At the end of February and the first half of March of this year, the Qing court in the north finally chose to temporarily withdraw its troops and rest, to suffer hardships for the people from within, and to tap potential to rebuild armaments.
This is of course very effective in quickly rearming a regime, but it is also like drinking poison to quench thirst, which greatly damages the people's support——
Fortunately, Dorgon also knew what he was doing, so he never expected to win the hearts and minds of everyone in the north from beginning to end.
He just had no choice but to choose to pull and beat, to feed the people he wanted to win over, and then to offend the people he had already offended to death, even if he forced them to exterminate, broke their bones, squeezed their marrow, and cut off their descendants.
After the above measures were implemented step by step, the first reaction was that the offensive of Azigna's army from Henan towards Huguang was completely stopped.
The two red flags, which were slightly damaged, were taken back to the hinterland of Henan to rest and recuperate. They were replenished with troops from the reserve troops of the Eight Banners in the rear and resumed training.
Abatai in Huaibei also entered a stalemate and rested, eating on the spot. The reservists of the two white flags in the rear, as well as the backbone of the two yellow flags who were transferred to rebuild the two white flags, also chose to go directly south to Huaibei to retrain.
Form an army.
Dorgon knew very well that today's Central Plains, in this unusually cold and natural disaster era, must have become colder and poorer as you go north.
When there is absolutely not enough food to eat, and some people must be exploited internally to death, or even cannibalized, it is very important to reduce transportation losses.
Therefore, even if the army is not fighting, it should allocate a large part of the population to the southerly areas to eat food locally and avoid the trouble of transporting food northward.
A place like Beijing City, in the era when the water transport economic chain was broken, was simply not suitable for housing a population of more than two to three hundred thousand people. Therefore, those green camp recruits recruited from trackers and dock workers from Beijing, Tongzhou, Tianjin and other places also had to
Move away from the surrounding areas of Beijing and deploy southward,
They were only given the promise of "as long as the war is won in the future and the Qing Dynasty conquers the world, they will naturally be allowed to return to live in Beijing for generations to come." This made these people who were unwilling to leave Beijing drift north and chose to work for the Qing Dynasty.
Work hard.
In comparison, although Huaibei was on the front line that was repeatedly torn by war last year, it is still better than Hebei and can feed more people.
…
The words are divided into two parts. While the Qing court was acting rebelliously and cruelly squeezing its war potential internally, the Ming court in the south also rarely entered a period of recuperation as the enemy's military pressure eased.
Although the Southern Ming Dynasty suffered huge losses in armaments and supplies due to the previous continuous battles and could no longer support the Northern Expedition, its financial and food situation was still much better than that of the Qing Dynasty.
It's just that everyone from the emperor to the ministers in the cabinet are relatively benevolent and cannot bear to let the people starve to death on a large scale, and also strictly prohibit cannibalism. Only then must we digest the results of the war, rectify the internal situation, strengthen production, and take a breather.
The Huainan battlefield returned to calm at the end of February. The Ming army immediately organized military camps and displaced people, and quickly resumed production as much as possible.
The last battlefield where the war ceased was Nanyang Mansion in Henan.
Zhu Shuren's cousin, Zhang Huangyan, a former Huguang soldier, led his army to defend the isolated city and fought to the death. He withstood Azig's offensive from October last year to the present, and held the position for more than five months.
It can be called the strongest heroic city on the battlefields of the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the 17th year of Chongzhen to the first year of Longwu. Not only did it far exceed the record of Jiangyin City in this time and space, it even exceeded the Jiangyin city in parallel time and space that Yan Yingyuan defended for three months.
At the end of the battle, the Qing army lost a total of 20,000 to 30,000 lives under the city, including succumbing to serious injuries and disease.
In addition to those who were lured and annihilated by the enemy in previous mobile battles, as well as the wounded, Azig's losses definitely accounted for 30% of his total force going south!
Of course, this 30% loss is much better than Duduo's side which was directly destroyed by more than 80%. Relying on the support of his peers, Azig can be said to be "a small defeat turned into a victory".
In addition to Zhang Huangyan, Fang Yizhi led other Huguang generals to defend the Han River-Xiangyang defense line in the rear, which was also remarkable. They did not give any chance to the Qing army who later tried to build temporary ships on the north bank of the Han River to sneak across.
After all, in the early stages of the Huguang Campaign, the Qing army only hoped to capture Nanyang and then dispatch the northern ships from the Baihe River south to forcefully cross the Han River.
Later, as the battle lasted for more than two months, especially after learning that Duduo had also encountered an accident, Azig, who was eager to cross the Han River, had already given up on his original idea and began to do everything possible to build ships directly on the north bank of the Han River.
In the next few months, it will be completely late to build new ships. This requires the Ming army in Hannan to be strictly guarded. Once they find out which county on the north bank may have a shipyard of the Qing army, or there are other people crossing the river, they have to find a way.
Harassment and destruction of waterways could prevent the Qing army from gradually gathering enough naval power.
In these continuous investigations and destructive operations, the performance of the Huguang generals was quite satisfactory, and Fang Yizhi was also diligent, so in the end Azig did not catch the loophole.
Finally, with the end of the Nanyang-Hanshui series of battles, it was confirmed that Azig had retreated, and the good news was sent to Nanjing. Of course, the Longwu court did not hesitate to reward these heroic soldiers.
The generals Zhu Wenzhen, Li Dingguo and others who made the greatest contributions in the battle to defend the city received the largest rewards. Zhu Wenzhen was already the commander-in-chief, but now he has also been granted the title of earl minus one rank.
Li Dingguo was originally at a low level, but after this battle he was finally officially promoted to the rank of Commander-in-Chief and was rewarded with one thousand taels of gold and twenty thousand taels of silver. The soldiers in each department also received other rewards.
Other generals in the rear can more or less be promoted to one and a half levels.
In terms of civil servants, Zhang Huangyan, who had made the greatest contribution, was naturally promoted to the newly established "Governor of Anhui and Henan". His jurisdiction included Nanyang Prefecture and Xinyang Prefecture in Henan Province, as well as An and Lu Prefectures in South Zhili.
Plus Xiangyang Prefecture, Suizhou Prefecture, and Huangzhou Prefecture in Huguang.
Basically, it is similar to the jurisdiction of Zhu Shuren when he first took office as "Anhui Governor" a few years ago, but there are slight differences. The main reason is that compared with Zhu Shuren's governor's jurisdiction back then, there are fewer Nanzhili and Jiangxi prefectures on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and the addition of Henan's
Nanyang.
In the original peaceful times, the Ming Dynasty certainly did not set up governors like this, but now it is a period of war and peace, and the rest of Henan Province has not been recovered. This is why it was specifically set up like this for the needs of military defense. This is equivalent to letting Zhang Huangyan be responsible for the northern part of Huguang and Henan from now on.
Line of defense.
According to the east-west and middle border defense division of "Yang, Jing and Yi" in the south since ancient times, Zhang Huangyan will be in charge of the middle route army in the future, accounting for one-third of the northern border defense of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhang Huang was only two years older than Zhu Shuren. Zhu Shuren became the governor of three provinces at the age of twenty-four. At the age of twenty-five during the New Year, he had already "controlled the military affairs of China and foreign countries" and also served as governor of the southern provinces to prepare military supplies.
So now that the siege is over, Zhang Huangyan is only twenty-seven years old. It is unbelievable to ordinary people that he should be a governor at this age.
However, his real achievements are there, and Zhu Shuren's even more outrageous example broke the precedent. Emperor Longwu Zhu Changzi personally suggested that Zhang Huangyan be promoted to governor at the court meeting. No one jumped out to object, so even if this matter passed
Already.
After Zhang Huangyan was promoted to governor, his merits were slightly less than those of Fang Yizhi, but he was more senior in the officialdom and had a better career background. He was also promoted to "Governor of Huguang", and there was no objection from the cabinet or the official department.
After all, Zhang Huangyan was promoted to an official position through meritorious service, while Fang Yizhi was promoted to official position through a formal double-ranked Jinshi. The older Yizhi was, the more appropriate he was to be reused. He was already thirty-three years old, six years older than Zhang Huangyan.
Of course, because Zhang Huangyan's jurisdiction occupies three prefectures in Huguang, Fang Yizhi's governorship will be based on the traditional Huguang governorship, excluding Xiangyang, Suizhou, Huangzhou, that is, all the land in Hanbei and Jiangbei. The governor's office will be
Continue to be located in Wuchang.
…
Throughout March, the Nanjing court completed the truce and dealt with all the officials who should be rewarded.
The civil and military officials of the entire dynasty were originally worried that the young and successful ministers, ministers, ministers, and famous generals would take drastic measures when they took office.
But the subsequent actions of Zhu Shuren, Zhang Huangyan, Fang Yizhi and others made everyone feel relieved. Because this spring, the imperial court did not bother with any political reform or military and industrial construction.
It just rests with the people, encourages production, encourages farmers to expand land reclamation, and focuses on resettling refugees from the north——
As Dorgon in the north was depleted for fishing, and internal lines were drawn to "focus on suffering some people," the flow of refugees from Huaibei to Huainan was naturally unstoppable.
Within a hundred miles of the north bank of the Huaihe River, there were even many contiguous no-man's lands. People in Huaibei who could not bear the oppression fled south to live in the Ming-controlled areas, even without their houses.
With such a large population, the imperial court must of course carefully resettle it. Basically, it would try its best to resettle it in the military settlement area of Huainan. They would plant taro, water chestnut, lotus root in the muddy and low-lying areas, and potatoes in the rugged areas, striving to become self-sufficient as soon as possible.
If there is still not enough resettlement, we have to organize transportation to the south to further cultivate wasteland and tap potential, or to resettle in Zhenjiang Prefecture and Changzhou Prefecture, which have just been devastated by the war and massacred most of the population-these two places were also used in order to encircle and kill Duduo.
A large price was paid and a large number of people were massacred, so some unclaimed land appeared in a short period of time, which could be redistributed by the court.
Taking into account the damage caused by last year's war, Zhu Shuren knew very well that the workload of spring plowing this year would be particularly heavy. For example, many damaged fields needed to be renovated and reclaimed, and the labor intensity was much greater than in normal years. Naturally, we cannot torment the people at this time.
All industrial construction was suspended, and we concentrated on farming.
The continuous busy farming after spring plowing is expected to last until the fifth month of the lunar calendar. Then, in some areas where the summer harvest is relatively early, it will be necessary to harvest both crops and sow new seeds. Basically, only after this wave of busy work is over can other major demolition and construction projects and mining operations be considered.
It’s a matter of building factories and requisitioning people’s power.
…
Of course, while resting with the people, Zhu Shuren did not do anything. Just because he did not torment the people did not mean that he would not torment officials and landlords.
Taking advantage of these few months of rest and recuperation, Zhu Shuren took advantage of the situation and put a domestic and political reform issue on the agenda, which was to conduct a thorough investigation of the actual land and population situation of several provinces directly under the southern jurisdiction while resettling the refugees.
Theoretically, the Ming court would do this kind of thing once every few years, but starting from the middle and late Ming Dynasty, it was basically thunder and rain.
It is difficult to thoroughly check the actual population. According to the books, there were only tens of millions in the Wanli year. In fact, everyone knows that those numbers are false.
The land area is even more confusing. All kinds of land are given to the names of corrupt officials and evil gentry with a good reputation and enjoy tax exemption. The pressure of land tax is distributed to the unprivileged people who are increasingly unable to survive.
In fact, no one knows how much taxable land each government should have and how it will be apportioned and transferred.
But this time, Zhu Shuren came first with an excuse, and secondly with the opportunity, he planned to attack this stubborn disease.
When he heard about Zhu Shuren's proposal, Shi Kefa, who was also discussing affairs in the cabinet, was naturally shocked.
Shi Kefa himself was very upright, and he also knew that in this time of national crisis, everyone should be in the same boat, share the same hatred, and contribute to the Han people's world. Those sneaky tricks of tax avoidance and labor service are really ignorant.
But he also knew that based on his experience of the Ming Dynasty's long-standing abuses, he believed that this matter would arouse great resistance.
So out of public interest, he asked Zhu Shuren to reconsider, not that he would not do it, but whether he could postpone it:
"His Royal Highness, please think about the precedent of Zhang Juzheng. Although this kind of thing is beneficial to the country, if it is implemented now, will it lead to the separation of people's hearts? The imperial court has just defeated the Tatars once, and there are probably many gentry from all sides watching.
."
Zhu Shuren thought more clearly than Shi Kefa, and he analyzed it straightforwardly: "I think this is the right time! It's the best time to cut through the mess with a quick knife!
First of all, the imperial court has achieved a great military victory, and the military power has been completely united, which is the time to eliminate the stubborn people at home! Anyone who dares to resist will use the power of the victory in the foreign war to directly kill a few thorns!
What's more, it is a law of the imperial court to thoroughly investigate the population of the land. They want to resist, even if they don't have a right to justice! Originally, it was nothing more than passive resistance by relying on the population to flee, the land to be abandoned, and no one to pay taxes.
Nowadays, due to Dorgon's tyranny in the north, countless refugees have gone south. The imperial court has to resettle hundreds of thousands or even millions of refugees in the future. If the people in the south are willing to flee and resist taxes in order to avoid being thoroughly investigated, they will hide in their homes and fields.
Don’t go back to your hometown! Anyone who is found to be fleeing and resisting will be regarded as a non-existent person, and the land will be redistributed by the court to the refugees for farming!"
After hearing this, Shi Kefa was silent for a long time. After thinking about it, he sighed: "It makes sense to say so. Indeed, whenever the Ming Dynasty tried to 'compete with the people' for profit, the gentry would unite and fight against it.
It didn't end well, as Zhang Juzheng died that year and retired from power.
At the beginning, so many people responded to the bandits, and even to the Tatars, because they just felt that the late emperor treated the people harshly...perhaps they expected that the Tatars would be better off with the bandits.
But now, the tyranny of the Tatars and the indiscriminate killing of innocent people by the bandits have long been known to the world, not to mention that the bandits have been completely destroyed. Scholars all over the world may understand that this world is difficult and God's will is so.
Ming Dynasty is already relatively the most benevolent. If we take action at this time, perhaps the resistance can be minimized."
Shi Kefa was sorting out his thoughts as he spoke.
After mutual enlightenment with Zhu Shuren, he finally figured it out: the Ming and Qing Dynasties were a worse world!
In the words of later generations, distance creates beauty.
For example, on the Internet in later generations, a group of people who have never been abroad fantasize about how wonderful the life of the American emperor is. They can earn tens of thousands a month by washing dishes (they even say it's a knife).
In the same way, there are a large group of low-level people in the U.S. who have never been abroad. They criticize the U.S. emperor and say how thoroughly poverty has been eradicated in China.
But in fact, no matter which country he goes to, Diaosi will not live a satisfactory life (unless he really has a way to become a naturalized citizen of the four Nordic countries). Which major country in the world can make the poorest people at the bottom live completely comfortable? It doesn't exist.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many people initially thought that the society they lived in was terrible and could not get worse. It was not until they were brutally tortured by three parties that they discovered that the Tatars were the more brutal.
Daming is pretty good.
Seeing that Shi Kefa had figured it out, Zhu Shuren smiled slyly and pointed out: "So, Duduo actually helped us this time. Although the method was cruel and the losses were heavy, it allowed us to kill quickly.
Messy——
Before Duduo came, who in the south of the Yangtze River would believe that "the Tatars will force everyone to shave their heads"? Even the gentry in the world didn't believe it. Instead, they thought it was slandering the Tatars in order to facilitate the court to plunder more people from the people.
many!
But now, they have to be honest and trustworthy! If there was no Ming Dynasty, they would all have to shave their heads! For those gentry, the alternative is to have their heads shaved by the whole family! They know how to choose!
I have already made a plan. I had someone write a rendition of the song in advance, and it was disseminated with the help of the imperial court. The massacre of Yangzhou, the volunteers in Changzhen who resisted shaving their hair, and the brutal massacre of the volunteers who refused to shave their heads by Duduo were used as examples to spread throughout the world.
.
A two-pronged approach may be able to suppress resistance to a minimum."
When Shi Kefa heard this, he couldn't help but gasped slightly.
Prince E has thoroughly understood the propaganda war.
The librettos Zhu Shuren mentioned were actually written by his fourth concubine Bian Yujing in private in the past two months. Bian Yujing was originally known for being good at writing librettos of Kunqu opera among the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai.
,
A few years ago, Zhu Shuren also asked her and Fang Ziling to collaborate with those in Li Zicheng's rebel army singing "Isn't the golden scale an object in the pond? When it meets a Luo/horse, it turns into a dragon, success is a Luo/horse, and failure is a Luo/horse".
The effect was indeed good. For a time, Li Zicheng and Luo Rucai were separated from the old troops. They did not cooperate well during the Battle of Kaifeng and became suspicious of each other.
Therefore, Bian Yujing can be regarded as a veteran who is familiar with the cultural and entertainment publicity front in this era. Let her continue to be responsible for these tasks, which can be regarded as realizing her life value.
…
After the DPRK and the Central Cabinet have unified their opinions, the subsequent specific policies will naturally be to cut through the mess quickly and there will be no room for hesitation.
Zhu Shuren was originally in charge of the money, grain and military equipment of the southern provinces, and his father was the Minister of Household Affairs. In fact, Shi Kefa did not need to directly handle this matter.
Obtaining Shi Kefa's support is nothing more than to better unite the opinions of the central committee and to obtain more guarantees in selecting officials to implement policies.
After all, the civil service under Shi Kefa's control also had the power to test officials for promotion and demotion. In the past two years, anyone who failed to thoroughly investigate Hidden Hidden Houses would be transferred and demoted.
Anyway, now the world's officials are overstaffed. When the north fell, not all officials chose to surrender directly to the Tatars and become traitors. There were also many who did not want to become traitors and fled south, even if they could not get real jobs for the time being.
Of course, the imperial court would not treat these officials who have passed the screening test and have national integrity. If the local officials in the south are not doing their job well, they can immediately replace them with those officials who have fled south and north and are unwilling to mourn.
Under such multiple pressures, coupled with the fact that Wang Duo and Qian Qianyi had brought a small group of traitors to Donglin to vacillate and surrendered, and were purged by the Zhu Shu people. This time, the resistance to the thorough investigation of the land and population was much smaller.
There were only a handful of people who resisted openly or covertly, but Zhu Shuren took advantage of the military power of the great victory and directly eliminated them physically. After setting up a few examples, coupled with the propaganda work of brutally shaving off the Tatars, within a few months
Within, the resistance was almost completely dismantled.
In the many years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, even when Zhu Yuanzhang was still alive, the land clearing had never been so efficient and smooth.
In just a few months, the taxable fields in the southern provinces on the imperial court's books were more than half what they were in the last years of Chongzhen's reign! I don't know where so many fields fell out of thin air!
In terms of population, Zhu Shuren originally estimated that there must be 134 million people in the last years of Wanli. How could it be only 60 to 70 million according to the official household registration statistics of the imperial court?
By the time Chongzhen ascended the throne, there should have been close to 120 million. After that, even if there were successive years of disasters, wars, plagues and massacres, and the number of millions was reduced every year, then by the time Chongzhen died, there should be only 90 million or 80 million.
After that, the Qing army and Li Zicheng repeatedly minced meat, causing another huge wave of population decline.
Now after a thorough investigation, this figure has really confirmed Zhu Shuren's guess - figures from the first year of Longwu show that the southern provinces of the Ming Dynasty, except Yunnan and Guizhou, which have not yet been fully controlled, should have a total population of 48.7 million.
If Yunnan and Guizhou are also included, the total should be between 52 and 3 million.
Among these 48.7 million miles, the most populous area is Nanzhili, with an actual population of 11.6 million.
Followed by Huguang, with about 8.2 million. (Hunan area was killed by Zhang Xianzhong, less than half, but Zhu Shuren farmed there for many years, and the resettlement of refugees was quite effective, so the number increased a lot)
Next is Sichuan, about 6.5 million (this is also the number after being briefly massacred by Zhang Xianzhong for half a year, it was originally more).
Next is Zhejiang, with about 5.1 million.
Next is Jiangxi, about 4.4 million.
Next is Guangdong and Guangxi, with a total of 4.7 million.
Finally, there is Fujian, with only 2.2 million.
In addition, only two prefectures in Henan Province were controlled by the Ming court, and only one prefecture in Shaanxi was controlled. These two occupied areas had a population of 600,000 and 150,000 respectively.
Of course, this by no means represents the actual population size of Henan and Shaanxi. After all, more than half of it is still under the control of the Tatars and Wu Sangui.
Finally, there is the Denglai area controlled by Liu Zeqing in Shandong. Now that it is isolated behind enemy lines overseas, it is definitely impossible to rectify its internal affairs in accordance with unified decrees. Liu Zeqing is like a local emperor, and the data can only be calculated according to what he reported. There are only a few in the books.
Population of 100,000.
When all these numbers are added together, they are actually less than 44 million. There is a difference of 5 million people from the 48.7 million that Zhu Shuren finally calculated!
And these five million people are the biggest result of this population and land clearing, because after investigation, it was found that these are the landless refugees from the north who have been moving southward in the past few years!
Moreover, it has not been properly resettled by the South so far, unable to buy its own land, or it has been hidden by the Southern gentry and used as an invisible labor force!
Any immigrant with some money who buys land or a house in the south will still be registered by the government.
After Zhu Shuren's thorough investigation, he found out that there were so many people in the Ming Dynasty who fled south from the north and had been invisible for many years! Some even fled south in the second year of Chongzhen and have lived in Jiangnan for fifteen or sixteen years.
It was never reflected in the government bills.
A total of five million invisible refugees! Counting other rich peasants, middle peasants, and gentry who were not invisible but also moved south, there are probably several million more.
It can be seen that the population of the north has been hollowed out due to successive years of disasters. Taken together, in the past two decades, nearly 10 million people from the north who could not survive went south and arrived in the south alive. They are still alive today. They died on the way or after immigrating.
The dead have not yet been counted.
…
Zhu Shuren took advantage of the contrast of his colleague Duo Duo to conduct a thorough investigation of the population and fields in the south and integrate internal dispatch capabilities. In fact, Duo Ergon was doing similar things in the north.
It's just that Dorgon's operations are "basic operations when changing dynasties" - which dynasty and which generation founded the country is not a thorough re-examination of population and land.
Even Liu Bang, who directly asked Xiao He to get the Qin Dynasty account books, had to check them again, not to mention the Ming Dynasty account books in Beijing that Dorgon got, which were already a bunch of bad debts.
Dorgon's method of checking the population and fields was also much rougher. He didn't just want to set up a green camp, recruit young men, and enclose the land. He just used a knife to complete these tasks. And he actually started doing it earlier than Zhu Shuren.
, started last year.
After Dorgon's butcher's knife inventory, it was finally calculated that the actual total remaining population of the northern provinces was only 19 million.
Among them, there are 900,000 Manchus and nearly one million Mongols. Together, these two groups are considered the ruling ethnic group, accounting for two million.
There are also two million Han people from Liaodong outside the customs, that is, the old Han people who have served the Later Jin/Qing Dynasties since the days of Nuerhaci and Huang Taiji.
This group of people is equivalent to the "auxiliary ruling class" that was bribed by the British in India's history, and they are the tool people who used the Chinese to control the Han.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of Han people who were captured by the bandits surrendered, the Ming army surrendered, the Green Camp was newly recruited, and the Han people who newly raised the flag after entering the customs, and including all the families of these people, there were nearly one million.
In the end, there were only 14 million Han people left who were purely a ruled class and used to torture the people. The rest were either killed, starved to death, died of plagues, or fled to the south.
Two million ruling ethnic groups and three million auxiliary ruling Han people suppressed 14 million purely oppressed Han people. This level of oppression must be said to be very high.
The only good news for survival is that after so many years of repeated land washing, the north has finally entered a state where the land is vast and sparsely populated, and everyone has farmland. At least they are not unable to sell even if they want to work hard.
However, the quality of the fields is due to destructive reclamation and no one maintains a long-term approach to water conservancy. As a result, fertility is very low and soil and water are lost. The only way to achieve this is to plant extensively and harvest little, a vicious cycle——
In order to fight against the short-sightedness of the refugees, the Zhushu people in the south did not engage in water conservancy and destroy reclamation, but they made great efforts. How could Dorgon in the north have such a slow and meticulous art of governance?
Of the 14 million purely exploited Han people, there are approximately 4.2 million in Northern Zhili, 3.5 million in Shandong, 1.7 million in Shanxi, 2.3 million in Henan, and 1.9 million in Huaibei.
Shaanxi 300,000.
In terms of population control, Dorgon's human resources were about one-third that of Zhu Shuren. But he had no choice but to rely on this limited basic base to strive for a comeback in the future through war.