The person who wrote to Liu Kongzhao to complain was one of his distant nephews, a scholar named Liu Yonglong, who was originally from Chuzhou, Zhejiang and settled in Jinling. Before the "Eunuch Rebellion" in Nanjing, relying on the rent collection from the military fields handed down from his ancestors, the family had no worries about food and clothing, and Liu Yonglong still had some spare money to spend on the Qinhuai River.
However, after the "Eunuch Rebellion", Liu Yonglong's family situation took a turn for the worse. First, all the military land passed down from the ancestors was confiscated by King Ji Yan (Ji Kun), and not even half an acre was left. Then Liu Yonglong's reputation as a scholar was devalued. Several businessmen who had originally supported the Liu family turned their backs and stopped paying money to the Liu family!
Because there is no longer any idea that gentry officials are exempt from business tax... Even Liu Bowen's signboard is no longer easy to use!
Many tax collectors who collect money from tax cards in various places have the prefix Zhu! Authentic Zhu Yuanzhang's seed, who dares to compare with their ancestors? No one dares to beat them. They all have murderers in their hands, and they really dare to call for death, but the troublemakers dare not kill them - beating the eldest son to death is rebellion! To destroy the family...
The loss of military land and patronage of businessmen is not the worst thing. The worst thing is that Liu Yonglong's family's old foundation has been exhausted because his father-in-law's family was exiled to Taiwan (currently still on Gulangyu Island).
Liu Yonglong was a descendant of Uncle Chengyi's family, so of course he had to marry a well-matched wife, marrying a woman from a common family in the Wei Kingdom who was a family friend. My father-in-law has suffered a disaster and is going to Taiwan, the plague island. How can he not help out with all his money? Besides, at that time, Liu Yonglong didn’t know that Prince Zhu was so determined and ruthless in his investigation of the military guantian, and that he didn’t even give his distant uncle Liu Kongzhao face!
House leaks usually go hand in hand with Lian Yeyu, and Liu Yonglong’s house is no exception! When land is lost and family wealth is depleted, debt problems ensue.
The Liu family's debt problem was caused by the return of military land. Because these days, tenants need to pay a deposit to rent land, and when the tenant returns, the deposit must be returned. After the Liu family lost their land, the lease relationship with the tenants naturally ceased to exist. Of course, the tenants could ask for the return of the land...
If Jinling Xungui was in power, Liu Yonglong could have relied on the tenant's deposit. If the yamen in the southeast continue to "kneel down and beg for food" in front of the powerful gentry as in the past, even if he is not a descendant of Liu Bowen, with the power of his family and his reputation as a scholar, he will not be afraid of a few country bumpkins.
But the problem is that Jinling Xungui’s power has fallen! Although Liu Kongzhao is still on the stage, he is a nobleman from the south, not a nobleman from the north. In today's political arena, he is alone and has to be an official with his tail between his legs. How can he dare to protect a distant nephew?
And the government here in the southeast has also straightened up its back to do things - after the military fields were taken back, 20% of them were officials' job fields! How big a benefit would that be? How can we allow an evil gentry like Liu Yonglong to default on tenants' deposits? Moreover, local officials still have two knives in their backs: "elimination at the bottom" and "left-class supervisory censor". How can they not work hard?
So Liu Yonglong had to sell his house in Jinling to pay off the debt. After paying off the debt, he had a little left over, which he used to rent a house and meet daily expenses. And he himself studied hard, hoping to be successful and then become an official.
Unexpectedly, prices in Jinling City were getting more expensive day by day. In particular, the price of rice had skyrocketed since the winter of the 18th year of Chongzhen. It had almost reached the sky in the midsummer of the 19th year. A bushel of rice costs more than five denarii. The price of rice is the basis. When the price of rice rises, everything will rise!
How does Liu Yonglong live like this? He is not alone. He has five mothers above him, four wives in the middle, seven children waiting to be fed, and five old servants who have been with the Liu family all their lives.
There are twenty-two mouths to eat, both inside and outside, and they all have a good appetite. The family can't bear even a bushel of rice a day, plus other miscellaneous expenses such as vegetables, oil, firewood, salt, sauce, vinegar, and cloth, plus The cost of attending elementary school for seven children, coupled with the rising rent, the Liu Yonglong family’s daily expenses are almost two taels of silver! He was also an unemployed scholar with no income, and he couldn't stand it anymore, so he had no choice but to ask his distant uncle Liu Kongzhao for help.
But Liu Kongzhao has too many poor relatives. How much can he help? They just gave him twenty taels of silver and a letter of recommendation, asking him to go to Dengzhou, Shandong Province to defect to Beiyang Minister Shen Tingyang...
Now Liu Kongzhao's letter and money have not been delivered, and Liu Yonglong had to pawn a few clothes to wear out to meet guests, exchange some money to buy a cart of brown rice (he has a large family, and a cart of rice can't last long), and he also There were no animals to pull the cart, so he pulled the cart himself, while his wife and Commander Xu's daughter pushed behind.
As soon as the couple pushed a cart of brown rice out of the back door of a rice shop and turned to the entrance of the alley in front of the rice shop, they found that the alley was crowded with people. They were all ragged people with disheveled faces. Some of them were dragging their feet. With his wife and children.
These people do not seem to be natives of Jinling, but speak with accents from somewhere in the north. They are obviously northern refugees wandering in the southeast.
When Liu Yonglong and his wife were pushing a cart of rice through the alley, the refugees had already begun to make a noise.
"It's rising again..."
"Damn it, are you going to let people live?"
"A bucket of rice costs five cents!"
"Last month it was still four dollars!"
"What the hell kind of world is this?"
"How much salary does my kid get for serving as a soldier for the prince? Now my family can't even afford five buckets of rice..."
"Damn it, if you're in a hurry, I'll grab it!"
"Yes! If you don't have anything to eat, grab it!"
"Snatch, grab, grab..."
"Yes, grab his motherfucker!"
It turns out that today is the day when the new army to overcome the difficulties will be paid and the Ministry of War will distribute relief to the refugees in Beifu. Not every family in the New Army of Overcoming Difficulties has a land grant. Many people do not have enough credit, and some are sailors. They have no land to collect rent, so they have to spend money to buy the rice they eat at home. If these new officers and soldiers have family members living in Nanjing, the military salary is usually given directly to their families, and the family members then buy rice.
In addition, there are many refugees from the North Prefecture here in Nanjing, officially called "Yi Min", who are unwilling to be enslaved by the Eastern captives and rogue bandits and follow His Royal Highness to move south. Their household registrations are registered and managed by the Ministry of War, and they can be given priority to join the army. If they have difficulty living, they can also receive relief rice from the Ministry of War. However, starting from last month, because the Ministry of War also had no surplus grain, it changed to giving them money to buy rice to make ends meet.
The rising price of rice in the Nanjing market has put great pressure on the lives of these two groups of people.
The alley where Liu Yonglong buys rice is close to the Longjiangkou pier, so there are many rice shops. It is considered a distribution market. It is cheaper to buy rice from here. You only have to pay an "entrance tax" when entering the inner city. However, most of the family members and volunteers of the Beifu Army live in the east of the outer city. They can go around from the outer city without paying this tax.
So the families of sergeants and refugees who are greedy for cheap came here to buy rice, but today they found that the rice here is no longer cheap... The money they have on hand is no longer enough to buy food for the family for a month!
These military refugees were no different than Liu Yonglong. They all came to the southeast empty-handed and had nothing to pawn and sell. If you don’t have money to buy rice, you have to starve. If you don’t want to starve, then you can only rob.
Anyway, these people have nothing and have nothing to be afraid of... The new Nanjing Army is still their disciples! If Wu Bingbu doesn't make the decision for them, how can he make the decision for the profiteers who are driving up the price of rice?
Therefore, as soon as someone yelled for robbery, the whole alley was in chaos. The angry people rushed to the various rice stores in the alley like a tide. The stunned clerks and shopkeepers did not even have time to close the doors, and no one dared to resist this group of hungry people. The crazy northern refugees all fled away in panic.
Liu Yonglong and his wife were also unlucky. A cart full of brown rice was robbed. Liu Xiucai wanted to resist, but someone hit his head with a sap and he fainted on the spot.
