Outside Nanyang City, on the east bank of the Baihe River, the world has become dominated by the "Beggars' Gang".
Countless shacks were built, and "companies" stretching for dozens of miles were spread out along the Feishui River to the south. There were millions of "beggar gang disciples" living in these shacks.
That’s right, it’s called a million!
While staying in Nanyang for more than a month, Zhu Youjian not only taught the four brothers of the Tang Dynasty how to go to Gansu to become feudal lords, but also rectified the "beggars" on the east bank of the Baihe River. Unlike the "begging soldiers" brought to Sichuan by Zhu Youjian, the hungry people from Shaanxi who gathered in Nanyang were not strong - the strong ones were all dragged to Sichuan, and the remaining hungry people who were dragged to Nanyang were of course relatively weak. Therefore, it makes little sense to organize them into military households.
Not establishing military households does not mean that there is no need to establish an organization... These are so-called millions of beggars!
Even if there are millions of hungry people begging for food, it is enough to scare people!
Once they gather together to take action, the momentum will be amazing. If they are not organized and controlled, they will be afraid of being used by people with ulterior motives, and Zhu Youjian will be dumbfounded by then.
In addition, the unorganized "millions of mobs" do not have much deterrence and combat effectiveness. Even if they are driven to Huguang to beg for food, it will not be able to force the Huguang state governments to agree to increase land taxes.
Begging is not the goal. Asking the Huguang landlord class to pay more taxes is Zhu Youjian's real goal. There are 200 million acres of farmland in Huguang, and the tax per pound per acre (litre) is so small that it is not even enough to send beggars!
Zhu Youjian's goal is to harvest one bushel per acre, and 20 million dan from 200 million acres of land!
With 20 million stones, Zhu Youjian was able to transform the imperial cities in Xiangyang, Nanyang, Chengtian and other places into three huge charity warehouses. Starting from the sixth year of Chongzhen, he spent five years hoarding money in these three charity warehouses. One hundred million stones of food!
With these 100 million stones, Zhu Youjian had the capital to deal with the "Ming Dynasty" that Chongzhen would suffer ten years later!
However, Huguang has been accustomed to enjoying low tax burdens for more than two hundred years - Huguang's low tax burden and the many hidden fields in Sichuan since the early Ming Dynasty are actually in line with the actual situation of Huguang and Sichuan in the early Ming Dynasty. Because both of these places suffered massacres at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, their populations dropped so sharply that they could not recover for more than sixty years. And when the Red Turban Army uprising occurred at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Huguang was the place where Xu Shouhui and Chen Youliang made their fortune, and they once again encountered a cruel war!
Therefore, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Sichuan had a very small population, Huguang had a very small population, while Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Jiangnan, and Shanxi in the north had a relatively large population.
Therefore, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang used both forced means to relocate the population and economic means. Sichuan and Huguang both enjoy extremely low tax burdens, while Jiangxi, Jiangnan, and Zhejiang all enjoy high tax burdens. Therefore, for many years after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Sichuan and Huguang were the destinations for immigrants.
This tax policy was supposed to be a stop-gap measure to promote population mobility and could not last for more than two hundred years. However, the Ming Dynasty's bureaucratic system was so rigid that the populations of Sichuan and Huguang have increased significantly, and the agriculture of the two provinces has declined. As long as a reasonable tax burden can be borne, the ancestral low taxes will still be used.
Therefore, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, if we look at the taxation standards in various places, we can only say that droughts lead to drought and floods lead to waterlogging.
Huguang, which is known as "Huguang is rich and the world is familiar with it", only gave the Zhu family emperor 2.16 million shi a year - this is still the tax amount, not the actual amount received.
Sichuan, the "Land of Abundance", actually only gave the daimyo court a measly 1.08 million shi - this was also the tax amount, and the actual payment had to be discounted.
After more than two hundred years of good days of almost no taxes, the gentry and people in Huguang and Sichuan have long regarded it as a normal state to not have such extremely low taxes. They always reacted to the imperial court's attempts to increase taxes. Resist firmly.
Moreover, Huguang and Sichuan did not benefit from the prosperity of the southeast in the Age of Discovery, so the Ming emperors who controlled the world relatively ignored these two territories.
When the Central Plains and the North were relatively plentiful, the low taxes in Huguang and Sichuan were useless. It was just because the emperor did not have enough money, and corrupt officials often did not receive their salaries, and became "officials working in vain"...anyway The emperor's people will not starve to death, and corrupt officials will not care about their salary.
However, once natural disasters occur in the Central Plains and northwest...when the country needs Huguang and Sichuan to pay more food, the low taxes of Huguang and Sichuan will become a problem. These two granaries did not deliver food to the court, which resulted in the court not having enough financial resources to maintain its rule and provide relief to the victims. In the end, the victims of the disaster revolted and the world was in chaos. However, Huguang and Sichuan did not have the force to protect themselves. As a result, they became pigs and sheep in troubled times!
Zhu Youjian took advantage of Huguang's weakness of having food but no soldiers (there was no Hunan Army in the Ming Dynasty), and gathered hundreds of thousands of Shaanxi hungry people in Nanyang, known as millions, and then launched a concentrated operation from Xiangyang in the north of Huguang. Starting from the government, one government after another forced the Huguang gentry to make concessions on the issue of tax burden.
In order to better control the "millions of hungry people" here in Nanyang, Zhu Youjian had to spend more time to organize them into lines and form 100 "teams of 10,000 people."
A team of 100,000 people, of course there are 1 million people!
If one million armed begging soldiers rushed to any government in Huguang, the consequences would be disastrous.
Once they lose their restraints, the entire mansion will be eaten up by them!
Xiangyang Prefecture, which was the first to be freeloaded by millions of beggars, had already fallen into anger and unrest in June of the fifth year of Chongzhen.
The beggars have not yet arrived, but the news that millions of people will come to eat has already come.
The Xiangyang Prefecture Academy outside the Imperial City of Xiangyang became the center of activities for scholar leaders from Xiangyang, De'an, Chengtian and other prefectures to oppose the entry of "begging soldiers".
During the Ming Dynasty, Xiangyang was the central city in northern Huguang. It was also the seat of the Xiangwang vassal of Zhu Di's lineage (son of Zhu Gaochi).
And today's Xiang Wang Zhu Yiming is an elder of the clan who is the same generation as Emperor Wanli. He has been king for more than thirty years and is very prestigious in the Huguang area.
In the eyes of the gentry leaders who gathered at the Xiangyang Prefecture Academy, as long as the old man showed his face, how could his grandson Zhu Youjian not give him face?
Even though Zhu Youjian had ruined many vassal princes since he came to power, none of those princes were descendants of Zhu Di except Prince Fu, who was suspected of seizing the throne. In addition to Prince Fu, the princes of Zhu Di's lineage include Prince Zhao of Zhangde Prefecture, Prince Jing of Qizhou Prefecture, Prince Huai of Raozhou Prefecture, Prince De of Jinan Prefecture, Prince Chong of Runing Prefecture, and Prince Ji of Changsha Prefecture. , King Yi of Jianchang Prefecture, King Heng of Qingzhou Prefecture, King Rong of Changde Prefecture and other kings, none of them were touched!
So everyone now hopes that His Highness King Xiang can stand up and lead everyone to petition Zhu Youjian, the foolish king... The petition to King Xiang has been submitted, but the scholars gathered in Fuxue Palace have They had no intention of leaving. Instead, they got together and talked about government affairs, getting more and more enthusiastic.
"Since the current emperor ascended to power, the world has never been stable. There have been wars and disasters every year... If this situation had been left to ancient times, it would have been the emperor's fault."
"That's right, God brings disasters because he is dissatisfied with the human king... The human king should not only sincerely reflect, but also change his ways, abolish tyranny, and implement benevolent government in order to seek forgiveness from God."
"There is a lot of harsh government nowadays. The officials and gentry in Northern Zhili are all paid the same amount of food, the Chongqing government is inspecting the land, and there are endless collections of Liao pay. They are all harsh policies!"
"It would be great if all these harsh regimes could be abolished! Once the harsh regimes are gone, things will be smooth and the world will be at peace."
"Is the Liao salary also going to be abolished?"
"Of course! As long as the imperial court employs people properly, Liaodong would have been wiped out long ago, so why should we collect Liao's salary?"
"Yes, if our Huguang Governor Xiong was still there, how could the Liao affair be so miserable?"
"Actually, the emperor has no intention of regaining Liaodong anymore... Even Jinzhou has been given up, so why regain Liaodong?"
"Isn't that right? If you don't know how to do serious things, you only know how to make money and have fun. If this continues, Daming will be hopeless!"
Just as these scholar-bureaucrats were talking more and more energetically, someone suddenly shouted: "Here they come! Millions of beggars are already here!"
"Already here? Where are you?"
"We have entered the palace realm, and we are almost at Fancheng!"
