In principle, the county magistrate cannot replace the six-room and three-shift teams and can only replace them because many of the government officials have been passed down from generation to generation.
However, special circumstances occurred in Guo County and three other counties, and the government officials almost died.
Therefore, Huang Yi could leave his manpower to serve as subordinate officials and government servants to control the three counties and vacate the county magistrate.
The remaining governors and young musketeers still have a task. They must spend half a year organizing and training a county security team of three to five hundred people that is not weaker than the ordinary Ming army.
The good news was sent, but the outcome was unknown. Chen Mengji knew that his life could be saved, but he was not sure whether he could still serve as an official.
Of course, he did not dare to go against Huang Yi's intention and fabricated identities and assigned positions to the people Huang Yi left behind.
However, the power of the county magistrate is limited and he can only give official positions.
For example, the county magistrate cannot provide officials such as Dian Shi and Zong Shu even if they are not in the upper echelons.
Huang Yi doesn't care about these, he believes that everything depends on strength.
In just half a year, Guo County had hundreds of armed forces that were not weaker than the Ming army. The three counties combined had a thousand and several hundred armed forces.
The entire grassroots level must be completely in the hands of the Xinghe Army.
Even if Chen Mengji, who had already been subdued, was not the county magistrate, it would not be harmful.
According to the rules of the Ming Dynasty, locals did not serve as local officials.
The county magistrates who have just arrived are all strangers, unfamiliar with the place, and may not even understand the local dialect. They have no money, no food, and no soldiers.
What can this kind of three-ignorant county do if it doesn't obey orders?
After the disaster, 20,000 to 30,000 people died in the three counties. After Huang Yi forcibly removed another 20,000 to 30,000 people, the remaining population was less than 150,000.
In addition, the large and wealthy households are gone, and the land conflict is no longer acute.
Land equalization is possible, but tax exemption is impossible. Taxes should be limited to no more than half of the output of each mu of land.
Charge so much?
In fact, not much, Huang Yi will issue a death order, and the cultivators must get half of the harvest.
If you have soldiers, you don't have to worry about not being able to collect food, but you must grasp a basic principle: the food reserves of Shengdou people must be able to sustain their survival.
In the late Ming Dynasty, if farmers could really get half of their harvest, why would they start an uprising?
In ancient times, the yield per mu was too low. In the north, if a family cultivated three to five acres of land, they would starve to death, and they would have to cultivate twenty or thirty acres of dry land.
The harvest is calculated based on the average yield of one stone of wheat, millet, and sorghum per mu. If the harvest falls by half, it will amount to more than ten stone.
There are seven or eight people in a family, and each person only needs two kilos of food per year on average. If they save some money and dig some wild vegetables to supplement the food, they can survive.
After the Xinghe Army took over the three counties, they counted the population and distributed part of the seized grain to farmers.
Because many farmers are extremely poor, they cannot survive the winter with their food reserves.
These grains are not free, they are loans, and they must be repaid next year when there is a harvest.
However, young adults who sign up and are selected to become temporary members of the county security team can receive five measures of wheat every month.
If you become a regular member of the team after three months due to good performance, you will not only receive five buckets of wheat rations a month, but you will also receive five coins of silver as military pay.
At the end of November, the Xinghe Army continued to advance toward southwest Shanxi.
Wang Kunjian, the chief eunuch of the Supervisory Army, was in the heart of the emperor. With him negotiating with the prefectures and counties along the way, he could not only get food, but also cattle and sheep as gifts from some wealthy families.
Therefore, the Xinghe army does not need to consume the food it carries, and can use the food to accommodate hungry people, refugees, and refugees and transport them to the base area.
The further to the southwest, the more refugees there are, many of whom have fled from Shaanxi, and there is no guarantee that there are spies for the bandits among them.
Because the spies sent reliable information, Zijinliang, Huntian Wang, Ba Da Wang, Lao Hui Hui, Shang Tian Long, Man Gypsophila, Guo Tian Xing and other 20 or 30 groups of top-notch bandits joined forces and gathered hundreds of thousands of people to besiege Xizhou and Puzhou. .
The Xinghe Army marched fifty miles a day, which was a relatively fast pace. It was impossible for any civilian or military general to impeach the Xinghe Army for being lazy or passive.
At this speed, it will definitely take half a month to reach Xizhou.
When the spies sent out the intelligence, the rogue bandits were besieging Xizhou. Huang Yi estimated that at least three days had passed since he received the intelligence, and Xizhou should have been captured by the rogue bandits.
What happens if the city is destroyed?
Don't destroy or establish, let the bandits solidly educate the miser-like dignitaries, landlords, and old wealth that it is not necessarily a bad thing.
The influx of refugees, disaster victims, and refugees is easy to deal with. Anyone with a family or a small family will gather together and send them to the base area.
All young adults and young men who were alone were arrested and handed over to the auxiliary soldiers for supervision of labor.
There will definitely be many spies among these people. It doesn't matter whether they have obtained any useful information, just make sure they can't go back.
Puzhou City is located on the east bank of the Yellow River and at the southern end of Shanxi Province. It was once the throat of Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty and one of the six majestic cities.
It's a pity that because of the lax military equipment and because the rogue bandits had sent men to lurk in the city in advance, they couldn't hold it for a day.
Wang Jiayin had been dead for several months at this time, and the bandits appointed King Zijin Liang as their leader.
Taking advantage of the favorable opportunity when the Yellow River froze, Zijinliang united with 20 or 30 rebel armed forces and fled from Shaanxi to Shanxi to defeat four counties and two states. For a time, they were in the limelight.
Shanxi has suffered better from natural and man-made disasters than Shaanxi. These four counties and two prefectures have not suffered from military disasters in many years, and there are many well-off families.
Rogue bandits cross the border like locusts, which are much more destructive than locusts. Hundreds of thousands of families who had been able to survive suddenly found themselves unable to survive.
In this world of ice and snow, there is no food, no shelter, and only a dead end.
All the food has been looted by the bandits. If you don't follow the bandits and obey the orders obediently, you will end up freezing to death or starving to death.
Therefore, there is never an accurate estimate of the number of rogue bandits. At the end of the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign, the number of rogue bandits that plagued Shanxi increased sharply several times, and the total number was probably hundreds of thousands.
In fact, most of the number of rogue bandits is an illusion. Even if there are no officers and soldiers to encircle and suppress them, the land will be starved to death in just one winter.
There are 400,000 in total, and it would be great if 150,000 survive until spring.
Zijin Liang, Huntian Wang, Ba Dawang, Lao Huihui, etc. found out that Shanxi territory was being robbed, so of course they refused to retreat and came towards Taiyuan.
The bandit leaders such as Hun Tian Wang, Ba Jingang, and Sky Monkey were very unlucky. Their team just happened to encounter Huang Yi's men.
It wasn't a big war breaking out, nor was it an encounter.
The Xinghe army sent out sentries in a radius of fifty miles, and spies were already all over Shanxi. How could they not discover the rogue bandits who held tens of thousands of refugees hostage.
To fight against rogue bandits, one must fight against old thieves, and anyone who owns a horse or mule can identify him as such.
So the Xinghe Army launched a cavalry raid. The cavalry and mounted infantry didn't care about the refugees all over the mountains and plains, and went straight to the team of one or two thousand mules and horses.
At this time, the combat effectiveness of the rogue bandits was very weak, and it was by no means what it was after fifteen years of Chongzhen. At that time, even the famous Sun Chuanting was defeated and committed suicide.
