Behind Guo Sheng's sudden march towards Jinan were the camps that had just been established in Dongsanfu, Shandong, and the militia and other new systems in Huguang were exerting their power.
Although Shandong is not yet an "old area" among the areas currently controlled by the Dashun Army, even after being burned, looted, and killed several times by the Manchus, the Shandong area, especially the Dongsanfu area that was less damaged by the Manchus,
In terms of manpower and material resources, it still exceeds that of Henan, which has suffered from military disasters and natural disasters for many years.
The troops of the Shandong armies certainly have a more difficult life than those in Hubei, where the Dashun Army is the most prosperous. But at least they can better ensure that the troops need food, oil, salt, clothing, shoes, socks, and even meat.
The supply of food, vegetables, and living conditions are much better than those of the Ming Army troops in the past, and even most of the green battalion soldiers of the Qing Army today.
In order to ensure the supply needs of the frontline troops, the camp envoys and village envoys at all levels under the Yingtian Yuan, as well as the bandit envoys at all levels under the militia system, have provided a large amount of supplies and fodder to the troops in a timely manner.
Therefore, although Guo Sheng's march was urgent, he was extremely rich in supplies. This allowed him to easily provide large quantities of supplies to the rebels in Jinan and Zhangqiu, and to the regular army of Dashun Army, he was even able to distribute them on time every month.
The new cotton-padded clothes and hemp shoes can also be used to support the rebel army with a huge amount of food, clothing, shoes and socks, as well as swords, guns and firecrackers.
Dengzhou was originally one of the centers of the "Spread of Western Learning to the East" during the Ming Dynasty. It was relatively easy to adopt the method of public-private partnership here to encourage gentry to do business and build factories.
From the first year of Guangzhong to the present, in only nearly three months, the public-private joint venture factory in Dengzhou Prefecture alone has provided troops for the frontline armies, including the Jinan Prefecture Uprising Army, three divisions including Ma Bao, and the Xuzhou garrison.
There are nearly 20,000 pairs of shoes.
Shandong belongs to the coastal area, and the Haidai area has produced salt since ancient times. In the Ming Dynasty, there were Xinyang, Taoluo, Shihe, Xingcun, Denning, Xiyou, Haicang, Wangjiagang, Guantai, Gudi, Gaojiagang,
There are more than ten salt fields in Xinzhen, Ninghai, Fengguo, Yongfu, Liguo, Fengmin, Fuguo, and Yongli.
The coastline of Shandong's salt area stretches for more than two thousand miles. During the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult to manage and smuggling was rampant. The number of private salt-makers and salt sellers along the coast of Shandong increased, forming a force that cannot be underestimated.
Due to the terrain, and the fact that Shandong has been a gathering place for horse households since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the folk customs are strong and thieves are rampant. There have never been a large number of salt lords. For example, Shandong heroes Gong Wencai, Ma Yingshi and other armed forces of Guicheng Dashun Army
, are closely related to the indigenous salt owl of Shandong.
For this reason, when Gu Kecheng served as Shandong's economic envoy, he had already implemented reforms to the old salt law of the Ming Dynasty. Due to the strong force of the Dashun Army and the institutional officials were a group of new people who had nothing to do with the interests of the local gentry in Shandong,
Therefore, Gu Kecheng could take drastic measures, mercilessly suppress opponents, and vigorously implement reform measures that had been proposed by far-sighted people during the Ming Dynasty but could never be implemented due to local opposition.
The Dashun Army strengthened its control over river transportation routes and set up audit offices on important salt transportation routes such as Xiaoqing River and Daqing River to strengthen supervision.
More importantly, relying on township officials at all levels in Huguang and grassroots administrative officials trained by township administration schools, Gu Kecheng had sufficient administrative resources to directly dispatch salt tax supervision and collection officials to the salt field level.
The Audit Office is independent from the salt management agencies of the Ming Dynasty in the past. Therefore, it has no affiliation with local administrative agencies and officials, and will not be interfered or restricted by local forces. In addition, most of the officials in the Audit Office were trained by the Chu Chuang system.
The direct members of the Jin Palace were trustworthy for their loyalty, and their diligent and strict style also made a big difference to Shandong's military and civilians.
The establishment of the audit office actually suppressed the power of salt merchants and took back the administrative power of salt taxation and salt affairs that had been left to salt merchants in the Ming Dynasty to the hands of the Dashun regime.
In view of the problems that the salt produced in the salt fields in various places were piled up randomly, the salt fields were endless, and the storage was disorganized, Gu Kecheng ordered the local militia to build special warehouses to store the salt, so as to avoid the problem of salt smuggling caused by the random accumulation of salt in the salt fields.
In addition, reforms such as changing the method of levying salt tax based on population in the Ming Dynasty to levying it based on kilograms, canceling brine consumption, etc. were all based on the Dashun Army's simple spirit of simplifying administrative procedures to improve efficiency and reduce administrative costs.
, but in terms of results, it will inevitably have a significant impact on the future Shun Dynasty system.
Once these reform measures were implemented, they soon met with local resistance, and even in Laiyang, Haiyang, Jimo and other places, there were cases where the gentry attracted the Eastern pirates to join the bandits.
However, at that time, the Qing government was vigorously promoting the order to shave off hair and cut off the gentry. Generals such as Gu Kecheng and Guo Sheng ruthlessly suppressed the local gentry who resisted the new salt law.
Control was gradually achieved within a few months, and the resulting new salt tax revenue was several times greater than during the heyday of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty.
With such abundant material resources, Guo Sheng's troops were not only able to bring enough food, oil, and salt, but also were able to provide relief to the people who were suffering from the Qing government's excessive conquests when rebels were swarming across Jinan. They were only in Zouping County.
, Guo Sheng donated tens of thousands of catties of oil and salt to local soldiers and civilians.
In this way, the local people's response and welcome to Guo Sheng's march was not simply because they could not bear the Qing court's hair-cutting order and excessive taxation, but also because of their high expectations for the Dashun Army's new policy.
The so-called "Tao eats the pot of milk to welcome Master Wang" is not a lie at all, but a solid fact.
After Geng Zhongming led his troops back to Jinan, although he had about 10,000 Manchu, Han and Mongolian troops in his hands, it was almost twice as many as Guo Sheng's troops.
However, these troops were enough to resist Guo Sheng's Dashun regular army that penetrated directly into the rear of Jinan, but they were far from enough to suppress the insurrectionary forces that were rising wildly from various places.
Wherever the Shun army went, they distributed relief grain, oil and salt. Denglai was so prosperous that it spread far and wide in the north of Qi and Hejian. It was located in the plains behind the Qing army's front line, Wuding Prefecture, Qingyun, Yanshan, Wuqiao and other places.
, there were also constant rises of rebels, killing officials and changing the banner of Dashun. Some gentry even took the initiative to greet the Shun army by using slogans of the Dashun army during the Li Zicheng period such as "No food will be paid when the King Chuang comes".
Geng Zhongming was ordered to suppress the rebels and secure Azig's rear. However, when he returned to Jinan and faced such a mess, he realized that with his current strength, he had nothing to do except secure a stronghold in Jinan City.
The way is done!
Guo Sheng, who was in Zouping County, also convened and met with various rebel contacts from Shandong and southern Hebei. He looked at these people who came from enemy-occupied areas to see him. Many of them were actually Liugou commanders of the Ming Army who he had served in the past.
The old acquaintances I met when I was a deputy general include local powerful people, famous gentry celebrities, and even many high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty who became official at home.
Everyone shouted "Today's Han officials are majestic", and Guo Sheng was greatly moved. No matter whether they were old men loyal to the Ming Dynasty or new nobles loyal to Dashun, everyone was exactly the same in opposing the tyranny of the Manchus.
.
Guo Sheng sighed and said: "Many of you have old ties with me, and some of them wanted me to defect to the Dashun Army back then, but today they all came to do so. The destiny of the King of Jin has returned, and people's hearts have come together. I completely understand. Yes.
If people's hearts are so usable, how can it be difficult to destroy the obedient king Geng Zhongming?"