Chapter 363: The Enlightenment of Earth and National Treasures
The snow is falling, and there is a vast expanse of white outside the city of Suzhou.
Twenty miles north of Suzhou City is Hushuguan Town.
The right wing of the imperial camp established its base camp here. However, although this place is called a pass, it is not a dangerous pass like Yanmen Pass, Shanhaiguan Pass, and Tongguan Pass. There is neither a majestic pass nor a pass. The so-called pass is actually Chao Pass.
This place is located on the east bank of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and in the north of Suzhou City. It is known as the strategic location in the south of the Yangtze River and is known as the Living Wharf in Wuzhong. In the fourth year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty, Hushu was built in Hushu Town, Changzhou County, Suzhou. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, it had already been the site of the Ming Dynasty Seven Coins
One of the passes, it is known as the largest town in Wuzhong.
There is a saying that there was Hushuguan first, and then there was Suzhou City.
This is a thousand-year-old ancient town built during Qin Shihuang's southern tour. Qin Shihuang saw a white tiger crouching on Tiger Hill and chased it for twenty miles but failed to catch up. The place where it disappeared was Xushuguan, so Qin Shihuang named this place Tiger Hill.
.
In the Tang Dynasty, tigers were taboo, so they changed their names to Xu Zhuan. In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, they also tabooed Qian Liu, King of Wu and Yue, and changed their names to Hushu.
But now this place is called (xu) Shuguan, and the reason is very simple. During the last Northern Expedition, Zhu Yihai passed by this place and saw the monument erected in front of the ancient town. At that time, the shade of the trees blocked three points of water, and he only saw three points of Xu Shuguan.
The word "Xushuguan" was pronounced out of the mouth, so later the name of "Hushuguan" was directly changed to "xu".
When Lu You passed through Xushuguan in Suzhou, it was actually called Xu City, so Zhu Yihai was not entirely wrong. Lu You also wrote a poem, "I'm crossing the maple bridge, I'm crossing Xu City at dawn, and there are a lot of people there."
In the Song Dynasty, Xu City was already a lively market. After the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was built in the Yuan Dynasty, Xushuguan became a hub for communication between the north and the south. It was said in history that it connected Guabu in the upper part, the river in the middle, and the Wu River in the lower part.
It is a thoroughfare to the fourteen provinces where ships and goods come and go. It is really the gateway to Dongwu for ships thousands of miles away.
For this reason, the Ming Dynasty set up a banknote checkpoint here, which became one of the seven major banknote checkpoints in the Ming Dynasty, with a large amount of customs duties every year.
Tu Guobao, Yang Guohai, two trusted generals, Cao Hu, and a group of servants rode on horseback in the vast snow. Seeing that the lively ancient town of Hushu had now turned into a strict Ming army camp, he could only sigh with emotion.
He didn't stay in Suzhou long, but he made a lot of money from here.
Although Xushuguan is not as good as Linqingguan in Shandong, which ranks first among the seven major banknotes, Linqingguan's annual banknote tax is actually more than the tax levy of the entire province of Shandong, and not only is it more, it is also ridiculously high, as high as more than ten
times.
Tu Guobao once regarded Xushuguan as his cash cow. He even stationed two of his standard camps here. Merchant ships traveling north and south were taxed by him. This was in addition to the normal tariffs.
All in his private pocket.
But now, this money tree has become the possession of the Ming Dynasty.
"I heard that the Ming Army set up a customs bureau here, which not only levied customs duties on the goods of passing merchant ships, but also levied customs fees on the shops in the town. Silk weaving and other workshops also levied customs duties," Yang Guohai said.
Tu Guobao pouted, "Nowadays, the canals are frozen, and the shipping on the canals has stopped. All the ice trucks are running on the canals, not to mention that the south of the Yangtze River is rotten now. How can there be any commercial transportation here? How much money is there?
You can’t levy much, right?”
"Uncle, I'm sorry. Xushuguan is more lively now than before. Bulk commodities such as salt, tea, grain, and cloth are now gathered here. This is the busiest place in the entire Suzhou Prefecture."
No matter how wars rage, people still need salt, food, and clothing. There is still a need.
Xushuguan is now under the control of the Ming army. It is very safe and orderly. The imperial camp has a good reputation and can ensure the safety of transactions. Moreover, although industrial and commercial taxes and levies are levied, everything is done openly, and even on the contrary.
It also eliminated many of the previous bad rules and reduced a lot of extortion.
More profitable than in the past.
The Suzhou market, which was originally lifeless, became active again. The economy, which was depressed due to the war, became popular here. Everyone exchanged their needs here, and even eagerly wanted to trade the handmade goods in their hands.
"I heard that they are making a lot of money every day." Yang Guohai was very envious and even jealous. He was now a general, but he still liked to be busy smuggling.
But compared with the Ming army, his smuggling business seemed stingy.
"Now the salt fields in Huaihe and Zhejiang are basically under the control of the Ming army. They hold the salt in one hand, control the salt cubes in the kitchen households, and grab the salt in the other hand, and then force the salt merchants to pay silver at their place.
In order to take the lead in salt, they also took the initiative to lower the salt tax and price, and did not set up salt area monopoly, so now the salt is flying all over the sky."
"Salt selling is profitable and there is no monopoly. Who doesn't want to buy salt and sell it? Although the big salt merchants are dissatisfied, they can't stop it."
In the past, salt merchants only sold in exclusive areas, and salt merchants divided the market into separate areas, monopolized sales, and secretly introduced private salt. As a result, although the salt tax was high, the actual loss of salt tax was serious.
It enriched the salt merchants and also enriched the local officials, but only caused the court to lose tax revenue, and even the people had to eat high-priced salt. Now the Ming army is pushing the new salt law to break the monopoly of the identity of the salt merchants and the salt area, and provide
The continuous supply of salt suppressed the market price of salt, allowing the people to eat cheap salt. The Ming army also received sufficient salt taxes. Under this new policy, there is basically no private salt trading.
First, the source of salt is controlled, and second, there are no restrictions on sales. Although the profits of selling salt are not as good as before, it is still a high-profit industry, with countless people pouring in. There is no monopoly, and there is no need for smuggling.
"These Ming soldiers are really wealthy. They give their soldiers wives and allocate fields. The emperor pays for them to marry them. They give them twelve taels of gold as gifts and five taels of dowry. They also arrange weddings. After marrying their wives, they can also allocate fields. Although
Land costs money, but the price is cheap, and it can be repaid in installments with very low interest. The benefits are so good that I’m so fucking excited.”
Cao Hu sighed and told Tu Guobao, "Sir, our brothers in Biaoying are shaken now. Many people are spreading the benefits of the Ming Army. Many soldiers want to run to the opposite side and surrender to the Ming Army, especially those who are like him."
Damn it, the bachelors, especially the new recruits."
Tu Guobao was helpless after hearing this.
He now claims to have ten thousand soldiers, but among these soldiers, seven thousand are new soldiers, and the three thousand are not much better. Except for his own few hundred old servants, the rest are unreliable.
The combat effectiveness is low, and the pay is actually not high.
Not to mention the extremely low armor rate, and the lack of weapons, weapons, etc., let alone food and wages. The Nine Kings did not go north, and his subordinates could still get their wages on time. Although there were seven deductions and eight deductions, the actual final payment was only one month.
Three measures of grain and a few coins, but at least there is still something left.
Now, except for his servants, the rest of the soldiers are basically in debt, and only occasionally receive some rewards, and that's when they are facing an enemy.
The food I usually eat is also very poor.
Tu Guobao can barely support this kind of treatment. After all, Jiangnan today is too difficult to describe.
Now compared with the Ming army, especially under the deliberate propaganda and encouragement, his ten thousand troops, especially those new soldiers, are really shaken.
They don’t even have enough to eat here, but the Ming army still has the emperor paying for them to marry a wife. Not only did they get a wife for free, but they also got a dowry of fifty taels of silver immediately. If it were the gift of twelve taels
It would be even more amazing to be able to return a little bit, not to mention that after getting married, you can also be allocated a piece of land. You don't have to pay for it yourself. The emperor will directly borrow money from the emperor at low interest rates, and you can just pay back a little every year.
Who wouldn't be tempted by such a good thing?
The Emperor of Heaven is really willing to spend a lot of money, and he is really kind to these soldiers.
No wonder these soldiers dare to fight and can fight.
Last year, they swept through the Central Plains, pursued Li Zicheng for thousands of miles, and overwhelmingly crushed the Qing army of the Hongguang Dynasty. As a result, they were now defeated repeatedly in front of the imperial camp of Emperor Shaotian.
He Tu Guobao was once a fierce general, but he lost Suzhou three times, and now he is surrounded again.
On second thought, Tu Guobao felt something was wrong.
The emperor of the Ming Dynasty was so generous in spending money. He included his share of the money. The money he gave to the Ming army to redeem the city, ransom bids, and camp money added up to hundreds of thousands of taels. Not to mention him.
He also sold a lot of gunpowder, swords, guns, etc. to the Ming army.
He felt extremely ridiculous when he thought that the Ming army was so powerful now, which was actually a part of his contribution.
He fattened the imperial camp, and now the imperial camp came to surround his Suzhou city. This was really not enough.
Along the way near Xushuguan, there were numerous sentry patrols.
After many inspections, they finally arrived at the entrance of the town. The town wall had been obviously strengthened, and many forts, arrow towers, sheep and horse walls, urns, small villages, etc. had even been built.
Seeing the dark muzzle, Tu Guobao felt a little numb. The strength of the right wing of the imperial camp was stronger than he imagined.
It was even stronger than when the Nine Kings first attacked Suzhou City. At that time, he escaped from Suzhou and fought against the Nine Kings on Qionglong Mountain, and he could at least last for half a day.
But now, he felt that if he brought his 10,000 horses to attack Huye Town, he might not be able to get in even if he spent all his energy here.
This made Tu Guobao understand more and more that it was no longer realistic to blindly fight against the Ming army.
When he thought of Yan Jinglue in Jiangning City, Tu Guobao's scalp went numb.
What is going on in this world?
When the Qing army moved south, people from all over the country surrendered. Nanjing's noble ministers did not put up any resistance and surrendered with more than 200,000 troops.
Now, the situation seems to be turning upside down.
The Qing Dynasty had collapsed in the south of the Yangtze River and even along the entire Yangtze River.
Although Su Songhang still has nearly 7,000 Manchu elites, he knows very well that if these 7,000 people are alone, they will not be able to overturn the situation. What's more, Jiangning has Yan Wogong and Suzhou has other national treasures.
Ting Yiyi is concerned that the brave Duke Zheng Jiwu, Governor Li Yuchun and others in Hangzhou are by no means loyal ministers.
After all, how did Li Yuchun start his career? He worked with Yan Wo Gong to pacify western Zhejiang and recruit Su Song. Zheng Jiwu was a Ming general who originally surrendered but then rebelled, and was recruited by Yan Wo Gong.
Thinking about it this way, it seems that there is a bigger conspiracy in western Zhejiang. No wonder these people are so outstanding. Damn it, they must have been enlightened a long time ago.
Thinking about it this way, his national treasure becomes even more dangerous.
If the soldiers and horses from western Zhejiang come north to Suzhou, they are not here to join forces to relieve the siege. They are simply risking their lives.