In the blink of an eye, at the end of April, Jimo Yingcheng changed its owner, but it did not cause much waves. The life of the people in the city is still as usual, working hard every day. The only difference is that the Ming army soldiers stationed in the city are no longer the old veterans, but new army officers with neat military appearance and strict military discipline.
In the Councilor's Mansion, Wang Yunhe, who was picked up, held his son Liu Sheng and watched the koi in the pond. Shang Shan and Ruoshui stood by the pond, throwing fish food into the water from time to time, causing several koi to fight for it in the water. Liu Sheng, who was already ten months old, giggled happily when he saw the koi carps splashing in the water from time to time, and stretched out his little hands as if to go down and grab a handful.
"This kid."
Wang Yunhe looked at her son in her arms lovingly, and then said to Shang Shan and Ruoshui: "I have to take care of the child these days, and I will leave my husband to you, do you understand."
Shang Shan and Ruoshui's cheeks turned red and they nodded shyly.
At this moment, a flag commander from the Guards Battalion came over, clasped his fists and said, "Mrs. Qi Zhen, your Excellency has sent someone to deliver a message. I will go to Anton Guard for inspection in the next few days, and I won't be returning home."
Wang Yunhe said he understood, and sent the flag commander down. Shangshan and Ruoshui over there felt a sense of loss when they heard this. Wang Yunhe said in a reproachful tone: "It's true, husband. I just got the rank of general, and it's like this He did it desperately, just a few days after returning from Dasongwei, he went to Antonwei again."
Shang Shan said: "My husband is a great hero. Naturally, he cannot be restrained by his family. Sister, there is no need to blame."
Ruoshui said: "Speaking of which, my husband is so busy, has something happened again? Stop fighting and killing people, it makes people feel scared."
Wang Yunhe saw that the sun was getting a little higher, so he invited Shang Shan and Ruoshui to go back to the house. As he walked, he said: "My husband has taken over the Jimo camp, and we have to reorganize it from top to bottom. Naturally, there are many things. Like Anton Wei and Da Songwei was originally under the jurisdiction of Mao Xingyi, Wang Ye, and Dong Bihui. It was a mess and the people were in dire straits. Now my husband has taken over and said that he wants to make a comprehensive rectification. Just look at it, my husband is probably going to be in trouble for a while. return."
Shang Shan and Ruoshui sighed, and Wang Yunhe also thought about it in his heart. The three women sat in the room, looking at each other speechlessly.
At the same time, Liu Yan, accompanied by Miao Shao and his troops, came to Andong Acropolis.
After Liu Yan was promoted to the rank of General of the Jimo Camp, he appointed Zhang Yi as the conduct officer of the Andong Guard and Wang Bo as the conduct officer of the Dasong Guard, and transferred the Zuoying and Youying to guard these two places. Liu Yan's comprehensive reorganization of Anton Guard and Dasong Guard also officially started with the entry of Zuoying and Rightying.
"Sir, currently Anton Guard only has one Shijiu Qianhu Station under its jurisdiction. The other three original Qianhu Stations were all abandoned during the Wanli Period. Part of the farmland of the military garrison in the three abandoned stations was merged into the Shijiu Qianhu Station. , most of them have disappeared, and were probably occupied by the surrounding gentry and powerful people."
Liu Yan stood on the wall of Andong Acropolis, looking at the dry land in the distance, and said, "Can I still find the information about the previous military camps?"
"All gone."
Zhang Yi said: "My subordinates came here a few days before you, and searched almost all the files in Andong Acropolis, but found nothing. It should be that when Mao Xingyi was in charge of this place, most of them were destroyed for the sake of convenience. file."
Liu Yan looked a little ugly. Without the original files as evidence, he had no way to recover the occupied military farmland.
"Has Zhang Qianhu been here?"
"Zhang Qianhu came here and counted the cultivated land in military camps and the conditions of military households in various parts of Andongwei. The situation is not very good. The average amount of cultivated land per household is only three acres. There are also many people in Wutian households. All of them are It is very miserable to be employed as a tenant by the gentry and powerful men everywhere."
Liu Yan pondered for a long time and said: "Immediately, as the ethics officer of Anton Guard, I ordered that all the gentry and powerful men in Anton Guard should take the initiative to return the occupied cultivated land within ten days!"
Zhang Yi said in surprise: "Sir, those gentry and powerful people will not pay attention to it. We have no evidence."
Liu Yan said coldly: "There is no evidence. You know it, I know it, but do those gentry and powerful people know it?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
Liu Yan said coldly: "The Great Song Guard has already started to take action, and the Anton Guard must also take action as soon as possible. Remember one thing: when dealing with these gentry and powerful men, you must not be soft or restrained!"
Zhang Yi looked at Liu Yan's cold expression and felt a chill in his heart.
On that day, notices were posted everywhere in the Andongwei, and the conduct officer Zhang Yi ordered the gentry, powerful men, and merchants in the Andongwei who had occupied the cultivated land of military households to immediately return it on their own initiative, otherwise they would bear the consequences!
Two days have passed, and everything in Anton Wei is as calm as water. The gentry, powerful people, and merchants all ignore it. The notice posted seems to be a joke, and no one takes it seriously.
But on the third day, the conduct officer Zhang Yi suddenly sent out troops. First, the homes of four large gentry families in Andong Acropolis were ransacked. More than 200 people from the four families were all tried in public. The four heads of the family and the main male members of the clan were arrested. , a total of thirty-eight people, were beheaded on the spot outside the north gate of Anton Acropolis, and the remaining more than one hundred people, regardless of men, women, old and young, were all sent to Tiechu Mountain to mine.
This news immediately made all the gentry and powerful people in Antonwei furious. Dozens of the gentry and powerful people who were well-known in Antonwei gathered in the ethics mansion and asked the ethics officer Zhang Yi to give an explanation.
In the main hall, a large pile of files was placed on the table in front of Zhang Yi. Zhang Yi picked up a file in front of everyone and said to everyone: "I posted a notice before, asking you to return the occupied property immediately. The army is plowing the land, but you ignore it. Okay, then I will go to each house to collect debts!"
"Do you know what this is?"
Zhang Yi slammed the file in his hand to the ground and shouted sternly: "Evidence! This is the original land deed of your family's farmland. I have an account of how much farmland each of your families has occupied. I will follow up one by one. You have calculated clearly, the four families in Anton Acropolis are the beginning, I want to see whether it is the king of the country who is tough on the law, whether I am tough on the knife, or it is your words!"
All the gentry and powerful men who had just come to ask questions in an aggressive manner just now shut their mouths. Everyone looked at Zhang Yi who was so angry that they were very confused: Didn't the former ethics officer say that all the files had been destroyed? Why are you still here?
"What are you thinking?"
Zhang Yi looked at the people who were winking at each other and said with a sneer: "The former ethics officer is Mao Xingyi's. Like Mao Xingyi, he is a money-grubbing person. You dare to believe his words? He is really ignorant!"
"There are only two options before you now. First: return the occupied cultivated land honestly within the specified period; second: wait at home for me to come to collect debts!"
After finishing speaking, Zhang Yi waved his hand and said goodbye, and the New Army soldiers outside the door rushed in and drove out dozens of gentry and powerful men.
"grown ups."
At this time, Liu Yan came out from behind the screen, smiled and said to Zhang Yi: "Well done, you have great authority."
Zhang Yi smiled sheepishly and said, "Sir, is this really possible?"
Liu Yan casually picked up a file, opened it and looked at it. He saw that it was full of blank pages, not a single big word, which was completely deceptive. Then he smiled and said to Zhang Yi: "As the saying goes: A thief has a guilty conscience. Especially if you are a thief with a guilty conscience." Under the premise that some people are already in trouble, those gentry and powerful people must be scared to death now and start to weigh the pros and cons. As long as you add more fire, they will definitely return every acre of cultivated land they have occupied."
"Please teach me, sir."
Liu Yan said: "It's very simple. From today on, you have to send people to search your homes every day. Today you will search one house, tomorrow you will search two houses, and so on. I don't think that by the third day, all those gentry and powerful people will be accountable. .”
Zhang Yi said puzzledly: "My subordinates may have something you don't want to hear: Why don't we just copy all the gentry and powerful people? Anyway, these people are not good people. If you want to punish their crimes, just look it up." There is evidence, why bother?”
Liu Yan smiled bitterly, he didn't want to do this, but once he started to completely ransack his house, the situation was out of his control. Today's Ming Dynasty is still the landlord class, that is, the gentry controls the grassroots political power, even the political power at the prefecture and county level. Even if Liu Yan has a strong army, he does not want to confront this huge force head-on.
Therefore, it is most appropriate to use the seizure of farmland occupied by the army to attack the power of the gentry. Lu Xiangsheng will also support him, which can avoid resistance and counterattack by the gentry group to the greatest extent.
Of course, these words would not be told to Zhang Yi. Liu Yan said: "You can't act arbitrarily in everything. You have to pay attention to strategy. This is how the matter will be handled. The Dasongwei side has already figured it out, and the Antonwei side has also figured it out. We need to speed up the progress.”
"yes!"
Sure enough, on the next day, when Zhang Yi's New Army officers began to ransack homes and arrest people in Shijiu Qianhusuo City, hundreds of people had gathered outside the gate of the guard's residence in Anton Guard City, all of whom were members of Anton Guards. The gentry, powerful men, and merchants all returned the occupied cultivated land to Zhang Yi with their land deeds.
In the next two days, people came to return it one after another. Zhang Yi mobilized troops and conducted on-site inspections according to the land deeds that were collected. In a few days, he recovered 280,000 acres of military farmland. Such an amount made Zhang Yi dumbfounded.
Liu Yan looked at a large table full of land deeds, his face was not very good, and he said: "Immediately send someone to contact the garrison officer Zhang Lei and ask Zhang Qianhu to come over as soon as possible and organize people to start reallocating farmland for military households."
"yes."
"In addition, the pier troops in various parts of the Anton Guard will also start to be disbanded as soon as possible. The Huolu pier defenders in various places will re-select young men from the military households to serve. The officers and soldiers of the new Zuoying Army will be fully stationed in various parts of the Anton Guard."
"yes!"
"Immediately review the small flag officers, chief flag officers, hundreds of households and other officials in various parts of the Andongwei. Anyone who has occupied farmland, emptied their pay, or squeezed military households will be dismissed on the spot, and the stolen money will be recovered. For serious cases, , you can deal with it as the opportunity arises, and I will ratify it."
"yes."
"Sir, there will probably be chaos here in Anton Wei. Those hundreds of household officials, chief banner officers and small banner officers are all local snakes and will not let it go. My subordinates are thinking that if it doesn't work, they will kill them all as a warning. I don't know. …”
Liu Yan said with a smile: "You are still too timid. If it were me, who would dare to disobey orders, gather them all in one place, kill dozens of people, and the rest will be honest!"
Zhang Yi was shocked.
In the following month, Liu Yan continued to inspect Andongwei and Dasongwei, and comprehensively eradicated the bad governance of the two guards. Basically, the military households in the two guards were allocated farmland, cattle, and farm tools, and the people's morale was greatly boosted.
At the same time, Wang Jing led the Chamber of Commerce to enter Andongwei and Dasongwei, supported the merchants of the two guards, and also won some people's hearts for Liu Yan.
However, for the officials and gentry of Anton Guard and Da Song Guard, this month seemed to be turbulent. The generals and officials from various places were desperate and began to gather servants and idlers to resist openly. There were also some who were timid and feared Liu Yan's reputation. The officials fled directly with their families.
When Liu Yan received the news, he was furious and immediately ordered Zhang Yi, the conduct officer of Anton Guard, and Wang Bo, the conduct officer of Dasong Guard, to send troops to suppress it.
Some people died, but not completely...
