emperor Yongle, except for Emperor Zhengde who once went to the south of the Yangtze River, the rest of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty have basically never left Beijing and visited the capital in the south.
As a result, due to the long-term absence of the owner, most of the palaces in the Forbidden City in Nanjing were in disrepair and were almost in ruins by the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Even the various yamen in Nanjing where officials have always been stationed, except for a few entrance halls, which are kept neatly because officials come to the ministry to handle matters, most of them are left to fall apart and no one cares about them. .
It looked like it was in dire decline.
Although the current Nanjing court has supported Emperor Yonghe Zhu Yihai, this palace once again has an owner.
But the Donglin Party Group has always been committed to tax evasion.
How could they be willing to spend millions of taels of money to renovate the palace for the new emperor they supported?
Therefore, compared with the idle years in the past, the Forbidden City in Nanjing still has not changed much.
The vermilion palace walls of Chengtianmen are still covered with signs of peeling and appear mottled.
The roof of the tower was covered with lush small trees and weeds, which had obviously not been cleaned for many years.
There were finally a few eunuchs and guards standing at the entrance of the palace, but they were all listless, and they didn't look like they were royal at all.
At this time, in the Wenhua Hall, which was the only slightly repaired building in the Forbidden City, the former second son of King Lu, now Emperor Yonghe, Zhu Yihai, was sitting boredly on the paint-peeling and cracked throne, perfectly playing the role of a clay puppet, with eager eyes.
He watched the Nanjing ministers bickering below.
It seems that due to the critical situation, the scholar-bureaucrats under Danqi were all very angry and irritable, and they no longer cared about being polite and decent.
Of course, I also couldn’t care less about respect for Zhu Yihai, the puppet emperor.
In general, although Nanjing has not yet been invaded by troops, the situation is already very bad.
Not to mention the demons of the Wen Xiang Cult in the north, the Australian thieves in the south, and the late Emperor Chongzhen in the west.
Even the remaining territory south of the Yangtze River is still in turmoil.
Today, the place with the most money in the Ming Dynasty is naturally the fertile land in southern Zhili and northern Zhejiang, which is a fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River with developed industry and commerce.
There are many wealthy people with millions of dollars.
However, the Song Dynasty's "Suhu and Suhu are good for the world" are already a thing of the past.
Nowadays, there are many kinds of mulberry trees in the countryside around Suhu and Hu.
Picking mulberry and raising silkworms are far more profitable than planting rice.
Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, the era of "Huguang cooked enough for the world" had entered.
After Huguang and Jiangxi were fully developed, they replaced Jiangnan and became the world's granary.
Even the so-called fertile land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River relies on food imports from Huguang, Jiangxi, and Lianghuai to meet the basic needs of the large non-agricultural population.
But the problem is that with the secret support of various travelers and the self-respect of the rebels, the peasant uprising army in southern Jiangxi has become increasingly rampant since the early years of Chongzhen, causing great damage to Jiangxi's grain production and export.
In view of the fact that the Wenxiang Sect rebels have been wreaking havoc in Huainan and Huaibei for a whole year, there is no hope for food in the two Huaihe Rivers.
Therefore, Jiangnan, the "land of fish and rice", has become increasingly dependent on the import of grain and rice from Huguang.
However, now this Huguang grain road, which is vital to Jiangnan, has been cut off.
At the beginning of this month, the deposed emperor Chongzhen came to Wuchang and took over the military and political power of Huguang Province.
At the same time, he ordered the closure of the river and banned the export of grain to the lower reaches.
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So, as soon as the bad news reached Nanjing, the entire Jiangnan water town exploded.
Although it is now a lean season, and summer grain will not be harvested for several months, there will not be many grain merchants going to Huguang to purchase goods at this time, but they cannot withstand the market panic effect caused by this bad news.
Suddenly, thousands of grain merchants went to Huguang to purchase goods.
Tens of thousands of citizens took out their treasured coins to buy food and store it at home, which inadvertently pushed up food prices further.
In addition, many profiteers took the opportunity to hoard and create rumors.
The result of the crazy hype was that when the price of grain was the highest in the Nanjing market, brown rice was once sold for sixteen taels of silver per stone.
Not only are there difficulties in importing grain, but the channels for exporting goods are also not smooth.
Since the Australian bandits invaded Zhejiang in a large scale, although their troops have temporarily stopped in Hangzhou and have not continued to invade South Zhili.
However, its navy used the Shengsi Islands as a base to launch a long-range blockade at the mouth of the Yangtze River, intercepting and detaining any ships that dared to go to sea.
As for the trade routes for selling cotton and other goods to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, they were also cut off by Emperor Chongzhen's river sealing order.
There was no source of imported grain, export commodities were blocked, and they were surrounded by powerful enemies.
Such heavy military and economic pressure immediately overwhelmed the company that was born less than half a year ago.
For a while, textile factories in Suzhou, Songjiang, Wuxi and other places were overwhelmed.
Bankruptcy left thousands of citizens unemployed, and the sharply rising rice prices caused riots over rice grabbing in markets all over the country.
At the same time, there are at least 300,000 to 400,000 war refugees who have fled northward from Hangzhou and are stranded in Huzhou, Jiaxing and other places, bringing huge security risks and social burdens to the local area.
The direct consequence of this series of bad news is that the price of food in Nanjing is rising three times a day, like a monkey in the sky.
The entire Jiangnan region was filled with grief and complaints.
Not only were the common people unable to afford food, but even ordinary petty officials could only survive on porridge every day.
Faced with such a severe test, Nanjing's chief assistant Zhou Yanru was overwhelmed for a while.
As a professional politician who once served as the chief minister under Emperor Chongzhen and held great power in the world, he certainly would not fail to understand the threat that rising food prices pose to the ruling order.
But the reason why the Donglin Party Group in Nanjing supported the ill-named Yonghe Emperor in the first place was to avoid paying taxes as much as possible.
Therefore, the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing has already exempted all the taxes that can be exempted.
Now even the rats are crying and moving out of the treasury.
How can there be any food reserves to stabilize food prices?
Therefore, without any food reserves, Zhou Yanru, who was forced to panic, once became ruthless and sent Jin Yiwei to arrest profiteers who were driving up food prices.
But the result was thunderous and rainy.
The ministers of the small court collectively rebelled against this, almost threatening to overthrow the cabinet, forcing Zhou Yanru to take back the above-mentioned "random order": the so-called profiteers who speculated on grain prices and made huge profits were Dong Dong.
The big financier behind the Lin Party, who can suppress it?
From the beginning of its birth, the Yonghe Emperor's court in Nanjing was an out-and-out small government.
Not only is the so-called Emperor Yonghe a puppet of the Donglin Group, but even the senior minister above the imperial court must also serve the interests of the large Jin gentry in the south of the Yangtze River.
This sounds a bit like the relationship between the American consortium and the government in later generations, but the gentry in the late Ming Dynasty was more short-sighted than the leaders of the American consortium, and they were more willing to seek death.
In desperation, Zhou Yanru had no choice but to burst into tears in the court hall, trying to persuade the Donglin gentlemen and the financial backers behind them to stop their efforts and not continue to speculate on grain prices at this time, which would make the country difficult to make money, otherwise it would almost be inevitable.
It triggered a civil uprising and got out of hand.
However, such a weak protest without any confidence was naturally rejected by the selfless gentlemen.
The imperial court finally decided that Nanjing, the capital, would enter a state of martial law from now on, severely suppressing all the treacherous people who looted grain stores, and at the same time recalling the governor Yangzhou.
Lu Weiqi, the Minister of War, abandoned Yangzhou and other strongholds in Jiangbei, and withdrew more than 10,000 troops from Jiangbei to prepare for possible chaos.
After discussing the issue of food prices and deciding to let the people starve to death, the court officials began to discuss more serious military issues.
With the fall of most of Zhejiang Province, after deducting the immobile city defense troops, the only field legions with a certain combat effectiveness under the name of Emperor Yonghe of Nanjing were left with more than 10,000 soldiers and horses under Lu Weiqi, the Minister of War in Yangzhou. .
Although it had been decided to abandon the land in Jiangbei before, relying on the natural dangers of the Yangtze River and the Nanjing Navy, there was no need to consider the threat of the Wenxiang Cult demon for the time being.
But even so, Shangshu Lu Weiqi could not rely on this small force to deal with the deposed emperor Chongzhen in the west and the Australian bandits in the east at the same time.
Not to mention that the imperial court also had to maintain a certain amount of mobile troops in Nanjing to suppress rice-grabbing riots that might break out at any time in major cities in the south of the Yangtze River.
Under such circumstances, military expansion and preparation for war naturally became the top priority of the Nanjing court and the top priority of all work.
"Nowadays, the imperial court's territory is shrinking, and only a corner in the southeast is left.
There are strong enemies on all sides, so we have to spend all our financial resources to recruit soldiers."
Although he had just been severely slapped in the face on the issue of stabilizing food prices, out of his sense of responsibility as the chief minister of the imperial court, Zhou Yanru still bit the bullet and launched his newly conceived army expansion plan in Songjiang, Suzhou and other textile industries.
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The important town advertised a recruitment list of 100,000 soldiers.
On the one hand, it was used to enrich several important strongholds such as Nanjing's Jingying and Xiaolingwei.
On the other hand, it also gave the local unemployed weavers a way out to prevent them from gathering in crowds and causing riots.
But Qian Qianyi immediately raised objections.
He plausibly said that since ancient times, if you want to train an army that can fight, you need to recruit soldiers from farmers, because country people are timid, honest, hardworking, and obey orders.
Most of the people in the city have the habit of being traders, can't afford much hardship, and are better at sneaking around, so it is better to recruit soldiers in the relatively barren mountainous areas of southern Anhui.
In this regard, all the ministers in the DPRK agreed one after another.
Most of them have a fixed thinking pattern in their hearts, that is, the poorer they are, the more capable they are of fighting, and the richer they are, the more useless they are.
For example, if the Mongolian Tatars and Liaodong Jiannu had not grown up in barren mountains and poor rivers and were so poor that they only had one life left, how could they be so fierce?
By analogy, most of the citizens in the prosperous areas south of the Yangtze River must be weak and cunning, and dare not face the enemy in battle, so it is better to go to the mountainous areas of southern Anhui to recruit soldiers.
Of course, the unemployed weavers in Songjiang and Suzhou must also be comforted and sent to them.
Arrest them all and work as coolies for the army.
Therefore, Zhou Yanru had to hold his nose and modify the recruitment plan, and then asked for money for the real highlight.
According to his calculations, the cost of raising and training 100,000 troops and sending them into battle would cost at least five million taels of silver.
Because now there is almost nothing in the arsenal of the Nanjing imperial court.
Even the ordnance and robes have to be made on a temporary basis.
In addition, a large number of artillery still need to be cast.
Nowadays, the treasury in Nanjing is basically empty, and the salaries of civil and military officials are one month in arrears.
This huge sum of money can only be plundered from the heads of the Jin gentry.
It is useless to increase agricultural taxes and land taxes.
Donglin was the stronghold of the Jin gentry of the Party, and the peasants were either dependent on the officials of aristocratic families or were the tenants of these people.
Homesteaders here are as rare as giant pandas, and even if they are squeezed dry, they can't make much money.
Hearing that so much money was actually being asked for, all the Donglin gentlemen in the court immediately jumped up and reprimanded Zhou Yanru for extortionate taxes and cruelty to the people.
But Zhou Yanru said that he really had no choice and wanted to pull out an army capable of fighting.
If you want an army, you have to spend a lot of money on it.
No matter in which era or country, the cost of establishing and maintaining a regular professional army is quite huge.
First of all, this requires recruiting a large number of strong men and paying each recruit a settling-in fee.
Secondly, those who have just been recruited cannot yet be called real soldiers and must undergo military training.
For this purpose, instructors must be hired, training grounds must be established, food, accommodation and equipment must be provided, and a lot of money must be spent to support these "quasi-soldiers" in training. ".
Thirdly, after training, these soldiers still need to be paid, equipped with ordnance, and need various benefits such as clothing, quilts, and shelter.
These are all regular expenses that are indispensable in peacetime.
Then, in wartime, all kinds of expenses came like a flood, such as ammunition, arrows, etc., which are absolutely massive consumables; the service life of firearms and swords is actually quite limited, and they can only be shot two or three times at most.
The battle must be replaced.
In addition, in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the troops, it is necessary to purchase building materials to build fortresses, hire merchant ships and convoys to transport supplies, and prepare medicines and doctors to treat the wounded.
Any of these means astronomical and terrible expenses. .
Finally, the injured and injured soldiers will be paid pensions and burial expenses, and the old soldiers will also be paid a pension.
To sum up, when a country carries out a large-scale military expansion and the number of professional troops reaches a certain level, these consumptions will quickly turn into horrific expenditures that are enough to drag down the finances.
No matter how rich the national treasury is, it will be completely emptied in a very short period of time.
For traditional agricultural countries with relatively poor real monetary income, this contradiction is particularly prominent.
Therefore, the so-called "war is more expensive than long-lasting" is by no means as simple as a general statement.
Corruption in the military will further aggravate this consumption rate.
The level of corruption in the Ming army is enough to make anyone feel desperate.
Of the five million taels of silver budget, if one million taels of silver can be put to practical use, it is already a thank God to Amitabha.
But even if they knew there would be such corruption, the court had to hold its nose and allocate military funds, otherwise the situation would only get worse. oshow7: