Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 380 Harvest
Gao Qiqian is furious.

It should be said that Eunuch Gao had a relatively comfortable life these days. After destroying the main force of the rebel army in the Battle of Shahe, the officers and soldiers from all walks of life attacked the city and plundered the land like chicken blood, destroying the city and pulling out the stronghold, and they were invincible. An addiction of "powerful" --- the Ming army has not tasted this kind of taste for many years!The siege of Laizhou was resolved, Pingdu, Zhaoyuan, Laiyang, Huangxian... the cities occupied by the rebels were conquered one after another, and the attacking spearhead of the officers and soldiers was directed at Dengzhou!Playing so smoothly, Eunuch Gao naturally felt very good, thinking he could compete with Wang Yangming and Lan Yu!
However, at this juncture, the Heluo New Army actually disobeyed the generals and led the Zhejiang Army and Tianxiong Army to leave the army and go straight to Dengzhou!
After Gao Qiqian heard the news, he was so angry that he dispatched envoys of the Twelfth Route Army, and he was in a hurry to bring this disobedient army back.Just kidding, right now the rebels are losing their troops like a mountain, and it is time to regain their lost ground. If you are defeated at the foot of Dengzhou City during these victories, wouldn't that be a slap in the face of our family?To put it bluntly, what Eunuch Gao was worried about was not the real safety of the Heluo New Army, but the fear that the Heluo New Army would be defeated, which would overshadow his victory that was "like a broken bamboo"!He gritted his teeth with hatred for Yang Menglong's rebellion, and vowed to make Yang Menglong look good when he came back!
However, Zhu Dadian felt that Yang Menglong was not bad, he was very active, unlike some officers and soldiers who would fight when they saw a bargain, and run away when encountering a tough battle.He smiled and said: "General Yang is a newborn calf and is not afraid of tigers. It is a good thing for young people to have vigor."

Gao Qiqian snorted and said: "If everyone is as self-assertive as he is, how can we fight this battle! No, when he comes back, our family must show him some color!"

Zhu Dadian smiled, did not speak, and said in his heart: "He doesn't even look down on the Minister of the Ministry of War, what are you? Show him some color? Be careful that he draws out a short knife and stabs you!"

Just as he was talking, a military envoy rushed in covered in mud and mud, and his trouser legs were covered in mud. He knelt down on the ground with a happy face, and shouted excitedly: "Elder-in-law, great joy, great joy!"

Gao Qiqian was startled: "Where does the joy come from?"

The military envoy said: "Heluo's new army fought fiercely with the rebels ten miles outside Dengzhou City. With only one charge of cavalry, more than 5000 rebels were completely defeated! Only more than 1 prisoners were taken, and more than 1 were captured. where!"

Zhu Dadian's hand holding the dossier froze there, his eyes widened bigger than pig urine bubbles, and he stared at the military envoy: "What are you talking about? What are you talking about?"

The military envoy said: "The Heluo New Army destroyed the last main force of the rebels outside Dengzhou City, and captured more than 1 prisoners alone! When the villain came back, they were hurrying to take Dengzhou City. !"

Gao Qiqian finally came back to his senses, and snorted: "Go straight to Dengzhou City? Is Dengzhou so easy to fight? Just wait, he will definitely be beaten in Dengzhou City!"

Zhu Dadian said: "Then we should dispatch troops to support them as soon as possible!"

Gao Qiqian snorted heavily, and said, "What is the support for? Just to make him suffer! The general of our family ordered that the whole army stop attacking, and no soldier or soldier should approach Dengzhou within three days!"

To put it bluntly, this small-bellied dead eunuch was annoyed that Yang Menglong didn't listen to his command, didn't give him face, and wanted to show him some color.Zhu Dadian felt that this was inappropriate, but Yang Menglong was too reckless, if he didn't let his spirit down, those military leaders would learn from this kid in the future, how could they lead troops to fight?Forget it, anyway, now that the main force of the rebel army has been wiped out, even if Yang Menglong can't win Dengzhou, he won't be in any danger, let him hit a wall!
Yang Menglong is in danger now.

Heart is at risk.

Not only him, Qi Hu, Wang Tiehammer, Xue Siming, Zhong Ning, Cao Jun, Lei Shisheng, Wu Sheng... the hearts of all the generals of the Ming army who invaded Dengzhou City were like riding a roller coaster, rushing to the peak almost crazily for a while , and rushed to the abyss at a high speed...

What is testing their hearts is the gold, silver and jewels piled up in the yamen of the prefect of Dengzhou.Gorgeous, exquisite and golden wine sets, silver melons weighing hundreds of catties each, copper pillars made of several thousand catties of brass, boxes and boxes of jewels... Oh boy, this place is bigger than the national treasury!It took Lei Shisheng a long time to recover from the dizzy state, and he stroked a giant silver melon, not without emotion: "It's hard to imagine that the rebels in Denglai just looted so much treasure!"

Wu Sheng asked blankly: "Da Ming is so rich, why can't we soldiers have enough food and decent clothes?"

Yang Menglong said: "Because the richness of the Ming Dynasty does not mean that the country is rich. These treasures were looted from the homes of wealthy businessmen, gentry and officials. They would rather melt the money into silver melons than pay a little tax! "He patted a silver winter melon hard, feeling dumbfounded.In fact, the Ming Dynasty was not short of money. Over the past two or three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty has earned immeasurable wealth in maritime trade. The amount of silver that flowed into the Ming Dynasty was as many as hundreds of millions of taels. Baiyin, who said that the future is poor?But the finances of the Ming Dynasty have always been very popular, because businessmen who have earned a lot of wealth do not pay taxes, and all taxes fall on the common people. This tax source also robs the court of many people, such as vassal kings, Officials, gentry.According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, scholars who are famous and famous are exempted from tax, so whenever a scholar graduates from high school, many people will come to contribute their land, and they will naturally not have to pay taxes. .The vassal kings and officials do not pay taxes either. Both of them are justified. Who dares to collect their taxes?As a result, the court's tax sources have dropped sharply, and it can only increase taxes desperately on fewer and fewer fields, and it is difficult to think of nothing.

So, where did this massive amount of silver go?

Hid in the cellar.

There was no industry in the Ming Dynasty, and there were no such things as securities and stocks. Coupled with the old tradition of saving money since ancient times, the money earned was naturally hidden in the cellar.For fear of being patronized by petty thieves, those rich families melted the silver into a silver melon weighing several hundred catties, which could not be moved by several big men, so naturally no one could steal it.Then, the silver disappeared from the market and did not exist until the crisis came and the whole country fell into panic, the silver would flow out of the cellar and pour into the market to buy food, cloth and other daily necessities, triggering prices Soaring, and eventually accelerate the collapse of the entire country... There is no way, a country will always have several times more money than supplies. If all the money flows into the market to buy goods, it will become inevitable that prices will get out of control.

Lei Shisheng didn't think too far, he just sighed deeply: "It's really easy to melt so much silver and hide it in the cellar, but it's also easy for the rebels to search for it..."

Yang Menglong said: "Why do you care so much? Let's think about how to divide the spoils."

Both Lei Shisheng and Wu Sheng were taken aback: "Split the spoils!?"

Yang Menglong said confidently: "Of course! I spent so much military expenses, how can I not make up for it! I can't let my thousands of soldiers work for nothing, right? Even if I agree, they won't agree!"

Wu Sheng's little heart was beating wildly, as if a deer was bumping into it. Looking at the mountain of gold, silver and jewels, he swallowed a mouthful of dry mouth and asked, "General Yang?" , is it wrong to do this? These are the fat of the people..."

Yang Menglong said: "Come on, your eyes are green, why are you pretending here! Quickly count and see how much money there is!"

Wu Sheng and Lei Shisheng yelled no, but they were very honest, and immediately ordered their subordinates to carry out statistical work nervously... Nonsense, so much money, who wouldn't want it?

After a day and night of counting, the figures came out: a total of 450 million taels of silver, 13 taels of gold, 16 jins of brass, more than 600 pearls, in addition to valuables such as silk, jade, porcelain, and mahogany furniture. East is also countless.As for the weapons seized, there were even more. Sun Yuanhua alone spent a lot of money to make as many as 200 muskets and more than [-] large and small artillery pieces. Many of them were still in the warehouse and had not been used. There were thousands more. The imitation Japanese samurai swords were all high-end products that could be boasted of, and Wu Sheng’s eyes turned green when he saw them!In short, they really made a fortune this time!However, how to divide this amazing wealth?

"My opinion is that we don't want miscellaneous things such as jade, porcelain, and furniture, and leave them to the officers and soldiers from all walks of life." Yang Menglong put forward his own opinion.

Lei Shisheng nodded in agreement, Wu Sheng was a little reluctant, but he had no objections.After all, the tens of thousands of troops were fighting for money. If they searched too cleanly and let the army return empty-handed, it would cause public outrage.

"450 million taels of silver, divided into three shares." Yang Menglong talked eloquently, and it was obvious from a glance that he had a lot of experience in dividing spoils. Could it be that he often does this kind of thing? "50 taels of silver are reserved for officers and soldiers from all walks of life, and how much they can get depends on their luck; another 100 million taels is handed over to the state treasury, or simply handed over to the emperor, so as to stop the mouths of those officials; finally There are 300 million taels left, 100 million taels for each of us, share it!"

As a result, the three families lost 50 taels of income, but even if it was only 100 million taels, it was an unimaginably huge wealth for Lei Shisheng and Wu Sheng.Wu Sheng said embarrassingly: "How can this be done? The battle was mainly fought by your Heluo New Army and Tianxiong Army. We just followed behind to pick up the leaks. You should take more. I... my Zhejiang Army took 70 taels of silver is enough, but there are thousands of long knives in the Dengzhou armory, I hope you don’t fight with me, our Zhejiang Army needs these long knives very much.”

Lei Shisheng said: "Our Tianxiong Army sent the least troops and the least effort. How can we do with so much? 70 taels is enough, but there are more than 3000 firecrackers in the armory. If General Yang and General Wu see If it doesn't catch your eye, leave it to our Tianxiong Army."

Wu Sheng asked cautiously: "Can you give us some? We also need firecrackers."

Lei Shisheng said generously: "Okay, how much does the Zhejiang Army want? Is one thousand enough?"

Wu Sheng was overjoyed: "Enough, enough, one thousand sticks is definitely enough!" He originally expected to get several hundred thousand sticks and was satisfied, but he didn't expect Lei Shisheng to be so generous, and he gave him a thousand sticks as soon as he opened his mouth. This is good, I can finally throw away those firecrackers in my hand that explode in a dozen!

Yang Menglong raised his eyes and shouted: "Hey, hey, what are you doing? We are discussing how to divide the money! Let's do this, each person gets 100 million taels, I will get 1 taels more for gold, and each of you two will get 4 Wanliang, as for the weapons in the armory, you can divide them however you like, I don’t want them. As for these 10,000+ kilograms of brass..."

Lei Shisheng and Wu Sheng said in unison: "It's yours, it's all yours!" It's useless for them to ask for so much copper. Although copper is also very valuable, but with millions of taels of silver, ghosts are so rare. What about copper!

Yang Menglong chuckled: "Then I won't be polite!"

The spoils-sharing agreement was finalized. Each of the three armies received 100 million taels of silver, 22 taels of gold. The Heluo New Army received 8 taels, and the Zhejiang Army and Tianxiong Army each received 7 taels. Just move whatever weapons you like in the armory. , take as much as you like.Yang Menglong didn't like those weapons. He proposed that all the Western machine tools and Western technicians found in Dengzhou City should belong to him. Lei Shisheng and Wu Sheng also had no objection. They did not realize that those machine tools and technicians were valuable.In fact, most people in this era have not yet realized the value of technology. This is the limitation of the times, and there is no way.Yang Menglong also proposed to pick some goods from the Dengzhou water village to return to Nanyang. Everyone didn't know what kind of medicine he was selling in the gourd, but they agreed.

Wu Sheng and Lei Shisheng never dreamed that Yang Menglong's so-called "picking some" actually picked out two-thirds of more than 130 ships.

(End of this chapter)