In the early morning, Zhu Yihai still woke up very early, and got up without paying too much attention to the beauty sleeping soundly next to him on the dragon bed.
A female official and several maids helped him wash up and put on his Changchao uniform. He walked out of the Qianqing Palace, first did Tai Chi in the front yard, and then shot thirty arrows. In the cold morning, his whole body was warm. Got up.
After warming up, he went back to the West Wing Hall to have breakfast. He also specially explained that he was exempted from the daily greetings of the queen, concubines and princesses.
Breakfast is also very simple, millet porridge and mutton.
The mutton is cooked in advance and has a salty taste. The millet porridge looks as rich and viscous as soy milk. It is specially made with millet and soybeans. When the weather is cold, a layer of porridge skin is formed on the surface of the millet porridge.
Pour the mutton into the porridge and stir a few times.
The mutton and porridge are mixed together to warm the stomach.
Since entering the Nanjing Imperial Palace, Zhu Yihai has repeatedly reiterated that he must be simple and frugal and not extravagant. His breakfast will not have seven dishes or eight bowls, and he will make as much as he wants, although the imperial kitchen will also take care to make different dishes for the emperor. It’s early but the ingredients are simple.
Just like this bowl of millet and mutton porridge, which is millet, soybeans and mutton. The mutton is also ordinary mutton. It will never be like the Yangzhou salt merchants. An egg costs one tael of silver. It has to be broken into small pieces and fed with cordyceps and ginseng. Eggs laid by large hens.
Millet does not choose its place of origin, nor does mutton choose its variety.
After breakfast, feeling warm all over, he changed into a dark dragon yellow satin plain robe, and left the Qianqing Palace to visit the Prime Minister's Office outside the square.
He usually works in Wuying Palace, but there is also an imperial study room in the Prime Minister's Office outside Qianqing Gate.
At Qianqing Gate, Yang Boxing, the chief military officer of Qianniu Town, is waiting here.
"morning."
Facing Yang Boxing's visit, Zhu Yihai waved his hand and told him not to be so polite and to be simpler.
"Have you eaten yet?"
Qianqing Gate is the dividing line between the inner and outer walls of the Forbidden City in Nanjing. Inside the gate is the harem, and outside the gate is the former dynasty. Foreign ministers are not allowed to enter the harem. Yang Boxing is the imperial guard general. There are also some guards in the harem, but the number is small. , there are also some eunuch guards such as the Royal Horse Supervisor on duty, and there is even a female guard.
Outside the door, there were more guards.
Yang Boxing is now a general of the imperial guard with the rank of admiral, but he is as loyal and cautious as ever, answering the emperor carefully.
As Zhu Yihai walked, he chatted with the guards about daily life. He could accurately name each guard, and even knew their hometown and some of their current situation, such as whether they were married, who their wives were, and how many brothers they had in the family. , or whose father just fell ill, etc. These are all casual chats. He is very concerned about everyone's lives, and through these guards around him, he has a deeper understanding of the lives of the soldiers and common people of all walks of life under his rule in the Ming Dynasty.
All the way to the door of the Prime Minister's Office.
There is another team of guards on duty here, including not only the Qianniu Guards but also the Royal Horse Guards.
The guards stopped.
Zhu Yihai entered, and the Prime Minister's Office kept two people on duty at night.
Last night it was Zhang Guowei and Wang Zhiren, one in culture and one in martial arts.
The two came up to pay their respects. There was nothing serious last night. Zhu Yihai brought mutton and millet porridge to them, "Hurry and eat while it's hot."
Although it is just a simple breakfast, it is a gift from the emperor, and it is still a rare gift.
After leaving them to express their gratitude and have a meal, Zhu Yihai returned to his study, sat down in front of the imperial desk, and began to read the memorial.
There are already many memorials piled up on the imperial record, including cabinet proposals forwarded by the General Secretary, memoranda submitted by the Prime Minister's Office, various intelligences submitted by various intelligence agencies, and a bunch of personal information of ministers. memorial.
These private memorials were all submitted directly to Zhu Yihai and opened by him personally without going through the Secretary of General Affairs or the Cabinet. These memorials are of a very personal nature and can only be given to the public if they have obtained the special qualification of secret memorials granted by Zhu Yihai. The emperor made a fold, so generally this kind of fold is also called a secret memorial or a fold.
On the surface, the content is for greetings and greetings, but in fact it is a secret report of what has happened, so as to monitor and inquire about each other. Sometimes it is also convenient for the monarch and his ministers to discuss some matters directly without going through the court and will not be made public.
Of course, this kind of private secret report does make it easier for ministers to monitor each other. After all, no one knows what they will say to the emperor. Sometimes, even the qualifications for such secret report are kept confidential.
This thing is even more direct and reliable than the information provided by Dongchang, coming from the most direct first-hand information.
Zhu Yihai first looked through these secrets.
Compared with the official official document title book, each with its own corresponding format, these secret chapters are much simpler. He prohibits talking nonsense, and when there is something to do, go directly to the topic. The simpler and clearer it is, the better.
Even in order to avoid wasting energy, Xin also required that secret reports be divided into two categories. Those with important matters reported secretly, and those with no important matters, or those who only reported some non-important information, should directly note on the memorial. bright.
He would read the memorial first and then the invitation.
Generally speaking, An Zhe will not reply specifically.
After watching the secret fold for a while, Zhu Yihai was in a bad mood.
There is not much good news in these memorials from governors and general soldiers in various places. Although they have just won a series of victories and conquered the entire area south of the Yangtze River, the actual situation in various places is not good.
Many officials used shocking words such as "the land was thousands of miles away, the people were cut off, and even the people were exchanged for food." There were also many reports where rogue bandits, bandits, mountain bandits, water bandits, pirates, hungry people, etc. appeared frequently.
From Sichuan to Guanzhong, from Yunyang to Hunan, from Guizhou to Jiangxi, from Anhui to Jiangsu, and then to Fujian and Guangxi, there is no safe place.
Sichuan has just experienced a great war. Although the war has ceased, famine has actually begun to break out in Sichuan, the Land of Abundance. Previously, Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi Army, the Ming Army in Central Sichuan, as well as local armed forces, chieftains, and some homeless thieves and hungry people, etc. There were violent fighting in central Sichuan. As a result, countless people abandoned their fields and fled.
The consequences are emerging. Whether it is the Ming army or the Western army, or local regiments, chieftains, bandits, and those with swords, guns and men, they are all desperately grabbing food, especially in the northern Sichuan area. Now the situation is even more serious. In order to prepare, Zhang Xianzhong After entering the pass, they started to snatch food from the people without any mercy.
He even went to the extent of killing people again just to grab money and food.
Many people fled their homes and fled, and chieftains from various places took the opportunity to recruit Han people. The situation in Sichuan is now stable on the surface, but in fact, the population of the places controlled by the Ming Dynasty officials has dropped sharply, the fields are barren, and the treasuries are empty. Faced with What is happening is a situation in which everything is waiting for improvement, with countless hungry people waiting for food, even serious local banditry, and increasingly disobedient chieftains.
Not to mention that they also reported one after another that Zhang Xianzhong was being mobilized frequently and that hundreds of thousands of Xiying soldiers were converging on northern Sichuan.
It is said that Chengdu is now almost an empty city. The young people, the money and food in the treasury, and the wealth of the people have all been taken away by Zhang Xianzhong.
Although Chongqing, an important town in eastern Sichuan, is currently garrisoned by the Ming army, it is still experiencing a food shortage. Now that the Ming army in central Sichuan is being reorganized, the biggest problem is food.
Generals such as Qin Liangyu, Zeng Ying, and Yang Zhan now have a ceasefire with Zhang Xianzhong's Western Camp, but they have launched a fierce attack on the bandits and bandits in the country. The main reason is to snatch money and food from these bandits.
It's the same as when hungry people dig mouse holes in winter.
The situation in Hunan is also very bad now.
Although the rebels such as Ma Jinzhong and Zhang Xianbi were successively annihilated and defeated, some of them surrendered, were reorganized or demobilized, the damage they caused was huge.
The area south of Dongting Lake was already relatively backward and remote. After the raids and looting by the rebels, the area was even more devastated. A large number of people fled into Tusi territory, and some went to Guangdong and Guangxi into Jiangxi.
People who read the reports of Zhu Dadian, Du Yinxi and other governors and governors were amazed. How many prefectures, counties and villages were destroyed here, how many young people and cattle were kidnapped there, and how many hungry people gathered to cause chaos and invaded cities and rural areas.
etc.
Zhu Shengli has established a foothold in Changsha, Zhu Dadian has also opened his teeth in Hengzhou again, and the governors of Pianyuan and Huguang are also restoring their places, but they are facing too many difficulties now.
First, there was a serious shortage of food, which caused people to flee from famine and a large number of fields were deserted. Spring plowing was about to begin. The land was still scorched everywhere, and people were still running around in the cold wind to survive. After the war, there were still many remnants of the rebels fleeing and looting everywhere.
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In Hunan alone, they had to defend the Qing army in the north, hunt down the remnants of the rebels, and appease the refugees. The most important thing was lack of food.
Without food, it is impossible to provide relief to the victims and allow them to return to their hometowns to resume farming. If we miss the spring plowing this year, there will be no harvest in the summer, and the situation will only get worse.
Reorganizing the troops requires money and food, training new troops requires money and food, appeasing the people and providing relief requires money and food, repairing city roads requires money and food, dredging rivers, strengthening river embankments, and maintaining water conservancy requires money and food. Anyway, money and food are needed everywhere.
Previously, the Ming army was on the offensive side, so Zhu Yihai could issue an order to take the initiative, avoid the real situation, attack prefectures and counties, and even demolish cities and seize money and food.
But now the status has changed, the Ming army has become the defensive side in Hunan, and it has to defend the people, and all kinds of difficulties have been added to it.
Expenditures are needed everywhere, money and food are needed everywhere, and the sum of all these items is an unbearable burden.
Zhu Dadian was already considered a relatively capable official among the officials of the Ming Dynasty, especially in the area of making money, but now he is also complaining endlessly.
In his report to Zhu Yihai, he also proposed some governance solutions, mainly providing work for relief, recruiting refugees to work in the fields, the Huguang army implementing the method of farming and fighting at the same time, and the people training in groups to protect armor, etc.
But even so, Zhu Dadian still needed a large amount of food to tide over the current difficulties. After all, without food, he could not support the army or provide for the people.
The two surrounding areas of Jiangxi and Sichuan, the land of plenty, are now too busy to take care of themselves. Not to mention Hubei in the north, they can only get food supplies from Guangdong and Guangxi in the south, but the situation in the south is not very optimistic either.
As the rear area, Fujian and Guangxi have not suffered any wars, but the local abuses have been deep. When Zhongwu and others rebelled last time, the rebels also fled to Jiangxi and Guangxi, causing a lot of damage.