The second day of July in the sixth year of Chongzhen.
On the bank of the Zhuanglang River in the northwest of Lanzhou, Bai Yiqing and the driver sat side by side on the donkey cart, looking at the Yehu Castle not far away in the middle of the river valley.
He didn't wear official robes because the crimson color was too conspicuous. He only wore a square turban on his head, a blue Taoist robe with a straight collar and a wide front, and a pair of cloud-head shoes with shallow heels.
Dressed in youthful attire that was popular in the late Ming Dynasty, this middle-aged man has flowing clothes and is suave.
The clothes and shoes in this outfit are not made of expensive and fine materials. The shoes are made of cotton and the clothes are made of single-layer fine linen. The styles are also commonly worn by civilians and common people at home. The purpose is to be light and simple and reduce the official aura on his body. .
Because Bai Yiqing was the governor of Gansu during the Ming Dynasty.
Gansu governors have always been selected with more people from the north and fewer people from the south, but Bai Yiqing is an exception. He is from Changzhou Prefecture, South Zhili. He comes from a well-known family, and he is already the fifth generation Jinshi in his family.
More than half of Bai Yiqing's official career was in Shaanxi. From Shaanxi deputy envoy and Xining military preparation road, and later in charge of Guannai Road, he became a political participant in Shaanxi in the first year of Chongzhen, and his colleague was Hong Chengchou.
Because he had served in Shaanxi for sufficient time, was familiar with the customs and customs of the northwest, and had good political performance, he was promoted to governor of Shaanxi.
He appeared here because the impact of the westward movement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not only seen by Mr. Liu. In fact, serving officials in Shaanxi had more first-hand information than Liu Xiangyu.
They don't need to speculate to come to a conclusion similar to Liu Xiangyu's, even more comprehensive.
Because Liu Xiangyu only knew that the rebel army was at a disadvantage, but he didn't know when or where.
Bai Yiqing knew that in addition to the Eight Kings and King Chuang, 30,000 officers and soldiers had already squeezed a large number of bandits into Shanxi.
Commander-in-Chief Ni Chong and Wang Pu led 6,000 Beijing troops to garrison in Wu'an, Lu Xiangsheng stationed in Daming, Zuo Liangyu's reinforcements and suppression troops stationed in Xinxiang, Deng Qi led Sichuan troops to station in Huixian, and Henan General Chen Yongfu led Mao soldiers to station troops in Xinxiang. Hanoi on the north bank of the Yellow River.
From the strategic situation, it seemed that the bandits would be destroyed in an instant, but at this moment, Zuo Liangyu's army stopped attacking.
On the one hand, the eunuchs and supervisors sent by Lord Chongzhen to various armies arrived, and people were a little unhappy.
On the other hand, just in May this year, a hurricane hit the coast. From June onwards, when the Han River flooded, heavy rains also fell in Henan, eventually leading to floods.
The officers and soldiers of the Zuobu and Dengbu who were active in northeastern Henan could only avoid the mountains. Seeing that the encirclement was about to be formed, they could not advance any further. They could only wait for the Shaanxi frontier troops to be transferred into Shanxi and give the bandits a fatal blow.
But at this juncture, the Shaanxi frontier troops could not move at will. It depended on whether the Shaanxi officials would allow them to move.
The official's decision whether to let the border troops move or not depended on the look in Liu Chengzong's eyes.
It is easy for Shaanxi's border troops to move into Shanxi, but who will guard against Liu Chengzong?
Let’s not talk about whether the Liu thief or the thief is more harmful; simply speaking, no matter how harmful the thief is, it is the most harmful in Shanxi. Shaanxi officials like them are all in Shaanxi.
Bai Yiqing, the governor of Gansu, has more things to worry about than others.
In the past two years, he had watched Liu Chengzong become the king of the bad land in the northwest.
Except for taking some time out of their busy schedule to attack the three-sided and five-town coalition forces, during the rest of the time, the Marshal's Mansion under the command of Liu Chengzong conquered all the land around Xining that could be conquered, and gathered all the troops that could be recruited under their own hands.
Xining has a radius of two thousand miles. Apart from the hinterland from Lanzhou to Xi'an, the only geographical unit that is not in the hands of the Marshal's Office is Hexi.
In fact, Liu Chengzong's non-stop expansion of territory was not the main reason why Bai Yiqing felt oppressed.
Gansu is a complete military town. Compared with the mainland, it has a very strong military tradition, and it has been the main area where high-intensity wars have broken out since the early Ming Dynasty.
Since the Ming Dynasty, more than 270 wars have broken out in Gansu, averaging one war a year.
Because of this, Gansu has always had no shortage of generals who are capable of fighting and people who are loyal and brave enough to die in service. If Liu Chengzong from the Marshal's Mansion returns to strength, can't Gansu's army be able to deal with him?
Bai Yiqing thought so from the beginning. He ordered the army to reorganize and cultivate martial arts in Gansu Town, but sometimes he didn't know what was going on. When he checked out the situation in Gansu Town, it was so rotten that it was riddled with holes. It was shocking... I'm afraid they would really clean it up. Can't get to the Marshal's Mansion.
Let's put it this way, there is no place in the entire Gansu town that Bai Yiqing can be satisfied with.
The army needs to eat food, and food grows in the ground. However, desertification in Gansu is very serious, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Bai Yiqing also thought it was a natural disaster at first.
Later he discovered a problem. In fact, the biggest problem in Hexi is man-made disasters.
In fact, the contradiction between people and land in Hexi is not big. Compared with other regions, its population is not large, at least not as large as in ancient times.
The population here reached its peak in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, when there were 700,000 households. Since then, it has been in a cycle of decline, stagnation, and recovery.
In the Ming Dynasty, the population could no longer be measured by households, because the unit of the household was the army, and the corvee was enlarged to increase the number of households, which led to passive confrontation among the people. The means of confrontation was that people with several surnames joined together to form one household. As a result, there are often dozens or even hundreds of people on the same household registration.
Although the government prohibited the combination of multiple surnames into one household, it could not prohibit the combination of one surname into one household. Therefore, only the number of mouths is the accurate population number in the Ming Dynasty.
The population under Bai Yiqing's control was only a very vague number of 1,620,744.
He knew that this number was not accurate because it was the number obtained from Zhang Juzheng's last population census before his death.
After that, the yamen and military forts of the various police stations in Gansu still updated the Yellow Book every ten years in accordance with the imperial decree, but basically it was a simple addition and subtraction to deal with the errands.
After ten years, add 724 to the population and report it; after another ten years, subtract 276 from the population of the previous decade and report it.
Anyway, it's just like joking, doing errands.
Even though Bai Yiqing was the governor of Gansu, he did not get the accurate population number of Gansu, because everyone would use this set of addition and subtraction to deal with the court, and they would also use addition and subtraction to deal with him.
He could only conclude that the population in Hexi has roughly returned to the level of the Han Dynasty, but the fields... are far less numerous than in the Han Dynasty. There are 3.6 million acres of farmland on the books, but in fact less than half of the stored grain can be collected.
Bai Yiqing was patrolling in a sedan chair while wearing an official robe. People took him to wasteland, dry land and sandy land. He took off his official robe and followed the map to search for the land, only to find that the military villages and fields were dominated by the families of generals and officials.
Those fields were not deserted at all, and they even used the sand field method. The harvest was very good. Usually the harvest could be 50 to 80% higher. Even if there was a drought, other fields could only recover seeds, but they could still harvest 80 to 90% more. Ten pounds of grain come.
What's more, the banner troops were used to farm with little cost and no taxes. They changed the channels without authorization, occupied water conservancy, and even left people's fields abandoned.
The army didn't even have food for the march, so they couldn't even think about going to Qinghai. They could barely think about occupying a good location in Gansu to defend against the Liu bandits.
Because Mr. Bai Yiqing is at this level, it is difficult for even ordinary landlords to come into contact with him naturally, let alone the members of the Sanjie Society who are at the bottom of Gansu Province, so that his perception of the people at the bottom is locked, and he does not know a pool of stagnant water at all. Under the surface, what kind of turmoil is brewing in Gansu.
When he considered the issues of Gansu and the Marshal's Mansion, his starting point was still military.
The Marshal's Office has a certain lag in information about the Ming Dynasty's mobilization in the northwest, but it is difficult to say that it knows nothing.
When the imperial court mobilized the Shaanxi army to enter Shanxi, the Marshal's Office would start preparing for war as soon as it learned of the information. A military conflict broke out between the two sides, which was a certainty.
Then the Marshal's Mansion has only three attack routes.
The western route bypasses the Qilian Mountains, passes through valleys or deserts, and passes through Jiayuguan; the middle route passes through the ridge passes of the Qilian Mountains, and attacks the hinterland over mountains and ridges; the eastern route passes through the river mouth and marches northwest along the Zhuanglang River.
There is no doubt that the western front is a waste of food and grass and cutting off the retreat, the middle line is a way to abandon heavy equipment and die, and only the eastern front is the path that normal people, or in other words, normal armies will take.
Bai Yiqing believed that this war was approaching step by step, and the fate of the imperial court and his family and life were all tied to one point - Lanzhou.
Lanzhou was in the hands of the imperial court. Even if the Marshal's Mansion moved the army north along the Zhuanglang River, it would be difficult for the transport troops to invade Gansu in a large scale before besieging or even capturing Lanzhou.
But the current problem is the section from Gansu to Lanzhou, where the Zhuanglang River merges into the Yellow River. It was occupied by the Marshal's Mansion after the Hehuang War, cutting off the passage between Gansu and Lanzhou.
That's why Bai Yiqing dressed in casual clothes and appeared at Yehu Fort, sixty miles northwest of Lanzhou Hekou Crossing, not only to go deep into the civilian population to explore the military fields and military conditions along the defense line, but also to borrow a way from the Marshal's Mansion to cross the Yellow River and enter Lanzhou.
It was considered safe along the way. He only brought a book boy and a coachman and bodyguard with him. There were no accidents. People lacked interest in a person like him dressed as an old boy.
But when I got here, a big problem appeared in front of me.
I thought I would borrow the road from the Marshal's Mansion at the mouth of the river sixty miles away, but I didn't expect that Yehu Fort, which was garrisoned by Zhuang Langwei, quietly changed its banner.
What was flying on the castle was actually the red flag of the Marshal's Mansion.
He, the governor of Gansu, knew nothing about such an important matter. If he hadn't come here in person, Bai Yiqing would still have been kept in the dark!
Before he could get angry and ordered the donkey cart to turn around and return to Zhuanglang to defend the army to question the crime, the defenders from Yehu Fort had already come out. They were riding fast horses dragging dust, holding bows and arrows. The leader wore a red lacquered helmet with the word "Yong" on his head and a cloth The leader of the Nailed Face shouted at them to stop.
For a moment, Bai Yiqing, the guards, and the book boy were like frightened little rabbits on the grassland, not daring to move.
This is not to blame for the cowardice of the guards. The governor wants to pretend to be an ordinary scholar. The coachman wearing armor and carrying a bow, knife and musket is obviously contrary to common sense. And a coachman wearing cloth and holding a whip is facing several cavalry galloping, and there are The cavalrymen with bows and arrows were obviously helpless.
Fortunately, the coachman, who had a military career, could still calmly use his knowledge and whispered to Bai Yiqing: "Sir, except for the leader, everyone else is not a veteran."
Bai Yiqing asked in a low voice: "Then, can you give it a try?"
The guard shook his head. This situation had nothing to do with courage and courage. The gap between the two sides was too big and there was no chance of success.
Bai Yiqing was not discouraged, he just nodded to indicate that he understood, then changed his face, got out of the car with a flattering look and raised his hands and asked: "You generals and heroes, I don't know why you stopped the villain?"
I saw the leading soldier on horseback looking at him arrogantly, and chuckled to the left and right: "You are brave enough to dare to step forward."
After saying that, the military man got off his horse, stepped forward and clasped his fists with a straight face, and asked him in a northern Shaanxi dialect: "You look like a scholar. When you come from the north, have you ever met someone claiming to be a soldier of the commander's mansion?" Are you asking for taxes?”
Bai Yiqing first looked back. To the north is Zhuang Langwei's Hongchengzi, also called Hongcheng Dun. There is a Baihu Yamen there. It is supposed to be a Baihu Yamen here, but it is currently occupied.
He shook his head and said: "Returning to the General, the Hongcheng Dun in the north is stationed by the Zhuang Langwei Banner Army. I have never encountered the Commander's Mansion to check the pass. I dare to ask the General. If I want to cross the pass here, I can use the passage. Lanzhou, I wonder how much tariff I have to pay?”
The so-called tariffs refer to Qiaoguan, also known as Guaguan among the people. They are customs offices mainly established in canals, Yangtze River and coastal areas, and collect tolls.
Yehu Fort is not a pass, but Bai Yiqing guessed that the grass bandits in the Marshal's Mansion had started, and now they asked their minzhuang to stop them, probably because they wanted to collect tolls.
The soldier wearing the Yong helmet seemed to be very satisfied when he heard this reply. He nodded and said, "They understand, then you can go over."
"ah?"
Bai Yiqing was stunned when he heard this. This was different from what he imagined.
The soldier had already turned his head and put on the saddle of his horse, ready to go to the fort. When he heard that he was stunned, he couldn't help laughing and asked: "Don't you still want to give us some travel expenses? It's all the way to Lanzhou." There is no tax card, there is only a registration at the ferry, so you have to pay the boatman a lot of money for taking the boat."
"The villain knows it."
Bai Yiqing replied. At this time, he no longer had any anxiety or fear in his heart. Although these soldiers from the commander's office looked fierce, they did not mean to harm anyone.
Thinking of this, he became bolder and asked: "General, what happened to the north when you stopped the villain?"
Hearing this, the military man turned around and glanced at him impatiently, and said angrily: "Just leave if I ask you to. Why are you talking so much?"
Then he seemed to think of something, and the expression on his face became a little better. He pointed to the Yehu Fort behind him: "I am the 100th household of the Marshal's Mansion in Dongguan, Hekou. Earlier, the 100th household here pretended to be an officer of the Marshal's Mansion. , collecting taxes and money from passing business travelers, ruining the reputation of the commander-in-chief, so I was asked to lead troops to suppress them."
After that, he looked Bai Yiqing up and down and said: "Looking at you, you are a scholar. You must have some friends in Lanzhou. I went over and told them that Yehu Castle is the northernmost castle of the Marshal's Mansion in Zhuanglang River. From here There are no tax cards until the mouth of the river."
"If you encounter someone asking for taxes, it must be an officer or soldier pretending to be us. Let people not refuse, lest they seek wealth and death. You can give him some money first and come to Yehu Castle to find me. I will find a way to transfer the money to him. recover."
Bai Yiqing frowned when he heard this and said, "Is this happening?"
The military man glanced at him suspiciously, thinking that the old man frowned, but he was still a bit powerful, and said with a smile: "Are you in charge of the village? You must have not been out for a long time, and your experience is too short."
"At the end of the Hehuang War, the deserted troops fled all over the mountains and plains. In the mountainous area near Kushuiyi alone, there were seven people claiming to be Marshal's Mansion Qianhu, and there was another man with dozens of men who dared to call himself a commander, robbed people and attacked merchants. We haven’t finished the campaign yet, so you don’t know this?”
Grandma's.
Bai Yiqing said something bad, the officers and soldiers began to pretend to be traitors, and the traitors were here to uphold justice.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Good evening!
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