The words are divided into two parts, not to mention how anxious Liu Guoneng's reply was to Chen Shuren, and how urgently he wanted to urge Liu Guoneng to return to the army to rescue Luoyang.
Speaking of Yang Sichang's memorial to Chongzhen, it was delivered to the capital in just six days via an express delivery that traveled 400 miles a day.
After all, this is not an imminent enemy situation, but a victory after the war. The overall situation has been settled, so there is no need to be too hasty. It is not cost-effective to run six hundred miles a day and kill the horses.
…
In the Forbidden City, Chongzhen, who worked harder and harder, was more unhelpful, and his mood has been very complicated recently.
In the past month or two, government and military affairs have been mixed.
In terms of domestic affairs, last year's vigorous rectification to eliminate bad governance has achieved some results. In terms of finance, at least judging from the daily income and expenditure accounts, the deficit is slowly improving.
Starting from the end of March to the beginning of April, the three pilot provinces in the south officially started to collect Lijin.
After two months of trying, according to the mid-year statistics compiled by the South at the end of June, the report was reported to the Ministry of Household Affairs. It was said that a total of four to five million taels had been collected. It took only two months to collect so much money. We haven’t aroused any local resistance yet, so it seems that the money should indeed be collected!
There were so many wealthy businessmen in the Ming Dynasty, and there were also collusions between officials and businessmen. Many of them were both officials and businessmen. They should have been allowed to contribute to the country long ago!
Chongzhen had not dared to think about increasing commercial taxes before, not because he didn't want to. But when his brother was in power, the fierce resistance to the tax and mine supervisors in the south was still vivid in his mind, so he did not dare to impose taxes for fear of causing trouble.
This time, there were sporadic resistances in the south, but they were not violent and everything was within the tolerable range——
Of course Chongzhen didn't know that all this was the result of Shen Tingyang and Shen Shuren's careful planning in advance. Before they implemented Lijin, they had already won over the Zheng family in Fujian and Zhang Guowei from the Nanjing Household Department in Nanzhili. Huguang wooed Yang Sichang and Fang Kong Xun, but without the full cooperation of these local powerful parties, the local "popular resentment" caused by Lijin's reform would have boiled over long ago.
But Chongzhen still thought that it was his wisdom, martial arts, and imperial power that caused all this. He felt that if he had known that the southerners would not dare to resist violently this time, he should have levied this gold a few years ago!
Although the imperial court in Beijing did not get a single tael of silver from the money collected, it could at least cover the military expenditures for suppressing bandits in the south. The capital could spend less money on overseas expenditures, and cutting back on expenses would also increase revenue.
During the whole process, the only resistance and dissatisfaction that Chongzhen clearly noticed came from the Ministry of Household System in Beijing and its nepotism network——
Originally, the imperial court's military expenditures had to be collected and distributed uniformly, and all military pay and household departments could pass it on, and once they did, it meant getting a piece of the cake.
Now the local government collects it and distributes it directly, and the handling process eliminates a lot of middlemen who make profit from the price difference, so the middlemen are complaining and there is no need to be greedy.
However, the people in the tax-collected areas did not complain. It is definitely inappropriate for the people from the Ministry of Household Affairs to go overboard and complain.
Under such circumstances, whoever dares to step out and plead for local interests is clearly acknowledging who was the culprit who gained the most in the original process of issuing military pay. That is because he thinks that Chongzhen's knife to kill corrupt officials is not sharp enough.
Moreover, Jiang Dejin, who is now in charge of the daily work of the household department, is still somewhat protective of Shen Tingyang. It is also more difficult for others to bring down Shen Tingyang alone.
As a result, those interest groups in Beijing that were responsible for military pay hibernated for a short time in April, and after testing, they finally found a useful and novel impeachment angle in mid-May -
They no longer discuss the point of "whether Lijin exploits local people and competes with the people for profit." There is no way to say this point, and the "people" don't even call you shit.
Instead, they focused their firepower on "the Lijin system will cause local military pay to be paid by the local government, leading to the risk of returning to the Tang Dynasty's Jiedushi system and the separatist rule of feudal towns."
This point is really justified when it comes to spraying it.
Because what these corrupt officials in the capital say are true, there may indeed be a trend of warlord separatism in the south -
Historically, in order to deal with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing Dynasty opened lijin, and then the "Southeast Household Protection" appeared later. When the Eight-Nation Allied Forces invaded, the Southeast could have its own foreign attitude that was different from Beijing, and could even ask foreigners to "just Declare war on the imperial court in Beijing, but not on the Hubao provinces in the southeast."
Although none of this has happened now, people who have grown up in the officialdom can all deduce it.
Beginning in mid-May, within twenty days, reports that Shen Tingyang "may lead to warlord separatism in the future" flew into the cabinet and into the palace.
Chongzhen looked at it and sneered.
He has figured it out: the people who are now criticizing Shen Tingyang for "the harm he may cause in the future" are actually the same group of dirty officials who were responsible for sending and receiving military pay! Huge corruption!
Why did they impeach for the sake of the imperial court? The real motive is of course that their status as a middleman in handling money was bypassed!
Chongzhen had begun to accumulate murderous intent in his heart. He kept every one of these impeachers in mind, and just wanted to find an excuse to kill them in the future!
Of course, Chongzhen wanted to do this not to protect Shen Tingyang or to vent his anger on the Shen family. He was not that kind.
He was just angry about the money that had been embezzled by the "military salary middlemen" over the years. Shen Tingyang just happened to act as the bait for Chongzhen to catch the big fish.
"Qing Shen is a good official who is loyal to the country and collects wealth for the country... It is a pity that he has incurred the hatred of so many people, and I am afraid it will be difficult to deal with. But the memorial written by those greedy officials has every word on the face of it. The righteousness is so awe-inspiring that it is impossible to find fault with it, and it is impossible to reject it.
Looking at this situation, even if you want to transfer Shen Qing to Nanjing, and be promoted overtly and secretly, I am afraid those who oppose him will still be unyielding. I am afraid that what they want is to 'capitulate both openly and actually' in order to calm this group of people. The anger...
If after the Lijin campaign begins, there are some military achievements on the southern battlefield, it would be easier to find an excuse to silence those officials and prove that "after the Lijin campaign begins, the combat effectiveness of the southern provinces that raise their own military salaries has indeed improved." But if there is no military victory, With only the function of 'saving money', I'm afraid it will be difficult to convince the public..."
Chongzhen looked at the piles of impeachment memorials in front of him and fell into pain. For a long time, he couldn't come up with an opinion on how to deal with it, so he fell asleep leaning on the imperial court without knowing it.
I guess tonight is another night of wasted time on hard work. I worked so hard but got nothing accomplished.
After a long time, Empress Zhou heard that His Majesty had fallen asleep in the study again tonight, so she brought the palace maids over to comfort him with midnight snacks, hoping to wake the Emperor up and go back to bed.
When Chongzhen was woken up, he felt quite upset. He felt that he had done nothing and had been worrying all night in vain. He felt very frustrated.
He felt like his temples were twitching, and he wanted to scold the eunuch or maid who had made a mistake.
Fortunately, the eunuchs and maids had been serving him for more than ten years. They knew that the emperor would be very angry when he got up when he was helpless with government affairs, so they were very careful at this time, and everyone looked at their noses, noses, and hearts, so that Chongzhen could not find fault.
Come.
Chongzhen became more and more depressed, almost suffering from internal injuries.
Fortunately, at this moment, there were sudden bursts of hurried footsteps outside the palace gate, as if there were eunuchs rushing towards him with a message.
Chongzhen raised his eyebrows and looked happy. Before the eunuch could enter, he stood up and rushed to the door. He even scolded him personally: "Why are you running so late at night! Aren't you afraid of being surprised!"
The palace maids and eunuchs next to him were filled with sadness, knowing that the person running to deliver the message was probably going to be in bad luck.
Sure enough, the eunuch who was summoned was so frightened by the emperor's scolding that he stumbled over the threshold and gnawed on the mud, knocking out one of his front teeth. However, he still got up quickly and apologized vaguely in a voice that was leaking, while explaining:
"Your Majesty, forgive me! I don't dare to drive in surprise! It is true that there is an urgent military intelligence report 400 miles ahead. I want Your Majesty to hear it as soon as possible, so as to be happy."
Chongzhen's throbbing temples finally calmed down with the word "good news". The blood pressure in his head also went up and down, and his face turned pale and flushed.
"Where is the good news! Bring it to me!" Chongzhen asked sternly and stretched out his hand, his body shaking in a daze.
Empress Zhou was by her side. She knew her husband very well, so she quickly went up and hugged him to prevent Chongzhen from becoming unstable.
Feeling his wife's comfort, Chongzhen finally breathed a sigh of relief and listened to the eunuch's dictation while unfolding the victory report.
"Your Majesty, uukanshu.com www.uukanshu.com is the good news from Mr. Yang Ge who came from Huguang and Henan. In Huguang, He Jin's tribe in the fifth battalion of Gezuo was destroyed, and He Jin himself was beheaded by the army. In Henan, He Yilong's tribe was also killed.
Annihilated, He Yilong himself was also beheaded. The two heads were sent to the capital this time."
Chongzhen took a few deep breaths, clutched the good news tightly, and said bitterly: "Three of the five camps of Gezuo have been destroyed! Of the thirteen thieves who followed Zhang Ni to dig up the Fengyang Emperor's Mausoleum, there are now seven left.
Eight families are alive in the world!
Our ancestors and clans are on high! Zhu Youjian, the unworthy descendant, swears here that sooner or later he will send good generals to kill all the thieves who originally discovered the ancestral mausoleum! Please comfort the spirits of our ancestors and clans in heaven!"
After sighing with emotion, he gradually became more alert and was able to take his time to watch the generals who had made meritorious deeds.
Only then did he notice that this battle was He Jin and He Yilong worked together to invade Huangzhou and Suizhou. However, Shen Shuren, a Hubei military commander, planned to lure the enemy and surrounded them in Tongbai Mountain.
Chen Shuren and Liu Guoneng attacked from both front and back, trapping the enemy in a desperate situation. Fifty thousand thieves were completely annihilated without any leakage!
Yang Sichang's victory report also glossed over some details and heightened the atmosphere, fearing that the emperor would not know the topography of the Tongbai Mountain battlefield and would not be able to understand how to win the battle. Let's use an analogy:
Sun Wuzi, who wrote "The Art of War", defeated the Chu army in the Tongbai Valley in the "Battle of Baiju", which happened on almost the same battlefield. However, Shen Bingbei "thrown himself to death and then survived, and fell into it"
The secret of the art of war, "death and then rebirth", was used to the extent that Sun Wuzi did not hesitate to give in too much.
After reading it, Chongzhen was also fascinated by his thoughts.
God bless the Ming Dynasty!
Could it be that this Shen Shuren is really the reincarnation of Sun Wuzi to save our Ming Dynasty from collapse?