"Something is going to happen to Donglin." Liu Hongxun whispered.
Yang Fan was not too surprised. Because over the years, he and Chongzhen have had many problems. This master is a mean master, and all the people he uses will eventually be abandoned.
Donglin helped him defeat Duke Wei and the Qing army. Judging from historical experience, Chongzhen was not far away from taking action against Donglin. In his eyes, Donglin is just a tool, and he throws it away after use.
From the first time he secretly recruited Wen Tiren and had a secret conversation, Yang Fan knew that he had already begun to plan for the post-Donglin era. That is an era without the Donglin Party.
Many people, especially those from lower classes, have a misconception.
They all agreed that the emperor was good, and the bad governance of the court was due to female ministers who deceived the emperor. The Holy One doesn't know, and that's why the people below are suffering.
In fact, this is not the case. Those above are very familiar with the situation below. They even understand it more comprehensively than the people below. The reason why many perverse situations occur is because of the restrictions of various interest entanglements.
The people above made the choice that was best for themselves.
This choice, many times, is a disaster for the following.
The decisions they made were the best solutions for their own interests under various conditions and situation constraints at the time. Although these methods often look very hacky.
And what people below don’t expect is that the upper levels not only know the situation at the lower levels. There must be a secret channel for direct communication between the top leaders of the two hostile forces. They can be contacted directly.
Just like Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, they can communicate directly through Zhang Liang and Xiang Bo.
One is to prevent people below from deceiving those above and causing trouble. The other is to avoid misfires and misjudgments. Especially when the two major groups are confronting each other, unless it is the wish of the supreme leader, no war caused by any other factors will be allowed to occur.
Yang Fan looked at Liu Hongxun with burning eyes. This was breaking news.
"Your Majesty has been secretly summoning Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren, ministers of the Ministry of Rites, frequently recently," Liu Hongru said.
In August of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the post of Minister of Rites in Nanjing was vacant. The Ministry of Personnel recommended Wen Tiren as a candidate and Luo Congyu as an alternative. However, Emperor Chongzhen chose Luo Congyu and left Wen Tiren in Beijing.
Yang Fan had known about this for a long time. When he was guarding the palace, he was favored by the palace maids and eunuchs, and many people were willing to do things for him. Lin Yueru also had spies in the palace.
Recently, the emperor has frequently secretly invited Wen Tiren, Zhou Yanru and others for meetings, obviously holding back a big move. These people have either been persecuted by Dong Lin, or have conflicts of interest with Dong Lin, or have feuds, or are hidden eunuchs. What they have in common is that they can't deal with Dong Lin.
"Now the nine sides have been abolished and most of them have been completed. The Qing army is also nearing its end. The financial burden has been greatly reduced. Taxes have also increased in the past two years, increasing by two million taels per year. Now there are two things that His Majesty wants to deal with. .”
Yang Fan knew what two things he was going to say. One is the issue of Donglin’s dominance over Chaogang. One is the issue of financial scarcity. In fact, these two questions are one question. The country has no taxes because people like Donglin have taken advantage of the preferential treatment and privileges of scholars since the Wanli Dynasty to annex land without paying taxes.
Donglin's problem is the court's money bag and Jiangnan's tax evasion problem. In the north, there are problems of tax evasion and smuggling by clans and nobles.
If Chongzhen really wanted to make a difference, it would be impossible for him not to touch these two cancers.
If it's pus, it has to be squeezed. He can't get around this. Now that the military power of the Beijing camp has been taken back, the nobles have become much more honest for the time being. It seems to him that they should also start to suppress Donglin.
"Your Majesty plans to use Wen Tiren and Zhou Yanru to bring down Donglin. Without external force, there is little certainty in this matter." Yang Fan said thoughtfully.
"What your Majesty has to deal with is not just a simple Donglin. It is a huge smuggling group formed in the imperial court starting from Wanli. slaves were built to rob, eight Shanxi merchants sold the stolen goods, nobles in the imperial court, local military leaders, There are even clan kings involved," Liu Hongxun said.
Yang Fan knows these things. In Liaodong, a horse costs three hundred taels, rice costs one stone and fifty taels, and a horse of wool and green cloth costs as much.
Seven taels. At this price, a person would be crazy. As long as you can get the materials to Liaodong, it will be a hundredfold profit. This profit allows the capitalist to sell the noose used to hang himself to the executioner.
"However, Donglin killed Xiong Tingbi, and then robbed the Governor of Jiliao and Guan Ning's army. He changed his offensive strategy to a wall-building strategy. In fact, he and Jiannu crossed the Daling River to rule. They took the initiative to have a truce. They did not I don’t want to really develop north of Jinzhou." Liu Hongxun said
This is the fact. Originally, the nobles were smuggled along the Great Wall, smuggled to the Mongols, and those in Liaodong who didn't know what ethnic groups they were.
Donglin eats maritime smuggling in southern Zhili and Fujian. We should keep in touch with each other.
However, first Li Chengliang suffered from hysteria and insisted on dreaming of becoming the king of North Korea. He started all kinds of slutty tricks and acted perversely. The good situation in Liaodong was completely ruined. Then the legacy of raising tigers led to the rise of Jianzhou.
The ethnicity of Nurhachi's family is highly controversial. The Mongols thought that his family was Mongolian, and later they became Dingbao Jurchens. They themselves said that they were water Tatars who changed their route from Huli in the Yuan Dynasty.
His fifth generation ancestor is called Mengge Timur, and judging by his name, he seems to be a Mongolian.
Seventy percent of the vocabulary in Manchu comes from Jurchen. However, this does not mean anything. Accepting the local language after migration is also a common thing. Later, Manchuria was not a nation composed of blood, but was formed after being organized.
But that's okay. It's never blood that makes up a nation, but a common language, a unified market, and mutually recognized cultural customs.
At that time, their family was still wandering around today's Harbin and Yilan areas. Later, he was defeated and almost exterminated, so he fled south to Fushun.
Wanli had not had time to deal with the consequences caused by Li Chengliang. The Japanese came to the door again. Although the War to Aid Korea and the other two wars of the Wanli Dynasty were won, they depleted the national treasury and spent all the last dividends left by Zhang Juzheng's reforms.
Liaodong, on the other hand, exhausted its war resources. All the field troops that could fight were consumed in North Korea.
Yang Fan asked: "Trade in the north has been around for a long time, but I have investigated and found that the materials smuggled out of the customs in the past two hundred years actually exceeded the needs of the Mongols and various ethnic groups in Liaodong. Where did these things go? Historically, the north Does the trade have anything to do with the continuous rise of powerful nations in Liaodong?"
Liu Hongxun said: "Has Uncle Dingyuan ever heard of the Sable Road?"
"In the past history, Liaodong's Donghu, Wuhuan, Xianbei, Shiwei (ancestors of the Mongols), Bohai, Sushen, Jurchen, Mongolian Qiyan tribe (Genghis Khan's family rose in the upper reaches of Heilongjiang), and today's Jianzhou Jurchen . As vast as the stars, don’t you think it’s strange why so many ethnic groups have emerged in Liaodong?”
"Especially, the speed of the Jurchen's rise is jaw-dropping. They destroyed the Liao Dynasty first, and then the Song Dynasty. It's dizzying. Not only did they have field combat capabilities as soon as they appeared, but they also had the ability to siege cities. Look through the history books of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty. They The technology of making crossbows, armor, and trebuchets far exceeds that of the Northern Song Dynasty. Ordinarily, people who came out of these old forests should be left behind. Isn't it reasonable that they should learn from the surrounding ethnic groups for a few generations before rising up?"
This period of history is indeed very strange. The city walls built by the Jurchens were all made of composite materials. One layer of bricks, one layer of clay, one layer of sand and one layer of rammed earth. And it also has some characteristics of a bastion.
These people are at their peak when they debut. The power of crossbows and armor, the majesty of war horses, and the advanced siege weapons are beyond comprehension.
Nothing in this world is achieved overnight, everything is developed step by step.
If these things weren't what they were hunting in the old forest, they would have created some kind of brainstorm. Then there is only one possibility.
Someone diffused technology to them.
