The dismissal of Yang He, the governor of the three sides, marked that the court's strategy towards the peasant army began to shift from focusing on pacification to focusing on suppression.
To be fair, Lao Yang has done a good enough job.
Shaanxi supports three kings internally and supplies four towns externally. The people are extremely poor; there are natural disasters; they have to mobilize troops to support the capital; they have to guard against the Mongolian Tatars; they have to suppress the peasant army.
Where is the money and food? Where are the soldiers and generals? Lao Yang can only focus on providing care.
Chongzhen only allocated 100,000 taels for disaster relief, but the money dried up in a few days. The supported peasant army had no food to eat, so they rebelled again.
Yang He was exhausted mentally and Chongzhen did not want to give him another chance.
"The disaster of bandits started at the end of Wanli period. Four armies from Liaodong advanced, but three armies were defeated. So Du Song, Wang Xuan, and Zhao Menglin's soldiers fled westward.
At that time, Zhang Wuxu, the minister of Fu in Henan, and Wang Jing, the Taoist minister, attacked Mengjin and beheaded more than twenty people. Feijie heard about it. So he did not enter Tongguan, but walked to Shanxi and even Yansui, not daring to join the army and fell into the grass.
On top of the temple, due to the Liao Dynasty, Kong Ji was all focused on the east, and there was no need to think deeply about Shaanxi. Unexpectedly, the reinforcements would not stop, and the escapes would become more frequent. The hungry people recommended the people, and the threats and followers gathered, and the sparks of fire..."
"The Shaanxi soldiers set out in four directions in Wanli, and after being defeated, they returned to the west... The rest did not dare to return, because they were robbed in Shanxi, the border of Shaanxi. After that, reinforcements were mobilized frequently, and they fled and were defeated one after another. This is how the border soldiers became thieves.
In the Xinyou year of the Apocalypse, in Yan'an and Qingyang, there was a drought in Pingliang and a severe famine in the old year. In the east, there was a problem with Kongji. There was a minister who hoped that the army would be prosperous and the conquest and supervision would be the same as before. The people could not provide for themselves, and they were facing each other in death. Or they gathered in groups to take millet from the rich, and they were afraid of being captured.
Punished, and started to gather together as thieves.
When thieves start, hunger will do more harm than good. The ground has been bare for years, and you can't get a thousand dollars' worth of rice. People eat each other, and they return from chaos. This is when hungry people become thieves."
In the first year of Chongzhen's reign, the censor of Shaanxi Province said: "The whole land of Shaanxi is very barren... Since the frontiers have been troubled, with conscription of soldiers and pay, nine out of ten houses have been empty. What's more, there have been years of severe famine... Instead of starving and waiting to die, it is better to plunder and survive...
…(Please ask for tax-free relief, otherwise) if disaster breaks out and the world is shaken, don’t say that I am silent today.”
The first stage——
When the "rogue thieves" first started, local officials were afraid that the fire would be burned on themselves, and they were worried that the court would investigate the responsibility and be punished. No one reported it.
In the early years of Chongzhen's reign, Hu Tingyan, the governor of Shaanxi Province, whenever he reported "thieves" from the prefectures and counties, he would give the messenger a slap in the face without asking the reason, and said: "This is a hungry gangster who will plunder until the next spring and then fix his ears."
The second stage——
However, paper could not cover the fire. The momentum of the peasant uprising was growing day by day. The local officials could no longer cover it up and had no choice but to bite the bullet and report it to the court.
The third stage——
When the Ministry of War was ordered to conduct an inspection, the local officials blamed each other. The governor of Shaanxi said that the border troops under the jurisdiction of the governor of Yansui were responsible for the rebellion, and the governor of Yansui said that the hungry people in the interior of Shaanxi were the thieves.
The censor of Shaanxi Province made fifty big boards each and said: "The banditry occurred in the seventh month of Baishui. At the beginning, there were few bandits and many local bandits. This year, the bandits were all mounted on sharp horses, and there were seven or eight thousand people. That's two
Fu Zhi shirks the blame and conceals taboos, but actually makes it happen."
After Yang He took office, Shangshu said, "The people are in dire straits due to severe famine."
Suppressing thieves requires mobilizing a large army and "rewarding them with food and reward at no cost", but the result is still "the execution is overwhelming" and "repeated suppressions are uncertain".
"I hope to follow the Ming Dynasty's decree and carry out both support and suppression. However, if we want to carry out support and suppression, there must be real expenses for support and suppression. This minister has to ask for it urgently. We must help him with care, but care is not just empty words."
"Suppose Du Wenhuan had taken care of 1,900 people and had no food to eat, where would he be placed?"
"To appease a foolish thief is to use the thief to fool himself. This is not a permanent plan, and the situation of appeasing is not easy to end."
"There was a saying that the immigrants were eating, but the Qin sergeants were afraid of attracting thieves into their houses. They failed to save the famine in Yan'an, which would lead to the chaos in Xifeng first. I dare not reply."
"In the tenth year of Emperor Jiajing's reign, there was a famine in Shaanxi, and Tang Long, the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, was dispatched to provide relief. However, the famine ended and there was no rebellion by bandits. How could Shizong not help?"
"I don't want to make a big donation, but I want to donate money to foreign governments. So I made an order in the bank of Caikou Station to ask the ministers to contact me to support me and ask for the expenses."
"It is like dispersing after dispersing and reuniting after dispersing. We must give real relief to them so that they can make ends meet, and then we can call them truly disbanded.
After disbandment, it is still necessary to resettle the cattle, and they must be given real cattle seeds so that they can return to farming and resume their work, and then it is called true resettlement.
If this is the case, then the thief has the joy of life and has no desire to die, so he will naturally appease. The situation of appeasement is established, and the situation of suppression is also over. This is what I say if you want to implement suppression and appeasement, there must be actual expenses for suppression and appeasement."
"What's more, if we spend money on suppression, the gold and silver will not be returned once they are gone, and too many people will be beheaded, but Shanggan is harmonious; if we spend money on pacification, the money will go but the people will remain. If one person lives, another person's life will be gained, and if the people's peace is robbed, there will be no great benefit. "
Yang He is a good person!
Lao Yang also pointedly pointed out in "Confessions to the Imperial Prison": "The thieves are extremely poor and hungry, and have nowhere to live. When the soldiers arrive, they will surrender, and when the soldiers leave, they will loot as before. This is an inevitable trend."
But Emperor Chongzhen said: "General Yang He controls the whole of Shaanxi, how much power he has. He listens to the rogue bandits running rampant and cannot be extinguished, ruining lives and bearing great responsibilities. He wears the official flag of being dismissed from his post, wearing a uniform and guard, and comes to Beijing to investigate. When there is a shortage of officials, those who are qualified will be used. (Governor) To practice state affairs, I will be demoted to the third level. I will punish myself and punish the thieves. If I still indulge in indulgence, I will definitely be punished."
Chongzhen is a man who "says that he will be happy if he cuts the enemy, and will be angry if he invites soldiers to feed him."
In July of the second year of Chongzhen, the Ministry of Household Affairs saw that it was difficult to collect the full amount of payment and suggested a nine-point rate. However, Zhu Youjian still insisted on a ten-point rate.
In September of the third year, the censor requested to exempt Shaanxi's tax arrears. Zhu Youjian delayed until the end of the year before reluctantly agreeing to waive the arrears of the first and second years. However, the tax arrears for that year were still not exempted.
Furthermore, in December, an edict was issued to increase the amount of Liao pay throughout the country.
In February of the fourth year, the Ministry of Revenue had no money to pay the troops and begged the emperor for internal funds, but Zhu Youjian immediately refused.
The Ming Dynasty was poor. Zhu Youjian didn't know how to pay for it.
Due to natural and man-made disasters in Shaanxi, the land and tax assessments were naturally not collected in full. Other places also lacked money and food due to various nonsense.
Give a specific example.
Dai Ao, a native of Fenghua, had an ancestor who served as an official in the Yuan Dynasty. After entering the Ming Dynasty, he served as an official in all dynasties. He himself is now the Prime Minister of Shuntian Prefecture.
Let’s look at Lao Dai’s poems first——
"Happy Letter from Home": I was homesick and had no books for a long time, so I was overjoyed to find a letter from home. Before I could open the mail, I asked the guest, "When did you leave our house?" When I saw that my son Feng Shi knew he was fine, he said that his mother was safe as before. My Taoist sister returned home and embraced her daughter. She smiled and took pity on him.
"Sadness on the Road": The dead soldiers feel as if they are returning home, the dead soldiers are as drunk as the epidemic...weeping in the cold rain, and sighing every time the cold wind blows. Who can eat meat on the way and have the ambition of the common people?
"Poor Man's Journey": The poor raise a donkey, but the owner does not know how to ride it. The eight people lean on the donkey's back, holding whips and running away. The hot sun burns the brains, and the poisonous dust grinds into the skin. But the donkey stumbles (falls down and dies), let alone I was exhausted. Before I got home with the money, angry officials suddenly followed me.
"The Twelve Wonders of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Yandi": The prisoners entered Tanzhou (Miyun) and forced the emperor's capital. They didn't know who was on the Great Wall of Han Dynasty. The general still sang and danced that night, and the bright moon came over the twelve camps.
Just by reading poems, Lao Dai's three views are not upright, and he worries about the country and the people.
However, Fenghua County's land tax "totaled more than 20,000 yuan in money and grain, and the Dai family accounted for half of it", so they defaulted on payment. "Many county officials were afraid of the power and did not dare to supervise the payment."
Looking back at the earlier Wanli year, the imperial court sent people to Zhejiang for disaster relief. When the imperial envoy arrived, he saw that such a prosperous place had actually reported a disaster? Do you want to deceive and hijack the imperial court? Then the local lords used sugar-coated bullets and successfully took advantage of the disaster.
After being sent to the imperial envoy, the local area was "suffered", and it was natural that the land taxes were in arrears.
There is another reason why Ming Dynasty has no money——
In August of the third year of Chongzhen, Zhou Mengyin, the former Fangsi doctor, said: The minister punished Nanyang, investigated Daliang Dao, Xiang, Chen and other twelve prefectures and counties, and cleared out more than 50,000 taels of uncollected silver, while other prefectures and counties
It can be seen that the states and counties in the south and north of Zhili levy taxes such as pigs and sheep on door stalls and merchants, but they are not included in the register. This can also be seen in other states and counties.
The local government collected money and grain, but did not report it to the court; some additional excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes were not even recorded, and their whereabouts are self-evident.
Therefore, Zhu Youjian was furious and said, "The abuses of the levies that have been levied but not yet resolved, as well as private levies and private factions, etc., should be carefully managed and overseen by each one, and the real intention should be clarified."
It also issued a strict decree: "The Ministry of Household Affairs will restrict each employee to check the root causes of arrears, and name them one by one to correct them and punish them accordingly. If they exceed the limit and do not participate, they will be punished again."
Hundreds of officials commented, "Since the selection process only focused on money and food, not as much as the word "Fu", the morale of the scholars has changed."
The poem goes: First-time officials should not sit down to take exams. The key to being a good official is to prepare for the exams.
Wu Di, the imperial censor who was ordered to go to Shaanxi to provide disaster relief, said: At that time, the county magistrates were still carrying out exhortations, and even those who died and escaped from the corvee grains were blamed for being forced to live in households and live in exile.
The small people could not be forced out, and the big households could not be urged out. Bi Ziyan, the Minister of Household Affairs, was very sad, so he had to go to jail and squat.
As for the money that went through so much trouble to receive from the emperor——
In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, Zhu Youjian felt that something was wrong. There was quite a lot of money in his account. How could he have no money to spend? He planned to take stock of his internal treasury.
The head of the warehouse kept saying he couldn't find the key to open the door. How funny, you can't open the door without the key? The warehouse was finally opened, and the room was empty except for a small red box with a bunch of faded receipts inside.
…
The Liao Revolution started at the end of Wanli and lasted for more than ten years. The hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers and tens of millions of money and grain invested by the Ming Dynasty were all wasted, without any results, and exhausted the empire's resources.
The common people could no longer squeeze much money out of them, and the frontier troops other than the Liao army were even more miserable.
Multiple border towns have fallen into a state of irreversible collapse. In the end, it’s just a matter of which town collapses first.
There was no civil uprising in Shaanxi before and the Ming Dynasty wiped out the weak Nurhaci. Instead, they became stronger and stronger. So don't let the peasant uprising take the blame anymore. Natural disasters only add a small piece of firewood.
To put it bluntly, it’s the old man who failed, and then got angry and passed the responsibility to the leeks!
For Ming Dynasty, the fourth stage is not far away.
Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty had already written a prophetic poem: "The end of the Ming Dynasty comes from the apocalypse..."; "The bright night has faded... Heaven and man are clear and peaceful."
However, his prediction was half wrong, it should be "smooth and peaceful".
…
Yang He was arrested and imprisoned for his failure to suppress thieves. His filial son Yang Sichang wanted to take his father's place, but the emperor naturally refused.
When Hong Chengchou came to power, the peasant army's hard days were coming.
He is also recruiting, but he needs to submit a certificate of recognition.
Only by ruthlessly suppressing the peasant army after surrendering like Bai Guangen did he be able to be reused. 1 Xiaobai could even be said to be the backbone of the Ming Dynasty in the later period. Because almost all the famous officers and soldiers died. Later, they surrendered and surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.
Wang Er, Miao Dengyun and others adhered to the principle of "don't kill thieves". After recruiting peace, they could go to Mongolia to make money, but they did not want to fight the peasant army. Lao Hong set up a Hongmen Banquet to kill them.
In August, General He Huchen killed Liu Liu, the leader of the Qingyang bandits, and killed more than 500 people. Wang Chengen defeated Tianxing in the middle, killed more than 10,000 people, and captured more than 2,000 people alive.
From the first month to August, the Shaanxi Peasant Army captured and killed more than 20,000 people, and recruited and surrendered tens of thousands of people.
At first, the official army still had some strength, and they blindly drove the peasant army to serve, but the credit was not rewarded.
For example, after Shen Yikui was recruited, he "killed prisoners and performed meritorious services" three times. His subordinates, who had become famous but were unable to seek rewards, beat up Ningsai Commander Wu Hongqi, who was in charge, and Lieutenant Commander Fan Li, who were in charge.
Then Ru became famous and was killed.
Another example is that when Liu Liu entered Huanxian City after being comforted, the "scholars and the people" actually "conspired to kill him and eat all his flesh."
After surrendering, they faced unfair treatment and even had trouble protecting themselves, so many leaders, big and small, were forced to rebel again.
Zhang Cunmeng, who did not stick to the mud, revolted again; Shen Yikui also rebelled and reoccupied Ningsai.
At the same time, Zijin Liang, Guo Tianxing, Xie Zikuan and others led tens of thousands of troops and returned to Shaanxi to attack and plunder everywhere.
The officers and soldiers were exhausted and rushed here and there to put out the fire.
Five tribes including the Lone Tiger, Gypsophila, Yi Zhangqing, and Sky Monkey were plundering in Yichuan, Luochuan, and Hancheng.
And the deputy commander-in-chief Zhao Dayin was in Hancheng - "I went twenty miles to the bandit camp and didn't dare to fight."
"Gentlemen show their strength", Lao Zhao couldn't resist, so he had to go out and wander around.
Then he "reported that the thieves should be beheaded to the fifty level, and if tested, they would lead to the death of women." As a result, he was impeached and dismissed from office.
Shaanxi is in chaos, but Shanxi is slightly stable, so life for the revolutionary army will not be easy.
The tree is big and attracts the wind.
Governor Song Tongyin was dispatching troops and generals.
The governor of Shanxi, the full name of the Ming Dynasty was the Admiral of Yanmen and other passes and also the governor of Shanxi. He unified the Hebei-Ning Bingbei Road, Yanping Bingbei Road, Kelan Bingbei Road, Hedong Bingbei Road, Lu'an Bingbei Road, and Ningwu Bingbei Road.
There are six roads; the four prefectures of Taiyuan, Pingyang, Lu'an and Fenzhou of Shanxi Chief Secretary; the three prefectures of Liao, Qin and Ze; the nine castles of Taiyuan and left and right of Shanxi Dusi, Qinzhou and Ninghua.
Starting from the first year of Chongzhen, none of the nine subsequent Shanxi governors died a happy death.
But Song Tongyin didn't know. He wanted to repay the emperor's kindness, so naturally he couldn't let the "rogue bandits" go free.
Li Zicheng, who was staying in Jishan County, had no time to collect more autumn grain and fled away. This chapter has been completed!