With such a dispersed army of personnel, cadres and strength, once a large-scale gentry rebellion occurs, the rebels scattered throughout Huangzhou will immediately be in an extremely weak position, unable to protect themselves, and are likely to be quickly defeated one by one.
In fact, the defeat of Dashun in later history was largely due to the fact that Li Zicheng rashly dispersed these valuable human resources across the vast land of North China when the Dashun Army's reliable cadre reserves were insufficient. .As a result, when the news of the defeat of Shanhaiguan came, the local gentry rebelled, and the invaders who were dispersed to rule immediately became a small boat in the stormy sea, unable to protect themselves at all. A large number of precious forces were so easily lost Buried.
What's more, it is obvious that Li Laiheng has now recruited so many remnants of the Shenzhuang Army and the surrendered troops of the official army. These newly recruited troops are almost double the original backbone of the Chuang Army.
Should we rely on these troops who are closely connected with the local gentry to suppress the rebellion of the local gentry?
Isn't this a joke?
Fang Yiren's advice was definitely not because he came from a family of scholar-bureaucrats, but was indeed a pertinent and objective view of the current situation.
"I know that the Palace Master cares about the people in the capital of Guizhou. However, we must also consider changes with the times. If the land equalization and restructuring are rushed, most of the gentry will have no way out and there will be no hope. Then the Palace Master has only thousands of people in his hands. How can we suppress the rebellion of tens of thousands of landowners with a strong army of soldiers and horses?"
"Leshan, let's go into the city first. I have all these things in mind, so don't worry."
After occupying Juma, the resources and bargaining chips in Li Laiheng's hands increased greatly. After he collected the remaining troops of Shenzhuang Army and the surrendered officers and soldiers, a more conservative estimate is that he can almost expand the Huguang Chuang Army to about 15,000 men.
With such soldiers and horses as his backing, Li Laiheng's demeanor became more calm. He considered the situations mentioned by Fang Yiren, and after listening to Fang Yiren's more careful analysis and planning, he had a more detailed blueprint in his mind. clear.
At least give the gentry a way out.
If he really wanted to completely eliminate all the peasants and liberate the peasants, then Li Laiheng would have to deal with a brutal agrarian revolutionary war first, which would greatly conflict with his planned plan to resist the Qing Dynasty.
After all, things cannot be done both ways.
After all, this was the early winter of 1641, not the early winter of 1931.
After Li Laiheng's soldiers and horses all entered the city, he did not go to the county government to set up the headquarters of the commander's office. Instead, he followed the practices of Shen Zhuangjun and Yan Xin and set up the headquarters of the commander's office in Meifu.
Mei Zhihuan and Mei Zengzhi died one after another, and the once leading prominent family in Jute has completely declined. The remaining Mei family children lack people with qualifications or talents. Li Laiheng also left these people alone, as long as they were willing to cooperate docilely with the army. He does not mind giving certain benefits to these speculators in the next step of institutional reform.
Yan Xin was already waiting in front of the Meifu Courtyard. The red team played a key role in the Battle of Jute. The emergency response of Yan Xin, the team leader, also showed his extraordinary ability to adapt. Li Laiheng admired it very much and felt deeply in his heart. He also felt prescient and arrogant that he had replaced Azhuo as the cavalry commander and was in charge of the red team's personnel arrangements with strict salary.
The young tiger commander took off his light fur coat and put it directly on Yan Xin, praising: "You are really brave enough to be a class leader, Yan Xin, do you have any virtue?"
Showing virtue means showing character, but Yan Xin was also a native of Henan. Although he was quite studious after being promoted to the red team management team, he was not arty enough to choose a brand name.
He shook his head truthfully, and Li Laiheng gave him a nickname, "Zhong Sheng", following Ban Chao's nickname.
Fang Yiren on the side kept complaining in his heart. Ban Chao was not a first-rate member of the Jin Yiwei. At most, the attack on the Xiongnu envoy could have something to do with Yan Xin's actions, but most of the time, this allusion was not used for side effects.
aspects?
What's more, Zhongsheng Zhongsheng, brother Zhongshuji, Yanshen is not ranked second in the family, isn't it too embarrassing to just be Zhongsheng? Alas, the master of the palace doesn't study, doesn't learn, doesn't learn!
After everyone took their seats, Li Laiheng finally looked at Bai Wang, who was still serving as the field envoy, and said with a smile: "Old Bai, Leshan has a lot of opinions on the matter of equalizing the fields. You can tell us our plan in detail."
During this period, Bai Wang no longer participated in the fighting, but spent all his energy on the reform of Suizhou's land system. While others were busy pacifying the village and fighting fiercely against the army, Bai Wang led a group of people with better literacy scores.
Veterans of the Breakthrough Army visited one village after another.
Braving the sun, wind and rain, he worked tirelessly from village to village and tried his best to implement the payment of grain to tenants, equalization of land and exemption from taxes. Although there were some cases where tenants pretended to be self-cultivators in order to avoid rent.
, and also encountered a mutiny initiated by some unscrupulous gentry.
Fortunately, Bai Wang is a general with both wisdom and bravery, and he is also a rare businessman among the generals of the army. He skillfully handled the conflicts and dissatisfactions of all parties. He also dealt with the lawless elements who directly used force to resist Suizhou's new system.
He also has the courage to use decisive force to suppress it.
Li Laiheng was greatly impressed by the effect of Bai Wang's camp. Although it was not as good as Sun Kewang's later achievements in Yunnan, Suizhou's own social economy and agricultural production level were much higher than those of backward and barren Yunnan.
As long as the local production order can be quickly stabilized and its due productivity can be restored, it will be enough to support the military operations of the Chuang Army.
Not only did Bai Wang achieve this, he also went a step further than simply restoring production and maintaining order. He took advantage of the opportunity of the tenant farmers being liberated to organize them to repair and build water conservancy facilities, so that Suizhou's agricultural production improved in a short period of time.
There has been considerable progress.
These things are focused on details and subtleties. They are not as conspicuous as Li Laiheng's campaign, but they mean that the Chuang Army is gaining the ability to rule.
Bai Wang also accumulated rich administrative experience from his "camp field" work during this period. Not only him, but also many veterans of the army under his command are becoming the number one in the army.
Criticize "officials".
After Li Laiheng determined the strategic goal of using Shenzhuang's military strategy to obtain jute, he had an in-depth discussion with Bai Wang. After occupying the jute area in the next step, how to copy the new system of Suizhou and the new land system to Huangzhou Prefecture?
Simple and crude direct copying is obviously not feasible. As Fang Yiren said, large-scale sharecropping and grain sharing and land equalization and tax exemption will leave the local gentry with no way out and trigger a huge rebellion.
The Chuang Army is now absorbing the remnants of the Shenzhuang Army and the official army to achieve a large-scale military expansion. Li Laiheng's foundation is already in an extremely unstable state, and he cannot take risks.
But is it necessary to abandon institutional reform and maintain the old jute governance system?
Then why bother raising troops?
Isn't it ridiculous?
There are many geographical maps of Huguang Province in the Meifu. Fang Yiren was very interested in collecting books, so after entering the city, his biggest concern was to collect ancient books and records collected by the gentry.
The several volumes of maps currently placed on the table were dug out by Fang Yiren from Mei's Mansion.
Bai Wang used his finger to draw out the area controlled by Suizhou, Yingshan County, Huang'an County, Macheng County, and the three counties in one state under the control of Chuangjun. In addition, Huangpi, Luotian, Qishui counties in the south of Huang, and Huangzhou Prefecture Huanggang, the capital city, has no soldiers and horses to defend it, and the invading army can attack it at any time.
Most of the areas in De'an and Huangzhou Prefecture in the east of the Han River Basin can be said to have been or will soon be under Li Laiheng's control.
"De'an, the Second Prefecture of Huangzhou, judging from the maps found by Secretary Fang, there are millions of ordinary households, and the number of wealthy households with large landholdings is far beyond that of a corner of Suizhou. If you directly Copying the policy of exempting farmers from grain and equalizing land and exempting taxes may indeed provoke large-scale rebellions, making the invasion army too tired to deal with it and missing a favorable opportunity for expansion."
While Bai Wang used lines of different colors on the map to draw out Li Laiheng's control area, he analyzed: "Jie Shuai actually made plans when he was in Suizhou. The transitional strategy was to pay tenants for food. Just wait for the invasion of the army. The more people in the country who know how to write documents, the new system can be implemented."
Li Laiheng and Bai Wang discussed privately to implement the new land system in the new control area, but they had not yet made it public, so the generals were surprised. Fang Yiren secretly felt that Li Laiheng had not told him such a confidential matter. The secretary-general felt a little aggrieved.
"I have long planned to change the land system. Most of the soldiers in the army are from the Qin Dynasty. Maybe they don't know about Jiangnan Yongtian, and they don't fully understand the difference between farm skin and farm bones."
Li Laiheng directly expressed his intention to change the land system. Fang Yiren was from Tongcheng and naturally knew something about the theory of Tianpi and Tiangu in the Jiangnan area. He immediately replied: "Tianpi and Tiangu are also called Tiandi and Tiandi." The field surface, or the big seedlings and the small seedlings, all have the same meaning. The field bones are the foundation of the field. If the gentry owns the field bones, they can collect land rent forever; the field skins are owned by the tenants, and the income from farming goes to the field skins."
The so-called "permanent tenancy system", as the name suggests, means that tenants have the right to permanently rent and cultivate the landlord's land.
Specifically, the traditional land property rights are divided into two parts: the landlord enjoys the ownership of the land, which is called "Tian Gu"; the tenant has the right to use the land, which is called "Tian Pi".
Under this system, both landlords and tenants enjoy the power to independently and freely dispose of their property rights. Tenants can freely buy, sell, donate, and pledge the "fields" they own, and landlords can also freely buy, sell, donate, and pledge their own "fields." The "field bones".
This system protects the rights and interests of tenant farmers to a certain extent. However, it is also limited to the Jiangnan region where the development of the tenant system is particularly developed. Moreover, due to the difficulty of distinguishing the independent property rights and values of farm skins and farm bones, there are a large number of problems that cannot be completely solved. The shortcomings make it difficult to implement it in most areas.
But Li Laiheng's intention was to add the role of the Chuang Army and the power of the government on the basis of the "permanent tenant system", so as to turn the bilateral relationship between landlords and tenants into a tripartite relationship between landlords, tenants, and Chuang Army.
Balance, protect the weak, and better and more directly absorb the material power of the controlled area without increasing the burden on the people.