Zuo Mengmei sighed quietly: "The great (niandai) king lives in the palace and is happy every day, but he doesn't know that the rain is already coming outside Jingzhou City!"
"What happened?" Zhu Cizhao asked hurriedly, "Did the prince's brother do something disobedient and unfilial?"
"It's not the prince," Zuo Mengmei shook her head, "it's Li Zicheng!"
"Ah, it's the Emperor," Zhu Cizhao noticed the slip of the tongue and quickly corrected himself, "Is it the traitor who called?"
"Not yet, but it's coming soon!" Zuo Mengmei said, "The traitor's notice has been posted outside Jingzhou City... it says 'eat his mother, share his mother, divide the land when King Chuang comes' , causing people in Jingzhou to panic. This morning, Huang Shu, the military advisor of my adoptive father, also came to Jingzhou, and is currently discussing with dad, Wang Banban, and Magistrate Du on how to deal with King Chuang's army!"
"This..." Zhu Cizhao panicked all of a sudden, "Sister, let's prepare to escape! This Li Zicheng is so cruel, I can't fall into his hands again!"
Zuo Mengmei looked at her little husband, a little speechless.
Li Zicheng is fierce, but your brother Zhu Cixiang is not fierce? If you fall into the hands of Li Zicheng, your life may not be ruined. If you rebel and are caught by your brother, do you still want to survive?
The most ruthless imperial family since ancient times!
.......
At the same time, Zhu Cizhong, the good brother of Chu King Zhu Cizhao and the most filial son in the world, had returned to the Jiangbei camp.
He did not return directly from Fengyang Mansion to Jiangbei Camp, but made a big circle. First, we walked along the Huaihe River to Huai'an Prefecture, and then went south along the canal. After arriving in Yangzhou, we turned west and passed through Yizhen before arriving at Jiangbei Daying in Jiangpu County.
Along the way, every time he passed a town of some size, Zhu Cixiang would hold a massive victory parade. Eight thousand to ten thousand fully-armed soldiers of the New Army, fully armed with pickled Tatar heads hanging on their weapons, passed through the city with murderous intent, shocking the hearts of the people!
The Tatars have killed so many people, who dares to disobey?
Come if you don’t like it! Let’s see who is better, you or the Tatars!
In addition to frightening Xiao Xiao, Zhu Cixiang also killed a lot of people along the way - they were all northern refugees living between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River!
Huang Shu was right. Zhu Cixi's regime was a regime of exiled Han nobles in the north. They all came to the southeast with clenched fists to make money. So Zhu Cixiang really trusted the people from the north... He was from Hunan in his previous life and had been working hard in the magic city, so he didn't particularly like the people from the north. But in this life, he knows very well what his basic base is?
Zhu Cixiang's foundation was firstly the Northern Army and secondly the Southern Shang Dynasty!
The Northern Army does not refer to northern warlords such as Huang Degong, Gao Jie, and Zuo Liangyu. It was the northern soldiers whose fortunes were controlled by Zhu Cixiang - just like the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty in history, Zhu Cixiang's southern crossing regime now also relied on the exiled northerners as soldiers.
The southern merchants were mainly maritime merchants. Unlike the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Cixiang's Southern Ming Dynasty was now just in time for the Age of Discovery. Wealth and firearms from overseas were very important to Zhu Cixiang's army.
Therefore, Nanshang was also an important part of Zhu Cihong's regime. Without them, Prince Zhu's regime would not be stable.
Now is the time to use troops, so of course the Northern Army takes the dominant position. Zhu Cixiang must pay special attention to the Northerners and help the Northerners refugees living in the south as much as possible.
Of course it is unrealistic to give millions or tens of millions of refugees from the north a plan to farm land... The population in the southeast is already large! It’s almost overcrowded, where can we go to farm? Although he can seize the land of southern landlords, he cannot drive out tenants on a large scale!
Then shouldn't it trigger a peasant uprising?
However, Zhu Cixiang still had to find ways to provide relief and opportunities for soldiers in the north!
So when he showed force between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River, he recruited strong men from the north along the way, and won tens of thousands more families, all of whom he brought back to the Jiangbei Camp - and this Jiangbei Camp will soon be turned into a military city to house northern refugees. Got it!
"Master Chitose, together with these tens of thousands of families, there are now almost 120,000 families of soldiers and soldiers of the Northern Army who have allocated their homes in Yingtian Mansion... The population is no less than 300,000, and it will soon exceed 400,000! "
"There are still many refugees coming from the north. Huai'an, Yangzhou, Fengyang, Runing and other prefectures have reported that the number is probably no less than three to four million!"
"Master Chitose, in the past few years, there were many northerners who went south, and now there are millions more..."
"Master Chitose, there are many northern refugees in the southeastern capitals. Many of them have no food and clothing, and no way to beg... We can always think of something, right?"
The people who were talking to Zhu Cixi about the refugees in the north were Wu Xiang, the Minister of War, and Li Yan, the commander of the military order and guard.
The northerners who followed Zhu Cixiang to the Jiangbei camp were settled by the two of them - it was impossible to grant land, but the homestead was still awarded, and some money was given to settle down. Each household must be given twenty or thirty taels.
About 40,000 to 50,000 households, millions of taels of silver were thrown out!
In addition, you have to give some food rations, don’t let people starve to death! Each household is given two shi of rice and noodles, which means another 100,000 shi is gone...
Of course, the money and food are not given in vain. A family of 40,000 to 50,000 men means 40,000 to 50,000 strong men, all new recruits of the new army to overcome difficulties!
In addition to the more than 70,000 families previously settled in Nanjing, Zhu Cihong now has 120,000 families under his control, with a population of 5 to 6 million...and this number is still growing.
In the entire southeast, the number of refugees from the north is conservatively estimated to be four to five million!
In addition, there are still many refugees staying between the unoccupied areas of Shandong and Jianghan... If you add them all together, even ten million people will not be able to stop them!
If you include the refugees who fled south in the past few years, the number is even more staggering. And what about the livelihood of the refugees? How do you feed so many mouths? In addition, there is a "slave change" in the southeast... It gives me a headache just thinking about it!
Zhu Cixiang pressed his temples, "Is there any news from Zuo Liangyu? Is he dead?"
Li Yan replied: "Not dead, but almost."
"Master Qiansui, are you going to use troops against Huguang?" Wu Xiang said, "Only by taking Huguang into our hands will we have enough food!"
Zhu Cixiang squinted his eyes, calculating and said: "How much food has the Juntunsi reserved? If the Juntunsi does not have enough food, this battle will not be successful! Using troops in Huguang will not only deal with Zuo Liangyu, but also Li Zicheng! Send troops! We need 100,000 troops, and the period of military deployment is at least 6 months... In addition to the consumption of civil servants, boatmen, and livestock, we also need to prepare some relief rations. We don't dare to use this army if we don't have millions of kilograms of rice. .”
Due to too many exiles from the north and the war in Huaibei and Shandong, there is already a bit of food shortage in the southeast.
Now is the time when the economy is in recession, so food prices in Nanjing, Yangzhou, Suzhou and other places are also very high. One stone of white rice has been sold for around three taels of silver!
In addition, due to the developed industry and commerce in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty, a large amount of land was used to grow cash crops, so food was always provided by Huguang upstream.
Once war breaks out in autumn and winter, the eastward transportation of grain from Huguang to Huguang may be interrupted, and grain prices in the southeast will become even more expensive.
Therefore, the "millions of stones" quoted by Zhu Cixiang should be less. If you really have to prepare enough, ten million stones is still about the same.
"Where can I get a million stones?" Wu Xiang shook his head, "The autumn harvest hasn't come yet? It will take November or December to collect all the rent, so there will always be 16 million stones!"
"Sixteen million stones!" Zhu Cixiang smacked his lips, "Now that we have it all, Pinghuguang's expenses will be covered, and Shandong will not have to worry about it. It can also help refugees and stabilize food prices... ..”
"Then we have to wait until next spring before deploying troops in large numbers, but that's okay." Li Yan thought for a moment, "There are still more than four months... we should be able to expand a few more model regiments. These few In March, we have ordered large quantities of muskets and gunpowder from the iron factories in Foshan and Anping, and they should be delivered when the southeast wind blows next spring."
He smiled: "Huguang has thousands of miles of fertile fields and 200 million acres of arable land. Once we capture it, we will no longer have to worry about food shortages!"
