In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing's reign, Zhao Wenhua, a stalwart member of the Strict Party, wrote a letter to impeach Li Mo, the Minister of Civil Affairs.
The reason for impeachment was that the title of Li Mo's policy test for selecting people in the Ministry of Civil Affairs was: "The Han Dynasty conquered all barbarians, but wasted at home; the Tang Dynasty attacked Huai and Cai, but his career was not over."
After seeing this topic, Emperor Jiajing was furious, thinking that Li Mo was attacking his military policy, dismissed Li Mo from the position of Minister of Civil Affairs, and sent him to prison. Li Mo died in prison a few days later.
The struggle between the two parties became more intense, and the two parties fought fiercely for the vacant position of Minister of Civil Affairs.
As a result, Emperor Jiajing once again used his "imperial skills" and ordered Li Ben, a cabinet scholar who was inclined to Qingliu, to concurrently serve as Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. The struggle between the government and the opposition was temporarily settled.
However, the aftermath of the fight between the two parties spread, and the fierce fight was only temporarily suppressed.
At this time, Su Ze was playing chess with Wang Xijue on Jingjiang Island.
Wang Xijue's chess skills were not as good as Li Zhi's. With Su Ze's Level 5 chess skills, he was defeated by Su Ze's nerve-wracking chess moves.
Wang Xijue saw that his chess eyes were blocked and the entire upper right corner was eaten. He surrendered and said, "Rulin, can you stop dragging me into playing chess? I haven't won these days."
Su Ze laughed, threw away the chess piece and said, "Then it's a draw!"
Wang Xijue smiled bitterly, put away the chess pieces and said, "Brother Su, have you thought about it? If you really don't want silk, do you want my Wang family's ten sand ships to transport silk?"
Su Ze nodded and said, "Of course, since it's been decided, there's no reason to go back on it!"
It turned out that after Su Ze agreed to escort the Wang family's silk ship back to Shanghai County, he quickly changed his mind after seeing the Wang family's fleet.
The "sand boats" used by the Wang family to transport silk were used for inland navigation in the Jiangnan area.
The cabin of this kind of ship is very wide and the deck is strong. It has better sailing performance in the Yangtze River than the Yong ship.
The most important thing is that this is a boat with both sail and oar power. When the wind is against the wind or there is no wind, the oars on both sides can also be used for rowing. This is very practical when fighting on the river.
Su Ze took a fancy to the ten sand ships of the Wang family at a glance, and proposed to Wang Xijue that he did not want one-tenth of the silk from the Wang family's ships, but only wanted these ten Wang family ships.
Wang Xijue naturally agreed.
Su Ze sent fifty soldiers to escort the Wang family's fleet back to Shanghai. Wang Xijue did not follow the fleet back, but stayed with Su Ze to help him plan logistics.
Su Ze had to admit that Wang Xijue, who could serve as the chief minister of the cabinet in later generations, was born to be a logistics material.
When Wang Xijue took over the logistics work, he quickly became involved with County Magistrate Li, and the cooperation with Jingjiang was very smooth.
He was very fair when distributing military supplies, and he was always able to quickly handle disputes in the military camp. Soon the entire army was very convinced of his ability and supported his distribution plan.
Under Wang Xijue's preparation, Su Ze did not continue to be stationed in Jingjiang County, but built a barracks in the fishing village of Gushan Town.
Su Ze recruited fifty young and strong people on the island who had a deep hatred for the Japanese pirates, and added them to the military camp to train together. He also formulated a training program for daily patrols on the island. During this period, he eliminated more Japanese pirates floating down from the upper reaches. There are more than thirty Japanese pirates.
Just as the two of them finished playing chess, Lin Deyang hurried into the tent and informed Su Ze of the news that the Japanese pirates had invaded Jiangdu County and that there was a fire in Changpingcang outside Yangzhou City.
"What!? Changpingcang fire? Twenty thousand grains were burned to the ground?"
The chess piece in Wang Xijue's hand fell to the ground, and he said angrily: "How did these water transport officials become! The mediocre people are ruining the country!"
What is the concept of 20,000 taels of grain? The current price of rice is 2 taels of silver per day. If 20,000 taels of grain were burned, the entire 40,000 taels of silver were burned.
This was another huge blow to the Ming Dynasty, which was even worse.
Wang Xijue said: "Food prices in Jiangnan will rise sharply again this year, and I'm afraid there will be another famine."
Su Ze asked: "Is there also famine in Jiangnan?"
Wang Xijue sighed and said: "Rulin doesn't know something. Although Jiangnan is known as the land of fish and rice, in fact Jiangnan no longer produces much food."
"Why?"
"Because it's not profitable to grow food. You can only make a lot of money growing food in Jiangnan. The price of rice has not risen for many years. Let alone tenants who rent other people's land, it is our own land. If it is used to grow food, It’s also a loss.”
"The land in our Jiangnan area is either planted with cotton or mulberry trees. In recent years, we have stopped growing grain."
Su Ze understood what Wang Xijue meant. Jiangnan's economy was more developed. Unlike Fujian, Jiangnan had already formed a market with silver as the main currency.
Later, when Zhang Juzheng carried out his political reform, he first implemented the tax conversion into silver in Southern Zhili. In fact, during the Jiajing period, many miscellaneous taxes in Jiangnan had already been converted into silver and turned over.
But we are a poor silver country and have been short of silver for a long time. In this situation of currency shortage, the income from farming is too low, and the developed silk and cotton textile industry in Jiangnan is too profitable. Therefore, the Jiangnan region was once a land of fish and rice and the world's granary. , food is no longer grown.
The Tongzhou Prefecture, Taizhou Prefecture, and Yangzhou Prefecture areas that were ravaged by Japanese pirates have become the most important grain-producing areas in the entire southern Zhili.
With the current situation, not to mention this year's summer and autumn grain harvests, there will definitely be no harvest. The 20,000 days of grain that was supposed to be transported to the capital is gone. Even if the imperial court is exempted from this, it will definitely have to collect more grain from Jiangnan and bring it to the capital.
Now there will definitely be less food in South Zhili, and as a result, food prices will definitely rise.
As soon as Wang Xijue finished speaking, the magistrate of Jingjiang County walked into the military camp.
"As the training envoy of the Su regiment, there is a fire in the Yangzhou granary. I am planning to recruit refugees to open fields in Jingjiang. What do you think?"
Sure enough, there were smart people in the Ming Dynasty. As soon as County Magistrate Li heard the news, he grasped the key issue of food. He said to Su Ze: "As long as we use the banner of regiment training envoy, many refugees around will come to Jingjiang."
Su Ze also nodded and said, "In that case, I will also open up a military camp near Gushan Town."
After seeing off County Magistrate Li, Su Ze heard a familiar voice again.
"Mr. Zhuo Wu, why are you here in Jingjiang?"
Seeing the tired Li Zhi, Su Ze quickly greeted him and asked him to take charge of logistics at the training camp of the Shanghai County Anti-Japanese and Anti-Smuggling Team? Why did he come to Jingjiang?
Li Zhi was followed by Xu Shixing. He smiled and said, "I'm here to deliver good things to Rulin!"
"What good stuff?"
Li Zhi pulled Su Ze to the dock and said, "I came with the Wang family's sand boat. The Wang family had settled the customs duties a few days ago and left the sand boat to us."
"It happened that my brother-in-law sent this thing, so I personally escorted it over by boat."
Su Ze followed Li Zhi to the dock. When he saw the cannon on the bow of the sand ship, he exclaimed: "Folang machine gun? Where did this come from?"
Li Zhi said: "Didn't you ask your brother-in-law to collect Western firearms last time? My brother-in-law asked for help. These are Japanese pirate firearms seized in Zhejiang. But no one in Zhejiang knows how to use them, so the Customs Department asked them to come over."
"I once heard you talk about the power of the Folan cannon. After getting these two cannons, I immediately escorted them here."
Su Ze boarded the sand ship and inspected the two Franco cannons. When he saw the Portuguese inscriptions on the cannons, he knew that the Japanese pirates had bought them from the Portuguese.
The wear on the gun body is not serious, and the barrel is not cracked. Judging from the inscription, this gun was not in use for a long time. It is estimated that it was captured by the Ming army after only a few uses.
"When Mr. Yangming put down the Chenhao Rebellion, he already forged Folang machine guns. Why can't the Zhejiang Ming Army know how to use them?"
Li Zhi sighed and said: "When did the Chenhao Rebellion happen? How has the Imperial Guards become corrupted over the years? If it were still like it was when Mr. Yangming was around, the Japanese rebellion would have been put down long ago."
Su Ze thought for a while, and it seemed that it was indeed the case. How far had the combat effectiveness of the Ming Dynasty's official army reached? Even the most common military formation drills and the knowledge of setting up camps have become "untold secrets" of the general family. These military The Guards kept their military technology to themselves and refused to communicate and learn. Many things were lost when they were "passed down" in the family.
Just like the original Changning Guard, these seven generations have relied on a military training manual from the early days of the Kingdom. This is because hundreds of households in the Changning Guard have carefully trained soldiers in all generations, so that this manual can be passed down completely.
The predecessor Lin Baihu once went to other health institutes to learn from each other, but he was blocked by the other party's "family knowledge cannot be passed on to others".
In addition, the Ming army also developed a trend of exaggerated "battle formation fighting tricks" in training.
The so-called tricks are similar to those used in modern martial arts. In the military books of the Song Dynasty, this was strictly prohibited from being practiced in the military, and was even strictly prohibited from being used on the battlefield.
The reason is naturally very simple. The battlefield is a place where life is fought. If you use a set of sword skills in the battle, before you can dance the sword well, you will be shot into a hedgehog by the opponent's archer.
The training of the Yuanyang Formation is very simple. The axe-hand only needs to practice the action of cutting people, and the shield-hand only needs to practice blocking.
Qi Jiguang repeatedly emphasized in the "New Book of Jixiao" that soldiers are not allowed to use various "tricks" on the battlefield, and he even prohibits so-called "odd weapons" from being used on the battlefield.
This kind of truth, which had been clearly understood in military books of the Tang and Song Dynasties, was still revived in the military camps of the Ming Dynasty. The reason was that there was a gap in military technology, and laymen led experts, making these majestic-looking "flower postures" become a common practice in various circles. A kind of "secret trick".
As early as the Zhengde period, the Ming Dynasty was able to cast its own Folan cannon, and it was also used by Wang Yangming to quell the Nanchang Rebellion.
But in the past few decades, Zhejiang actually captured the Fo Lang machine gun and could not use it.
Su Ze still accepted the two Franco cannons. Fang Wanghai attached great importance to these two cannons. He also bought gunpowder and projectiles from Nanjing and gave them to Su Ze.
Su Ze looked at the deck of the sand ship again. The wood used in the Wang family's ships was very strong. Su Ze immediately ordered the craftsmen in the army to get on the ship and try to fix the Folan cannon on the sand ship.
After Li Zhi delivered the sand ships and artillery, he returned to Shanghai with the Yong ship, while Xu Shixing stayed in Jingjiang to watch Su Ze train troops.
Xu Shixing also said to Su Ze openly:
"Brother Rulin, I want to watch you train and train a regiment to defend your hometown when you return to Suzhou."
Su Ze did not have any dissatisfaction with Xu Shixing's stealing skills from his master, but said generously: "Brother Rumo, no matter how much he learns from him, Su has no knack for training. He only uses dead strength."
But when Xu Shixing actually watched Su Ze's military training, he realized how difficult it is to learn the so-called "death force".
Being able to share joys and sorrows with soldiers is difficult for most officers of the Ming Dynasty to do, and such a seemingly simple thing as clearing rewards and punishments is not as easy to do as it seems.
In the following daily drills and logistical supplies, Su Ze also had to frequently treat soldiers and nearby people, and make various night watch and patrol plans. Xu Shixing soon understood why Su Ze's unit was so strong in combat.
Not to mention military pay, Su Ze spent a huge amount of money on logistics and training for each soldier. The Ming Dynasty could not afford to raise such soldiers!
Even if they could afford it, those officers would waste all the money. Another important reason why the Anti-Japanese and Anti-Smuggling Corps was able to quickly form a combat effectiveness was the twenty guards brought by Su Ze.
This group of guards headed by Lin Deyang were all elites selected by Lin Mojun. They were originally trained by Changning Guard as grassroots officers.
It is also because of their excellent quality that they can quickly form combat effectiveness on the battlefield. Otherwise, Su Ze alone would not be able to train such elites in a short period of time.
Xu Shixing quickly gave up the idea of learning military training. He peacefully followed Su Ze to learn military affairs as counselor. Starting from formulating combat plans, he learned the most basic military techniques from Su Ze.
After giving up eating and becoming a fat man, Xu Shixing's academic progress was exaggerated. He was also very talented as a staff officer, and also very talented in intelligence work. Xu Shixing could always extract complex descriptions from the refugees. , peeling off the cocoons and integrating the real intelligence from the front line.
Su Ze clicked his tongue and marveled. The quality of Jiangnan's talents in this era was indeed terrifying. He was worthy of being the future chief minister of the cabinet, and he was definitely not a person who was just a vegetarian.
From the intelligence compiled by Xu Shixing, Xu Hai's men encountered resistance in their attack on Zhenjiang. Yang Bo, the Minister of War in Nanjing, personally supervised the battle in Zhenjiang at the age of seventy and defended Zhenjiang to the death.
Although Zhenjiang was defended, the Yangtze River Navy went into battle rashly and was attacked by Japanese pirate boats and annihilated. Yang Bo immediately burned down the Jingkou Marine Corps camp, blocking the Japanese pirates' plan to seize Jingkou Ferry.
Beigu Pavilion in Jingkou was also burned in the fire. The Japanese pirates' attack on Zhenjiang was blocked and they broke into pieces and spread towards the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Su Ze looked at the map, and it was his turn to make a move.
(End of chapter)
