Zhu Cixiang ran from Nanjing, a "furnace", to Wuhan, another metropolis known as a "furnace" during the hottest period of the twelfth year of Hongxing's reign. However, he did not live in Wuchang or Hankou, but in the slightly cooler East Lake Palace outside Wuchang.
Today's East Lake is a smaller version of Laoshan, with a very similar layout, including the garden-style East Lake Palace and the supporting East Lake Town. In Donghu Town, there are also government offices used by the Cabinet Office and the Generalissimo's Office, as well as a large number of official residences, and an East Lake camp.
Because it was not the permanent residence of the imperial court, the area around East Lake had always been relatively depressed. Only after Emperor Zhu moved to the west did merchants from Hankou City start their business. However, it is still incomparable with Laoshan-Pukou.
Even if the imperial court comes from the west, the population of the entire East Lake will not exceed 50,000, and the population of Laoshan-Pukou area has already reached 200,000.
Because of the hot weather, Emperor Zhu lives in Qingliang Pavilion, which is cooler and surrounded by water on three sides. This is a building that combines Chinese and Western styles, with a brick and wood structure, four stories high, and a large roof in the shape of a mountaintop covering the head, which can effectively isolate the high temperature caused by the sun. The walls of the pavilion are thick and covered with ivy, and they are also very insulating.
This time Emperor Zhu left Wu Sanmei to take charge of Laoshan, and he came to East Lake with Zheng Chagu, Xu Erlin, Ajige, Tokugawa Gao, and the little pony Mary Mancini. The whole family lives in the tall and spacious Qingliang Pavilion.
Among them, the bottom floor of Qingliang Pavilion was relatively humid, so it became the place where Zhu Cihong and ministers held meetings. The second floor is where Zhu Cihong and Zheng Chagu live, the third floor is where Emperor Zhu's two new favorites Mancini and Tokugawa Gao live together, and Ajige and Xu Erlin live on the fourth floor.
On April 15, the twelfth year of Hongxing, near noon, the routine meeting between the two governments had ended. Zhu Cixiang was in a map room on the ground floor of Qingliang Pavilion, discussing around the map table with senior officials of the Generalissimo's Mansion. How to deal with the endless battles ahead...
The room in the map room is very tall, more than ten feet tall, and very spacious. It occupies a large area on the east end of the bottom floor of Qingliang Pavilion. There are doors and windows on the north, south, south, and south sides, which provides good lighting. When the wind is blowing in summer, it is very cool when the doors and windows are opened. .
However, it was a bit hot today, so I opened the window and took ice cubes from the ice cellar and placed them around the map room to cool down the room.
"Your Majesty, the Jingzhou Army reported that the rogue puppet emperor Li Guo had stationed in Yong'an a few days ago and sent a large number of soldiers to the people of Yong'an Prefecture, causing public resentment."
"What is Sai Yong?" Zhu Cixiang interrupted military advisor Li Yan who was reporting military information.
After serving as governor of Henan for several years, Li Yan, who was familiar with the situation of rogue bandits, returned to the court and served as military advisor again, while Wu Sanfu became minister of the Ministry of War, replacing Li Ruolian who was transferred to governor of Jiangbei.
"Your Majesty," Li Yan said, "the system of rogue bandits was copied from the Sui and Tang Dynasties. For military purposes, government troops were employed, and for state purposes, they were rented and mediocre. Among them, mediocrity is labor service, while saiyong is based on the original labor service and adding an additional one. A share of city building labor."
"Additional factions? Sounds familiar!" Zhu Cixiang smiled, "You learned this from us, right? If they continue like this, someone will rebel soon, right?"
Li Yan smiled and said: "Your Majesty, this kind of extra troops and conquests have been done in every dynasty, but in fact it doesn't matter... as long as it is reasonable and can be tolerated by the people. As for Zhu Mi, Sai Yong, Mian and others who have been sent by the bandits now Although the burden of adjustment is not light for the people, it is not unbearable. Because Sun Kewang, Niu Jinxing, Gu Junen and others are still very considerate in their work, and they also know the suffering of the people and can reasonably apportion it so that the people can be happy despite the suffering. It's not like he can't survive.
In addition, half of the land on the rogue side is owned by ordinary people. Although the ordinary people are miserable, they can still make a living, which is better than that during the Tianqi and Chongzhen years of our dynasty. "
"Really?" Zhu Cixiang could hear what Li Yan said. This guy had been a "big bandit" himself. He turned against Li Zicheng and defected to the Ming Dynasty because he couldn't stand Li Zicheng's escape route and banditism. However, after Li Guo entered Sichuan, he adopted the route of enclosing land and conferring farmland to the military and dictating it to the people. Li Yan actually agreed very much. On the contrary, I don't understand Zhu Cixiang's "business-oriented" approach after he established his position in the industry.
Of course, Emperor Zhu's industrial and commercial orientation did not mean that he did not want agriculture, but that he regarded agriculture as a type of commercial activity. Therefore, there is no such thing as farming as the basis of business, and there is no restriction on mergers. Of course, farmers are no longer tied to the land.
Emperor Zhu smiled and said: "The military adviser thought that the rogue bandits' great success, how much more smooth can they be?"
"It can take as little as ten years, and as many as twenty or thirty years." Li Yan said, "Today's rogue bandits use government troops to control the people of Sichuan, suppress all parties, strictly control mergers, focus on agriculture and suppress business, ban two industries of the people, and make a profit. Three or four Thousands of people in Sichuan are all controlled by it and used for their own purposes. With hundreds of thousands of war-ready soldiers, how can we achieve peace? The only way is to use defense as an offense to contain their way out, tire them out, wait for their internal changes, and then Only then can we have the potential to break the bamboo.”
"The military advisor sees the same thing as me," Zhu Cixiang said with a smile. "The national policy of rogue bandits was modeled after that of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. However, how much land was there in the early Tang Dynasty? How many people were there? How much land per capita? How much land is there in Sichuan today? How many people are there? How much land per capita is there? Two acres?" How can the average land per mu be sustained? If farmers cannot maintain it, how can the Fubing family balance its income and expenditure? If the Fubing family has a deficit, what will it use to serve? Emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business does not mean that we can ignore profits and losses! Farming is Business is a business. The farming-based army is also a business. It is a business, so you can't lose money... As long as the bandits continue to lose money, I will conquer them sooner or later. And Sichuan, where the bandits are based, , it is difficult to get in and out, just besiege it and slowly consume it. Didn't Li Guo expand his army by 150,000? Okay, great! There are more wolves than sheep. The more you expand, the faster it will be exhausted!
So I don’t worry about rogue bandits anymore... If the one that gives me the biggest headache is Junggar! "
Mentioning Junggar, people in the map room couldn't help but frown.
The Mongols are difficult to deal with! If you don't break them, they will keep making trouble with you. You break them and they move around. On the vast prairie, the four major alliances are scattered into hundreds of small tribes. Where can you catch them? Emperor Zhu gathered more than 80,000 cavalrymen, and they were all dragged to the grassland, but they couldn't catch him! Can you really break it up into hundreds of teams? Even if the cavalry could be dismantled into hundreds of pieces, it still wouldn't work. Of course Emperor Zhu's cavalry can fight, but they can't herd sheep!
After months of fighting on the prairie, without the skills to herd animals, what will you eat? Rely on logistics? It's simply impossible.
Therefore, it is easy to win the battle of Mobei Grassland, but it is difficult to completely pacify it.
Otherwise, why were the feudal dynasties of China always unable to defeat others when they were so good at it?
And Emperor Zhu is still unsure about it now. Once the four major alliances collapse, the population of Junggar will exceed one million! Fortunately, now is the era of guns and cannons. Otherwise, if the one million nomadic population supports 200,000 string-controlling men to kill them, the Mobei grassland will soon be controlled by the Junggars, and Mongolia will be controlled by the Sengge Khan. Unify.
"Your Majesty," Wu Sanfu, the Secretary of the Ministry of War, said to Zhu Cihong at this time, "I have a suggestion that may allow Junggar to calm down for a while."
"What proposal?" Emperor Zhu asked.
"Didn't the emir of Tianzhu say a while ago that he would join forces with us to conquer Bukhara?" Wu Sanfu said, "Why don't we just go with the flow and order Junggar to conquer Bukhara. This country of Bukhara is also a remnant of Mongolia, and it is the Khan of the Golden Horde. The descendants of the country just believed in the Tianfang Sect and became enemies with the Mongolians who believed in the Yellow Sect. The Yerqiang Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, which were destroyed by the Junggars, were both allies of the Bukharin Khanate. Why not let the evil Sengge people do their job? , destroy the Bukhara Khanate as well."
"But wouldn't the Junggars be able to dominate the west of the Tianshan Mountains?" Chief Assistant Wei Zaode said, "I'm afraid it will be another Timur Empire by then, right?"
Zhu Cixiang waved his hand and said: "Look at the present first... I will ask Galdan later and then make a decision."
()
full text
