Zhu Wenzhen pursued the remnants of Zhang Xianzhong, and Zuo Zixiong personally led the main force to finally break through Hengzhou City and capture Yin Xianmin He Yide. These things may seem like nothing to repeat, but in fact it took a lot of time.
It was delayed from mid-July to late July before it was initially completed.
As for collecting and filing all the gold and silver treasures obtained in the pursuit of southern Hunan, further calming the people in Hengzhou and other places, and exterminating the fleeing stragglers... these tasks will not be completed at the end of July, and may be postponed until August.
Fortunately, Shen Shuren already had a rough idea of how much gold, silver and jewelry he could get in advance, so he could start calculating the profit and loss assessment immediately after he conquered Hengzhou in the past few days.
Chen Shuren seems to have obtained property worth twelve million taels, but at least two to three million taels of it are difficult to liquidate. They are all in the form of works of art, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and it may take half a year.
It may even take a year or two to sell it slowly. Otherwise, if too much is put into the market at once, the price will definitely collapse and depreciate, and even half of the valuation may not be realized.
This is also in line with common sense. Regardless of whether it is a feudal king or a wealthy person, when their homes are confiscated, how can they only find gold and silver? Most nobles have a certain level of enjoyment, so they will definitely invest in art, calligraphy and painting.
Among the feudal king's property, 20% were works of art, which was not a high proportion.
After they were exterminated, Zhang Xianzhong also knew that these things might be valuable, so he did not destroy them directly and chose to snatch them away anyway. It was a pity that the bandits were uneducated and did not know how to evaluate. When they finally realized that there was a risk of breaking out, they also
He didn't take these things with him first. He only took gold, silver and jewelry with him and left them with Chen Shuren.
Therefore, Chen Shuren only had more than nine million taels of hard currency that he could use immediately.
The composition of this money is about 20% gold, 30% silver, 20% silk and other textiles and other hard-to-pass civilian supplies, 20% copper coins, plus hundreds of thousands of grains.
The conversion of copper coins was, of course, based on the actual official price in the late Ming Dynasty. About 750 to 770 copper coins were worth one tael of silver. The more than two million copper coins seized this time were actually only 1.56 billion coins.
In the late Ming Dynasty, due to the import of silver, even copper coins began to be in relative shortage. Therefore, starting from the early Wanli Dynasty, the official exchange rate of one thousand copper coins for one tael of silver could no longer be maintained. In the late Wanli Dynasty, it had fallen below
More than 800 copper coins were exchanged for one tael of silver, and Tianqi Chongzhen further dropped to more than 700 for one tael of silver.
Compared with Chen Shuren's income, the expenses of these months of bloody battles were equally huge.
The number of troops directly under Chen Shuren's command has reached 50,000 to 60,000. The pay and rewards of these people during the war will definitely be several times higher than during peaceful training.
A soldier's usual monthly expenses of 2 taels can now be reduced to only 5 taels. If a soldier receives a reward or receives a pension for being injured or killed in battle, the monthly expenses can range from ten taels to dozens of taels.
Due to the huge consumption of ammunition, firearms soldiers consume more than twenty taels of silver per month. After all, after a battle, a few kilograms of lead bullets and gunpowder can be worth a lot of money.
After more than two months of bloody battles, 50,000 people spent a total of military pay and received more than 800,000 taels of rewards. More than 4,000 people were killed, more than 10,000 were injured, and the total pension reached more than 900,000.
The medical expenses are more than 200,000 taels, and the nutritional expenses are more than 200,000 taels.
Excluding the damage to weapons, equipment and horses, the total direct military expenditures reached 2.1 million taels.
The Shenshu people have a total of more than 80,000 troops (counting Huang Degong and Liu Guoneng). The 30,000 people who stay behind will have more tasks during this period, and they will have to patrol frequently, and their pay will be improved accordingly, but they will not be as good as those of the front-line troops.
Obviously, two or three months of military pay, food, logistics and all other expenses amount to 300,000 taels.
Added to the 2.1 million for the front combat troops, Shen Shuren's military expenditure for the entire autumn of Chongzhen's 15th year reached 2.4 million.
Of the more than nine million seized, a quarter was used up at once, leaving three-quarters as gross profit.
And this part of the gross profit cannot be monopolized by Chen Shuren. He must use part of it to expand the army, continue to engage in economic development, restore production, and upgrade technology to upgrade armaments...
It is also necessary to spend a small part to manage the relationship between all parties, calm the views of the court, and make his official career in the last year and a half before Chongzhen's death smoother. Not only will he not be criticized by others, but he will also pursue more achievements.
Opportunities for "progress" and the righteous brand of "Ming Dynasty Zhongliang" were persisted in until Chongzhen's death.
These things all require a huge amount of money to clear the way.
…
Shen Shuren originally planned to deal with the pacification in Hengzhou until the beginning of August.
However, the tree wants to be quiet but the wind is not stopping. The outside world obviously will not let him go 1v1 with Zhang Xianzhong all the time.
As early as July 28, several unexpected pieces of news forced Shen Shuren to move his office and move some of his troops back north for rest and to deal with some unexpected situations in other directions.
The first unexpected situation was when Liu Wenxiu's troops withdrew from Changde Mansion to the west, trying to join up with Sun Kewang, and then to meet up with his adoptive father Zhang Xianzhong. Because in the south of Shizhouwei and most of the Yongshun Xuanwei Division,
A new conflict broke out with the local Miao native chieftain.
As a result, some of Liu Wenxiu's soldiers were dispersed and re-entered the territory of Changde to wreak havoc. At the same time, several chieftains of the Miao tribe who were defeated by Liu Wenxiu's grandson also entered the territory of Changde because they fled to avoid the enemy.
Chen Shuren considered that although Changde Mansion had been destroyed by massacres and disasters, the delay in completely recovering and pacifying it would also damage the dignity of the court.
Now that Hengzhou, Yongzhou, and Baoqing in the south are all stable, it is time to return to the army and completely clean up Changde.
So Shen Shuren led an army of 15,000 people. The first group marched north from Hengzhou, returned to Changsha on the fifth day of August, and arrived in Changde on the ninth day of August. Then they spent a few days to defeat Liu Wenxiu's dispersed stragglers.
After a fierce battle, several fleeing Miao chieftains were killed, and order in Changde was restored about before the Mid-Autumn Festival.
After the liberation of Changde, Shen Shucai understood for the first time how miserable the situation in Changde was.
The autumn harvest here may not be able to harvest much grain this year, because the locals were unable to produce during the entire two months of June and July, and just fled. Although after the summer grain harvest, the autumn grain was sown, but basically only
There is an action of sowing. Basically no one is busy with subsequent weeding, fertilization, and irrigation. It is completely left to grow naturally, and irrigation depends entirely on rain.
Fortunately, there was no drought around Dongting Lake in the 15th year of Chongzhen. Instead, there were floods in some places and a lot of rain. In this case, it is good news for naturally grown crops. In the end, it is estimated that we can barely recover dozens of dollars per acre of land.
Just a kilogram of grain. Don’t count on one hundred kilograms.
The local population had been brutally massacred by Zhang Xianzhong, and this small amount of food was enough for the local survivors. At least there was no need to transport food from other prefectures. Shen Shuren immediately ordered his civil affairs officials to mobilize his civil affairs officials to persuade farmers to resume production, and strive to ensure that they resume production before the autumn harvest.
In the last month or so, we should seize the time to fertilize and weed, and try to save as much harvest as possible.
Because there were no civil servants with internal affairs responsibilities accompanying the army during the war, Shen Shuren had to leave these internal affairs matters to his staff Gu Yanwu for the first time.
Gu Yanwu's level of civil affairs was not very high, but he was still competent at the daily statistics and sorting work. After working for two days, he came back with statistics on the situation in Changde Prefecture, especially in several counties around Wuling.
Chen Shuren was shocked when he saw the situation that Gu Yanwu brought to him: "Changde Mansion actually estimates that this year it will be completely self-sufficient in food? Is there any excess?
How much more can be left after the production has been reduced like this? So how brutal was the massacre in Changde Prefecture? Isn't it worse than the massacre in Changsha Prefecture? This is not a wealthy place, but Zhang Xianzhong actually carried out such a vicious attack?
"
When Gu Yanwu came back, he also looked sad and angry. Seeing that Dong Weng didn't believe it, he also sighed and explained:
"Who says it's not the case? When the students first met, they also thought it was terrible. Changde Mansion was the first city Zhang Xianzhong attacked after his comeback. He captured many young men and killed many old and weak men.
Secondly, this Changde Mansion is the hometown of Mr. Yang Ge. Zhang Xianzhong hated Mr. Yang Ge deeply in his life. He can be said to be the governor of the court he hated the most. After Zhang Xianzhong conquered Wuling County, he ordered all counties in the government to rule over the people.
All those with the surname Yang were exterminated, leaving no chickens or dogs behind.
Yang is one of the popular surnames. Even in other prefectures and counties, there are indispensable people with the surname Yang. When I arrived in Changde, since I came from Ge Lao, Yang Ge's hometown was naturally a prominent family in the local area. There was one surnamed Yang among more than a dozen people.
of.
Zhang Xianzhong also killed his in-laws, children, and slaves. Thousands of people with the surname Yang finally killed 40,000 people. The bandit soldiers under his command also took the opportunity to expand their plunder, so more than half of the population of the whole government was killed.
.”
After hearing this, Chen Shuren, despite his initial shock, realized that all this was indeed not about Zhang Xianzhong, because similar things had happened in the original "History of the Ming Dynasty".
According to the original history, when Zhang Xianzhong later attacked Changde, Yang Sichang himself was already dead. Zhang Xianzhong was still resentful that he could not kill all his clan and relatives in his hometown while Yang Sichang was still alive, and that he could not let Yang Sichang hear all this despair with his own ears.
Fury him to death.
But Zhang Xianzhong did indeed massacre all the people named Yang and their families who could be captured in Changde Prefecture. This is what he did in history.
It can also be seen from this that when some later generations read the "History of the Ming Dynasty", they insisted on saying that "Zhang Xianzhong attacked Xiangyang and killed King Xiang in order to frame Yang Sichang. This motive is not credible. It was the scholar-bureaucrats who were blackmailing Zhang Xianzhong." It really does not hold up well.
You have to stand your ground.
It may indeed be difficult to find ironclad evidence of Zhang Xianzhong's inner motives, but just because he entered the Changde Mansion and massacred all the people named Yang in the mansion, isn't that enough to prove the depth of his hatred for Yang Sichang?
After Chen Shuren got used to the bad news, he couldn't help but think of something, and sighed to Gu Yanwu: "Last year, after Xiangyang was defeated and King Xiang was killed, Mr. Yang Ge was worried for a while, and now he is almost unable to do anything.
This time King Ji, King Rong, and King Gui were killed successively in Huguang. As the governor of the six provinces, he naturally had a certain degree of responsibility. Even if He Yide, Xianmin Yin, could be sent to face the crime, it still could not be completely avoided.
Now that he hears that his hometown clan was massacred and exterminated, I am afraid that he will not be able to withstand this blow, and will soon...sigh."
Chen Shuren has realized that Yang Sichang is probably not going to die soon. Perhaps this is the inertia of history. Chen Shuren relied on his butterfly effect to give Yang Sichang a hand and extended his life for a year and a half. It is estimated that
This is also the limit, and it will definitely not be extended for two years.
Fortunately, Yang Sichang would also be grateful to him. He hoped that before his death, he could use his last remaining energy to push Shen Shuren to a higher level.
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