Late at night, candles were brightly lit in Jiuzhou Qingyan Palace, and the eunuchs and maids standing there did not even dare to show their dignity. In Dongnuan Pavilion, the eighty-three-year-old Qianlong sat cross-legged on the couch, listening carefully to He Shen reading the memorial to him.
It's impossible not to read. Qianlong's eyesight is really bad now. Guangdong Customs had donated a pair of reading glasses made in Britain three years ago, but Qianlong couldn't complain after wearing them. In fact, it was not that his glasses were bad, but that Qianlong was afraid that if word spread, the outside world would say that his eyesight was dim. He Shen, who understood this, also announced to the public that the emperor does not need to wear glasses, and his eyesight is fine!
Back to business. This memorial, sent by Shengjing General Shu Liang, has a total of more than 5,000 words. It reports in detail many abnormal situations in Kaiyuan and Changtu, and thus determines that the Beihai Navy is likely to make a big move next. He implored to quickly mobilize another 20,000 troops and 30,000 civilians outside the pass. He also promised that Shengjing now has enough food, grass and gunpowder. Once the Beihai pirates invade, he himself will lead the entire city's soldiers and civilians to defend Shengjing and fight to the death to ensure that the imperial mausoleum and city are not lost. .
The reason why He Shen dared to disturb the Holy Master late at night was because this memorial was so fatal. There are two important places under the jurisdiction of General Shengjing, one is Xingjing and the other is Shengjing; the former is the birthplace of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, namely Hetuala, the first capital of the Later Jin Dynasty; the latter is the first city after the Manchu Qing Dynasty changed its name. A capital city, where the tombs of Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, and up to Mengge Timur are all located.
Although I don’t know how many people have privately mocked the imperial court for being cowardly and incompetent over the years, at least the two capitals outside the customs were not lost, water transportation was not interrupted, the Southwest destroyed Gorkha, and sacrificed prisoners at the Meridian Gate, finally saving a face. But if Shengjing is lost, then the Qing Dynasty will really follow the wise saying and blow out the lamp, pull out the wax and step on the pot.
After reading the memorial, Qianlong was silent for a moment and asked, "Is Shu Liang worried too much?"
"Slave, I think it may be true."
"Tell me the reason?"
"Reporting to the master. The secret report from ten days ago said that since the beginning of May, the Northern Navy has been constantly moving troops from Fuldan City to Jilin via Ninggu Pagoda. These troops only stayed in Jilin City for a few days, and then So they all headed south. A rough estimate is that there must be at least 10,000 people."
"What about food and grass? Even if Zhao Ni wants to fight, we must prepare food, grass and ammunition!"
"This is something that I haven't thought through yet. Shengjing is not Jilin. The imperial court has put 50,000 horses there. Even if Zhao Ni wants to invade the south, military supplies, chariots and horses, and civil servants are all indispensable. Follow what the Beihai pirates did in the past To send a party, you have to prepare enough supplies before you start. But..."
"But what?" Qianlong took the ginseng tea from the eunuch in charge, Li Yu, and took a sip.
"Master, there have been several similar incidents before. There was no sign of transporting military supplies. The slaves thought they couldn't fight, but unexpectedly the North Sea Pirates suddenly launched. Then Zhao Xin is the monster!"
He Shen said angrily, he was still frightened by the last time Zhao Xin showed up at his house. After Zhao Xin disappeared outside the gate of He Mansion, he had carefully checked the house but couldn't find any trace. Because he was also the admiral of the Nine Gates, he even asked the infantry commander's office to secretly search everywhere in the city for several days, but found nothing.
As the saying goes, people leave their names when they pass by, and geese leave their voices when they pass by. It's impossible for a seven-foot-tall living being to enter the city without finding any trace of it. Could it be that a tunnel was dug from outside the city? Stop talking nonsense, He Shen himself doesn’t believe this reason!
Qianlong was noncommittal to Heshen's words. For some reason tonight, his mind became extremely clear and clear, and he no longer had the usual drowsiness. He pondered for a moment and then asked: "Have you calculated the number of acres and grain yield of the Northern Pirates?"
"I asked the Ministry of Revenue to do the final calculation. I want to check it one last time before reporting it to the master."
"How much?" Qianlong's voice was a little urgent.
"Twenty million acres of land, thirty-seven million stones."
Qianlong showed an expression of disbelief and asked: "Did you calculate correctly?"
He Shen fell to the ground from his stool and kowtowed: "My slave will die! Please forgive me, Master! I have been in charge of the household department and military supplies for these years, and I also asked people to compare the land inventories in Jilin and Heilong. There is nothing else to do." It won’t be a mistake if you make a mistake here.”
"It's none of your business, so what's your fault? Get up." Qianlong's expression was slightly dull, and his face became gloomy. He let go of his crossed legs, rubbed them a few times, motioned to He Shen to help him, and asked Xiao Delu, the eunuch in charge, to help him put on his shoes. He stood up and walked back and forth in the hall. He frowned and said, "How is that possible! He's like that How many people are there in the border area? Counting the population of the four counties of Jiaodong, is it six million?"
"Master, it's almost 6.3 million. Nowadays, pirates use machines for farming and harvesting, called tractors. Those with 120 horsepower can plow 200 acres of dry fields and 80 acres of paddy fields in one day. In addition, there are larger ones, which can cultivate eight hundred to one thousand acres a day. Then there are various horse-drawn machines, which can plow dozens of acres a day. After the spring of this year, Jiaodong began to use them."
Qianlong was stunned for a long time before he came to his senses. He had known about Beihai Town's use of machines to cultivate land for a long time, but he didn't take it seriously. He even laughed at Zhao Xin because of it, thinking it was just a trick he used to deceive the world.
Does making good guns have anything to do with farming? does it matter? Well, now it seems there is a real connection.
In fact, Qianlong has always believed that the reason why Beihai Town is not short of food is that, in addition to the large Huangzhuang banner fields in Heilongjiang and Jilin, the most important reason is that Zhao Xin squeezes Japan to provide a large amount of food every year, and buys food from Guangnan and transports it northward. Only then did he dare to attack on all sides and resort to violence. This sounds quite reasonable, so He Shen also thought so before.
Unexpectedly, in the spring of the year before last, a spy from Shangyu's backup office who had been sent to Fuldan City many years ago to work as an undercover agent finally got into the civil affairs system and became a clerk in the Grain Reserve Bureau. This person spent more than a year, taking advantage of his position to review a large amount of information, and took risks to copy many reports. When he felt that everything was almost under control, he took advantage of his business trip to Wula, Jilin last winter, and sent the copied information to the detective in Jilin City. The latter braved the freezing weather and almost lost his life. In the end, he moved to the Zhelim League and Zhaowuda League, and returned to Chengde from Karaqin Middle Banner.
After receiving the information, Heshen felt as if he had found a treasure, and immediately dispatched relevant personnel from the Shandong Civil Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to conduct calculations. However, the results of the first calculation made everyone involved in the matter think it was impossible and must be an error, so they calculated it again. Unexpectedly, the second time the results came out, there were many more results than the first time. Not to mention that everyone present was shocked and even He Shen found it incredible.
Then I calculated it again a third time and a fourth time, and the results were the same.
Looking at the final figures, He Shen finally understood the meaning of those weird machines crisscrossing the land outside the customs.
As of the fifty-seventh year of Qianlong's reign, the number of households in Beihai Town in the Northeast region was 421,763, with an actual population of 2,108,815. Calculated based on 50 acres of cultivated land per household, there are a total of 21,088,150 acres of cultivated land, plus 1.57 million acres of unallocated public cultivated land, the total number of cultivated land is 22,658,150 acres.
Everything is normal up to this point. You must know that Beihai Town has been in the Northeast for nine years. It has cultivated its own land and the original cultivated land of the Qing Dynasty in various parts of the Northeast. The figure of more than 20 million acres is acceptable.
But the next numbers are so scary!
Since 70% of the cultivated land in Beihai Town is grown in wheat or rye, and rice, sugar beets, soybeans and other vegetables only account for 30% of the planting area, the output of wheat alone in Beihai Town in the 57th year of Qianlong's reign was 55.51% 100 million kilograms, which is equivalent to 37 million kilograms of unground standard warehouse stone, and the yield per mu is actually as high as 350 kilograms!
Well, this number is nothing at all in another time and space, and can even be said to be a failure, but in this time and space of the 18th century, it is absolutely appalling.
Although the Qing government had long known that Beihai Town had a high yield per mu in Jilin, it always believed that it was just the result of intensive cultivation of individual plots of land; and the civil administration's efforts to publicize it through loudspeakers was just a whitewashing method.
We must know that in the same year, the total grain output of various places within the Guan Guan, including the Shengjing area and Xinjiang, was 1.6 billion shi. However, this was based on one billion acres of cultivated land and more than 200 million farmers, and the area south of the Yangtze River still had three crops every two years. some. Even with good irrigated land in Zhili and Shandong areas, the yield of sorghum per mu is only 180 kilograms.
In other words, Beihai Town only used 1.6% of the Qing Dynasty's cultivated land and 7% of its population, and obtained 2.3% of the entire Qing Dynasty's grain, all of which were fine grain.
You must know that there are still many wastelands that have not yet been developed. If this momentum continues, within ten years, the annual grain production in Northeast China and Xinjiang alone will be enough to feed the entire northern population.
Zhao Xin has been struggling in the bitter cold outside the Pass for only nine years, but he has already enabled millions of people to "have clothes for the cold, food for the hungry, houses for the poor, and fields for the tillers." Moreover, he only collected 10% of the tax, and there were no miscellaneous extras at all. Every household rushed to sell their surplus grain to the grain station.
Qianlong asked himself, is this something a human being can do? Compared with Beihai Town, the "Kangxi and Qianlong Dynasties" that lasted for more than a hundred years for the three generations before and after my father's ancestors have become a joke!
The more Qianlong thought about it, the more discouraged he became. He looked at the candlelight with his hands behind his back and said quietly for a long time: "Heshen, where do you think Zhao Xin and his gang members came from? Why after so many years of investigation, there is no clue at all. "
How should He Shen answer this? If he had known, he would have had someone dig up the ancestral graves of the old Zhao family. Fortunately, Ye Zhanrong and his son in Hoi An did not publicize the cemetery of the last Princess Zhao, otherwise the Manchu Qing Dynasty would have dared to send people to Hoi An to dig it up, and then crush the bones and scatter the ashes.
Before he could speak, the old Qianlong murmured to himself again: "It is already the sixth generation since I was born after the death of Taizu. Taizu and Taizong Hongwu were fierce and brave, and they created the foundation of the Qing Dynasty through life and death. The ancestors inherited the inheritance of the Qing Dynasty. Zhao Pixu, orphans and widowed mothers entered Guan to rule the world. The Holy Patriarch ascended the throne at the age of eight, Miao Mo used his wits to capture Obei at the age of fifteen, and decided to withdraw from the vassal at the age of 19, quelling the rebellion of the three vassals. Half of the country was in turmoil, but he still managed to survive. Three expeditions to Junggar, six tours to the south of the Yangtze River, canal transport and control of the Yellow River, light corvee and low taxes, and the world returned to its heart. In the thirteenth year of Emperor Shizong's reign, he cultivated political science, refreshed the official administration, and strengthened the country and the people.
I entered the palace at the age of six and studied with the Holy Ancestor. At the age of fourteen, I entered Yunsongxuan and studied government affairs with the late emperor. Thinking of the two generations of my father and grandfather who worked diligently and diligently to seek governance, I do not want to lie under a big tree to enjoy the cool air. Since I ascended to the throne, I have not been greedy for the pleasures of bells and drums, nor have I loved fine clothes and fine food, nor have I been in love with the beauty of beautiful children. I have treated the world with sincerity and sincerity. Although I cannot make the world cold, have all the clothes, the hungry have all the food, and the widowers, the widowers, the lonely, the disabled, and the sick can all be fed, but I ask myself that after all these years, my bones have been exhausted and my heart has been broken, it can still be regarded as a peaceful and prosperous age.
Oh my God! Why did you send down such a monster to bring trouble to the world? ! Are you blind? Now I have fallen to the point where I cannot even save the tomb of my ancestors, making me an eternal sinner of the Qing Dynasty! ! ! "
He can't win on the battlefield, and now he can't even compare to farming. Decades of civil and martial arts are like a dream!
The more Qianlong spoke, the angrier he became, and his face became redder and redder. His voice became slow and heavy, carrying irresistible pressure and shouting. Hearing this, He Shen felt panic and sadness in his heart, and tears streamed down his face. Wet the ground. He walked a few steps on his knees, hugged Qianlong's legs tightly, and said pleadingly: "Master, pay close attention to the body of the dragon. All mistakes are the fault of the slaves! The master is worried about the humiliation of his ministers, and the master will humiliate his ministers and die. The slaves deserve to die, and the work is not going well."
He Shen was talking nonchalantly, and suddenly felt something strange about Qianlong. He looked up and saw Qianlong staring blankly out of the window without saying a word. After a long while, his body tilted and he immediately lost his breath. Xiao Delu, whose face was pale with fright, rushed forward two steps with a whoosh, supported Qianlong who was falling to the ground, and together with He Shen lifted Qianlong to the couch and lay down.
There was chaos in the Qingyan Palace in Jiuzhou. Whether they were eunuchs or maids, some were looking for soup and water, some were carrying screens, some were moving tables and chairs, some were burning incense, and some were kneeling on the ground with their heads down looking at the cracks in the bricks. , running back and forth in the corridor outside the palace with their hands tied, this is called chaos!
"No chaos!" He Shen yelled at everyone present with a voice that could drip water, and continued: "Whoever messes up will be dragged down and killed with a stick immediately! Manager Li, you personally and quietly send the imperial doctor to you, don't disturb other people. This matter It must not be spread!"
This person holds many positions, including the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Director of the Internal Affairs Bureau. Although he always puts on a smiling face on weekdays, when punishing those eunuchs who don't understand the rules, he does so without pretense, which makes many eunuchs afraid. As soon as he spoke, there was a lot of silence inside and outside the palace.
He Shen knew that Qianlong was in a state of distress and was suffering from phlegm, but the same situation had happened once the year before, and it was obviously worse this time.
He took out a silver flat flask from his arms, which was filled with styrax wine. After unscrewing it, he poured it into Qianlong's mouth. Unexpectedly, the other party's jaw was clenched, and yellow-brown wine dripped down his clothes. At this moment, he no longer cared about violating his taboo. He asked the eunuch on the side to bring him a silver spoon for tea leaves, used the handle of the spoon to pry open his teeth, and then poured some wine in.
After a while, Qianlong made a purring sound from his throat, like a bellows. He Shen felt relieved and was about to drink more wine when two imperial doctors rolled into Dong Nuan Pavilion.
While the imperial doctor was treating Qianlong, He Shen stood aside, looking at the sallow-looking Qianlong, feeling confused. Even though he was greedy, the friendship between him and Qianlong for decades was genuine. At this moment, he felt a little regretful. Why was he in such a hurry? It would be different to report after dawn!
In a daze, a face that made him hate and fear appeared in front of him out of thin air, and at the same time, the words that the man had said echoed in his mind.
"Master He, how long do you think you can live if Qianlong dies?"
He Shen's heart twitched fiercely, and a thought that would defy the world's disapproval came to his mind. Now was the best time to launch his plan that he had been planning for more than half a year.
After struggling for a moment, he quickly made a decision. When no one was paying attention to him, He Shen turned around and left the palace. He came to a eunuch standing with his head bowed on the left side of the door. He calmly took something from his waist and whispered in a mosquito-like tone: "Take this person." Gather them all and wait outside the Old Summer Palace, waiting for my order."
The muscles on the eunuch's face twitched twice, then he took the badge, turned around and walked out. He Shen then returned to the main hall. He did not enter the Dongnuan Pavilion. Instead, he knelt on the cold gold bricks, clasped his hands and faced the empty Xumi throne, and softly recited the "Medicine Master Sutra".
"So I heard. At one time, Bhagavan traveled from various countries to Guangyan City and lived under the music tree. He was accompanied by eight thousand great monks, thirty-six thousand Bodhisattvas and Mahasattvas, as well as kings, ministers, Brahmins and lay people, gods, dragons, yakshas, humans and non-human beings, etc., countless The public respectfully gathered around and explained the truth."
When he was halfway through reciting the sutra, the eunuch who left with his waistband had come back and stood quietly at the door of the palace. He Shen heard the other man coughing slightly behind him and continued without turning his head. Kneel on the ground and recite.
About half an hour later, an imperial doctor sweating profusely withdrew from the Nuan Pavilion, walked up to He Shen and said, "He Zhongtang, the emperor is awake. It's just that it's too difficult to speak."
He Shen hurriedly stood up and walked in. Qianlong on the couch moved his lips as if he had something to say when he saw him coming in. Heshen immediately burst into tears, threw himself in front of Qianlong and said, "Master, you scared this slave to death!"
"Sheng, Shengjing. Death. The ancestral mausoleum will return forever." Qianlong's throat moved and he muttered vaguely with all his strength. After he finished saying these words, he closed his eyes and fell into sleep.
He Shen stepped back, fluttered his horseshoe sleeves, knelt down on the ground, and said with a choked voice, "I understand. Master, rest in peace and rest your dragon body. I will do it immediately."
What do you understand? What to do? The two imperial doctors were confused, and Xiao Delu, the eunuch in charge next to them, also seemed to understand. Except for He Shen, the other three people didn't understand a word.
After retreating outside the palace, He Shen whispered to the eunuch who had just gone to deliver the order: "Tell our people to immediately seal off the island and the palace gates. No one is allowed to leave the island without me! Anyone who disobeys will be locked up immediately. !”
In addition to being responsible for land, household registration, and taxes in Shandong, the Shandong Qingli Division of the Ministry of Household Affairs in the Qing Dynasty also supervised land affairs in the three major jurisdictions of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Shengjing Jiangjun. As for the imperial palaces in the northeastern region, they are under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
