The two cavalrymen only had time to say the words: "King Khan's Golden Arrow Order". Before Fan Wencheng could ask what happened, they heard a war horse neighing sadly and falling to the ground, twitching all over. , spurting out bloody foam from his mouth and nose. As soon as this war horse fell to the ground, the other one also fell suddenly. If the cavalry hadn't dodged quickly, it would have been suppressed.
The horse collapsed and the two cavalrymen were dying. Fan Wencheng looked at the two cavalrymen. Their faces, eyebrows, and beards were covered with hoarfrost. It was obvious that they had traveled a long way.
"What happened?"
Fan Wencheng grabbed a Jiannu cavalryman and asked anxiously: "What happened? Tell someone quickly!"
A bad thought came to Fan Wencheng's head. Could it be that Ning Haijun took advantage of the cold winter to make a surprise attack on Shenyang? This idea is very strong. Now Ning Haijun has the absolute strength to attack Shenyang. After all, Liaoyang controlled by Ning Haijun is too close to Shenyang, and the cavalry will arrive at dawn and dusk. This is definitely not bragging.
What's more, Ning Haijun is different from other Ming armies. Ning Haijun has powerful artillery. Fortress Ning Haijun is not an obstacle to Ning Haijun, it is just a little troublesome at most.
The Jiannu cavalryman captured by Fan Wencheng was panting heavily, obviously very tired: "Liaodong...Liaodong, suffered a white disaster!"
Fan Wencheng said in shock: "What!?"
The older cavalryman barely controlled his breathing and said: "The White Disaster is coming! Half a month ago, a heavy snowstorm fell suddenly in Liaodong. Countless tents were crushed, countless cattle and sheep were frozen to death, and countless tribes were killed because of a heavy snowstorm. Disappeared. Thousands of people froze to death in Shenyang City alone, and hundreds of carts were loaded with corpses. We counted them for a long time and couldn’t count how many people froze to death!"
Speaking of this, the older cavalry choked up. His family members also froze to death in the blizzard, including his eight-year-old son, his eleven-year-old daughter, his wife, three concubines, and him. His mother, a family of seven, all froze to death except him.
Faced with this bad news, Fan Wencheng was also in chaos and encountered a snowstorm. For the nomads, this was quite fatal. Their only way to survive was to pass on the losses and go south to attack the lands of the farming civilization in the Central Plains.
Nomads like them have been doing this for thousands of years, but the problem is that to the south of the Great Jin Kingdom is the Ning Haijun, which is an existence they cannot defeat. Even if they pull all the slaves up, they may not be able to gnaw them. Ning Haijun's defense line, as for the westward attack on Guan Ning Army's territory.
To be fair, Jiannu's elite can gnaw at Guan Ning's army's Ningyuan defense line, open a gap, grab a hand from Guan Ning's army, and tide over the difficulties.
But the problem is, although you can rob it, you can't rob it.
It's like in later generations, an old man holds a huge sum of tens of thousands of yuan. Although he has no force, no one robs him because the police are not vegetarians.
If Jiannu attacks Ning Haijun, Guan Ning's army may not necessarily send troops to help Ning Haijun. But once Jiannu sends troops to attack Ning Haijun, with Cheng Shijie's style and habits, he will definitely send troops to attack Jiannu.
Huang Taiji thought of this level. He did not immediately think about going south or west while Dajin still had a certain amount of strength. Instead, he immediately sought Fan Wencheng's help.
Fan Wencheng reported victory to Huang Taiji as early as October after the autumn harvest was completed. He achieved gratifying results in the fields in Fengzhou. He planted more than 280,000 acres of corn and harvested more than 420,000 dan. There are more than 20,000 shi. In total, Fengzhou has 456,000 shi of grain and more than 10 million kilograms of fodder.
This food seems to be a surplus for more than 40,000 soldiers and civilians, but the problem is that if this food is placed in Dajin, it will not be enough. Since the surrender of Mongolia Ezhe, the entire Dajin Kingdom has increased instead of falling. Now it has millions of soldiers and civilians.
With more than 400,000 shi of grain, each person can only share five buckets on average. Even if they save on food, they will not last for three months at most, and they will not be able to survive the beginning of spring.
More importantly, if these grains are transported to Liaodong, they may not be transported to Liaodong, and they will be eaten up on the road. Although the Ming Dynasty lost more than half of its grains from the south to the north, which means that eight million shi of grains were transported. The maximum amount to the capital is four million shi, and sometimes it is only more than 3 million shi.
But the problem is that the total distance from Fengzhou to Shenyang is 1,468 kilometers, which is slightly closer than Hangzhou to Beijing, but it is all land transportation along the way. If one carriage can transport ten stones of grain, more than 400,000 stones of grain would require more than 40,000 four-wheeled carriages.
Regardless of whether Fan Wencheng could get more than 40,000 carriages in Fengzhou, the key to the problem is that these more than 40,000 carriages require two horses and one person. According to the calculation, the horse eats thirty catties, and the person eats three catties. Two horses plus A person needs to eat at least 63 kilograms of grain every day.
From Fengzhou to Shenyang, it would take more than thirty days at the fastest, which means that from Fengzhou to Shenyang, one carriage, two horses, and one person need to eat twelve stones and two buckets of food.
No matter how many calculations were made, Fan Wencheng thought about it and decided to lead thousands of troops to Shenyang to help Huang Taiji solve this imminent problem.
…
Cheng Shijie's residence in Beijing.
The person who followed Cheng Shijie to Beijing this time was Meng En. In fact, Cheng Shijie did not leave any intelligence agency in the capital, but Cheng Shijie would know what he should know.
Jinyiwei's reputation is very good among Cheng Shijie. They do everything for money. As long as the price is right, they will sell it no matter what information it is. If Cheng Shijie needs which concubine Wen Tiren slept with yesterday and what she said, Jin Yiwei can also get the information.
For example, right now, Meng En is holding a stack of intelligence in his hand. Of course, these are not originals, but handwritten copies. These are the people who were involved in the recent impeachment process of Shijie. There are only a few methods used by Ming officials to impeach officials.
Start from the aspects of character, virtue, conduct, and ancestors. Cheng Shijie simply ignored the accusations that Cheng Shijie was self-respecting the bandits, allowed his soldiers to loot the gentry, causing devastation to all living beings, exploited men and bullied women in the countryside, and so on.
However, when Cheng Shijie looked at these memorials to impeach him, his face became ugly.
"Commander!"
Cheng Shijie angrily slapped the memorial in his hand on the table, and even the pen washer and paperweight jumped up. It can be seen that Cheng Shijie was very angry.
During the impeachment memorial against Cheng Shijie, not only did some scold Cheng Shijie, but also his parents, and some scolded Cheng Shijie for his inaction and inability to act humanely.
The key is that Cheng Shijie has no way to explain it yet.
Cheng Shijie was very angry.
Seeing Cheng Shijie angry, Meng En said: "Commander, do you want..."
Meng En has a military mentality and is accustomed to using force to solve problems.
Although Cheng Shijie did not lead many personal guards when he came to Beijing this time, he still had three to four hundred people. It would not be possible to attack and plunder the city with three hundred or four hundred people, but it would not be a big problem to deal with some civil servants.
At least one Ning Navy soldier can beat ten officials. For older officials, there is no problem in beating twenty. Of course, this has a prerequisite, except for officials like Mao Yuanyi and Lu Xiangsheng, because Lu Xiangsheng and Mao Yuanyi both They are masters, and ordinary generals are no match for them, let alone ordinary soldiers.
Cheng Shijie shook his head and said: "Although swearing is hateful, it is not a crime that can lead to death. However, this revenge must be avenged!"
"The commander-in-chief means..."
"Let Lin Xuwen come over here!"
"yes!"
Not long after, Lin Xuwen came to Cheng Shijie.
"Meet the Duke!"
Cheng Shijie did not arrange any manpower to inquire about information in the capital. In the Cheng Mansion in the capital, there was actually only one steward, Lin Xuwen. Lin Xuwen was Lin Xunzong's cousin. He was proficient in writing and could be considered reliable in his work.
"You ask the kitchen to make more steamed buns, and make one or two thousand steamed buns! After these steamed buns are ready, you take the steamed buns to the streets and find some little beggars with good legs and feet! Let the little beggars do something for me! "
"What's up?"
"Set off firecrackers!"
This time Cheng Shijie entered, the guards brought more than a thousand grenades and threw them at the homes of these officials. Naturally, it would inevitably cause many casualties.
However, if you take out the gunpowder from the grenade, make it into big firecrackers, and throw the firecrackers into the homes of those who are impeaching Cheng Shijie, then it will give them a warning.
It was night, after dark, the little beggars who were temporarily recruited by Lin Xuwen began to work separately. For these little beggars, setting off a firecracker can get ten steamed buns, which is a good thing that is hard to find in the world. Although throwing firecrackers in the officials' courtyard may offend the officials, they have quick legs and feet, so they have to be caught.
Located near Dongzhimen, this is the residence of Cheng Jinxin, the censor. Cheng Jinxin was a Jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen. Since he had no backing, he worked on the bench for several years until he joined Wu Zongda, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and the Grand Bachelor of Zhongji Palace, the Prince Shaofu. Cheng Jinxin was promoted from the Eighth Grade Zhaomo School to the Sixth Grade Experience Department.
According to Cheng Jinxin's official position, if he were to be transferred to other places, he would be at least a magistrate of a prefecture or a county official such as Wanping or Daxing County. He would be promoted from a trivial department-level cadre to a county-level official, and he would already be a mid- to senior-level official among Beijing officials. .
He slept relatively late that day. After all, Cheng Shijie's three strategies caused a storm in the court. They needed to deal with it and the meeting started very late. When I was returning home, I met a grain merchant from my hometown who was giving me a banquet.
The food crisis in Gyeonggi is simply a major benefit for grain merchants. Now that water transportation is cut off, there will be less grain to eat. If prices are not raised at this time, when will they be? If it doesn’t increase several times, you’ll be embarrassed to tell people you’re a grain merchant when you go out!
Troubled times are a terrible purgatory for the poor, but for these black-hearted businessmen, they are a good opportunity to make a fortune. They know that in this troubled world, food is the most precious thing, so of course they must take advantage of the good opportunity in front of them to raise the price of food to death in order to make a lot of money. As for whether those mud-legged people can afford it and whether they will starve to death, what does it have to do with them? Everyone decided that the grain shop would close tomorrow and reopen the day after tomorrow. The price of grain would increase by 20%!
After receiving the generous gift from the grain merchant and getting hints from the boss above, Cheng Jinxin decided to have sex with his concubine, while the yellow-faced woman stayed aside.
Just when Cheng Jinxin picked up his gun, mounted his horse and galloped to his heart's content, there was an earth-shaking loud noise coming from the courtyard.
Cheng Jinxin was so frightened that he shivered...
It took Cheng Jinxin a long time to come to his senses and shouted: "Come here, what's going on?"
The steward held a few small pieces of paper, and saw printed on them: "Watch your mouth, this is a warning, next time it will be a real guy!"
Cheng Jinxin could see what this meant. Although he had experience as a censor and a censor, he could impeach hundreds of officials, but the problem was that he had always been cautious. Except for impeaching Shijie in accordance with the above instructions, others... He won't impeach him, will he be able to survive after eating?
Cheng Shijie does have the strength to mess with him.
Just as Cheng Jinxin was wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, there was another loud noise not far away.
That night, the capital was very lively. Thousands of firecrackers were fired, and more than two-thirds of the officials in the capital received special care. The problem was that the sound of firecrackers did not stop until midnight.
When the morning meeting was held, Emperor Chongzhen was immediately happy when he saw all the civil and military ministers of the court. Most of them had panda eyes.
When Emperor Chongzhen thought that these officials would impeach Cheng Shijie, he did not expect that they were actually discussing the matter of shipping. Emperor Chongzhen vaguely understood that these officials were bullying the weak and afraid of the strong.
In fact, if the ministers knew what Emperor Chongzhen was thinking, they would probably cry and urinate. The grenades equipped by Ning Haijun are not a secret. If a grenade explodes, it is common for several people to be killed and more than ten people to be killed. No one dared to risk their own lives to test whether Cheng Shijie was serious.
The grain shortage in the capital was critical, and this time it was rare to make a quick decision. The imperial court decided to formally establish the Maritime Transportation Department in Tianjin. Sun Yuanhua, the former governor of water transportation and admiral of military affairs in Fengyang and other departments, who was also in charge of rivers, was appointed as the governor of maritime transportation. He was fully responsible for the development of sea transportation. Things.
Due to the rush of time, the Ministry of Civil Affairs did not provide any instructions on how to fill in the structure below the Maritime Department's Yamen. However, Sun Yuanhua took charge of the matter and could select local officials with meritorious titles or directly select officials as subordinates. The Ministry of Civil Affairs would ratify them afterwards. . The imperial edict did not directly clarify that the Maritime Corps was under the command of the Maritime Department, but it also clearly stated that Cheng Shijie and Ning Haijun were temporarily under the control of Sun Yuanhua to perform the duty of protecting maritime transportation.
Giving the Governor of Water Transport the power to open sea transport was actually to appease the millions of water transport workers and 120,000 water transport soldiers. The interests involved were too great. The policy adopted by Emperor Chongzhen and the court was to rot the meat in the pot, which was just for fun. The later-generation approach of using one team and two cards.
As for how Ning Haijun will cooperate with the Shipping Department, how to gather grain, how to organize ships to transport the grain from Jiangnan to Tianjin, and how much grain can be organized, neither the DPRK nor China has made a decision.
The crudeness of the plan showed the haste and panic of the Central Committee's decision to open the sea canal. It was difficult to expect Wen Tiren and others to think everything through in a day or two.
While Cheng Shijie was having lunch, heavy snow began to fall in the sky, and the snow became heavier and heavier. By night, it had turned into a world of ice and snow.
Cheng Shijie waited for a day, but did not wait for the impeachment of the officials, nor for the accountability of Emperor Chongzhen. In fact, Cheng Shijie did not know that his firecrackers had made the business of a doctor who treated impotence and premature ejaculation in the capital boom.
Cheng Shijie slept happily until dawn, when Cheng Shijie vaguely heard the sound of crying.
"what happened?"
Meng En, who followed Cheng Shijie to Beijing, said: "Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief, there was a heavy snowstorm last night. Many houses were collapsed by the snow, and many people died..."
Cheng Shijie was slightly startled: "Go and investigate, how much damage this snow has caused!"
"yes!"
There are some things he has to do. As the saying goes, everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of a country. Cheng Shijie has no loyalty to the court, but he cannot bear to watch the country in turmoil and countless people starve to death on the streets.
In the capital these days, it is rare to see that the efficiency of the imperial court is much higher.
Not long after Cheng Shijie had eaten breakfast, Meng En came with investigation information.
Meng En actually got the information from Jinyiwei. As for the worthless information about the snowstorm in the capital, Meng En did not spend any money, but a jar of Baogu Shaobaijiu produced in Liaodong. The market price was about one tael of silver and twelve kilograms. Just got the information.
"According to Jin Yiwei's information, last night's heavy snowfall caused more than 9,000 houses to collapse in Daxing and Wanping counties in the capital alone, killing more than 800 people, freezing to death more than 1,300 people, and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Go back, as for the losses of Shuntian Mansion, we haven’t calculated them yet!”
Listening to Meng En's report, Cheng Shijie sighed and said, "It's really a leaky house and it rains all day, which makes it worse!"
The imperial court now wants to use the water transport team to temporarily put aside the problem of canal blockage. Transporting grain to the capital first to solve the food crisis in the capital is also a solution to the problem, although this method is very crude.
However, the right people are used.
Although the Governor's Office of Water Transport has more than 10,000 water boats, these water boats cannot sail at all. Once they reach the sea, when strong winds blow, they will either fall apart or be overturned.
But the problem is that Sun Yuanhua is Cheng Shijie's old boss. If Sun Yuanhua proposes to hire Ning Haijun's transport fleet, Cheng Shijie will be willing to take the business as long as he pays.
After all, shipping by sea is much cheaper than water transportation. With a transportation cost of 2%, without considering the wages of shipwrecks, transporting four million shi of grain will only consume less than 80,000 shi of grain, which is not as much as the cost of water transportation. One percent. Even if Sun Yuanhua only offers 30% of the price, this business can be done.
Cheng Shijie still makes money.
However, this sudden blizzard will definitely disrupt Sun Yuanhua's plan and make the food crisis in Gyeonggi even more serious.
"Meng En, send troops to Liaodong to see the damage situation in Liaodong!"
What Cheng Shijie immediately thought of was authorization. Liaodong had rich experience in disaster relief. He wrote directly: "The management committee is responsible for disaster relief matters. It can be done easily without asking for instructions!"
When Cheng Shijie finished writing, he handed the letter to Meng En: "Send it to Liaodong as quickly as possible!"
In fact, the snowstorm was more serious than he imagined, and the first trouble was naturally the border crossing.
The Mongolian Plateau was hit by a snowstorm. The snowstorms lasted for more than 40 days, causing extremely heavy losses to the Mongolians. Many weak tribes disappeared into the snow and the sky, never to be traced again.
Facing the livestock that were dying of cold and starvation all over the land, the Mongolians were in despair. Their herds had been severely weakened. How would they live in the future?
What's even more frightening is that in the Monan and Mobei regions, the Mongols suffered even more heavy losses. Some tribes, not to mention cattle and sheep, even the horses that were their lifeblood were dead. They were forced to survive by the pressure of survival. The crazy Mongols began to migrate towards the south, trying to get some compensation from this fertile land with guaranteed harvests due to drought and floods, so as to survive this disaster year.
The only way for them to survive the difficulties is to break through the border, plunder the farming areas, and obtain food, cloth and other necessary materials for survival from the border towns. If they succeed, their ethnic group will be able to survive. If they fail, the entire ethnic group will And it disappeared. Everything is for survival, no matter what is right or wrong.
But the problem is that the people at the border also want to survive. They are not Sakyamuni, but they do not have the habit of cutting meat from themselves to feed the greedy falcons. When the jackals come, they will naturally take up arms to defend their homes.
Now this terrible wave is still fermenting and has not yet officially erupted. Hundreds of thousands of Mongolian soldiers are on their way to the Datong, Xuanfu, and Jizhen areas hungry. The forward troops have already made contact with the Ming army on the Great Wall defense line. With his hands, he killed until blood flowed like a river.
At present, the main ones are the Tumut tribe, Chahar tribe and other tribes. However, the Ming Dynasty, which had weathered many storms, had already smelled the coming storm, and everyone inside and outside the court tightened their nerves and did not dare to be careless in the slightest.
A major disaster must be followed by a war. This is a historical law. Any behavior that ignores this law will surely pay a bloody price!
The second trouble is that this snow disaster has affected too many areas. The person who received the news of the disaster must have been Shuntian Prefecture. Miyun and Huairou were hit by heavy snowstorms, and tens of thousands of people were affected. Then, Cangzhou, Taiyuan, Daming Prefecture, Jinan Prefecture...
In other words, this snowstorm spread from north to south, all the way to the banks of the Yellow River. As for whether Henan and Shaanxi were affected, it is difficult to say for the time being. It is impossible, but the news has not yet come.
The most tearful thing is that in the face of such a terrible natural disaster, the first reaction of those civil servants who had an infinite love for committing suicide was not to try to provide disaster relief, but to force Chongzhen to issue a self-incriminating edict. They said plausibly: "It's because Your Majesty used sycophants and jesters, allowed him to act illegally and angered God, so God sent disasters to warn Your Majesty! For the sake of the common people in the world, Your Majesty, please hurry up and punish the common people of the world. God admits his mistake and promises to be a good minister and a villain. Only by asking for forgiveness from God can he save all the people from the fire and water!"
Chongzhen was extremely annoyed by this. Damn it, why is it my fault every time there is a natural disaster?
I spent so much money and suffered so much jealousy to support you, just to let you find faults in me and force me to review? He naturally knows who the "sycophants" these civil servants are talking about?
Who else could it be? Naturally, it refers to Cheng Shijie, but the ministers dare not mention Cheng Shijie's name, because Cheng Shijie is in the capital now. They impeach Cheng Shijie, and Cheng Shijie dares to throw bombs at their home. Cheng Shijie has a criminal record for doing this. (End of chapter)
