In the Taozhou Guard Military and Civilian Command Department, there is a Zhuoni official village on the bank of the Tao River surrounded by mountains and forests, where Zhang Xianzhong is currently hiding.
The chieftain of Zhuoni Guanzhai was surnamed Yang. This was a surname given by Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty. He was originally just one of the leaders of the many tribes in Taozhou. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong, he received an oral order to lead the Linzhong Shengfan and became the leader of the tribes on both sides of Taozhou. The uncrowned king.
The chieftain of this generation is called Yang Guolong. He is very young and only inherited the position at the end of Tianqi. In the imperial court, Yang Guolong is a very ordinary, ordinary to the point of being useless chieftain; but for the 30,000 people in the area under his jurisdiction, Yang Guolong is comparable to his ancestors. of great toast.
Living in this era is a huge misfortune. Yang Guolong has only inherited his father's position as chieftain for nine years. In these nine years, he has encountered more problems than many of his ancestors in a lifetime.
At the beginning of his succession, a drought in Shaanxi led to a massive uprising. After Wang Daliang's defeat, defeated soldiers and bankrupt peasants poured into the chieftain's territory; Liu Chengzong then took control of Hehuang and fought with the imperial court for years.
The influx of Han people to both sides of the Tao River not only brought difficult management problems to the chieftains, but also brought technology and ideas from outside the mountains to the Ban people. This earth-shaking change could easily bring about changes in the chieftain's territory.
When Yang Guolong's ancestors visited the Sakya Sect Geshe in the Yuan Dynasty, he used the metaphor of "encountering a torrent" to describe the situation. At this moment, Yang Guolong also saw a torrent rolling in from the high mountains.
No one can know the changes in the general trend of the world in this chaotic era where soldiers and horses are surging from all directions. Yang Guolong also does not know, but he knows that blocking the torrent with the power of a chieftain will only be broken into pieces. Only the chieftains who follow the trend and follow the trend can prosper. prosperity.
But everyone understands the truth, but who can tell which is the torrent and which is the countercurrent?
Therefore, he was determined to wait for the dust to settle, and took advantage of the civil strife in the Ming Dynasty and had no time to take care of border affairs. He defended his territory externally and defied the odds, and conquered dissidents and annexed weak neighbors internally. He staged a good show in Taozhou.
For the bankrupt farmers and Han rebels who fled to Taozhou, Yang Guolong did not refuse anyone who came. He allocated wasteland for them to cultivate and cultivate. They did not have to pay taxes and grain, but they had to do business for the chieftain's yamen, work as teachers and provide military service, which made Taozhou In just a few years, the Han people accounted for one-tenth of the total population of Zhuoni Tusi Territory.
In the year of the Hehuang War, when the imperial court's transfer order arrived in Taozhou, Yang Guolong mobilized troops with great fanfare. However, he did not bring his troops out of Taozhou until the Marshal's Mansion repulsed the five-town coalition and led his troops to threaten Lanzhou and demolish Xigu City. state.
From then on, taking advantage of the geographical location of Taozhou with high mountains and far distance from the emperor, poor infrastructure and difficult roads, Yang Guolong never chose sides between the Marshal's Mansion and the Ming Dynasty court. Every time Shaanxi called him to mobilize the army, he used the imperial court to Using conscription as an excuse, they purchased soldiers, horses and fields from surrounding tribes and local chiefs to mobilize soldiers and horses.
But after mobilization, the army could never get out of Taohe.
At that time, there were still three types of land policies in the Zhuoni Chieftain Territory, namely soldier and horse fields, Yamen fields, and incense fields.
Among them, the grain tax for the subjects who cultivated military fields was not high. On a household basis, each household paid one bucket of grain, one cart of grass, and one pig in each village, but each household had to bear military service.
There are two types of yamen fields. One is allocated to the subjects, and the grain payment is the same. They have to bear the labor and miscellaneous services of the chieftain's yamen, but they do not bear military service. The other kind is given to the chieftain's clan members or chiefs, who belong to small feudal lords, and each collects their own taxes.
The incense field is the private property of the temple
By means of purchasing military fields, marriages, sending troops, and wars, the territory of the Zhuoni chieftains became larger and larger, and there were more and more chieftains. However, they were either building roads or building bridges. Later, they also built water tunnels and city walls. , passes, embankments, renovate the Zhuoni siege built by Yang Guolong's grandfather Yang Zhenxiu.
Until the war broke out again this year, the local soldiers in the mud village really couldn't repair it, so they built another King Gesar Palace. The statue enshrined in it is Master Guan, which belongs to the new architectural style of the combination of Han and Tibetan led by Zhuoni Chieftain.
His territory faces the Marshal's Mansion's Chieftain Chen in Bajiao City across the mountains to the west; it reaches the Minzhou Guard to the east; it faces the Lintao Brigade garrison of the Marshal's Mansion across the mountain to the north; and it directly borders the territory of Songpan's local chief in the southeast. .
However, the expansion of territory will inevitably cause greater impact on Chieftain Yang's territory.
hit.
First of all, in terms of religion, they have believed in the Sakya sect for hundreds of years. However, the turmoil in Kangning Mansion caused the monks to cross the snowy mountains and grasslands to escape to Taozhou intermittently.
This in itself should be a good thing for Chieftain Yang. Although the spread of various sects has brought huge hidden dangers to the chieftain's rule, various leaders also fought openly and secretly because of converting to different sects. A large amount of land and wealth have to be shared with the temple... But the monks, means knowledge.
Monks not only mean scriptures, but also writing, printing, medicine, pharmacy, astronomy, and law.
For the entire Tusi Territory, knowledge has been the most precious thing for hundreds of years, and the entire Tusi Territory has paid an unimaginable price for this.
Starting from paper, if you want people to be literate, you need paper. Zhuoni's territory is in short supply of paper. For a long time, it has been purchased from Lintao, Longxi, Qin'an and other places. Printing a book requires a lot of money.
Maintaining the temple requires unimaginable costs. Regardless of the wealth the temple occupies, the golden domes and Buddha statues required for temple construction alone require a large amount of copper. The Zhuoni territory neither produces copper nor masters smelting technology. The west, south and east are mountains and there are no roads.
The copper roofs and Buddha statues of each temple must be purchased from the monk temple outside Zhangjiakou and then transported all the way back.
For knowledge, no matter how high the price is, it has been like this for hundreds of years.
However, in Yang Guolong's generation, there was a small problem in Zhuoni's territory. There were thousands of Han people in his territory. They were all rebels in Shaanxi or refugees from Lanzhou. They had fields on both sides of the Tao River and formed four market towns. Fourteen villages.
In the past, Han people who avoided government taxes and labor service often ran into the mountains to become natives, but they were all alone. Once they went into the mountains and followed the locals, they became natives. At best, they were just craftsmen with more skills and could not have much impact.
But this time they came in groups, and some even went into the mountains with their families to form villages.
Almost on the first day the village was formed, paper mills, brick kilns, coal kilns, carpentry workshops, blacksmith shops, medical clinics, and printing halls all appeared. In every household, men farmed and women weaved, and a steady stream of copperware was produced. , ironware, woodware, pottery, agricultural tools, paper, books, textiles and even clothing and weapons. Z.br>
There was also a scholar who encouraged him to fund a chieftain official school.
The knowledge that the monks can provide is suddenly no longer valuable. On the contrary, the wealth, land and population they occupy are so dazzling!
At this time, Yang Guolong was just doubtful about the significance of the existence of the temple, but at least supporting the monks would bring him some religious fame and expand his political influence. Therefore, he did not make up his mind. After all, it was a centuries-old tradition. It doesn't necessarily have to end here.
Just as only by waiting for the torrent to surge, can one recognize who is the true Dragon Emperor, so Yang Guolong's view of the temple is the same. Only by waiting can one discern who holds the true scriptures of true knowledge and insight.
Then the foreign aid from various sects disappeared, and the monks who went to Uzang to worship never came back. The monks who wanted to follow in their footsteps found that the road to Tibet was cut off, and it was cut off in all directions.
They climbed over the snow-capped mountains and crossed the grassland. What was waiting for them was the Meng Zhuo Fanzi from the Marshal's Mansion who was wandering in Bajiao City. They struggled to enter Sichuan and went straight to Yazhou, and what was waiting for them was the Ming Zhuo Fanzi from the Marshal's Mansion who was making arrow furnaces.
At that time, Yang Guolong had not realized the seriousness of the problem. Everyone in the Tusi Yamen felt that they were out of date. What kind of sect was this Marshal's Mansion that was so popular?
After all, for the toasts and chieftains who live in a closed environment, this feeling of being behind the times is an indispensable experience in life.
Waiting always brings out bright flowers. The various sects did not let Yang Guolong wait too long. Heshuote, the national teacher Khan who respected the Gelug sect, led an army to Qinghai. When Heshuote and Junggar besieged Bajiao City on the other side of the mountain, At that time, Yang Guolong announced on the spot that the entire territory had converted to the Gelug sect.
Nawu Zang is far away in the horizon, but the Mongolian soldiers of the National Preceptor Khan are right in front of us.
As a result, before the comprehensive conversion was completed, the Marshal's Mansion sent troops to defeat the Oirat Allied Forces and integrate them. It was not until that time that Yang Guolong realized whether there was a possibility to cut off the advance.
It is this Marshal's Mansion that hides the road.
The significance of the temple's existence has completely disappeared, and the territory of Zhuoni Chieftain has been completely surrounded by this group of Han people who believe in their ancestors.
An unimaginable behemoth appeared in front of Chieftain Yang Guolong with the appearance of Duntaurus. He also carefully watched the growth of the monsters entrenched around him, and carefully selected wisdom that was beneficial to him.
The Han people brought rapid prosperity and development to the chieftain territory, and also caused the feudal chieftain economy, which had long been protected by the Ming Dynasty, to be impacted by the equalization ideas from the rebels.
When the Marshal's Mansion began to equalize the land, Yang Guolong had already ruled the entire Taozhou. The small eight villages with 30,000 people quickly expanded into the big chieftain of the 28 villages, 370 tribes, and 120,000 people. , there were 2,200 Fan soldiers and Han soldiers registered to guard the passes on all sides.
Although he never paid tribute to the Marshal's Mansion to express his surrender, he sent a leader to Hezhou to spy on the culture, economy and land policies of the Marshal's Mansion in Hehuang, and even bought goods from the people. Potatoes and corn grown in Hehuang.
Just last autumn, a month after the Hehuang land allocation achieved a huge harvest, Taozhou Zhuoni Chieftain directly transferred the Marshal's Office's land equalization policy and administrative divisions. While demolishing the big temple, he also compiled five towns and two towns. There are ten townships and 200 baos, and the fields are distributed to the people for collective farming in the township baos.
This is not to say that Yang Guolong could not resist the pressure of his subordinates, so he copied everything from Minmi Huhu.
Instead, he read the land policy of the Marshal's Mansion for a whole month, and he agreed with Liu Chengzong's policy from the bottom of his heart, and believed that this thing was more efficient than the feudal chieftain's economic exploitation of the people... Everyone was happy.
His family cultivates more than ten acres of land, and he can collect only one dou of grain a year, which is less than fifty kilograms.
And Liu Chengzong used a little money to expropriate nearly fifty kilograms per acre of land. If I give you the money, you have to buy other things from the government, and the money goes back. What kind of exploitative efficiency is this?
No wonder someone can support tens of thousands of standing troops with 120,000 farmers, but he can only support 2,000 standing troops with 120,000 people.
Yang Guolong was puzzled for a long time. He felt that it was impossible for everyone to be happy, otherwise the ancestors would have done this long ago. It was not until he studied carefully for a long time that he realized that the threshold needed to exploit the people in this way was very high.
Just an iron farm tool was enough to persuade 90% of the chieftains to quit. There was no need to consider the technical thresholds for farming, mining, and production. Only by crossing these thresholds would we need follow-up breeding, sociology, veterinarians, doctors, merchants, etc. Waiting for the cooperation of professionals.
Even with the current highly prosperous Zhuo Tusi leader, many places cannot keep up, but the temptation of all this is too great for Yang Guolong.
The most important thing is that this collective work and planned production method based on the village as a unit according to the terrain is completely consistent with the chieftain economy. Grain and pigs are collected for farmland, butter, cattle and sheep are collected for pastoral areas; timber, charcoal and local specialties are collected for forest land; A village producing iron would pay twenty kilograms of iron ingots a year, and a village producing gold would pay twenty taels of gold a year.
The leaders of Zhuoni territory are all experts in planning these things!
It's a perfect match.
After all, Liu Shizi himself was a big chieftain, and the entire Hehuang was actually the product of his high degree of centralization after he eliminated landlords, monks, officials, and chieftains through war.
Yang Guolong even wanted to imitate the Marshal's Office in promoting vaccination, and hired a pox doctor from Qinzhou at a high price, but he was unlucky. The pox doctor only inoculated three people and one of them died. He fled back to Qinzhou out of fear of crime, which made Yang very angry. Toast yelled.
No matter what, this year Zhuoni Chieftain wiped out all the land in Taozhou. He was watching the spring plowing in the official village, happily waiting for the autumn harvest to exploit the people, and then suddenly realized a problem: equalizing land and buying taxes requires money.
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Even if the silver can be returned to the chieftain through economic means, a large amount of silver will be needed in a short period of time. The Zhuotusi family has some property, but where can they get more than ten or two hundred thousand taels of silver to buy food?
Just when Yang Guolong was worried about the large sum of silver, the war happened outside the pass.
attracted his attention.
There were hundreds of thousands of rebels there. These people had conquered dozens of counties on the Western Expedition and brought with them a large amount of gold and silver that they had nowhere to spend. Yang Guolong knew that his opportunity had come.
The various leaders of the rebels usually had no intention of becoming enemies with the chieftains. As long as the chieftains did not send troops, they were willing to stay within the confines of the river and concentrate on dealing with the army. However, there was one leader who was special here, namely Zhang Xianzhong, the Eighth King of Xiying. .
Because everyone else had family records and civilian husbands, only Zhang Xianzhong followed an absolutely elite military policy. His civilian husbands were all recruited on the spot, and they were sent away as soon as the things were shipped, and they never raised idle people.
This method worked in the past, but in the western section of the Qinling Mountains, there were no cities or villages for him to plunder, and he was surrounded by friendly troops who were not short of money. The situation became embarrassing. He lacked everything except not Gold and silver.
It is true that Tusi cannot get into the barren mountains, otherwise Zhang Xianzhong will starve to death and must be beaten.
Zhang Xianzhong and Yang Guolong just knew each other, but Yang Guolong didn't have much food at the moment. He wanted to keep Zhang Xianzhong until autumn, so he sent someone to contact Zhang Xianzhong and allowed him to station two battalions in the chieftain's territory. outside the pass and invite him into the territory.
The two discussed it and hit it off immediately. Zhang Xianzhong immediately wrote a letter to Liu Chengyun, asking to use the Hezhou Guard to rest, and he was willing to help fight the war. Anyway, he also needed to fight against the army to grab some food.
The most important agreement in the discussion between the two was that after Zhang Xianzhong garrisoned the Hezhou Guard, he would wait until the autumn harvest and use silver that was half the market price to buy 80,000 shi of grain, herbs, paper, and utensils. With this silver, Taozhou's The land was equalized and Fu was revitalized.
