"The Battle of Huguang has been delayed so far. Although the government and army have the upper hand, the land of the two lakes is still ravaged by bandits. The Hubei side has made a plan to hand over the land by dictation, and the government refuses to correct the chaos. The gentry and merchants in Hubei are finished... .Without the Hubei gentry and merchants, we don’t know who to look for to harvest the rice!”
"The situation in Hunan is not much better. Yuezhou and Changde have experienced some military fires, and there are still small groups of thieves in many places. Unruly people in some places have even caused trouble, eating, robbing and burning big households. Land deeds, burning debt deeds, a smoky atmosphere..."
"Now I'm afraid that the chaos in Huguang will spread to Jiangnan!"
"Spreading to the south of the Yangtze River? How is it possible? The rogue bandits are at a disadvantage here in Huguang..."
"But we didn't confiscate how much Huguang rice! Without Huguang rice shipped to Jiangnan, what would the Jiangnan people eat? Now there are not only Jiangnan people in Jiangnan, but also many exiled northerners, all of whom are so miserable. If If we don’t have rice to eat, why should we continue to cause trouble?”
"There are many slaves in Jiangnan who are also ready to make trouble, and they are all suffering very much. It is forbidden to make a fuss!"
"Oh, what should I do? If you can't receive it, you can't receive it... In the past years, more than half of the rice merchants in Huguang who did business with us have lost their strength, and the rest have been severely damaged and cannot collect enough white rice for us. "
"What can they do? There is chaos everywhere, and farmers are reluctant to sell..."
"I think the world is still in chaos!"
In a restaurant by the Qinhuai River, a group of rice merchants who had bought rice from Huguang were gathering together, eating wine and discussing current affairs.
The Ming Dynasty has been tolerant of speech for many years. People have no taboos in speaking and dare to speak out about anything, so news and rumors spread quickly.
But what they, the rice bosses, are saying now is the real situation!
The chaos in Huguang is a bit big... Of course, for Zhu Cixiang, the current situation in Huguang is quite ideal.
The gentry and profiteers in Hubei were defeated by Li Zicheng, and they were unable to prevent Zhu Cihong from eating the fruits of the land reform victory left by Li Zicheng - Li Zicheng was once again taken advantage of! After struggling for a long time in Huguang, Zhu Cihong was able to implement a plan to equalize land by population, but it all turned out to be advantageous to Zhu Cihong.
Now Zhu Cixi can use the redemption policy to ask the farmers in Hubei who have obtained the land to pay tens of millions of dan in the next five years!
Moreover, since the land in Hubei is relatively even, and there are no local tyrants and evil gentry to monopolize it, Zhu Cixang's court will still receive relatively large amounts of land tax five years later. If one acre is charged one or two buckets of rice, Hubei alone can get no less than 10 million shi!
Of course, the situation in Hunan was a little worse. They were just beaten by Li Zicheng and did not come to share the land. However, the local tyrants and evil gentry around the Dongting Lake Plain also suffered heavy losses, and it was difficult to resist Zhu Cixiang's inspection of the Qing Dynasty. Although it cannot be as thorough as in Hubei, there is no problem in plundering more than 10 million acres of military villages and official fields in Changsha, Yuezhou, and Changde.
If you add in the military villages and official fields on the ground in Wuchang, Huangzhou (also not occupied by Li Zicheng), and Hanyang, 20 million acres have been captured! The rent for the twenty million acres was collected according to the method of the Southeast Army Corps, and another eight million dan was received in a year (another 2 million dan were "expenses"). The remaining private lands in Hunan Prefecture and Wuchang, Hanyang, and Huangzhou can be supplemented to some extent. The entire Huguang will have an annual income of 20 million yuan in the future... and this does not include industrial and commercial taxes!
In addition, Zhu Cixi also obtained Wuhan Prefecture, the capital of the Yangtze River, and would have a stronghold in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in the future.
Therefore, the Battle of Huguang seemed "frustrating" and Li Zicheng was allowed to pretend to be alive, but the actual harvest was huge.
However, these huge gains are long-term and require a lot of energy to digest... But a food crisis is about to break out in the southeastern half!
The people chatting in this tavern are all rice merchants from Huguang and Jiangnan. They are all too aware of the problem of food shortage in the southeast.
In fact, the shortage of food in the southeast is no longer a day or two. It started to run out when Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong took turns ravaging Huguang. It eased slightly after Zuo Liangyu regained half of Huguang.
But this time things got serious - Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's previous ravages of Huguang were only superficial, and they looted several big cities. But this time Li Zicheng initiated land reform, which can be regarded as digging up the roots of the landlord class. He also dug it for more than half a year, and it's not over yet!
So Zhu Cixiang’s head still hurts a lot!
In the Imperial City of Nanjing, the two great imperial merchants Huang Jiang and Su Sheng were also reporting to Zhu Cixiang about the food shortage in the southeast.
"Master Chitose, even if some rice from Huguang is shipped, it won't be able to stabilize the price of rice in major towns in the southeast. Brown rice on the market has generally risen to four to five taels of silver per stone, and it continues to rise!"
"Master Chitose, there is really no other way... there is no rice! Jiangnan imports no less than 20 million shi of white rice from Huguang every year. From last winter to now, I am afraid there is not even 10 million shi."
"Yes, yes! We definitely can't count on Huguang rice this year! Next year will be better, but not much better. Because this year's spring plowing has been delayed, the autumn harvest will definitely not be as good as last year. And small farmers are not as willing to sell rice as gentry landlords ..."
Zhu Cixiang was a little confused after hearing this, "What do you mean? Why are small farmers less willing to sell rice than gentry?"
Su Sheng was nicknamed Su Laomi. His family used to be a grain merchant, so he was very familiar with this matter.
He said: "Small farmers have to work hard to grow rice, and the gentry can only collect rent by pulling the beads of an abacus. How can the two be the same? Moreover, the gentry has many places to spend money and needs to sell rice for money. Small farmers save, and a big man can They wish they could smash it into several petals, so they would rather keep the rice.
In addition, the gentry's families have enough food stored in their homes and are not afraid of famine. This is different from small farmers. In the past, they had to eat a lot of food. Now that they finally have a surplus of food, of course they have to save some. It’s human nature, what can we do? "
Yes, what can be done? You can't send troops to grab food, right? This is a rebellion forced by the government and the people...
What can be done?
Zhu Cixiang had a headache just thinking about it!
Seeing that the two imperial merchants were helpless, Zhu Cixi could only wave his hand and let them retreat.
The businessman has no choice but to turn to officials.
Therefore, during the days when Zhu Cihong returned to Nanjing, he was not even in the mood to discuss inner Zen with Emperor Chongzhen, and he discussed solutions with the bigwigs of the two governments every day.
It’s just that the problem of eating is too big, and it’s not easy to think of a solution!
...
"Humph, you shot yourself in the foot!"
At this moment, in a rather elegant small building by the Qinhuai River, there was a talented man who saw through Prince Zhu and was commenting on the troubles Prince Zhu was currently encountering.
This talented man was Ji Kun, the censor of Zuban who returned with Zhu Cixiang. He had just bought a house in Nanjing and planned to stay there for a long time. Today happens to be a housewarming ceremony, so I invited a few friends to have a drink together. The people who came include Huang Zongxi (although he is going to Wuhan to take up a post, he still has a lot of handover work to do, and the Qingtian Division's superior is the Ministry of War, which can only be established after returning to Nanjing), Wang Fuzhi, Gu Jiang (that is, Gu Yanwu) - —They are all very thoughtful people!
The reason why the three of them got together was actually Zhu Cihong's arrangement. He didn't want these people to squint in a corner and cause too much trouble. At the same time, we don’t want them to become opposition factions outside the system - which will cause even greater trouble!
So Gu Jiang was assigned an official position in Nanjing. Wang Fuzhi was originally from Hunan and found a job in the shogunate of Du Yinxi. Later, he was recommended by Du Yinxi to Zuo Mengmei, and became King Zhu Cizhao of Chu. Ji Shan.
Zhu Cihong discovered this person when he was checking the list of officials in the Chu Palace, so he brought him to Nanjing. On the way to Nanjing, Wang Fuzhi made friends with Huang Zongxi and Ji Kun.
Hearing Ji Kun's comment, Wang Fuzhi, who was a little thin, stroked his beard and sighed: "To level the world, he only wants to level the world... The prince cannot do it, but he picked the fruit of Li Zicheng's example. , can be regarded as a wise master.”
Gu Jiang laughed when he heard this: "Just equalizing the world? Is it really that easy? It's time for Li Zicheng to take over the world!"
