The British Duke's Mansion and the nobles of the Ming Dynasty gathered together.
Today is the day when British Duke Zhang Weixian takes a concubine. Invite all the nobles in Beijing to come and have a glass of water and wine.
After three rounds of banquets, I chatted about the young and crazy British father-in-law, and asked the beautiful sixteen-year-old Madam Ru to come out to meet the guests.
The old and healthy Zhang Weixian had a rosy face. Amid the ridicule and flattery of all the distinguished guests, he drank a few glasses of wine and left the show early.
After the banquet, a troupe was invited to sing in the East Garden of the British Palace.
The whole East Garden was crowded with people, including those who came to the banquet, as well as the accompanying guards and so on, who came to watch the show. The family and servants of the mansion were also allowed to come to watch the show.
The nobles accompanied the British Duke and the Crown Prince to watch the play on the second floor of Wangyue Building, which is facing the stage.
Mingyue Tower is a waterside pavilion, surrounded by water on all sides. Opposite is the stage across the pond, flanked by galleries. It's a place for theater.
Outside Mingyue Tower, the guards were heavily guarded. Those who can enter here today are all top nobles.
After all the guests came in, the guards outside immediately closed the door and blocked the stairs leading upstairs.
The guards brought by these nobles were all having wine on the first floor. Or watch a play in the corridors in front of the building and on the left and right wings.
Today, on the second floor of Wangyue Building, chairs have been arranged according to the status of the nobles. The names of the guests are taped on the backs of the chairs to avoid sitting in the wrong place.
The status of honorable nobles is formed by history, and there can be no mistakes regardless of their seats or their usual standing positions. Seats are a direct reflection of status.
At this time, in the lobby on the second floor, there were five chairs in a row on the north side and south side.
This is the seat of the only five remaining dukes of the Ming Dynasty. The ducal seats all face south and face north.
Directly in front of the Duke's seat, in the middle space, is a luxurious Persian carpet. The two sides face each other from east to west, with 11 seats on each side. These are seats for 22 marquises.
Behind the Marquis's seat, there is a row of seats. There are 18 seats in the east and west. This is the seat of the 36th Earl.
There is no one on the southernmost chair on the west side, but there is a note with the words Dingyuan Bo Yang Fan written on it.
Although Yang Fan did not attend the meeting. However, he is the newly promoted Dingyuan Bo and is qualified to participate in the meeting. Therefore, even if no one comes, there must be a place.
Many chairs in this room today are empty. Because a large number of nobles are not in the imperial capital, many are in other places, especially Nanjing.
Behind the chairs of the five dukes, and on the roof beam above, there is a large plaque with the four characters "Tongqi Lianzhi" written on it. This is where the nobles hold secret meetings.
Now in the Chongzhen Dynasty, the nobles in the north of the Ming Dynasty are headed by the British Duke. Zhang Weixian sat in the middle chair.
Sitting on the chair to his left was an old man in his sixties. It was Xu Xigao, Duke of Dingguo. There was no one on the chair to his right, but there was a note on it that read "Wei Guogong Xu Wenjue". Wei Guogong and his family were in Nanjing and did not attend the meeting.
Xu Da is a duke of both countries, and they are all dukes whose status is second only to the British dukes.
The chair to the east of Xu Xigao, the Duke of Ding, is also empty, with a note on it that reads "Mu Tianbo, Duke of Guizhou". To the west of Wei Guogong Xu Wenjue's empty chair, an old man of about fifty years old sat on the top chair. He was none other than Cheng Guogong Zhu Chunchen.
There are several middle-aged people standing behind these five chairs.
Standing behind Zhang Weixian is the British prince Zhang Zhiji. Standing behind Duke Dingguo Xu Xigao is Xu Yunjie, the eldest son of Duke Dingguo. Zhu Chunchen did not bring his son. Standing behind him is his confidant butler Zhu Deyong.
The Zhu family is also a wealthy family among the nobles. He has no idea how much wealth his family has. So this kind of thing must be done with a butler.
In the first half of the Wanli period of that year, Zhang Juzheng cleared the land across the country and implemented a whip method to distribute the Ding tax, corvee, land tax, and various miscellaneous taxes to the land.
The Duke Cheng Guo at that time was Zhu Yingzhen of the ninth generation. It was found that his family owned more than 10,000 yuan of land in Fengrun and Yutian. In the Ming Dynasty, an area of land was one hundred acres.
In other words, the Chengguo government acquired more than one million acres of farmland. After being forced to withdraw a large amount of land, it still retained 960,000 acres of land.
In order to make friends with King Lu (the same mother and brother of Wanli), Zhu Yingjie was willing to rent out a chain of salt shops with an annual income of hundreds of thousands taels of silver to King Lu. It's tantamount to bribery in disguise. In the fourteenth year of Wanli, the Zhengguoben incident broke out, and he was forced to commit suicide because of factional fighting.
During the Ming Dynasty, nobles and nobles seized and annexed a large amount of land and commercial assets. The amount is extremely staggering. They are the largest political, military and economic force besides the civil servants.
After Zhu Chunchen was killed by Li Zicheng, his younger brother Zhu Yuanchen fled to Nanjing and became the 13th hereditary Duke Cheng.
The eleven marquises in the east are:
Wuding Marquis Guo Peimin, the founding marquis, reigned from 1628 to 1644. He attacked the marquis in the first year of Chongzhen (1628) and died in the rebel army in the last year of Chongzhen.
Chen Yanzuo, Marquis of Taining, whose seniority and year of death are unknown. During the reign of Tianqi (1621-1627), he ascended the throne. He was still alive in the first year of Chongzhen (1628). The man's subsequent fate is unknown. no data.
Gu Zhaoji, Marquis of Zhenyuan, the tenth generation, ascended the throne during the Tianqi period. In July of the first year of Chongzhen, he was appointed as the governor of the Zuo Army. In the ninth month of the third year of Chongzhen, a young division was added. In the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, he took charge of the Nanjing Right Army Governor's Mansion and appointed Cao Jiang as the admiral. In the 17th year of Chongzhen, the city fell and he died from thieves.
Song Yude, the Marquis of Xining, and the Marquis of Xining had a total of 13 descendants of Song Cheng for 10 generations. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng's Dashun army invaded Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself on Meishan. Countless Ming ministers were killed by the rebels during this regime change, including the last Marquis of Xining, Song Yude. Emperor Hongguang of the Southern Ming Dynasty posthumously awarded the founding official a posthumous title, and Song Cheng was posthumously named Ning Guogong.
Xue Lian, Marquis of Yangwu, was the hero of Jingnan, and was passed down for eight generations. "Jia Shen Chuan Xin Lu" said that because of the large number of people and lawlessness, Da Shun entered Beijing, tortured and robbed the most cruel people and died, and those who heard it were happy. It is doubtful that Xue Lian was killed by the rebels because he was protecting Emperor Zhuang.
Xu Xiyin, Marquis of Yongkang, was the son of Xu Yingkun, the ninth generation Marquis of Yongkang, after the hero of Jingnan. In the first year of Tianqi (1621), he ascended the throne. He died in the second year of Chongzhen (1629). It was passed down to two more generations.
The tenth generation: Xu Yingyuan, Xu Xiyin's uncle, ascended the throne in the third year of Chongzhen (1630). Time of death unknown. The eleventh generation: Xu Xideng, the son of Xu Yingyuan, the time of his ascension to the title is unknown. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the city fell and he died of thieves.
Liu Zuochang, the Marquis of Anyuan, was the successor to Jingnan. Anyuan Hou Liu Zuochang surrendered to Nandu. His family's lineage was very confusing at the end of the Ming Dynasty. I really can't find out clearly. I apologize.
Zheng Zhijun, Marquis of Wu'an, the eighth generation after the hero of Jingnan, attacked in the second year of Tianqi. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the city fell and he died from thieves.
Li Kaixian, Marquis of Fengcheng. After Jingnan's second batch of heroes were knighted. He is the ninth generation Fengcheng Hou. I just won the title this year. His father was purged following the fall of Wei Zhongxian in the first half of this year and sent to guard the border in a smog-infested area. In the 17th year of Chongzhen's reign, Li Kaixian was killed after Li Zicheng captured the capital.
Chen Guangyu, Marquis of Ningyang, was the successor to Jingnan. Chen Guangyu, the ninth Marquis of Ningyang, succeeded to the throne in September of the first year of Taichang. In the seventh month of the first year of Chongzhen, Jiashen took charge of the governor's mansion of the Zuo Army. In the second year of Chongzhen's reign, he was added as the crown prince's Taibao. This person is a powerful figure in the society, and his fate is unknown after the death of Ming Dynasty.
There is no more today. The introduction of Xungui is for the needs of the subsequent plot. There will be five updates tomorrow.
