The former Ming Dynasty landlords and gentry who fled traveled across thousands of mountains and rivers, experienced all the sufferings of the world, and finally escaped and came to the Southern Song Dynasty.
They experienced ups and downs on their way south. In order to avoid the local roads in the Ming Dynasty, they had to take inaccessible mountain paths.
Although there were no soldiers from the Ming Dynasty on the mountain path, there were harsh natural environments and ferocious predators. They looked at this group of kindhearted people who traveled thousands of miles to deliver meals with their green eyes, and tears of emotion flowed from the corners of their mouths.
Of course, only a few people were killed by predatory beasts. Most of the people who died were because the mountain road was difficult to travel, or they fell to death, or got lost, or ran out of food. In this way, they became nutrients for the vast mountains and forests.
Those who survived to reach the Southern Song Dynasty had indeed used their whole life's luck.
Not only did they know what they meant to the Southern Song Dynasty, but they also really hated the Ming Dynasty, so they cooperated with the propaganda requirements of the Southern Song Dynasty government and compiled a large number of horrific jokes.
They described themselves as benefactors who led the tenants to live and work in peace and contentment, and to have enough food for the whole family so that they would not be hungry.
The tenants were very supportive of their good governance. As a result, the Ming Dynasty court used large amounts of money to bribe their tenants, or used coercion and inducement to intimidate their tenants, causing the tenants to attack them in groups.
They either lost their kind and smart wives, or lost their beautiful daughters, or lost their brave sons, or they lost their kind parents.
Invariably, they all described family members who died because of escaping as brave men who sacrificed their lives to protect more family members from the tiger's mouth, or as unfortunate people who were brutally killed.
They explained that the imperial court incited and connived at the mob to plunder their property, seize their land, and kill their families. They said that the tenants who had received their favor were deceived and showed their fangs to them.
Either they killed the kind-hearted young master, or they forcibly abused their kind-hearted and beautiful little daughter, or they killed and ate their wives, or they hung their eighty-year-old parents and whipped them to death.
They have good intentions all their lives and would not trample an ant to death. Even if they are so kind, they still cannot escape the brutal court and the ungrateful white-eyed wolves. The family fortunes of three and five generations have been reduced to ashes, and their families have been destroyed. .
It's miserable to cry.
In short, they described the Ming Dynasty as a hell of violence, the vigorous revolution as a horrific riot, and the people who emancipated their minds and smashed their shackles and rose up to resist as a cruel mob.
They are kind, gentle, and correct, the Ming Dynasty court and the Ming Dynasty emperor are evil, the Mudlegs are treacherous and punished by God, and the Ming Dynasty army is cruel and unkind.
This kind of propaganda met the needs of the Southern Song Dynasty court. The Southern Song officials were overjoyed, so they were taken to Lin'an in large numbers to appear in front of civil and military officials and the emperor.
They cried and asked the emperor Zhao for help, protection, and a bowl of rice.
They were very good at making up stories, which made Zhao Zhen burst into tears and all the civil and military officials sighed.
Civil and military officials are not stupid people, they are all smart people, not stupid.
Although they all knew that these guys could never be so gentle to the tenants and could never be so just, they still felt deeply about the great revolutionary actions initiated by the Ming Dynasty court and the Ming Dynasty court's behavior of standing on the side of the mud-legged people. Deep fear.
They have never seen a regime that stands with the Mud Legs, have never seen a regime that bulldozed the landlords and gentry for the Mud Legs, and have never seen an emperor who allowed all this or even dominated it.
Is this bitch the emperor?
They are very worried that the present of these guys is their future, and they are even more worried that some of these guys may escape, but they cannot escape.
This group of guys could still escape across thousands of mountains and rivers to the Southern Song Dynasty to beg for food. Then when the Ming army goes south, where will they flee?
Lingnan?
Champa State?
They began to feel deeply worried about their future.
And this is the purpose of Zhao Min and Zaifu's team.
Use this group of people to tell them the revolutionary policies of the Ming Dynasty through their own experiences, so as to unite people's hearts on a large scale again, unite the ruling class of the Southern Song Dynasty as never before, and curb internal strife to a considerable extent.
Through this wave of public opinion work, the ruling class of the Southern Song Dynasty basically had a full sense of crisis. The desire for internal fighting was not so strong, the party struggle was not so fierce, and the fighting spirit against the Ming Dynasty was also unprecedentedly strong.
After that, Zhao Xun keenly realized that his decree had worked a lot better.
There were always some stumbling blocks in the past, and some people were working too hard to do their best, and the administrative efficiency was shockingly low.
Good thing now, administrative efficiency has been greatly improved, and it is more efficient than it was some time ago.
By mid-October of the fourth year of Hongwu, the recruitment plan for the 70,000-strong army was successfully completed.
This time it was a real number of 70,000 people, without any water. All of these 70,000 people were enriched into the Jianghuai War Zone and the Lin'an Forbidden Army. It was full, which was quite rare.
It is really not objective to say that there is no credit for this group of squires from the Ming Dynasty.
After the Lin'an Forbidden Army suffered two devastating blows, it finally had a quota of 40,000 people again, and the remaining 30,000 people were sent to the three armies of Zhenjiang Prefecture, Jiankang Prefecture, and Chizhou Prefecture.
Zhao He organized all these 40,000 people into the Guards Ma Junsi and Guards Infantry Divisions under his command. As for the Palace Front Division, they were not assigned because they were still outside with Zhao Gou.
But these 70,000 people are certainly not the end, just a starting point.
On the same day that the 70,000-man recruitment plan was completed, Zhao Min proposed an ambitious 80,000-man recruitment plan, requiring that the size of the army be restored to the size before the first Ming-Song War within two years.
And with the implementation of the plan to recruit 80,000 soldiers, the Southern Song Dynasty court also began to announce the holding of special military examinations to recruit talents with courage and military skills from the whole society.
As long as you pass the exam, you can be directly awarded a military position and receive generous benefits.
At the same time, in the formal imperial examinations, the questions began to focus on military strategy.
In addition to traditional Confucian classics issues, military issues arose in the imperial examination at the request of Zhao Hao, who required the selection of military talents from the candidates who took the imperial examination.
Zhao Hao also recruited military talents from officials who had already become officials, preparing to massively expand the size of the Privy Council, give the Privy Council greater power, invigorate the Privy Council, and by the way, invigorate the military of the Southern Song Dynasty.
With the implementation of a series of New Deals, more and more military talents have entered the Privy Council, and their arrival has provided a guarantee for the professionalism of the Privy Council.
Zhao Min was finally dissatisfied with Zhou Linzhi's conservative military strategy and was ready to adopt a more radical military strategy to counter the threat posed by the Ming Dynasty.
For this reason, Zhao Min swapped the positions of Chen Kangbo, who had returned from his mission to the Ming Dynasty, and Zhou Linzhi, who was appointed to lead the Privy Council. Zhou Linzhi was appointed as the Councilor for Political Affairs, and Chen Kangbo was appointed as the Privy Councilor.
Zhou Linzhi breathed a sigh of relief, while Chen Kangbo accepted the mission with a solemn expression.
After Chen Kangbo returned to Lin'an, he submitted a detailed report to Zhao Yu about all his and the envoy's experiences and knowledge in the Ming Dynasty.
Zhao Min felt uneasy after learning about the series of changes in the Ming Dynasty.
When he learned that Su Yonglin was trying to interfere in the internal affairs of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Min was indeed very angry and frightened, and immediately rejected the suggestion.
"I thought Su Yonglin suddenly had a kind heart, but I didn't expect him to be so vicious. He tried to win the hearts and minds of the people of the Song Dynasty in this way and interfered in the internal affairs of the Song Dynasty. It is really abominable!"
Zhao Yan said angrily: "It seems that Su Yonglin is determined to kill me after all!"
Chen Kangbo nodded.
"Although the Ming Dynasty is still determined to destroy me, they still have a lot of things to do after all. They want to build the Yellow River, and they need to concentrate a lot of manpower and material resources, so they are unlikely to become my enemy in the short term, and they are unlikely to go south."
"Didn't you say that they won't be able to fight because of the construction of the Yellow River?"
Zhao Hao whispered: "This kind of thing cannot be misjudged, otherwise the Song Dynasty will be very dangerous."
Chen Kangbo nodded.
"Of course the veteran knows, but the Song Dynasty is a big country after all, and the Ming Dynasty also knows that it cannot invade the Song Dynasty from the south with tens of thousands of troops. If it intends to overthrow the Song Dynasty, can it only send 50,000 or 60,000 people? It must be comprehensive It is unimaginable that there is a large unfinished project behind the attack.”
