The Yan family sadly completed Yan Keng's funeral. On the day of his burial, not to mention the prefect of Ningbo Prefecture, even the three top officials of the Third Division as far away as Hangzhou came to attend.
Although Yan Keng is dead, the Yan family has not declined. Not to mention anything else, the mere presence of Yan Keng in the cabinet is worth burning incense.
However, when they arrived, they were traveling in a light carriage and on fast horses. When they left, they were escorted by soldiers from a nearby guard post before they dared to set off.
No one expected that in the same month as Yan Keng's death, the biggest chaos since the late Yuan Dynasty would occur in Jiangnan.
The reason was that the court was short of money.
Natural disasters occurred frequently during this period. Two years ago, there was a drought in Shaanxi and floods in the two capitals and the Central Plains, and they have never stopped since.
In the fourth year of Zhengtong, there was a severe drought in Zhili, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shanxi.
Five years ago, there were floods in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Jiangnan, which had been providing blood to the world, became the target of feedback, "reviving hunger in Zhejiang" and "freeing taxes and grains in Su, Song, Chang, Zhen, Jia and Hu".
In the past six years, there was a famine in Huguang, a locust plague in Zhili, and a drought in Shaanxi.
In seven years, there was famine in the four provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong, resulting in hundreds of thousands of refugees.
In the ninth year, there was another famine in Huguang, Guizhou, Henan, and Shaanxi.
The Ming Dynasty seemed to be cursed. Natural disasters continued throughout the Ming Dynasty, and the Zhengtong Year was just a reflection of the entire Ming Dynasty.
And every major disaster is followed by famine and displacement.
It was fine when Yan Keng was here before. He sent out capable officials to clarify responsibilities, quickly distributed relief food, appeased the people, and resettled the refugees. Although there were hundreds of thousands of refugees, there was no such thing as the late Ming Dynasty. Chaos.
But there is a price for doing so. The national treasury deficit is no joke. Although Yan Keng has cracked down on officials and encouraged production, no matter how much money you have, you can't withstand such a waste. When there is another famine in the ninth year, Zhu Qizhen plans to follow suit. The teacher came to provide disaster relief. With an order, the officials from the Ministry of Revenue opened the treasury——
There was not a shred of money left, and the emperor's internal funds were basically depleted.
I have no choice but to think of ways to increase my income.
Zhu Qizhen set his sights on the mine, which was the main source of internal funds after the Western voyages stopped.
This mine mainly refers to the silver mine. At that time, in addition to several government-run mines controlled by the court, there were also many private mines among the people.
In October of the ninth year of Zhengtong, the imperial court officially ordered that private mines be taken over and owned by the government. Those who mine privately would be put to death and their families would be exiled. "If anyone refuses to accept the prosecution, the army will be mobilized to suppress them." This was quite harsh.
Mines, since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up the Salt and Iron Bureau, all dynasties have basically taken these things back to the state and developed them by the court.
However, this does not mean that all mines are not allowed to be independently developed by the private sector. For example, coal mines are allowed, and the Yan family has two on hand. But silver mines, logically speaking, must be monopolized by the court.
The problem is that before Zhu Qizhen officially issued the order, the Ming Dynasty really didn't care much about this. Although Zhu Yuanzhang prohibited such behavior, Hongwu knew everything. Later, as long as you paid taxes, he didn't care about mining privately.
Until Zhu Qizhen.
Severe penalties for private mining have also led many people to embark on the path of no return.
After all, if you are going to die anyway, you might as well give it a try!
In the Xianxia Ridge and Tongtang Mountain areas at the junction of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces, Ye Zongliu, who privately opened the Baofengchang and Shaotingkeng silver mines, led the miners to formally rebel, and received the support of many miners!
And unlike other miners who were forced to raise armies, the Xianxia Ridge area was originally a restricted area where the government banned mining. The miners took advantage of the difficult terrain to mine and resist the government for two years, and accumulated rich experience.
Ye Zongliu led the rebels to kill Fujian Councilor Zhu Yuan, defeated thousands of Ming troops, gathered thousands of miners, criss-crossed the junction of the three provinces, and defeated several cities in a row, making them invincible!
The Ming Dynasty mobilized troops several times to suppress it, but because Ye Zong left a group of people wandering around without a fixed place, their efforts were in vain!
The time lasted until the 13th year of Zhengtong. More than three years later, the Ming army still made few gains, but Ye Zongliu became stronger and stronger as he fought. He broke into several official mines, gathered tens of thousands of people, and conquered the three southeastern provinces. Several important financial and taxation areas are in a mess!
The already poor imperial court was even worse.
The only good thing is that due to Yan Keng's New Deal in the past few years, farmers generally live and work in peace and contentment. Coupled with timely disaster relief, the refugees were settled in time and were not coerced by Ye Zongliu into a catastrophe.
But even so, the Ming Dynasty could no longer bear it. The troops in the southeast had been deployed for several years, spending countless money and food, and the border gates had begun to owe wages!
And in the twelfth year of Zhengtong, Ye Zongliu defeated Zhenghe and proclaimed himself the "king"! This has completely exceeded the tolerance limit of the Ming Dynasty!
They must be eradicated!
Zhu Qizhen looked around and selected a person——
It's so severe!
At this time, his three-year filial piety period had also expired.
Unfortunately, the new Duke Chen Guogong had just set out to return to the capital, and he was forced to embark on the road south.
In May of the 13th year of Zhengtong, Yan Yan, as Chen Guogong, Cabinet Assistant and Minister of War, commanded the troops from Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces to encircle and suppress Ye Zongliu.
The severe action was swift. He immediately returned to Ningbo and used it as his base camp to summon many generals from the three provinces.
During this period, he began to look through the files of battles between the Ming army and the rebels to understand this army composed of miners.
But this file made him frown.
The rebels don't have much to say. In fact, they are just rogue bandits. They hit and run, and their combat effectiveness is just that.
The real problem is that the Ming army generals are not united.
The combat effectiveness of the Southern Guards Ming Army has declined seriously at this time, but at least they have not completely become farmers, and their combat effectiveness is at least better than that of the miners.
The reason why they can't be exterminated repeatedly is that the generals of the Ming army generally have a muddle-through mentality. In addition, it is really difficult to suppress them when they run around, so they simply drive the rebels out of their own area and no longer care about them, so that The rebels were running around everywhere, fighting more and more people, and their fighting power became stronger and stronger, eventually leading to disaster.
However, among these people, he found a breath of fresh air.
A great victory was reported in Shaxian County, Fujian Province. The rebels laid down thousands of corpses and fled north in embarrassment. From then on, they did not dare to enter Shaxian County again.
But there are only some county magistrates and so on in the credit book, not the general who commanded the army.
Yan Yan knew very well that he was being robbed of credit.
After the generals from Fujian arrived, he asked the generals from Yanping Prefecture under Sha County for questioning. Facing Chen Guogong, that man naturally did not dare to hide anything.
"what is his name?"
"Deng Maoqi."
An eagle flaps its wings on the long river of history, setting off huge waves.
King Deng Maoqi and King Ye Zongliu, the two rebel leaders who were famous in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and once subverted the southeast, took different paths after Yan Ling came to this world.
(End of chapter)
