This case was essentially a riot by the southeastern gentry class against Dashun's "New Tenant Protection Law". However, the Shun army did not carry out direct force suppression. Instead, they secretly supported the local poor peasants in beating up the rebels, thus collapsing the resistance of the southeastern gentry class.
After this case, most of the tenant farmers in Jiangnan relied on the support of the Dashun Army, and their folk customs became extremely fierce. They resisted rent at every turn and confronted the gentry landlords, causing various mass incidents.
Because the court mostly favored the tenant farmers and the poor in such incidents, the legitimate interests of the gentry were severely damaged, so Qian Qianyi lamented that "the court deliberately embarrasses powerful people from aristocratic families in order to threaten and rob the scholar-bureaucrats."
For this reason, the southeastern gentry often used the reason that the tenant farmers were ruthless and difficult to control, and owed a large amount of taxes. They could not receive enough rent from the tenant farmers, so they simply refused to pay taxes to the court, trying to coerce the court and turn the court into local justice.
just.
However, the Dashun court's finances are quite generous. According to the statistics of the household government, due to the huge land revenue obtained during the promotion of the camp system, and the total of more than 100 million taels of silver seized from two battles against the Qing army, the Dashun court was able to maintain its operations in the country.
While dealing with the wars in the Northeast and Southwest, we were not coerced by the gentry and landlords in the Southeast to resist taxes.
Under such circumstances, the gentry officials in the southeast were controlled by the imperial court at the top and the unruly people at the bottom. They experienced the pain of not receiving land rent.
After all, after those unruly tenant farmers had the support of the imperial court, many of them even resisted the legal rent of less than 40%!
Also affected by this, the expected income from land has dropped to a shocking level.
After all, when wealthy and powerful families purchase additional land, almost no one will cultivate it themselves. Instead, all the land will be subleased to tenant farmers and they will make profits by collecting land rent from the tenant farmers.
It is so difficult to collect land rent now, and it is impossible for the gentry to cultivate a large amount of land by themselves. Even if there are so-called people who cultivate and read poetry and pass down the family, even a large family with dozens or hundreds of people can cultivate it themselves.
How much land?
The situation of land annexation across states and counties like in the past is absolutely impossible - because it is too uneconomical!
The expected income from land has dropped significantly, which naturally leads to a sharp drop in land prices on the market.
Even the price of high-quality paddy fields in Jiangning, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Susong has dropped by more than 40% compared to what it was in the 16th year of Chongzhen's reign.
Moreover, it is so cheap that most of the land has not been sold yet because not many people are willing to take it.
At this time, the gentry and merchants who had been forced to sell their land during the reform of the farm system and only received a pile of factory stock capital suddenly felt that their vision was wiser. It turned out that the land was now so worthless, and
The prices of the shares in my hands are soaring.
During the period of Chu Chuang, Dashun, the first year of Yongchang, the first year of Guangzhong, and the first year of Tianfa, within a few years, an astonishing amount of land had been accumulated through the reform of the camp system.
Now Li Laiheng is carrying out the reform of clearing land and banning it. In fact, he is redistributing a large amount of gentry land accumulated during the reform of the village system to landless and landless farmers in the form of land equalization system.
This approach caused a large amount of land to rush into the land transaction market in a short period of time, which also lowered the land transaction price. It also made landless farmers with little savings completely give up the possibility of taking over the land when the land price was low.
In this way, the plummeting decline in land prices across the country can no longer be stopped.
While land prices fell massively, industry and commerce ushered in rapid development and prosperity.
Those gentry and merchants who had defected to Dashun in the early days had the first-mover advantage. They are now increasingly grateful to President Bai Wangbai who presided over the reform of the farmland system. Therefore, Geng Yingqu also organized a group of businessmen to set up shop in the eight prefectures of Hubei Province.
All counties in the country built temples of wealth to offer sacrifices to Bai Wang, and regarded him as the patron saint of merchants.
The Jiangnan gentry, which was one step behind, could only sit back and watch the price of its assets calculated in terms of land plummet as it was unprofitable to invest in real estate.
If we want to reverse the crazy decline in asset prices, we must improve the unhealthy structure in which assets are almost entirely composed of land.
Such a large amount of money also flowed to various workshops that were strongly supported by the imperial court.
and!
The southeastern gentry soon discovered something:
When they had conflicts with tenant farmers on the issue of land rent, the government almost always favored the tenant farmers and suppressed land rent. Even if a "good official" from the southeast came to protect the gentry, he would soon be accused by his superiors and his official career would be ruined.
Light;
However, when they had conflicts with employees over workshop management and labor issues, the government was always on the side of the gentry and merchants and suppressed the employees in every possible way.
With such an obvious contrast, it would be foolish not to be able to figure out whether to use the money to buy land or to build shops.
The prosperity of industry and commerce can find a source for a large amount of money that has lost investment channels. However, in a short period of time, land prices have plummeted, but industry and commerce are extremely prosperous, which is likely to cause department stores to become more expensive.
After all, it is difficult for the market size to change significantly in a short period of time. Therefore, Li Laiheng also feels that it is necessary to put market development on the agenda. The overseas trade volume of approximately 20 million taels of silver a year cannot be allowed to be controlled by Zheng Sen any longer.
Already.
Overseas trade amounts to 20 million yuan a year, which is an astonishing scale that naturally develops without any policy support.
With the full support of the imperial court and the coordinated progress of the mainland provinces, Li Laiheng even believed that it would be possible to increase the annual export volume of overseas trade to 30 million taels.
After all, Qianlong could receive a tariff of 5 million taels even when he closed the country, and at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the tariff reached as much as 46 million taels, which is comparable to Dashun's entire fiscal revenue for a year now.
The military operation against Zheng Sen was scheduled after the peace of Yunnan.
As for the pacification of the Yunnan War, with Li Dingguo's personal supervision and the tilted investment of resources from across the country, the pacification was surprisingly easy.
Of course, Li Laiheng didn't know at this time that the main reason why Sun Kewang gave up Yunnan territory so easily in the second and third years of Tianfa was just Sun Kewang's deliberate behavior.
Because Sun Kewang had clearly seen the reality that it was impossible for Ximing to resist with the Shun Army in the mainland, he was unwilling to waste his precious old soldiers on meaningless resistance in Yunnan.
Instead, they made preparations for the occupation and transfer to Myanmar early.
In October of the second year of Tianfa, taking advantage of the cold weather, Sun Kewang mobilized more than 40,000 Ximing elite troops and marched towards Ava with the cooperation of more than 1,000 troops organized by Portuguese adventurers.
At this time, Myanmar had already ended its many years of war with the Arakan Dynasty. King Thalong pursued a policy of recuperation and relaxation with the people. There were not many soldiers, and most of them did not know how to fight. They were defeated by the Ming-Portuguese coalition forces and were unable to resist at all.
Sun Kewang seized the opportunity of the cold weather in winter and the ease of movement in the jungle area, and quickly advanced towards Ava. He captured Buddhist temples along the way, opened the treasury, opened warehouses to distribute grain to the surrounding people, and gave away the gold hidden in the Buddhist temple to confuse people. He actually used thunder to
They were unable to cover their ears and attacked the city of Ava.
The defenders in the city were well prepared, but the Ava Chinese merchants had already had contact with the Ming army, and a riot broke out that night. Some people took the opportunity to open the city gate to welcome the Ming-Portuguese allied forces into the city.
Sun Kewang was able to destroy the Ava Dynasty before the end of the second year of Tianfa. Then he learned that the Shun Army's army attacking Yunnan had arrived in Jianchang and other places, and a war was imminent, so he accelerated his move to Burma.
In April of the third year of Tianfa, Emperor Zhu Youlang of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom moved to Ava and announced that Ava would be renamed Huitianfu. Later, civil and military officials from all levels of the Western Ming Dynasty also completed their transfer to Myanmar.
On May 11th of the third year of Tianfa, the Shun Army launched the Yunnan War. The army was divided into two routes and attacked Yunnan from the east and north. The northern route was led by Li Dingguo with 50,000 troops and headed towards Wusa from Yongning. This is Yunnan.
The junction of Sichuan and Guizhou provinces was an important military area at that time.
On the east route, Ma Bao led an army of 40,000 people from Chenzhou and Yuanzhou to Guizhou, attacking the remaining areas controlled by Hou Ximing in Guizhou.
On June 26, the Shun army arrived at the Baishi River in the northeast of Qujing in heavy fog. The fog cleared and the sky cleared. Ai Nengqi saw the Shun army across the river and rushed his elite troops to guard the river bank. Li Dingguo adopted Ma Bao's suggestion and supervised the officers and soldiers.
They feigned a frontal attack, and sent a surprise force to secretly cross the river from the lower reaches and circle behind the Ming army's formation. They planted flags in the valley and played golden drums. The defenders were frightened by the situation.
Ma Bao took advantage of the situation and led his army across the river, defeated the defenders, captured more than 20,000 people under Ainengqi, and occupied Qujing.
Qujing is the gateway to the east of Yunnan and an important land and water transportation route. The Dashun Army occupied Qujing and strangled Yunnan's throat. So the East Route Army was divided into two, one was led by Ma Jinzhong and went straight to Kunming, Yunnan; the other was led by Ma Bao himself.
Head north to Usa to support the Northern Route Army. On July 12, the third year of Tianfa, Liang Sun expected to learn that the Ming army had lost Qujing, so he abandoned Kunming and Dali and led more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians to evacuate to Burma.
Later, Li Dingguo sent his generals to conquer the remaining prefectures and counties in Yunnan in August of the third year of Tianfa. By September, the Dali garrison surrendered and the entire territory of Yunnan was pacified.