The land from Shanhaiguan to the west of the Liao River was set up as a separate "Liaoxi Town". It is obvious that His Majesty was afraid of the military power of Liaodong, so he split it.
Although this plan was proposed by Sun Chengzong, anyone with a discerning eye can see that this is actually what Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao himself meant, and he just said it through Sun Chengzong's mouth.
Although the eunuchs led by Chief Assistant Gu Bingqian and Cui Chengxiu may be quite unhappy with Sun Chengzong, Mr. Sun Ge has recently won His Majesty's trust and has threatened their status.
But there was no need for them to go against the emperor on this matter. After all, it was not their own business.
Although Xiong Tingbi wanted to stop it, it was difficult for him to change alone, so he finally gave up speaking out.
Although He Zongyan of the neutral faction questioned whether this would cause unrest in Liaodong, this rational question did not cause any waves at all.
In the end, the cabinet vote on the establishment of "Liaoxi Town" came to the Secretary of Ceremonies.
Recently, His Majesty has repeatedly taken action against the Honorable Group, not only reducing the military power in their hands, but also taking out the Beijing camp for training if there is nothing to do. Now he is directly taking action against Liaodong.
This left several eunuchs in charge of the ceremony at a loss.
Wang Tiqian, the chief seal officer of the Supervisor of Ceremonies, said: "Your Majesty's move is indeed a bit ridiculous. How can the Lord of Liao be such an easy-to-deal with? Before, he just defaulted on Liaodong's military expenses, but the Liaodong army dared to mutiny and rob the horse market and transport copper ships. Besiege the Yamen and kill the imperial officials!"
"Now if they really set up 'Liaoxi Town', wouldn't it be a big deal?"
Li Yongzhen, the eunuch of Bingbi, said: "It may not be so bad. The Duke of Liao has previously replaced his brother Li Huaizhong as the guard general of Shanhaiguan with Mao Wenlong, the commander-in-chief of Liaoyang. He should also want to ease the relationship with the imperial court."
Wang Tigan shook his head and said: "That's why the matter is even worse! If Li Huaizhong was stationed at Shanhaiguan, he wouldn't have done anything too outrageous. After all, he is from the Li family in Liaodong. If he mutiny is equivalent to the Li family's rebellion, The Duke of Liao will still have some scruples."
"This Mao Wenlong is different. He is just a subordinate of Duke Liao. If he really does something outrageous, Duke Liao can also distance himself from the relationship on the surface!"
At this time, Wei Zhongxian was closing his eyes and recuperating. On the surface, he was calm and relaxed, but in fact, he was also tangled in his heart at this moment.
From the bottom of his heart, he did not want Li Xianzhong to collapse, because once the pattern of "Wei Zhongxian was in charge at home and Li Xianzhong was in charge at outside" was broken.
There is no guarantee that His Majesty will not attack him next.
But he knew very well that there was a reason why Zhu Youxiao went against the norm and started training the new army and wanted to solve the Liaodong problem.
According to Wang Huazhen, His Majesty's health has already begun to deteriorate. He often wakes up in the middle of the night, suffers from excessive sweating and insomnia, and feels weak all over.
It should be the sequelae of excessive use of aphrodisiacs when His Majesty first took the throne.
Although Wang Huazhen has been treating Zhu Youxiao, it is not effective.
According to Dr. Wang’s many years of experience, it seems that the royal family of Zhu Ming has a hereditary disease, which has caused His Majesty’s body to be incurable for a long time.
Starting from the Hongxi Emperor Zhu Gaochi, most emperors not only had short lifespans, but also were unsatisfactory in terms of their heirs.
Jingtai, Tianshun, Hongzhi, and Jiajing were all descended from a single son, and Emperor Zhengde had no heirs; only Hongxi, Xuande, Chenghua, and Wanli had more descendants.
The only ones with longer lifespans were Jiajing and Wanli.
Because the two emperors Hongwu and Yongle lived long lives.
Despite being unusually obese and in chronic poor health, Emperor Hongxi lived to be 48 years old, much longer than most of his descendant emperors.
Therefore, Wang Huazhen boldly speculated that this hereditary disease should have been passed down from Emperor Zhu Gaochi of Hongxi.
It was precisely because of Zhu Youxiao's poor health that all the princes and princesses who were born died.
Except that Queen Zhang Yan’s eldest son Zhu Ciran was born stillborn!
The emperor's second son Zhu Ciyan, born to the imperial concubine Fan, also died a few days after his birth.
In addition, three other princesses also died young.
Zhang Yan's stillbirth was indeed caused by Wei Zhongxian asking Wang Huazhen to do anything, but he had not harmed the other princes and princesses.
According to Wang Huazhen's estimation, Emperor Tianqi's lifespan should not be too long, but after all, he is still young, so delaying it for ten or eight years should not be a big problem.
However, Li Xianzhong, the Duke of Liao, was too young, less than 27 years old at this time.
Emperor Tianqi Zhu Youzhao knew that his health was deteriorating and had a premonition that he would not survive Li Xianzhong, so he went against the norm and took the risk of weakening Liaodong.
Wei Zhongxian said: "Since Your Majesty is determined to weaken Liaodong, it is useless even if we oppose it. I am afraid that Liaoxi Town will have to be established!"
"However, we don't have a suitable candidate for the commander-in-chief of Liaoxi anyway, so we might as well betray the Duke of Liao to save face."
The establishment of "Liaoxi Town" was quickly approved.
But who will serve as the commander-in-chief of Liaoxi Town has become a big problem.
Liaoxi Town has jurisdiction over Shanhaiguan and Guangning. Xiong Tingbi suggested that one of the two generals, Mao Wenlong and Luo Yiguan, be selected as the chief military officer of Liaoxi Town.
But no one wants to go to Liaoxi at this time. This is poaching Li Xianzhong's flesh. Who dares to go?
Naturally, they would not recommend their own people to go, so they would have to choose one of these two people.
This Mao Wenlong was a close confidant of Li Xianzhong, so many people followed Sun Chengzong and chose Luo Yiguan, who was relatively less famous.
These two men were both Li Xianzhong's generals, although they were distantly related. But no matter who serves as the commander-in-chief of Liaoxi, Liaoxi Town is probably still in the hands of Li Xianzhong.
Everyone in the cabinet knew this very well, but at this time they were not willing to offend Li Xianzhong too much!
Although Luo Yiguan's relationship with Li Xianzhong is not that close on the surface, after all, he has been in Liaodong for a long time, and he may have been Li Xianzhong's person for a long time.
Zhu Youxiao was still dissatisfied with this choice.
In the end, he decided to restore the previously abolished Ningyuan, appointed Zhu Hai, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong who had been driven out of Liaodong by Li Xianzhong, as the commander-in-chief of western Liaoning, and placed the seat of Liaoxi Town in Ningyuan Guard.
His decision was beyond everyone's expectations.
Not only that, he also established the governor of western Liaoning, which not only separated it from Liaodong militarily, but also separated it politically.
He also appointed Bi Zisu, the censor of the right capital of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, as governor of western Liaoning.
I have to say that Zhu Youxiao's move really made Li Xianzhong very uncomfortable.
Although adjustments have been made in advance, Shanhaiguan and Guangning still have 22,000 troops.
In addition to the loss of men and horses, more than 800,000 people and 1.4 million acres of land in western Liaoning will also be stripped from Liaodong.
This made the civil and military officials in Liaodong intolerable!
Li Sanshun said: "The imperial court is pressing us step by step. If we give in again this time, I'm afraid they will attack Liaodong directly next!"
Zhang Wenbing, the governor of Liaodong who lost a large area of territory, also said angrily: "I'm afraid it won't be long before Bi Zisu, Zhu Hai and others replace the civil and military officials in western Liaoning. We can't just sit back and wait for death?"
The words of Li Sanshun and Zhang Wenbing also expressed the aspirations of the officials in Liaodong.
Who can support the Ming Dynasty with enough salary?
In recent years, Li Xianzhong and Yan Mingtai have been using various methods to distribute money to Lidong officials at all levels. They have long been on the Li family's chariot.
Seeing the excited crowd, Li Xianzhong was very satisfied. This was the effect he wanted.
Now it seems that Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao has deviated from the trajectory of history. He is playing with fire!
Li Xianzhong said: "Don't worry, everyone, as long as I am still in Liaodong, I will ensure that the prosperity, wealth and industry of our brothers will be guaranteed. No one can take it away."
"From now on, the monthly salary of soldiers in Liaodong will be increased from the original 1 and a half taels to 2 taels, and the shortfall will be made up by the Liao government. The monthly salary of generals will also be increased by 30%."
"The governor's yamen of Liaodong and officials at all levels under the Duke of Liao's government will directly receive three times the imperial salary as 'integrity-supporting silver' from the government of Liao."
The annual salary of a seventh-grade county magistrate in the Ming Dynasty was only 45 taels. He did not use the 45 taels alone. There were only a few official officials in a county, and the county magistrate had to pay for the rest of the magistrates.
Even the second-grade governor of Liaodong only has an annual salary of 288 taels. This amount of money is probably not enough to support himself, let alone serve as an official.
Therefore, it is not surprising that corrupt officials are everywhere in the Ming Dynasty. If you are not corrupt, you will not be able to survive.
Originally, part of the increased Liaodong commercial tax collected by Li Xianzhong was used as bonuses for officials, but now their basic salaries have been directly increased.
Now that people's minds have changed, Li Xianzhong directly improved the treatment of all officials and soldiers in Liaodong, and people's hearts naturally changed.
In this way, whoever wants to drive them out of Liaodong will really fight hard.
He expressed his position again: "Don't worry, I have my own arrangements for matters in western Liaoning. Just wait and see the good show."
Zhu Hai only brought 500 servants to station in Ningyuan, but Ningyuan was the administrative seat of western Liaoning after all. In addition to the 2,000 people originally stationed here, he also transferred 1,000 people from Mao Wenlong and Luo Yiguan to garrison Ningyuan.
At the same time, Bi Zisu's governor's office in western Liaoning was also located in Ningyuanwei.
Originally, officials in western Liaoning were able to draw commissions from taxes. Naturally, these incomes were lost when Bi Zisu came.
Naturally, they were unwilling to do so, so they basically obeyed and disobeyed Bi Zisu's instructions.
Moreover, the officials in Liaodong next door had their annual salary increased three times, which made them even more unbalanced.
Strikes began one after another, and the entire western Liaoning region was almost paralyzed!
Originally, Guangning was home to Ma Shi, but since the establishment of Liaoxi Town, neither merchants from the Ming Dynasty nor Mongolians came here. They all went to Kaiyuan, making the place suddenly deserted.
Compared to officials, ordinary soldiers are even more angry!
The monthly salary in Liaodong next door has increased to 2 taels, and now their monthly salary of 1 tael and 5 taels is still in arrears.
Although the Duke of Liao had directly paid the back wages to them at the beginning of the year, the court did not know about it.
The officers and soldiers who got more and more angry after thinking about it all approached Bi Zisu, the newly arrived governor of western Liaoning, and Zhu Hai, the commander-in-chief of western Liaoning, to ask for pay.
The equipment of ordinary soldiers in Liaoxi Town was no worse than that of Zhu Hai's servants, and the two sides quickly started fighting.
After all, there were only a few servants, so they were afraid of using the knife for fear of further intensifying the conflict.
After a while, they were beaten to pieces.
Facing the excited soldiers, Zhu Hai chose to stay away from the edge for the time being.
Finally, he escaped from Ningyuan City under the cover of 500 servants.
It didn't matter that he left, but he left Bi Zisu with the Ming army asking for pay.
Soon these soldiers tied Governor Bi to the tower of Ningyuan.
Bi Zisu had just arrived in Ningyuan not long ago. He was not a rich man himself, so naturally he didn't have much money.
After hearing the news, Guo Guang, deputy envoy of Ningqian Military Preparation, came to admonish these soldiers.
He said: "Brothers, Governor Bi has only been in office for more than a month, and the salary arrears have nothing to do with him! Please let Governor Bi go!"
At this time, a boss said: "How come it has nothing to do with him? Since Bi Zisu took office, all the businessmen in western Liaoning have fled, the horse market has also been shut down, and the brothers' income has dropped sharply!"
"This is all caused by the establishment of Liaoxi Town by the imperial court!"
Guo Guang couldn't persuade him at first sight, so he had to ask Bi Zisu to write a letter to the court asking for additional pay for the 22,000 soldiers in Liaoxi Town.
Then he went to the capital in person to deliver the message!
While hoarding guards in front of the route, they discovered Zhu Hai and others.
After explaining their purpose, Mao Wenlong finally released them from Shanhaiguan.
Soon after, news of the mutiny in western Liaoning reached the capital.
This was such a big deal that Xiong Tingbi, the Secretary of the Ministry of War, did not dare to delay and reported to the cabinet overnight.
Chief Assistant Gu Bingqian convened a meeting with officials from the cabinet and the Ministry of Revenue overnight.
Emperor Tianqi acted too hastily and eventually caused a mutiny.
But they can't blame the emperor. If something like this happened, they still have to clean up the mess.
Tian Ji, the Minister of Household Affairs, first asked: "Xiong Benbing, please confirm whether the mutiny was the 4,000 people of Ning Yuanwei or the 22,000 people of the entire Liaoxi Town?"
Xiong Tingbi said: "Guo Guang, Ning's deputy military envoy, asked the commander-in-chief Mao Wenlong when he left Shanhaiguan. He said that this was the intention of all the soldiers in western Liaoning. They also requested the imperial court to abolish the town of western Liaoning!"
Tian Ji scratched his head and said: "If it were the whole town in western Liaoning, it would have to pay 200,000 taels of silver. This year, His Majesty organized the new army and emptied Taicang. The Ministry of Revenue can't afford so much money now?"
If the entire Liaoxi town mutinied, things would be a big deal. Although the previous Liaodong mutiny was also excessive, after all, it only killed a few Sesame Mung Bean officials.
They have now kidnapped the governor of western Liaoning and driven away the commander-in-chief of western Liaoning. Not only are they asking for pay, but they are also openly asking the court to abolish the town of western Liaoning.
The key is not the 22,000 people in Liaoxi Town. If you say that they don’t have the support of the Duke of Liao, who would believe it?
Now it is not a matter of whether to give the 200,000 taels of silver or not.
Gu Bingqian said: "Sun Ge Lao Liaoxi Town was established at your request repeatedly. What do you think about this matter?"
Sun Chengzong said: "Whether this matter is suppressed or appeased is of great importance. I think we should prepare for two strategies, suppress and appease. Your Majesty will make the final decision, right?"
This matter is indeed very difficult. Although 200,000 taels of silver is not much, it is not just Liaoxi Town that owes wages.
If Liaoxi is reissued, there will probably be trouble in the towns in Jingying and Jiubian. Will it be reissued then? But if troops are sent to suppress this mutiny, there are 22,000 people in Liaoxi Town and there is a strong Shanhaiguan. Who do you want to suppress it?
The only one in the imperial court who could conquer western Liaoning was Li Xianzhong's Liaodong Town, but this incident made it clear that Li Xianzhong was behind it.
He was deliberately trying to embarrass himself!
Soon Zhu Youxiao asked everyone to retreat, but he left Sun Chengzong alone.
At this time, only Sun Chengzong can be relied on!
Zhu Youxiao said: "Mr. Sun Ge, if we let the Yulin camp go north, how sure are we that we can quell the rebellion?"
Sun Chengzong personally patrolled Shanhaiguan. Although it was easier to attack from the south than the north, with the strength of the Liaodong Army, the Yulin Camp had no chance at all.
But at this time, he didn't want to hit Zhu Youxiao too much.
He said: "The Yulin camp has only a short period of time to form an army. Moreover, the Dutch are not yet fully equipped with the Suifa guns. The Shanhaiguan city defense is strong. If we attack by force, I am afraid that there is only a 30% chance of winning at most."
Zhu Youxiao knew very well that his current strength would make it difficult to solve this mutiny by force, unless he summoned the elites of the nine sides to attack Shanhaiguan.
But this would directly anger Li Xianzhong and even force him to rebel.
Just when he was in a dilemma, news came that the Yellow River had burst its banks.
During the Ming Dynasty, the bed of the Yellow River rose and formed a hanging river, which posed a great threat to Xuzhou City.
There is a saying in Xuzhou: "If you are not afraid of danger from swords and soldiers, you are afraid of danger from fish and turtles."
Viewed from the city, the embankment looks like a raised cauldron. The water around it rises, and ground springs gush out, overflowing even without rain. The plague of ants can sink the city of Xuzhou in an instant, and the people will suffer disaster.
Due to the money shortage of the imperial court in recent years, the river embankments near Xuzhou have not been significantly renovated.
On August 19, the fourth year of Tianqi's reign, the Kuishan embankment burst, and the Yellow River flooded into Xuzhou City from the southeast. In an instant, the city was filled with ocean, and the water was one foot or three feet deep. All the official residences and houses were destroyed, and countless people drowned.
Then there were continuous heavy rains, and people near Xuzhou had no choice but to take refuge in Yanzhou.
In the past two years, Wang Xifan has been recruiting believers near Yanzhou as the King of Hejian. Now the Yellow River is overflowing and there are refugees everywhere.
After Wang Xifan received the order from the Intelligence Department, he quickly launched an uprising in the name of the White Lotus Sect near Mata Lake near Juye.
Wang Xifan's rebel army directly broke through Juye City and distributed food to the surrounding people. A large number of refugees came to seek refuge with them, and the momentum was huge.
The news of the resurgence of the White Lotus Sect in Yanzhou gave Zhu Youxiao a headache.
He had no choice but to order Nanzhili to provide disaster relief to the people near Xuzhou, and at the same time order Liu Zhaoji, the commander-in-chief of Shandong Province, to organize troops to encircle and suppress the rebels of the White Lotus Sect!
Liu Zhaoji soon led five thousand officers and soldiers to attack Juye City.
Unexpectedly, these White Lotus religious troops used the name of Liu Zhaoji to lure out the Yuncheng defenders, and finally annihilated the 500 Ming troops in Yuncheng County.
Then Wang Xifan conquered Yuncheng and once again opened a warehouse to release grain.
Liu Zhaoji, who missed in Juye, quickly went north to Yuncheng, and then missed again.
The angry officers and soldiers heard that the thieves had not gone far and hurried out of the city to pursue them.
Liu Zhaoji led 1,500 cavalry first, and was eventually lured into the swamp area by the rebels near Liangshanji northwest of Yuncheng.
In order to support Wang Xifan's White Lotus Sect uprising, the Intelligence Department had secretly provided them with a lot of firecrackers and armor.
The incapacitated official cavalry suffered heavy casualties under the attack of the rebels' guns, bows and arrows, and most of them were lost.
Afterwards, Wang Xifan led more than 30,000 rebel troops south and defeated the 2,000 infantrymen who came for reinforcements.
The injured Liu Zhaoji had to lead the remaining troops to retreat to Jining Prefecture.
The rebel army regained Yuncheng and Juye in one fell swoop, and gained great momentum in Yanzhou!
Originally, after the cancellation of "Liao rates", the development of the White Lotus Sect was greatly affected, but this year the imperial court resumed the collection of "Liao rates", making them revive again!
In addition to Yanzhou, the White Lotus Sect in Zhili and Henan also launched an uprising in response to Wang Xifan. Uprisings broke out in Jizhou, Hejian, Runing, Guide, Nanyang and other places.
Especially Jizhou, which is very close to the capital!
Rumors spread all over the capital for a while!
Zhu Youxiao had organized the capital camp like this before, so Zhang Weixian and Zhu Chunchen naturally refused to fight under various excuses.
Zhu Youxiao had no choice but to send the Yulin Battalion to rush to various places in Zhili to quell the chaos.
After all, this unit is Zhu Youxiao's ace unit that he devoted all his efforts to build. Although it has never been on the battlefield, it can still easily deal with some ordinary White Lotus teaching troops.
In particular, a guerrilla named Zuo Liangyu was very brave and killed many leaders of the White Lotus Sect in Jizhou and Hejian Prefecture.
Finally, on the recommendation of Sun Chengzong, Zuo Liangyu was promoted by Zhu Youxiao to become the deputy commander-in-chief of Yulin Camp.
And let him lead the Yulin Camp south to Henan, and Shandong completely wipe out the White Lotus Rebellion!
Just as the White Lotus Sect uprising in Zhili was getting better, news came that the allied forces of the Mongolian Fried Flower Tribe and the Horqin Tribe went south to invade the Xuanfu of Datong.
The front line of the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty suddenly became tense again.
Ningyuan Mingjun, who had never received a reply from the court, angrily cut off one of the ears of Bi Zisu, the governor of western Liaoning.
Because Bi Zisu couldn't bear the humiliation, he took advantage of the sergeant's unpreparedness and committed suicide by hanging from a beam!
Under such circumstances of internal and external troubles, Zhu Youxiao had no choice but to send Sun Chengzong as the imperial minister and ask the Duke of Liao to help solve the problem of the Ningyuan mutiny.
Sun Chengzong clearly said that he was negotiating with these mutinous sergeants, but in fact he was negotiating with Li Xianzhong.
These people's wage dispute is just a pretense. In fact, the real purpose must be to abolish Liaoxi Town and reclassify it to Liaodong Town.
Zhu Youxiao had agreed to these conditions before leaving Beijing.
Under the current situation, he simply did not have the capital to negotiate terms with Li Xianzhong.
But he didn't expect that Li Xianzhong would go even further.
Li Xianzhong said: "Mr. Sun Ge, the military expenditure in Liaodong is really overwhelming the court now."
"Has the imperial court ever considered using Liao to support Liao?"
Sun Chengzong asked in confusion: "What does it mean to use Liao to support Liao?"
Li Xianzhong said: "My family, Li, has been favored by the emperor and I am willing to share your worries for your majesty. As long as your majesty allows Liaodong to set up a separate chief envoy and transfer the taxation power of Liaodong to the chief envoy of Liaodong, I can promise your majesty that there will be no need for a court in Liaodong." In terms of military expenses, Liaodong’s own taxes alone can be used to pay Liaodong’s frontier troops.”
"And the copper ingots worth 600,000 taels that Liaodong originally sent to the court every year can still be continued."
Sun Chengzong couldn't believe what he heard. He said, "Is this what Duke Liao really says?"
Li Xianzhong said: "It's true, but I must appoint the chief envoy of Liaodong, otherwise I cannot guarantee such a large expenditure!"
Soon Sun Chengzong brought Li Xianzhong's meaning to Zhu Youxiao!
The advantages and disadvantages of doing so are obvious.
The advantage is that from now on, the court will not only be able to get rid of Liaodong's annual expenditure on wages, food, and military supplies, but it is conservatively estimated to save at least 2.5 million taels.
In addition, Liaodong also wanted the court to provide 600,000 taels worth of copper every year, so the Tianqi Dynasty was completely liberated.
The disadvantage is that Liaodong became a vassal town of the Ming Dynasty.
Although he knew that he was drinking poison to quench his thirst, Zhu Youxiao finally agreed to Li Xianzhong.
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(End of chapter)
