Great time travel

137 Chapter [-]

In April of the sixth year of Chongzhen (the first year of Yonghe), Nanzhili, Nanjing

——Like Beijing, as another capital of the Ming Empire, Nanjing also has a magnificent palace city.This is a huge building complex five miles long from north to south and four miles wide from east to west, surrounded by tall red walls, and the bright yellow glazed tiles on the roof shine brightly in the sun.

Within the palace city, Chengtian Gate is the boundary, and to the north of the gate is the Forbidden City.Walking through the Duanmen and Meridian Gates, there are three main halls of "Fengtian", "Jinshen" and "Hua Gai" standing in sequence.There are also "Wenhua Hall" and "Wuying Hall" on the east and west sides, as well as "Wenlou" and "Wulou".This is the place where the emperor accepted the courtship of all officials and held grand ceremonies.And the north of the "Three Great Halls", all the way to the Houzai Gate, belongs to the scope of the "Houting".There are also many palaces with different names and an imperial garden, where the emperor's daily life is.

In addition to this part of the Forbidden City, on the south side of the palace city, there is a wide royal road stretching straight from the Wulong bridge outside the Chengtian gate to the main gate of the palace city - Hongwu gate.On the east side of the imperial road, there are five government offices, including the officials, households, rites, soldiers, and workers, besides the Ministry of Punishment, as well as several secondary government departments such as the Zongren Mansion, Honglu Temple, Qin Tianjian, and Tai Hospital; To the west of the road is the highest military institution of the Ming Empire, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, as well as the offices of Jinyiwei, Tongzhengshisi, and Taichang Temple.

However, such a magnificent and splendid palace city has been abandoned for 200 years since Emperor Chengzu Yongle moved his capital to Beijing. Now it is already in depression and dilapidated.Since Emperor Yongle, apart from Emperor Zhengde who went to the south of the Yangtze River, most of the emperors of the past dynasties have basically never left Beijing to visit the capital in the south.

As a result, most of the palaces in the Forbidden City in Nanjing were dilapidated and in disrepair because of the owner's absence all year round, and they were almost turned into ruins by the end of the Ming Dynasty.Even the yamen of various ministries in Nanjing that have always been stationed by officials, except for a few door halls, because some officials went to the ministry to inspect affairs, so they were tidied up, most of them left the walls to collapse and no one cared about them. .It looked like it was in dire straits.

Although the current Nanjing court has embraced Yonghe Emperor Zhu Yihai, this palace once again has an owner.But the Donglin Party Group has always taken tax evasion as its own responsibility. How could it be willing to spend millions of taels of silver to renovate the palace for the new emperor it supported?

Therefore, compared with the idle years in the past, the Forbidden City in Nanjing still has not changed much at this time.The vermilion palace walls of Chengtianmen are still covered with signs of peeling everywhere, making them look mottled.The roof of the city tower is covered with lush young trees and weeds, obviously it has not been cleaned for many years.Finally, there were a few eunuchs and guards standing at the gate of the palace, but they were all listless, with no trace of a royal atmosphere.

At this time, in the only slightly repaired Wenhua Palace in the entire Forbidden City, Zhu Yihai, the former second son of King Lu and now Emperor Yonghe, was sitting bored on the cracked throne, playing the role of a clay puppet perfectly. He watched the ministers in Nanjing fighting with each other below.

It seems that because of the crisis of the current situation, all the scholar-bureaucrats under Danchi were very angry and irritable, and they no longer cared about being polite or dignified.

Of course, he couldn't care less about respecting Zhu Yihai, the puppet emperor...

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Generally speaking, although the Nanjing Communist Party has not yet been attacked by soldiers, the situation is already very bad.Not to mention the demons of the Wenxiang sect in the north, the Australian thieves in the south, and the late Emperor Chongzhen in the west. Even the remaining square-inch territory in the south of the Yangtze River is still in turmoil.

——Now the places with the most money in the Ming Dynasty are naturally Nanzhili and northern Zhejiang, the fertile land in the south of the Yangtze River where industry and commerce are developed.However, in the Song Dynasty, "Su Lake is ripe for the world" is already a thing of the past. Now the villages around Su and Lake grow mulberry trees, and picking mulberry and raising silkworms is far more profitable than growing rice.Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, it has entered the era of "Huguang is well-cooked and the world is full". After Huguang and Jiangxi were fully developed, they replaced Jiangnan as the world's granary.Even the so-called rich land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River must rely on food imports from Huguang, Jiangxi, and Lianghuai to meet the basic needs of a large number of non-agricultural populations.

But the problem is that with the secret support of various traversers and the self-respect of raising bandits, since the early years of Chongzhen, the peasant uprising army in southern Jiangxi has become increasingly rampant, causing great damage to Jiangxi's grain production and export.In view of the fact that the Wenxiangjiao uprising army has been rampant in Huainan and Huaibei for a whole year, there is also no hope for food in the two Huaihe Rivers, so the "land of fish and rice" in the south of the Yangtze River has become more and more dependent on the import of grain and rice from Huguang.

However, now this Huguang grain road, which is vital to the Jiangnan people, has been cut off.

——At the beginning of this month, the deposed Emperor Chongzhen came to Wuchang to take over the military and political power of Huguang Province. At the same time, he ordered the closure of the river and prohibited the export of grain from the downstream.

So, as soon as the bad news reached Nanjing, the entire Jiangnan water town exploded.

Although it is the season when the crops are not harvested, and the 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 the market panic effect brought about by this bad news cannot be sustained!All of a sudden, tens of thousands of citizens took out their treasured silver coins to snap up food and hoard it at home, which invisibly further pushed up the price of food.In addition, many profiteers took the opportunity to hoard, create rumors, and hype wildly... As a result, when the price of grain in Nanjing was the highest, it was once fired to the point where brown rice cost 16 taels a stone!

Not only is it difficult to import food, but the channels for exporting goods are also not smooth-since the Australian bandits have invaded Zhejiang on a large scale, although their soldiers have temporarily stopped in Hangzhou and have not continued to invade Nanzhili.However, its navy, based on the Shengsi Islands, launched a long-range blockade at the mouth of the Yangtze River, intercepting and detaining any ships that dare to go to sea!As for the commercial route for selling cotton cloth and other things to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, it was also cut off by Emperor Chongzhen's order to seal the river!

——There is no supply of imported grain, and export commodities are blocked!Moreover, it is surrounded by powerful enemies on all sides... Such heavy military and economic pressure immediately overwhelmed this **** who was born less than half a year ago!All of a sudden, textile factories in Suzhou, Songjiang, and Wuxi went bankrupt, and tens of thousands of citizens lost their jobs. The soaring price of rice led to riots in the markets all over the place.At the same time, at least 40 to [-] war refugees fled northward from the Hangzhou area in a hurry and stayed in Huzhou, Jiaxing and other places, bringing huge public security risks and social burdens to the local areas.

The direct consequence of this series of bad news is that the daily price of food in Nanjing city is rising like a monkey in the sky.The entire Jiangnan area was full of grief and complaints.Not only the common people couldn't afford to eat food, but even ordinary petty officials could only live on porridge every day.

Facing such a severe test, Zhou Yanru, the chief assistant of the Nanjing Communist Party, was devastated for a while.As a professional politician who once served as the chief assistant under Emperor Chongzhen and held the power of the world, he certainly would not fail to understand the threat of rising food prices to the ruling order.However, the reason why the Donglin Party Group in Nanjing supported the Yonghe Emperor, who was not justly named, was to avoid paying taxes as much as possible.Therefore, the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing has already exempted all taxes that can be exempted, and now even mice are crying out of the treasury. How can there be grain reserves to stabilize food prices?

So, without any grain reserves, Zhou Yanru, who was driven into a hurry, became ruthless for a while, and sent Jin Yiwei to lock up profiteers who were driving up grain prices.But the result was a lot of thunder and little rain-the court officials 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 speculate on food prices for huge profits are It is the big money owner behind the Donglin Party, how can this **** suppress it?

——From the beginning of its birth, the court of Emperor Yonghe 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 Ge Lao Shangshu above the court must also serve the interests of the big 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 were more short-sighted than the helm of the American consortium, and they preferred to die...

In desperation, Zhou Yanru had no choice but to burst into tears in the court, trying to persuade the gentlemen of Donglin and the benefactors behind them to stop for a while, and not to continue to stir up food prices at such a time to make the country suffer!Otherwise, it is almost certain to trigger a civil uprising, and it will get out of hand!

But such a weak and baseless protest was naturally pushed back unceremoniously by all the stern and selfless gentlemen-the imperial court finally decided that Nanjing, the capital of Liuzhou, will enter a state of martial law from now on, and severely suppress all treacherous and riotous people who robbed the grain store... At the same time Recall Lu Weiqi, Minister of the Ministry of War in Yangzhou, the governor of Yangzhou, abandon Yangzhou and other strongholds in Jiangbei, and withdraw more than 1 soldiers and horses in Jiangbei to prepare for possible chaos...

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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 those immobile city defense troops, the only field army under the name of Emperor Yonghe in Nanjing that has a certain combat effectiveness is only more than 1 under Lu Weiqi, the Minister of War of Yangzhou, who supervised Yangzhou soldiers and horses.

Although he had decided to give up the land in Jiangbei before, relying on the natural danger of the Yangtze River and the Nanjing Navy, he could not consider the threat of the Wenxiang Sect demon for the time being.But even so, Shangshu Lu Weiqi has no way to rely on this little force to deal with the deposed Emperor Chongzhen in the west and the Australian thieves in the east at the same time.Not to mention that the imperial court must also maintain a certain mobile force in Nanjing, so as to suppress the rice-grabbing riots that may erupt at any time in major cities in the south of the Yangtze River.

Under such circumstances, military expansion and preparation for war have naturally become the top priority of the Nanjing court, and the top priority of all tasks!

"...now that the territory of the imperial court is shrinking, only the southeast corner is left, and there are powerful enemies on all sides, so we have to spend all our resources to recruit soldiers..."

Although he had just been severely slapped in the face on the issue of stabilizing food prices, Zhou Yanru still bit the bullet and threw out the military expansion plan he had just conceived——in Songjiang, Suzhou, etc. The important towns of the textile industry set up a list to recruit [-] soldiers. On the one hand, it is used to enrich several important strongholds such as Jingying and Xiaolingwei in Nanjing.

But Qian Qianyi immediately objected. He plausibly said that since ancient times, if you want to train an army capable of fighting, you need to recruit soldiers from peasants, because country people are timid, honest, hard-working, and obey orders. Most of the people in the city have the habits of peddlers, they can't bear much hardship, and they are better at stealing, raping and playing tricks... Therefore, it is better to recruit soldiers in the relatively barren mountainous area of ​​southern Anhui.

In this regard, all the officials in the court echoed one after another, and most of them have a fixed thinking mode in their hearts, that is, the poorer they are, the more they can fight, and the richer they are, the more useless they are.For example, Mongolian Tartars and Liaodong Jiannu, if they hadn't grown up in poor mountains and rivers and were so poor that they had only one life left, how could they be so fierce?
By analogy, most of the citizens in the affluent places in the south of the Yangtze River must be weak and treacherous, and dare not meet the enemy in battle. Therefore, it is better to go to the mountainous areas of southern Anhui to recruit soldiers... Of course, the unemployed weavers in Songjiang and Suzhou can't help being appeased. Capture them all as coolies for the officers and soldiers!

Therefore, Zhou Yanru had no choice but to pinch his nose and revise the recruiting plan, and then proposed the real highlight - asking for money!
According to his calculations, the cost of recruiting and training one hundred thousand troops and driving them into battle would cost at least 500 million taels of silver!
Because there is almost nothing in the arsenal of the Nanjing court today, even the ordnance and robes have to be made temporarily, and a large number of artillery have to be cast.But now Nanjing’s national treasury is basically empty, and the salaries of civil and military officials are all in arrears for a month. This huge sum of money can only be searched from the gentry, and it is useless to increase agricultural taxes and land taxes——Jiangnan area It is the headquarters of the Donglin Party and gentry, and the peasants are either attached to the family officials or are the tenants of these people.Homeowner farmers here are as rare as giant pandas, and even if they are squeezed out, they can't make much money.

Hearing that so much money was required, all the gentlemen of Donglin in the court immediately jumped up, blaming Zhou Yanru for extorting and extorting cruelly and harming the people... But Zhou Yanru said that he really had no choice but to pull out a An army that can fight must 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 a large number of recruits and a settlement fee for each recruit.

Secondly, the people who have just been recruited cannot be called real soldiers. They must undergo military training. For this purpose, instructors must be hired, training grounds must be established, board and lodging and equipment must be provided, and a lot of money must be spent to support these "quasi-soldiers" in training. ".

Thirdly, after the training is completed, these soldiers still need to be paid military salaries, equipped with ordnance, and need various benefits such as quilts and housing, which are indispensable recurring expenses in peacetime.

Then, when it really came to wartime, all kinds of expenses flooded in like a tide—like ammunition, arrows, etc., of course, they are absolutely massive consumables; and the service life of guns and swords is actually quite limited. Two or three battles will 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... No matter what it is, it means an astronomical amount of money. Horrible overhead.

In the end, the casualty soldiers will be paid pensions and burial fees, and the elderly soldiers will also be given a pension.

To sum up, when a country expands its military on a large scale and the number of professional troops reaches a certain level, these consumptions will quickly turn into terrorist expenditures enough to drag down the finances.No matter how rich the treasury is, it will be completely emptied in a very short period of time.For traditional agricultural countries with relatively poor real money income, this contradiction is even more prominent.

Therefore, the so-called war is more expensive than long-term, and it is by no means as simple as a general statement.

And the corruption in the army will further exacerbate this rate of consumption—however, the level of corruption in the Ming army is enough to make anyone feel desperate.In the budget of 500 million taels of silver, if 100 million taels of silver can be used for practical purposes, it is already thankful to Amitabha.

But even knowing that there will be such corruption, the imperial court must hold its nose and allocate military expenditures, otherwise the situation will only get worse.