The night fell, and the dry northwest wind blew strongly at the top of the city.
Looking out from the top of Zhuxian Town, a small town near Kaifeng Fucheng, there are dots of fire all around, as if the Milky Way in the sky has fallen to the ground, forming a large sea of stars.
Those who ignited these fires were the hungry people of Henan who gathered in Zhuxian Town. Looking at these dotted bonfires, you can imagine the number of hungry people here!
The reason why there are so many hungry people in Henan is of course because of several consecutive years of drought! From the tenth year of Chongzhen to the present, rainfall in Henan has been very scarce for five years. Compared with normal years, this is a decrease of at least 70% to 80%!
In the northwest region of Henan Province, where the drought is most severe, many prefectures and counties have not even had a good rain for two or three years.
Many places are so dry that they are almost turning into deserts!
Before this drought, which was like a catastrophe, Henan had been suffering from disasters for nearly nine years. The old foundation for famine preparation among the people had long been gone, and only the official warehouses still had grain - the Ming court seemed to have Unexpectedly, he managed to save nearly 100 million kilograms of life-saving food before the "catastrophic drought" came! About one-third of them exist in the big warehouse converted from Nanyang Imperial City.
However, it was not easy for the people in Henan to eat these life-saving food, because the Ming Dynasty did not provide disaster relief in vain, but implemented the method of "replacing relief with troops." If you want to eat life-saving food, okay, then join the army and become a military household.
When you become a military household, of course you have to obey the orders of the Ministry of War and the General Council of the Armed Forces, leave your hometown in Henan, and go to cultivate and guard the border. Zhu Youjian is so old and cunning. Of course, he will not let these military households stay in his hometown. It’s easy to rebel if you stay in your hometown!
They are all transferred to the frontiers where they are unfamiliar with the land. Even if they rebel, they will not be able to change the world. Therefore, the new military households in Henan were in misery. They had to leave their hometowns, either to Guangning and Jinzhou in western Liaoning, to Luzon, Java, and Champa in Southeast Asia, or to Yunnan and Myanmar... none of them What a great place, and you can’t come back!
Therefore, as long as there is food at home, most people are not willing to become a military household - but this is a good way to provide accurate disaster relief and eliminate corruption.
Where is the food to be replaced? If you can't hand it over, the account won't be settled.
And most of the people who were handed over really had nothing to eat.
Of course, there are exceptions to everything, and there are also those "extraordinary" people who voluntarily join the army in pursuit of fame and wealth. However, they are not ordinary military households, but join hundreds of households and try out hundreds of households.
Because of the use of troops in lieu of relief, the number of new military households in the Ming Dynasty increased sharply again in the past five or six years. The number of households has already exceeded 1 million, almost exceeding 1.5 million, while the population of military households has exceeded 6 million!
Of course, it is impossible to lead such a huge army of military households with professional officers from the Guard Corps (actually a military academy), nor can they all be led by officers who have gained military merit. Therefore, officers from 100 households, 100 households and below are recruited directly from the disaster area through competitions. Those who have no food will be ordinary military households, and those who have courage will become Sesame Mung Bean officers. There is a way out.
If there is a way out, there will be no rebellion...at least there will be no rebellion in Henan.
The hundreds of thousands of hungry people now gathered in Zhuxian Town are the latest batch of Henan military households. They are still under the control of Henan Commander-in-Chief Li Xin, and will later be handed over to the Imperial Army Commander-in-Chief Li Zicheng who will be in charge of military households. .....Li Zicheng just passed it by, and then this group of people would either break through Guandong, take the west entrance, or go to Nanyang, or go to Yunnan and Burma.
Because he was afraid that hungry people who had already received food to survive would cause rebellion, Li Xin, the commander-in-chief of Henan who was transferred back to Henan from North Korea three years ago, personally led his troops to Zhuxian Town and watched these "substitute rebels" on the spot.
The city walls of Zhuxian Town were heavily guarded, and clusters of torches were burning. The elite of the Ming army in Henan were on duty on the city wall. When Li Xin was transferred back from North Korea, Zhu Youjian gave him special permission to bring back 1,500 elite soldiers, including 500 cavalry. These are all ruthless men who have killed slaves, pirates, and traitors in Korea. Of course they can hold their own.
Because of their intimidation, the "starving military households" around Zhuxian Town were relatively stable, and no one dared to cause trouble.
At this moment, a banquet was being held within the city walls of Zhuxian Town. A group of men wearing official robes from hundreds of households gathered in a large house and ate and drank in a tent set up in the yard - this was Li Li Zicheng, who had just arrived, was serving wine to greet the guests. Hundreds of "starving military households" outside Zhuxian Town also came to eat and drink, and many of them even brought their mothers-in-law.
A stout man with a Xinyang accent who seemed very familiar was holding a wine bowl and clinking glasses with people at the tables. Next to him was a charming woman dressed in red, who seemed to be from the world, drinking with the man. , laughing loudly together.
In the hall, Li Xin was drinking with Li Zicheng, Henan deputy general Chen Yongfu, and other senior officials from Henan town or imperial army. He didn't know whether he drank too much or was thinking too much. He was staring at the woman intently. , and asked in a low voice: "Who is the woman in red?"
"Her name is Red Lady, she was a bandit..." Chen Yongfu said, "Why do you call her Red Lady on Jigong Mountain!
The man in green robe next to him is called Feng San, and he is the second in charge of Jigong Mountain in Xinyang. Not long ago, Hong Niangzi and Feng San were recruited by Runing, and the bandits under them were also charged with two hundred households. Hong Niangzi and Feng San each had a hundred households officer.
Oh, by the way, that red lady married Feng San a few days ago. Feng San is so lucky! "
"What a pity..." Li Xinxin muttered in a low and inaudible voice, and stopped talking to Chen Yongfu about the Red Lady. Instead, he changed the topic to talk about the military situation in Liaodong and North Korea.
"Have you heard? The King of North Korea is going to marry his daughter to Prince Ning, and he also wants to make the future Princess Ning the royal daughter-in-law... The condition is that we send troops to help North Korea regain its territory!"
"I've heard it once," Li Zicheng said with a smile, "I heard it from the counselor Gao Jie... It seems that he also talked about Mao Shuai Zhishi and Mao Shuai's youngest daughter Mao Zhenzhen entering the palace as a noble concubine. Mao Jiajun is considered a concubine this time. My surname is Zhu completely."
Chen Yongfu's eyes were also shining brightly, "This is an opportunity to make great contributions and gain a title!"
"Anything like ennobling and cracking the earth is a troublesome thing!" Li Zicheng waved his hand, "Just one earl is annoying to death!
It's better that Mr. Li has not been trapped by a title so far! "
Li Xin said angrily: "That's my bad luck... I never achieve great results." He gritted his teeth, "But I must go to North Korea again this time. Wherever I fall, I get up!"
…
"Long live my lord, Concubine Mao has arrived."
Beijing, Xiyuan, Wansheng Palace. Zhu Youjian, who had just finished processing a large number of memorials and was standing up to stretch his muscles, heard the news from Wang Chengen that Concubine Mao had arrived.
After Zhu Youjian destroyed the Ye'erqiang and expelled the Wala, he began to attack Mao's army - Mao Wenlong's Pingliao Army and the Jiliao Army split between Zu Dashou, He Kegang, and Zhao Guangyuan (son of Zhao Lijiao). They are all relatively powerful warlords, so of course Zhu Youjian must absorb and digest them as much as possible. After digesting them one by one, the Ming court will be strong enough!
Mao Wenlong was the easiest warlord to deal with, because most of his family members were killed by Nurhaci, leaving only one son and two daughters. The son was named Mao Chengdou, the eldest daughter was named Mao Dongzhu, and the younger daughter was named Mao Zhenzhu. Among them, Mao Chengdou is very young, nine years younger than Zhu Youjian, and is only 24 years old this year. Since the fifth year of Chongzhen, he has joined the Youth Guard Corps, and later the Guard Corps. Since then, he has been serving in the system of the armies in front of the tent. He has almost no influence in the Pingliao Army, and he has no great skills.
Moreover, Mao Wenlong was very knowledgeable about current affairs and knew that it was impossible to confront Zhu Youjian, so he never thought about letting his son take over. He just wanted his youngest daughter to accompany him in the palace and provide an extra insurance for his son Mao Chengdou, and he was satisfied.
