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

Chapter 438

"You also did a good job farming in Denglai, I am very satisfied." Chewing potato chips, Chongzhen flatly praised Yang Menglong.

Yang Menglong laughed happily.Denglai is doing really well. The influx of refugees from Dongjiang Town, Shandong, Hebei and other places quickly supplemented Denglai with a large number of labor forces. Towns were rebuilt one after another, and large areas of fertile land were planted with wheat and potatoes.Not only that, Denglai also built an amazingly large salt field, specializing in the production of high-quality refined salt. It will be put into production soon. As soon as the sea ice melts, many fishermen immediately go boating into the Bohai Sea to catch fish and shrimps. The furthest ones even went to the Whale Sea to catch fish. Back to the whale as huge as a hill.Nanyang used ships to transport a large amount of food, iron materials, cloth, fertilizer and other urgently needed materials to Denglai, and then loaded them with processed fish, shrimp and kelp and ran back to Nanyang. The two sides exchanged what they had, and the Denglai area was quickly settled. The problem of food for the common people, the influx of large numbers of refugees not only did not cause chaos, but also made Denglai prosperous. He deserves the praise of Chongzhen.

Chongzhen sighed: "If all the state capitals are like Nanyang and Denglai, I will be relieved." He waved his hand and asked the maid to come over and remove the dishes and chopsticks, made a pot of tea, and poured a cup with his own hands. For Yang Menglong... well, even Wen Tiren may not be treated like this.He asked the queen to take the princess to rest, tapped his fingers on the table, his sallow face was full of worry, exhaustion and helplessness, and asked, "How is the situation in Nanyang? Is it possible for the bandits to enter Nanyang from Wuguan?"

Yang Menglong snorted: "To tell you the truth, Nanyang spent three years building a large number of military camps on the front line of Funiu Mountain, all of which are easy to defend and difficult to attack. If the rogues want to eat these military camps, they have to grow a pair of iron teeth." , and they want to rush out of the Funiu Mountains and enter the Nanyang Basin, they have to grow a pair of wings! If they hadn’t set aside a part of their troops to stare at the Jingxiang rebels in Huguang, I would have cleaned them up long ago!”

As soon as he heard the "Jingxiang rebels", Chongzhen's good mood was completely destroyed, and he said angrily: "Tang Hui is a pig, and the governor of Jingxiang is a pig! There are a large number of bandits in the Northwest. I don't blame anyone, because the Northwest has been in trouble for years. The drought caused the grass and trees to wither, and the common people really couldn’t survive, but such a large-scale rebellion broke out in Jingxiang, where the weather is good and the products are abundant, and I can’t spare them!” No wonder he was so angry, Huguang is a Ming Dynasty Any disturbance in the granary would make the empire highly nervous, and now there is a rebellion, and the rebel army has grown to hundreds of thousands within a few months, and its momentum is even more terrifying than the northwestern bandits. How can Chongzhen not be angry like this?He stared at Yang Menglong: "Why don't you send troops to help put down the rebellion? For you, it's completely easy!"

Yang Menglong was very helpless: "The governor of Huguang refused to let his ministers lead troops into Huguang, worried that he would occupy Huguang's fields..."

Chongzhen became more and more angry: "Absurd, really absurd! Half of Jianghan is about to be smashed to pieces. He doesn't think of ways to counteract the rebellion, but he is still thinking about guarding against his colleagues. It is absolutely absurd!" He stood up and stood in the garden. Pacing back and forth irritably, he seemed very restless: "Tang Hui... I can't spare him! It's just that the Huguang rebels are getting stronger and stronger, even stronger than the northwestern rogues, and all the capable soldiers of Ming Dynasty are used to deal with them. Jiannu and Northwest bandits are gone, where should we send troops to put down the Huguang rebellion?" Turning around a few times, he sat back at the same place, looked at Yang Menglong, and asked, "The Heluo New Army really can't spare any troops to put down the Jingxiang rebellion. Is it? Even 2000 people are fine!"

Yang Menglong smiled wryly: "I really can't draw any more. Heluo's new army has only 2000 soldiers, but they have to defend the three prefectures of Nanyang, Ruzhou, and Luoyang, and they have to keep [-] people to guard against bandits going northward to invade Heluo. Not even a single soldier can be drawn." Out."

The troops he was worried about had too few troops, and he couldn't draw a single soldier; the troops he was worried about had 10,000+ soldiers, but they couldn't go to the battlefield at all. I will give you [-] soldiers, if it is not enough, I will transfer [-] Sichuan troops from the closed gate and hand them over to you, can you put down the Jingxiang rebellion within half a year?"

Yang Menglong said: "As long as the troops are strong enough, the Jingxiang rebellion can be put down within three months in less than half a year." Before Chongzhen could smile, he gave Chongzhen a blow: "But I don't want to put down the rebellion so early. !"

Chongzhen suddenly changed color: "Yang Menglong, you—"

Yang Menglong looked at the furious emperor calmly, and said: "I have a habit. Before doing something, I must first consider whether it is good for my minister, whether it is good for Nanyang, or for Ming Dynasty. If it is good, I will do it. If there is no benefit, I will not do it even if I am killed."

Chongzhen laughed back angrily: "According to what you said, quelling the Jingxiang rebellion is not good for you, so you don't plan to do it? In vain... in vain that I trust you so much and rely on you as the pillar of the town!"

Yang Menglong said: "Putting down the Jingxiang rebellion is good for the minister. The minister can make a great contribution and go one step further. He can even take down Jingxiang as a place to raise soldiers! But it is not beneficial to Ming Dynasty!"

Chongzhen was literally roaring: "Nonsense! It's just nonsense!"

Yang Menglong was very calm: "Your Majesty, how much is Huguang's annual payment for food?"

Chongzhen froze for a moment: "What do you mean?"

Yang Menglong said: "Just curious, please tell me, the emperor, how much is Huguang's annual grain payment?"

Chongzhen thought for a while and said, "Caoliang is 300 million shi."

Yang Menglong sneered: "300 million shi of grain...so generous, Nanyang's annual grain output is more than that, but Huguang, which has a hundred times more fertile land than Nanyang, can only hand over this little!" He clenched his fist and looked at it. Ding Chongzhen said: "However, the grain payment paid by the people in Huguang is more than tens of millions of stones a year."

Chongzhen was not angry this time, but his expression became bitter.Of course he knew where the problem was. Daming was already rotten to the core. He was fighting against the corrupt officials in Daming alone. Even if he knew where the problem was, so what?
Yang Menglong continued: "Huguang covers an area of ​​thousands of miles and has more than a million hectares of fertile land. How much tax can it pay in a year? But most of the wealth has been swallowed up by the officials and gentry of Huguang, and the court every time Each time the tax is increased by one cent, the amount allocated to the people becomes one tael. This happens year after year. In the end, the people suffer, the court loses, and these bastards are all benefited! Maybe the emperor doesn’t know, right? Jingxiang rebels attack Xiangyang At that time, 60 taels of silver were found in the mansion of Fan Mou, the prefect of Xiangyang alone!"

Chongzhen's complexion changed drastically again: "60 taels of silver...he...he is really worthy of me! He is so brave!" The tax collected by the imperial court is only 400 million taels of silver a year, and the Liao pay alone is as high as sixty thousand taels of silver. For 700 million taels, taxes had to be increased again and again, and many officials were forced to hang themselves again and again, so that they could barely make up enough for Liao's salary, and a small Xiangyang magistrate was greedy for 60 taels of silver. How could he not be angry!
Yang Menglong said: "Now the emperor knows why I don't want to wipe them out so early, right? Since the interests of Huguang have been monopolized by the huge official and gentry group, even if the rebellion is put down, the court will not get any benefits. Why not let it go?" Use their hands to clean up all the interest groups in Huguang, and then start from scratch?" He looked at Chongzhen with piercing eyes, and gestured with his hands: "Huguang has millions of hectares of fertile land, but [-]% of them are destroyed by officials. The gentry and vassal kings occupy it, they don't have to pay taxes, and the taxes of the whole Huguang are distributed to the common people who only own [-]% of the land. The common people don't even care about the life and death of the country! The rebel army is only looking for these bastards to settle accounts, and every time they capture a land, they don't hurt the people, but they kill these bastards..."

Chongzhen said coldly: "Even so, it is treasonous for them to raise their troops to rebel!"

Yang Menglong said: "They do deserve to die, but the hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who followed the rebels to attack the state and government are pitiful. They never thought about overthrowing the Ming Dynasty. They just wanted to get a share of the land that originally belonged to them." That's all!" He said in a more serious tone: "Your Majesty, don't send troops to annihilate the rebels so early! Let them fight, let them uproot the entire Huguang gentry and feudal lords, and then send troops to quell the rebellion! At that time, those groups of officials and gentry who occupied thousands of hectares of fertile land but did not have to pay a cent of tax no longer existed. The emperor distributed their fields to the common people, and issued a few grace decrees to forgive their sins, fearing that they would not be grateful to the court. ? By then, the tax revenue that Huguang can collect will be ten times more than it is now. Is there any problem that cannot be solved?"

Chongzhen said sharply: "Then let them slaughter officials, gentry and vassal kings like this? Especially those vassal kings, they are all my relatives!"

Yang Menglong's voice was also raised eight tunes: "They are all a bunch of damn moths, they have emptied the foundation of Da Ming! They are all a group of leeches, lying on Da Ming's increasingly weak body and sucking blood fiercely, never knowing how full they are. They are the ones who stole the wealth that originally belonged to the country, they are the ones who occupied the fields that originally belonged to the common people, and they are the ones who pushed Daming into this difficult situation of internal and external difficulties! If they don’t die, tens of thousands of ordinary people will die! Daming will perish!" He ignored Chongzhen's furious eyes, stared at him firmly, and asked word by word: "The emperor always thinks about the vassal king's family, have they ever thought about the emperor? The emperor always thinks about the scholars and gentry Think about it, have they ever thought about the emperor?"

Chongzhen slapped the table with his palm, causing the cup to jump up: "Shut up! Just talking nonsense at you, ten heads are not enough to cut off!"

Yang Menglong snorted and stopped talking, but his expression was very stubborn, and he didn't mean to bow his head to admit his mistake.

Chongzhen stared at him with a gloomy face and twinkling eyes, probably thinking whether or not Jin Yiwei should come over to arrest him.

The air seemed to freeze, and even the maids standing in the distance shuddered, even though they couldn't hear what the two were arguing at all.

Silence, disturbing silence.

After a long while, Chongzhen finally broke the silence: "If you tell me these outrageous things, aren't you afraid that I will chop off your head and punish your nine clans?"

Yang Menglong said: "The emperor worries about the humiliation of the minister, and the emperor humiliates the minister to death. The emperor works hard on state affairs all day long, wanders around day and night, asks his advice, and the minister naturally has to make suggestions. This is the duty of the minister. As for whether the emperor accepts the minister's suggestion, To what extent it is adopted is a matter for the emperor."

Chongzhen's expression was a little complicated: "You are so bold!"

Yang Menglong was very calm: "If a person doesn't even have the courage to speak out what's in his heart, what's the taste of being alive?"

Chongzhen took a deep breath, and changed the subject: "The rebels really only kill local tyrants and evil gentry, and don't hurt the common people?"

Yang Menglong said: "There are still some bad deeds of humiliating the people, which cannot be avoided, but they dare not go too far. Up to now, there has been no atrocities of massacres in the city, because they are closest to the Heluo New Army and know that the Heluo New Army is the last one. What I hate is the massacre of the common people and the humiliation of women!"

Chongzhen nodded slightly, and asked again: "If the rebels really clean up those officials, gentry, and vassal kings, can the grain payment that Huguang can pay ten times?"

Yang Menglong said: "It depends on who is going to govern it. If it were someone else, it might be less than it is now, but if it were replaced by Mr. Fang, it would be ten times the amount." He said in his heart: "Just kidding, in modern times, only in Hunan The annual grain output reaches more than 2000 million tons! Of course, it cannot be compared to what it was a few hundred years ago, but phosphate fertilizer, pesticide and other industries are also getting better. It is unlikely that the output of modern agriculture cannot even reach one-tenth of that of modern agriculture. ?" Huguang pays 300 million shi of grain a year. Ten times that is 3000 million shi, or about 36 billion catties. Converted into tons, it is less than 200 million tons. The land in the four provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, and Guangxi has sufficient If the supply of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is not enough, and he can't hand over 200 million tons of grain, he might as well just jump into the Yangtze River.

Chongzhen gritted his teeth and said: "Fang Yizhi is a great talent, and he is quite qualified to be a governor of Huguang. However, the bandits in the northwest are getting more and more violent, and Jiannu is about to move around in southern Liaoning. Let's let it go and talk about it later." .By the way, Yang Aiqing, Huang Long, the commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town, sent a memorial, saying that Jiannu is frequently transferred in southern Liaoning and may attack Lushun at any time. What do you think?"

Yang Menglong wanted to say: "I'll just lie down and watch!" He was secretly amused. He was obviously very excited, but he pretended to be serious and changed the subject. Big boss, aren't you tired of wearing such a mask all day?
(End of this chapter)