The sound of the north wind pushed countless wooden boats meandering toward the southwest, stirring up white waves on the Xiangjiang waterway from the Yangtze River to Changsha. The flag of "The Rebirth of Emperor Taizu Gao" was displayed on one of the huge wooden boats.

Colorful paintings of hunting fluttering on the official ship.

On both sides of the Xiangjiang River, there are countless able-bodied refugees from the North, moving southward on foot. If you look down from a high place, you will be shocked by the size and momentum of this refugee army heading south along the Xiangjiang River.

This army of refugees always numbered in the hundreds of thousands and marched by waterway. They were led by Zhu Cixiang, the prince of Fujun in the Ming Dynasty, and marched southward in a mighty manner.

They went to beg for food!

It's really awesome. Hundreds of thousands of people, many of them heavily armed, came to beg for money from the landlord Lao Cai in Hunan. Not only were they aggressive, but they were also confident!

Because they are begging for food!

If the landlords and wealthy landlords in Hunan do not give food to eat, then they are resisting the decree. Resistance to the decree will result in beheading. Let me ask who on both sides of the Xiangjiang River dares to test the sword?

Moreover, Zhu Cixiang not only had a sword, but also a whole division of new officers and soldiers, right in front of the strong refugees who were walking in. Whenever they arrived at a prosperous town, they would follow the governor He Tengjiao into the city to enforce martial law, and then arrest the local wealthy businessmen.

The gentry went to the dock to wait for the begging army led by Prince Zhu himself.

Qiaokou, a large town at the intersection of Xiangjiang River and Qiaojiang River, is the third prosperous place in Changsha and Xiangyin after Changsha. Qiaojiang is inconspicuous, but it connects the two major water systems of Zishui and Xiangjiang River. Therefore, this Qiaokou

, it became the only entrance for merchant ships from Zishui to enter the Xiangjiang River, and naturally it became increasingly prosperous.

In addition, the land around Qiaokou is also very fertile. It is part of the Dongting Lake Plain, with a dense water network and endless paddy fields. Now is the autumn when the rice has matured, so when you look at it from a high place, everything you can see is

There are golden waves of rice, and occasionally there are some villages with smoke curling up from cooking stoves.

It was truly a field scenery that could be captured in a painting, but at the edge of this scenery, there was an extremely incongruous scene.

Countless refugees in ragged clothes, carrying long spears, carrying bows and arrows, carrying waist knives, and some wearing somewhat tattered armor of various colors, swarmed like a tide to the outskirts of Qiaokou Town, which was protected by high city walls.

The legendary refugees from the North have arrived!

The richest man in Qiaokou Town and the largest rice merchant in Hunan, Zhang Tingsu and Zhang Xiaolian, were standing on the city wall at this time, looking at more and more refugees with a pale face.

The regiments in the town had already been mobilized. Each of them had received a reward of one tael of silver from Master Zhang, and now they were all on the city wall.

But no one dared to raise the idea of ​​resistance. These regiment members were not honest farmers who had never seen fighting and killing. The banks of the Xiangjiang River have not been peaceful in the past few years. Zhang Xianzhong came here once earlier, and Li Zicheng's soldiers (some stragglers and thieves)

) came here not long ago, let alone the kind of grass bandits who are not on the stage.

However, Qiaokou Town relied on the tall and solid city wall and the team training that Mr. Zhang took the lead in setting up with money. It was not as hard as a steel plate, but with a lot of money and food, the city was closed tightly.

Door, escaped disaster.

But this time, He Tengjiao, the governor of Hunan, had arrived outside Qiaokou City together with the cavalry of the new army of Kenan who had been stationed in front of the attack.

"Quickly, open the city." Zhang Xiaolian sighed and looked back at a group of trembling gentry and wealthy businessmen behind him, all of whom were prominent figures in the town. "Let's go together and listen to what Governor He has to say?"

What can He Tengjiao say?

He now believes that Zhu Cihong is the reincarnation of Zhu Yuanzhang and even beggars, what else is there to say?

Now only a part of the people who came to Hunan with Zhu Cixiang to beg for food! There are still many people who stayed in Wuchang. Zhu Cixiang mobilized some food from all over Huguang to relieve them. At the same time, he also asked them to build the Wuhan Three Buildings under the command of Fang Yuegong and Qiu Yu.

After building the new city of the town, these people will be placed in Wuhan, and Zhu Cixiang will select the best from them to form a new army. He will also allocate military camps and official land in Hanyang and Wuchang to them.

Others followed Wu Sanfu, Jing Muqing (the prefect of Xiangyang), and Yuan Jixian (the governor of Henan and Shaanxi, stationed in Xiangyang) to Xiangyang Prefecture to beg for food. Xiangyang Fucheng and Nanyang Fucheng were both captured by Wu Sanfu in late July. Liu Zongmin retreated to Guangdong.

Hua, Gucheng, continued to resist.

Others followed Li Yan and Hao Yaoqi to Jingzhou Prefecture to beg for food. Jingzhou Prefecture remained the same, with Huya Mountain and the west of Yidu controlled by Tian Jianxiu, while the east belonged to the Ming Dynasty.

These two routes are also about begging for food and settling down. After the food problem is solved, all the refugees will settle in Jingzhou or Xiangyang. The strongest among them will be recruited into the army, and the rest will try to allocate some land close to the city.

It is not difficult to divide the land in Xiangyang Prefecture, because it is originally planned to equalize land by population, but only 20,000 to 30,000 northern refugee households have been added.

It is a bit difficult to get land in Jingzhou Prefecture, because Li Zicheng equalized the land in Jingzhou Prefecture, and most of the land has owners, and it is not easy to take it back. However, Jiangling City was washed away because of the Zuo Family Fire, and the city and surrounding areas

The city of Shaguan was empty. Li Yan simply picked a group of refugees who were doing business or had some skills and took them to Jiangling Prefecture, and settled them in the city and Shaguan City.

The majority of the refugees from the North who had gathered in Huguang now followed Zhu Cihong to Hunan. Hunan had not been captured by Li Zicheng, and there were so many big households!

If you want to eat big food, you should naturally come to Hunan!

"Fu, there are too many people in Futai, right? Are they all coming to Hunan to beg for food?"

After welcoming He Tengjiao into Qiaokou Town and into his mansion, Zhang Daxiaolian made some polite remarks and then tentatively asked about "begging".

He Tengjiao frowned and glared at Zhang Tingsu: "Zijia, what nonsense are you talking about? That's just eating!"

Although he and this Zhang Tingsu were quite different in age, they had been friends for many years. The Zhang family of Qiaokou was a wealthy family in Hunan, and He Tengjiao received a lot of help from him when he was recruiting and training soldiers in Hunan.

Therefore, the two of them talk more casually in private.

After giving a lecture, He Tengjiao lowered his voice and said: "There is nothing we can do. Five hundred thousand people have followed us! All the gentry in Hunan have not escaped."

"Ah!" Zhang Da Xiaolian's fair face was twisted into a ball, "What does His Highness the Crown Prince mean?"

"These 500,000 people have to be fed by you Hunanese!" He Tengjiao said, "And you have to go out to get food to feed the refugees staying in the southeast. But the prince will not take it from you in vain. This food can be used for the future."

If you give out one stone now, you can get one stone and five dou of land tax in the future."

"Then it means that people can't be exempted from tax?"

"The tax-exemption for the whole family is gone." He Tengjiao shook his head, "The whole family is gone!"

"No more?" Zhang Xiaolian was stunned, "How could it be?"

His Juren cost 3,000 taels of silver to buy! Why was it gone not long after he bought it?

"No more! All honors and honors for people in Huguang will be cancelled," He Tengjiao said. "Starting from three years later in Hunan (Prince Zhu gave Hunan people the preferential treatment of three years of tax exemption), the officials and gentry have to pay grain and tax together! The average land tax is one mu.

For two dou, the tax will be determined according to the quality of the land."

"Two buckets per acre" Zhang Daxiaolian, no, Zhang Daxiucai (there are still some scholars) felt so distressed that his face began to twitch, "Then I have to pay 20,000 dan a year!"

Twenty thousand shi of white rice! How could you give it up?

"No, you don't have to pay so much." He Tengjiao shook his head repeatedly.

Fortunately, Zhang Daxiu had just breathed a sigh of relief when the really fatal words came.

He Tengjiao said: "A lot of your family's land is official land, military settlements, and hidden land. All of them need to be taken back. Only private land needs to pay taxes."

"What? Want it, want it?" Zhang Tingsu couldn't believe his ears.

He Tengjiao smiled bitterly: "Yuezhou, Changsha, Changde, Baoqing, Hengzhou, Yongzhou plus one Chenzhou all have this rule! The fields must be cleared and inspected, and the gentry families must also lend grain to His Highness the Prince.

"

"I don't agree that my family will have no food!" Zhang Tingsu said through gritted teeth!

It's not that he hates the prince, but that his heart is twitching and distressed!

He Tengjiao sighed: "If you don't agree, 100,000 people will come to your house for dinner tomorrow, you know? You don't have to say whether there is food or not!"
Chapter completed!